Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Make changed/positive facial expressions for Ascendant Astarion kisses optional

Yeah, me too, I'm generally in favor of having only 1 set in a game with kisses, and a positive one of course. After all, it is a kiss! But if we're talking about making only Ascended Astarion have 2 options,then I quite reasonably demand this for all companions as well. Otherwise you get some kind of double standard.

I see what you mean. I can't agree with you. If the player clicks on something intimate like kissing or hugging, clicks on it themselves, that is bringing the character to it, and it's the character's "let's kiss?" line.
Choosing fear or pleasure as a reaction to something intimate when you could break up at any moment causing some confusion that shouldn't be there when it comes to a story in which consent is implied.
People perceive neutral faces differently, on different facial structures. Sometimes they think it's sad, but it's just a relaxed face.
Neutral faces can be perceived cold as ice, the player will feel that "something is off, it's the kisses, what's up?" that the character is asking for.

It's also weird that when starting the kissing animation with Astarion, you still ask if you can kiss him, which is reflective of the release peck. However in all of his new kissing animations, he is the one kissing you. So the text might need an update.

It is the same for MInthara too, I believe. At least one of them. I really like the MInthara kisses, just wish her romance was more fleshed out.


I get what your saying. I feel like for some it's fine as long as they don't have such expressions in their romance, which I get, we care more about what is closer to home. Romance makes the most sense with positive faces, imo, but I'm really happy with the neutral one they showed us in the preview. It looks really good, I hope everything looks just as good and makes sense in the final patch.

Totally agree, I certainly wouldn't mind a neutral face. After the horror I experienced on Feb 14th, anything is better, BUT, I'm still in favor of a more satisfied/playful facial expression when kissing the Ascended Astarion, so neutral would seem really cold to me, it's not my game.

Yes, it will be perceived as an unnecessary moral lesson, a double standard, even unfortunately a judgmental "look someone reacts like this" even if it wasn't tried to be said, because it's an intimate thing that is very deep in people.



The kisses that were on release are the same and happy, I think in patch 4 a new kiss was added to Astarion, but no one thought of any two reactions - to an intimate consent - "let's make kiss?"

+100. If you'd like to roleplay being in an unhappy/controlling relationship with him, then the frightened facial expressions during the kisses would be better added through a mod. Because the way it is, it's already diverging from the romance as a whole and forcing the extreme distressed narrative (only through kissing). There's also the option to break up with him still available after Ascension - all the way up until the end - for those who want to roleplay being unhappy with him. You're not stuck with him; even if you decide to let him turn you, there's still plenty of chances to break up with him afterwards.

The way Tav's face is animated in the Patch 6 kisses was a bad decision imo, and thankfully they've decided to fix this in Patch 7. They're fixing something that was implemented badly -- not giving us anything new.

It's upsetting that the whole Patch 6 kiss nightmare issue happened in the first place, because now when we ask for an option to have a kiss with him in the epilogue (which we've been waiting for since Patch 5), some people think we're asking for too much. Getting the option to kiss him in the epilogue would only be fair! I can hug some friends there, but can't even hug/kiss my romantic partner.

With neutral I meant something like a smile or look that would seem normal for someone to express when someone they are in a relationship kisses them.

If I want to roleplay this as a relationship where Tav is controlled and treated as a possession I can still imagine things such as forced smiles or putting on an act. It's easier to imagine Tav acting like they are enjoying it when they aren't, than to imagine Tav acting like they are scared when they aren't.

Yeah, I liked the old kisses, everything was fine and everyone was happy, and then we got "this" ....

So yeah, I agree with Celesti4.

I don't mind neutral faces, in itself, because I can play for example a low-emotional character, a serious one who hides emotions because of what their story is.

I also gave enough arguments, the script that 1 set, positive one, the only valid one for a story with consensual dynamics and did not imply "dark fantasy r!pe" even in a line with angst-freedom-Tav.

Otherwise, the epilogue could have shown control as Astarion "shuts up" Tav who starts talking about freedom ~again~.
And kill the one-man romance for evil path completely in this game, where Tav is not a victim or potential victim.
We don't have Nere, I think it's for the best.

Back to the kiss, you need to change the phrase "let's kiss?" to something that makes sense in your desire to play as Tav being controlled, making forced smiles and pretending.
I think mods are a better solution for that.

I'll probably use mod myself, for one of my Tavs who is more timid and shy, but who agrees and really wants to romance Astarion in the path of evil.

There is a curious statistic that only 17% play AA at least those who follow the polls on the channels. I think most who choose this path do not follow the community since the fall of 2023.
Who are not going to choose it for themselves or have never done it at all - 76%.
15,000 votes


And 46% of the community hates AA.
13,000 votes


Statistically it's clear part haven't even played it. It's more like AU with one single path that is "scary and tragic", for some reason.

