Poll: Dragon Age 2: the Romance Issue. Did the designers seem to 'push' Anders at the Player?

[Legion]

No, he suggested it in my first playthrough and I rejected him, he left it alone after that. In my second playthrough he didn't even try.

 

[DustyDrB]

I feel that anders himself, being the only character with creatation, was pushed into being in your party.

You know you can respec everyone with a potion, right?

He's the only one with the creation skill tree (unless Hawke is a mage).
All the respecing in the world doesn't change that.

Hmmm. I missed that completely. Is Anders missing one of the basic trees as well? I did respec pretty much everyone, so I should have noticed that. Guess that says something about my observational skills. Though I purposefully set Merrill up as a DPS mage and Anders as a healer and buffer.

 

[ramboondiea]

i thought that was one of the more 'realistic' romance aspect, as if you flirt with him or overly nice its kind of like leading him on, so if you turn down his advances later he gets pissed with you, which is a very reasonable reaction

 

[Redem]

Its not like you were ask to sleep with anders in order to survive the last battle

I think Bioware pretty much design a main romance for each of their game

 

[Celtic_Kerr]

I told him I wasn't interested once, and he left me alone. Didn't seem that forced to me.

I think what he meant is sometimes a character will have a "flirt" option appear as ONE object on the character wheel. On one or two occasions, Ander's wheel had two-three flirt options and a "heart break" option.

Took me by surprise

 

[Ordinaryundone]

Both Anders and Fenris feel somewhat forced because nearly every dialogue has a flirt option, while its more subdued with the women. Well, excepting Isabella.

 

[sheah1]

Know exactly what you mean, with every other character the romance was an optional thing, there alongside all the other normal responses, being friendly towards Anders would force you into conversations where the only responses were to be romantic towards him or to be a dick, hell, one time there were even two romance options, for no real reason whatsoever as (I assume) they both have the same end result.

 

[Tanfastic]

Yea, it felt forced. ALL other romances they come in as a side option along with the regular three to the right. After a mission that needed to be done to progress it shows up, first on the left as usual but later on in that same conversation, no matter if you didn't chose the "heart" option it throws it at you again, not on the left this time but, in the style of romances that have progressed after a few "dates" with the "heart" at the top right and the "broken heart" at the bottom right.

I feel that anders himself, being the only character with creatation, was pushed into being in your party.

You know you can respec everyone with a potion, right?

He's the only one with the creation skill tree (unless Hawke is a mage).
All the respecing in the world doesn't change that.

Hmmm. I missed that completely. Is Anders missing one of the basic trees as well? I did respec pretty much everyone, so I should have noticed that. Guess that says something about my observational skills. Though I purposefully set Merrill up as a DPS mage and Anders as a healer and buffer.

And yea, he is missing Entropy I believe. Merril doesn't even have a creation tree. Fenris is missing defender if I remember right. Avaline and Anders are forced on the player unless the player wants to tank/heal. I wish they had atleast one more mage and warrior that were optional healers and tanks though... So I could have more choice.

 

[plugav]

I feel that anders himself, being the only character with creatation, was pushed into being in your party.

You could say the same about Varric being the only marksman or Aveline being the only tank.
I never use Anders unless I have to. For me, Creation's overrated. There are moments when I could use extra healing, but it's Merrill's Primal+Entropy that win the fights for me. Also, she has more health.

Know exactly what you mean, with every other character the romance was an optional thing, there alongside all the other normal responses, being friendly towards Anders would force you into conversations where the only responses were to be romantic towards him or to be a dick, hell, one time there were even two romance options, for no real reason whatsoever as (I assume) they both have the same end result.

I've only encountered one such dialogue, not long after meeting Anders. Choosing the "heart" option wouldn't trigger the romance, though. You can only advance those in Act 2, so he's still the same as others. It was only done for the sake of characterisation, I think.

 

[Littaly]

I honestly had to reload at one point because just being nice to him was leading to a Romance like a freight train.

Huh? You romanced him by mistake? The conversation system couldn't be simpler! What did you think the heart icon meant? xD

Seriously though, I think I know what you mean. It's just him being sappy, he sounds a little flirty but you're not romancing him. It feels a little awkward (especially if you play a straight male), but it was kind of nice to see a male character act all vulnerable and thankful for once. It's always a chick who takes on that role, nice to have a guy who's a little soft too ^^

 

[mireko]

I told him very early on that I didn't want him to think about me like that (in those words, even).

