Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Patch 6 Destroyed Player Agency with Astarion

From release day until now, fans of ascended Astarion have been accustomed to him being strong, dominant, yet GENTLE with the player whom he calls his “treasure” and “little love.” He says things like, “don’t worry, I’ll protect you,” “thank you for trusting me,” and “you need not fear anything.” He was on the evil side yes, but like vampires from the classics, he loved and adored his bride.

When becoming a spawn, the player can either ask Astarion “be gentle” to which he gently kisses their hand before making them a spawn, or the player can choose “oh come on, make it hurt” to which he sensually chokes the player in a sensual way before turning them to a spawn. This right here is called player agency, giving the player control over what side of this character they get. And ascended astarion has always had a gentle side you can choose.

Now, whoever has been put in charge of his romance (and it’s clear some staff changes have been made) has a personal vendetta and bias against ascended Astarion and yet none of the other evil characters. Evil shadowheart, evil gale, and evil minthara all have lovely gentle kisses and hugs, yet this person has chosen to destroy the romance with ascended Astarion. How is this bias not clear to everyone involved? Larian has always been about catering to the 1% of players, ascended Astarion should be catered to those who actually love choosing him and his path, not the players who hate him.

The animators have even chosen to make the player look scared and angry during ascended Astarion’s kisses, further taking away the ability to roleplay or choose. An evil style player or a dark urge for example wouldn’t want to react this way! And moreover, when you choose “oh come on, make it hurt” during the romance scene, it’s clearly implied that the player is enthusiastic about this pain, not scared. The scared expressions are completely out of place, who were they trying to please here? Because it’s clearly not the people who enjoy ascended Astarion.

I suggest giving the agency back to the player, if they chose “be gentle” when becoming a spawn, Astarion should keep his gentle kisses from before ascending, or even get a kiss where he kisses the players hand and bites the wrist before going in for a bloody kiss to mirror what he does in the spawn turning scene. If the player chooses “oh come on, make it hurt” then, and only then, should he give the rough kisses that were introduced with patch 6, and the scared expressions should be replaced with enthusiastic and passionate ones.

Please Larian, cater to the fans who are actively enjoying ascended Astarion, not the people who hate his character and wish to see ascended fans suffer. Don’t end it on such a bitter note for us.

I also want to add- the people begging Larian to keep these awful changes to “teach ascended fans a lesson” and saying it “serves them right,” absolutely boggle my mind. If you aren’t playing this path, why should it matter to you? Let everyone be happy. These people have more in common with cazador than ascended Astarion does. AA and UA have gone beyond simple good and evil at this point, there are two very impassioned groups of fans, and I feel at the end of all this both camps should have a story that makes them happy. You get a happy ending with all the other evil characters after all.

Agree with everything you've said, hopefully we can bring enough attention to this whole matter so that Larian can truly see how much it bothers us.

Also it's true about the other evil characters, Shadowheart for example, she doesn't suddenly 6 months after release, have new kisses for her evil route where she kicks or slaps Tav when she kisses him/her, and why is that? Why Astarion only? He slaps Tav, he chokes her, then he shakes his head like he thinks she is disgusting, I mean why? Why not let Shadowheart do the same on her evil route then.

Agreed, The sudden changes were out of the blue. These changes have unfortunately caused more hate and aggression towards ascended fans. Astarion was always manipulative and debatably toxic from act 1 all the way up to our choices. Of cours he'd be evil towards the rest of the world but ascended astarion just like spawn, Tav / Durge was always an exception to. The one he loved, the one he adored and everything in both paths mannerisms showed it. With Ascended Astarions "yes my treasure" swinging his arms like a smitten girl. How he seen sharing his power with you as a form of love.

Everyone else got amazing kisses and even ending kisses. But what did ascended Astarion get? Turned into DA / SA vibes that triggered PTSD victims. Thats not cool, thats not okay, no one wants that.
And Spawn Astarion only got one kiss so even his spawn version got screwed by the patch.

