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

“Patch 7 also aims to fix several bugs that you have reported, including Jaheira’s unwillingness to follow the group and jump into combat, Wyll’s less-than-romantic greetings, as well as the mysteriously disappearing Narrator lines from the Gortash and Dark Urge confrontation, to name a few”.

I really hope that our problem, which has also been repeatedly reported by many players, will be fixed after all, despite the fact that unfortunately the developers didn't state it directly in their Patch 7 announcement. Wyll's less-than-romantic greetings - this certainly needs fixing, but Astarion's completely unromantic mental illness, sudden and merciless "short-term kisses", clearly requires speedy treatment no less. And logically, much more, since no one gets triggered by an unromantic greeting, but these "kisses" do.

I wish Larian would say something about the Patch 6 kisses. In part mention. Anything.

Many people have been really hostile to us and although it probably is only a small part of the combined number of people in the game community it feels like it is the whole gang. I think for a lot of us the feeling of being excluded and alienated from a community hurts the most, or at least is a big part of the hurt. And with the Patch 6 kisses and the silence that follows it gives the impression that the devs agrees with the number of people being hostile and hurtful to us for playing the game in a way that differ from the main gang. Even though it is just that we take path A instead of path B, and dare to enjoy it.

I do not think... rather I can not believe the devs agree with those people ganging up on a number a players for choosing "Path A". But the feeling is still there. I feel judged and found lacking.

Only BG3 action for me is through watching Neil Newbon and Tom deVille live. Although I have to admit I sometimes pass on it when I just can't stomach the community. Usually after having read some toxic AA discussion (I really try to avoid those).

I have to say this forum have probably saved me from deleting the game after that initial horrible week and it's mainly because of everyone here who have shown support for us AA romance fans. And everyone bravely sharing the impact Patch 6 has had on them, both those with past trauma and not. If it was just me feeling like my character suddenly and repeatedly got OOC in the most horrible way I would probably just bury the game and mark the grave with "for your own sanity, never touch again". It may yet happen, but I hope not.

We just want to play different games. That's all there is to it. Somehow, someway, two completely different audiences have converged right in the middle of BG3.

What attracted you to this game is not what attracted me, and vice versa.

Isn't it fascinating that the developers of BG3 were able to bring together such opposing groups. Through much of the game we are seemingly in sync, but here our differences are largely irreconcilable. I would suggest that this is the flaw to Larian's "appease everyone" approach.

In general, I suspect that many of the things I dislike about BG3 would be things you enjoy. Yet I still love the game. Because I think it's great despite those things, which means the great part of the game has a lot of weight its carrying (making it all the more impressive).

I know what I find myself passionate about in this game. I wonder, I can't help but wonder, which parts of the game are you passionate about and why? I'd like to make an effort to understand your point of view.

Yep. I haven't even finished my resist Durge run. I've never encountered the level of hostility in a gaming community than I have with this one specific fandom. It's so extreme and patch 6 has made it so much worse.

There's nowhere left to enjoy the fandom. Even the Ascension specific spaces get brigaded and screenshots get taken to laugh at and mock the people in the mainstream fandoms. Which is bizarre to me because AA is pretty mild and vanilla compared to other villain fandoms.

I'm not going to RP being abused. I'm sorry to the the fans that seems to deeply upset, but I've had enough abuse for a life time. I could happily play the game pre patch. Post patch, those faces, coupled with the never ending dogpiling just made it so unenjoyable.

We get it. The larger fandom does not like us. They do not want us. We're the entire fandoms punching bag. But being told over and over that I need to either admit I like abuse, or that I'm too stupid to see it, is enough to put me off the game. If they want to fix it, fine. But at this point, they had plenty of time to at least address the continuous complaints and they didn't. I'm not gonna be eager to partake in their content going forward.

It does say a lot more about them than it does about us. When someone is playing a game, without hurting anyone else it is not right to dictate and bully them just because it differs from their own PT and game(/world) views. It is obvious and should be obvious to any normal thinking human.

When it gets to the point of them taking screenshots and mocking individuals I would argue it's more about them janking their own pleasure stick or button, than it is about the game itself.

It would be much easier for us if the kisses was adressed in some way from the devs that's for sure.

I'll try to summarize it. Literally from the very first moments of BG3 captured me with its liveliness, variety of options, elaboration of details - everything you need for full immersion in the game world. It seemed to me at first that the level of immersion and opportunities for roleplaying are on the level of a real DnD, with great visuals, especially the faces and emotions of the characters, thanks to mocap and excellent acting. It's like the companion breaks the fourth wall and speaks to you through the screen, there are real human emotions on his face, it's interesting to photograph and look at it frame by frame to better feel and understand. I perceived and perceive Astarion as alive, I rejoice in his joy and suffer from his pain, this has never happened to me before, of course, all RPGs had their favorites that I cared about, studied their stories in detail and made their quests as best as possible for them, but Astarion became a special case. I can say that Astarion is the one I liked the most in BG3. Why? Perhaps the fact that he was played by a real person (and Neil is an excellent actor), his heavy and compelling story, played a part. While the same can be said for the other companions, at first, before all those stories with humiliating "burning endings" and stuff, I liked all of them, to one degree or another. Larian really managed to create Personalities, to show them alive, and why a particular player can love or hate this or that personality, it is already a question of human psychology, but the mechanisms of attachment, thanks to this vividness of images, I think, the same as in ordinary, real life.

