From Larian's patch notes today: "During Gale's spell-teaching scene, you now have the option to picture a future with Gale that falls somewhere in between kissing him and kicking him in the head."
Made funnier by the fact that they actually did that in a later patch. I ran into the exact scene he was talking about and there's now a range of options.
I don't mind the sex scenes or their existence, but I wholly agree about the frustrating lack of "but no can't we REALLY just be friends? not as a way out of a romantic relationship, but like can we go get drinks in a pub or something and enjoy each others' company?" For a game with so MANY dialogue options, it does seem far too often that you ultimately come down to "Take your pants off" or "Ew get away." Why is that.
So essentially the fantasy of having people like you as a friend as opposed to your body? I hadn't stopped to think that BG3 companions were all creeps (either nothing or all-in) that respected consent (don't force themselves if you say no) now that I stop to think about it.
I remember Persona 5 having a few non-dickish ways of friendzoning peeps, though it could certainly be better. My favorite was Kawakami, when she asks why you kept hiring her. The first friendzone option is basically you saying you just wanted to take advantage of her perks, which sucks. But step one into the romantic side has you say it's because you care about her, to which she gets flustered and says that saying that carelessly can give someone the wrong idea. It's here that you then have the option to back out or lock it in, with the back out option just apologizing for giving that impression. I like that because it gave me the roleplaying satisfaction of telling her that I genuinely care about her, but didn't mean romantically.
I disagree with Yahtz about most of his conclusions about sex scenes, but the lack of dialogue options other than enthusiastic yes or extremely hard no is a little weird, I do agree with that. I was in a scene where Gale shows you how magic works, I just thought it was cool he was explaining the Weave and showing me how to tap into the Weave, and suddenly he’s being flirty and the game is like “oooh, you’re having an intimate moment” and the only option out of it that was a no was a hard “I’m not interested in you like that.” And I thought that seemed a bit unnecessarily tactless.
@@wisesquirrel4986 oh it's not like they want nothing to do with you if you don't wanna bang, there's just nothing exclusive to that and you can't tell them "i like you a great deal but please keep your clothes on" which is kinda annoying at times. just a couple of hours ago in my third playthrough i had "the talk" with gale where he said that he totally didn't mind my character's ten-days-without-bathing "musk" and i had to tell him to please stop gale you have a GIRLFRIEND it was good that, when turned down, he just went "ok hope we can still be friends" but i wish rpg games wrote more characters were you really _were_ just great friends. i like friends-with-garrus far more than boning-garrus'-bones and i think the "platonic flirting" friendly relationship with dorian in dragon age: inquisition is so adorable. i want more stuff like that even though i love the cullen (the templar, not the stalker-manipulator) and judy (the braindance tech, not the rabbit) characters out there
I remember having a weirdly lacking set of options with Gale. He was talking about how nice it feels to have someone he can confide in, and I think the line it led to was essentially 'I've come to see you as a friend, and I hope you consider me as one too'. My options were essentially 'I see you as more than a friend', 'No I don't see you as a friend', and 'I hate you'. Why couldn't I just reciprocate his heartfelt but platonic statement with one of equal sentiment? I didn't want to lead him on nor hurt his feelings, but those were the only choices I had. Very strange.
At some point he was coming onto me and I choose the option along the lines of "Appreciated, yet I am not interested." To which he replayed, "Understood. No more flirting." Felt nice. Made it a friendship and that's it. Next scene was that campfire weave scene Yahtzee mentioned and he was coming on and I just went, "Dude. We've been over this....."
That's profoundly disappointing. I can deal with NPCs being horndogs (as long as they aren't insistent, so TheSmartboy64's does add another worry), but I'd like to be able to choose how much of a horndog *my own character* is, and I'd like to have alternatives to being a horndog other than "asshole loner".
I dunno if it's just quirk of the choices I made, but I never had any followup with NPCs wanting to jump my half-orc outside the first flirting session. Might be because my orky hooked up with one of the NPCs and made it clear that they were the only one. But, I do agree more dialogue options would be nice for telling each other where the boundaries are. That would open interesting dialogue options when someone does cross the line.
@@sintanan469 I've been seeing conflicting reports about this. and I'm not sure if its a bug, s quirk of the way they decide when romance is on the table, or depends on different variables. but there is something we are missing here.
Using Baldurs Gate as a bad example of something and then using Mass Effect:Andromeda as a good example in the same video, has to be one of Yahtzees' ballsiest moves, ever.
I've been watching a playthrough and one thing that has struck me is that the characters actually seem to make eye contact, unlike the thousand-yard stare you would see in EA games.
To be fair, I loved that part of Mass Effect: Andromeda too. That game, though deeply flawed, got completely screwed by its disastrous launch and the weight of high expectations being part of the Mass Effect franchise. To the point that saying _anything_ positive about it is tantamount to heresy in some gaming circles. When in fact it did lots of (granted, rather minor) stuff right. And I think companions and their relationships were one of those things. As for Baldur's Gate 3, I haven't advanced enough in the story to have an opinion on the romances, but it seems to me Yahtzee's problem is more with Bioware-style romances in general rather than a BG-specific problem. Sure, there is room for improvement in the Bioware formula, but at the same time, it's widely popular for a reason.
i dunno, i don't think all that many people would find it objectionable. it's kind of like saying "hey the citadel dlc was pretty good wasn't it". even people who don't like any part of mass effect 3 will still agree to like the citadel dlc
They really took your feedback to heart and quickly addressed it. From today's patch notes: -During Gale’s spell-teaching scene, you now have the option to picture a future with Gale that falls somewhere in between kissing him and kicking him in the head.
If Baldur's Gate wanted REAL D&D-style "Around the Campfire" stuff, the game should forcefully pause itself for twenty minutes, talk about 1960s TV for a while, and have everyone blame eachother for their dice rolls.
@@sumguy0110 We usually just spend like 3 minutes deciding who's on what shift of the nightly watch, patch up any ailments, briefly discuss the plan for the next day, then long rest. My gods. Have we been doing it wrong the past couple decades?
@@SolstaceWinters Your party is too agreeable. Get a stubborn low-int barbarian in there to shake things up with the most direct, bloody approach possible.
This isn't actually starting a genuine romantic relationship with Lae'Zel, though, to her this is just casual fun with someone she kiiiiind of respects, and later events in her storyline make that very clear.
@@000Dragon50000these are gamers we’re talking about, so many of them have never seen romance before in their real lives, so that’s what they think it is
@@000Dragon50000 Every other time she doesn't have time for fun though. This is why I don't like characters that have to be made so universally romance-able to everyone. You have to restrict their personalities and character to make the romance believable or straight up contradict it some times.
Weirdly enough, in Mass effect I end up liking the non-Romance party members more because it never feels like letting them down when you have to say “No I don’t want to go to the bedroom with you”. For example, as male Shepard you can’t romance Garrus and I ended up liking him way more than a lot of other people on my crew, I was just content being friends with him, I didn’t need to bang him to finish our relationship, we just chilled out and shot bottles together. Same with Wrex, no matter what gender you pick you can’t romance him and he becomes a good friend to you, he’s just someone you know you can rely on.
Mostly agreed, but I'd also like to add that Tali is probably the most popular male romance option because she's the only one who's just baseline friendly with you, and while she flirts a lot with Shephard in ME2 and 3, it's a much more relaxed relationship than... well, all the others, I guess? Liara gets her character reset in ME2 by becoming the Shadow Broker, and her relationship with Shephard is a bit too businesslike, Ashley and Kaidan are both melodramatic, Miranda and Jack are both nuts, Jacob is meh and his romance gets cut off in ME3 anyway, Thane is another melodramatic character whose condition overshadows the actual romance, while the rest are just either short (E.g. James) weird (E.g.: Diana Allers) or shoehorned in (E.g.: Steve Cortez, Kelly Chambers, etc.). In comparison, Team Dextro are good, loyal friends whether they are romanced or not, and that counts a lot.
What I love is the relationship with Liara, if you romance her in ME1, romance no-one in ME2, and back with her in ME3, it culminates in a beautiful mind meld scene with her, you pretty much get married, it feels logical that she would only do that if you're "faithful"
I think it's a very salient point that dialogue trees show a lot even if the choices are or aren't selected. Point in case in the very same game, the Dark Urge. Even if you don't select the super murdery options, the fact that they're constantly there might as well serve as a set of intrusive thoughts to plague your curiosity. You are always keenly aware that you could slip at any moment into bloodshed on a whim.
Yes! Playing as Dark Urge and having him seemingly constantly on the edge of declaring he’s a sadistical murderer to everyone he meets is an interesting use of extra dialogue options! Definitely would love to see more games do the Monkey Island thing Yahtz mentioned, or have dialogue options come up that you can’t select, as a way of saying ‘your character might think this, but they’d never say it’.
Yeah, I always liked that you see the different replies. It makes sense that your character would have an intrusive thought even if it's something they would never actually do/say.
To be fair, I do think its a bit more complicated when you have "blank protagonist" because how would you do it otherwise? There are games with fixed characters whos "non-picked" lines are just as informative of their personality as the picked ones, I heard Pathologic remastered is pretty good at that. But with a blank charecter, if its an option, you have to put it there as an option in the dialogue tree otherwise you cant do it at all, yes its a bit strange that while your trying to roleplay a relationship your two "thoughts" are "I want you to jump off a cliff" and "I want to shag you", at the same time (jesus, this isn't hot and cold, this is "inferno" and "Ice age") but the alternative would be not to have a choice at all. Im not sayings it isn't a very fair point, just that I'm not sure there IS another way to do it.
Man, I would love to just chat shit with my party. I loved that bit in Andromeda with the whole squad watching a movie. Most human feeling part of the whole game. Laezel and the rest of the NPCs are really interesting but it would be incredible to just interact.
Me too. My annoyance is that you can't seem to have a genuine vulnerable bonding moment with any of the character without it somehow moving towards sex. I like to have the option of forming actual friendships with the other characters like the movie scene you mentioned.
@@AndrewJohnson-oy8oj Exactly! Make your in game friends seem like actual friends. I can't imagine the horror of all my friends wanting to have sex with me
That was one of the few bits of writing I liked in BattleTech as well. If you develop the lounge for your ship, you can have an officers' movie night. Much of the writing (especially related to the main plot) isn't very good but that was one of the better parts.
There have been a few shooting the breeze type bonding moments here and there. But so far in BG I have to agree I don't think the friendship/romance party interactions are quite nailed. That said it is still good as the character really are for the most part anyway more than mono-dimensional sex objects lots of 'RPG' type games that do romance at all would make them.
According to Larian, the idea behind the sex scenes happening fairly early on is precisely to avoid the idea of romance in an RPG being "pulling all the correct levers to get a knobbing scene". Basically they're getting it out of the way quickly, so it ceases to be the "goal" of romance as it is in most RPGs, and instead allows to focus on the actual bond between characters. Whether or not that approach achieves its goal is a different matter, but at least they were willing to experiment with it.
That's bizarre. You're telling me the s*x was something they saw as an obstacle so had to get it out of the way? Why create the problem you're trying to get rid of.
Andromeda was surprisingly full of such wholesome hangout moments. In the original trilogy we only got that with Citadel DLC. In Andromeda it kinda became mandatory part for each companion. Jaal introduces Ryder to his family Drakk and Ryder get in bar brawl, and later Ryder sorta becomes godparent to Kesh's firstborn Cracking open a cold one with Liam and later having a football match with colonists Cora invites you for almost ceremonial founding of her garden Ventra mountain climbing Pebee floating around in 0G And of course the movie night Some of these can turn into the beginning of romance route, but that's optional. Hanging out is the important part. Andromeda released in a sorry state, but it's not irredeemably bad. It more than makes up for it's flaws with enough upsides
maybe i just didn't care for that game, but i don't remember any of that, at all. and i know i played through it twice. once on easy and once on the hardest mode. but i remember the comments in me1/2 during the elevator rides.
Too bad 90% of the game is crap, 100% of the game’s dialogue was written by an edgy 16 year old and Liam is a 5 year old child in a soldier’s body. Ventra was the one normal character in the entire game. Good freaking lord, what a garbage game.
I genuinely liked Andromeda. Not as good as original trilogy, but that's a very high bar. I liked getting to know the teammates. I liked being able to fix the environmental conditions on the planets, and know that going forward it would help the colonies. Probably also helps that I played it after some of the early patches that fixed a lot of the major jankiness. lol
Yeah, that BioWare team definitely saw what DA:I did well - better than the ME trilogy - re its setting and how much the characters interact, and leaned into it. I don't think all of the character scenes quite hit their mark, but Jaal in particular is very good. But yeah, the Tempest really felt like a place people worked and lived together.
I think the issue is these games try to offer you the ability to do anything. With more and more options you can do but then there is always a point where you can't do something you want to. So you go deeper and deeper into immersion but then are suddenly dragged out of it because no one considered you might want to do THIS exact thing.
I mean if I had written these companiosn I'd assume no one would want to be friends with them. Except maybe Karlach she seems like she'd a be a great friend if it weren't for the whole burninating the countryside thing.
Yeah. That's why I don't really like the blank slate protagonist. There is always going to be a point where you can't take whatever option is in character for whoever you are trying to play. Especially when there is such an obvious link with TTRPGs. I find it better when the developers create a character for you to play.
The main issue with the BG3 relationships is that the approval system itself is fundamentally flawed. It basically acts like “approval rating” = “relationship status”. Each companion having their own threshold at what point THEY will approach you for a romantic relationship. Regardless if you tried to avoid the “romantic” dialogue options or are already in a relationship with another companion. A great example for this happened to me during my second playthrough (spoilerfree): I decided to start a romance with Karlach. A little bit further into the game there is something very important happening for her. An incredibly wholesome and immersive moment for the both of you. So I finish off our business in that area to get ready for a long rest (during which character moments start playing out). I rest… cutscene starts (me expecting Karlach)… tension builds annnnnnnd… Another (male) character is prancing around in front of me asking me for a dance. And btw. said character stood right next to me an Karlach during the important moment. I had also barely talked to that character. He just reached his romance threshold. Sure I simply turned him down but it turned one of the best moments I had with the relationship system into an absolute joke. The system just doesn’t care about your choices because it’s barebones implementation doesn’t allow for it. It acts like “fuck everyone” is the most immersive and entertaining way to play. It may be for some. Thats fine. But give the player more agency on who they engage in a romantic relationship with (including flirting).
