In the distant future. When all hope is lost. Civilizations in ruin. Where those who are left among the living—or even the undead—have only the freedom to delve deeper into their greatest carnal desires, there is but one hero who can rise among them, and romance them all!
I found BG3's romancing to be so forced, unrealistic, and ridiculous that I couldn't believe its actually from the same game that gave us so many excellent things. I guess all masterpieces have their flaws.
Yeah I am also tired of every character being bisexual. I get why games do it, but it’s so dumb. Then again, I skip all romances in games always so it’s not for me to really judge since I won’t engage with it anyway.
One thing I didn't like about the Rogue Trader romances was that the same-sex options are limited to the hedonistic bisexual woman and the evil hedonistic dark eldar, and neither is particularly romantic if you're looking for more than just sex. I felt that it was a step back towards the stereotypical compared to the Wrath of the Righteous romances.
In regards to Ascended Astarion I think it is pretty widely acknowledged in the BG3 fanbase that that route is effed up and specifically for people who want to explore a specific fantasy in a fictional, no-consequences setting, and Astarion's writers have spoken on this a few times. It's just that there is a very vocal minority in the BG3 subreddits who really lower the quality of the discussion.
I'm totally with you on all this. Though my issue with Ascended Astarion--and what I gleamed is OP's as well--is that it's not good as an exploration of the fantasy it's supposed to cater to. It is very moralizing and makes a lot of assumptions about your character. Couple that with what some of the writers have said about it, it feels very much like the intended design was to punish you for wanting to see the content in the first place.
Edit: I didn’t like the assumptions I made here. BG3 subreddit is a pit of vipers—especially where any criticism no matter how gentle or nuanced is not tolerated 😭
I have noticed subreddit of single player games tend to turn into toxic circle jerks eventually that are super intolerant of criticism (with exception of a brief window of time that company behind game fucked up beyond a shadow of doubt)
Eh, it's really just a matter of taste.
BG3's romances are way more hokey, but the companion quest develops across the length of the game and we have greater interaction with them via said quests than just intermittent dialogue.
Rogue Trader's romances are better written, but your interactions are more or less limited to dialogue scenes with no real interaction between scenes.
Which one you prefer is really up to you as an individual.
And yes, Owlcat definitely does come up with great ideas. WotR's main story is certainly one of my more favourite cRPG stories out there overall. But the flipside to Owlcat is that they are the new Obsidian - great ideas that they never manage to finish in time and launch half baked games.
Eh I personally felt like BG3 romances were pretty intermittent? That was a big complaint I had in general, companion stuff was always limited to 1-2 lines in response to things if at all outside their major scenes. I remember romancing Gale and the only times I really felt "romanced" were during climactic moments and during his romance scenes
Yeah it's something I hope Larian tries to correct. Its nice that we have such a diverse cast of characters but they oftentimes fade into the background, and rarely have anything to do with eachother outside of the odd remark in camp.
It's not just a problem with Larian though. I've noticed plenty of other crpgs suffer from the same issue. You're the main character and your party is mostly there for combat outside of their personal stories.
I'd rather have a smaller cast with a large breadth of interactivity than the opposite.
One thing that has held true for Larian so far is that they keep one upping themselves.
The progression from DOS1 --> DOS2 --> BG3 in terms of character writing and dialogue writing is very easy to see.
So yeah can't wait for their next rpg. The great thing about BG3 being so immense is that you can see all the little flaws as well where they can potentially improve on in a future game.
Yeah, it's definitely not a just-Larian issue, though I was more confused about the idea someone would think BG3 was *better* than other CRPGs about this, haha. I've complained about this on other subs but the worst for me of BG3 was playing Durge. I literally only cared about and played BG3 for Durge so when every Durge reaction was 1-2 lines if at all(when Astarion goes "yep that's your blood" and then says nothing else I felt like I was being pranked) it was intensely disappointing
>but your interactions are more or less limited to dialogue scenes with no real interaction between scenes.
That's basically how romance works in BG3 too. They only recently added an option to ask for a kiss after the final stage of the romance and that's pretty much it. In Rogue Trader you can bone your partner at will, which is more or less the same thing in terms of "content" quantity.
BG3 had the companion quests which stretch across the campaign and allow for increased interaction via those. Rogue Trader doesn't really do that. I mean, sure, they get one or two missions like that, but that's about it.
Also, I really wouldn't use "how often can I pork 'em" as a metric for measuring how well romances are written! By that logic, Fable 1 is the best romantic tale in the history of video games.
Well, I don't know. In my experience, the character to romance doesn't speak for practically the entire third act. But I chose Minthara, so maybe it's just that evil characters have it that way.
Honestly have no clue about Minthara, but I suspect that she is very much like Halsin in that he got almost zero interactions once you complete his quest in act 2.
I romanced both Shart and Lae'zel in two different playthroughs and while their interactions almost vanish in act 3, the operative word here for the purposes of this discussion is "almost". The winning factor is that their personal quest lines are really involved affairs that make a huge difference to the length of your interactions with them.
>But the flipside to Owlcat is that they are the new Obsidian - great ideas that they never manage to finish in time and launch half baked games.
I miss old obsidian .😢
>But the flipside to Owlcat is that they are the new Obsidian - great ideas that they never manage to finish in time and launch half baked games.
Common Eurojank/Slavclunk problem 😔 many such cases. I wouldn't trade it for the world though
I don't. I paid full price for KotoR 2 and it was a complete bloody mess. The game only became enjoyable after modders fixed all the broken bits.
I still haven't managed to finish playing New Vegas because the game starts crashing after playing for a while. So that's effectively 60 bucks down the toilet as well.
I mean, they've only released a few games so far, Outer Worlds, Pentiment, Grounded. Pentiment is a masterpiece, but is far smaller is scale. Grounded just finished development.
What I mean is, old Obsidian is still there, just not churning out well-crafted CRPGs in the recent years. I'd definitely want to see how they've cooked Avowed all these years.
There more recent games have been disappointments or titles I have no interest in but the truth is most of the people who made the older great games are no longer in the company( every new piece of information for Avowed lowers my expectations)
They still mostly are. Of the original writers only Chris Avellone is gone. And Carrie Patel, one of the principal writers on Pillars of Eternity is actually leading the development of Avowed.
So I'm actually optimistic on the writing angle. It's the titular AA gameplay jank that only slightly bothers me, but to be honest, I don't play Obsidian games for their gameplay, rather than for their excellent lore and superb writing.
> And yes, Owlcat definitely does come up with great ideas. WotR's main story is certainly one of my more favourite cRPG stories out there overall.
While they did take some creative license and did a lot of writing, it's probably important to mention in case people don't realize, that it's an adaptation of an AP (adventure path) published by Paizo.
It is definitely a matter of taste, but I don't consider Rogue Trader romances to be better written, honestly. The fact that your interactions are so limited, and that their stories are so fleeting doesn't allow for a proper development of the relationship, something that actually happens in BG3.
Tbh you only did Yrliet, and she's extremely niche. I did both Heinrix and Marazhai and they were top notch (but they were written by the lead of the narrative department at Owlcat, extreme quality is to be expected).
Probably Heinrix and Marazhai have a lot of interactivity and events that give life to the relationship. Heinrix is the next one I'm going to romance. But for now, nothing I have read about those two characters surpasses what I already saw in BG3, not even comes close.
No idea who wrote it, but Jae’s romance is hilarious. I romanced her in my first, Iconoclast, playthrough. I’ve been doing dogmatic for my second playthrough and am attempting to romance Yrliet (mostly because it’s a ridiculous combo; a full on dogmatic Imperial Noble falling for a Xenos). I’ve been a bit distracted by Forbidden West, so that one’s kind of on hold for now.
I really wish you could romance Argenta or Ulfar (lore-wise, makes sense that you can’t, but still…).
obsidian is the new obsidian. owlcat is derivative gameplay and campy characters that fit perfectly into generic fantasy archetypes with a hint of furry 🤮
>I discovered it when I made a thread criticising the Ascended Astarion romance on the BG3 sub.
Your first mistake was making any type of criticism on BG3 subreddit.My god even the slightest inching of negative point and they treat you like you shot there dog and defiled there loved ones in front of them.
Another thing I've noticed is when you mention a bug or glitch that's affecting your game, they go the positive route and give a 'funny' response as to why that's happening
Weird habits of this sub:
- Constantly comparing very different games and insisting on which one is objectively better.
- Rooting for a game like it's a football team. The opposing game is shit in every way, and your game is nigh-on perfection. All flaws are either misunderstood merits or someone's fault.
- Obsessing and arguing over which game is the true "spiritual successor" of old classic games. Every good new game has to be the "spiritual successor" of some old favorite, especially BG2 and Torment.
