126 réponses à ce sujet

[Korva]

I'd prefer the writers not give us a barrage of terrible contrivances to make every single companion super relevant to the plot, which I'm very certain would happen if everyone was written to have some key role throughout the story.

 

Agreed. I'm all for expanding the companions' involvement, as I said, but not at the cost of having contrived reasons A-Z override my choice to keep or kick them if I really can't stand them. If bringing a companion to a relevant event gives both the character and the mission a bit more depth, great. If you can't do it without them? No thanks. No NPC should ever be the one and only key to a specific door, in no small part because that cheapens everyone else -- other characters, be it PC or NPC, may have a harder time with the same event, but "the most relevant NPC" should not translate to "the only competent person in the whole world".

[leadintea]

I wonder why so many people are focusing on the whole 'I can't stand this party member and I want to kick them out' spiel. I mean, you're stuck with Solas, Cassandra, and Varric, as well as the advisors, and despite how much anyone may dislike them, they are still mandatory characters. What do you do in this case? Did you return the game because you couldn't stomach them or did you tolerate their presence and ignore being around them unless you absolutely needed to interact with them? If having mandatory characters mean that characters I like get important roles in the story, I'm 100% all for it, even if I have to tolerate the characters I dislike.

 

Also, just because you have mandatory characters doesn't mean that you can't roleplay the way you want. You could be an evil ass in both DA:O and DA2, despite having Lawful Good characters like Alistair and Aveline on your team and would only take a blow to their approval, so it's not like they were stopping you from playing a character in the way you wanted to.

[Digger1967]

No I don't think so.

 

Personally I think that having one or two mandatory companions is fine, but no more. Cassandra helped found the Inqusition, Solas is the Fade expert who joined before you, Varric was taken prisoner and cannot walk away in good conscience? All right I can buy that, but more than that and we a pushing it.

 

Sometimes it just doesn't make sense for a character to keep helping you out and they can be important to the plot without being forced on you:

 

Take Isabella in da2. Not just can you not recruit her, you can never meet her despite her being very important to the plot so there is no need to force companions on the PC. 

 

I keep seeing Vivienne should have been a better part of Wicked Eyes, but that has nothing to do with her being mandatory.

 

The sad fact of Vivienne is that she is just not so relevant as she would have us believe. Wherever that is a failing in the writing or a point of the character, I don't know.(I think her greatest fear is being irrellevant so perhaps it is a point).

 

Blackwall has a fine amount of dialog if he is brought along for the "Abyss" - chain. He comments on the wardens in Crestwood, I cannot remember if he has anything to say on the first venture into the approach, but he definitly has thing to do in Adamant. He has a "persuade" option and he can be exiled along with the other wardens. 

 

Having a character be mandatory is not the same as them being written good into the plot.

 

I'd have to agree here.  I really liked the character of Sera, for example - her dialog at Skyhold where she's freaked out because she realizes that if Cory is real, that means the rest of it is probably real too is just amazing.   Listening to her interact with Cassandra and Iron Bull just never ceases to make me laugh.  But her companion quest, however, is positively awful.  I show up and I'm given basically two choices - I can either make a shady, underhanded deal with this weasel of a noble who tried to have me killed or I can stand aside and allow Sera to murder him violently with her bare hands in cold blood while I watch.

 

Sort of flies right in the face of the notion that as the Inquisitor I'm supposed to be a :"Beacon of Law and Justice" now doesn't it?   I can only assume it's written that way so that Sera becomes the "highlight" of the story, but it's so ham handed and awful that it just kills the whole thing and sadly knowing what my choices are I can't really trigger that quest anymore for most of my characters because they aren't presented with any options they would take.

 

I have to admit when I first met him I really didn't care for Varric much, and the fact that the crossbow he carries is supposedly a one of a kind item and yet the game has upgrades for it available at nearly every single merchant plus enough random drops for it to choke a horse just irritates me to no end.  It makes zero sense that if this crossbow is supposedly a one of a kind, unique item and yet it seems that you can't swing a dead cat without hitting something made specifically for it.

 

But after getting to know Varric he's actually kind of grown on me a bit, at least I find some value to the character particularly in certain situations.  Solas, well I really wish I had a dialog option in most conversations that points out to Solas, "You know, for an apostate you are awfully damn preachy".  But he does actually give me some insight into the fade and there's a few scenes with him where he demonstrates something useful as a plot device for the story so despite some of the issues I have with him otherwise at least I see some value in him as a character as well.

