Liam..

They almost always do something with the human male romance options for straight females that they know is going to annoy half or more of the fans of said characters.

Kaidan, Horizon. He lost a lot of the fans he did have over that incident.

Jacob, cheats.

No other human male romance option in the original trilogy.

Dragon Age Origins - Alistair. Unless he or the Warden dies, he has to sleep with Morrigan. As much as I adore Alistair, that's just creepy as and unnecessary. She could have found any guy off the street to screw.

Dragon Age 2 - Anders. Uses you to get in and blow up the chantry and a bunch of civilians.

Dragon Age Inquisition - Blackwall, sleeps with you then leaves you a dear john letter at which point you find out he murdered an entire family and has been lying to you the whole time.

Cullen - although he kind of works through it, he really isn't a big fan of mages even though you can romance him as one.

Mass Effect Andromeda, Liam's loyalty mission which in itself is not explained very well. Due to that a lot of people really dislike him. Also if you are romancing him, he is still keeping things from you which is something I maybe able to overlook but is always going to annoy a lot of people.

Reyes - also keeps secrets from you and uses you to get to Sloane.

In SWTOR there is one who even tries to kill you. And one who is super jealous.

Now seriously, tell me this isn't a long list of seriously messed up human male romance options for females. Where's the normal choice? The one whose screw up isn't directly related to your romance with them. They can have a messy past and be a complicated character. A slow burn romance even because of it, without totally messing you over in the middle of an actual romance with them. Or just, you know the normal everyday guy who is fun.

They can do it with the alien romances (Garrus, Jaal, even Thane you knew what you where getting in for first) but apparently can't go without something pretty messed up happening in the middle of the human male romances. Ive romanced many of the human males in these games and fangirled over them, over looking their flaws because there are no other options, not if you want to romance a human male on a female char. So what I'm saying is, we put up with it because of lack of options but a normal one would be nice.

Your right @Nykara360 : Why the men get a nice, friendly, loyal Liara? A sweet Tali. A crazy, wild Jack. A serious Ashley or a really HOT Miranda. Give the females just HALF of the choice the men have. Give us .... yes, why we don't have something like Kal'Reegar. A "normal, friendly hero".

@holger1405

I try to write it in english: Why Bioware don't try this "experimental-we-want-that-it's-an-controversal-character-Bul lshit" with the MALE romance options? Look at the romance options in ME for males: All of them "dream girls". And the females? "Controversal characters" ..... keep them. 😛

And WHY does Bioware want controversal characters as romance option for females, but the men get hot Dream-girls? Does Bioware want to loose all the femals fans?

Can't write this in english, sorry:

Tja Mäuseken, abbbbeeer: Wenn es auch für die männlichen Romanzen gelten würde, kein Ding. Aber die Frauen kriegen diese ganzen problembeladenen Dumpfbacken, die keine andere Frau auch nur mit der Kneifzange anfassen würde. Und die Männer bekommen lauter heisse Traumfrauen. Wenn du also meinst, dass Bioware das "so wollte", dann frage ich mich: Warum zum Henker? Wollen sie umbedingt, ums Verrecken, die Frauen als Kunden loswerden? Haben sie noch nicht bemerkt, dass der weibliche Fan-Anteil massiv gestiegen ist?

Und als Nachtrag: Ich denke nicht, dass der durchschnittliche Bioware Kunde sich so sehr vom durchschnittlichen Kinogänger unterscheidet, mal so als Beispiel. Und wenn wir einmal ins Kino gehen und uns hier die Burschen anschauen, da sehe ich aber nur heisse "Klische Traummänner": Von Wolverine, Starlord, Cpt. America usw. Warum meinen die Bioware-Macher, dass Frauen im Spiel dann auf solche willensschwache, arschige Looser stehen? 😛 (wobei die nicht alle sooo schlimm sind).

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@Rappeldrache wrote:

Your right @Nykara360 : Why the men get a nice, friendly, loyal Liara? A sweet Tali. A crazy, wild Jack. A serious Ashley or a really HOT Miranda. Give the females just HALF of the choice the men have. Give us .... yes, why we don't have something like Kal'Reegar. A "normal, friendly hero".

