Hello dear, Larian
I suppose by now you’re pretty tired of reading about unpolished animation here, “baaaad script†there and “why are you spending time and money on cinematics instead of *insert whatever here*â€. So rest assured this thread is not about this kind of stuff but about a more systemic problem I'm perceiving as the really important one when you're trying to implement cinematic dialogues in a modern game with co-op and story being an important part of the game.
The problem is that you didn't fully implement what some players call Real-time cutscenes. I’m not sure how it is called among developers, some articles imply that the term should be different, so allow me to illustrate what I mean with this video from Halo Infinite:
What can we see in this video:
1. No fade-in black at any point.
2. Soldiers that were not meant to be in the scene stayed visible and performed their idle animations.
3. A soldier got affected by the scripted physical effect that took place in the scene.
It seems to be quite a minor thing to have in this particular game and scene. Developers could just make it look like whoever wasn't meant to be in the scene moved away from it. But in your game the situation is really different.
In BG3:
1. In co-op players who decided not to listen to the dialogue can't see what's going on at all unless some "mirroring" script takes effect. And they aren't visible for those who are participating in the dialogue. Now think how stupid it looks when some action happens inside the dialogue?
2. And both in co-op and solo playthrough it breaks the flow of action and story all the time. Companions are moving to certain points in dialogues and then they are still standing somewhere behind when the dialogue ends (try talking to Spike with Wyll in your team and you'll see what I'm talking about). NPCs are dying and falling dramatically in cutscenes and then lying in totally different poses outside of dialogue due ragdoll. Someone being teleported in scenes from time to time because the scene implies a different position.
So let me be honest: if you’d ask me “for our game do you want cinematic dialogues which are happening in some parallel reality all the time or no cinematics but everything actually happening here and now?†- I would choose the second option. But as I'm seeing in some other games it is quite possible to have the best of both worlds in one game.
So maybe it's one of those challenges you should accept, Larian? If it's not too late of course.