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

Thank you so much Larian for changing the problematic facial expressions in the kiss scenes. And thank you for adressing it in your community update
Though we only see a fraction (and I think the facial expression looks appropiate in this specific situation), I am hoping and try to be optimistic that also the other sad, pained and contempt facial expressions of Tav will be changed, so that our characters will look happy. Also thanks to everyone who supported us. Also to the modding community, who helped out with mods. I am looking forward to the patch and hope it will make a lot of people happy.

Popping back in to express my relief at this news. It's great that our concerns were heard. Now I have at least one thing to look forward to this fall

Thanks Larian! We appreciate it.

Thank you very much Larian for hearing us! Looking forward to patch 7 with great interest!

I certainly would have liked more joy and passion on Tav's face, but I realize that many people like more serious facial expressions, and I find this neutral face a very good option that can work for all AA fans. The main thing is that there is no more fear, no more “cycle of abuse” overshadowing our story, kissing scenes will be safe, and the game will be comfortable to play. Hopefully Tav will have a positive expression on their face before and after the kisses, as well as in the epilogue.

I'd love to bring back the great happy kiss of patch 5 too! It would definitely have a place in the epilogue - Astarion doesn't have a kiss in the epilogue, and the patch 5 kiss could fix that at no extra cost! You did such a great job, everyone loved that kiss, and I wish so much that this great animation would not remain undeservedly forgotten in the back of the story, but would continue to delight us in the game. A kiss with a bite to the neck is great news, I really want to see it!

Thanks so much to everyone who pushed for these changes, for your posts, feedback, and support! <3

And a huge thanks to the modders! I hope that the new modding tools in patch 7 will please you and expand your possibilities for creativity!

To Larian Studios,
I was lucky enough to receive an invitation to try the beta test of patch 7. I admit that one of the first things I did once the patch was installed was to look at the new TAV expressions during kisses with Ascended Astarion.
I wanted to thank you from the bottom of my heart for this change. You have no idea how much joy I felt seeing my TAV happy again. Moreover, with these new expressions, I could really appreciate the work that was done on the kissing animations. I couldn't stop kissing Lord Astarion!
The previous expressions had taken away my desire to play, but now I have found the serenity to do so again. I thank you again and again for everything.

Well, if we’re responding in this thread, popping in to say I’m incredibly disappointed in Larian for changing the kisses and I hope they will add a way to have the old patch 6 kisses for those of us who think smiling is really inappropriate in a narrative about repeating the cycle of abuse.

Yes, I wanted to echo the sentiments here that I’m so excited that the facial expression will be fixed in Patch 7. I’m very appreciative that the feedback was heard since the Patch 6 kisses ruined my ability to roleplay when I romanced Ascended Astarion. I’m really looking forward to starting a new game come September 💜.

patch 7 can't hurry up enough for me as an XBox user I couldn't mod that unpleasantness out so have to pretty much avoid kissing him as Ascended .

My Thanks to Larian for listening .

Seconding this. Forcing the new expressions onto every Tav would not restore the player agency this thread was taking issue with having lost.
I'll copy what I said in another thread here: It would be really weird to fix an issue with player agency by taking it away in the other direction, in my opinion, especially when that other direction was originally the only one.
I really hope there will be a way for those of us who prefer the old expressions to keep them and our stories after Patch 7. They are incredibly important to many of us.

Wanted to say a proper thank you to Larian for fixing their mistake. The game is now playable for most that do the AA romance. I do hope mods will be available with "normal" romantic kisses for everyone as I know many players wanted that. Especially for the console players as they have had no mods relieving them during all the time with Patch 6. Thank you.

I've just looked at the kiss animations on Youtube and to be honest, I do wonder if the people complaining about losing the old faces have looked at the new animations. The example I saw was with an female elf Tav and in every kiss you see her with a slight frown and a wrinkled forehead indicating worry. She most certainly doesn't look happy to me.

She looks alarmed during the bite kiss and upset afterwards. The kneel kiss she only smiles when he grabs her and it's a bit of a strange smile, then it's back to a slight frown and neutral face afterwards. When he grabs her chin for the third kiss, she looks worried, but her face relaxes as they kiss, then it's back to neutral.

