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

Well the problem of the grinch-face on Lord has been around for a long time. here
I don't get it, Astarion put up with 200 years to finally take off his mask, and such was his Magistrate's "screw you all, rabble" face to a new level.
I can understand that. But Larian is still going a little overboard with this.
And given that we can't see the trend of this in Act 3 and we don't explore the Magistate's past - which isn't clear what's going on with it at all. Lord running around hyperactive proof that it was.


However, peared in the first act, too.
When Tav knows he's a vampire and asks about the past. He talks about the magistrate's past and that face at the very end of the line:
Astarion: I can't remember much, truth be told. Centuries of torment will do that to you.
I don't believe

The scene with Arabella at EA shows that he remembers pretty well.
I don't know what Act 1 is trying to do: show his evil facial expression so it's not so conspicuous after the ascension?
This pie was even more fun in EA, partly because there were more scenes, but evil fun. He didn't need to make an evil-face, with his past and little scenes, words almost everyone knew he was a… elf bastard.
Evil has an effect when it has complexity and tenderness - when you feel that multifacetedness, on the dark side.

Why even touch a scene that weighs like a gun on the wall that doesn't fire in the story.
I'm even worried about writing about it because they might cut it out without explanation and then Astarion's whole path of evil would be cut short altogether.

If someone wants to show Astarion's evil and evil side, it's best not to do so: Astarion's evil face, Tav's frightened face and especially not during the kissing.
The Magistrate's past will do it fine, but with this approach to history b&w is honestly better left untouched. In patch 5 there were chances, in 6 almost none. Will see.

I hope everything is clear, I'm using Google translator.
Yes, I see this as different ways to develop a relationship with the ascended Astarion.
If there is an option with such an ending, where Astarion behaves rudely, this does not mean that he is like that and that’s it, period, we are not considering other options. No, his attitude towards our character simply depends on his attitude towards him. And many people argue based on this ending that he is an abuser in any way. I don't agree with this and I'm annoyed.
After all, if you leave the spawn at the end, for example, he also makes unpleasant dialogue, what an asshole you are Tav, I sacrificed everything for you. But for some reason, the abandoned spawn is not taken for his true image, while the ascended Astarion, with whom you are trying to break up at the end, is considered to be what he is on this path of the lord.
What am I trying to say?
- In the first version, we simply do everything to make Astarion happy, get what he wants, we give ourselves completely, this is the meaning of the conversion scene. Astarion is not even close to Kasador 2.0, he has other goals for the years, and not eternal torture. He wants a strong couple, where he is, of course, the head, and we are support and help in everything
If you accept this side of him and support him in all his madness, then in return he will behave accordingly with Tav. He will have no reason to control and use our character, because Tav himself, of his own free will, does everything and wants to be next to Astarion as a spawn consort. Tav does not go against Astarion. With Tav like this, control is not needed, he is behind all of Astarion’s plans with all his paws.
- Another thing is a character who was initially dissatisfied with what he received, he feels bad in this relationship, and Astarion feels his doubts, and of course he will manipulate and control.
Since it turns out that Astarion can still control without the tadpole, Tav can, judging by this scene (although I believe that there is banal manipulation, intimidation, without magic and mind control here), then in the first case he will not need it, Tav is obedience itself, and in the second option, yes, Tav faces a life of complete control, apparently.
We can play it both ways and it will be true, both. Here you need to understand that there are different options for Astarion’s behavior, if a character is kind to Astarion, then he will be the same in return, and if he is in conflict, then Astarion will be too.
Everything looks good for my character, because he does not resist the status of spawn consort, and supports all plans to seize power and become a powerful vampire.
From the dialogues in the romance, with complete self-acceptance and Astarion, there are no hints of control and manipulation, use. They follow the planned path.
This is why we need the correct facial expression of our character when kissing. Enjoying or neutral, or expanding the dialogues, where they would agree that Tav plays fear so that Astarion would have fun.

What I don't understand is why make such a change 6 months after the game came out.
No one, not even those who don't like AAstarion, have ever complained about TAV's expression in kisses. I therefore cannot find a logical reason that pushed the developers to make this choice.
Who was supposed to please make the TAV scared and sad? Some players think the change is right but, as long as everything was normal, none of them ever complained.
Until patch 5 the player was given the freedom to interpret AAstarion as he wanted and it was right in that way. I don't understand why now, it would seem that they want to impose a certain image of the character.

I've had a theory for a while, that Larian doesn't actually care much about roleplay. They give tools for the player themselves to have agency, but they're not actually concerned with Tav having agency. It's more important to them that players can do as many random things as they can think of than it is for players to play a character whose behaviour is consistent and nuanced throughout the game. I think this hange supports that theory. Larian doesn't care about Tav as a character and who they are or can be. So they change the expression and give what they felt to be a stronger story for players to see. I don't expect that Larian saw thi as taking any agency away because well, you can still kill Astarion or whatever out of dialogue, etc. Tav isn't meant to be a character we imbue with deep feelings and a unique internal life from playthrough to playthrough, they're meant to be a vehicle we drive through the game to see stuff with.

Well if this theory is true, then they really need to reconsider their target audiences.

I believe possibly Astarion was designed to attract mainly female players (I could be wrong), and they expect that female players don’t imbue with deep feelings? Who did the marketing survey in Larian seriously lol

I doubt that was their thought process. I just figure that they expected players to care about the companions themselves and to care about seeing the companions have a relationship with Tav, but that Tav is there to serve as a someone they can use to steer the companions to show the types of relationship the player wants to see. Tav is basically meant to be the lever used to steer and manipulate the world. In the case of Ascended Astarion, the new kissing is there to show another, more clear and more obviously negative outcome. You've created a story where your Tav is trapped under a manipulative abuser. I suspect that to Larian, Tav themselves isn't meant to have their own thoughts and feelings. Even if you headcanon that your Tav was all on board to be an evil power couple, that doesn't really matter because Tav doesn't have opinions, they're a limited mouthpiece for the player and then a sounding board to see the other characters who actually are characters react and express themselves.

