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

Taking your ball and going home with it on the first sign of resistance is definitely a good way to have people consider your point of view.

Headcanon'd reasoning does not make up for what is otherwise awkward pacing. The fact that you're the only one in this thread going to such lengths to explain it to this level means most of the audience doesn't really buy the way it's currently presented in the game.

And again, it is a work in progress. I half suspect these scenes are going to get moved to much later in the game and we'll get proper romances, Larian just put them in this haphazardly just to give people something else to talk about. And it works, half the conversations about Astarion and Minthara especially boil down to their sex scenes more than anything else right now.

First, the other poster was being aggressively rude, in my opinion. I believe it's better to stop that kind of conversation before it flames into uglier language. In other words, if you don't have anything nice to say, perhaps it's better to say nothing.

Second, I'm not here to convince anyone to think anything. I'm simply expressing my viewpoint and offering it forward as feedback. Along the way, I'm happy to have discussions with people who are not being rude.

Third, if you're pointing to the tiny handful of people involved in this discussion and trying to make some larger point about the percentage of players who agree or disagree... you might find that you need a larger sampling. I dare say the posters here don't represent the tens of thousands of players who regularly watch BG3 clips on sites like Youtube.

Fourth, it is a work in progress, yes. I don't think that invalidates conversation.

The funny thing about the dialogues before and after, and surrounding this element of the story, is that what we actually See in game is that Minthara actually has no clue what the Absolute wants, wishes or expects... She's operating on instinct, and ascribing that as divine command, much in the same way that many religious zealots do.

She decides that She wants to bed you - and so ascribes it as the Absolute's due reward.

Then, later, she decides that she can't be having with that, and reaches the natural conclusion that the Absolute has Commanded your death... and she absolutely would have killed you in your sleep if you hadn't woken up.

Then, you just have to persuade or convince or intimidate her into not attacking - fail and she will, in the Absolute's name, of course - but succeed, and suddenly she's flipping again, and declaring that, of Course The absolute has other plans for you, and 'allowed' her to spare you.

Now, moments after assuring you that you absolutely, certainly would die that night because it was the Absolute's command... now it's just as definitively necessary and absolute that the Absolute must test you in person, and it is imperative now that you go to see her.

And, um, of course, if you, ah, die there, then obviously, it was the Absolute's plan all along that you die... but.. not that you die here... er...

B-But, if you pass the test, then clearly you're her super-special chosen, and she's actually got big plans for you... and also ordered me to kill you, after ordering me to reward you, and also ordered me to spare you... but the absolute is the Absolute, so clearly, this is all part of the plan and she's not changing her mind or anything.

It ends up looking like Minthara actually just doesn't have a clue, and is winging it as best she can, trying to second-guess what her new deity must want.... which is easy enough to do for a disorganised goblin tribe, but less convincing with repeated interaction with an individual person.

No they should not ...
There is nothing more unconvincing than when you see two people, who are obviously into each other ... their bond is going deeper, and deeper ... they are facing life threatening dangers in daily basis, sometimes even often ... and then they decide to sleep separately in their own tents, bcs "they wish to wait for the right time" ...
That really feels good to you? Immersive? Real?

Come on ...
If you search clubs, i bet in at least half of them you can find at least one young pair banging on toalets, while they dont even know each other name.
Because its pleasure and fun! Nothing more, nothing less.

I mean sure, some shy romantic soul that will wait for the right moment and will share only kiss with us on first date is quite okey.
Shadowheart does ... so, feel free to romance her.

But dont tell me you believe that in medieval phantasy ... in times when woman usualy had baby per year, in times when peasants usualy had dozens (plural) of kids (and i must admit that most of them didnt even reach puberty before passing out for some disease) ... people were "waiting for the right moment".


You also litteraly magicaly "focused your mindcontrolling brain worm on her desire" ...
Who knows what that exactly means?

[sarcasm]Maybe Tav is here that manipulative asshole, who is using this fragile and vulnerable murdering maniac to something she would never want by herself. :P :P :P [/sarcasm]


I mean, that is quite acurate description ...
But you seem to forgeting that to get closer to her ... you need to be dangerous, deadly and litteraly participate on slaughter entire village (grove, w/e) civilians and childern INCLUDED ...

I mean sure, none healthy and sane person would probably desire such woman ...
But is our Evil Tav really healthy and sane person?


Funny how differently this sounds when you snip out the other part.
I get some mixed signals here. O_o


This might be just language block ... i dare to presume those are synonyms in english ...
But there is difference in my language between romance (a relationship, no matter what kind) and being romantic (building the relationship). O_o


+1 ... and i think i now understand how you mean that previous coment.


