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

[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).

Huh, strange. Because unless I had targeted amnesia at that precise moment, I never got that. I was playing a Male Rogue Hawke and I was generally always Humorous/Charming with some Diplomatic/Helpful responses towards him. Anders never tried to force a response of feelings. Hell, I never even got the vibe of that.

Maybe it triggers if you are only every Diplomatic/Helpful(the top response)?

That would be my guess, as selecting the top response in that case is what prompted "now every response I have has a relationship symbol?" state, and that character was almost always diplomatic and tactful rather than snarky, so I'd probably selected the top options in prior interactions as well.

Aveline usually hates my choices. I guess she's too righteous or something.

While you can flirt with Aveline on multiple occasions, you can't actually ever end up in a relationship with her (also the flirting probably went right over her head), for reasons that I'm sure you'll discover later.

 

[DaJoW]

Haven't noticed it in 2 playthroughs. Flirted with him once, then he brought it up saying it wouldn't be a good idea, I agreed and that was that.

 

[Freeze_L]

I played a female Hawke, none of the romances felt forced to me. I hardly ever bother with them in games, but i ended up with a romance with Merill. I pissed Anders off alot even when i was supporting him, seemed hard to be nice to him with out totally agreeing. I cant speak much more about anders, other than he was one of my favorite characters in Awakening and it was nice to "see" how Justice changed him.

The romance with Merill took a long time and seemed somewhat natural-ish. The options before and after and even Hawke's flirtations, very direct on my play through, and Merill's responses felt real-ish. Was alot better then the romances in other Bioware games which amounted to "want to we are together now" DA2 is a game i will be praising for a while ...

 

[Jukofux]

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

Same with Varric, I would totally go gay for Varric.

 

[kuyo]

I think the first conversation after he joined the party was an option between either starting his romance or getting rivalry points.
It wouldn't be so bad if he didn't repeatedly tell players not to romance him and ultimately ends

Spoiler

with him resorting to emotional blackmail to commit genocide.

 

[mireko]

Snip

Hawke tells him, angrily, to stop thinking of him like that and he doesn't do that. It was completely uncalled for. I had to reload and pick a mild flirt option because I felt bad and there was no other option.

That is pretty weird, then. I got 10 rivalry for rejecting him, but the line reading must have been a little more gentle. Or I simply felt less guilt. Rejecting the guy is one thing, but rejecting the guy and yelling at him for being gay (obviously impossible in my playthrough) is a little worse.

It's also kind of schizophrenic of BioWare to set the dialogue up like that if Hawke can still romance Fenris afterwards.

TBH, they should just let you choose your orientation at the start along with gender/appearance/etc. It would make sense in that it would affect your character's body language and behavior, and people would get the paths they want without offending any characters.

 

[Rayansaki]

I didn't really have an issue with it because I hated Anders, so I didn't want to be nice to him without romancing, I just kept being an asshole to him. I do hate that I kept getting massive amounts of Friendship points for helping the mages as I really liked Bethany.

I do have another problem with Anders tho:

Spoiler

I hate how they forced me into using Anders for most of the game as I wasn't a mage and with Bethany gone he is the only one with heal and haste. I know you can do fine without them, but it's always more risky and slow, and you don't really want to have to setup the party positioning etc. for every single encounter.

I was playing 2H dps warrior, and having Haste on my team mean't I could just Pop berserker buffs + cleave and clean every non boss enemy so fast that they would sometimes bug and take some time to reinforce, because the waves died so fast.

Plus I didn't know Bethany would be useable in the final fight, so I spared his life reluctantly after he screwed the pooch in the end. That pissed me off too.

No other companion is forced into your party except for small durations during quests. 2H tank isn't that much worse than 1H+Shield, you do lose some armor but it isn't too relevant and you get higher threat generation, so Aveline isn't required and you have 2 choices of rogues if you really want to have at least 1 for chests.

