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

If Larian wants to add that they can, but like Every said it would also be nice to have such a choice for all the companions. I just don't see it as logical choice. I think if you ever decide to do the AA romance you would perhaps understand what me and many others feel about this. It is not that no one else can play trapped, it is about including both scenarios. Neutral is the best way to do it, imo.

I'm not talking about why people stay in abusive relationships, I'm merely describing why this animation doesn't make logical sense. This illogicality was part of the complaints about patch 6 and why the kisses are going to be changed.

I am also not suffering about things people do in their own games, they can do what they want, not my business, I just don't want the game to force this farce on me.

This whole thread is hilarious considering we haven't even seen what's in patch 7 and there's already a request to add modifications to it.

There is no problem with adding optional facial expressions to any amount of companions in terms of it hurting anyone. That was my whole starting point for engaging in this discussion, that some people argued that the mere existence of an optional facial expression would impact them negatively and I think if it does you are allowing way too much headspace for how other people play their game.

In terms of focus and priority, that's a valid discussion. I personally feel that intimacy in general gets way too much focus over other things.

THIS!

I don't want to suspect anyone, but all this doesn't look very nice...





Let's wait for the 7th patch first)

Considering that OP apparently explicitly wants the neutral expressions in the game, I would say you're fine. It's also not very nice to suspect someone of malice who has done nothing to earn it. There have been direct comparisons to not only arson in this thread, but wanting others to choke to death.

Yes, half of the replies in this thread seems to focus on how people don't want to be forced to see the facial expressions from patch 6 in their game. Which is not what OP is suggesting at all.

Also about theft! Do not forget that one. And no one mentioned death of any other person. Not even figuratively.

For posterity before it's deleted

AA-only selection It looks biased and intrusive.
No one asked for "scared reactions to kissing", this only came up on 14 Feb.
Why write a romance where the character is scared and hates their partner? Giving it opitions and reactions when there isn't the necessary context in the story for it.
We always have "break up" or don't even start (if the romance is strongly disliked like some people feel about Karlah or Halsin overpush things), and not agreeing to what Astarion is proposes. I don't think there's a point. That's why there are no scared faces with Minthara. (those who are frightened by her will just give up on romance)

Neutral faces is a more appropriate suggestion, an option for all characters - then the player can present different characters and emotions. But I still don't think the realization of this is necessary in the game, as it has been in most patches.


That's right

Why would I. It's a good counter example. And like I said no death is described. I do not point a finger at anyone in specific, it's a pure fictive answer to the fictive statement from papercut_ninja.

This is what I'm not understanding. People did not have an issue with expressions for five literal patches. Never posted on how they wished they would change.
Now, suddenly, when the game realigns to what it had beforehand, they are unhappy with losing something that hurt a lot of people, and are asking for changes to something that haven't even been seen yet. How do they know they will be unhappy? They haven's seen the end product. So it does feel a tad disingenuous. It gives the impression of a few people trying to be counter. Their RP abilities were not squashed previous to patch 6. Otherwise they would have been on here complaining before the new 6 animations dropped. I don't understand being upset over something we've already had before, that at the time had not made them upset.

I'm not sure what other mental image "burning and choking" invokes in you, but alright. This person who wants more options is apparently akin to an arsonist, says KiraMira.

Maybe you should try to keep the thread on point and not derail it like this.

People have been having issues with expressions since early access. There's a popular mod to fix the worst contenders, reducing wrinkling to varying degrees. If you want to play a stoic character as of now, it's impossible without mods for many popular races/species. People have shut up because we have mods now. It's me. I am people. I am part of the crew to have b*tched about this for ages.

I haven't seen a single post in here asking for Tav to look terrified of Astarion when kissing him until patch 6 happened. Are there any threads about it that I missed?

That would be because looking visibly and unexpectedly terrified is the opposite of being stoic. Nonetheless, people have had criticism for how much or little emotion the game conveys for a long time. This scene is the latest incident, and seemingly the most controversial. What the mod does is bump people up to 3 varying sets of intensity (normal, reduced, severely reduced). Be aware, this will be applied to all scenes Tav is in. It was NOT created for Astarion romance.

Funny, I could have sworn the criticism of this scene was that Tav previously looked visibly happy and completely not terrified, like here in patch 3, for example (just before and after kissing Astarion):

If you checked my reply, it's to the claim that people have not talked about how characters emote for the last 5 patches. That is simply untrue.

"This is what I'm not understanding. People did not have an issue with expressions for five literal patches. Never posted on how they wished they would change."

I don't see Natasy talking about any other animations than the kissing ones.

Natasy does explicitly not specify as they start with a general statement, which is then followed up by "losing something". The first indirect mention of kissing is: "Their RP abilities were not squashed previous to patch 6".

Of course, Natasy may have just worded their statement in an unprecise way. In that case, I doubt I'd have wronged them by mentioning the long standing issue of people complaining about scenes throughout the game. Larian has completely ignored anyone's pleas on the topic until Patch 7, which is why it's come to be modded.