Hello, I just finished my first playtrough and the game is great.
I wanted to give you feedback, about my Shadowheart romance experience, which was underwhelming for me, because the final "pinnacle" romance scene in the beginning of act 3 did not play at all. I got to the point of stepping in the boat and going to face the Elder(Nether)brain and still nothing. So I got to resort to searching the Internet, which always feels bad in a kind of game, that is heavily story driven. I did all the weird things, that are suggested in Reddit threads (killing Shadowheart, ressurecting her, spamming long rests in Rivington). Nothing worked. Important note - this was after patch 4, so the previous scene conflict loading should be resolved by now.
Then i found, that i probably did not get the answer from her about not being able to swim and liking black orchids. So I did some backtracking, found that last point, when you actually can do that is in act 2, before enterning the Shadowfell. So I asked her the questin, got the reply, jumped to another waypoint a gave her the flower. I lowered the difficulty to easiest, "speedruned" Shadowfell (saved Nightsong), did only necessary fights in Moonrise Towers/Mindflayer colony, got to the beginning of act 3. Then first long rest in Rivington and I got the scene to play. Then I returned to my save from "main" timeline and finished the game, because otherwise I would have to replay whole act 3.
So to my point - Im now pretty certain, that finishing the romance is hard locked beyond the question about swimming and liking the orchids (not necessary giving the orchid itself - although that im unsure of). And that question is locked beyond you prying into Shadowhearts Shar whorship. Which is something I initially intently choose not to do, because you portrayed Shadowheart as someone, who values being discreet.
I get that you maybe wanted the game to have more of replay value with choosing the same romance, but this way it felt somewhat bad - like major punishment for minor mistake. Not to mention, that the game "behaves" like you are lovers even if the scene have not played, which is very confusing (for examaple - if you "slip" with Mizora, Shadowhart tells you, that she maybe was not "going" hard enough on you, when from your point of wiev she was not "going" on you at all.) It would be okay if that scene was only a bonus for those who asked the question, if in addition to that there was simillar baseline scene for those who did not ask, yet did all the "major" things regarding romance "correcty" (approval, romance at the party after saving the druid grove, standing by her afer saving Nightsong/defying Shar, finishing House of Grief).
In my opinion, in game, that is so heavily story/character/relationship based, your first playtrhough is your most valuable experience, and if you hard lock something so major, beyond something so minor and at the some time kind of unintuitive, it somewhat diminishes that unrepeatable first playtrough experience. Yes you can still experience it in some less ideal spoilery way - internet searching, backtracking what you did wrong, or even throwing all own effort from the window and simply watching it on Youtube a then simply put pieces togheder, but that feels way less statisfying, that when you get the experience on your first playtrough, when you are somewhat expecting it to happen, but do not know exactly how and when it will happen.
So why i write this at all? I would suggest, when you do your next game, please do not lock really imprtant things beyond something minor, or if you do, have alternative for the romance to fully play out, for those who skipped that minor thing.
Nice day to everyone.
