782 réponses à ce sujet

[Panda]

I may have forgot something but I don't think so. But as you can see, there are more possibilities as a female PC to loose your LI than males.

 

You should add Cassandra in DAI, she breaks up with male Inquisitor if she becames Divine ^^

[Jellyfish_Galaxy]

I agree on almost of everything the OP wrote, especially with this statement: "It is very much not okay to take options away from straight women or LGBT people, while still leaving straight males with all of their options".

 

I would say about three years ago when Mass Effect 3 there was a uproar about how certain romances for femShep was mishandled. There were threads, campaigns, projects and etc in regards to this. 

 

I had started then a campagin called, "SaveThane". It was in hopes to bring attention the limited options given to BioWare's femShep and to also address that "dramatic scernios" should not only be limited to femShep.

 

From my experience of what happened in the past and how BioWare really seem not to care at the time (and when I say this, I speak of the time when I sent in a project that myself and the fans of Thane which took months to complete and the responce I recieved back was a tweet from Chris Priestly saying "Keep your DLC hope alive unlike your dead boyfriend" along with a couple other sour tweets). So unless BioWare has changed their outlook and is now all about treating all their fans the same, I feel we will just see the same thing again.

 

I was a very passionated female fan of Mass Effect and I like to be once again. What the OP has written is fair suggestions and I would be happy to see some of it to happen in this new game.

[Battlebloodmage]

You should add Cassandra in DAI, she breaks up with male Inquisitor if she becames Divine ^^

I think at least you can manipulate the outcome, a more fair comparison for Cassandra would be Alistair. It's not even hard to choose the other two as Divine. With female protagonist, Thane, Jacob, Solas would leave you no matter what. Seem like female protagonist has a history of being abandoned, even Blackwall fake leaving you. 

[Kakistos_]

I kind of disagree concerning Anders, but I respect your point of view

And I don't romance him anymore by the way. He and I don't really see each other in the eye after his little stunt on the Chantry, so... more Anders for you

 

Concerning female LI that leave and/or betrays the PC and/or die :

 

- DA:O : King Alistair dumps you or at best, agrees to keep you as his thing on the side ONLY if hardened (how romantic...) if you're not a female noble.

- DA2 : Sebastian leaves you (and swears revenge on you even) if you don't execute Anders.

- DA2 : Anders betrays you (let's call a shovel a shovel) and can even die. By your own hand.

- DA:I : Solas. What else.

- ME1 : Kaidan can die on Virmire.

- ME3 : Jacob dumps you and moves on while you are on custody on Earth.

- ME3 : Thane dies.

 

Male LIs :

 

- DA:O : Morrigan takes off. Unless you follow her in the Eluvian, she is lost on the Warden.

- DA2 : Anders, same as above.

- ME1 : Ashley can die on Virmire.

- ME3 : Tali can die on Rannoch.

 

I may have forgot something but I don't think so. But as you can see, there are more possibilities as a female PC to loose your LI than males.

If I'm not mistaken Merrill and Isabella can potentially betray you and Miranda, Samara, Jack and Kelly Chambers can all die in ME2 and ME3.

[Charoleia]

You should add Cassandra in DAI, she breaks up with male Inquisitor if she becames Divine ^^

 

Yep, that is right ! And very close to what the female PC experiences with Alistair in DA:O, like Battlebloodmage said

 

If I'm not mistaken Merrill and Isabella can potentially betray you and Miranda, Samara, Jack and Kelly Chambers can all die in ME2 and ME3.

 

Oh... Are you talking about Merrill fighting you at the end of the Last Straw ? I thought it couldn't happen with a romanced Merrill... Good to know !

Concerning Izzy, I am *pretty sure* she always return with the book of Koslun if romanced... 

 

I... kind of totally forgot about the suicide mission tbh 

Maybe because if you're not a total moron, you are supposed to prepare a bit ? And since I'm looking for excuses, I'll go even further !

