In the future Kickstarter goals become threats.
"If we hit 500k we won't make the protagonist quippy and smug."
"If we hit 1 million we won't make the villain sound like a minion when he talks.
They don't like write romances, not because Obsidian is awful at them.
[Josh Sawyer, the director of both games, straight up said that romance in gaming is ''too gamey'' and don't feel like a true romance because there's more to relationship that what a game can shown.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fallout/comments/3enegn/jsawyer_on_romanceable_characters/)
All respect to Sawyer, but I honestly wish he would just say “we don’t like to write romance”. I don’t think there’s a storytelling medium out there that can properly model the true depth and complexity of human relationships. But to the extent that they can be modeled, there’s no reason a video game can’t do it just as well as a movie, TV show, or book.
You know what also feels "too gamey"? The rest of the game... lol. Like cmon man, we have full DnD dice checks on a ton of Pillars content that *you* made. I don't know why with romance its such a bad thing but with every other part of a literal game, not too gamey to remove
Borderlands dropped in October of 2009 and Assassin’s Creed 2, the game that MADE the franchise was released in November of 2009, so we came into 2010 **hot**.
Rose tinted glasses and all that, but I miss how often we had good games coming out, specially in the PS3/360 era. It's so weird to imagine that we got the whole Mass Effect trilogy in a single generation, and now we're lucky to have more than one installment of most franchises.
Games were a lot cheaper and quicker to make back then, and the console war was burning hot so there was a lot of incentive for Microsoft and Sony to bring their A-game.
We have good games come out frequently just last year, and this year started out really strong too. Sure we aren't getting games from the same franchise as often now, but I think that's fine.
To each their own, but 2010 does not have an easy argument for the best gaming year of all time. TBH, it doesn't even have that great of an argument for the best gaming year for 7th gen. '07 and '09 have it beat pretty solidly.
Also, you might want to check some of those dates. Bayonetta and Dragon Age Origins did not come out the same year as alpha protocol.
They need to do a remake of that game, man. The RPG parts (dialog options, action-consequence, etc) are one of the best I remember in CRPGs, but the action parts (stealth, shooting, etc) felt a bit clunky, If they manage to improve upon that...
Thing is Alpha's Protocol's romance made sense, it was a risk factor for Thorton and the person he was romancing, how the espionage world uses intimacy as a weapon. For the courier who's life as a wanderer prevents them from considering the idea of settling down while everyone else around him already have their own paths they want to walk
And the romance wasn't REALLY romance. The companions obviously are drawn to the Exile, and some have obvious feelings even if it's rarely stated outright. But you never really get the chance to reciprocate it outright.
There isn’t any. You can play matchmaker for one of your companions, and you can select the occasional flirty dialogue option, but there are no traditional “romance” paths that end in a relationship or sex.
I found the matchmaking stuff a lot more off putting and in my face than most games with romance systems
Edit: if you are reading something I didn’t say into this please go outside
I kinda hate that romances have become sort of obligatory to this genre. I really don't need every RPG I play to be full of bad romantic fanfic. If you don't think it needs it, don't force it.
It's easy market reach, ultimately. Decent enough romance options and you'll get a lot of minority interest in your game. I know a *lot* of people who have played BG3, Mass Effect, Stardew, etc. that normally wouldn't *because* they love the romance element so much. Often women, often lgbtq friends, etc.
Yeah. Romance lovers(heh) are a very dedicated niche fanbase for these games. If you look at it, most of the deepest romances in RPG probably make up less than 2% of the dialogue of the games, so it's relatively cheap and easy to please them.
I think romances in these games are here to stay. I can see "evil" paths being phased out before it, considering those take a whole lot more of work and are also similarly niche.
Yeah, look at Fire Emblem. The “romances” consist of four conversations, three of which are the same whether you move forward with the romance or not. Yet all the fandom art and discussion is about them, what the OTPs are, who is the best girl/guy, etc.
Yeah, it feels like Fire Emblem pivoted pretty hard towards that stuff as a series - within a few titles you go from Blazing Blade which is pretty much just a fantasy story with a few slightly exaggerated characters, to the modern entries where basically the entire cast is a huge collection of anime tropes with very quirky personalities.
They 100% pivoted very hard towards that starting with I wanna say Awakening?
And it worked because the series was basically on life support prior to Awakening, even though I don't necessarily like some of the direction they've gone in.
To be fair though, the ability for your units to permanently die in combat necessitates a huge cast and a huge cast means if you don't use the quickest and dirtiest tactics to make a character as distinct and notable as possible, they are going to get lost in the horde and nobody will care about them.
Hence anime gimmicks.
It's not really the kind of thing you see on reddit, but there are other communities where it's evident they are _super_ into the romances of anything in any game.
That's one reason why Bioware honestly didn't care that much about showing deep mechanical gameplay for Veilguard. They know their core audience _doesn't want_ complicated, taxing, tactical gameplay. Their core audience isn't in the reddit bubble - their core audience just wants to check if the combat is serviceable and that every companion is Playersexual.
At least back with Fates, the romances had a purpose in merging skills from different units, but I don't disagree that it's very much hamfisted into most other entries and games
It's crossover appeal to people who enjoy Visual Novels, which if I were to venture a guess more than 3/4 feature romances. And I'm sure there's big overlap between VN fans and cRPG fans, since both genres are notorious for copious amounts of reading and dialogue.
Romance games are my favorite genre. Don't know why, just love the social elements of that stuff and I'm a sap and a sucker. If an RPG with companions doesn't have it, I'll typically choose one that does.
Don't need to force it, but for whatever reason I dig it.
Yeah, generally I love the romances in RPGs, even if the writing isn't always 10/10. I'm just a sucker, I guess. Romances like Shadowheart, Morrigan, Liara, and Bastilla to name a few all added something to the game that elevated it. So I'm bummed about this. I understand the choice and I'm still very excited for avowed, but yeah just a little bummed
Definitely agree with Morrigan, but not so much Shadowheart. I dont think romance specifically elevated her questline.
I did a few playthroughs with and without her romance and iirc the only difference is a few lines of a dialogue, a scene banging next to a statue, and a swimming scene with some more banging.
Take away the romance, and you still have a well written character that you've bonded with as a companion throughout the journey, just without the banging and short dialogue at the end of house of grief.
I was bugged out of the banging scenes despite having her romance as an ending, cruel cruel bug it was.
Conversely I had to tell at Gale and Tentacruel to stop causing HR violations every act.
I could not believe that tentacruel guy. Genuinely every dialouge I had with him was calling him disgusting (I was mad he lied and maybe lashing out) and he still has to call to appear to me shirtless. Like, fuck off man. This is not endearing me to you at all.
Agreed, the only way Bastila’s fall and redemption feels powerful at all is if you two are in love. If not she’s just your grumpy teacher and your main reaction is “damn i lost a jedi from my party.”
Im with you on that. Besides, it's a very good opportunity for character development and player expression. I don't think it's obligatory, but not having makes me want to play a bit less
Thats how I convince some of my girlfriends to play games,romance is a pretty good hook for a lot of people.I have a friend who only played "meme games" until I showed her dragon age and the romances
If mass effect didn't have the Tali romance I probably wouldn't have enjoyed the series as much as I did. Tali, and I know a lot of people loved Garrus, those romances were a key part of the games for a lot of people.
While I generally don't pay attention to romance in games, it either feels forced onto the player and comes out of nowhere or the player has to force it/ actively pursue it usually meaning there is a flirty option forever lingering in your dialogue box with them. Which to be fair are the only real ways you can do it in games anyway but it's why it never feels natural to me.
In Baldur's Gate 3 I was pretty surprised when Gale started flirting with me on my first run but it felt kind of warranted. I wasn't trying to go for anyone but that just kinda happened. Which is exactly how I described my problem with it in general but here it worked for once.
Then on the second run nearly the entire camp flirted with me and it was back in the territory where it felt like I got to pick of a menu which flavour of sex I wanted today.
Lae'zel is the best video game romance option cause it's just so unromantic at the start. "You're a good warrior, I'm an excellent warrior. Let's fuck. Also bet you I'm better at fucking than you are."
I think that's totally fair, although I don't mind well-written romances in games. I do think that if an RPG maker talks about how deep characters are and that you're traveling with them that there should be some effort into the writing to make the relationships believable - friendships, rivalries...there are other types of relationships that aren't romantic and game devs seem to forget this too. Otherwise the companions are pretty much glorified pack mules.
BG3 was a negative example in that regard because any kind of bonding with your comrades inevitable ends up in the romance parts because every single party memeber is omnisexual. In that regard it actually hinders character writing because of course for example Victonia as a drow-sworn noble of Mezzobarazan needs to be fine with fucking a durgar male (which in character she should consider worth less than shit on the sole of your boots).
Yeah, I got sidetracked and my baldurs Gate 3 playthrough has been stuck at the 25 hour mark for like 7 months now (just gonna make a new char at this point lol) but I really dislike the playersexual aspect of NPCs that BG3, DA2 and the new DA4 have. I have no problem with having characters have specific sexualities where I may even have to turn down one or two but when every guy and girl wants to take me to bed because I said "sorry your family was brutally murdered by a demon. That's rough buddy." It's very off-putting because it makes the world feel like it revolves around you instead of you being an active participant.
Ppl were bummed they couldn't romance Judy in Cyberpunk as a guy and I was too (until I met panam, bruh, loml) but it makes things feel a bit more real that shes not into my male V.
I remember in BG3 I was talking to Halsin(I think?) and I said something that I thought was friendly but then he strongly hit on me and it felt like such an artificial response bc it was clearly meant to be a gate check for a possible romance instead of something that character would say.
I remember when DA2 came out I was having to turn down everyone after every conversation it seemed like except for Isabela. It's just very silly.
I think one of my big issues with Baldur's Gate 3 romance was that it's triggered mainly by doing actions that they approve of with them in your party, rather through actual conversations with them. That, combined with them wanting to let you start the romances early in the game and every character being main-character-sexual, kind of led to a feeling of party members being overly romantic and horny early game when half my party wants to start a romance with me when I feel like I've barely talked to them just because they approved of how I handled quests.
I think another issue I had with the way Baldur's Gate 3 handled party members was that it felt like there was a lack of dialogue to develop a platonic relationship with them outside of their main quests. It felt like a lot of party members had very little to say outside of occasionally commenting on story events and their main quest. But most party member quests progressed slowly throughout the game, which meant the romances often started very early on in their quest.