Separately on the gameplay aspects - awesome combat system. In Act 3, the battles are too easy, but so in all RPGs almost happens when you overpump, it's used to. Dynamism and variation of actions in battle at the highest level. There are no complaints about the gameplay at all - everything is great. The central storyline at the first playthrough is also impressive, when the Keeper turns out to be the Emperor, the Emperor turns out to be Balduran - it's cool. In general, if I, as an avid fan of RPGs and DnDs, had not been suddenly hit with a "tool" ("Tav is a narrative tool", etc.), although in the description of the game, it is written that it is an RPG and expectations were appropriate, I probably would have considered the whole plot of the game wonderful.

Additionally, I want to clarify - I am not a fan of vampire themes specifically (well, or was not before Astarion), I am a fan of realism in fantasy. When instead of templates of "good", "evil" in the world there are living characters that do not fit into narrow frames of alignment, something like what George Martin once did in his "Game of Thrones". Stephen Rooney did the same thing with Astarion, and I really appreciate this author's work.

The romance in the game (if I take patch 6 out of my memory and close my eyes and skip through some scenes) has an aspect that I liked as well, namely the deep personal interactions with my favorite companion. Despite many other aspects that I don't like at all, having to say, "No" to multiple characters on a regular basis was generally not such a terrible price to pay for being able to personally interact with Astarion. Plus, I understand that the game should have different options for everyone, and as long as I'm not personally touched and can avoid it, the developers can introduce whatever they want, as long as they manage to strike a balance and pay attention to other aspects of the game too.

And overall I couldn't agree more about the game being great, to be honest my anger was largely due to the fact that due to the bullying of patch 6 I can no longer play it, and I want to play it. If the game wasn't great I would have abandoned it, maybe I would have written one critical review, maybe not, I often abandon games that disappoint me and just forget about them, and BG3 I don't want to abandon and forget.

Observing the fandom puts me, to be honest, in a bit of a stupor. As someone who is familiar with the techniques and mechanisms of propaganda, seeing familiar manifestations within a fictional world is, to put it mildly, unexpected. The very behavior of the people you're talking about surprised and annoyed me at first, too - the cruelty, the joy of breaking someone's game, the moralizing and so on... I've never considered games as a social phenomenon before, on the contrary, as a break from reality, and maybe it's just a coincidence, and I see signs of a familiar phenomenon simply because people tend to find similarities to what they know in what they encounter, but still... Judge for yourself:

1. Manipulation of public opinion. Present in some form. Take any article in any game magazine dedicated to Astarion's choice (player's choice in relation to Astarion, Astarion himself in the game is given the choice to make, as we know, a clear minority of players), there will definitely be written about how good it is for him to give up the ritual, or about the "cycle of abuse", sometimes they even try to say, like a small child, that when Astarion burns - it's actually good for him. It's the bittersweet version. Maybe authors just adjust to the "majority" and write in a way that the majority will be more comfortable reading, I myself have sometimes written articles to make money, on topics I have absolutely no interest in, and I realize that people just take the same patterns from each other, because that's the job. One single honest magazine wrote about the traumatizing content that appeared in the game after patch 6, without touching on the discussion of the correctness of this or that choice, for which he sincere human thanks.

2. Ideological cliché. The arguments made by proponents of the need to leave Astarion in a state of spawn look a lot like clichés and are constantly repeated:

1. Ascended Astarion is Cazador 2.0.

2. You continue the cycle of abuse.

3. You have failed to save him from himself.

4. He doesn't love Tav.

5. He lost his soul in the ritual/he's not himself.

6. You justify the abuse by loving him.

7. He's toxic, I sympathize with you because you'll probably have a relationship like this in real life.

8. He's trapped forever.

9. You are his Spawn, he is your master, he controls you!

10. AA should be killed.

If you want to argue, you don't have to put effort into each response, but take the time to break down each argument individually, keep it with you somewhere, and then paste the blanks as needed. The chance of encountering something new is extremely small. I really don't think arguing with them makes much sense, there used to still be some room for what could be called discussion, but it's curious just to compare posts on different sites. On the one side - regularly repeated clichés (not always, of course, and I don't mean this forum, I mean more like the mainstream "general mass"). On the minority side, you can see that it is written "from themselves", their own opinion and their own conclusions, all have their own "author's handwriting". Just in case I clarify that regularly repeated in the posts of AA supporters, references to the fact that Astarion without Ascension burns in the sun and experiences hunger, are not clichés, but are repetition of concrete facts. A fact differs from a cliché in that a fact cannot be disputed, a fact exists, while a cliché has no concrete factual evidence, it is an opinion expressed in a concise form, presented as some kind of "truth".

