Character Sensitive Party Banter

Battleborn Battleborn Campaign Discussion
#1

I like little details in games, they help make the game feel more alive. One of the ones I’ve noticed is this party banter.

I remember a long time ago when the first gameplay demo came out. I’m referring to this one

Near the beginning of the demo, Thorn makes a remark about bringing down Tempest, to which Rath replies ‘Easier said than done I’m afraid’. Further on, Montana calls Rath his little vampire buddy, acknowledging the presence of Rath, and a gain later when replying to Oscar Mike. However I didn’t see it as much in the new demo video. A few replies to an NPC but not much else. Are we going to see this sort of interaction between battleborn characters? Like one makes a remark that another comments on based on which characters they are? Or was this simply for the sake of a stage demo?

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#2

They probably will. I mean, Left 4 Dead and Dota 2 did that before.
There is a lot of characters in Battleborn, so that will be a lot of writing and recording, but it’s no rocket science (Except for Benedict… Ok, bad joke)

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#3

We’re trying to do it as much as we can, in a couple of ways.

During the Story Missions, you’ll get some different dialog depending on which characters you play, and sometimes the combinations of characters. What you heard last fall was some of our prototyping of that system.

Not sure how much of this will make the final cut, but we think it’s really cool. There’s lots of ways to get to know the Battleborn. They’re cool characters, and hopefully you’ll get to know them as you adventure with them in different ways.

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#4

I hope you guys can include this, Randy. It was one of the things that was great about TPS and that both BL 1 & 2 were lacking outside of FFYL revives. If you have two or more characters playing in story mode, they should acknowledge one another and have call outs. Nothing fancy as long as they’re there. :dukeaffirmative:

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#5

Actually I just realized that since Melka is now more or less confirmed as a playable character, does that mean some battleborn will be used outside the player’s control during singleplayer? Does that change if you start said mission with that battleborn?

Again that old video, Melka was talking to the players offscreen. If someone was to play that mission with Melka, would the dialogue change, or would Melka just be replaced with someone else?

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#6

Character sensitive party banter was one of my favorite things about BL: TPS. In the E3 demo if I remember correctly, Oscar Mike says to the other Battleborn “That Dracula said colossal hole,” commenting on Rendain’s choice of words.

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#7

It’s one of my favorite things in Dragon Age as well. Might as well add them into the ranks, same with Mass Effect. I’m glad this game has it as well.

#8

that video came out ages ago, it could have been taken out of the main game.
that said i hope i’m wrong, there is nothing more fun then character development through party banter.

#9

This is absolutely a thing.

@solus_scientist, if you liked BLTPS…our goal has been to leave what we learned there in the dirt. :slight_smile: We already have a decent bit of this recorded, and still have some stretch goals to see how far we can get. We really feel that this rounds out our characters.

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#10

I couldn’t agree more @Jythri. I play a lot of co-op with my gladiator and my friend uses a lawbringer. We get a kick out of their banter every few minutes. Our latest co-op adventure incorporates an enforcer, baroness, and another friend brought in his doppelganger. Wilhelm has the best dialogue. The characters have been the best part of the Borderlands series so I know I won’t be disappointed with Battleborn.

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#11

I concur 100%

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#12

Good to hear. Im currently playing Dragon Age Inquisition’s multiplayer to scratch the co-op itch, and there are maybe a dozen lines of dialog per character. And every line is generic, so any other character can answer with their own generic response. It really pulls you out of the game and makes you wonder if these characters have had any interaction at all.

#13

I agree with GulfWulf’s point about the Pre-Sequel. Discovering each character’s reaction to Jack’s dialogue gave me some insight into the personality of each Vault Hunter. I personally thought Athena’s comments were most interesting.

I really hope that character interactions in Battleborn are as good as they are from previous footage. Looking good so far. :slight_smile:

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#14

minor spoilers
In the second mission, the sentry asks what to do about the door, and if you play as galilea, here is the conversation that follows Galilea:“use your laser, wolf” “oh okay, thanks Gals” “(chuckles) aww, the doomed robot calls me gals”
To me this just reveals that she is definetly lonely, and is looking for friends.

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#15

The different dialogues that show up around that particular part with Wolf are awesome. Though, I wish that kinda thing would occur more frequently throughout the duration of the missions, and I’d definitely love some live interaction between the characters in the team.

