Lucanis romance bug after Act 1 decision

I'm literally just here to say: I hate the the hard lockout of the romance with Lucanis for making this decision.

It would be so much more impactful and dramatic to rebuild the relationship between the characters, especially if the option to reconnect with Neve is there but not Lucanis. Please fix this romance option.

Just got to this point of the game as of 8:30PM, 11/8/24:  Yes, it does say "Lucanis no longer has time for a romance with you," if you choose to save Minrathous.

When I first got that, I assumed it meant he needed a break from the central plot for a moment as he had to stay in Antiva and rebuild. Then when I Googled the situation, I had no idea I was permalocked from pursuing him further and found this thread. Feels bad man.

Yes, turning off background romances should be possible as well. I even think it's a mistake to pair off two of the most popular romance options together, but fine, whatever, just don't force me to ship the same characters the devs do, as you said. Especially since his flirting with Neve is better than his flirting with Rook for some reason, from what I've seen. In fact, he feels like a completely different person romancing Neve or Rook, like they didn't know what character they were going for. Fickle, as you said. And if the devs wanted them to be together so bad, they shouldn't even have made them romance options, especially Lucanis who they clearly don't want us to romance.

From a narrative POV, just why? Is it Spite? Show me. Is it because of his family/the Crows? Show me. Nothing explains any of it, and if it it did, it would still make a better narrative to explore a relationship with him having made a hard choice he obviously disagrees with, like with Neve, than locking him out (and it wouldn't explain why he romances her afterwards anyway). From a meta POV, just WHY? Three men to romance and one is the only romance who can be locked out, romances someone else after (someone, again, who made the same decision that locked you out) and for some reason has more chemistry with them than with Rook. Why? It's lazy, inconsistent and weirdly cruel to the player. And, of course, it happens with one of the male romance options and NO ONE ELSE.

Worst of all, I think even if they see this and care a little, I don't think it can change much. They could lock his romance with Neve if he's locked out for you, I guess, and that would be the bare minimum, but it doesn't fix everything else. They won't add a romance with him post saving Minrathous now because they would have to write, voice record and everything, and I just know Bioware as it is now is not going to do that for a patch. They knew what they were doing when they made these decisions for I think the most popular first romance for women, and they don't care. We get to be lazy on that one, right? Bioware doesn't respect it's fans, so I'm done respecting them.

Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s a bug. I was so excited to romance Lucanis and his backstory with Spite was initially very intriguing. However, if he’s going to be mad at my Rook for saving her hometown and refuse any romance with her, but then turn around and romance Neve?!? Yeah, I’m good thanks. I’ll go after a genuine man like Emmrich. I feel like EA gave us a slap in the face with this romance.

And I finished my first playthrough. Got Lucanis to level 10, and hero status. He was hardened permanently. Which still makes no sense from a story level. If he's hardened to me at level 10, why the hell is he asking me advice for gooseberry pie for Neve??? It would make more sense if his hardened status was removed after hitting level 10, but nope.

As far as I can tell, it's because one of his personal quests next never starts because the NPCs involved are dead/blighted because of Treviso's fall. The quest is part of his romance so if you don't have that quest, then you can't lock in his romance.

I’ve been following this discussion across various platforms about Lucanis’s romance being completely locked out if you don’t save Treviso since I found out about it early on post-release. I’m coming in here as someone whose first playthrough had me saving Minrathous instead to confirm that this choice does indeed lock him out of romance completely. And I’m also coming in here as someone whose second playthrough (and probably every one after this as a result) had me saving Treviso to confirm that the same lock out does NOT occur with Neve. 

It still makes zero sense to me that BioWare would program it so that one of the romanceable companions gets permanently cut out of possible romances at all for the rest of the game because of a specific very early game decision, and yet the same thing does not happen to the other character affected by said same choice either way you choose.

The way I see it is, if you lock one out, you should lock the other out. Otherwise, do not lock ANYONE out. It does not add anything to the game story, lore, plot, or playability-wise, and only actually removes content. Which is alienating to players. 

I originally thought this had to be a bug, but it doesn’t seem like it is the longer post-release goes on that it isn’t patched. It feels like it shouldn’t be a feature. It feels extremely shortsighted. And it sucks, because again, Neve is STILL ABLE TO BE ROMANCED NO MATTER YOUR CHOICE, and Lucanis ISN’T. He will ONLY be romanceable in a save Treviso playthough. Yes, I’m annoyed too.

Fully agree. It's not even good character development/exploration, because the writing doesn't hold up in terms of why this would be the case for him but not for Neve. It almost feels like the old "well, women forgive easier", despite her being very involved with her city. Not to mention he'll cut off romance with a SD Rook and then still romance Neve, just to really spit on the player's face. How does that make sense? Lock neither, lock both or, at the very least, lock the background romance if the player is locked out.

They were going on and on about you could romance the companions with any gender and any background, and then basically locked the Lucanis romance for one of the backgrounds, because why the hell would you choose Treviso as SD? Now I have to choose between my roleplay and my romance in this "very romantic" roleplaying game? And his is the only romance that can be locked out? Great. He always seems to get the short end of the stick, huh? Give me hard locks, then, based on background, race, gender, whatever. Don't give me false hope and then compromise my roleplaying in a roleplaying game.

It's giving very much putting character agency before player agency, like they forgot they were making a RPG, not writing a book. And even in terms of character agency, as I said, it does very little, if anything, for the character. A truly baffling decision all around.

I'm sorry, but I'm missing any additional details from the link you provided. It seems like it's the exact same people asking the exact same question and getting the same non-answer.

I don't understand why BioWare just won't come out and say whether Rook has any chance of romancing Lucanis after saving Minrathous. Seems like a very easy question to answer, and the lack of understanding seems to be upsetting more players than it intrigues.

People aren't even asking for an explanation like with Jack and the whole ME2 romance weirdness. Just an answer. Can we or can't we?

Since there won't be any DLCs, it's not like you're going to spoil the next story that will drop in... 2034? We'll all be too told to care by then 😁

It's a great game, but honestly the romances are so awful it would have been a better game without them, and that is more true for Lucanis than the others, sadly. People just want to know if they're wasting time trying. Given how weird it can be to romance Iron Bull (the ONLY option for gay men in Inquistion besides Tim Curry, er ... Dorian), I think it's a legitimate question.

Right?  There is nothing about those characters that makes me think Lucanis cares more about Treviso than Neve does about Minrathous.

I also never took the "didn't have time for a romance" to be a permanent thing when I ran across it, but I abandoned that first playthrough for different reasons and chose to romance Davrin instead. Still a wafer-thin romance, but at least it works.

BioWare never seems to get these things right (as much as I love both DA and ME franchises), but with all the personal stories and advertisements of create the hero you want to be, or however they worded it, Veilguard is remarkably thin on choices.

This decision seems .... dumb.