Romances: Disparity in quality and quantity

[Ashii]

You have much less actually. Sure, you can be both genders and orientations, but only one possibility for each one, and if you don't like it, you're screwed . ME3 was better in that regard (except for straight females, God knows why they did that).

I'll stick to playing as good old Geralt, if that's the way things go

Straight females still had Kaidan from ME1 to ME3. They had Garrus, who's equally popular as Kaidan and he had even more content than Liara for sure in ME3 and he's present in all 3 games. Then we can add other romances, as well, despite tragic endings.

Now, lesbians have Liara, who's not everyone's cup of tea. Lots of women like her, because she was first "big" romance in this type of game and she's still copy/paste in female/male route of romance. Typical BioWare's laziness. Then in ME2 nothing. And in ME3 there's joke-of-a-romance Traynor with barely any content and just copy/paste, quirky, shy, awkward girl BW loves to give us, bc apparently any good written female LI was exclusive to male playerbase.

We can argue who had it worse or better, but it all depends if certain character was good or bad and that, again, depends on people's preferences. I, for one, have no LI for my FemShep in any of 3 games, because my options sucked. But well, it happens. That's life, I'm not gonna throw tantrum, because I didn't have any harem available to romance.

In Witcher you only play as Geralt, it's way easier to create quality romances if you only have to worry about writing them for one, established main character.

In CP not only we can pick a gender for V, but as well as their preferences regarding gay or straight romances. It's much harder to write and requires way more resources. Of course there's no denying that CDPR dropped the ball with Kerry for sure and even though Judy got best end of the deal in gay romances, their main focus was still Panam, romance option for dudes, just like it was always a main target for BioWare and it shows.

And yet even if Judy switched places with Kerry, for example, I'd still prefer Cyberpunk to Witcher and one of the biggest reasons for me is that I can pick who my V is. I'm tired of playing RPGs where I'm forced to be a guy. So if you're a guy, of course you're gonna love witcher and all romance option it offers you.

So yeah, stay with Witcher, it's perfect for you.

 

[Guest 4412420]

CDPR always gave a small number of options. TW1 had Shani and Triss, every other woman was just a hookup. TW2 had only Triss because they threw Shani under the bus and every other encounter Geralt had was also a one and done thing. TW3 had Triss and Yennefer. Keira, Shani and Syanna were also hookups but the ones with more screen-time. Geralt also for the most part only had two options. The difference is that it's two straight options. CDPR probably aimed for quality over quantity with Cyberpunk but they fell very short on that because of all the things we previously discussed.

 

[Iferrebee]

Don't see the relationships going anywhere

Its a story driven game and those stories were already told. It might suck but adding more might take away from the story they wanted to tell

 

[MrBilL61]

Don't see the relationships going anywhere

Its a story driven game and those stories were already told. It might suck but adding more might take away from the story they wanted to tell

As they implemented the relationships into the story they in some instances are the core of the story and what's more extending them it might add up more into the deeper layer of main story they want to tell.

But ok, it depends on how deep you're looking into the story itself

 

[Feline_Witcher]

Straight females still had Kaidan from ME1 to ME3. They had Garrus, who's equally popular as Kaidan and he had even more content than Liara for sure in ME3 and he's present in all 3 games. Then we can add other romances, as well, despite tragic endings.

Now, lesbians have Liara, who's not everyone's cup of tea. Lots of women like her, because she was first "big" romance in this type of game and she's still copy/paste in female/male route of romance. Typical BioWare's laziness. Then in ME2 nothing. And in ME3 there's joke-of-a-romance Traynor with barely any content and just copy/paste, quirky, shy, awkward girl BW loves to give us, bc apparently any good written female LI was exclusive to male playerbase.

We can argue who had it worse or better, but it all depends if certain character was good or bad and that, again, depends on people's preferences. I, for one, have no LI for my FemShep in any of 3 games, because my options sucked. But well, it happens. That's life, I'm not gonna throw tantrum, because I didn't have any harem available to romance.

In Witcher you only play as Geralt, it's way easier to create quality romances if you only have to worry about writing them for one, established main character.

In CP not only we can pick a gender for V, but as well as their preferences regarding gay or straight romances. It's much harder to write and requires way more resources. Of course there's no denying that CDPR dropped the ball with Kerry for sure and even though Judy got best end of the deal in gay romances, their main focus was still Panam, romance option for dudes, just like it was always a main target for BioWare and it shows.

And yet even if Judy switched places with Kerry, for example, I'd still prefer Cyberpunk to Witcher and one of the biggest reasons for me is that I can pick who my V is. I'm tired of playing RPGs where I'm forced to be a guy. So if you're a guy, of course you're gonna love witcher and all romance option it offers you.

