69 réponses à ce sujet

[d4eaming]

The only one I felt might have come on too strong was Anders, but I think the reason for that is that Anders is just desperate for company and companionship. He had to kill his own lover, he's alone, he's hiding from templars AND the Grey Wardens. He's a lonely guy that wants someone at his side that can understand and sympathize with him. So he latches onto Hawke, even rival Hawke, because Hawke helps him and gives him the attention he craves. Fenris took his time and rebuffs Hawke a couple of times before giving in at the mansion, and then only because Hawke makes a move for him. Fenris was ready to just walk away.

[Manic Sheep]

In Exile wrote...

tishyw wrote...
I think you've hit the nail on the head there, the time jumps made the romances/friendships seems disjointed and rushed, more conversations per act would have helps avoid this I think.

Do people pace out their conversations with the party in DA:O? Becaue by Lothering my Warden is, for example, in a furious romance with Morrigain whose approval you can basically shoot up by the end of the quest.

You get almost the entire story out of each NPC right when you first meet them by spending about 30-40 min emptying out the dialogue tree, and then there's only maybe one quest for them in that game.

I thought DA2 was much better spread out. But maybe others play differently?

Well it usually goes pretty slowly for me since I try to avoid metaing and answer based I what I think the character I’m playing would actually answer regardless of if its gains or losses points, I don’t necessary do all the conversations as soon as they become available either because as much as like the conversations I don't want to spend 30min doing all at once and I hold off on giving gifts if think its progressing to fast. 

Modifié par Manic Sheep, 07 décembre 2012 - 07:15 .

[In Exile]

Manic Sheep wrote...
Well it usually goes pretty slowly for me since I try to avoid metaing and answer based I what I think the character I’m playing would actually answer regardless of if its gains or losses points,

I never metagame - but I find that, from a character who you can design to be somewhat of a smooth operator - the line to pick is quite evident to get approval, since the companions are quite transparent (except for Sten, IMO).

I don’t necessary do all the conversations as soon as they become available either because as much as like the conversations I don't want to spend 30min doing all at once and I hold off on giving gifts if think its progressing to fast. 

Interesting. Maybe this is why DA2 feels like it moves too fast? Because it isn't paced like you would pace it?

[LolaLei]

In Exile wrote...

tishyw wrote...
I think you've hit the nail on the head there, the time jumps made the romances/friendships seems disjointed and rushed, more conversations per act would have helps avoid this I think.

Do people pace out their conversations with the party in DA:O? Becaue by Lothering my Warden is, for example, in a furious romance with Morrigain whose approval you can basically shoot up by the end of the quest.

You get almost the entire story out of each NPC right when you first meet them by spending about 30-40 min emptying out the dialogue tree, and then there's only maybe one quest for them in that game.

I thought DA2 was much better spread out. But maybe others play differently?

With my first ever playthrough it paced out really well. On subsequent playthroughs it goes a little quicker lol.

Hopefully DA3 will strike the right balance. Like, for example, you can talk to the companions/LI as much as you want about regular mundane topics (like quest related stuff, basic info about said companion, etc) but the key romantic topics/topics that progress your relationships with the companions from acquaintance to close friendship/possible lover/worst enemy could trigger after certain events have occured in-game (like after a loyalty mission etc), thus spreading the interaction across the whole game.

Modifié par LolaLei, 07 décembre 2012 - 07:43 .

[Sable Rhapsody]

I don't mind companions showing curiosity about the PC as a friend or romantic interest, even if I as the player am not particularly interested. It makes them feel more like real people to me.

But there should always be the option to say no (preferably with a couple different dialogue options for tone variance). Politely declining should net me little to no relationship change vs. being angry or rude. And after I say no, any further dialogue in that vein (whether friendly or romantic) should be permanently shut down. I know that's a double standard given how some NPCs need repeated convincing to romance, but there needs to be a balance between realistic NPC behavior vs. not annoying the hell out of the player.

Modifié par Sable Rhapsody, 07 décembre 2012 - 08:18 .

[DarkSpiral]

Sable Rhapsody wrote...