---

What do you mean with Liara? The women get Liara too.

Now in ME1, the field was pretty even I would think. You had one choice for male shepard only (Ashley), one for female only (Kaidan) and one for both (Liara). Of course Liara does look female so it's clear that the focus is very on male heterosexual players as there is no male-male romance possible.

Then in ME2, this is clearly the same. The difference between ME1 and 2 being that you have 3 options in each category totalling 8 romance options. Again the romance options than go either with a male or female shepard all look female (2 asari and a human female).

But I do have to say that I am wondering how the same amount of options for femshep only as male shep only translates to so much inequality to you as a woman. For me so far the only group of players losing out in ME1 and 2 are the gay male players.

Then let's see ME3. Here it gets a lot trickier because some of the romance options are dependent on what happened in ME1 and ME2 or having the Citadel DLC. There are many that are continuations and are only options if you pursued a relationship with them previously. Still, the choices are there since you can create a new character and dictate that history. So there is in my view a lean towards choices for a male shepard, also introducing male-male relationships. Overall you can see that the male shepard has the most options when it comes to the opposite sex. There is no denying that, the numbers are there. I think if they had made Diane Allers a male reporter it would've done a lot to tip the balance.

So only in ME3 do you see that difference really. Why? Well, probably because even today the vast majority of players of games like this are probably still male heterosexual gamers.

As a sidenote, you mention that Miranda is really hot and Ashley is serious, but I'd say that Ashley is also really hot particulary in ME3.

I really don't think that Bioware is wanting to get rid of female players though. I mean how many other game makers have all these romance options and ME:A is divided fairly evenly. I mean realy, I don't know. Which other games of other game makers have such romance options as we have here? I honestly don't know.

And in the end I am a male heterosexual player who prefers playing female characters but still wants to romance females. Whatever, it's how I tick. I prefer female protagonists but I also want to romance female counterparts if that makes sense to anyone. So I would also have liked more female romances to be available to femshep, but I didn't get that. I will never be able to romance Ashley, Jack or Miranda from that point of view. But you know, that's kinda how things go. Not every love interest is reciprocated. So I accept that.

EgoMania wrote:

Rappeldrache wrote:

Your right @Nykara360 : Why the men get a nice, friendly, loyal Liara? A sweet Tali. A crazy, wild Jack. A serious Ashley or a really HOT Miranda. Give the females just HALF of the choice the men have. Give us .... yes, why we don't have something like Kal'Reegar. A "normal, friendly hero".

What do you mean with Liara? The women get Liara too.

Now in ME1, the field was pretty even I would think. You had one choice for male shepard only (Ashley), one for female only (Kaidan) and one for both (Liara). Of course Liara does look female so it's clear that the focus is very on male heterosexual players as there is no male-male romance possible.

Then in ME2, this is clearly the same. The difference between ME1 and 2 being that you have 3 options in each category totalling 8 romance options. Again the romance options than go either with a male or female shepard all look female (2 asari and a human female).

But I do have to say that I am wondering how the same amount of options for femshep only as male shep only translates to so much inequality to you as a woman. For me so far the only group of players losing out in ME1 and 2 are the gay male players.

Then let's see ME3. Here it gets a lot trickier because some of the romance options are dependent on what happened in ME1 and ME2 or having the Citadel DLC. There are many that are continuations and are only options if you pursued a relationship with them previously. Still, the choices are there since you can create a new character and dictate that history. So there is in my view a lean towards choices for a male shepard, also introducing male-male relationships. Overall you can see that the male shepard has the most options when it comes to the opposite sex. There is no denying that, the numbers are there. I think if they had made Diane Allers a male reporter it would've done a lot to tip the balance.

So only in ME3 do you see that difference really. Why? Well, probably because even today the vast majority of players of games like this are probably still male heterosexual gamers.

