Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Astarion romance improvements

I simply don’t understand how they keep focus on this is Larian trying to tell us what abusive relationship is so we won’t be misled to romanticize an abusive relationship in real life, I mean we are adults! This is a game with content of talking people into kill themself, animal sex, genocide , but a a romance which the plot actually makes sense with our comapanion is supposed to be the most concerning?

I still refuse to believe Larian wants to punish AA fans ,or try to push AA fans to choose the “good” route, otherwise they wouldn’t make actually more dialog or animation of AA post Cazador compared to UA, they wouldve just simply wrapped it up like “THE “ real bad ending which is becoming absolute , I mean there is even no epilogue with that route.

I just hope AA fans can enjoy the game as UA fans .

If they're right, a romance with the dangerous, decadent vampire spawn Astarion:
- fix to good(er)
- unloving abuser

Oh and I forgot to say why UA fans care so much about this? It’s a animation they won’t be seeing since they won’t choose AA route, they can’t just accept we all have different approach of understanding the story?wanting to see AA fans uncomfortable for me is just purely abusive because they are majority, and I thought abusive behavior is what they hate the most about AA?

Anyone who has the power can do whatever the hell they want - the Astarion Point. Works like a Swiss watch every time.

This is a thread for different suggestions I think these would be more appropriate.

There's a thread about patch 6 and Astarion. here
There's a thread discussing the Dark Side Astarion. Ascension here

First, if I go Off-topic, sorry, but it's not okay that people are bullied by others, so I want to answer on that subject.

This! The Poster Smirk tells it all. I am happy about the smirk. I love it. (Larian, please don't remove it.) I think, Larian wants to please all players and not bully them. (If someone on the team wanted to intentionally injure players there, they should be withdrawn immediately.)
Larian has implemented a lot of things, that players wanted. They respond to the wishes, they improve (or try to) improve the romances (e.g. Epilogue)! And we are very grateful for this. I want to mention, that we are happy about improvements.


No, don't feel sorry...(!) It's sad that a lot of AA fans now can't express themselves without being attacked and bullied from all sides.
Sorry (haha!), but a lot of straight men seem to be very insensitive toward this subject, because it doesn’t affect themselves. There are more than enough examples in history of what indifference can lead to, we also see it in the present, but I won't go into detail now. If people are not interested in reading such stuff, they shouldn’t feel the need to come to Threads dedicated to Astarion. Point. But telling people in Astarion Threads, they should be quiet about the new kisses or they don’t want to hear another word about this subject, otherwise they would explode, just LOL, I laughed about it so hard, it doesn’t show much empathy. (Not to mention, how odd but the OP’s post itself was, but that’s another thing)


Yes, those people are mostly abusive by themselves. They want to hurt others and get pleasure from seeing other people suffering. Me, too, I was asking myself, why People can’t just let other people play and enjoy their game, how they want to. Why do they jump in and spread toxic comments and bully others..
I was thinking about it. It’s just my own opinion, why AA Fans are extremely bullied by "Spawnfans" (and not the other way around)
People who bully other people are toxic people with dark triad traits. These trolls are often narcissistic and show no empathy.

I'll give you a good example of how a toxic person / troll behaves, it just happened to me:
One person spammed under every comment, summarized something like: "AA is an abuser, he's bad, he can't feel love, It's your own fault.“
I asked this person (summarized):“ It doesn't matter whether you believe Astarion can feel love or not, it's about the players feeling bad and sick when they suddenly face sexual abuse in their romance implemented in a Valentine's patch. Can‘t you feel some empathy for other women?“
Their answer: „Astarion is an abuser.. blabla.. abuser..blabla.. abuser.. you get what you deserve. No, I don't sympathize. “
My answer: „ >No, I don't sympathize. <-Okay. That's a statement.“
Their answer (I just summarize their long spam texts): „Because Astarion is an abuser.. you get what you deserve. You are not hurt, you are just mad, your sex fantasy wasn't what the character actually was.“
(You can imagine I laughed out so hard about this. Those people only spam comments with the intention of upsetting or harming other people)

Why are almost exclusively AA fans bullied by toxic people? People who want to bully other people, who exhibit everyday sadism or narcissism, tend to choose weak partners who they can control, bully and/or hurt. They would probably never choose a dominant AA because they would have to submit to him. That mostly goes against their nature. I think 99,9 % (just my own opinion!) people with everyday sadism choose Spawn Astarion (ca. 80 % people in general -a youtube poll- choose Spawn) that's why there are so many trolls among these fans. You could almost say that the AA community is the least toxic community and a very empathetic and respectful one (Of course, there are also black sheep among us, I don't rule that out, and there is no black and white as always.)
So, there are many trolls and abusive people among the Spawn fans. These trolls start provoking and they try to dominate all the discussions, normal Spawn fans (without dark traits) unfortunately very often join in (group dynamics, we know it from history). Sad but true. Minorities often have to struggle with discrimination.


