Allow for "complicated" relationships in DA4

I think it's more a matter of resources. By now, most of us here should understand the limitations of resources and how that affects various aspects of the game, including romances. People see an option like this that they don't want and are naturally concerned that implementation of such an option would take away from what they do want.

An example. I don't want a poly romance (for myself). I have no interest in it whatsoever. Implementing such an option would take resources away from a monogamous option that I do want. If the guy I happened to fall for in the game -- and yes, for me it is just one per game, if any -- was part of a couple that I had the option of joining I would be bummed out and just not have a romance for that game. I'm not going to break up an existing couple, either; I would feel like a selfish asshole.


And before false comparisons are made, no, I absolutely do not regard this to be the same as LGBT options. One is a flavor of romance, while the other is a repressed minority group that deserves representation.

Again, this could happen in DAO, particularly if you played a human (since that is the only background that has the option of being King/Queen). On one of my later play throughs I had a male Cousland where I deliberately chose things I normally wouldn't. His favourite reading was the Thedas Kama Sutra and he pretty much tried to bed everyone he could.

He started off with Morrigan but also wooed Leliana. Morrigian got jealous and told him to choose so he dumped her (disapproval). Managed to bed Leliana but also had a "massage" from Zevran. I can't remember whether it was Zevran or Leliana who raised the matter with him but probably the latter as he definitely didn't like being given ultimatums and so that is why he chose Zevran over her, as Zevran was still very much in its early stages. Lost approval with Leliana. Weirdly, though, because I hadn't yet had certain conversations about Marjolaine, it would have been possible for me to get her approval up again and restart the relationship if I chose certain dialogue options (may be a bug). Decided to avoid them for a quiet life but that meant that somehow I had managed to regain her affection (as a friend?) even though I'd dumped her and she was very understanding about Zevran. Then of course he opted for the political marriage with Anora, whilst keeping Zevran as his LI which Zevran pointed out was scandalous but nevertheless was happy enough to go along with it (if he ever wanted Anora assassinated Zevran would be happy to oblige). Finally at the end of DAA is was reported that he had won over Anora too and she thought him wonderful.

That Cousland was a real charmer it would seem. Nevertheless he did romance everyone on his team that he could. I think the difference being that there were only 4 options overall (Alistair, Morrigan, Leliana and Zevran), which worked out at 2 heterosexual and one homosexual per gender. Dialogue wise the "jealous" conversation was pretty much the same for the bisexual characters when they challenged you. We could also only play 3 races, which made programming the sex scenes easier. That probably allowed them to account for greater complexity overall.

In DAI there were potentially 8 romances (Cassandra, Blackwall, Sera, Iron Bull, Dorian, Josephine, Cullen and Solas). The last two were race gated and apparently Bull would have been but for some last minute programming of the cut scenes. They also included conversations between companions and comments by advisors who hooked up if you didn't romance them. Taking all this into account, it is easy to see how much more complex the programming would have to be to allow for each of the various permutations that could occur if you were allowed to be bedding two characters at the same time and then have them call you out on it.

Only so much time could be devoted to the romance aspect of the game and it would seem that on this occasion they opted for a greater choice in LIs over complexity of relations involving them. Even then people were complaining that they didn't like the options given if you were a particular gender and sexual orientation but there is only so much the writers can do about this if the romance element isn't going to take up a disproportionate amount of resources compared with the rest of the game. For example, would they have been able to devote more time to fleshing out Corypheus as a character if they hadn't been focussing on the romances? (I still feel there was a missed opportunity there which is why people found him somewhat underwhelming as an antagonist).

I would agree though that it is somewhat annoying to be tied into a character and not being able to change your mind at a later stage. This happened in DA2 and DAI with the PC not even being aware at times that this was the case. In DAI why was it still possible to break up with some LIs at any time but not others? Why was it not then possible to move on to someone else but the PC was left forever alone? These are only small complaints though. On the whole I feel that in Dragon Age they do a good job in providing relationships within the overall constraints of time and budget.

Yes, I forgot he had a baby with Morrigan (normal Kieran) because he spared Loghain who was happy to sacrifice himself for him. So that was quite a complicated set up: married to Anora, romancing Zevran and baby in the wings with Morrigan.



