Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General We Have A Release Date

But do we have ANY WORD on options for switching out characters for dialogue and using the best character in the party for skillchecks?

I'm going to harp on this because, once again, Multiplayer feels like 1 of 3 things to me:
1. You're not part of a party, because you can be sitting there saying 'I'm the Druid! Let ME talk to that druid! Let me just tag into the conversation!" Like in the tabletop game! Let me just say "Hey! Excuse the Fighter there. I see you are a Druid, like me!" even though the Fighter tripped the event trigger.
2. You go in utterly uncaring that your teammates could have done any dialogue or skillchecks better. Which kind of defeats the point of a balanced party. Why should I bring a Druid and a Warlock for ANYTHING other can combat if I trip the event flag as a Druid for a Warlock discussion?
3. You read walkthrus and spoil yourself in order to ensure the Druid hits that Druid event trigger instead of the party Barbarian with 8 Int and 9 Cha.

In tabletop; if the DM says 'The NPC replies with 'I'm a Druid; what do I care about you, Barbarian?' then the party Druid would say "Oh! I'm a Druid as well." etc.
So why can't we switch out who's talking on the fly?

In the tabletop, the DM could say 'This skillcheck looks difficult, maybe some of the plants could be of use." At which point the Druid would say "I'm good with plants; I'll roll it'.
So why can't we switch out who's attempting a skillcheck on the fly?

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But, again, it should only be a tag out with people in the active party. Not people back at camp.

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Until this happens, and I hate to say it, but when my friends ask 'So, how's the multiplayer?' I HAVE to reply "Game is great! But the inability to switch who's doing what dialogue or skillcheck is kind of a multiplayer killer and annoying in single-player."

Please, Larian; Give us SOME SORT OF WORD on if this is even being considered.
I want to be able to tell my friends 'Multiplayer is rough due to the dialogue/skill checks right now, but they are going to change that. So the game is worth grabbing.'

Its interesting that since Day 1 we have option to link our game to twitch stream and let people make our decisions for us ...
But we still cant let our party express their decisions. O_o

I mean, even if we would still be unable to switch our talker (wich would still be horrible) isnt there any way to use that mechanic so our party can somehow vote and pick?

//Edit:
BTW ... if i may use your topic to note another thing that would be nice if Larian would express their opinion on ... how about Starting gear?

I thought that the voting system is also available for multiplayer? (Never played it in coop, so don’t know).

There's a whole bunch of features that were KIIINDA promised at some point and never showed themselves in EA.

It's still not clear if they are going to be dropped entirely or implemented and "coming hot" without any testing and reiteration whatsoever.
Frankly I'm not even sure which of the two scenarios worries me the most.

I am hopeful we will get a PFH that will finally unveil the fabled main branch of the game, there are still so many question marks and so many basic features. I guess Larian really don't want to answer some question until the very end? Since play testing is currently ongoing, my guess is that they want that public feedback first before showing it to the pitchfork crowd.

Totally want these two features!

Giving this a bump, as I've still heard nothing about allowing us to switch out in dialogues or skillchecks.

Well if this post gets enough attention they'll probably see it, take it the discord amd everywhere else so hopefully they see it.

Voting system was presented as a solution to multiplayer dialogue.

I also come from tabletop and it makes all the difference being able to choose who participates in dialogues and skill checks, once these characters are close to the scene.

As for multiplayer, we have the option for those not in the dialogue to vote on the response that will be given.

However, it's still not ideal.

Another problem with multiplayer is that we can't deactivate shared initiative, which also hinders gameplay dynamics in some cases.

Given Larian's paltry communication (I'm being generous with that description) throughout EA I wouldn't hold your breath.

Concidering what he said at 6:50 ...
Its the same thing as if they would include chat for party, or if you would have all players on Discord ... they can coment on what is happening, but they are still just spectators.

Not even close to what people wanted.

What is the release date?

End of August

I agree, though I think the solution isn't a simple one, nor implementable at this stage of development. It is a distinction between "let's make what we have - so a singleplayer dialogue system as seen in other RPGs - work better in multiplayer" and "let's design a new type of a dialogue system that would work in multiplayer and allow all players to participate in the conversation". First of, I think there is a value to BG3 voting system (or Solasta's visible coop player's cursors) even for people who are on chat, Discord on even in the same room. I for one know that in the long run, I would rather pick my prefer answer whenever I want to communicate my preferance than verbally state it every single time, especially if there are more than two players. And being able to communicate your preference WITHOUT chat/discort etc. is a worthwhile addition.