I don't mind companions showing curiosity about the PC as a friend or romantic interest, even if I as the player am not particularly interested. It makes them feel more like real people to me.

But there should always be the option to say no (preferably with a couple different dialogue options for tone variance). Politely declining should net me little to no relationship change vs. being angry or rude. And after I say no, any further dialogue in that vein (whether friendly or romantic) should be permanently shut down. I know that's a double standard given how some NPCs need repeated convincing to romance, but there needs to be a balance between realistic NPC behavior vs. not annoying the hell out of the player.

+1

[esper]

LolaLei wrote...

In Exile wrote...

tishyw wrote...
I think you've hit the nail on the head there, the time jumps made the romances/friendships seems disjointed and rushed, more conversations per act would have helps avoid this I think.

Do people pace out their conversations with the party in DA:O? Becaue by Lothering my Warden is, for example, in a furious romance with Morrigain whose approval you can basically shoot up by the end of the quest.

You get almost the entire story out of each NPC right when you first meet them by spending about 30-40 min emptying out the dialogue tree, and then there's only maybe one quest for them in that game.

I thought DA2 was much better spread out. But maybe others play differently?

With my first ever playthrough it paced out really well. On subsequent playthroughs it goes a little quicker lol.

Hopefully DA3 will strike the right balance. Like, for example, you can talk to the companions/LI as much as you want about regular mundane topics (like quest related stuff, basic info about said companion, etc) but the key romantic topics/topics that progress your relationships with the companions from acquaintance to close friendship/possible lover/worst enemy could trigger after certain events have occured in-game (like after a loyalty mission etc), thus spreading the interaction across the whole game.

No, no loyalty missions.
But anyway the key would be to an appropiate amount of dialog become avaible as you passes through x-number of main quest.
That way I think we couldn't run dry too fast.

[LolaLei]

Esper: The loyalty quest was just an example, I didn't wanna end up posting up a huge wall of text with hundreds of ideas. But anyway, I agree with the concept of there being x-number of quests etc before certain aspects of the relationships unlock/progress.

[Kidd]

The only one that I remember feeling like they came on too quickly was Anders, really. He's desperate and craves attention for sure, and I didn't feel it was odd he felt a strong camaraderie with Hawke after Hawke had helped him with such an important thing as the event with Karl. But the first uttering of romance definitely feels a bit... quick.

"Hey, I just met you. And we killed my boyfriend. But here's my feelings. So kiss me, maybe?"

Friendship-wise I was fine with everyone though, romance-wise with the rest too. Though I too miss revelations later in time such as Wynne's apprentice and her spirit etc.

[DarkSpiral]

...I like loyalty quests.

[R2s Muse]

KiddDaBeauty wrote...

"Hey, I just met you. And we killed my boyfriend. But here's my feelings. So kiss me, maybe?"

LOL This meme gets old, but this made me laugh! That's it in a nutshell!

On the relative 'speed' of conversations in DA:O vs. DA2, that's a really good point. We often wax nostalgic about sitting around in camp and talking to our DA:O companions for hours... but indeed, if you're not careful, as I was not on occassion, next thing you know, they've got nothin' to say because you've just had your whole relationship rollercoaster over the course of a half hour.

In DA2, it was exactly the opposite. Nothing. Nothing. You're tormenting me; I'm bad for you. Nothing. Nothing. I love you; let's shag. Nothing. Nothing. Eh, I loved you; don't die. Nothing. The End.  With the romance beats tied to actual events/quests, they were forced to be paced out, almost unrealistically so.

For another contrast, I remember trying to figure out romances in BG2 and learned that they literally were timed. I guess you got a new romance conversation every half hour or so of gameplay. So that became my first experience with the console... since I was anxious I was missing something. But would something like that be better? You can't get your romance all at once, so it's spaced it, but it's also not tied to a particular quest or occurrence in game, so it might feel more organic?

Modifié par R2s Muse, 07 décembre 2012 - 01:32 .

[Urazz]

I think the only companion that was too clingy and was interested in your from the beginning was Anders. The rest of them didn't really have any actual flirting attempts until Act2 Well, asides from Isabela right after finishing her quest but you can't react to that flirt and that is also part of Isabela's character so it's no suprise..

