Lucanis romance bug after Act 1 decision
Because it's DEFINITELY a bug that lucanis is perma-locked out of romance if you don't save Treviso, while you get to still romance neve eventually for the EQUAL and opposite decision? Especially whi...
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I held off on doing "Bidding Farewell" because I wanted to meet Davrin before making any more Lucanis romance decisions. Little did I know.
"Bidding Farewell" is marked as "failed" for me in the journal because I didn't do it before "A Warden's Best Friend" and chose Minrathous. I have had no flirt options for Lucanis since, so I'm sure that "Bidding Farewell" is key to Lucanis' romance. I get that the failed quest is my fault, I don't have the quest completely missing like others do.
All of it is so convoluted and confusing. It's such a bizarre choice to force a monumental world and romance decision before even gaining all the companions and to lock in meeting a companion into a major world choice. All of that and the general romance lockout with Lucanis has frankly soured my entire first playthrough, arguably the most important one.
Also, I think it's flat-out incorrect - like literally misinformation - that this isn't a real quest or side quest and just a conversation, so it's getting muddy now on what is actually happening with Lucanis.
It's become a domino effect of sourness. I think choosing Minrathous makes a far more compelling romance with Lucanis, but even if he was still romanceable after, why would I want to romance someone who is now hardened to me and refuses to heal me? It would be different if Hardened was only temporary until you hit certain relationship levels, but I had to leave the immersion of the game to search this, and my understanding is that it's permanent.
I also blame the writing -- there are clearly implied dire political consequences if you don't save Minrathous. There aren't if you don't save Treviso. Treviso is already occupied, the stakes aren't raised. Do people die? Yes, but people will also die in Minrathous if you don't help AND it will supposedly make the world events even worse. I don't want to save Treviso just because it lets me continue to flirt with a hot guy.
Genuinely mind-boggling and infuriating.
this. you pretty much said everything i had an issue with regarding hardened lucanis, and it unfortunately ruined my first playthrough as well. imagine my surprise when i chose to be a shadow dragon rook, specifically chose to be a tevinter mage, only for lucanis the mage killer to not care an ounce about my specialization. ok… thats fine, he only hunts venatori, sure. but he also doesnt care where rook is from either bc being a shadow dragon rook has no weight with your companions when you choose to save your home (if we ignore the already very glaring political implications to the story that you already mentioned. and also u need to save minrathous anyway for the good ending i hear??? like??). and i thought his hardened state was temporary until trust was regained again which is what made the most sense to me, especially as someone who is always on the hunt for the most angsty romances, but nope! forever locked, while a hardened neve can still eventually be romanced. where is the logic in that?
where i thought i would also find a compelling romance like you did, something like what i found with fenris, solas, and kaidan from mass effect, a push and pull between two people who end up opposing each other in some way and yet still find it impossible to ignore one another, i and many others were instead met with the brick wall that is the romance lock. i completely agree with this lock souring the angsty and delicious true slow burn that this romance couldve been with a minrathous save run. it MAKES NO SENSE AT ALL and is not anything near what i was expecting from a dragon age game which i have always known to have such deep, complicated, and beautiful romances with characters that felt real. i swear i saw this game advertised that they were using a similar companion system to dragon age 2, and this is nothing like that at all. just incredibly confusing and disappointing writing/direction decisions. im beyond frustrated and sad at how much of an impact this had on my first playthrough and just the enormous waste of potential
wait, hardened is permanent? what are the whole "rebulding trust" things for, then?
As far as I can find in search results, yes. My own experience is that Hardened makes it take longer for the relationship gauge to build from interactions and leveling in battle and exploration. I noticed for a good couple hours that Lucanis stopped doing the whole "Good job, Rook!" "Watch out, Rook" in battles and he was icy with me in some other dialogue options, somehow surprised I wanted to help him with companion quests, and didn't have any incidental time-sensitive mini convos. That slowly came back, though, over time -- but I don't know how much of that is because of hardened or just him being broody about Treviso in general. I'm currently level 7 with Lucanis, take him everywhere just to see what will happen, and he's still marked as hardened even after some warm interactions with him and seeming to understand and forgive Rook for their choice.
But keep in mind, I didn't even do "Bidding Farewell" so got a red "X" in the completed quests section of the Journal. I have no idea if Hardened can be removed if you're able to complete it. It's really messy."Messy" is right. All the mess has really killed my enjoyment for this game.
And I finished my first playthrough. Got Lucanis to level 10, and hero status. He was hardened permanently. Which still makes no sense from a story level. If he's hardened to me at level 10, why the hell is he asking me advice for gooseberry pie for Neve??? It would make more sense if his hardened status was removed after hitting level 10, but nope.