As a sidenote, you mention that Miranda is really hot and Ashley is serious, but I'd say that Ashley is also really hot particulary in ME3.

I really don't think that Bioware is wanting to get rid of female players though. I mean how many other game makers have all these romance options and ME:A is divided fairly evenly. I mean realy, I don't know. Which other games of other game makers have such romance options as we have here? I honestly don't know.

And in the end I am a male heterosexual player who prefers playing female characters but still wants to romance females. Whatever, it's how I tick. I prefer female protagonists but I also want to romance female counterparts if that makes sense to anyone. So I would also have liked more female romances to be available to femshep, but I didn't get that. I will never be able to romance Ashley, Jack or Miranda from that point of view. But you know, that's kinda how things go. Not every love interest is reciprocated. So I accept that.

The difference being the males romance options in ME2 carried over into ME3. For the females they did not.

Also you got two female human choices and 1 alien. We got one human, two aliens and out of those one cheats in ME3 and the other dies. The only one that carries is Garrus. Since Miranda, Jack, Tali and Liara(LotSB) all carry into ME3 hows that equal exactly?

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@Nykara360 wrote:

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The difference being the males romance options in ME2 carried over into ME3. For the females they did not.

Also you got two female human choices and 1 alien. We got one human, two aliens and out of those one cheats in ME3 and the other dies. The only one that carries is Garrus. Since Miranda, Jack, Tali and Liara(LotSB) all carry into ME3 hows that equal exactly?

---

 As I said, it's not equal in ME3. Only ME1 and 2 had an equal division except for male-male relationships which didn't exist at all. So why you think that I said it was equal is rather a mystery to me. You really made that up completely, I never said it was equal but I do think BW gave more options than other games.

And ME3 at least introduced male-male relationships which was a much bigger inequality. I find it a shame that most people seem to have no thought for that scenario.

And let's not get stuck in the past anyway. The Shepard story is done and if you look at ME:A I think they made things rather more equal, don't you think? In fact a female Ryder has 2 male human options and a male Ryder only has 1 female human option.

And really, how many story driven RPGs are out there that give you the option to play both a male or female protagonist that both have romance options across genders? If you do, tell me, cause I'd like to check them out. But I think the truth is that most RPGs that come out these days still have mostly male protagonists and very limited romance options if any at all. 

Feel free to prove me wrong. I'd love to know about more games like this but I fear that outside of BW games there isn't a whole ot of that going on. 

You tell me...

@fudgietroll (The Spoiler tags are for ME3)

"I would argue that at least in the game Bioware has tried to tip the scales in favor of Reyes (it's how his character manipulates you, but still)"

Well, you said it yourself, it is his character trying to manipulates you. 😉

"used the Liara as the main "face" of ME after Shepard"

True, (they also needed someone who carry the plot from ME1 to ME2 and then to ME3) and still nobody forced you to romance here.

"and set it up so that if you don't choose Synthesis you are a huge *"

No, they

"As for the ending, you generally die, if you defy Catalyst you fail, if you choose dominate you are just a bad person (all but stated outright)"

In the end is it still your decision who or what you sacrifice, but you need to sacrifice something. And that was imho the whole crux with the ending.
Lots of people couldn't handle that. They wanted a perfect happy ending for their Shepard, an as much as I understand that, I for once found it perfect that you could not have that after a story so dark and with so much destruction.

Again, IMHO Bioware is not forcing you to do anything, nor do they tip you into a direction, it is your decision what you choose and your decision alone.

"I know that you have a point about different characters an paths drawing each individual (I know there are LIs and other people and choices I am really drawn to), but @Nykara360 has a point, there do seem to be some LIs, characters, and choices that it seems Bioware goes out of its way to make sure we AREN'T drawn to."

Kaidan is such a character, he is pretty much the nice guy from next door. But then there is the Horizon incident and as @Nykara360 wroth that cost him lot of fans.

This alone shows what the real problem is, it is not about a good romance, it is about a perfect romance option, (No controversy, no hard time no nothing)
Imho that would be a boring character and romance indeed.

