Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Romance is Dead

So, I've said it before, but I'm saying it again, there is no romance in BG3. It's weird, and abrupt and very UN-romantic.

I finally bit the bullet and played the "Romance" scenes. Lae'zel is whatever. She makes kinda sense, though I still think it's too forced. Same with Astarion. Gale and Wyll are also rather weird and forced. Shadowheart is probably the best.

And then there's Minthara. What the crap? I mean, I personally had to skip the naughty bits, but I'm talking story here, not whatever naughty crap they feel they need to have with weird pixel characters all passing through each other or whatever.

I'm talking here's this Drow female. She meets you. You help her kill a bunch of nobodies. She gets hot for you. Blood excites her. That's fine. Whatever. She's a bloodthirsty evil person.

It's the aftermath. Dang! You play your cards right and suddenly she's totally in love with you. Dark, evil psycho chick can't live without you? Seems a bit... What? Forced. It all seems so forced.

I like the idea of having Minthara as a playable team member some day, but it felt very out of character for her.

She's vulnerable, don't you know? You're the first person who's seen that side of her. You belong to her now. And she belongs to you. Now run off to Moonrise Tower and try not to die.

"I love you." "Now excuse me. I have things to do. Try not to die."

Truth be told, I'm fairly strongly convinced that the majority of the 'romance' writing that is tied to the intimate sequences specifically is all written entirely by-males-for-males, and it shows.

I made a thread about Minthara's romance, if you're interested: https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=750763

It discusses the many problems with the writing to either side of the scene, but it does delve heavily into the 'naughty bits' as well, and how the design and choreography there does even more damage to the characterisation and and coherency of the sequence.

After how dire the setup is in...pretty much every dialogue, I have zero interest in the romance chains (if you can call them that) in this game.

BG2 is how it was done properly. This is just 'so hey, lets do it, oh those slugs in our heads, dont worry about them.'

Its a farce.

Yeah, I have said it before, Minthara's 'romance' goes from 0 to 100 real fast. Considering you can trigger the grove siege in your first conversation with her super easy, and the 'party' happens later that same day...Minthara knows you for a few hours at best. None of the Romances are what I'd call a 'slow burn' right now, except perhaps Shadowheart and maybe Laezel, but Minthara can be straight up racist towards you- 'grotesque Darthiir' etc, lusting after you a few hours later (fair enough, drow do casual hookups and I guess you did prove yourself in the fighting to get noticed) to falling head over heels in love with you and basically asking you to marry her by the end of the day. I really wish it was more drawn out, because while the drow has her charms, as a romance it could really do with some more content in between meeting her and her declaring her love for you.

And as Niara pointed out in their thread, the sex scene itself is not exactly great. Rather porny with none of the 'drow dom' stuff that it seemed to promise on the tin.

Personally, I love the Minthara scene as it is, and from what I gather, a lot of others do too. I hope they don't change a thing.

*

A thought about her going from zero to love...

1. this is a story, characters tend to fall in love faster than in real life,
2. she's carrying around intense emotional trauma.

It's because of this trauma that she falls in love with the character. She is deeply scarred on an emotional level. She has had to kill her enemies, her family, her friends. One moment she is ready to murder, the next she is full of longing, of twisted, mixed-up love, believing it to be thing of ownership. She is ruled by her passion and troubled by her next to uncontrollable emotion. She probably doesn't know any other way to function.

Romances should be like in the Pathfinder games, something you had to build up on throughout the course of the whole game.

D:OS2's issue is that it just suddenly showed up out of nowhere before the final act with zero warning, so it just ended up being comical. BG3's issue is the opposite, in that the intimacy happens way too soon. The latter would be improved by making it clear that it's likely to be a one time fling unless the player makes a serious commitment to following up on it as you proceed into the later parts of the game.

I'd strongly recommend you looking over and reading through the thread, JandK... and if indeed you have comments to make, I'd encourage you to share them there. I'm not sure who these 'lot of others' you're referencing are, because at least in the discussion thread about the scene, the responses were in fact unanimous on agreeing that it was bad and needed a lot of work and/or changes.

Exactly. Thank you.

My problem especially with Minthara's is that I felt like my guy should be "Oh yeah, I was so hot, this super wicked tough Drow chick who kills at the drop of a hat suddenly loves me. Dang! I'm good!"

She literally went from ravenous wolf to little puppy overnight. Suddenly, she can't bring herself to kill my character. Man! That was some POWERFUL love making.

First, let me say that I accept you don't like this. I'm not trying to tell you to enjoy something you don't like.

But I am curious, let's say that this is someone's fantasy. That someone really likes the idea of being in a serious relationship with a murderous drow.

She's dangerous, deadly. No one is safe around her. She's a monster to everyone. Everyone except you, that is. In your arms, she softens. She trusts you, and only you. Your bond is powerful, strong enough to break through walls of pain that have been erected over years. Together, you are different people than you are alone, a team against all the rest of the world. It speaks of loyalty and deep connection.

Is there something inherently wrong with a player who feels this way?

I suppose one could laugh about the great golden copulation that led to this... but maybe the player doesn't view sex solely as a physical thing, as if they were such a stallion that they tamed the drow. Perhaps instead they view the sex in a more romantic light, as if a spiritual bond was formed, a connecting of two souls.

That's closer to how I choose to view it.

I would buy that IF there was more to it. She literally just met my character. I raided a grove and killed people for her. Suddenly, she has some deep connection.

Love at first sight is real, but DANG! Even my wife and I didn't move that fast, and for us it was love at first sight. And we are two loving people. She's a Drow who's been through a ton. I find it hard to believe she would trust anyone that fast, tadpole connection or not.

