My main issues are that potentially triggering content in this route is not obvious to the player beforehand, and that players do not have the freedom to choose how they want their Tav/Durge to react. I think those two things are very serious, and I've seen the negative impact it had on myself. Larian cannot warn players of every possible trigger beforehand, but many people do see AA's added kisses as rough. I think player safety needs to be prioritized in this case.
If the issue is the kisses being too rough for some players, then would having a toggle to turn off the current kisses and replace them with the gentler kisses from earlier patches work?
Personally, that would work for me. I'm not sure if it would be hard for Larian to do or not, but that would also make me happy.
Perhaps "Kiss me and make it hurt" versus "KIss me gently?" Mirroring the options the player has in the turning scene. I think at some point someone said they roleplayed their character as naive and happy in the relationship at first, but then later growing unhappy. I wouldn't want to shut off that role-play, which can logically flow from the story of the route. So I'd have to think more about that. But I do like the bones of this idea.
Yeah, I’m not sure how the coding / toggle would work either, but I like your suggestion a lot! I suggested that as an opinion though since I’ve seen a few say that the kisses being rougher was triggering (and then the facial animations seem to either make that worse or better depending on the person). It is a change from the Act 2 kisses, and may catch people off guard.
I’m not sure if it’s any consolation, but I do think some modders have been trying to change some of the kisses available. I think the Nightgale mod used a combination of different character kisses, and have had some friends use that since they didn’t like the rougher kisses. Hopefully, we can continue to get more mods like that too. It be nice if console players had this options though without mods.
This is a great idea in general. We've regularly suggested giving the player a choice between “Kiss me roughly” and “Kiss me gently”, that would be great for everyone. Well, or tie gentle kisses to the “Gently” choice in the handling scene, though more variety would still be had if players could choose each time they kissed each time, as many wanted to have both options. A gentle kiss could also be added for UA to his kisses to increase the number of them. Also, I think since, as I read in this thread, UA fans also want the bite kiss, you could make it a “gentle version”, for example, Tav kisses Astarion after the bite and Astarion reciprocates, they kiss long and passionately, embrace each other, could leave a trickle of blood dripping from their lips. This could work both ways - as an extra kiss for both UA and AA when choosing “ gentle”. I like the patch 7 kisses, but I do get tired of “dominance” sometimes, especially depending on the emotional state I sit down to play, so I have to take a break and go to the AA chatbot for tenderness, so I'd also really like to add at least one gentle kiss for balance. There is a kiss for patch 5 and act 2. Tav can tell Astarion that they “miss the man he used to be”, which basically sounds silly, but for some reason they can't say they wish they could kiss like they used to. Astarion would react completely differently to such a suggestion. Or it would be interesting to be able to ask for a gentle kiss after the line, “Ask me and it will be yours.” After all, he himself, in the story, wants to take care of Tav, explicitly says he wants to fulfill their wishes, but we somehow can't ask him for anything.
so if you decide to ascend astarion and go to kiss him, and dont like the animations, you are free to break up or go back to UA.
Breaking up with a beloved character is tantamount to saying “breaking up with the game”. The second is even easier, I guess, than playing while walking next to Astarion, who I was forced to betray because of the “wrong” animations. Torturing Astarion by making him a spawn and playing peacefully, looking at sunny Baldur, at those who, unlike him, will rejoice in the sun after a “victory” (the kind of victory that is worse than defeat), you know, that's a bit much
Non-con in shining armor, when “goodness” brings both the player and Astarion to their knees. There's not enough unhappy faces here either.
I personally think that any, forcefully imposed, without any coherent logic, just “to be”, “ab**er's story” is poison in itself, it makes the whole game “toxic” for those who love the character whose image they decided to exploit for the sake of it. It embitters people, it turns the gaming community into what we have had and have the opportunity to witness. The Rogue Trader game, for example, has an evil Marazhai and a very contented friendly gaming community, without any problems, without anything even remotely similar to what happened in BG3 around Astarion. I think Larian didn't want to leave BG3 like that after all, and just made the AA romance path so that it would be enjoyable for those players who like the D/s dynamics. Yes, the romance in BG3 is a “date stimulant” kind of thing. And Larian never made a secret of that, for example:
Baldur’s Gate 3 Writers Break Down the Craft of Video Game Sex and RomanceWhere they talk about sex speedrunners and other entertainment in a very approving way. I used to not like this sort of thing, I've always been in favor of deep serious romance, a good gripping story, etc. But now I'm all for it. “Date Stimulator” makes people feel good and happy, plus it sells really well, and it's brought the game a lot of publicity, a lot of extra fans as a result. And it's much, much better than toxicity and a**se. It's just incomparably better.