Bioware makes different characters for different people, and they are all flawed to some extent, just as real humans are.

@Rappeldrache

"Your right @Nykara360 : Why the men get a nice, friendly, loyal Liara? A sweet Tali. A crazy, wild Jack. A serious Ashley or a really HOT Miranda. Give the females just HALF of the choice the men have. Give us .... yes, why we don't have something like Kal'Reegar. A "normal, friendly hero".

@Holger1405

I try to write it in english: Why Bioware don't try this "experimental-we-want-that-it's-an-controversal-character-Bul lshit" with the MALE romance options? Look at the romance options in ME for males: All of them "dream girls". And the females? "Controversal characters" ..... keep them."

Again, perception.

Liara = Naive, stalker, creepily obsessed with the protheans.

Tali  = Boring and odd (sings), overrated, from a race that tries to commit genocide at a sentient species.

Jack = Psychotic killer.

Ashley = Racist tendencies, not loyal

Miranda = Arrogant gen experiment with daddy issues.

Note: This is not necessarily my opinion about this characters.  🙂

But you know (if you're long enough in the ME universe) that a lot of people think exactly that way about them.

The worst character flaws Garus and Kaidan have are pretty minor in comparison, don't you think? 😉

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@holger1405 wrote:

Again, perception.

Liara = Naive, stalker, creepily obsessed with the protheans.

Tali  = Boring and odd (sings), overrated, from a race that tries to commit genocide at a sentient species.

Jack = Psychotic killer.

Ashley = Racist tendencies, not loyal

Miranda = Arrogant gen experiment with daddy issues.

Note: This is not necessarily my opinion about this characters.  🙂

But you know (if you're long enough in the ME universe) that a lot of people think exactly that way about them.

The worst character flaws Garus and Kaidan have are pretty minor in comparison, don't you think? 😉 

 

---

I have to say, that made me laugh but you are very right. Very nice job at putting things into perspective.

Just think about our reactions and how much we are willing to accept, ignore or justify... just because someone is "hot". 

@holger1405

Holger1405 wrote:

@fudgietroll (The Spoiler tags are for ME3)

"I would argue that at least in the game Bioware has tried to tip the scales in favor of Reyes (it's how his character manipulates you, but still)"

Well, you said it yourself, it is his character trying to manipulates you. 😉

And yet it offers little to balance the scales until AFTER you choose between him and Sloane, at which point you go back and can see how you've been getting played. And before you go and give me the speech about "it's my choice that I prefer Reyes, no one made me pick him" you should know I like Slone.

Holger1405 wrote:

@fudgietroll (The Spoiler tags are for ME3)

 
"and set it up so that if you don't choose Synthesis you are a huge *"

No, they

"As for the ending, you generally die, if you defy Catalyst you fail, if you choose dominate you are just a bad person (all but stated outright)"

In the end is it still your decision who or what you sacrifice, but you need to sacrifice something. And that was imho the whole crux with the ending.
Lots of people couldn't handle that. They wanted a perfect happy ending for their Shepard, an as much as I understand that, I for once found it perfect that you could not have that after a story so dark and with so much destruction.

Again, IMHO Bioware is not forcing you to do anything, nor do they tip you into a direction, it is your decision what you choose and your decision alone.

Right, forgot about the extended cut happy-happy addons. For those of us who reached the end of ME3 before Bioware released Extended Cut in self-defense, the choices the game was designed with were:

A) follow crazy, indoctrinated TIM's orders, warp your psyche beyond imagining, become a Reaper, and presumably become the eternal guardian and/or undying ruler of the Empire of Man

B) kill the Reapers, genocide a bunch of your allies, blow the hell out of Earth, and condemn the galaxy to eternal war

C) Shep dies, everyone gets Reaper DNA, everyone lives happily ever after, and eternal peace reigns over the galaxy

So to me it seems like Bioware intended to really push people towards one ending until everyone flipped out on them.

