Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - General Request: Romance

Well, yes and no I'd say. IIRC there was an interview in which Larian admitted that 85-90% of all people who beought DOS only played the game in SP.

So designing the game exclusively for co-op with SP being a big afterthought would imo be a HUGE mistake given the simple fact that the overwhelming majority of their fans and actual players want a nice SP experience.

I can only suggest that Larian concentrates on the SP at least as much as on the MP because in the end, that's what a lot of people are interested in, with many of them never even touching the MP aspect.

Based on that line of thought I think that adding specific SP elements to the game would be a good and very appreciated idea, having deeper relationships between the player and his companions being among that. We have competitive question for co-op and that's awesome - for people who want to play the game in co-op. For the 85-90% of gamers who are interested in the SP there should be elements that make up for that. A serious and carefully implemented relationship system (which could include romance) would imo be a very fitting system that pretty much only works in SP. There is nothing wrong with that.

If you ask me, DOS 2 can be as much a SP game as it can be a co-op/MP game - if Larian only wants it to be that way. If they concentrate too much on the latter aspect they will alienate a lot of their fans though, by the way the same people they tried to attract with all the talk about the more serious writing, the inclusion of people like MCA and so on. They claimed that DOS 2 is meant to become their BG 2 - and honestly, that rises a lot of expectations for a lot of people.

Bottom line, I'm all in for a proper relationship system that includes shades of love and hate, if it's properly made (and I trust Larian enough to think that they are able to do so), even if it's a SP-only feature.

Yeah: I've no interest in MP with either friends or strangers, and wouldn't have pledged for D:OS2 if it was mostly aimed at the MP market. I can't speak for the gaming demographic in general, but for myself and most of my gaming friends, SP is definitely the main preference. The few times I've tried MP I've played it as if it was an SP game anyway!

I guess I prefer being clumsy, clueless and generally cack-handed away from watchful eyes.

Sounds odd, not only all my friends used to play the game as coop game with their significant others, but as well the twitch chat at the 24-hour stream event was talking a lot how they played the game in coop, or how they looking for new coop partners for the ee release this month, etc

I donï½´t thinkt that I would have rated the game as high as I did when I could not have played 'real' RP within the game and overrule decisions or get overruled by my wife. It was this unique mechanic which made DOS for me so outstanding even when it was clumsy executed if you not played on lan.

Wow great atmosphere here. I love it! Its rare to see people discussing romance on such level

1. I liked the article (going to read the whole thing probably) and I really hope that they will be able to truly flesh out all aspects of possible relationships.
2. Loved romances id dragon commander, especially if you choose classical elf beauty and you will support her in all her endeavors... how that could end? :-D, I think that if Larian wont encounter any problems (that would prevent them to do a lot of polish of text) than we can expect great dialogs and stories in DoS 2
3. I don't know if you should be told that you are romancing character... take it like that: You like the character and you pick dialog options that represent the way you feel about that character and after some time you could find that, she/he loves you... wow surprise, but what did you except ? you know it could be a natural surprise (if you didn't see it coming)

I agree, you should pick dialog options without knowing where they lead to. Probably you will expect something, but you never know how it plays out. Maybe you think you are flirting but actually the other character hates flirting, or disagrees completely with your opinion and starts yelling at you and than you have to live with that. I would love a few unexpected curveballs like that. Just RP and see what happens.

It's rather hard to not care about it when picking option X gives you "godhuman abilities" while option Y gives you "1 minute less time to cook an egg"... as some of the bonusses for D:OS1 turned out for roleplaying.
Worst was if you flopped, since an equal rating meant nothing, so rollplaying yourself rather than sticking to something and then keep giving that type of answers were even more discouraged.

I would not mourn it going away.

@LordW:
There's a small difference (Read: gigantic) between getting married out (which, think of it, isn't much romance to start with) or meeting someone out on the road randomly, and then this random person sleeping with you 5 dialogues later (read: The BioWare romance). Now BG2 did this a lot better, mostly due to the extended time (more organic build-up rather than just "hey, I just met you. I don't know you baby, but here's my cabincard, now go bang me baby") which only big games are allowed, and hopefully D:OS2 will be apart of it.

But with the modern gamer, even if you have a good build up, a loving relation and it's realistic, not carnal, you just get legions of gamers just go and complain. Since apparently "romance" isn't "romance" without a sex-scene. Now we all know that's absurd, but that's exactly the crowd romance attracts, and you will undoubtedly dissapoint, so the question is; why are you even going to try to appease those you know you cannot appease by doing things the way you want (relationships) rather than what they want (5-conversation sex unlocks).

It's opening a can of worms that should be left closed for good reasons... and I doubt Larian really understands what they're really in for promising 'romance'.
Let's hope I'm wrong though.

Lets not mention BioWare I would rather not think about that Jersey attitude. But lets mention BG2 (as you said), Planescape Torment (it wasn't romance per say, but if you had good imagination and got really into it there was ) next KOTOR 1 (romance with bastila was quite interesting) and lastly neverwinter nights 1 (also it wasn't romance per say and there wasn't all that much dialog but still my imagination could run wild).
About Larian, did you see romances in Dragon Comander? I think they can pull it off ... and they have Char on team! A woman! Previous romances were mostly written by dudes (from what I know) and some of them said in interviews that they didn't know what they were doing :-D, I think a little woman touch will be a great help here.

Well the easy solution is the give the romance and then add a whore house to every town for those that just need to bang something.

