Grunker's Divinity: Original Sin Co-op Mechanics Discussion Thread

[Grunker]

Agree on #1. #2 if you want to make the choice, then act as one unit. If you act as 2 people, then you're independent players in the same game world.

FFS. Do I have to paint it in huge letters? Following around your friend passively while waiting for a chance to actually play the game is NOT fun.

You two are trying to convince to choose between bad or evil:

1) either follow around passively

2) or forget about co-op dialogue

The entire point of my ravings is that it doesn't have to be like that. There is no reason players can't explore and investogate at their pwn pace while simultaneously take part in the well-designed co-op action around town.

 

[Excidium]

As for me not understanding co-op: are you saying the point of the co-op is one player passively following the other while waiting for dual dialogue etc.? Funny, Renegen is trying to convince me of the exact opposite.

No brah, the point is doing the quests together, not walking around cyseal talking to apple vendors and robbing paintings together. Bob gets a quest to go check the lighthouse or gather clues for the murder and tells you "Hey I got this quest here" then he waits to go forward on that until you're on it too and turn it in together obviously.

 

[Renegen]

If being in a party is "follow around passively" then so be it. You want the extremely gamey thing of "hey you're on the east side of town but your dude on the west side of town 400 meters away just started a dialog, DISCUSS". You don't want to be within ear shot of your buddy, no dual dialogs, simple.

 

[Grunker]

No brah, the point is doing the quests together, not walking around cyseal talking to apple vendors and robbing paintings together. Bob gets a quest to go check the lighthouse or gather clues for the murder and tells you "Hey I got this quest here" then he waits to go forward on that until you're on it too.

Bro, we agree on that. i'm talking about the spontaneously spawning co-op dialogue/decision moments that happen when you explore the town/country-side. For the quests, you can actually decide to do them together and go there. When you're running to the apple vendpr and suddenly find yourself deciding whether a woman should be saved or killed, it's not like you csn stop and go "oy, mate, let's reload, seems there was some co-op content over here."

 

[Excidium]

Does that ever actually happen? I don't remember seeing any of that so far

EDIT: I remember one on the market square, but all it does is give you +trusting or +wary

 

[Grunker]

If being in a party is "follow around passively" then so be it. You want the extremely gamey thing of "hey you're on the east side of town but your dude on the west side of town 400 meters away just started a dialog, DISCUSS". You don't want to be within ear shot of your buddy, no dual dialogs, simple.

WHich fucking p&p games do you play where "being in a party" consists of one person that talks and the others sitting silently at the table waiting for the GM to arbitrarily go "ok guys now the rest of you can say something and not just Player 1"? Which games, nigguh?

Stop pretending this game actually emulates a p&p game to any satisfactory level and start arguing based on the game's own mechanics and merits.

 

[Grunker]

Does that ever actually happen? I don't remember seeing any of that so far

Yes, it's happened at least three times to us, and we just barely begun playing. Once with Evelynn, once with an orc lady or summat, and once with Cecilia.

 

[Renegen]

Where did I say anything about who can talk and who can't talk? If in a p&p or Divinity you're together, physically in the same room, then you should have the choice to take part in that dialog together. No disagreement there, and nowhere did I mention that in that message. ahem.

If the 400 meter conversations is something that's common for you, great. Usually the GM would say "you don't hear this conversation". Important conversations are advertised ahead of time or are obvious, as they are in this game so that everyone can get together in the same room. That's what the party is.

 

[Excidium]

As long as you do quests together you won't be missing on much more than flavour ones like those, I think Larian was intelligent enough not to put important C&C on one-off NPCs like that...at least the only good event I saw so far was on the Lighthouse quest, which I figure nobody would do alone since the fights are tuned for two players

I am still waiting to see if the charmed Orc is some biowarean C&C...

WHich fucking p&p games do you play where "being in a party" consists of one person that talks and the others sitting silently at the table waiting for the GM to arbitrarily go "ok guys now the rest of you can say something and not just Player 1"? Which games, nigguh?

Stop pretending this game actually emulates a p&p game to any satisfactory level and start arguing based on the game's own mechanics and merits.

it happens a lot unless you have a two-headed GM, sometimes you split and the GM has to focus on one person or the other. Like playing Shadowrun and you have 4 people doing 3 different things involving 3 different planes of existence you need some God of multitasking in charge of the game

 

[Grunker]

Where did I say anything about who can talk and who can't talk? If in a p&p or Divinity you're together, physically in the same room, then you should have the choice to take part in that dialog together. No disagreement there, and nowhere did I mention that in that message. ahem.

