Dragon Age II, Part 2: The Qun is pretty deep, you wouldn't understand it.

[Fargazer]

How about "Dragon Age III: The Thread Nobody was Expecting"

I'm genuinely surprised this thread actually had enough pages to get a sequel. After the dislike for Dragon Age 2, I did not expect this conversation to extend for over two years.

[Psyren]

How about "Dragon Age III: The Thread Nobody was Expecting"

I'm fine with that.

I'm genuinely surprised this thread actually had enough pages to get a sequel. After the dislike for Dragon Age 2, I did not expect this conversation to extend for over two years.

*Points to the tenth iteration of the Mass Effect 3 thread*

[ScrambledBrains]

I need a bit of help here, folks.

So, I decided to start up a new file and play a Mage Hawke and serve as a mixture of healer and debuffer for my team, with Aveline as my tank, and a mixture of damage dealers I keep swapping in and out. I'm trying to reach friendship with everyone but two people, one being Anders(Who can rot in his clinic for all I care.) and the other being Carver. Since he starts pre-slanted, I just kept pushing him toward Rivalry.

However, I now have a dilemma-I took him on enough missions to have him within a hair's width of max Rivalry...but he's not there yet, and I'm out of Act 1 missions that push his Rivalry except for the Deep Roads Exploration, which I DO want to bring him on because I want him to become a Grey Warden(And yes, I do know that means I'll have to also bring Anders with on that mission-I'll tolerate him for that one.).

But, I do have both DLCs, and I know Legacy has two moments to also push up Carver's Rivalry. My question for all of you is this: Can I enter Legacy in Act 1, get to the first of those points, push him to max, and then exit Legacy temporarily?

[Giggling Ghast]

I should note a Rivalled Anders will think you're anti-mage, even if you do pro-mage stuff. The Friendship/Rivalry system is a bit buggy in this respect.

As for Legacy, there is only one exit point in the DLC and it pops up before any decision you may make that would add Rivalry points. So no, you can't pop in, get Carver to full Rivalry and pop out. It's not strictly important to max out the siblings anyways.

I would plan on bringing Carver along in Legacy in Act 2 or Act 3 anyways. Legacy in Act 1 is rather difficult, and Carver gets a little less pissy in later acts if you make him a Grey Warden, because he's finally carving out his own path as a member of a prestigious order.

[Zevox]

I should note a Rivalled Anders will think you're anti-mage, even if you do pro-mage stuff. The Friendship/Rivalry system is a bit buggy in this respect.

To be fair though, getting Anders to a rivalry pretty much requires doing anti-mage things, doesn't it? The main way to gain points with him one way or the other is to express an opinion on that topic.

[Psyren]

To be fair though, getting Anders to a rivalry pretty much requires doing anti-mage things, doesn't it? The main way to gain points with him one way or the other is to express an opinion on that topic.

Anti-mage or pro-demon (which is the same thing, in a sense.)

[Giggling Ghast]

To be fair though, getting Anders to a rivalry pretty much requires doing anti-mage things, doesn't it? The main way to gain points with him one way or the other is to express an opinion on that topic.

To an extent. Even if you generally support mages, you can a lot of rivalry by condoning blood magic and working with demons. The "Night Terrors" quest is a prime opportunity for Rivalry points if you don't mind letting Feynriel be possessed. (I never have, but I'm aware of the option.)

The Friendship/Rivalry system isn't perfect. It's better, because now you can disagree with companions without being punished for it. But it's still imperfect.

[ScrambledBrains]

So, I thought I had lucked out when I noticed there was one more mission I needed to do that would push Carver's Rivalry up five more points...only for me to complete it that way...and for him to STILL be too low.

Which really leaves me in a dilemma-If I just bring Carver(And the idiot known as Anders) with me on the Deep Roads trip, Carver will become a Grey Warden(Which I want) but some of my work on pushing up his Rivalry will be all for naught.

On the other hand, if I leave him in Kirkwall, he becomes a Templar(Which I don't want.) but his Rivalry gets crystalized into permanence.

On the third hand(), I could do Legacy just before doing the Deep Roads Expedition, by making it my second to last Act 1 mission. That would let me also push up Carver's Rivalry to max while still bringing him with me to the Deep Roads, but that leaves me with a crappier version of The Hawke's Key.

At this point, I'm probably just gonna delete my current file and restart over-If I do, I won't be confused into trying to make friends with Carver first, I'll just deliberately antagonize him straight to pure Rival.

I will note that it's a hell of lot easier to be friendly to Bethany...but that would mean I'd have to allow Anders on my team, and while I AM going to do either a Warrior or Rogue playthrough as my second, I do not currently have the mental fortitude to tolerate Anders for that long of a stretch.