Understandable, but is it worth making content for an audience that is looking for in a path that is hateful (or love it as a terrible tragedy) for them something scary, sad, especially in intimate things about romance.
I think it's odd, to say the least.

I've already shown that the consensual, fun "evil" mood that was always played by many those who chose the path for the character.


All the patches for this kiss had 1 set emotion, in accordance with what the character asks for and chooses in the context of intimacy - happy, pleasure.
I convinced that's the way it should stay.

I also hope, everything will be fine in patch 7, especially we haven't seen all the changes yet.... That's why such thread are very surprising and disturbing.

All of this x100

We had neutral/enjoyable kisses for 5 patches. The entirety of the game AA fans were able to engage with kissing animations without looking terrified. I did not see anyone asking Larian to change the expressions to something horrific to "stay true to a narrative" then. If the narrative only exists in a new patch 8 months after release for a short time...I'm inclined to think it's not a narrative.

Seems to me like Larian is course correcting with patch 7. By going back to what we always had to begin with. Let us actually see the faces in patch 7 before we get piled on. Everyone can RP with neutral faces, just like they've done for nearly a year beforehand.

I'm inclined to follow the narrative that we've had in every single patch before patch 6, and now after. I'm excited that Larian has course corrected. And am against any changes to patch 7 expressions before we even see them. I'm happy RP ability has returned to the AA path!

There's a lot of stuff I can't really understand what you are trying to say, bringing up polls and other sequences not related to the suggestion in the OP. I don't want to jump to any negative assumptions just because there is a barrier of communication here.

OP has played the game with the patch 6 kisses and found them fitting and enjoyed them. So they suggested that it could be an option for players to still have them in the game, if they wanted them. That's it, that's the suggestion and feedback they wanted to express.

You don't agree that they are fitting and you don't want them in your game. Whatever reasoning OP may have that they enjoy these expressions, they are entitled to liking and interpreting the game their way. What someone else does in their game does not affect your game and should not live in your headspace.

Obviously, if these expressions are something you are forced to experience in your game, it affects you as well, but if it is not, then it has no effect on your experience. If both are in the game and you can pick the one that fits your interpretation, you have what you want.

It's clear whatever lead writer at Larian sees the relationship as at least always moderately abusive, or this would never have been changed to the default. They probably added this to clarify how the player is meant to interpret the romance, but it wasn't popular with the hardcore fans. Said fans will be against it even being optional, as it's a reminder of the canon reading as determined by Larian, which they disagree with. If it's on the table, it might still be true, you know? Best to banish it into the depths of the abyss. It's a non-negotiable.

If a player character can *emotionally* react in two ways to the same scene, after all, it's only logical that both reactions be somewhat "valid". If both are valid, both are a reasonable response. What would it say about the romance if fear is a reasonable response? That's it abusive. It's natural some people will be vehemently against the inclusion. Having it even be optional is indeed a direct violation of their headcanon. A win-win for everyone is not reasonably possible. Even if you hide the trigger behind a one time dialogue choice, some people will be angry. The knowledge that's it's a supported reading of the same romance they're playing is not something they're able to ignore.

It's been over 6 months since the patch was released, people have left feedback and our requests have been heard by Larian, because what was introduced in patch 6 is a mistake.

Now you're trying on an unreleased patch 7 to suggest/influence changes, it's disappointing.

Players are waiting for these changes, let's see the new facial expressions first.

We can only speculate why this change happened in the first place, because we've yet to hear an explanation. We don't know whether it was supposed to push the abuser narrative or they thought it was very kinky and Tav simply liked to roleplay being a helpless victim or they actually wanted to please people who like non-con since they already catered to discord shitposters with Halsin, and gave us squid tentacle action, etc. We can only tell how it affected us personally. Hardcore fans? How about all the people who never posted here and created accounts on this forum just to let Larian know how extremely hurt they were by this patch? What these fans you talk about want is for the narrative to be open to interpretation as before. Larian themselves said there is no canon story, only your story and you can do with the characters what you want.

There are several options to express fear of AA. I don't see how someone who is scared of him would continuously ask for a kiss and have the same panicked expression every single time. Their best chance is not agreeing to being turned or breaking up with him while they still have tadpoles in their heads.

Anyone see my join date to this site? It's under the profile picture. And many others I may add in the other romance threads, if anyone cares to look. Many joined here because of this change.

Every who I just noticed got upgraded from "Stranger" to "Apprentice", surely have made many hardcore Astarion posts..

