Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback A more engaging co-op in conversations

I really love the co-op combat in this game, DnD is all about playing with people but it feels very limiting when you are doing conversations in co-op. It feels strange that one person just watches. It would be cool if the game had a little more engaging co-op conversations. For example when one person starts a conversation but in the middle of the conversation it feels like someone elses character would fit better because of charisma checks or whatnot, so then we have to start the whole conversation over. It feels alot like single player and someone else is just watching in the conversations. I understand that it would probably be very difficult adding a full immersive conversation where everyone can chime in all the time, but some addition to it would be nice. Mabye a system like Star Wars the old republic (the mmo) where characters roll dice for the chance to say the line in the conversation.

I will add to that, that that is something I want from a singleplayer experience as well - as there is no "party leader" it is annoying when NPC initiated conversation with someone I didn't want them to. It's also awkward to go through the same conversation with multiple characters just to do the right skill check. Talking as a party, rather then an individual (as long as we are in the vacinity) would I think make for a much better single and coop experience.

As far as I know, after Patch 4, NPCs always initiate a dialogue only with MC.

Then you were just lucky ...
When i freed Halsin, he started dialogue with closest PC ... wich was Astarion.

I was in a beast form when we met Astarion, so Shadowheart was pulled in conversation. When Astarion was offered to join the party, he basicaly said to her that she doesn't have the autority, and send her to fetch the leader.
So game is built around player character being a leader. For no reason whatsoever.

Larian actually did something similar to the Star Wars Old Republic mechanic in the original D:OS with a "rock paper scissors" mechanic.

This mechanic was dropped in D:OS2. The trouble seems to be that they wanted you to have "freedom" especially in co-op with 4 players. They seem to have imagined ideal co-op as the 4 characters each abandoning each other to do their own thing. One consequence of this is that players have a lot of "freedom" to not participate at all in important conversations your co-op partner is involved in, and you often miss out on key dialogue.

This is part of the reason why "fighting for control of the dialogue" isn't quite as easy to implement as it is in Star Wars: The Old Republic (where the whole party would be forced to participate).

I actually think the co-op was better in the first D:OS largely for this reason. It felt a bit more like you were actually co-operating (and arguing) a bit more (and therefore interacting with your co-op partner) instead of just having one person take the lead while everyone else watches.

That said, one thing that would also help is if you could listen to conversations without having to actually choose to listen to them. In D:OS2, your co-op partner could be talking to an NPC right next to you and you won't hear anything unless you click to listen in. This also meant you almost always missed out on hearing the first line of dialogue.

This all detracts from the single-player as well. In Bioware games, your companions would e quite talkative, but that's been stripped out a bit because of Larian's focus on co-op freedom.

Larian certainly needs to improve their co-op dialogue design somewhat.

If so, then that's good. My playthrough was prior to that.

I agree, i really think It would be awesome if they added mabye some triggers in certain conversation where one character is the "conversation starter" but then other characters could chime in and actually disagree with the other player if he chose to for example kill someone, you could roll strength to stop him or something. I think Larian should focus less on co-op freedom and more on co-op immersion. Why would i ever split up from the other players and go do my own thing? i would miss content and conversations and etc. Even going to a big hub you could say "the paladin goes to the blacksmith to sell the weapons, the thief goes to the gem vendor etc" but then in the blacksmith shop there is a side quest starting or a fight or some other thing happening, the players would just agree to go everywhere together so that we all can see the content. I think co-op freedom in the combat is excelent in the game but i really hope they work more on co-op immersion in the conversations/exploring.