Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Please fix ascended Astarion romance scene

I got curious about his Act 1 scene and didn't see any drastic changes.

What they really should fix is the stupid creepy face the pc makes the morning after. It looks better on female characters, but really bad on dudes. That, and Astarion's eyes not being red half the time.

That link works, the first one doesn’t.

And I agree with the OP on Twitter, they hate it and I’m not fond of the change myself. They fixed the angle but it still zooms in on the candle and you barely saw anything with the original version anyway.

I really hope they change it back because this is ridiculous when you have steamier scenes with other characters. If it’s not meant to be an ‘adult’ game, just remove all sex scenes in their entirety.

Thanks for letting me know and sorry for mixing the two up in the reply.

Sorry, I didn't realize the larian forums broke Tumblr links if they were too long. This is the post I meant to link showing changes to Astarion's Act 1 facial animations, which I personally think change the tone of the scene a lot and look really silly. It didn't look like this in Patch 4.

(Most of) these aren't even very recent changes, they keep messing with those scenes every time and can never get them right.

What is shown in the twitter link is the scene from patch 4. Now the camera stays on the characters as it did before, but only on their upper bodies.

Wow, they did indeed alter the facial animations in act 1 scene! Reminds me a lot of his behaviour in the ascended epilogue scene before the party. He doesn't have that smouldering, serious look anymore, but he does behave more lively and smiles a lot more. Interesting change.

The fact that they broke the ascended Astarion sex scene, "fixed" it, then proceeded to change the act 1 scene almost makes me think someone at Larian dislikes Astarion's romance. Why touch the first scene? It was fine. The ascended scene was fine too. 10/10 no notes, great execution on both accounts, kindly leave them alone. Also is it true that only ascended Astarion doesn't have a romantic interaction in the epilogue? I'd check but my only save near the epilogue is my Gale romance run so I haven't seen the Astarion ones yet. Because if it is true that ascended Astarion is the only one that doesn't get a romantic interaction then... yeah someone at Larian really doesn't seem to like Astarion's romance lol

I know this is slightly off topic from ascended Astarion and his scene, but there seems to be a pattern here with his romance overall (and I hate it).

Also Larian please put the scenes back the way they were, I promise you got them right the first time around.

I have a savegame with AA and can confirm you can't do anything romantic with him. I checked YT and saw all other companions have kisses and/or hugs. I've posted about it in two other threads. The only video no one seems to want to upload is with romanced Wyll, so I don't know about him.

They did not only alter animations but in the ascended romance and spawn graveyard date the dialogue options for Tav show up too early now.

I can't help but feel like they messed with the camera in the graveyard scene too at some point.

I've found that with patch 4 he has gotten a lot less expressive overall, like they smoothed out his facial expressions. Can't really put my finger on it.

Also, they are zooming in so much now in a lot of scenes that part of his body language and hand movements get lost. With every patch they change something for the worse in cutscenes. I'm glad I've seen everything at release, because it was just right back then IMO.

I think they're trying and still kinda failing to get the characters facial animations under control. We see less weird facial expressions, but also lose something.


Yeah, someone is really into closeups. The graveyard scene now kinda shoves his shoulder and hair in your face and then the camera moves up way too fast.

I sent feedback through Larian's Feedback/Bug Report form, about the Act 1 changes, because they bothered me so much and feel like such a downgrade from what I saw in Patch 3. I really recommend anyone who hasn't sent them feedback directly consider doing so.

Are you telling me that my Tav not looking like a total dork have the time anymore came at the cost of Astarion's facial expressions? Damn.

I saw a report that there's one more change that was not documented in the patch notes, namely that they added physics to male genitalia. I guess we can count it as another change in act 1 scene.

You win some, you lose some. Though I would sacrifice my characters faces for Astarion's superior little frowns any day.


I sent them some words about both Act 1 and Act 3 scenes lol. Because if they keep making changes in that direction soon we will have "here's some naked pixels" instead of "here's a scene that illustrates the character's personality and where they are in their story."

I am convinced that at least one writer in Larian hates AA. x) And the players who choose him.

I think this is at least a glitch in dialogue timing, though I haven't seen this change to the scene yet. I have noticed it a lot in Act 2 and in my Act 1 replay this patch though, and through Patch 4- dialogue choices come really early, even before an NPC has finished speaking, or dialogue subtitles disappear very fast even before an NPC has finished speaking the next line.

Now that Neil just won Best Performance for Astarion, I hope next Patch Larian spends extra time to polish Astarion related content and really "fix" these unwanted changes....

Fingers crossed! I’ll keep logging support tickets until they make the changes or tell me to go away lol!

And another feedback ticket logged! Please change it back Larian! <3