Then why was that tweet on Feb. 14 in patch 6, fanservice with the headline "Love Is in the Air"?

Because it's kissing. I'm not being sarcastic I literally think it's just that, it involved kissing and so they bundled it in with a bunch of other similar updates and put it out on Valentiine's day for a thematic release time. Larian have never been masters at marketting. Swen admitted himself in the past that they did not know how to market the game, and that apparently has yet to really change.

While I agree with your theory sincerely, but then it goes back to what I said before: know your audience, especially when one of your target audiences tends to be sensitive, emotional, sentimental and you ask them play romance in a game and be objective ? I mean it’s not Skyrim or call of duty , it’s a rpg game full of emotions.
Can’t they see on this forum these fans analyzing everything because they really are so invested in this beautiful story? And even if what you mentioned was really their initial approach of this game, I think at this point, they really need to reconsider it, if you see how many fans actually got hurt and triggered , and I don’t think that’s what they paid for, especially the new animation came 6 months later after release, it’s not like a book that i knew it was going to be disturbing so much so I would just ditch it ,they let it happened after 6 months! and if by this sudden change is the way they try to tell the players this is how abusive narcissist would do , I would say it’s too cruel , considering this is supposed to be entertaining, and they ripped these fans heart out so they could prove a point, that’s just….

I don’t mean they need to change the whole concept of tav, what I really mean is since they know whole Astarion romance arc is mainly targeting female players( some males for sure too), then what they can do best is at least be sensitive about it , considering a lot of ascended Astarion fans are already felt left out by the Astarion fandom, the dev could’ve really be kinder to them.

*forgive me if it seems confusing because english is not my first language.

Honestly, out of several kisses in this case, they could have picked the less nightmarish one to make a tweet.

Trolling, something subversive to the message of the day and the tagline. Along with a whole bunch of other reasons why that was prime trolling and marketing. Edit: I mean the image of Astarion in Orin's outfit is also plain cruel from a story/ character point of view, but probably good marketing.

This! It's almost like harming people on purpose! Like a boy's prank, so to say. But without realizing the whole outcome of this and that it's triggering for a lot of women.


Yeah sure. Trolling = " with the intent of provoking others" - "thus acting as a bully or a provocateur"
"Psychological researches conducted in the fields of personality psychology and cyberpsychology report that trolling behaviour qualifies as an anti-social behaviour and is strongly correlated to sadistic personality disorder (SPD). " (Wiki)

I just quote was trolling is. I don't blame someone personally.

On Instagram they advertised a kneeling kiss with Gale, just for a minute. But then the players did not yet know how bad everything was, and they were only happy.

Orin and Astarion are fictional. As well as Druid Bear and Astarion.
But here the player sort of steps into their character's shoes and "creates their own story" as BG3 stated, and now everyone is forced to step into the victim of the abuse.
You could say it's fictional, true, but it's already directed at the player's emotions and doesn't even fit the story - the kiss chooses Tav and may not choose - tadpole, breakup.

I don't think Larian expects players to be objective in their experience of the game, quite the opposite I'm sure they expected plenty of emotional investment. My thinking is just that they didn't expect people to treat Tav as a character who would have their own agency, rather than vessels for us to see the actual characters and the actual story.

As for this Astarion stuff in particular, I think that as an outcome for his story, it makes perfect sense. It's logical as an endpoint for that direction of his character and it tracks with the rest of the game in my opinion. That having been said, I think they should change it back. Not simply because it's triggering people, but because it's doing that and it didn't used to. They made a change that's really impacting people in a way the story did not when they first bought it. If this had been the game from the beginning then I'd beall for keeping it the same, but in this scenario, I think changing it back is the right call.

Yep, I think "provocateur" was the intend, not necessarily (only) aimed at the AAstarion crowd. There have been requests for new Gale kisses for months and also in the comments of their previous posts for the patch, as he only had his little peck before. It's one of the most popular ships and most of the fan-content for it is more on the wholesome side, preferring the not ascended paths for both. So it's trolling all around.

Thank you for testing. I haven't been able to post due to all the errors this forum constantly gives.

To be clear, the sad face I feel she gets is at the end of her kiss right when she pulls away, it's a look she gives him, I was going to edit saying this but couldn't before now. Although, it might just be me again seeing it that way. I'm on the ps5. I'll try and take a picture of the TV if I can lol.

Overall, Astarion wasn't treated so well. Spawn Astarion's kiss is very boring and not very lovely, very stiff, but at least your Tav is happy and touching Astarion. So it's not a bad kiss and as an extra to the old kiss, it's a plus.

AA kiss WITH Tav's faces/behaviour are ONLY nice for people with deviant sexuality (SPD), so to say for sexual predators, who I am sure are not playing this Romance (unless they are seeing themselves in Astarion and play him).
So what could be the intention with those OOC kisses, sexual violence toward the players, which destroys the gameplay and harmed a lot of women and gay men?

i agree, but there are like millions of way to prove the point , and they have chosen the worst way--- by forcing female audiences to feel they are SA victims. i mean come on, its 2024 already !!

Agree! They could have shown AA how he is slaughtering the WHOLE CITY, kill every companion, kill even Tav! But how do they have to show how "bad" AA is? (Complete OOC) Sexual violence context in Valentine's day kisses for Ladies (and homosexual men). Larian is only harming us with it. Noone else.