DA:O did have alot of interaction with your party members but the thing was that you could easily just finish up all conversation paths with each party member very quickly and won't have anything else to do with them for the rest of the game. DA2 at least had it all spread out.

[Navasha]

I think part of the problem with DA2 is that time is not represented well. Remember the whole game is supposed to take place over roughly a decade. Other than a few flirts, none of the romances really start until act 2, which means you have "known" these people for about four years.

The players is actually not there to experience what would be the vast majority of conversations that take place between Hawke and friends. Three years go by a literal instant between each act.

In DA:O I got to talk to all of my companions at camp frequently between 'missions'. The conversations increased as you became closer friends. In DA2, you really only get a few conversations with your companions and even then its rarely stories about them, but about the events taking place. They could have used a lot more personalized stories about them, IMO.
I certainly didn't know them as a player as well as I should have, if we had actually been close friends for 10 years.

[Nefla]

I distinctly remember telling Merril to go die in a fire and I didn't want her retard+blood magic using self anywhere near me. I was a jerk to her the whole time I had to drag her up sundermount and to Kirkwall and yet when I told her I didn't want to see her again, she still randomly showed up at my house a few times like we were buddies. Fenris and Isabella were completely optional, I don't see why Merril was a "required" recruit.

[Rpgfantasyplayer]

I always wondered where people were getting that Anders and Karl were lovers, but now I see that it only happens if you are a male Hawke.  He says nothing to allude to that if you are a female.    Anders is the only one I think that comes on too strong, and there is kinda no way to let him down gently.  It is either a flirt option or you crush him with your fist and get him mad at you.  I never saw Merrill as coming on too strongly I just felt that she attached herself to you because she really wants someone to be her friend.

[cowoline]

I don't think Anders was that bad. He does flirt with you just as quickly in Awakening(if you are female) and in act one there are more remnants of the old Anders than later on. But I only romanced him on female characters and there he apologizes for flirting with you, not to mention it tales three years for something to finally happen.

I think what you are describing is the result of two things. One, for the characters three years pass and for us it is mere minutes. Two, we don't have a choice in the matter. We don't decide how fast or slow the relationship progresses our love interest do. It was some of the things I missed in DAII, we couldn't explore the characters, we had to wait for them to reveal themselves. And sometimes we got to know the characters more through their banter than the conversations themselves.

[Pheonix57]

Hmm... I think Merrill's clingy-ness was part of her character, especially because if you sleep with her, she says "I love you" immediately after, like an overly attached girlfriend. Granted, a few characters do this, hell even Alistair in DA: O says, "Have I told you that I love you? Well it won't hurt you to hear it again."

As for people coming on too strongly, I do have a few things:
- Anders in DA:2 tells you about his relationship with Carl, and you can either be a jerk, or say something romantic. I didn't want to romance him, but I wanted to tell him that I'm okay with his personal life, and be supportive. No option was given.
- Morrigan in DA:O, and while it wasn't my character, I witnessed it happen with a friend. He is gay, and his character is as well, and while trying to be friends with Morrigan she asks if there could ever be anything more between them. Obviously there was no "Sorry girls, I'm gay" option, but the only choice he had, as opposed to starting a relationship with her, made Morrigan really sad. And trust me, you've never seen sad until you've seen the look she got on her face. We both wish there would have been another option.

Modifié par Pheonix57, 07 décembre 2012 - 03:36 .

[Kidd]

Pheonix57 wrote...

Hmm... I think Merrill's clingy-ness was part of her character, especially because if you sleep with her, she says "I love you" immediately after, like an overly attached girlfriend.

That's one of the most socially awkward yet oh-so-cute lines in her entire repertoire. My little aspie~

[Eber]

R2s Muse wrote...

KiddDaBeauty wrote...

"Hey, I just met you. And we killed my boyfriend. But here's my feelings. So kiss me, maybe?"

LOL This meme gets old, but this made me laugh! That's it in a nutshell!