I also would note that in many romances the 'sex scene' ends up being the WIN for the whole romance subquest. It's like that was the goal and now that you have it the romance is basically over. I did love how in BG2 (comparing them again) the romance continued into the ToB expansion, even having one romance give birth to your child.

I know it's not what the game is about, but I am anxious to see what's done in DOS2. DOS1 was a terrible disappointment to me. I made a couple, but apparently couldn't get the dialog right during conversations and at the end one wanted a romance and the other said 'see ya later' and left.

What I would love to see is system-based romance, where both your stats and dialog will factor in, when a character gets attracted to you. It's not only about what you say, but also how you create your character, which desides how the romance turns out. Some character might be attracted to strength, crafting and the egotistic trait, while perception, lore and altruism affects their attraction negatively. Of course charisma would make everyone more attractive, if you'd want to make a man- or womanizer build. Maybe you could be able to hook up with anyone, but the process would be a lot harder and you'd really have to tread lightly not to mess up the relationship.

On the surface this might seem a bit artificial, but in real life love isn't just about having nice conversations. Attraction is biological too. This would be an oppotunity to make the dialog more situational by reflecting why the characters are interested in each other. If done right, this could really make the romance feel significant.

It would also mean most builds could only have a few options to choose from. But I think this approach would really be in spirit with D:OS' system-philosophy by making the consequences of you character build affect how the story turns out and make each character and playthrough unique.

Duncan male warrior - strength 18 (bg system)
Alieandre female sorceress

Conversation goes:

Duncan: *Is picking up heavy axe of the ground.*
Alieandre: Is thinking *Such muscles! I must let him romance me.*

Thing is that it would add terribly much complexity into game. Because even if you are not her type there should be way for you to "seduce" her. So there would have to been three types of conversations beginings
1. She likes your body!
2. She is like "meh".
3. She finds you repulsive.

I think that writers would be on suicide watch if they should write all of this

I think that idea is good, but terrible to implement. Lets start up small. Then maybe in DoS.... erhm Divinity3.

[quote=Hassat Hunter][/quote]

Hello.

I respectfully disagree. I think that it is a can of worms that needs to be addressed. I do agree that Bioware has done a rather sub par job on their writing of romances, but thats not particularly the problem. The problem is that people are looking at this as the industry standard. It shouldn't be. Another company should be allowed to give this a shot and do much better then (hopefully) become the new industry standard as opposed to Bioware. I think they did absolutely horrid with it in Inquisition.

I will say that Jade Empire had a decent romance sub plot, and it was kind of funny if you chose something specific near the end even your valued partner would leave you. Yes though, I think it should be addressed and not just ignored, otherwise nothing will ever change about it without people trying.

Yeah, if you are a terrible writer. With a simple bioware style system the conversation could also start:
Aliandra: Hi, I love you because you are the hero and I'm attracted to heroes and I know you are a hero because you did that nice thing just before, and you also talk a lot with me, whichi I like heroes to do.
Duncan: Yeah, I go boom boom on baddy baddy...

(Actually Duncan is spot on for Fallout NPC)

Sure, it's more complex, but this is a video game, and what they are doing with the competitive questing is already ten times more complex than this. It's just about unlocking a dialog script, when certain critirias are met.
About the writers going kamikaze - You are talking about a company that midway through their prodution decided to make every animal in the game talk, but only if you choose one specific talent!

Edit: Fallout 1 and 2 had a lot of dialog options based on your stats. Every dialog line was rewritten I your intelligence was low. It's the same, just with the npcs saying things based on these.

Just a little OOT here : it's really sad that this never was reiterated in any games I know of. With the lowest score in intelligence, you character is so dumb that people don't even bother to try with you. It's like : "Radscorpin'... Gun... Go kill!", up to refusing to talk with you.

@Koin - (Off-topic) They did something similar in vampire bloodlines. When you humanity was low your dialog would get increasingly more agressive and psychopathic, and they also had a clan (class) that said everything in riddles or metaphors. One of the best rpgs ever made.

True, and I played a Malkav. Could never bring myself around to replay it with another clan...

Okey you got a point there, Larian are really pushing it, still i think they are chewing already a big of pie, not sure if they could handle dessert as well.

About fallout, ye dialogs were really great and it had a lot of options based on your stats, but still i think that origins stories Larian is trying to push is way more complex, sure if that was combined with stats it would be great, but again.. Complexity... could they do it? ... or more specifically would they have the budget for it?

I really hope that all will work out for larian and that they will be able to push dialogs to new heights. (yes im only talking about dialog because it matter to me most)

Vampire bloodlines was great! But mostly i just remember THE HOTEL... scaaary.

Did you play Vampire masqeurade? I didnt play it in a long time now, but i really loved the story... and it was sooo long.

p.s. i heard that there are a lot of mods for vampire games... maybe a new playthrough eh?

Yeah, that would be up to them, but suggestions never hurt. And remember they already have the engine, game mechanics, a lot of assets and a bigger budget. They should really be able to push the bar even further.

The mods for Vampire are mostly fixes, new classes and restored content, but still a great game. Think I've played through it 4 times. I actually didn't like the malkavians that much. Always felt a bit weird that you said these completely strange things and most of the time no one took notice. Loved toreador, strength and speed. You could literally kill everyone in a room with an axe before the first guy hit the ground.

I loved the first half of VtMB, which was much more strongly story-driven and had a lot of intrigue. The second half, not so much, I found it just got a bit too shooty and violent for my liking. But the bit that I liked I really enjoyed an awful lot.

That's because they rushed production at the end. They ran out of time/money/whatever and couldn't finish it properly, that's why the end devolved into shooting galleries full of generic baddies.