The way I see it, the player character on that path is currently portrayed as unaware of the change in Astarion's temperament ascension would bring with it, and does not want to break up if it weren't for that change.

The period between being turned and the ending scene is one of profound unease and growing suspicion. Yes, even if you never pick these dialogue choices, the game decides you're just not letting these feelings show. Your feelings are decided for you. That usually happens if a lead writer has very strong opinions of what's going on, and they're not well translated.

Because of limitations of the engine and the late addition, the overplayed emotions in the kissing scene and some of the not so matching romance pathing are rather jarring. In a way, you're supposed to imagine the player character is on edge now all the time, but it's only visible in the kissing scene. This is objectively not well done. However, I have strong doubts Larian would do this without motivation. It's expensive to create such scenes. It was meant as a statement on how the player character *ought* to feel, which is ironic when one in game path is living in blissful ignorance of how Astarion would actually react when defied. It's a tragic romance with most of the tragedy set to happen *after* the ending of the actual game.

They've merged this subtle, withering path with the one where Tav is immediately deeply unsettled by what he has become. For what? I can only assume to make it more "obvious" to read what was intended, but now that is has been released, it falls under "death of the author" and people will just not care what the "right" reading is. Few will say: "Aha, that settles it, this is what Larian was going for!". They'll say: "How could Larian infringe on my personal interpretation like this? I have a personal connection to this character, saying he hurts my character, hurts me".

When I want more toxic abusive reality in a fantasy to intraprehend romance, I intraprehend Spawn story that he's either faking or holding back his dark and he'll kill Tav in three years. This warning-threat from break up ways "I've sacrificed so much for you, you'll regret it". He's going to manipulate the rejection of the ritual so Tav won't leave him, it's creepy what other actions he'll take...
Realistic when you're trying to cure a manipulative narcissist.

But this is given only hints in the end Astarion was written as a character about "fun and darkness with him". Which fits the majority of the game lines.

You can consider that 18 lines for a game where Tav is not afraid of Astarion, and a concordant couple with him - that's how we should interpret this romance, its mood, since the developers wrote more lines for it.

We don't agree that kissing ignores most of the lines for playing as our characters along the path.

Larian's definite canon is that the spawn Astarion is laughed at while he burns in the sun, apparently he deserves such ridicule on how we should interpret this story.. But that doesn't fit with the fact that he didn't give any reason to be so cruel to him at such a hard time, after all, he was helping the team.
Either the reason needs to be revealed, though no, even with it the "good" characters stayed quiet.
As far as I understand this will be changed in patch 7.

Speaking of kissing.
I could have asked for a face neutrally cold for spawn after the kiss, pensive, "you're so very gentle, but I can't be relaxed yet since you're still just on your way to the light". "You can do horrible things and behave horribly, nobody heals that fast."
I don't think anyone needs that kind of mood in a kiss.

Or ask to reveal more about why the companions treat Astarion the way they do, more to show that he is still struggling with his fear and distrust of everyone when he sees the DU, to show that he lost the sun and what a hard sacrifice it was for him to refuse the ritual. But I'm not interested in the Spawn path as long as no actions in the game affect the 18 charisma dice.

You can do any action in the game, push Astarion to drink drow and still redeem him. There isn't a single flag.
Brewing a potion in this game requires more immersion than redeeming Astarion.

There are positive, uncertain/neutral, and negative dialogue options for everything in the game. For all romances, you can play as happy, or unhappy and break up. In the evil route, you have the option to be evil and enjoy being with an evil vampire lord, grow uncertain, or be deeply unhappy and breakup.

It is illogical to include a consistent positive dialogue path where evil players are allowed to revel in their choices, only to be scared. In the event of wanting to be unhappy for RP, the logical path is a break up. Not a kiss mechanic. A kiss mechanic that the PC *requests*, no less. If the PC is as frightened as the expressions showed, they would not ever select to give the LI a kiss as a personal initiative repeatedly. It is not logical.

The writers of the character have talked extensively about the branching paths. Never once have the mentioned "this is a story of abuse." The game's themes are about power. As stated verbatim in the game. Its fine if AA abusing Tav is your interpretation, but that is not shared by everyone, and the faces for patch 6 kisses did not reflect good RP for the majority of players. The faces were not mocapped. It was not some "lesson" by Larian to make players feel abused. This has always been a branching narrative. Larian is not going back on a vision just by realigning kiss expressions to what they already were beforehand.

Asking for a choice in expression for Astarion and Astarion only doesn't make any sense. Neutral works for everyone. It just feels like some are upset that neutral doesn't force other players to play the way *they personally* think they should. It's a bit silly.