Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Patch 6 Destroyed Player Agency with Astarion

That's probably the new scenes that they are working on but I can imagine that the evil endings might be part of a bigger overhaul. There are for example these new lines for Spawn Astarion which have not been patched in and the Avernus scene for Wyll and Karlach also seems a bit like a placeholder the way it is now - with Wyll being completely silent.

I'm sorry but I just do not agree with you. In my opinion he does have humanity left and capability to love and care for another. And who says he is not evil?? Evil and loving towards his romance is possible you know.

We can agree on that forcing YOUR narrative on someone elses game is not right. I don't want your narrative down my throat for instance.

I do not think the way you present it to be right even in the general game world. It's a lot more open than that.

We can also argue back and forth on thinking we know "most" people playing AA romance and their feelings. I based it on this thread and surveys done. But maybe I'm not right, maybe you are the all knowing knower of "most people" playing AA romance (and I specify Playing the AA romance) and how they are "not" triggered.


That is my point with that comment. I think playfulness would be so much more fitting in the scenario with a lot more Tavs out there.

Perfectly legitimate. I'm the same way.

I'm not sure of the rules on sharing usernames/links/screenshots of someone else in this forum?
It was a poll taken on YouTube and sent to Larian via Twitter, if you're on there.

I also want to be respectful of the poster because they already get a lot of hate and I don't want to be the reason they get more.

Would a strategicly cropped picture of the results to remove usernames suffice?

@Natasy ahhh okay, from the description you gave I found the channel. I knew of this poll but personally I don't think it was done in the greatest way, or in a way that's useful to Larian, rather. It's already skewed so that any option you can pick is expressing discontent (which might make Larian disregard it altogether as biased). The previous one had plenty of options (although the way the results were posted were also a bit skewed), and Google surveys don't allow to spam polls since I'm pretty sure they work by registering which IP has voted, unlike youtube. I find the 10x number a bit suspicious there since the other poll got posted everywhere repeatedly and this one wasn't, but eh, maybe folks don't like clicking on links or linking google accounts to surveys.

I think you might be right on that one. It did make me pause when participating in the first survey. It is a hassle when it's a login wall in your face and people don't like to be hassled.

Yeah same I thought the Google doc one was phishing lol I didn't trust it.

Idk. I mean, it's for sure your right to question it's legitimacy as an objective "poll". Though I can see the argument to be made that the poll was made to be specifically for people who already didn't like the patch. And just a data pull strictly out of that pool, if that makes sense? So even if it's bias, it's still 5.4k people who don't like the patch 6 issue.

Not the scientific method. But a significant number imo.

It was a poll targeted to AA fans that had expressed dissatisfaction to see what it was they didn't like, on an AA specific channel. Not every poll needs to targeted to *everyone* to make it valid. It allowed people to easily and safely express or elaborate on an opinion without having to sign up for a forum, or make a discord, or login to the hellscape that is twitter, lol. I was actually surprised at the rate of people who chose "Both." It was higher than I honestly expected. It was worth sending to Larian even if it was very specific, targeted data because the response size was so much larger than expected. To me it shows that there are way more people who are just not being vocal about it.

Surely a handful of people wouldn't inflate their numbers in an effort to get what they want!

Sounds legit to me. I once, for instance, polled the DNC and discovered that literally no one was voting Republican. Numbers don't lie, folks.

^^ thank you for putting it more thoroughly.

AA exclusive places do tend to be in the thousands. So it correlates.

Also makes more sense that the number is higher now that the patch has been out a minute and people have been so vocal on both sides.

The mod said this. Maybe that should also extend to accusing certain fans of lying or manipulating a poll to get what they want. Just a thought!

I feel like Larian was pretty good about spelling out the whole "infernal ritual" thing in game, personally. A contract with a devil, especially one involving thousands of souls, is going to have an effect on the person performing ritual, an explicitly evil one. Larian is somewhat flexible on alignment stuff in game, which is perfectly fine, but there doesn't really seem to be any leeway there. And sure him being evil is completely fine with a lot of people romancing him, but there's also a belief that despite being evil Ascended Astarion will be "soft" with Tav/Durge. I think that Larian did a pretty good job of showing that AA has "killed" all of his softness. He even refers to his softer spawn self as weak. That kind of vulnerability is a weakness to AA.

To further clarify what I meant about the poll, I can see the point, although the numbers are certainly impressive. The AA subreddit "only" has 1.2k members (although the general Astarion subreddit has almost 10K, of which there also are a fair bit of AA fans, there's some overlap between those communities there) which was also another reason I thought "wow, that's a big number!"

What I didn't elaborate on earlier is that skewed options will mean that if someone who doesn't agree with any of the options wants to see the results (AFAIK there's no way to see them without voting on youtube) they're still going to instinctually click the option that's the closest to their opinion to see them, but it might not reflect their own opinion. It's easy to think "well, just don't vote" but I feel like curiosity's going to get the better of them, lol. In the same way doing a google survey might filter people because it's a hassle to do all that, quick, easy to click polls are also more "casual" in the results they're representing.
The google survey probably has a better representation of the percentages there, at least.
It does stand to reason WRT the youtube poll that even if, say, half of the 60% voting they don't like the face are voting "just because", and even if say (and I'm exaggerating here), a dozen or a hundred people were using a couple of youtube accounts they had to inflate the numbers, that's still an impressive amount of people who aren't satisfied with the new animations. But it could've been set up a bit better, IMO.