The question I'd ask would be: What have you done to earn or cause that? What have you done that countless others before you have not? What makes you different? How exactly have you achieved this epicly unbreakable emotional soul bond that completely de-characterises the dangerous drow into your helpless wet-mop adoring love puppy? How did you magic that sudden relationship out of thin air in the space of a few hours?

Is it wrong for a person to want that fantasy? Not inherently, but to want to pull that out of the air in an instant, demolish everything else about the character and bend them suddenly into your fantasy ideal overnight... that's pretty gross. Good thing it's just fantasy.


It would be nice, perhaps, if the sequence in question reflected that in some way - unfortunately, it does not, in any way: that, too, is part of the issue.

Exactly. And I feel that all the romances in the game are sorely lacking in depth of any kind.

Sorry, but I like romance. This is not it.

I completely get where you're coming from, for what it's worth.

But I think what's going on here is something unique. Things start as a raw desire for sex, passionate, animalistic in the sense that she wants you after the fight, high on adrenaline and the glory of the Absolute. She's probably used to taking partners when the mood strikes, so this is nothing new to her.

Yet in the following scene, things don't go that way. The sex isn't wild and hard and full of promised domination with hands bound, no. It's slower. A coupling. Two partners pleasuring one another, and I think this is surprising for Minthara.

Note the way the two of them are immediately connected via the tadpoles. They can see one another's desires. She asks Tav to lay down on the altar. Tav can respond, asking why. In that moment, they share another connection. It's these intense connections that keep happening. I'd argue it happens with Minthara in this scene more than with any other character.

When they finish having sex, this is the moment. They lay together on the altar, and once again their minds join. Her mind is laid bare before Tav. Where else does this happen? Sure, there are connections that the tadpole gives here and there, but this is played deeper. They've had sex, they've joined their bodies together, yes, but they've also in this scene joined spiritually, for lack of a better word.

It's here that they fall in love. A product of the tadpole? Sure, probably, but it doesn't change the depth of their connection, or the fact that no one else has connected with Tav on this deep of a level.

Minthara is a character who is deeply alone and self-reliant. She is now conflicted. She's been connected to Tav, but this is a new feeling for her. It frightens her, and she tries to run away from her feelings by doing the only thing she knows how, by trying to murder Tav to stop herself from being with him.

But she can't. She finds the strength in herself to accept Tav, and this I would argue is the beginning of her character arc.

Unfortunately, she can't just be with Tav. There's the whole matter of the Absolute at Moonrise Towers, which Tav *has* to face in Minthara's estimation. She can't face the Absolute for Tav, so she does the next best thing. She offers Tav the services of her abomination friend who can lead Tav past the dangers to Moonrise.

*

On one hand, I think it's the tadpole. But on the other, I think the tadpole is just a tool, a quickening of something that would have happened anyway. In other words, in the scenario where Tav and Minthara bond, I think it's because they are naturally so compatible and fit for one another. The tadpoles bring them together because they belong together, like messed-up, broken, dysfunctional soul mates.

I don't ask the person I love what they did to earn my love.


Minthara is not a worse person for finding love, nor does it make her helpless or a puppy. Everything I wrote spoke of equality and partnership, not submission.


We disagree. I think that does come across in the scene.

No.... you just expect her to love you without actually doing anything to cause that; there's no reason or justification for the sudden 'softening' you describe, except that it is your fantasy that it happens for you, and no-one else. There is no connection, no emotion, no passion and no intimacy in that entire scene, with the dubious exception of the post-coital cut, where, it must be remarked, you either do nothing and rest, or you violate her mind in a moment of lowered defence. There is no 'love' in anything here that we see - the writers are trying to say there is, but there is not, and taken as a whole there is nothing believable about the progress of events - it's just a ridiculous power fantasy crushed into a three minute scene, the longest unbroken cut of which is Minthara on her knees giving the character a blowjob while they put their hand 'lovingly' on her head.

Most of all, I think it's very telling that you Think that your above posts talk of and describe equality and not submission. If you believe that, honestly, then I think this conversation has just about run its course. You seem to have something in common with the people who initially wrote and shot this scene. No, that's not a compliment.

I feel like this rationalization on why Minthara would jump into this level of romance so quickly is really overanalyzing the situation. People tend to forget that these characters are creations of the writers with a story to tell, and people have a bad habit of assigning intentions and meanings beyond what they were originally made with in mind.

Plus it's obvious all of this stuff is still just a work in progress. This is why people ask for more party banter - this analysis errs on the side of headcanon rather than a reinforced display of their personality.

Here's the patch 6 version of the romance sequence where the elicit scene is blanked and only the audio and abstract camera blur plays. It's curious to see how the same sequence reads by omission. Also shows with the new blood on the face, and the first haircut on the PC hehe. It was just the first one that came up when I typed 'patch 6 minthara' into youtube, but thought it was kind of interesting.


I think they should make that interlude more skip to if it does something like that, or else give the player some inputs to determine the look of the scene.
They can still find love after I guess, but something more bettie page would work better for me in the come to bed scene. Like with the altar and everything, I kind of expected a bit more there. But if not, then yeah, just let me cruise past I guess to the next scene. I prefer they keep at least one true romance in there, even if its a little stilted and psycho and doesn't quite carry with the current execution for me.

I would prefer that you stop telling what you think I think and expect.

I do not agree with your analysis.

ETA: if I do not respond to your posts in the future, it is because I have toggled on the ignore function. Thank you for your replies up until now, but I no longer consent to conversations with you.