Guide to avoiding romances

[Red Star, Blood Moon]

Someone needs to write something like this up. I already wasted time on reloads just doing stupid crap like not abandoning temporary allies, or "catch them if they fall" type things with some witch like Keira trying to manipulate me, and it feels like I'm completely losing control over my character. This is especially irritating when the things coming out of Geralt's mouth has zero to do with anything I as a player want concerning Yenn, which is to avoid the ♥♥♥♥ out of her. If I wanted to have no control over where the story's going or what I'm doing with it at all I'd read a book.

Is there some kind of a guide as to minimizing the risk of a romance scenario happening, and how to blow all these people off completely? Because they keep sneaking things in there where you don't realize that was some type of a romance meter increasing type thing.

[TheClosetSkeleton]

This isn't a self-insert kind of game.

They are already established characters and relathionships that you can't just ignore.

So either get on with you're life as a troglodyte or just don't play the game FFS

[Red Star, Blood Moon]

TheClosetSkeleton eredeti hozzászólása:

This isn't a self-insert kind of game.

They are already established characters and relathionships that you can't just ignore.

So either get on with you're life as a troglodyte or just don't play the game FFS

That's why people call it not an RPG and ♥♥♥♥ on it, at least one reason. I'd just watch a show instead if I wanted to do that instead of play a game. Alternatively, not getting saddled with cringey af b.s. because the characters are neither likeable nor trustworthy, and it's odd someone like Geralt would even tolerate these people given his overall ability to see through people generally.

It's also not a "self insert" it's literally not wanting to completely lose control of my character nonstop. Tell me, what's one of the madder times you've gotten with bugs? Because I guarantee you it's losing control of the game that irritated you more. Having to sit through hours of this ♥♥♥♥ is wearing on me. Also it's not strictly canonical either, otherwise there wouldn't be dialogue choices. To top it off, calling me a troglodyte because you're actually into vicarious game romances lol

[TheClosetSkeleton]

Calling you a troglodyte because you have the social skill of a slug.

Then, again, the game is clear about it's content and what to expect. It's not "losing control of your character", it's watching Geralt evolve and interact with the other people around him.


Lastly, if you don't find certain character likable, you do you, but this characters are meant to be humans. You're in the middle of a war, on the trail of Geralt's adoptive daughter which is being pursued by wraith hunters.

Redannia is ruled by a madman, witch-hunt have reopened and you have to jungle between choosing how you'll help or not those around you. If you can't understand and immerse yourself in it, your problem, not anyone else's, so it be nice if you stop spamming every thread with the over formulated equivalent to "I don't like this game so it must be bad".

[Red Star, Blood Moon]

TheClosetSkeleton eredeti hozzászólása:

Calling you a troglodyte because you have the social skill of a slug.

Then, again, the game is clear about it's content and what to expect. It's not "losing control of your character", it's watching Geralt evolve and interact with the other people around him.


Lastly, if you don't find certain character likable, you do you, but this characters are meant to be humans. You're in the middle of a war, on the trail of Geralt's adoptive daughter which is being pursued by wraith hunters.

Redannia is ruled by a madman, witch-hunt have reopened and you have to jungle between choosing how you'll help or not those around you. If you can't understand and immerse yourself in it, your problem, not anyone else's, so it be nice if you stop spamming every thread with the over formulated equivalent to "I don't like this game so it must be bad".

That's an interesting way to describe "losing control of your character or having any choice at all in the matter to what he's doing rather than what CDPR wants you to do." For the consolized generation of zoomers it really isn't surprising to me that some people would be way more upset about not being told what to do, since all they've ever known is lockdown drills through the new prison system aka enforced schooling.

The ironic thing is you talk about social skills when clearly some of these characters are clearly liars, manipulators, and shrieking red flags at you, like the reason why quest "go see Keira suggested level 6" I never bothered with because I do not trust her and won't enjoy my time interacting with that character. It not being a real person, the only loss is me wasting time doing something I dislike for free.

I don't understand why you're even bothering to conflate the two ♥♥♥♥♥♥ kingdoms of Nilfgaard and Redania, with individual people some of whom are wholly trivial and irrelevant like Dandelion. If entire blocks of main story are bad, that's a mark against the game, be it from the source material and the game writers/devs. The difference is, I can CHOOSE to say, give the megascope crystal to Triss or Radovid.or hang onto it and give to yennefer iirc but I don't trust Yenn either I could CHOOSE to side with Iorveth or Roche in the last game, like I could "choose" getting saddled with elf terrorist Scoia'tel or Flaming Rose Nazis in the first one. So it does not need to be canonical. Again, if I wanted that, I could read a book instead.