From single player perspective, I don't think incorporating the whole party would be unreasonable. Larian could either A) embrace party dynamic (like let's say Wasteland2) and allow us to freely switch between available party members, or B) just acknowladge different party members if appropriate - so still have "face" of the conversation but allow players to use appropriate companions for relevant dialogue choices with specific tags, and pick character's with best chances to pass a skill check.

I am not trying to say (or not say) that either of those would be a good for BG3, but both would be problematic in multiplayer. Option B) from player persctive would be pretty much just what we have now with the face of the conversation likely picking options (and potentially forcing characters they don't control to do stuff), while for option A) to work, one would need to figure out how to decide who gets to control the conversation. The closest we got to solving that problem is Old Rebublic and D:OS1 - neither of which were sufficient solutions for a game with as many decisions as BG3.

To make dialogue work in multiplayer one would need to design a multiplayer dialogue system - and that's is not something that I have an ability to conceptualize.

Probably ...
I mean, i honestly thought that if you turn that twitch integration on, whatever gets most votes at the end of voting is acutally selected ... but im no streamer myself, so i cant really test it ... and all videos i found nobody ever bothered to let it go to the end, they simply allways waited few seconds and then they picked whatever had most votes themselves.
So, this was most likely my misstake ... bcs if twitch integration works exactly this way, so people only tells you what they want, but choice is ultimately allways up to you ...
Then indeed we have no usefull tool for multiplayer, except telling curently talking character what we want. :-/
It kinda sucks, but i gues its better than nothing.

And i dont think it would be too hard to implement to be honest. :-/
I mean, just imagine:
Your Tav is talking with Kagha ... option to persuate her appears ... but your Tav have low charisma, so you want to use Wyll.
> You switch to Wyll (this option is allready in game)
> As you control Wyll, you simply click on either Tav or Kagha ... therefore you join ongoing conversation (bcs Wyll *IS* there the whole time) ... wich gives you exactly the same conversation screen ... and you pick (and most importantly talk) as Wyll.
> Later, if you want to switch back to Tav, you simply repeat the process.

I mean, what problem it can cause?
Maybe tags ... if your Tav is a Druid or Tiefling ... there are tagged options that Wyll shouldnt have ...
But since the game (as far as i know) should be prepared for case when Wyll is doing all the talking, it should be prepared for this aswell ...
The only question is, if engine is capable to interupt ongoing conversation, and replace it with another at same place, or other way around ... or if there is some kind of engine (or, lets be honest, Larian capability) limitation, that only allows conversation to flow in single way. O_o

That would be my prefference ...

I mean, my Warlock fails most of Intelligence checks, since its my dump stat ...
Would be really nice if Gale would roll the same checks aswell, and offered explanation of things instead of Narator. :3

That, and ofc option to use both:
[Persuation] Please, let the child go.
and
[Wyll][Persuation] Please, let the child go.

But that is basicaly the same scenario as abowe, minus need to pick another character and join conversation ... it would be much more fluid tho.

But that all was said countless times.
If Larian wants to do something like it ... they would ...
And if not, then i gues we have to deal with it somehow. :-/

But i think we all can agree on it holds incredibly huge potential.

For me it's a big disadvantage of the game to not be able to choose the char who is talking. It's not so much for the actual results, more often than not it is not important wether you have higher Charisma or not. It's for immersion because I see the party as a group of equals. It is nonsense to assume that people like Shadowheart, Lae'zel or Gale would simply let "Tav" be the leader, even if he is bad at things, just because he/she is so "player-ry??". The group would choose the best option, so the player should have the option to change chars during dialog.

Indeed ...

On the other hand tho, no matter what group would choose ... sometimes someone is too fast, for others to react.
That is not counterargument, i agree with you.
Its only that, when i read this post, i remembered that some time ago someone suggested to use bigest modifier in party automaticly ... "as if other party member would talk" ... and i really, really, REALLY hope that is something that would never happen. :-/
Simply for the reason that (as Swen few times mentioned himself, wich gives me little hope) sometimes you dont really want to win.

@RagnarokCzD you didn’t address the issue I was trying to point out - that none of those systems would work in multiplayer. Both solutions have been used by other RPGs so they are clearly achievable (if they are achievable for BG3 only one with an insight and understanding on how BG3 works could say), but arguably they would work even worse in multiplayer than what we have right now.