Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Romance Interests are Awful!

This is for Feedback and Suggestions, not Thesis and Rebuttal. The OP made their point and moved on, what do you want them to do? Fight about it? Who the hell has the time to argue with people like Orbax. There is absolutely nothing to be gained from further commentary. Since I am already responding:

+1

All of the writing could be much improved but the NPCs and their interactions with the player are the least enjoyable.

Well I said good aligned, I didnt say I woundnt ravage her.

I also notice that people use the Feedback & Suggestion forum interchangeably with the General forum. It's not about fighting with someone about what we have to say but some of these forums can get a little aggressive. As for her points, that her biased opinion. I've seen quite a lot of people make threads to the developers and trying to force what they want in the game and when others come in to disagree, it's all about "If I don't get what I want then the game is trash" or "This is not DnD to me so fix it". Instead of giving good constructive criticism about the game or the mechanics of the game. For example, the game has a lot of glitches but instead on focusing on things like that, people want to nitpick the game for the smallest unimportant things.

I am also a female gamer and I don't see what the issue is here. We will be getting more companions and I bet there will be good ones and neutralish good ones. Probably will be a couple "manly" (whatever the hell you mean by this) ones and a couple with "nice" attitudes, although having a bad attitude makes sense considering the tadpole situation. I play both male and female characters and depending on how I have created them is how they will react to the others. I don't play these games as if I am in the game having the romance, perhaps this is different to you?


Agree 100%. No one is perfect and everyone will irritate you at some point in their life.


It is nice to have other possible equals in a game. So sick of always being the "chosen one" or at least the one the story revolves around always.


Haha, my current DnD character is afraid of ever opening a chest again. :P As the player I am sad at all the potential loot lost.


Depends on the character I am playing. Also have only had the Minthara scene, don't have approval enough in any other plays with the others.
Male Drow Warlock - got the Minthara scene, there is potential for manipulation there and he could betray her easily but for now she could be useful
Male Tiefling Fighter - High respect for Lae'zel, they are similar in personality and he may want things to go further
Female Half Drow Rogue - Doesn't care about that sort of thing. Gale is really interesting though.
Male Drow Ranger "Lolth Sworn" - Solo play so had only met Lae'zel on the ship. Possibly Karlach depending on how the story goes but he may have other things to worry about. :P
Haven't figured out good character concepts for Shadowheart or Astarion relationships yet and Wyll is either dead or bugged in most of my plays.

I'm amazed by the discussion as I've managed to anger every companion, except shadowheart.

That reminds me of a D&D meme piece I found funny:

Party go into a tavern and order drinks but stand about eyeing up the tables suspiciously. Barkeep asks what the problem is, and they explain that they have just been in a dungeon fighting mimics so are nervous. Barkeep replies that the tavern is a small rural low-income place and he'd love to be able to afford to hire mimics sometimes.

Barkeep laughs.
Party laughs.
Table laughs.

we killed the table

Im a straight man, around 30. I agree with this person that the romance part of the game was NOT a good experience for me. not only talking with the character feel rough and unpolished, the worst part of the experience came after saving the groove from the goblin (good path). For some reason ALL the character at the camp wanted a piece of my ass, even if it made No sens at all (i had lot of disapproval with some of them during dialogue and stuff). I'd recommend this : first, i am very okay with the idea that you are trying to create romance path for LGBTQ. but i would argue that there should be at one point in the game (option or at the beginning ? ) a way for people to decide if they want the romance experience from the point of view of a straight, or LGBTQ. everybody would feel better that way. Second, i'd say that "romance" is very poorly written. there is NO nuance, in how people approach you. And i hope your writer have plan to add more nuance to those characters because right now they feel too caricatural. and yes, to me the man character have very weak presence atm. i agree with her .

If you don't want a gay romance, don't romance a character of the same sex. They don't rape you.

I dunno, as a gay woman I also have to "deal with" the guys hitting on me and got a major "I am disappoint" from the vampire because I turned him down. Can't say it ruined my gaming experience particularly; on the contrary, I'm not really sure how I'd feel about a "sanitised" version. I'm reminded of DA2 where Anders hit on everyone and caused a lot of upset, which was kind of amusing in its own way. IMHO the only real problem with that is that he's, well, Anders. D:

my version is always a young strong androgene sytle guy... lets say would be astarian younger. Etheral maybe?

