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Statistics showed that 33% of players romanced Gale and conclusion was "he is just that attractive!". I think I can challenge that statement. If anything, he is just "that easy", or "easy to please", to get approval rating. Simple politeness will go far with him (and Will, and Shadowheart, even with Lae'sel) and he never objects of accepting a quest.

On the opposite side of the specter is Astarion - the only way to romance him is to be rude, dismissive, and aggressive towards potential quest-givers. Which a) does not make sense (he is a vampire, hiding his nature, who is also well bred and knows how to behave), b) harmful to the play-through, since you simply loose some quests. I can add c) you have to go the evil route, but that can be seeing as a good thing.

May be it is a good thing that one romance you can only get if you are evil (though majority of the players would never see half the cutscene designed by the studio) but system in general ... probably should be looked into. There are no alternative pathways even for the easier romances - you missed a scene because of pressing on with exploring, you are locked out of the further content. Sure, the exact scheme will be figured out eventually, may be even a mod will be created to set the flags right (do hope so), but that locks you on a certain gameplay, and definitely does not feel as "natural way of building up relationships".

May be different weight for different dialogs/actions would help? More emphasis on personal interactions? I am not sure, but right now relationships is anything but natural.

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Originally Posted by Amirit
On the opposite side of the specter is Astarion - the only way to romance him is to be rude, dismissive, and aggressive towards potential quest-givers. Which a) does not make sense (he is a vampire, hiding his nature, who is also well bred and knows how to behave), b) harmful to the play-through, since you simply loose some quests. I can add c) you have to go the evil route, but that can be seeing as a good thing.

I don't think I have missed out on any quests while romancing Astarion - though my character started off as Good (how I normally play) then veered sharply into Chaotic Neutral just to please him. :P You don't have to get ALL of his approval points, probably just the major plot ones relating to him directly (bite scene etc). I did as much of the content as I could though, helped everyone before getting to the Rescue Halsin from the Goblin Camp, so that the overall incremental approvals probably added up. I still took quests and helped people, just had to sound a bit snarky about it.

Shadowheart disapproved of my actions ALL THE TIME, so it was a complete shock to me that at Medium reputation she propositioned me at the party scene. I don't even know how I got to Medium reputation with her in the first place! I told her no thanks, because I was about to pounce on Astarion, and of course she disapproved. :P But what I'm saying is, you can still play however you want and the romances are still mostly recoverable. All of the characters are complicated personalities with various proverbial (and probably literal) skeletons in their closets, so as long as you also play a little bit complicated, not a straightforward 100% goody-two-shoes path, they'll still fall in love with you.


Originally Posted by Amirit
There are no alternative pathways even for the easier romances - you missed a scene because of pressing on with exploring, you are locked out of the further content.

This is the bit that definitely needs fixing, I agree. My husband missed quite a few of the camp scenes with companions on his first playthrough because he didn't realise there was no penalty for camping early and often! The characters are all like "there's no time to waste, we need to find a healer" so he delayed long rests at camp for as long as possible, skipped a bunch of cutscenes, and without the forums wouldn't have even realised this. The cutscenes definitely need to be queued up and happen in the order they were designed to be experienced, rather than ending up being completely missed. Otherwise a lot of players will also take the characters at their word, avoid going to camp often, and miss the best character development.

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I always thought, Astarion was the most popular romance, since the internet is full of him. If you look for anything BG3 related, chances are, you stumble across some Astarion fanart, fanfiction, Astarion comments ...

I find Gale especially hard to romance - I did try to do all romances at least once. The prerequisition for his romance is the weave scene and out of 15 playthroughs, I did manage to get that twice and I rested a lot. Not that I want romance Gale that badly, but I like to try out the different options in the weave scene. The problem is, that Gale gets approval too quickly. He normally is already high approval, when you do the harpries quest. And then you have scripted events while resting, like Raphael, Astarion trying to snack on you and so on. I find it nearly impossible to do the Gale romance.

But if I wanted, I could have romanced Astarion in nearly every playthrough but one (I didn't want to, but he offered) and I always play good aligned. You can get points, if you are understanding of his problem, be nice to the owlbear cub, declining Raphaels offer (and be adamant about that in later conversations with different companions), help Karlach (I always help her), choose deception answers... So I'm mostly in medium range with him, which is enough for the romance. You will probably run into problems later in the game though.


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Originally Posted by Amirit
Statistics showed that 33% of players romanced Gale and conclusion was "he is just that attractive!". I think I can challenge that statement. If anything, he is just "that easy", or "easy to please", to get approval rating. Simple politeness will go far with him (and Will, and Shadowheart, even with Lae'sel) and he never objects of accepting a quest.