 

First playthrough of ME2, I didn't even know any of them could really die in the Suicide Mission ^^ When you do all the loyalty mission (and it's explicit that if you don't do them, you teammates are not at their top, so... it's kind of implied that something bad can happen), the only way to loose squadmates is making bad choices for the vents/teamleaders/biotic specialist. And the vents and teamleaders seemed so obvious that you really had to wish something would go wrong if you chose differently. Only the biotic specialist is - in my opinion - where it can go wrong without knowing : Miranda is very confident, she brags about her biotics all the time... I could see people choosing her as the biotic spec without knowing they did wrong.

Even Kelly... I mean, you are told "if we don't rescue the crew fast, they will die". So once again, you could see that coming.

Same in ME3, when you don't warn Miranda... why wouldn't you warn her ? Especially if you love her... seems so weird, does it not ? And Samara ? Are you really going to let her blow her brains out if you have feelings for her ?

 

On the other hand, you can not know Tali will commit suicide if you don't save the Quarians.

Just like not going to Grissom Academy in "urgency" ? You don't know Jack is here, so yes, that does count toward the possibility of loosing her.

Not telling Kelly to go in hiding/change her name ? You're not supposed to know Cerbies are going to raid the Citadel and kill her. So you are right again

 

...

 

But female PC still "wins" when it comes to "unavoidable"

And female PC has more trade "LI vs squadmate" than male in BioWare games  (Seb/Anders ; Kaidan/Ash ; Warden Alistair/Hawke - yes that counts, HoF AND Hawke are still my heroes/alter egos) 

[CuriousArtemis]

Yeah, no harm meant on the Josie comment.  I support anyone who really likes her (character and romance).  Just expressing my sympathies to those who don't like her romance.  But to be honest, I actually find her really boring as a character, too.  She's the only major character whose dialogue I routinely skip in every playthrough.  

 

ME TOO ME TOO ME TOO. Well I confess I also stopped talking to Bull. My second playthrough I never talked to Josie again after moving to Skyhold, and never talked to Bull again after recruiting him. I almost didn't recruit him but somehow I felt bad when he offered to help, so I just liked the idea that he was helping in the background.

 

But to your other point, it's so true, there's a difference between being actually shafted by developers and simply not liking your choices. Trust me, I know. As everyone likely knows by now I hated Bull and Dorian so you can imagine how depressed and then pissed and then depressed again I was. And it was hard to swallow that disappointment and hold back my ranting (with minimal success), mostly because it was swallowing a bitter, bitter, bitter pill, watching other people gush about the romances I had wanted. 

 

I still prefer all bi for that reason. Cause if EVERYONE had been stuck with just Bull and Dorian, I probably would've shrugged and been like, oh well lol Better luck next time. 

 

But like you said, sometimes even when we all have the same options, we can be disappointed with what's being offered to us (like you with Anders and Fenris [how dare you not like Fenris you monster])

 

I remember a number of Kaidan fangirls being quite pissed off when he was made bisexual out of nowhere in ME3. Some even said it ruined the romance for them. Broke the illusion or something.

 

Yeah like someone else said, biphobia. And ignorance. And stupidity. And straight privilege. lol But what happens with guys like Anders and Kaidan is basically an attempt to fix an old problem. When you have game series that began in 2007 and 2009, well, there is just a different understanding and mentality in 2012 and 2014. In short, you realize you f***ed up by having only one bi option / having no gay or bi option at all. That's the short and sweet of it. And then people get too involved in their little fantasies and forget that these are just characters who don't actually have sexualities because they are just bits and bytes who are programmed to smile and blush when you click the right button. "OMG You turned Kaidan GAY!" No they didn't; they just programmed the game so that male PCs can fall in love with him to. 

 

I have to wonder exactly what fantasy it was ruining for those fangirls. Maybe they were really into the idea that Kaidan was a hardcore breast fanatic or something? 

 

And now to completely reverse what I just said and reveal myself to be a raging hypocrite, I was rather upset when the machinima of Fenris smiling suggestively at a female NPC was released lol "Fenris doesn't like girls" I huffed to myself, pretending I had never ever seen a FHawke x Fenris piece of fan art in my sad sheltered little life.

 

I must admit I'm not really a fan of characters that "came out of the closet". Mostly because many times it feel just a way to give another (for now it happened for gay romances) romance "recycling" an already existing character previously only interested in only one gender. I prefer a character being interested from the start to both/one gender, than having the moment "out of the blue" later.