I romanced Anders too!!! I romanced Alistair as an elf on DA:O and I romance Solas on Inquisition, I have a finger for boys that will break my heart.

*pushes glasses up*

Well, according to the creator of the Realms (Ed Greenwood), bisexuality is far more common in the Realms than on Earth. But you'd have to be hanging around places like Candlekeep (forum) to know that, since it's never really stated in the text. Pretty much par for the course to be quite honest, because even with this being a thing for ages, we've hardly seen any queer characters in any of the text related to the Realms (rulebooks, modules, or novels).

There are way more than 30 gods in the Realms. There were three 2nd Edition "God books": Faiths and Avatars, Powers and Pantheons, and Demihuman Deities which fully explained and detailed all the Religions of the Realms. Several human pantheons, one pantheon for every race (with two for elves, because drow). I suspect you're quoting from dndbeyond.com, which says in the basic rules that there are "at least thirty deities" (italics for emphasis). Since 2nd Edition there's been far less coverage of deities of the Realms, and the lists provided aren't always complete.

As for Sigil. It is a word that means a sign or symbol usually associated with ritual magic. So, I pronounce it SIJ-il (English is my first language, and I'm Australian so keep accents in mind here). Sigil resides at the centre of the plane called the Concordant Opposition also known as the Outlands.

But you're right, visiting the planes is a very rare occurrence, usually limited to powerful adventurers/beings, and the occasional innocent bystander. (But if you really want to visit them, look for the Wild Goose Inn in Arabel, Cormyr. See also the World Serpent Inn.) Also, it should be mentioned that the entire city of Eltruel got sucked into the Hells recently in Realms history, the tieflings you meet in BG3 come from there, having escaped before that tradegy.

Z.

Reading through these replies people seem to be more content with arguing with each other based on credentials that mean absolutely nothing. It's common sense that you cannot please everyone at the same time but is this really the case in this instance? What would prevent Larian from including a 'sexuality' option in character creation which tailors companion sexuality to your preference? This way you would never have to interact with sexuality and advances that you are not interested in.

No one but inflammatory trolls want to see options removed. What people want is to not have sexuality that does not reflect them pushed in their face which does happen to a certain degree in the current state of the game. Just as a homosexual woman doesn't want the advances of men a straight man does not want the advances of other men and who you are should have no impact on whether you should have the liberty of not being sexually harassed in game.

I would also like to point out that it being high fantasy does not mean that it does not have to be realistic. There is such a thing as narrative cohesion which is considered of paramount important in fictional writing and I would suggest you research the subject and educate yourself as using this crux detracts from your argument even when it is absolutely correct.

I'm just gonna go ahead and end this unnecessary discussion about my name: its my nickname, related to my last name. has nothing to do with sigil or whatever. but please, argue about that rather than the point I made.



and thanks for this, couldn't have said it better.

For the most part i agree with the OP. That being said the characters that are in the game are OK. I do like the fact there they are different in some ways from stereotypical companions. However that being said, I would like a few more options of the more traditional adventuring types ala Eder from Pillars of Eternity. Characters that are traditional can also be just as fun if placed in a unique situation. We don't always have to re-invent the wheel with personality types that are so far removed from reality. Give us a few other options and I'll just leave the others in camp to stew on their own thoughts while me and the "go getters" run around the wilderness kicking ass and taking names.

My apologies, I am sometimes a little obtuse. I didn't spot your user name until now. But I have to wonder if you read the rest of my post?

Z.

As a fellow mature female gamer I completely disagree with the OP. Wyll is a little too muhc with speaking in 3rd person, Gale is a LOT of bragging and Astarion is a mix between dubious and flirty. Shadowheart and Lae'zel both have a huge chip on tehir shoulders.

They are completely flawed - and I love that. We are only in the first act of the game and have truly seen very little. I think their character journeys are going to be very interesting.

They don't differ that much from the ones in DOS2 - or Dragon Age 2 - where the characters were complete messes in their own way.

Here: you're basically asking for a switch to be able to make us LGBTI+ people not exist in your game. Can you see why some of us might take offense at that idea?

Proud queer Z.

You are asking for non LGBT people to be forced and subject to your sexual preferences in their own game, can you not see how this is sexual harassment? This option would not remove LGBT characters or content from the game but make sexual and romantic content of this nature not be pushed onto people that find it uncomfortable. Do you think a queer woman should be subject to advances from straight men? Do you not see how that would be sexual harassment?

Proud Straight with a gay older brother.