Please Cater to those who actually play the paths. Cater Spawn astarion to those who play spawn and ascended to those who play ascended. If you listen to people who don't even play the path Larian it just will ruin the path and make it unplayable.

All the other "Evil" routes, including the "evil" character minthara got treated with so much more love, care and affection with their kisses. They weren't villainized towards their lover like Astarion was.
its wrong on so many levels how Ascended Astarion has been treated and a huge disrespect and insult to the players who play his path.
Its also very inconsiderate when knowing the playerbase for Astarion has many MANY players who connected to his trauma with their own.

I couldn't log into the forum all day. Finally.
I completely agree with you. People who call for leaving everything as it is, they don’t play this way, they don’t understand the meaning of this relationship, they only talk about abuse and toxicity on the part of Astarion, but they didn’t even play it. It's disgusting. Larian listen to us, please, everyone deserves to enjoy the game and not be stressed.

I couldn't log into the forum all day. Finally.
I completely agree with you. People who call for leaving everything as it is, they don’t play this way, they don’t understand the meaning of this relationship, they only talk about abuse and toxicity on the part of Astarion, but they didn’t even play it. It's disgusting. Larian listen to us, please, everyone deserves to enjoy the game and not be stressed.

Agree with everything that has been said so far.

Totally agree with OP.
Other threads related to Ascended Astarion romance are full of people complaining about these new animations, many discord suggestions are the same.
I don't understand the wider communities response and so far Larian are ignoring us.
The game doesn't punish players for enjoying any other evil path and there would be a massive outcry if Larian changed DJ Shadowheart or Absolute Minthara to be sadistic towards Tav/Durge resulting in the player looking terrified by a kiss.
An outcry if it was anyone else at all really.
But for some reason its OK to punish players who enjoy Ascending Astarion and the community seems to think we deserve it?

We've been getting toxic comments aince release if we happen to mention we are romancing Ascended Astarion, we are told we need therapy by players who are not affected by OUR choices in OUR game in any way whatsoever. Countless variations of 'What did you expect?' type comments.
What I expected, as a much older happily married woman, was to have the same respect from other players that someone who chooses to massacre the grove or kills Nightsong gets: i.e. it's your game, you do you and enjoy it.
I'm playing a game not going into therapy for a real life choice.
Sadly these new kiss animations feed into this 'holier than thou' attitude from other players and the level of toxicity has sky rocketted.

I simply don't understand Larian's thinking here.
If we don't ask for a kiss nothing else about him has changed, he's in every other respect still gentle and loving albeit with a slightly more controlling and possessive side to his nature which doesn't massively change his personality.
These new sadistic kiss animations come out of nowhere and have appeared 6 months after the games release replacing his previous kisses, they are generally very unpleasant and Tav/Durge facial animation showing fear and anger simply don't fit into anything which surrounds him or his romance. Why would I be scared of him? I asked for the kiss in the first place.

As the OP says they have destroyed player agency. Forcing me to either never kiss him again or have something happening in my game which doesn't fit with anything else. Given I enjoy my dark romance with my vampire lord that only leaves me with one option really.

So I have taken to calling patch 6 the Valentines Day Sadism patch and am left completely bemused by it.

Agree! They should listen to the players who really enjoy Ascended Astarion and don't punish them for chosing the evil path in their romance! These players are the ones who are going to ask for those kisses in game and play them over and over again. Right now it just pushes the player away from that option, it's uncomfortable and triggering. Apparently everyone can enjoy new kisses for companions except people who choose to ascend him and that's not fair.

I think asking for Tav/Durge's face change is the easiest fix right now and I think most of us agree that would solve the matter.

I don't understand why some people think it's okay to see Tav's suffering face, like 'yea you deserve it'(!??) I guess they don't choose this version of his romance, and that's fine! but let others enjoy it like everyone else is doing with other companions romances.

The funny thing is that AA enjoyers apparently need to be punished, while those simping for Gortash (one of the villains of the story!) get rewarded with two Durge/Gortash lines who feel like they were taken from someone's fanfiction.