Felt the same way about that dancing scene it seems like the only time characters bring up that you’re in the relationship with another character is when they’re trying to seduce you and not any other time
Laezel is just that. Early sex because she wanted to fuck. Not meant to be taken as emotional pay off. But, Katlach is a different story imo. After 50 hours of having her in my party, finally getting to say you love her and watching her giddiness is so heart warming and feels like one of the more genuine emotions I've seen in a game. Edit: my wording was poor, her beginning of her story is just about sex and her trying to grasp what her true feelings are.
Agreed fully regarding Karlach. Additionally, and to your point about Lae'zel wanting to bang, later in the game she mentions how Gith are born and raised. She then explicitly mentions something along the lines of "I get to have sex without any repercussions" so I think her wanting to jump the character so quickly makes perfect sense albeit this becomes obvious later down the line.
...What? The entire point of her story is that she finds it hard to make attachments because she's so brutally repressed from years of cultural stigma of compassion and love. Lae'zel isn't even willing to share a kiss with you publically until near the end of the game. She struggles to even admit to herself that she has actual feelings beyond the carnal in the first place. You are aware of this, right? It's the text of the game.
@@DergonBaals Yes, but the relationship doesn't start that way. It's implied that she's romantically into you from the start, but simply doesn't understand what those feelings are. She misinterprets her own feelings as just wanting to shag, and so she does just that as soon as they pop up. It's only after shagging several times that she realizes it's not scratching the itch, and it begins to dawn on her that what she feels for the PC isn't lust but is love. Her whole thing is that she doesn't understand what love even is, because we're the first person to treat her like a person in her whole damn life.
I don't think yahtz has gotten that far yet LOL. I agree with him up to a point, because there definitely are moments beyond just shagging at first sight.
The lizard lady’s romance begins purely with unfulfilling carnality, and ends with her growing as a character and seeing the main character as an equal, to protect and be protected by, foregoing her loyalties to her peoples traditions.
@@hinasakukimi I think it's the issue with critiquing based on such a short exposure to the game. It's not *wrong*, because that is the emotion that scene itself gives, but is for sure *incomplete*. A lot of people dislike Lae'Zel, because they are not willing to engage with her story because she starts of as incredibly rude and hostile. I don't think they owe the game to get past that rough start, it isn't wrong to dislike her, just because she gets better later on, but it does mean they are not critiquing Lae'Zel, but rather their limited perspective of her as a character.
@@dig8634 yeahh i try not to give yahtzee shit for it because i completely understand that a game shouldn't take 100 hours to wow you. but then... i think more *specific* critiques like this are jumping the gun. and yeah lae'zel is fantastic imo. i'm not even romancing her and her development as a character is really hitting hard for me.
From what ive seen in the community, Karlach seems to be the most popular romance, and i think because it hits on the opposite of what's discussed here. There's like a buildup and a payoff where you learn a lot about her.
And it's not only for Karlach, Shadowheart has a buildup as well afaia. That's the whole idea: approaches and reactions are different, like it happens with real people as well. It's not interesting when it's always the same - like you need to fix all the person's problems first to get into panties.
I mean I just recently started my second playthrough and picked up Karlach, and quite literally one of the first things she implies if you choose certain dialogue options is about how horny she is and how her infernal heart is cockblocking her.
Imo I'd complain about all of the other characters being super horny for no reason. Lae'Zel is the only one that makes sense. Also if you have her as your partner she does become way more emotional at later portions of the game. In short: I do agree all characters are very horny for no reason except for Lae'Zel imo. So I dunno why people are using her as example.
Karlach is horny because she is a decade or more without any kind of emotional touch. She literally says "I'm pent up, because I ended up burning my lover alive and our tent about a decade ago"
SPOLIER ALERT!!: While you can have sex with her, Karlach's (best girl) romance arc ends with the two of you going on a nice date together, where you imageine your shared future, even though Karlach knows she only has days to live. It was simultaneously heartbreaking and heartwarming, and I think it's a really good example of how a romance in games can be about, and end with, more than just sex.
That was such a sweet moment, but i kinda ruined it by going to the circus and giving Karlach the clown makeup, made the Gortash scene great, but then it sprung that up on me at the end of that games day.
@@borjaslamicI don't think it ruins it, maybe it look goofy and everything, but you can see it as that's the way she decided to pass her last days, joking and goofing around, as absurd as it is to imagine a life you won't have, she would do it all over again
But is a bad example of how relationships can be about something other than romance. Compare Fire Emblem Path of Radiance to Fire Emblem Awakening. And yet even in old fire emblems romance was better because partners were limited, not every male was atracted to every female and viceversa. To this day I dont see better take on romance.
@@azzzanadra Define "balanced". The romanceable characters are all different and I don't think any of them are a direct parallel to another of the opposite sex, but there is a little bit of something for everyone.
The devs talked about this in one of their panels. For characters like Lae'zel (and too many others in my opinion), sex is just something fun that they like to do, and it's not meant to be the final relationship goal. Having a partner who starts out as rude and basically has sex because what else is there to do, slowly open up, telling you about their fears, and learning to be kind through your influence is much more of a personal glimpse into their character and the relationship you have with them.
Yeah, stumbled into that scene with Lae'zel, but really wanted to try a game partnering with Shadowheart. When I told Lae'zel I didn't want to continue things with her, she just called me a coward and moved on. Literally I don't think she cared all that much. Shadowheart however didn't sleep with my character until I was 115 hours into the game in Act III.
To add to "Romance seems to be the expectation", I was romancing Shadowheart and being good friends with Gale. I entertained his requests and was a good, supportive friend along the way, but I never made a conscious choice to flirt with him. So it was a bit jarring and quite funny when, after confirming my relationship with Shadowheart, he confronted me all weepy about how he thought we had a thing going but that he wouldn't begrudge me for choosing someone else. It really felt like the game can't tell just being friendly with someone and wanting to have an intimate relationship.
I interpreted this entirely differently. Part of how the system works is the approval system, because this is a game afterall, and as long as you're a relatively nice person Gale is pretty easy to impress, so he can get onto the track of romance very easy whether you want it or not. But I didn't see it as "These dumb developers don't understand being friendly and being horny ugh" I took it as part of Gale's story. You learn that Gale is *incredibly* lonely. He concedes he has no friends, barely any acquaintances beyond his treyssm, Tara (a cat with wings) who he really puts a lot of emotional weight into. His troubled relationship with Mystra and how his curse effective puts everyone he gets close too in danger it all adds up to a person who is both desperate for connection and companionship but also pragmatic to his circumstances and trying to reconcile it as "it is what it is". So even if I, personally, wanted to keep my relationship with Gale strictly as platonic and friendly I saw his reaching out as very genuine to his character. There's a scene where you find him scrying the stars in the sky at night, where he muses about the inevitability of death and, ultimately, where he confesses his true feelings for you, and it gave me a very deep appreciation of the character and his struggle even if, ultimately, I had to turn him away.
@@WittyDroogWell, if it makes you feel better, I made that judgment after reading it. So it is just your explanation being trash. Hope that settles any lingering doubts you had.
@Arcessitor Well when you have a counterpoint maybe I'll read that. I have no problem with disagreement, it's why we're discussing in public, but I prefer actual points to just fallacy.
It would be nice if there were friendship endings to the romances. Yeah, if you tell them you aren't interested you stay friends, but I would have liked to see some kind of end-of-game "I'm glad I met you" culmination all the same. That said... regarding not feeling close enough to the characters, part of this is clearly because Yahtzee isn't that far in the game yet. These relationships start with lust and grow into love. The companion I romanced completely stopped all physical intimacy beyond the occasional smooch for a good chunk of the game because he realized it was unhealthy and he needed to work some things out about himself. And I know Yahtz isn't a fan of the whole "it gets good if you wait 10 more hours" thing, but I think if you're playing a game the size of BG3, you have to expect the payoff for a game-length character arc to come slowly. The lust is the beginning, not the end.
Indeed. Similarly while Lae'zel starts out very physical the final pay off of her romance is (SPOILERS): She wakes you early in the morning so that you can watch the sunrise together and she talks about how she used to despise this world and its people, but you have given her something she cares about in this world and helped her see the beauty others see in these quiet moments and small moments of peace. It all ends with her simply asking that you stay with her even when your current journey is over and if you agree, you simply hold hands and watch the sunrise.
yeah as someone who played EA there is a WORLD of difference between act 1 & act 2. all of the relationships are tested in really meaningful ways. i know it's clickbait but it's frustrating to see such a dismissive attitude
Pretty sure I know who that companion is and I cannot romance anyone other than him because his is just so well done especially his "good" romance ending.
Astarion's romance in BG3 gets into some really interesting stuff about relationships where one party has super complicated associations with sex and intimacy and it really is in everyone's best interests to not get naked each other right away. (And yes the Naked Having does happen first because of reasons, but once Astarion opens up more about his specific traumas there's a lot more nuance to it)
@@chillhour6155 ?? He was sexually and violently abused for 2 centuries lol, having a character with that backstory just be a Normal Guy sounds incredibly boring
Glad to see your comment! Astarion and also from what I've heard Laezel, are characters where sex is happens early with them because for them other more "innocent" forms of affection feel more intimate and vulnerable to them. But that also requires getting pretty far into their plots, which Yatzee might not have reached in a week. Still a touch annoying to see it written off as "ah the banging us a foregone conclusion".
"During Gale's [scene mentioned in the Escapist Video], you now have the option to picture a future with Gale that falls somewhere in between kissing him and kicking him in the head." - Larian, Patch 1. Apparently, they listened.
The new patch addressed the issue with Gale's dialogue! > During Gale's spell-teaching scene, you now have the option to picture a future with Gale that falls somewhere in between kissing him and kicking him in the head.
Hey it's not as bad as Fallout: New Vegas which gives you the option to sleep with the dude who shot you at the start of the game AND gives you dialogue about how he's into feet.
@@FSmith-kv4fjnot just that, but you find out he's into feet bc the game says "listen, if you're insane enough to fuck this guy then you're giving him a footjob"
@@tanker00v25 uh tf i never expected anyone to. If you want me to clap back honestly then practically a game with that jrpg style combat is never going to be on the same level of engagement as one with actual gameplay that’s just a fact.
Lae Zel's romance is quick sex cause she's the type of character that doesn't care about sex. When you actually do the ROMANCE part of her, the character's story becomes great. I actually think Lae Zel's romance is one of the best.
It is kinda a reverse flow, with Lae'zel treating the physical part as a contest and very casual with the actual romance being growing something deeper beyond the physical. I really like it for that same reason.
Fr, if anyone assumes these characters have "shallow" romance routes I just assume they haven't actually played the game that much bc for a lot of these characters the entire point is that sex isn't the end goal, larian stated this explicitly, you need to actually build their trust and get to know them before you are actually romancing them. It's the same case with astarion, who also has one of the best routes
This isn't actually starting a genuine romantic relationship with Lae'Zel, though, to her this is just casual fun with someone she kiiiiind of respects, and later events in her storyline make that very clear. (Most of the other companions are either the same way, more open to physical relationships at first until you truly gain their trust, or the exact opposite and leave it at purely romantic gestures until laaate in the story, usually after a major milestone in their personal storyline.)
What happens when you are instructed to give a writeup on your opinions after a week of play. Clearly just took the first act scenes and formed his entire opinion based on that...
Based on the couch scene, if Yahtzee ever tells you he wants to Netflix and chill...maybe he really means just hang out quietly on the couch and watch movies.
The scene where you fuck comes so early and the fact that in game boning is usually criminally unsexy makes me think that it isnt the end goal of the romance.
Go figure, two folks sure they are about to die at any moment can pretty casually hook up. The relationships with the companions, romantic or not, develop over the course of the game and are really only interesting towards the end of act 2 onwards. Sex isn't some trophy at the very end, its almost like they put it early so that everything after isn't so focused on sex. Crazy.
I romanced "lizard girl" and can confirm it's the case. Romance with her ends in a quite cathartic fight (literal) and touching monologue about her feelings.
@@jamesn3122 You're right, it ISN'T a trophy but isn't it odd that every single NPC is willing to hook up and have sex out the gate? Like sure that's how actual DnD players think but is it how all characters should think.
@@jamesn3122thank you, that's exactly my thoughts. Honestly it feels pretty telling that everybody has been just conditioned to see sex as inherently intimate and romance based. Obviously it CAN be intimate, but like, sometimes sex is just sex. Like do people on the whole just become disinterested in their partners if they put out by date three? No. We continue dating and get to know each other.
@@cosmicmuse2195Not every single NPC. Shadowheart has slower development, and i think Wyll does as well, though i can't confirm 100% as i've not romanced every character, just Shadowheart, Astarion, and Lae'zel so far.
The problem is you can get good friendship building with characters but only after hard rejecting them romantically. So building up your relationship is building to romance which can only then transfer to friendship by hitting the brakes hard rather than building up friendships from the get go. And while Bioware games all have this issue the fact that some of your party members are never interested and some have sexualities other than pansexual, there were still always people in your party you could just build up a friendship with from the start. In baldurs gate 3 that's only possible by gaining approval slowly enough that you're already locked in with someone by the time the person you want to be friends with starts liking you as a person at all which for me only really happened with karlach which made that the only naturally building friendship I had with anyone.
And the weirdly uncomfortable thing about THAT is that it's entirely NOT how human relationships work. NOBODY makes easy friends with the person that just made an overt pass at them: it totally sours the relationship.
Saw a video recently that basically said "of course they're putting out fast, they have like two days to live and they might as well do all the things they want to" and that does kinda make sense.
Lae'zel's relationship arc is specifically about her going from cold and uninvested beyond personal satisfaction, to actually caring about a person. That's kinda the point. I'm playing a dragonborn in one campaign, and early on she makes a comment about you having "dimmunitive scales," but then later down the line actually speaks respectfully of your draconic heritage (tying in to the Githyanki and their connection with dragons). She's got some neat development throughout the story. Very much an instance of "you get out what you put in." You can easily drop any further development with her character after that initial encounter, and essentially be on the same page as her at the beginning of the story. Drop the fling, carry on. No big deal. The interesting stuff comes later though.
