When it pops up and says, "(Name) approves." Great! How much do they approve? A point? Five? Ten? Twenty!?!
Same thing can be said about the "(Name) slightly approves." Again how much!?!
My assumption is that the increments are the same. In DA2 all friendship and rivalry points were either 5, 10 or 15; there was no instance of "Varric approves+7". If we assume that slightly approves/disapproves is a +/- 5, approves/disapproves is a +/- 10, and greatly approves/disappoves is +/- 15, then we can manually track approval ourselves outside of the game (on a piece of paper or something).
If the "approval numbers" don't progress like that, if for example "slightly approves" is +5 and "greatly approves" is +20, then this method probably won't work.
The devs have also said that companion's demeanor towards you will change. Like they'll greet you more warmly when you go to chat them up etc, or they'll tell you new things that they wouldn't previously. While this is more organic, I kind of wish there was an approval bar somewhere so we could have an "At a glance" summation of where we stand with certain people. (I also really liked DA2's friendship/rivalry system as well. I thought that was a pretty successful mechanic.)
I remember hearing somewhere that Companions could approve / disapprove even if they heard about something "second hand", meaning they are not actually physically with your Inquisitor when you make a decision. If this is true, I don't like it. In DAO and DA2, I preferred to keep certain Companions out of the active party if I knew (before-hand) that they would object to a decision I was about to make. As an example, I made sure a certain character was not in my party before doing one of the quests in DAO...
Spoiler
I wonder to what extent this would go. In Awakenings, for example, if you took the sidequest aiding the Templars to find apostates in the City of Amaranthine, you will immediately get disapproval from Anders even if you left him at the Keep. Of course, Awakening is bugged all to hell so that might be the reason why too but I can never tell.
Anyway, I'd like to think that approval or disapproval based on secondhand knowledge would only really extend to the bigger decisions. Like, if I did something kinda mean to some random merchant in Craptown, Thedas, it'd be kind of weird for word of that to really spread back to the home base.
I'm going to guess that this means, it won't be a meter system at all internally, and that key decisions just simply alter how they view you.
I believe it was Mike Laidlaw that said the old approval system was "too gamey" with the gift system.
Fine, replace it with something else, but keep the bar approval. That bar is a visual feeback that everyone
can understand. It was a silly decision to remove it.
Someone said you need to pay more attention... Well S**t... I want to play the game and have fun while doing so, not attempting to puzzle out the inscrutable female mind.
So.....I can't play this game while being drunk?
So.....I can't play this game while being drunk?
Wait you mean I must be sober to play this game O_O?
Awwwww.....that's a bummer 
So.....I can't play this game while being drunk?
Pfft. Like that'll stop anyone. I will have my fruity vodka.
So.....I can't play this game while being drunk?
LOL... good one
I do not mind removing the approval meter and keeping the player guessing (in fact I seem to have heard this would be the case a while back), just hope that companions can agree-to-disagree and -- like Rivalry in DA2 -- you can still develop deeper relationships with them. Also hope they won't just up and leave if you keep voicing disagreement.
In Origins, you could only uncover more from your companions if you had high approval from them. Companions with negative approval just moaned at you and offered other throwaway lines but were otherwise no more developed as characters than those at 0 approval. DA2 rival companions still opened up to you, just in different ways than they would as friends. Sadly, I suspect this will be mostly an Origins-styled affair.
I am happy they got rid of the approval meter. It felt like being in the Sims boosting your friendship meter.
I would rather have the meter in the background. Rather than the actual number being visible displayed.
Guest_PaladinDragoon_*
I saw an interview with Mark explaining the new system. It is basically you got to learn to read your companions. They basically wanted the interaction for feel more real. Mass Effect didnt have any bars of approval and they did just fine. I am glad they scratch that whole system. It was broken and pointless.
I saw an interview with Mark explaining the new system. It is basically you got to learn to read your companions. They basically wanted the interaction for feel more real. Mass Effect didnt have any bars of approval and they did just fine. I am glad they scratch that whole system. It was broken and pointless.
Companions in the Mass Effect games were pretty easy to read. I would have it appears much harder in Inquisition, from the vids I've seen. Merely agreeing with them might not always get approval (though I don't notice disapproval for now).
The lack of means to quickly check NPC approval is bad game design. If I return to a game after a having a break for a month or two, I expect to be able to find all important information ingame. If that's not possible, it's a design failure.