 

[Zechnophobe]

What the... I completely disagree with this. I did all quests for anders in 2 play throughs, and both times just politely turned him down when the moment came. It wasn't like he showed up at my house with a dagger, bleeding wrists, and a pack of magnums or something. Jeez.

 

[Rayansaki]

Drastic measures to avoid him?
Like saying 'No'?

The very first conversation with him has 2 options to flirt and 1 option to be rude.

 

[RedEyesBlackGamer]

Snip

Hawke tells him, angrily, to stop thinking of him like that and he doesn't do that. It was completely uncalled for. I had to reload and pick a mild flirt option because I felt bad and there was no other option.

That is pretty weird, then. I got 10 rivalry for rejecting him, but the line reading must have been a little more gentle. Or I simply felt less guilt. Rejecting the guy is one thing, but rejecting the guy and yelling at him for being gay (obviously impossible in my playthrough) is a little worse.

It's also kind of schizophrenic of BioWare to set the dialogue up like that if Hawke can still romance Fenris afterwards.

TBH, they should just let you choose your orientation at the start along with gender/appearance/etc. It would make sense in that it would affect your character's body language and behavior, and people would get the paths they want without offending any characters.

Maybe it is me. I might have overreacted. I'm a nice guy. This demeanor also got me in trouble in Persona 4.

Spoiler

I had no intention of having a romantic relationship with Rise. But when she started crying, I couldn't not hug her and comfort her. Same thing with Yumi. I wanted to be loyal to Naoto, but I couldn't be a douche to the others. I just pretended that I wasn't in a relationship with them. Being a nice guy when rping in games can be hard. Especially when devs don't give you enough options.

Edit: Looking further down, I am not the only one.

 

[Bourne Endeavor]

Frankly, I agree with the notion Kelly Chambers is the best written romance, in spite of her not being technically romanceable. Consider for a moment she is the only one who can actually date and not merely sleep with. BioWare still has a ways to go before they romances have some substance although I do fancy many of them.

As for the topic, no I did not find Anders forced. I was particularly miffed that I received a heaping dose of rivalry points simply because I informed him I was not interested regardless of my gender.

 

[Zukhramm]

I had no problem with him. I neither romanced nor were rude in any way to him. I did pick one of the heart options in the first coneversation with him but that did not see mto be enough to trigger the romance, so no, I did not think they "pushed" his romance. Though the really should have had a more neutral option avalible in that first converation.

 

[Valanthe]

The Anders romance actually worked out quite well for me on my first playthrough, though that might have had to do with the order of events in that playthrough.

Spoiler

I ended up leaving Bethany at home at the end of act 1, her getting captured, along with the Karl quest, just kind of drew me closer to Anders as I rapidly warmed up to his "The mages must be free." I was actually quite impressed with the fact you can actually have a bit of a spat with him when he's trying to convince you to distract the grand cleric. All in all I enjoyed his relationship, it made his actions in the finale all that more of a punch in the gut.

 

[Drake_Dercon]

Let's see, they make Anders go for you immediately, in a fairly mandatory quest, putting you in a make-or-break situation that you have to propagate yourself with almost shameless flirting with every other character. Yes, I'd say it was forced. Especially because he hates you afterwards (unless you're a mage-lover or a paragon of virtue). If this was their attempt to make a good character that oh just happens to be gay (let's face it,he was pretty obvious with the implications of his relationship with that friend who's name I've already forgotten), then they failed miserably (not to mention that Anders got over him pretty fast). There was a lot that they could have done there, especially with the dual metaphor, but then they made the game impersonal and poorly written at the best of times. Except Merill, the nature of her character was still impersonal, but at least I liked the dialogue.

...BioWare kind of let me down on this (me and many others, I'd assume). I'd assume this isn't the best time to bring this up, but given what they've done in the past... I mean even the characters of BG2 were fleshed out better. I barely bit into KOTOR and it had a really full setting and complete characters. Producing a game so shallow, even after its predecessor (which was masterfully done, in my opinion), is a disgrace. I still liked the game but... I'm way off-topic.