@@kalashnikovdevil Yeah, after hearing her diologue i started wondering if she'd make more specific comments if you were a red dragonborn. Probably not, but it'd be cool. I'll have to try it sometime
But she's always so duty bound that she doesn't have time for personal satisfaction. Why would she waste time getting frisky with another species when she won't even talk if it wastes rest time.
Maybe this was added in an update, but last time I got Gale’s scene there was the option to imagine spending time together as friends. The team has also updated options for companions to allow for platonic hugs. That said, I did find there was no way to turn down Wyll’s dance scene in a way that doesn’t either seem really rude or a big tease. Which really sucked that the scene even triggered when I had chosen no flirty options. Now Astarion out of all of them has the best “let’s be just friends” option. To the point that many fans think the best way to know his character is platonically. Too bad I never want to be just friends (I don’t have a problem!)
I honestly think that Yahtz is in the minority in thinking that all the dialogue options are something the character thinks and/or acknowledges as options. I certainly don't have a million options every time I open my mouth, and I am fairly scatterbrained myself.
I think there's an in universe explanation for fantasy rpg adventuerers always being DTF in that they have a dangerous line of work and know they might be dead tomorrow, so take the "yolo" option if the opportunity comes up
It can get a bit grating when you have to constantly fend off advances in dialogue trees, that's true. Many NPCs are aggressively player-sexual. And just by virtue of coming along. It does lose its magic when characters are always offering themselves. It's like "What, you TOO!? All of you? Really?"
The only characters like that are laezel, astarion, and gale. Gale tries to smash literally every female in the group, laezel is a Mutant frog person whose entire race views sex as carnal pleasure, and astarion is a sexual abuse victim who often become hyper sexual themselves. The other characters are much less forward or people are reading into their dialogue way too deeply. Or they don't understand what casual sex is.
I get where you're coming from, but i can't completely agree. Starting with "fun" then forming a connection is, for some people, the usual way to go about things. And that's what happens with Lae'zel, first cold hearted funtimes for the kicks. Then you get to know her as a person, later.
To be fair me Andromeda had some neat scenes with the romances as an example vetra going climbing, eating her cooking, divinity also did a neat thing with sebille by letting you heal her scars and when she teaches you a song
your point on the dialogue trees is spot on I feel. A good while ago now I purchased the first 2 Mass Effect games from my Local game store to see what I'd missed out on, and found the "Romance" Mechanics in ME1 very frustrating. While I was for sure having my Sheppard pursuing Liara, I also played him how I think a leader should be. Meaning he listened to every crew member, and was invested enough in their backgrounds to try and either help them work through their issues or at the very least let them feel safe under his lead. Color me surprised when the human crew member I can't remember the name of was feeling especially down and I tried to have him comfort her with a dialogue option that said something like "You're more amazing/beautiful than you realize." and Sheppard immediately put on the I'm sexually interested face and said "You are the most beautiful woman I've ever seen." The whole time I thought I was building a big brother/good boss relationship but apparently that amounts to hours spent flirting. And 30 minutes later I had to deal with the awkward forced confrontation scene between both women. And all I could think was "I was actively flirting with one of you. The other I was just trying to comfort." So I spent a huge chunk of ME2 making sure not to say too many nice things to my crew, less they all start confusing Niceness and Kindness as romantic interest.
"I'm Garrus Vakarian and this is now my favorite spot on the Citadel!" Is anything more needed to say about why platonic scenes are amazing? Side note: if you don't miss that shot, you're a bad person.
In my experience, all the companions are super thirsty and don't give a fuck. They just keep trying to start romances no matter if they know I'm in one already, and only when I'm trying to sleep.
TBF, physically active (and very attractive) with death very near people probably also get sexually active My main issue is that sometimes one line of flirtiness replied with (to me) politeness and suddenly it's like we are called for
Really? I've got the reverse experience (am still in early act 2 mind you): my Tav got hooked up with Astarion and by some point, first Karlach noticed and commented on it, then Lae'zel told him (my Tav) she doesn't want meat someone else is already poking lol. Even bloody Withers piped up about my Tav and his BOSOM-FRIEND Astarion at one point haha. I was actually shocked at how good the game is at developing a relationship and organically making the world react to it, it's quite amazing. Which is also why as much as I respect Yahtzee's opinions, I disagree with him on the romance in Baldur's Gate 3. The subject gets as deep as you want it to be, not everything gets served to you on a plate and you need to pay attention to understand things, behaviours etc. Like shagging Astarion is easy, but getting the bloke to actually trust Tav? To develop *feelings*? Now that's the challenge, that's the payoff. Not everything starts and ends with sex alone and Yahtzee failing to look past that is somewhat disappointing.
Larian probably listened to you this week. It's a small thing but a thing. "During Gale's spell-teaching scene, you now have the option to picture a future with Gale that falls somewhere in between kissing him and kicking him in the head."
Not getting emotional satisfaction from Laezel's early scene is the point of its early scene. She's using your character to get her rocks off without any emotional connection.
I haven't even played the game yet and I got that impression just from hearing Yahtzee describe it. I agreed with most of the other stuff he said but I feel like Yahtzee wasn't taking into account that sex can be done for reasons other than romantic love. Characters can have sex for all kinds of reasons and they all help to flesh out their personality. Whether it's to make someone jealous, so that you can get close to them for nefarious purposes, out of pity, to blackmail them, to blow of some steam after a battle, because you think you're about to die, or just because sex is fun and you don't really care who you have it with.
@@PsychoNerd92 as a comparison, one outright shuts you down and states that she prefers just fighting, and another will sneer and state that you don't meet his standards.
I think the overall problem is that games think that relationship building is inevitably leading towards romance. Like, the endgame of anyone trying to get to know someone else in a deeper capacity than just friends is to knob them. And this is just incredibly reductive of actual human relationships.
Yeah this kinda annoyed me in stardew of all things, because after the first year when you romance and ring someone, then all the other relationships end up feeling kinda weird.
It's especially a turn off for me when i think about buying the game, especially when Yahtzee mentioned that often times the dialogue choice is; Piss off person or have sex with person. i tend not to do the romance stuff in games like this.
As for the new point added at 7:00 , I've seen a few games use tags or icons to communicate whether a piece of dialogue is coded as flirty, or some other tone indicators too in more complex systems... And one possibility for fleshing that out further in potential future games could be selecting the tags you want to use? Like, when the tone would affect the meaning of a line of dialogue, giving you the ability to select it.
@@cautionroguerobots Explain how so? It's already a system games use, presenting it clearly to the player and allowing them to alter it within reason seems perfectly sensible to me.
@@000Dragon50000 Because you don’t decide what to say in real life based on a tag, and the outcome of a real conversation is more nuanced and complex than “you chose the aggressive option with the red sword icon” or “the dialogue choice with the heart next to it.” At the very least it’s lazy and outdated game design.
@@cautionroguerobots Wh-... Writing cannot perfectly clearly convey the tone of an option. It can try, but it will never be perfect, and you can't expect it to. You shouldn't lazily fall back on it and not even try, but using things to help clarify things is still useful.
[I'd really much prefer to know why the "fantasize about cucumber relish" dialogue option that you chose was in the "sensual" text colour] is an actual line in Dialtown
I've got the reverse experience (am still in early act 2 mind you): my Tav got hooked up with Astarion and by some point, first Karlach noticed and commented on it, then Lae'zel told him (my Tav) she doesn't want meat someone else is already poking lol. Even bloody Withers piped up about my Tav and his BOSOM-FRIEND Astarion at one point haha. I was actually shocked at how good the game is at developing a relationship and organically making the world react to it, it's quite amazing. Which is also why as much as I respect Yahtzee's opinions, I have to disagree hard on the romance in Baldur's Gate 3. The subject gets as deep as you want it to be, not everything gets served to you on a plate and you need to pay attention to understand things, behaviours etc. Like shagging Astarion is easy, but getting the bloke to actually trust Tav? To develop *feelings*? Now that's the challenge, that's the payoff. Not everything starts and ends with sex alone and Yahtzee failing to look past that is somewhat disappointing. I want no spoilers, so might still come to eat my own words after I complete the game, but from what I saw until now the interpersonal relationships are being handled - and developed - in a truly stellar way. The writing is complex, the voice acting is phenomenal, the animations (at least aside from smutty scenes, there, I agree!) during conversations bring it all together and it all just feels.. real. As much as a dialogue-tree based conversation can, at the very least.
@@TehCakeIzALie1 Similar experience I had with a Dragonborn Tav and Lae'zel. Lae'zel is very physically attracted to a Dragonborn character and the species specific dialogue options early on lean into the two of you having a "fight for dominance" style relationship. But should you desire so it is entirely possible to take the relationship towards a more intimate one from that initial start.
I will say, in BG3, there's a LOT more, right from the release (heh) than say, mass effect, as there's more to each romance in the game than the act 1 stuff. Lae'Zel (Lizard one) has a lot of overall changes to her as a character, vampire boy reveals his past, etc. Doesn't change the fact that it's more of a cheeky bonus thing with typical "This is a video game" issues, but hey. Also, if you want the "Sitting on a couch and talking" type romance, Karlach. That's all. Overall, having played ME1/2/3, witcher, etc. I'd say in some ways BG3 is a lot more interesting when it comes to the romance, and especially when you get later in the game (act 2/3) and shit really starts hitting the fan, the urge to save-scum or just spam save before ANY interaction starts hitting hard, spoilers below: My first Chara ended up sticking with Angry frog lady, after passing through the creche' and that story arc, and continuing down that path, she starts losing some of the superiority complex and even actually lets a smile slip here and there. On my 2nd/3rd go round with different chars now, but if ALL of the companions Arc's are anything like hers, it's basically the equivalent character growth of the companions from ME1/2/3 across all the games, but in a SINGLE game (Karlach, for instance, is basically the "Tali" of BG3, and her arc covers all 3 acts and gets a little dark at times, since you can't touch her to begin with and just have to talk or get creative to even try anything before finding the metal bits and the smithy to help with that) In the end, TL:DR, I don't think the romances themselves really hurt the game at all if you're the type to get into the characters stories, since unlike playing tabletop with friends you don't really know much about them at the start. The payoff is certainly "Racy" in a sense, but adult content in games is practically Passe' at this point. Yeah, the act 1 scenes are "Abrupt" but at that point y'all still assume you're probably screwed anyways, A2/A3 is where things start settling in and the future looks possible for you, before that potentially gets crushed, depending on your choices.
The difference between games like Mass Effect and The WItcher and a game like BG3 is that the former games have a preset identity to them. Shepard's going to Shepard and Geralt's going to Geralt. However, we have a blank slate in BG3 that has to be as adaptive as possible to cater to many different identities players want to cast on them. I don't think its really fair to compare the two. But I do agree that there should be more gray area responses between the scales of "Let's shag" and "I wanna kill your cat."
Funnily enough, if you do choose not to romance any of the characters, Withers will talk to you at some point chastising you for not having attempted it.
What the hell is with popular games these days and calling out your "maidenless" XD I can just imagine he's has the same tone as "where are my grandchildren."
It feels like every companion character's story and arc was carefully written by one person/team and then later this romance/love thing was hamfisted by some random thirsty weirdo who has no idea and care for what that companion character is actually going through!
I played a dating sim that asks you to declare early who you are interested in romancing. The trade off for taking you out of character and breaking the 4th wall is that for the rest of the game the romance develops organically, and the supporting cast act more naturally. I liked that versus not breaking the 4th wall but then feeling like you're one dialog choice away from banging everyone just because you were nice to them as the game goes on.
I really think "mr socky"section deserves credit. I remember way back when Yhatzee would have the "disagreeing mock voice" thing be dumb and annoying as everyone else did, making self contradictory statements and whatnot. But lately, the points raised by the "disagreeing mock voice" have been good faith portrayals of disagreeing points that are not "dumb and annoying" but just something he disagrees with even if its a well made critique of it. It shows intellectual classiness.
This reminds me when i play the previous Baldurs Gate and a character which her husband just died was making googly eyes to mine, i couldnt say anything of the "sorry i like you as a friend and i dont feel comfortable getting it up with someone who's partner just died and also I knew personally". So the only thing i could do is to kick her out temporarily, which the characters also took it personally like i was evicting them from my life. Ironically, the second Baldurs Gate was made by Bioware and this started the trend of romances
well, they'd need to have gameplay and as we know, he dislikes vn's for the lack of it. the only well-written h-game i know (and have read/played) is totono, which is a vn with zero gameplay.
The other possibility is that the devs themselves don't actually understand how platonic and non-sexual relationships work or should be initiated in context of the game. It's got to be one extreme or the other, anything else is boring or uninteresting. That's also why I don't allow any sexual escapades at my own table beyond actual couples who are physically at the table that who also their characters to be in a physical relationship, and even then anything physical beyond public interaction happens "off-screen". Too many incels I've ran for in the past want to treat the game like it's their own personal sex chat and every NPC that remotely catches their fancy is just a potential lay. That, I don't allow. I treat the in-game world and PCs like real-life. You can do whatever you want to do within reason. You want to shank some dude in an alley for coin, sure... but if you get caught in a lawful settlement, you can probably expect to get hanged for murder. You want to spend all night boozing and whoring in the pub? Sure thing, but expect some major penalties the next day when you wake up with a hangover in the gutter and the possibility that someone has ran off with all your money and gear while you were in a drunken stupor. If you want to start up a reasonably realistic relationship with an NPC that you have some connection to beyond wanting a one-night-stand or a prostitute, then sure... I'll let you do that, insofar as having a presumed romantic relationship with them, and let you pursue that mostly off-screen, and that NPC will then react to you appropriately when interacting with them after that. I am not, however, as a DM, going to be your alternative to calling a sex hotline for the evening. Do that on your own sad time and leave me and the other players out of it.
I think with Lae'Zel (and maybe Astarion, I haven't seen much of his content), the pay-off is actually her confessing her love for you and then demanding you beat the shit out of her to prove you're worthy of being her mate (and then taking you anyway if you lose). Because I believe originally she says (or implies) that it's just sex for her and you shouldn't get attached.
