546 réponses à ce sujet

[Shockwave Pulsar]

Anders reacts the exact same way with a female Hawke, so how is this a 'gay' problem ?

And since the OP specifically mentions the difference to Zevran :
Their different reactions go with their different personalities, Anders is an impulsive, over-sensitive attention-****, so reacts in an impulsive, over-sensitive way.
Zevran, oth, is a very laid-back, cool guy, so his reaction is laid-back and calm.
Their reactions make perfect sense for their characters IMO.

But I agree on the missing option for a response in between 'You disgust me!' and 'Let's jump into bed, stranger!'.

[Crossroads_Wanderer]

Old Silverbolt wrote...

Crossroads_Wanderer wrote...

Your post and my response are basically going to be way off-topic, but here goes:

Really? You think that that selection is going to make all the women happy? Sebastian is way too religious, and being a prince isn't really a turn-on. Frankly, it's an overplayed romance stereotype. Fenris is way too broody. If you think that that appeals to the average woman, again, you're relying too heavily on stereotypes. Even if Carver wasn't Hawke's brother, he is still totally obnoxious. Anders is...okay. He isn't exactly a happy character, and he's kinda moody. Not really ideal. Varric would have been the most appealing romance, if he could be romanced. I think Avaline and Varric were the best of the companions, but neither was available as a romance option, so, by my judgement, I'd say that every orientation got the short end of the stick.

I think they intentionally chose flawed characters for romance options, though. And I think that the male LIs' flaws were worse than the female LIs' flaws, but that may just be from my perspective as someone interested in men. I think you aren't considering things in a balanced way when you complain about the guys getting it worse. Everyone got LIs with major personality issues.

While I can completely understand how my post initally seems as though it is off-topic, it isn't. Let me clarify. Sen4lifE created this thread (I assume) to share/discuss his evidence that Dragon Age II does not allow a gamer to experience the same quality of choices that they did in previous games. His example was poorly developed dialog options with potential LI's. My example was the choice of LI's as a whole.

The point is still the same. We love Bioware games, and this one let us down for the reasons we expressed.

I would like to note that I appreciate your perspective on the relationships. I am not a woman or a homosexual, so I cannot speak with any authority on whether the Male LI's were any more appealing. What I can say, is that you both missed my point and nailed it on the head at the same time. Many of the male LI's were (as you so accurately described) "overplayed romance stereotypes." The only aspect of any of the female LI's that could even remotely be considered appealing is the streetwalker-esque personality of Isabela that would appeal to shallow sex-driven men (which thankfully is not a stereotype). For the record, Merrill's demonic pact thoroughly overpowers the "innocent/shy" persona that Bioware was apparently going for.

What I am saying is that the LI's were not balanced. If the female LI's fit into "overplayed romance stereotypes", there would have been a "hard-to-get" valley girl cheerleader and a nerdy shy self-berating geek...oh wait....thats ME2. Simply put, as you believe that the male LI's flaws were worse than the female LI's flaws, I simply believe the opposite. We are both entitled to our opinion.

Overall, It doesn't matter whose opinion we go with, the shared conclusion is that neither of us had the choice of a LI which we would have genuinely attempted to develop a relatioship with, if we were immercing outselves in the game (as was possible in some previous Bioware titles.) This resulted in a detached feeling, which did not need to exist and would have made the game and the story a better experience by its absense.

I think am with Sen4lifE in that we both believe the choices should have been better developed, or at the very least that there should have been more of them.

I agree and disagree. On the one hand, the LIs weren't ideal. They all had pretty major flaws, making the romances a little less appealing and a little more frustrating.

On the other hand, you're not likely to end up with someone who is flawless and who caters to your every whim; at least, that's my experience.

I think it is more immersive to have LIs with flaws. It isn't very immersive to have the "perfect" man constantly telling my character how beautiful she is (I'm looking at you, Alistair). I would rather have a romance with a character who has some flaws and who is more of an equal with my character. I want give and take, not just give, give, give. But I also don't want LIs that are plain obnoxious.

So, yes, I do see what you are saying and I agree to an extent, but I also partially disagree.

