192 replies to this topic

[congokong]

With Fenris, I suppose he's ultimately unsure of his own opinions and working things out... and just needs a friend. He doesn't just have a problem with mages. He's also lonely and doesn't have anything resembling a home. So he's pulled by these two things. And if you can't get full rivalry, he does finally turn on you. As does Merrill. So I think it's about as realistic as things can be, given the system.

 

I have no problem with, say, Fenris turning on you if he doesn't have max rivalry. I do have a problem with not being able to fully romance characters if you don't get to 100 friendship/rivalry, which can be very hard to do. It also doesn't make sense why Fenris' Questioning Beliefs quest doesn't exist after killing Danarius without 100 friendship/rivalry. Really? You need that just to see him reflect on all that's happened? Same with Isabela after what happened with Castillon. Same with Anders on rivalry too.

[Qun00]

I'd like to add one more question.

There is no "right answer" for this, but which characters do you guys believe that develop better in the rivalry path?

[renfrees]

Merrill.

[vertigomez]

I'd like to add one more question.
There is no "right answer" for this, but which characters do you guys believe that develop better in the rivalry path?

I honestly don't know, because as you say... there's no right answer. In the end it's more about acceptance of the status quo versus encouraging them to reevaluate their stance on certain issues, and no one on this forum can agree that one is unequivocally better for a given companion. (Except with Varric, maybe. I've never met anyone who prefers rivalry with him, even if they didn't like him as a character).

Someone once compared friendship and rivalry to slapping a bandage on a wound versus cauterizing it, and I thought that was an... interesting metaphor.

[renfrees]

I honestly don't know, because as you say... there's no right answer. In the end it's more about acceptance of the status quo versus encouraging them to reevaluate their stance on certain issues, and no one on this forum can agree that one is unequivocally better for a given companion. (Except with Varric, maybe. I've never met anyone who prefers rivalry with him, even if they didn't like him as a character).

Someone once compared friendship and rivalry to slapping a bandage on a wound versus cauterizing it, and I thought that was an... interesting metaphor.

Yeah... I wholeheartedly agree. Everyone has their own view on relationship routes with the companions. It also depends on the type of Hawke you're playing and what story you built for them in your mind - their views on various issues, their background etc. There's also disagreement among the players on what is more desired for a companion; i.e. some people prefer rivalry with Fenris because it challenges his views, but IMHO what he needs most during his time in Kirkwall is healing, recovery from the abuse, and friendship provides this much better. Re-evaluation shall come later.

[congokong]

I'd say Merrill, Anders, and Isabela are most noteworthy for refecting on themselves the most on rivalry. Merrill will reflect on how much her obsession with the mirror has cost her, Anders will realize just how much hold Justice has on him, and Isabela considers being a decent person.

 

With the others on rivalry Sebastian chooses one path over another for his future, Fenris snaps at you more easily (and apologizes right after), Aveline is simply more fun to get under her skin, and Varric keeps making subtle hints that you're a douchebag.

[straykat]

I'd like to add one more question.

There is no "right answer" for this, but which characters do you guys believe that develop better in the rivalry path?

 

I don't know about better, but I'm currently rivaling Anders. I think I did it before, but it's hilarious... and as a mage.

 

"You need to get some sun...."

 

It's kind of difficult to get full rivalry as a Sarcastic Hawke though. Seems like the only character who responds badly to Sarcasm is Aveline (which is great too, but not a romance obviously).

[Sah291]

I don't know about better, but I'm currently rivaling Anders. I think I did it before, but it's hilarious... and as a mage.
 
"You need to get some sun...."
 
It's kind of difficult to get full rivalry as a Sarcastic Hawke though. Seems like the only character who responds badly to Sarcasm is Aveline (which is great too, but not a romance obviously).

Yeah, I like some of sarcastic Hawke's lines with Anders, since Anders is so self righteous and melodramatic all of the time. There's one line though where Hawke seems to actually stop and wonder if he's being a jerk, and is all..."sorry bad joke"... I think only he and Aveline manage to provoke that reaction. Merrill, Isabela and Varric all seem to especially like sarcastic Hawke.

I don't know, I thought the rivalries worked and made sense in this game...I guess they wouldn't have in Origins or Inquisition. But in DA2, they have Hawke and companions outright betraying each other. It was interesting, because the game is all about conflict and clashing of ideas in the lead up to a war.

[straykat]

The other thing I never did before is attack Justice in the Fade. He was pissed later. Luckily, I apparently did it right and you can still romance him if you didn't do Questioning Beliefs yet. I told him that talking to Torpor was a "Ruse".

