Dragon Age: Inquisition (Plot Details in Spoilers!)

Curious, are there any major write ups on the companions, or anyway to access their level of approval with you? For the life of me I don't recall seeing a bar, but even a console command that would give me a numeric value would be great.

Also wondering on how the approval actually plays out. In my first playthrough, Dorian and Iron Bull told me they were with me to the end, and the rest of them gave me a relative "like you a lot" speech, but not anything concrete like DA2. I thought this was interesting because despite them saying you can't get everyone to like you, it appears more like the DA2 scheme, where taking certain guys with you can get you approval with certain things that don't affect anyone else. (Helping elves with Solas always gets you approval with him, being snarky in certain areas gets Varric, killing darkspawn always nets approval with Blackwall, etc.)

Other than the main quests which affect everyone and not just who you have, it seems like you could probably work it. The only thing stopping that is if certain major decisions freeze that companion out, even if you have max approval with them.

Thoughts?

I think it "might" be possible to get friendly with all companions, but this playthrough where I really tried to do it, I certainly wasn't able to get it with them all. The game forces you into many situations that really piss off a few people.

The prima guide gives information on the major plot decisions and how it effects all your companions. The information has to be available online somewhere, but it doesn't give numeric. Only whether they get slight, normal or great approval/disapproval.

On the companion approval topic, I was drinking quite heavily while finishing up my 2nd playthrough tonight and I had some thoughts. I recall a conversation in an old Mass Effect thread where we were talking about companion deaths and how that impacted the story. During the suicide run in ME2, if you didn't upgrade your shit, or send the right people on the right jobs there were consequences; people died, good ones too. You could send Garrus into the vents or you could neglect his loyalty mission and you could feel the dread when that guy you've been hauling around the galaxy for 40 hours could no longer be a part of your journey.

In DA:I, I never really felt that any of the decisions I made had that kind of impact. I'm the kind of person that doesn't save before any major decision as I like to live with my choices, so this might be a different opinion than some people, but I just never quite understood why they never brought back that kind of mechanic from ME2. In my opinion the suicide run from ME2 was the best thing Bioware has done, even with that three-eyed human reaper baby, and it baffles me why they never brought it back.

Mist_sl said:

I just now realized that the War Table is way more complex than first glance. Different people have dramatically different outcomes. You have to use the right one to reach certain other missions.

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Yea, I paid attention a bit to what they said would happen if you used the wrong people. There was a bit of the demo at e3 where they said sending Leliana on a certain mission was "not optimal" and actually pissed her off. I tried to make educated decisions as to who was the best, but sometimes weird crap happened that I really didn't anticipate. I'm sort of antsy for a fleshed out wiki because people get crazy in depth.

@Zulst, I used to be a "live with your decisions" person for quite awhile, but that was before voice acting came around. I'd pick a choice and the voice part of it would change what I THOUGHT it meant and it would just be a terrible outcome. As a result I always save, just on the chance (and not even an off chance) that it doesn't come out the way I assume.

khalid_sl said:

I think it "might" be possible to get friendly with all companions, but this playthrough where I really tried to do it, I certainly wasn't able to get it with them all. The game forces you into many situations that really piss off a few people.

The prima guide gives information on the major plot decisions and how it effects all your companions. The information has to be available online somewhere, but it doesn't give numeric. Only whether they get slight, normal or great approval/disapproval.

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Well that's sort of what I was getting at; I imagine that by a pure "numeric" value, you could probably max out everyone, even if you are gaining some major negatives from plot areas. I noticed there were many, many things around the world that gave continuous rep with some people, as long as you were watching for them.

But like you said, it didn't seem like I hit max friendly with everyone, and all I can assume is I wasn't paying enough attention, or, despite the fact that they might have had max approval, making a decision contrary to who they are negated everything else. That makes sense but man will it piss me off, just because so many of those decisions that anger people are usually me choosing "lesser of two evils" and people need to get with the program!

Valderen_sl said:

I finished it last night. 91:34 hours to complete it. Did all quests and most collections. Not going back to complete the collection I missed since finding the 4 bottles I missed would take ridiculous amount of time without any hints of which ones I might be missing.

All in all great RPG, it's been a while since I enjoyed a game this much. Will probably do another play through at some point but not right away.

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If you were interested in doing the bottle one though, there is a room in the bottom of Skyhold that has all the bottles you have discovered lined up around the walls. Should be pretty easy to determine which you are missing. Room is a bit hard to find though.

Does that giant book in that room with all the cobwebs in Skyhold ever do anything or is it just there to look at.

Raign_sl said:

If you were interested in doing the bottle one though, there is a room in the bottom of Skyhold that has all the bottles you have discovered lined up around the walls. Should be pretty easy to determine which you are missing. Room is a bit hard to find though.

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There are a couple ways to get to the wine cellar in Skyhold. If you start by the stables in the courtyard you climb up the stairs to the big tower structure (where most of the mages hang out) which will take you into the kitchen. Exit the other side of the kitchen and take a right and you'll be in the wine cellar.

The other way is a bit more confusing; you enter the door that will take you to the war room/Josephine's office, and there will be stairs leading down before you get to Josephine. The stairs down will take you into an unused banquet hall. Cross the room diagonally and you'll see the door leading to the kitchen. On the left will be the wine cellar.

As for figuring out which bottles you're missing, it's not as easy as you'd think it should be. Mousing over them doesn't always show the bottle names because their interact box is much larger than the bottles are, so you have to shuffle around and get proper position so that you're not hitting the same bottles over and over. This might be easier on a console.


There's also what appears to be a private study off the banquet hall that is mostly unused through the entire game. There are a couple codex entries and later a book for a collection quest (which all remain interactive once the quest is finished, probably a bug). I'm assuming that the banquet hall and the private study might come into play in a DLC? Maybe another "improve this part of the castle" requisition or something.

Has anyone found armor schematics for the Inquisition flavored stuff? I found Orlesian easy enough, but I feel like I am totally glossing something over. I really like the silver/red scheme of that armor so I need like, a masterwork in it.

I like my current gear look. Really hated the templar armor my knight enchanter was wearing but the Mastwork battle armor stuff looks pretty good I think. Sera and Blackwall's outfits are just awesome though.

Can you have sex with Leliana in DAI? It seems you can't gain rep with her, am I wrong?

Is there a point to keeping a high approval rating at the party, or is it just strictly a measurement of how much time you have to run around away from the party?

Gavinmad_sl said:

Is there a point to keeping a high approval rating at the party, or is it just strictly a measurement of how much time you have to run around away from the party?

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Trophy and some extra missions/operations.

Well, I'm about to beat the game as 1h/shield reaver. It seems to do pretty decent damage and has great survivability.

I originally tried 2h reaver and was getting trucked.