The Character Romance thread (Official)

If he was intended to be bisexual from the beginning then he would have been available to Scott on release. 

Suvi never explicitly tells Scott that she is only attracted to women and could be seen as bisexual, but It's still obvious that she is intended to be a lesbian and making her an option for Scott via patch would be changing that. It's the same with Jaal.

And don't forget Cora's hair, so many people complained about that, so they'd better go and patch that as well. And that joke about her mentioning Asari commandos all the time? Let's just change her backstory so she never trained with the Asari. That will stop people complaining. And let's make it so that Gil doesn't want a baby anymore and remove Jil from the game, since the response to her was so negative. 

Isn't it great when anything you don't like about a character, be it their sexuality, ethnicity or personality, can just be patched away? 

This is so much bigger than just bitching. This is not pandering or about asari commandos and hairstyles. If you can't see that, it is on you. This is a done deal. 

If he was intended to be bisexual from the beginning then he would have been available to Scott on release. 

Suvi never explicitly tells Scott that she is only attracted to women and could be seen as bisexual, but It's still obvious that she is intended to be a lesbian and making her an option for Scott via patch would be changing that. It's the same with Jaal.

And don't forget Cora's hair, so many people complained about that, so they'd better go and patch that as well. And that joke about her mentioning Asari commandos all the time? Let's just change her backstory so she never trained with the Asari. That will stop people complaining. And let's make it so that Gil doesn't want a baby anymore and remove Jil from the game, since the response to her was so negative. 

Isn't it great when anything you don't like about a character, be it their sexuality, ethnicity or personality, can just be patched away? 

Some people say that this was a bad decision cuz it will make other people want to change Cora's or Suvi's sexualities BUT:

1. Jaal was never really straight, he never said it, he never turned Scott down

2. Gay males were the only one who could not complete achivement without switching to straight romances

3. Many evidences shows that Jaal was planned as bi from the very beginning (data mining, no flirt options to be rejected like in Liam's case, and also voice files)

4. Not a single male romance within squad for Scott (like BW even mentioned themselves)

So please stop the hate, it's not like this affect you straight people in any way

It's basically compromising for other people's sake. We should swallow it in because it may open a pandora's box of some sorts.




Seriously, gay players have always been put in the position where we have to be considerate of other groups. Don't complain about Kaidan being made for female, at least he's the first male ME squadmate, next time it will get better. Don't complain about having less number of options, we're the minority. Don't complain about Cullen being straight despite tons of dialogues even ending for a bi option, there's Dorian and Iron Bull. Don't complain about no gay option in Star Wars The Old Republic, it's a post launch feature. Basically, we have to swallow the load with each Bioware games. I don't see why we have to keep being considerate and things like that when other groups have never extend the same courtesy to us. A lot of straight guys reacted toward this are basically "bugs need fixing but gay romance is the priority?" while many straight females are talking about how Jaal "belongs" to them or making him bi changing who he is or bring up how they're being shafted in ME3 despite the fact the the bi option was made for them before being modified for males. The gay players have been shafted the entire trilogy and when things that have to be cut, it's always the gay contents that have to get cut like SWTOR, like Cullen, like Jaal. We have always swallowing it year after year and think of the other groups, when is it enough? How many "next game" before we get the bare minimum?

The context doesn't make it any better. MEA's m/m options sucked and were awful, but a characters sexuality shouldn't be something that you just change in the patch notes as if it isn't a big deal. Sexuality is an important topic for many people, and flipping a characters sexuality like a light switch has a lot of really unfortunate implications. 

I also find the hypocrisy highly amusing. When the developers say that Jaal is straight because it "makes sense" they are berated and scoffed at because sexuality shouldn't have to 'make sense'. But when they change Jaals sexuality to bi because they decided it "made more sense" they are praised? 

Could you imagine if they changed a characters ethnicity by popular demand, how awful that would be? Why should sexuality be any different?

Gay people have to accept crumbs from the very beginning. I think we're just basically hoping it gets better, so it's the perpetual "maybe the next game will be better". This is why the entire ordeal about waiting for the next Mass Effect game to get better representation is unacceptable. Think about it, gays have never been a priority, even from the very beginning. Regardless, if one group has to have the least options, it's always the gay fanbase. I personally didn't mind too much since gay players are a minority, so I understand that business decision sometimes has to take precedent. Though for a refresher, with set sexuality, DAO, has 2 options for everyone, gay and lesbian has 1 each, DA2 goes for bisexuality for romance options, but the extra option goes for straight female. In DAI, 2 options for each, with the extra time, they added 2 more options exclusively for straight females, even for a cast of mostly males, the gay options would still be the same as everyone or less. With ME1 and 2, no gay option at all, only lesbian option for straight guys. With ME3, they reuse Kaidan from females and cutting out scenes from femShep, then Cortez, a custom face NPC. I didn't complain, in fact, I love ME3 with Kaidan, because even though it's crumb, we at least still have the first m/m squadmate in ME games, so that's progress. This is where the "Maybe the next game will be better" hope comes from. People see progress, people see that ME team is improving their treatment toward gay players. This is exactly why MEA was so disappointed, we go from a unique face squadmate in ME3, even as a reuse, to no m/m squadmate at all, with the bisexual option once again badly modded from Sarah, and a male NPC with the shortest romance content out of everyone, both of them have no unique face. It's regressing. Meanwhile, they gave straight males the most squadmate romances with very detailed and best choreographic scenes, longest out of everyone, on top of 2 extra romances options, while 2 exclusive options for straight females. They didn't even think that one of those options could easily made available for Scott as well, allowing Scott to have a unique face companion. I could care less if it's Jaal or Liam. Let just say it's Liam, even if I didn't like Liam as a male option, I would have no reason or cause to complain because they are mindful enough to include a squadmate romance for male players, as well as allowing gay players to have 3 romance options for the trophy. It means that they thought it out ahead of time, and gay players weren't last minute addition. We are not asking for special treatment. Reading comments on youtube or IGN make it seem like gay players want special treatment, but we're not. I'm not even asking for equal treatment since we have never gotten that. I think what I wanted simply was some thoughts and care going into gay players, so that we're not just some afterthoughts but an actual group Bioware thought of and considered when making the game. I think that's all. I simply cannot wait for another game, hoping it will get better, simply because it's their 4th game, they had 10 years to "get better". How much longer should we wait? In the next game, there would still be no guarantee that it would be better. It could just be another bisexual option being made for female first and then a gay NPC. I don't want to raise my expectation for it to simply get less than the bare minimum. It's not about the number of romance. A lot of people keep bringing it up as why gay romance got shafted, but it wasn't about that, at least for me. It's the feeling of gay romance being an afterthought that upset me. The trophy wanting us to romance 3 options while only having 2 options available is the issue. I don't mind having less options than other groups, but the trophy is just an indication that they didn't take gay players into consideration while creating game mechanics and trophies.

This is the first step. They acknowledge they screwed up. I'm a bit more content toward Bioware now not because Jaal is bisexual but because Mass Effect team takes gay players into consideration.