Suggestion for limited romance options.

[Didacgomez]

I think that the "problem" is that many game developers of RPGs have dropped over the years one design principle : a character should not be able to do everything and is fine to block content to the player in a given playthrough... then, when you have a player decision that blocks some content it doesn't feel "right"( and I think in cp2077 you can only get locked from this and 2 ripperdocs?)
I used to have in-game journals with not accepted,accepted,succesful and botched quests (accepted tried and failed)... or NPCs not giving me a quest because my character was low intelligence or low charisma or other stuff.

Not being able to romance xxx is a player driven decision when you create your character, even if you don't know a priori (where is the fun of knowing the consequences of a decision beforehand?, just eliminate all choices in that case).

 

[LeKill3rFou]

I'll let @LeKill3rFou correct me if I'm wrong but I believe he means the romance itself being deeper and more developed rather than the character itself. Language barrier n' all.

Yep, the details, dialogues, emotions, facial animations,... at least, everything which make the character "interesting".
For example, for me it's hard to imagine that River could fall in love for "male V", in the way how his whole character is written by CDPR. So simply "switch" his sexual preference with an option and let everything in the current state, would seem just weird as hell.

Not being able to romance xxx is a player driven decision when you create your character, even if you don't know a priori (where is the fun of knowing the consequences of a decision beforehand?, just eliminate all choices in that case).

It's not fair

 

[GrimReaper801]

To be honest, I think you're both right. One way or the other, someone would argue that devs are pandering.

That's actually why I suggested the whole toggle (for lack of a better word) thing.

Some people hate player sexual, some people prefer it. The toggle thing, as convoluted as it sounds, would pander to everyone.

I get what you're saying but I still think it's just extra, unnecessary steps, for what is simply player-sexual.

To take your example of recent efforts to provide more customization in difficulties, there is a point to these options. That point being to customize your experience to your own strengths and weaknesses in order to make the games more accessible to people who might really good at one thing but suck at another one instead of being effectively unable to progress because X sequence plays heavily on something they're weak at. You still get a challenge but you don't get locked either.

In the case of romance, if it's all player-sexual anyway, why add this extra step in your process to choose who you'll romance? It wouldn't change anything ultimately. You'll either use the romance options or you won't and you won't notice any difference since ultimately they've been written to be interchangeable.

I get that giving players more choices is generally a good choice per se but there comes a point where the return on effort/resources ratio is just way off.

Not to mention that I genuinely can't think of any game with 100% player-sexual relationship where the romances didn't feel absolutely generic.

I think that the "problem" is that many game developers of RPGs have dropped over the years one design principle : a character should not be able to do everything and is fine to block content to the player in a given playthrough... then, when you have a player decision that blocks some content it doesn't feel "right"( and I think in cp2077 you can only get locked from this and 2 ripperdocs?)
I used to have in-game journals with not accepted,accepted,succesful and botched quests (accepted tried and failed)... or NPCs not giving me a quest because my character was low intelligence or low charisma or other stuff.

Not being able to romance xxx is a player driven decision when you create your character, even if you don't know a priori (where is the fun of knowing the consequences of a decision beforehand?, just eliminate all choices in that case).

That is also a very good point. These days, games, and especially RPGs, are all about the player being the absolute center of everything. The ultimate hero. Awesome at everything. Bad at nothing if the player chooses so and I believe part of this conversation stems from this shift. Used to be RPGs asked you to make hard choices about your character and it's journey.

It's a vastly different design philosophy.

 

[Deniryer]

DA2 had a few great romances, and they were all player sexual. Ultimately, it boils down to the quality of writing. Sexuality, whether it's fluid or solid, does not automatically improve writing.

Take the Tali or Garrus romances in ME2/3. They would still be fantastic even if there were no restrictions. Garrus isn't even actually attracted to humans, just Shepard. He's also probably one of the best written romances I've seen in a game.

Witcher 3's romances were good because they were all based on pre-existing characters. Most of the work was done there. They were also designed with Geralt specifically in mind, so the writing was simpler.

