Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Hotfix for Halsin's romance and consent flags

I'm sure it's been talked about before and have seen similar topics dating back to over a year ago, but there still hasn't been a proper hotfix to address Halsin's romance and consent dialogue flags that are, from what I understand, wrongly set from act 1 all the way through to act 3. I want to make clear from the start to avoid any derailment of the discussion that this is not about companion relationship preference. This is about Halsin specific romance flags being set for non-romantic dialogue and Halsin trying to romantically involve themselves with the player, and possibly the player's romantic partner, despite having turned him down after the camp conversation in act 3. Please don't bring discussion on monogamy, poly relationships and all that into it, this is purely about finally fixing Halsin's dialogue flags after people have been complaining about these issues for over a year.


Romance flags
Some mods like OIO - Overexplained Interaction Options have already shown in the past that you can very easily unintentionally flirt with Halsin, sometimes to the point where you start talking about a non-romance topic like his age and have all the follow-up dialogue choices count as flirting even when some options don't look they're supposed to be flagged as flirtatious with the way they are written. Another example is the tiefling party where almost every dialogue option with him will lead to the player having the option to apologise for being too forward the next day, making it look like simply initiating the conversation with him has both Halsin and the player interpret it as flirting. Because it's been in the game for this long without a fix, I've seen some head canon being made here and there that Halsin might just be clueless and misinterpreting simple interactions. However, from what I've seen from the OIO mod screenshots here and there, it appears that many of the romance flags are just incorrectly placed. From what I've seen at a glance in some threads, Larian has addressed incorrect romance flags for other companions before as you could get stuck in three-way romances you didn't even know you had (I believe Gale had a lot of these issues?), leading to awkward and unexpected "break-up" conversations with platonic friends. So after more than a year of complaints I feel Halsin's romance flags should really be looked at and fixed finally.

I'm not very tech-savvy and haven't dug into the game files to see exactly what is flagged as romance and what is not for Halsin, but I did do a quick rush from saving Halsin in the goblin camp all the way to the start of act 3 and only did the strictly necessary conversations. If you stick solely to only required dialogue in act 1 and 2 to progress the quests he is needed for, never invite him to camp and/or make him a companion (when checking camp storage in act 3 there is no tab for his inventory for him and I have never levelled him up), then he will still say in act 3 that you treated him as a lover and not a host in act 3 when you reject him. So even when you avoid talking to him at every turn aside from needing him to go into the portal to fetch Thaniel, he will be in your camp in act 3 with the game assuming you have flirted with him. From what I understand Halsin can also become very forward himself romantically in act 2 dialogue the closer you get to curing the shadow curse (or post shadow curse onwards?), but there is no actual way to turn him down then and there and you have to wait for his full confession in act 3 to stop him and be able to have conversations without being hit on.


Consent flags
This is an act 3 specific issue I have also seen discussed many many times and it leads to unfortunate heated debates when the very core issue is simply romance consent flags not properly being set from what I can tell. Expected behavior for Halsin, as with all the other companions, is that when you turn them down when they make a romantic confession, they are completely shut off from making advances towards you from then on. They acknowledge your rejection, the flags seem correctly set and they will never try to get romantically involved with you again. This unfortunately seems broken for Halsin, because he will always invite himself in the encounter with the drow twins, trying to make a foursome with your established romantic partner and the drow twins into a fivesome. Additionally, if your romantic partner is Shadowheart, after the act 3 romance scene with her, he will try to invite himself to some "swimming" with you and Shadowheart during party banter even when you rejected him earlier. In the rejection conversation with Halsin at camp he can even mentions the importance of consent, so there must be conversation flags being wrongly set for him to still try and have sex with you two times after you have already rejected him.

If you're open to Halsin's advances and want to pursue his romance/sexual content with your established romantic partner, the experience appears very bug free and his own conversation surrounding consent looks like a healthy approach. If you reject Halsin's advances and these romance/consent flags aren't properly set, it will appear that he's repeatedly trying to force himself upon you and your romantic partner even after rejection. I imagine this was never the intent for Halsin to seemingly ignore rejection and I imagine it's just wrong dialogue flags, but these issues have been in the game for over a year now and I've seen many people interpreting this to be an intentional writing decision rather than a bug in dialogue that should get a hotfix. And that interpretation of intentional writing then seems to lead to a lot of heated debate and negative opinions on the writing of Halsin's character in act 3 specifically.


