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Post by deina on Dec 17, 2014 12:13:01 GMT
To separate from the main spoilers' thread. Your thoughts about companions, their personalities, romances and so on. I am still fairly early in the game (and on my firts playthrough I'm just following the main plot anyway) and haven't got Vivienne and Sera yet. So I will write and extended review on a later date, but for now: I love them! First of all, I am surprised how much I like Cassandra (and also how much approval I am getting from her). Solas turns out to be a fascinating character but doesn't interest me romantically (as it turns out - thank the Maker for that). Iron Bull and Dorian are my best buddies, I am romancing Cullen, but still have a hard time to refrain from flirting with Blackwall. Cole moves my heart and Varric is, well, Varric:) Leliana seems a bit strange, like a darker, more bitter version of herself, but Josie is a treasure and a darling.
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Post by Aeryn on Dec 17, 2014 22:04:19 GMT
Leliana has definitely become the Liara of Dragon Age. I get it - she went through some tough stuff, her mentor is dead, she murders people for a living, etc, but she's kind of insane. I don't know if it's a bug or what, but I've tried keeping her as "soft" as possible, from Origins onward, and she STILL gets all renegade on her personal quest (and blames the Inquisitor for it). But then she turns around and makes funny banters in the war room and stuff, and that makes it worse because she's like two (or three) different characters shoved into one body. Weird. Josephine is a bit dry, in my opinion, but I like her well enough. **NPC/NPC ROMANCE SPOILERS!!!!!**Her thing with Blackwall pisses me right off because I should totally be able to make them see reason and hook up for real. The whole "tragic love" thing is stupid.**END SPOILERS** And I utterly detest her personal quest. Should have just left it to Leli, heh. Cullen has become an amazing character. He's strong, confident in his skills, has a sense of humor! and yet he's really grounded and can admit to his faults. He's believable, and that's huge for me. I adore his romance to pieces, though as I said elsewhere, I wish there was another scene or two dealing with his withdrawals. That's a big deal in a relationship situation, and it felt really downplayed. I've never taken Vivienne anywhere. I didn't like her, or even remember she was around most of the time. But, doing her person quest made me realize that she might actually be not completely terrible. I have to try bringing her with me on my next character. I adore Cole to tiny pieces, but that was to be expected. Still, he's even better than I thought he would be. I take Iron Bull with me everywhere, even when I don't intend to. He just sneaks his way in. I adore his romance, and it's possible he's going to be my favorite for female Inquisitors. **NPC/NPC ROMANCE SPOILERS!!!!!**I hear he and Dorian will hook up under the right circumstances, but in my game where I'm romancing Dorian, Bull and Casandra actually seem really close. She tells him flat out it'll never happen, but there's a few conversations where I'm left wondering if she's full of crap, heh.**END SPOILERS** Speaking of Casandra, I also really like her. She's another that strikes me as very believable, so strong in certain ways, but clearly lacking in others, which is what makes a person real. She's also unstoppable in combat, which helps. Sera took a long time to grow on me. I still don't consider her a favorite, but I've at least gotten a handle on what motivates her. Sort of. She's too hard to please. I can't imagine romancing her - she's too much like an overgrown child. I did not like Dorian at ALL at first, but he's now my favorite romance for male Inquisitors. And not just because of his magical butt. Taking him with me helped a whole lot. His banters with everyone are great, and show that despite his vanity and snobbishness, he's actually very sympathetic. His evolving relationship with Blackwall is a great example. I like Varric. Of course. I wish there were more opportunities to relax over a card game, but that goes for all the companions I suppose. I don't have much to say about Solas that isn't full of spoilers, but I like him most of the time. He doesn't always like my Inquisitors, though. I do find it really irritating that if you start his romance, there's no way to shut it down. Not that it isn't pleasant enough - I think he's got the best kiss animations of all the romances - it's just weird that he locks you in. Blackwall's major spoiler totally blindsided me, which is great! I'm glad I wasn't romancing him the first time through, though, because I think I would have hated him for it. It's interesting to replay knowing the truth (same could be said for Solas as well) because you'll notice so many little things you should have seen the first time. I like him, and I feel for him.
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Post by Shades of Night on Dec 18, 2014 6:33:39 GMT
Yup Leliana, I thought the exact same thing, Liara 2.0.