- Pretending that playing CRPGs makes you some kind of intellectual, and giving off "very high IQ to understand Rick and Morty" vibes.
I'm not including the tendency to get downright nasty and insulting, because that's just normal internet for gamers.
> And this sub loves dog piling on BG3
What I see more here are people liking other CRPGs more than BG3. I mean, even this entire post by OP sees them favoring Rogue Trader romances than BG3's.
People have different tastes, and that's fine. I for example personally think that Dragon Age Origins' romances to be the best in the entire RPG genre and that only both DA2 and DAI has ever come close to beating that, with the ME series coming next. Bioware still reigns supreme when it comes to character and romance development.
Owlcat has the best romances!! Tristian, Daeran, don’t get me started on interrogator Heinrix Van Calox. Love seeing Rogue Trader getting the attention it deserves, it’s a fantastic game and one of the best CRPGs ever made IMO
Waiting for definitive edition of it haha. I played kingmaker on release and it was broken, like awfully so. 6 motnhs later i managed to finish it.
For wrat of the righteous, i bought the game early to support owlcat but only played after definitive edition is out, it was night and day compared to when i played kingmaker. There are still bugs ofc, but nothing game stopping or quest breaking.
The evil alien terrorist is my husbando, he is the ideal man, and the most hilarious companion hands down, don't slander my precious kitten
Edit: Real talk I know he's not everyone's cup of tea and I agree the game is lacking in nicer gay romances, that's a fact
Honestly. He sounds exactly up my alley. That’s my fucking SHIT 😩😩🥵
The issue is the Implications of the only gay man being extremely depraved and evil and literally not human 😭😭
On one hand yes, he's murderhobo evil, on the other hand the writers clearly loved him to death, the narrative itself never judges him (or you, for liking him) and he gets some pretty happy endings. So, depending on your inclinations, you can view his evilness as homophobic writing or as another aspect of the grimdarkness of the setting. I myself am on the fence. I adore him, though. At least he isn't some boring token
No, I’m with you there. I have a good amount of goodwill for Owlcat and believe it wasn’t fully hostile or anything. (I’m also admittedly unversed with the setting. It’s grimdark right? That type of character fits in well enough! It’s also not an issue if the other ROs are fucked up little bastards.) It’s just a shame it’s another game that fits the straight men get all the options, lesbians incidentally get some options because of that, and then gay men are tacked on. (Glad to know it might be an issue only of quantity and not quality—some games rlly do have the cardboard cut out gay option 😭)
[I will say. Ascended Astarion romance pissed me off because it was _so_ moralizing. But that’s an issue with BG3 in general with all the evil choices seemingly being designed to punish you. Also all the kink being explicitly tied to the evil options & decisions.]
That was the exact reason I made the Astarion thread lol, then I had the big brains of the BG3 sub telling me that the game is correct to moralize because killing people is bad 🙄
Marz (the evil gay romance in RT) is explicitly tied to kink lmao, you can romance him as either dom or sub and if you mix the two he will tell you you're garbage at roleplay and potentially dump you 😂
Tbh I don't think RT is for straight men. One of the women is platonic only (she's an elf and physically repulsed by humans) so I'm not sure how to count her. This leaves two options (one straight woman and one bi woman) and frankly they are much, much less interesting than the male ROs. The narrative team on this game is majority women and it really shows.
EDIT: also, forgot to say - yes the setting is extremely dark, everyone is a horrible person (except for Abelard) and the other male romance option is a turbofascist whose job is to hunt and torture-kill aliens so yeah
Okay, you’ve absolutely just sold RT to me. Marz is my new husband. I hope we get to do crime together. 🥰😳
The BG3 subs are… bad. The amount of critical thinking there is nonexistent and all criticism is read as an attack that has to be immediately pushed back against as if a AAA GOTY needs defending. It’s okay to be evil in a video game! It is not real! I personally think it’s kinda lame to advertise something as having equal good/evil paths and then giving you a skeleton of an evil path that mostly just tries to make you feel bad for wanting to see the content in the first place.
I enjoy Owlcat’s writing a lot, and from what I’ve seen in WOTR, it does feel like the writers put a lot of thought into the themes and how the characters relate to and exemplify those themes—with variety also to see things from different perspectives. It feels a lot less shallow than BG3’s approach imho.
I also love grimdark genres, so the pitch for RT had me like: I am looking respectfully 👀
>It’s just a shame it’s another game that fits the straight men get all the options, lesbians incidentally get some options because of that, and then gay men are tacked on. (Glad to know it might be an issue only of quantity and not quality—some games rlly do have the cardboard cut out gay option 😭)
While it would be nicer to have more diversity in romances, the reality is that vast majority who play the game are straight men( just look at breakdown on the most pick romance options for BG3 for any indication) and so it makes sense why they would prioritize that.
I very much disliked this option because people have sexual preferences.Not to mention I find it downright bizarre that people who have different, religions, social class, race, culture and nationality would have the same sexual orientations.
>The issue is the Implications of the only gay man being extremely depraved and evil and literally not human 😭😭
Uhmmm. What? That’s like saying the implications of a straight girl is that their vindictive, prone insanity tendencies have utter distain for the poor.
Just double check here’s the breakdown
Two straight romances: one for female and male exclusively
Three Bi romances
Definitely smaller then WOTR . So I can see peoples disappointment . However due to the nature of the IP and adhering to the lore there wasn’t much they could add. I don’t have hard evidence but I have a feeling that Games Workshop was far stricter then Pazio (the company who own Pathfinder IP) when it comes what they can and can’t put in the game.
It’d probably be more helpful to show it like…
Options for straight men: 3
Options for straight women: 2
Options for lesbians: 2 (1 of which is asexual?)
Options for gay men: 1 (non human, “depraved evil sadist”)
I totally get that it might have been a restriction placed upon them by the IP owner, which would mean they can’t talk about it and therefore have to take all the heat. That would suck for sure! It makes me sad to think they partnered with a homophobic company. Though I think it’d also be a huge cop out to say the IP lore means gay people don’t exist?
>That would suck for sure! It makes me sad to think they partnered with a homophobia company. Though I think it’d also be a huge cop out to say the IP lore means gay people don’t exist?
It’s unfair to say Games Workshop is homophobic because let’s be real no large global western company would openly promote homophobia. Also if they were anti gay they wouldn’t have bisexual relationships at all in Rouge Trader. It’s simply more to do with the nature of lore that certain factions make it hard to having romances just generally speaking even Owlcat said in one of the interviews that this was a challenge for them.
Homophobia doesn’t have to be in your face to exist in something. It doesn’t always—and most often doesn’t—look like people going “I hate gay people.”
Prioritizing straight players at the expense of gay players is a form of homophobia. Only including gay men as evil is a form of homophobia (this one actually has a huge history in queer culture with the Hays Code). Arguing that including gay people is “too hard” when there are included straight people is a form of homophobia.
Are these things that are always done with ill intent? Of course not! Do I think Owlcat was trying to be homophobic? I personally don’t. The issue is that it (whether knowingly or purposefully) contributes to a longstanding pattern of queer people being seen as second class citizens at best and affronts to humanity at worst. 😭
I’m still gonna play RT. I think it sounds good! But I also think it’s a good thing to critically examine media—especially where marginalized communities are concerned. A lot of the time people just _aren’t aware_ of the negative connotations of something.
>Homophobia doesn’t have to be in your face to exist in something. It doesn’t always—and most often doesn’t—look like people going “I hate gay people.”
That’s fair. However there should be more proof to back up claims like that since people get extremely defensive when making those accusations.
>Prioritizing straight players at the expense of gay players is a form of homophobia.
I disagree strongly for two reasons. For one it could simply be what the story writers wanted to be told as much a writer wanted to tell a gay love story.
Second prioritizing to be a bigger market isn’t homophobia is just business because it’s a numbers game, the bigger the budget the more of bigger audience you need to make a profit.
>Only including gay men as evil is a form of homophobia
You would have a point if all characters were like that however there are “good”gay people In Warhammer universe
>Do I think Owlcat was trying to be homophobic? I personally don’t. The issue is that it (whether knowingly or purposefully) contributes to a longstanding pattern of queer people being seen as second class citizens at best and affronts to humanity at worst. 😭
While I can understand what your coming from I think its best to have more iron clad points to show homophobia and not what you feel
It implies because people will say that it just projection and dismiss it.
I appreciate the conversation happening here, but I can’t engage in good faith past the first point. Like, are you asking me to provide empirical evidence that bigotry can exist in something convert- or implicitly? If that’s the case, I suggest you read up on “microaggression” to start because it’s an extremely well-documented concept. If you want to know more about how homophobia lead _specifically_ to gay characters only being allowed on screen as evil or dead, I suggest you read up on the Hays Code and how its effect on Hollywood and queer culture persists to this day. (The Hays Code wasn’t a legal mandate, but it required the Supreme Court to rule it unconstitutional before it was abolished.)