Proposed solution for a hotfix
Do a thorough once-over on Halsin's dialogue trees/lines with romance flags. A lot of dialogue that seem innocuous will count towards flirting and that makes it difficult to try and talk with him when you're not interested in his romantic/sexual content. And if he starts flirting with you in act 2 post shadow curse, provide an immediate cut-off point rather than having to wait until his full confession in act 3 to reject him. And once you have rejected Halsin, stop all his romantic content from triggering, including the party banter with a romantically partnered Shadowheart (and Astarion too I think?), as well as him trying to include himself in the encounter with the drow twins. If this had been properly addressed a year ago when the first complaints popped up, I think the opinion on Halsin would be a lot less divisive and overall more positive than it is today. However, if it's fixed and addressed in a hotfix now, at least that will lead to a more clear intent on the vision surrounding Halsin's romantic/sexual content.

And if the conclusion turns out to be that Halsin's current romance and consent flags are intentional, then address that as well in a news update of sorts so that people stop assuming it's bugs in his dialogue flags. I mean, it could be possible that Halsin was intentionally written to not take no for an answer, but I'm hoping that isn't the case.

Thanks for reading! And again, please don't turn this into a debate on companion relationship preference, character consistency, etc. etc. etc., I just want Halsin's romance and consent flags to be properly addressed because they appear to be very broken still after over a year of updates and hotfixes.

Yeah his dialogue needs to be cleaned up and properly flagged.

This playthrough during the tiefling party I literally only said to him to 'take his own advice and mingle with the others', just a perfectly normal civil response that ended the dialogue immediately. The next morning both him and my character acted as if she came onto him super hard all flirtatious while completely wasted. By ACT III he is madly in love with me, impossible to have as just a comrade in arms.

Even if he is meant to be so easily enticed by a simple civil interaction; I personally don't mind it but it definitely cheapens his character (and our own) for not having any boundaries. Because his purpose as an ally/friend/comrade is to cleanse the shadow curse and help against the Absolute, so him so openly expressing his desires towards us from the very get go and all the way to ACT III seriously destroys the image of a wise war veteran that fought in the battle of Moonrise Towers and survived its horrors after losing so many friends to the curse.

hard agree, I don't try to flirt with him I pick all of the neutral options and he still comes onto me. His reasoning for thinking I was into him was because apparently, we both felt something when the shadow curse fell.

His dialogue with Astarion, after you finish his quest, is a little concerning as well, I'm not sure how or why Halsin would know my durge and Astarion were intimate again if you keep him as a spawn. Astarion is definitely not the tyoe to boast about that part of his life to the point Halsin knows. Not to mention the disapproval you get when you are going to the Drow twins, Halsin asks to join and the player says no. I get maybe Astarion and Shadowheart wants Halsin to join but if the player says no then that's that. No need for the player to feel guilty bc they said no, also I feel like it is crossing boundaries. This is my entire opinion though I'm sure others see it differently.


Agreed!!!

Exactly that. The same with going skinny dipping and "making sandcastles" with Shadowheart. She specifically mentions waiting until the rest is asleep, then the morning after she mentions hoping the rest won't notice the sand in her hair. It doesn't make sense that Halsin would instantly know what happened in the next party banter and try to invite himself to next time unless he was already involved in a romantic triangle of sorts at that point.

It's like it's flagged as if Halsin is always involved in your relationship with Astarion and Shadowheart and thus knows everything, regardless of you rejecting him outright at the start of act 3. That's the most important flag to fix I think, because all the other stuff can be shrugged off as him being a bit clueless on what flirting is and you taking until act 3 to set things straight. If you reject Halsin in act 3 and it doesn't properly flag things to recognize that you rejected him, it just feels as if both Halsin and your romantic partner act like they can ignore your rejection of consent and try to push your no to a yes. Even if you can logically look at that being a dialogue bug within the game, it feels very icky playing the game as it can happen now and has been happening for over a year without a fix.

To be fair, everyone in camp always seems to know everything. What bothers me most about Halsin's flags is, that if you turn him down politely during his proposition, he insists that you have asked about his past lovers, even if you haven't touched that dialogue branch at all. It would be great if you could just shut down the conversation with a polite "I am flattered but not interested." if you have not inquired about his past lovers before. Currently, he only way to shut the conversation down in one step is the extremely rude one.

True, quite often the companions in camp are omniscient about a lot of things. I think for me Halsin's banter for your relationship with Astarion or Shadowheart stands out in this context in particular is because he's intruding on an intimate moment and in Shadowheart's case even trying to invite himself. This can be fine if you're in a romance triangle with them of course, but not when you've already told him to stay out of it. Should be an easy issue fix though, if the triggers for those party banters are just completely blocked after rejecting Halsin.

