Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Companion relationships

So I found those not so friendly strangers that can't seem not to insult me every two sentences, and few days later after we "save the day" from some goblins all of them suddenly want to have sex. It came from nowhere, and felt so unnatural and forced. Why all of them are even available? don't each of them have their own preferences? and when BG turned into Dragon Age, or Witcher? It felt so crazy to me, like a weird fan fiction or something. We barely know each other. The BG games had romance of course, but it was never used like a blunt object, in such a crude and cheap way. Tune it down a little, let us actually like this NPCs before we get the chance to start something with them.

The crazy thing is that even those that won't sleep with you, will still go out of their way to tell you suddenly out of the blue that "hey! I am not gonna sleep with you, so don't even think about it, you didn't earned it!". When was it even a conversation topic in the first place? why are you telling me this? why you assume I want to sleep with you?

Maybe it's just me, I don't know. It just felt crazy out of place to me.

100% agree, I'm about to write a lenghty post on the matter. Also on the "dream waifu" part. I don't want to feel like I'm playing a dating sim. So much for "romance is optional". Sure, you can tell them "no", but... Can't we just become a party of fire-forged friends, without anyone hitting on other people and it all being awkward?

I agree that the stuff at the party did feel weird and forced, and this is speaking as someone who is very much a fan of romance in games and being able to to romance any companion I choose. As for the dream person part of character creation? It's not directly related to romance (there may be a romance side to it later down the line but I've seen how that part pays off and it's interesting, at least to me), so don't rush to judgement on that aspect.

I will take this into consideration, thank you for telling me. (I haven't actually played EA - I know, I know - but what I've seen in video reviews seemed quite off-putting.) Still, I'm not a fan of it being mandatory to make an ideal love interest for your character. Someone suggested having the option for it to be a friend of a family member, which would be cool (if it makes sense in the game).

Well for the sake of putting your mind at ease

Exactly! I already send it as feedback in one of my bug reports. This was total bull****. Suddenly everyone want to f*ck or have "great time" even if they disagreed with me for whole game. And they are jealous! Lai'zel told me that she will go to Astarian because I refused her. WHAT THE F***? Where did it came from? I'm sorry, but when were we even flirting or having special moment to make a solid ground for that camp party?

Lol, you sound really upset. Just so you know, attraction doesn't come from agreeing on everything. There may be other factors.

It was quite a blast for me, to have all companions hitting on me during same party night, while relationship and romance building in BG1, BG2 or DA takes hours to get to some close relationship point.
Isn't it weird that everyone are just looking for hook-up straight from nowhere?

Ah, thanks. That sounds much better. Not sure why it appears so suggestive of romance, but it should be an easy enough fix.

Wyll didn't hit on me during the party, but I had the option to hit on him instead. I did have at least mildly postive relationships with everyone prior, and Astarion had been trying to hit on me even before that, but he just wanted me for my neck.

So im just going to plant a wild thought here... but maybe. Just maybe. This wont happen in the final game, where it is more fleshed out and spread across the entire game.

You know. Almost as if we are in early acces 🤔

I think the camp party scene may have been a way for the developers to test the waters or give us a taste of the possibilities and see what will fly and what not? I like romance or really close relationships in games and the camp scene free for all threw me for a loop. just felt weird since I didn't really know these people yet or have any connection. The dream scene made sense to me since the larva is trying to influence you. I liked it actually even if I didn't give in to the manipulation ..yet!!

Hope the romance stays and stays as a slow progression based on solid criteria as Larian talked about previously.

I think Astarion getting horny there made sense, he seems like the kind of guy who would sleep with someone that early on. He keeps calling me lover now though. Lae'zel's felt...really weird and intense, especially after she spent so long basically hating me.

And Minthara's was weird because she immediately tried to kill me afterwards.

I'm still doing my first playthrough-I was surprised Gale wasn't interested in spending the night with my character; he was the first one to warm up to me.

Sadly the (Mass Effect) Bioware way of relationships has somehow become the standard in RPGs.
Even though the way BG2 did relationships was much superior to this, also because the companions had relations with each other and it was not only the PC as king of a harem.

For me the only problem is how nome of it seems to rely on approval or anything else, all of them wanted to have sex, even those that dissaproved every choice I made and hated me, not only those that I invested time on and realy intender tô pursue romance. Makes it all feel bland and like the companions don't have enough character tô them. Really hope romance is more developed and several improvements on how companion relationships progress, not only the romance that IS.

I wrote a post about this like yesterday or the day before that quickly got buried and probably not read because it was a really long post, but agree with OP 100%. This is one of the major problems at the moment with character relationships/interaction, though IMO there are more. If you're interested, read here. It's like on page 100 or something at this point I imagine.

For sure, "romance" in particular right now is not only un-organic, but completely forced and jarring.

Really? I only had Astarion and Lae'zel interested on my first playthrough (a Good character funny enough) and Minthara on my second. Shadowheart kept turning me down, and I got the vibe from Gale he was still in love with Mystra to go banging random adventurers.

Wow, I actually got rather direct imvitations from most of them, more notably Lae'zel which I made a point to make her hate me cause that was the character I wanted to roleplay, didn't matter much for the scene where she invited me to spend the night with her. Gale was pretty much the same, saying things like he wish I was still available for the night after I already accepted another invitation, I was playing a more evil route and got tons of disapprovals from him