57 réponses à ce sujet

[Dean_the_Young]

It's fun, for one.

 

Mechanic-wise, rivalry is similar to friendship: once you get above 50 points, the companion will get a unique ability that gives them a buff. Merrill, for example, gets damage resistance: useful stuff.

 

Story-wise, rivalry works as well as friendship for the end-game delimma in which various characters would otherwise leave you for the wrong choice. Either max friendship or max rivalry will allow you to keep pretty much the entire party. The best example of all is getting a Rivaled Anders to fight against the mages in the end-game: potent stuff.

 

Character-wise, rivalry arcs lead to separate, distinct, and not at all inferior character arcs and relationships with Hawke. Instead of being their best friend, you are the one pushing them and provoking them into facing things they'd rather not and potentially coming out as better people: friendship!Isabella, for example, would let a slaver go in exchange for a ship, but rival!Isabella admits her general immorality and works towards being a better, morally responsible person.

 

Rivalmancing, romance with the rivalry twist, are likewise enjoyable. Rivalry isn't necessarily hatred and laothing, and the rivalmance can often be depicted as 'I care for you, but think you are dreadfully wrong.'

[Xilizhra]

not at all inferior

I would contest this. I believe that Isabela's rivalry is the only one that might somehow be better than friendship. Fenris' rivalry doesn't really help him any, Merrill and Anders have outright abuse and/or psychological torture involved, and Sebastian's rivalry involves you being someone insanely focused on pushing him to retake Starkhaven.

 

 

 

Rivalmancing, romance with the rivalry twist, are likewise enjoyable. Rivalry isn't necessarily hatred and laothing, and the rivalmance can often be depicted as 'I care for you, but think you are dreadfully wrong.'

Which leaves me really feeling ill. Again, Isabela's rivalry can kind of work because just asking her to pursue romance is sort of akin to her rivalry path to begin with, but I personally would find it horrible with anyone else. Even Fenris; I only rival him because I can't really friend him.

Altogether, I find rivalry a terrible mechanic and am quite glad to see it gone in DAI.

[CuriousArtemis]

I think Dean sums it up pretty well It depends on personal taste, as well as your individual Hawke and the relationship s/he has with each companion. I have some Hawke's who rival, say, Isabela or Merrill, but others who do not. A carefree and friendly Hawke will fully support Merrill's quest for the mirror, whereas one who fears blood magic may unintentionally rival her, even though he cares for her. It's a pretty neat system, HOWEVER...

 

...Personally, I do not feel it works well for the romances. I have never been able to rivalmance someone. But as I said above, it is about personal taste. Likely I just prefer fluffy romances

[thats1evildude]

Build-wise, you might prefer the benefits from Rivalry as opposed to Friendship.

 

For my canon playthrough, my Warrior Hawke didn't need the small boost to damage resistance provided by a full-Friendship Isabela, so I rivalled her to boost her durability.

[Ryzaki]

Isabela's rivalry romance is the only one I don't like. Mostly because it's just awkward. It's too similar to her friendship mance at parts where it REALLY should be different (the love scene for one).

 

Especially considering she finds rival Hawke boring. It wouldn't have been so bad if she just said uptight and wanted to see him/her get a bit loose but she is bored by them. That doesn't seem like it'd make for someone Isabela would bother pursuing.

 

Other than that though as said above rivalry gives you different bonuses and you may simply prefer it.

[Lulupab]

Anders's rival bonus is as useless as breasts on men.

[Ryzaki]

True but if you rival him you can use him as a haste bot when siding with the templars.

 

Win some lose some.

[Dean_the_Young]

I would contest this. I believe that Isabela's rivalry is the only one that might somehow be better than friendship. Fenris' rivalry doesn't really help him any, Merrill and Anders have outright abuse and/or psychological torture involved, and Sebastian's rivalry involves you being someone insanely focused on pushing him to retake Starkhaven.

 

 

 

Which leaves me really feeling ill. Again, Isabela's rivalry can kind of work because just asking her to pursue romance is sort of akin to her rivalry path to begin with, but I personally would find it horrible with anyone else. Even Fenris; I only rival him because I can't really friend him.

Altogether, I find rivalry a terrible mechanic and am quite glad to see it gone in DAI.

 

And I don't believe this. Le gasp! It's like people have different preferences!

[Xilizhra]

And I don't believe this. Le gasp! It's like people have different preferences!

Quite so... but it seems, given DAI, that mine won.

[Dean_the_Young]

Quite so... but it seems, given DAI, that mine won.

 

Is this the same sort of 'win' in which you were steadfastly convinced ME3 was going to be a great variety of things it ended up not being? And the assumptions of DAI focusing on the Mage/Templar issue that have not exactly panned out?

 

Because if you're assuming the removal of the rivalry meter means the end of more antagonistic relationships and just positive approval friendship... well, you'll have to argue against the demo, and find anything in the dev comments to suggest that they're going that route.

[Wulfram]

Story-wise, rivalry works as well as friendship for the end-game delimma in which various characters would otherwise leave you for the wrong choice. Either max friendship or max rivalry will allow you to keep pretty much the entire party. The best example of all is getting a Rivaled Anders to fight against the mages in the end-game: potent stuff.

 

My own experience is that this isn't quite true.  Fenris seems to need maxed Rivalry (Or perhaps to have the final Questioning Beliefs quest completed I think) to side against Meredith, but needs less for Friendship to work.

[Xilizhra]

Is this the same sort of 'win' in which you were steadfastly convinced ME3 was going to be a great variety of things it ended up not being? And the assumptions of DAI focusing on the Mage/Templar issue that have not exactly panned out?

 

Because if you're assuming the removal of the rivalry meter means the end of more antagonistic relationships and just positive approval friendship... well, you'll have to argue against the demo, and find anything in the dev comments to suggest that they're going that route.