 

Sera is fine for comic relief, Vivienne was kind of a disappointment really - at least thus far.  I mean she's got some wonderful promise but just never really seems to step up and contribute much to the story as a whole, at least not in any of the paths I've explored thus far.

 

Cole is pretty much fingernails on a chalkboard for me at least, I see zero value there in any respect.  He adds pretty much nothing to the story, his presence upsets a lot of my current companions and I have to admit if any of them asked me why on earth I let him join the inquisition in character I couldn't even remotely begin to give them an adequate explanation.  It's not like I can tell them "because the game designers went out of their way to make sure that I did".  Sort of destroys the roleplaying aspect of the game entirely, which is probably why I despise that character so much.

 

So no, I really don't want characters "forced" on me nor do I think it's necessary for a good story.  I won't always choose the ones that my character likes personally, I'll chose mostly on what my character thinks is going to be the best for the mission at hand.  

[TheKomandorShepard]

I wonder why so many people are focusing on the whole 'I can't stand this party member and I want to kick them out' spiel. I mean, you're stuck with Solas, Cassandra, and Varric, as well as the advisors, and despite how much anyone may dislike them, they are still mandatory characters. What do you do in this case? Did you return the game because you couldn't stomach them or did you tolerate their presence and ignore being around them unless you absolutely needed to interact with them? If having mandatory characters mean that characters I like get important roles in the story, I'm 100% all for it, even if I have to tolerate the characters I dislike.

 

Also, just because you have mandatory characters doesn't mean that you can't roleplay the way you want. You could be an evil ass in both DA:O and DA2, despite having Lawful Good characters like Alistair and Aveline on your team and would only take a blow to their approval, so it's not like they were stopping you from playing a character in the way you wanted to.

No i didn't return game but it definitely had negative influence on my experience with game and in fact even story suffered when leliana threatened her superior and game refused to provide us with any sensible resonse on that or in other instances disobeyed our orders and again we could do nothing about it.

 

It often means that i can't roleplay character i want i already pointed leliana and anders before as examples of that the only way alistair worked because you were free to ignore his opinion and do as please he didn't do anything about it and followed your orders thus no much reason to kick him out.Then we have above examples.   

[Xilizhra]

I'd have to agree here.  I really liked the character of Sera, for example - her dialog at Skyhold where she's freaked out because she realizes that if Cory is real, that means the rest of it is probably real too is just amazing.   Listening to her interact with Cassandra and Iron Bull just never ceases to make me laugh.  But her companion quest, however, is positively awful.  I show up and I'm given basically two choices - I can either make a shady, underhanded deal with this weasel of a noble who tried to have me killed or I can stand aside and allow Sera to murder him violently with her bare hands in cold blood while I watch.

Take the Nobility Knowledge perk. You'll have a third option.

[Wulfram]

I think it's contrived that all these character who nominally have a whole bunch of important assets and skills end up contributing nothing to the Inquisition but muscle.

[Xilizhra]

I think it's contrived that all these character who nominally have a whole bunch of important assets and skills end up contributing nothing to the Inquisition but muscle.

That's not entirely true. Iron Bull adds a lot of war table missions in various places. Vivienne has that part about stopping red lyrium smugglers. Dorian can help hunt down Venatori and shift Tevinter politics in the Inquisition's favor. Blackwall has the Grey Warden treaties, even if those don't work out so well. Sera has the Friends of Red Jenny able to help out on a lot of various operations. Only Cole is the exception, and he never claimed not to be.

[Fiery Phoenix]

That's not entirely true. Iron Bull adds a lot of war table missions in various places. Vivienne has that part about stopping red lyrium smugglers. Dorian can help hunt down Venatori and shift Tevinter politics in the Inquisition's favor. Blackwall has the Grey Warden treaties, even if those don't work out so well. Sera has the Friends of Red Jenny able to help out on a lot of various operations. Only Cole is the exception, and he never claimed not to be.

I'm not sure any of those tie into the plot in any meaningful way, though. They are secondarily related at best. The majority of the companions in this game are simply not needed for the story to continue. Exceptions are Cassandra, Solas, Varric, and either Dorian or Cole. Everyone else is utterly disposable.