Post automatically merged: Apr 20, 2022

I'm aware it would be quite the undertaking from a technical perspective. From a narrative perspective, it would actually require very little.

Honestly, the entire thing would pretty much be on them.

Witcher series - especially 3rd game in the series - has very little to do with books to the point that fans of the books flat out refuse to accept Triss/Yenn as default for Geralt based on something that isn't included in the game i.e Yenn being hidden behind cold mask.

Garrus and Tali are completly diffrent in that regard and it's not true that Garrus is not interested in romance. After sparring he tells you a story about flexible turian female he served with. Tali also have had a crush on another race of opposite gender.

Garrus woudn't work for me in current form as a gay men. He treats you like an equally strong individual if you play male Shep and has completely different approach to fem Shep.

DA2 is the prime example why you shoudn't do all options are Bi, because that what you advocating for. Even if we account for branching out after initiation romance / flipping a option in setting it would require to write to diffrent path of either same dialogue or completely different personality and dialogue options for gay/straight romance. It would unfortunately result in the same romance but with gender specific language especially in my own language - Polish - which is gender-based.

Also it just closes paths to be creatively free. You cannot write , for example, a closeted gay man and the repurpose this romance for a female player because it won't make sense without rewriting him to be at least dunno... virgin.

I think that the "problem" is that many game developers of RPGs have dropped over the years one design principle : a character should not be able to do everything and is fine to block content to the player in a given playthrough... then, when you have a player decision that blocks some content it doesn't feel "right"( and I think in cp2077 you can only get locked from this and 2 ripperdocs?)
I used to have in-game journals with not accepted,accepted,succesful and botched quests (accepted tried and failed)... or NPCs not giving me a quest because my character was low intelligence or low charisma or other stuff.

Not being able to romance xxx is a player driven decision when you create your character, even if you don't know a priori (where is the fun of knowing the consequences of a decision beforehand?, just eliminate all choices in that case).

It's not a dropped principle. Games nowadays focus purely on graphics which inherently isn't bad thing, because it let us experience a broader spectrum of emotion )more complex facial animations for example, you can literally see and feel emotions of the NPC) that wasn't a thing few years ago, but it is time consuming to develop characters/scenarios/landscape with the same amount of details for a thousand of option available for player. You can write a story/script that would included Kerry/River into main story and effectively lock you out of progression with Panam/Judy because - news flash - your character is dying and constrained by time frame so you shouldn't be able to everything anyway, but that's another problem with open world games...

Look at DA2. It have had literally copied and pasted level lol. CDPR have had similar problem. With their engine tried to pioneer something that haven't been done before and they eventually ran out of time to implement and polish lots of mechanics and game elements.

 

[Durandal_IV]

Witcher series - especially 3rd game in the series - has very little to do with books to the point that fans of the books flat out refuse to accept Triss/Yenn as default for Geralt based on something that isn't included in the game i.e Yenn being hidden behind cold mask.

Garrus and Tali are completly diffrent in that regard and it's not true that Garrus is not interested in romance. After sparring he tells you a story about flexible turian female he served with. Tali also have had a crush on another race of opposite gender.

Garrus woudn't work for me in current form as a gay men. He treats you like an equally strong individual if you play male Shep and has completely different approach to fem Shep.

DA2 is the prime example why you shoudn't do all options are Bi, because that what you advocating for. Even if we account for branching out after initiation romance / flipping a option in setting it would require to write to diffrent path of either same dialogue or completely different personality and dialogue options for gay/straight romance. It would unfortunately result in the same romance but with gender specific language especially in my own language - Polish - which is gender-based.

Also it just closes paths to be creatively free. You cannot write , for example, a closeted gay man and the repurpose this romance for a female player because it won't make sense without rewriting him to be at least dunno... virgin.



It's not a dropped principle. Games nowadays focus purely on graphics which inherently isn't bad thing, because it let us experience a broader spectrum of emotion )more complex facial animations for example, you can literally see and feel emotions of the NPC) that wasn't a thing few years ago, but it is time consuming to develop characters/scenarios/landscape with the same amount of details for a thousand of option available for player. You can write a story/script that would included Kerry/River into main story and effectively lock you out of progression with Panam/Judy because - news flash - your character is dying and constrained by time frame so you shouldn't be able to everything anyway, but that's another problem with open world games...