3. Demagoguery (Ad hominem, argumentum ad hominem, argument to a person). Appeal to a person (Latin argumentum ad hominem - "argument to a person") is a logical fallacy in which an argument is refuted by pointing to the character, motive, or other attribute of the person making the argument, or of a person associated with the argument, instead of pointing to the failure of the argument itself, objective facts, or logical reasoning. Ad hominem is contrasted with argumentum ad substance - ad rem - or argumentum ad veritatem - ad objective truth. While argumentum ad rem is aimed directly at substantiating the claim being proved, argumentum ad hominem is used with the aim of winning an argument against a particular opponent or opponents. This includes clichés about "toxic relationships" and:


4. And, "big lie." Defined as a lie so "huge" that it's hard to believe anyone could lie like that. Our infamous "kisses of the Ascended Astarion." Yeah, maybe it's just a mistake and hype. It just looks that way, very much so. Yes, the rules of DnD 5 say about vampires losing their humanity, but then Larian is a very inconsistent DM sinning "masterful arbitrariness". According to these rules, vampires lose their humanity at the moment they turn spawn, not during one or another of the vampire status upgrades. If the DM first ignores these guidelines by showing Astarion (and other spawns, the game even has the diaries of an overly kind vampire, Cazador's niece) otherwise, shows exactly what a living character of a living human being just having the state of "vampire", i.e. the physical rather than mental effects of that state, but then suddenly dehumanizes the character, in three scenes related to the romance alone, that's not called "showing a true vampire". Also, it's much more like trying to "set the point" in an "about an abuser" novella than it is an appeal to the 5th edition rules.

5. Labeling. Propaganda uses labeling to create fear or prejudice in the public about something. The purpose of this is to create a negative opinion of a certain group or certain ideas. Conclusions that are not based on an unbiased analysis of the facts are provoked through this method. "Astarion is an abuser" - you're welcome.

It's really sad that Astarion is being used for this purpose. And what, in the end, does it matter to anyone how people experience the game? There will be no economic benefit or increase in game sales from this, certainly not. To show players "red flags" and what relationships can and cannot be done? At the expense of the consumers themselves, who up to this point have been enjoying their game, which they bought to play and not to "learn about relationships"? Eh, if for this purpose the willing author wrote their own character, maybe another "abuser" would turn out realistic, and with Astarion could be quietly and happily played...

Please consider this point of view to be solely the personal opinion of the author. All names and events are fictitious, and all coincidences may just be coincidences. I really want to be completely wrong and see the content fixed in patch 7. And finally rest in the game and enjoy the company of Astarion.

The game as a whole is great. The gameplay, the visuals, the variety (races, classes, and other things). The story (even if there are some aspects I am perplexed with). The ambiance (and I like that the music is present with a nice subtlety). The amount of work all involved produced, the talent on display, makes it a big sum even if some parts are a bit of a problem for some on occasion.

I like something relatively coherent in a game, most of all when I try to roleplay a certain character (I prefer custom ones, with various backstories and takes on life or morality) or go for some romances. This game is quite long, and sometimes it can be a bit disheartening to give something a try, only to have it put a bit off balance after so many hours spent.

From what I've experienced and read, the problem for this particular bit is simple. Before patch 6, the game offered a continuation of the romance with Astarion after his Ascension people were usually fine with. Patch 6 introduced three new repeatable kisses, all charged and with a problematic expression on the player character's face. It was a romance gift, other companions had theirs too. Only my opinion, but when you experience them yourself and you are not too easily bothered, they just look like a bad attempt at "hey, some liked the kinky stuff, like the kneeling bit when becoming a spawn".

I have some problems with it. I would say that, yes, it can be problematic for the roleplay. It also tends to depict a strange vibe, that can be ignored by not asking for a kiss, which makes the whole a bit weird if your character is very enthusiastic in the dynamic in general. It can happen before you became a spawn (if you ask before you've been to rest, from what I've experienced). And since it started with the kneeling one, which I interpret as a throwback at what there is when he turns your character, it makes it happening when human very cheap. The repeat of it all, with the dynamic between the two changing potentially so much compared to the rest of the romance, augments the bad cartoonish vibe.

That is without talking about the fact it impacted some people more than me. And the fact that yes, I've read a lot of people taking this kisses as a moral commentary on those who went with that path, which is in my opinion quite frankly misunderstanding what the complaint was about in the first place. And that idea, that those kisses are a moral commentary, that's just that. We haven't heard anything from Larian (and honestly, I have to admit, it doesn't leave me with the best feeling, but hey).

Personally, I've tried a few custom characters. I've tried a few romances too. I guess I could avoid ascended Astarion if it bugs me, but in retrospect with a past run now I have characters in mind who would work well with that bit of story. I could metagame too, but honestly, I think it would be a shame. I don't think it's too much to hope for clarifications, and a way to enjoy that part of the content in the game. In a serious and coherent way. Without too much dissonance when compared to before patch 6 (as I said, I wouldn't even mind something more antagonistic and the like, but that would be too much change to what was already there, so less probable). I hope we hear from them, or see with patch 7.