I would like that option!


And that is bad thing?
Seems to me like another point for leaving their romance exactly as it is. O_o

We're talking about romance, not hooking up. The majority of people don't find their significant other through clubs. I would bet that most find them either by first becoming friends, or through friends they know. Show of hands in the thread, how did you meet your current significant loved one (or past loved one if you don't currently have one). For me it was friendship first, not a hookup at a club.

It is EA. The point is to share what we don't like. I find Niara's assessment of the whole romance spot on. Again, it's too forced. All of them are.

And the delivery of the romances are all forced. It's celebration night and everyone is frisky... FOR YOU. Oh yeah. Stud coming through. Guy or girl, they all want me.

I will say, though, disapproval doesn't have to be tadpole related. I mean, I'm sure the camp would notice if you slip off for some romantic interlude with someone, and if you didn't pursue something with someone who liked you, they'd naturally be upset. It's a small camp. I doubt it'd be much of a secret.

That said, the disapproval should be in the morning, and a dialogue first. "Have fun last night? Well, hope you're happy with whoever.". Something to indicate they know but not just because of the tadpole or something... Unless they really are going for the whole tadpole shared experiences thing, which, if they are, just creeps me out even more in terms of romance. Everyone KNOWS you're doing it. Ewww.

But, I could actually accept that. The tadpole is meant to be creepy.

But I digress. The point is, the romances are all forced into one night, and for some reason multiple people want you, if you play your cards right. It's just weird. Astarion, possibly Lae'zel, and Shadowheart, and on evil path Minthara too? It's too much.

That's been something that put me off romances in RPGs for a while now. As devs strived to provide more and more options essencially every character that joins you becames dateable/fuckable. Which could work if player was the one to initiate romance. As it is it seems like everyone want a piece of PC. It's especially clunky as it is in BG3 but I found it a problem in Dragon Ages, Mass Effects, Pillars of Eternity2. Making all companions Tinder candidates also heavily cuts into kind of stories and characters we get to meet. I found it so refreshing in PoE1 to have companions with their own lives, families, identities. Larian mentioned a while back there there will be a closely tied companion "couple". I somewhat hope we will get a wider range of characters in that regard, as it was in BG2.

I mean, recent RPGs have been "addressing" that - in games like Mass Effect3 or PoE2 companions also get horny for each other. I mean it's just weird to me. Feels more like horny reality show then an adventure. Just give me my murder-hobo fantasy, and leave romances for dating simulators. It seemed like a good idea in BG2, but it got sour by the time Throne of Bhaal dropped.

Edit:
Shadowhearts romance showed some promise. I kinda hope that there will be more of it, once we get more "good" characters. I suppose it makes sense to have more self-serving, ekhm, relationship with companions we have. And hoping that there will be more likable characters added later down the line, I hope less exploitative relationships will also emerge - or non-romantic relationships.

I don't care for any romance options in the game currently, but I like that they are there for the folks who might enjoy them. And I agree with the pacing as well. The characters are stressed out, they feel like death might come any second - it makes sense to not wait weeks or months before having sex for people with mutual attraction. And first sex is actually the first step for a relationship most of the time - it rarely is this coveted reward that comes at the end of a grand adventure as it's usually presented in rpgs. I agree that some characters should wait longer than others, but all of the romanceable npcs (with the exception of Shadowheart, maybe. With the amount of mindfuck she has going on, she might well be a virgin) seem like they've already had their first experience and it wouldn't make sence for them to view sex as this grand first step that they could only take with the people they trust 100%.

Since Lae'zel, Astarion or Wyll was mentioned here ... i dare to disagree with this statement.
- Astarion make it clear tht its only "fun" for him ...
- Lae'zel specificly tells you that this night is your reward and nothing more ...
- Wyll tells you during your conversation that you two are "friends" and if you ask him if "just friends" he say yes ...

Im still not entirely sure how Gale see our night together ... also i dont think any of my characters ever get to his bed. O_o


Agreed ...
As you probably know, im all in for sexual prefferences in both gender an race ... as i multiple times suggested:

I would like to see our comanions sentence alterned ...
I would like to see implemented two values in matter of sexual prefference for each companion ... race and gender:
- If we match both, companion should seem attracked to us, and can propose himself.
- If we match either one, companion should react positively, but should not propose himself.
- If we dont match either, companion should react surprised that we are even interested in him.

That way amount of affection to romance each companion would remain exactly the same no matter what is your Tav ...
YET! Romancing Shadowheart as Gith Woman would feel very differently compared to romancing Shadowheart as Half-Elf Male (since she is into man, concidering her Illithid dream)!