I don't know which world you live in, but in mine, only a small minority of the conversations in D:OS allow participation from both players.

Which is PERFECTLY understandable. But if that is the case, forcing the players to stick together is obviously fucking stupid.

 

[Grunker]

it happens a lot unless you have a two-headed GM

Wat

Your GM doesn't have the ability to participate in a conversation involving three or more parties?

 

[Renegen]

I don't know which world you live in, but in mine, only a small minority of the conversations in D:OS allow participation from both players.

We've gone over this about 5 times and yes both players should have the option to take part in a conversation if they're both there at the location.

 

[Grunker]

We've gone over this about 5 times and yes both players should have the option to take part in a conversation if they're both there at the location.

...

I don't even know what to say. Do you seriously expect Larian to reprogram every single conversation so that more than one player can participate? Or does "participate" for you simply mean "being sble to see the conversation another player is having"?

 

[Renegen]

...

I don't even know what to say. Do you seriously expect Larian to reprogram every single conversation so that more than one player can participate? Or does "participate" for you simply mean "being sble to see the conversation another player is having"?

I'm happy that you keep changing the goal post and make less sense as time goes on. Not that I'm a programmer, but all that's required is that instead of the text dump being in the log at the botton of the screen, it is in the middle in the dialog screen.

 

[Excidium]

Wat

Your GM doesn't have the ability to participate in a conversation involving three or more parties?

He does but depending on the complexity of what's going on it's better to focus on each thing at once, of course if all a guy needs is a TN for something he can just throw that his way

 

[Grunker]

I'm happy that you keep changing the goal post and make less sense as time goes on. Not that I'm a programmer, but all that's required is that instead of the text dump being in the log at the botton of the screen, it is in the middle in the dialog screen.

wat

I am seriously starting to believe you have no clue what we're talking about. I haven't changed any goalposts. My argument - in every single post- has been this:

1) following each other around, only one player is able to act and be active in dialogue.

2) this is understandable and due to technical limitations. Only fix needed here is that dialogues display properly if characters are close to each other.

3) however, since only one character can be acting and active in most dialogue, it is perfectly understandable that players will NOT stick together 24-7, but explore the town at their own pace. No one wants to sit still while the other player actually plays the game.

4) this presents us with a dilemma, because the players being split (which is correct for them to be during parts of the game) means they'll miss a bunch of the co-op content in town/countryside that is so much fun to participate in.

5) the obvious solution is to enable long-distance participation in choice dialogue.

Your entire counter-argument to this is that basically players should instead choose a) to actually be active and, you know, PLAY the game, splitting up and missing content or b) "be a party", i.e. have one player initiate dialogue and do shit (play) while the other follows around passively ubtil co-op content happens or a fight starts.

 

[Renegen]

1. yes
2. yes
3. yes
4. yes
5. no

Done

 

[GrimoireFTW]

just wanted to say great game but I do have 1 complaint...

well when they said they cut a few of the levels from the lair beneath phantom forest....

well it seems they cut out the entire dungeon.... because it is not in the game....

 

[Grunker]

1. yes
2. yes
3. yes
4. yes
5. no

Done

No. 5 is the solution. Without number 5 you just have 4 points identifying the fucking problem. You are literally saying "just ignore the problem altogether".

 

[Excidium]

I don't understand why you consider biowarean C&C as missed content

Like I said unless you people play the game alone all the time you won't miss on anything worthwhile

 

[Grunker]

ffs renegen, you said yes to #4 which just says "this presents us with a dilemma". You said YES to that. You see the dilemma. What is your own solution to said dilemma if you won't ackknowledge mine? Or are you sticking with "just ignore the problem"?

 

[Metro]

The dialogues aren't very interactive, anyway. It's the standard Larian 'checklist' of speech options you exhaust to get all the information out of people. I'd assume the main reason anyone would want to play co-op is because of the combat. Scratch that, I really can't think of any reason people want to play games like these co-op.

 

[Grunker]

The dialogues aren't very interactive, anyway. It's the standard Larian 'checklist' of speech options you exhaust to get all the information out of people. I'd assume the main reason anyone would want to play co-op is because of the combat. Scratch that, I really can't think of any reason people want to play games like these co-op.

How is making decisions that change character traits checklists exactly? Ot's fun to roleplay with a mate. It's essentially mini-P&P style dialogue. It's one of the things that make D:OS unique.

 

[Metro]

E-Larp, yo.

 

[Excidium]

How is making decisions that change character traits checklists exactly? Ot's fun to roleplay with a mate.

What do those stats even do anyway?