Multiplayer & Relationships

[TheAcidicDragon]

I was just wondering if its an intended feature that only the host can have relationships with origin characters? Or is it a bug?

For abit of clarity, me and 1 other friend are playing through the game and i am the host of the session. I want to go down the Karlach route and have a relationship with her, do her story get all scenes etc and my friend wanted the same with Astarion. However, my friend hasn't been able to make any progress in winning Astarion over (no new cut scenes or progress on the bar). On the other side of things im doing great with Karlach. We are in Act 2 atm. Thank you :)

[Remedy]

I have done several multiplayer runs with us each having our own romance with no issue, one of which was one of us for Astarion and the other for Karlach. The only things to be sure of are that the companion they are romancing needs to be controlled by them/in their group. Origins will not talk to other players if they are in a group with someone else, and thus it would be very hard to gain relationship points with them.
Speaking of relationship points, they are given to the person who initiated the dialogue and is making the choices. As such, if you lead every conversation and your friend doesn't, they will also likely miss out on enough points to progress the romance. We split our conversations based on trying to get enough points between us. This seems most crucial in Act 1 to get the romance started.
If you haven't had a romance scene with Astarion in Act 1, I don't believe he can be romanced in Act 2. His romance scene in Act 1 can be triggered at 40 approval or after the goblin party with the right dialogue options and enough approval (not sure on the threshold of this one). If your friend got that, then Act 2 approvals are mainly by following his quest to learn about his scars and supporting his decision to say no to a particularly pushy person. I'm generally able to have him at 100 approval before moving to Act 3 even in a multiplayer game.
If you have been already ensuring they control Astarion and have been doing dialogue decisions to get approval, then I'm not sure what else it could be. Could be a bug if they aren't getting any approval even with him in their group. Make sure you long rest enough to get camp scenes as those are great for approval, though there are fewer of those in Act 2. In Act 1 you can actually get Astarion to bite his favorite character before the fight at the gate to the grove simply by long resting repeatedly after you get him and engaging with him at camp. If you do the right conversations in the grove after this with some more long rests, you can get him to approach you for the first romance scene right around the time you get to the blighted village. Hope this can help in a future playthrough!