Look at DA2. It have had literally copied and pasted level lol. CDPR have had similar problem. With their engine tried to pioneer something that haven't been done before and they eventually ran out of time to implement and polish lots of mechanics and game elements.

Garrus explicitly says he's never really been attracted to aliens, and that Shepard is an exception, not the norm.

Tali is definitely open to amyone as she makes drunk comments about a threeway with Shepard and Garrus if Shepard romances Garrus.

As for not liking, Garrus/MaleShep, that's entirely a matter of preference. I don't think it would change anything at all.

Your complaint about DA2 is completely irrelevant to my comment. It did have some great romances. Ther terrible level design has nothing to do with that.

Post automatically merged: Apr 20, 2022

Witcher series - especially 3rd game in the series - has very little to do with books to the point that fans of the books flat out refuse to accept Triss/Yenn as default for Geralt based on something that isn't included in the game i.e Yenn being hidden behind cold mask.

Garrus and Tali are completly diffrent in that regard and it's not true that Garrus is not interested in romance. After sparring he tells you a story about flexible turian female he served with. Tali also have had a crush on another race of opposite gender.

Garrus woudn't work for me in current form as a gay men. He treats you like an equally strong individual if you play male Shep and has completely different approach to fem Shep.

DA2 is the prime example why you shoudn't do all options are Bi, because that what you advocating for. Even if we account for branching out after initiation romance / flipping a option in setting it would require to write to diffrent path of either same dialogue or completely different personality and dialogue options for gay/straight romance. It would unfortunately result in the same romance but with gender specific language especially in my own language - Polish - which is gender-based.

Also it just closes paths to be creatively free. You cannot write , for example, a closeted gay man and the repurpose this romance for a female player because it won't make sense without rewriting him to be at least dunno... virgin.



It's not a dropped principle. Games nowadays focus purely on graphics which inherently isn't bad thing, because it let us experience a broader spectrum of emotion )more complex facial animations for example, you can literally see and feel emotions of the NPC) that wasn't a thing few years ago, but it is time consuming to develop characters/scenarios/landscape with the same amount of details for a thousand of option available for player. You can write a story/script that would included Kerry/River into main story and effectively lock you out of progression with Panam/Judy because - news flash - your character is dying and constrained by time frame so you shouldn't be able to everything anyway, but that's another problem with open world games...

Look at DA2. It have had literally copied and pasted level lol. CDPR have had similar problem. With their engine tried to pioneer something that haven't been done before and they eventually ran out of time to implement and polish lots of mechanics and game elements.

Making everyone bi isn't even remotely close to what I am advocating. If you read it, I am saying let people pick npcs sexual orientations. It's significantly more complex.

 

[Deniryer]

Garrus explicitly says he's never really been attracted to aliens, and that Shepard is an exception, not the norm.

Tali is definitely open to amyone as she makes drunk comments about a threeway with Shepard and Garrus if Shepard romances Garrus.

As for not liking, Garrus/MaleShep, that's entirely a matter of preference. I don't think it would change anything at all.

Your complaint about DA2 is completely irrelevant to my comment. It did have some great romances. Ther terrible level design has nothing to do with that.

Yeah sure, Bioware addmited that they've to cut corners due to development hell and it is reflected on romances.

You said that Garrus wasn't interested in anyone before Shepard which is simply not true. Same goes for Tali - Garrus can only by romanced by fem Shep which make her attracted either exclusively to fem Shep or human female.

Well, your response have nothing to mine comment about romances in DA2 being absolute generic crap pulled out of mediocre romance novel where you cannot get any different perspective because as soon as you change the gander it doesn't make sense.

Only one bisexual romance that made sense for both female and male Bioware was able to pull off was Liara, because of they specifics of her race and even given that some Asari won't mate with same gender.