On the opposite side of the specter is Astarion - the only way to romance him is to be rude, dismissive, and aggressive towards potential quest-givers. Which a) does not make sense (he is a vampire, hiding his nature, who is also well bred and knows how to behave), b) harmful to the play-through, since you simply loose some quests. I can add c) you have to go the evil route, but that can be seeing as a good thing.

May be it is a good thing that one romance you can only get if you are evil (though majority of the players would never see half the cutscene designed by the studio) but system in general ... probably should be looked into. There are no alternative pathways even for the easier romances - you missed a scene because of pressing on with exploring, you are locked out of the further content. Sure, the exact scheme will be figured out eventually, may be even a mod will be created to set the flags right (do hope so), but that locks you on a certain gameplay, and definitely does not feel as "natural way of building up relationships".

May be different weight for different dialogues/actions would help? More emphasis on personal interactions? I am not sure, but right now relationships is anything but natural.

Hmm, while perhaps "easy to please", Gale certainly seem to have a lot of other issues attached to his romance in terms of bugs (like the weave scene not appearing etc). I mean, I am not really on the hype train nor ditch train for either of the three current male companions - but in all honesty... Neither is really a good fit for my ranger lady so my first playthrough was without romance - I did however try romance options with some secondary characters after that.

Gale is way too self-absorbed - and in difference from Wyll (which suffers from the same problem), he is not even the slightest aware of it. I nearly spat my drink out when I talked to Gale on one of my alt-playthroughs where I romanced Wyll and Gale went all on about how Wyll supposedly is narcissistic. :'] Probably one of my favorite moments ever - I am just sad there was no option to call him out on it.

Astarion may be lacking in more ways than one when it comes to ... The entire evil bit, but at least he is much more honest about it. And, in difference from Wyll and Gale, Astarion is much more approachable - he actually opens up and is surprisingly honest with Tav. Gale and Wyll is much less so, especially Gale.

And finally, I agree that the game gotta adjust the way players can miss interactions by accident because they did not camp frequently enough. There must be some way of fixing that before launch. :]


Hoot hoot, stranger! Fairly new to CRPGs, but I tried my best to provide some feedback regardless! <3 Read it here: My Open Letter to Larian
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33% is the official data from EA, accumulated by Larian ( https://www.vg247.com/2020/10/27/baldurs-gate-3-patch/ ), but my point is, it is not because of his awesomeness (I like him, don't get me wrong) but because the game design. The one and only path leading to romance which is hindered by mechanic contradicting the story.

Characters urges you to do not stop and find a healer as fast as you can - yet, counter-intuitively, you have to take long rests and - again! - at specific points in the game or you miss key scenes.

Or specifically about approval: one moment you have a lovely discussion with Astarion about the ways to kill yourself in case of transformation, and the next he disapproves your decision to do just that - kill yourself in case of transformation. (Can not name quests that Asterion disapproves of but there are more than one, so, yes, that romance is problematic for me)

Add bugs to it, and a lot of content gets missing.

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Originally Posted by Amirit
Statistics showed that 33% of players romanced Gale and conclusion was "he is just that attractive!". I think I can challenge that statement. If anything, he is just "that easy", or "easy to please", to get approval rating. Simple politeness will go far with him (and Will, and Shadowheart, even with Lae'sel) and he never objects of accepting a quest.

Lack of competition.

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Romance Gale?? you know he is a dude right?

95 percent or more playing this game are guys?

The real question is why does 95 percent of the player base only get one romance option "Shadowheart"?

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Originally Posted by Tabuk
Romance Gale?? you know he is a dude right?

95 percent or more playing this game are guys?

The real question is why does 95 percent of the player base only get one romance option "Shadowheart"?

Check your statistics. Will not claime 50/50 but there are far more girls playing RPGs than you want to think. Not to mention all companions are player-sexual and there are 2 more girls will be added soon.

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Gale's popularity surprised me, because everyone is talking about Astarion and he's really easy to get. Getting Gale's romance is not so easy, which is worth its "rare" cutscene, which I still haven't been able to open. Gale also has a "love past" that is actually unpleasant. Wyll, too.

That's why choosing Astarion seems to be the most logical and easiest thing to do. But maybe some people just don't want to play "evil"? Or maybe Larian's statistics aren't quite right. Perhaps they consider "scene in the forest" as an activation of romance? Because I thought it was just part of Gale's story.

I would like to make harder get Astarion and Lae romance. I think their scenes are too easy for people to get, no matter how ppl play.