It also looks as if the authors are not interested at all in what Astarion's audience likes or dislikes. Or some of their own ideas about the audience as people who choose which character to love and how to decide his fate, based on some erotic preferences, as a toy. The real feelings of people, the possibility of deep immersion in the game and a serious, sincere attitude to a favorite companion, seems to be completely disregarded. At the same time for some players (including me) it looks more like a deliberate mockery, like "it looks like someone doesn't like our beautiful and dramatic good for the world option, someone cares about Astarion's well-being more than all our rules of "healthy relationships" and 7000 spawns, now your Astarion will arrange for you, you'll find out who you are and who he is". The victim-Tav's facial expressions and body language are shown in far too much quality and detail. Astarion's facial expressions also evoke some painful emotions when he looks at you like that, especially after shoving Tav away contemptuously. I would have liked to see such expressions on Astarion's face in the cutscenes towards our enemies, it would have made his image even more proud and predatory, but not towards myself. I can accept Astarion's dominance if that's how he plays and it makes him happy, but here Astarion isn't playing either, at least this game isn't very good, and Tav clearly doesn't accept that. But if I stand back and evaluate the scenes in terms of cold logic (which is not easy to do, especially in my game) then yes, it looks, as you said, very cheap and cartoonish.

I also think that the idea that kissing is a moral commentary is largely a consequence of the fact that the high degree of sexualization of the game attracts a lot of players who are not even familiar with the basic principles of the RPG genre. You wrote about going through the game with different characters, with different romances and choices. An RPG game always gives such options. Spoiling one playthrough, creating conditions that make any of the choices impassable, is a sign of a bad RPG, what deserves comment in this case is what spoils the game, not the players who cannot now experience that playthrough. I'm probably too monogamous a character by nature and I don't get to experience different romances in my playthroughs, I just don't want any other romantic companion other than Astarion, but that doesn't stop me from roleplaying different characters and making different choices in other plot points in the game, I never even got to play Dark Urge. I'm also very attracted to the honor mode, I really wanted to experience this feeling of the most realistic game, when every wrong decision can be fatal, and you have to watch and accept the consequences of failed dice rolls, like in DnD. In the end one unfortunate patch just cuts off the oxygen, I have to stop playing, and just wait and ponder - will they give me a chance to come back and experience everything I planned, or will I have to give up, completely hate it all, and go to another game, and yes, I already have another game, a good RPG, where for sure, I know from the reviews that everything will be fine. But - it won't have Astarion in it. And the fact that I was only able to complete one playthrough with him, albeit a very long and detailed one, exploring every corner of the game world, where we looked in every chest, and I read every book out loud... To him. Only one playthrough, and thank goodness I made it, I might not have made it.

Man are gamers so self entitled these days.
Move on.
I did and playing BG2 again. Which I actually prefer; refreshingly simple yet deep. Plus the content keeps evolving thanks to over two decade of modding, something that will never happen due to BG3's cinematic structure. Your stuck with Larian's choices, live with that.

So you made an effort to come in this room with your 'move on' message. I would thank you, but I would mean it in deeply insincere sarcastic terms so I probably won't bother.

As a by the by I make mods for other games so I know exactly what 'entitled' looks like.

You play your way and the people who express different ideas, including myself, will play our way.

Rpg's have choices yes?

I completely support OP and this message! Larian, please do look into this, as the lack of player agency here is deeply troubling indeed.

I noticed this already well before Patch 6 dropped and - frankly - I stopped playing altogether after that patch.

First time I noticed it was when I ascended Astarion in my very first playthrough. I was very much taken aback and concerned with the CLEAR LACK of range when it comes to responses to AA during and after he makes Tav his spawn. Just looking at the responses it is so jarring because everywhere around, Larian made damned sure to think of - and cater to - any and all proclivities the player might exhibit. Aside from here. Here, the player - like a child being schooled - needs to be taught a lesson, needs to be held down and have a singular perspective shoved down their throats, character agency be damned! Although that left a bad taste in my mouth already, I was able to play through it still, whilst putting the questions this part of the game prompted to the back of my mind - hey, perhaps I'm just imagining things?

Then Patch 6 dropped. And as BG3 has been a thing helping me get through some tough personal things that happend to occur at the same time as BG3 release, as much as I love the game, with this Patch, I stopped playing. The insanely forced OOC of these kissed was the straw that broke this camel's back after all. Unless this is addressed, I do not see myself returning to the game, sadly.

Today I got a notion to poke my head in and see what's up. And even though Patch 7 is still some time from being released, it warms my heart to see you all here, saying things I myself thought a thousand times but assumed I'm in too small a minority to find people who understand, to have somewhere to voice them. I think we all should keep the posts coming, keep discussing it and letting the devs know WE ARE HERE. Whether this helps or not, at least we will know that we did our best.

And that, indeed, we are not alone.