Post Extended Cut the new choices are:

A) follow crazy, indoctrinated TIM's orders, warp your psyche beyond imagining, become a Reaper, and everyone lives happily ever after under the watchful eye of ReaperShep and the Armada of Doom which will obliterate anyone who gets out of line or is perceived as a "threat to the many"

B) kill the Reapers, genocide a bunch of your allies, maybe survive, everyone lives happily ever after but condemn the future of the galaxy to eternal war

C) Shep dies, everyone gets Reaper DNA, everyone lives happily ever after, and eternal peace reigns over the galaxy (I agree with your assessment of this, but still it is what it is)

D) Everyone dies and the Reapers live happily ever after

So to me it seems like Bioware still intends to really push people towards one ending.

As for why people are mad, yes we would have liked to let Shep live, and yes sacrifices must be made, but sacrificing Shep for this array of garbage choices is what really pushed it over the edge. I am willing to bet most ME fans would be willing to sacrifice Shep if there were an ending worth sacrificing for. If you have seen Titan AE (Totally worth watching) there is a point where one of the characters sacrifices themselves

 and thereby help achieve a hard fought victory. If Shep dies providing the galaxy the means (turning the Crucible into a Death Star or whatever) to fight this war to victory without surrendering to the Reapers'/Catalyst's terms, but with Shep and millions of others dying along the way, then I think that most ME fans could accept that sacrifice with grace.

But the way it stands... We have spent three games where we don't do as the Reapers demand, unless we choose to, we are not TIM's minion, unless we choose to be, we do not genocide our friends and allies, unless we choose to, because, even if it kills us, we can always find another way. That is what made the end of ME3 so terrible, not only were we being pressured into choosing the future Bioware wanted, for the first time in the series we were not allowed to find another way. This is the ultimate example of not being allowed to, as you put it, choose the option we are drawn to.

Holger1405 wrote:

@fudgietroll (The Spoiler tags are for ME3)

"I know that you have a point about different characters an paths drawing each individual (I know there are LIs and other people and choices I am really drawn to), but @Nykara360 has a point, there do seem to be some LIs, characters, and choices that it seems Bioware goes out of its way to make sure we AREN'T drawn to."

Kaidan is such a character, he is pretty much the nice guy from next door. But then there is the Horizon incident and as @Nykara360 wroth that cost him lot of fans.

This alone shows what the real problem is, it is not about a good romance, it is about a perfect romance option, (No controversy, no hard time no nothing)
Imho that would be a boring character and romance indeed.

Bioware makes different characters for different people, and they are all flawed to some extent, just as real humans are.

So are you saying that the Liara romance IS perfect, or are you saying that Bioware put a bunch of stuff in to push you AWAY from the other ME1 romance?

Using Ash rather than Kaiden, we have this great romance with an interesting character in ME1, then there is the "Horizon Incident" in ME2 (which I was willing to overlook), then there is the Mars incident in ME3, we start trying to deal with that and BAM Citadel II and we have guns in each other's faces, then, if I have enough cred that I don't have to kill her, she comes back to the ship, barely talks to me, and airs out her new substance abuse problem, and if we manage to push past ALL of that, then we can consider getting our relationship back together. NO ONE else puts you through that kind of wringer for male Shep, IE Bioware DOESN'T want you dating Ash.

Giving people flaws is one thing, making them train wrecks is another. Jack is much easier to romance, and she has the emotional backstory from hell and tries to kill you the first time you meet her for heaven's sake.

@ALL

Could you PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE stop to quote the WHOLE thread! It makes it really hard to read what you are writing.

@holger1405

You can find at every "dream girl" something you don't like or not. 😉 You turn the things so mutch "around" that a dream-girl looks like a psycho. This is manipulation what you are doing. 😛 In german: Da tust du dir hier aber ordentlich alles schön-reden bzw. zurechtbiegen. Solltest Politiker werden. 😉

Jack for example is really crazy, but also is Camorra (Gardians of the Galaxy). Camorra IS crazy and a killer and numberless men LOVES her. It's about: WHAT kind of "dream-girl" you like.