On the point of out-of-character dialogue trees, I find it really jarring when I've been just generally nice to someone like Wyll and he suddenly wants to do the funky tango, especially when the only character that I've previously shown any romantic interest dialogue-wise is Karlach. I get that it's easiest for the devs (programmatically and socially) if all companions are playersexual, but I like restrictions because it fleshes them out. Having a preference (or lack thereof) for a certain type of partner adds another dimension to their character and also lessens the number of unwanted booty calls I have to reject.
I broadly agree, especially because literally everyone will flirt with you, but I would say that there is definitely plenty of the middle ground for the various characters. Lae’Zel initially also makes it very clear that she’s in it for the sex and not for any actual feelings. But those options to have a close non-romantic relationship is definitely there with basically everyone.
I'm 100% over romance options in RPGs. Almost every time I've played a game with a romance "option" it came across as artificial and unwarranted. The first one was ME2 IIRC, where I had just recruited a dude, and the first time I went to talk to him on the ship, he's asking to get into my pants, and when I turned him down because I had no interest in romancing anyone, he stopped talking to me about anything other than what he was required to for the plot. I had the exact same experience with Lae'zel, it was just BOOM, all of a sudden she starts talking about how the stink of my body turns her on. I had a similar encounter with Astarion on the first character I ran, where after an incredibly short time adventuring with him, he's suggesting we go for a roll in the hay, and of course since I wasn't really interested in that part of the game, I had to then turn him down. It really ruins the relationship building with the companions, when you have to preempt every dialog option with a consideration for whether this will turn them into a raging sack of hormones. The only game I've played that had decent romance stuff was CP77, and even then it was pretty much only Judy. Panam was okay, but the relationship between the player and Judy felt so much more natural than what you get in so many other games, where it seems more like a matter of "push button receive bacon" than developing a relationship with someone, and growing to care for them. Hell, in BG3 I've felt far more attached to Karlach because I was able to give her a hug... That is a vastly more believable and memorable relationship than any of the other "romances" that have popped up in the game for me so far, and amazingly she's not itching to get my trousers off.
I will say i do agree with the general sentiment of this video, though I do think it is present to some degree in Baldur’s Gate 3. While I think there is often a lack of affectionate but still platonic dialogue options, they are often present. For example, Some of the characters have romantic cutscenes that still trigger but are platonic in tone if you’re not romancing them. I got one of these for Gale, and it was one of my favorite moments in the game. still, the point does stand. I do wish there were more group scenes like sitting around a campfire telling stories, or something. Despite the fact that we’re supposed to all be good friends, it can definitely feel like all the companions have really interesting relationships with you, but barely know each other. This is especially true if you settle on a team composition and don’t frequently swap out party members in order to hear everyone’s banter, which is how I think most people will probably play.
I had, somehow, accidentally friend-zoned myself with Karlach without realising it. Met her too late once a romance opportunity went by or something. So later in the game when i get the prompts to flirt with her, she'd brush it off in a kinda piss-taking but light hearted jab kinda way. Ultimately she became my characters friend that she could be a bit more open around, but with a strong sense of personal boundaries and specific relationships. That made me like her far more than the other characters that were basically throwing themselves at me, fawning over everything i said, then being perfectly ok with being rejected - as it felt like they just had no individual identity outside "be what the player wants you to be".
YES the dialog trees!! Exactly that! I have never been less immersed than when endingtron 2000 offered it's two options "Be good and destroy the thing" or "Be evil and use the thing". That's it. That's the game. These are your two choices. It's 200 hour cookie clicker with some additional steps. LOCK ME OUT OF THE OPTIONS I AM CLEARLY NOT INTERESTED IN. In given playthrough ;DDD
DOS2 prepared me for this. I thought I was making friends with Fane until the screen faded to black and cut to the morning after. Completely blind sided me that what I thought were friendly comments were actually romance options. So yeah, I'd be all up for more friends only options in CRPGs
I mean if you think about it. Everyone is under the impression that they are going to die(turn into squids) in a matter of days. And they are all fairly attractive single adults. Wouldn't you want to get rocks off before you lose them, and not get to distracted to much by not having proper time to date?
my problem with it is that you are either romancing them or they have nothing to do with you, acquaintence or romance, no inbetween. Can't be just friends.
Oh man I know this is nearly a year late but so many of his comments make it clear he (at time of release) had an incomplete view of the game and the romance arcs. The sex scene with Lae'Zel is not the end of a romance arc like he said would be the norm, but the beginning. Spoilers for the Lae'Zel romance - sex is the beginning of your relationship, and it's just a physical exchange, the end of her romance arc is her sitting down and talking with you about her feelings in an emotionally vulnerable way. This is the exact opposite of how you normally order the events but it does look great as a complete arc. Karlach, Gale, and Wyll are also more slow burn in terms of getting physical with them Astarion also gets physical early on but also has an incredible arc. IDK about Shadowheart but I believe she doesn't take you to bed in the early acts.
From the patch notes of patch 1: "During Gale's spell-teaching scene, you now have the option to picture a future with Gale that falls somewhere in between kissing him and kicking him in the head."
Absolutely yes to all of this. Also, why does rejecting the character by saying you prefer to just be friends lower how much they approve of you? It's especially dumb since they want to bang you after talking to them like three times, no real friendship building required. I got pushed from good relations with Shadowheart to ambilvalent 'cause I just wanted to have a nice friendly drink with her and not kiss her 😭
As someone who has been repeatedly stabbed in the back and thrown away for saying no to sex, this sounds like the most realistic life sim ever. And that's only if the no was accepted as an answer, instead of a challenge.
Sounds completely realistic, tell anyone interested in you that you just want to be friends and they will feel rejected and hurt, no matter how much they may say it's fine.
I like how he damns BioWare but then ME was very specific that you were only allowed one romance at a time and you got great character send-offs in ME3 both with the Citadel DLC and at various points: sniper rifle skeet in the Citadel Presidium with Garrus (whether you romanced or not plus you have the option to give him the win); chuckling at Wrex's sore...um...legs; drinking Ashley under the table (whether romanced or not); etc.
One point I disagree with is the implication that all dialogue options are canon, that if an option is presented to "murder all the babies," that this is necessarily something the character considered. I just view it as a necessary thing to allow _players_ to choose from. Just because one of the dialogue options is horny doesn't mean that you need to think of the character as horny, all that matters is the choices you choose to act on, but they have to present different options for different players. The only time this bothers me is cases where you're talking to a character, and then you pick a neutral option, like "you did a good job out there," and then the dialogue continues into "you sexy beast" or whatever, starts to get flirty without you deliberately choosing "flirty" as an option. That can really give me whiplash. I do agree that these can get a bit stale and rote, but I do see Baldur's Gate as a step up in that it's not _just_ going down a checklist of mission objectives to "unlock" sex. It just needs to be a matter of becoming the sort of person that this character would be into, whatever that might be. It's sticky to have them judge on appearances though, since then you would have to figure out a way to get the game to tell how hot your character is, and that can be tricky even for actual humans. Just go with the Charisma score for that.
Though I agree for the largest part of this, I find it a bit silly to equal 'seeing the dialogue option' to 'this crossed my character's mind'. IMO, that's a game mechanic necessity, and easily divorced from the story being told. I'd see choosing or not choosing such an option as a choice to have it cross your character's mind to begin with. That said, there were definitely some moments where I felt the options were inadequate.
It's some of the best romance we've seen in RPGs... So I don't understand where all the hate is coming from. Does no one remember Dragon Age: Inquisition? Or are gamers convinced that relationships are actually based around gifting someone you like the same item over and over again until you fill up an experience bar? If you have an issue with video game romances being one dimensional, that's fine. But that's more of a commentary on the gaming industry as a whole and less of a reflection of Baldur's Gate 3, specifically.
I just find sex scenes wholly unnecessary. You can get the same impact, knowing that the characters are getting their bone on by just implying they're headed off to shagtown. Have them go into a room together and shut the door. Cut to afterglow and pillow talk for more characterization. There's really no need to show a bunch of pixels making the beast with two backs.
I think the sex stuff also owes a healthy amount of its existence in the game to Critical Role, Dimension 20, etc, not just BioWare. Some of the best parts of those actual plays are the horniness and romance. There’s so many ways that modern day DnD shines through in BG3 and I think that’s one of them. Is it executed perfectly? No, but I do think they came by it a little more honestly than Yahtzee gives them credit for.
Interestingly enough, the emotional pay off with Lae'Zel happens much later in the game in Act 3. This is a little bit of spoilers so tread carefully: Overtime, her overzealous attitude shifts and changes. Her aggression remains, but becomes more controlled and restrained. She chooses more carefully how and when she is aggressive because your character has shown them the strength that comes from being gentle (at least mine did), and eventually you go on a date overlooking Baldur's Gate and swearing yourselves to each other for a lifetime, come what may with the final boss. In short, basing this all of Act 1 does a disservices to the experiences designed over the course of 50, 60 or 70 hours of play time. Maybe abrupt at the start, but the overall payoff takes way longer to pay off for all the romances.
I agree about the part where it’s hard to just be friends with someone, and I’m glad the devs are taking the steps to fix it. That being said, I think the complaint about the lack of the traditional buildup to payoff mechanic in some of the party members is indicative of how video game conventions have drifted so far from reality. We feel satisfied with the buildup and payoff not because it’s realistic but because it’s how romance in games has always worked. Relationships in real life are a lot more complicated, as they are in Bg3.
Totally agree on the awkwardness of both the animation and sex/romance/friendship dynamic. I also resent the notion that I should just skip it if I don't like it - but I *want* to like the romancing! I want it to be good and interesting and be a good payoff for getting emotionally invested.
I think they could've gone deeper sure, but sounds like you're just equating sex as a payoff to love, when sometimes sex is just sex, and they DEFINITELY made that apparent in this game. I 100% agree though that I'd love to see more fulfilling platonic options and arcs across all RPGs. Sure a lot of games technically give you the option, but then a lot of times it feels awkward after because it feels like only one of the two people talking are ok with that arrangement.
I remember in Planescape Torment getting emotionally attached to each of my party members and their stories. Granted that game was designed to be far less open ended than other RPGs, but that's the peak of companion writing for me at this point.
From Larian's patch notes today: "During Gale's spell-teaching scene, you now have the option to picture a future with Gale that falls somewhere in between kissing him and kicking him in the head."
oh my god, i just looked this up and it's real. Talk about quickly accepting criticism!
😂😂😂😂
What if you want to do both?
@@Wrincewind.they should have put it in on first release.
Made funnier by the fact that they actually did that in a later patch. I ran into the exact scene he was talking about and there's now a range of options.
I don't mind the sex scenes or their existence, but I wholly agree about the frustrating lack of "but no can't we REALLY just be friends? not as a way out of a romantic relationship, but like can we go get drinks in a pub or something and enjoy each others' company?" For a game with so MANY dialogue options, it does seem far too often that you ultimately come down to "Take your pants off" or "Ew get away." Why is that.
Just because I stay up chatting withshadowheart just means I care about you, shut up about kissing! I stay up chatting with friends
So essentially the fantasy of having people like you as a friend as opposed to your body? I hadn't stopped to think that BG3 companions were all creeps (either nothing or all-in) that respected consent (don't force themselves if you say no) now that I stop to think about it.
I remember Persona 5 having a few non-dickish ways of friendzoning peeps, though it could certainly be better. My favorite was Kawakami, when she asks why you kept hiring her. The first friendzone option is basically you saying you just wanted to take advantage of her perks, which sucks. But step one into the romantic side has you say it's because you care about her, to which she gets flustered and says that saying that carelessly can give someone the wrong idea. It's here that you then have the option to back out or lock it in, with the back out option just apologizing for giving that impression. I like that because it gave me the roleplaying satisfaction of telling her that I genuinely care about her, but didn't mean romantically.
I disagree with Yahtz about most of his conclusions about sex scenes, but the lack of dialogue options other than enthusiastic yes or extremely hard no is a little weird, I do agree with that. I was in a scene where Gale shows you how magic works, I just thought it was cool he was explaining the Weave and showing me how to tap into the Weave, and suddenly he’s being flirty and the game is like “oooh, you’re having an intimate moment” and the only option out of it that was a no was a hard “I’m not interested in you like that.” And I thought that seemed a bit unnecessarily tactless.
@@wisesquirrel4986 oh it's not like they want nothing to do with you if you don't wanna bang, there's just nothing exclusive to that and you can't tell them "i like you a great deal but please keep your clothes on" which is kinda annoying at times. just a couple of hours ago in my third playthrough i had "the talk" with gale where he said that he totally didn't mind my character's ten-days-without-bathing "musk" and i had to tell him to please stop gale you have a GIRLFRIEND
it was good that, when turned down, he just went "ok hope we can still be friends" but i wish rpg games wrote more characters were you really _were_ just great friends. i like friends-with-garrus far more than boning-garrus'-bones and i think the "platonic flirting" friendly relationship with dorian in dragon age: inquisition is so adorable. i want more stuff like that even though i love the cullen (the templar, not the stalker-manipulator) and judy (the braindance tech, not the rabbit) characters out there
I remember having a weirdly lacking set of options with Gale. He was talking about how nice it feels to have someone he can confide in, and I think the line it led to was essentially 'I've come to see you as a friend, and I hope you consider me as one too'.
My options were essentially 'I see you as more than a friend', 'No I don't see you as a friend', and 'I hate you'. Why couldn't I just reciprocate his heartfelt but platonic statement with one of equal sentiment? I didn't want to lead him on nor hurt his feelings, but those were the only choices I had. Very strange.
At some point he was coming onto me and I choose the option along the lines of "Appreciated, yet I am not interested." To which he replayed, "Understood. No more flirting." Felt nice. Made it a friendship and that's it.
Next scene was that campfire weave scene Yahtzee mentioned and he was coming on and I just went, "Dude. We've been over this....."
That's profoundly disappointing. I can deal with NPCs being horndogs (as long as they aren't insistent, so TheSmartboy64's does add another worry), but I'd like to be able to choose how much of a horndog *my own character* is, and I'd like to have alternatives to being a horndog other than "asshole loner".
Yeah, sometimes it feels like I have to choose between "Take me now!" and "We are only traveling companions doing a job, nothing more."
