@Djoperdjo
I think our concepts of true friends are just too disparate to find common ground. It's clear to me that your view on things like trust, loyalty and servility are quite different from mine. Of course, I'd always want more conversations than the game already has for more immersion in discussing options together and mutually agreeing on a path to take, but with how vast this game is and how much dialogue there already is in the game, I've just learned to accept things as they are for the most part. And as things are presented currently in game and with the conversations and choices that are available to you, I feel there are definitely true friend companions in the game depending on the route you take. And when it comes to the concept of servility, if I zoom out and view all decisions throughout the story overall, with the majority of decision making the companions are more servile to you rather than the other way around. They're extremely loyal when it comes to a lot of things even when it goes against their core views, but there are certain things that are considered breaking points for them when it comes to trust and loyalty and I think it's healthy and necessary that they do have some boundaries rather than always agreeing to walk whichever path you go on.
@Taril
It's why I prefer Durge style Origins. Whereby it's a unique character that can only be experienced through playing them.
Very much agree with this yeah, even if an amnesiac character with a very evil past is not my preferred background, I also still find it vastly superior to a Tav where I have to head-canon absolutely everything. In tabletop that'd be fine, because you can give a DM a character sheet with a little background and if they're experienced/creative, they'll weave that into the story somewhere. In a game when making someone like Tav, there's currently just no system to act like a DM to help facilitate your head-canon. I would have loved to have a little questionnaire accompanying your customization options like starting race and class, asking a human rogue whether they had past involvement with The Guild before being snatched up, for example. Then they'd have little variances and maybe even a small quest here and there when you enter Baldur's Gate, just little things that affirm that your character did exist in the world before you pressed "Start Game".
I think part of it also comes from the difficulty in doing it properly.
That plays a huge role as well, I agree. Thinking back, in my experience DA:O probably still had the most companion interactivity, especially Morrigan and Alistair bickering back and forth about what to do whenever a choice was presented. Even then, that system still definitely had its flaws. It's a very intricate and multi-faceted process where the balance can easily be off, even when it's in full focus of the development team. Choice based games lead to so many different options and variances that it gets more and more complicated to keep companion interactivity high enough throughout. A more railroaded team based RPG is far easier in that respect, because with only one route to write for, there's a lot more time and focus available to work on the depth of interactions for that single route rather than having to think of something for every different route available to you.
