Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Patch 6 Destroyed Player Agency with Astarion

Even if the conversation was as you say, "casual and laid-back" the message was written to explain the author's ideas. What does it matter if it was written in a private chat or published for everyone to see? I think it's better we received the message without PR edits and embellishments for the public and got to see the real, raw rationale behind the assumptions of what the players are like and railroading.

Yes. Couldn't agree more.

Yes, and that's also further emphasized when they talk about Haarlep, I feel like. Plus another actually meant for the public interview has them very explicitly talking about this topic.

Also, @Ametris: IMO, less prepared doesn't necessarily mean more honest, or well expressed. I think a lot of the takes on that message arise from reading it in bad faith, when I think certain things can't and won't be conveyed greatly when you're in a relaxed environment not thinking about the thousand ways it could be misinterpreted. I certainly think so for my own opinions when I compare how I express them to friends and how I speak when I actually want to seriously express them.
And obviously, as glad as people might be to get to see the behind-the-scenes logic (which, I fear, was banned on the server after the harrassment received after the leak, so no more of that) I don't think it's fair that someone's private conversations are leaked without their permission.

Since you apparently have inside information, what AA scene is it you are talking about?
I don't think I have ever had the impression that myself or Tav is pressuring Astarion into anything, rather the opposite with Astarion pressuring Tav to be with him as a spawn.

Edit: also something apparently have happened with AA romance because it's not exactly a romance anymore. I don't mind the screenshot either because it may be a hint to why we as players was hurt by Larian in Patch 6. I want to know why and if it was intended to hurt us so badly for playing the game and romancing Astarion. I think it would be only natural to want answers. When someone hits you without warning you want to know why, what did I do to deserve this.
I just can deny that something seem to be up with AA writing, like many others here have noticed.

It's not inside information, it's part of the lecture, and it's not an AA scene at all, like I said. It happens in Act 2. That's what I was clarifying. The statement from the lecture is about a completely different scene that isn't an AA scene.

Oh, I misunderstood. I thought you where talking about the messages.

People are generally more honest in a private setting with people who they trust to a certain degree. When you properly think of what to say you usually edit out sentences that are harsher, more critical, too revealing, etc. The message is expressed well enough and you can see the direct proof of the presented logic in the game.

Personally, I saw this message for the first time after completing the game, and it was an ah-ha moment "so that's why it's there!".

Indeed, it's not nice when unauthorised leaks happen, but I'm glad about this one, because it pertains to the most unimmersive, presumptuous and flabbergasting selection of lines in the game for me. The fact that someone would just lump everyone together like that and limit RP options for the sake of their own headcanon of the future players is truly astonishing.

Yep, it's not the AA scene, and wasn't meant for this. I disagree with the approach of a developer, who wants to make players "feel bad", that's why I quoted it.
" I directly wanted to make the player feel bad for having learned" and "I wanted the bad ending to really make you feel I failed to see (...)" for me doesn't sit well. That's my opinion. It doesn't matter the scene, but the approach. Also "shaping", etc. etc. doesn't sit well, to put it nicely. I don't think something like that is appropriate in an RPG. But you're free to have another opinion.

Giving the player only two selfish answers to choose from, of course almost everyone having to choose "I want you. I want your body", and then saying that these players see Astarion as a sex object is very presumptuous and doesn't show much human or player knowledge, as there are many reasons to help Astarion with the ritual and to take this path. It's a roleplay game, we play with different characters different stories. In my opinion this statement shows more to me what kind of character the person is who stated it, than what it says about players. But that is again up to each individual.

I also wanted to add to this:


There is a huge difference between (consciously) making a player feel bad on a real level (harming) and let (infact you cannot force people to feel emotions for a story) someone feel emotions storywise, e.g. in movies, art, literature, games – for example feel compassion for characters, e.g. for Astarion in the Araj scene, holding a grugde against the antagonist, feeling sad about a tragedy in a fictional story, etc. Compassion by the way is something you give from yourself, freely, if you are capable of. These are mostly not „bad“ feelings when it comes to fictional characters in the sense you see it, as they come from compassion. There might be exceptions. But to put it very simply: You ENJOY playing this game and the story.
Feeling bad while playing a game comes from things which occur in your own game experience and realife (e.g. bad or non-consistent storywriting, bad combat systems, long loading screens, bugs, no content for an evil run, character assassination in a patch, etc. because you yourself are getting „mad“, disappointed, sad and angry on the game itself/devs. There are things, which are worse, than others. Some you can endure, some not. And to put it simply: You do NOT enjoy to play this game.
(That everyone who plays games feels bored or „mad“ from time to time is normal, very famous are bugs, and this was not the topic about. So with all due respect, I doubt that the majority of game developers want to make real life players feel bad, unless they’ve said so or it’s becoming obvious that the intention was to make real life players feel bad to the point, they don’t like to play the game. For example, time pressure, or the tadpole thing, is a challange and can be very exciting for people, although I could understand, when people are feeling bad with time pressure. But it's there in the game, since release.
An unexpected SA and DV /sexual deviant scene implemented 6 months after release as Valentine's gift (so everyone happily flew in) into a consensual story, replacing the old consensual kiss, which harmed, I'll spell again, h a r m e d reallife players and forced people stop playing the game (because they got depression and felt sick), including causing some of them PTSD flashbacks, depressions, etc. you cannot compare with the feeling of compassion for Astarion in the Araj scene. If you really see it that way, then it is how it is. But other readers may see a difference.