I dunno if it's just quirk of the choices I made, but I never had any followup with NPCs wanting to jump my half-orc outside the first flirting session.
Might be because my orky hooked up with one of the NPCs and made it clear that they were the only one.
But, I do agree more dialogue options would be nice for telling each other where the boundaries are. That would open interesting dialogue options when someone does cross the line.
@@sintanan469 I've been seeing conflicting reports about this. and I'm not sure if its a bug, s quirk of the way they decide when romance is on the table, or depends on different variables. but there is something we are missing here.
Using Baldurs Gate as a bad example of something and then using Mass Effect:Andromeda as a good example in the same video, has to be one of Yahtzees' ballsiest moves, ever.
I've been watching a playthrough and one thing that has struck me is that the characters actually seem to make eye contact, unlike the thousand-yard stare you would see in EA games.
He really decided to speak his truth at any cost.
To be fair, I loved that part of Mass Effect: Andromeda too.
That game, though deeply flawed, got completely screwed by its disastrous launch and the weight of high expectations being part of the Mass Effect franchise. To the point that saying _anything_ positive about it is tantamount to heresy in some gaming circles. When in fact it did lots of (granted, rather minor) stuff right. And I think companions and their relationships were one of those things.
As for Baldur's Gate 3, I haven't advanced enough in the story to have an opinion on the romances, but it seems to me Yahtzee's problem is more with Bioware-style romances in general rather than a BG-specific problem.
Sure, there is room for improvement in the Bioware formula, but at the same time, it's widely popular for a reason.
@@Zergonapal and they move their arms occasionally or shuffle around a bit as well, unlike EA denizens
i dunno, i don't think all that many people would find it objectionable. it's kind of like saying "hey the citadel dlc was pretty good wasn't it". even people who don't like any part of mass effect 3 will still agree to like the citadel dlc
They really took your feedback to heart and quickly addressed it. From today's patch notes:
-During Gale’s spell-teaching scene, you now have the option to picture a future with Gale that falls somewhere in between kissing him and kicking him in the head.
Oh, you mean the holding hands thing? Lol I didn't realize it was worse before!
If Baldur's Gate wanted REAL D&D-style "Around the Campfire" stuff, the game should forcefully pause itself for twenty minutes, talk about 1960s TV for a while, and have everyone blame eachother for their dice rolls.
How could you leave out the mandatory quoting of Monty Python??
If we can't spend 20 minutes in heated debate on how to infiltrate the Goblin Cave, then how is it D&D?
@@sumguy0110 We usually just spend like 3 minutes deciding who's on what shift of the nightly watch, patch up any ailments, briefly discuss the plan for the next day, then long rest. My gods. Have we been doing it wrong the past couple decades?
@@SolstaceWinters Your party is too agreeable. Get a stubborn low-int barbarian in there to shake things up with the most direct, bloody approach possible.
@@JBBell Is this the five minute Monty Python or the full 15 minutes?
The most interesting part is how people are managing to seduce Lae’zel within three minutes of starting the game
the fastest speedrun i saw for that is 2 minutes now, crazy
This isn't actually starting a genuine romantic relationship with Lae'Zel, though, to her this is just casual fun with someone she kiiiiind of respects, and later events in her storyline make that very clear.
@@000Dragon50000these are gamers we’re talking about, so many of them have never seen romance before in their real lives, so that’s what they think it is
yea i thought that was pretty silly, You threaten one teifling to the point of pissing themselves and she is like "fuck me right here right now" lol
@@000Dragon50000 Every other time she doesn't have time for fun though. This is why I don't like characters that have to be made so universally romance-able to everyone. You have to restrict their personalities and character to make the romance believable or straight up contradict it some times.
Mr Sockey is the best. Such an upstanding and earnest citizen!
We need him to debate reasonable horse at some point
I want to become like Mr Sockey when I grow up
I dont like Mr Sockey
@@janbananberg357 leave
Mr Socky, just like real life humans is filled with sticky fluid. He's as real as real can be!
Weirdly enough, in Mass effect I end up liking the non-Romance party members more because it never feels like letting them down when you have to say “No I don’t want to go to the bedroom with you”. For example, as male Shepard you can’t romance Garrus and I ended up liking him way more than a lot of other people on my crew, I was just content being friends with him, I didn’t need to bang him to finish our relationship, we just chilled out and shot bottles together. Same with Wrex, no matter what gender you pick you can’t romance him and he becomes a good friend to you, he’s just someone you know you can rely on.
To be fair, everyone likes Garrus the best, because he is.
Don't forget Mordin and Legion.
Mostly agreed, but I'd also like to add that Tali is probably the most popular male romance option because she's the only one who's just baseline friendly with you, and while she flirts a lot with Shephard in ME2 and 3, it's a much more relaxed relationship than... well, all the others, I guess? Liara gets her character reset in ME2 by becoming the Shadow Broker, and her relationship with Shephard is a bit too businesslike, Ashley and Kaidan are both melodramatic, Miranda and Jack are both nuts, Jacob is meh and his romance gets cut off in ME3 anyway, Thane is another melodramatic character whose condition overshadows the actual romance, while the rest are just either short (E.g. James) weird (E.g.: Diana Allers) or shoehorned in (E.g.: Steve Cortez, Kelly Chambers, etc.).
In comparison, Team Dextro are good, loyal friends whether they are romanced or not, and that counts a lot.
@@alexandrebeaulieu9938 I like Garrus both ways and I'm straight so...
What I love is the relationship with Liara, if you romance her in ME1, romance no-one in ME2, and back with her in ME3, it culminates in a beautiful mind meld scene with her, you pretty much get married, it feels logical that she would only do that if you're "faithful"
I think it's a very salient point that dialogue trees show a lot even if the choices are or aren't selected. Point in case in the very same game, the Dark Urge. Even if you don't select the super murdery options, the fact that they're constantly there might as well serve as a set of intrusive thoughts to plague your curiosity. You are always keenly aware that you could slip at any moment into bloodshed on a whim.
Yes! Playing as Dark Urge and having him seemingly constantly on the edge of declaring he’s a sadistical murderer to everyone he meets is an interesting use of extra dialogue options! Definitely would love to see more games do the Monkey Island thing Yahtz mentioned, or have dialogue options come up that you can’t select, as a way of saying ‘your character might think this, but they’d never say it’.
Also even if you resist the Dark Urge this also does have a pay off near the end of the game.
Yeah, I always liked that you see the different replies. It makes sense that your character would have an intrusive thought even if it's something they would never actually do/say.
Yeah, it was cool when Disco Elysium explicitly did this.
To be fair, I do think its a bit more complicated when you have "blank protagonist" because how would you do it otherwise? There are games with fixed characters whos "non-picked" lines are just as informative of their personality as the picked ones, I heard Pathologic remastered is pretty good at that. But with a blank charecter, if its an option, you have to put it there as an option in the dialogue tree otherwise you cant do it at all, yes its a bit strange that while your trying to roleplay a relationship your two "thoughts" are "I want you to jump off a cliff" and "I want to shag you", at the same time (jesus, this isn't hot and cold, this is "inferno" and "Ice age") but the alternative would be not to have a choice at all. Im not sayings it isn't a very fair point, just that I'm not sure there IS another way to do it.
I got disinterested when Lae'zel wouldnt break my pelvis
No snu snu, huh?
That's more a Karlach sort of thing anyway, I'd gather.
@@USMC49erHeh, the "translation" is funny
Every guy knows. If she can't shatter your pelvis. She doesn't luv you. Also. I might be a hyper nymphomaniac.
@@iExploder Pretty sure Karlach burns not breaks
I wanted to bromance the wizard not romance him. Damn you Larian for not giving me that option.
Why would you even want to bromance that rapey twat? There are 2 choices, either cut off his arm or throw all of him off a cliff and leave him there.
Update today gives you that option I'm pretty sure.
It doesn't. The option is still Romance/Spurn with no middle ground.@@MrMustard2112
Can't you just kill him anyway lol? Or leave him when he dies in battle while in the group.
@@coops1992 no spoilers from me but no I'd strongly advise against leaving him dead
Man, I would love to just chat shit with my party. I loved that bit in Andromeda with the whole squad watching a movie. Most human feeling part of the whole game.
Laezel and the rest of the NPCs are really interesting but it would be incredible to just interact.
Me too. My annoyance is that you can't seem to have a genuine vulnerable bonding moment with any of the character without it somehow moving towards sex. I like to have the option of forming actual friendships with the other characters like the movie scene you mentioned.
@@AndrewJohnson-oy8oj Exactly! Make your in game friends seem like actual friends. I can't imagine the horror of all my friends wanting to have sex with me
That was one of the few bits of writing I liked in BattleTech as well. If you develop the lounge for your ship, you can have an officers' movie night. Much of the writing (especially related to the main plot) isn't very good but that was one of the better parts.
If thier was one good thing about not having gay relationships, it was they needed to have non sexual bonding.
There have been a few shooting the breeze type bonding moments here and there. But so far in BG I have to agree I don't think the friendship/romance party interactions are quite nailed. That said it is still good as the character really are for the most part anyway more than mono-dimensional sex objects lots of 'RPG' type games that do romance at all would make them.
According to Larian, the idea behind the sex scenes happening fairly early on is precisely to avoid the idea of romance in an RPG being "pulling all the correct levers to get a knobbing scene". Basically they're getting it out of the way quickly, so it ceases to be the "goal" of romance as it is in most RPGs, and instead allows to focus on the actual bond between characters. Whether or not that approach achieves its goal is a different matter, but at least they were willing to experiment with it.
Larian sure have some nutcases on the job
it's a failure
Yeah but it doesn’t work because in real life with most normal people, sex is the point you reach a high bond between characters.
That's bizarre. You're telling me the s*x was something they saw as an obstacle so had to get it out of the way? Why create the problem you're trying to get rid of.
Wow, that's such an interesting and terrible idea.
Andromeda was surprisingly full of such wholesome hangout moments. In the original trilogy we only got that with Citadel DLC. In Andromeda it kinda became mandatory part for each companion.
Jaal introduces Ryder to his family
Drakk and Ryder get in bar brawl, and later Ryder sorta becomes godparent to Kesh's firstborn
Cracking open a cold one with Liam and later having a football match with colonists
Cora invites you for almost ceremonial founding of her garden
Ventra mountain climbing
Pebee floating around in 0G
And of course the movie night
Some of these can turn into the beginning of romance route, but that's optional. Hanging out is the important part. Andromeda released in a sorry state, but it's not irredeemably bad. It more than makes up for it's flaws with enough upsides
maybe i just didn't care for that game, but i don't remember any of that, at all.
and i know i played through it twice. once on easy and once on the hardest mode.
but i remember the comments in me1/2 during the elevator rides.
Too bad 90% of the game is crap, 100% of the game’s dialogue was written by an edgy 16 year old and Liam is a 5 year old child in a soldier’s body. Ventra was the one normal character in the entire game. Good freaking lord, what a garbage game.
I genuinely liked Andromeda. Not as good as original trilogy, but that's a very high bar. I liked getting to know the teammates. I liked being able to fix the environmental conditions on the planets, and know that going forward it would help the colonies.
Probably also helps that I played it after some of the early patches that fixed a lot of the major jankiness. lol
Yeah, that BioWare team definitely saw what DA:I did well - better than the ME trilogy - re its setting and how much the characters interact, and leaned into it.
I don't think all of the character scenes quite hit their mark, but Jaal in particular is very good.
But yeah, the Tempest really felt like a place people worked and lived together.
Ryder is a predefined individual though, in bg3 you are just an anonymous hand.
I think the issue is these games try to offer you the ability to do anything. With more and more options you can do but then there is always a point where you can't do something you want to. So you go deeper and deeper into immersion but then are suddenly dragged out of it because no one considered you might want to do THIS exact thing.
I mean if I had written these companiosn I'd assume no one would want to be friends with them. Except maybe Karlach she seems like she'd a be a great friend if it weren't for the whole burninating the countryside thing.
Yeah. That's why I don't really like the blank slate protagonist. There is always going to be a point where you can't take whatever option is in character for whoever you are trying to play. Especially when there is such an obvious link with TTRPGs.
I find it better when the developers create a character for you to play.
The main issue with the BG3 relationships is that the approval system itself is fundamentally flawed. It basically acts like “approval rating” = “relationship status”. Each companion having their own threshold at what point THEY will approach you for a romantic relationship. Regardless if you tried to avoid the “romantic” dialogue options or are already in a relationship with another companion.
A great example for this happened to me during my second playthrough (spoilerfree):
I decided to start a romance with Karlach. A little bit further into the game there is something very important happening for her. An incredibly wholesome and immersive moment for the both of you. So I finish off our business in that area to get ready for a long rest (during which character moments start playing out).
I rest… cutscene starts (me expecting Karlach)… tension builds annnnnnnd…
Another (male) character is prancing around in front of me asking me for a dance.
And btw. said character stood right next to me an Karlach during the important moment. I had also barely talked to that character. He just reached his romance threshold.
Sure I simply turned him down but it turned one of the best moments I had with the relationship system into an absolute joke.
The system just doesn’t care about your choices because it’s barebones implementation doesn’t allow for it. It acts like “fuck everyone” is the most immersive and entertaining way to play. It may be for some. Thats fine. But give the player more agency on who they engage in a romantic relationship with (including flirting).
Felt the same way about that dancing scene it seems like the only time characters bring up that you’re in the relationship with another character is when they’re trying to seduce you and not any other time
Laezel is just that. Early sex because she wanted to fuck. Not meant to be taken as emotional pay off. But, Katlach is a different story imo. After 50 hours of having her in my party, finally getting to say you love her and watching her giddiness is so heart warming and feels like one of the more genuine emotions I've seen in a game.
Edit: my wording was poor, her beginning of her story is just about sex and her trying to grasp what her true feelings are.
Agreed fully regarding Karlach. Additionally, and to your point about Lae'zel wanting to bang, later in the game she mentions how Gith are born and raised. She then explicitly mentions something along the lines of "I get to have sex without any repercussions" so I think her wanting to jump the character so quickly makes perfect sense albeit this becomes obvious later down the line.
...What? The entire point of her story is that she finds it hard to make attachments because she's so brutally repressed from years of cultural stigma of compassion and love. Lae'zel isn't even willing to share a kiss with you publically until near the end of the game. She struggles to even admit to herself that she has actual feelings beyond the carnal in the first place. You are aware of this, right? It's the text of the game.
