Why not give us an option to turn off romance entirely, like nudity?

[gbuglyo]

I nearly always go for romance-free playthroughs in RPGs, and BG3 is no exception. I love the game so far, it's on par with the best I've played in my life, but the dialogues designed to possibly lead to a romance are honestly worse than in Dragon Age 2.

The problem seems to be rooted in dialogue options allowing you to engage with companions at the more personal level. In D&D (and most PC games), these situations are meant to build up friendship and camaraderie, but in BG3, the game somehow automatically assumes that I'm trying to romance them. After an exchange I thought was friendly and platonic, I've had my character behaving flirtily and exchanging long, romantic stares with a companion, with no prompt at all if I wanted to do that. In the end, after I refused spending the night with said companion, the narrator even commented how "I feel lonely after my sudden change of mind", or something of the sort.

I've seen a similar topic with most people arguing that romance is fully optional and you can always turn down your companions' offers politely, without coming across as a jerk. However, that does not seem to hold. Here, I'll only detail my experience with Lae'zel, as the issue is totally unrelated with gender or sexual preference, and I don't want the homophobe card to be used against me.

As Lae'zel made her move on me, I had dialogue options roughly as follows.

1. If you like me that way, why are you acting with me like a jerk?
2. Just stop coming on to me already!
3. Sure, let's sleep together!
4. I have one word: yuck.

So where is the option to turn her down like a nice guy? Also, even after I refused, she kept describing my scent and how her lips and fingers would feel on me. Yuck. That was the point where I thought, Larian really shrugged off players who are uninterested in video game romance.

TLDR: Asking me whether I want nudity to be off before starting the game was a nice touch. Why not do the same for romance, considering how bad these mechanics seem to be?

[dannyj147]

It's part of the story, you can skip romance scenes though.

[gbuglyo]

Originally posted by dannyj147:

It's part of the story, you can skip romance scenes though.

I see, but it sure is an unnerving part. I did have a bad feeling after watching the trailer showing mostly just scantily clad characters in various intimate positions, but I still didn't expect this.

[AMilli0NliGHTS]

Romance is a part of the game that the devs wanted to make, it's not optional.

[Naamtar]

I think the rate at which you gain approval needs tweaking so you do not feel overwhelmed by romancing dialogue between multiple companions at the same time.

The decision to make all companions player-sexual makes that entire aspect of the game immersion breaking to me, personally.

Would much rather each companion have their own unique preferences and bicker between one another based on characteristics common to those sexual identities.

Gale also seems to be bugged for some people and refusing to take No for an answer.

All in all, though, I think the major conflict for people that are uncomfortable is that it's too easy to gain approval early on. There needs to be more nuance to it so that you lose approval with certain companions while gaining approval with others. This would offset how you can potentially be bombarded depending on how much you've done between long rests.

[Scrof]

I just kill my companions at the first convenience. Problem solved.

[Tenaka]

If you are that sensitive then wait for reviews before buying games. Sounds like anything and everything will take away your safe space.

[AnHonestSoul]

You need mods to disable romance scenes effectively.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1086940/discussions/0/6045572169627135447/

[Loadfinder]

Originally posted by gbuglyo:

I nearly always go for romance-free playthroughs in RPGs, and BG3 is no exception. I love the game so far, it's on par with the best I've played in my life, but the dialogues designed to possibly lead to a romance are honestly worse than in Dragon Age 2.

The problem seems to be rooted in dialogue options allowing you to engage with companions at the more personal level. In D&D (and most PC games), these situations are meant to build up friendship and camaraderie, but in BG3, the game somehow automatically assumes that I'm trying to romance them. After an exchange I thought was friendly and platonic, I've had my character behaving flirtily and exchanging long, romantic stares with a companion, with no prompt at all if I wanted to do that. In the end, after I refused spending the night with said companion, the narrator even commented how "I feel lonely after my sudden change of mind", or something of the sort.

I've seen a similar topic with most people arguing that romance is fully optional and you can always turn down your companions' offers politely, without coming across as a jerk. However, that does not seem to hold. Here, I'll only detail my experience with Lae'zel, as the issue is totally unrelated with gender or sexual preference, and I don't want the homophobe card to be used against me.

As Lae'zel made her move on me, I had dialogue options roughly as follows.

1. If you like me that way, why are you acting with me like a jerk?
2. Just stop coming on to me already!
3. Sure, let's sleep together!
4. I have one word: yuck.

So where is the option to turn her down like a nice guy? Also, even after I refused, she kept describing my scent and how her lips and fingers would feel on me. Yuck. That was the point where I thought, Larian really shrugged off players who are uninterested in video game romance.

TLDR: Asking me whether I want nudity to be off before starting the game was a nice touch. Why not do the same for romance, considering how bad these mechanics seem to be?

I'm not digging that almost every guy is homosexual. I only like women IRL and are straight like 95% of the population. However, I do believe a feature to remove straight/gay relationships would benefit the individual playing the game. If you're into that stuff good for you. Enjoy. But let me turn it off. The biggest part that irked me was When Gale got sexual with me over some magical weave nonsense because my character is a male wizard/necro.

[Enola Gay]

It's very interesting the types of people that can't handle any type of nudity but have zero issues with violence and murder. One might say you're screwed up in the head.