...I guess I'm really just complaining here, but I wanted to let it out to people who may have also suffered similar missteps due to the way the Friendship/Rivalry system works.

[Giggling Ghast]

Why go to all that trouble? There's no mechanical benefit to having Carver's Rivalry maxxed. His dialogue will remain the same at near-max Rivalry. There is an achievement tied to rivalling one companion, but it sounds like you can get it with Anders.

[Aux-Ash]

You could also simply bring Carver for Legacy later. He's always available for that one... as long as he's not dead. The same applies to Mark of the Assassin.

[ScrambledBrains]

Why go to all that trouble? There's no mechanical benefit to having Carver's Rivalry maxxed. His dialogue will remain the same at near-max Rivalry. There is an achievement tied to rivalling one companion, but it sounds like you can get it with Anders.

No mechanical benefit, but I like the roleplaying of it-Being the kind of Hawke who pushed my brother to want to be my rival just to out do me and escape my shadow, and when he becomes a Grey Warden, seeing him succeed at his goal, and become awesome in his own right.

As for Anders, if I may be honest, playing as a Mage Hawke means I'd actually be more likely to have a Friendship with him. The problem is I hate him for what he did in the endgame(Though even more than that, I hate Bioware for making the only non-player team character in the game that can heal efficiently also be the one to screw everything up in said endgame.) In other words, it's not that I want to antagonize Anders when playing as a Mage, it's that I want to see his sorry blond hide as little as possible.

You could also simply bring Carver for Legacy later. He's always available for that one... as long as he's not dead. The same applies to Mark of the Assassin.

But that gives me a cruddy version of Hawke's Key, and will mean his Rivalry won't max, it will merely be very high(Assuming I followed the rest of my plan to bring him with to the Deep Roads and make him a Grey Warden, both of which add Friendship points instead.). My goal was to max Rivalry, for the reasons stated above.

[Giggling Ghast]

But that gives me a cruddy version of Hawke's Key, and will mean his Rivalry won't max, it will merely be very high(Assuming I followed the rest of my plan to bring him with to the Deep Roads and make him a Grey Warden, both of which add Friendship points instead.). My goal was to max Rivalry, for the reasons stated above.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'cruddy.' The Hawke's Key scales to your level.

[ScrambledBrains]

I'm not sure what you mean by 'cruddy.' The Hawke's Key scales to your level.

It scales to your current level, yes, but it will be outpaced by other weapons because it doesn't increase as your level goes up. Meaning I can't just get it early and then roll with it till the end of the game, as much as I'd like to.

[Aux-Ash]

But that gives me a cruddy version of Hawke's Key, and will mean his Rivalry won't max, it will merely be very high(Assuming I followed the rest of my plan to bring him with to the Deep Roads and make him a Grey Warden, both of which add Friendship points instead.). My goal was to max Rivalry, for the reasons stated above.

Ah, sorry. I was unclear: As long as Carver is alive, he's available for the party in the DLC. You can play it in act 3 and still bring him. He's not locked out like he is in the main game.
The only thing you'll potentially miss out on is you and him talking to Leandra about it.

[Avilan the Grey]

Looking closer at some of the screenshots printed in the newest issue of Swedish PC Gamer (can't link, only found in paper copy) from whatever build they were taken from, DA:I's graphics are fairly awful. At least the character designs. The quality of the character models and faces lie somewhere in the middle between Skyrim and Oblivion (Especially the main character looks like a guard from Oblivion), and Warrick's design is completely off (he doesn't look BAD, he just looks like a generic male hero, no dwarfness OR "Warrick-ness" left in him). The female mage standing to the furthest right looks awful in general.

[darksolitaire]

I can take that either as a good sign, meaning that they have focus on other things then graphic and will polish that fast. Or bad, indicating that they are coming up with sloppy, half finished product.

How would you compare graphics to it's predecessors, DA:O and DA2? If DA:I is trying to be full priced AAA title, then obviously outdated graphics will not fly.

[Avilan the Grey]

I can take that either as a good sign, meaning that they have focus on other things then graphic and will polish that fast. Or bad, indicating that they are coming up with sloppy, half finished product.

How would you compare graphics to it's predecessors, DA:O and DA2? If DA:I is trying to be full priced AAA title, then obviously outdated graphics will not fly.

I prefer DA:O, I am one of those who insists the graphics are actually better than in DA2. On the other hand DA2 aimed for a cartoonish art style on purpose. DA:I seems to try to meld the two styles together, which, from what I have seen, doesn't really work for me at all.*

It doesn't help that it seems AA wasn't activated on the screenshots, but even if you "think away" the jagged lines, the details and design choices (and the clipping) just looks bad.

