Confident Non-Romantic Etheryn

[Murloc Mazta]

(Apologies if this has been answered somewhere, I searched but couldn't find anything)

Is it possible to have Etheryn at high confidence without the champion falling in love with her? My current champ is in a party with Brint and Ryn, and while I've been going all in on that Brint train I've been raising Ryn's confidence since that seemed like the decent person thing to do. So when Ryn approaches my champ upon entering the tavern (I think post-Winter City) and makes it clear that she's interested, I was surprised when my champ reciprocated rather than give me the option to say he doesn't feel the same.

Is there a way to have Ryn at high confidence without the champion falling in love with her too? I don't mind if she has feelings for the champion, but when his entire contibution to the relationship has been "telling Cait to help Etheryn with her blue-balls problem" and "not blaming the abuse victim for being abused", it feels like there should be a way to say "I'm flattered, but not interested" rather than instant reciprocation in public.

 

[WolframL]

That scene is the only thing currently in the game that assumes the Champ reciprocates Ryn's feelings without being gated behind something based on player choice that's really obvious about it (like having sex with her) and per Alypia that might get tweaked to do so in the future.

 

[Animalistic]

Ryn confidence has three stages.
0-25 is where she starts off. The sad one.
0-74 is where she is confident but does not completely express her feelings for you.
Getting her confidence to 75 and up sets game to assume that you are in love with her. So if you want to stop that kissing scene, bring her confidence back down. That does unfortunately include sexing her and being mean to her. So it is not the most elegant solution.

 

[Ireyon]

I've had the same problem before but it's apparently on the "to be tweaked" waiting list at the moment.

One of the sources for this is that many of Etheryn's interactions (hugging her to cheer her up, letting her buy the stuffed toy from the caravan) give a lot of confidence. It didn't help that one of the few ways to get her libido under control was hugging or sex in the earlier builds so if you wanted to use her you had no choice to increase her confidence since every option does so.

The newest build is much better about this. I've been using her the entire playthrough (Blessing is just too good and I don't have the slot for it) and didn't trip into an awkward romance yet.