While I am pleased that Larian have toned down the animations from patch 6, to me these have to be the most unromantic kisses in the game. You'd really have to stretch your imagination to think that Tav was actually enjoying them.

Mod support for console with these kisses please Larian!
Because I would much rather see my character looking happy, not like she's just got a letter from revenue and is about to be audited. And of course, mod support would also benefit those who would prefer to see their Tav romancing A.Astarion while looking absolutely terrified.

I agree, the kisses are improved (the on your knees kiss is the best out of the bunch, for me it recalls the night Tav became his), but certainly the updated kisses are not as good as I hoped they would be. I still don't like the bite and slap kiss in particular, Tav's reaction is still rather uncomfortable to watch. I will be loading the Kiss Mods available, in particular Nightingale's Lord Astarion mod, hopefully all these mods will still work with Patch 7. I'm buying a gaming PC because I can't wait any longer for Console anymore and I was disappointed to learn that Playstation are the most restricted when it comes to mods.

This is my thought as well. For me, the new kiss faces are FANTASTIC and honestly pretty neutral. I feel like there is a bit of an over reaction. I was expecting psycho, huge, unhinged smiles given some people's reactions. Most of them are WONDERFULLY NEUTRAL. You can see the consent and enjoyment without sacrificing the evidence that Astarion is powerful and intimidating.

A huge thank you to Larian for fixing their mistake. These new faces are fantastic and allow for all sorts of RP. Even toxic ones, if that's your jam. I'm very happy with how everything turned out.

I love new facial expressions during the kisses
Thank you, Larian

I hope there will be a way to get the original expressions back as options for those of us who liked them. As they are now, I'm very unhappy with the change. The wide grin with the closed eyes during the throat grab especially feels like an odd choice and is not something I could explain for my Tav. A softer expression that's more open to interpretation would have been enough to make Tav look more neutral, if that's what it's supposed to be now. The player agency mentioned in the title here has not been restored, it's just been taken away from others instead.

Thank you for finally making this change, Larian! The new faces are the perfect balance of neutral and positive that can fit into infinite RPs and HCs, as opposed to the overwhelmingly negative ones we had before that severely limited different RPs. Time to make a new character to discover all of the new changes. Amazing work as always!

Larian is awesome for listening the community. Thank you!

I'm still surprised to see people complaining again, I think the change now is good and quite neutral in my opinion, it should have been like that from the beginning to avoid all these problems. The change has been made for a reason so I'd like to ask fans to stop the war around this matter please. Each person has their preferences and headcanon so let's respect everyone, especially Larian for all the hard work they're doing improving the game and trying to make everyone happy!

Fortunately we have a wonderful modding community so if anyone is still disappointed they can make their own fantasies come true!

I agree. I'm not trying to start fights here, but this expression is not neutral. It's a smile, and I don't think I can RP onto that.


But (and I am genuinely trying to not start a fight here; I'm autistic so please let me know if this comes off too blunt) could we not say the same about Ascended Astarion fans who wanted the smile? There was a mod on Nexus for it and IIRC it was pretty popular.

No I don't think the two situations are comparable. People playing on console didn't even have the option to use mods at the time (back in Feb, and still now, 7-8 months later). Some were very upset and hurt by those facial expressions and could do nothing about it.

Fair regarding Nexus, but I think the situations are comparable; we've known since patch 6's launch that Larian was working on mod support, and we knew that Larian was planning to bring those mods to console. Because patch 7 is delayed for console users (and mod support with it) those who want to keep the old kisses back on console will be out of luck when it launches, as there's no guarantee someone will create a mod to revert those changes, or if they do, it won't necessarily be compatible. Additionally, I think there was a higher chance of the smiling mod being carried over to console in some shape or form, based on the mod's popularity.

I don't know, I guess this situation is lose-lose, as Larian can't appease all the fans. Some were very upset and hurt by the old facial expressions; now some of us (myself included) are unhappy about the new ones.