Agree. I really don't understand why they felt the need to push this agenda in something that's just fluff. The people playing the kisses over and over are those who want some romantic content. Who wants to watch "3 shades of domestic abuse" over and over? Who is the target group? Just fix the facial expressions, please!

I too desperately want them to fix the facial expressions. I 1000% support that and I hope that everybody on the forums gets what they want where that’s concerned. Not because I will ever be enjoying ascended (or otherwise) Astarion kisses, but because the concern seems justified. And also, comments about the one facial expression is flooding the boards, which is distracting from even more serious issues, like the utter brokenness of Minthara at this point, or bugs that I care more about, like Shadowheart’s broken Grymforge kiss. I do fully support the cause of altering the animation, and I hope that it gets fixed as soon as possible so that the fandom can move on to other things.

Couldn't have put it better!

Tav's facial expressions have been an object of criticism for years, I don't think we should expect to ever have control over these things. Tav has a personality, one we don't really get to influence.
Calling it 3 shades of domestic abuse is maybe a little unfair, Ascended Astarion isn't a nice fellow, and as someone who would have been interested in Astarion's evil path delving further into the schlock and exploitative nature of it would have been fine by me.

I disagree, Tav smiles during the night of the turn. It's a kiss. We already have enough triggering phrases in the dialog for Lord Astarion to see Tav's disgruntled face from Astarion's reaction. It's a kiss, Tav presses press-want, press-want.

Nothing spells peak romance content for Valentine's Day more than non-consensual kisses, censorship of a romance scene and the "you're my favourite" line that could potentially indicate you're suddenly part of a harem. Best patch ever!

Very strange really. I am not sure i understand the level of apparent dislike for the Ascension path from the developers. And why its suddenly appeared 6 months after game release.
Can only assume that someone at Larian has got a bee in their bonnet that Astarions ascended path is so horrendous that players must be reminded about its evilness at all times so they never do it again. Which makes me wonder why they have it in the first place really.

It's odd that no other evil path is getting similar treatment - why is this sudden moralising only aimed at Astarion?
There would be a massive outcry if Dark Justiciar Shadowheart suddenly turned into a control freak who only wants sex and no romance or affection - even though that would fit with that route through the game just as much, even more so actually as she does say quite early on that short term attachments cause less hassle - oh and such a personality change has to happen overnight of course.

I agree, as much as i hate the new facial expression of Tav, and desperately hope Larain could change it, i also would like to see more of karlach, i want to fix her heart so badly! and on the fourth run i finally got to recruit Minthara for the first time with raiding grove method, and now its bugged, she doesn't follow me at all, i am so sad...and my owlbear keeps disappearing in my camp:( and Halsin, he now sometimes just sits in the middle of the camp without his own tent.


Yes , i feel the same, i remember before patch 6 , when Tav makes the deal with harleep, and she (my Tav is a she) feels it when Harleep is using her body, both AA and UA express how he understands and sympathized with her, in the beginning i thought oh maybe Larian just forgot or was lazy to delete the AA dialog because he is supposed to be selfish and evil or something that would'nt care, but they actually did make sure AAs dialog although slightly different and sounding twisted in his own way but still show compassion for Tav meaning that Larian thought about it and decided that's how AA feels, that made me think : wait a second, so he is not a monster, he still has feelings!! not even mention he is the only one react to this incident with kind words.
I hope they didn't change this scene since patch 6 because that is really heartwarming , but its just so weird that they spend extra time and money to make sure no one chooses this route if that's their purpose, while UA only gets 1 or 2 new kisses and the interaction scenes and dialog are much less than AA.

Totally agree with you, Matagot, and everything that has been said by other Astarion fans in this thread!


Here on the players side this bias is more than obvious! If whoever is doing this has some personal associations with Astarion's behavior, and hatred for those who love such a character, then maybe they should change this Cazador to a professional scriptwriter who won't get back at the players (the player, by the way, paid money and is entitled to a good game, not to be a target for someone's aggression)? The best change Larian could make to Astarion's character would be other personnel changes in the scriptwriting staff.