Also, eh - I think nobody here said, "So I want to say that the idea that you should ONLY feel playing a game or that game writers should never try to make the player feel "bad" is on its face wrong". That's on you.

The thing is though, I feel judged. I wasn't feeling 'guilty' about the romance with A.A. (why should I?), but now I'm getting the impression that at least some of the writing team would like me to feel guilt and I resent that.

There were already issues with the dialogue choices where the player did not prevent Astartion ascending. From the interviews, Mx Welch appears to assume the player was only doing it for some kinky vamp sex and they wanted players to feel bad about that.

Then we have the mind-reading before being turned where Astarion's thoughts are revealed but the player cannot respond in any way. And again, the game telling me that my Tav likes 'degrading' themself smacks of judgement.

In fact, looking at all the above, the patch 6 kisses and the recent statements about game romances being able to affect how teenagers view relationships in RL, I get the impression that there is a whole lot of judgement and moralising going on. And it's going on the one romance that appeals mainly to players who are not cis het males and nowhere else by the looks of things, and if that is the case, then it's a problem.
I'd love to think there isn't any intention to shame players for their choices, but honestly, I feel the evidence is pointing strongly in that direction.

Personally, if only for the sake of my own sanity, I'm going to assume good faith on the part of Welch and any other writer involving Astarion. I'm going to assume that the kisses were a misstep (the biggest piece of evidence to me is that they were promoted as part of a Valentine's Day patch), and that the comments on Discord were, charitably, sloppily put. If the intention was truly to destroy the AA romance path, they could just...do that. They could remove it, remove any dialog that could be remotely construed as kind or romantic. They could remove UA gleefully hinting that he'd like to impale the spawn in the Underdark so that they learn their place.

I think it's inconsistent, yes. And I think the things that have triggered people, and the things that take you out of the immersion, need to be fixed. In the end, it really doesn't matter to me whether the issues with Path 6 were intentionally meant to hurt AA players, and I don't know if it's worth our debating about it once more. I don't need to know if the writers' intention was to moralize to me, because at the end of the day, I feel moralized too, and that's more important than intentions.

It may not be worth debating since we can not possibly know before Patch 7. But knowing the intent is in my opinion very important because it sets the gaming studio in a whole new light if these changes are intentional. I like to know it, if something I buy is from companies promoting hurtful ideas, so I don't buy it again. I don't support ideas of punishment for liking D/s, being a female/homosexual/queer player or simply chosing the evil romance path in an RPG.

That's fair. I just mean for me personally, at the end of the day, intent doesn't matter. Focusing on what the problem is, why it's a problem, and the impact it's made on the players, as unemotionally as possible (not easy or even possible in all circumstances) is, I think, more likely to get us results, and something I'll try to best to do moving forward. But I absolutely don't begrudge if others choose to approach the issue differently.

I get that, it can get a bit heated and off-topic sometimes. And for many people an unemotionally approach helps to protect the psyche. I have never been any good at it though.

It's something I often have to do deliberately. It feels unnatural when it's something I care about, and I really care about this.

Nobody knows the reasons. Might be this, might be that. But I think it's important to give feedback. And if a developer believes that players, or better say WOMEN would like to see/feel abuse in their romance with their own character, or feel what it's like to be gaslighted, or in the worst case, believes players should be lectured and punished - but that isn't welcomed by the majority, rather say, when the abuse starts, the romance ends, as some said before, or when the punishment of players starts, the trust in Larian and the game end - it should also be communicated. Nobody is perfect and everyone can learn something new.

So, to Larian, my opinion: To be cheated, gaslighted, abused, dumped in reallife is a really hurtful, unpleasant feeling for the majority of people (regardless of gender). Gaslighting or abusing people is a cruel and harmful thing to do. Being cheated on is a harmful feeling. Those feelings in reallife can cause depressions, depressions can lead to suicide. I think the majority of people do NOT want to FEEL or EXPERIENCE these things by themselves, not in real life, and especially not in a game, where most of players are seeking the opposite: enjoyment, escaping from real life issues or looking for having a good time in a story rich fantasy world. I assume most women, who play an RPG and enjoys romance stories, do NOT want to explore their own character "being gaslit" (Welch) or "cheated" (Welch), as mentioned above, these are often very harmful feelings, especially if you love your partner. Your romance lead developer called it by themselves an "interactive romance", where "players are forced to actively put themselves in the shoes of someone in a new relationship" and "because of the self-insert nature of video games being so strong, players can feel this on a fundamental, instinctive, and interior level that you wouldn't necessarily if you are watching a story playing out externally».