And yeah, the really rude response is the only way to directly shut down the whole conversation, even though the following party banter and drow twin situations will still pretend as if you had consented to romancing him sadly. All his romance flags really need to be fixed, but especially his act 3 romance stuff needs a clear, polite cut-off point that just works and is consistent for the entire rest of the game.

The brothel and the banter are not mistakes and posts like this came again and again from the same people here and on Discord, nothing has changed and that's ok.

I know what you mean about the banter, though in the line pertaining to Astarion's romance, he sounds displeased with the unsolicited analysis of his situation.

TBH the fan reception has been overwhelmingly negative to this. Every big thread you see about it on Reddit has nearly everyone saying it's bad in the comments. It's strange Larian talks all the time about how they changed Shadowheart's character due to fan feedback in early access but then they put something that they must have known would cause A LOT of backlash in the end of the game. I'm sure if you put it to a poll, players would pick a meaner Shadowheart that acts like her monogamous Act 2 self instead of a nicey nice Shadowheart who secretly (and randomly) wants to bang Halsin on the side

https://www.reddit.com/r/BaldursGat..._shadowheart_fans_opinions_on_the_act_3/

Just look at the state of that thread

It doesn't matter if "so many" are supposedly against it because "their" SH isn't otherwise mono and Halsin is stupid anyway and the twins aren't just SH and Astarion, it's made for fun and implemented that way.
The developers don't need to jump any further because of some complaints.

It matters to a lot of players though. I think Larian sees Halsin/the brothel/banter as a fun joke, but the fans see it the opposite way. They feel like their fun was crapped on.

Larian won't change the brothel thing because it's not just about SH and Astarion and that's exactly how the developers wanted it. SH and Astarion will still be a poly option, these two points are certain and after a year people should be fine with it.

Thank you guys for your input, but this is exactly the kind of debate I want to avoid in this topic. This topic is not about the other companions' romantic preferences pertaining monogamy and/or poly romances, or what people view as character inconsistencies for your established romantic partners, etc. This topic is purely about Halsin's romance flags being all over the place, as people have seen with the OIO mod and which dialogue lines count as flirting. And specifically in act 3 how there seems to be a flag that doesn't properly get set when you reject Halsin in act 3, because in every following encounter he will ignore your rejection and still try to have sex with you, or with you and your current romantic partner. That's all. This is purely about Halsin' dialogue flags being a mess for over a year when it comes to romance stuff and player consent or rejection in act 3 specifically.

There are plenty of other places to discuss whether or not people feel like Astarion and Shadowheart should be poly or not, whether or not people view the consent of romantic partners well implemented with the drow twins, etc... If you want to continue that debate, please do that somewhere else.

And as I've also stated in my original post, if Halsin interpreting many innocuous dialogue lines as flirting is intentional, if Halsin coming on to you many times in act 2 without you being able to shut him down when he does so is intentional, if him being head over heels in act 3 after zero non-quest interaction and acting like you came onto him is intentional, if Halsin not taking rejection of consent and continuing to pursue having sex with you is intentional... then make that clear in a news update of sorts. As it stands, these Halsin romance interactions that seem to be very bugged to me are still in the game for over a year now. This has led to many many toxic debates and I cannot find any official statement from Larian that these Halsin interactions as they are currently in the game are 100% intentional. So I'm just requesting either a hotfix with Halsin's romance flags being properly fixed if this was not intentional, or an official news update that Halsin's romance flags are not bugged and in fact intentional so that these debates can all stop.

I feel that, especially since patch 6 announced a platonic path for him, some interactions are not setting / reading flags correctly and are, for this reason, bugged. The one I mentioned is an example, it clearly doesn't check if you have had the conversation about his previous lovers. The comments about the post party conversations seem to fall into the same category.

The brothel and the banter though, seem to me to be disconnected from his usual romance path. I currently can't check it, but doesn't he also invite himself into the brothel scene if your approval is too low for his usual proposition? The comment about swimming with Shadowheart is also simply triggered by being in a relationship with Shadow and having had her act 3 scene, the goldfish one is Shadowheart's comment if you are in a romance with Halsin (no matter if she is involved or not).

I just don't talk to him outside of the quest related stuff anymore. At the party I don't talk to him at all and after act 2, he is Orin bait anyway and I don't bother getting him back any time soon.

