Party Dialogue Checks?!?!

[Brimsurfer]

Ok so I remember in IWD 2 every time the party engaged in a dialogue. the game took account of skills and attributes of all party members and if any of the party members had high enough skill or attribute to respond with a unique or a better response, their portrait would show an icon and you can select that party member and that unique dialogue option or response would become available, for you to respond with and I loved being able to do it.

 

But in PoE this functionality is not there, the game only takes account of the skills and attributes of the player's main character and completely ignores the rest of the party.

 

For example, if my main character has 10 intelligence and there's a response that require at least 16 intelligence and one of my party members has 16+ intelligence, the game will completely ignore him as if that character is not even there (this is so unlike roleplaying).....but this was not the case in IWD 2.

 

IWD 2 is a 13 year old game and it had this functionality I wonder why PoE chose to ignore this awesome mechanic? It would be so good if PoE allowed this too.

 

 

[Miquel93]

PoE has only one main character, unlike Icewind Dale. It offers the possibility to use custom made characters, but it still the story of one individual, the only one the player has control of (the custom made companions are from a narrative standpoint, mercenaries you hire, and you have no control of whats going on inside their heads)

[Ink Blot]

As noted, the idea is that the story is more personal and is about your character. Your party members, while they can't contribute in convos, can sometimes interject comments in conversations, and you can many times choose to use whichever you want in scripted events (the story board cut scenes).

 

I believe Obs went this direction so you couldn't get all the options available during one playthrough.

[Brimsurfer]

Yes but its not roleplaying, the guy is just standing next to me he has high enough lore to offer better insight but he just stands there like a statue, that's not very good. 

 

I believe they took a step backwards here, specially when this mechanics was available in more than a decade old title..........and PoE does offer players chance to create custom characters, whether they are called hired adventurers or whatever....we have full control over them, they are PCs by every definitions, we control them entirely..... hell we even create them ourselves.

 

If they were uncontrollable that could be some thing but they are not, they are entirely controllable and this mechanic of allowing all party members to contribute in dialogue would have also made even these hired adventurers (custom created characters) more interesting.

Edited April 19, 2015 by Brimsurfer

[Bryy]

Yeah, it's really jarring and I hope they change this in the future.

[Miquel93]

Yes but its not roleplaying, the guy is just standing next to me he has high enough lore to offer better insight but he just stands there like a statue, that's not very good. 

 

I believe they took a step backwards here, specially when this mechanics was available in more than a decade old title..........and PoE does offer players chance to create custom characters, whether they are called hired adventurers or whatever....we have full control over them, they are PCs by every definitions, we control them entirely..... hell we even create them ourselves.

 

If they were uncontrollable that could be some thing but they are not, they are entirely controllable and this mechanic of allowing all party members to contribute in dialogue would have also made even these hired adventurers (custom created characters) more interesting.

 

PoE offers the chance to play with a party created by you, but it's only for combat reasons, so people can play with whatever combination they want and whithout having to take the story made companions if they don't want to. But that doesn't mean they're the player character. You can also control Edér, Aloth, Durance... and you can't control what they say or when they say it. Mercenaries don't have this sort of content because it would be a hell of a lot of work and it wasn't it's purpose, and they're created by the player instead of choosing them from some random pool so that players can build them however they want.

 

I like a conversation system as seen in Storm of Zehir, or most recently Wasteland 2, but I don't understand what's the problem with only having roleplaying control of one single character, despite being a party based RPG (it's not exactly a novel concept)

[ruzen]

Well I guess this (OP) is consider "exploit" by the developers with 6 member 6 different talent you can exploit the dialoge options and you know how Obsidians feel about "exploits".

 

...but for the sake of the this game. There is no party mechanic here. It could be pretty OP when you have no alignments or generally no management for party and have all the dialoge options avaliable. 

[Waywocket]

In practice, it looks like the game was designed to force you into giving your main character high int + perception. I think things are a bit better in the full game than they were in the backer beta, when per+int+res were useful for conversations, and might+con+dex were for combat.

 

If you can't tell, I think this is extremely poor game design, just like everything else Josh Sawyer touches.

Edited April 19, 2015 by Waywocket

[Sannom]

IWD 2 is a 13 year old game and it had this functionality I wonder why PoE chose to ignore this awesome mechanic? It would be so good if PoE allowed this too.

That mechanic only really makes sense when every character in the party has the same importance story-wise, hence why IWD2 and later Storm of Zehir had it. In a games with written companions, doing the same would mean ignoring their personalities, which would be bad.

 

In games with written companions, the later simply get a chance to help you whenever the subject matter is relevant to their skills or interest. For example, in Mask of the Betrayer, your character could sometimes use his Spellcraft (?) skill in order to perform some actions, but if he couldn't, sometimes Safiya could offer to do the same because of her background, even if her level in the aforementioned skill wasn't high enoough. In Baldur's Gate 2, Jan Jansen made the Tiger Woman quest trivial because he can see through a lot of illusions than most normal people because of his training as an illusionit, not to mention his special gogles.

Edited April 19, 2015 by Sannom

[Ineth]

Yes but its not roleplaying, the guy is just standing next to me he has high enough lore to offer better insight but he just stands there like a statue, that's not very good.

 

Yeah, it's really jarring and I hope they change this in the future.

 

From a simulationist perspective that's true, but from a gameplay perspective the way it is currently handled is necessary to make skill choices interesting.

 

If all party members could contribute, you could easily max each skill on a different party member and the skill system would effectively become meaningless.

[Abel]

+1 to the OP. This lack bores me very, very, very much. Last time, Sagani gave a dagger to a boy in Copperlane (Sagani talked to him, not anyone else). There were a survival check, maybe to tell the boy how to use the dagger properly, or whatever. But you know, Sagani, and all your party members are just mutted dumbs. She checked the skills of my PC, saw she had not 4 survival, and then, shut her mouth. Thank you Sagani, you're a helpfull little puppet...

 

The fact that during your interactions with souls you're the only one to see, only your PC skills are checked is ok. But with casual dialogues like the example i gave, it just irritates me. Even in BG, you could speak to a NPC with Aerie because she had wisdom your PC did not had, and then, a wisdom related dialogue option was available. It felt like your companions matter. It's definitely not the case in PoE. Beside a few moments when your companions say something during dialogue (which is mostly totally unnoticed by NPC anyway), your companions seem soulless. I sometimes even wonder why they follow me like a pet. I did not see yet a companion being angry or something about my decisions. Keldorn could fight you if you did things he really hated, and it's true for most of the BG2 companions. While it can make the party managing hard, it felt ike they had things to say, opinions, temper, and all these things. Did not see any of it in PoE so far.

Edited April 19, 2015 by Abel

[Svirfneblin]

I think having companions interject sometimes to help 'solve' quests would be neat. Maybe you could even call upon them to help someimes "Aloth, do you have any input on this?" etc. Not sure about being able to use any companion's skill/attribute/etc. whenever you want though.

[Celerion]

I think having companions interject sometimes to help 'solve' quests would be neat. Maybe you could even call upon them to help someimes "Aloth, do you have any input on this?" etc. Not sure about being able to use any companion's skill/attribute/etc. whenever you want though.

this is a great idea.

[Leferd]

 

I think having companions interject sometimes to help 'solve' quests would be neat. Maybe you could even call upon them to help someimes "Aloth, do you have any input on this?" etc. Not sure about being able to use any companion's skill/attribute/etc. whenever you want though.

this is a great idea.

 

 

There are points in the story where companions will interject and you have the option to let them intercede.