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And i would also like at least some of our companions to pair up. :P
It was brilliant when in Dragon Age: Inquisition two characters started talking during missions ... about their night spend together. :3

I think what's happening is that you have 5 hookups, but only 2 really present like potential 'romances' with somewhere interesting left to go from the first outing. The Shadowheart version and the Minthara one, with a pretty sharp contrast. Both are along the more 'evil' path, or with evilish characters, so that's a bit of an issue. Somebody wanting something more wholesome and enduring will likely balk at every hookup scene, except for Shadowheart's perhaps, which is the only 'let's take it slow' fair on offer. Minthara is definitely not a rehash of Viconia's one nighter for example, with the one and done. She leaves the door ajar a bit more, provided you don't get insta-knifed right after and can thread the needle there.

Minthara is a good fit for the archetypal fanatic. A cultist and a narcissist who reads grand design into everything that happens. She shuns and murders the outsiders, and would do the same to you two seconds ago, but then as soon as you deliver the secret code word and say "Absolute!" she turns on a dime. You're on the in-team again. Suddenly its like "This is destiny! Lets go down to the temple and make this official. Tonight, right now. I own you! The Absolute just told me so!" And the PC is like "yeah! OK! Why not? What could possibly go wrong!" Lol

Cause in order to activate this path the PC has to mirror her capriciousness and capacity for wanton murder and heedlessness.

Why should it be rational at all? Hehe

I mean for this character isn't it better to have it be frenetic and impulsive? Are we looking for sensible and generally relatable from Minthara the Drow murder machine? I don't need that from this one. This sort of villain can totally be about psychopathy and holding hands while diving headlong into a volcano if that's what the PC elects to do with it.

The charm there would be that she's insane, but also insane for you, and maybe if she doesn't decide to kill you on a whim 'cause Absolute!' it can pan out into something even more ridiculous later.

Let the slow build be for Shadowheart or Gale or whoever. Minthara can't even be bothered to wipe the blood off her face lol. She's ready to floor it at 100 mph straight off the side of the cliff, and its kinda great for what it is!

Chaotic villains have something chaotic to look forward to in their questionable sexual entaglements. Something that doesn't have to make sense but just is. This crazy church lady with all the baggage and no blinders is perfect for that.

Later when she flips the switch and we go from soul mates to vendetta divorce proceedings with absolute alimony, that'll be great too.

Sure the sex scene itself is a bit weak, but they could clean that up. Minthara is for the character who has already decided they have more in common with the disorganized Goblins than the people anyway. So I think in many respects its fun. There just aren't a lot of other alternatives on offer currently, so it's strained by players wanting it to adapt more and fit all molds. What they probably need is another villanous romance that follows a more reliably Lawful Evil or Neutral Evil arch, but for a Chaotic arch this one is servicable. They just need to play into that with the follow up.

Also, for a more Lawful or Neutral take as opposed to Chaotic on this one (or perhaps more in keeping with her high WIS and CHA scores)... for all we know by the close here, Minthara could have just made the Absolute up on a whim. Invented the name, convinced a bunch of goblins to go along along with it like a proper charlatan power grab. Or else perhaps she really believes like a prophetic schizophrenic, depending how we take her waffling on the issue. I think both have potential. The first so we can eventually lift the veil and see that she's a manipulator and puppeteer but sort of in over her head with it and needs our help to maintain the deception with everyone else. The second so that we can turn the tables, steal the master manipulator show, and have her as our true believer who buys into whatever we say, so long as it's prefaced by "Absolute" talk to get her on board. Either probably work. As the PC we sort of know that 'the Absolute' is a proxy for mindflayer trickery, but Minthara is the one turning it into a cult religion among the locals, so as chaotic maybe we join in just to be disruptive, as neutral or lawful to harness this one for our own ultimate designs. I see some payoff for either approach.

Not exactly related, but I still think a Sazza 'romance' has some potential too heheh

1. It's early access
2. Love happens too fast? Why the hell not?


With warm regards
-Thunder

It's an interesting aside, but this threads shows us that many different people have different concepts and ideas about how relationships start, and what makes them compelling, as well as what counts as romance, compared to what is purely physical. Case point that I'm fairly sure will be different from everyone else here:

Point is, though, that even within the space of this thread, we've seen several different opinions about how relationships start, or should start and they Can start in any number of different ways. How they start, though, has a substantial impact on how they grow and what they become, and the writing needs to bear that in mind. For most of the characters, what we see is not what would really count as romance for a majority of people - though many might see several of these interactions as the beginning of a romance, certainly. Each one, on its own, if you have pursued every possible scene building up to it before hand, does make a certain amount of believable sense. It makes better sense if you presume that every one of those scenes is separated by a day or more, and that, by the time we have the goblin party, we've actually been travelling together for a couple of weeks, which honestly seems to be one of the lines of intention - even if it directly crashes into and conflicts with others.