Edit. How do I know that Garrus won't work without rewriting him? PC -> Mod. It felt weird even with slightly changed text dialogue options.

Also when you romance Tali her dialgue with male Shep is completely different...

 

[GreyPuddin]

Sorry to butt in but there’s been a miscommunication I think.

Garrus hadn’t ever considered a relationship with a human before getting to know Shepard.

 

[Durandal_IV]

Yeah sure, Bioware addmited that they've to cut corners due to development hell and it is reflected on romances.

You said that Garrus wasn't interested in anyone before Shepard which is simply not true. Same goes for Tali - Garrus can only by romanced by fem Shep which make her attracted either exclusively to fem Shep or human female.

Well, your response have nothing to mine comment about romances in DA2 being absolute generic crap pulled out of mediocre romance novel where you cannot get any different perspective because as soon as you change the gander it doesn't make sense.

Only one bisexual romance that made sense for both female and male Bioware was able to pull off was Liara, because of they specifics of her race and even given that some Asari won't mate with same gender.

Edit. How do I know that Garrus won't work without rewriting him? PC -> Mod. It felt weird even with slightly changed text dialogue options.

Also when you romance Tali her dialgue with male Shep is completely different...

Congrats. You hate DA2. You are also completely missing the point, which is that it did have some good romance storylines in the game, independent of gender.

I am aware Garrus is designed for femshep only. What I am saying is that if you swapped FemShep with MaleShep, it wouldn't change the effectiveness of the story. Why? Because Garrus' sexual orientation wasn't a key element of the narrative.

Post automatically merged: Apr 20, 2022

Sorry to butt in but there’s been a miscommunication I think.

Garrus hadn’t ever considered a relationship with a human before getting to know Shepard.

Fair point, but that still implies that Shepard being Shepard had more to do with it than Shepard having a set of breasts.

Also, one of the devs said Garrus had a cloaca, so classic human sexual conventions are completely thrown out the window.

 

[SteelDragon2050]

Reading these posts makes me glad there were no romance options in the Shadowrun games. Be thankful there's any at all considering they're absolutely irrelevant. You can still help Judy as a male, or just as her friend, Panam and the Aldos will still back up your 'saka raid even if she's not your girlfriend, Kerry and River have nothing to do with the endgame whatsoever. And you don't even need to help Judy, once you get the info about the Voodoo Boys, she can be ignored.

 

[Durandal_IV]

Reading these posts makes me glad there were no romance options in the Shadowrun games. Be thankful there's any at all considering they're absolutely irrelevant. You can still help Judy as a male, or just as her friend, Panam and the Aldos will still back up your 'saka raid even if she's not your girlfriend, Kerry and River have nothing to do with the endgame whatsoever. And you don't even need to help Judy, once you get the info about the Voodoo Boys, she can be ignored.

This has gotten a bit derailed from my original point, but your comment is another reason I'm arguing for some sort of customizable-toggle-system: don't want to deal with any of that romance crap? Flip it off.

Edit: Interpret that last sentence ad you'd like.

 

[GrimReaper801]

This has gotten a bit derailed from my original point, but your comment is another reason I'm arguing for some sort of customizable-toggle-system: don't want to deal with any of that romance crap? Flip it off.

Edit: Interpret that last sentence ad you'd like.

But then that's also more steps for the exact same result.....

Don't want to deal with romance? Ignore it. Just don't engage in it. You can remain completely platonic with any of the romance interests. Why go through the trouble of making it a toggle if the end result is literally the same.

Granted a romance on/off toggle would be way less work than the whole gay/straight/random toggle options but it's pointless work for the developers.

 

[SteelDragon2050]

This has gotten a bit derailed from my original point, but your comment is another reason I'm arguing for some sort of customizable-toggle-system: don't want to deal with any of that romance crap? Flip it off.

Edit: Interpret that last sentence ad you'd like.

I have no issues with there being romance in the game, but this topic is getting to the point of "beating a dead horse" as we say here in the states. Meaning the multitude of threads about it, not this one in particular. NPC's being set to a certain way is best, as it helps them seem human. Not everyone likes chocolate cake, for example.