On the relative 'speed' of conversations in DA:O vs. DA2, that's a really good point. We often wax nostalgic about sitting around in camp and talking to our DA:O companions for hours... but indeed, if you're not careful, as I was not on occassion, next thing you know, they've got nothin' to say because you've just had your whole relationship rollercoaster over the course of a half hour.

In DA2, it was exactly the opposite. Nothing. Nothing. You're tormenting me; I'm bad for you. Nothing. Nothing. I love you; let's shag. Nothing. Nothing. Eh,I loved you; don't die. Nothing. The End.  With the romance beats tied
to actual events/quests, they were forced to be paced out, almost unrealistically so.

Exactly the opposite indeed. I think DA:O and DA2 represent two extremes in companion content allocation. DA:O is front loaded to the max. I can't recall any other game where you could so easily and fast empty your companions dialogue trees. Personally I don't particulary mind that. If the companions have nothing to say for the last half of the game after I befriended them I can live with that. I know where we stand. Meanwhile DA2 is heavily back loaded. The first Act is the longest, half the play time for me, and it contains significantly less than a third of the companion content. That's dozens of hours with virtual strangers watching your back. As a matter of preference I prefer the mute friends.

Based on comments I've read I think it's a safe bet DA3 will be somewhere in between these extremes. If it happened in DA3 Morrigan might not invite the Warden to her tent the first in game camp night (as you exit Lothering) but it wouldn't take Isabela years and almost half the game to get to Hawke's bedroom either.

David Gaider wrote...

If you felt less connected to your followers, that's too bad. There could be many reasons for that, but if the requirement to someone feeling connected is having long, rambling conversations in the party camp... I can safely say that's unlikely to happen again. I could see front-loading the characters a bit more so players are more thoroughly introduced (as it was, a lot of the character interaction ended up in Act 2 quite by accident) but I have absolutely no intention of returning to the reams of expository dialogue as a replacement for character development anytime soon.

David Gaider wrote...

Part of this is a result of the way we divided each follower's content in DA2. Splitting up the game into three time periods forced us to have an "introduction" for each follower at the beginning of one-- a way to catch up and tell the player what the follower has been up to in the intervening years. We also shifted a lot more focus onto the follower personal plot arcs. Neither of these things are necessarily bad, but they did mean less content being available for "extra" dialogue, even though the overall amount of dialogue per individual follower was comparable to DAO. Simply different priorities.

So a bit of rearrangement is necessary and perhaps some room needs to be left for "small talk" like I said earlier-- perhaps leaving the notifications for the really important stuff, and allow the player some dialogue to discover on her own. What we'll do with the notifications, or whether we'll keep them at all, I can't really say. A lot depends on adapting to the structure of the story in question.

Modifié par Eber, 07 décembre 2012 - 11:31 .

[brushyourteeth]

^ That's all well and good, and great job with the homework and everything...

but the point I'm making is that many of the DAII companions seemed inexplicably attached to my character right from the word "go", and I found it jarring. You're explaining (and quite well, I might add) why many players felt that they never got to know their companions in DAII on the same level that they did in DA:O. And that's worth discussing, but not quite the point I'm trying to make.

What I'm wondering is whether others also felt that these DAII companions came on too strongly, and where the disconnect may have from from.

So in this case, I have to say that I more closely agree with R2's Muse's original statements -- that DA:O gave each companion a stronger introduction than any of those from DAII, and that they would remain largely silent often when we were most curious to learn more about them.


Thinking about it some more, I wonder if part of it could be that the DAII companions didn't always seem to have a solid reason for following Hawke, whereas the DA:O companions usually had a good reason for being invested in fighting the Blight.

Modifié par brushyourteeth, 07 décembre 2012 - 11:45 .

[BBK4114]

I didn't mind any of the companions having their own minds/agendas but after Anders supposedly moves in with you. possibly mid-way through Act 2 and then you're giving him a key to the entrance close to his clinic three years later!! really broke any sense of time having passed. Seriously? Three years later?

Whoever the companion is he better not yell at me all the time a la Fenris. Hated that. Totally unrealistic to me. I'm not into being verbally abused.

