I think the conversation and discussion has taken a turn away from the original point. This isn’t about how many kisses UA vs AA have, while it would be nice to have one more for UA, I don’t think it should be a priority. Personally I don’t go up to Tav’s romance every morning to give them a kiss. It’s nice to have especially for screenshots and in nice locations, but I admit I don’t really mind it. This is also not a discussion about fairness between companions. So I think this topic should better be dropped going forward.
I feel the thread has been opened in the first place to discuss the changes In facial animation Tav has in the AA kisses, which is a very valid point. I understand that the other thread about patch 6 was opened because fans felt the added kisses (kneeling, biting, neck) COMBINED with the shocked facial animations forced a narrative onto some people and their characters that Tav must be scared of AA. objectively speaking the kisses are rough and dominating over Tav, that was the point of AA (not only my opinion, general sentiment), so the kiss animations themselves are good and fitting for his character. However i see that the reaction Tav had does force a narrative onto the player that they might not agree with, which is bad and SHOULD be changed. I agree with you here 100%. But now patch 7 did that in the other direction as well. Now it is also forcing a narrative onto the player that Tav likes this treatment and as you can see here, many people also don’t agree with that.
Also to the point of “Tav would only be shocked the first time”, but that doesn’t mean they would LIKE it going forward. The shock would still be there every time because at some point maybe they do expect a different kiss to be met with the same ones again (kneeling, biting, neck). Both facial expressions fit a variety of RPs. Like I said last night, for my Durge it makes more sense to be shocked every(!) time because she is not used to be submissive. For others it might more sense to be 100% into it and smile every(!) time even without a shocked face the first time.
Hence why it makes complete sense to have both expressions toggled by dialogue somewhere along the path to the kiss. And I don’t agree with it being meta-gaming at all. In that case you could argue that someone who has trauma of bleeding from the wrist (for example self harm) needs to meta game to avoid him biting Tavs wrist in turning-night. This is a one-time thing, I don’t mean to say “oh just getting triggered one time is okay”m but it’s at the discretion of the player to pursue this path and not everything will go smoothly all the time. I don’t mean to disregard any trigger or trauma here. Same with the facial expressions, when you choose option 1 and get a facial expression you don’t like, try option 2. And keep choosing the one you like.
Disregarding someone’s RP because your own RP is different is not fair. Just because you see AA in a different light than someone else doesn’t make their RP any less valid. This goes for both sides here. Saying larian confirmed *your* view of AA with the changes is no better than people saying patch 6 confirmed *their* view of him. I’m not arguing whether or not one path is better for him or not, both have their positives and negatives.
It sucks that Astarion is divisive, and AA even more so, but there is a solution that both sides can be happy with. Both are / were in the game. All it takes is one dialogue flag. And what sucks even more, is that one side agrees to have both expressions and the other doesn’t. Nobody is trying to take away patch 7, it’s staying no matter what. All we want is the option to revert back to patch 6 without mods. Quite frankly I don’t understand why one side is okay with having more options and the other doesn’t. You have so many options in the game you don’t have to choose, so just don’t choose here either. Just pick the one you want. Nobody is saying REPLACE patch 7 and patch 6 again, we just want BOTH.
I don’t know how many cared to read my wall of text on the first (or maybe second?) page but I really tried To give both sides of the narrative their time to shine, to maybe show some who are stuck in one narrative that there are very valid and very good reasons for one or the other expression. I really did try here, okay? I feel I am about as neutral as one can be on this topic and it just sucks to have this fight in general, but even more so when literally nothing anyone says is taken into account by the other side for the most part.
It’s honestly frustrating and I see this in real life so often and can’t help but draw parallels. If one party feels slighted, they will do everything to get the advantage. And once that happens, they sit back and enjoy while someone else now feels slighted and can’t enjoy anymore. Of course you don’t want to give up patch 7 because it fits your narrative, but now it doesn’t for others. I don’t understand how you can not feel bad when people have the exact same feelings you had with patch 6. Nobody is taking away patch 7 faces from you, this is not what anyone wants. But to claim patch 6 took away player character(!) agency and not see how patch 7 does the exact same thing, refuse to see the other POV and refuse to agree to a compromise, is in my opinion very bad practice.
It is not written anywhere that we must necessarily find a common agreement and much less that we must agree with such a proposal. Maybe in your eyes it is a good compromise, but many have already written on several occasions why they do not agree and other proposals have been put forward, which obviously one can agree with or not. In the end it's Larian decision to do something about this matter and how, or even do enything.
Originally Posted by BlueScaliesxx98
They only changed it because fans wanted it.
We don't know the real reason why they decided to fix the expressions. Maybe it's because for fans requests, but also not. So please, don't say things like this like they are the only truth.