End point, Anders might have been their apology for Zevran (good lord I hated him... I relished killing that bastard), or he might have been something else entirely. I see what BioWare was trying to do, making it so obvious, but they really just didn't think it through enough (on any characters, really, and there were some that I would have liked to know more about, Anders among them) and I wish there were at least some option to say "I don't swing that way" without shooting him down hard enough to crash a covenant super-carrier.





...
I just used a gaming analogy and people probably got the dual meaning. I love the escapist!

 

[SultanP]

I found it was the only romance where you were forced at one point to either pick a hear or broken heart option. With the girls, there was always heart, broken heart, and just ignoring it, I think. But just being nice/sarcastic with Anders led to a heart/heart/broken heart choice. Seemed very forced to me.
So did Fenris for that matter. The dudes in that game were coming on strong.

 

[Eumersian]

I felt like maybe they tried to characterize Anders as "attracted" to you if you were nice to him. But I didn't feel like they forced anything upon me.

What really weirded me out was?

Spoiler: WARNING. KIND OF OFF TOPIC:

When you get that book about the Elven freedom fighter or whoever it was for Fenris, he tells you that he can't read. One of the conversation options is to teach him to read. Strangely, this is a romance option, as there is a heart in the middle of the display when you look at it. Strange for two reasons.

1. Typically, I noticed the "heart options" in the lower left or the circle than on the right side, unless it was somebody you had previously "acted upon".

2. Why the hell is teaching somebody to read "romantic"? I suppose it could be, but I would have picked it if it weren't a "heart option". I would gladly teach a friend to read if they wanted to learn, and would have had no romantic intentions, unless it was a sexy lady, of course.

I know that was totally off topic, but just had to get it out.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

The only thing that felt forced about Anders to me was the fact that he had to be in your party to keep it alive. I shudder to think what playing that game on Nightmare would be like if you decided to, um...'not' have him in your party.

The romance though? No. I was, and still am, too enthralled with Merrill to even notice the other characters in the game. Isabela is 'hot,' but her personality makes me so angry that I can't stand her. Seriously Isabela, you get mad at me because, instead of sending the poor elf slave girl off on her own where see will either be recaptured or killed, I tell her to come work for me and PAY her for doing it? And you disapprove of this action? You *****.

 

[spoonkick]

He did seem a bit more...direct in his affections.

I would think that the reason either is that he seems ( to me) a more direct person in general.

And I mean I did romance him, and when I found what I helped him do... I don't know that hit me hard, I guess. The idea that my boyfriend would do something like that. maybe I read too much into it but that kind of action is a profound one, and I don't think that it would have had the same effect if I wasn't in a relationship with Anders

so maybe the devs realized this and sort of tried to push him a bit more, to put player in that position.

That being said, I don't think he was that much more pushed, I mean Fenris openly flirts with you right at the beginning regardless of gender, so does Isabela, and Zevran, all of them would attempt romances you had to turn down. it happens in Mass Effect too.

 

[Sniper Team 4]

I felt like maybe they tried to characterize Anders as "attracted" to you if you were nice to him. But I didn't feel like they forced anything upon me.

What really weirded me out was?

Spoiler: WARNING. KIND OF OFF TOPIC:

When you get that book about the Elven freedom fighter or whoever it was for Fenris, he tells you that he can't read. One of the conversation options is to teach him to read. Strangely, this is a romance option, as there is a heart in the middle of the display when you look at it. Strange for two reasons.

1. Typically, I noticed the "heart options" in the lower left or the circle than on the right side, unless it was somebody you had previously "acted upon".

2. Why the hell is teaching somebody to read "romantic"? I suppose it could be, but I would have picked it if it weren't a "heart option". I would gladly teach a friend to read if they wanted to learn, and would have had no romantic intentions, unless it was a sexy lady, of course.

I know that was totally off topic, but just had to get it out.

Close quality alone time with someone special, teaching them something. Kind of like falling for that hot gym teacher I guess. I get where you're coming from though. It doesn't seem THAT romantic of an offer.