Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Larian Rommance problem

I know this has likely been touched on but for me its literally the one area that ruins Larian games for me. Ive never played a game which is so obsessed with railroading rommances. I honestly keep loosing immersion and turning off the game as they ruin my playthroughs. Like im playing as an Old mountain man dwarf ranger but people are just obsessively hitting on me or bringing up that i spurned their advances in a like sex pest way endlessly even after saying i wasnt interested initially. I had a similiar problem in divinity original sin 2, i played as an undead necromancer im not looking for love but no matter how many times i rejected Sebille she just decided i was in fact her lover and boyfriend and the story railroaded it into my ending which ruined it for me. Why is larian obsessively trying to pander to the most sad and hoenstly disturbed individuals in the gamming community? Like deviant art type people or extremely lonely disturb individuals are the only people who are into that type of crap. Larians games are fantastic but this bizarre quirk really lets them down and destroys immersion in an otherwise very enganing and immersive game. I just wish they could go for a more dragon age origins approach where companions did not just change into whatever shape the player wished and rommances were their to participate in but had to be initiated not endlessly forced upon the player because you think ill be missing out if i dont have a twighlight experience with gale and Wyll fighting over my old man dwarf character.

If anybody knows a good mod which just makes rommances tonned down or activated by initiation please let me know.

+1

The "playersexual" stuff was always a bad idea.

I disagree, among other things because the game currently does not understand friendship. Your romance is the character with whom you share the deepest bond and in who's story you are most involved, so it should be the character you are most interested in or feel the strongest connection to. Otherwise all character stories are closed off to you if you are not the proper type for the characters you find interesting and have no interest in the character or characters a PC of your type is supposed to be interested in.

I am pretty much ok with all the Act1 early Act2 propositions. I just wish Wyll wouldn't make such a wounded puppy face when you reject him and there was a good grumpy "you woke me up for this? Please, go back to your bedroll and let's never talk about this gain." reply for Karlach. =D

I highly recommend this mod which will allow you to refine or remove the romance feature to your liking. I largely agree with what you wrote, though it could have done without the insults, lol. Romance should be initiated by the player to avoid unwanted advances, and it generally has more depth when the companions have personal preferences. I'm okay with playsexuality overall, but I only prefer it if there isn't a large enough roster of romance options (DA2, for example). BG3 has 8 romances in total, so they could have added diversity of preferences while still giving everyone a good variety of choices.

That being said, even if the companions had designated orientations, the overall romance experience would still be flat and a bit of a letdown. Resources and time were spent in less important parts of the game (IMO, origin characters, giving dialogue to unimportant NPCs, etc.), and now we have a subpar main story and somewhat lifeless and often unreactive companions.

I completely disagree. If individual companions only had specific preferences, then many players would not be able to romance who they wanted. Shadowheart is the most popular romance. Now imagine she is only lesbian and male characters are locked out. Oh, the howls of outrage. It would be the same if she were programmed to be only heterosexual.

Companions ask, you say no, and that's the end of it. (With the exception of Astarion who can potentially bring it up twice.) A lot of women wish it were that easy in RL to stop unwanted advances.

Yeah, it was.

It's arguably a bad idea in general and I've hardly ever seen it "done well" (if that's even possible), since even in principle it's something that robs all these comprimary characters of a specific identity.

It's made worse by the fact that in this game everyone automatically defaults to "romantically/sexually invested with your character" rather than let the player be the one prompting the start of the relationship (or more in general the flirting).
Or rather, it seems to qualify as "flirting" any interaction that isn't downright rude toward them and it doesn't seem to expect any meaningful relationship to bloom outside of the romantic/sexual sphere.

In other words, it almost feels like there are no "adventure buddies" here, just potential love interests and REJECTED LOVE INTERESTS.
it doesn't really leave a good feeling.

Then again, I don't see why anyone should be entitled to romance "whoever they wanted" regardless of who they are playing as.
Once again just because something is convenient it doesn't mean it's better.

I'm not opposed to having romance options in an RPG generally, but Larian should have followed the "less is more" rule. Rather than having like two meaningful and well thought out romances, that actually have an impact on the main story, they chose to go for the most shallow dating sim implementation, where every companion is designed to hit on the player.