This may sound unusual to some people, but: There are far, far, far, far more people out there, who themselves enjoy seeing other people being harmed, gaslighted or cheated than people, who themselves like to feel and experience these harmful things. Or in this case, their own character. Making the characters of players victims and taking agency away, by the way, also leads to something, which a game community normally doesn't "want" to have: victim-blaming, trolling and toxicity. I will not go into details, but it's recommended to read about those things. All the toxic break-up scenes of AA for example are used mainly for victim-blaming toward real players. You can study how trolling behavior is related to victim blaming. I just wanted to mention it for the Larian Team, that, if you/the game victimize characters of players or doing things in patches like for example character assassination (e.g. Minthara hotfix breakup, suffering Tav in patch 6 kisses), the real players experience more, far more bullying from others, the toxicity increases. Everyday sadists are just waiting for such moments, where they can hurt someone. Feel free to read about it.

Also: Seeing an unwilling victim being sexual offended for the majority of people is unpleasant to see. Especially for women: ca. 86% of victims of sexual assault are female. Estimates published by WHO indicate that globally about 1 in 3 of women worldwide have been subjected to either physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence in their lifetime. Maybe it's understandable that for the majority of women, seeing an unwilling victim of sexual aussault, etc. can cause feelings, they do not want to feel or relive.

And because I think Ametris put it well in another thread, I'll add it in this suggestion and Feedbrack thread:


Back to Patch 6: Making Tav consenting to Astarion's kisses is essential for us. And as I said before: I do like Astarion's kiss style very much. And so would my Tav, who is into it.

I think you have a very specific idea of what constitutes feeling bad in a video game. I consider it to be just any sort of negative emotion. Sadness counts, being made to feel guilty, having any sort of negative emotional experience counts. I don't think the tadpole is meant to be a situation where you feel excited, you're meant to feel dread and urgency. When you go to the goblin camp and find out they're roasting a dwarf, you're meant to feel disgusted, when you get to the end of Karlach's quest, you're meant to feel sad. When Orin kidnaps a party member, you're meant to feel scared, shocked, paranoid and off balance. All very bad feelings that are valid to want the player to feel. I'll repeat my example of the horror genre, which is all about making the audience feel scared, disgusted, tense and uncomfortable. Or in Mass Effect, losing companions in the suicide mission, Mordin's death in the last game, etc. All hoe things feel bad. I also think that the things you use as examples are in fact bad feelings. I think that you're interpreting he writer's statement in the most ungenerous terms possible, and that you're using a definition of feeling bad that they never intended.

All that having been said, there is indeed a difference between just feeling negative emotions and doing something that traumatised a lot of people. I say in the post you quoted that these things should be broadcast ahead of time so players know what there getting into. And I also acknowledge that the kiss scene is bad. This stuff can all be done badly. I mentioned Karlach and that example is also poorly implemented and unearned. And finally, go back into the trend and people were absolutely saying that game should never make people feel bad.

Also the *main* writers direct quote asking players not to reduce the character to his trauma.

I could say the same about you. But it doesn't help us. I was not interpreting any writer's statement, it was a pure answer on your statement "That scene where you you get Astarion to bite the drow and he chews you out for it? That's definitely meant to make players feel bad", saying, that there is a difference in feeling "bad", one leads to wanting to play the game and one to leave the game behind. If you think, feeling compassion for characters or loosing a companion in a suicide mission is per se accountable for players to leave the game, then we should just agree, that we disagree. (By the way, you also said it by yourself: "To say that players blanket don't want abuse or bad feelings in games is demonstrably wrong. It's simply a matter of how and when. An out of place cut scene added months after release is neither how nor when players want it." Players do not want it, because of the many reasons, you can read in this thread)
This thread is about patch 6, and it doesn't help us, to bring the discussion on, where else in this game do we feel compassion, sadness due to the ingame story, or even referring to horror games, etc.

Thank you, and it would help people if you (and everyone knows, you haven't played the romance and are not affected by it) didn't give the impression to others that all people sometimes feel "bad" throughout the game. It could seem like you're trying to downplay other people's suffering, which this patch 6 caused. And I don't think and hope, that was your intention.

I didn't want to downplay anything. People in this thread were reacting to the writers statement about making players feel bad and saying that that was wrong, period. The point I wanted to make and possibly failed to do, was get across that making writing choices that are meant to make the player feel bad was not some innately poor choice, it's just that it was executed poorly in this instance. And frankly I think that "feeling bad" is a poor way to describe the real issues people have here, and vastly underlays what's happening.

I think it's a bit unfair to couch players saying they don't want to experience abuse as players never wanting to feel anything bad.

Angst is fun and great. I play tragic stories and storylines all of the time (Solas, my beloved). The topic here has been focused on abuse.

"Not wanting feel anything bad" =\= "Please don't add abuse in your romances to make them more 'realistic'. That's too far."

Good sad, scary, angst stories are fine. These two points are not the same.