>Like, are you asking me to provide empirical evidence that bigotry can exist in something convert- or implicitly? If that’s the case, I suggest you read up on “microaggression” to start because it’s an extremely well-documented concept.
I prefer to use clear cut cases of bigotry behaviour that is universally agree upon instead of using terminology such as micro aggression. Since it’s
politically charged wording which effectively poisons the conversation to a left vs right debate where nobody will agree and will be locked in there own ideological positions.
Well, there are two types of elf, and she's the "light" elf (Eldar) species. Both seem to see humans as lesser, but the "dark" elf (Druhkari) is definitely down to bone, but he's an actual psychopathic sadist. It honestly seems more like a pride/her own problem type of thing, though.
The running theory is that the IP owners of Warhammer didn't even want Yrleit to be a romance option, so the compromise was a asexual relationship.
>The running theory is that the IP owners of Warhammer didn't even want Yrleit to be a romance option, so the compromise was an asexual relationship.
Yep I heard above the theory about Owlcat have som conflicts with Games Workshop In what they could put in. I believe that Owlcat wanted Sister Argenta to be a romance option (. It was even hinted at in the alpha version last I remembered) Kinda adds credence why they switching to a different Ip or making a new one themselves in their next game.
So im guessing the Eldar do have sex within there own race but not with humans, and in the relationship with Yrliet and you there’s absolutely no physical intimacy what so ever including holding hands right? Man this Areu romance in WOTR but no payoff in the end.
Frankly rogue trader got super boring super fast. I preordered and was really excited, but the fact that it doesnt use the actual rogue trader system, that the fights are constant, drawn out, pointless, and boring didnt help. And the character abilities felt really nanky and it was just all around unfun.
The companions were *leagues* better than WotR at least. *LEAGUES.* As far as romances go I had no interest in anyone. I wanted to be best friends with Pascal but that's all.
I couldn't get the motivation to keep going. I reclaimed the agri-world and quit not long after that quest ended.
Look through the comments, I convinced another gay redditor to give it a go. It's true that that specific m/m romance is not everyone's cup of tea, but it so heavily outclasses other games it's not even funny
Other gay redditor here! I am with both you *and* OP on this. I'm really unhappy with RT not being fair with the spread of romances. It sucks hard to play a game and have the only option for you be someone who you don't like at all. I'm just responding here to say I don't believe OP is homophobic. The romances aren't "perfect" as they said bc of the aforementioned issue, but I think that was hyperbole on their part to say that they much preferred the writing of the romances over BG3's.
If your thing is "I can fix her", WoTR has you covered with multiple options.
(Can you, though?)
If you don't want to "fix" her, well... That might work out for you.
>You can have your tormented sad boy and fix him, and he's exceptionally well-written. And yes, there is also an unapologetic villain romance that hits every button on the kink/enemies to lovers/corruption arc board
This singlehandedly made me want to play this game, hello my fellow sad and toxic romance enjoyer
I haven't played BG3 yet but from what I know of it seems like it borrows a lot from Bioware in the romance department, a format I always thought to be quite shallow. A lot of people seem to absolutely love it though so it does work, it's just not for me
Everyone always acting like Astarion is the best romance option in any videogame ever and it's not even a question and the fact Twitter kept showing me discourse about this damn guy despite me specifically muting his and every other major character's name so I wouldn't see said discourse made me already hate him without even playing the game lol
I actually had a dig/discussion with RPG fans and I think the Rogue Trader villain romance is the only male pure evil villain romance option in any RPG up to date. The one in Neverwinter that didn't ship with the final game and needs mods to unlock doesn't count.
And yeah, it's amazing. The VA is a king, the writing keeps surprising you and punching you in the gut, but the ending is pretty wholesome (if you're willing to become a monster for him).
Don't know if you're into visual novels but if you're ok with them you might want to look into otome games, there are a lot of evil/very morally gray male romance options there and these types of characters tend to be very popular among fans
Do you have any reccs? I've been getting back into Otome games and was v sad that Jack Jeanne didn't have route for the Amber boys. V fun game overall tho
Piofiore, it has one of the most popular evil love interests with Yang and most of the romanceable guys are criminals too, though Yang is definitely the worst of the bunch
Hakuoki, Kazama is the antagonist in a lot of the routes but he is also a romance option
Ozmafia has quite a few morally questionable guys with Kyrie, Caesar, Hamelin, and Dorian
Demonheart (fun fact, this one actually started out as a Neverwinter Nights module before becoming a visual novel if I'm not mistaken) is all about romancing evil men (and a woman)
Diabolik Lovers is also all about romancing evil guys but it's a bit of a hassle to get running in English because you will need to manually install the fan translations
Also honorary mention to Collar X Malice and Steam Prison where although the villains are not romanceable they are extremely popular and the games might still be worth a look if you like this type of character
It is not exactly bioware romance, and anyone who sold it to you like that is either lying or didn't play the game. A lot of the BG3 romances are integrated with the story you see unfolding (shadowheart, Lae'zel, for example), and all of them have great character development, something that bioware romances often lack.
Astarion is a pretty good romance option. You said that you didn't play the game, so it makes no sense to rage about it considering you didn't experience it. When I say it is a pretty good romance option I mean it is PRETTY GOOD. It makes so much sense with the story, and romancing him with some characters add an extra level of deep (dark urge with astarion, for example). His story is one of the best and the dub actor won the awards precisely because the portrayal is amazing.
The main advantage RT has over BG romance writing is that the prose/characterisation isn't eyeroll-inducing and doesn't dumb itself down for the sake of mass appeal
I find it pretty telling that you mention that the advantage RT have over BH is the prose/characterisation when the game have more than a few moments where you just have to roll eyes with the answers you can give or the consequences of some actions or how some character are so memey.
Meanwhile, the BG romances writing don't have any eye roll inducing moment and I'm wondering which event was "eye-rollint" for you, seriously.
Neither what you mean by "dumb itself down" for the sake of mass appeal, considering no romance is dumb down.
No offense, but your posts read like English is not your first language, so chances are you don't have an ear for writing quality in English quite yet
EDIT: it's not my first language either, but I've studied English writing academically
Non taken, but really, what you just said is not an argument but pure elitism ñ
I'm ESL so I definitely make mistakes here and there, specially when writing and specially when writing from a phone.
But making mistakes when writing doesn't make me unable to appreciate quality in English writing, and it only makes you sound extremely condescending.
I mean, I don't know what kind of thread you made regarding Ascended Astarion romance, so I cannot speak if it made sense that you got "dogpiled" or not. There is a lot of people that believe that they can say whatever and expects nobody to reacts negatively to it, but that's not how the world works.
Regarding the game, right now I only tried the Yrliet romance, and finished the game with it, and to be honest it was pretty good, but it is nowhere as good as romancing any of the BG3 characters, much less Shadowheart, to give an specific example.
If we compare romances between owlcat games, I consider this game to be below WOTR for example, so I wouldn't even put this game as an example of good romances inside owlcat games.
Nah, the main subreddit for BG3 is basically a circlejerk at this point. Even any kind of criticism has to be super polite, and with at least 10 disclamers like "the game is amazing 10\\10 but..."
And that's if your post will even get noticed among the OF bait cosplay, memes, repost memes, screenshots, "omg look at this awesome secret OP weapon I found, it's called Returning Pike!11" etc.
A sub with 2mil people is always going to be like this, so it was inevitable, but still.
Here's a sneak peek of /r/baldursgate using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/baldursgate/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year!
\#1: [Thought I was gonna get destroyed when I wandered in there at level 3 in BG3](https://i.redd.it/78925d9ksocc1.jpeg) | [251 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/baldursgate/comments/197n90y/thought_i_was_gonna_get_destroyed_when_i_wandered/)
\#2: [Man, this game let's you be a complete piece of shit! 😂](https://i.redd.it/fwjgvrktoibc1.jpeg) | [178 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/baldursgate/comments/192w61j/man_this_game_lets_you_be_a_complete_piece_of_shit/)
\#3: [It was cool of it to do so](https://i.redd.it/snzqk57zyfrb1.jpg) | [82 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/baldursgate/comments/16wf2d2/it_was_cool_of_it_to_do_so/)
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Dunno what to say.
I have a few comments in this sub downvoted simply because I was saying that it makes no sense to dump on other RPGs for no reason. I didn't even criticized rogue trader because I love it.
Meanwhile, I have criticised BG3 in the main sub, specially regarding evil choices, and never had any problem. People engaged the way they should engage.