Yes, gamers and people in general these days… Writing comments in the category “suggestions and feedback” on dedicated forums, to mainly just try and give that. Regarding something (not that vital) added with patch 6, when there was no big problem for people before. And when they are still potentially working on a few bits here and there. I don’t see the problem, to be honest, but maybe it’s just me.

I agree with the moment there’s the conversation about becoming his spawn. The character I had wasn’t a paragon of virtue, but she certainly wasn’t scheming to become a spawn or a vampire. She wasn’t into the “your body” option either, those basis had been covered. And then, giving him a moral lecture (as if she hadn’t helped), or being offended or something like that. Which now, to avoid dissonance, would tend to inform my choice of character in another run (to be so interested in being a spawn or a vampire, and I’m not that interested in the other options, that would prove a bit too unstable for my liking, and if they objectify him so much they’re not romancing him anymore…). I would have been fine with “oh, I don’t know, I’m fine thanks” (which could be calculated or not).

And then, I can ask him to be gentle during the changing scene, or to make it hurt. Anyway, he rolls with the choice. Then in those new kissing scenes, it just reflects one side of it. And barely, since it now seems to be a chore for the player character. I know they said it was to reflect the companions and their personality more, and I’m not too perturbed by those scenes and his part in them themselves. I would just like to have it make a bit more sense, for the roleplay in this case to not be such a struggle (immersion and suspension of disbelief wise). And for my character to not be just a prop sometimes (or at least make it good, direct and ambiguous where it matters).

I think, or hope, that there might be at least a small fix possible in this instance (neutral expression, change of camera angle, putting back the previous kiss in rotation or something like that). They do what they want and can. We’ll see.

I agree with OP. BG3 is successful and attracts so many players from all over the world with different backgrounds, everyone can have a different understanding of this character: relationships, kind and evil, power and freedom, traumas, sexual fetish, literature and art, story logic, multi-demension of humanity, etc. Why Larian made changes of a character in a patch when the game has been launched for about 6 months, just trying to teach players how to understand the character and how to play?? There are a thousand Hamlets in a thousand people's eyes. Please don’t try to stuck your Hamlet into my mind.

I choose to romance with AA not SA because the SA story logic makes me confused: a vampire spawn get redemption within one day after rolling 15/18, and get cured his 200 years of trauma within 6 months. Now patch 6 makes my story logic broken the same way in AA line: before transforming tav into a spawn, AA says “Thank you, you have given me everything”, and the next day he says”You’re so beautiful, and you will be beautiful forever”, “You will be stronger, swifter, sharper, but you won’t be different. You were already perfect before. It’s hard to improve”, AA loves and appreciates tav, while tav’s facial expression at this point is pleasant and confident. Mood is here, let’s kiss, suddenly AA becomes an abuser chokes and slaps tav, while tav becomes a sufferer with scared and angry face…What’s the point?? Where is the logic?? Everything changed so fast, even much faster than “6 months cured 200 years”. Both AA and SA lines make me confused, both AA and SA become flatter, emptier, and one-dimensional character now.

I completely agree with your post and actually feel the same way. In my first playthrough, I too "fell" out of immersion in the game in the dialog scene after the Ascension. I don't like to critically analyze the scenario of the game in the process of passing, especially the first pass, I like to just feel and "live in the game", and to understand the plot twists later, after completing at least one run, but here this immersion was instantly "broken" and a poor quality scenario came before my eyes. It completely interrupted the story, because I saw those lines and couldn't think of anything else but: "What is this even? Who wrote this? There's never been anything like this before..." Really, I didn't question it then, I just said my own, appropriate line out loud to Astarion, clicked my mouse on that unfortunate "body" and continued. Especially since there was a wonderful happy walkthrough, Astarion opened up, squared his shoulders, even his movements and posture became more confident. Playful lines with charming movements ("Yes, my treasure?"), deep and serious declarations of love ("Aeterna Amantes. Lovers forever, until the world falls down"), the kiss of the 5th patch, so sincere, with such a loving look of Astarion... The bad quality of the script of the scene after the Ascension was somehow forgotten, although I considered this approach to script writing, when another author writes romantic scenes for the character, not quite right, in my opinion, it is much better when one original author creates and writes the character from the beginning to the end, in this case the image will be whole and there will be no such problems. Nevertheless, there were some lovely romantic lines, like Astarion's lines, and of course, "You gave me everything. Thank you," so heartfelt, sincere and seriously spoken that it's impossible to forget, more than made up for the one moment of falling from the magical world into the world of a poorly written script.

And then patch 6 destroyed everything. Everything, even the former enthusiasm for the game. Even to the question of what I like in the game, I now have a hard time answering, I have to think and remember, and what was good at all? Although before I could probably cite a lot of scenes, situations, some emotional moments and other things, these "kisses" erased half of the positive emotions about the story. All that's left is a love for Astarion and, really, a desire to do my best, as I once wanted to do my best for him within the game world.


