[minor spoilers?] Friends with Ren

[Asimazeltov]

Ok, I just need to know, and google hasn't helped at all. What do you need to do to stay friends with Ren? Whenever I get to the endgame, he keeps saying "something broke" with our friendship and he doesn't even remember why he wanted to be friends with me in the first place (rude). Even when I've dilligently rescued him first and set him up with Nona.

Is it purely based on who you pick at the tower? Or is there something else I need to do?

[BurningHeron]

Whoa, he said that? He told me "something broke tonight" and I'd been "acting totally different," but not that we weren't friends anymore, period. And I rescued him and set him up with Nona too. Jerk.

There are three things I can think of. When we got off the ferry at the very start of the game, I told Ren to go by himself so I could talk to Jonas. Then at Harden Tower, I didn't pick a clear side in the argument, and I took Nona with me back into town. Without knowing any better, maybe you have to pick him for at least one of those three to stay on his good side? Probably two of them, actually, knowing how flighty Ren is.

[Gremlin [GWJ]]

My first playthrough, I talked with Jonas, rescued Ren second, and took Nona to town and I don't remember Ren being particularly upset with me, though I think he did say something about "acting totally different."

So I'm not sure what you need to do differently; I suspect, based on what's currently known about the relationship system in the game, that it's more complex than just one decision. I do know that slapping him during the game gets him pretty upset, since that's what I did my seconf playthrough. Though I rescued him first that game and he wasn't too upset with me at the end, so maybe I just made a bunch of little decisions that added up to the same result...

[BurningHeron]

Yeah, from what I'm hearing it's point-based in some way, so it's based on the overall trend rather than individual decisions. I just think it's interesting because I made a few missteps in my relationship with Jonas and still had a close relationship with him at the end, yet Ren was annoyed with me despite (what seemed like) a good relationship throughout the game.

The more I think about it, though, the more I think it works. Without knowing exactly how the game calculates this stuff, it sort of makes sense that everyone would determine their attitude differently. Ren is your best friend and kind of flighty anyway, so he's gonna take offense if you're not always on his side; Jonas doesn't know you as well so he'll take a few nasty comments before calling you out on them (actually happened to me); you have to work at making peace with Clarissa; and Nona will probably be nice as long as you don't insult Clarissa or push Ren on her.

Also you've given me an idea for my next playthrough: agree with Ren on everything EXCEPT to slap him during the game, then see if he's still friendly at the end.