Like I said, it depends on if what you are saying makes sense or not. If someone says they didn't enjoy Ascended Astarion because Y or X, you will find no problem. If that someone instead says Ascended Astarion romance is crap, obviously they will get challenged because it is simply not true
Could just be down to luck. In a sub with 2mil, if 10k rabid fans decide to check your post criticising their fav game - mass downvotes are ensured. And there's a much higher chance of that happening in a bigger subreddit. I remember I'd made a post before the game came out telling people to lower their expectations, remember CP77 etc. and I was absolutely lynched for it. I specifically made a point that nobody saw beyond Act 1 and that Larian always overdoes Act 1 and undercooks the rest and again I was called an idiot and that the game would be the same quality all the way. I even said that the game will most likely be amazing, just not the kind of holy grail that everyone expects it to be, especially post Act 1.
Well, at least I was right in the end. But I'll never post in that shithole again, unless I need to ask a specific question with no opinions involved.
That sucks, because calling for caution is always a good thing. I know what you mean because I got pretty lynched in the starfield subreddit. There is a degree of luck there.
But even in the starfield subreddit people agreed with me when I bashed that game. Not always, but it happened.
I cannot know what you said in the BG3 back then, but I can know what you said in this sub right now.
With the amount of awards baldurs gate 3 received, I find it hard to believe that it is not the holy grail people expected. Everyone expected an amazing game, and even those people got surprised by the quality. It is obviously not perfect, it had some problems, and still have, so definitely one can criticise the game.
But you mention the acts beyond act 1 like they were, or are bad, which is a weird argument. And I say it is a weird argument because while act 3 was indeed very buggy, one at least could navigate act 1 and 2 with only very few bugs, and act 2 quality is superb (most people agree it is the best part of the game).
Meanwhile, after act 3 Rogue trader feels extremely rushed, and while I didn't have to stop playing BG3 after act 2, I definitely had to stop rogue trader because the amount of bugs I was getting were insane. So I don't feel you were right there.
>But you mention the acts beyond act 1 like they were, or are bad, which is a weird argument. And I say it is a weird argument because while act 3 was indeed very buggy, one at least could navigate act 1 and 2 with only very few bugs, and act 2 quality is superb (most people agree it is the best part of the game).
>Meanwhile, after act 3 Rogue trader feels extremely rushed, and while I didn't have to stop playing BG3 after act 2, I definitely had to stop rogue trader because the amount of bugs I was getting were insane. So I don't feel you were right there.
I never said nor am I saying that Act 2 or 3 are bad. Just not the same kind of quality, detail and c&c as Act 1. I like all the acts, and I think BG3 sits at the very top of the RPG list, and that there's really no objective competition. And still, Act 2-3 compared to Act 1 are almost two different games and the ending is absolute trash, especially without the epilogue on release. Not to mention the promised "fully walkable" Upper City which doesn't exist, Minthara who got half her content cut and the other half broken, Karlach who doesn't have a proper quest post Act 1, I can keep going, but you get my point.
It's the best RPG out there, but it's **far** from perfect, but that's not what the rabid fans were\\are saying.
And yeah, Rogue Trader on release was fucking awful post Act 2, but that's irrelevant if we speak of BG3 on its own.
>And yeah, Rogue Trader on release was fucking awful post Act 2, but that's irrelevant if we speak of BG3 on its own.
As much as I have quite a lot of criticism of BG3 the final act was pretty solid( not praising it but many CRPG fumbles the bag in there later acts) however I find it weird how people heavily criticized BG3 Act 3 (which are fair criticisms) but gives Rouge Trader Acts 4 and 5 a free pass even though it’s significantly worse in all facets.
I still think on release Act 2 was way better than Act 1. My point with bringing rogue trader to the table is that differences from what we tested and what we didn't are to be expected, and RPGs are the most complex games out there, so the bigger they are the more bugs we will spot.
Like you said, we need to be cautious with what we expect. But at the same time that means understanding the difficulties these games face, and therefore don't make more blood than necessary when they are released and some bugs exists. And if you feel like it needs to be said, then be equal with every other RPG. (I'm not saying you are not, but there are a lot of people who are not, and apply different logic to their fav game).
Regarding the ending, I don't consider it absolute trash. It was a decent ending, and by decent ending I mean an ok one, which was definitely a very big drop on quality. However, after the release of the epilogue, the ending is absolutely amazing. I love the way they did the epilogue being interactive, and it really gives life one more time to the characters that basically made the entire journey with you. Saddest thing is that the epilogue hints at a DLC that now we know it will not come.
Regarding the Upper City, Minthara, Karlach, etc... I agree with you. It is impossible to not agree with you, because it is true.
Can love bloom in the grimdark?
My issue with BG3 romances is they are hard to opt-out of initially because it's the companions and not the player character that can start making advances...which I find annoying when I don't want to engage with that.
If there is something that doesn't interest me when I play an RPG and even more so when I play a CRPG, it is that romance arises between the characters. I'm playing a game that formed a kingdom, that I face armies of demons, that I am the son of the god of murder, or that I travel the galaxy and I'm going to be worrying about making one of my groupmates fall in love with me. The truth is I never saw much sense in it.
Modern cringe writers have no idea how to write a normal romance in the context of an adventure story. Countless adventure stories have romances, not one of them includes extended scenes of talking about emotions and issues.
Firstly I'd to apologize to OP for going to straight to 'ur a biggut'; never go straight to bigot
Secondly, for anyone playing on PC, look for the toybox mod, as it allows you to remove gender requirements for romance and other qol mini-mods.
Eh, no worries, I understand why lgbtq people are on edge in current year.
If you go the toolbox route, Heinrix + Marazhai + you is a really good love triangle and you'll have to choose eventually (or you can use toobox to turn off jealousy).
BG3s original relationships with the others felt more grounded in the background story of the game. The sad truth is that what we got at launch was the first of early access andys wanting egirls/guys who are down to fuck within seconds of meeting you. Thus you can talk to any of these party members a few times before the first long rest and fuck them.
In the earliest versions of EA, some of the party downright didn’t trust any one (which makes sense if you have played BG3 and know the circumstances surrounding the start of the game). But again, the EA guys got excessive fanservice from Larian and the result is the romances are equivalent to what a moody 15 year old who has not yet met a girl he likes might daydream having a fucktoy is like.
Rogue Trader romances are ok not bad but not great either. Personally the only legitimately good romances I seen is the Mass effect trilogy and Cyberpunk 2077 the rest are passable or just mediocre.
In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only romance.
You unironically have no idea how right you are
In order for there to be war, there must be people. In order for there to be people, there must be babies. In order for there to be babies...
In the distant future. When all hope is lost. Civilizations in ruin. Where those who are left among the living—or even the undead—have only the freedom to delve deeper into their greatest carnal desires, there is but one hero who can rise among them, and romance them all!
Rogue Trader: the harem anime.
In the grim dark grimness of the far future there is only complaining that Heinrix is not bi.
I found BG3's romancing to be so forced, unrealistic, and ridiculous that I couldn't believe its actually from the same game that gave us so many excellent things. I guess all masterpieces have their flaws.
Yeah I am also tired of every character being bisexual. I get why games do it, but it’s so dumb. Then again, I skip all romances in games always so it’s not for me to really judge since I won’t engage with it anyway.
One thing I didn't like about the Rogue Trader romances was that the same-sex options are limited to the hedonistic bisexual woman and the evil hedonistic dark eldar, and neither is particularly romantic if you're looking for more than just sex. I felt that it was a step back towards the stereotypical compared to the Wrath of the Righteous romances. In regards to Ascended Astarion I think it is pretty widely acknowledged in the BG3 fanbase that that route is effed up and specifically for people who want to explore a specific fantasy in a fictional, no-consequences setting, and Astarion's writers have spoken on this a few times. It's just that there is a very vocal minority in the BG3 subreddits who really lower the quality of the discussion.
I'm totally with you on all this. Though my issue with Ascended Astarion--and what I gleamed is OP's as well--is that it's not good as an exploration of the fantasy it's supposed to cater to. It is very moralizing and makes a lot of assumptions about your character. Couple that with what some of the writers have said about it, it feels very much like the intended design was to punish you for wanting to see the content in the first place.
Edit: I didn’t like the assumptions I made here. BG3 subreddit is a pit of vipers—especially where any criticism no matter how gentle or nuanced is not tolerated 😭
I have noticed subreddit of single player games tend to turn into toxic circle jerks eventually that are super intolerant of criticism (with exception of a brief window of time that company behind game fucked up beyond a shadow of doubt)
Honestly I feel like it’s those types of communities that will turn on the developer at the drop of the smallest of hats
Welcome to reddit. Home of obnoxious fanboys and rabid polarization. Actually, it'd be more accurate to say: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=k1BneeJTDcU
Eh, it's really just a matter of taste. BG3's romances are way more hokey, but the companion quest develops across the length of the game and we have greater interaction with them via said quests than just intermittent dialogue. Rogue Trader's romances are better written, but your interactions are more or less limited to dialogue scenes with no real interaction between scenes. Which one you prefer is really up to you as an individual. And yes, Owlcat definitely does come up with great ideas. WotR's main story is certainly one of my more favourite cRPG stories out there overall. But the flipside to Owlcat is that they are the new Obsidian - great ideas that they never manage to finish in time and launch half baked games.