Halsin is totally bugged in every regard. None of the conversation flags with him make any sense. I ask him, if he has settled in and he hits on me. Then I say Nope and he is hitting again (and I don't even talk to the drows - apart from asking them about the murders and how they are doing) and then he hits on my partner asking them, if he can join our relationship ... after I already said No. I think, that banter would be ok, if he hadn't asked before and got rejected, but with one part of the relationship already said No, he comes across as a big old creep.
I don't have him in the party anymore for that reason - and because Jaheira is much more interesting to me and I prefer her as my party druid, but it still is sad. I'm not a fan of that character, but even I can see, that this is a drastic change from the benevolent druid in act 1 and 2 to nearly bordering on being a sex offender in act 3.

I think the romance flags should be reworked with him to be honest.

Halsin also confesses his love for you in act 3 with low approval from what I've seen, low meaning 0 approval in my case. And also all the flirting towards the player that can start in act 2 before there's even approval to be gained from him. As it's happening now from the quick rush from goblin camp to act 3 that I've done, even with only quest required interactions the game seemingly assumes you have flirted with Halsin and/or are romancing him.

I've had to look up Halsin's act 2 banter with Shadowheart about the goldfish and if that is triggered by purely being in romance (i.e. having accidentally flirted somewhere) with Halsin without Shadowheart's involvement in the relationship that just seems like more missing/incorrectly placed dialogue flags. Looking at the rest of act 2's banter between Halsin and Shadowheart, which has animosity and aggression that I find far more severe than that between Shadowheart and Lae'zel in act 1, it also seems like the banter was misplaced and should have been put in act 3 after Shadowheart left Shar behind. Imagine having the goldfish banter happen and then going into Shar's gauntlet with both of them and have them be at each other's throat again constantly.

There are many party banters with wrong triggers unfortunately, some that even contain spoilers for future events. To me, the goldfish banter looks like another one of those that is triggered at a wrong point in the story.

You know, that is an interesting point. I have also heard that from someone, but in my game, when I don't flirt with him during the party and handle his quest without taking him along for the second portion of the quest (resulting in him being stuck at 0 approval instead of at 40ish), he's fine. I got a perfectly normal dialogue with him at the end of his quest without any of the more suggestive lines and, while I had the option to take the conversation into that direction, he didn't start it on his own and didn't hit on me in act 3 either. (Again I can't say about the brothel) I didn't rush anything though.

Judging from the wiki, the goldfish is meant for act 3. I haven't encountered it in game so I don't know. I mostly leave Halsin in camp because he doesn't have anything meaningful to contribute anyway.

I don't know exactly how it happens and it might have been changed/broken between patches, but him always assuming you're romanced and flirting happened in a recent rush through events for me. I didn't even go through the conversation to recruit him. He shows up as a green dot in camp like a companion not currently in my party, but he doesn't have his own adjustable inventory in camp storage and he isn't leveled up. And he'll still have his flirting if I try some conversations in act 2 and if I reload to make sure I haven't conversed with him in act 2, he will still confess his love for me in act 3. I wish I was more tech savvy and could dig into all the romance and consent flags to understand where things are going wrong, but as of right now it makes him very off-putting to interact with if you're not interested in his romance content on your current playthrough.

Halsin is very broken. I had no idea all his flags were THAT broken, but it makes sense. I was weirded out when I only talked to him about Moonrise at the Tiefling party, only for the next day to have a dialogue option "Sorry if I came on too strong" from my character. What?

He became a character I liked well enough and thought was cool during Act 1 to one I disliked in Act 3 because he reminded me too much of a workplace creep I dealt with years ago who wouldn't leave me alone and didn't care that I was a lesbian.

I didn't get the Drow twins scene because I didn't take him with me and I didn't even do it with SH alone, but if both him and SH disapprove if you say no to him, even after rejecting his love confession, makes it seem like the game flags him as being in a relationship with you both during that scene? That's the only was I can think of why even SH gets a disapproval there. Because yeah, if you were in a poly relationship together, then it would be pretty crappy to do that to him.

The swimming banter comes off as super creepy, like he intruded on your intimate moment. I think it can stay if you're poly, but maybe he can have different banter if SH and you are monogamous. After all in Act 2, Halsin and SH were at each other's throats, and maybe his banter can comment more on how proud of her he is, or something.

I do hope the flags are fixed so I don't feel like I need to leave him as Orin bait, lol. Because like I said, I thought he was a cool character in Act 1 and I loved running around with a bear in the Goblin Camp. But his Act 3 creepiness ruined him for me.

If it helps: In the save in which I didn't get any of his flirty banter I told him to take his own advice, ignored all comments about "coming on to strong" and just talked business with him. I might have offered to lend him some books but I can't really trace that dialogue tree well in my files any more.