I think it is necessary to point out the fact, that the romance fans are drowning out a lot of actual problems. It doesn't matter on which social media platform I go for BG3 content, it is always about romance, more sex scenes, more romance options ( people even simp for that spider guy). I have no problem, if someone likes romances, but I find it more important to get the story fixed up a bit than more kisses and hugs tbh.
And pointing it out is not blaming, by all means write about the Astarion romance if you like ( I assume, that he is your favourite, based on your avatar), but I don't have to agree with the notion, that Astarion needs more romance scenes more than the plot needs a rewrite. If you think, that me pointing out, that there is a weird imbalance of topic is blaming, then that is your interpretation of my words? Do I role my eyes every time I see a 'Fix romance scene of character xyz'? Yes, I do. Do I say, you can't post those topics? No, I don't.
My comment wasn't about you directly, it was more about the derailment of the thread and hyperbolic claims I've seen here that if you're vocal about the romance content then you're automatically a romance simulator player with brain rot who doesn't care about anything else and you have some evil agenda to destroy the game for others. I never said Astarion needs more romance scenes than the plot needs a rewrite. I wholeheartedly agree that the story is messy and needs the most attention. Act 3 is basicly in early access.
(...)I know people at Larian IRL who've explicitly told me the Emperor was a late addition to the game, included specifically to encourage the player to engage with the tadpole powers Larian had crafted. Again, this is not something Larian's creative heads will go on record as stating in an interview. Really, can you imagine Swen going 'Yeah, so we invented these awesome tadpole powers and a plot that really only worked if the player used them, and we couldn't manage to craft a way for the story to work without them, so we came up with this guy who 'but thou musts' them constantly?'
Interesting stuff. Personally for me, the Emperor made me want to use the powers less. It was too encouraging, too try hard in wanting to gain my trust. Just because some stranger who helped me once or twice told me 'this is good for you, use it, I will protect you' doesn't mean I wanna do it. In fact, it makes me feel dependent on him, and possibly being indebted to him, which holds zero appeal to me. I wish the game would allow me to swap
it for Orpheus earlier. I can't stand the Emperor and it's annoying I'm saddled with it till the end of the game.
Same with Karlach - I don't want to
squidify myself, Orpheus or blow up Gale.
So now if I want to finish the game the way I'd like to I have to keep this intellectually inept, one-dimensional person in my team.