[Xilizhra]

I'm not sure any of those tie into the plot in any meaningful way, though. They are secondarily related at best. The majority of the companions in this game are simply not needed for the story to continue. Exceptions are Cassandra, Solas, Varric, and either Dorian or Cole. Everyone else is utterly disposable.

True enough, but it's not the same thing as "contributing nothing to the Inquisition."

[Wulfram]

That's not entirely true. Iron Bull adds a lot of war table missions in various places. Vivienne has that part about stopping red lyrium smugglers. Dorian can help hunt down Venatori and shift Tevinter politics in the Inquisition's favor. Blackwall has the Grey Warden treaties, even if those don't work out so well. Sera has the Friends of Red Jenny able to help out on a lot of various operations. Only Cole is the exception, and he never claimed not to be.

OK, I overstated things there.

They contribute to the Inquisition somewhat, but their optional nature means none of these things actually have any influence on the main plot, and thus they don't really contribute to the fight against Corypheus.

[Fiery Phoenix]

True enough, but it's not the same thing as "contributing nothing to the Inquisition."

That's true. Personally, I'd take contributing to the main plot over contributing to the Inquisition any day of the week.

[Digger1967]

Take the Nobility Knowledge perk. You'll have a third option.

 

Unless my third option is having him arrested it wouldn't really be in character for me, and not sure how having Nobility Knowledge would be required to open up the one reasonable response that should have been available from the get go.

 

But next time I get to that point in the game I'll take nobility knowledge and try it - frankly I'm not all that hopeful that it will salvage that poorly written side quest though.

[Korva]

I wonder why so many people are focusing on the whole 'I can't stand this party member and I want to kick them out' spiel. I mean, you're stuck with Solas, Cassandra, and Varric, as well as the advisors, and despite how much anyone may dislike them, they are still mandatory characters. What do you do in this case? Did you return the game because you couldn't stomach them or did you tolerate their presence and ignore being around them unless you absolutely needed to interact with them?

 

I like the advisors and those three mandatory NPCs, they're not a problem. They're credibly on my side, working for the same goal, get along with each other for the most part, and don't go out of their way to make an utter nuisance out of themselves. My issue is primarily with characters for whom much or all of this is not true. Few things are worse than disruptive tossers who get away with everything because game mechanics don't allow me to do anything about them.

 

If having mandatory characters mean that characters I like get important roles in the story, I'm 100% all for it, even if I have to tolerate the characters I dislike.

 

That's your opinion, but I have to say I can't agree. As I said, the endgame of Inquisition was nails on chalkboard for me because it was so much Morrigan-w*nk. The thought of having to suffer through that crap for the majority of the unavoidable content would absolutely make me skip a game because it would not only mean having to deal with that constant annoyance, but also with the constant reminder that what I want doesn't amount to a hill of beans. Might as well read a book then, that's considerably cheaper too.

 

Also, just because you have mandatory characters doesn't mean that you can't roleplay the way you want. You could be an evil ass in both DA:O and DA2, despite having Lawful Good characters like Alistair and Aveline on your team and would only take a blow to their approval, so it's not like they were stopping you from playing a character in the way you wanted to.

 

But, again, that is actually a pretty glaring problem in my book because guts characters who are never allowed to draw a line in the sand and say enough is enough, this sh*t ends right here and now. I want NPCs who get in my face and ditch my worthless hide if I annoy them just as much as I want to get in their face and ditch their worthless hide if they annoy me. Everyone just ends up looking pathetic, uncaring, stupid or hypocritical otherwise, and that's sheer poison for characters who are supposed to be strong and interesting. This is true for both the protagonist and the NPCs. I don't wish that even on characters I hate, and I certainly don't wish it on my character either.

[leadintea]

I like the advisors and those three mandatory NPCs, they're not a problem. They're credibly on my side, working for the same goal, get along with each other for the most part, and don't go out of their way to make an utter nuisance out of themselves. My issue is primarily with characters for whom much or all of this is not true. Few things are worse than disruptive tossers who get away with everything because game mechanics don't allow me to do anything about them.