I think what needs to happen is for Bioware to put more into creating characters with real depth, including flaws. Fenris seemed rather flat to me. They tried to give him some depth, but, for someone who is supposed to be secretive and reserved, they certainly lay out all his motivations to you right away, and they're fairly simply motivations. Anders was a little better, so I am romancing him in my current game. He's still got some problems, but he's okay as far as romances go. I haven't made up my mind about Sebastian yet, but he seems pretty flat to me, as well. You seem to think that the female LIs are also pretty flat. So we know what Bioware needs to work on changing for the next game. They need characters who aren't stereotypes.

[lobi]

You are roleplaying your player char not the NPC. News flash not everything Anders says is an attempt to get you into bed Gendercop.

[Dark83]

lobi wrote...

You are roleplaying your player char not the NPC. News flash not everything Anders says is an attempt to get you into bed Gendercop.

You (and a few others) have missed the point even still.

We don't care about what Anders says, or his reaction. We're talking about the player character. We're talking about OUR dialog options, not how the NPC reacts. What we care about is what WE say. Homosexuality is also irrelevant - just look at it from a lesbian Hawke's point of view.

The point was that we get Flirt/Flirt/Rejection, instead of Flirt/Friend/Rejection.

If a guy came and said he liked me, I'd be more inclined to say "Sorry man, I'm flattered but I don't swing that way" as opposed to "Dude! Don't think of me like that!" As it is, there's no middle ground in Hawke's response in that dialog. It's either Flirt/Flirt or a really cold cut off. You can't even try to be just friends.

Modifié par Dark83, 23 mars 2011 - 05:07 .

[lobi]

There is the friend option it just is not an immediate thing you can shut them down and they may not like it but you can win back their Approv.. sorry friendship if they like your future actions. It is fun to choose the speech options that sit best with you for good or ill, and let the NPC react without trying to manage them. That way the roleplay is much more organic and surprising. Why try and stack the deck or load the dice, thats just dull. Do people like you just because you want them too? May as well fire up the console or glitch a monkey for Paragon points. IRL if someone hits on me and I am not interested I shut them down hard so they do not get false expectations that something is possible. Why lead someone on with an 'I like you' which they can interperate as a maybe? Thats just cruel. You can still be friends just not straight away.

Modifié par lobi, 23 mars 2011 - 06:13 .

[Dark83]

lobi wrote...

There is the friend option it just is not an immediate thing you can shut them down and they may not like it but you can win back their Approv.. sorry friendship if they like your future actions. It is fun to choose the speech options that sit best with you for good or ill, and let the NPC react without trying to manage them. That way the roleplay is much more organic and surprising. 

THAT IS EXACTLY THE POINT YOU ARE MISSING. We are not talking about their approval. That is irrelevant. We are not talking about managing their reactions. We are not talking about the NPCs at all. We don't give a flying squash what they think.

The speech options available are Flirt/Flirt/Shut down hard. There is no easy let down option. Instead, we get two Flirt options. There is no way to "choose the speech options that sit best with you". You're either in with him, or you're "Keep your issues to yourself, this is strictly professional."

There are three options, there's an "I'm interested" response and a cold "I'm not your friend" response. There is no middle "I'm not interested, let's be friends" option.

There should be Romance/Friend, NoRomance/Friend, NoRomance/NotFriend options. Instead we got two Romance/Friend options. We should have a "You're a pretty cool guy eh, blows up templar
and doesn't afraid of anything - but I'm only into girls" option.

lobi wrote...

IRL if someone hits on me and I am not interested I shut them down hard so they do not get false expectations that something is possible.

That option is available. In fact, that is the only "No" option available.

I'm not being homophobic. I actually reloaded and picked one of the Flirt responses my first time, after seeing how cold the rejection dialog was. The reason this annoys me is because I like Anders, but I intend to romance Merrill, and I don't want to risk setting the romance flag for anyone but Merrill, for bug prevention. I guess I could be nice and then use the console to switch it back off, but that could be buggy as well. So for my current playthrough, I just coldly went "Keep it to yourself, our relationship is strictly professional", which is kind of mean. I mean, I had no trouble befriending Fenris, but Anders - no way to try and just be friends. The guy revealed one of his biggest secrets, and I'm like "Don't care about that, gimmie the map."

Edit in response to edit:

Why lead someone on with an 'I like you' which they can interperate as a
maybe? Thats just cruel. You can still be friends just not straight
away.

Why would the middle option have to be leading them on? I'm not talking about girls being annoying with "I like you" responses(*). How
can "Sorry, I'm not into men" be leading him on? It's still a
rejection, but vastly different in tone from "Keep your issues to
yourself".

