Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Patch 7 Ascended Astarion's kisses goes against his story as written

i dont quite know what could give you the impression that he will not be rough honestly. from the second he completes the ritual you can be sure that he will not behave the same way he did before. it does not make any sense to add gentler kisses for him. this is his romance arc. you do know that tav will get a rough treatment before asking for a kiss.

Honestly, it makes perfect sense to me that he is rough. But still, it did surprise me how rough he was at first and I still think it can take players off guard and be upsetting. Which is why I think it needs to be very obviously stated in the text. Players could be like me, and very naive and a bleeding heart. Even though the rough treatment makes sense, they don't see it coming at first. I guess it is just because I love Astarion so much, but I don't want to be treated roughly. So I wanted to avoid it but also still play AA's route. Lol. I guess I'm just trying to have my cake and eat it too. Maybe I am being unrealistic.

Whatever happens, I will be happy if Larian prioritizes player safety + autonomy of choice/role-play, while keeping the route characterization. The wonderful thing about the AA and UA routes is that they are different. You can see different sides of him in each route. It wouldn't be fun for a lot of people if they became similar just to match my personal preferences.

I'm not trying to pick on you, Rote90, this is just a perfect illustration of something I've seen here and elsewhere : Realizing you're repeating yourself is a good first step, the second step would be not doing so. My advice is this. If you really can't drop a topic (I'm saying this as someone who has some difficulty doing so) you should strive to come up with new arguments every time you post.

To play this game all you need to do is make a habit of skimming through your own posts to remind yourself of which arguments you've used, which videos you've linked etc... Then, if you catch yourself saying something like that quote, change your point or delete that section. (If you want to play on hard mode, read the entire thread and repeat no one else's arguments either - but quoting to say you agree is fine according to these rules I'm making up.)

The beauty of this game is it will help you find your best arguments. If you're actually willing to never repeat yourself, you'll hit a block at some point, keep thinking about the topic, and find a brilliant idea under the shower three days later. The forum will still be here, ready to debate your fresh take with renewed passion.

Finally, when you've dug deep and said everything meaningful you felt needed saying, it's a lot easier to let a topic go. The Red Queen is right to say there's no obligation of consensus on the forum. Which means someone at some point is going to have to let something go. I don't feel repetition is a step in that direction.

The argument is not about rpg, even.
The argument is - whether or not Astarion in the path of evil will be an abuser for Tav. And Tav is a victim of And also whether he's been an abuser for Tav since release and it was the truest original story for which Larian gave kisses for the "abuser" on Feb 14 to play the victim properly.
Or no it was a fanon, from some fans who say ‘he's losing himself, I will never make him ascended’, or loved it as a tragedy of abuse, and the “gold trap” where the gullible heroes cry and want to burn themselves.

Though judging by the majority of the lines for a character in an AA romance - it's about consent for eternity, love, to rule together.

“He's different” - personal interpretation.
For AA has literally been adding gentleness to an intimate scene since the game's release and he's done it perfectly.
Same personality, doesn't hide himself as he was played by an actor, the same personality who has found freedom, the original script.

If Tav reacts this way to rough kisses using the fear or stone-face option.
Astarion: Oh, tHaT's a tHinG.
When those lines and AA happy reaction applied to the kiss where Tav was agreeing and enjoying.
14 February stolen with the words ‘love flies in the air’ and returned the original story back to autumn.

Adding a rpg based on interpretations really needs to sit down and think about what AA would say if he saw such a reaction, something other than pleasure when he does intimate things to them.
And why only for AA and not Mintara, Sharr ShadowHeart? - That's not fair.
And is it even worth it to write kissing with the assumption (or a hint) that someone is uncomfortable? (when it's never happened before)

True, I don't want Astarion, who is gaining his freedom and complete independence, and he is not fixed by 18 cheap(imho) charisma, to enjoy Tav's suffering in intimacy.
It would be a complete erasure of any intelligence from the story.

Delightfully preachy, but this idea was added after six months, on the day of love.
Before, everyone just kissed and enjoyed - standard or not - that's how Larian felt about romance.
It was the same for AA, both in kissing and sex.

Moreover, if Tav-Freedom changed their mind and they don't want an eternal bond - Astarion maximum that does is sulking and hiss.
Story for 3-4 lines, ignoring all acts, where the cat is told that catnip is with him forever together and then: Nope
The rest is personal headcannons imho: based on bias and hatred of the character.
Maybe of course if Larian adds a basement, torture chambers and instead of kissing Astarion shoves rats down Tav's throat to make them behave “well and gratefully” it will be the story of the century. It's all about picking the right day to add it to the game. How about Easter?

