Ryz009

I think they might have variations. They should at least because the version of them that's okay with slavery can be disposed of.

Yeah I have the same bug with Aloth. It's a bummer cause I was planning on romancing him. Had to settle for fishboy. Least he worked.

Wait I do have a question. If you turn Eder down as a fem PC do you still get the option to tell him to leave? (I mean that seems like a vast overreaction to rejection but I can think of one character it'd fit). I wonder how that goes.

Hmm... I usually love "take a third option" choices. I might try this, but I hope it doesn't lead to disaster. It is pretty much the perfect rendition of "screw this I'm out." I've seen in a game though.

Eh the all romances not being eligible was a miss for me because Viconia just didn't flirt with an elf full stop. It was no different than not being able to romance Amoen with a dude. There was zero content it was just locked off. Which is fair enough but that doesn't make a romance deep to me. It's not like they had friendship paths and turned down the PC like say Cassandra does to a fem Inquisitor. It was never even brought up. Also it really wasn't? There was always a rather obvious douche response that'd end the romance. There might be one or two traps (sleeping with Aerie too soon or refusing to sleep with her at a certain point) but if you thought about the character it made sense. Also Morrigan was vastly better than Viconia for me. Her story wasn't relegated to her romance, she actually had a friendship route with the male PC, her development again isn't tied up in her romancing the PC and we actually see her change as a person in later games. The modern BW approach of five to six conversations have as much character development as those 35-40 conversations though. Especially since they tend to mix the character development with the rest of the game via banter that's not just cat-fighting over the male PC and an actual friendship route instead of locking it behind a romance like BG2 did. I will never like BG2's romances for that. Too much character content is locked behind a romance that I frankly don't want to play. Also uh...the obvious flirtatious response applies for BG2 as well. I never found those romances hard to initiate (if anything it was the reverse. It was far too hard to end those romances without picking the obvious douche response). Quantity does not equal quality. If anything BG2 was a buffet (for a male character and only a male character) wheres if you were a human or an half elf every single female NPC wanted you and if you played the game there was no way to avoid romancing them outside douche options. My poor half-elf just wanted peace. Like sorry but I'll never understand people placing BG2 romances above the rest of BW romances. They are BioWare romances with all their flaws and lacking a lot of their later improvements. Also when an NPC does initiate people cry about it (looking at you Anders and Zevran) so I can see why they stopped. And the only reason flirt options became a thing is because far far too often something that's just nice would be a romance trigger and people got tired of that so BW decided to be really obvious about what was a romance trigger from then on. ME1 was a massive offender with that where talking about Ashley's grandfather for some baffling reason equaled a take me now. And this is really the last time I"ll mention it sorry thread. Aks pm me if you wish to continue <3

Fair enough. For POE2's flaws I mostly would say it's because the romances seem really sparse and since the rep is bugged they seem to trigger way too fast. Fish boy triggering that fast makes sense. The others though... Like I don't find Xoti's thirst a flaw. That's a character trait. (and one she's called out on.)

It's all because of lack of any serious competition. Or it could suggest it's not as easy as people like to say it is.

Personally, I hate approval systems, they're too cold and calculated for my tastes. BG2's companions relied on your general reputation to decide whether to stay or leave you and there were very rare cases of them leaving if you were a total **** to them in some dialogues. Too many to count. It's actually easier to count the few that I liked - Morrigan, Solas, Cassandra, Ashley. Rep could be more easily abused than approval however I wouldn't say some BW romances weren't cringy but they certainly aren't the norm. And with as many romances as BW done of course some are gonna be cringy.

It really wasn't though. I mean heck in times of absurd reasons for a romance she's easily in the top 3. I will never understand the love of BG2 romances because they follow very similar tropes and climaxes of modern BW romances and didn't even have the benefit of their experience in what not to do from earlier games. That and without a disapproval system it only mattered what you said to them and you could be a complete utter loon otherwise. Well I suppose Rep but that was so easily abused it was worse than DAO's gift system The sad thing is it could've been natural if your PC had initiated it. But since she does it's all kinds of "huh?" Also really not helped by BG2's lack of friendship routes cause she really really needed one as an alternative to romance. As it is it looks like she comes onto the PC if her husband dies and if she's rejected she closes off and won't talk to them about her problems anymore because apparently if they don't want to love her romantically there's no discussion to be had. So glad BW stopped doing that idiocy. As for recent BW romances being cringy. Which game and which characters? Because some characters are supposed to be more lighthearted and joking in their romances (Bull, Sera) that's intentional. If its not your thing that's one matter but for the most part its intentional.