It’s sad. These are comments from these toxic people mentioned above.. They LIKE to hurt other people and to see others being hurt, because of their everyday sadism or narcissism. Also they may envy the AA fans, for being happy. So they want only bad things for the AA Route and the Romance to be destroyed (which they don’t even play, nor they could understand, because of their lack of empathy). Not one single sane AA Fan (in my opinion) would truly say, they like to see their Tav‘s being sad and abused. No, those comments stating stuffs like „nothing should be changed in Tav“ or „AA is an abuser, you get what you choose“, are mostly from abusive, sadistic, narcissistic or toxic people…

If Larian truly believe in those toxic people, who don’t even play the AA Route, then it would be a real shame.

Sad, but This! (Neil himself is an empathetic man, if he would know now what's happening...)

So my (Astarion Romance) suggestion to Larian is and it is very important: Don't listen to toxic people, who wants to destroy the AA route/Romance and/or who just wants to harm the community

If this is about me, which I suspect but am not really sure because your summary has nothing to do with what I said, it is incredibly misconstrued. Btw, I'm not a "her", and not trying to "troll" or "be abusive". Not everyone who disagrees is trying to troll. I don't want to get into more fights at all but making up what happened irks me and it well, makes me want to defend myself. I haven't posted on this thread for a few days now to respect that my opinion might be considered irrelevant to the discussion being had here. Please just keep me out of it, then.

EDIT: I am now seeing after Zayir's reply that I probably overreacted and made a fool of myself because I panicked a bit at the possibility of my words/my person being misrepresented since we had a vaguely similar discussion here (evidently I don't want people to think that I said "you are not hurt, you are mad" and the like). My bad. I shouldn't have assumed it was about me even if it was said on the thread where we had an argument.

No, it's absolutely not about you. It's not something I've taken from the Forum (it's from youtube), why do you take it personally? O wait... really?


In any case, I changed the "her" to "this person"/"Their". Thank you for pointing this out. Don't worry, I am not talking about you.

Edit:

Thank you, jinetemoranco, we appreciate this!

I just linked this thread to both Neil's and Larian's Twitter account in the hopes that they will read through some of the posts and perhaps see how many people are affected by the latest changes to his character, it does affect Neil as an actor as well I think, people love him right now but that could quickly change in the future even though it's not his fault.

Sorry then. It seemed to be referencing some points of what you said to me during our previous discussion, even if the person's replies didn't line up with what I said. I'm off again.

It might be worth mentioning that the patch 6 feedback starts at page 11.

While I'm happy the thread has gained popularity and more like-minded individuals have expressed their feelings, please let's not go too deep into the spawn fans vs ascendant fans topic. There are genuinely nice spawn fans out there who truly enjoy this path and mean harm to no one. It's important to distinguish them from a certain group of toxic people who behave like fanatics, or cultists if you will, who see it as their holy mission to bully others for having different likes and opinions than they do.

Actual spawn fans also got slighted by this patch, though not as severely.

Let's try to voice our concerns in solidarity.

Seramina, Thank you very much for the explanations! I apologize for the illiterate use of terms, due to my ignorance in this matter. I can edit that post if I need to (I would appreciate it if you can help me and write in private messages how best to do it so that it is properly written). Unfortunately, I don't know much about BDSM, I started to learn more about it during the game with Astarion to understand him better, and rather more in terms of psychology, I didn't know the terminology, and I used those words that I came across in sight, in conversations with other players, etc.

You have explained a lot of things very well, clearly and in detail. Including in terms of the feelings that Astarion and Tav have for each other. The first time through it took me a while to comprehend the scene of Tav kneeling before Astarion, I ended up feeling it as caring for him:


And, it seems to me that in terms of showing realistic D/s relationships, there should be two lines. A dominant partner with an unprepared person should still use "gentler" options, and what is currently shown in the game is taken very badly by many players, it's a traumatizing story. Thanks for joining us, wish Larian would listen to your arguments.