[Slap Happy]

Originally posted by Loadfinder:

Originally posted by gbuglyo:

I nearly always go for romance-free playthroughs in RPGs, and BG3 is no exception. I love the game so far, it's on par with the best I've played in my life, but the dialogues designed to possibly lead to a romance are honestly worse than in Dragon Age 2.

The problem seems to be rooted in dialogue options allowing you to engage with companions at the more personal level. In D&D (and most PC games), these situations are meant to build up friendship and camaraderie, but in BG3, the game somehow automatically assumes that I'm trying to romance them. After an exchange I thought was friendly and platonic, I've had my character behaving flirtily and exchanging long, romantic stares with a companion, with no prompt at all if I wanted to do that. In the end, after I refused spending the night with said companion, the narrator even commented how "I feel lonely after my sudden change of mind", or something of the sort.

I've seen a similar topic with most people arguing that romance is fully optional and you can always turn down your companions' offers politely, without coming across as a jerk. However, that does not seem to hold. Here, I'll only detail my experience with Lae'zel, as the issue is totally unrelated with gender or sexual preference, and I don't want the homophobe card to be used against me.

As Lae'zel made her move on me, I had dialogue options roughly as follows.

1. If you like me that way, why are you acting with me like a jerk?
2. Just stop coming on to me already!
3. Sure, let's sleep together!
4. I have one word: yuck.

So where is the option to turn her down like a nice guy? Also, even after I refused, she kept describing my scent and how her lips and fingers would feel on me. Yuck. That was the point where I thought, Larian really shrugged off players who are uninterested in video game romance.

TLDR: Asking me whether I want nudity to be off before starting the game was a nice touch. Why not do the same for romance, considering how bad these mechanics seem to be?

I'm not digging that almost every guy is homosexual. I only like women IRL and are straight like 95% of the population. However, I do believe a feature to remove straight/gay relationships would benefit the individual playing the game. If you're into that stuff good for you. Enjoy. But let me turn it off. The biggest part that irked me was When Gale got sexual with me over some magical weave nonsense because my character is a male wizard/necro.

Cry more.

[Kyutaru]

There are many aspects of this game that people dislike, from the turn-based combat to the inclusion of certain types of characters to the over represented elven companions. Were the developers to begin catering to every single complaint and implement switches to toggle on or off each and every one of them, it would not only cost them a bucket but it would set a bad precedent. Plenty of other games have had similar calls and complaints as wide ranging as the number of opinions on X yet generally the artists don't cave and give a vocal minority what it wants after launch. Before launch is another story, the game's under development and anything can happen, as it did with the nudity toggle.

But even when Mass Effect 3 had the most god awful ending in the history of gaming and the community erupted into a clamor asking for it to be changed, the developers stuck by their content and told them to tough it out rather rudely. Artistic media comes in the forms of movies, novels, and paintings too and barring legal intervention it's nigh unheard of that the producers offer modified versions of the content.

It's jarring to me too. I purposely anger Gale to keep his approval rating low. But that doesn't mean I'm going to call for change. Romance isn't even on my top 10 list of issues in need of fixing with this game and certainly wouldn't be what I would want the developers to spend their profits improving. You clearly disagree, and these are merely my two cents so don't send hate my way, but one voiced opinion to another -- I disagree and wouldn't want this done.

[gbuglyo]

Originally posted by Kyutaru:

There are many aspects of this game that people dislike, from the turn-based combat to the inclusion of certain types of characters to the over represented elven companions. Were the developers to begin catering to every single complaint and implement switches to toggle on or off each and every one of them, it would not only cost them a bucket but it would set a bad precedent. Plenty of other games have had similar calls and complaints as wide ranging as the number of opinions on X yet generally the artists don't cave and give a vocal minority what it wants after launch. Before launch is another story, the game's under development and anything can happen, as it did with the nudity toggle.

But even when Mass Effect 3 had the most god awful ending in the history of gaming and the community erupted into a clamor asking for it to be changed, the developers stuck by their content and told them to tough it out rather rudely. Artistic media comes in the forms of movies, novels, and paintings too and barring legal intervention it's nigh unheard of that the producers offer modified versions of the content.

It's jarring to me too. I purposely anger Gale to keep his approval rating low. But that doesn't mean I'm going to call for change. Romance isn't even on my top 10 list of issues in need of fixing with this game and certainly wouldn't be what I would want the developers to spend their profits improving. You clearly disagree, and these are merely my two cents so don't send hate my way, but one voiced opinion to another -- I disagree and wouldn't want this done.

I get that. Why would I hate you? It's a valid opinion.

[gbuglyo]

Originally posted by Enola Gay:

It's very interesting the types of people that can't handle any type of nudity but have zero issues with violence and murder. One might say you're screwed up in the head.

In that case, all players I have ever played tabletop RPGs with (D&D or otherwise) were "screwed up in the head". We always had lots of violence but no sexual content.

[Husard]

Dude, it seems to me that you did not read the PG rating. It is written in bold letters what to expect. You cant seriousely come whine about the fact that you are shocked by nudity.

[gbuglyo]

Originally posted by Husard:

Dude, it seems to me that you did not read the PG rating. It is written in bold letters what to expect. You cant seriousely come whine about the fact that you are shocked by nudity.

Dude, you definitely didn't read my post. 😉 It was not nudity I was "whining" about.