 

Well there was groundwork with Kaidan and Anders. Trust me, play a male Shep and roleplay that he is attracted to Kaidan. They sizzle around each other in ME1 lol Then there's the confrontation in ME2. So yeah. And Anders made several suggestive comments. So while I understand how it can seem jarring (although again I don't really get that mentality since they are just characters after all, and making these guys available to both genders was just the dev team doing marginalized players a solid) for these two at least it made sense. 

 

Ironically I found the Kaidan romance so much better than the Steve romance, which just seemed to pop up out of the blue, and with someone who didn't seem ready for a new relationship at that. Kaidan x MShep is a slow burn, and it's really very moving.

 

Kay idek what you guys are talking about now; I couldn't make it two more pages without hitting my multiquote button

[Elhanan]

Tali was drunk two times and not really holding up well and she´s an alcoholic? That´s one more time than some of other the party guests.
 
Considering Shepard´s drinking habits (drinking hard shots in one go) and what s/he can drink and still function I would be more concerned about the commander him/herself.

My Shepard doesn't drink, but don't tell Garrus....

Tali is too immature for my Shepard. Thought about a romance once, as she is lovely to be with on Rannoch, but that never happened.

[Feybrad]

Write them as walking animu character 'dere archetypes.

[MissOuJ]

Having your romance dump you if you are absolutely horrible to them / do something they really disagree with, and having (semi-)realistic relationship conflicts which can end up with break up which is initiated either by you or the LI.

 

BW is getting better at this, but I do think there should be at least an illusion of effort you need to put into the relationship for it to work/survive the end of the world as we know it.

[Beerfish]

 

My personal suggestions:

 

1. If this is a series, rather than a single game, romances should build on the relationship through time, through ups and downs.  This happened in ME1-3 with Kaidan, Liara, and Ashley.  Also with Garrus and Tali.  I was one of those weird ladies who romanced Garrus and couldn't get enough because I LOVED how that story played out, and it was because it took time to build it.  Characters like Jack, Miranda, Thane, and Jacob didn't get the same kind of development, because they showed up later.  It's better if we can let everyone romance a character who's been around from the beginning.

This one is very difficult to pre plan, the biggest reason is we and the game makers do not know before hand which characters will be liked, accepted or have romances requested for.  Tali could just as easily been a flop of a character (like a Jacob for instance).

1. Only add as many romances as you're willing to deal with in the final game of the series.

Agreed, too many means some are going to be short shifted.

1. It is very much not okay to take options away from straight women or LGBT people, while still leaving straight males with all of their options.

I guess you did not play DAI where in effect it was the opposite?

1. If Andromeda is going to be a trilogy, don't add romances in the third game.  Stick with the previous games' romances, and build from there.

What if people do not like the one or two returning characters?  Unless you want all characters to appear in all games you are out of luck on this one.

1. Allow players to start a romance with characters they chose not to romance in a previous game.  This can happen even in the final game.  To be frank that is probably realistic, because when things get rough, well... you're going to be looking for comfort.

I agree on this one but once again this is limited by my answer above.

1. The final scene shouldn't always be sex.  If there's sex, when it happens should depend on the character you're romancing.  Some might sleep with you right away, others midway through, still others not until the final moments.  And a few might not want to have sex at all.

Agreed, a final scene should be more poignant, sure toss in sex earlier if they wish but the end should be something more.

1. Let players discuss marriage and family with their LIs.  Even if the response, from either the player or the LI, or both, is "I don't ever want that," it's an important discussion.  We're not talking about having kids running around the ship in-game.  Just let characters think about the future a bit, and where their relationships are going.  You know, kind of like real people who are dating might do after a while.

Agreed.

1. Breakups and deaths of LIs are fine if that needs to be part of their story, however, unavoidable breakups and deaths of LIs and/or betrayals should not ONLY happen to the female player character.  If it has to happen as part of the story, let the men experience it too. If it's believed that the players of male characters will suffer too much heartbreak from this, or that it is horrible in some way because a female LI might suffer or die, then please consider that it is not much fun for most of the players of the female characters either and that it's equally horrible when male LIs suffer and die.  If the player's suffering/heartbreak is a concern preventing this from happening to male PCs, just don't do it at all.  Players of female PCs get seriously unhappy about these things, too (and when it's almost always us it happens to, it gets pretty old and loses its impact as a plot device).