At least it should be the player who initiates the flirting with a dialogue option clearly marked as "flirting", and there should be another friendly option too, rather than just the outright rudeness we get now. Was it so hard to do this way? Why is a significant part of companion interaction just about awkwardly rejecting their advances? Why can't I be just buddies with Gale? Do the writers at Larian understand the mystical concept of friendship?

This.

It's blatantly NOT "this".

Is it? My first playthrough, when my character turned down Astarion a second time, he gave her a speech how she is saying no, but he knows she desires him. That is not how I'd like to see it in games, as a woman.

I like it when some companions have and express their likes/dislikes of me and other companions, but Larian did it in such an awkward way. Not a single hint, not a single flirty line, and then I randomly click on Lae'zel in the middle of the road and she's like "i wanna lick you all over". At least wait to have this discussion in camp.

Regarding playersexuality, the game is long, it's more convenient to have all options available for any kind of player character.


It fits his background, but at the same time yeah, his characterization wouldn't lose anything if they had him say something else.

At least Lae'zel is clear and direct about it. In the case of other companions I initially went along the romance path unknowingly and unwittingly, thinking that they are just being friendly.

How do you guys go along with the romance unknowingly and unwittingly?

I got hit on by every character at this point, and they are all very clear about what they want and there is a clear way to turn them down and stay friends.

I mean, when Gale asked me if I want to hang out, I said yes, not knowing that he wants to have sex with me. When I realized what's going on and backed out, and the game almost scolded me for "ruining a magic moment".

I thought I had just a friendly chat with Wyll about dancing. Next times he offers to dance with me. I say "thanks bro, but no". Wyll looks like the most heartbroken person in the universe.

Gale only has a sex scene in act 2. For that, you have to initiate the act 1 weave scene, when the narrator talks about the air feeling intimate and you're given the option to just think about having a friendly dinner with Gale. His sex scene never triggers if you click on the friend options.

With Wyll you only get the "dating with Wyll" flag if you were flirting with him at the tiefling/goblin party.

I have little experience in not romancing Gale but apart from what Ahania already wrote, you can also initiate flirtation with him during the tiefling party. He also usually asks you if you are even interested in sex before the scene under the illusionary sky (The whole bit about the excitement of battle.) and all his dialogues that are vaguely flirty have a very clear "I am not interested in you like that" option along with the more flirty replies. If you didn't have any flirty interactions with him before that, it's probably a bug because there definitely also is a friendship version of that scene.

But that's precisely part of the issue?

I don't want to "get hit on by every character". And I don't want my default to be having to "shut down sex pests" to have some breathing room.
I ALSO don't like that being romantically or sexually engaged with them is pretty much a good 80% of what they have to offer in terms of character interaction.

It's not just about "when it culminates in a sex scene". It's about every interaction with them being "sexually charged" in a way or another.

You can't even offer motherfucking Halsin to share a toast at a party without the game filing it under "A clear invite to suck each other's dick" or something of that sort.
And the alternative to making out passionately with Gale under a starry sky is to tell the dude something that boils down dangerously close to "Fuck off, you disgusting wanker".
Don't even get me started on Karlach slobbering all over by bedroll ten minutes after meeting and almost breaking down to tears few hours later about my "betrayal" because I didn't kick her on her teeth as soon as she tried it (which apparently means romantic commitment to her).

It was possible with Gale upon launch, and was later patched out. Because unlike in the EA, it only took flirting with him during the weave scene for the game to start the romance. Even if you chose someone else at the tiefling party afterwards, which is how it happened in my playthrough. My character learned from Withers that she was apparently romancing two companions at the same time. Also, at launch there was no friendly-but-not interested option during the weave dialogue to turn him down.

On a side note, I recall there were more camp scenes with Gale leading up to the weave scene (which Larian seems to have removed?). The EA romance had a more slow going feel.

Gale's scenes can be kinda uncomfortable if you're not interested in romancing him yeah.


Did they fix that? Last time I played he wanted to dance with me even after I forgot about him at the party.