(*)It's freaking annoying, though I've never been the recipiant of that sort of leading on. The ones I've picked are generally clued in enough to casually mention boyfriends and such. My buddy's girlfriend had a guy who was in fact bothering her with his attention. She was totally uninerested (my buddy is this super-fit bodybuilding pharmacist she's known since high school, the other guy was pudgy, ugly, and annoying) but never outright rejected the guy. She pretty much led him on - you're a nice guy, busy this week, can't go out with you, etc. Lots of excuses to stay away. It pissed off the boyfriend, who confronted her about it, and she said "But I don't want to hurt his feelings".

Girls, that's the biggest mound of unthinking bull excriment ever. An upfront rejection means he can get over it. Spending a year persuing you only to find out you aren't interested is a giant kick in the nuts. You just wasted a chunk of his life. In the case of my buddy, he just showed up with her at a class and had her introduce him as her boyfriend, and the other guy pretty much avoided her. Which is to be expected, when you lead a guy on for over a year and then he finds out you had a boyfriend. /rant

Modifié par Dark83, 23 mars 2011 - 06:23 .

[lobi]

You can also lead on and back out later if you wanna be mean. One heart Icon does not a romance make, its also a caring option. when used sparingly it can build a caring friend ship just be aware of how and when you choose it, but be prepaired for them not reacting how you want. There is no such thing as let down easy when dealing with broken people.

Modifié par lobi, 23 mars 2011 - 06:16 .

[Dark83]

lobi wrote...

One heart Icon does not a romance make,

That's news to me, because one heart icon sets the Romance flag to Active, as far as I know.

Also, see my edit in response to your edit regarding leading on. Let's stick to no more edits for the sake of continuity, eh?

[lobi]

Dark83 wrote...

I'm not being homophobic. I actually reloaded and picked one of the Flirt responses my first time, after seeing how cold the rejection dialog was. The reason this annoys me is because I like Anders, but I intend to romance Merrill, and I don't want to risk setting the romance flag for anyone but Merrill, for bug prevention. I guess I could be nice and then use the console to switch it back off, but that could be buggy as well. So for my current playthrough, I just coldly went "Keep it to yourself, our relationship is strictly professional", which is kind of mean. I mean, I had no trouble befriending Fenris, but Anders - no way to try and just be friends. The guy revealed one of his biggest secrets, and I'm like "Don't care about that, gimmie the map."

You just met the guy and if he was telling you that stuff in real life do you say thats cool bro or Gah get away from me freak? also pretty sure there are options before that point that give you an safe out, but by trying to hard for 'like me' you end up trapped in that situation. If you admit it or not you are trying to control the situation for approval and get angry when it gets away from you. relax fix it later.

[Dark83]

lobi wrote...

You just met the guy and if he was telling you that stuff in real life do you say thats cool bro or Gah get away from me freak?

Given that I'm an apostate Blood Mage, romancing Merrill who's directly behind me and wanting to summon demons, I don't call him a freak. In fact, an abomination would be a curiosity and a potential buddy - I'm just not interested in boning him.

lobi wrote...

also pretty sure there are options before that point that give you an safe out, but by trying to hard for 'like me' you end up trapped in that situation. If you admit it or not you are trying to control the situation for approval and get angry when it gets away from you. relax fix it later.

There are not. I literally did this last night, like 12 hours ago.

After the quest, you have a dialog with him about what happened. He thanks me for not running away. (I mean... I'm a freaking pair of apostate blood mage here, we're not really going to pass judgement.) Then you're in the clinic, and you can talk to him. He apologizes for dumping the situation on you and such, and you get the dialog wheel. In that wheel, I got Flirt/Flirt/No. If you pick No, you say "Keep your issues to yourself, let's keep this strictly professional" and he says "understood". No rivalry, he's not unhappy or anything.

Later on you can get a Flirt/Flirt/Reject where he does get annoyed ("Don't think about me like that." "What does everyone insist on telling me what to think?!" "Er, you're glowing again.")

However, I'm just talking about the initial conversation where you just meet him. You're either setting the Romance flag, or just telling him to keep it to himself. I find that really mean - I can't be a friendly fellow apostate hiding from the Templar?

[lobi]

Dark83 wrote...

lobi wrote...

One heart Icon does not a romance make,

That's news to me, because one heart icon sets the Romance flag to Active, as far as I know.