 

Seems fitting for Rival Sarcastic though.. And I can see why this Hawke is driving Anders insane.

 

Torpor was funny too. This game still delivers.

[Sah291]

Yeah, he has some interesting comments after if you attack him in the fade. That whole quest foreshadows the ending, a lot.

[straykat]

Yeah, he has some interesting comments after if you attack him in the fade. That whole quest foreshadows the ending, a lot.

 

That was my thought too.

 

It's funny it took me so long to even talk to Torpor. I usually just attack him.

[roselavellan]

 

And if you can't get full rivalry, he does finally turn on you. As does Merrill. So I think it's about as realistic as things can be, given the system.

 

Sorry for replying to such an old post, I'm playing DA2 (and about to finish!) for the first time, so this is all new and interesting to me.

 

So am I right in concluding that in this game, people are more likely to love you or be loyal to you if you completely oppose them, rather than just somewhat oppose them? Is that pretty unrealistic, though?

 

I think I understand what Bioware had in mind: the more friendship or rivalry points you have, that means the more you invested in the relationship, but it seems to me that the end result is not very believable. After all, most of our strongest relationships (best friends, spouses, family members etc) will feature largely supportive friendships with some disagreements/rivalry, so to try to push a relationship to full rivalry doesn't seem very realistic to me.

 

Unless I'm misunderstanding the friendship/rivalry system in DA2, I think the approval/disapproval system of DAO (minus the repeatable gift-giving mechanism) and DAI seems a little more realistic, if only for its simplicity.

[straykat]

Sorry for replying to such an old post, I'm playing DA2 (and about to finish!) for the first time, so this is all new and interesting to me.

 

So am I right in concluding that in this game, people are more likely to love you or be loyal to you if you completely oppose them, rather than just somewhat oppose them? Is that pretty unrealistic, though?

 

I think I understand what Bioware had in mind: the more friendship or rivalry points you have, that means the more you invested in the relationship, but it seems to me that the end result is not very believable. After all, most of our strongest relationships (best friends, spouses, family members etc) will feature largely supportive friendships with some disagreements/rivalry, so to try to push a relationship to full rivalry doesn't seem very realistic to me.

 

Unless I'm misunderstanding the friendship/rivalry system in DA2, I think the approval/disapproval system of DAO (minus the repeatable gift-giving mechanism) and DAI seems a little more realistic, if only for its simplicity.

 

It's not more likely, no. They just both work equally.

 

For example, I would say the rivalry with Merrill reminds me of a relationship with someone who is an addict or alcoholic. It's believable enough. I don't know if you've been through it, but it happens to the best of us. Where you love someone, but don't enable them.. and things end up tense because of it.

 

I don't think most of us want to go through anything like that, but it's fun for stories at least.

[Sah291]

@Rosemusk,
Yeah, if your bar is stuck in the middle, I think Bioware assumes you just didn't care enough about that character to pay attention to them....since you get more friendship/rivalry points the more you talk to your companions and take them on quests. So a full bar means you spent more time developing that relationship, not necessarily that you oppose them even more. Although I suppose it's fine to look at it that way too if it works.

[Obadiah]

Rivalry only works for me if I use a guide, otherwise I feel like I'm being unnecessarily anti-mage with Anders, or fascist with Isabela. Merrill is the only person I feel natural rivalling, but oh the vitriol she throws my way at the end of Act 2 - sheesh.

[straykat]

Rivalry only works for me if I use a guide, otherwise I feel like I'm being unnecessarily anti-mage with Anders, or fascist with Isabela. Merrill is the only person I feel natural rivalling, but oh the vitriol she throws my way at the end of Act 2 - sheesh.

 

That's why I like rival but sarcastic. It's not necessarily anti-mage. She's just cool. As in "playing it cool". Not acting like some attention getting revolutionary. I almost think it's a neutral Hawke. Like the one making fun of Anders' manifesto when clicking objects in your house. More than likely, I'll side with the mages in the end, but I like the idea of Anders' forcing her hand.

[roselavellan]

@Rosemusk,
Yeah, if your bar is stuck in the middle, I think Bioware assumes you just didn't care enough about that character to pay attention to them....since you get more friendship/rivalry points the more you talk to your companions and take them on quests. So a full bar means you spent more time developing that relationship, not necessarily that you oppose them even more. Although I suppose it's fine to look at it that way too if it works.

 

Thanks, yes, that's how I thought Bioware intended it to work. I think (as it seems many do) that it feels more natural with some characters than others. With Merrill, there is really only one issue that she's focused on, so as long as you're consistent, there's really only one direction for your relationship to go.