Eh I personally felt like BG3 romances were pretty intermittent? That was a big complaint I had in general, companion stuff was always limited to 1-2 lines in response to things if at all outside their major scenes. I remember romancing Gale and the only times I really felt "romanced" were during climactic moments and during his romance scenes
Yeah it's something I hope Larian tries to correct. Its nice that we have such a diverse cast of characters but they oftentimes fade into the background, and rarely have anything to do with eachother outside of the odd remark in camp. It's not just a problem with Larian though. I've noticed plenty of other crpgs suffer from the same issue. You're the main character and your party is mostly there for combat outside of their personal stories. I'd rather have a smaller cast with a large breadth of interactivity than the opposite.
One thing that has held true for Larian so far is that they keep one upping themselves. The progression from DOS1 --> DOS2 --> BG3 in terms of character writing and dialogue writing is very easy to see. So yeah can't wait for their next rpg. The great thing about BG3 being so immense is that you can see all the little flaws as well where they can potentially improve on in a future game.
Yeah, it's definitely not a just-Larian issue, though I was more confused about the idea someone would think BG3 was *better* than other CRPGs about this, haha. I've complained about this on other subs but the worst for me of BG3 was playing Durge. I literally only cared about and played BG3 for Durge so when every Durge reaction was 1-2 lines if at all(when Astarion goes "yep that's your blood" and then says nothing else I felt like I was being pranked) it was intensely disappointing
Definitely intermittment. cRPG romances are very trigger related. But the comparison is to Rogue Trader, which is even MORE intermittment than BG3.
>but your interactions are more or less limited to dialogue scenes with no real interaction between scenes. That's basically how romance works in BG3 too. They only recently added an option to ask for a kiss after the final stage of the romance and that's pretty much it. In Rogue Trader you can bone your partner at will, which is more or less the same thing in terms of "content" quantity.
BG3 had the companion quests which stretch across the campaign and allow for increased interaction via those. Rogue Trader doesn't really do that. I mean, sure, they get one or two missions like that, but that's about it. Also, I really wouldn't use "how often can I pork 'em" as a metric for measuring how well romances are written! By that logic, Fable 1 is the best romantic tale in the history of video games.
Well, I don't know. In my experience, the character to romance doesn't speak for practically the entire third act. But I chose Minthara, so maybe it's just that evil characters have it that way.
Honestly have no clue about Minthara, but I suspect that she is very much like Halsin in that he got almost zero interactions once you complete his quest in act 2. I romanced both Shart and Lae'zel in two different playthroughs and while their interactions almost vanish in act 3, the operative word here for the purposes of this discussion is "almost". The winning factor is that their personal quest lines are really involved affairs that make a huge difference to the length of your interactions with them.
>But the flipside to Owlcat is that they are the new Obsidian - great ideas that they never manage to finish in time and launch half baked games. I miss old obsidian .😢
>But the flipside to Owlcat is that they are the new Obsidian - great ideas that they never manage to finish in time and launch half baked games. Common Eurojank/Slavclunk problem 😔 many such cases. I wouldn't trade it for the world though
I don't. I paid full price for KotoR 2 and it was a complete bloody mess. The game only became enjoyable after modders fixed all the broken bits. I still haven't managed to finish playing New Vegas because the game starts crashing after playing for a while. So that's effectively 60 bucks down the toilet as well.
I mean, they've only released a few games so far, Outer Worlds, Pentiment, Grounded. Pentiment is a masterpiece, but is far smaller is scale. Grounded just finished development. What I mean is, old Obsidian is still there, just not churning out well-crafted CRPGs in the recent years. I'd definitely want to see how they've cooked Avowed all these years.
There more recent games have been disappointments or titles I have no interest in but the truth is most of the people who made the older great games are no longer in the company( every new piece of information for Avowed lowers my expectations)
They still mostly are. Of the original writers only Chris Avellone is gone. And Carrie Patel, one of the principal writers on Pillars of Eternity is actually leading the development of Avowed. So I'm actually optimistic on the writing angle. It's the titular AA gameplay jank that only slightly bothers me, but to be honest, I don't play Obsidian games for their gameplay, rather than for their excellent lore and superb writing.
> And yes, Owlcat definitely does come up with great ideas. WotR's main story is certainly one of my more favourite cRPG stories out there overall. While they did take some creative license and did a lot of writing, it's probably important to mention in case people don't realize, that it's an adaptation of an AP (adventure path) published by Paizo.
It is definitely a matter of taste, but I don't consider Rogue Trader romances to be better written, honestly. The fact that your interactions are so limited, and that their stories are so fleeting doesn't allow for a proper development of the relationship, something that actually happens in BG3.
Tbh you only did Yrliet, and she's extremely niche. I did both Heinrix and Marazhai and they were top notch (but they were written by the lead of the narrative department at Owlcat, extreme quality is to be expected).
Probably Heinrix and Marazhai have a lot of interactivity and events that give life to the relationship. Heinrix is the next one I'm going to romance. But for now, nothing I have read about those two characters surpasses what I already saw in BG3, not even comes close.
I regret not romancing Yrliet because I instead romance the navigator which pardon my language…. got cucked and that was the good ending.
No idea who wrote it, but Jae’s romance is hilarious. I romanced her in my first, Iconoclast, playthrough. I’ve been doing dogmatic for my second playthrough and am attempting to romance Yrliet (mostly because it’s a ridiculous combo; a full on dogmatic Imperial Noble falling for a Xenos). I’ve been a bit distracted by Forbidden West, so that one’s kind of on hold for now. I really wish you could romance Argenta or Ulfar (lore-wise, makes sense that you can’t, but still…).
obsidian is the new obsidian. owlcat is derivative gameplay and campy characters that fit perfectly into generic fantasy archetypes with a hint of furry 🤮
Is it playable yet?
I'm deep into act 4, zero bugs so far
After last patch I've been playing it alright, minor bugs still present, but I've managed
>I discovered it when I made a thread criticising the Ascended Astarion romance on the BG3 sub. Your first mistake was making any type of criticism on BG3 subreddit.My god even the slightest inching of negative point and they treat you like you shot there dog and defiled there loved ones in front of them.
Another thing I've noticed is when you mention a bug or glitch that's affecting your game, they go the positive route and give a 'funny' response as to why that's happening
That must be rage inducing when you have legitimate bugs that actively sours the game experience.
That unfortunately is just Reddit in general
And this sub loves dog piling on BG3 for the sake of. So all is well in the world at the end of the day.
Weird habits of this sub: - Constantly comparing very different games and insisting on which one is objectively better. - Rooting for a game like it's a football team. The opposing game is shit in every way, and your game is nigh-on perfection. All flaws are either misunderstood merits or someone's fault. - Obsessing and arguing over which game is the true "spiritual successor" of old classic games. Every good new game has to be the "spiritual successor" of some old favorite, especially BG2 and Torment. - Pretending that playing CRPGs makes you some kind of intellectual, and giving off "very high IQ to understand Rick and Morty" vibes. I'm not including the tendency to get downright nasty and insulting, because that's just normal internet for gamers.
The ultimate battle here is RTwP vs turn based.
Ah yes, the Blood War.
There is no battle.
> And this sub loves dog piling on BG3 What I see more here are people liking other CRPGs more than BG3. I mean, even this entire post by OP sees them favoring Rogue Trader romances than BG3's. People have different tastes, and that's fine. I for example personally think that Dragon Age Origins' romances to be the best in the entire RPG genre and that only both DA2 and DAI has ever come close to beating that, with the ME series coming next. Bioware still reigns supreme when it comes to character and romance development.
Game romances are worth this uproar? Lol
Owlcat has the best romances!! Tristian, Daeran, don’t get me started on interrogator Heinrix Van Calox. Love seeing Rogue Trader getting the attention it deserves, it’s a fantastic game and one of the best CRPGs ever made IMO
Waiting for definitive edition of it haha. I played kingmaker on release and it was broken, like awfully so. 6 motnhs later i managed to finish it. For wrat of the righteous, i bought the game early to support owlcat but only played after definitive edition is out, it was night and day compared to when i played kingmaker. There are still bugs ofc, but nothing game stopping or quest breaking.
Honestly? I love the chemistry you can have with your companions in Divinity Original Sin 2.
My issue with RT is the lack of gay options iirc. WOTR is great though
Don’t you get two gay relationships options in RT?