Also, see my edit in response to your edit regarding leading on. Let's stick to no more edits for the sake of continuity, eh?

Ok no more edits as both lurking. The game allows for multiple romance flags but I think it balances when you put more hearts into a specific NPC. So, an occasional heart here and there is nothing that cannot be undone or let go of. I liked origins for the clarity but, even then sometimes the npc react in unexpected or opposite way I was hoping for (Morrigan, Alistair).

[Dark83]

lobi wrote...
 If you admit it or not you are trying to control the situation for approval and get angry when it gets away from you. relax fix it later.

You've missed the point still.

I don't care if he hates me or not, I can always use the console.

I just dislike being unable to be nice to him without provoking a romance. I want a non-flirt friendly option, instead of two flirt and one rejection. Again, it seems that all the other companions have it. Fenris has a dialog wheel where you have (Flirt) "I care about you" and (non-Flirt) "You're my friend".

Stop accusing me of "controlling the situation for approval" via dialog, it's flat out wrong. I intend to set Isabela to 100% rivalry to avoid her bug, and I know for a fact that my dialog and actions will give me her approval. 

I'll act however I want, which is that of a snarky nice guy who's interested in the elf with the cute accent/dialog, and blood magic (dev console debug/savegame editor ) their approvals anyway. The point is that with Anders I don't have the option to act like a nice guy who isn't interested - even though it's an option for everyone else.

[M8DMAN]

Dark83 wrote...

lobi wrote...

There is the friend option it just is not an immediate thing you can shut them down and they may not like it but you can win back their Approv.. sorry friendship if they like your future actions. It is fun to choose the speech options that sit best with you for good or ill, and let the NPC react without trying to manage them. That way the roleplay is much more organic and surprising. 

THAT IS EXACTLY THE POINT YOU ARE MISSING. We are not talking about their approval. That is irrelevant. We are not talking about managing their reactions. We are not talking about the NPCs at all. We don't give a flying squash what they think.

The speech options available are Flirt/Flirt/Shut down hard. There is no easy let down option. Instead, we get two Flirt options. There is no way to "choose the speech options that sit best with you". You're either in with him, or you're "Keep your issues to yourself, this is strictly professional."

There are three options, there's an "I'm interested" response and a cold "I'm not your friend" response. There is no middle "I'm not interested, let's be friends" option.

There should be Romance/Friend, NoRomance/Friend, NoRomance/NotFriend options. Instead we got two Romance/Friend options. We should have a "You're a pretty cool guy eh, blows up templar
and doesn't afraid of anything - but I'm only into girls" option.

lobi wrote...

IRL if someone hits on me and I am not interested I shut them down hard so they do not get false expectations that something is possible.

That option is available. In fact, that is the only "No" option available.

I'm not being homophobic. I actually reloaded and picked one of the Flirt responses my first time, after seeing how cold the rejection dialog was. The reason this annoys me is because I like Anders, but I intend to romance Merrill, and I don't want to risk setting the romance flag for anyone but Merrill, for bug prevention. I guess I could be nice and then use the console to switch it back off, but that could be buggy as well. So for my current playthrough, I just coldly went "Keep it to yourself, our relationship is strictly professional", which is kind of mean. I mean, I had no trouble befriending Fenris, but Anders - no way to try and just be friends. The guy revealed one of his biggest secrets, and I'm like "Don't care about that, gimmie the map."

Edit in response to edit:

Why lead someone on with an 'I like you' which they can interperate as a
maybe? Thats just cruel. You can still be friends just not straight
away.

Why would the middle option have to be leading them on? I'm not talking about girls being annoying with "I like you" responses(*). How
can "Sorry, I'm not into men" be leading him on? It's still a
rejection, but vastly different in tone from "Keep your issues to
yourself".

(*)It's freaking annoying, though I've never been the recipiant of that sort of leading on. The ones I've picked are generally clued in enough to casually mention boyfriends and such. My buddy's girlfriend had a guy who was in fact bothering her with his attention. She was totally uninerested (my buddy is this super-fit bodybuilding pharmacist she's known since high school, the other guy was pudgy, ugly, and annoying) but never outright rejected the guy. She pretty much led him on - you're a nice guy, busy this week, can't go out with you, etc. Lots of excuses to stay away. It pissed off the boyfriend, who confronted her about it, and she said "But I don't want to hurt his feelings".