That's a very good point. I honestly see the logic in SA's story. Where do we see him being cured? They say he is being cured, that's a yes. But what we see in front of us, if we play this route or watch the scenes carefully, is a man depressed, a man resigned, who has nothing more to want and nothing good awaits him anymore, and he realizes it. We see the mask, the acting, we hear the lines in which Astarion says what the so-called "good hero" wants to hear. We see his self-deprecation and contempt for himself in the graveyard scene, "Thank you for your patience," as if he cannot be loved, but can only be "tolerated." He expects betrayal, he thinks Tav might leave him, he says so in the epilogue, he continues to play and hide his feelings under a mask, as he did before and as he used to do. His tears in the scene of abandoning the ritual are the most bitter, there is a grimace of real pain on his face, then there is doom and a certain detachment, weariness... It is the grimace of pain of a man who has lost everything. There's no hope anymore. And the final scene at the docks fits well into this plot. Sure, the players don't like it, and it's a complete lack of roleplay opportunity, but from the outside, the behavior of the "narrative tool" Tav in this scene fits well with the overall plot of this story. Astarion isn't important, the world around him and the opportunity to "do good" is far more important, defeating the Brain and saving the city is more important, and it's worth celebrating with friends. Astarion can be condescended to later. Tav is very condescending to Astarion in the unascended epilogue scene. The SA kisses I personally have no excitement or envy for, it's completely different from the 5 patch kiss. There's not the look that Astarion had back then, there's a distance between Tav and Astarion - they don't touch bodies, just like in the embrace with SA at the party. I don't mean to offend anyone, everyone can perceive their walkthrough in their own way, as you rightly said, "There are a thousand Hamlets in a thousand people's eyes". But if I'm put in front of a choice - to play this "good way" or to play with the Ascendant and these kisses, to agonize and catch my own triggers (well, in case for some fictitious reason it's impossible not to play), I'll go to catch triggers and spoil my psyche, but I won't go along the SA line. But that's me and to each their own. One cannot force players to play the "right" way, one can only turn them away from the game. One cannot make them see Astarion as the aggressor with three senseless and brutal scenes devoid of any logic, one can only make them change their opinion of the creators of such content drastically.

But maybe, of course, it was just hype, a misunderstanding of D/s, the notion that players choose this route purely for D/s and a general desire to make a "sexy" patch to play on the audience's instincts and take maximum votes and awards as a result. Most liked it, took the awards. Some people got hurt in the process, no big deal, big companies, alas, are usually interested in profit, fame and satisfaction of mass audience. Nowadays, unfortunately, we should be cautious about high-budget expensive games in general, you can be in the minority. Hopefully, since the awards have been taken, got what they needed, it is now possible to fix those "kisses" after all? After all, even if that audience that was tortured a bit won't be customers in the future, that audience has a right to be able to enjoy the product they've already paid money for.

I would like to think, though we are a small number of players who are asking for something, there are many others who are out there staying silent because they don't want to be harassed for their preferred choices on how to play the game. We have 2 posts we honestly, as the people who play this particular path of the game, want to be fixed. We have been asking for the changes for quite some time as well.

1. The patch 6 kisses. That is pretty easy to understand if you read throughout this thread why many of us do not like them. We have offered many different solutions to make our request a reality since February 16th. So, please Larian, do not brush aside our requests and suggestions. We are giving you the feedback properly.

2. The after ascension Tav responses: There is another thread on this, but just to state that we do not like them and have not liked the Tav dialogue since they came out as far back as Patch 3 or so. It has been an ongoing issue. There are a great many choices to choose from that are suggested or even revert the change made to the original ones. That is in the Astarion options dialogue thread.

3. We just want to be able to enjoy this path of the game even though we are a minority, we believe Larian when they say that even if only 1% of the player base sees this, then we are happy that we saw their work and dedication. We just want to return to the game that we love. We really are not asking for much and it is not something that will bother anyone else other than the people who play this particular path of the game.

4. Please Larian, hear our pleas for the fixes as we have been requesting them for a long time. We want our player agency back and want to play the game we had to quit playing due to some controversial choices made by the studio itself. Please.

Thank you.

I know I’m several months late to the AA kiss discussion, but I hope it’s okay that I share my two cents now. I’ll try not to go too nuts.

I didn’t start BG3 until earlier this year when I started seeing some of the ascended content on Instagram and I was like, “Yeah this is probably for me.” The one thing that gave me pause was that a lot of comments on AA content were along the lines of either shaming people who ascend him because it’s not the “happy” ending the Astarion “deserves,” or someone saying something like, “I tried ascending him but found the subsequent scenes to be so disturbing that I went back and redid it.” But at this point, I was super early in the game and only have time to play for an hour or two a day, if that, so I knew I had plenty of time to decide what to do.

I’m not going to bore you too much with my headcanon for my Tav, but I made really deliberate choices based on it. She’s not a DU, but I saw her story as a gradual fall from grace and played it as such, because the game allowed me to do so. I picture her as someone who has always tried to be morally good, even at the expense of her own happiness, but then she meets Astarion and especially in the face of this horrible tadpole issue, his “me first” attitude is really appealing to her. She wouldn’t see someone she needs to fix or make better, but someone who she could learn something from about finally putting her own desires first. Her background has also made her really adverse to telling any of her companions what to do, and I enjoyed playing things as neutral as possible (I really hated that scene where Tav has to make the choice for Wyll on whether to break his pact. Why is it up to them?). And she especially abhors the idea that anyone else dictates morality to her (for example, she would have been really angered by Nettie insisting she poison herself in order to do the right thing. Big talk coming from someone whose tribe is about to abandon an entire refugee camp in order to save their own skins).