You have a CLEAR agenda about feeling short shifted re female characters that I think is misplaced and was addressed about 5 games ago by BioWare.

 

Off the top of my head that's all I can think of.  Obviously others are free to disagree, make other suggestions, discuss, etc.  That's what this thread is for.  Someone may have way better ideas than I did.

Some good ideas, I don't agree with them all as you can see but a good topic none the less.

[BabyPuncher]

Having your romance dump you if you are absolutely horrible to them / do something they really disagree with, and having (semi-)realistic relationship conflicts which can end up with break up which is initiated either by you or the LI.

 

BW is getting better at this, but I do think there should be at least an illusion of effort you need to put into the relationship for it to work/survive the end of the world as we know it.

 

An understandable desire, but it would almost certainly end up with evil playthroughs having few or no romance options.

 

'Realistic' consequences to evil actions are not fun. Nobody wants to play 'Sit-in-Prison-Simulator,' regardless of how appropriate such an outcome would be.

[Feybrad]

An understandable desire, but it would almost certainly end up with evil playthroughs having few or no romance options.

 

'Realistic' consequences to evil actions are not fun. Nobody wants to play 'Sit-in-Prison-Simulator,' regardless of how appropriate such an outcome would be.

 

The easy Solution to that is to have one or two Romance Options (ideally per Gender) that approve of Choices others would call evil.

 

That said, there should ideally be no Choices that would be outright moronically evil, just those like "Rescue the Workers or kill Vido", where one is clearly more morally upstanding, but the other still has very enticing Advantages that might be worth it for some Characters.

[BabyPuncher]

The easy Solution to that is to have one or two Romance Options (ideally per Gender) that approve of Choices others would call evil.

 

That said, there should ideally be no Choices that would be outright moronically evil, just those like "Rescue the Workers or kill Vido", where one is clearly more morally upstanding, but the other still has very enticing Advantages that might be worth it for some Characters.

 

That's not a solution.

[Feybrad]

That's not a solution.

 

...it's not? You did complain about evil Playthroughs ending up without romance Options. Adding Companions that approve of those and thus wouldn't be locked out of Romance because of evil Actions is not a Solution to that?

[Kakistos_]

Yep, that is right ! And very close to what the female PC experiences with Alistair in DA:O, like Battlebloodmage said

 

 

Oh... Are you talking about Merrill fighting you at the end of the Last Straw ? I thought it couldn't happen with a romanced Merrill... Good to know !

Concerning Izzy, I am *pretty sure* she always return with the book of Koslun if romanced... 

 

I... kind of totally forgot about the suicide mission tbh 

Maybe because if you're not a total moron, you are supposed to prepare a bit ? And since I'm looking for excuses, I'll go even further !

 

First playthrough of ME2, I didn't even know any of them could really die in the Suicide Mission ^^ When you do all the loyalty mission (and it's explicit that if you don't do them, you teammates are not at their top, so... it's kind of implied that something bad can happen), the only way to loose squadmates is making bad choices for the vents/teamleaders/biotic specialist. And the vents and teamleaders seemed so obvious that you really had to wish something would go wrong if you chose differently. Only the biotic specialist is - in my opinion - where it can go wrong without knowing : Miranda is very confident, she brags about her biotics all the time... I could see people choosing her as the biotic spec without knowing they did wrong.

Even Kelly... I mean, you are told "if we don't rescue the crew fast, they will die". So once again, you could see that coming.

Same in ME3, when you don't warn Miranda... why wouldn't you warn her ? Especially if you love her... seems so weird, does it not ? And Samara ? Are you really going to let her blow her brains out if you have feelings for her ?

 

On the other hand, you can not know Tali will commit suicide if you don't save the Quarians.

Just like not going to Grissom Academy in "urgency" ? You don't know Jack is here, so yes, that does count toward the possibility of loosing her.

Not telling Kelly to go in hiding/change her name ? You're not supposed to know Cerbies are going to raid the Citadel and kill her. So you are right again

 

...