 

[Durandal_IV]

I know. I was actually think of calling this "Yet another thread about romance. Dumpster fire imminent."

I actually just find it really frustrating that people keep complaining about it not fitting their own personal tastes, so why not create a system where people can?

I'll freely admit it: I'm an idealist. I'm looking for a way to make everyone happy.

 

[GrimReaper801]

I'll freely admit it: I'm an idealist. I'm looking for a way to make everyone happy.

A commendable sentiment but one that has been proven to be impossible to attain over and over again.

 

[SteelDragon2050]

I'm looking for a way to make everyone happy.

Impossible. Admirable, but impossible.

 

[Durandal_IV]

What can I say? I'm a stubborn idealist. Once we get off our soapbox, we start using it as a blunt instrument.

 

[Deniryer]

Congrats. You hate DA2. You are also completely missing the point, which is that it did have some good romance storylines in the game, independent of gender.

I am aware Garrus is designed for femshep only. What I am saying is that if you swapped FemShep with MaleShep, it wouldn't change the effectiveness of the story. Why? Because Garrus' sexual orientation wasn't a key element of the narrative.

Post automatically merged: Apr 20, 2022

Fair point, but that still implies that Shepard being Shepard had more to do with it than Shepard having a set of breasts.

Also, one of the devs said Garrus had a cloaca, so classic human sexual conventions are completely thrown out the window.

No I don't so don't put word into my mouth... Game was designed that way because of development hell. It just funny how people can point same argument towards CDPR but not other studio who went through same and it resulted in the same - Broken, unfinished game. And no, romances are not good. I romanced Sera & Anders. It was painful because they treated me like generic, non-gender specific person.

If you played ME3 without romancing Tali ithis dialogue and player - NPC dynamic plays out, which indicates that specifically interested in Garrus not even fem Shep, so she can be voyeur I likes to watch or she simply will do what ever is necessary to drag Garrus into bed.

Yeah and sex for Tali is only possible under controlled environment and allows you to exchange "fluids" which doesn't mean that Tali because of that must be bisexual.

ME 1-3, DAO and even DAI (witch went through another development hell due to frostbite and EA being greedy and their order to use frostbite across companies to cut licencing costs lol) have had A LOT of branching out in dialogues and character dynamics based on your options i.e your sexuality blatantly stated through conversation. Which is natural way of doing things. If a woman started hitting on me I would politely declined or soon I'll just show a ring on my finger and I'll point to my husband.

Those take time. CDPR didn't have it. Even a simple "switch" would require rewriting. Not to mention that sex scene with Kerry wouldn't work at all... Unless your V have a male genitalia or strap-on.

Reading these posts makes me glad there were no romance options in the Shadowrun games. Be thankful there's any at all considering they're absolutely irrelevant. You can still help Judy as a male, or just as her friend, Panam and the Aldos will still back up your 'saka raid even if she's not your girlfriend, Kerry and River have nothing to do with the endgame whatsoever. And you don't even need to help Judy, once you get the info about the Voodoo Boys, she can be ignored.

Romance or lack there of can be a vital plot in the game. You can play entire ME, DA or hell... Even Trilogy of The Witchers games can be play through without romancing/shagging a character but imho you just miss out, especially during mission where your loved one is at stake.

Some games just doesn't need a romance options, let alone cRPG elements vide Diablo lol.

Regardless, In CP2077 a lot of decision doesn't make sense/matter. There is just a handful that unlocks endings... And some conversations are just plain and simple ridiculous. Alt is gravely afraid of Net Watch yet doesn't have a problem with frying Voodoo Boys and breaching one of the most powerful corporation in the world lol. Net watch is also pathetic but this is not topic about inconsistency in the writing and plot contrivances.

 

[SteelDragon2050]

My point was they're not vital in this game. They could've had no romance options at all, just friends with Panam is all that affects the story at all, because without her and the aldos, that ending isn't an option, the other three make no difference to the story at all. So all the romances are irrelevant as far as the story of the game.
@Deniryer