[Discussion] Potential Updates For Romancing?
Given the responses here and on Reddit, I don’t think it’s controversial to say the romances are not living up to what we were advertised. “The most romantic Dragon Age” this is most certainly not. T...
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It’s not just Lucanis. I romanced Emmrich and there is clearly half of his romance missing. (I mean, there is clearly half the game missing, but we are talking romance now.)
After locking in the romance, I was constantly sitting on coals for the next bit, for some adult conversation about the "us", about his attempt for lichdom, everything. Then there is a blow up pretty much at the end that reads to me as if there should be way more build up to this point, a reason more than what we have why this conversation ends in such a massive fight.
I am sitting here right now, and I am so heartbroken, on behalf of Trick and their team, on behalf of us fans. This is like telling P&P and cutting out the first proposal with its aftermath and Lydias elopement and expecting the reader to understand how Lizzy and Mr. Darcy end up together at the end.
I would love if they'd patch in those missing bits and pieces. I doubt it will happen, but I can hope, right?
I also absolutly would love to object to the "young" comments. Like, I am in my 40s, my Rook is in her 40s, and that man acts like Rook is barely legal. But again, I feel like there is part of the story missing, esp. since this is part of their blowup. B/c its almost like its not even about the age, like there is some thing deeper behing all his "younger" comments that we never get to properly explore and work through.
What's even worse, is I was getting all of them to the "point of no return" to have a save and check out all the branches, and up until that scene I thought his was pretty well done. I wasn't going to finish it since he isn't my type, but I did him and Davrin both because folks seemed to think these were the two best.
So there we are at the "before the commitment" scene, and I decided to start my commitment branch journeys with a different character. And it just... swaps ALL the quests from the "romantic" version to the "friendship" version and NONE of the characters have anything to say about it. Nothing at all. All the flirting and buildup disappeared into nothingness, and earlier games DEFINITELY did this better. I distinctly remember characters having something to say about it if you've been chatting someone else up and then come sniffing around.
Hell, in this game one LI actually goes to your former flirt for advice and there was absolutely no tension! Like, really? He doesn't have ANYTHING to say about this? At all?
This game was written by AI or a bunch of kids whose experience with romance is limited to teen novels.
Yeah, I feel like past iterations were a bit better about walking the line between a telling the story they wanted to tell and giving the players room for their imagination to fill in the blanks. I wish I could come to the table with examples from Inquisition, but I’m just not that invested at the moment. I’ve been involved in the visual novel writing community, I’ve dabbled in branching story writing and it’s definitely tricky to encompass all the choices the way that they do, but I feel like that’s one of BioWare’s strengths and also one of the things that was missing in Veilguard. All of this is with a little asterisk that I haven’t finished Emmerich’s romance yet, so I’m going off other people’s critiques.
I just feel like this same situation handled in a past game would have had an option to say “I am not that much younger than you!” and Emmerich would have responded with a line that explained it was Rook’s baked-in inexperience (established in their background when you pick it) or his own life experiences that made him call Rook that, and then it would have gone with all the same beats until the plot resolved itself. That’s really all it takes for me to have a blast playing pretend in these sorts of games. Even if I know it all plays out the same in the end, I like getting to choose an option that makes me feel like I got there differently.
I found Harding's repeated criticisms of Emmrich about his age offensive. This is an APOCALYPSE. You find love and companionship where it blooms. It was the main reason I chose Harding to be the one to...you know, have THAT happen. Hardin's bs also ruins any "older Rook" roleplay. Just another reason in a long list why I don't consider this game to be an actual rpg. It's an action/adventure game with some rpg elements, and the romances were only a few steps above Bethesda's weaksauce relationships.