I can always hope. Truth be told, I'll be largely satisfied if they get rid of antagonistic romances.

[Jaison1986]

I'm pretty sure you need 50% friendship/rivalry to convince Fenris to help you. When Meredith arrive at the gallows ask him to join you and he will accept. It happened in the very first time I played the game.

 

I don't like the rivalry romances apart from Fenris, to me it fits his character. The other rivalmances feel like unhealthy relationships. Especially Merrill and Anders. With Isabela I just feel an lack of chemistry between her and Hawke.

 

Story wise, it depends. I can never rival Bethany, Varric and Aveline. I personally dislike Sebastian rivalry because instead of giving him advice about what he should do, Hawke acts like an pushover just telling him to get his lands back because of power and riches. That just felt vain. So I usually friend him. With Isabela, the frienship path you and her are like best buddies, but she never really learns anything, while on rivalry she grows an conscience and realizes her actions affect the others and she should be more responsible.

[Jedi Master of Orion]

From what I can tell not every character even reacts the same way while rivaled. It affects their different dialogue for different characters. For example, Isabella tends to only react poorly to you giving her the gift of the model ship if Hawke is rivals with her. But I don't remember any differences in Merrill's reaction to one of the gifts Hawke gives her.

[mopotter]

Personally, I didn't care for the rivaled romances, or in DA:O being able to gift your way to approval.  Though I bought the love of many characters in DA:O.     I was glad to see it gone in DA2.  A couple of gifts is nice, receiving them even better, but I was giving people bones and underwear, bad bad gifts and they always thanked me..  

 

With DA2 I did the rival romances with Anders and Fenris once to see what they were like and never did it again, Having them join me at the end just didn't mesh for me story wise.  But on a general level, there were times when picking that option was great.  I won't miss it but I do like to make snarky comments sometime.

[Wulfram]

I'm pretty sure you need 50% friendship/rivalry to convince Fenris to help you. When Meredith arrive at the gallows ask him to join you and he will accept. It happened in the very first time I played the game.

 

I've had rival characters with more than 50 rivalry who were unable to do that.

[CuriousArtemis]

So rivalry doesn't really feel like much of a deal from what I'm reading here. I use Fenris all the time once I get him so keeping him if I choose to side with mages this time is helpful especially given how insane things are once meredith goes nuts. But if he doesn't join because of his beliefs so be it. He hates mages so much that sometimes I want to just shoot him anyway on principle. Even Cullen has some sembelence of balance if you side with templars. Not sure about mages but templars he turns out to be the voice of reason who says that in Ferelden things were much more dire which made the Right a logical option whereas here it's not necessary. Fenris is pretty much 'kill them all' from the start and there's not much you can do for that except rival him which I will this time because I think he's a bit zealot on the matter - don't care what his history and experiences are. He's jaded and even knows it.

Wow. I have to disagree with you about Fenris. When he is not being psychologically tortured by a ****** like Hadriana, he's actually very rational and understanding about the Mage issue. He does not think all mages should be killed; where on earth did you get that? He simply believes in the importance of the Circle. He even respects mages like Bethany.

The thing about Fenris is not that he hates all mages -- it's that he deeply, deeply fears all magic. He comes from a place of pain and fear on the issue, not mindless hatred.

[Xilizhra]

Wow. I have to disagree with you about Fenris. When he is not being psychologically tortured by a ****** like Hadriana, he's actually very rational and understanding about the Mage issue. He does not think all mages should be killed; where on earth did you get that? He simply believes in the importance of the Circle. He even respects mages like Bethany.

The thing about Fenris is not that he hates all mages -- it's that he deeply, deeply fears all magic. He comes from a place of pain and fear on the issue, not mindless hatred.

I personally don't see his opinions as terribly rational, given that they're driven primarily by, as you said, fear. Which of course will lead to anger, then hatred, then suffering (for Hadriana definitely; for Varania it's possible to stop that).

[CuriousArtemis]

I personally don't see his opinions as terribly rational, given that they're driven primarily by, as you said, fear. Which of course will lead to anger, then hatred, then suffering (for Hadriana definitely; for Varania it's possible to stop that).

That is a great point; he is indeed very damaged. But it's simply wrong, canonically wrong to say he hates all mages and wants to kill them.

[Jaison1986]

@CuriousArtemis: If you side with the mages without enough approval, Fenris will turn on you and help the templars to slaughter the circle. So, I think he does prefer to kill them all.

[teh DRUMPf!!]

 Dean just about summed it up. Can't really add anything more, at this point.

 

I'll just say this, though: I LOVED the friend/rivalry dynamic in DA2 and hope something like it comes back in Inquisition. I thought it was really awesome to develop distinct types of relationships with each companion, unlike the generic ones in Mass Effect (generic, because no matter how you treat them or whether or not you fundamentally agree with what they stand for, your interaction with them is largely unchanged), or the approval thing in DA:O/A where you can't develop any meaningful relationship with characters you don't have high approval with or bribe with gifts (and outright lose the ones you keep pissing off without gifts).

 

 

 

Aveline was the perfect rival to my aggressive FemHawke: the lawful, steadfast warrior vs. the scoundrel rogue. And then it's typically just hilarious when Aveline reacts negatively to anything; her Questioning Beliefs at 100% Rivalry is gold. It also ends with a nice line in The Last Straw, Hawke acknowledges not making life easy for her, but thanks Aveline for still supporting her.

 

I also really like the playthrough I did where I rivaled Anders... as a mage. I feel it was the playthrough where I got it "right" on the mage/Templar issue. It was also fun to kill Merrill, while avoiding the chat where she destroys the mirror. It's Hawke's now! >=D