AND also: There is a different to have a few "error" , to be crazy or strange as organic beings are, thats normal. A girl who is obsessed about archaeology can STILL be the hottest girl in the universe. Lara Croft can be a dream-girl or hyperactive. There is always something you don't like if it is NOT your taste. BUT: There are a few points who should be ... basic: NOT cheating, NOT (to mutch) lying / betrayal, to accept your partner (NOT undermine him) and so on ....

BUT: The men in ME are boring or are as holes. Jakob CHEATED you. Thane DIE. Kaidan HATES you. And Garrus ... ok, Garrus is nice, but he is a ... little dragon. He can't even kiss you! Sorry, but I don't understand HOW somebody want to have se x with a little DRAGON. 😛

And let's NOT talk about a person like Liam (sorry Nykara), but he is really, really the most horrible romance Bioware EVER made. He undermine your position ... he IGNORE your position. He is .... I don't write further. Sorry .... ☹️ And Jaal? It's like somebody have taken a Hanar and try to make a human out of him. 🧙

In ME:A 2 there will be a GREAT romance for females: Blasto, the Hanar spectre! You can be his 5. bride, he thing you are a nice little alien-pet (and treat you like this)! Than Bioware finally have a "contriversal-alien-roamce" for females. 😛

I don't talk about ho mo se xuell romances. After my personal opinion they are made to 90 % for male gamers, who play females ..... "se xuell fantasys and this stuff" .....  I'm straight, I don't care about the hom ose xuel romances. WHY Liara should be a potential romance option for me? I'm a female! So in Andromeda Gil is also a potential romance option for all straight men? I don't want to be FORECED to hom ose xuell romances only because the straight ones are so horrible.

I onyl care about them if they are not good, than I'm really sorry for all hom ose xuell players. ☹️ I was really happy when I have seen Zevran, Fenris and Dorian. I really liked them. And I was especially happy with Dorian, what a GREAT character, what a personality. ❤️ The le sb ian romances dit not impress me really ... they are mediore after my personal opinion.

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@Rappeldrache wrote:

@ALL

Could you PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE stop to quote the WHOLE thread! It makes it really hard to read what you are writing.

---

Sorry @Rappeldrache ☹️

We're usually just trying to provide context for our replies, and we do try and break it up into sections to make it easier to tell what is what

@fudgietroll

*Hug* Thanks 🙂

I will not write here a lot anymore cause I'm just a bit busy with moding ME3 .... 🙂 It is the HELL on EARTH (hey Deadlands) . 😉 So please don't wonder. Sorry to leave the discussion, but moding hair in ME3 is .... We should talk with Bioware about Mass Effect and why it is so damned hard to mod this games. 👮

@fudgietroll

"And yet it offers little to balance the scales until AFTER you choose between him and Sloane, at which point you go back and can see how you've been getting played. And before you go and give me the speech about "it's my choice that I prefer Reyes, no one made me pick him" you should know I like Slone."

And we are again at perception. You seem to think that Reyes character, that he is charming and good looking, is some kind of trap from Bioware to make you choose him over Slone.

But in reality this character traits are not perceived positively by many people, at least from the moment it becomes clear that he manipulated you to get to Slone. 

That made me choose Slone over him, despite the fact that I hate Slone passionately. (There is some other point, I will get to that later.)

In the end you prove my point here, you are not forced to choose Reyes over Slone, you made your own decision, as it should be.

(And that is true for everyone who plays the game and for any other choice you can make in the ME universe as well.) 

"A) follow crazy, indoctrinated TIM's orders, warp your psyche beyond imagining, become a Reaper, and everyone lives happily ever after under the watchful eye of ReaperShep and the Armada of Doom which will obliterate anyone who gets out of line or is perceived as a "threat to the many""

I will not go to the post extended cut choices, (I ended the game before the extended cut.) the choices except one are pretty much the same, just elaborated.

I made my point about that already in the post before, only because TIM want to control the Reapers don't means "Domination" is an evil choice per se nor that you follow his "orders" if you choose it.
As said, you can choose "Domination" for completely different reasons than TIM, reasons that easily could be determined as ethical "Good".