I didn't even know that there was a 'good' and 'bad' version of her you could get at first until I looked it up. From what I've heard it seemed hardening or not hardening her in DAO may or may not have any influence in it, because you don't put whether they were hardened in the Keep, you put whether or not Majorla- forgot her name, was killed or not. I can't recall if that was the thing that could harden Leliana or not.
Anyway to get happy flowery Leliana you have to do some very specific things (SPOILERS! In the quote) :
If you do those three things she'll apparently go goody good.
Which I find absolutely rubbish, especially that first one as usually it all ends up hinging on that as the other two make sense and that... You have no reason to interrupt and tell her to do things differently, especially considering the position you're in at the time. To me it would make a lot more sense if her 'turning' tracked what you chose in all the War Table missions regarding her and flipped her over if you did a certain number that involved her killing people. Or perhaps the reverse, if you avoided killing people a certain number of times she could be flipped to good. That would make more sense to me.
I completely agree that she seems like one person when you talk to her and a completely different one at the War Table when gossiping.
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Post by deina on Dec 18, 2014 13:05:33 GMT
I agree, this lacks logic. And it's not very intuitive, either, unless you are the kind of person who spares everybody's life in every circumstances. I mean: when tou have the option to tell Cole not to kill a suffering wounded, it is quite natural. But to tell Leliana, your spymiaster - so early in the game - how to do her job seems odd and out of place. Especially that you don't know the situation, basically don't know nothing at all. Or maybe we are supposed to be clairvoyant and somehow perceive that Leliana isn't acting profesionally, but out of grief from the loss of Justinia instead? Weird.
Anyway, don't mind me, I may be wrong - after all, I feel like the dumbest person in the world, because I've only recently discovered that you can fast-travel between camps and save yourself a lot of time and trouble:D
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Post by Aeryn on Dec 20, 2014 21:08:05 GMT
Oh, you want to talk about feeling stupid? It was 2-1/2 playthroughs in before I realized that the search button pings items to the compass, like radar. There were times I'd spend several minutes spinning in place trying to figure out where the hell the item was. Derp. And I also assumed that guard would only be helpful for warriors since they're the only ones who can generate it. I experimented after a while and realized that a guard-generating masterwork enchantment thingie is the best EVER (next to heal-on-kill, maybe), especially on squishy mages. Wish I'd figured that out sooner.
Anyway, taking Vivienne with me has backfired. I utterly detest her. When Haven is attacked, she tells you not to bother saving anyone because they'll just slow you down, but then she APPROVES when you do save everyone. And she follows up in Skyhold by basically congratulating you for being such a good little savior because it'll make everyone easier to manipulate. Huh. I sort of set myself up to hate her, though, because I took Cole along as well. He tries so hard to make her not fear him, and she is just vile to him in every way. Maybe their banters improve once he makes his choice, but there is one where Cole basically tells the world that Vivienne was forced to set up a trap to harm the Inquisition. And you can't comment on it. Or confront her about it. Or ANYTHING! Her banters with Bull are amusing, though. She brings out his disciplined, respectful Qunari side.
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Post by deina on Dec 21, 2014 16:15:25 GMT
I cannot stand Vivienne either - but oddly enough, I seem to have a high approval rate with her. Maybe even the highest beside Cassandra, Varric and Solas. She really touched a nerve with her suggestion that we should extort money from Redcliffe's refugees - people who literally starve! Really, Viv? Really? As for Sera, most of the time I don't know what the hell she is talking about. I just can't understand this girl and don't know how to handle her:)
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Post by melbella on Dec 21, 2014 18:17:38 GMT
I've mostly ignored Vivienne this playthrough since she doesn't like much of anything I do and so I haven't gotten any quest convo's out of her yet. She might be my bff next time, though, when I'll be playing a mage who sides with the Templars.
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Post by Shades of Night on Dec 22, 2014 21:17:55 GMT
Aeryn I think the items showing up on the compass when you ping them only came in with the second patch, so you weren't oblivious to it all this time, it wasn't there.
Vivienne... Ugh.... I thought my character was getting along fine with her, or at least I was choosing mostly middle options so I wasn't outright causing disapproval from her. Then I made plot choices that she really didn't like and suddenly I have her low influence dialogue where she... gets people to move the furniture out of the Inquisitor's room... Just to see what the Inquisitor's limits are apparently. And she's blatantly insulting you through the whole dialogue. You have no way to actually get back at her verbally and even more frustratingly no option to kick the damn woman out.