Cassandra or what her name is looks best, in the picture. Warrick looks like a generic macho hero, if I didn't know who he was I would not know he was supposed to be a dwarf. The dark-skinned human female mage standing next to the main character looks bad in general, her "casterkini" clipps, and is ugly in design in general, and the legs and arms are just... wrong. The pose looks awkward, too.
The main character himself, branding a heavy armor and a two-handed sword with the kind of winged helmet that was common in DA:O, looks way too much like an Oblivion City Guard.


*To me Dragon Age 2, graphically, had the same problems as both NWN and NWN2, which is that they have a heavy duty graphics engine that does certain things very well, but still just LOOKS bad. It is very heavy even on a good machine, just as NWN and NWN2's engines were.

[The Rose Dragon]

You can get "Cassandra or what her name is"'s name right, but not Varric's?

[Avilan the Grey]

You can get "Cassandra or what her name is"'s name right, but not Varric's?

Never finished DA2, remember?

[The Rose Dragon]

Never finished DA2, remember?

Your loss, then.

[Psyren]

As for Anders, if I may be honest, playing as a Mage Hawke means I'd actually be more likely to have a Friendship with him. The problem is I hate him for what he did in the endgame(Though even more than that, I hate Bioware for making the only non-player team character in the game that can heal efficiently also be the one to screw everything up in said endgame.) In other words, it's not that I want to antagonize Anders when playing as a Mage, it's that I want to see his sorry blond hide as little as possible.

I see a lot of Anders hate and I don't understand it myself. I think he did exactly what his character was meant to do. It wouldn't be believable to me if he simply abandoned his crusade and didn't force the confrontation in Act 3. I don't like that he took out Elthina rather than Meredith - Elthina being the easier target doesn't excuse it - but ultimately it was for the best. As he said "now we can all stop pretending the Circle is a solution."

I mean, it's not that Bioware "made" him do anything - the way they wrote him, he did exactly what he would have done. It was all in-character.

How would you compare graphics to it's predecessors, DA:O and DA2? If DA:I is trying to be full priced AAA title, then obviously outdated graphics will not fly.

Isn't it using Frostbite now instead of NWN engine? And the previews say the PC/Xbone/PS4 demos look sweet.

Anyway, DA:O does look better in places but that was more due to the sheer variety of environments they went with.

[Aux-Ash]

At least the character designs. The quality of the character models and faces lie somewhere in the middle between Skyrim and Oblivion

Eh... A bit extreme isn't it? Or is the screenshots in the paper that bad? Because from what I saw from the videos they're leagues better than oblivion and Skyrim's faces.

*To me Dragon Age 2, graphically, had the same problems as both NWN and NWN2, which is that they have a heavy duty graphics engine that does certain things very well, but still just LOOKS bad. It is very heavy even on a good machine, just as NWN and NWN2's engines were.

This is not surprising, Eclipse (the engine of DAO and DA2) is actually just an upgraded version of Aurora (NWNs engine). It was getting really old by DA2.

[Dienekes]

Your loss, then.

Ehh, DA2 peaked in part 2 anyway.

I see a lot of Anders hate and I don't understand it myself. I think he did exactly what his character was meant to do. It wouldn't be believable to me if he simply abandoned his crusade and didn't force the confrontation in Act 3. I don't like that he took out Elthina rather than Meredith - Elthina being the easier target doesn't excuse it - but ultimately it was for the best. As he said "now we can all stop pretending the Circle is a solution."

I mean, it's not that Bioware "made" him do anything - the way they wrote him, he did exactly what he would have done. It was all in-character.

Yes, it was all in character. It just so happens that the character in question is a terrorist idiot who forced a civil war by targeting one of the few people interested in solving the problem peacefully instead of the actual tyrant. Frankly, I behead him every time. Even if I am generally more pro-Mage than Templar.

As to character designs. I am torn. I'm ok with the cartoonish look, though I definitely prefer the more realistic approach of DAO. DAO did tend to look really dull and bland though. But on the other hand, oh sweet Andraste the weapon design. SWORDS DO NOT WORK THAT WAY!

[Psyren]

Elthina had zero interest in "solving the problem." She would have simply dithered and vacillated until every mage in the circle was Tranquil and the problem was out of her hands. That's not solving anything, unless you're Meredith and get your jollies from mass lobotomy anyway.

I mean, Andraste was technically a terrorist too. History doesn't label her that way only because she managed to win, but I highly doubt that not a single innocent life died in her crusade to end slavery.

[Divayth Fyr]

I see a lot of Anders hate and I don't understand it myself.

Apart from what Dienekes said, many people dislike the change in his character compared to the Awakening Anders (yes, that could be explained by the merge, but it still is an issue for some) and the fact that for their playthroughs the character was retconed

Spoiler

Show

from being stone dead

Your loss, then.

Not seeing the stupidity the grand finale can be counts as a gain.

[Kish]

I see a lot of Anders hate and I don't understand it myself.

