I don’t think it is necessary to lock characters to a specific preference. I don’t see how that would objectively improve the writing. Having characters with a specific preference does allow you to tell specific stories about how that affected their backstory, but that doesn’t need to be part of the story in the first place.
Due to the nature of games there is going to be a finite about of content for each companion’s dialogue and backstory. The writers can fill up that finite space with some other compelling content. The trade off for the lack of specificity is an abundance of player choice, which is preferable for me. Why write separate stories for straight and gay relationships when they can write relationships that satisfy either type?
To me being able to tell specific stories is the improvement I'm talking about, a story about a gay or straight person is going to have more character than a story about a gay and straight character...I mean "all of the above" sexuality. Don't misunderstand me I'm not saying a characters stories should be solely about their sexuality but that being written with one is better than being written with all of them.
Can't say that I agree. For example in DAI, some of the romances were gender and race locked and I just ended up using mods just so I could experience romances with them.
I'd like to have a game where my character could be with anyone. I'm also a person that doesn't believe your sexuality defines who you are as a person. Being locked from possibilities in games isn't fun to me (such as gender-locked classes and ect). Larian seems interested in giving their players freedom which is shocking to me that a lot of players actually seem more interested in taking away. Please continue to give us freedom, Larian.
I'm also in the camp that wants to be able to romance/flirt with/shag (subject to an appropriate pursuit) the NPC of my choice, rather than being limited to those that the developers have chosen for me.
I don't look at the companions as all being pansexual, instead I think how lucky it is that the companion I chose to romance happens to share my sexuality (or, possibly, find me so irresistible that they act against their dominant sexuality...). I know that some of the others make 'leading' comments, but it is usually easy enough to shut such pre-flirtation conversation down.
I'd much rather have the 'problem' of shutting down overly friendly companions with whom I don't want a romantic relationship, than have the NPC with whom I feel my character would be attracted to happen to be unavailable because they are only interested in men/women/dwarfs/lizards,/whatever. It's MY game, after all, and I ought to have agency over who I can form relationships with.
Putting aside the philosophical question of when a pre-flirt becomes a flirt, I don't think that making your companions herosexual does reflect freedom of choice for the player because the choice has been made for you, they're all romanceable your interaction with them is now a formality.
I do believe people are not defined by their sexuality, but I do think their relationships are.
I also don't think having NPCs with distinct sexualities takes away from player agency, because it doesn't affect your character at all, not being able to romance someone is not something you should expect otherwise I do begin to understand the question of consent. I was also thinking about this when the topic of Alistair in DA:O came up, if a gay man wanted to romance Alistair, but had to roll a woman to do so, did that fundamentally change the relationship for you? I've heard people who are for herosexual npcs say that it doesn't, I think it probably does, though it's been a while since I played DA:O.
I think this goes back to the self-insert/exo-persona divide, If you're by a quirk of character selection no longer compatible with an NPC it doesn't bother me because a) I think that makes that NPC a more complete character and b) I'll be playing this game so much I'll be that person eventually.