 

Good for you that you like the mandatory characters in this game, but what about the people who don't like them? They still have to deal with those characters even if they rub them the wrong way and most people wouldn't return or stop playing the game just because a few plot important characters bother them. The keyword here is tolerance. You don't have to like a character to enjoy the game, but you can tolerate them if it makes the game a stronger experience.

 

 

That's your opinion, but I have to say I can't agree. As I said, the endgame of Inquisition was nails on chalkboard for me because it was so much Morrigan-w*nk. The thought of having to suffer through that crap for the majority of the unavoidable content would absolutely make me skip a game because it would not only mean having to deal with that constant annoyance, but also with the constant reminder that what I want doesn't amount to a hill of beans. Might as well read a book then, that's considerably cheaper too.

 

You make it seem as though just because party members will be mandatory means every scene has to involve around them. It doesn't. All it means is that those characters will get more importance and interactivity in the plot. At most, the character may get a plotline or 2 to themselves, but if you were able to deal with Morrigan, I'm sure you can stomach having your most hated companions be the center of a quest that'll probably span the length of an hour or so, after which you won't have to see them in the spotlight any longer. If you want to be negative and focus all your energy on letting a couple (if even that) of your least favorite characters drag down the entire game for you, that's your prerogative, but I'll be enjoying seeing my favorite characters actually interact, influence, and shape the plot even if a Dorian or Merrill is there for the ride.

 

 

But, again, that is actually a pretty glaring problem in my book because guts characters who are never allowed to draw a line in the sand and say enough is enough, this sh*t ends right here and now. I want NPCs who get in my face and ditch my worthless hide if I annoy them just as much as I want to get in their face and ditch their worthless hide if they annoy me. Everyone just ends up looking pathetic, uncaring, stupid or hypocritical otherwise, and that's sheer poison for characters who are supposed to be strong and interesting. This is true for both the protagonist and the NPCs. I don't wish that even on characters I hate, and I certainly don't wish it on my character either.

 

Again, people can make characters that disagree with all 3 mandatory characters and they'll still stay with you til the end because they realize the importance of the Inquisition despite not getting along with the Inquisitor themselves, so this point pretty much means bupkis. As long as both the PC and NPCs have a goal in common, it doesn't matter whether they like each other or not as long as they can help each other accomplish the task at hand.

[eyezonlyii]

I don't see why this is such a huge thing. Especially jarring when every time I talk to Sera I get the KICK FROM INQUISITION option on the convo wheel, but no one else has that in every conversation. If they're going to be mandatory make them so, if they're going to be optional, do that instead.

 

i will say I liked the way Mass Effect 3 handled it: Every character was pretty much mandatory, and every one of them had 1 mission where they couldn't be taken from the party. This made it so that everyone had they're time to shine and then you could either deal with them or not depending on your Shepard. The only exceptions to this were the Virmire survivor (Kaidan or Ashley) and the Mass Effect 2 squadmates. But this worked because as someone pointed out above, you weren't the head of the major Reaper resistance group, you were a field (well ship) commander, so choosing who was on board the vessel was essentially above you, but you still could choose who was in the mission.

 

I think this is an overall problem with Inquisition though. Both the conflict and the player's role in it were far too large. I mean really, the Inquisitor themselves, should never be on the front lines, especially when there is no clear cut successor to that seat should you fall in battle. This is especially glaring when you go through the dialogue options asking why you were made Inqusitor to begin with and they say pretty much because no one else was qualified. 

 

Long story short, I would like mandatory companions, so long as they were plot relevant and had an in character and justifiable reason for staying. Really the rivalry system from DA2 would have worked out even better in this game than in that one because at least here everyone had the same goal of stopping Cory. It never was made clear why a "rival" would stay with Hawke, especially a romanced one. 

[Korva]

Good for you that you like the mandatory characters in this game, but what about the people who don't like them?

 

I can't speak for them and don't claim to have that right either, simple as that.

 

The keyword here is tolerance. You don't have to like a character to enjoy the game, but you can tolerate them if it makes the game a stronger experience.

 

People who says this keep ignoring that it doesn't make for a "stronger" or "better" experience for everyone. I respect that it's your opinion, but it definitely isn't true for me. Also, the point of paying for a game is to have fun with it. How much utterly non-fun crap are we supposed to "tolerate" without any say in the matter?