As I said, I think they decided to offer more LIs but less complex scenarios, particularly when it came to the Keep.

you know what? baldur's gate 1 did just fine without a romance option, i think bioware should take that fact into consideration.

and ninjamance, really? "oh no! anders was hitting on me, but i don't wanna date him, what do i doooooo?!?!" how about tell him you are not interested, like you would in real life? (assuming someone would bother hitting on you in real life =P) crazy notion i know.

now let's talk romance in inquisition, we got a total of 9 people you can romance, each with their own unique sub plot, i don't recall the last time we got that much effort and resources put behind romances in a game.

what i want, is a character(s) that is flirtable but you can't romance them because they are not into you. kinda like aveline and vivi, but unlike them it's not because they are into someone else, but because they are purely not into your character in that way, no more no less. partly cause it's realistic and partly cause than i could laugh on all the people who would be enraged by it xD

Well they already gave us that with Dorian and Cassandra. I knew that Dorian was gay but my PC didn't so when I saw the heart icon I thought she would flirt with him. This happened at least twice with me wondering when he was going to tell her and then we had his personal quest and the penny dropped. Now I know there were players who did not know this in advance and so were rather disappointed to discover their girl had been barking up the wrong tree. (I must admit it would have been annoying if I had passed up another romance as a result)

Then I know someone who was playing a female qunari and wanted to romance Cassandra (again not knowing in advance that this was not possible). The heart icons were there so they took them and Cassandra didn't seem to object but ultimately Cass told her she was not interested.

I am not sure about those heart icons. You feel obliged to take them because you don't want to risk not being able to romance the person but they seem to come up very early into your exchanges with them when you hardly know them and in DA2 seemed really inappropriate. (Hitting on Anders so soon after the business with Karl or Fenris after he has just told me his former master wanted to skin him). Then in DAI I discovered that it didn't seem to make any difference if I did ignore them initially (except Solas I believe) because the option kept reoccurring later (at least that is what happened with Dorian).

What I liked about Origins is that on the whole conversations were clearly separated into general and relationship. If you didn't want to pursue a relationship you avoided the latter or made sure you didn't take an option that might be misconstrued. If I did inadvertently lead someone on, then I took it on the chin when it came to disapproval if I subsequently told them I was not interested. To me the interactions seemed more natural and not forced when you do not have the heart icons.

I have to admit though, I do not see why a person cannot compliment someone on their appearance without them immediately jumping to the conclusion that you fancy them. This didn't just happen with Leliana. I complimented Merril on her eyes. Okay it was the heart icon but I only took it that single solitary time. Then 2 years later, in Act 3, when the slider had reached far enough on the rivalry scale to trigger it, she suddenly turned up on my doorstep offering to sleep with me? The funny part is that I'd RP'd him as gay so he'd really only done a Dorian in offering a compliment without intending it should go further. At least they seemed to have sorted out that kind of programming when it came to DAI. I managed to have my male PC flirt with Dorian up to a point but to avoid any misunderstanding about wanting to have sex with him.

To be honest I'll be happy just to have a new set of interesting characters next game, some of whom I may be able to romance with my favoured PC. Hopefully the story as whole will be too immersive for me to want any complications in my love life.

I thought I explained, my chief objection is having the heart icon appear too early into the relationship. With nearly every person the first proper conversation you have with them back at base included a flirt option.   It was worse in DA2 but even in DAI the first run I felt I was being prompted to flirt too soon and wasn't sure if I didn't take it whether it might stop me from pursuing it later. It didn't help that my first attempt at romance was Solas and in fact if you didn't take that first heart icon (in the Fade) it did mean you weren't offered one again. I didn't like it because it made me feel very pushy and that was actually out of character for my PC so I just had to grin and bear it.

As it turned out, Solas seemed to be the only romance where taking the first heart icon option was necessary, at least of those I tried. Which is why I say that they have probably managed to get the programming okay now so those who want to be up front flirtatious from the beginning can be but those who would rather take it more slowly are able to do that as well.

I have this in my queue to play soon. This means I'm going to have to try to read ALL the options before willy-nilly picking the first one I like.