74 réponses à ce sujet

[Ryzaki]

Personally I am of the opinion that all the rivalry romances make sense. Some don't.

Which side of the fence do you fall under and why?  

[Foolsfolly]

Unsure if serious....

Personally, I've only ever done the Rival romance with Merrill. It made sense and it was a nice romance. If all the others are handed as well then yes. I think they make sense.

[Darth Krytie]

Rivalmancing Anders was really satisfying. Since I friendmanced him three times prior. It really adds a lot to their dynamic that way.

[Cutlass Jack]

Yup I liked Rivalmances. Obviously Friendmances are the easier route but in certain cases you get the better route going rival. Anders and Merril in particular are better on the rival route. Because its the only way you can convince them they're being idiots.

What Anders does in Act 3 is more tolerable to me if he's a victim (rival) than a willing participant (friend)

[Crossroads_Wanderer]

Well, I just did the rivalry romance with Fenris and I thought it was a little weird. I decided I was going to be a little meta-gamey to get rivalry points with him, so I just took on an elven slave and somehow he didn't hate me forever for it. I didn't even give him the somewhat reasonable explanation response. I just said, I'm taking her as a slave and it's none of your business and still he ended up sleeping with my character. I know that there are people in real life who are drawn to total bastards, but my character was acting in a manner diametrically opposed to Fenris's personal views and they still ended up in bed.

That said, I'm sure there are ways that it can happen more reasonably. Sometimes people disagree on things while still caring about one another. And I haven't tried romancing either of the ladies or rivalmancing Anders yet, so I don't know how those play out.

[Maugrim]

I suppose it depends on which actions earned you those rivalry points. I mean I don't see someone who always sided with the templars,hates mages etc. etc. making a reasonable rivalmance for Anders just because he flirted a few times. But sometimes? Sure. Pretty much the same for everyone else to greater or lesser degrees. It seems to me that Fenris and Merrill have the best rivalmances in the game although I've heard and seen snippets the the better parts of the rivalmance for Anders was cut out.

[Maria Caliban]

I've rivalmances Isabela and rather liked it. It was very owl and the ****-cat in my mind.

[Rifneno]

I haven't even tried them.  I find it a odd decision at best.  Only in badly written TV shows and movies do people jump straight into bed from wanting to tear each other's heads off.  There isn't a thin line between love and hate, there's a an ocean filled with megalodons and Commander Shepard clones armed with cains patrolling both shores between love and hate.  I just can't see it making any sense.  Fenris will love you long time if you take slaves and love blood magic?  Sorry, not buying it.

[mesmerizedish]

Anders and Fenris have too many different opinions. If I hate slavery but love mages, I get nowhere with Fenris. If I love mages, but think Anders is an abomination on the path to pure monsterhood, I get nowhere with him.

Isabela and Merrill are more consistent. I like that about them. I can generally count on Isabela getting pissy when I refuse a reward and Merrill making eyes at me when I say she can handle herself.

[Foolsfolly]

Rifneno, if you Rivalmance Merrill you're trying to save her from herself. She gets teary eyed about it and everything.

Rivalry with Anders alone shows that he's a victim to this Spirit of Vengeance that rages in him. So a Rivalmance with him must be about the same.

Rivalry isn't exactly hatred. It's definitely closer to hatred than Friendship is, but it's not hatred.

[Maria Caliban]

Rifneno wrote...

I haven't even tried them.  I find it a odd decision at best.  Only in badly written TV shows and movies do people jump straight into bed from wanting to tear each other's heads off.

That doesn't sound like the rivalmances at all. At least not the Isabela and Merrill ones.

[LobselVith8]

ishmaeltheforsaken wrote...

Anders and Fenris have too many different opinions. If I hate slavery but love mages, I get nowhere with Fenris. If I love mages, but think Anders is an abomination on the path to pure monsterhood, I get nowhere with him.

Isabela and Merrill are more consistent. I like that about them. I can generally count on Isabela getting pissy when I refuse a reward and Merrill making eyes at me when I say she can handle herself.

I find it to be a problem with the Friendship and Rivalry system, where you agree with companions on certain issues and disagree on others. It's why you need to be artificial on certain choices with certain companions, because otherwise you'll end up getting nowhere with them. It was easy with Anders and Merrill, because I supported Merrill's efforts to save her people and supported the mages, and aiding the mages was sufficient reason for Anders. With Fenris, the problem was pretty much what you described - disagreement on mages, but agreement on slavery.