 

You make it seem as though just because party members will be mandatory means every scene has to involve around them. It doesn't. All it means is that those characters will get more importance and interactivity in the plot. At most, the character may get a plotline or 2 to themselves,

 

If every character is mandatory and crucial to the plot, then pretty much every mission in the main story will revolve around them because there's only so much plot to go around -- even if we had a game in which the "plot to pointless filler" content ratio was reversed from what it is in Inquisition (and goodness do I ever hope they will reverse it for their next game).

 

but if you were able to deal with Morrigan, I'm sure you can stomach having your most hated companions be the center of a quest that'll probably span the length of an hour or so, after which you won't have to see them in the spotlight any longer.

 

If by "deal with" it, you mean fast-forward through every single time she opened her mouth (which I never do otherwise) and just wishing it was over already but knowing the rest of the game would likely be more of the same BS, yes. Great fun. We're talking about the supposed climax of the game here. The fact that some NPC can intrude on that and basically take over the whole show regardless of what the player wants, the fact that it basically broke that climax and my immersion in it for me, isn't exactly an inconsequential little thing. The endgame is where, more than at any other point in the story, I want my own character and the companions I like and trust the most to shine and come together -- not have an intruder forced on me.

 

If you want to be negative and focus all your energy on letting a couple (if even that) of your least favorite characters drag down the entire game for you, that's your prerogative, but I'll be enjoying seeing my favorite characters actually interact, influence, and shape the plot even if a Dorian or Merrill is there for the ride.

 

And they can still do that if the writers DON'T jackhammer them down our throats. Make it optional but beneficial to bring a certain character, just don't roadblock the whole mission -- especially the main story -- for those who choose not do. Yes, resources are limited. But as I said, reduce the pointless filler content and focus more or plot and characters, and there's a chance to give everyone a better shot at spotlight time. Plus, it's not like Bioware doesn't already "waste" a lot of resources on other entirely optional things like romances, or on little story splits like the mage/templar choice.

 

Again, people can make characters that disagree with all 3 mandatory characters and they'll still stay with you til the end because they realize the importance of the Inquisition despite not getting along with the Inquisitor themselves, so this point pretty much means bupkis. As long as both the PC and NPCs have a goal in common, it doesn't matter whether they like each other or not as long as they can help each other accomplish the task at hand.

 

You're not replying to what I said. I was not talking about mere disagreements but about actively and continuously antagonizing each other and how patently ridiculous it is in my book when nobody is allowed to ever do anything about it, no matter how character-breaking that is. NPCs shouldn't be punching bags for the PC's (or other NPCs') verbal abuse, and I certainly don't want my own character to be an NPC's punching bag either. For me, credible team cohesion based on a minimum of mutual respect and trust are at the core of an enjoyable experience with the NPCs in a game. I've zero patience for pissing contents, lol im 2 k3wl 4 u jerkoffs, or other kinds of spiteful, selfish or flat-out abusive behavior, especially when I'm supposed to trust these characters with my life, the lives of the people I'm responsible for, and the fate of the whole bloody world.

 

If the only way to make a character look good or to keep them around is to take away other characters' agency, that is crappy writing as far as I'm concerned. Entice me to want to see more of a character, show me why they're worthy of a spot in the story, worthy of being a friend or at least a reliable asset. Again, using force does not accomplish that, it accomplishes the opposite.

[Akkos]

While roleplaying, I think people still don't know the difference between a "nobody" who becomes somebody with followers, and someone who is "gifted" with something special that turn out to be an important figure for a group of followers...     Apart from the fact that this is still a game.

[ThePhoenixKing]

Personally, I don't think the really issue is making followers essential so much as it is making them people you'd actually want to interact with. It was bad enough having to experience Sera and Vivienne as followers you could refuse to recruit, but having the pair of them forced on me? That's a level of Hell Dante dared not consider.

 

In the first game, most of your companions were optional (I believe, I haven't really tested that out), but they were all so well-written that you felt compelled to interact and associate with them. Even if you didn't, the threat of the Blight was so effectively presented that you'd want to take them along, if for no other reason than to have more bodies to throw against the darkspawn. In Inquisition, the characters are far-less compelling, and the threat of the Elder One doesn't have the same intensity and impact that the Blight did, so there's less of a need to stick with someone you'd rather not have around. In Origins, I wanted the companions to stick around and offer their insights. In Inquisition, it was pretty much Eight Deadly Words time.