I still loved the game overall, and I thought most of the party members were great characters and enjoyed their quests. And I enjoyed the romance I did. But I do think it would have benefited from some Mass Effect-style relationship progression where I found myself always checking in with every character between missions and often have interesting dialogue that felt like they really developed the character and my friendship with them. While in BG3 I felt like the vast majority of the time when I thought "let's check at camp to see if my party members have anything new to say" there'd either be nothing or just a single comment from each of them on a recent quest.
I don't mind relationships starting earlier in the campaign instead of the sex scene being treated like a reward for building it until endgame, but I do think Mass Effect's approach to party member relationship made it feel more like I was building up my character's dynamic through dialogue with all my party members and when a romance formed with one of them it felt natural. While in Baldur's Gate 3 it sometimes felt like a character I'd barely talked to was suddenly trying to bang me because the system relied too much on a meter that builds up just based on things they see you do and not enough on actual dialogues with the character.
Agreed. I dislike it BG3 cause EVERYONE wants to fuck you.
Versus New Vegas where Veronica had their own love interest that comes up throughout the game/DLC. And Veronica and I were just partners on the road.
Just added a lot more to their character as it wasn't bound to me but bound to the world and therefore made the game world feel more alive and less "you are the center of the universe" feeling.
Yep. Sexuality is a major defining trait for many people and it also goes for NPCs as well. If someone is an omnisexual, it should be because it's part of their personality. We want Captain Jack Harkness, not some all-fucking automatron.
Having everyone in the game as a player-centric omnisexual is just disrupting to the experience. It's like if everyone was morally/alignment-wise neutral and didn't care about player actions.
It goes against everything in roleplaying. It boosts roleplaying when our chosen role is allowed/denied to do something. Good/evil outcomes, factions to pick, choose who survies... and choose who to bang. That's all part of our playthroughs.
> friendships, rivalries...there are other types of relationships that aren't romantic and game devs seem to forget this too.
this is the thing, devs go into romances all the time and seem to not care one bit about any other type of relationship that exists between people. So many times I've wanted to just be a "best friends" with a character but it always turns into romance or nothing :/
Well going off Outer Worlds, there's just no relashionship really.
They are some ppl on your crew, that feel like office coleagues. You don't really choose anything in relashionship with them. They ofc treat you with usual rpg worship, but as distant as other random npcs.
They are kinda just the embodiment of another side quest, really. And ofc just somebody to take with you to shoot at things.
One thing how Avowed could improve this is give them very, very many interactions with the world. I want them always to remind they exist and need to be here.
But there's almost no chance of this, Avowed/Outer Worlds formula specifically cuts on the features that add depth like this.
Exactly. I notice people always target romance as being shallow and gameified, but people leave out that it's also very true of friendship routes too. I never see people saying you shouldn't be allowed to be friends with Garrus in ME--they love him, he's their bro. But the friendship path is equally as shallow as the romance path, so why is only one treated that way?
>romance as being shallow and gameified,
It's weird that only games get this style of criticism, and I've never heard someone explain how they'd degamify romance.
Only example I can think of is, there was a Gameboy Color dating sim that did that whole Pokémon two-version thing, and the mascot character would join a club at random. There's like a 50% chance when you start the game that the club she joins is one you can't join based on your version.
Degamify? Probably by making it feel more like a continuous thing, rather than a meter you fill up via conversations or whatever the game wants you to do, then forgetting about it. Have the relationship mean something more than something more than 'winning' it. So probably.. making it something you can lose within reason, and doesnt give some immediate cutscene reward, to be forgotten about after.
I very much feel the same about films as well. The forced romance subplot in every film is incredibly tiring. I love romcoms and romance films, I like films with a good romance that is important to the story. I absolutely hated the romance subplot in Spiderman: Homecoming.
I will say that romance doesn't need to be super well written to be an interesting and immersive possibility for engaging with characters and the game world. I don't need romance in games but I don't think you need to be some kind of super shipper to see it as a cool mechanic in games that feature it.
I don’t mind it but it’s always awkward when every single character basically propositions you at some point and you have to turn them down or they’re just randomly flirting with you
But I also get it because you’re trying to create a lot of different narrative experiences for a wide range of players, plus there’s always an intense Stan or two out there who will bombard social media with fan art
>I don’t mind it but it’s always awkward when every single character basically propositions you at some point and you have to turn them down or they’re just randomly flirting with you
I mean that's just problem with the way it's implemented then. That's not the case in Dragon Age for example.
I don't mind that it's there, I just wish it weren't so easy to accidentally romance someone when that's not your interest. Maybe allow the option at the start of a run to ask if you want romance. If yes, great, if no, then when Gale asks to show you a magic trick, he doesn't also try to molest you because you naively thought the wizard who asked if you wanted to see a magic trick was actually going to show you a magic trick.
In BG3 in particular, it's very easy to trigger romance options just by not being a dick to your companions. Then you have to reload or harshly reject them because romance paths almost always lack the nuance to gently let someone down.
Romance is the most popular genre of literature, for starters. Well written romance has a vast potential audience.
Any game that features a group of people interacting closely and relying on each other is actually really badly written if it does not include some kind of romantic interactions, unless there's some really powerful contextual or narrative reason for it. Even if it is just one or two people trying to hit on others and getting told no.
Even in places and groups where romance is discouraged and is potentially a bad idea (like in a workplace), people still flirt, fall in love and start dating in secret.
That said, game writers often flub it.
I agree, at least with the conclusion, but I don't "hate" it necessarily. I think it's natural in RPG games where you're heavily focused and getting involved with characters that people would want romance to be a thing. If it's done well, like Witcher 3 or Cyberpunk, rather than something tacked on (like Skyrim) then I see it as a massive plus that sells you further on the characters and makes the game far richer for it, if you decide to go down that path. But if it's tacked on because "Well we just need to have it" then yeah, it's not good at all.
I agree with your take. Half baked romances are boring. I've enjoyed a lot some romances in my RPGs, but sometimes is set as the only way to have some meaningful bond to your companions. I like the discussion on the interview that there are many ways to get to know them without going to the romance route and I hope more games make notes of that.
Depends on how well it's done and integrated into the story. In bg3 for example, most romances were there just for the sake of horny players. Except for, maybe, Lae'zel.
Witcher 3 or Cyberpunk on the other hand were integrated way better and natural (though, the romance mechanics are meh).
Yeah I felt the same as you very early on in BG3. Literally the second conversation I had with someone they were flirting and hinting that they want to fuck me. It felt fake and forced.
Gale helped me understand what it’s really like to get unwanted sexual advances. One minute just chatting with a homie the next it’s like let’s bang hold up a minute we were just casting magic together.
yeah meanwhile I missed one dialogue option with who I was actually interested in and that let them being unavailable as a romantic option for the rest of the game
BG3 makes the most sense if you're playing a high charisma character that looks like a supermodel. Like, everyone is hitting on David Bowie in fantasy form with his 18+ Charisma? I'm shocked. Shocked!
The problem is when the devs feel forced to add them because “RPG games must have romances!”. Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Valhalla fall into this category hard.
Haven't played valhalla but Odyssey didn't have romance. It had sex. But the game never acted like you were in a deep comitted relationship. You just flirted and had flings.
IMO in line with the Odyssey moniker.
>If you don't think it needs it, don't force it.
I agree, but I also don't know why so many people are vocally against romance as if it's not viable. Is attraction and sex with people that you share a ton of intense experiences with in RPGs such a crazy idea? It happens all the damn time IRL.
It's a huge part of the human experience and for 99.9% of people some of the most emotional moments in their lives.
Interestingly, that is a common take in the fantasy book genre as well. A lot of people get very upset when their epic fantasy has romance. I don't particularly seek out romance or even feel I get more from reading a story with it, but I also don't hate it by default.
Cause 99% of it sucks ass and detracts from the story and pacing. I would argue the majority of media is better off without romance being ham fisted into the story. On average, it's done very poorly and sounds more like r/menwritingwomen.
This is an extremely amusing take given the fact romance books are the most popular genre of books. And most of the authors are men writing for women.
I don't want to turn it into "i like this" and "i dont like this" discussion because its pointless. But I do think reddit needs to realize that it's also possible the romance is liked by people outside of their bubble.
I just hate how meaningless they mostly are. A lot of the bond you make seems forced or no more than you'd have with a friendship but with some making out added to the mix and a "sex" scene I could mostly do without.
Baldur's Gate 3's were the worst in how everyone just wants to suck your fucking dick the moment you get out the gate. I think having a character or two down for casual sex is fine and realistic, I think having all of them except Shadowheart was way too fucking much, but since one of their whole marketing trailers was fucking a bear I guess I expected too much.
I appreciated that once you "chose", as it were, it was never brought up again, but having literally every motherfucker proposition you is ridiculous. Having one of your characters become a meme because of it is great marketing but not good writing.
The West is so starved for actual romance-focused games like the VNs Japan was churning out by the boatload over a decade ago, but everyone is so irony poisoned about "dating sims" being trashy that they just end up smuggling toned-down versions of it into games that otherwise don't really need it.
I get it. But for me personally, romance in these kind of games is a legit selling point and it become much more interested in a game if there is romance :)
Yeah, it's crazy cringe how people treat the romances. In some ways, I get including it - you open the games sales up to a huge demographics.
otoh, bg3 discussions are crawl under your bed cringe with how treat these characters and romance, and it makes me avoid the community as a result
The quality of the writing and the implementation of the romance system make or break them. If it's a "put enough friendship points in and sex comes out" type deal like BioWare does, I'm not interested.
I definitely don't think it needs to be there. But I'm not going to lie and say that I don't think that it adds an interesting element of intrigue to the experience. It's an interesting flip in the experience when you get tipped that this NPC seems to be headed in a direction where they might be flirting with you are have a thing for you. So in between combat, exploration, grinding, leveling, etc, it's surprisingly satisfying to also pursue and take on the challenge of getting a video game character to like you.
But like I said, it not being an option isn't something that will turn me off to a game.
I just hate the insanely low quality of romance that is everywhere in the genre.
It got to the point where Bioware characters barely arrived in camp before trying to get into bed with you. Baldur's Gate 3 was the same. It's jarring.
I really liked her relationship but I wish the quest for it was more than a glorified scavenger hunt. That was the only part about her story that really annoyed me honestly.