So yeah, stay with Witcher, it's perfect for you.

Lesbians still had more options than straight women in ME3 (Liara and Traynor (and Diana Allers), characters that are there no matter what vs Kaidan who might be dead and Cricketman which only continues if carried from the previous game). But Bioware logics are fucked up as we all know. After years of development, they should have done more with Cyberpunk, preset characters being easier to write is no excuse.

 

[Guest 4412420]

Its a story driven game and those stories were already told. It might suck but adding more might take away from the story they wanted to tell

CDPR added new romance content for Triss months after TW3 came out because people criticized the lack of romance content. Assuming they listened this time too, it's possible they might add something for Cyberpunk as well. I also fail to see how fleshing out blatantly underdeveloped romances would take away from anything. It would only add something good.

Edit: Unless you meant more romance options. Those might be too late.

 

[Ashii]

Lesbians still had more options than straight women in ME3 (Liara and Traynor (and Diana Allers), characters that are there no matter what vs Kaidan who might be dead and Cricketman which only continues if carried from the previous game). But Bioware logics are fucked up as we all know. After years of development, they should have done more with Cyberpunk, preset characters being easier to write is no excuse.

Allers is not a romance option, it was just someweird hook up BioWare added, because the chick that played Allers was some journalist. And I've never seen anyone mildly interested in her either. So just stop. Any decent BW fan thought of her as a joke, not an NPC.

And, she was bi, not a lesbian, so dude bros could've hook up with her as well.

 

[Feline_Witcher]

Don't see the relationships going anywhere

Its a story driven game and those stories were already told. It might suck but adding more might take away from the story they wanted to tell

DLCs can add new characters, doesn't need to be about the same ones

Post automatically merged: Jan 17, 2022

Allers is not a romance option, it was just someweird hook up BioWare added, because the chick that played Allers was some journalist. And I've never seen anyone mildly interested in her either. So just stop. Any decent BW fan thought of her as a joke, not an NPC.

And, she was bi, not a lesbian, so dude bros could've hook up with her as well.

Not a BW fan, but some things they got better. Cyberpunk was allegedly in development since before TW3. We know that's not entirely true. But with all the time they still had to polish this game, they settled with the bare minimum. If Bioware can do better 10 years ago... not a good sign. It's supposed to be an RPG so I expect to have multiple choices and options (even if I do like the existing one/s), what can I say.

BTW, I said Allers was a f/f option, not that she was gay nor a full romance

 

[medion_no]

I want to romance Skippy. A great missed opportunity.

 

[GogRelvas]

I want to romance Skippy. A great missed opportunity.

Hahaha lethal or non-lethal strokes?

 

[medion_no]

Hahaha lethal or non-lethal strokes?

Premature shots.

 

[casadechrisso]

Now, lesbians have Liara, who's not everyone's cup of tea. Lots of women like her, because she was first "big" romance in this type of game and she's still copy/paste in female/male route of romance. Typical BioWare's laziness. Then in ME2 nothing. And in ME3 there's joke-of-a-romance Traynor with barely any content and just copy/paste, quirky, shy, awkward girl BW loves to give us, bc apparently any good written female LI was exclusive to male playerbase.

Ok, in defense of Traynor, you must mistake her with Kelly Chambers, because I just finished a run through the LE with a femshep romancing her and she actually has quite a lot of content that feels very much like a full romance (in Bioware terms). Actually she's IIRC even the only character you can have 3 snuggletime-scenes with, and there's a lot of dialogue with her. Your impression might be colored by the fact that she's no squad member and you don't get any special dialogue during missions, but otherwise I found her to be as fleshed out as the rest.
Of course we can still debate if she's interesting, well written, stereotypical etc., but in comparison with the other romance options I didn't feel like I missed out.

 

[Feline_Witcher]

Ok, in defense of Traynor, you must mistake her with Kelly Chambers, because I just finished a run through the LE with a femshep romancing her and she actually has quite a lot of content that feels very much like a full romance (in Bioware terms). Actually she's IIRC even the only character you can have 3 snuggletime-scenes with, and there's a lot of dialogue with her. Your impression might be colored by the fact that she's no squad member and you don't get any special dialogue during missions, but otherwise I found her to be as fleshed out as the rest.
Of course we can still debate if she's interesting, well written, stereotypical etc., but in comparison with the other romance options I didn't feel like I missed out.