[esh1996]

Reading through the responses I can see that we're divided roughly 50:50, those of us who would happily sacrifice a role play feature for a potentially better story and those who would happily sacrifice a potentially better story for a role playing feature (normally an opinion caused by a dislike for one or more characters).

Personally my opinion comes from my belief that the quality of the characters far outshines the poor plot of inquisition. And therefore would have preferred a game where the story focused more on them, instead of what we got where the story felt like a series of epic events (Mage/Templar, adamant, winter palace and temple of mythal...) loosly tied together by the laughably weak threat of Corypheus, a villain who's crowning moment is destroying a practically defenceless church...

Maybe I'm just tired of the very black and white conflicts we get in most stories. After the LOTR, Star Wars, Harry Potter and so on i'm growing tired of the cliche 'chosen one' who is the only hope against the 'unstoppable evil' type stories. That's why Game of Thrones is so popular right now, because although there are great Heros and Villians the factions aren't either truly good to truly evil, it's up to the readers/audience to chose who to support... Maybe a better plot line for DA:I would have been one which focused on a more human conflict? The Mage-Templar war, the Orleasian Civil War, the potential conflict between Orlais and Ferelden, the Black Divine vs the Southern Divine, issues with the Tevinter Imperium, the mistreatment of Elves and ultimately the reawakening of the Elven Pantheon... All plot lines I would have been far more invested in than Corypheus... And all plot lines which could have involved the followers in ways which made them more valuable to the game and story than just muscle.

[Hazegurl]

No, I don't want mandatory characters, If I don't like a companion I want the option to send them packing. DAO had it right with having Morrigan show up later if you decide to kick her out. If DAO was done today, Morrigan would have been mandatory to keep around. In DAO, if you don't like her, kick her, and she'll show up later for plot stuff.  I do like having companion quests like how they presented it in ME2. At least I felt like there was a true purpose to having these people around, and I worked for someone so it wasn't my say so to kick them.  In DAI, it makes no sense to keep most of these people around. Once you recruit them it's over, you're stuck with them unless you get them to hate you and even then only Blackwall, Dorian, and Cole splits.

 

The game can still integrate companions into the plot whether we keep them around or not. Why can't we run into them again? Perhaps they joined the bad guy because we kicked them. Maybe they show up for revenge on their own. Or they form their own group to compete against you. Or they form their own group and there are missions where you have to work with them.

[Gervaise]

There are always going to be pros and cons to this discussion.    I like the fact that if you are a total s**t to someone they may leave.    It means there are consequences to what you do.    In DA2 Anders were integral to the plot but you could say you wanted nothing more to do with him.   So he left and you couldn't use him.    Of course he turns up later and this could make you wonder (in character rather than from a meta gaming view) if you could have done anything to prevent it had you kept him close.     May be it is a bit more difficult to imagine someone walking out when the fate of the world is at stake, rather than some personal issue, but it does make the characters more credible that they can't abide working with someone.     I always thought it bad that if you gave Fenris back to his master, not only was it so late in the game that it meant diddly squat in terms of approval/disapproval points, since most were already locked in, but no one felt strongly enough about it to say, sorry I can't work with you any more.   One thing about Isabella was that if you didn't have higher enough friendship/rivalry points, she just ran off and didn't come back.   That was realistic.

 

Where I would agree with the original OP was that the ending would have been more meaningful (and encouraged you to use people/speak to them more) if it had been like at the end of ME2.     I found that one of the most rewarding and satisfying endings in a game because I knew that had I not upgraded my ship or got to know someone better, things might have been very different.    Just knowing enough about the character's skill set to make the right choice was significant.     I know someone who made a wrong choice because they were too swayed by their emotional response to one character and so chose them for a task in preference to someone who was better suited.    As a result, someone they really liked died.       That really challenges you to role play effectively.

 

As it was, whilst how much you interacted with someone might affect the epilogue, it really had no bearing on what occurred in the main story.    Also any upgrades to the Keep had no significance whatsoever, so far as I could tell, and very little visual impact either.    I thought may be that Cory and his dragon would attack Skyhold and so make your choice to upgrade or not, and how, important but sadly this was not the case.

[Lukas Trevelyan]

*snip*

 Bioware drew the line of desperation for help pretty well.