I want the option of changing Tav's face to one of disbelief during the hug in the epilogue when Spawn threatened to hurt them with a gang of spawns.
‘Hug with a distrustful face’ my Tav the paranoid-paladin doesn't believe Astarion and is waiting for him to attack.
In kiss, if it is added, too. And talk to him about it.
My Tav doesn't believe ‘I can heal a manipulator’ is a dangerous fantasy in reality that ruins lives.
Also a more extended scene after the abrupt cancellation of the ritual, as Spawn Astarion kills Tav if you lose on purpose. (like feeding yourself to Illithid at the beginning of the game)

By the way, the options to break up Spawn are too soft compared to AA where you can say anything except: ‘I'm sorry, I guess we rushed things.’ Or: Grotash is better, prove you can handle the power yourself and get Baldur's Gate, then find me if you want".
I can play the evil drow who can say ‘I want a stronger partner in this world, you're weak’ or ‘I thought you weren't so driven, 200 years of slavery broke you goodbye’. Mirroring insults that are used for AA. No, you can only comfort him. I'm not saying it's a bad thing.
But I feel like it's 19th century cinematography, only from the rpg world, to write reactions so black and white without even adding neutrality.

I miss Act 1 where in the responses I could be more empathic to the evil unknown spawn even seeing how immoral he is.

Also I have an acquaintance who thinks Astarion is a bastard, could you add the opition of betraying Astarion to any paladin for a reward?
He accidentally killed the Gurs, Grandel gave nothing, Dancing Fish was good but not enough. Cazador forgets the deal, we become double agents.

Although in my opinion it's better than all this to add to all of Astarion a kiss in the epilogue.
We hug and kiss Minthara and SH Shar, but not this character.

This is a wild accusation. No one here is threatening anyone. This is incredibly inappropriate to insinuate towards people expressing their opinions. How does this facilitate discussion?

I'm not suggesting that anyone on this forum was part of the group that contacted employees through their personal accounts but it did happen. Since you did not you should be feel happy that you were part of the second group, no?

You prevailed, congrats.

But is everything okay? Do you realize the serious accusations you are making? Do you work at Larian to say these things? Larian has to make a statement and it should be like this... And this is not a threat? Are you threatening Larian to do what you want?

I hope the mods or community management have been made aware of this post. Killer Rabbit do you have any proof since you're throwing out inflammatory accusations against fans?
The comment, "cycle of abuse has been cheapened. It's now just a kinkster story" also comes across as not respecting other players, other people's preferences and play styles. Nor respecting Larian's own decision to change some facial expressions. The Patch 6 kisses weren't even there for 7 months after the game first came out... I guess then it couldn't have been a cycle of ab**e narrative all that time, either.

Sigh.

You are welcome to google "Larian staff threatened"

"Larian threats and toxicity"

"Larian devs contacted on instagram"

I thought this was commonly known, it has been widely reported.

Edit: I can't help but comment on the irony of being threatened with being reported. Don't hold the threat of a report over my head - just report me and be done with it.

I support this option if there has to be any choice made at all.

Nope, what I said was I hope they've been made aware. I saw you were already reported. My apologies if that was perceived as a threat.

This thread is a discussion about AA, what does the threats Larian received have to do with it? Larian has already spoken about it and nowhere they have written/said that AA's expressions have been changed following threats. It's your senseless accusation.

I'll probably be withdrawing from this conversation after this because I feel like I'm being asked to answer obvious questions and when that happens I suspect people are being deliberately obtuse.

As I put two and two together: the threats were widely reported. Larian made requested changes. I think it would be good idea for Larian to declare that the threats played no positive role in their decision to make changes instead they responded the fans who demonstrated x,y and z virtues.

As to why I am quick to make connection between the AA conversation and toxicity? That also seems obvious.

Again, you got what you wanted. That is a tribute to your tenacity. I'm not happy with the changes but am I sincerely happy to see people power work.

The threats made were 7 months ago by the modding community due to broken mods. Trying to re-couch that as AA fans is dishonest.

The mod has already asked us not to import beefs from other places. But I feel the need to say lying like this is doing current serious harm to a small community. You out number us. People are now saying we've threatened the writers off of social media. Which is a lie. And using it as a justification to attack us verbally in large numbers. This is a serious accusation. That's rallying people to hate us. Please stop.

