Originally Posted by Mirmi
Originally Posted by Elly
As long as potentially triggering content can be avoided by being locked behind options the player doesn't have to choose, like the OP of this thread requested for the kisses, I don't think the game or its characters need to be censored.

I'm sorry, but how do you a romance locked behind the options? The only option I see is to not start it with that character.

Not the entire romance. Tav's expressions during the kisses could be decided by the options the player chooses. For example, I think it would make sense for any one of these to lead to the original faces:

-"You're starting to scare me..." after ascension.
-"Give in and kneel" after Tav first tried to refuse.
-"Well, I suppose it cannot be undone now" the morning after becoming a vampire.
-"Sorry! I didn't mean it" in the breakup dialogue.

Originally Posted by Mirmi
What's the point of keeping the romance on the path of "buyer's remorse" all the way through the game?

Like any other path in the game, it can be an interesting story to explore for players. There have been dialogue choices to play the romance like this since Patch 1.

Originally Posted by Mirmi
Why didn't anyone have discontent before patch 5?

Spawn and ascended Astarion used to share the same kiss animation, so it made sense Tav would react the same way to both of them before. AA's Patch 6 kisses are very different, and warrant varying reactions to them by different kinds of characters.

Originally Posted by Marielle
Originally Posted by Elly
There is a lot of content in the game that could negatively affect someone. For example, in Act 2, Tav can
coerce Astarion into sleeping with them
after his confession. As long as potentially triggering content can be avoided by being locked behind options the player doesn't have to choose, like the OP of this thread requested for the kisses, I don't think the game or its characters need to be censored.

The scene you cited can be found by game testers, certainly. But it's led to by such explicit lines that it's almost impossible to get to it by accident. Unlike the request for a kiss. Plus, the scene you cited describes mistreatment towards a companion character, while the non-consensual kissing scene applies the mistreatment to the player character itself, and many players associate themselves with their characters, and that can be a trigger.

There are also official rules for rating movies/video games, rules that require a warning, etc. The scene you cited does not require a warning, although it may cause a severe emotional reaction in the player. But:

1. The action takes place behind the scenes. The video sequence does not directly contain any violent scenes. The content is conveyed through the story and not in the form of a video sequence, unlike kissing scenes.

2. If you ask an expert to evaluate both scenes, in the case of the kissing scene in patch 6, the expert evaluation (the magazine has already done such an evaluation, Zayir has already written about it here) will show the need to set a warning. I don't think an expert would say the same about the other scene you cited.

Alright, let me give a different example:
Tav being coerced into sleeping with Haarlep in the House of Hope, when the only other option is to fight your way out.
This has also been in the game since Patch 1.
My suggestion is only assigning the original expressions to a Tav who, in some way, has already expressed being unhappy or scared of Astarion before. That way, only players who want to engage with that narrative would have to see them.