Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Multiplayer Discussion Multiplayer? More like 2 singleplayer games superimposed.

what the title says. can we get some REAL multiplayer, please? i want the companions of player 2 to interject in dialogues that player 1 is having. instead they're basically considered two different parties, you're literally playing single player but with just one companion slot and sharing the world of another single player game.
also, give us the option to play as someone's npcs mid-session without having to pick origins, since if you do that then leave the game, the origin character is stuck in "this is a player 2's character" mode and player 1 can't interact with it or romance it as normal.

Playing 2P co-op with my wife, and she has both companions in her party for maximum interactions, and I'm glad it's my second time through because it's a real lonely adventure for my Tav. Brushed off when trying to talk to them, don't show up in the background of their convos and they don't show up in mine. Just a real weird experience, and I hope it eventually gets fleshed out more.

It's essentially coop ala Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance. It's also not too dissimilar to how BG1 and 2 did coop multiplayer.

sure but in this case we're talking about larian who already has experience with making worthwhile multiplayer experiences in the literal same engine.

Yes, you are completely right. The game divides us into two teams within a team.

But there are things even worse. This is launching key dialogs on behalf of the host. For example, in Act 3 at the final battle. This completely blocks cutscenes for the second player and their companion. Although it is the second player who should speak, since at this moment the quest line of his companion is involved.

I'd like to see some fixes for this mechanic for co-op play.

Start with merging the split screen when the two players are close together like they did in DOS 1 and 2.

What would be really cool is if the listener could gain approval or disapproval from NPCS by voting in dialog options. There's already the ability to "vote" on dialog options. It would be cool if you could get approval or disapproval due to your vote. So, the person talking could choose option 1, and get disapproval from an NPC, while a second player listening in votes for option 2, and gets approval from that same NPC. It would allow people who are not playing as the party face to romance and build relationships with the NPCs in the party.

Imagine an actual DnD campaign where the DM only allows the player to initiated the NPC interaction to speak and use their abilities..

It would be much more fun for all players if any character present in the conversation (i.e. PC + followers for any player who's listening in) unlocked their corresponding dialogue options and were allowed to use their abilities. E.g. letting the cleric use their medicine check instead of just being a spectator. If this makes the game too easy or something, just bump up the difficulties of the skill checks to compensate

Found some old posts from the beta where players were complaining about lack of teamwork outside of combat in co-op and Larian answered with something along the lines of that they tried it but it turned out to be too difficult to implement.