The truth is, all gay characters coming from Bioware are... stereotypical, at the very least in one way or another. I think only Kaidan escapes tropes (but that one is bi). Cyberpunk is better in that regard (Kerry is decadent and libertine but being a rockstar it fits). My only "complain" is the fact that I would have preferred if we had also 2 bi romances of each gender so every character could have more options, but thats it. I have faith in CDPR, but with Bio I'm done for good, given what we've seen in the last ME and DA games

 

[Ashii]

Ok, in defense of Traynor, you must mistake her with Kelly Chambers, because I just finished a run through the LE with a femshep romancing her and she actually has quite a lot of content that feels very much like a full romance (in Bioware terms). Actually she's IIRC even the only character you can have 3 snuggletime-scenes with, and there's a lot of dialogue with her. Your impression might be colored by the fact that she's no squad member and you don't get any special dialogue during missions, but otherwise I found her to be as fleshed out as the rest.
Of course we can still debate if she's interesting, well written, stereotypical etc., but in comparison with the other romance options I didn't feel like I missed out.

No, I don't mistake her for Chambers who was just some creepy NPC. Traynor was this embarassing token "lesbian" npc BioWare didn't want to bother with. "Oh, I want a house, and a dog, and kids too", dear God, I wanted to puke after hearing those lines. They didn't even bother with her looks. There was a clone NPC standing couple of feet away from her. Tropes after tropes. And in Andromeda they went with the same schematic for Suvi. Geeky, shy nerdy girl, yet again, just an NPC, not a squadmate and oh look, "a lesbian". Without even an actual romance scene, just like Traynor. Not that it's important, but giving the fact that other LIs had one.... yeah. It was a bit of a shitty treatment.

Compared to Cortez, she had a couple of autodialogues that didn't change much depending of whether she was romanced or not, basically no flirting and suddenly she was into FemShep. Out of the blue. She doesn't even leave the Normandy and in Citadel DLC her role was, yet again, very minimal compared to Cortez or even other romance options.

That's why I was so positively surprised with what CDPR's done with Judy. She's, hands down, the best fully lesbian romance in any game out there. BioWare could learn a lot from them in that regard.

 

[casadechrisso]

The truth is, all gay characters coming from Bioware are... stereotypical, at the very least in one way or another. I think only Kaidan escapes tropes (but that one is bi). Cyberpunk is better in that regard (Kerry is decadent and libertine but being a rockstar it fits). My only "complain" is the fact that I would have preferred if we had also 2 bi romances of each gender so every character could have more options, but thats it. I have faith in CDPR, but with Bio I'm done for good, given what we've seen in the last ME and DA games

What's not a trope in Bioware games - at least in the older titles they were fun tropes, but always-the-same formula got old over the time and in later games nothing excited me anymore. But speaking of bi, as much as I like to have some bi options (which isn't unheard of in RL either) the player-sexual example of DA2 was probably the worst, I think it should be avoided if you still want some illusion of personality and agency in those characters.
TBH though, Panam comes over as bi all the time towards female V and only shoots you down when directly confronted, which I guess is more due to lazy writing (not wanting to do extra dialogue for each gender), but they could've easily just made her bi and it would've been even more believable than her behaviour towards female V now.
Well, I guess due to those dialogue limitations every character could easily made bi with a simple checkbox check inside their dialogue files, but that would be the DA2 problem again and feel equally lazy. So... the only solution would be more work and more romanceable characters. On my secret and totally unrealistic wishlist for patches and DLCs a "characters of Night City" expansion would be close to the top anyway, that simply adds many more interesting NPCs to interact with, with quests and places to visit inside the known quarters. I know that all we can hope for is probably new locations with lots of action, cars and new weapons, the things players usually expect from DLCs, but one can still dream.

 

[Ashii]

I really don't know where this idea "Panam is bi" idea comes from. The relationship between her and Valerie felt like two sisters/BFF bickering, dragging each other, not flirting.

Same with Judy and Vincent. "Oh, she's nice to me. Must mean she's madly in love with me." or "weird, she's not reacting to my flirting. Must be playing hard to get". I'm tired of this mentality.

 

[casadechrisso]

No, I don't mistake her for Chambers who was just some creepy NPC. Traynor was this embarassing token "lesbian" npc BioWare didn't want to bother with. "Oh, I want a house, and a dog, and kids too", dear God, I wanted to puke after hearing those lines. They didn't even bother with her looks. There was a clone NPC standing couple of feet away from her. Tropes after tropes. And in Andromeda they went with the same schematic for Suvi. Geeky, shy nerdy girl, yet again, just an NPC, not a squadmate and oh look, "a lesbian". Without even an actual romance scene, just like Traynor. Not that it's important, but giving the fact that other LIs had one.... yeah. It was a bit of a shitty treatment.

