Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Fewer "cinematic style" conversations.

This will probably be an unpopular opinion, but In this build (and what I believe is safe to assume will be unchanged in the final build,) I feel as though not every single exchange with an NPC needs to have a zoomed-in, one-on-one dialogue. For important events and companion interaction, sure that's fine, but do we really need a dramatic fade to black with a singled out conversation for NPCs that just add flavor text with one sentence worth of conversation?

I've gone back to play DOS2 while in-between major BG3 patches, and having the voice-acting play "at range" with dialog boxes feels so streamlined and unobtrusive by comparison.
Can an option be reasonably integrated to cut down on the more personal conversations with lesser NPCs?
If not, I'm hoping that someone creates a mod for this because as it stands now, it feels really unnecessary to do this in every interaction.

No.

If anything I want more.
If you want deadpan line delivery then play the Assassins Creed series.
Each NPC dialogue animation is more dead than troupe of elementary school children doing a play.

AC Odyssey tried its hardest for me to care for its characters but it was just sooooo bad.
They all looked the same. Moved the same.
Ugh. I felt nothing as they died or lived.

Nothing at all.

There are going to be differing opinions on this, hence the reason why I proposed it as an option.
This isn't a typical "Larian I hate this so change it and cause everyone who likes it to suffer" post.
Having lines delivered without close-ups and arm-waving is hardly a request for "deadpan line delivery."

I'd go with "cinematic/close-up if a PC can answer". If it's just a greeting or a generic oneliner, there's no need for an intrusive close-up.

It's generally two types of "realistic" competing: cinematic allows for more nuanced acting and you can see the characters up close and personal, while "in-world" is seamless and doesn't feel like "now watch a movie".

That's pretty much how I feel about it. The flow of the game gets broken up a bit for me because of it.
As much as I appreciate the models and the work that's gone into the animation and the actors who pantomimed that stuff out, getting sucked into a dramatic dialog every time I'm speaking to inconsequential randoms kills my immersion.

Completely and utterly agree. What's the point of changing perspective, starting a scene, and animate characters if the npc only says one line of dialogue and than the scene is over? It is so stupid. I have never seen a game that does that. It's just a huge waste of time. If an NPC only has one line of dialogue, just let him speak it in the world map

The one place I'd concur with you are those rando tieflings and goblins which just say a single thing to you. There's no reason to pan in on their face for that, IMHO.

Unless...currently there are some examples where we don't see a zoom in (speaking to the dead, animals, when you backstab a non-hostile character, etc). If Larian plans to change all of these to cinematic, then of course, keep even the one-liners cinematic as well.

I totaly agree with Tzelanit and Abits.
It's totally useless in many situations. In many of them, a popup and nothing more would be way more appropriate.

Cinematics should only be for "interresting" dialogs(quests, lore, story,...).

Two useless cinematics in the tutorial : when you approach 2 dying people and only have a cinematics to hear Lae'zel saying something like "they're dying".
This two exemples of dialogs that breaks the flow of the game for... Nothing... They're wasting their ressources for nothing there.

More than everything, it's just a huge waste of resources. Put more resources into awesome cutscenes that could use extra animations

I agree that one-liners shouldn't be a close in dialogue. But what I'd like to have is a fully voiced PC lines. And yes, I understand the problem with them because you can choose many origin characters. Nevertheless, if Larian will manage to voice protagonist they'll have a chance to aim for GOAT status.

+1

This is what gets me. Of course, I'm not a developer and I may just not understand specific design choices, so I may just not comprehend why "goblin_child_a" needs a dedicated moment of animation that I won't remember 30 seconds from now. Heck, maybe there are animation presets for those characters that only have one or two lines of dialog that can be simply applied universally and it doesn't take much tinkering at all, but as a consumer, it comes across as something that's being marketed as "in-depth and personal interactions" while actually serving the purpose of taking me out of my adventurous headspace.

I've actually started avoiding conversations with non-factor NPCs that aren't critical to the story or quests because I don't want to be bothered by what feels like is an emergency brake being pulled on the flow of my playthrough.

Kind of shocked no one said anything about this, at least as far as I seen. There is dialog that doesn't shoot you to a close up. It happens when you play multiplayer and is between two players. A small terrible dialog box shows up and you pick a few lines.

BTW this is probably something they should work on as it really looks bad and feels out of place. This feature reminds me of DOS1 where two players would play rock, paper, & scissors when they didn't agree on something. Pretty sure DOS2 had something similar but I cant recall at the moment.

There are parts of ea where it happens, specifically when you talk to dead people and in your talk with the paladins, which makes me assume it's a bug to be fixed

Ooh thats right, good call, totally forgot about the talking to dead also.

This gives me some hope because now I know that it's at least possible in the game code to have conversations happen outside of those cinematics. I'm hoping that this gets enough attention to have it show up on Larian's radar, but I know that their plate is full.

I'd love to see a game actually break through the "custom" mold and fully voice your protag.

Truthfully I wouldn't want that, getting stuck with one voice actor/actress for a custom character. This would limit character creation with character looking off compared to the way he/she sounds. This happened in fallout 4, you also take away youtubers that roll play the voice of the character.

It's gonna be a problem. They already has a lot of dialogue for the MC dialogue (correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure the same voice of the MC is used for the dream girl/guy

Specifically for 10 youtubers... well let's imagine the crazy sales in dozens of million copies, so, 100 youtubers for whom it's important they can make an option to voice protagonist on/off with "on" as a default. The rest of the population will happily listen to them voiced. And why are you going to be "stuck"? For example, I like Shadowheart's voice but if I choose her as my protagonist I'll never hear speaking at all, and this is bad.