It didn't go any further than that, and I was playing as a woman.

[sub]Merill's romance was forced, by which I mean I couldn't resist her even if I wanted to.[/sub]

 

[Gildan Bladeborn]

It's only forced in the sense that, by simply being nice to him, playing as a male Hawke you will be confronted with a dialog wheel response tree consisting only of "Flirt with" or "Completely end any pretense of a relationship" responses (this may be true while playing as a female Hawke as well, but in that case I was actively trying to pick those responses so I might have "pre-empted" it).

Or in other words, Anders, alone among the various npcs you can "romance", actually initiates that conversation himself, even if you were not necessarily trying to flirt with him, and forces you to make a decision right away (and not flirting back gets you rivalry points). Isabella might be far more openly flirtatious pretty much all the time, but she doesn't force you to decide to start pursuing a romance with her or shut her down completely in the second bloody proper conversation you have.

So yes, I guess I would say that his romance felt forced, because all of a sudden through no desire on my part my male character was being hit on by another dude. With Fenris, the option is there but you have to actually pick it first, if you decide to pursue that it is clearly your decision; with Anders they've coded in a "decide your character is a homosexual/bisexual" or "stay straight/just not into Anders and get rivalry points" conversation gate, which is really kind of stupid - there should absolutely be a way to be nice to the guy without making players playing a male Hawke as a straight male pick the jackass response to stay straight in-game. The way it is now, Bioware seems to equate "being a straight male" with "being a jerk" - as a straight male myself, that kind of offends me.

So yeah, it's not so much that the designers pushed Anders onto the player, it's that they force the issue of whether or not your character would even want to consider a relationship with Anders onto the player, and don't give you a nice way to let him down.

 

[ScoopMeister]

Not forced at all. I had to pick the heart option once because i would have felt kind of mean if id rejected him him, but after that nothing else happened and we never initiated a relationship.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

I didn't pick the heart option at all and then he freaked out at me for liking fenris as mage hawke, dunno what that was all about...wierdo.

 

[4173]

All of them felt sort of forced. Yet they won't let me put the moves on Aveline...

This.

But yeah, its not that it was "forced" really, rather I could not say "No" nicely.
Hawke was either all Game or Insulting. I would have liked to have been joking about it when I said no, but alas, there was only an Aggressive response. Damn limited options.
Origins didnt have that problem.

You didn't have that problem in Origins? In both Origins, ME2 and ME1 I had NPCs take my interest in their backstory as a desire to get them in the sack. None of the refusals were really insulting, but they all seemed designed to embarrass the NPC as much as possible.

 

[Frankster]

Hmmm. I missed that completely. Is Anders missing one of the basic trees as well? I did respec pretty much everyone, so I should have noticed that. Guess that says something about my observational skills. Though I purposefully set Merrill up as a DPS mage and Anders as a healer and buffer.

Anders is missing Merril's blood magic tree.

Merril can't be anything else then a dps mage and Anders is normally your only healer, forcing you to take him whever you like to or not (i certainly didnt T_T hated him from the very start and got worst as game progressed)

This is why for me the best mage in the game is Bethany: besides being way less annoying then Anders (for me at least, apologies to any anders fans) she can be a substitue healer and do a rather decent job of it.

Happiest moment in da2 for me: getting Bethany back in my party for the finale. Going act2 without her was just too painful...

 

[Zhukov]

Uhh... no.

Just don't click the heart options. It's simple enough.

(People get so obsessed over the romance thing. What exactly have Bioware unleashed here?)

 

[Thespian]

A little, perhaps. But as he turned out to be a rather important character in the later story, and that part carries more of an emotional punch if you have a relationship with him.
It's not a design flaw, IMHO... Some people will be more pushy, others won't. Character differentiation is a good thing.

 

[Rayne870]

Well...not so much My GF didn't romance Anders, and didn't feel pressured to. She went with Fenris whom I detest. And well...my female rogue slept with Isabella and then romanced Anders and it felt natural.

 

[Nimcha]

I do sort of wonder, are most of the companions bisexual or is that just me? Not that I have a problem with it, of course.