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Originally Posted by Tabuk
Romance Gale?? you know he is a dude right?

95 percent or more playing this game are guys?

And 79.8% of statistics are made up. Particularly that one. There are more girls playing these games than you might think.


Originally Posted by Tabuk
The real question is why does 95 percent of the player base only get one romance option "Shadowheart"?


Lae'zel is also female, and a romance option.

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Originally Posted by Alexandrite
Originally Posted by Tabuk
Romance Gale?? you know he is a dude right?

95 percent or more playing this game are guys?

And 79.8% of statistics are made up. Particularly that one. There are more girls playing these games than you might think.


Originally Posted by Tabuk
The real question is why does 95 percent of the player base only get one romance option "Shadowheart"?


Lae'zel is also female, and a romance option.

True that. It was made up, but the point was and still remains valid, a VAST majority are male, yet we only have one romance option what? Laezel is a dragon/ lizard ,,,I don't think counts smile

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If you ever played Mass Effect you know about Paragon (good) / Renegade (bad) paths there. Statistics showed that 82% of players went pure Paragon path. So, yes, people are not as inclined to play evils as one can think. Since BG3 is advertised ass DnD game, and DnD is a lot about heroic adventure for the greater good, I would not expect too many evil-fans here either. It's not "some" players, it's majority, and locking Astarion off for them does not sound right (nor logical either - he is a civilized person and disapproval very often is "off"). I would ease his accessibility more or shift it to the personal interactions, not related to the reaction to quest taken.

If (hopefully "when") Gale's scene bug will be fixed, he might get even higher in popularity, and only because of game-mechanic.

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Originally Posted by Dez
Gale is way too self-absorbed - and in difference from Wyll (which suffers from the same problem), he is not even the slightest aware of it. I nearly spat my drink out when I talked to Gale on one of my alt-playthroughs where I romanced Wyll and Gale went all on about how Wyll supposedly is narcissistic. :'] Probably one of my favorite moments ever - I am just sad there was no option to call him out on it.

Astarion may be lacking in more ways than one when it comes to ... The entire evil bit, but at least he is much more honest about it. And, in difference from Wyll and Gale, Astarion is much more approachable - he actually opens up and is surprisingly honest with Tav. Gale and Wyll is much less so, especially Gale.

I was tossing up between romancing Astarion or Gale in my first playthrough, but I got one of the early camp scenes where Gale admires himself as a magical "mirror" copy and that was too much narcissism for me. And Wyll also talks himself up far too much. Both of them have personal stories hiding behind that bravado, of course, but it's the bravado that for me is an instant turn off. However, Astarion is so well written throughout, he doesn't take himself seriously and is just enjoying life as it comes, in his own twisted way. After all, he wasn't able to enjoy life for 200 years, and he is honest about it.

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Originally Posted by Amirit
and locking Astarion off for them does not sound right (nor logical either - he is a civilized person and disapproval very often is "off"). I would ease his accessibility more or shift it to the personal interactions, not related to the reaction to quest taken.

I do agree here - some of his reactions to quests/interactions, particularly regarding topics of slavery and freedom, raised my eyebrows as they didn't quite seem to fit his personality and what we know of his past.

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It's the false teeth.

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Originally Posted by Tabuk
Originally Posted by Alexandrite
Originally Posted by Tabuk
Romance Gale?? you know he is a dude right?

95 percent or more playing this game are guys?

And 79.8% of statistics are made up. Particularly that one. There are more girls playing these games than you might think.


Originally Posted by Tabuk
The real question is why does 95 percent of the player base only get one romance option "Shadowheart"?


Lae'zel is also female, and a romance option.

True that. It was made up, but the point was and still remains valid, a VAST majority are male, yet we only have one romance option what? Laezel is a dragon/ lizard ,,,I don't think counts smile

Pfft Laezel is more lady than you can handle.

Also, wonder what the statistics were for Gale getting killed on sight and left on the road. Way to nice & a wizard, no sir.

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Originally Posted by Amirit
If you ever played Mass Effect you know about Paragon (good) / Renegade (bad) paths there. Statistics showed that 82% of players went pure Paragon path. So, yes, people are not as inclined to play evils as one can think. Since BG3 is advertised ass DnD game, and DnD is a lot about heroic adventure for the greater good, I would not expect too many evil-fans here either. It's not "some" players, it's majority, and locking Astarion off for them does not sound right (nor logical either - he is a civilized person and disapproval very often is "off"). I would ease his accessibility more or shift it to the personal interactions, not related to the reaction to quest taken.

