Companion Approval/Disapproval During Dialogs

[try2handing]

Hi there,

 

After a quick search I think this has not been posted, so I'm posting this. I've been playing the game for a week or so, and this is one of the things I would like to discuss on the forums.

 

The approval/disapproval thing from party members after another member has just said something, like "Eder points affably in approval", or "Aloth sighs through his nose" - I think this shouldn't happen all the time. It implies every party member always listens in on every single conversation that happens in the game. Some conversations are supposed to be private, like when you wake someone during party rest, all the others should be sleeping; it doesn't make sense if they would be able to approve or disapprove of anything. Some other times, the party members are simply nowhere near where the conversation happens, like when one single character sneaks very far away from the party, then triggers a conversation with someone.

 

So IMHO there should be some sort of condition checking for this, like whether the companions are nearby or not, and it shouldn't happen at all during some specific conversations.

 

Personally, I don't mind if this is done completely behind the scenes - not shown at all during dialogs, I mean. I would love a gameplay option to enable/disable this. Because, from a more realistic point of view, this doesn't work all the time. If Aloth "rubs his temples" and "sighs through his nose" out of irritation because of several things Xoti says (Pride), it's hard to imagine he would smile at Xoti's next line (Dutiful), even if he agrees with it. In this particular scenario, changing all these reactions to generic lines like "Aloth approves" and "Aloth disapproves" actually sounds more agreeable to me. Less specific, yes, and maybe a bit less interesting, but less silly, too.

 

What can be done about this? I don't know. I think it's a hard thing to implement perfectly. The specific reactions of party members, sometimes it works - you do notice such things in real life from to time - but sometimes it doesn't. This is just what I think about this at the moment.