Originally Posted by celestielf
Um . . . I completely disagree. Telling someone you're already in a relationship is not some weird, indirect invitation to try to get someone to cheat or break up with their partner. It does not imply anything and should be good enough as a rejection, period. For one, saying "sorry, I'm taken" shows loyalty to the person you're with; second, if you're really not into the person you're rejecting, it's a way to reject them without making it about your non-attraction to that person. Sure, maybe some people prefer brutally honest rejections, but in my experience it's better to make it as non-personal as possible to avoid hurt feelings or anger. A lot of women even pretend to be married to avoid men hitting on them because they think men will respect their (made up) husband more than the woman herself.

Yeah, that's what I meant by the lack of such a seemingly realistic and natural form of rejection in the game. Otherwise, it feels like Tav is in some strange world with strange thinking people who need to be spoken to only in a certain way, or they'll try to break you and your partner up. And yes, in reality this form of refusal, which the game offers, works much worse and often provokes a lot of unnecessary words on the part of the one who was refused, which leads to possible conflict situations and resentment, while the wonderful "I'm married" lifehack works much more effectively.

Originally Posted by Brainer
I think that they should have stuck to their guns and kept the "whoever you leave behind in Act 1 stays behind" idea around instead of letting you have everyone and make them arbitrarily miss important story beats. Maybe if the player had to maintain a more tightly-knit party throughout it would have allowed for more interactions in those smaller groups. It would have made the game feel closer to the originals as well, where there was little reason to swap party members around on a regular basis and you instead picked a more or less permanent party that was pretty much set in stone after Spellhold. Instead they gave in and frontloaded all the game has to offer, giving little to no reason for additional runs if you can experience everything in about two at most, something that the lack of real reactivity and gender (basically, actually convincing romance) / race (the githyanki had one ending that only they could get with Lae'zel, but even that got taken away and given to everyone...) / class (there were hints of something cool if you played as a Shar cleric in EA, but it got cut in full game, for example)-exclusive content also plays into.

It's a pity they made that decision. It feels like all these interesting things were just sacrificed for "love triangles" and the possibility to change your mind and change partners in Act 2. Why, when the player could easily pass the game several times with different companions, if he had such a desire, and get each time a new story. There is not much cohesion in the party, at the beginning of the game - it's okay (conflicts could be even sharper), but when even by the end of the game there is no cohesion, it's sad. There is a certain center - Tav, and around him companions "revolve", trying to seduce, competing for attention, building a "romantic hierarchy" and so on. The idea of global dependence of companions on Tav, when they can't safely leave the group if they want to, because they are likely to become illithids and die, I don't really like, in BG2 companions had much more freedom, but okay, let it go, as long as it's part of the main plot. Adding all these love dramas with choices between the two, threesomes and stuff just makes it worse. There is no " DnD spirit" in the party, if I may say so.

One life, one love - until the world falls down.