[Crossroads_Wanderer]

I had that issue with Fenris on my first playthrough - I made it through most of the game siding with mages and building a strong rivalry with him, but then the Bitter Pill quest and the visit from Danarius got me friendship points, destroying my chances of getting 100% rivalry with him after a full game of almost always including him in my party. So on my second playthrough I had to be a bastard on the Bitter Pill quest and I haven't faced Danarius yet, but I imagine I'll have to walk a fine line between being friendly and being a backstabbing monster who turns him over to his former master.

[Addai]

Rifneno wrote...

I haven't even tried them.  I find it a odd decision at best.  Only in badly written TV shows and movies do people jump straight into bed from wanting to tear each other's heads off.  There isn't a thin line between love and hate, there's a an ocean filled with megalodons and Commander Shepard clones armed with cains patrolling both shores between love and hate.  I just can't see it making any sense.  Fenris will love you long time if you take slaves and love blood magic?  Sorry, not buying it.

It's up to you to roleplay it so that it makes sense.  If it doesn't make sense to you and breaks your game, that means maybe a different LI would be more suited.

I rivaled Fenris with my blood mage and though she helped apostates and spared the mages, she killed slavers and tried to get mages to act responsibly.  I didn't get the sense they hated each other, rather that they sharply disagreed about certain things but that this conflict ended up deepening their respect and commitment to each other.  That's what relationships often do, right?  I thought it was both sweet and damn hot.  Let's face it, Fenris does a sexy angry. 

[Cutlass Jack]

Rifneno wrote...

I haven't even tried them.  I find it a odd decision at best.  Only in badly written TV shows and movies do people jump straight into bed from wanting to tear each other's heads off.  There isn't a thin line between love and hate, there's a an ocean filled with megalodons and Commander Shepard clones armed with cains patrolling both shores between love and hate.  I just can't see it making any sense.  Fenris will love you long time if you take slaves and love blood magic?  Sorry, not buying it.

You've obviously never witnessed many real life relationships then. There are many I know who love to say arguing is healthy to a relationship. Not to mention how many relationships go down in flames because they enjoy the sex but don't actually like each other.

And thats without getting into the most important part of all: Make Up Sex.

[LobselVith8]

Addai67 wrote...

It's up to you to roleplay it so that it makes sense.  If it doesn't make sense to you and breaks your game, that means maybe a different LI would be more suited.

Immersion can be a problem in certain areas. I had this problem with the apostate Hawke and the refusal of the storyline to acknowledge that my protagonist was a mage, and I found much more of an illegal mage perspective from Bethany and more of a tie to the Circle of Magi with a rogue Hawke. I can see how people can see an issue with the Friendship or Rivalry paths, though, since people don't always see eye to eye on choices (like whether or not Merrill should continue using blood magic or building the Eluvian, or Anders and his involvement with the mage revolution).

[Rifneno]

Addai67 wrote...

It's up to you to roleplay it so that it makes sense.  If it doesn't make sense to you and breaks your game, that means maybe a different LI would be more suited.

I rivaled Fenris with my blood mage and though she helped apostates and spared the mages, she killed slavers and tried to get mages to act responsibly.  I didn't get the sense they hated each other, rather that they sharply disagreed about certain things but that this conflict ended up deepening their respect and commitment to each other.  That's what relationships often do, right?  I thought it was both sweet and damn hot.  Let's face it, Fenris does a sexy angry. 

That's the problem though, you can't just roleplay into a lot of things in a video game.  In a tabletop RPG you can get away with almost anything, but in a pre-made game like this there's only a set number of options available to you and often none of them make any sense.  As others have pointed out, you often have to make some pretty convoluted choices to make a rivalmance work out.

Moreover, these are strongly held beliefs by said characters.  Disagreeing with Fenris about mages after he spent his entire life being tormented by one isn't the same thing as disagreeing with one's real life significant other about politics.  Merrill and Anders actively show that they're willing to die for their causes, I just don't see them falling in love with someone who is actively against those causes.

[TheJist]

Rifneno wrote...

Addai67 wrote...

It's up to you to roleplay it so that it makes sense.  If it doesn't make sense to you and breaks your game, that means maybe a different LI would be more suited.

I rivaled Fenris with my blood mage and though she helped apostates and spared the mages, she killed slavers and tried to get mages to act responsibly.  I didn't get the sense they hated each other, rather that they sharply disagreed about certain things but that this conflict ended up deepening their respect and commitment to each other.  That's what relationships often do, right?  I thought it was both sweet and damn hot.  Let's face it, Fenris does a sexy angry. 

