Originally Posted by The Red Queen
Originally Posted by BOKU Haram
Originally Posted by Count Turnipsome
Feels more like Friendships were scrapped.
We needed friendship dialogues.
Yeah, that.

Like in Mass Effect...etc. you have plenty of options to be nice without immediately leading into something romance-related.
In BG3 it often feels like I either have to be an asshole (picking something along the line of "fuck off" or "*leave*" with the companion shown as visibly upset afterward) or flirt with characters.

With the usual caveat that I'm still only part way through the game and so there's still time to see some of the behaviour/bugs that others are reporting, that hasn't been my experience at all. My character is friends with Shadowheart (and gave her a flower), Karlach (gave her a hug) and Gale (watched the stars with him and he spoke warmly of our friendship), and none of them have come on to her at all ... yet.

I just worry when I see comments like the above that people will be put off being friends with companions for fear of accidentally starting romances. It's pretty clear from what folk have said that can sometimes be an issue, and I think it's important to identify and report those instances, but I also think it's important not to scare people off saying nice things to their companions that they might find leads to rewarding friendships when those issues don't always occur.
Shadowheart is the only "normal" option. I think she's the real main char here considering how much of her story is tied with the whole thing.

Karlach is physically unable and iirc(it's over 50hrs ago for me) she pretty much immediately voices her want/need to touch my char. (probably because most if not all people will find wyll first, so getting her in party already means doing something good for her)

Gale was a bit too close. But I started a dark urge playthrough on full release and he's no longer a problem...

Astarion is as expected so I told him to fuck off immediately and it's really easy to make him dislike you if you don't want to be a dick to everyone else. Having him in the party despite what he did when you first meet is already weird. (plus how he talks, plenty of warnings)

I find that lae'zel started saying I smell good as soon as I got to druid grove.

Halsin, at end of act 2, very easily starts getting into it when you're just asking some normal questions("what will you do next?" or something). And unless something important happens, Halsin's in-camp dialogue options were basically: "how did I do?" "I would like to get to know you more (probably leads to romance, I didn't really choose that one because I've seen enough of this shit to know where that's going)" and "*leave*"

The only ones that appeared to be in-character when they seemingly went from 0 to sexy-time instantly are lae'zel, astarion, and maybe minthara.

Don't think there's a romance option with Jaheira or Minsc, but I haven't seen minsc yet.

I try to explore every dialogue branches so it's very easy to run into flirting...etc. when I just want to know more about the character. People should be careful of talking to their companions either way, because it's not always obvious whether the companion will begin with a new line to say about what you did, and it's very easy to miss the voice acting if you click too fast(expecting a generic line).

I would like to see more sexy-time with non-companions, like the drow lady who plays with blood, or the seemingly-thirsty tiefling who made a bet on whether they'll survive to baldur's gate. Really "flesh out" the scenes(what's the point of picking between all those genital options if you can't see it in action? Especially that entire *blackscreen* one). And give more options to have a healthy relationship with companions that do not make it so easy to send wrong messages. But that costs money to do; so just adding a [flirt] or [romance] tag to those options would help a lot.

Last edited by BOKU Haram; 16/08/23 10:26 PM.