I’ve noticed lots of character-specific lines on the PvP side when seeing/killing certain opponents, which are awesome at reinforcing the relationships the characters have with each other. I’ve even noticed unique reactions to the PvE enemies a character is fighting, like the unique perspective on thralls you get as Attikus. But I don’t think I’ve seen any real-time dialogue between teammates in either PvE or PvP. And with how good the dialogue has been in the rest of the game, it does feel sorely missing, particularly since replaying missions with different characters seems like such a core part of this game’s PvE experience – and the possibility of hearing new interactions from teaming up different combinations of characters would definitely make me want to try new characters out more than I otherwise might.

On a semi-related note, I nabbed footage of two linked dialogues from separate run-throughs of that Wolf section, and as a guy who plays Montana a lot with a ladyfriend who likes Thorn, this little connection made me super happy. :smile: Obviously, mission dialogue spoiler:

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#16

I played Attikus in a mission earlier and I thought it was a bit sad that he knows his kin are just abused and enslaved. He’s more interesting than he looks. He’s trying to liberate his own from a corrupt regime. He could easily just have been a big dumb guy but Attikus and Caldarius stand out from the rest of the Jennerit due to their humble origins.

I’m looking forward to hearing more of these character quips. It’s just a shame that sometimes I’m too busy to really listen to the dialogue as it breathes life into the game.

#17

This is the wiki description of Attikus.

"Slave. Laborer. Greatest warrior among the Jennerit underclass — the Thralls. All his life, Attikus has been told what to do, shoved into the deepest mines of Tempest, and kept down. Thanks to an experimental biotech harness, this already-imposing brute was given the one thing the Jennerit didn’t expect: intelligence.

The only thing more dangerous than a huge, imposing beast with an axe to grind against his oppressors… is a smart imposing beast with an axe to grind against his oppressors."

#18

Always likes this type of thing in games like mass effect where character banter changes depending on which partners you bring. There are more characters here so I’d imagine it’s a lot harder to meet the right conditions for specific character dialogue. It is cool when it happens though.

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#19

I have a question that was posed in another topic on this subject; Are you guys having any issues with having a large dialogue pool while keeping server stability? People have expressed that characters talk noticably less in PvE with response to events compared to the Beta.

I also feel like ive noticed this in PvP with character specific banter after kills etc. I admit I am prob more wary of this since Epic ran into those sort of issues with ingame banter in GOW3…the dev response at the time was something like having all those extra lines of situational dialogue was data heavy hampering performance.

I REALLY hoped this would be something that was possibly circumvented in this next gen of consoles…as the humor in this game is a BIG part of its draw and so much love has obviously been put into it.

#20

What I want to know is how the game chooses to play these.

I mean, I’d have though it would give priority to these lines over the generic ones when said characters are in the group, but that does NOT seem to be the case.

Additionally, I swear some characters just get chosen randomly more than others.
For example, I have done The Void with Galilea probably well over 50+ times between the Open Beta and the full game, but I only JUST NOW got a character-specific line between her and the Sentry (right before he “hacks” the door with his big laser lmao).

A similar circumstance is during the Algorithm right before the Golem boss. Kleese and Ghalt’s “com banter” can play a line about magnus’ “all being crazy”, and Marques can chime in and be indignant and all, but while I’ve been in groups with (or played as) Marques like, AT LEAST 20+ times in this place, I’ve heard it TWICE - I almost always get the generic lines.

Hell, I heard another line for the first time in the Algorithm between Kleese and Phoebe (there are actually at least two Phoebe-specific lines here that I know of), where Kleese says to Pheobe “If you die… I’m keeping your tools!”.

One last example (I have loads - sorry lol): Starting The Experiment with Thorn in your party still almost always plays the “com lines” between Melka and Boldur instead of the ones between Thorn and Boldur, even when Melka isn’t in the group (and even if she is in the group, it still plays radio chatter “voice modulated” lines as well lol).

Wouldn’t it make a lot more sense to give “priority” to these kinds of lines if said character was in the group at the time…? I mean, they can only PLAY if the character is with the group, but they still so rarely actually DO play em…

Oh, and on a “slightly” unrelated note: I was honestly disappointed that having Kleese actually being PLAYED during the Algorithm doesn’t have any character-specific lines between him and ISIC.

I mean, if you did this because you didn’t want to break immersion due to Kleese doing 90% of the radio chatter voice overs during this particular mission, well… hate to break it to you Gearbox, but that kinda adherence to immersion kinda goes “PHHHT!” anyways when you have more than one of the same character in a group! :]

In the above scenario I’d almost say it’s WORSE like this lmao, especially the end where ISIC goes:

“Oh good - you survived! I hope Kleese is watching, because when I’m done with you, he’s next…”

…And I keep wanting to say “I think it’s past time you reboot your primary CPU, ISIC - Kleese is standing right in front of you!” XD

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