Compared to Cortez, she had a couple of autodialogues that didn't change much depending of whether she was romanced or not, basically no flirting and suddenly she was into FemShep. Out of the blue. She doesn't even leave the Normandy and in Citadel DLC her role was, yet again, very minimal compared to Cortez or even other romance options.

That's why I was so positively surprised with what CDPR's done with Judy. She's, hands down, the best fully lesbian romance in any game out there. BioWare could learn a lot from them in that regard.

Okay okay, I get you really hate her, but that's not my point - it's really just that her romance didn't feel any shorter or limited than any other option, that's just objectively not true. As for her dialogue, yes it does change once your romance with her is locked in, the usual one-liners/barks refer to your relationship from time to time.
I didn't find her super special or particulary interesting either and she was super-tropey, no need to argue about that.
Judy is faaar better written than any of these ME charcters, however, Judy turns into furniture one her quests are over and that's a major letdown after she's been so believable, also as we've seen CDPR basically used the same somewhat flirty dialogue lines for both genders no matter if they're actually into V or not, Bioware at least took Shepherd's gender into account much befiore you make your move.

Post automatically merged: Jan 22, 2022

I really don't know where this idea "Panam is bi" idea comes from. The relationship between her and Valerie felt like two sisters/BFF bickering, dragging each other, not flirting.

Same with Judy and Vincent. "Oh, she's nice to me. Must mean she's madly in love with me." or "weird, she's not reacting to my flirting. Must be playing hard to get". I'm tired of this mentality.

It's not the mentality, it's that CDPR simply used the exact same lines and cinematics for both Vs. So if you're a male V it's obvious flirting because Pan is hetero, but the exact same content on female V is a problem with player mentality? I guess that's one way to see it, yes...

 

[Feline_Witcher]

What's not a trope in Bioware games - at least in the older titles they were fun tropes, but always-the-same formula got old over the time and in later games nothing excited me anymore. But speaking of bi, as much as I like to have some bi options (which isn't unheard of in RL either) the player-sexual example of DA2 was probably the worst, I think it should be avoided if you still want some illusion of personality and agency in those characters.
TBH though, Panam comes over as bi all the time towards female V and only shoots you down when directly confronted, which I guess is more due to lazy writing (not wanting to do extra dialogue for each gender), but they could've easily just made her bi and it would've been even more believable than her behaviour towards female V now.
Well, I guess due to those dialogue limitations every character could easily made bi with a simple checkbox check inside their dialogue files, but that would be the DA2 problem again and feel equally lazy. So... the only solution would be more work and more romanceable characters. On my secret and totally unrealistic wishlist for patches and DLCs a "characters of Night City" expansion would be close to the top anyway, that simply adds many more interesting NPCs to interact with, with quests and places to visit inside the known quarters. I know that all we can hope for is probably new locations with lots of action, cars and new weapons, the things players usually expect from DLCs, but one can still dream.

Oh Jesus, the DA2 tropes in romance: pixie girl, pornstar, anime elf and unbearable terrorist... and all of them playersexual, even Anders who was straight in Awakening. In fact you can reduce most Bioware characters to a single quality (don't even get me started on DAI)

That's when the boat of Bioware started to leak

 

[Ashii]

Okay okay, I get you really hate her, but that's not my point - it's really just that her romance didn't feel any shorter or limited than any other option, that's just objectively not true. As for her, yes it does change once your romance with her is locked in, the usual one-liners/barks refer to your relationship from time to time.
I didn't find her super special or particulary interesting either and she was super-tropey, no need to argue about that.
Judy is faaar better written than any of these ME charcters, however, Judy turns into furniture one her quests are over and that's a major letdown after she's been so believable, also as we've seen CDPR basically used the same somewhat flirty dialogue lines for both genders no matter if they're actually into V or not, Bioware at least took Shepherd's gender into account much befiore you make your move.

I don't hate Traynor. I like Traynor, I just acknowledged her romance was shit. She's a better replacement for creepy Chambers, but her romance was shit and I'm not gonna say otherwise. I played it twice. In OG ME3 and in LE edition and it was still the same for me. Very lackster compared to every other available romance.

And Judy being a furniture is sadly true, but it happens with every romance in CP after the sex scene. Well, maybe not Panam. She does have her own ending.

 

[Feline_Witcher]

I really don't know where this idea "Panam is bi" idea comes from. The relationship between her and Valerie felt like two sisters/BFF bickering, dragging each other, not flirting.

Same with Judy and Vincent. "Oh, she's nice to me. Must mean she's madly in love with me." or "weird, she's not reacting to my flirting. Must be playing hard to get". I'm tired of this mentality.

Judy even explicitly shots down a male V who tries to flirt with her