I 've been following this thread and reading everything...I feel so sad when I see confrontation between Astarion fans. When you find AAstarion hot everyone asks you if you are okay or if you need therapy, that's mean...Everyone enjoys different things and we should respect that. Astarion has two paths ('good/bad') like the other main characters and we should be able to choose which one best suits our way of roleplaying and not be judged by anyone. The decision to help him complete the ritual and become a vampire lord exists for a reason, so the player can have fun chosing this!

My summary on this subject and the problem I see with ascended Astarion romance right now:

1. Tav/Durge's facial animations in new kisses are sad and you can't really enjoy them without feeling bad. If you are asking for a kiss you should be smiling not about to cry or angry.
2. You know he becomes controlling and power hungry after ritual yet you agree to stay with him. The kisses can be rough but should also be consensual. You're in a relationship with him because you want to, that means you can break up with him and be free (at least until the final battle, after that you can't leave him...then you can start being afraid of him but not before).
3. If the game gives me the option to rule the world by his side and I accept, respect. Right now my Durge is so unhappy with him for no reason, the game gives you plenty of dialogue options to support his evil plans. Maybe a neutral face in our character would be more appropriate and let everyone imagine what they want for their story.

My real question:
Has Larian made these animations to show us the tragedy of being a spawn/vampire's slave? They may have thought it was necessary to show players this relationship with him is toxic and you should regret it...I dont know what to think, I agree that's his 'bad ending' but I think everyone already knew from the beginning this path makes him a worst person, still you should be able to enjoy your decision to be with him. We have no power over how Astarion is written but we should have over how our character feels about it through dialogue options (you can freely choose to worship your new vampire lord).

I belive the real intention was to make everyone happy, this patch was mostly fanservice so why invest time and money in doing something bad for Astarion fans? They did 3 new hot kisses but Durge can't even enjoy one...it feels really uncomfortable. I believe most people who choose AA would have a smile on their face in those kisses.

This change in Tav/Durge's face is needed because we want to enjoy the 'can I kiss you?' dialogue option without feeling that we're being forced to not enjoy it.

Overall, I think we should be grateful for all the new content and improvements they're releasing. I understand they are working on fixing many things not only romances, but yea, they should be careful when they add new things. I'm not sure if they will fix those animations but at least we are trying to give our feedback and share our opinion here.

To me the only things that are unacceptable in the kisses are Tav's facial expressions and body language. Tav should look happy and actually touch him instead of standing there with clenched fists. I love the dominant, cheeky behaviour of Astarion, his promo smirk and the smug faces, that's how a confident Vampire Lord should act. He is perfect the way he is, only Tav is acting OOC and it ruins everything!


How I'd like AA kisses to be improved:

1. Tav's facial expressions and body language should be that of a joyous, passionate lover, not a mortified victim.

2. When we ask about the relationship, there should be two options:

a) Kiss me gently.
b) Kiss me roughly.

Contrary to what's being asked in that survery I don't want it to be dependent on the choice made during the romance scene and to be locked into one thing. Sometimes my Tav may feel like doing it this way or another. The more options the better!

3. Astarion could first verbally ask Tav to kneel and they can say they'd rather move it to a more private place. That kiss would trigger the next time he's asked for one.

4. Give him a unique end of the world kiss. I'm looking at you, Gale!

5. I want to be able to kiss him in the epilogue after he says that power is nothing without my Tav.


Another pic to ridicule this patch:

Sorry, I'll make it clear that I'm not arguing with you, I've just been meaning to post this thought here for a while now.
Yes, it is, the toxicity of this fandom just drives people to the edge.

It's an Evil Ending, as Astarion Author, Stephen Rooney said himself, even corrected from bad to evil.

It's not "failing, losing". Evil is more complicated.
The only thing that makes this end evil in my opinion: Souls for Power.

The rest is already a more complex controversial issue.

Devnote in dialog with Astarion, talking about cult control.
Astarion. CinematicNodeContext: Can't quite find the words to convey "even evil people can be a little bit good" so just mimes weighing scales with his hands NodeContext: "And even good or evil people can be a little bit complicated."

By making evil flat, only "bad" and only "good", in my opinion literally the entire meaning of the character is distorted.