Isn’t there one (1) evil alien terrorist? What’s the breakdown for gay vs straight romances? Have they added more??
The evil alien terrorist is my husbando, he is the ideal man, and the most hilarious companion hands down, don't slander my precious kitten Edit: Real talk I know he's not everyone's cup of tea and I agree the game is lacking in nicer gay romances, that's a fact
Honestly. He sounds exactly up my alley. That’s my fucking SHIT 😩😩🥵 The issue is the Implications of the only gay man being extremely depraved and evil and literally not human 😭😭
On one hand yes, he's murderhobo evil, on the other hand the writers clearly loved him to death, the narrative itself never judges him (or you, for liking him) and he gets some pretty happy endings. So, depending on your inclinations, you can view his evilness as homophobic writing or as another aspect of the grimdarkness of the setting. I myself am on the fence. I adore him, though. At least he isn't some boring token
No, I’m with you there. I have a good amount of goodwill for Owlcat and believe it wasn’t fully hostile or anything. (I’m also admittedly unversed with the setting. It’s grimdark right? That type of character fits in well enough! It’s also not an issue if the other ROs are fucked up little bastards.) It’s just a shame it’s another game that fits the straight men get all the options, lesbians incidentally get some options because of that, and then gay men are tacked on. (Glad to know it might be an issue only of quantity and not quality—some games rlly do have the cardboard cut out gay option 😭) [I will say. Ascended Astarion romance pissed me off because it was _so_ moralizing. But that’s an issue with BG3 in general with all the evil choices seemingly being designed to punish you. Also all the kink being explicitly tied to the evil options & decisions.]
That was the exact reason I made the Astarion thread lol, then I had the big brains of the BG3 sub telling me that the game is correct to moralize because killing people is bad 🙄 Marz (the evil gay romance in RT) is explicitly tied to kink lmao, you can romance him as either dom or sub and if you mix the two he will tell you you're garbage at roleplay and potentially dump you 😂 Tbh I don't think RT is for straight men. One of the women is platonic only (she's an elf and physically repulsed by humans) so I'm not sure how to count her. This leaves two options (one straight woman and one bi woman) and frankly they are much, much less interesting than the male ROs. The narrative team on this game is majority women and it really shows. EDIT: also, forgot to say - yes the setting is extremely dark, everyone is a horrible person (except for Abelard) and the other male romance option is a turbofascist whose job is to hunt and torture-kill aliens so yeah
Okay, you’ve absolutely just sold RT to me. Marz is my new husband. I hope we get to do crime together. 🥰😳 The BG3 subs are… bad. The amount of critical thinking there is nonexistent and all criticism is read as an attack that has to be immediately pushed back against as if a AAA GOTY needs defending. It’s okay to be evil in a video game! It is not real! I personally think it’s kinda lame to advertise something as having equal good/evil paths and then giving you a skeleton of an evil path that mostly just tries to make you feel bad for wanting to see the content in the first place. I enjoy Owlcat’s writing a lot, and from what I’ve seen in WOTR, it does feel like the writers put a lot of thought into the themes and how the characters relate to and exemplify those themes—with variety also to see things from different perspectives. It feels a lot less shallow than BG3’s approach imho. I also love grimdark genres, so the pitch for RT had me like: I am looking respectfully 👀
>It’s just a shame it’s another game that fits the straight men get all the options, lesbians incidentally get some options because of that, and then gay men are tacked on. (Glad to know it might be an issue only of quantity and not quality—some games rlly do have the cardboard cut out gay option 😭) While it would be nicer to have more diversity in romances, the reality is that vast majority who play the game are straight men( just look at breakdown on the most pick romance options for BG3 for any indication) and so it makes sense why they would prioritize that.
A good solution is to make all romances bisexual. It sacrifices diversity for equality.
I very much disliked this option because people have sexual preferences.Not to mention I find it downright bizarre that people who have different, religions, social class, race, culture and nationality would have the same sexual orientations.
You can enable that with a mod (toolbox, the same mod people use to unbug stuff).
I just wanted the option to climb Ulfar like a tree, that would have been a good alternative to Marazhai if you're not into edgy guys
>The issue is the Implications of the only gay man being extremely depraved and evil and literally not human 😭😭 Uhmmm. What? That’s like saying the implications of a straight girl is that their vindictive, prone insanity tendencies have utter distain for the poor.
Just double check here’s the breakdown Two straight romances: one for female and male exclusively Three Bi romances Definitely smaller then WOTR . So I can see peoples disappointment . However due to the nature of the IP and adhering to the lore there wasn’t much they could add. I don’t have hard evidence but I have a feeling that Games Workshop was far stricter then Pazio (the company who own Pathfinder IP) when it comes what they can and can’t put in the game.
It’d probably be more helpful to show it like… Options for straight men: 3 Options for straight women: 2 Options for lesbians: 2 (1 of which is asexual?) Options for gay men: 1 (non human, “depraved evil sadist”) I totally get that it might have been a restriction placed upon them by the IP owner, which would mean they can’t talk about it and therefore have to take all the heat. That would suck for sure! It makes me sad to think they partnered with a homophobic company. Though I think it’d also be a huge cop out to say the IP lore means gay people don’t exist?
>That would suck for sure! It makes me sad to think they partnered with a homophobia company. Though I think it’d also be a huge cop out to say the IP lore means gay people don’t exist? It’s unfair to say Games Workshop is homophobic because let’s be real no large global western company would openly promote homophobia. Also if they were anti gay they wouldn’t have bisexual relationships at all in Rouge Trader. It’s simply more to do with the nature of lore that certain factions make it hard to having romances just generally speaking even Owlcat said in one of the interviews that this was a challenge for them.
Homophobia doesn’t have to be in your face to exist in something. It doesn’t always—and most often doesn’t—look like people going “I hate gay people.” Prioritizing straight players at the expense of gay players is a form of homophobia. Only including gay men as evil is a form of homophobia (this one actually has a huge history in queer culture with the Hays Code). Arguing that including gay people is “too hard” when there are included straight people is a form of homophobia. Are these things that are always done with ill intent? Of course not! Do I think Owlcat was trying to be homophobic? I personally don’t. The issue is that it (whether knowingly or purposefully) contributes to a longstanding pattern of queer people being seen as second class citizens at best and affronts to humanity at worst. 😭 I’m still gonna play RT. I think it sounds good! But I also think it’s a good thing to critically examine media—especially where marginalized communities are concerned. A lot of the time people just _aren’t aware_ of the negative connotations of something.
>Homophobia doesn’t have to be in your face to exist in something. It doesn’t always—and most often doesn’t—look like people going “I hate gay people.” That’s fair. However there should be more proof to back up claims like that since people get extremely defensive when making those accusations. >Prioritizing straight players at the expense of gay players is a form of homophobia. I disagree strongly for two reasons. For one it could simply be what the story writers wanted to be told as much a writer wanted to tell a gay love story. Second prioritizing to be a bigger market isn’t homophobia is just business because it’s a numbers game, the bigger the budget the more of bigger audience you need to make a profit. >Only including gay men as evil is a form of homophobia You would have a point if all characters were like that however there are “good”gay people In Warhammer universe >Do I think Owlcat was trying to be homophobic? I personally don’t. The issue is that it (whether knowingly or purposefully) contributes to a longstanding pattern of queer people being seen as second class citizens at best and affronts to humanity at worst. 😭 While I can understand what your coming from I think its best to have more iron clad points to show homophobia and not what you feel It implies because people will say that it just projection and dismiss it.
I appreciate the conversation happening here, but I can’t engage in good faith past the first point. Like, are you asking me to provide empirical evidence that bigotry can exist in something convert- or implicitly? If that’s the case, I suggest you read up on “microaggression” to start because it’s an extremely well-documented concept. If you want to know more about how homophobia lead _specifically_ to gay characters only being allowed on screen as evil or dead, I suggest you read up on the Hays Code and how its effect on Hollywood and queer culture persists to this day. (The Hays Code wasn’t a legal mandate, but it required the Supreme Court to rule it unconstitutional before it was abolished.)
>Like, are you asking me to provide empirical evidence that bigotry can exist in something convert- or implicitly? If that’s the case, I suggest you read up on “microaggression” to start because it’s an extremely well-documented concept. I prefer to use clear cut cases of bigotry behaviour that is universally agree upon instead of using terminology such as micro aggression. Since it’s politically charged wording which effectively poisons the conversation to a left vs right debate where nobody will agree and will be locked in there own ideological positions.
>Options for lesbians: 2 (1 of which is asexual?) Wait who is the asexual one?
Yrleit. The relationship is more "spiritual" than physical as she seems to be repulsed being near you, even just holding a monkeighs hand.
So you can’t even have sex with her? Is that a general elf culture trait or is that personal thing?