So much this. I would add Solas to that list. Doesn't get more tied to the story than this :D Yeah it's mostly character building for me. When it gets too tied to the main plot it can get aggravating (especially if I don't like said NPC and don't want to romacne them but it's a but thou must scenario). POE2 romances are pretty meh. DOS2's romances were pretty light too but they fit the game in being rather lighthearted. Oh god yeah Solas is pretty good too. I usually friend him but Trespasser works well with him romanced. (Also your companions disapproving of you being a doormat was nice to see).

I like Viconia's romance. Also, what about Jaheira's complex one? Oh god Jaheria. I blocked that from my mind because just no to her immediately hitting on my character before her husband's body was cold. Nope. I mean the romance itself was fine but I couldn't divorce it from that start so it'll always be in the super nope category from me.

You forgot BG2. Funny, it was one of their first games but BG2 had the best romances. It's sad but true I actually didn't find BG2's romances that good. Amoen was trash, Aerie was *shudders* and Viconia was a douchier Moriggan without a friendship route. At least you could call Carth on his whining.

Yeah the only time my load is overlong is my first game boot. And I expect that.

Let me put this on another post. Because it should be seperate. When people say BW romances are a buffet to choose from. I get the impression they haven't played many BW romances or at least just said "oh this is crap." and went on. Like BW romances are faaaar more indepth than what we got from Deadfire. Even their "shallow" romances tend to be more indepth if you actually think about them. (Andromeda obviously was an exception here). Also Bastila's romance wasn't super deep for a BW LI if we're trying to hold it up as some symbol most romances should aspire to. That would be Morrigan and Alistair's romances. Hell I'd argue most of BW's romances were more well written than Bastila's. ME1 romances were kind of iffy but then they get the benefit of having 3 games of development so Shepard and the ME1 LIs end up having great relationships. Even DA2 despite those awful time jumps had good romances (just had to accept a lot of the inherent dysfunction of them). Jade Empire while I love it to death had so so romances but that's probably because the game takes place over such a short amount of time it feels awkward.

Uh...there are people like that in real life though. Xoti at least makes sense for it. She's young, impressionable and going through some crazy **** with her lantern. Makes sense she'd try to cling to anyone who much as gives her a second glance. If all the LIs were like that it'd be a problem. Thankfully they aren't.

Yea, it was weird in POE2, everybody was impotent to do anything about Eothas - the Watcher, the gods, the factions. The gods at least were much more potent and willing to meddle in the past. Dunno why they suddenly decided to sit this one out, especially considering their whole existence was on the line. They really should've explained Eothas resistance to them better. Make it so the only way they could've feasibly killed him would've been to destroy the world itself and themselves. So at least then self-preservation would've stayed their hand.

Isn't that the voiceline that plays if you have too much stuff in your personal inventory and try to add more? Maybe that's just bugged.

It's just a dialogue or two, very minor. Others don't seem to care. Huh, so do the two conversations where Tekēhu TMIs everyone with colorful descriptions of his sexual escapades constitute a romance now? o-O To be fair he later tells you why he did that.

Yeah my only issue with the skull is the barks are a bit too often. That said I cracked up when he told me to stop flirting with the fishboy cause it was unseemly.

Yeah would've been better if those machines stripped a bit of those souls for the gods powers and that was ruining the souls making more people awakened and causing more undead phenomenon. At least then destroying the machines would've been sensible and weakened the gods.

I loved it. The perfect "you lot sort this **** out yourselves i'm leaving." ending.

To be fair you don't have to choose a faction if you don't want to lose a companion. I did the final quest just by upgrading the ship. I was pretty done being errand Watcher anyway.

I think I got the ending you mean even without actually breaking up with her, just declining her offer. Same with Tekehu. Ending slides are kinda buggy. Yeah I'm thankful she just never brought it up with my guy. Would've been awkward especially since he got rejected by Eder a few minutes earlier XD Oh, don't get me started on Varric. I could easily derail the thread with that. Oh Bianca. I really wanted my Hawke in DAI. Snarky Hawke would've went off.

Yeah my issue with the ending is with the Engwithans too. If there was no wheel how exactly were they not being overwhelmed with ghosts? I did cackle when I got the worst ending at least. The perfect ending to a bad end history if I ever saw one.

That ending Xoti gets if you break up with her. Yikes.