It's never been clear about anything other than allegedly an "open world RPG adventure game" which routinely gives you the illusion of choice. The problem is the game railroads you, quite blatantly with Triss, and don't even try giving me that "hurr durr but it's the storrrry" garbage you could always make all kind of choices in the earlier games and allegedly in this one like how I can still give Triss the cold shoulder, can ignore Keira completely, could choose to side with Shani or Triss or whatever in Witcher 1, hell it's to the point where I can flat out choose to side with one faction or another through whole entire wars.

The added problem is that it often makes these choices unclear in the romance things, where you'll be given two choices and not even realize one of them is a romancing option. Like imagine someone leans in to hug you and then you're like "maybe we should stay friends" and they're all "sorry but I can't stop now." All this makes it irritating to manage when you're just playing for the increasingly sagging main story and having to constantly metagame just because I don't want to get distracted by a dumb sidequest, have to reload etc. Considering neither one of these Triss and Yennefer specifically have canonically been a love interest of Geralt's in many years when I the player am able to make the choices I can and trying to dodge this it comes off as almost bizarre than anything else. I've had to reload twice so far, once with Triss and once with Keira, until I started going out of my way to be a complete hostile ♥♥♥♥ to them and successfully avoided the sidequests.

[TheClosetSkeleton]

Reminder, you can turn down everyone in this game, even Yennefer, be it you carry her quest to the end. You don't have to commit.

And again, when critisizing your social skill, not because of how you handle fictional relationship in a game but the fact you come off as hostile even when you're the one starting the thread.

Having an opinion is fine, but that doesn't give you the right to act like a douch to everybody else, nor does that make you superior to them. Clearly, you have a not so good views of younger generations and you're now nitpicking arguments to essentially say "I know better".

You don't. You some things, experienced them, then made an opinion. You have the right to have it, to defend it if something or someone wishes for it to change, but that doesn't your word is absolute nor that justify acting like you do.

You claimed to be 30 or so in another post, I would have expected more maturity from you then.

[Red Star, Blood Moon]

TheClosetSkeleton eredeti hozzászólása:

Reminder, you can turn down everyone in this game, even Yennefer, be it you carry her quest to the end. You don't have to commit.

And again, when critisizing your social skill, not because of how you handle fictional relationship in a game but the fact you come off as hostile even when you're the one starting the thread.

Having an opinion is fine, but that doesn't give you the right to act like a douch to everybody else, nor does that make you superior to them. Clearly, you have a not so good views of younger generations and you're now nitpicking arguments to essentially say "I know better".

You don't. You some things, experienced them, then made an opinion. You have the right to have it, to defend it if something or someone wishes for it to change, but that doesn't your word is absolute nor that justify acting like you do.

You claimed to be 30 or so in another post, I would have expected more maturity from you then.

That's because I am openly a hostile personality as a person and a ♥♥♥♥ of a man, and where have I ever said anything otherwise? Besides which, if I am reloading and actively getting railroaded into things I clearly am not going to be in a good mood at all.

Also when others start picking fights with me, personal fights and attacks over my opinion, do not start crying like a ♥♥♥♥♥ when I fight back. This is pretty par for the course on Steam, and having suffered this terrible placeSteam forums, the closer to AAA or weeb and further from indie or niche the worse it gets in lieu of any sort of guides or manuals, I am inured to every manner of personal attack, manipulative, underhanded, antisocial and just flat out sociopathic ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ you can imagine, both as a passive observer and personally. It's really not just here, but a tendency everywhere over the past decade or two really, from here to YT comments to sewers I don't bother making accounts or looking at like Discord, FB, or shwitter, to rather than actually engaging points and saying "well you're wrong and that's stupid for X Y Z" to resort to being a bottom
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/243687029814933989/ without saying why I am wrong, then don't complain I hit back without any reservation.

Nor have I said anything at all like you're somehow implying when in this post it's clear I am asking for a guide on how to dodge the romances in this game, that are not always clear if you're half paying attention. It's nowhere near as bad as Mass Effect, where the written dialogue has nothing to do with what Shep says possibly the most hilariously bad one I've ever seen being TellTale's crap https://youtu.be/K4yfIHe8ypA?t=294 this is one of the more irritating things some dialogue option games do but like with Keira, if you make the wrong choice it feels like losing control over the character.