I do not want a bloody Qunari spy in my ranks. My inquisitor may want help, but he won't accept it from someone who can very easily turn into an enemy. (consider the history of them in Kirkwall)

Then I recruited Sera, who has infuriated me time and again. One of the most satisfying game moments for me is when I hit max disapproval on her, and kicked her out. She exactly the kind of person I hate in real life and I'm thankful I never have to forcefully put up with her crap.

 

The beauty about optional companions is that it adds choice and RP options, you can't take that away and expect the RP experience to stay the same. 

[Korva]

Personally, I don't think the really issue is making followers essential so much as it is making them people you'd actually want to interact with.

 

Exactly! You can't force people to like, trust or be interested in a character -- in fact, that can very easily backfire. It's a "show, don't tell" thing of sorts.

 

Personally my opinion comes from my belief that the quality of the characters far outshines the poor plot of inquisition.

 

That I can agree with. It's not the first time either, but in Inquisition it's especially glaring because the main plot is so short and deflates so hard the further along you get, with the overwhelming majority of the game consisting of disconnected filler content. A huge mistake, IMO.

 

It's not like Inquisition didn't have story "hooks" that fascinated me, that I wanted to explore and engage and struggle with. But most of them didn't actually go anywhere or mean anything. That happens quite a bit in Bioware games, and it always frustrates me. So I definitely sympathize with the desire for a better story. One that doesn't feel like a hastily tacked-on afterthought instead of the flesh and blood and bones of the game as it should have been.

[ThePhoenixKing]

Exactly! You can't force people to like, trust or be interested in a character -- in fact, that can very easily backfire. It's a "show, don't tell" thing of sorts.

 

To be frank, Inquisition has a whole has a "show, don't tell" problem, not merely when it comes to the characters, but I totally get where you're coming from. There's nothing more frustrating that a creator tried to shove his or her preferred character down the throats of the audience; it never works out.

[Lavaeolus]

A mandatory companion can both help and hurt a story. My rambling thoughts.

The main problem, as you might expect, is that a mandatory companion can pretty much break the roleplaying. Not so bad with Cassandra and co., because hell they were already recruited before you were, but I've seen SWTOR brought up a few times and a classic example is Skadge, a Bounty Hunter companion. Skadge is a exceedingly dark-side sod who sort of marches onto the ship after you beat him up and laughs at you if you ask him to leave. He's a poor fit for virually any player: those more "light-sided" or even just in-between are going to be disgusted and probably end up killing him but magically can't, the dark-siders are going to be annoyed because he belittles them, threatens them, and reduces the Bounty Hunter to making empty threats because, as said, they cannot actually kill him either. Another problem was Agent's Kaliyo, who fits in with some Agents, but is anti-authoritarian as **** in a class that fundamentally asks, as part of your character-defining, if you're loyal to the Empire -- so she'll fundamentally clash with most Agents, and the stories only continue with high affection (she's also your only companion for half the game, and her questline is built around being your "Partner in Crime" as it were).

Make no mistake, roleplaying is a fundamental part of an RPG story, or at least one like Dragon Age (Final Fantasy aren't "role-playing" games in the same sense, The Walking Dead is actually closer in the sense I use here). The main character is part of the plot, not someone who just happens to be there and watches the plot be put into effect by NPCs or never really does anything active but prance around being called the Chosen One. If they're not an active player, the plot should probably not be about the outside events so much but rather the character's coping with them, for instance. If the game has a theme, it should be incorporated into the roleplaying: e.g. Inquisition, faith, are you Andrastian? Do you believe in the Maker, but not believe you were chosen? Don't actually know?

Mandatory companions aren't in my view necessarily bad, but they'll need to be written from a certain perspective. Skadge might be out, but Kaliyo -- who has the necessary set-up for being recruited against your wishes, thanks to Keeper -- could easily be salvaged (well, maybe too harsh a word, she's still a fairly good companion in the game) simply with the better implementation of an essentially "for better or worse, I'm stuck with you" version. In this case, she'd vary from being a friend to a potential counterpart for your Agent, though granted that would take more resources. The Inquisitor, I'll note, is largely a leader figure, so that makes the latter "well we're stuck together" angle a lot tougher to sell, since there's question of "Why don't I just fire you?".