That is the best reason yet for being able to check what the approval is.
I saw an interview with Mark explaining the new system. It is basically you got to learn to read your companions. They basically wanted the interaction for feel more real. Mass Effect didnt have any bars of approval and they did just fine. I am glad they scratch that whole system. It was broken and pointless.
Mass Effect didn't have an influence system though. It didn't matter if you were paragon or renegade or what you said, all you had to do was talk to characters enough that they reveal quests. Stop in every so often, chat them up, then do their personal quests and you get their loyalty. I liked that system, it worked. However, that's not the system they're using in Inquisition. In Inquisition, the same influence system of the past two games is present as is denoted by the slight approval gain, approval gain, disapproval text which pops up depending on what you say. The only difference is that they're not letting you see the math with the approval bar. Your still getting the ticks, you still have to adjust your behavior to please your companions. The only difference is you just don't know where you stand or how much you're gaining or losing.
The new system is downright confusing.
When it pops up and says, "(Name) approves." Great! How much do they approve? A point? Five? Ten? Twenty!?!
Same thing can be said about the "(Name) slightly approves." Again how much!?!
*snip*
DAO might've made us of the whole range, but in DA2 despite the large number of points everyone was done in multiples of five, making friendship/rivalry effectivy 20/-20.
I would guess that, effectively, slighty (dis)approve is (-)5, (dis)approve (-)10, greatly (dis)approve is (-)15.
Unless simply '(dis)approve' doesn't exist and its only slightly or greatly. (I can't even preload until the 18th). In which case I would say 'greatly' means 10.
I think the new system is meant to encourage you to interact with your companions, learn their personalities and such. And then I suppose it's common sense from there. Maybe not everything will be black and white, but you would know that Cassandra won't like you running around killing Templars or Dorian won't probably agree with you killing innocent apostates. Varric might approve of shady deals...same with the Iron Bull or Sera. But Cassandra would frown on that. Maybe Vivienne too. Cole would be hard to read, I think. He's very mysterious. Solas as well, but seems more pro-elf than anything, I doubt he'll think highly of you if you go pissing off all the Dalish, lol.
Engaging them in conversations and doing their side quests should boost your standing in general. Maybe the dialogue options are the key this time. Are there any interviews that discuss the approval/disapproval ratings?
It'll be a good riddance if they remove a relationship bar and a pop-up message.
Those features restrict players from behaving as they feel like because they can see the result of their choice right away.
"Oops, this dialogue choice just lowered the approval by 10. I gotta reload the game and choose the best one although I don't agree with this dialogue at all."
You know I hated this with Fenris. I would agree with him on everything except anything to do with mages, so his relationship was a constant struggle of "Do I leave it as is because it's my opinion or reload so that I pick what he wants to hear."
The best thing about the relationships in the DA2 was that you could rival-mance someone and still disagree with them. I'm wondering what kind of fine line do we have to walk here so that we can still do what we want but keep a fairly good relationship with everyone.
It'll be a good riddance if they remove a relationship bar and a pop-up message.
Those features restrict players from behaving as they feel like because they can see the result of their choice right away.
"Oops, this dialogue choice just lowered the approval by 10. I gotta reload the game and choose the best one although I don't agree with this dialogue at all."
And what's wrong with that? Some people like being friends with everyone and like to please other people. I, for instance, get upset when a companion disapproves and will ALWAYS load a save. I don't find anything wrong with that because I like everyone to like me. To each his own.
And what's wrong with that? Some people like being friends with everyone and like to please other people. I, for instance, get upset when a companion disapproves and will ALWAYS load a save. I don't find anything wrong with that because I like everyone to like me. To each his own.
Muspade disapproves -18.
I really wished they had like, a diary or something that states the approval. It would be somewhere in Skyhold, and you have to go find it. Allows for the mechanic to not be so intrusive, but since I imagine approval is still done via numbers, you still can see them if you want to.
And what's wrong with that? Some people like being friends with everyone and like to please other people. I, for instance, get upset when a companion disapproves and will ALWAYS load a save. I don't find anything wrong with that because I like everyone to like me. To each his own.
.... 
I have a feeling a lot of the people that are supporting the choice to remove friendship bars are not the people who enjoyed maxing friendships and making sure to get all the content possible. For those of us who do wish to get all the friendship content possible, this new system sounds really horrible. I hope at the very least the threshold for maxing out friendship requires a lot less points this time, since there's no reliable way to track it.
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