@@DergonBaals
Yes, but the relationship doesn't start that way. It's implied that she's romantically into you from the start, but simply doesn't understand what those feelings are. She misinterprets her own feelings as just wanting to shag, and so she does just that as soon as they pop up. It's only after shagging several times that she realizes it's not scratching the itch, and it begins to dawn on her that what she feels for the PC isn't lust but is love. Her whole thing is that she doesn't understand what love even is, because we're the first person to treat her like a person in her whole damn life.
A more emotional connection does develop with Lae’zel as the romance goes along.
I don't think yahtz has gotten that far yet LOL. I agree with him up to a point, because there definitely are moments beyond just shagging at first sight.
The lizard lady’s romance begins purely with unfulfilling carnality, and ends with her growing as a character and seeing the main character as an equal, to protect and be protected by, foregoing her loyalties to her peoples traditions.
yeah exactly. it's an emotional slowburn, that's the whole point
@@hinasakukimi I think it's the issue with critiquing based on such a short exposure to the game. It's not *wrong*, because that is the emotion that scene itself gives, but is for sure *incomplete*.
A lot of people dislike Lae'Zel, because they are not willing to engage with her story because she starts of as incredibly rude and hostile. I don't think they owe the game to get past that rough start, it isn't wrong to dislike her, just because she gets better later on, but it does mean they are not critiquing Lae'Zel, but rather their limited perspective of her as a character.
Well... she is a Githyanki.
What'd you expect from one of their ilk.
@@dig8634 yeahh i try not to give yahtzee shit for it because i completely understand that a game shouldn't take 100 hours to wow you. but then... i think more *specific* critiques like this are jumping the gun.
and yeah lae'zel is fantastic imo. i'm not even romancing her and her development as a character is really hitting hard for me.
From what ive seen in the community, Karlach seems to be the most popular romance, and i think because it hits on the opposite of what's discussed here. There's like a buildup and a payoff where you learn a lot about her.
Meh, Karlach is pretty quick to tell you she wants to ride you until you see stars.
And it's not only for Karlach, Shadowheart has a buildup as well afaia. That's the whole idea: approaches and reactions are different, like it happens with real people as well. It's not interesting when it's always the same - like you need to fix all the person's problems first to get into panties.
I mean I just recently started my second playthrough and picked up Karlach, and quite literally one of the first things she implies if you choose certain dialogue options is about how horny she is and how her infernal heart is cockblocking her.
Imo I'd complain about all of the other characters being super horny for no reason. Lae'Zel is the only one that makes sense. Also if you have her as your partner she does become way more emotional at later portions of the game. In short: I do agree all characters are very horny for no reason except for Lae'Zel imo. So I dunno why people are using her as example.
Karlach is horny because she is a decade or more without any kind of emotional touch.
She literally says "I'm pent up, because I ended up burning my lover alive and our tent about a decade ago"
SPOLIER ALERT!!:
While you can have sex with her, Karlach's (best girl) romance arc ends with the two of you going on a nice date together, where you imageine your shared future, even though Karlach knows she only has days to live. It was simultaneously heartbreaking and heartwarming, and I think it's a really good example of how a romance in games can be about, and end with, more than just sex.
i wonder if the male and female romances are balanced, or if this Karlach is an exception to the rule?
That was such a sweet moment, but i kinda ruined it by going to the circus and giving Karlach the clown makeup, made the Gortash scene great, but then it sprung that up on me at the end of that games day.
@@borjaslamicI don't think it ruins it, maybe it look goofy and everything, but you can see it as that's the way she decided to pass her last days, joking and goofing around, as absurd as it is to imagine a life you won't have, she would do it all over again
But is a bad example of how relationships can be about something other than romance. Compare Fire Emblem Path of Radiance to Fire Emblem Awakening. And yet even in old fire emblems romance was better because partners were limited, not every male was atracted to every female and viceversa. To this day I dont see better take on romance.
@@azzzanadra Define "balanced". The romanceable characters are all different and I don't think any of them are a direct parallel to another of the opposite sex, but there is a little bit of something for everyone.
The devs talked about this in one of their panels. For characters like Lae'zel (and too many others in my opinion), sex is just something fun that they like to do, and it's not meant to be the final relationship goal. Having a partner who starts out as rude and basically has sex because what else is there to do, slowly open up, telling you about their fears, and learning to be kind through your influence is much more of a personal glimpse into their character and the relationship you have with them.
Yeah, stumbled into that scene with Lae'zel, but really wanted to try a game partnering with Shadowheart. When I told Lae'zel I didn't want to continue things with her, she just called me a coward and moved on. Literally I don't think she cared all that much.
Shadowheart however didn't sleep with my character until I was 115 hours into the game in Act III.
To add to "Romance seems to be the expectation", I was romancing Shadowheart and being good friends with Gale. I entertained his requests and was a good, supportive friend along the way, but I never made a conscious choice to flirt with him.
So it was a bit jarring and quite funny when, after confirming my relationship with Shadowheart, he confronted me all weepy about how he thought we had a thing going but that he wouldn't begrudge me for choosing someone else. It really felt like the game can't tell just being friendly with someone and wanting to have an intimate relationship.
I interpreted this entirely differently. Part of how the system works is the approval system, because this is a game afterall, and as long as you're a relatively nice person Gale is pretty easy to impress, so he can get onto the track of romance very easy whether you want it or not. But I didn't see it as "These dumb developers don't understand being friendly and being horny ugh" I took it as part of Gale's story. You learn that Gale is *incredibly* lonely. He concedes he has no friends, barely any acquaintances beyond his treyssm, Tara (a cat with wings) who he really puts a lot of emotional weight into. His troubled relationship with Mystra and how his curse effective puts everyone he gets close too in danger it all adds up to a person who is both desperate for connection and companionship but also pragmatic to his circumstances and trying to reconcile it as "it is what it is". So even if I, personally, wanted to keep my relationship with Gale strictly as platonic and friendly I saw his reaching out as very genuine to his character. There's a scene where you find him scrying the stars in the sky at night, where he muses about the inevitability of death and, ultimately, where he confesses his true feelings for you, and it gave me a very deep appreciation of the character and his struggle even if, ultimately, I had to turn him away.
@@WittyDroogYeah, it's either that page of text, or the writers just being trash and juvenile. I'm gonna go with the parsimonious answer.
@@Arcessitor I know, reading can be hard for some.
@@WittyDroogWell, if it makes you feel better, I made that judgment after reading it. So it is just your explanation being trash. Hope that settles any lingering doubts you had.
@Arcessitor Well when you have a counterpoint maybe I'll read that. I have no problem with disagreement, it's why we're discussing in public, but I prefer actual points to just fallacy.
It would be nice if there were friendship endings to the romances. Yeah, if you tell them you aren't interested you stay friends, but I would have liked to see some kind of end-of-game "I'm glad I met you" culmination all the same. That said... regarding not feeling close enough to the characters, part of this is clearly because Yahtzee isn't that far in the game yet. These relationships start with lust and grow into love. The companion I romanced completely stopped all physical intimacy beyond the occasional smooch for a good chunk of the game because he realized it was unhealthy and he needed to work some things out about himself. And I know Yahtz isn't a fan of the whole "it gets good if you wait 10 more hours" thing, but I think if you're playing a game the size of BG3, you have to expect the payoff for a game-length character arc to come slowly. The lust is the beginning, not the end.
Indeed. Similarly while Lae'zel starts out very physical the final pay off of her romance is (SPOILERS):
She wakes you early in the morning so that you can watch the sunrise together and she talks about how she used to despise this world and its people, but you have given her something she cares about in this world and helped her see the beauty others see in these quiet moments and small moments of peace.
It all ends with her simply asking that you stay with her even when your current journey is over and if you agree, you simply hold hands and watch the sunrise.
yeah as someone who played EA there is a WORLD of difference between act 1 & act 2. all of the relationships are tested in really meaningful ways. i know it's clickbait but it's frustrating to see such a dismissive attitude
Pretty sure I know who that companion is and I cannot romance anyone other than him because his is just so well done especially his "good" romance ending.
Astarion's romance in BG3 gets into some really interesting stuff about relationships where one party has super complicated associations with sex and intimacy and it really is in everyone's best interests to not get naked each other right away. (And yes the Naked Having does happen first because of reasons, but once Astarion opens up more about his specific traumas there's a lot more nuance to it)
Emotional damage in the world of DND comes off as a bit snowflakish, maybe Astar what's it's face should've had a thicker skin
@@chillhour6155 why?
@@chillhour6155 ?? He was sexually and violently abused for 2 centuries lol, having a character with that backstory just be a Normal Guy sounds incredibly boring
@@chillhour6155 He does have some thick skin, all over his back. Nice bait.
Glad to see your comment!
Astarion and also from what I've heard Laezel, are characters where sex is happens early with them because for them other more "innocent" forms of affection feel more intimate and vulnerable to them.
But that also requires getting pretty far into their plots, which Yatzee might not have reached in a week. Still a touch annoying to see it written off as "ah the banging us a foregone conclusion".
"During Gale's [scene mentioned in the Escapist Video], you now have the option to picture a future with Gale that falls somewhere in between kissing him and kicking him in the head." - Larian, Patch 1. Apparently, they listened.
I hope Yahtzee lives to be 100 years old and still critiques games til his final breathe
He's human too, and reviewing is literally what he does for a job. I wouldn't wish having to work until the day they die on anyone
The new patch addressed the issue with Gale's dialogue!
> During Gale's spell-teaching scene, you now have the option to picture a future with Gale that falls somewhere in between kissing him and kicking him in the head.
Well, now I know there's a potential romance with the Emperor and I can't sleep at night peacefully.
i cant wait for you to find out you can sleep with raphael's twin brother
TENTACLES
there's also one with a bear.
Hey it's not as bad as Fallout: New Vegas which gives you the option to sleep with the dude who shot you at the start of the game AND gives you dialogue about how he's into feet.
@@FSmith-kv4fjnot just that, but you find out he's into feet bc the game says "listen, if you're insane enough to fuck this guy then you're giving him a footjob"
This game was made by dnd nets for dnd nerds. Not understanding relationships is par for the course
This
Par for the course
This is the best explanation for the romance writing in this game I've heard
Roll for sexual prowess
Never have i felt so defeated as when i read this
Hearing Yahtzee say “bite down on this wooden spoon baby I’m going in dry” made me physically reel and collapse in laughter fucking hell.
I say again. Tales of Symphonia had some of the best relationship building. Didn't result in hanky panky, but did result in immense character growth.
Icky anime game
@@willvermillion1025still beats bg3 in every aspect.
@@ChrisGrump why do you think i care about your opinion i don’t even know you?
@@willvermillion1025 then why do you think anyone cares about yours?
@@tanker00v25 uh tf i never expected anyone to. If you want me to clap back honestly then practically a game with that jrpg style combat is never going to be on the same level of engagement as one with actual gameplay that’s just a fact.
Lae Zel's romance is quick sex cause she's the type of character that doesn't care about sex. When you actually do the ROMANCE part of her, the character's story becomes great. I actually think Lae Zel's romance is one of the best.
Agree. The scene in act 3 on top of that building is really fucking good. Made me tear up.
It is kinda a reverse flow, with Lae'zel treating the physical part as a contest and very casual with the actual romance being growing something deeper beyond the physical. I really like it for that same reason.
Fr, if anyone assumes these characters have "shallow" romance routes I just assume they haven't actually played the game that much bc for a lot of these characters the entire point is that sex isn't the end goal, larian stated this explicitly, you need to actually build their trust and get to know them before you are actually romancing them. It's the same case with astarion, who also has one of the best routes
This isn't actually starting a genuine romantic relationship with Lae'Zel, though, to her this is just casual fun with someone she kiiiiind of respects, and later events in her storyline make that very clear. (Most of the other companions are either the same way, more open to physical relationships at first until you truly gain their trust, or the exact opposite and leave it at purely romantic gestures until laaate in the story, usually after a major milestone in their personal storyline.)
What happens when you are instructed to give a writeup on your opinions after a week of play. Clearly just took the first act scenes and formed his entire opinion based on that...
Based on the couch scene, if Yahtzee ever tells you he wants to Netflix and chill...maybe he really means just hang out quietly on the couch and watch movies.
I appreciate Yahtzee always finding reasons to bring up Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time.
If there was going to be pixelation, why in god's name did you leave the mindflayer scene intact? That was more horrifying than most of the sex acts.
The scene where you fuck comes so early and the fact that in game boning is usually criminally unsexy makes me think that it isnt the end goal of the romance.
Go figure, two folks sure they are about to die at any moment can pretty casually hook up.
The relationships with the companions, romantic or not, develop over the course of the game and are really only interesting towards the end of act 2 onwards.
Sex isn't some trophy at the very end, its almost like they put it early so that everything after isn't so focused on sex. Crazy.
I romanced "lizard girl" and can confirm it's the case. Romance with her ends in a quite cathartic fight (literal) and touching monologue about her feelings.
@@jamesn3122 You're right, it ISN'T a trophy but isn't it odd that every single NPC is willing to hook up and have sex out the gate? Like sure that's how actual DnD players think but is it how all characters should think.
@@jamesn3122thank you, that's exactly my thoughts. Honestly it feels pretty telling that everybody has been just conditioned to see sex as inherently intimate and romance based. Obviously it CAN be intimate, but like, sometimes sex is just sex. Like do people on the whole just become disinterested in their partners if they put out by date three? No. We continue dating and get to know each other.
@@cosmicmuse2195Not every single NPC. Shadowheart has slower development, and i think Wyll does as well, though i can't confirm 100% as i've not romanced every character, just Shadowheart, Astarion, and Lae'zel so far.
Saints Row IV's parody of this kind of mechanic ("Hey, Kinzie. Wanna @#$%?" "Let's do this...!") was one of the funniest things in the game.
The Escapist producers: "How many sexual puns you can squeeze into this EP?"
