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)

I would just like to add my voice towards calls for a clear friendship path in the game. It should not be that flirting is required to learn more about the characters which is I'm sure what has caused all these complaints. I do think that companions having a set sexuality adds far more to immersion than simply allowing whatever but if Larian is determined for this to be a player choice thing then they need to add toggles which lets the players indicate what sort of relationships they want to experience within the game. Ultimately I think Larian will please no one trying to please everyone so I believe Larian need to adhere closer to reality. Its better for RP purposes anyways and thats what we are here for.

That totally had the opposite effect on me... I was like "NOW we're talking" lmao.
The only other character that aggressively came onto me were Halsin and Lae'zel. Both politely rejected since I was pursuing Gale and neither of them bothered me afterwards.

I've seen many complain about Gale, but really that was no issue for me, he offered to show me some magic, and I tried it out, and it was really tame and not sexual at all, then I reloaded and went with Shadowheart instead which was my original plan.

Nothing more happened after that, Gale never asked about intimacy and he never wanted to pursue my character.

In fact the only one interested was Lae'Zel but I broke off our fling after Act 2, and never had a scene with her (most likely cause I almost never took long rests)

And in Act 3, Halsin offered to go poly, and I turned him down, and stuck with Shadowheart.

from what I am reading it is like we played way different games, cause I did not feel like everyone wanted me or that the flirting options were too discrete.

However, I would like more conversations with all companions, it would be fun if you have like "Friend" statuses for those you choose to avoid to romance and instead maybe have a friendship scene, could be sharing a pint by the fire, or just talking with eachother.
Also something I would love would be if you choose to romance Shadowheart, then maybe for example Karlach wants to date Wyll or Lae'Zel or something like that, I remember Pillars of Eternity 2, where if you did not romance Xoti or Maia, they fall in love with eachother instead.

But this is nitpicky and not at all too important, I think that the game handled romances really well, far better than say DA:O where I did have the problem many mention here ( in that game I romance Leliana, but for some reason Alistair was like **grrr** when I did that, and I had no idea I had gone that path with him. )

I agree that it's pretty clear that some folk will read romantic or sexual intent into some lines when others will see them as ambiguous or friendly. And, though you'd hope that the writing would help preserve the illusion that the dialogue was specifically tailored for our own particular playthrough, of course some of it is actually written to be ambiguous so that it can fit various different contexts - clearly some better than others. I think I'm more forgiving than some of the odd off note due to the practicalities and compromises of creating party relationships that can develop in multiple different ways without it becoming utterly unmanageable, but it's also the case that the game is very reactive - sometimes, it seems, incorrectly so - and therefore the scenes can actually be different for different players.

In my playthrough, other than the already mentioned slightly too-close sitting, a rather too-speaking glance and the odd line that made it a bit too obvious that some of the same animations and dialogue would also appear in a different version of the star-gazing scene that did include a romantic element, for me Gale's stargazing scene wasn't romantic and definitely not sexual. There were no attempts from Gale to get it on, and my character had no obvious lines that could take the scene in that direction either.

Rather, for me what this scene was about was (in spoiler tags as it has plot implications)


In short, for me it was the sort of example of friendship that people are saying they want, but which they're cutting themselves off from the possibility of if they're just pushing companions away.

But, coming back round to different people apparently reading the same scenes in different ways, I thought I'd just share screenshots of the scene as it played out for me so they can make up their own minds. In spoiler tags below.

The fact that Baldurs Gate 3 now has a Sex% Speedrun category says a lot

lol saw that.

Thank you for your comment, and no problem moving forward. I could have just added some more comments instead to "add different ideas" but I'm more perplexed by the lack of any feedback from the actual Larian designers. Do they ever come to a thread to give their feedback on our feedback? This topic seems to be the most discussed and viewed/replied to in all the Suggestions & Feedback threads so it puzzles me regarding the lack of Larian engagement. Or do they just not engage in forums as a rule of thumb?

In my experience, it's very unlikely that someone from Larian will pop into this thread to comment directly on the issue.

However, I believe Larian does pay attention. I suspect they've heard this complaint, and that they may address it with action in a future patch, possibly by at least labeling dialogue options to make it clear that you might accidentally be turning Gale on. (I hope.)

That said, I do think folks should keep commenting, just to make it really clear that there's a serious issue.