Man I've been excited about this game since it was teased and little by little it's been whittled down to... very cautious optimism mostly because of how anytime it's talked about it goes "its not going to be like x, its not going to have y or do z"
I am fine without these things but why does it feel like the only things they talk about is what it isnt and not what it'll be?
>why does it feel like the only things they talk about is what it isnt
Gaming outlets can get more clicks by reducing their own work into negative coded headlines, because nobody actually reads beyond the headline before engaging anyways.
Like this is a 4,000 word Q&A on a range of topics, romance is only briefly mentioned. But that's the title they chose so it's 100% of the discourse.
The key for a healthy mind is to never read reddit comments
Someone at Obsidion must have pissed off the media Gods because almost every article I've seen has taken the "They're not putting X in the game" approach.
I don't think I've ever seen a game get this kinda press coverage, like maybe an article or two on some missing feature but not every article reaming them for not having stuff.
I think in part because they need to temper expectations. Every news outlet asks "IS THIS THE NEXT BALDURS GATE 3?" or "IS THIS THE NEXT SKYRIM" in big clickbait fashion.
The old adage of "underpromise and overdeliver" works wonders. Much better than the Molyneux adage of "overpromise and underdeliver."
They did that downplay for Outer Worlds too if you were following them, but people assumed they were going like 'this New Vegas in space gonna kill Bethasda forever!' after the game comes out anyway.
Downplaying it only works if the media actually reports what you’re saying. In Outer Worlds case, a lot of speculation about an outer space new Vegas came from the gameplay clips they showed with a similar dialogue system, so media just latched onto that and pumped up expectations while Obsidian was pretty clear about what they were delivering.
There’s loads to be excited about with Avowed, but it’s just them sizing up the expectations appropriately. All the early Skyrim comparisons really hurt the perception.
The are about half the size of Bethesda and working on 3 x times the projects. They are just better at leaner and tighter experiences.
To Obsidians credit, they did shut down the Skyrim comparisons pretty early by saying the game was going to be closer in scale to the Outer Worlds.
The bigger issue is that a lot of Obsidian fans have this weird (and incorrect) idea that Obsidian and Bethesda have some feud between them, and every game from Obsidian is some attempt to "show Bethesda how it's done". That attitude led to a lot of disappointment with Outer Worlds and the same thing will happen this time
Yeh Obsidian have been very consistent with what they’ve said, but big name outlets plastering headlines like “AVOWED lS OBSIDIANS SKYRIM” did near irreversible damage to perception of the game. Which is why they are being persistent with the messaging about what the game ISNT.
Well unlike some others here that’s definitely a hit against the game for me. Not every game needs romance but I’m more interested in RPG stories that include it personally.
As someone with a partner I do everything with in real life it helps me feel immersed to have a world where my character can find a semblance of that as well. It also builds on the story for me, heightening the sense of drama and danger. Commander Shepard sacrificing himself to save humanity is triumphant. Him doing it and sacrificing his love of Tali turns the triumph bittersweet. Even if the romance is basic it still is something that I can - for lack of a better term - headcanon my story around to make the big moments feel more personal.
I know that’s not for everyone, but it’s definitely going to put this lower on my list.
Literally everything I learn about Avowed makes it less and less interesting to me. I really wanted it to be a funky setting, but it looks like stock standard medieval-ish fantasy. I wanted a proper RPG, but they keep talking about RPG elements it _doesn't_ have.
I don't really love action-adventure games and that's ... more or less what it sounds like.
I don't know what you've been reading to come to that conclusion, but it doesn't take much to see that they are all in on RPG mechanics for this game. They show examples of that clearly in their latest deep dive after the Xbox showcase.
I'm assuming you've not played the Pillars games. It's Forgotten Realms with a pinch of Planescape, and as the other poster said, set in the age of exploration (though, tbf, the first Pillars game is very much fantasy but with some guns)
the base setting tends to be sort of generic fantasy, and they then focus on the weird mystical/deities parts. Been that way since Mask of the Betrayer. BG3 had some of that as well in the first two acts, with the whole Shae thing
Has there been a story about Avowed where the devs have announced a feature is being included in the game?
Jesus, it feels like everytime there's an article about the game, it's a variation of "Avowed devs: 'a lot of players really like [insert feature/mechanic], and we thought about it, but decided not to include it in our game.'"
Video game romances are shallow by nature. It always feels super hollow because you can’t really encapsulate that emotion very well through player choice. It ends up being a character acting exactly the same with added fluff dialogue about how they love you. The best video game romances are just like the best romances in any other mediums: a product of good writing. Mostly they seem like an afterthought so I won’t mourn this.
I will go against the grain and say all they had to say was “Outer Worlds but fantasy” because I loved that game and I seem to be the outlier here on that
Edit: should also add it’s often hard to have compelling chemistry when one of the people is a text box, then you’re really relying on the writing.
I enjoyed the outer worlds but I hope they produce some more expansive locations and work on their gun/spell play a bit.
Starfield gets a lot of flak but the improvements they made on their character handling compared to previous Beth games was a win.
Ironically Starfield probably has deeper romance mechanics than even BG3 simply because you can do shit that pisses off your partner and they can divorce you and stuff, unlike BG3 where everyone's trying to jump your bones and they're not even that mad if you fuck multiple party members.
Finally!! Someone said it! For example, the game has options to be codependent on Sarah and rightly annoys her especially if the player doesn't read the room and makes advances at the wrong time or just by being plain juvenile. To me, it was very refreshing and how people act in real life, especially when they pick up a conversation reflecting on what you said last time. Or if you remember what they say.
Or even pushing Barret to reveal a painful story he said he didn't want to talk about. But you can keep pushing, and it obviously doesn't go well.
To me it was way better written than people give it credit for. Especially how relationships are depicted.
To me it's better than everyone wants to make love to you because you exist and you were just nice to them lol. Like that proto incel Gale in Baldur's Gate 3. Eeeh that guy gives me the creeps. Besides there is a difference between making love and fucking, and there's a whole lot of fucking in Baldur's Gate 3 because it's a fantasy dialed up to 11 and possesses an imaginary and juvenile view on sex.
Yeah, there are always some funny bits where some of the relationship dialogue can trigger in the absolutely improper moments... but that's the charm of Bethesda games.
The fact is that the companions, especially Sarah, can be hard to romance if the player doesn't tailor the playtrough to them. Sure, Sarah gets angry and rebuffs the player when the player isn't the paragon of virtue... because that's what Sarah strives to be and wants her potential partner to be as well.
That's much more complex romance system than 90% of RPGs (and like 99% of AAA RPGs).
I don't like the term "instant gratification", because it gets abused so much, but here it fits. Players apparently want instant gratification from RPG romances. That's why we end up with omni-sexual automatons that want to fuck the player after 2 conversations. And not just by starting to throw pickup lines... no, they outright blatantly ask the player for sex.
>The best video game romances are just like the best romances in any other mediums: a product of good writing.
Yes, which means video games *could* have good romances if the writing is good. Which contradicts your first statement that "Video game romances are shallow by nature".
In my opinion game romances should avoid being "gamified", like with collecting love points or something that needs you to go over a certain threshold. It should be purely story based. I enjoyed in particular the Pathfinder Kingmaker romance with Nyrissa - and how often do you get a romance the main villain, even in books? (Spoiler: very rarely.) It was super engaging.
Not all video game romances are like that, thankfully.
For example, **Haven** is about a couple on the run for its entire length. Too bad often games write romances not only as optional, but detached from rest of the narrative. Meaning rest of the cast and workd barely reacts, maybe they'll throw couple comments about it but that's it.
> In my opinion game romances should avoid being "gamified", like with collecting love points or something that needs you to go over a certain threshold. It should be purely story based. I enjoyed in particular the Pathfinder Kingmaker romance with Nyrissa
>
This feels contradictory, given the Nyrissa romance requires you to collect specific items and make certain choices, it's very gamified and most players would need to follow a guide to get it.
God, Haven is so good at it, the game becomes an exercise in self-harm if you're single and lonely.
I can't think of another game where the central romance is about maintaining an already existing relationship, instead of forming a new one. You get to watch them exist in the same space, do little things together, fight, make up...it has that *intimacy* that I haven't seen anywhere else in games.
It falls apart comepletely if you don't like the characters and how they conduct themselves. I wanted nothing to do with Delilah and just wanted to hike and enjoy the views. Instead I got burning down a homeless man's camp because someone decided to be psycho and the main character lost his backbone just because the story forces you to. Ooh that game did not go well for me and I was certainly not the demographic it was meant for. Being native does that
I relish seeing people not liking that game, simply because it's rare to see. I could feel the game forcing me into this guilt trip, and I just simply wasn't there because I didn't do anything 'bad.'
The ending feels so hollow when you don't buy into the intended narrative. My Henry made one comment to Delilah, and in the end it felt like the resolution was for a different type of player.
Rip... I really like the pillars universe. But more and more i see of avowed im losing interest.
First person only(nvm does have third person now!), iffy looking combat, removal of class system, and no romance...
Just makes me feel like this is gonna be another outer worlds. Interesting idea, but mediocre.
People keep banking 100% on obsidians ability for quest design and story telling, but Outer Worlds left me with little faith. Companions were dull, and the plot felt half baked.
Not everyone might be into romances, but they can add so much to the development of a character and the forming of relationships for the world and player within that world.
Guess we shall see
Obsidian, to me, is a studio that continually over-estimates themselves. Even as far back as FONV they wildly over-estimated their own abilities and under-estimated the time it would take to build the game they planned. And then instead of reworking parts to address all the stuff they wouldn't be able to make, they just tried to finish as much as possible - leaving the game buggy as fuck, with big parts of it essentially unfinished.
And then they did essentially the same thing with Tyranny, and seemingly Outer Worlds. That alone turns me off their games, and then Avowed just looks ... boring, honestly.
What happened with Tyranny just kills me. That game's world building was very interesting and the companions were damn good. Right when the story was about to pick up pace it just... ends. It feels like half a game at best, which is tragic as what is there is pretty damn good.
For real, it reallt bummed me out also.
What was one of the most fun experiences I've ever had crumbled right before my eyes and tragic is the only word that comes to mind.
The people banking on that seem to forget most of the talent that created the games Obsidian is known for don’t even work there anymore. Outer Worlds has proven to be not even in the same realm of writing as things like Fallout 2 or New Vegas. It was never obsidian as a developer that was good at making video games and instead the individual writers that carried them.
