55 réponses à ce sujet

[riccaborto]

I started a new DA2 playthough these days, and while playing and choosing wich companions to bring with me in specific quests I realized their reactions become very predictable aefter you have talk to them or spent many hours with them... and so very often I had the chance to reload a savegame and change party just to avoid Rivalry...

 

And I asked myself: What if BioWare wolud hide Approval/Rivalry state in future games? I mean, keep the state but don't show it to the player... your party members do have a reaction but you don't see it at the moment... but only in the future, when you have to take difficult decisions or test their loyalty their actual approval state is revealed, for example they do not support you or leave the party, exposing their reasons or claiming one thing or another, even better by complaining about the way you acted in a certain situation.

I think this would make any game more interesting....

[TheLittleBird]

I love this idea. It would bring a great deal of immersion to the game. However, because I feel a lot of people actually like the current system, I say just give an option to turn it off.

[Ria Kon]

I don't care if my companions are or my good side or bad side since DAII. Its system is more realistic and allows us to more role-play. In DAO there was a problem with loosing party members, so a lot of people still tend to have maximal friendship. Your suggested idea might help and it would be very interesting even for myself.

[Viktormon]

I'd like to see the option of not having that visable, whatever way it manifests.

I'd like to point to the new Theif game, while not everyone's favourite, it does something incredibly well: It gives a custom challange level where you can take away things that give you information, quest markers and such. I think it's a good step towards letting the hardcore be hardcore and get rewarded for it (the Theif game has a leaderboard, and turning off help gets you bonuses).

Something to consider, the ability to turn things on and off, like quest markers, friend/rival meters, friendly fire, things like that.

[Fetunche]

Make it optional sure but some of like to know where we stand with our companions.

[AlanC9]

I started a new DA2 playthough these days, and while playing and choosing wich companions to bring with me in specific quests I realized their reactions become very predictable aefter you have talk to them or spent many hours with them... and so very often I had the chance to reload a savegame and change party just to avoid Rivalry...
 

But if their reactions really are predictable, hiding the meter wouldn't change anything, would it? Or are you saying that their reactions are predictable because you see what their meter does in a bunch of situations?

I think it's better to keep this sort of thing transparent. Unless Bio burns a lot of wordcount for the NPCs to express their reactions to the PC's decisions, how an NPC got to a particular position would be awfully obscure for any particular playthrough.

[Little Princess Peach]

I like the idea, but I feel it could backfire on us in some way

[Torayuri]

I don't know. I wasn't a huge fan of the Friendship/Rivalry system in DA2, because when roleplaying some of my actions would give me friendship points, then others rivalry points, and it was difficult to max out either side without metagaming. So basically, I had the same problem as you...As another poster said, hiding it wouldn't really do anything.

 

I think I'd prefer a relationship system where there wasn't a back and forth sliding scale, but every interaction you had with a companion added to overall relationship points, with the weight of their approval or disapproval simply influencing whether they liked you or not. So actions or conversations always add relationship points, they just either negatively or positively flavour the relationship. So for example, they could be neutral towards you (0% relationship) if you don't interact with them at all (i.e. talk to them or do any actions worthy of their approval/disapproval), 20% positive + 30% negative if still building up a relationship or if maxed out they could have a 70% positive + 30% negative relationship meaning they generally like you as a person, but still disagree with some actions/aspects of your behaviour. 

[Jerrybnsn]

I think they did a good job in Origins.  Trust has to be earned and it takes time.  For instance, go to early to look for the Sacred Ashes and Sten is going to call you out.  The trust wasn't built yet were he saw how you've handled things so far and how dire the situation was becoming.  In DAII, it seemed, that there were little to no consequences for your decisions in your party's relationships.  So for me, whether you have a friendship/rivirly bar or not doesn't matter, just give me the consequences for my decisions.

[Mes]

Totally agree with OP... that would be awesome! In Origins, I found myself taking a few moments out to just spam a certain character with piles of gifts to get the friendship up if I noticed it wasn't at a level I wanted.

 

Hiding all of this information would be so much more "realistic" and would be better in terms of immersion. I guess I'd be pissed off if in the end if my LI surprised me by declaring he hated my guts, but again, it's the immersion factor.

[Si-Shen]

Honestly, id rather be able to see a meter, due to life I sometimes don't get to play a game constantly and if I come back after a month there is no way I will remember where people stand, the meters allow me to see. As for an option to turn it off and on, as simple as it might sound Bioware has repeatedly said they aren't going to add in toggles for every possible thing, so I doubt you will see this. It will be either hidden or visible, not an option and far more people would prefer it visible I suspect.

[Father_Jerusalem]

I'm all for more customization options for your gameplay... just so long as it's a toggle in the Options menu that you can turn on or off at your leisure.

[Ieldra]

I see how hiding this could be preferable from a purist roleplaying viewpoint. However, not knowing how to influence a companion by hiding the effects of your actions can backfire. We do want some indication how a character reacts to us, right? Not having a meter and to be halfway transparent over several decisions nonetheless would require the character to be simple. Intransigent characters may be realistic, but do we really want them in our games, beyond one for their novelty?

Also, when I get on the bad side of a character, I want to know why. In some cases, this can be made clear by dialogue, but recall all the approval changes in DA2? How many of those were subtle? Quite a few I think, and you could get on a companion's bad side slowly without noticing by the accumulation of many small effects. This, too, is realistic, but again I have to ask: do we really want that?