Girls, that's the biggest mound of unthinking bull excriment ever. An upfront rejection means he can get over it. Spending a year persuing you only to find out you aren't interested is a giant kick in the nuts. You just wasted a chunk of his life. In the case of my buddy, he just showed up with her at a class and had her introduce him as her boyfriend, and the other guy pretty much avoided her. Which is to be expected, when you lead a guy on for over a year and then he finds out you had a boyfriend. /rant

I agree there should have been a fourth response.

This webcomic pretty much sums it up.

[Ryzaki]

Actually I just did the Fen romance and picked some flirt icons with Anders.



He never once tried to kiss/sleep with my PC.

For the record I didn't pick any broken heart icons either. 

Modifié par Ryzaki, 23 mars 2011 - 06:46 .

[lobi]

I think when two hearts are available one is romancing one is caring, Be aware you can still choose wrong one because it is open to the interpertation of the NPC scripted reaction because Bioware Devs and writers are notorious for torturing the player and putting them in challenging situations. If the relationships are too easily manageable then spontanaity or working towards gaining trust does not happen.

[Dark83]

Hm... I'll dig through my saves when I get home. If I have one there, I'll try out the hearts and see (from the debug) if they both set the romance flags.

[lobi]

Rivalry points do not negate romance options by the way.

[Dark83]

You have to remember my goal is to avoid setting the Romance flag (which can be checked in zz_app_debug) for anyone other than my target, while being friendly. There is no non-Romance, friendly option - which is the issue with the dialog there.
The poor guy opens up to you about his problems and you just go "Keep it to yourself". So freaking cold. 

I'll have to see if I have a save at that point. If I do I'll check if both heart options set the romance flag to active. The romance flag is either Active, Inactive, Complete, Intimate, or Rejected, fyi.

[lobi]

I flrited abit and said caring things to just about everyone, but not always and not when they were vulnerable. Ended up in bed with someone who was fully rival from first meeting, scary stuff.
Ya know what, I miss the Pearl. Blooming rose has no where near the selection or the humour.

[ExiledMimic]

Marionetten wrote...

It's just Anders. He's somewhat of a prat so it fits his personality.

Cutlass Jack wrote...

Its funny that that no one complains about Isabella showing up at your house even if you don't flirt with her.

Don't even get me started on that...

Didn't have that issue.  But at least if Anders hit on everything within a square mile like her it might be different.  Instead Anders only threw himself at you.  Isabella tried to sleep with everyone (and I've got a feeling she did sleep with Merrill behind the scenes as well as Fenris).

Either way some respective distance woulda been great.

[Ryzaki]

You don't ever have to talk to him after that convo and you can shut him down (if not in the nicest way he still gets the point). There's plenty of distance to be had.

[Sabariel]

Dark83 wrote...

Sabariel wrote...

Just use the heart option in the
"sarcastic/witty" (middle) spot when Anders first hits on you. I tried
it out as a dude, no rivalry points, and no "ghey" relationship
happened. Problem solved.

I did this initially on my first playthrough, but that still sets (to my understanding) the romance flag as active, even if you no longer persue him, until you find a dialog tree to Reject him.

I've used the "neutral heart" for both a female and male Hawke. Anders never persued a relationship with either after that and I never had to outright reject him. He didn't even try to nom Hawke's face off during his Questioning Beliefs "quest" during Act II.

[Stuffy38]

I just rejected him right off the bat. None of the LIs seem very appealing in this game - Merrill's personality is nice but she looks like a twelve year old anorexic.

[Klimy]

I was nice to Anders and that ****** forced a kiss on me. I had no option to tell him to stand back, or did I miss anything?
If that's they way game plays, at least I should have gotten a choice to punch him in the face after that. I'm nice to my friends (IRL) but if any of them will try to kiss me, then I will brake their nose. 

Modifié par Klimy, 24 mars 2011 - 08:26 .

[AngelicMachinery]

Klimy wrote...

I was nice to Anders and that ****** forced a kiss on me. I had no option to tell him to stand back, or did I miss anything?
If that's they way game plays, at least I should have gotten a choice to punch him in the face after that. I'm nice to my friends (IRL) but if any of them will try to kiss me, then I will brake their nose. 

You must have hearted him a few times, and got him all hot and bothered.  In my hawkette playthrough,  that only happened the one time I constantly flirted