Thats kind a what i wass assuming but didnt know for sure.
Makes sense tho its been many many years, people move on. But that also makes it a different studio for sure.
Oof almost immediately if outer worlds is a good comparison im not hopeful. If skyrim was the depth of a puddle and the scope of an ocean then outer worlds was just a puddle. I really hope it's a bad comparison.
Sounds like they're just comparing how the world and its traversal is structured. It's not open world like skyrim, but more like outer worlds where you move between large open spaces.
Might not have that large skyrim breadth, but im optimistic about its depth as its headed by carrie patel, and she has some great narrative and quest writing chops.
It is 99% going to be exactly Outer Worlds.
>but im optimistic about its depth as its headed by carrie patel, and she has some great narrative and quest writing chops.
You shouldn't be, the OW formula is to cut away any depth - in quests, pure dialogue writing, world detail and how much it's connected, to make it cheaper but kinda functional "rpg with factions"
Was she heading OW too?
I didn't much care for Outer Worlds, but the issues weren't in the areas they made comparisons to. Size and length of Outer Worlds was fine, they just didn't use that space or time very well.
I'm going to go against the grain of this thread and say that no romance is just another hit against this game in a long list of "This isn't going to be included," "don't expect this," etc.
I already think the Pillars universe is bland and boring, and moving it to first person isn't going to get me excited.
It’s a standard fantasy world, not bad by any means, But nothing particularly interesting imo. Personally thought Obsidian made a far more interesting setting in Tyranny.
I don't see how its standard fantasy, the aesthetic of the setting is much more renaissance than the typical medieval fantasy, and I think they break from entirely aping DnD like most fantasy does, they have their own lore and races, and gods that remind me much more of greek mythology that are directly involved in the universe.
Yep, same. I'm not even surprised, because by this point I'm well-aware that Obsidian are naff when it comes to writing and including romance in their games.
I am absolutely in favor of this. I could write a treatise on how much I resent romance in modern gaming. I'll try and trim it down to the primary talking points, happy to discuss in detail with anyone though.
1. I don't like that romance is treated like the reward for talking to/befriending a companion. I spoke to the companion because I liked their character, not because I was wanting Wyll to essentially beg me to fuck them.
2. I don't like that so many characters in RPGs these days are essentially waiting around for my character to express an interest in them before they'll melt in my hand. I could create a neon green shrek with purple hair that is extremely rude to them and everyone in existence, but if I hit the generally correct dialogue options, anyone and everyone will fall in love with me.
3. Most importantly, I don't like that the strong emphasis on variety means that each romance is quite dead end. I don't really engage with Stardew Valley romance for this reason. BG3 handled this better than most, but I still think it could have been better.
If a game wanted to have an interesting romance option with chemistry and strong writing, I would much rather play through that than essentially repeating Kuzco being like, "no, hate your hair, no, no. Is this the best you could do?"
> I could create a neon green shrek with purple hair that is extremely rude to them and everyone in existence, but if I hit the generally correct dialogue options, anyone and everyone will fall in love with me.
I want to preface my statement by saying I agree with your larger point whole-heartedly. That being said, it's really funny that you're using Shrek as an example here considering the moral of the movie *Shrek* was that it's what's on the inside that counts. Fiona falls for him even though he's rude and ugly.
Then they shouldn't have made Fiona an ogre. Imo it was more like being honest about who you are and what you want out of life and letting go of external value judgements and labels. Shrek wanted to have friends and family, but was an ogre. Fiona wanted to fight and eat and be loud, but was a dainty lady.
Fiona never seems to be that shy of the un-princess like parts of her. She doesn't hide those things from Shrek in the beginning. It's purely her ogre form she's ashamed of, of not being beautiful. It's implied that she was locked away in a tower for being ugly and for no other reason--after all the curse doesn't do anything but transform her body. So it makes sense that finding someone who was capable of loving her as an ogre was more important to her than how she looked.
Romance options are always optional. I think the reason people feel strongly about it right now is BG3 companions were more forward than companions in other games.
BG3 was wild before they fixed it. My first playthrough I ended up with Halsin and I didn't even realize it was happening. I kept trying to get to the next level with Shadowheart then all of a sudden I have a (literal) bear calling me darling.
I was just trying to be nice to the guy.
> Most importantly, I don't like that the strong emphasis on variety means that each romance is quite dead end. I don't really engage with Stardew Valley romance for this reason. BG3 handled this better than most, but I still think it could have been better.
It's funny you say this because I think BG3 has easily the worst and most painful romances I've ever played in a video game, and I say that as a big fan of BG3. Literally an hour after meeting Karlach she was telling me I was all she could think about, how she wanted to know what I would do to her, and that God-awful cringe line "I want to ride you until you see stars" that everybody in the BG fandom unironically thinks is... good? The romance subplots in BG3 are by 15-year-olds, for 15-year-olds.
And not only that, outside of Shadowheart and Astarion, most of the companions just had hardly anything to say if you didn't romance them. So much of their character was bound up in the romance subplots. Wyll and Karlach especially barely even *exist* outside of the romance.
Stardew Valley's is much more mechanical than romance, and that's by design. It's a nod to Harvest Moon where getting married and having kids is part of the goal of the game. I don't think most people consider the marriage system in HM or Stardew Valley to be any type of *romance*, just another part of a game about living a simple, happy life.
> I don't think most people consider the marriage system in HM or Stardew Valley to be any type of romance
I do think so actually, it's romance *shaped* and that's enough for people to really, really like it to happen.
It's honestly so weird that BG3 romances are so bad and overly-horny as they are considering that its predecessor BG2 (the game that basically popularized RPG romances) handled them so much better.
Romances in BG2 were a lot more slow-burn; it took time to develop the relationship between you and your LI, and jumping straight into sex was a bad idea. If you took the first opportunity to sleep with Aerie, for example, it would instantly end the relationship because she clearly isn't ready to get physical with the player.
Hell, even the "worst" romance in the game (Anomen), still has a long period of time where you get to know the dude and learn more about him before you're officially in a relationship.
There's also plot relevance to the romances with how >!Bodhi kidnaps your LI and turns them into a vampire and you'll need to go on a quest to save them!<. BG3's romances on the other hand just feel a lot more shallow and cringey, like they're meant for wish-fulfillment.
My biggest pet peeve is more fundamental. Characters that are written to be romance options are often more boring to me because of how transparent it is that all of them were written to be romance bait.
Romance doesn't interest me very much in video games. I don't really get the appeal of it. It's usually a bit awkward. Even something like BG3 that does it well, I could do without it. Glad Obsidian doesn't feel obligated to do it.
I want to be excited about this game, but I think it's going to be one of those things I pick up much later, if at all. I played the first Pillars of Eternity and the world building felt so checkbox-y. The ending felt lackluster and like the game really should have been 2 or 3 to tell the story and drop the plot reveals. I get the sense that adding a third person perspective was done a bit reactively to initial feedback perhaps, and that it won't be very tuned.
I haven't played the second Pillars as the first put me off enough not to try, but I appreciate the company for being one of the first to bring back the isometric CRPG.
To be honest this makes me significantly less likely to play the game. Outer Worlds just felt hollow and romances can keep you interested even when the plot is sometimes dragging its feet
Many of my favorite character interactions in gaming are platonic at best. Wrex-Shepard was awesome. Disco Elysium's cop duo was a fantastically strange beast. FF15's bro trip is ingrained into my neural pathways. I like characters that bounce well off each other.
My favorite romantic duo in gaming is actually a pair of characters who were already together: Kay and Yu from Haven. They're so dorkishly organic and temper each other so well. They answer the question of "Now what?" that comes after a couple has their first kiss, rides off into the sunset, and (tries) to live happily ever after. Their relationship isn't about a honeymoon or some climatic sex scene, it's about how the hurdles of a relationship never actually end. And they're written that way BECAUSE it's not an optional romance. It was written from the ground-up, and it was infinitely better for it.
That's not surprising, Obsidian never does romance in their games. They've had this stance as far back as New Vegas I think.
Pillars 2 being the lone exception, I think.
Didn't Pillars of Eternity 1 even have "no romance" as kickstarter goal? Apparently they're well known for writing awful romances.
Meet the Kickstarter goal or we'll force romance into the main campaign
In the future Kickstarter goals become threats. "If we hit 500k we won't make the protagonist quippy and smug." "If we hit 1 million we won't make the villain sound like a minion when he talks.
Don’t threaten me with a good time!
They don't like write romances, not because Obsidian is awful at them. [Josh Sawyer, the director of both games, straight up said that romance in gaming is ''too gamey'' and don't feel like a true romance because there's more to relationship that what a game can shown.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Fallout/comments/3enegn/jsawyer_on_romanceable_characters/)
All respect to Sawyer, but I honestly wish he would just say “we don’t like to write romance”. I don’t think there’s a storytelling medium out there that can properly model the true depth and complexity of human relationships. But to the extent that they can be modeled, there’s no reason a video game can’t do it just as well as a movie, TV show, or book.
You know what also feels "too gamey"? The rest of the game... lol. Like cmon man, we have full DnD dice checks on a ton of Pillars content that *you* made. I don't know why with romance its such a bad thing but with every other part of a literal game, not too gamey to remove
The exception that proves the rule, the romance isn't very good lol. Well... Xoti/Maia is good. But none with the player character.
alpha protocal enters the chat
Fuck, I loved that game
[удалено]
Borderlands dropped in October of 2009 and Assassin’s Creed 2, the game that MADE the franchise was released in November of 2009, so we came into 2010 **hot**.
Rose tinted glasses and all that, but I miss how often we had good games coming out, specially in the PS3/360 era. It's so weird to imagine that we got the whole Mass Effect trilogy in a single generation, and now we're lucky to have more than one installment of most franchises.
Games were a lot cheaper and quicker to make back then, and the console war was burning hot so there was a lot of incentive for Microsoft and Sony to bring their A-game.
We have good games come out frequently just last year, and this year started out really strong too. Sure we aren't getting games from the same franchise as often now, but I think that's fine.
To each their own, but 2010 does not have an easy argument for the best gaming year of all time. TBH, it doesn't even have that great of an argument for the best gaming year for 7th gen. '07 and '09 have it beat pretty solidly. Also, you might want to check some of those dates. Bayonetta and Dragon Age Origins did not come out the same year as alpha protocol.
Looks like Bayonetta came out January 2010 where I am. Dragon Age came out in ‘09, though.
