11 réponses à ce sujet

[Lanerith]

Since there are slider options for defining things, it would be nice if romance was closer defined by each character. To think that a character doesn't have preferences (as in DA2) is silly, but it is equally strange that all characters don't have physical preferences. An individual may be friendly and enjoy the company of a variety of people, but for romance they have preferences. That's not to say their base preferences might not be overcome. No one is perfect and a person may overlook attributes that aren't their ideal for other attributes. However, that greatly depends on the person.

 

I feel that the characters in DA are too open minded. There should  be more to them than just their sexual preference. We have sliders that define a variety of things concerning the character. To set ranges of what a character considers attractive wouldn't be difficult. This could further limit what romance options are available on a playthrough, or how much work is involved in establishing a romance. The best work from bioware has restrictions. Moving one way means you lose something else. That's why we replay the games. We want to see those other things. Quick saves that allow us to quickly delve into different romances or various side plots make it too easy. When things are different from far off choices or even character creation, it spurs people to play through with a different character and style of play from beginning to end. The trick is to have enough differences so that the playthroughs aren't drawn out and boring.

 

But things such as "attractiveness" can separate romance initiation as well. Do a companion have a tendency to flirt with the main character? Does it start because of physical (slider) attraction or perhaps based on how the main character acts? Is the companion considered more shallow and flirtatious or does it seek deeper meaning? Or perhaps the main character must start the flirtation and slowly draw the other out to overcome bias. A lot more depth can be placed into the romance section, but not just romance as in "love", but in the entire interactions between npc and main character. I know this has been done to some extent, but it would be cool to see it improved upon. Even in origins, Alistair drops the whole mage bias pretty quickly when it comes to the main character. In DA2, we saw that bias didn't change as easily. However, the reactions were too cut and dry. If the main character was a mage, s/he basically had to just bash all mages through the entire game if a companion had a bias against mages. It wasn't really possible to use your own actions to slowly change the other party's mind concerning their hard stance against mages; ie, not all mages are bad.

 

This brings up another issue. Dialog is not the only action a character does in the game. In DA2 I always laughed when I had Leliana pickpocket a reverend mother or a sister of the chantry. Such "orders" should be refused by the character. Witnessing such actions should have an effect on a character. A lot of different quests don't always trigger a reaction, even though the quest shouldn't sit well with a companion. The reason being that the markers would tend to be in dialog choices, not if you just took a quest.

 

The reason I mention this is because it doesn't actually require a lot of extra dialog (which is costly these days with voice overs and the required variations/animations, etc). It just requires establishing a larger footprint of defining the character's bias, tolerance, etc and applying the necessary information to the actions, people, quests, etc. Character A doesn't like organization B. Doing quests for Organization B should ****** Character A off, perhaps enough not to join in the quest. Character C is devoted to people of category D. Doing anything that is bad for category D people should upset Character C (stealing, killing, quests who's end result would be bad for them even if it's a political effect).

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Murdan]

It was probably said already - but I miss player controled dialogues that were in previous DA.

It is quite strange when companions keep talking even in the middle of a fight. On the other hand there are times when they are quiet for a long time. In Origin you could talk to them outside of the camp - I don't miss that, but in DA II you could click on your companion and he started to talk about the place or the situation. That is something I would like to have back. 

[LightningPoodle]

[Lanerith]

it's a tough decision. When you look at Baldur's Gate or Planescape: Torment you realize the number of dialog lines can be huge. Current CRPG still has a lot of lines of dialog, but each line costs a lot more due to the voice acting. What I loved about older games and to some degree DA:O was the number of bystanders that would just talk as expected of their lives. There always seemed to be diversity for each character. The amount of writing time and thought that went into ensuring all the background characters were unique and not repetitive was incredible. I tried to keep my suggestion more in the realm of functionality and less in the realm of more dialog, although the nature of it would still spark a little more dialog options.

 

But you are right. Not just depth of character, but situation awareness is important. If characters have a lot to say about where you are and what you are doing, it creates a better immersion.

[Eronair]

well let's all be honest here. if they used a little less money on some of the filler quests, and a bit of that money on making a lot of the things you just mentioned into reality, i think it would have befitted the game as a whole.

what (in part) makes DA an interesting game, is your companions reaction to how you fair in given situations. And i believe that if you put more decisions with consequences, more of the interactive party banter and make romance sequences require a bit more work. Then you have a far more enjoyable game then having to run through fetch quests. BioWare could even apply a EXP system or make a completely new system for tracking your party relations that could give you benefits later on in the game.

 

i definitely think your on to something that could become amazing if applied to the game.