 

Fenris is slightly more complex, so if you're consistently pro-mage and also supportive of his freedom, you could conceivably get a lot of both friendship and rivalry points, thus leaving you in fairly neutral ground. It's just weird to me that Fenris will leave a pro-mage and anti-slavery Hawke (at the final battle), yet will stay with a pro-mage and pro-slavery (and hence full rivalry) Hawke.

 

Anyway, I'm sure this is not the first time it's been said. The friendship/rivalry system is definitely unique, and even if it doesn't feel very natural to me, it is at least interesting.

[straykat]

I think another thing to keep in mind is you have to try your hardest to make any of these seem like good romances. lol

 

They're all potentially bad in one way or another. Definitely not storybook at least. Once you settle with that, it's easier to enjoy and play around with the options. Instead of trying to make them ideal. imho

 

Sort of like the whole story itself. People set themselves up for disappointment if they thought Hawke was a hero. He/she really isn't. But there's fun to be had anyways.

[Sah291]

Well Fenris associates magic/mages with slavery... Hawke might think supporting both mage freedom and opposing slavers is consistent, but Fenris doesn't really think that way...So you have to really work at it to gain his friendship/respect. Anders is the other tricky one because he supports mage freedom, but not blood magic or demons. So yeah you can end up in the middle, but I think the idea was to make it more challenging and surprising, to have characters betray you. We might think the object of the game was for Hawke to stop the war and get everyone to agree and compromise, but the game is all about forcing Hawke to "Champion" a side. A lot of people didn't like this game for that reason I think, since Hawke isn't really a traditional RPG hero.

[Iakus]

  Rivalry with Anders is the only relationship in the game that can be described as hate, but Hawke's friends help him to escape the notice of the templars.

Even then it's mainly hate between Hawke and Justice.  Rivalry with Anders makes him struggle more against Justice more, as shown in The Last Straw where, instead of Justice and Anders becoming one, Anders has been struggling against the merge, and it was Justice who took over and planted the bomb.   

[roselavellan]

I do get the feeling that nothing is black and white, and Hawke just "can't win". Every single romance has a dark side. You can support mage freedom, then watch Anders blow up the Chantry. You can support the Templars, then watch Meredith go lyrium-crazy.

 

The ending is definitely bittersweet (a theme they reprised in DAI, but with the tragedy accentuated for Solasmancers... Grrrrrrr...). I do like it in a way, as it makes me feel a great deal of sympathy for Hawke. (Now I know who I will never again pick for the DAI Fade choice).

 

I was thinking about Merrill - even her friendship/rivalry path can be complicated, if you support repairing the mirror but not blood magic (or vice versa).

[straykat]

Even then it's mainly hate between Hawke and Justice.  Rivalry with Anders makes him struggle more against Justice more, as shown in The Last Straw where, instead of Justice and Anders becoming one, Anders has been struggling against the merge, and it was Justice who took over and planted the bomb.   

 

That's how I see it. The rival wants to coax out the human sides of Anders. At least the sarcastic rival. I think Aggressive is more harsh, and wants to overtly convince them of the Templar point of view. Both Anders and Hawke are directly opposed in that case, trying to convince each other.

[Iakus]

 

I was thinking about Merrill - even her friendship/rivalry path can be complicated, if you support repairing the mirror but not blood magic (or vice versa).

Yeah, in Merrill's case it becomes a question of the ends justifying the means.  You can support reclaiming elven history and magic, but still think she's going too far to do it.

[Sah291]

Yeah the rivalry with Anders is really a rivalry with Justice I think... Rival Hawke thinks Anders is ok, but that Justice is a demon, and encourages Anders to fight off his possession. Friended Hawke seems to accept Justice more or less, and encourages him to control himself...but the more Hawke accepts Justice, the more they merge, and the more Anders is forced to confront his fate.

Either way it's easy to see why Anders doesn't trust Hawke in the end, since Hawke can have such divergent and complicated feelings about Justice. It was also Justice who hated/feared blood mages, and as a spirit it makes sense.

[roselavellan]

Yeah, in Merrill's case it becomes a question of the ends justifying the means.  You can support reclaiming elven history and magic, but still think she's going too far to do it.

 

I actually tried to do that, but there's never an option to repair the mirror by other means, unfortunately. I wish there was an option to say, "Hey, Merrill, perhaps someone else might have studied these eluvians. Let's ask the Asha'bellanar or even the Circle what they might know."