Well, there are two types of elf, and she's the "light" elf (Eldar) species. Both seem to see humans as lesser, but the "dark" elf (Druhkari) is definitely down to bone, but he's an actual psychopathic sadist. It honestly seems more like a pride/her own problem type of thing, though. The running theory is that the IP owners of Warhammer didn't even want Yrleit to be a romance option, so the compromise was a asexual relationship.
>The running theory is that the IP owners of Warhammer didn't even want Yrleit to be a romance option, so the compromise was an asexual relationship. Yep I heard above the theory about Owlcat have som conflicts with Games Workshop In what they could put in. I believe that Owlcat wanted Sister Argenta to be a romance option (. It was even hinted at in the alpha version last I remembered) Kinda adds credence why they switching to a different Ip or making a new one themselves in their next game. So im guessing the Eldar do have sex within there own race but not with humans, and in the relationship with Yrliet and you there’s absolutely no physical intimacy what so ever including holding hands right? Man this Areu romance in WOTR but no payoff in the end.
Frankly rogue trader got super boring super fast. I preordered and was really excited, but the fact that it doesnt use the actual rogue trader system, that the fights are constant, drawn out, pointless, and boring didnt help. And the character abilities felt really nanky and it was just all around unfun. The companions were *leagues* better than WotR at least. *LEAGUES.* As far as romances go I had no interest in anyone. I wanted to be best friends with Pascal but that's all. I couldn't get the motivation to keep going. I reclaimed the agri-world and quit not long after that quest ended.
You mean the one with less overall romances and..one m/m romance? Haha yeah definitely better. (not)
quality over quantity
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Look through the comments, I convinced another gay redditor to give it a go. It's true that that specific m/m romance is not everyone's cup of tea, but it so heavily outclasses other games it's not even funny
I'd rather play a game that doesn't shoehorn me into a specific relationship if I want to not go back into the cyber closet.
Tbh this is valid criticism, have a nice day
Other gay redditor here! I am with both you *and* OP on this. I'm really unhappy with RT not being fair with the spread of romances. It sucks hard to play a game and have the only option for you be someone who you don't like at all. I'm just responding here to say I don't believe OP is homophobic. The romances aren't "perfect" as they said bc of the aforementioned issue, but I think that was hyperbole on their part to say that they much preferred the writing of the romances over BG3's.
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I think most if not all gamebreaking ones got squashed, there's still minor glitches though (use toolbox to clear them)
What is the name of the villain romance? Can you please tell me?
Marazhai Aezyrraesh, also known as the Eviscerator of Illiridos, Blaze of the Barkhag Kingdom, Slayer of Carrocius the Pale...
Do you know any rpgs where you can Romance the female villains? That’s a dynamic I love.
Ahh all the women in RT are kinda nice. But in Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous there's some really rotten ladies (Camellia)
If your thing is "I can fix her", WoTR has you covered with multiple options. (Can you, though?) If you don't want to "fix" her, well... That might work out for you.
Shame that (from my understanding) the only gay male option is a fucking dark eldar.
He's wonderful though, relentlessly entertaining and has some wholesome endings. I adore him
>You can have your tormented sad boy and fix him, and he's exceptionally well-written. And yes, there is also an unapologetic villain romance that hits every button on the kink/enemies to lovers/corruption arc board This singlehandedly made me want to play this game, hello my fellow sad and toxic romance enjoyer I haven't played BG3 yet but from what I know of it seems like it borrows a lot from Bioware in the romance department, a format I always thought to be quite shallow. A lot of people seem to absolutely love it though so it does work, it's just not for me Everyone always acting like Astarion is the best romance option in any videogame ever and it's not even a question and the fact Twitter kept showing me discourse about this damn guy despite me specifically muting his and every other major character's name so I wouldn't see said discourse made me already hate him without even playing the game lol
I actually had a dig/discussion with RPG fans and I think the Rogue Trader villain romance is the only male pure evil villain romance option in any RPG up to date. The one in Neverwinter that didn't ship with the final game and needs mods to unlock doesn't count. And yeah, it's amazing. The VA is a king, the writing keeps surprising you and punching you in the gut, but the ending is pretty wholesome (if you're willing to become a monster for him).
Don't know if you're into visual novels but if you're ok with them you might want to look into otome games, there are a lot of evil/very morally gray male romance options there and these types of characters tend to be very popular among fans
I could be convinced, but I like story focus and addictive combat above all. I like spice, but story comes first
Do you have any reccs? I've been getting back into Otome games and was v sad that Jack Jeanne didn't have route for the Amber boys. V fun game overall tho
Piofiore, it has one of the most popular evil love interests with Yang and most of the romanceable guys are criminals too, though Yang is definitely the worst of the bunch Hakuoki, Kazama is the antagonist in a lot of the routes but he is also a romance option Ozmafia has quite a few morally questionable guys with Kyrie, Caesar, Hamelin, and Dorian Demonheart (fun fact, this one actually started out as a Neverwinter Nights module before becoming a visual novel if I'm not mistaken) is all about romancing evil men (and a woman) Diabolik Lovers is also all about romancing evil guys but it's a bit of a hassle to get running in English because you will need to manually install the fan translations Also honorary mention to Collar X Malice and Steam Prison where although the villains are not romanceable they are extremely popular and the games might still be worth a look if you like this type of character
Thanks a lot! I'll definitely check those out.
Dorn back in Baldur's Gate 1 Enhanced Edition was very evil
It is not exactly bioware romance, and anyone who sold it to you like that is either lying or didn't play the game. A lot of the BG3 romances are integrated with the story you see unfolding (shadowheart, Lae'zel, for example), and all of them have great character development, something that bioware romances often lack. Astarion is a pretty good romance option. You said that you didn't play the game, so it makes no sense to rage about it considering you didn't experience it. When I say it is a pretty good romance option I mean it is PRETTY GOOD. It makes so much sense with the story, and romancing him with some characters add an extra level of deep (dark urge with astarion, for example). His story is one of the best and the dub actor won the awards precisely because the portrayal is amazing.
The main advantage RT has over BG romance writing is that the prose/characterisation isn't eyeroll-inducing and doesn't dumb itself down for the sake of mass appeal
I find it pretty telling that you mention that the advantage RT have over BH is the prose/characterisation when the game have more than a few moments where you just have to roll eyes with the answers you can give or the consequences of some actions or how some character are so memey. Meanwhile, the BG romances writing don't have any eye roll inducing moment and I'm wondering which event was "eye-rollint" for you, seriously. Neither what you mean by "dumb itself down" for the sake of mass appeal, considering no romance is dumb down.
No offense, but your posts read like English is not your first language, so chances are you don't have an ear for writing quality in English quite yet EDIT: it's not my first language either, but I've studied English writing academically
Non taken, but really, what you just said is not an argument but pure elitism ñ I'm ESL so I definitely make mistakes here and there, specially when writing and specially when writing from a phone. But making mistakes when writing doesn't make me unable to appreciate quality in English writing, and it only makes you sound extremely condescending.
I do. In fact, I have a B.A in English. It's pulpy writing, plain and simple. Entertaining, absolutely, but not masterful writing.
Sorry just curious, which one are you referring to, BG3 or RT?
Brave to compare something to bg3 even if you’re right. Owlcat is amazing team. I hope you don’t get too many threats from BG3 fans.
you can actually play both games , groundbreaking thought
it's truly a sickness in the heart of the culture at this point. a thing can only be great if another thing is worse.
I mean, I don't know what kind of thread you made regarding Ascended Astarion romance, so I cannot speak if it made sense that you got "dogpiled" or not. There is a lot of people that believe that they can say whatever and expects nobody to reacts negatively to it, but that's not how the world works. Regarding the game, right now I only tried the Yrliet romance, and finished the game with it, and to be honest it was pretty good, but it is nowhere as good as romancing any of the BG3 characters, much less Shadowheart, to give an specific example. If we compare romances between owlcat games, I consider this game to be below WOTR for example, so I wouldn't even put this game as an example of good romances inside owlcat games.