There was an intelligent and thoughtful post on the Steam boards concerning this issue and suggesting a theory as to the cause of the problem. I have a fair amount of experience coding and modding computer games, and the coding theory advanced in the post makes sense to me (does not mean it is correct). I am unsure of the rules concerning linking to other boards, so I have just quoted the full post below.


Regards,

Hem

Edit: I have posted on these boards that I have decided not to purchase the game, but the truth is that I really want to play this title… I just can’t arsed to be harassed by NPCs in a video game. Just so others here know where I am coming from: I am an older straight guy, but I don’t freak out over appropriate well-designed LGBT content, and I have many dear friends IRL who fall under that moniker.

The post I quoted above gives me hope that the romance content wasn’t intentionally designed as it currently functions. Heck, I might buy the game so I can mod a fix to share with the community. lol!

Well, hopefully that does explain some of the issues people have been seeing as it sounds like something that should be relativiely easily fixable.

(The bit about triggers being locked in and not reset, that is. Personally, I like the fact that my PC doesn't have to always initiate the romances so hope the fact that some players are getting pestered can be fixed without removing what I see as a desirable feature.)

I'm also going to suggest that we stop bringing sexuality into this thread. There's no need. I'd guess that most people prefer not to be repeatedly hit on by people who they don't fancy in return, particularly when they've already said "no". And sexuality is just one reason amongst many why we, or our player characters, might not fancy a particular companion. We can hopefully leave it at that, without branching into discussions of sexuality that often lead to people getting upset and uncomfortable.

Just as a community resource, I have identified two early mods on Nexus that aim to address these issues:

1. Jhaerik's Disable Reactions Mod (Avoid Unwanted Romance) - not the best option, IMHO, but there is a good discussion of modding this part of the game in the comments section concerning this mod. (Nexus is just such a great community of serious gamers and modders overall.)

2. Approval Tweaks - aims to slow down the NPC approval rating accumulation mechanics in a way that *seems* more consistent with appropriate overall pacing of the romance portion of the game. Some users have had pleasant success using this mod to curb the bugs in the romance system.

I don’t disagree that having some of the NPCs attempt to initiate romance with the PC in an natural and organic way sounds fun. I think it is just a very demanding concept to implement properly. I don’t fault Larian for trying and (in my view) failing, but, perhaps they should have spent a bit more time and resources on this feature if they wanted to take that on? Just my take.

Are we playing the same game? This did not happen to me at all, in fact my game is not horny enough, lol. Once I rejected Lae'zel she never mentioned or implied anything ever again. Same with Gale. Shadowheart didn't even want to have anything to do with me because I slaughtered the druids. So again, how is it that your game is so "horny". Please give video examples so we can all see because I find it hard to believe you picked the choices to not pursue romance and they still came onto you.

Sounds like a troll/bait thread to me.

It’s not troll bait. Please read up a few posts for a possible explanation as to why players are getting wildly different results and how basic design errors *may* have caused these issues.

Okay, so it's a bug then. Report it in the right section of the forums if it's an issue like that. This feels like a "woke" topic on first glance and it's posted in the wrong forums.

I would second the general idea here; make more like the DOS2 or the original Baldur's Gate games where romance is an option but there's some work involved, or so only one romance can be active at a time. So far every companion who wasn't in the original Baldur's gate trilogy has come onto my character when I thought I was just going through their quests or being nice to them. Bit of an immersion breaker, enough that I'd just turn off the romance paths if there's a friend zone option.

Though I did have an amusing conversation with my wife when she looked up from typing her clinical notes, said "O your guy is sleeping" and a shirtless mind flayer popped up right then.

First, no one here knows whether this is a bug or not. There's suspicion that a bug might be involved.

I suspect there's some buggy dialogue coupled with misleading dialogue and a scoop of intention on top. But who knows?

Second, plenty of this already has been reported.

Third, in my opinion, the feedback section is very appropriate. Folks are giving their feedback on what's happening with the romance angles in the game. If someone doesn't like what's happening, letting Larian know is feedback, by definition.

I am currently sharing your experiences, as I found the "horniness" to fall away during Act 2, but some people are having different experiences. While they can be better expressed at times, I think everyone on this forum is best served by assuming good faith. Yes, trolls pop up every now and then, but we should hear people's exact criticisms out before throwing labels on them.

There's nothing stopping you from getting a drm-less version to try it out before you buy.