Affinity

Pink glow surrounding Aelinore displaying high affinity

For the affinity enchantment spells, such as Fire Affinity, see Enchantment Skills.

Affinity is the measure of a person's affection or friendship towards the Arisen.

Overview

"You can raise your affinity with people by giving them items or completing the quests they ask of you. Performing actions that people dislike will decrease their affinity for you."
–In-game description

There is a system in place where the Arisen can develop friendships with other people within the game. Affinity rises and lowers throughout the game based on the Arisen's interactions with the other inhabitants of the world.

Raising Affinity

Affinity can be raised by several means.

• The simplest way to raise affinity is by giving gifts (see Affinity Items). Every person has presents of choice and gifting such an item raises affinity faster.
• An effective way to increase a person's fondness is completing quests specifically for them. Undertaking Escort Quests is a sure way to greatly increase a person's affinity - often these quests only become available once they have been befriended to a smaller degree.
• Each time one talks to someone, their affinity raises slightly.

As affinity rises with the Arisen, a character's actions and appearances will be modified. The friend will first show rosy cheeks and eventually blush when spoken to - characters with the highest level of affinity with the Arisen will 'chime' when spoken to and be surrounded by a noticeable pink halo when in conversation together. Additionally, good friends will call out to the Arisen in the street, greeting them in a friendly manner.

Finally, maximum affinity can be gained through the gift of the Arisen's Bond. It is a special item made from the Ancient Tablet in the quest The Dragon's Tongue. It can also be crafted by combining Love-In-The-Rough and a Noonflower.

High affinity may open up new escort quests for minor characters and make hgh quality merchandise available from merchants.

Lowering affinity

Affinity is lowered by:

• Any antisocial activity, including drawing one's weapon in public, picking people up, running into people, and other actions that cause shock.
• More dangerous actions also greatly reduce affinity, including attacking people and also picking up and throwing them - such actions are considered Crimes in Gran Soren and should be avoided.
• In Dark Arisen, the special item Liquid Effluvium can be used as a 'gift' to greatly lower affinity.

Characters with low affinity may initially recoil or appear shocked at the Arisen's appearance, and at very low levels they will run from the Arisen on sight.

Affinity slowly becomes neutral again over the passing of in-game days.

Beloved

Main article: Beloved.

A person with strong affinity with the Arisen will become their Beloved during the events of the latter part of the story, specifically during The Final Battle - affinity also affects the final outcome of the game, that is the epilogue to the quest, The Great Hereafter.

Trophies and Achievements

• Affinity and Beyond - raise a person's affinity to the highest level

Notes

• In general, completing a character's quest line will maximize or greatly raise their affinity (specifically Selene, Madeleine, Mercedes, Aelinore, Julien, Reynard, or Valmiro).
• Favored gifts raise affinity by twice as much as normal gifts. In general, a person's favored gift matches their status in life, or occupation - with all soldiers, or nuns, or women in Cassardis each preferring the same specific items within their own social group.
• The Magick Archer augment Allure is supposed to double affinity growth from presents, but it is thought to be bugged and give only very minor benefit.
• Be cautious when interacting with important people - attacking shop and innkeepers will cause them to flee from the Arisen, making their services unavailable for a while.
• Very low affinity gradually returns to normal levels over time.
• High affinity can also gradually lower over time.
• In the original version of Dragon's Dogma, affinity increased more through talking to people, with the consequence that oft visited persons (such as Asalam) could become 'beloved' without intention - in Dark Arisen this effect was greatly reduced.

Quest effects

• In the quest A Troublesome Tome, high affinity with Maul may cause him to hand over the magick tome personally.
• Ser Daerio may hand over the Windbluff Tower Key to persons he is favorable towards.
• Ser Maximilian may have different dialogue during A Warm Welcome depending on his affinity towards the Arisen.

Under the Hood

Internally, the Affinity is stored per character as a value between 0 and 1000.