1. Sadly, Larian employees have been targets of threats and toxicity. It is serious and unacceptable.
2. Suggesting this is the doing of any one group is wrong on many levels. (It’s also against several forum rules).
3. We all have a part to play in keeping discussion respectful and constructive; while it’s normal bias to think the best of your group, it’s healthier to recognise and help combat antisocial behaviour in our allies as well as opponents.

I would remind everyone of the new rule The Red Queen mentioned, that we should not attempt to incite conversation around existing or past community drama or antecedent infighting, and that we should not derail threads, so let's draw a line under this and move on.

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.


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


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 Romance

Where 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.

This is exactly where I feared the conversation would steer at the end of the day. It started with Tavs facial expressions, it now comes down to changing and adding to animations of Astarion once again. Like I’ve said before this is not about changing AA. He is the way he is. You can interpret whatever you want into his actions, i don’t care. But this is not about adding or changing things about him. Whether or not you see it, but adding gentle kisses will not make this better. For you it might be nice to smooch him in more ways, but objectively speaking adding gentle, or ANY more kisses will make it worse for the narrative and introduce serious problems down the line. There is no point in arguing with you because I’ve seen from your other posts nothing anyone says will change your mind in the slightest. At this point, honestly, I wish this discussion were never started to begin with and we could just live with whatever animations we have right now. It’s not fair to ask for more kiss animation, them being changed or whatever else you want when there are bigger problems in the game. I am genuinely happy that larian listened to fans in changing the facial expressions, I don’t mind that. But changing anything further now will do the character an insane amount of disservice, introduce serious problems and implications and leave a bad taste in a lot of peoples’ mouths, not just those who argue wehster or not patch 6 or 7 is better.

It is possible not to make new animations, but to use the existing patch 5 animations and kissing animations from act 2. Adding gentle kisses will make things much better, you've seen for yourself, and in this thread including, that people are triggered by the actions themselves, the animations themselves. So, there should be animations that won't trigger people at all, not to any degree. Animations of gentle kisses are already there, I don't see how improving and expanding the narrative, adding something good to the game, can “worsen” anything, and even less how a classic romantic kiss can cause any problems at all. You want to leave problematic facial expressions in the game, but against other animations solving all the problems with kiss triggers for players, of course that's your right. You can argue with me, I always read my interlocutors' posts carefully, and give due consideration to any facts provided or competent, logically justified arguments. I believe facts and evidence-based statements, I respect other people's opinions, but yes, you're right in that mere words don't change anyone's opinion. It's not about a particular interlocutor, that's what happens in any discussion, it's common. I hope I haven't offended you in any way, I did consider all your arguments, and perhaps if you could back up your main thesis “AA is a different person” with something, I would change my opinion.

Please, explain to me, why I can't repeat my arguments while the opposite side is allowed to constantly repeat their theses over and over?

I thought harder on everything stated and I am against adding a gentle option as a solution after all. It wouldn't match AA's characterization, in my opinion. If I'm honest, I was just trying to insert my own hopeless romantic-ness into the route. I got really happy imagining it and got too carried away. I'm not the only one playing the game. AA is more dominating, UA is more gentle. I accept and appreciate that. The differences are what make them so interesting and unique. I can play UA when I am in the mood for something sweet, and AA when I am in the correct headspace for a dark romance. It wouldn't be fun for a lot of people if they became similar. And it would remove reasons for players to replay the game and try out different choices. And as a fan of both routes, I am absolutely against adding any new kisses to AA while UA already has fewer. It wouldn't be fair.

For the most part it’s not the animations themselves triggering people but the disconnect between the animation and a smiling Tav, just like you had a disconnect when Tav wasn’t smiling at the same animations. That’s why they were triggered. You don’t know what will trigger people. What if a gentle kiss will trigger people as well? It’s not about this anymore.

The reasons why adding gentle kisses similar to UA would worsen the narrative are valid and serious. I will not go into it further though, because you will not see sense in anything I say even though it is valid. It will only open another can of worms and the conversation will derail into something completely else.

So again, I’ll just say, keep everything as it is right now. Keep the animation as they are, keep smiling Tav, and leave everything alone. The player needs to exercise healthy habits and leave the game if they feel uncomfortable with anything they see. Avoiding triggers in a game that is full of dark topics is not possible and dancing around everyone’s triggers is neither fair nor possible anyway.