This "spawn slavery tragedy" doesn't even really work for the plot. Astarion shows his dark side quite openly throughout the game and after the ritual. Main Line: Literally Lilith, who fears nothing and chooses the Devil and his kingdom of darkness.
His evil is shown well in true medieval style line: "The choice is made, there's no turning back, there's no going away". Lawful evil
He can always be triggered by the word "freedom". A kiss for balance. And that's just one of the lines of play that should remain one of, not the main one. But kisses are written along the most logical line, they imply that the player has approached himself and wants a kiss. I think the slavery-spawn line wouldn't even come close to a kiss.
Why is it even possible to be in a relationship with Astarion when he kills my Tav in Act 1, after failing the dice, and does immorality all the time.
In dnd2 (but bg3 doesn't really care about dnd) some spawns avenged the deaths of their Masters. We need to be able to think about complex evil.
If anything they force me to understand, show with fanservice kisses for February 14... Well there's a lot of patches try harder to make B&W. (please don't)

I 100% agree with everything you say. I wish we could upvote posts in here.
I did say in my first post that Astarion was OOC, to clearify what I meant was that he was OOC with Tav making those faces. As in he would stop and ask something like "what's wrong, darling?" and not continue with the kiss. Changing Tavs expression and body lanuage would fix the kisses for me too.

Well, unless the writers tell us what they intended it's all speculation. it isn't even clear that Tav is a mere spawn or 'vampire's slave'. There is a strong possibility that she is a consort (Vorlog in DnD) but it isn't made explicit. I suspect Larian wished to leave it open for the player to decide what her status is.
A lot of fans seem to have decided that Tav having no autonomy is canon which would be fine, except that some seem determined to push this head-canon onto everyone else. If other people enjoy a character in a way that you don't, the sensible thing is to have a respectful discussion and move on if you can't agree. It's not cool to suggest somebody needs therapy in real life just because they don't agree with you.

Personally this is my take. They wanted to make everyone happy and they got it wrong.
It is a 'romance' option after all. Players who view A.Astarion as toxic, obnoxious, evil incarnate etc. surely won't want to romance him! So the only players who are going to see those kisses are the ones who enjoy this version of him and who want a dark romance.
The idea Larian would try to punish some of their customers for their choices makes no sense to me. it's a computer game, not a course on ethics and morals.

@LiryFire I agree, with you. Making A. Astarion completely evil with no redeeming features and S.Astarion good and wholesome is a distortion that ignores a lot of the information we are given through the game. It also diminishes the character and makes him flat and one-dimensional.

It seems only Astarion is getting this treatment (correct me if I am wrong), with some people treating A.Astarion and S. Astarion as if they are completely different people with completely different personalities. To me, that is clearly not the case, the same character traits are present in both, it's just the balance that gets altered.

@Ametris I agree, and I love that last picture!

Edit: I'm having trouble accessing the forum (rural internet), so may not be able to reply in a timely manner

I would love to see 2 implemented for Spawn Astarion. Just give everyone access to both sets of animations based on their preferences.

fundamentally Astarion is the two faces of the same coin and with his particular story and attitude being mainly chaotic neutral his story line shouldn't be treated as two separate characters.

We know Ascended isn't the best version of himself his worst traits are amplified but as a new power I doubt he'd throw everything out with his treatment of Tav especially as his triggers still in ascended form is anything Cazador related I do not believe he'd switch that quickly even with the sacrifice of 7000 souls especially as we already murdered half the plot with him as a spawn which is easily a few hundred (grove,camp,last light,moonrise,baldurs gate)

Yes he manipulated us at the start but I don't believe that voice breaking conversation he has in act 2 is meaningless even if he becomes high on power, Yes he will manipulate us as ascended the whole spawn and you can't leave story . (the Vampire Bride thing that has been spoken about in earlier replies is likely that you are not a slave.)
Indeed he will ride that power high for a bit it's new to him and he very much enjoys you kneeling for him or sitting on his lap perhaps naked.

My issue is as previously stated Tav's face *fix it * we are not the victim at any point in our story not yet at the very least from what I gathered if you break up with him you can tell he regrets it with faking how happy he is Neils voice acting is the best way to tell the story(animate) compared to fan service.

the more aggressive kisses I'm fine with I like both the faces of Astarion until the sad tav faces now I can't face my Durge run it's been blown out the water especially as he can no longer be a thrall which could of been my revenge plot. Can't exactly dump him I don't have another option in act 3 to rule the world with.