[Murdan]

 

Damn, Im trying to have some serious discussion here and the only thing I get are jokes

But really, it looks weird, but it was practical  

[nightscrawl]

It is highly unlikely they would use any sort of attractiveness scale. It is very subjective.

 

Let's just take the CC options present in DAI... Not only are there sliders with specific options -- hair 1, skin complexion 3, scar 2, etc -- but the use of the click-drag box (I'm sure there is a name for this I'm just not aware of) would make determining attractiveness difficult. We are not attractive based on individual features (although some may focus on particular features, like eyes), but rather as an amalgamation of the whole which our brains register in a certain way, and for the most part where we will (usually unconsciously) compare to societal standards, which themselves vary by culture.

 

So I don't think they would have romance restrictions or limitations based around anything like that. BUT, I would like to see the NPC comment regarding a specific feature. Dorian has a nice flirt about the Inquisitor's eyes. I think a HUGELY missed opportunity was Iron Bull not commenting on a red-haired Inquisitor, since he specifically mentions a liking for them a couple of times. I'd think this would have been doable because the hair color is a slider option in the CC which will correspond to a number in the code, as opposed to say, the shape of the nose which is done with the click-drag box.

 

That said... just because you are not open minded enough to enjoy such a variety of physicality in a romantic partner doesn't mean that the followers in Thedas can't be. Also, the romances don't typically start immediately, even if your PC flirts with the person. The NPC might not find you instantly attractive for whatever reason, perhaps you're not their 'type,' but then the importance of that can move lower as they get to know and like you as a person.

[Magdalena11]

I'm really not sure what OP is asking for.  Regarding attractiveness sliders, how would that mechanic work, exactly?  Would romance only be possible for one head preset or hair color or something?  There are no body presets other than race and gender, so that wouldn't change anything.  As far as moral attractiveness, for at least a few companions, if not all, a certain level of approval needs to be present in order for dialog lines to appear, I think.  And yes, some actions cut off romance.  Drinking from the Well of Sorrows ends Sera's, and threatening the guy with Dorian's locket ends his.  Blackwall can be left to rot in jail, locking in the romance but precluding others, while making him unavailable to the party.  Cullen won't remain with an inquisitor who orders him to take lyrium.

[Lee80]

The romances don't need to be gated by appearance.  It's already complicated enough with the current system. 

[In Exile]

It's not hard to come up with an attractive-metric. Essentially, you'd just use the numerical representation of the CC and assign an "attraction" value to each CC value that makes up the character's face, and then presumably have some thresholds (if you're going to create varied content) to it. You could probably pair it up with approval as a romance trigger. 

 

But what would be the point? In a dating sim, I guess I could sort of see the value - except that then who'd want to play a dating sim where everyone just thinks their character is ugly? - but in an RPG it just seems like misallocated resources. 

 

What would be the gain for the resources? While I take your point that you don't expect much dialogue - but think the existence of the underlying mechanics would create versimiltude - but it seems costly to me to even get it off the ground. 

[Magdalena11]

It's not hard to come up with an attractive-metric. Essentially, you'd just use the numerical representation of the CC and assign an "attraction" value to each CC value that makes up the character's face, and then presumably have some thresholds (if you're going to create varied content) to it. You could probably pair it up with approval as a romance trigger. 

 

But what would be the point? In a dating sim, I guess I could sort of see the value - except that then who'd want to play a dating sim where everyone just thinks their character is ugly? - but in an RPG it just seems like misallocated resources. 

 

What would be the gain for the resources? While I take your point that you don't expect much dialogue - but think the existence of the underlying mechanics would create versimiltude - but it seems costly to me to even get it off the ground. 

No, it's not hard to come up with an attractiveness metric, and it's already been done.  There have been numerous studies involving the ratio of mouth or nose size to cultural norms, some highly specific testing that tracks eye movement over an image to see where vision lingers longest, etc.  I think that if that were the case, inquisitors would have little motivation for personalizing.  It would be much more interesting to have an inverse attractiveness meter of desirability, for instance, someone who doesn't trust "beautiful" people.  There might be some story potential for someone with a beauty-and-the-beast complex.

 

The point is, that kind of romance just seems a little tacky.  What would be the point of such a LI?  It seems like the only reason to do it would be to compare players' interpretations of beauty.  That's not a good road to go down.

[Lanerith]

The point of gating and adjusting bias in romance is to alter replayability. Does a character flirt with you, or do you have to chase after them? Perhaps the character is completely physically oriented? I'm sorry, but your tattoos are a big turnoff. Can't we just be friends.

 

But beyond romances, I think they should keep a close eye on actions done outside of dialog as well.  All I'm really asking for is a little more depth to the companions. Make them more realistic even within the scope of the DA world.