Like right now I am in Skellige, I have no interest in flirting with Yenn, but Geralt does it anyway, and then it takes me to Ermion's room, and gives me two choices "let's go" and "this is wrong" that makes it feel like what is even the point to pretending to give me the dialogue option? That one grated on me more because the 2nd option she says "you just like to complain Geralt I know that's the only reason you're saying it" and I'm like no wench, I have no interest in being here or around you or bothering that druid or helping you to steal magical artifacts on a mad lust for power. While that's main story so in sense it's different, it really only emphasizes the overall feeling of the rest of it where any time you're around Triss or Yennefer in particular you have to start metagaming in order to avoid it. Like in an old BioWare game, you pretty much had to start a romance on purpose and didn't always succeed by choosing the wrong options. This being a spiritual continuation of BioWare games, I take personal issue with that, hence asking if anyone knows of guides.

Seriously I'm not forcing you to do it or telling you how to play it, I'm asking the community if they have any guides for how I want to play it personally because of how much it feels like the game telling me what to do. I don't know why there's always some people who, upon encountering a difference of opinion, have this German reaction like "if they disagree and don't do what I want to do they're making me do what they want to do." If you like it that's fine; if you want to romance everyone you do you. It's not what I want and that's why I was asking if anyone's aware of how to navigate around those options, because it makes it feel like one wrong dialogue choice and I'm going to be stuck with a cutscene in someone's room.

Finally yes, in an RPG, choice matters. Feeling like your character is doing whatever the hell it wants to do is like watching an NPC. It's been one of the bigger criticisms of the industry for years now with that feeling of just pushing the button prompts when and where the devs want it, rather than playing your own game, which is the exact opposite of a real RPG and why most play RPGs, i.e.
https://www.nomadsreviews.co.uk/post/design-sins-taking-control-away-from-the-player
So it's not a new criticism, and the thing is, while physically taking control away is annoying as hell, there's something particularly aggravating about the game itself trying to take away internal sense of agency, like your own personal reactions to something. "Oh player, you didn't really mean that or feel that way" you're damn right I did Lodge wench.

So in terms of me ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ here it's two separate things, one of which is the story and that can't be helped, but primarily hence the purpose of the post is asking for guides on how to avoid certain options. I don't find this advice an unreasonable request to make, given the plethora of other player made guides out there on everything else.

[TheClosetSkeleton]

Skellige, Geralt flirting, reminder that Geralt and Yen are still tied by magic. Go through Yen's quest, break the spell dump her, you'll be happy.

Secondly, if you want to play the victim card and say you're just defending yourself, remember that every thread you've participated in turned into a personal attack competion.

I'm not the common denominator here, you are. Also, if you want to blame your behavior on the fact you're a moody person, or that you're frustrated, yet still insist on ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ on an entire demographic you obviously don't much if anything about, as a 30 year old man, you gotta ask yourself whever or not your not one of those man-child your so eager to diss for what they like.

I have diagnosed anger issue, yet I still find way to remain civil, and not engage every conversation with the elloquent equivalent to "you're a bunch of ♥♥♥♥♥".

If you feel like there aren't enough guides on how to avoid romance in the game, then make one instead on crying on a public forum, when you've already got yourself the repution of petulent ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. You want to avoid hostility, then show humblety and patience, you're likely to meet the same.

Had you formulated your demand as "Is there a way to avoid romance" or "What dialogs should I pick to not date anyone", I would have already handed you a detailled guide of what to do to avoid or reject every character that comes at Geralt.

I know what you asked for, but you decided to be rude about it, no reason to have helped you. Now we can be two ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ adult and apologise to one another, put that behind us and help each other, or we can keep going with this ridiculous game. I have time to spare.

So all in all, sorry if I hurt your feeling or affended you in anyway, can we move on?

[Red Star, Blood Moon]

TheClosetSkeleton eredeti hozzászólása:

Skellige, Geralt flirting, reminder that Geralt and Yen are still tied by magic. Go through Yen's quest, break the spell dump her, you'll be happy.

Secondly, if you want to play the victim card and say you're just defending yourself, remember that every thread you've participated in turned into a personal attack competion.

I'm not the common denominator here, you are. Also, if you want to blame your behavior on the fact you're a moody person, or that you're frustrated, yet still insist on ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ on an entire demographic you obviously don't much if anything about, as a 30 year old man, you gotta ask yourself whever or not your not one of those man-child your so eager to diss for what they like.

