Alrighty. I've played pretty much every Bioware game, and from Baldur's Gate there has always been great interest in companions. More is seen as better. The idea has improved and developed over the years. We've had companions that leave in disgust, companions that are incompatible. Wer've had an alignment system which companions have to fit in to, or we have to be extra nice to them etc. Mass Effect went a bit backwards lately and went simple with loyal or not - which is fine Mass Effect is intentionally a simpler game than Dragon Age.
Now in Dragon age we don't just have a good or evil choice, some companions may like what's seen as the good choice and then like what's seen as the evil choice. It really does depend on what their intended personality is. That can't be a bad thing, it means you don't get a flat choice between good companions and evil companions. On a side note, it is pretty easy, and the way Dragon Age leveling goes it doesn't make a huge difference late game with main stats at 50 the difference between an extra 2 str or not isn't hugely significant.
What did strike me as a mistake with Dragon Age (and this has been there in many games, but not to the same level) is the point in the game at which you get a companion. By the end of the 'prelude' you have your main character, a mage (who can be moulded any way you like), a rogue (with a few archery skills) a sword and shield fighter, and a two handed fighter. And a doggy.
Following the game in the way the devs intended... you next get another mage (a healer as opposed to a damage dealer), then you get another rogue (melee rather than ranged). At some point around then you get the DLC golem, who is really a fighter that can switch between general fighter/party support, tank and damage dealer... and is actually quite an inventive addition.
Late in the game you get another two hander, and then you get a direct replacement for your sword and shield guy.
The game allows you 3 companions, which mean you'll almost certainly pick a mage a thief and a warrior, one of them being you. Then someone else, either another tank, a damage dealer or more support. Initially that may be dog, but over time he becomes less useful in comparison.
However by the end of the game, just like NWN2 and Mass Effect you have so many companions that you're only really taking the same ones with you, and you have them kitted out and with tactics that suit. Sadly if you work really really hard on things to make sure you've got the right mix and the tactics just spot on then the game does feel easy. So I imagine many people can get away with taking a mix of characters and doing fine. Additionally you've got your companion "extra" quests to do in order to improve them to friendly, during which in most cases you need to take the useless sap you've paid little attention to along with you.
There was an element in Mass Effect 2 and in Dragon Age that I especially liked. It was the direct replacement of one companion with another. Simply a choice of one or the other (from memory you had it in Baldur's Gate too). It's worth saying that they are all pretty similar to their replacement, this is a good thing though.
So what would be the ideal situation? Companion replacements I think are a good thing. For a start it means that in a game where you do nothing with Oghren other than his own little quest then you simply will choose to have him or not, and if you have him then you'll be using him. If not, then you'll see him when you play through the game again, but you won't be able to do all companion stuff in each playthrough. A little advantage there is that more companion content can be added or made part of the main story.
So going into a little more detail about Dragon Age and the companions in it.
Alistair. Sword and shield. A choice later to swap him for Logain. As far as I can see you can't have both. I like this.
Morrigan. Mage. You get her early on, so you get to make her into whatever you want. However since she's level 5 or so when you get her she's going to be likely carrying some spells you don't want her carrying. Later on (could be much later) you get Wynne, who in my opinion has her skills spent in a way that is more likely to suit everyone. She'd be a nice replacement for Morrigan... Her dialogue does often clash with Morrigan but not to a huge degree... I think the game would have been better if Morrigan had a crisis in the Circle quest which led to her leaving and Wynne joining... or Morrigan staying. It's pretty easy to see why a dyed in the wool circle mage would not join a team with a wild witch...
The Dog. He starts out pretty useful, but as the game goes on he doesn't seem so good as other fighters become able to either tank supremely or turn out a big chain of special attacks. Doggy does have some very useful special attacks, but once they're spent he's just a poor damage dealer. Is Shale his replacement? I guess so. It's probably a good thing that the game doesn't make you choose between them, since doggy is pretty poor later in the game anyway, so there's no real benefit in doing it anywway. Additionally doggy doesn't have his own quests and so on, so there's no reason for the game to force to choose one or the other.
Leliana. Thief. If you aren't playing one then you're going to be using her for a long time. At least until Zevran arrives. When Zevran arrives you're going to erm, well be able to pick one or the other. However again I think the game would improve if you had a choice of one or the other. It'd be pretty reasonable to have the characters opposed to each other by some plot device or other. At that point in the game the player then chooses to "upgrade" Leliana to a melee character, or stick with a ranged rogue.
Sten. Two handed warrior. I've never found him that useful personally. But Oghren and Sten are pretty much the same type of character. I expect Sten has some kind of boosts to make up for no specialisation, I've actually never checked. Sadly though the point at which you get Oghren is pretty late game, at best it'd be halfway. That particular main quest is very difficult with low level characters, so only an experienced or very careful player would get him before doing the other stages.
So... there's actually 5 different "types" of character you get to choose from. But you get to have 9 out of the 10 of them. The worst that happens by recruiting one of them is a little disposition drop by the others in the party.
Sure the companions do have crisis points, which is a good thing I guess, but they're all avoidable. And realistically it doesn't matter much which way you choose to end the quests that cause their crisis points, after the crisis points you're pretty much finished with that chain of events and it's only at the final battle (I didn't need to call in troops) that the troops would make a difference... all in all pretty minor.
So what I'm saying is that I'd like to see there be a stark choice between companions. You either dumped one in favour of another, or you kept them and did not get the replacement.
To use the easiest example I can think of.... during the circle quest you had to decide to ****** everybody off by using Morrigan's talents to enter the fade... at which point Wynne would certainly not join... or you could refuse, and Morrigan would leave in disgust.... You were then left with either Morrigan or Wynne. Either that... or when you got to the start of the quest Morrigan refused to enter with you unless you had a very good relationship with her already (which at that point it's dead easy to have anyway). Should she leave then a circle mage will be offered to be sent with you... which is Wynne and she then joins. Or she helps at the end and offers to join... and Morrigan says she won't travel with people who allow magic to be enslaved the way the circle does... etc. Lots of opportunity to force a switch. The player then continues with either Morrigan or Wynne, and experiences the rest of the game with them... and when they finish they can choose to start again and pick the other one... and by doing that they get a different experience. Rather than the way things are now where you simply arrive back from questing and hand the one that you don't take with you a gift or two and have a conversation and they're happy and have the right xp amount.
At the end of my first playthrough I'd seen most of what the characters that I didn't use had to offer, because I'd seen their personal quests and their camp dialogue.
I should also note that I like the "hardening" of characters, and I hope Bioware keeps going down that path, perhaps making the characters turn out differently if they harden or not... For example a hardened Alistair might become a berserker, while a non-hardened one would be a champion, etc.
As I'm now on my second playthrough I'm likely going to not bother putting any proper equipment on the "also ran" characters. They'll get non magical gear that I was going to sell and it'll just be thrown on them since although the game does force me to use them, it doesn't force me by much, and those fights are less hassle than keeping their equipment and tactics etc up to date.
Modifié par Halkus, 11 avril 2010 - 07:56 .
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Bearing in mind that Alistair is an inexperienced warden with only a shadow of the talent required for the jon that his replacement has.