As for the "Armada of Doom which will obliterate anyone who gets out of line or is perceived as a "threat to the many" part, that is one way to imagine the future, but you could also imagine that Shepard will not interferer with the different societies at all until something "foreign" is threatening them.

"B) kill the Reapers, genocide a bunch of your allies, maybe survive, everyone lives happily ever after but condemn the future of the galaxy to eternal war"

I am not entirely sure what you mean by the "condemn the future of the galaxy to eternal war" part. (The new uprising of IA against their creator?) For the "genocide" part, it is not genocide, at worst it is sacrifice. Or a good opportunity to get ride of the Geth, if you perceive them as dangerous machines.  (As many do.)

"C) Shep dies, everyone gets Reaper DNA, everyone lives happily ever after, and eternal peace reigns over the galaxy (I agree with your assessment of this, but still it is what it is)"

It is true that we both see it this way, but that doesn't mean that our opinion about it is the final truth. I once had a very interesting debate with someone about this matter on the old BW forum and while I did not changed my mind about "Synthesis" he had very good arguments for his viewpoint.

"So to me it seems like Bioware still intends to really push people towards one ending."

Well, it is the main antagonist of the game who tells you that "Synthesis" will be the ultimate solution, if I would be Bioware, I would choose someone else to push you in my direction. 😉 (Again there is some other point, later)

"As for why people are mad, yes we would have liked to let Shep live, and yes sacrifices must be made, but sacrificing Shep for this array of garbage choices is what really pushed it over the edge. I am willing to bet most ME fans would be willing to sacrifice Shep if there were an ending worth sacrificing for."

Well, that is your opinion about this choices, and you have every right to see it that way, but I see it differently and so we have to agree to disagree on this.

"That is what made the end of ME3 so terrible, not only were we being pressured into choosing the future Bioware wanted, for the first time in the series we were not allowed to find another way. This is the ultimate example of not being allowed to, as you put it, choose the option we are drawn to."

The choices inside the games were/are always limited, simple game mechanics determinate that. The different is that you liked the other choices and did not liked the choices at the end.

"So are you saying that the Liara romance IS perfect, or are you saying that Bioware put a bunch of stuff in to push you AWAY from the other ME1 romance?"

Neither of that, I say that it is up to the personal preferences of the player if he likes a specific romance or not.

"Using Ash rather than Kaiden, we have this great romance with an interesting character in ME1, then there is the "Horizon Incident" in ME2 (which I was willing to overlook), then there is the Mars incident in ME3, we start trying to deal with that and BAM Citadel II and we have guns in each other's faces, then, if I have enough cred that I don't have to kill her, she comes back to the ship, barely talks to me, and airs out her new substance abuse problem, and if we manage to push past ALL of that, then we can consider getting our relationship back together"

I agree that Ash talks not enough after being back on the Normandy. Personally I think that they run out of time to polish that at the end.

The "Horizon Incident" was one of this rare moments in this Games where I knew what would happen before the scene begun. Imho, if you truly paid attention to her character, it was clear that she would not simply fall into Shepards arms while he is working with Cerberus. It was the only reaction that would made sense inside the plot and also in regards to Ash character.

And why exactly is such a reaction a bad thing? This moment is not the end of the romance, nor does it define the romance. (Of course only if the player is not completely self centred and is seeing only her/himself.) From Ash point of view her reservedness is more than understandable.

I also think that one night of heavy drinking is not a "substance abuse problem". 😉 (At least I hope so, I was at a wedding Saturday and ... oh boy... 🤒)

"NO ONE else puts you through that kind of wringer for male Shep"

True, and that imho makes this Romance the most interesting romance in the game. 🙂

"IE Bioware DOESN'T want you dating Ash."

And here we are at the some other point mark... Why? 

Why is Bioware against the Ash romance?

Way is Bioware for Synthesis?

Why is Bioware against Slone?

What do they gain?

