Affinity

Affinity is the bond shared between the protagonist and another character (specifically, the companions/love interests). Throughout the game, particularly the main story, there are affinity locks, at which the player must have a certain amount of affinity with certain characters to continue. Affinity can be gained through decisions and clothing/accessories, but is primarily obtained through potions. No matter what players choose, characters will never lose affinity. In older versions of the game, the character who the protagonist would fall in love with was influenced by who she had the most affinity with, but in the current version, it is based entirely on the player's decisions during the story.

Though there are potions to decrease affinity, there is never a point where you must have less than a certain amount of affinity to continue. Thus, in the current version of the game, there is no known benefit to creating these potions.