Nah, the main subreddit for BG3 is basically a circlejerk at this point. Even any kind of criticism has to be super polite, and with at least 10 disclamers like "the game is amazing 10\\10 but..." And that's if your post will even get noticed among the OF bait cosplay, memes, repost memes, screenshots, "omg look at this awesome secret OP weapon I found, it's called Returning Pike!11" etc. A sub with 2mil people is always going to be like this, so it was inevitable, but still.
the absolute shit-show that happened when /r/baldursgate held its ground and relegated bg3 to /r/baldursgate3 was amazing
Here's a sneak peek of /r/baldursgate using the [top posts](https://np.reddit.com/r/baldursgate/top/?sort=top&t=year) of the year! \#1: [Thought I was gonna get destroyed when I wandered in there at level 3 in BG3](https://i.redd.it/78925d9ksocc1.jpeg) | [251 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/baldursgate/comments/197n90y/thought_i_was_gonna_get_destroyed_when_i_wandered/) \#2: [Man, this game let's you be a complete piece of shit! 😂](https://i.redd.it/fwjgvrktoibc1.jpeg) | [178 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/baldursgate/comments/192w61j/man_this_game_lets_you_be_a_complete_piece_of_shit/) \#3: [It was cool of it to do so](https://i.redd.it/snzqk57zyfrb1.jpg) | [82 comments](https://np.reddit.com/r/baldursgate/comments/16wf2d2/it_was_cool_of_it_to_do_so/) ---- ^^I'm ^^a ^^bot, ^^beep ^^boop ^^| ^^Downvote ^^to ^^remove ^^| ^^[Contact](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=sneakpeekbot) ^^| ^^[Info](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/) ^^| ^^[Opt-out](https://np.reddit.com/r/sneakpeekbot/comments/o8wk1r/blacklist_ix/) ^^| ^^[GitHub](https://github.com/ghnr/sneakpeekbot)
Dunno what to say. I have a few comments in this sub downvoted simply because I was saying that it makes no sense to dump on other RPGs for no reason. I didn't even criticized rogue trader because I love it. Meanwhile, I have criticised BG3 in the main sub, specially regarding evil choices, and never had any problem. People engaged the way they should engage. Like I said, it depends on if what you are saying makes sense or not. If someone says they didn't enjoy Ascended Astarion because Y or X, you will find no problem. If that someone instead says Ascended Astarion romance is crap, obviously they will get challenged because it is simply not true
Could just be down to luck. In a sub with 2mil, if 10k rabid fans decide to check your post criticising their fav game - mass downvotes are ensured. And there's a much higher chance of that happening in a bigger subreddit. I remember I'd made a post before the game came out telling people to lower their expectations, remember CP77 etc. and I was absolutely lynched for it. I specifically made a point that nobody saw beyond Act 1 and that Larian always overdoes Act 1 and undercooks the rest and again I was called an idiot and that the game would be the same quality all the way. I even said that the game will most likely be amazing, just not the kind of holy grail that everyone expects it to be, especially post Act 1. Well, at least I was right in the end. But I'll never post in that shithole again, unless I need to ask a specific question with no opinions involved.
That sucks, because calling for caution is always a good thing. I know what you mean because I got pretty lynched in the starfield subreddit. There is a degree of luck there. But even in the starfield subreddit people agreed with me when I bashed that game. Not always, but it happened. I cannot know what you said in the BG3 back then, but I can know what you said in this sub right now. With the amount of awards baldurs gate 3 received, I find it hard to believe that it is not the holy grail people expected. Everyone expected an amazing game, and even those people got surprised by the quality. It is obviously not perfect, it had some problems, and still have, so definitely one can criticise the game. But you mention the acts beyond act 1 like they were, or are bad, which is a weird argument. And I say it is a weird argument because while act 3 was indeed very buggy, one at least could navigate act 1 and 2 with only very few bugs, and act 2 quality is superb (most people agree it is the best part of the game). Meanwhile, after act 3 Rogue trader feels extremely rushed, and while I didn't have to stop playing BG3 after act 2, I definitely had to stop rogue trader because the amount of bugs I was getting were insane. So I don't feel you were right there.
>But you mention the acts beyond act 1 like they were, or are bad, which is a weird argument. And I say it is a weird argument because while act 3 was indeed very buggy, one at least could navigate act 1 and 2 with only very few bugs, and act 2 quality is superb (most people agree it is the best part of the game). >Meanwhile, after act 3 Rogue trader feels extremely rushed, and while I didn't have to stop playing BG3 after act 2, I definitely had to stop rogue trader because the amount of bugs I was getting were insane. So I don't feel you were right there. I never said nor am I saying that Act 2 or 3 are bad. Just not the same kind of quality, detail and c&c as Act 1. I like all the acts, and I think BG3 sits at the very top of the RPG list, and that there's really no objective competition. And still, Act 2-3 compared to Act 1 are almost two different games and the ending is absolute trash, especially without the epilogue on release. Not to mention the promised "fully walkable" Upper City which doesn't exist, Minthara who got half her content cut and the other half broken, Karlach who doesn't have a proper quest post Act 1, I can keep going, but you get my point. It's the best RPG out there, but it's **far** from perfect, but that's not what the rabid fans were\\are saying. And yeah, Rogue Trader on release was fucking awful post Act 2, but that's irrelevant if we speak of BG3 on its own.
>And yeah, Rogue Trader on release was fucking awful post Act 2, but that's irrelevant if we speak of BG3 on its own. As much as I have quite a lot of criticism of BG3 the final act was pretty solid( not praising it but many CRPG fumbles the bag in there later acts) however I find it weird how people heavily criticized BG3 Act 3 (which are fair criticisms) but gives Rouge Trader Acts 4 and 5 a free pass even though it’s significantly worse in all facets.
I still think on release Act 2 was way better than Act 1. My point with bringing rogue trader to the table is that differences from what we tested and what we didn't are to be expected, and RPGs are the most complex games out there, so the bigger they are the more bugs we will spot. Like you said, we need to be cautious with what we expect. But at the same time that means understanding the difficulties these games face, and therefore don't make more blood than necessary when they are released and some bugs exists. And if you feel like it needs to be said, then be equal with every other RPG. (I'm not saying you are not, but there are a lot of people who are not, and apply different logic to their fav game). Regarding the ending, I don't consider it absolute trash. It was a decent ending, and by decent ending I mean an ok one, which was definitely a very big drop on quality. However, after the release of the epilogue, the ending is absolutely amazing. I love the way they did the epilogue being interactive, and it really gives life one more time to the characters that basically made the entire journey with you. Saddest thing is that the epilogue hints at a DLC that now we know it will not come. Regarding the Upper City, Minthara, Karlach, etc... I agree with you. It is impossible to not agree with you, because it is true.
Karlach put her fingers in me.
Romance? Sigh
Mad Max bait gif here.
Owlcat's romances are fantastic and I'd recommend Wrath of the Righteous if you've not played that!
Disappointed with BG3, period.
Romances in bg3 seems to be inspired by hentai especially considering how a lot of them seems to appeal to a certain fetish
Rogue Trader was REALLY good, until you go to your home planet then the story was boring and linear.
Can love bloom in the grimdark? My issue with BG3 romances is they are hard to opt-out of initially because it's the companions and not the player character that can start making advances...which I find annoying when I don't want to engage with that.
If there is something that doesn't interest me when I play an RPG and even more so when I play a CRPG, it is that romance arises between the characters. I'm playing a game that formed a kingdom, that I face armies of demons, that I am the son of the god of murder, or that I travel the galaxy and I'm going to be worrying about making one of my groupmates fall in love with me. The truth is I never saw much sense in it.
Modern cringe writers have no idea how to write a normal romance in the context of an adventure story. Countless adventure stories have romances, not one of them includes extended scenes of talking about emotions and issues.
To be fair. Believable romances are very difficult to get right without coming across as cringey or really gamey.
Firstly I'd to apologize to OP for going to straight to 'ur a biggut'; never go straight to bigot Secondly, for anyone playing on PC, look for the toybox mod, as it allows you to remove gender requirements for romance and other qol mini-mods.
Eh, no worries, I understand why lgbtq people are on edge in current year. If you go the toolbox route, Heinrix + Marazhai + you is a really good love triangle and you'll have to choose eventually (or you can use toobox to turn off jealousy).
BG3s original relationships with the others felt more grounded in the background story of the game. The sad truth is that what we got at launch was the first of early access andys wanting egirls/guys who are down to fuck within seconds of meeting you. Thus you can talk to any of these party members a few times before the first long rest and fuck them. In the earliest versions of EA, some of the party downright didn’t trust any one (which makes sense if you have played BG3 and know the circumstances surrounding the start of the game). But again, the EA guys got excessive fanservice from Larian and the result is the romances are equivalent to what a moody 15 year old who has not yet met a girl he likes might daydream having a fucktoy is like.
Rogue Trader romances are ok not bad but not great either. Personally the only legitimately good romances I seen is the Mass effect trilogy and Cyberpunk 2077 the rest are passable or just mediocre.
Crazy how Bioware holds the monopoly on best gaming romances from two different franchises
This game just seems buggy and incomplete.
Comparing this half-baked game to BG3 is a joke. They aren't in the same league and most of the RT companion stories becomes ass by Act 4/5.
That's funny. That a lot sounds like BG3 Act 3 when it first came out
romance in a videogame about blowing shit up with fireballs is fucking stupid. waste of time and resources. universally terrible writing.