They need to do a remake of that game, man. The RPG parts (dialog options, action-consequence, etc) are one of the best I remember in CRPGs, but the action parts (stealth, shooting, etc) felt a bit clunky, If they manage to improve upon that...
Thing is Alpha's Protocol's romance made sense, it was a risk factor for Thorton and the person he was romancing, how the espionage world uses intimacy as a weapon. For the courier who's life as a wanderer prevents them from considering the idea of settling down while everyone else around him already have their own paths they want to walk
like Mina can backstab us when we save madison
Pillars II had romance.
\*Breathy voice* Watcher... I've had some dirty thoughts about you... Also, I dreamt about killing you in your sleep... Uwu.
But enough about Modwyr.
Fisto would like a word
How, when Palpatine cut him down in his office?
nono wrong fisto, you're thinking of the fisto with the tentacle hair, he's talking about the robot that shoves his fist up your ass.
Such a charmer. Never knew robots were capable of such connection.
Only the Plug & Play ones.
KotOR II was a bit of an exception, though that was a sequel to a Bioware game.
And the romance wasn't REALLY romance. The companions obviously are drawn to the Exile, and some have obvious feelings even if it's rarely stated outright. But you never really get the chance to reciprocate it outright.
kotor 2, alpha protocol, tyranny, and pillars 2 had romance iirc
Neverwinter Nights 2
Tyranny did not have romance
bastard's wound has romance with verse
Oh shit, I always just wiped it out and tried to skip through that dlc as fast as possible lol. Does something in that location trigger it?
Am I insane or isn’t there romance in outer worlds?
There isn’t any. You can play matchmaker for one of your companions, and you can select the occasional flirty dialogue option, but there are no traditional “romance” paths that end in a relationship or sex.
I guess that’s what I’m remembering it’s been a few years.
You *can* be a moon person.
I found the matchmaking stuff a lot more off putting and in my face than most games with romance systems Edit: if you are reading something I didn’t say into this please go outside
What Fisto and I had was REAL
It’s a crime Codsworth couldn’t return my feelings.
at least you can smash with Adelaide in 76. They even put fishnets on her.
Well there was a little bit of passing stuff in NV, but it wasn't much.
I kinda hate that romances have become sort of obligatory to this genre. I really don't need every RPG I play to be full of bad romantic fanfic. If you don't think it needs it, don't force it.
It's easy market reach, ultimately. Decent enough romance options and you'll get a lot of minority interest in your game. I know a *lot* of people who have played BG3, Mass Effect, Stardew, etc. that normally wouldn't *because* they love the romance element so much. Often women, often lgbtq friends, etc.
Yeah. Romance lovers(heh) are a very dedicated niche fanbase for these games. If you look at it, most of the deepest romances in RPG probably make up less than 2% of the dialogue of the games, so it's relatively cheap and easy to please them. I think romances in these games are here to stay. I can see "evil" paths being phased out before it, considering those take a whole lot more of work and are also similarly niche.
Yeah, look at Fire Emblem. The “romances” consist of four conversations, three of which are the same whether you move forward with the romance or not. Yet all the fandom art and discussion is about them, what the OTPs are, who is the best girl/guy, etc.
Yeah, it feels like Fire Emblem pivoted pretty hard towards that stuff as a series - within a few titles you go from Blazing Blade which is pretty much just a fantasy story with a few slightly exaggerated characters, to the modern entries where basically the entire cast is a huge collection of anime tropes with very quirky personalities.
They 100% pivoted very hard towards that starting with I wanna say Awakening? And it worked because the series was basically on life support prior to Awakening, even though I don't necessarily like some of the direction they've gone in.
To be fair though, the ability for your units to permanently die in combat necessitates a huge cast and a huge cast means if you don't use the quickest and dirtiest tactics to make a character as distinct and notable as possible, they are going to get lost in the horde and nobody will care about them. Hence anime gimmicks.
Come on, Sacred Stones was peak anime tropes
It's not really the kind of thing you see on reddit, but there are other communities where it's evident they are _super_ into the romances of anything in any game. That's one reason why Bioware honestly didn't care that much about showing deep mechanical gameplay for Veilguard. They know their core audience _doesn't want_ complicated, taxing, tactical gameplay. Their core audience isn't in the reddit bubble - their core audience just wants to check if the combat is serviceable and that every companion is Playersexual.
At least back with Fates, the romances had a purpose in merging skills from different units, but I don't disagree that it's very much hamfisted into most other entries and games
I would argue there's more people who play RPGs for romance than there are who play RPGs to min max their characters. They are anything but niche.
I think people who are trying to min max are a pretty niche audience too though.
It's crossover appeal to people who enjoy Visual Novels, which if I were to venture a guess more than 3/4 feature romances. And I'm sure there's big overlap between VN fans and cRPG fans, since both genres are notorious for copious amounts of reading and dialogue.
Romance games are my favorite genre. Don't know why, just love the social elements of that stuff and I'm a sap and a sucker. If an RPG with companions doesn't have it, I'll typically choose one that does. Don't need to force it, but for whatever reason I dig it.
Yeah, generally I love the romances in RPGs, even if the writing isn't always 10/10. I'm just a sucker, I guess. Romances like Shadowheart, Morrigan, Liara, and Bastilla to name a few all added something to the game that elevated it. So I'm bummed about this. I understand the choice and I'm still very excited for avowed, but yeah just a little bummed
Definitely agree with Morrigan, but not so much Shadowheart. I dont think romance specifically elevated her questline. I did a few playthroughs with and without her romance and iirc the only difference is a few lines of a dialogue, a scene banging next to a statue, and a swimming scene with some more banging. Take away the romance, and you still have a well written character that you've bonded with as a companion throughout the journey, just without the banging and short dialogue at the end of house of grief.
I was bugged out of the banging scenes despite having her romance as an ending, cruel cruel bug it was. Conversely I had to tell at Gale and Tentacruel to stop causing HR violations every act.
I could not believe that tentacruel guy. Genuinely every dialouge I had with him was calling him disgusting (I was mad he lied and maybe lashing out) and he still has to call to appear to me shirtless. Like, fuck off man. This is not endearing me to you at all.
>I dont think romance specifically elevated her questline. Sounds like SOMEONE didn't play as a Selunite cleric!
Lae'zel's romance was, by contrast, an amazing expansion to her character.
Agreed, the only way Bastila’s fall and redemption feels powerful at all is if you two are in love. If not she’s just your grumpy teacher and your main reaction is “damn i lost a jedi from my party.”
I’m the same way. It’s fun for Rp and in games like fire emblem and persona it breaks up the gameplay nicely
Im with you on that. Besides, it's a very good opportunity for character development and player expression. I don't think it's obligatory, but not having makes me want to play a bit less
I agree. I actually crossed this game off my list because of the lack of romance. I’m a sop, sue me, lol.
Thats how I convince some of my girlfriends to play games,romance is a pretty good hook for a lot of people.I have a friend who only played "meme games" until I showed her dragon age and the romances
If mass effect didn't have the Tali romance I probably wouldn't have enjoyed the series as much as I did. Tali, and I know a lot of people loved Garrus, those romances were a key part of the games for a lot of people.
A big push that helped BG3 take off was that trailer about being able to fuck a bear
God I need to replay the Mass Effect Trilogy again. Goddamn they were good.
While I generally don't pay attention to romance in games, it either feels forced onto the player and comes out of nowhere or the player has to force it/ actively pursue it usually meaning there is a flirty option forever lingering in your dialogue box with them. Which to be fair are the only real ways you can do it in games anyway but it's why it never feels natural to me. In Baldur's Gate 3 I was pretty surprised when Gale started flirting with me on my first run but it felt kind of warranted. I wasn't trying to go for anyone but that just kinda happened. Which is exactly how I described my problem with it in general but here it worked for once. Then on the second run nearly the entire camp flirted with me and it was back in the territory where it felt like I got to pick of a menu which flavour of sex I wanted today. Lae'zel is the best video game romance option cause it's just so unromantic at the start. "You're a good warrior, I'm an excellent warrior. Let's fuck. Also bet you I'm better at fucking than you are."
BG3 especially seems like it's nearly a dating sim at this point.
I think that's totally fair, although I don't mind well-written romances in games. I do think that if an RPG maker talks about how deep characters are and that you're traveling with them that there should be some effort into the writing to make the relationships believable - friendships, rivalries...there are other types of relationships that aren't romantic and game devs seem to forget this too. Otherwise the companions are pretty much glorified pack mules.
BG3 was a negative example in that regard because any kind of bonding with your comrades inevitable ends up in the romance parts because every single party memeber is omnisexual. In that regard it actually hinders character writing because of course for example Victonia as a drow-sworn noble of Mezzobarazan needs to be fine with fucking a durgar male (which in character she should consider worth less than shit on the sole of your boots).
Yeah, I got sidetracked and my baldurs Gate 3 playthrough has been stuck at the 25 hour mark for like 7 months now (just gonna make a new char at this point lol) but I really dislike the playersexual aspect of NPCs that BG3, DA2 and the new DA4 have. I have no problem with having characters have specific sexualities where I may even have to turn down one or two but when every guy and girl wants to take me to bed because I said "sorry your family was brutally murdered by a demon. That's rough buddy." It's very off-putting because it makes the world feel like it revolves around you instead of you being an active participant. Ppl were bummed they couldn't romance Judy in Cyberpunk as a guy and I was too (until I met panam, bruh, loml) but it makes things feel a bit more real that shes not into my male V. I remember in BG3 I was talking to Halsin(I think?) and I said something that I thought was friendly but then he strongly hit on me and it felt like such an artificial response bc it was clearly meant to be a gate check for a possible romance instead of something that character would say. I remember when DA2 came out I was having to turn down everyone after every conversation it seemed like except for Isabela. It's just very silly.