 

But female PC still "wins" when it comes to "unavoidable"

And female PC has more trade "LI vs squadmate" than male in BioWare games  (Seb/Anders ; Kaidan/Ash ; Warden Alistair/Hawke - yes that counts, HoF AND Hawke are still my heroes/alter egos) 

I'm not 100% on Merrill. I think her specific sidequest and approval factor in more. I was incorrect about Isabella, she does return if in a romance. As you point out, most betrayals/deaths are avoidable and I agree, female PC get it the worst in the unavoidable area.

[Battlebloodmage]

I'm not 100% on Merrill. I think her specific sidequest and approval factor in more. I was incorrect about Isabella, she does return if in a romance. As you point out, most betrayals/deaths are avoidable and I agree, female PC get it the worst in the unavoidable area.

None of the characters will side against you if you have really high approval and/or completed all their sidequests, regardless of whether you romance them or not.

[Khrystyn]

Perhaps one way to develop progressive romance relationships for ME:A characters is by way of an LI –oriented DLC.  

 

Development resources would be put to more efficient use for common scenes for all the possible RI combinations. The romance pairs could go through an assignment together (Three’s a crowd) that brings them closer to each other through adversity and conversations. It would be great if the romance pair can use their cunning and guile to defeat/evade the enemies, but it doesn’t have to be a combat scenario, imo. In ME-3, I especially enjoyed the MaleShep-Ashley scenes at Huerta Hospital, Sarah's husband's memorial, and at Apollo's Cafe in the Presidium Commons. Learning about Ashley's family members was also good for relationship advancement at a personal level. I also liked the option where MaleShep gave to Ashley 'The Collected Works Alfred Tennyson.'  A nice touch to add for their romance persuit.

[Fizzie Panda]

I would LOVE a memory related romance where somehow your love interest would lose their memory of you, or falling in love with you. And the romance quest is sort of about winning them back.

 

Finally, in the end, at the very last second, the fog lifts and they remember you once again.

[Bleachrude]

I actually disagree about  letting people romance in the same-game...

 

IF Andromeda is more than one-game with the same protagonist, I don't think you should be allowed to romance a character you meet in the same game...part o the reason why I think the Garrus-femshep relationship is the best one _IS_ the fact that you have to get to know Garrus in the 1st game.

[Lady Artifice]

1. Don't completely abandon the "Betty and Veronica" archetype dynamic. I like the way Bioware has played with it in the past, with Morrigan/Leliana, Anders/Fenris, Isabela/Merrill, and Liara/Ashley. They seemed to take a step away from that in DAI to me, and I kind of missed it. 

 

2. Cool it with pairing the spares. I think it's going a bit overboard. In DAI all of the originally planned romance-able male characters end up developing something with another companion if they're unromanced. I think it's starting to become over common. 

[KaiserShep]

2. Cool it with pairing the spares. I think it's going a bit overboard. In DAI all of the originally planned romance-able male characters end up developing something with another companion if they're unromanced. I think it's starting to become over common. 

 

Heh, at least Blackwall's efforts are futile, so he ends up forever alone if the Inquisitor doesn't bother. 

[Queen Skadi]

By playing cheesy 80's soft rock during the romantic moments.

 

[BabyPuncher]

...it's not? You did complain about evil Playthroughs ending up without romance Options. Adding Companions that approve of those and thus wouldn't be locked out of Romance because of evil Actions is not a Solution to that?

 

It creates a lot more problems than it solves.

 

If you look at RPGs released through the last 20 years or so, you'll notice that there's a clear decline in 'evil' companion characters. There's reasons for that, as always. It's tempting to imagine that you can write roughly half the companions as 'good' and half of the companions as 'evil' and provide a morally balanced cast and provide content for both alignments, but that's a mistake. Good and evil are very, very asymmetric.

 

Evil companions are more or less a thing of the past.

[Lady Artifice]

Heh, at least Blackwall's efforts are futile, so he ends up forever alone if the Inquisitor doesn't bother. 

 

Yeah, which doesn't necessarily add to his already dubious allure. The original plans for romances in DAI were kind of bizarre. I'm fine with both of them as characters, but I don't think either Iron Bull or Blackwall really have the narrative resonance that previous LIs had.