Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Romance trigger and reactivity problems (formerly "Add a 'no horny' option PLEASE)

Was this recent? I distinctly remember no such fourth option, but we’ve had a patch.

Yes but its still too short of an interaction to warrant the instant switch of demeanor. I think the pacing was too fast considering it all changes in 1 cutscene.

And I'd like a MORE HORNY option, please. We Demand More Sexy Content

So, it's a bug or not?
It looks a bit weird, because you know, you're not even talking much with rest of your companions, except Shadowheart but suddenly everyone and their grannys trying to rip your pants off...
Imo, such things should happen only if you're flirting, showing some interest, but not like that.

Deep into act 2, very high approval with gale and he still isnt giving me any sex talk.

Astarion bit me.

And thats about it for any romance from the male companions.

If gale or the other companions are interested in you, its because you've purposefully pursued the romance options in the dialogue.

Also if we want to add realism, then perhaps companions could leave your camp for good if you friend zone them.

An issue is that sometimes (I would say often), the only dialogue options you have are to flirt or be mean/uncaring. And some of those flirt options are unclear if they're actually flirtatious or just being friendly. See Halsin's "enjoy your time at the party" option and Gale's "[flirt], [flirt], or [I don't care about you]" set of options.

Some people are getting additional friendzone options during these conversations, but it's unclear how or why. Are some people's games bugged? Is there a previous conversation that sets the flag to add/remove friendzone options? Regardless of the root cause, it's a problem.

I want to connect with Gale as a friend, learning more about him by asking about his cat.
I don't want my only cat-relevant dialogue response to be asking if he (Gale) likes to be pet or wants to pet me, whichever it was.

No, not recent. A few days ago, I think last weekend.

People keep mentioning this and if the developers set their plans to purposefully disappoint their female audience (which wasn't exaclt massive at the time, anyway), but it should be stressed that the only reason Anomen is the only female-oriented romance option is that they ran out of money when they were developing this feature.
The idea was to have four female and four male romance options (none of which gay-friendly, in case anyone was wondering, but that's beside the point now).

Then what happened is that the people who were working on the Jaheira one snowballed their efforts way past the initial concept and at some point they were left with two options:
- to scrap the feature entirely, or...
- to cut the loose ends and ship the game with Jaheira's lengthy romance, followed by a bunch of other half-assed ones: Viconia, Ariel, Nadia-or-something and Anomen as the only romanceable male that escaped the ax.

Yeah it's weird. Going back to the camp party in act 1. Apparently telling people to relax = I'm into you. I think it's just poorly written. They literally need to put [FLIRT] before the dialog option.


There also be more options than:
1. We'll bang, ok?
2. We'll bang, ok?
3. We'll bang, ok?
4. I hate you, go die.

Larian released statistics about which companions were romanced the most. Gale was high on the list. I think it's pretty obvious we can throw those stats out the window.

Gale got so bad for me that I had to take him out of the party. I had one conversation with him in camp and the next thing I know people are commenting on how I promised my body to him. I'm pretty sure the game thinks I tried to romance Halsin, as well.

Laezel later told me that she wouldn't be with me because I had shared myself around too much already, or something to that effect.

This stuff is ruining the companions for a lot of us. I'd love to have Gale in my party, but I'm not open to sitting in a field with him and sharing loving looks.

*

And the one person I did intentionally romance was Shadowheart. At current, she expresses her love for my character, but nothing's happened other than a kiss at the party, and the option to ask for a kiss in conversation.

In my case I had to turn two of them down (Karlach and Gale) so that it went down the friendship route. I also think, looking at some of your previous comments, that some of us just feel different about those initial scenes. For me, both of Gales scenes (magic and star watching) are clearly romantic, not ambiguous. You can then turn them down and it becomes a "friendship", but that's part of what makes it less fun. You might also feel a bit different in real life if someone you thought of as a friend (or you didn't even know much about at all at that point) hits on you out of the blue and you had to turn them down.

Of course it's a game, and there is only so much Larian can do. It's clear that romances are really popular and it's also good that they offer as many options for people as possible. People take things differently (like you and I). But personally, like some of the others here, I found the BG2 style overall more satisfying (although not in every aspect, it's an older game after all, and it also has some downsides compared to BG3), and think it would be better if it was the PC who'd have to make a clear first step, except for a few companions where it would make sense because of their character.

And as many mentioned before, if you do go down the friendship route there isn't much going on (afaik). I know of one exception in Act 3, which I found quite moving. I hope we get more options/scenes like that (at least if there is an expansion or in the next game).

And I do stay away from talking more to companions like Halshin because of this issue. Or trying to get to know others better because you know exactly where it leads too. The same thing happens in act 3 if you are friendly to certain someone who then shows up half naked. Which at that point I just found hilarious. Some of these might be bugs, but it really seems like most of is intentional.

I'm new here, so hi everyone.

If someone wants a polite option to turn Gale down (I know I did) I found one way that is far from perfect but seems less harsh than the alternative:

That was actually the combo, I used. Sadly I can't tag Zerubabvel, hope they read it.

I'm here.
It is clear that dialogue options are based on trees, and you get a specific set of options based on the path you go. I didn't think to say I was a nymph in disguise because I was worried he'd pick up on it. I think another option in that section of the tree is "You didn't have any friends?" Which is the one I chose because I just wanted to directly say, "I'll be your friend!"

The "You didn't have any friends?" question should lead to the nymph option iirc.
I think it could be an excellent scene if it had a proper friendship option and dialogue.

Where do I sign up for this petition? Where is Larian? Do they actually get involved with community comments (such as "blue posts" in WoW forums)? I would very much like to see/hear *their* feedback regarding our feedback. The "romance" (if that's what you want to call it) in this game is insane. There should 100% be a toggle-off option. It's sad when some say "just don't buy/play the game" when something so trivial in the world of D&D is being shoved down our throats. And I normally wouldn't mind "RPing" my way out of it ONCE per companion although the initial flirt should be initiated by the Avatar in a clear way, not constantly by the companions! The icing on the cake for me was when started flirting with me!! It was a good way for me to pause for the day

So you admit the dialogue choices are unclear regarding where it leads.

IIRC you have to have high enough shadowheart approval rate *and* tell her you want to do stuff with her at night first.

BUMP!! for the sake of visibility!!

We discourage bumping threads on these forums. If folk no longer have new and different ideas they want to add to a thread, it's time to move on to another discussion. The existing thread will remain on the forum if anyone wants to refer back to it.

People are free to add new posts if there's something specific that they want to say on the topic, of course.