Then a couple weeks ago, the time for ascension came and all the Insta comments I read were really messing with my head. At this point, Tav had decided that she would help Astarion ascend, but would not shackle herself to him, but from a meta perspective, why the hell have I taken her this far only to back out then? But when I saw the expression on her face when she connected with Astarion to see his scars, that cinched it for me. I knew something broke in her. And then especially after the Gur confrontation, when the leader lectured Tav about morality when there is no way her people wouldn’t have killed their now-spawn children, when Tav was the one with the decency to look them in the eye and tell them she was sorry for what happened to them. Honestly, how freaking dare they? After all that, she still understands what she’s getting into. She still understands that being Astarion’s consort means there are certain limitations to her future. But at this point, she would much rather do that than be by herself in a world she can no longer relate to. Astarion has absolutely corrupted and twisted her worldview, but she couldn’t be happier about it. The game gave me every opportunity to back out and say I regretted helping him, and I took none of them because I didn’t want to.

So yeah, long story short, the kisses were really jarring. She has consented every step of the way. *I* have consented every step of the way. If I was ever uncomfortable with what was going on, I could switch the game off, or reload and make a different choice. But I didn’t, and so the fact that there’s no option for these kisses to look like anything other than a weird random instance of outright abuse, among what otherwise reads like a really dark and kinky but consensual power play, is baffling to me. It just reads so oddly alongside some of AA’s lines that Tav doesn’t react to negatively, or even outright reacts positively (thinking in particular of her smirk when he tells her they’ll be drinking each other’s blood). I don’t even understand who they’re for. If you’ve ascended him and have stayed with him, I struggle to think of a significant portion of that population who would then go, “You know what I want? To feel bad about my decision. That sounds like a fun way to play this.”

At this point I’m close enough to the end that I don’t think I’ll back out now just because of the kisses. When I do choose to have them kiss, I tend to selectively look away, or try to read her expressions more charitably. But if the kisses were fixed, I might honestly play again as the same character (making slightly different decisions to match the headcanon I’ve developed during my gameplay). I don’t know if a mod exists for the PC version (I’ve been playing on PS5), but if there is one, I’d consider playing it on PC just to take advantage of that.

Anyway, sorry for the literal essay. This game has been really important to me. It’s been a way for me to release a lot of emotions that I’ve held for decades in a way that feels safe and freeing, except for this one thing that puts a damper on it. I feel disappointed that this one thing makes me feel judged by the game itself for playing it in a way that it allows.

Thanks if you read all this. I’ll go through this thread as time allows. I’m really looking forward to reading everyone’s perspectives and it’s good to know I’m not alone in being annoyed by the “UA is the only real Astarion and anything else is a literal war crime but also if you want to romance Minthara that’s cool” pundits.

I wanted to clarify - was the dialog better before the third patch? I just got to this place for the first time somewhere around patch four. I'm curious what the previous options were. Just as I'm wondering why mess with the game and change the lines to worse ones. By the way, the intimate scene after Ascension was also according to many reviews originally better, and then they started cutting it down, changing the angle and blurring it. There is no need to spend extra money to bring back the old content to the game if everything has already been done, and if the new is worse than the old, it would be the right decision to give players back the old version.

A small addition about returning what used to be a better experience - when I started the game, the camera would stay on the companion after dialog, and I liked that. Then the camera started jumping abruptly to Tav, not giving me a chance to admire Astarion. I understand that other players may like to look at their Tav, which they have diligently created, but if the game used to have a camera on the companion, then there is such an opportunity, and it is worth giving players the choice, for example, with the help of the selection button in the game menu, to determine the position of the camera themselves, I like to look at Astarion's face after the end of the dialog, and I would like to return such an opportunity.


Absolutely agree. The consumer has the right to use the purchased product as he or she sees fit. To restrict the consumer, much less make the option of enjoying the game impossible, violates the consumer's rights. If it bothers someone who uses the purchased product differently (simply put, doesn't exalt Astarion or have romance with him), then it shouldn't be of concern to the company making the product, nor should it be of concern to other consumers. A game company should consider the interests of all players, paying attention to making the game playable in the first place, and certainly not injure or harm users.