I loved both Alistair and Zevran's romances. I like a guy who makes me laugh.

Edit to actually address the topic:

I didn't feel Anders got chummy any faster than Isabella or Fenris.  You wanted the maps from him, helping him was the trade-off.  Isabella comes on to a Hawke of either gender immediately after you help her in act I. As far as trust goes, why should any of them trust you or ask for your help at the beginning?  It was simply an introduction to them in game which simply was not executed very well. 

I do wish for the gentle let-down for any of them in any case.  And I don't mind what everyone calls ninjamancing from either gender. That is pretty realistic in my experience. 

Modifié par BBK4114, 08 décembre 2012 - 12:20 .

[Sibu]

Diferent cultures have diferent ideas of friendship... it would be fun to see this cultural clash in game

[Urazz]

Eber wrote...

Exactly the opposite indeed. I think DA:O and DA2 represent two extremes in companion content allocation. DA:O is front loaded to the max. I can't recall any other game where you could so easily and fast empty your companions dialogue trees. Personally I don't particulary mind that. If the companions have nothing to say for the last half of the game after I befriended them I can live with that. I know where we stand. Meanwhile DA2 is heavily back loaded. The first Act is the longest, half the play time for me, and it contains significantly less than a third of the companion content. That's dozens of hours with virtual strangers watching your back. As a matter of preference I prefer the mute friends.

Based on comments I've read I think it's a safe bet DA3 will be somewhere in between these extremes. If it happened in DA3 Morrigan might not invite the Warden to her tent the first in game camp night (as you exit Lothering) but it wouldn't take Isabela years and almost half the game to get to Hawke's bedroom either.

Also, the number of companions you have also limits the amount of dialogue you can have with each companion.  The more you have the less you have per companion.  I hope we don't have a crazy amount of companions like ME2 had.  That was one of the flaws of ME2 on companions in my opinion.

I think DA2 suffered a bit on interaction with companions due to how rushed the game was made.  If there was more time and resources devoted to the game then you would've saw alot more interaction with your party members.

Hopefully DA3 goes in between DA1 and DA2 in how the companion dialogue trees are handled like you said.  I also hope we don't have too many party members if the game development time isn't too long.

[Ellyria]

R2s Muse wrote...
On the relative 'speed' of conversations in DA:O vs. DA2, that's a really good point. We often wax nostalgic about sitting around in camp and talking to our DA:O companions for hours... but indeed, if you're not careful, as I was not on occassion, next thing you know, they've got nothin' to say because you've just had your whole relationship rollercoaster over the course of a half hour. 

In DA2, it was exactly the opposite. Nothing. Nothing. You're tormenting me; I'm bad for you. Nothing. Nothing. I love you; let's shag. Nothing. Nothing. Eh, I loved you; don't die. Nothing. The End.  With the romance beats tied to actual events/quests, they were forced to be paced out, almost unrealistically so.

For another contrast, I remember trying to figure out romances in BG2 and learned that they literally were timed. I guess you got a new romance conversation every half hour or so of gameplay. So that became my first experience with the console... since I was anxious I was missing something. But would something like that be better? You can't get your romance all at once, so it's spaced it, but it's also not tied to a particular quest or occurrence in game, so it might feel more organic?

I've said it before and I'll say it again. I loved the way KOTOR handled companion conversations (ME1 did this as well, ME2 until you hit the calibrations wall). One or two opened up after each planet or after you did their "loyalty mission". There weren't any affection bars, it was paced out, and it felt natural. I wish they would go back to that. 

[R2s Muse]

brushyourteeth wrote...

Thinking about it some more, I wonder if part of it could be that the DAII companions didn't always seem to have a solid reason for following Hawke, whereas the DA:O companions usually had a good reason for being invested in fighting the Blight.

You know... this is a very interesting point! Even Leliana had a concrete reason ("the Maker told me to") to come with you. Evenso it took a while before she got very kissy face with you. You know, it even took Alistair a while. I personally started flirting with him from the first conversation, but in later play throughs (particularly when I was a guy) I realized that regardless of how silly I was over him... he wasn't really into me for a while. Much to my chagrin. LOL