The default value varies depending on the character type:

• 400 for Bandits
• 510 for Barroch (locked at 510)
• 550 for Cassardi
• 1000 for Akim, Delec, Joye, and Olra (locked at 1000)
• 500 for everyone else

Actions that raise Affinity include

• Talking +10
  • Some commonly spoken to characters only gain +5, including:
    • Aldous, Alon, Camellia, Caxton, Devyn, Ecbal, Fournival, Jayce, Madeleine, Mathias, Maximilian, Mountebank, Pablos, Reynard, Ser Alfonso, Ser Nathaniel, Ser Octavio
  • In Dark Arisen Affinity gain for Asalam through talking to him was removed
• Gifting items. By using the "Present" option when talking to someone.
  • The act of gifting adds a base amount of +1 (+2 with the Allure Augment) to the item gifted.
  • Gift Items can be divided into 2 groups based on how much additional affinity is gained from each item (note that the augment Allure is bugged for the gift item's affinity) :
    • Low Value items +25 (+50 if they are Preferred Items):
      • Ancient Scroll, (Kept) Beast-Steak, Bronze Idol Forgery, Capeflower, Cloudwine, Cursed Carving, Devilwort, Festival Pie, Foreign Knife, Godsthrone Blossom, Gold Idol Forgery, Harspud Juice, Jasper Blossom, (Kept) Large Fish, Loneflower, Magick Medal, Noonflower, Quill, Reminishroom, Silver Idol Forgery, Skull, Thornflower, Toadstool Sitter, White Orchid, Windmill Flower
    • High Value items +40 (+80 if they are Preferred Items):
      • (Kept) Ambrosial Meat, Ancient Ore, Antique Panoply, (Kept) Giant Fish, Grandblossom, Harspud Sauce, Lava Flower
    • Each character belongs to 1 of 20 different groups based on their preferred gift items. Some groups are made up of only a single character.
      • Aelinore - Windmill Flower, White Orchid
      • Aldous - Ancient Scroll
      • Bandits - Skull
      • Cassardi Females - Capeflower, Grandblossom
      • Cassardi Males (Including Clemente) - (Kept) Beast-Steak, (Kept) Ambrosial Meat
      • Fournival - Bronze, Silver and Gold Idol Forgery
      • Julien - Festival Pie
      • Ladies of Gran Soren - Loneflower, Lava Flower
      • Madeleine - Magick Medal
      • Maximilian - Quill
      • Members of the Faith - Cursed Carving, Ancient Ore
      • Men of Gran Soren - (Kept) Large Fish, (Kept) Giant Fish
      • Mercedes - Cloudwine
      • Quina - Godsthrone Blossom, Noonflower
      • Reynard - Reminishroom
      • Soldiers - Foreign Knife, Antique Panoply
      • Symone - Jasper Blossom, Thornflower
      • Travellers - Harspud Juice, Harspud Sauce
      • Valmiro - Devilwort
      • Selene (and Sofiah) - Toadstool Sitter
• Escort Quests +100
• Arisen's Bond +1000

Many quest actions can also cause considerable affinity gain. For example:

• Giving Madeleine a Gold Idol in Idol Worship up to +100
• Completing each stage of Search Party for Reynard +100
• Completing Land of Opportunity for Fournival +100

Actions that lower Affinity include

• Picking Up and Carrying, Bumping into while running -5
• Unsheathing weapon -10
• Attacking -100
• Gifting Liquid Effluvium -350

Daily Growth and Decay

Each day, the character's affinity will slowly reset back to its base value as midnight passes (see Day and Night cycle). How much their affinity changes depends on their current level.

• Above the character's base value: -5
• Under 100: +10
• Between 100-300: +4
• 300 to base value: +5

Responses at various Affinity levels

• Under 100: Characters become frightened of the Arisen and will run away on sight of them
• At 580: Escort Quests become available
• Above 849: The 'chimes' associated with high affinity and visible blushing
• Above 899: A glowing pink halo appears when talking to the character

Other Processes

When affinity is over 700, actions that cause gains are reduced to 70% of their normal increase. This does not apply to the +5 increase gained from talking to commonly spoken to characters.

There is a soft cap at 850 for generic gains such as that from speaking to a person and from gifting non-preferred items. Completing specific character quests, as well as gifting high-value preferred items for select characters, allows the affinity cap to be passed. (Then generic gains become available again.)

If affinity reaches 1000, it does not decay over time.^(verify) (Completing certain tasks such as escort quests may be needed as well.)^(verify)