The conflict and forced feeling comes because it doesn't feel like you've been travelling together for weeks at all - it manages to, simultaneously, give you the indication that you've been travelling together for two, maybe three days, if that. It's further compounded by the fact that, not only are these threads all happening, conveniently, on the same night, even where the situation might not really fit a particular character - but also that the threads are not being treated individually or as isolate,d, so they actively lampshade the fact that everyone in camp wants jump you, and you specifically, at once, and they make an in-universe confirmation of this unbelievable oddity.



You HAVE that option. That's what you do, in the post-coital scene if you probe deeper. It's why she resents you and looks eagerly forward to killing you afterwards, if you do it - because you violated her trust when she let her guard down.


No, not at all! I was just pointing it out as an aspect of her characterisation. As long as they remain consistent with that moving forward, I think it's an interesting and telling aspect about what she's really got going on.


Shadow's dialogue the morning after seems to directly confirm that they were all very much aware of what you did... which means, yes, everyone in the camp with a tadpole gets to vicariously experience and enjoy/endure your activities, pleasurable or otherwise, if they want to. By proxy, this also means that they know when you take care of yourself, and can voyeur in on that too...and that you can be doing the same to them... sooo... hope everyone in camp is developing a voyeur kink, because they don't seem to have a lot of choice in the matter... especially from Shadowheart, who we have established likes to watch on and disapprove in the back of your mind.

Preface…I am an old softy and tend to be forgiving of video game romances. I enjoy them and think they add something for me personally. Totally get they are not for everyone. Strongly believe they should be optional and that u should have to express interest to initiate them.

Having said that. I really like the Gale romance. There is build up, some sexual tension and coyness, and some very decent dialogue. You have to make it clear you are interested and be admired by him in return before you get his rather candid ask for the night (the tone of which is totally in character for him, in my opinion). There is no gratuitous nudity to cringe at. And when you wake, he drops his bombshell on you. You can be totally pissed at him or understanding in response. I love his answer when you angrily ask why he didn’t tell you (before sex) about his “condition”. His answer is honest, selfish, and weirdly endearing…all of which are ways I would define him (although “honest” may indeed be an intellectual facade he puts on to hide something…we don’t know yet).

In terms of video game romances, it does not have the slow burn sweetness of Alistair from DAO or the angsty but wholesome flavor of Cullen from DAI. But I do feel like the romance arc suits the character as is pretty good overall (as good as those I just mentioned tbh). The real downside of his romance is if u reject him and sleep with another, he totally tries to bang u right after. Ick. That was unexpected and pretty off-putting. But the playthru with romancing him alone was lovely.

What I dislike is the way characters I have expressed zero interest in ir really built up any relationship with all want to bang at the party. The only one that did not feel forced was Lazael…it seems like a socially inappropriate thing she would do! Lol

Much seconded on the for-video game necessity that you, as a player, should need to inform the game, as the controlling entity, of your interest and intentions - doesn't mean the character has to be the one to make the first move, necessarily, but the player should nee dot indicate who they wish their character to pursue before the game pushes anything on you.

I enjoy Gale too. Frankly, I actually find him to be the most honest character we currently have access to (with the possible exception of Lae'zel) - in that he is fairly straightforward in telling you about his dire secret and asking for your co-operation with it, while each of the others will only share their secrets once they've been caught out, but will otherwise lie directly to your face, repeatedly.

Agreed. Gale and Lazael are my favorites for that very reason. I like their insight on missions and I like their overall characters. Both have great VAs too.

You know what? All the more reason why we need more of a Non-sexual option for romances. If it is true that everyone is sharing the experiences, then I need a romance option in this game that doesn't include a romp in the sack, and that, ultimately, is what I want. I don't want the romances to be forced zero to 60 for each one only to learn we're all sharing the sexual experiences. I want to be able to say, "I care deeply, but until we're cured, let's just spend some time together.

Agree!

I can't agree more.

Romance is dead in 21st century and I miss it.

Nowdays what matters more are female characters with beards, penis even in a video games... Kinda sad.

Don't worry, Lumign, there are no penises in this video game, much to my own lamentations.

There is one problem with the game that might require that "from 0 to 100 in one night" "romancing" - the commitment to companions. Unless it was said somewhere that the initial idea "you choose your companions in act 1 and then do not change the group composition" is gone (is it?) slow-burning romances would not work.

That (and the hope that what we see is just EA) makes me more forgiving.