I have diagnosed anger issue, yet I still find way to remain civil, and not engage every conversation with the elloquent equivalent to "you're a bunch of ♥♥♥♥♥".

If you feel like there aren't enough guides on how to avoid romance in the game, then make one instead on crying on a public forum, when you've already got yourself the repution of petulent ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. You want to avoid hostility, then show humblety and patience, you're likely to meet the same.

Had you formulated your demand as "Is there a way to avoid romance" or "What dialogs should I pick to not date anyone", I would have already handed you a detailled guide of what to do to avoid or reject every character that comes at Geralt.

I know what you asked for, but you decided to be rude about it, no reason to have helped you. Now we can be two ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ adult and apologise to one another, put that behind us and help each other, or we can keep going with this ridiculous game. I have time to spare.

So all in all, sorry if I hurt your feeling or affended you in anyway, can we move on?

Oh riiight, sorry I forgot about another one of those insipid "hurrr Geralt is tied to [insert] through magic/soulbonds/fate" etc.

I'm not saying I'm a victim, I'm saying if someone is ♥♥♥♥ talking to me I'm going to parry. You know, I've seen this behaviour so much in life and the world too, bawww he hit me back why do they persecute me so type behaviour. Bottom line, if I make a highly opinionated statementand likely calling it as such or state something I see as objective factharder to gauge, but some games are just objectively awful, objectively excellent etc. easier to measure due to vidya games literally being just numbers and code, experience being subjective and somebody else decides to insult me personally rather than counter the argument made, gets pissed off about something I said, I immediately strike back, don't cry like a ♥♥♥♥♥ that I instantly talked back. If someone wants to make this about something incredibly cringey like personalities, wherever I am, I'm absolutely going to trash them back, and then proceed to lay out the idea itself for debate. In this case, you want to cry about different things personally, while I'm stating yeah, it's an unfun experience basically relinquishing control of the game for several minutes and basically hitting the next button.

This is a well known problem in development, that article being only one of the more recent examples, and a well known criticism about modern AAA titles. Where Witcher shines best is where it emulates lots of the oldschool stuff, in a bigger, more richly detailed way. So if I'm literally asking for advice or guides on how to weave my way around those dialogue options, don't get all butthurt because I don't like what you like.

If you feel like there aren't enough guides on how to avoid romance in the game, then make one inste
I literally came here to ask if anyone else had made a guide on this, or knew advice on how to avoid those. I haven't finished the f'ing game yet. Then because I took a dump on something you apparently are deeply, personally attached to, you decided to get offended about me asking advice so I can better craft my own personal experience. This isn't about you. This has nothing to do with you. Nothing I'm asking about has anything to do with you. Nothing in this thread was anything about you at all, until you decided to act more or less exactly like the kind of rabid fanboy most reviewers warned us about, who have a breakdown and rage at anyone who simply doesn't share in their opinion.

Lastly
Affended
affended
You can't even spell. You come in here, throw a tantrum about me not liking the romance crap, which is true of any RPG I play more or less, and then after taking a dump in the middle of the floor try and storm off like a petulant child trying to grandstand and pose as the "sensible mature adult" and evidently don't even have a fifth grade spelling comprehension. If you don't share in my opinions, that's fine, but don't try and take the low road over something petty, attack me, and then try and storm off like this is reddit or some highschool. I mean Christ, I come in asking for advice from anyone who's finished the game, having complained about some things about the game, and you come in here and the very first post decide to personally insult me and tell me "hurrrrr durrr make a guide." That's what I'm asking; if anyone knew of any guides.

So if you don't have constructive advice, go be "affended" someplace else and don't bother me about it and try to act like you're somehow mature rather than a petulant, third rate redditor tier troll, who literally began the conversation with personal insults and personal attacks. Don't want me to rip into you back? Don't come in and third sentence you say is
So either get on with you're life as a troglodyte or just don't play the game FFS
to somebody who's just asking for advice.

[Malthar]

Sounds like you should honestly just stop playing the game at this point.
Geralt is a pre-established character and has been so for YEARS of real life time. You arent playing some random nobody that you can build how you want, youre playing Geralt of Rivia, legendary slayer of monsters and layer of sorceresses.
If you keep winding up in sex scenes or romantic interactions, maybe you should slow down and pay attention to the dialogue, its pretty ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ obvious what options will lead to sex.
Theres also many, MANY, guides already online, try using Google instead of moaning on a public forum if youre gonna ♥♥♥♥♥ when people call you out.
This is an RPG because youre playing the role of Geralt, not some random bloke.