A lot of people seem to have decided, "Mages need to be confined, and should be pathetically grateful they aren't killed or lobotomized at birth" sometime in early Dragon Age 1.

Characters--and other players--who express other opinions are just harmlessly deluded. A character who starts a war for the principle that mages deserve to be treated like people? If you've already decided his entire perspective is a priori wrong and before he does anything it's already regrettable that he isn't dead or in a cage, since he's a mage, he looks like an evil greater than Meredith's "attempts at maintaining order" could ever be.

[Dienekes]

A lot of people seem to have decided, "Mages need to be confined, and should be pathetically grateful they aren't killed or lobotomized at birth" sometime in early Dragon Age 1.

Characters--and other players--who express other opinions are just harmlessly deluded. A character who starts a war for the principle that mages deserve to be treated like people? If you've already decided his entire perspective is a priori wrong and before he does anything it's already regrettable that he isn't dead or in a cage, since he's a mage, he looks like an evil greater than Meredith's "attempts at maintaining order" could ever be.

Heh, amusingly it took DA2 to make me start thinking that the quarantine of the mages might have some merit to it. Because in that game, every single mage is either evil or leaves demons in their wake, or both. Every one. Honestly, in DA2 the mages and templars deserve each other, may they both wipe each other out.

[Psyren]

A lot of people seem to have decided, "Mages need to be confined, and should be pathetically grateful they aren't killed or lobotomized at birth" sometime in early Dragon Age 1.

Characters--and other players--who express other opinions are just harmlessly deluded. A character who starts a war for the principle that mages deserve to be treated like people? If you've already decided his entire perspective is a priori wrong and before he does anything it's already regrettable that he isn't dead or in a cage, since he's a mage, he looks like an evil greater than Meredith's "attempts at maintaining order" could ever be.

It sure seems that way

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not super-thrilled that he blew the old bat sky high - but Elthina in my mind was almost as bad as Meredith. She professed vague desires to keep the peace but did nothing positive - no trial runs with Mages allowed to leave the tower grounds and heal people, no reprimanding or investigating templar abuse, certainly no inquiries into the ones that got made Tranquil to be sure their punishment was justified. And while she hemmed and hawed and evaded, every lobotomized mage meant they'd have less ability to defend themselves when the tipping point came.

So while I would have preferred that Anders had blown up Meredith instead, I can understand why that wouldn't have been practical right then, and Elthina was just as much to blame for how bad things were getting.

Heh, amusingly it took DA2 to make me start thinking that the quarantine of the mages might have some merit to it. Because in that game, every single mage is either evil or leaves demons in their wake, or both. Every one. Honestly, in DA2 the mages and templars deserve each other, may they both wipe each other out.

Bethany? Hawke him/herself?

[Giggling Ghast]

I don't like that he took out Elthina rather than Meredith - Elthina being the easier target doesn't excuse it - but ultimately it was for the best. As he said "now we can all stop pretending the Circle is a solution."

On that note: killing Meredith would not have accomplished Anders' ends. He was out to engineer a massacre that would force either the Circle or the templars to rise up and crush the other. In essence, he wanted to create an atrocity that would force the world to act.

Meredith was the one pushing hardest to annul the Circle. If she had died, blame for her death might have been directed at Anders, not the Circle. Elthina would have kept the peace, and the stalemate would have continued.

I mean, it's not that Bioware "made" him do anything - the way they wrote him, he did exactly what he would have done. It was all in-character.

Yes. Because Anders wasn't just "Anders," but rather an angry apostate who had been mistreated by the templars all his life, merged with a spirit whose entire reason for "being" is to punish the guilty.

Isn't it using Frostbite now instead of NWN engine? And the previews say the PC/Xbone/PS4 demos look sweet.

Yes.

Some of the character models do look a bit off, but I think the environments in Inquisition are generally a lot prettier.

[Psyren]

On that note: killing Meredith would not have accomplished Anders' ends. He was out to engineer a massacre that would force either the Circle or the templars to rise up and crush the other. In essence, he wanted to create an atrocity that would force the world to act.

Meredith was the one pushing hardest to annul the Circle. If she had died, blame for her death might have been directed at Anders, not the Circle. Elthina would have kept the peace, and the stalemate would have continued.

True, but with Meredith gone, a voice like Cullen's or Thrask's - or hell, perhaps even Carver's - would have taken the lead. A safer and more gradual dissolution of the Circle could have resulted - say, starting with letting mages have free-days outside of the tower, with troublemakers or dissidents being denied the privileges. Over time, the Circle would become a place where a young mage can go, get Harrowed and educated, and then released back into the world in a controlled way once the threat of possession has been minimized.

It's probably just wishful thinking though.

What I really want to see (up close) is how Tevinter runs things.