Regarding DAO and DA2: In DA2, I am finding myself gaming the system constantly. This is because I usually have a plan where the story should go with my PC and their relations to the companions, and the system is rather limiting in that it requires overall approval instead of depending on specific choices. This leads me to think that I do not like a generalized approval system in the first place. I'd rather have the companions react to specific decisions exclusively. For instance, nothing would bring Anders' friendship back after you've made three specific anti-mage decisions, etc.. etc..

In DAO, my gaming the system is limited to not bringing Morrigan to Redcliffe to avoid the (plainly nonsensical) -10 there. I'm not exactly sure why but I'm not tempted to do it, possibly because it has little significant beyond the romances.

[Eurhetemec]

I started a new DA2 playthough these days, and while playing and choosing wich companions to bring with me in specific quests I realized their reactions become very predictable aefter you have talk to them or spent many hours with them... and so very often I had the chance to reload a savegame and change party just to avoid Rivalry...

 

And I asked myself: What if BioWare wolud hide Approval/Rivalry state in future games? I mean, keep the state but don't show it to the player... your party members do have a reaction but you don't see it at the moment... but only in the future, when you have to take difficult decisions or test their loyalty their actual approval state is revealed, for example they do not support you or leave the party, exposing their reasons or claiming one thing or another, even better by complaining about the way you acted in a certain situation.

I think this would make any game more interesting....

 

I think for 90% of players this would just lead to companions who had very middle-value opinions of the Inquisitor, because you wouldn't know what they liked/disliked very well. It's a cute idea, but it would typically make the game less interesting, not more, *in practice*, I believe.

 

If you then added bits where you could actively convince them one way or another, it might have more value.

[fjun]

I actually thought the same to myself. It would be pretty awesome, not knowing where you currently stand with a character. Does s/he hate you, does s/he adore you, does s/he want to twist your neck? Makes it more believable and realistic.

 

So I'd absolutely support the idea. 

[Wulfram]

Visible approval gains are a substitute for body language and incidental conversations that it's impractical to show at the moment.  Without it, the player would be left implausibly in the dark about their companions opinions

[snackrat]

I'd worry about accidentally falling into romances. ME had surprise romances and the only way to talk to the opposite-gender human and yet stay single was to blow them up on Virmire. C***-blocking with nuclear ordinance is prooobably not what Bioware intended.

In DAO though, you could see if coming. If I tell Alis "but I like you for you and not your royal blood" and mean "you're a stand-up guy, I don't care about that king-stuff"... I can see he changed to 'care' and know he took it as "I'd do you for you hotstuff, unfh", and reload to dodge that.

Leliana was an example of how it could be a problem. Something with Leli accidentally triggers her romance, and when her romance is triggered it is REALLY HARD to end it and stay single. It is 'easier' if you're with someone else, since an ultimatum is forced - but she still takes a MASSIVE hit for your 'betrayal'. (Leli... GET OUT)

[snackrat]

What, no edit button? Sigh....

 

...also, I want to add, plenty of people DO want to see that, and there will be those who record all the possibilities to see what happens. Look at DAO's wiki - you don't get totals until the end of the convo, but people have poked and prodded to see what get how much and where.

If you want to play organically... well, do. Besides, I doubt they'd normally be silent about why they don't approve. You're not 'drifting apart' or something, you're going against their ideals. Varric would hardly be all "oh yeah let those guys die, no biggie" and then -10 you - knowing they've reacted, and how strongly, MAKES SENSE.

[BubbleDncr]

I think part of the reason they have the approval bar is because in real life - you can often times tell if people life you or dislike you based on small things - quick facial expressions, body language, how they say things to you - that would be very difficult/expensive for them to put into the game. So getting rid of the approval bar would make it harder for players to tell how their companions felt about them, unless they put in all those things.

 

I'd prefer to have a good idea on how I'm affecting my companions at the time rather than just hoping I'm doing things right.

[Bekkael]

I would prefer they leave awareness for rivalry/friendship as is. I absolutely want to know when I am pissing off or pleasing my companions. It would frustrate me not knowing. So, yeah...please leave this feature as-is. Kthnx!

[Zack_Nero]

A good idea but I would like to get a small sense as to where I stand with them, maybe like a codex entry update.

[luckycooky]

You have mine support for this

[rocsage]

so...you want to reduce information transparency and make players clueless about what's to come?

I'd spend less time playing the game and more time reading guides/doing things through trial and error.

as the causal events are likely scattered along the major plot line, anyone willing to experiment would spend a couple dozen hours on a single try.

and if the combat is anything like dragon age 2 mages or assassins under nightmare mode, I guess it's good that I'll be able to recite spawn locations in my sleep.

[Brass_Buckles]

Part of me resists this idea, because I like having everyone stay with me if i can.  But another part of me says "this is a great idea because I could stop worrying about how much X character likes me and just get on with the game already."

 

Bioware already said they intend to tweak the system again, so that you can disagree with party members and not necessarily be rivals.  They are still friends, but they disagree with you.  This could be interesting if you disagree with your friends too many times.  Maybe they might, no matter how much they love you as a friend, turn on you at a critical moment in the plot because of their fundamental disagreements with you.  It could be like Loghain and Cailin all over again.  Or Arl Howe and Teyrn Cousland.

[9TailsFox]

so...you want to reduce information transparency and make players clueless about what's to come?

I'd spend less time playing the game and more time reading guides/doing things through trial and error.

as the causal events are likely scattered along the major plot line, anyone willing to experiment would spend a couple dozen hours on a single try.

and if the combat is anything like dragon age 2 mages or assassins under nightmare mode, I guess it's good that I'll be able to recite spawn locations in my sleep.

I think you should try, stop trying to win game. And instead try to play it and enjoy.