I would like to say "thank you" to the initiative people, who were not obliged to conduct any polls and send the results at all. But they did it. As best they could.
Among their audience or on a specific platform.
I took part in a survey in a major poll that was conducted first and then on YouTube, but I hadn't heard anything about the others that were conducted on Twitter or anywhere else. And I also registered on the forum for the first time to give my opinion on the new kissing, since they bother me.
What I mean by that is that what I did doesn't mean that everyone who wasn't happy or satisfied with the animation is going to participate or post something somewhere. It causes a certain percentage of margin of error up or down.

If you have a desire for a more accurate and valid survey, create one, pick a platform and share the link to it with others, I'd love to participate).

So "killed" that right after the infernal ritual, AA makes the most tender kiss on the hand in this game when the player chooses that option.



Larian made these kisses as a February 14 fanservice, assuming that the AA audience likes wild dynamics, not to show that "AA has killed softness". That way UA is devoid of any fangs at all, teasing, adjusting to "good behavior", holding back its natrue and Larian showed that.
Although I think Larian decided that for UA fans a nice soft dynamic is nice and gave.

Well if the reasoning is that Larian wanted to kill the 6 patch and kisses, you can go very far.

I rather feel you have missed a couple of points there. Nobody is disputing that A.Astarion behaves differently to U.Astarion in this thread. Most posters have no issue with Astarion in the kiss animations except for the kneeling one which is the same animation when Tav is turned. To many of us this devalues what was a unique moment in the game.
The objection to the Patch 6 animations is Tav's face and body language. That is the whole point of this thread. Player agency has been removed because Tav is now going to freeze and look traumatised regardless of whether the player is RPing an exceptionally evil DUrge, a little innocent who just didn't know what they were doing, or something in between.

Ascended Astarion's dialogue is still consistent with a Dark Romance because that hasn't been altered. He acquiesces if Tav wishes to travel, he speaks to Tav in a possessive but loving manner. The kiss animations do not fit with this.
So, I do not agree that Larian showed that A.A. has killed all his softness, because the dialogue seems more subtle to me, showing the love he once felt is now twisted and darker but it is still there.

And if some people do want to sit in their own homes and RP that A.Astarion is still soft, gentle and loving towards their Tav, what harm? Why shouldn't people enjoy their purchase in the way they want?
Everyone is going to have a slightly different take on the story but our personal interpretations don't affect anyone else.

You also need to remember this is supposed to be a romance, where Tav has a romantic relationship with the NPC. The Patch 6 Animations make it look more like Tav is in a non-consensual abusive relationship and that is very disturbing to some players for real-life reasons that have been outlined elsewhere in the thread.
Do be aware that being 'triggered' is a lot worse than just feeling slightly upset for a couple of minutes. It means people are suffering flashbacks to trauma they have actually experienced.

I honestly don't think asking how many people have been triggered is appropriate. A number of posters here have said they had this response, myself included. I'm sure nobody meant to belittle our experience but by saying it's 'probably not that many', it feels like the arguement is being put forward that if only a small number of customers are hurt by this change, then that is acceptable.
How many people would it take to change your minds, I wonder.
How many of us are acceptable as collateral damage. 10? 50? 100? (no, don't answer please, just think about it.) That is such a cold attitude to take towards other people.

As I said, I personally do not think making Tav look traumatised was done with the intention of changing the A. Astarion romance or cementing it as 100% abusive towards the Player Character. I think it was a misinterpretation of what was required by the story.
To make it consistent with the rest of the dialogue, Larian would have to rewrite and re-record a significant amount. I really don't think they would start that process now, when they have said they are moving onto a new project. Especially since nobody was objecting to the A.Astarion romance previously.

There would be no entertainment. Life itself would be untenable. Every project would halt the moment someone claimed to be triggered.

Regarding the number, I believe another poster commented that "most" of the players were triggered. I responded that "most" seemed patently excessive and hyperbolic, but the commenter failed to address that point in a follow-up.

Larian quite literally gives you the option to ask Astarion "Be gentle" before he turns you, and he very visibly complies.

Larian added that. They in front of our very eyes, made AA be gentle to our PC.

"Killing gentleness" is headcanon. It is not backed up by fact.

Ascension is an unknown. That is what the dialogue in game describes. It is not a fact that it destroys every shred of his soul. It is not a fact that it destroys him. Those are all suppositions and head canon.

What is a fact, is the actor, who worked closely with the writer, verbatim saying that it was him "mask off". That it was him amplified.

He is the corrupt magistrate who always hungered for power realized. That was always in him. That is not some evil demon that replaced him. There is no evidence to push he's incapable of being gentle when he factually already is post ascension.

Please change the victim faces, Larian.

haha... "that's headcanon!!! Oh yeah, he was a corrupt magistrate!!!"

lol, a corrupt magistrate you say? wow, where's the game say that?

https://ibb.co/x5k1J6Z

Let me know if it doesn't load

Here's more script

Given his treatment of the weak, barbarians, amazing greed for luxury - the chances that he made fair judgments and did not take bribes is very low. What the word corrupted means.
Add early information artbook and the picture becomes complete if the early information is burned, and we prefer not to see it or consider it at all. That Astarion was a very bad elf in power is still reason enough in the game.