Up until the end of patch 5 I had autonomy over everything I did with my romanced AA.
That autonomy has been taken away by patch 6. but it's been done in a way which makes no sense. If I kiss him once after ascension and get these sadistic kisses I am never going to kiss him again and without those kisses he is basically the patch 5 version in every other respect - but that is after ascension.
Without several playthroughs and a lot of meta gaming I am not going to assume that his personality will do a 180 after ascension. It makes no sense for it do so either as that's not how people behave. Sure his more controlling personality traits are going to be coming more to the fore but again - he's still Astarion and will still have all the personality traits that I liked from before as well.

He's also not a traditional vampire lord, he's an Ascended Vampire, something that has never been seen before and is supposed to have (according to Raphael) all the appetites and feelings of the living (so it can only be assumed that includes love) but that bit seems to have been thrown out with the bathwater and we are left with basically Strahd (Dnd fans will know who I mean), which shows a serious lack of imagination on the part of writers - who dreamed up a new type of vampire and then gave up on the idea to just make 'yet another evil vampire lord' in patch 6.

Before patch 6 I had no difficulty head cannoning the vampire bride route (I think its from Ravenloft setting of DnD - bride being a descriptor of role not gender) in which a bride is basically not controlled by their vampire lord although she/he may not know that immediately due to the vampire in question not telling them so as to be more controlling - which utterly fitted with Astarion.

He's still going to be Astarion, the man I fell in love with, helped and supported him in his quest to obtain his freedom and who - in most dialogues even after ascension tells me his life isn't complete without me by his side.
By his side - not scared to death of him because I had the temerity to ask for a kiss.

I find the new kiss animations for Ascended Astarion in patch 6 to be a fan service to sadism due to Tav/Durge's facial animations more than anything. They are disrespectful to players, taking away autonomy and role playing which should be left to the player.

Totally supportive!

The picture's great.


An Evil Ending for an Evil Character is the way it should be. For him, it's his "good" ending. "Good" for him and for his lover Tav, who can also be or become an evil character. I'm also tormented by the question, has Stephen Rooney abandoned Astarion altogether? Why was a truly talented author not allowed to do the character fully and completely, without the interference of other people who just spoil everything?


Yes, Tav always initiates the kisses themselves. The kind of "kisses" we are shown can only be initiated by the "master". Tav is terrified every time, waiting to be tortured. But they can go up for a new portion as much as they want, Astarion himself does not impose.


My Tav let Astarion drink herself all the way down herself, without throwing a dice, just to give the vampire a proper meal and out of curiosity as to what would happen. In a world where it costs two hundred coins to be resurrected by a Withers, that's not murder, that's spending two hundred coins, which Astarion can then return by gracefully retrieving them from some lucky trunk. The bite is the beginnings of a relationship with Astarion. When Astarion proposes a night of love in Act I, he reveals that he has noticed that Tav likes him. When asked, "How did you realize that?" - "During the bite." If a relationship can begin this way, it must blossom in a decidedly different way, such "kissing" style master-intimidated hapless victim just can't be in it.


Just keep in mind that many of them need therapy themselves. Network trolling is not what healthy and harmonious people do, who have nothing wrong with social fulfillment. They don't care so much about what to push, they care about the process.


Yeah, it's really funny. They really forget that it's the same person. Free, empowered, or weakened, who retains vulnerabilities and dependence on Tav. And if they like the sadistic Astarion who ascended and tortures the one who helped him do it, then what does the same sadistic person who was prevented from ascending have to do sooner or later? This could be a plot for a fairly violent thriller with a bloody and expressive denouement.


This one! I'm with you! We love Astarion, and we will continue to love him! Astarion remains Astarion, and it doesn't matter whose unprofessionalism or malice tries to change that. It won't work! It doesn't work that way! The only thing that will get changed is the attitude of those who do this sadism, and the credibility of the studio management who approve and allow this into the game! Change whoever did these kisses to a professional screenwriter! Don't disgrace yourselves!

And in closing - - Hotfix #19 Now Live!

«Fixed a couple of kisses with Minthara and Lae'zel that weren't aligning properly».

«We want to continue making sure you’re getting the best possible experience, which is why we frequently patch the game»

THANK YOU, LARIAN!