Automatic Dialogue - Please prioritize the main character.

[Crimsomrider]

One thing I really dislike are proximity based dialogues during and after combat, which end up auto-locking the closest party member into a conversation, instead of the main character who is alive, conscious and in close vicinity.

It is quite immersion breaking and punishing because:

• The main character is the one involved in all situations and making all the decisions, not the companions.
  
• You do not gain any approval when using companions in conversations
  
• The companion's AI personality often clashes with the choices of your main character and the flow of the story
  
• You have to play stupidly by bringing your ranged main character into melee range to be chosen for the dialogue

The scenario which made me dislike this so much was with Auntie Ethel. Warning! Spoilers below!

In Auntie Ethel's lair, there are 3 automatically triggered conversations during the battle.

• The four possessed masked NPCs prior to Auntie Ethel's lair, will be summoned during the fight and will initiate an automatic conversation after the battle if the player snuck by them prior to the fight, Auntie Ethel got killed and they survived the fight.
  
• Auntie Ethel initiates a conversation in the middle of the fight to bargain for her life if she gets a turn with her HP between 1 and 15.
  
• Mayrina initiates a conversation as soon as the battle ends.

So all these proximity based conversations in a single fight and during all of this my main character, who is a Wood Elf Ranger, cannot get chosen because there are always other party members closer to NPCs. Auntie Ethel speaks to Shadowheart, the masked woman speaks to Wyll and Mayrina speaks to Lae'zel... a snivelling woman crying about her husband to a Githyanki warrior that would rather split her from navel to neck.

So what do I do ? I reload. And keep reloading because Lae'zel as a companion engaging in a conversation with Mayrina is just not believable to me, especially due to Lae'zel's comments during the entire quest. The hardest part about the fight weren't the enemies, but carefully maneuvering my characters around the silly dialogue proximity system in order to get my main character to speak and make decisions.

It really shouldn't require so much tedious tactical work for the main character to be the main character. So please... make the automatic dialogue system prioritize the main character. The only time a companion should be chosen is if the main character is downed or dead, but otherwise let me be the main character of the story. Or at least an option to take over a conversation.

[N/A]

I honestly have no idea how I'd handle mid-combat dialogues

With regards to any automatic chat besides that, yeah, just always picking the first guy and having everyone else stand back like a bunch of goobers got pretty annoying. Please let us choose or cycle who talks whenever an NPC is addressing the party

There can still be strict one-on-one dialogues if you really want them for whatever reason, just do the footwork of justifying them narratively, spread the party out, have them seek a specific member and shush whoever interrupts, something like that

[dolby]

Normally rpgs fix that with party leader assignment or they have a fixed MC postion that's always in the center of the dialogue... - My favorite way of doing it.

I have no clue why would i want to play - talk as companion after all they are a companion and not MC they are called a companion for a reason lol.. YOu can always give them chip in lines and abilite checks so they can participate in dialogue.

Anyway I'm guessing the only reason they let you do that is cos of Co-Op or maybe it's their origins system not sure.
Larian always had it's own way of doing things with their systematic approach. They always think it's the better way of doing it i guess. Even if that's not the case like in the case of the UI control chains.

The whole thing is far from prfect but you have to know that dialogues were way worse at the start of EA. We posted alot on this subject they improved it...

At the start oF EA you could redo the whole Dialogue with different companins like 4 times get multiple items and stuff like that the whole thing it was weird as hell and a mess if you ask me.

They just started to add companion feedback to the dialogues and improving them so i reckon it's all still work in progress but at least now it resembles to a working dialogue system.
But yeah i agree like i said M C should be the focuse point... saidly i think it's the multiplayer that's the reason so but who knows..

[SnarkOne]

This problem came up frequently in Divinity Original Sin 2, a mod exists that takes control of the spontaneous conversation & redirects it to the main character. If this is not addressed by Larian, I'm sure there will be a mod for it shortly after release

[Panic Fire]

I think a better solution is the ability to shift dialogue to a character that is currently listing in to the conversation so that you can switch control of the conversation to different party members or even players in the case of multiplayer.

[N/A]

Originally posted by Panic Fire:

I think a better solution is the ability to shift dialogue to a character that is currently listing in to the conversation so that you can switch control of the conversation to different party members or even players in the case of multiplayer.

This right here

[Indure]

Originally posted by Panic Fire:

I think a better solution is the ability to shift dialogue to a character that is currently listing in to the conversation so that you can switch control of the conversation to different party members or even players in the case of multiplayer.

I like this solution. There are quite a few scenarios where I would rather have my companions handled the dialog and I would hate a system that forces the PC into all dialogs.

[Aldain]

Originally posted by Panic Fire:

I think a better solution is the ability to shift dialogue to a character that is currently listing in to the conversation so that you can switch control of the conversation to different party members or even players in the case of multiplayer.

Pretty much, the biggest problem would be trying to rig it up to work for multiplayer (because forced conversations are a bit messy in that case), I suppose that could be done at the host's discretion, but that may cause some issues too.

[Panic Fire]

Originally posted by Aldain:

Originally posted by Panic Fire:

I think a better solution is the ability to shift dialogue to a character that is currently listing in to the conversation so that you can switch control of the conversation to different party members or even players in the case of multiplayer.

Pretty much, the biggest problem would be trying to rig it up to work for multiplayer (because forced conversations are a bit messy in that case), I suppose that could be done at the host's discretion, but that may cause some issues too.

Not really imo. Who ever intiates a dialogue is the main character of it, who ever is listening to the dialogue can now be subbed into the conversation. Forced conversations just means all those characters are now forced to listen thus they are all active choices to switch conversation lead to.