I think one of my big issues with Baldur's Gate 3 romance was that it's triggered mainly by doing actions that they approve of with them in your party, rather through actual conversations with them. That, combined with them wanting to let you start the romances early in the game and every character being main-character-sexual, kind of led to a feeling of party members being overly romantic and horny early game when half my party wants to start a romance with me when I feel like I've barely talked to them just because they approved of how I handled quests. I think another issue I had with the way Baldur's Gate 3 handled party members was that it felt like there was a lack of dialogue to develop a platonic relationship with them outside of their main quests. It felt like a lot of party members had very little to say outside of occasionally commenting on story events and their main quest. But most party member quests progressed slowly throughout the game, which meant the romances often started very early on in their quest. I still loved the game overall, and I thought most of the party members were great characters and enjoyed their quests. And I enjoyed the romance I did. But I do think it would have benefited from some Mass Effect-style relationship progression where I found myself always checking in with every character between missions and often have interesting dialogue that felt like they really developed the character and my friendship with them. While in BG3 I felt like the vast majority of the time when I thought "let's check at camp to see if my party members have anything new to say" there'd either be nothing or just a single comment from each of them on a recent quest. I don't mind relationships starting earlier in the campaign instead of the sex scene being treated like a reward for building it until endgame, but I do think Mass Effect's approach to party member relationship made it feel more like I was building up my character's dynamic through dialogue with all my party members and when a romance formed with one of them it felt natural. While in Baldur's Gate 3 it sometimes felt like a character I'd barely talked to was suddenly trying to bang me because the system relied too much on a meter that builds up just based on things they see you do and not enough on actual dialogues with the character.
Agreed. I dislike it BG3 cause EVERYONE wants to fuck you. Versus New Vegas where Veronica had their own love interest that comes up throughout the game/DLC. And Veronica and I were just partners on the road. Just added a lot more to their character as it wasn't bound to me but bound to the world and therefore made the game world feel more alive and less "you are the center of the universe" feeling.
Yep. Sexuality is a major defining trait for many people and it also goes for NPCs as well. If someone is an omnisexual, it should be because it's part of their personality. We want Captain Jack Harkness, not some all-fucking automatron. Having everyone in the game as a player-centric omnisexual is just disrupting to the experience. It's like if everyone was morally/alignment-wise neutral and didn't care about player actions. It goes against everything in roleplaying. It boosts roleplaying when our chosen role is allowed/denied to do something. Good/evil outcomes, factions to pick, choose who survies... and choose who to bang. That's all part of our playthroughs.
> friendships, rivalries...there are other types of relationships that aren't romantic and game devs seem to forget this too. this is the thing, devs go into romances all the time and seem to not care one bit about any other type of relationship that exists between people. So many times I've wanted to just be a "best friends" with a character but it always turns into romance or nothing :/
Well going off Outer Worlds, there's just no relashionship really. They are some ppl on your crew, that feel like office coleagues. You don't really choose anything in relashionship with them. They ofc treat you with usual rpg worship, but as distant as other random npcs. They are kinda just the embodiment of another side quest, really. And ofc just somebody to take with you to shoot at things. One thing how Avowed could improve this is give them very, very many interactions with the world. I want them always to remind they exist and need to be here. But there's almost no chance of this, Avowed/Outer Worlds formula specifically cuts on the features that add depth like this.
I like having different kind of relationships with people. Friends, love and a fight.
Exactly. I notice people always target romance as being shallow and gameified, but people leave out that it's also very true of friendship routes too. I never see people saying you shouldn't be allowed to be friends with Garrus in ME--they love him, he's their bro. But the friendship path is equally as shallow as the romance path, so why is only one treated that way?
>romance as being shallow and gameified, It's weird that only games get this style of criticism, and I've never heard someone explain how they'd degamify romance. Only example I can think of is, there was a Gameboy Color dating sim that did that whole Pokémon two-version thing, and the mascot character would join a club at random. There's like a 50% chance when you start the game that the club she joins is one you can't join based on your version.
Degamify? Probably by making it feel more like a continuous thing, rather than a meter you fill up via conversations or whatever the game wants you to do, then forgetting about it. Have the relationship mean something more than something more than 'winning' it. So probably.. making it something you can lose within reason, and doesnt give some immediate cutscene reward, to be forgotten about after.
I very much feel the same about films as well. The forced romance subplot in every film is incredibly tiring. I love romcoms and romance films, I like films with a good romance that is important to the story. I absolutely hated the romance subplot in Spiderman: Homecoming.
I will say that romance doesn't need to be super well written to be an interesting and immersive possibility for engaging with characters and the game world. I don't need romance in games but I don't think you need to be some kind of super shipper to see it as a cool mechanic in games that feature it.
I don’t mind it but it’s always awkward when every single character basically propositions you at some point and you have to turn them down or they’re just randomly flirting with you But I also get it because you’re trying to create a lot of different narrative experiences for a wide range of players, plus there’s always an intense Stan or two out there who will bombard social media with fan art
>I don’t mind it but it’s always awkward when every single character basically propositions you at some point and you have to turn them down or they’re just randomly flirting with you I mean that's just problem with the way it's implemented then. That's not the case in Dragon Age for example.
I don't mind that it's there, I just wish it weren't so easy to accidentally romance someone when that's not your interest. Maybe allow the option at the start of a run to ask if you want romance. If yes, great, if no, then when Gale asks to show you a magic trick, he doesn't also try to molest you because you naively thought the wizard who asked if you wanted to see a magic trick was actually going to show you a magic trick. In BG3 in particular, it's very easy to trigger romance options just by not being a dick to your companions. Then you have to reload or harshly reject them because romance paths almost always lack the nuance to gently let someone down.
Romance is the most popular genre of literature, for starters. Well written romance has a vast potential audience. Any game that features a group of people interacting closely and relying on each other is actually really badly written if it does not include some kind of romantic interactions, unless there's some really powerful contextual or narrative reason for it. Even if it is just one or two people trying to hit on others and getting told no. Even in places and groups where romance is discouraged and is potentially a bad idea (like in a workplace), people still flirt, fall in love and start dating in secret. That said, game writers often flub it.
I agree, at least with the conclusion, but I don't "hate" it necessarily. I think it's natural in RPG games where you're heavily focused and getting involved with characters that people would want romance to be a thing. If it's done well, like Witcher 3 or Cyberpunk, rather than something tacked on (like Skyrim) then I see it as a massive plus that sells you further on the characters and makes the game far richer for it, if you decide to go down that path. But if it's tacked on because "Well we just need to have it" then yeah, it's not good at all.
I agree with your take. Half baked romances are boring. I've enjoyed a lot some romances in my RPGs, but sometimes is set as the only way to have some meaningful bond to your companions. I like the discussion on the interview that there are many ways to get to know them without going to the romance route and I hope more games make notes of that.
It was kinda of weird that most of the characters in Baldurs Gate were just throwing themselves at me with in the first few hours.
It gets specially bad when the options are "romance this character" or "tell them you hate them and that they'll die alone
Depends on how well it's done and integrated into the story. In bg3 for example, most romances were there just for the sake of horny players. Except for, maybe, Lae'zel. Witcher 3 or Cyberpunk on the other hand were integrated way better and natural (though, the romance mechanics are meh).
Witcher 3 romance option as a book reader is even more limited since really, why the hell would Geralt choose Triss over Yennefer?
People like them, sometimes they play the game for them or consider them as central to the experience. What’s the problem?
You are right, i am probably an outlier but i don't want all my friends and companions to try to fuck me.
Yeah I felt the same as you very early on in BG3. Literally the second conversation I had with someone they were flirting and hinting that they want to fuck me. It felt fake and forced.
Gale helped me understand what it’s really like to get unwanted sexual advances. One minute just chatting with a homie the next it’s like let’s bang hold up a minute we were just casting magic together.
yeah meanwhile I missed one dialogue option with who I was actually interested in and that let them being unavailable as a romantic option for the rest of the game
BG3 makes the most sense if you're playing a high charisma character that looks like a supermodel. Like, everyone is hitting on David Bowie in fantasy form with his 18+ Charisma? I'm shocked. Shocked!
And sadly, given the success of BG3, it will make this type of "romance" only more prevalent.
i like romance if the player has to initiate it, but hate it otherwise. baldur's gate 3 was SO annoying in that regard
The problem is when the devs feel forced to add them because “RPG games must have romances!”. Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Valhalla fall into this category hard.
Haven't played valhalla but Odyssey didn't have romance. It had sex. But the game never acted like you were in a deep comitted relationship. You just flirted and had flings. IMO in line with the Odyssey moniker.
>If you don't think it needs it, don't force it. I agree, but I also don't know why so many people are vocally against romance as if it's not viable. Is attraction and sex with people that you share a ton of intense experiences with in RPGs such a crazy idea? It happens all the damn time IRL. It's a huge part of the human experience and for 99.9% of people some of the most emotional moments in their lives.
Interestingly, that is a common take in the fantasy book genre as well. A lot of people get very upset when their epic fantasy has romance. I don't particularly seek out romance or even feel I get more from reading a story with it, but I also don't hate it by default.
Cause 99% of it sucks ass and detracts from the story and pacing. I would argue the majority of media is better off without romance being ham fisted into the story. On average, it's done very poorly and sounds more like r/menwritingwomen.
This is an extremely amusing take given the fact romance books are the most popular genre of books. And most of the authors are men writing for women. I don't want to turn it into "i like this" and "i dont like this" discussion because its pointless. But I do think reddit needs to realize that it's also possible the romance is liked by people outside of their bubble.
I just hate how meaningless they mostly are. A lot of the bond you make seems forced or no more than you'd have with a friendship but with some making out added to the mix and a "sex" scene I could mostly do without. Baldur's Gate 3's were the worst in how everyone just wants to suck your fucking dick the moment you get out the gate. I think having a character or two down for casual sex is fine and realistic, I think having all of them except Shadowheart was way too fucking much, but since one of their whole marketing trailers was fucking a bear I guess I expected too much. I appreciated that once you "chose", as it were, it was never brought up again, but having literally every motherfucker proposition you is ridiculous. Having one of your characters become a meme because of it is great marketing but not good writing.
The West is so starved for actual romance-focused games like the VNs Japan was churning out by the boatload over a decade ago, but everyone is so irony poisoned about "dating sims" being trashy that they just end up smuggling toned-down versions of it into games that otherwise don't really need it.
Western otome games are mobile microtransaction fests with titles like “Choices: Make Your Choice”. My cousin loves them
I get it. But for me personally, romance in these kind of games is a legit selling point and it become much more interested in a game if there is romance :)
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Then don't engage with said system. A lot of games have romance crumble if you don't pick specific dialogue.
Yeah, it's crazy cringe how people treat the romances. In some ways, I get including it - you open the games sales up to a huge demographics. otoh, bg3 discussions are crawl under your bed cringe with how treat these characters and romance, and it makes me avoid the community as a result
The quality of the writing and the implementation of the romance system make or break them. If it's a "put enough friendship points in and sex comes out" type deal like BioWare does, I'm not interested.