Exactly, ONLY with Astarion. Everyone else is allowed. If I start the next walkthrough, and I go this time with a specific "evil", I will be "punished" for it only in the third chapter, when I kiss Astarion. No, of course, there is still some "emptiness" for "evil", maybe it will be a punishment for someone, but in my case there is enough emptiness, you can't pour more into the vessel than it will fit. You can kill everything alive, except for kitties, and there will be no difference between such a passage and the duplication of my last passage, when specifically "evil" actions were only the ritual of Ascension itself and a little bit of little things, like Gandrel and Gur (but this is more related to the ritual), all the others who did not harm Astarion, there was no "evil". The "punishment" would be a priori. Maybe someone on the writing team has some issues of their own with the "abusers" label they're trying to pin on Astarion, and hatred for those who stick up for such "abusers". If that's the case, I sympathize, of course, but it's very unprofessional, it's much better to go to therapy and help yourself rather than get even with the customer base (players, that's basically the customers who gave money for the game). Speculation is speculation, but no reasonable person can answer this question in terms of trivial plot logic...

Probably because male players would get pissed off in that case. Heterosexual men can do whatever they want in the game and they should be comfortable with it, that's the mass (if not the main audience according to the developers).


This "solution" just opened Pandora's Box, the trolls were told MAYBE. I don't think many of them even have anything to do with SA, it doesn't take any Astarion romance to learn a few spells about the "cycle of abuse" and stuff, it's all online. We're seeing real "victim blaming" now. Players are to blame because they bought the game, believed it was a great RPG (and it was)and... got the:


Now it's "our own fault" for playing the way we want, for making scripted choices. In my humble opinion, this is generally the first precedent for something like this - "punishing" players with sadism for making choices in a game. Correct me if I'm wrong, but there's never been anything like this in the gaming industry. Never.


It's simple. Who likes sadism? Sadists. The gaming industry should not cater to this category of individuals in games that fall under the "classic RPG" genre, and at the expense of other players who wanted to play in the "classic RPG" genre and not in some other genre...

These new kisses and the facial animations surrounding them are playing into the written and verbal abuse that Ascended Astarion romance players have always been victims of.
I don't think Larian understand the level of toxicity online in just about everything if a commenter goes against the perceived 'correct or right' way to do something or think about something, its nothing new but has seldom happened within a game specific community until BG3.

The game up to the end of the patch 5 updates provided what amounted to a Dark Romance path, we were loved, adored in some dialogues, we were not abused in any non consensual way.
Now we are.
The throat grab animation is horrendous, borderline psychotic and at the least it is sadistic and very triggering.
It is also completely unnecessary and doesn't in any way fit with Astarions character as determined throughout the game. Yes he can do evil things, yes he's a vampire but the player is never a victim to him, we agreed to his ascension, we helped him achieve it, we knelt consensually when he turned us.
He didn't make us do anything - now suddenly he's an abuser.
Tav/Durge facial animations and body language, standing there not touching him with hands curled into fists, is making us a victim of this abuse.
We are not victims, we love him, we are his partner, nothing in his dialogues throughout the ascended path makes us a victim, we should be able to touch him and look happy.

Ok so game wants us to believe that our choices make us a victim but this is an RPG not a morality play or a soap opera where the player has no autonomy.
We are as entitled to enjoy our route through the game as any other player is.
If these new animations and facial expressions are to please sadists rather than mainstream players then I fear for the future of this game.

I am unlikely to play patch 6 or any further patches if this isn't fixed. I tried it out when it first updated and the disappointment with how Larian have treated the Ascended Romance path has not compensated for any other improvements. I am one of the lucky ones as my game was backed up on a free standing. I have reverted to patch 5 and will be ignoring updates till I have finished this run and will likely move on to other things.
Multiple forum threads, multiple discord threads, multiple feedbacks from many players, a survey, multiple u-tubers disliking these new animations to one degree or another - but from the developers?
Nada
A company that won a Game of the Year award for communication has apparently forgotten that communication is supposed to be a two way beast.