[TheClosetSkeleton]

Red star, I reached out a hand, you spat on it. You see the problem? Sure my grammar isn't perfect, turns out english is not my first language so you'll excuse the slip ups. And again, told you not once, not twice, but thrice that the problem, was the fact that even when formulating a demand, you feel the need to be rude.

As any reply to you here been anything but hostile? Have you ever conceeded anything?
Moreover, regarding your mighty high take on the fact that people don't address your arguments is simply because you don't address theirs. When given an argument, you brush it off without further explaination. So either you're a god with omniscient knowledge and too much time on their hand, or as you said yourself, you don't know how to argue.

I've never once put in question your tastes, nor have proclaimed they were not acceptable or that you shouldn't be thinking the way you are. All I've said, in perhaps an overly complicated fashion, was that you acted as a bigot, from the start.

You did not "retaliate when you were personally attacked" as you so claim, you started the conflict, then went on a rent putting word in my mouth that I've never said, when clearly you were the one to instigate conflict.

Take my advice, let's leave it at that. I'm no better than you are for answering your taunting, but I'm at least smart enough to know this is leading nowhere. I've apologise, you could as well if you feel like it, their is no need to discuss this further considering you refuses to see where you went wrong, nor consider a different approach.

On that note, have a torrid evening.

Edit : Ah yes, I feel now is an appropriate time to tell you that I've never romanced the characters in any of my playthrough as I don't find it interesting, since apparently you seem to think I care about any of that in the first place, or that this is the reason me and others got mad at you

[Jeff]

Red Star, Blood Moon eredeti hozzászólása:

TheClosetSkeleton eredeti hozzászólása:

This isn't a self-insert kind of game.

They are already established characters and relathionships that you can't just ignore.

So either get on with you're life as a troglodyte or just don't play the game FFS

That's why people call it not an RPG and ♥♥♥♥ on it, at least one reason. I'd just watch a show instead if I wanted to do that instead of play a game. Alternatively, not getting saddled with cringey af b.s. because the characters are neither likeable nor trustworthy, and it's odd someone like Geralt would even tolerate these people given his overall ability to see through people generally.

It's also not a "self insert" it's literally not wanting to completely lose control of my character nonstop. Tell me, what's one of the madder times you've gotten with bugs? Because I guarantee you it's losing control of the game that irritated you more. Having to sit through hours of this ♥♥♥♥ is wearing on me. Also it's not strictly canonical either, otherwise there wouldn't be dialogue choices. To top it off, calling me a troglodyte because you're actually into vicarious game romances lol

Did you create a character or are you playing as Geralt?

You didn't create the character, so it isn't yours.

[Tim Tam Tom]

I managed to avoid any finsihed romances during my first playthrough. I dunno how, but those are definitely not forced

[ihoujin.]

In my opinion the choices to get romantically involved with anyone is very clear. So I never had any issue getting involved or not with the people who offer that. However, there's for sure flirting and sexual innuendo that you can't really get around, but that's because of the personality of the characters at play. So I can't really see your problem with it since I never had any problems knowing what choices I made. But as has been said, maybe the game isn't for you if you can't figure out a way to play it without getting annoyed instead of gaining enjoyment.

On a last note, there might be a mod that adds some kind of added text to the respose options that are a little clearer that what the game sometimes provides.

[doug]

Red Star, Blood Moon eredeti hozzászólása:

-express severe distaste in game with adversarial tone, practically begging for conflict-

TheClosetSkeleton eredeti hozzászólása:

-takes the bait and throws the first punch-

Red Star, Blood Moon eredeti hozzászólása:

-acts surprised and offended at receiving the kind of response that was clearly being asked for, punches back-

TheClosetSkeleton eredeti hozzászólása:

-acts surprised and offended at receiving the kind of response that was clearly being asked for, punches back-

etc, etc, etc

[TheClosetSkeleton]

CookedKen eredeti hozzászólása:

Red Star, Blood Moon eredeti hozzászólása:

-express severe distaste in game with adversarial tone, practically begging for conflict-

TheClosetSkeleton eredeti hozzászólása:

-takes the bait and throws the first punch-

Red Star, Blood Moon eredeti hozzászólása:

-acts surprised and offended at receiving the kind of response that was clearly being asked for, punches back-

TheClosetSkeleton eredeti hozzászólása:

-acts surprised and offended at receiving the kind of response that was clearly being asked for, punches back-

etc, etc, etc

Why even comment if that's just for that? dicussion ended a while back, don't try to restart it