Really? I've seen their "happy ending". If Astarion deserves such torment and treatment in their opinion, then I want to be "shamed", it would be scary to be praised, honestly. I don't want to offend anyone, much less call for some "shaming", it's just... curious. And yes, I had that feeling of happiness in my scene on the docks, in the sunshine, when a cheerful and proud after the victory Astarion calls for a drink in the tavern... Perhaps this contrast from the previously seen videos of the docks scene with UA, among others, adds a considerable amount of enjoyment and satisfaction to my own game. I think there is nothing wrong with enjoying my game, in life we can also sometimes in a good moment think about "how bad it could have been if..." and it only adds to the joy of the current state, because this "if" didn't happen. The player can have that kind of game experience as well, and it's weird to make the player feel bad in other moments to block them from getting there, it's clearly not an option for a good RPG game. And for me personally, many of the moments after Tav talks Astarion out of the ritual seem so disturbing that I couldn't avoid spoilers in my first go at it, and of course helped him Ascend. When on the one hand - " spawn forever", hunger, burning, vulnerability, depression and so on, and on the other "scarecrows" with the "inequality of relationships" (we'll figure it out somehow, in the headcanon Tav will then have both lines and facial expressions of her own, and much more, and there's plenty of time). Especially since all this "inequality" before those kisses, was an opportunity to admire the playfully dominant Astarion, who at the same time demonstrated deep, strong affection and love. And demonstrates it still, everywhere but in these kisses. It is my freedom to play along with him and enjoy his pleasure and confidence, I am completely free from the notions of " degrading" invented by someone else. It's a shame that these opinions used to fall into the category of "the dog barks and the caravan marches on", and then the caravan was blocked by overly torturous and triggering scenes.

I really enjoyed your story, interesting roleplay, such a realistic approach to creating your own character, when you describe how she views the world, you get a real story. By the way, many of us have also, like you, given our other companions the opportunity to make their own choices when given the chance, I have done so myself and read many comments with similar roleplay. Not to decide for them, but to recognize their right to make their own decisions and their choices. Curiously, this approach is more common among AA fans in general.


On the subject of the "real Astarion" I want to quote Neil Newbon on this, I've written about it before, I don't know if you've read that comment of his or not, but I think it would be on topic.

Neil said: «Astarion's spawn is theater (with all the masks, lies and deception still included) or Ascendant (no masks, no lies, just the truth because he has the confidence to push his arrogance in your face without fear)».

I'd also like to share a short video in which Christopher Nolan explains why he has never tried to promote his personal political views in his writing. I apologize that this is off topic for BG3 and Astarion directly, but I think it's important as the opinion of a true creator, perfectly fitting the question of whether or not "moral lessons" are needed in a game.

Christopher Nolan says that if you dictate to people how to think, they start to hate it. And that's true. Honestly, if you wanted to show in a game how good it is to have "healthy relationships" or "free relationships," you don't need to make the game so that anyone who plays it, at the mention of these generally positive definitions, will suddenly get a nervous tic in the form of an involuntary middle finger reflex - when the middle fingers on both hands are raised, the rest of them are folded into a fist, and it makes it harder to type on the keyboard. There is no need to impose anything. Especially not by violence. Pressure only breeds resistance and anger, not acceptance.

I mean I don't want to be patted on the back either, lol. That would also be weird. Like when I told my husband (the only person in my real life who's also played BG3) that I ascended Astarion, his reaction was, "Woah," purely because he knew the scene was intense and it's the "bad" ending. He did not say, "You made a bad choice. How could you?" But he also didn't go, "Good job, I'm proud of you." He just...reacted sanely to a fellow gamer playing the game the way they wanted to. I don't think UA or AA enjoyers deserve any judgment, positive or negative. I don't have an issue with anti-AA folks saying, "AA is icky to me and I don't like that path." I have an issue with the idea that people who do it are somehow playing it wrong or are bad people. I wouldn't come onto a UA post and make judgment calls about whether leaving him as a spawn is a bad or good thing for them to have done. I can only say it wasn't the right path for me and my Tav.

Like recently I saw a video of a gamer doing an evil run, and in Moonrise Towers he forces Astarion to drink from the drow. There were comments asking him how could he do such a thing, Astarion said explicitly that he didn't want to, how dare you? And it was only after he reminded folks he was doing an evil run that some of them at least calmed down, but even then, the initial reaction is so wild to me, and also, why does he have to justify it by saying he's doing an evil run? What if he had been doing a heroic run, but his idea of a hero is someone who doesn't like vampires and views them as lesser creatures, so forcing Astarion to drink from someone wouldn't be evil. What then? Would you still get mad at him for hurting a computer program's feelings?

Reading this and other threads have convinced me that people who object to any "improvements" to the AA storyline haven't actually played it. They've just watched a couple of clips of the most controversial moments, if that, and have decided that AA is just a Lifetime movie abusive husband villain with no nuance or subtlety to his or Tav's feelings and actions, and therefore anything other than the most horrified reactions is unwarranted. But having played it now, I can safely say, it's honestly nothing like what I expected based on a few clips. Is it a problematic relationship no matter how you slice it? Yes (which is in fact WHY I find it so fun to play. I don't personally find it interesting to RP with a purely nice computer program). Is it as simple as, "evil vampire bad now?" No. Like I said, it's not a Lifetime movie, but if you assume that AA fans are just roleplaying a Lifetime movie, then I can see why you would think there's something wrong with us because quite frankly, that sounds boring and awful.