And the thing is when I think about it... she's supposed to be an expert player of the Game, right? I mean she certainly made her way to the top of the Circle and got close to Celene. She joins the Inquisition to have a part of its power and influence... Yet I mean, judging from that low dialogue conversation she's not very good at it. Yes things aren't going her way but she's supposed to be an expert, and you certainly don't make someone change their mind by pissing them off.
Thus when her personal quest popped up and she refused to tell my character what she needed the item for. My character refused. Because seriously, what else could Vivienne expect when she insults the woman and then wants a favour but won't say a thing about what it is for. Tsk.
At least they did a good job at making such an unlikeable character, though I feel she's far too blatant for someone who is supposed to be so good at making her way up. I would have expected her to be a lot more manipulative and you know, smart.
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Post by Gileadan on Dec 23, 2014 0:11:11 GMT
Strange. Vivienne is one of the characters I have the easiest time to get approval with, and she becomes kind and supportive as soon as I get to Skyhold. It was also very nice to see a mage with a good head on her shoulders after the basketcases we got in DA2. In my first playthrough, I allied with the templars, and Vivienne approved the heck out of it. In my second, I conscripted the mages, same result. But it's not just her, I seem to be getting a lot of approval and pretty much every companion seems to be on good terms with my Inquisitor. It's a very agreeable bunch.
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Post by deina on Dec 24, 2014 2:12:55 GMT
Sadly, the companion I seem to have the lowest approval rate with is Cole. I mean, even Sera is my friend now, in fact everyone is, but Cole's approval drops literally on my every decision. And I like the guy so much!
A bit of quite spoilery questions: Did you save Bull's Chargers? I did, but as an actual Inquisitor I probably won't have: after all, there was a conversation with Bull about his people choosing leaders in base of their promptiness to make hard decisions. It would be lovely to see a conversation based on this if you choose to sacrifice Bull's lot. I am also quite confused with the Krem's thing. Don't get me wrong - Dragon Age adressing the transgender issue is wonderful, but I am not sure if I find it quite consistent with all we've learned about the Qun so far. Sten mentioned that people under the Qun are destined to be what they are, fullfilling their destiny and choosing "just to be" in the process. So where are the limit of personal choice within the Qun? A peasant is a peasant, a warrior is a warrior. So if you are born in one gender and choose to be another, do you still fall under the Qun? It doesn't actully concern Krem in person - he is, after all, Tevinter not Qunari - but Bull's coment sounds strange to me. He is entitled to his own choices, but expanding them to the Qun in general seems quite forced.
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Post by Gileadan on Dec 24, 2014 10:32:58 GMT
Story decisions aside, you can try to gain some approval from Cole by taking him along for the right quests. Generally, stuff that helps people is good - for example, he approves every time you open a cage with captured miners in Emprise du Lion.
And yep, I saved the chargers. With them, I know what I've got, while I trust the ox-men (other than Iron Bull himself) about as far as I can throw them, which isn't very far. Dreadnoughts are nice and all that, but they can't defend Skyhold. Not that it was ever necessary in the game, sadly.
Yeah, the Krem thing seemed very forced. I gathered that s/he is a woman passing as a man, so I'm not entirely sure whether that even qualifies as transgender, but then again, I admit that I am not very knowledgeable in this area. And I distinctly remember that one question led to Iron Bull shutting me down with "He is a man!" because the question my character asked was apparently offensive, something I hadn't seen in the paraphrase. And I couldn't even apologize afterwards. It's like the devs left a verbal land mine in that conversation on purpose. Gave me a nice vibe of re-education camp.
Next game I want a bearded human identifying as a dwarf! What, that sounds silly?
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Post by Aeryn on Dec 24, 2014 17:32:06 GMT
The Chargers as a whole feel forced. They are the ultimate contrived show of diversity that doesn't even pretend to be anything else. We're supposed to believe that there are other members aside from the perfectly "well-rounded" group that we meet, but we never see anyone but them. It's like BioWare screaming, "Hey, look how diverse and progressive we are!!!" while offering the shallowest caricature of every stereotype of "unique" individuality. Complaints about the obvious aside, I do like them, and they make me laugh (Dalish especially), and I wish we could chat more with them because maybe they'd feel less like paper cutouts then. I've never sacrificed them because I read that Bull's personality changes, and I think that might break my heart a little bit.
I might be experiencing a bug, but I gain approval with Cole even when he isn't in my party by doing the random help quests scattered all over the place, like he's invisibly shadowing me.
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