If (hopefully "when") Gale's scene bug will be fixed, he might get even higher in popularity, and only because of game-mechanic.

Wyll literally leave if you destroy the grove. I would say that what you have now is already "lite" for evil companions, because Astarion and Lae do not leave you after defending the grove. If it was "fair" then one of them would have left. You can also get Astarion romance scene even on a neutral approval. How much easier do you need?

Honestly? This should be seriously complicated. Or have consequences in the future, for example, I believe that Astarion can betray MC very easily.

I also want to tell you that most people choose "good" because it is more profitable. Most of the companions in the games usually approve of "good options" and if you want to establish a relationship with them, then you have no choice. Evil companions are rare! Another thing is that in bioware games, most of the "evil" responses are not evil at all, they are aggressive and nothing more. That's why it's better to play diplomat or sarcasm than the aggressive idiot.

There are quite a lot of people who like to play evil or at least selfish neutral characters,
but evil must be well written. No one tries to do it well, the writers initially focus on the path of the hero.
Even in BG3, I read in an interview that writers are almost forced to write "the evil way". And it is already clear that it is worked out worse and its motives are quite stupid. It makes more sense to save the grove, even for an evil character to use Halsin's knowledge, than to join an unfamiliar cult. What's funny is that the "evil way" is only good for Astarion, because he is a vampire and wants to "control" the tadpole. But if you are playing evil and want to get rid of the tadpole, which is more logical, then joining an unfamiliar cult is very strange. In this way, Lae is much closer to me.

edit: I also want to say that by attacking the grove, you lose your romance with Shadow, you lose Wyll, and you may lose Gale. You are again "more profitable" to save the grove. If you lost one of the evil companions, maybe the % of good and evil would change.


Originally Posted by Alexandrite
Originally Posted by Amirit
and locking Astarion off for them does not sound right (nor logical either - he is a civilized person and disapproval very often is "off"). I would ease his accessibility more or shift it to the personal interactions, not related to the reaction to quest taken.

I do agree here - some of his reactions to quests/interactions, particularly regarding topics of slavery and freedom, raised my eyebrows as they didn't quite seem to fit his personality and what we know of his past.

What do you know about his past? He was most likely a corrupt judge. Apparently, he thought he was better than others and quite possibly sold people. Do you think he should sympathize with the slaves because he was a slave himself?

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Originally Posted by Tabuk
Romance Gale?? you know he is a dude right?

95 percent or more playing this game are guys?

The real question is why does 95 percent of the player base only get one romance option "Shadowheart"?

I was also a little underwhelmed, but this is early access & I'm sure there will be more characters added.

The only question is whether the characters you meet now in the beginning will remain there or be more scattered throughout the game.

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Originally Posted by Tabuk
The real question is why does 95 percent of the player base only get one romance option "Shadowheart"?
I think you misspelled "Minthara". :P

Originally Posted by Nyloth
Gale's popularity surprised me, because everyone is talking about Astarion and he's really easy to get. Getting Gale's romance is not so easy, which is worth its "rare" cutscene, which I still haven't been able to open. Gale also has a "love past" that is actually unpleasant. Wyll, too.
Funny ...
I see it exactly otherwise. laugh Well maybe not exactly, since i havent seen Gale's romance, unless i specificly aimed for it, that is true ... but it was exactly same for me with Astarion, or Shadowheart. :-/
Wyll seemed like freebee, just like Minthara ... help/burn the groove and here you got your lover ... i rejected him every single time tho, since he is just awfull person. -_-

So, for myself ... the best Romance option was allways Lae'zel (unless Minthara happened).


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Originally Posted by RagnarokCzD
Originally Posted by Tabuk
The real question is why does 95 percent of the player base only get one romance option "Shadowheart"?
I think you misspelled "Minthara". :P

Originally Posted by Nyloth
Gale's popularity surprised me, because everyone is talking about Astarion and he's really easy to get. Getting Gale's romance is not so easy, which is worth its "rare" cutscene, which I still haven't been able to open. Gale also has a "love past" that is actually unpleasant. Wyll, too.
Funny ...
I see it exactly otherwise. laugh Well maybe not exactly, since i havent seen Gale's romance, unless i specificly aimed for it, that is true ... but it was exactly same for me with Astarion, or Shadowheart. :-/
Wyll seemed like freebee, just like Minthara ... help/burn the groove and here you got your lover ... i rejected him every single time tho, since he is just awfull person. -_-

So, for myself ... the best Romance option was allways Lae'zel (unless Minthara happened).

you like men who constantly talk about their exes? I'm not.


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