Mort...err... Yahtz: "Yes"
The problem is you can get good friendship building with characters but only after hard rejecting them romantically. So building up your relationship is building to romance which can only then transfer to friendship by hitting the brakes hard rather than building up friendships from the get go. And while Bioware games all have this issue the fact that some of your party members are never interested and some have sexualities other than pansexual, there were still always people in your party you could just build up a friendship with from the start. In baldurs gate 3 that's only possible by gaining approval slowly enough that you're already locked in with someone by the time the person you want to be friends with starts liking you as a person at all which for me only really happened with karlach which made that the only naturally building friendship I had with anyone.
And the weirdly uncomfortable thing about THAT is that it's entirely NOT how human relationships work. NOBODY makes easy friends with the person that just made an overt pass at them: it totally sours the relationship.
@@pancakewizard1533Actually yeah they do. There's loads of post flirtatious relationships in the real world.
@@ralalbatross far smaller percentage than not. Stfu
Saw a video recently that basically said "of course they're putting out fast, they have like two days to live and they might as well do all the things they want to" and that does kinda make sense.
Lae'zel's relationship arc is specifically about her going from cold and uninvested beyond personal satisfaction, to actually caring about a person. That's kinda the point.
I'm playing a dragonborn in one campaign, and early on she makes a comment about you having "dimmunitive scales," but then later down the line actually speaks respectfully of your draconic heritage (tying in to the Githyanki and their connection with dragons).
She's got some neat development throughout the story. Very much an instance of "you get out what you put in." You can easily drop any further development with her character after that initial encounter, and essentially be on the same page as her at the beginning of the story. Drop the fling, carry on. No big deal.
The interesting stuff comes later though.
I've always thought a red dragonborn would be Lae'Zel's ideal match up lol.
@@kalashnikovdevil Yeah, after hearing her diologue i started wondering if she'd make more specific comments if you were a red dragonborn. Probably not, but it'd be cool. I'll have to try it sometime
But she's always so duty bound that she doesn't have time for personal satisfaction. Why would she waste time getting frisky with another species when she won't even talk if it wastes rest time.
Maybe this was added in an update, but last time I got Gale’s scene there was the option to imagine spending time together as friends. The team has also updated options for companions to allow for platonic hugs.
That said, I did find there was no way to turn down Wyll’s dance scene in a way that doesn’t either seem really rude or a big tease. Which really sucked that the scene even triggered when I had chosen no flirty options.
Now Astarion out of all of them has the best “let’s be just friends” option. To the point that many fans think the best way to know his character is platonically. Too bad I never want to be just friends (I don’t have a problem!)
I honestly think that Yahtz is in the minority in thinking that all the dialogue options are something the character thinks and/or acknowledges as options. I certainly don't have a million options every time I open my mouth, and I am fairly scatterbrained myself.
I think shadowheart has the best romance. It is slow and well put together. But very much you can just be friends.
I think there's an in universe explanation for fantasy rpg adventuerers always being DTF in that they have a dangerous line of work and know they might be dead tomorrow, so take the "yolo" option if the opportunity comes up
It can get a bit grating when you have to constantly fend off advances in dialogue trees, that's true. Many NPCs are aggressively player-sexual. And just by virtue of coming along. It does lose its magic when characters are always offering themselves. It's like "What, you TOO!? All of you? Really?"
The only characters like that are laezel, astarion, and gale. Gale tries to smash literally every female in the group, laezel is a Mutant frog person whose entire race views sex as carnal pleasure, and astarion is a sexual abuse victim who often become hyper sexual themselves.
The other characters are much less forward or people are reading into their dialogue way too deeply. Or they don't understand what casual sex is.
I get where you're coming from, but i can't completely agree. Starting with "fun" then forming a connection is, for some people, the usual way to go about things. And that's what happens with Lae'zel, first cold hearted funtimes for the kicks. Then you get to know her as a person, later.
To be fair me Andromeda had some neat scenes with the romances as an example vetra going climbing, eating her cooking, divinity also did a neat thing with sebille by letting you heal her scars and when she teaches you a song
There is a lot of great scenes with for romances and hanging out.
I can't wait for Yahtzee to introduce Mr. Socky into his books as Dr. Diablerie's right hand man
your point on the dialogue trees is spot on I feel. A good while ago now I purchased the first 2 Mass Effect games from my Local game store to see what I'd missed out on, and found the "Romance" Mechanics in ME1 very frustrating. While I was for sure having my Sheppard pursuing Liara, I also played him how I think a leader should be. Meaning he listened to every crew member, and was invested enough in their backgrounds to try and either help them work through their issues or at the very least let them feel safe under his lead. Color me surprised when the human crew member I can't remember the name of was feeling especially down and I tried to have him comfort her with a dialogue option that said something like "You're more amazing/beautiful than you realize." and Sheppard immediately put on the I'm sexually interested face and said "You are the most beautiful woman I've ever seen." The whole time I thought I was building a big brother/good boss relationship but apparently that amounts to hours spent flirting. And 30 minutes later I had to deal with the awkward forced confrontation scene between both women. And all I could think was "I was actively flirting with one of you. The other I was just trying to comfort." So I spent a huge chunk of ME2 making sure not to say too many nice things to my crew, less they all start confusing Niceness and Kindness as romantic interest.
"I'm Garrus Vakarian and this is now my favorite spot on the Citadel!"
Is anything more needed to say about why platonic scenes are amazing?
Side note: if you don't miss that shot, you're a bad person.
Garrus doesn't need to be patronized.
I romanced Garrus but I love that you can have that scene play out mostly the same whether or not you romance him, and get to have that close moment
In my experience, all the companions are super thirsty and don't give a fuck.
They just keep trying to start romances no matter if they know I'm in one already, and only when I'm trying to sleep.
@@lipayy9852I thought we left that stuff behind after Mass Effect
TBF, physically active (and very attractive) with death very near people probably also get sexually active
My main issue is that sometimes one line of flirtiness replied with (to me) politeness and suddenly it's like we are called for
@@mememachine-386 I think you mean Dragon Age II. ME characters had clear sexual orientations.
Is it the same with low charisma?
I'm playing warlock, so 20, no wonder everybody want's some, 20 is godlike, Brando in his prime was like 18 at best.
Really? I've got the reverse experience (am still in early act 2 mind you): my Tav got hooked up with Astarion and by some point, first Karlach noticed and commented on it, then Lae'zel told him (my Tav) she doesn't want meat someone else is already poking lol. Even bloody Withers piped up about my Tav and his BOSOM-FRIEND Astarion at one point haha. I was actually shocked at how good the game is at developing a relationship and organically making the world react to it, it's quite amazing.
Which is also why as much as I respect Yahtzee's opinions, I disagree with him on the romance in Baldur's Gate 3. The subject gets as deep as you want it to be, not everything gets served to you on a plate and you need to pay attention to understand things, behaviours etc. Like shagging Astarion is easy, but getting the bloke to actually trust Tav? To develop *feelings*? Now that's the challenge, that's the payoff. Not everything starts and ends with sex alone and Yahtzee failing to look past that is somewhat disappointing.
Larian probably listened to you this week. It's a small thing but a thing.
"During Gale's spell-teaching scene, you now have the option to picture a future with Gale that falls somewhere in between kissing him and kicking him in the head."
Not getting emotional satisfaction from Laezel's early scene is the point of its early scene.
She's using your character to get her rocks off without any emotional connection.
I haven't even played the game yet and I got that impression just from hearing Yahtzee describe it. I agreed with most of the other stuff he said but I feel like Yahtzee wasn't taking into account that sex can be done for reasons other than romantic love. Characters can have sex for all kinds of reasons and they all help to flesh out their personality. Whether it's to make someone jealous, so that you can get close to them for nefarious purposes, out of pity, to blackmail them, to blow of some steam after a battle, because you think you're about to die, or just because sex is fun and you don't really care who you have it with.
my dragon born did a scene with here then i used my race option to say no im domming then later i watched her die without caring
@@PsychoNerd92 as a comparison, one outright shuts you down and states that she prefers just fighting, and another will sneer and state that you don't meet his standards.
@@klaeljanu I'm not sure I understand how your comment relates to what I said.
I think the overall problem is that games think that relationship building is inevitably leading towards romance. Like, the endgame of anyone trying to get to know someone else in a deeper capacity than just friends is to knob them. And this is just incredibly reductive of actual human relationships.
Yeah this kinda annoyed me in stardew of all things, because after the first year when you romance and ring someone, then all the other relationships end up feeling kinda weird.
It's especially a turn off for me when i think about buying the game, especially when Yahtzee mentioned that often times the dialogue choice is; Piss off person or have sex with person. i tend not to do the romance stuff in games like this.
As for the new point added at 7:00 , I've seen a few games use tags or icons to communicate whether a piece of dialogue is coded as flirty, or some other tone indicators too in more complex systems...
And one possibility for fleshing that out further in potential future games could be selecting the tags you want to use? Like, when the tone would affect the meaning of a line of dialogue, giving you the ability to select it.
Doesn’t that make dialogue even LESS organic?
@@cautionroguerobots Explain how so? It's already a system games use, presenting it clearly to the player and allowing them to alter it within reason seems perfectly sensible to me.
@@000Dragon50000 Because you don’t decide what to say in real life based on a tag, and the outcome of a real conversation is more nuanced and complex than “you chose the aggressive option with the red sword icon” or “the dialogue choice with the heart next to it.”
At the very least it’s lazy and outdated game design.
@@cautionroguerobots Wh-... Writing cannot perfectly clearly convey the tone of an option. It can try, but it will never be perfect, and you can't expect it to. You shouldn't lazily fall back on it and not even try, but using things to help clarify things is still useful.
[I'd really much prefer to know why the "fantasize about cucumber relish" dialogue option that you chose was in the "sensual" text colour] is an actual line in Dialtown
I've got the reverse experience (am still in early act 2 mind you): my Tav got hooked up with Astarion and by some point, first Karlach noticed and commented on it, then Lae'zel told him (my Tav) she doesn't want meat someone else is already poking lol. Even bloody Withers piped up about my Tav and his BOSOM-FRIEND Astarion at one point haha. I was actually shocked at how good the game is at developing a relationship and organically making the world react to it, it's quite amazing.
Which is also why as much as I respect Yahtzee's opinions, I have to disagree hard on the romance in Baldur's Gate 3. The subject gets as deep as you want it to be, not everything gets served to you on a plate and you need to pay attention to understand things, behaviours etc. Like shagging Astarion is easy, but getting the bloke to actually trust Tav? To develop *feelings*? Now that's the challenge, that's the payoff. Not everything starts and ends with sex alone and Yahtzee failing to look past that is somewhat disappointing.
I want no spoilers, so might still come to eat my own words after I complete the game, but from what I saw until now the interpersonal relationships are being handled - and developed - in a truly stellar way. The writing is complex, the voice acting is phenomenal, the animations (at least aside from smutty scenes, there, I agree!) during conversations bring it all together and it all just feels.. real. As much as a dialogue-tree based conversation can, at the very least.
Without spoiling anything, pursuing Astarion as a good-aligned Dark Urge is one is the most compelling videogame romances I've seen.
@@TehCakeIzALie1 Similar experience I had with a Dragonborn Tav and Lae'zel. Lae'zel is very physically attracted to a Dragonborn character and the species specific dialogue options early on lean into the two of you having a "fight for dominance" style relationship. But should you desire so it is entirely possible to take the relationship towards a more intimate one from that initial start.
I will say, in BG3, there's a LOT more, right from the release (heh) than say, mass effect, as there's more to each romance in the game than the act 1 stuff. Lae'Zel (Lizard one) has a lot of overall changes to her as a character, vampire boy reveals his past, etc.
Doesn't change the fact that it's more of a cheeky bonus thing with typical "This is a video game" issues, but hey. Also, if you want the "Sitting on a couch and talking" type romance, Karlach. That's all.
Overall, having played ME1/2/3, witcher, etc. I'd say in some ways BG3 is a lot more interesting when it comes to the romance, and especially when you get later in the game (act 2/3) and shit really starts hitting the fan, the urge to save-scum or just spam save before ANY interaction starts hitting hard, spoilers below:
My first Chara ended up sticking with Angry frog lady, after passing through the creche' and that story arc, and continuing down that path, she starts losing some of the superiority complex and even actually lets a smile slip here and there. On my 2nd/3rd go round with different chars now, but if ALL of the companions Arc's are anything like hers, it's basically the equivalent character growth of the companions from ME1/2/3 across all the games, but in a SINGLE game (Karlach, for instance, is basically the "Tali" of BG3, and her arc covers all 3 acts and gets a little dark at times, since you can't touch her to begin with and just have to talk or get creative to even try anything before finding the metal bits and the smithy to help with that)
In the end, TL:DR, I don't think the romances themselves really hurt the game at all if you're the type to get into the characters stories, since unlike playing tabletop with friends you don't really know much about them at the start. The payoff is certainly "Racy" in a sense, but adult content in games is practically Passe' at this point.
Yeah, the act 1 scenes are "Abrupt" but at that point y'all still assume you're probably screwed anyways, A2/A3 is where things start settling in and the future looks possible for you, before that potentially gets crushed, depending on your choices.
The difference between games like Mass Effect and The WItcher and a game like BG3 is that the former games have a preset identity to them. Shepard's going to Shepard and Geralt's going to Geralt. However, we have a blank slate in BG3 that has to be as adaptive as possible to cater to many different identities players want to cast on them. I don't think its really fair to compare the two. But I do agree that there should be more gray area responses between the scales of "Let's shag" and "I wanna kill your cat."
Funnily enough, if you do choose not to romance any of the characters, Withers will talk to you at some point chastising you for not having attempted it.
Withers gets a 'no bitches' moment, good for him
Withers doesn't get it. Truly a boomer. Man's practically a walking corpse with how much of an old guy he... Wait a minute...
He also chastises you even if you are in a relationship lmao.
What the hell is with popular games these days and calling out your "maidenless" XD I can just imagine he's has the same tone as "where are my grandchildren."
The platonic friendship you can form with the Red Prince in DOS2 is quite possibly my favorite in gaming
It feels like every companion character's story and arc was carefully written by one person/team and then later this romance/love thing was hamfisted by some random thirsty weirdo who has no idea and care for what that companion character is actually going through!
I played a dating sim that asks you to declare early who you are interested in romancing.
The trade off for taking you out of character and breaking the 4th wall is that for the rest of the game the romance develops organically, and the supporting cast act more naturally.