That's the problem though, you can't just roleplay into a lot of things in a video game.  In a tabletop RPG you can get away with almost anything, but in a pre-made game like this there's only a set number of options available to you and often none of them make any sense.  As others have pointed out, you often have to make some pretty convoluted choices to make a rivalmance work out.

Moreover, these are strongly held beliefs by said characters.  Disagreeing with Fenris about mages after he spent his entire life being tormented by one isn't the same thing as disagreeing with one's real life significant other about politics.  Merrill and Anders actively show that they're willing to die for their causes, I just don't see them falling in love with someone who is actively against those causes.

Seriously you don't trample over some one's core convictions then say hey jump in bed with me and they do it unless they plan to take a knife in with them.

[Rifneno]

TheJist wrote...

Seriously you don't trample over some one's core convictions then say hey jump in bed with me and they do it unless they plan to take a knife in with them.

Ha!  Exactly!  I actually was going to make the same joke, saying the only way I'd get close to... a certain female pundit's bed is the chance to catch her unarmored and unarmed so I could make the world a better place.  Didn't want to start a political thing though.  Besides, after I think about it, she's hardly helpless.  Those things kill after mating anyway.

[Darth Krytie]

Rifneno wrote...

TheJist wrote...

Seriously you don't trample over some one's core convictions then say hey jump in bed with me and they do it unless they plan to take a knife in with them.

Ha!  Exactly!  I actually was going to make the same joke, saying the only way I'd get close to... a certain female pundit's bed is the chance to catch her unarmored and unarmed so I could make the world a better place.  Didn't want to start a political thing though.  Besides, after I think about it, she's hardly helpless.  Those things kill after mating anyway.

When you rival with Anders, you can out and out say, I agree with your goal, but not your methods...it never threw me that they loved each other but still were rivals on those issues. It was always a means issue between my Hawke and Anders

[Deztyn]

It depends on how you play it.

When I rivalmanced Anders I managed to get him to 100% rivalry in Act I, flirted with him once in Act II and the romance was on strong. That was more than a bit bizarre. (You're an abomination. Mages are monsters. They all belong in the circle. Or dead. BTW you're kind of cute, wanna move in?) But if I'd played the character as less harsh to him and mages and earned my 100% later in the game it would have felt a lot more natural.

There are many opportunities to earn friendship and rivalry without being opposed to everything the other characters stand for. In my first playthrough I had no problem getting both Anders and Fenris to 100% friendship while keeping them both in my party for nearly the entire game.

[hoorayforicecream]

The only issue I had with Isabela's rivalmance was that it felt uneven... it went from "You're such a bore" to "yar yar hump hump" to "you're such a bore" again right after. I think that if they didn't use the same sexy scene dialogue for both I'd have been a lot more cool with the rivalmance.

Merrill's rivalmance felt totally natural though, probably because there wasn't any reused scenes.

[TobiTobsen]

What prevents me from pursuing the rivalmance path is the simple fact that they screwed up the translation in the german version of the game. They translated rivalry with the word for hostility.
That fact somehow blocks me mentally from the rivalmances. I know they are supposed to be just rivals but my game tells me I'm not simply a rival but an enemy. And that doesn't work out with a romance.

To bad... I would really like to see if I can shepherd Merrill away from her dangerous path, but I just can't roleplay it with the constant pop up reminder that she hates me.

Modifié par TobiTobsen, 16 avril 2011 - 08:18 .

[Mnemnosyne]

ishmaeltheforsaken wrote...

Anders and Fenris have too many different opinions. If I hate slavery but love mages, I get nowhere with Fenris. If I love mages, but think Anders is an abomination on the path to pure monsterhood, I get nowhere with him.

This is my biggest complaint with the system.  They really should have gone with two separate scales, then for events where you currently need more than X% of one or the other, make it more than X% combined.  That way if you agree with Fenris about slavery but disagree with him on mages you get both friendship and rivalry from the appropriate ones, and they add together to generate a total score.  I mean, really, you're more likely to get along with someone and develop a semi-friendly rivalry if you agree on some things, not if you disagree on everything under the sun.

So far, whenever I'm trying to get a rivalmance it doesn't work out too well because I have to disagree on everything to get the rivalry pushed up high, rather than agree on some things and disagree on others.

[frustratemyself]

I agree with Rifneno. During conversations with Fenris when you rival him he acts like he doesn't even want to be in the same room let alone jump into bed with you.

Just doesn't feel as natural to me when in this game the disagreement with your LI is regarding a very important life value for them. Anders tells you that you can't claim to love him and hate what he stands for. I know it's emotional blackmail on his part but he's right.