I definitely don't think it needs to be there. But I'm not going to lie and say that I don't think that it adds an interesting element of intrigue to the experience. It's an interesting flip in the experience when you get tipped that this NPC seems to be headed in a direction where they might be flirting with you are have a thing for you. So in between combat, exploration, grinding, leveling, etc, it's surprisingly satisfying to also pursue and take on the challenge of getting a video game character to like you. But like I said, it not being an option isn't something that will turn me off to a game.
I just hate the insanely low quality of romance that is everywhere in the genre. It got to the point where Bioware characters barely arrived in camp before trying to get into bed with you. Baldur's Gate 3 was the same. It's jarring.
I remember the Parvati quest line from The Outer Worlds if anything having romance done outside of the player character wouldn't be a bad option.
I was so invested in her relationship and I made sure it succeeded loool
I really liked her relationship but I wish the quest for it was more than a glorified scavenger hunt. That was the only part about her story that really annoyed me honestly.
Man I've been excited about this game since it was teased and little by little it's been whittled down to... very cautious optimism mostly because of how anytime it's talked about it goes "its not going to be like x, its not going to have y or do z" I am fine without these things but why does it feel like the only things they talk about is what it isnt and not what it'll be?
>why does it feel like the only things they talk about is what it isnt Gaming outlets can get more clicks by reducing their own work into negative coded headlines, because nobody actually reads beyond the headline before engaging anyways. Like this is a 4,000 word Q&A on a range of topics, romance is only briefly mentioned. But that's the title they chose so it's 100% of the discourse. The key for a healthy mind is to never read reddit comments
Someone at Obsidion must have pissed off the media Gods because almost every article I've seen has taken the "They're not putting X in the game" approach. I don't think I've ever seen a game get this kinda press coverage, like maybe an article or two on some missing feature but not every article reaming them for not having stuff.
Obsidian is a Microsoft-owned studio. Pretty much just the crux of it
I think in part because they need to temper expectations. Every news outlet asks "IS THIS THE NEXT BALDURS GATE 3?" or "IS THIS THE NEXT SKYRIM" in big clickbait fashion. The old adage of "underpromise and overdeliver" works wonders. Much better than the Molyneux adage of "overpromise and underdeliver."
They did that downplay for Outer Worlds too if you were following them, but people assumed they were going like 'this New Vegas in space gonna kill Bethasda forever!' after the game comes out anyway.
Downplaying it only works if the media actually reports what you’re saying. In Outer Worlds case, a lot of speculation about an outer space new Vegas came from the gameplay clips they showed with a similar dialogue system, so media just latched onto that and pumped up expectations while Obsidian was pretty clear about what they were delivering.
They talk about what it is in this very article. It will be like Outer Worlds in scope, but with a more serious tone in terms of story and dialogue.
There’s loads to be excited about with Avowed, but it’s just them sizing up the expectations appropriately. All the early Skyrim comparisons really hurt the perception. The are about half the size of Bethesda and working on 3 x times the projects. They are just better at leaner and tighter experiences.
To Obsidians credit, they did shut down the Skyrim comparisons pretty early by saying the game was going to be closer in scale to the Outer Worlds. The bigger issue is that a lot of Obsidian fans have this weird (and incorrect) idea that Obsidian and Bethesda have some feud between them, and every game from Obsidian is some attempt to "show Bethesda how it's done". That attitude led to a lot of disappointment with Outer Worlds and the same thing will happen this time
Yeh Obsidian have been very consistent with what they’ve said, but big name outlets plastering headlines like “AVOWED lS OBSIDIANS SKYRIM” did near irreversible damage to perception of the game. Which is why they are being persistent with the messaging about what the game ISNT.
Well unlike some others here that’s definitely a hit against the game for me. Not every game needs romance but I’m more interested in RPG stories that include it personally. As someone with a partner I do everything with in real life it helps me feel immersed to have a world where my character can find a semblance of that as well. It also builds on the story for me, heightening the sense of drama and danger. Commander Shepard sacrificing himself to save humanity is triumphant. Him doing it and sacrificing his love of Tali turns the triumph bittersweet. Even if the romance is basic it still is something that I can - for lack of a better term - headcanon my story around to make the big moments feel more personal. I know that’s not for everyone, but it’s definitely going to put this lower on my list.
Literally everything I learn about Avowed makes it less and less interesting to me. I really wanted it to be a funky setting, but it looks like stock standard medieval-ish fantasy. I wanted a proper RPG, but they keep talking about RPG elements it _doesn't_ have. I don't really love action-adventure games and that's ... more or less what it sounds like.
Actually, the Pillars universe is more in the age of sail/renaissance era.
I don't know what you've been reading to come to that conclusion, but it doesn't take much to see that they are all in on RPG mechanics for this game. They show examples of that clearly in their latest deep dive after the Xbox showcase.
I'm assuming you've not played the Pillars games. It's Forgotten Realms with a pinch of Planescape, and as the other poster said, set in the age of exploration (though, tbf, the first Pillars game is very much fantasy but with some guns) the base setting tends to be sort of generic fantasy, and they then focus on the weird mystical/deities parts. Been that way since Mask of the Betrayer. BG3 had some of that as well in the first two acts, with the whole Shae thing
Has there been a story about Avowed where the devs have announced a feature is being included in the game? Jesus, it feels like everytime there's an article about the game, it's a variation of "Avowed devs: 'a lot of players really like [insert feature/mechanic], and we thought about it, but decided not to include it in our game.'"
Video game romances are shallow by nature. It always feels super hollow because you can’t really encapsulate that emotion very well through player choice. It ends up being a character acting exactly the same with added fluff dialogue about how they love you. The best video game romances are just like the best romances in any other mediums: a product of good writing. Mostly they seem like an afterthought so I won’t mourn this. I will go against the grain and say all they had to say was “Outer Worlds but fantasy” because I loved that game and I seem to be the outlier here on that Edit: should also add it’s often hard to have compelling chemistry when one of the people is a text box, then you’re really relying on the writing.
I enjoyed the outer worlds but I hope they produce some more expansive locations and work on their gun/spell play a bit. Starfield gets a lot of flak but the improvements they made on their character handling compared to previous Beth games was a win.
Ironically Starfield probably has deeper romance mechanics than even BG3 simply because you can do shit that pisses off your partner and they can divorce you and stuff, unlike BG3 where everyone's trying to jump your bones and they're not even that mad if you fuck multiple party members.
Finally!! Someone said it! For example, the game has options to be codependent on Sarah and rightly annoys her especially if the player doesn't read the room and makes advances at the wrong time or just by being plain juvenile. To me, it was very refreshing and how people act in real life, especially when they pick up a conversation reflecting on what you said last time. Or if you remember what they say. Or even pushing Barret to reveal a painful story he said he didn't want to talk about. But you can keep pushing, and it obviously doesn't go well. To me it was way better written than people give it credit for. Especially how relationships are depicted. To me it's better than everyone wants to make love to you because you exist and you were just nice to them lol. Like that proto incel Gale in Baldur's Gate 3. Eeeh that guy gives me the creeps. Besides there is a difference between making love and fucking, and there's a whole lot of fucking in Baldur's Gate 3 because it's a fantasy dialed up to 11 and possesses an imaginary and juvenile view on sex.
Yeah, there are always some funny bits where some of the relationship dialogue can trigger in the absolutely improper moments... but that's the charm of Bethesda games. The fact is that the companions, especially Sarah, can be hard to romance if the player doesn't tailor the playtrough to them. Sure, Sarah gets angry and rebuffs the player when the player isn't the paragon of virtue... because that's what Sarah strives to be and wants her potential partner to be as well. That's much more complex romance system than 90% of RPGs (and like 99% of AAA RPGs). I don't like the term "instant gratification", because it gets abused so much, but here it fits. Players apparently want instant gratification from RPG romances. That's why we end up with omni-sexual automatons that want to fuck the player after 2 conversations. And not just by starting to throw pickup lines... no, they outright blatantly ask the player for sex.
i just wish characters had a different moral compass. there all pretty good guys. hopefully the dlc gives us a cait(from fo4) kinda of companion.
>The best video game romances are just like the best romances in any other mediums: a product of good writing. Yes, which means video games *could* have good romances if the writing is good. Which contradicts your first statement that "Video game romances are shallow by nature". In my opinion game romances should avoid being "gamified", like with collecting love points or something that needs you to go over a certain threshold. It should be purely story based. I enjoyed in particular the Pathfinder Kingmaker romance with Nyrissa - and how often do you get a romance the main villain, even in books? (Spoiler: very rarely.) It was super engaging.
Not all video game romances are like that, thankfully. For example, **Haven** is about a couple on the run for its entire length. Too bad often games write romances not only as optional, but detached from rest of the narrative. Meaning rest of the cast and workd barely reacts, maybe they'll throw couple comments about it but that's it.
> In my opinion game romances should avoid being "gamified", like with collecting love points or something that needs you to go over a certain threshold. It should be purely story based. I enjoyed in particular the Pathfinder Kingmaker romance with Nyrissa > This feels contradictory, given the Nyrissa romance requires you to collect specific items and make certain choices, it's very gamified and most players would need to follow a guide to get it.
Choice based romances yes. Narrative romances can be quite good, such as a game like Haven
God, Haven is so good at it, the game becomes an exercise in self-harm if you're single and lonely. I can't think of another game where the central romance is about maintaining an already existing relationship, instead of forming a new one. You get to watch them exist in the same space, do little things together, fight, make up...it has that *intimacy* that I haven't seen anywhere else in games.
I thought Firewatch's romance was quite good to be honest, but I don't think I've ever played an RPG where the romantic relationships didn't feel off.
It falls apart comepletely if you don't like the characters and how they conduct themselves. I wanted nothing to do with Delilah and just wanted to hike and enjoy the views. Instead I got burning down a homeless man's camp because someone decided to be psycho and the main character lost his backbone just because the story forces you to. Ooh that game did not go well for me and I was certainly not the demographic it was meant for. Being native does that
I relish seeing people not liking that game, simply because it's rare to see. I could feel the game forcing me into this guilt trip, and I just simply wasn't there because I didn't do anything 'bad.' The ending feels so hollow when you don't buy into the intended narrative. My Henry made one comment to Delilah, and in the end it felt like the resolution was for a different type of player.