I liked that versus not breaking the 4th wall but then feeling like you're one dialog choice away from banging everyone just because you were nice to them as the game goes on.
I really think "mr socky"section deserves credit. I remember way back when Yhatzee would have the "disagreeing mock voice" thing be dumb and annoying as everyone else did, making self contradictory statements and whatnot. But lately, the points raised by the "disagreeing mock voice" have been good faith portrayals of disagreeing points that are not "dumb and annoying" but just something he disagrees with even if its a well made critique of it.
It shows intellectual classiness.
Have you seen those sex% speedruns? They are reaching sub 2:00
This reminds me when i play the previous Baldurs Gate and a character which her husband just died was making googly eyes to mine, i couldnt say anything of the "sorry i like you as a friend and i dont feel comfortable getting it up with someone who's partner just died and also I knew personally". So the only thing i could do is to kick her out temporarily, which the characters also took it personally like i was evicting them from my life.
Ironically, the second Baldurs Gate was made by Bioware and this started the trend of romances
I wonder if Yahtzee would enjoy well written hentai games.
well, they'd need to have gameplay and as we know, he dislikes vn's for the lack of it. the only well-written h-game i know (and have read/played) is totono, which is a vn with zero gameplay.
He would hate the protagonist therefore hating the relation itself
only one way to find out
Need him to get into Sengoku Rance
Wait, that's a thing that exists?
The other possibility is that the devs themselves don't actually understand how platonic and non-sexual relationships work or should be initiated in context of the game. It's got to be one extreme or the other, anything else is boring or uninteresting. That's also why I don't allow any sexual escapades at my own table beyond actual couples who are physically at the table that who also their characters to be in a physical relationship, and even then anything physical beyond public interaction happens "off-screen". Too many incels I've ran for in the past want to treat the game like it's their own personal sex chat and every NPC that remotely catches their fancy is just a potential lay. That, I don't allow. I treat the in-game world and PCs like real-life. You can do whatever you want to do within reason. You want to shank some dude in an alley for coin, sure... but if you get caught in a lawful settlement, you can probably expect to get hanged for murder. You want to spend all night boozing and whoring in the pub? Sure thing, but expect some major penalties the next day when you wake up with a hangover in the gutter and the possibility that someone has ran off with all your money and gear while you were in a drunken stupor. If you want to start up a reasonably realistic relationship with an NPC that you have some connection to beyond wanting a one-night-stand or a prostitute, then sure... I'll let you do that, insofar as having a presumed romantic relationship with them, and let you pursue that mostly off-screen, and that NPC will then react to you appropriately when interacting with them after that. I am not, however, as a DM, going to be your alternative to calling a sex hotline for the evening. Do that on your own sad time and leave me and the other players out of it.
I think with Lae'Zel (and maybe Astarion, I haven't seen much of his content), the pay-off is actually her confessing her love for you and then demanding you beat the shit out of her to prove you're worthy of being her mate (and then taking you anyway if you lose). Because I believe originally she says (or implies) that it's just sex for her and you shouldn't get attached.
(SPOILERS)
A friend of mine who romanced her as a Dragonkin said he didn’t have to fight her
I loved Movie Night in Andromeda! It was rather long-winded to eventually get to it but hanging out means a lot more to me than the kissing bits.
On the point of out-of-character dialogue trees, I find it really jarring when I've been just generally nice to someone like Wyll and he suddenly wants to do the funky tango, especially when the only character that I've previously shown any romantic interest dialogue-wise is Karlach. I get that it's easiest for the devs (programmatically and socially) if all companions are playersexual, but I like restrictions because it fleshes them out. Having a preference (or lack thereof) for a certain type of partner adds another dimension to their character and also lessens the number of unwanted booty calls I have to reject.
I broadly agree, especially because literally everyone will flirt with you, but I would say that there is definitely plenty of the middle ground for the various characters. Lae’Zel initially also makes it very clear that she’s in it for the sex and not for any actual feelings. But those options to have a close non-romantic relationship is definitely there with basically everyone.
I'm 100% over romance options in RPGs. Almost every time I've played a game with a romance "option" it came across as artificial and unwarranted. The first one was ME2 IIRC, where I had just recruited a dude, and the first time I went to talk to him on the ship, he's asking to get into my pants, and when I turned him down because I had no interest in romancing anyone, he stopped talking to me about anything other than what he was required to for the plot.
I had the exact same experience with Lae'zel, it was just BOOM, all of a sudden she starts talking about how the stink of my body turns her on. I had a similar encounter with Astarion on the first character I ran, where after an incredibly short time adventuring with him, he's suggesting we go for a roll in the hay, and of course since I wasn't really interested in that part of the game, I had to then turn him down. It really ruins the relationship building with the companions, when you have to preempt every dialog option with a consideration for whether this will turn them into a raging sack of hormones.
The only game I've played that had decent romance stuff was CP77, and even then it was pretty much only Judy. Panam was okay, but the relationship between the player and Judy felt so much more natural than what you get in so many other games, where it seems more like a matter of "push button receive bacon" than developing a relationship with someone, and growing to care for them.
Hell, in BG3 I've felt far more attached to Karlach because I was able to give her a hug... That is a vastly more believable and memorable relationship than any of the other "romances" that have popped up in the game for me so far, and amazingly she's not itching to get my trousers off.
I will say i do agree with the general sentiment of this video, though I do think it is present to some degree in Baldur’s Gate 3.
While I think there is often a lack of affectionate but still platonic dialogue options, they are often present. For example, Some of the characters have romantic cutscenes that still trigger but are platonic in tone if you’re not romancing them. I got one of these for Gale, and it was one of my favorite moments in the game.
still, the point does stand. I do wish there were more group scenes like sitting around a campfire telling stories, or something. Despite the fact that we’re supposed to all be good friends, it can definitely feel like all the companions have really interesting relationships with you, but barely know each other.
This is especially true if you settle on a team composition and don’t frequently swap out party members in order to hear everyone’s banter, which is how I think most people will probably play.
I had, somehow, accidentally friend-zoned myself with Karlach without realising it. Met her too late once a romance opportunity went by or something. So later in the game when i get the prompts to flirt with her, she'd brush it off in a kinda piss-taking but light hearted jab kinda way. Ultimately she became my characters friend that she could be a bit more open around, but with a strong sense of personal boundaries and specific relationships. That made me like her far more than the other characters that were basically throwing themselves at me, fawning over everything i said, then being perfectly ok with being rejected - as it felt like they just had no individual identity outside "be what the player wants you to be".
YES the dialog trees!! Exactly that! I have never been less immersed than when endingtron 2000 offered it's two options "Be good and destroy the thing" or "Be evil and use the thing". That's it. That's the game. These are your two choices. It's 200 hour cookie clicker with some additional steps. LOCK ME OUT OF THE OPTIONS I AM CLEARLY NOT INTERESTED IN. In given playthrough ;DDD
DOS2 prepared me for this. I thought I was making friends with Fane until the screen faded to black and cut to the morning after. Completely blind sided me that what I thought were friendly comments were actually romance options.
So yeah, I'd be all up for more friends only options in CRPGs
I mean if you think about it. Everyone is under the impression that they are going to die(turn into squids) in a matter of days. And they are all fairly attractive single adults. Wouldn't you want to get rocks off before you lose them, and not get to distracted to much by not having proper time to date?
my problem with it is that you are either romancing them or they have nothing to do with you, acquaintence or romance, no inbetween. Can't be just friends.
He briefly touched on this at the end, but I still love how Disco Elysium used dialogue trees to illustrate intrusive thoughts.
Oh man I know this is nearly a year late but so many of his comments make it clear he (at time of release) had an incomplete view of the game and the romance arcs.
The sex scene with Lae'Zel is not the end of a romance arc like he said would be the norm, but the beginning. Spoilers for the Lae'Zel romance - sex is the beginning of your relationship, and it's just a physical exchange, the end of her romance arc is her sitting down and talking with you about her feelings in an emotionally vulnerable way. This is the exact opposite of how you normally order the events but it does look great as a complete arc.
Karlach, Gale, and Wyll are also more slow burn in terms of getting physical with them
Astarion also gets physical early on but also has an incredible arc.
IDK about Shadowheart but I believe she doesn't take you to bed in the early acts.
From the patch notes of patch 1: "During Gale's spell-teaching scene, you now have the option to picture a future with Gale that falls somewhere in between kissing him and kicking him in the head."
Absolutely yes to all of this. Also, why does rejecting the character by saying you prefer to just be friends lower how much they approve of you? It's especially dumb since they want to bang you after talking to them like three times, no real friendship building required. I got pushed from good relations with Shadowheart to ambilvalent 'cause I just wanted to have a nice friendly drink with her and not kiss her 😭
As someone who has been repeatedly stabbed in the back and thrown away for saying no to sex, this sounds like the most realistic life sim ever.
And that's only if the no was accepted as an answer, instead of a challenge.
Sounds completely realistic, tell anyone interested in you that you just want to be friends and they will feel rejected and hurt, no matter how much they may say it's fine.
I like how he damns BioWare but then ME was very specific that you were only allowed one romance at a time and you got great character send-offs in ME3 both with the Citadel DLC and at various points: sniper rifle skeet in the Citadel Presidium with Garrus (whether you romanced or not plus you have the option to give him the win); chuckling at Wrex's sore...um...legs; drinking Ashley under the table (whether romanced or not); etc.
VERY happy to see Mr. Socky wasn't a one-off.
One point I disagree with is the implication that all dialogue options are canon, that if an option is presented to "murder all the babies," that this is necessarily something the character considered. I just view it as a necessary thing to allow _players_ to choose from. Just because one of the dialogue options is horny doesn't mean that you need to think of the character as horny, all that matters is the choices you choose to act on, but they have to present different options for different players. The only time this bothers me is cases where you're talking to a character, and then you pick a neutral option, like "you did a good job out there," and then the dialogue continues into "you sexy beast" or whatever, starts to get flirty without you deliberately choosing "flirty" as an option. That can really give me whiplash.
I do agree that these can get a bit stale and rote, but I do see Baldur's Gate as a step up in that it's not _just_ going down a checklist of mission objectives to "unlock" sex. It just needs to be a matter of becoming the sort of person that this character would be into, whatever that might be. It's sticky to have them judge on appearances though, since then you would have to figure out a way to get the game to tell how hot your character is, and that can be tricky even for actual humans. Just go with the Charisma score for that.
Though I agree for the largest part of this, I find it a bit silly to equal 'seeing the dialogue option' to 'this crossed my character's mind'.
IMO, that's a game mechanic necessity, and easily divorced from the story being told. I'd see choosing or not choosing such an option as a choice to have it cross your character's mind to begin with.
That said, there were definitely some moments where I felt the options were inadequate.
It's some of the best romance we've seen in RPGs... So I don't understand where all the hate is coming from.
Does no one remember Dragon Age: Inquisition? Or are gamers convinced that relationships are actually based around gifting someone you like the same item over and over again until you fill up an experience bar?
If you have an issue with video game romances being one dimensional, that's fine. But that's more of a commentary on the gaming industry as a whole and less of a reflection of Baldur's Gate 3, specifically.
I just find sex scenes wholly unnecessary. You can get the same impact, knowing that the characters are getting their bone on by just implying they're headed off to shagtown. Have them go into a room together and shut the door. Cut to afterglow and pillow talk for more characterization. There's really no need to show a bunch of pixels making the beast with two backs.
I think the sex stuff also owes a healthy amount of its existence in the game to Critical Role, Dimension 20, etc, not just BioWare. Some of the best parts of those actual plays are the horniness and romance. There’s so many ways that modern day DnD shines through in BG3 and I think that’s one of them. Is it executed perfectly? No, but I do think they came by it a little more honestly than Yahtzee gives them credit for.
Laezel is meh, but karlach has some of the sweetest and wholesome pay off moments in the game
You didnt get far enough with Laezel then.
Tell us you didn't get far enough with Lae'zel without telling us you didn't get far enough with Lae'zel.
Oh i wont even deny this, i laezel was mysteriously murdered by totally not shadowheart somwtime during act 1, next playthrough maybe ill let her live
0:50 to skip the sponsor.
Interestingly enough, the emotional pay off with Lae'Zel happens much later in the game in Act 3. This is a little bit of spoilers so tread carefully: Overtime, her overzealous attitude shifts and changes. Her aggression remains, but becomes more controlled and restrained. She chooses more carefully how and when she is aggressive because your character has shown them the strength that comes from being gentle (at least mine did), and eventually you go on a date overlooking Baldur's Gate and swearing yourselves to each other for a lifetime, come what may with the final boss. In short, basing this all of Act 1 does a disservices to the experiences designed over the course of 50, 60 or 70 hours of play time. Maybe abrupt at the start, but the overall payoff takes way longer to pay off for all the romances.
Tfw Lae'Zel says the bravest thing she's ever done is to ask (you) to cuddle after sex.
I agree about the part where it’s hard to just be friends with someone, and I’m glad the devs are taking the steps to fix it.
That being said, I think the complaint about the lack of the traditional buildup to payoff mechanic in some of the party members is indicative of how video game conventions have drifted so far from reality. We feel satisfied with the buildup and payoff not because it’s realistic but because it’s how romance in games has always worked. Relationships in real life are a lot more complicated, as they are in Bg3.
Totally agree on the awkwardness of both the animation and sex/romance/friendship dynamic. I also resent the notion that I should just skip it if I don't like it - but I *want* to like the romancing! I want it to be good and interesting and be a good payoff for getting emotionally invested.
Astarion will turn you down quite viciously actually. Viciously funny that is.
Rejecting Lae'zel and her resultant dialogue is my favorite of the game to this day.
I think they could've gone deeper sure, but sounds like you're just equating sex as a payoff to love, when sometimes sex is just sex, and they DEFINITELY made that apparent in this game. I 100% agree though that I'd love to see more fulfilling platonic options and arcs across all RPGs. Sure a lot of games technically give you the option, but then a lot of times it feels awkward after because it feels like only one of the two people talking are ok with that arrangement.
I remember in Planescape Torment getting emotionally attached to each of my party members and their stories.
Granted that game was designed to be far less open ended than other RPGs, but that's the peak of companion writing for me at this point.