I think Solasta isn't a great example because Solasta isn't really about creating character personalities. I actually think you using Solasta as an example here illustrates where we diverge in our view of these games and roleplaying within them. I don't see the party in Solasta as my characters the way I see Tavs in BG, or the PCs in Dragon Age, etc. I'm not roleplaying them, I'm not actually making dialogue choices, not really. Their personalities are wooden and weak. They can get away with full voicing because the game is fundamentally on rails at every point. I actually like Solasta better than I like BG3 for multiple reasons, roleplaying is not one of them, and I do not want a game that focuses on roleplaying using Solasta's system. I can't recall a thing about the personalities of any of my characters from Solasta, but I can recount the personal arcs my characters in Pillars of Eternity went through, Kingmaker, Wrath of the Righteous, etc.
You're taking the Solasta example too literally.
The game has its flaws, especially with the personality system. But it's more to do with resources rather than overall inception.
With a AAA title like BG3 there's much more leverage for putting in the resources to refine the system.
The system is there, in its base configuration with Solasta. You can pick a personality from an alignment chart (With influence from the background you took) and the game adapts the characters voice and dialogue to match your choice.
With more refinement and more resources for VA's and dialogue options, such a thing can become a solid system.
Of course, there's the argument that could be made that one might prefer the resources to go into other aspects of the game. But the same can be said about many things that one doesn't particularly find important (Such as my view on games trying to up graphical fidelity just because of a need to "Look pretty" despite often resulting in poorer performance)
Maybe you're right, but honestly I think that the level of development required to make the personality system into something that could provide the level of quality and flexibility in a crpg like say, wrath of the righteous would be so great that it would end up barely resembling Solasta's system, as much as a gun barely resembles a bow and arrow, despite the latter being the conceptual brithplace of the former.
As for going from sullen to passionate, those two demeanors definitely impact vocalization. If you're sullen and withdrawn you're going to talk slower, softer, more maybe hesitating more at times, while being passionate and energized would lead to you being louder, more certain and confident in your words.
Yes, but how does that impact overall character vocalization rather than simply... Which dialogue options you pick?
Like, you pick the sullen dialogue options... Your character will speak with a sullen and withdrawn demeaner. You pick the passionate dialogue options... Your character will speak with more confidence and ardor.
It's not like you're going to be suddenly changing your accent or basic vocal tone. Your character simply performs the relevant dialogue lines in the demeanor they are representing (So long as this is accurately depicted). Thus it's not particularly restrictive to pick a voice at character creation even if you plan to have the character change demeanor throughout the course of the game.
I was arguing this in the context of your suggestion of picking general "styles" of dialogue, and that dialogue styles would be too restrictive. Picking a "sullen" style would lead to that style influencing even the more passionate answers. But beyond than that, what about responses that aren't about being passionate or sullen directly? If you just pick the option to agree to something, then that option would still be said in your default tone, even if by that point you want your character to have grown beyond that.
I seem to have not expressed myself well enough here. When I say that I don't care about how the world reacts to my character, I mean it in the sense that I can accept people reacting to my words in a way I didn't intend them, because that happens in real life. You can say a thing and people interpret it differently than you meant it. So if I say something intending to be jokey and an npc takes it as an insult, that's fine to me. It's not that my character was arrogant, the npc just took it the wrong way.
Which... Doesn't invalidate my points.
If you don't care how characters react to your dialogue, there's nothing stopping you from skipping dialogue and headcanoning whatever you want. (Since from what I understand, what you're saying is you don't actually care about your characters options, you simply want to pick how NPC's react so you can headcanon whatever you want in place of what the protagonist says)
My point was almost opposite of this. I absolutely care about what my character is saying. I don't want to disregard the dialogue options entirely. I want a breadth of dialogue options as well as the freedom to envision those options being said in a variety of tones that are suitable for my characters. I accept that NPCs won't always respond perfectly to how I envision my character says something. If I find that certain routes of roleplay aren't well-catered to, then I'll adjust to that in future playthroughs. I don't need perfection, I accept that roleplay in a crpg is a matter of working with the game, I simply put more value into contributing as much myself into the game as possible, taking limitations into account.
The number of choices in that game is immense, as is the variety of them. Imagine having just one voice actor try and perform in a way that could make consistent sense across all of those paths, now try and apply that to multiple actors who all have to try and go for multiple different tones. Maybe in a decade or two that will be possible, but until I'm convinced you can create a game the scale of Wrath of the Righteous, with all of its options and possibilities, and still have a fully voiced protagonist, I don't think we should even entertain the notion, because the result will absolutely be watered down.
I'm not sure your concerns are necessarily correct.
More and more games like Wrath of the Righteous are involving fully voiced companions. Meaning all of their dialogue options are being voiced. For upwards of like 6-10 companions. It's becoming an industry standard to have all this VA work done, it's not outlandish to consider having VA work done for protagonists too.
The difference is that companions are far more predictable. The writer has complete control over exactly what they're going to say and when, and they're able to direct voice actors accordingly. Meanwhile a protagonist is directed by the player, and their lines are far more isolated from each other, which makes directing a perforomer more difficult since lines have to work together even when they may not logically flow. Again, look at dragon age and mass effect. They got around the issue by giving players less automomy over their characters and letting the protagonists speak on their own more often and the players simply directed their characters at certain points. That's a viable way for games to do things, Inquisition was my favorite game for a long time and still in my top 5, but I don't want that to be what all crpgs turn to. And I have no faith that crpg developers, when they need to choose between providing choice and managing cost, won't choose managing cost and curtailing choices. Not because of a lack of integrity, but because they've got to cut costs somewhere and full voicing is more impressive on the surface. I think it's in the same boat as higher fidelity graphics; sure some games benefit from it, but it's a crutch that diverts focus away from the important parts of the game because it's something that can be pointed to directly as an easy proof point of "look how impressive this is."
And also, wrath isn't fully voiced. The companions only have dialogue in certain scenes, but the majority of their lines are unvoiced, which I think is the ideal sweet spot. If wrath were fully voiced, protagonists and all, I don't believe we'd have been able to get the level of choice that we do.