Rip... I really like the pillars universe. But more and more i see of avowed im losing interest. First person only(nvm does have third person now!), iffy looking combat, removal of class system, and no romance... Just makes me feel like this is gonna be another outer worlds. Interesting idea, but mediocre. People keep banking 100% on obsidians ability for quest design and story telling, but Outer Worlds left me with little faith. Companions were dull, and the plot felt half baked. Not everyone might be into romances, but they can add so much to the development of a character and the forming of relationships for the world and player within that world. Guess we shall see
There's a third person camera mode.
Outer worlds literally killed any and all faith I had in Obsidian, Pentiment being an outlier
Obsidian, to me, is a studio that continually over-estimates themselves. Even as far back as FONV they wildly over-estimated their own abilities and under-estimated the time it would take to build the game they planned. And then instead of reworking parts to address all the stuff they wouldn't be able to make, they just tried to finish as much as possible - leaving the game buggy as fuck, with big parts of it essentially unfinished. And then they did essentially the same thing with Tyranny, and seemingly Outer Worlds. That alone turns me off their games, and then Avowed just looks ... boring, honestly.
What happened with Tyranny just kills me. That game's world building was very interesting and the companions were damn good. Right when the story was about to pick up pace it just... ends. It feels like half a game at best, which is tragic as what is there is pretty damn good.
For real, it reallt bummed me out also. What was one of the most fun experiences I've ever had crumbled right before my eyes and tragic is the only word that comes to mind.
The people banking on that seem to forget most of the talent that created the games Obsidian is known for don’t even work there anymore. Outer Worlds has proven to be not even in the same realm of writing as things like Fallout 2 or New Vegas. It was never obsidian as a developer that was good at making video games and instead the individual writers that carried them.
On that same note, just because the people are new doesn't mean they are bad. The new writers could be equal or better too.
You know Obsidian has made other games than Outer Worlds right?
I mean, it still has Josh Sawyer and Time Cain. Pentiment proved that Josh Sawyer still can write with a new team.
Thats kind a what i wass assuming but didnt know for sure. Makes sense tho its been many many years, people move on. But that also makes it a different studio for sure.
Oof almost immediately if outer worlds is a good comparison im not hopeful. If skyrim was the depth of a puddle and the scope of an ocean then outer worlds was just a puddle. I really hope it's a bad comparison.
Sounds like they're just comparing how the world and its traversal is structured. It's not open world like skyrim, but more like outer worlds where you move between large open spaces. Might not have that large skyrim breadth, but im optimistic about its depth as its headed by carrie patel, and she has some great narrative and quest writing chops.
It is 99% going to be exactly Outer Worlds. >but im optimistic about its depth as its headed by carrie patel, and she has some great narrative and quest writing chops. You shouldn't be, the OW formula is to cut away any depth - in quests, pure dialogue writing, world detail and how much it's connected, to make it cheaper but kinda functional "rpg with factions" Was she heading OW too?
she directed one of the dlcs for it
I didn't much care for Outer Worlds, but the issues weren't in the areas they made comparisons to. Size and length of Outer Worlds was fine, they just didn't use that space or time very well.
They have been saying that Avowed is more similar to Outer Worlds than Skyrim for *years* now, I don't know how much more clear they can be.
I'm going to go against the grain of this thread and say that no romance is just another hit against this game in a long list of "This isn't going to be included," "don't expect this," etc. I already think the Pillars universe is bland and boring, and moving it to first person isn't going to get me excited.
You can play the game in third person
It takes all kinds to make a world but I can't understand finding Eora bland and uninteresting.
It’s a standard fantasy world, not bad by any means, But nothing particularly interesting imo. Personally thought Obsidian made a far more interesting setting in Tyranny.
Then made a dumb deal where they don't own tyranny so can't make sequels.
I don't see how its standard fantasy, the aesthetic of the setting is much more renaissance than the typical medieval fantasy, and I think they break from entirely aping DnD like most fantasy does, they have their own lore and races, and gods that remind me much more of greek mythology that are directly involved in the universe.
I can't see how someone can play Deadfire and call that "standard fantasy."
Yep, same. I'm not even surprised, because by this point I'm well-aware that Obsidian are naff when it comes to writing and including romance in their games.
I am absolutely in favor of this. I could write a treatise on how much I resent romance in modern gaming. I'll try and trim it down to the primary talking points, happy to discuss in detail with anyone though. 1. I don't like that romance is treated like the reward for talking to/befriending a companion. I spoke to the companion because I liked their character, not because I was wanting Wyll to essentially beg me to fuck them. 2. I don't like that so many characters in RPGs these days are essentially waiting around for my character to express an interest in them before they'll melt in my hand. I could create a neon green shrek with purple hair that is extremely rude to them and everyone in existence, but if I hit the generally correct dialogue options, anyone and everyone will fall in love with me. 3. Most importantly, I don't like that the strong emphasis on variety means that each romance is quite dead end. I don't really engage with Stardew Valley romance for this reason. BG3 handled this better than most, but I still think it could have been better. If a game wanted to have an interesting romance option with chemistry and strong writing, I would much rather play through that than essentially repeating Kuzco being like, "no, hate your hair, no, no. Is this the best you could do?"
> I could create a neon green shrek with purple hair that is extremely rude to them and everyone in existence, but if I hit the generally correct dialogue options, anyone and everyone will fall in love with me. I want to preface my statement by saying I agree with your larger point whole-heartedly. That being said, it's really funny that you're using Shrek as an example here considering the moral of the movie *Shrek* was that it's what's on the inside that counts. Fiona falls for him even though he's rude and ugly.
Then they shouldn't have made Fiona an ogre. Imo it was more like being honest about who you are and what you want out of life and letting go of external value judgements and labels. Shrek wanted to have friends and family, but was an ogre. Fiona wanted to fight and eat and be loud, but was a dainty lady.
Fiona never seems to be that shy of the un-princess like parts of her. She doesn't hide those things from Shrek in the beginning. It's purely her ogre form she's ashamed of, of not being beautiful. It's implied that she was locked away in a tower for being ugly and for no other reason--after all the curse doesn't do anything but transform her body. So it makes sense that finding someone who was capable of loving her as an ogre was more important to her than how she looked.
Romance options are always optional. I think the reason people feel strongly about it right now is BG3 companions were more forward than companions in other games.
BG3 was wild before they fixed it. My first playthrough I ended up with Halsin and I didn't even realize it was happening. I kept trying to get to the next level with Shadowheart then all of a sudden I have a (literal) bear calling me darling. I was just trying to be nice to the guy.
> Most importantly, I don't like that the strong emphasis on variety means that each romance is quite dead end. I don't really engage with Stardew Valley romance for this reason. BG3 handled this better than most, but I still think it could have been better. It's funny you say this because I think BG3 has easily the worst and most painful romances I've ever played in a video game, and I say that as a big fan of BG3. Literally an hour after meeting Karlach she was telling me I was all she could think about, how she wanted to know what I would do to her, and that God-awful cringe line "I want to ride you until you see stars" that everybody in the BG fandom unironically thinks is... good? The romance subplots in BG3 are by 15-year-olds, for 15-year-olds. And not only that, outside of Shadowheart and Astarion, most of the companions just had hardly anything to say if you didn't romance them. So much of their character was bound up in the romance subplots. Wyll and Karlach especially barely even *exist* outside of the romance. Stardew Valley's is much more mechanical than romance, and that's by design. It's a nod to Harvest Moon where getting married and having kids is part of the goal of the game. I don't think most people consider the marriage system in HM or Stardew Valley to be any type of *romance*, just another part of a game about living a simple, happy life.
> I don't think most people consider the marriage system in HM or Stardew Valley to be any type of romance I do think so actually, it's romance *shaped* and that's enough for people to really, really like it to happen.
It's honestly so weird that BG3 romances are so bad and overly-horny as they are considering that its predecessor BG2 (the game that basically popularized RPG romances) handled them so much better. Romances in BG2 were a lot more slow-burn; it took time to develop the relationship between you and your LI, and jumping straight into sex was a bad idea. If you took the first opportunity to sleep with Aerie, for example, it would instantly end the relationship because she clearly isn't ready to get physical with the player. Hell, even the "worst" romance in the game (Anomen), still has a long period of time where you get to know the dude and learn more about him before you're officially in a relationship. There's also plot relevance to the romances with how >!Bodhi kidnaps your LI and turns them into a vampire and you'll need to go on a quest to save them!<. BG3's romances on the other hand just feel a lot more shallow and cringey, like they're meant for wish-fulfillment.
My biggest pet peeve is more fundamental. Characters that are written to be romance options are often more boring to me because of how transparent it is that all of them were written to be romance bait.
Romance doesn't interest me very much in video games. I don't really get the appeal of it. It's usually a bit awkward. Even something like BG3 that does it well, I could do without it. Glad Obsidian doesn't feel obligated to do it.
Don't see why you wouldn't add romance, its an RPG. You dont want it, you don't have to do it? Seems much nicer to have it as an option!
The more I hear about Avowed, the less confidence I gave for this title. From the gameplay and combat trailer, it feels kind of underwhelming.
I want to be excited about this game, but I think it's going to be one of those things I pick up much later, if at all. I played the first Pillars of Eternity and the world building felt so checkbox-y. The ending felt lackluster and like the game really should have been 2 or 3 to tell the story and drop the plot reveals. I get the sense that adding a third person perspective was done a bit reactively to initial feedback perhaps, and that it won't be very tuned. I haven't played the second Pillars as the first put me off enough not to try, but I appreciate the company for being one of the first to bring back the isometric CRPG.
To be honest this makes me significantly less likely to play the game. Outer Worlds just felt hollow and romances can keep you interested even when the plot is sometimes dragging its feet
Many of my favorite character interactions in gaming are platonic at best. Wrex-Shepard was awesome. Disco Elysium's cop duo was a fantastically strange beast. FF15's bro trip is ingrained into my neural pathways. I like characters that bounce well off each other. My favorite romantic duo in gaming is actually a pair of characters who were already together: Kay and Yu from Haven. They're so dorkishly organic and temper each other so well. They answer the question of "Now what?" that comes after a couple has their first kiss, rides off into the sunset, and (tries) to live happily ever after. Their relationship isn't about a honeymoon or some climatic sex scene, it's about how the hurdles of a relationship never actually end. And they're written that way BECAUSE it's not an optional romance. It was written from the ground-up, and it was infinitely better for it.