And so the answer is simple: Nothing. 

If they would be against some of this decisions for whatever strange reason, they simply wouldn't give you a choice about that matter. 

But as a matter of fact Mass Effect gives the player more choices that actually influence the story than any other game I ever played, and so what I said in my previous post remains true, Bioware is not forcing you to do anything, nor do they tip you into a direction, Bioware really gives you the choice.

@Rappeldrache

"You can find at every "dream girl" something you don't like or not. 😉 You turn the things so mutch "around" that a dream-girl looks like a psycho. This is manipulation what you are doing."

No, what I did was to show you that your perception of the female romance options as "dream-girl" is purely subjective.

Everything I wrote was the real opinion about this particular characters from someone who played the game. (And not just from one person.)

As said, I don't have the same opinion about all this characters, but ME2 Jack is a psychopathic killer, (or psycho if you like that more, that is a simple fact) and Mirand is a deeply troubled human being. It might surprise you that many man don't think that a Woman is a dream girl just because she is hot.  👿

Bioware is not creating controversial characters just for the female romance option, they create characters who are controversial to some extent for everyone.

"BUT: The men in ME are boring or are as holes"

Again, that is your opinion about them, there are plenty of female players who love Kaidan or Garus. (BTW, Kaidan doesn't hates Shepard, he is just disappointed in Shepard and that is very understandable from his point of view.)

"Garrus is nice, but he is a ... little dragon. He can't even kiss you! Sorry, but I don't understand HOW somebody want to have se x with a little DRAGON

And Jaal? It's like somebody have taken a Hanar and try to make a human out of him"

So it's mainly about the looks and not the character? 

"I'm straight, I don't care about the hom ose xuel romances"

I am straight too, but I care about them because I think LGBT people have every right to have their romance options too.

"I don't want to be FORECED to hom ose xuell romances only because the straight ones are so horrible.."

Nobody is forcing you to do anything, if the romance options in this game are not after your taste you don't need to romance anyone. 

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Rappeldrache schrieb:

@fudgietroll

*Hug* Thanks 🙂

I will not write here a lot anymore cause I'm just a bit busy with moding ME3 .... 🙂 It is the HELL on EARTH (hey Deadlands) . 😉 So please don't wonder. Sorry to leave the discussion, but moding hair in ME3 is .... We should talk with Bioware about Mass Effect and why it is so damned hard to mod this games. 👮

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It became fairly easy with the ME3 Explorer tool-set in conjunction with gibbed save editor. Do you use that?

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@EgoMania wrote:

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@Nykara360 wrote:

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The difference being the males romance options in ME2 carried over into ME3. For the females they did not.

Also you got two female human choices and 1 alien. We got one human, two aliens and out of those one cheats in ME3 and the other dies. The only one that carries is Garrus. Since Miranda, Jack, Tali and Liara(LotSB) all carry into ME3 hows that equal exactly?

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 As I said, it's not equal in ME3. Only ME1 and 2 had an equal division except for male-male relationships which didn't exist at all. So why you think that I said it was equal is rather a mystery to me. You really made that up completely, I never said it was equal but I do think BW gave more options than other games.

And ME3 at least introduced male-male relationships which was a much bigger inequality. I find it a shame that most people seem to have no thought for that scenario.

And let's not get stuck in the past anyway. The Shepard story is done and if you look at ME:A I think they made things rather more equal, don't you think? In fact a female Ryder has 2 male human options and a male Ryder only has 1 female human option.

And really, how many story driven RPGs are out there that give you the option to play both a male or female protagonist that both have romance options across genders? If you do, tell me, cause I'd like to check them out. But I think the truth is that most RPGs that come out these days still have mostly male protagonists and very limited romance options if any at all. 

Feel free to prove me wrong. I'd love to know about more games like this but I fear that outside of BW games there isn't a whole ot of that going on. 

You tell me...

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If you read my past posts in multiple threads since this games release you'd know Ive stated many times the m/m romances got shafted even more.. but the f/m romances are only marginally better ... in that they exist.