Companions, followers

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lgromanowski
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Companions, followers

Post by lgromanowski »

Star-Demon wrote: Since there's been some improvement threads, I thought I'd add one of my personal issues with a lot of western RPGs.

Part of a RPG experience is interacting with other characters you find.
A good goal for any RPG would be to provide for NPCs that can be very deep and allow for many behaviors.

Companions in Morrowind were not very well implemented. A variable called "companion" is what sets the companion share, and the only other thing that the vanilla game provides for is a a simple AI package. Other than some scripting and lots of content writing, there isn't much that can be done in morrowind to make very involved NPC or companions.

Good writing is really key, but we're not here to talk writing right now, we're here to talk mechanics.

What Morrowind companions can do:
Companion Share
Follow and fight

What they couldn't do without items or abilities:

-Follow the player in difficult terrain or if they levitated. Should all NPCs be able to levitate? How about be able to levitate if you acquired the right means for them? (scrolls potions, etc) Other than that, they tend to get stuck. I hope our pathing solutions let actors more easily resolve their problems.

-They tend not to buff or heal you, although I am running MCA, CM parters, and my healers actually heal me.

- They don't do things on their own - this might be an interesting IA opportunity. It'd be very neat if they could go off on their own and steal, fight, sell things, and so on.

- They don't talk back. This is a result of writing, but also scripting. We could provide mechanisms to help them talk back, or engage the player for a change.

Just to name a few, personally, other issues include relationships and romance - I like a bit of an adult edge to my games, but there's a point where a game ceases to be a RPG and starts to become an elaborate dating sim. Someplace there has to be a balance.

Are we going to break a lot of mods? Inevitably. Will the content be rewritten? of course. Will it be better? Absolutely.
sir_herrbatka wrote:
Should all NPCs be able to levitate? How about be able to levitate if you acquired the right means for them?
IMO they should be able to
a) use magic iteams
b) cast a spell
c) drink potion/use scroll
They shoul prefer spell over potion/scroll (unless chance to cast is low) and magic iteams over both.
:roll:
silentthief wrote:
Star-Demon wrote:-Follow the player in difficult terrain or if they levitated. Should all NPCs be able to levitate? How about be able to levitate if you acquired the right means for them? (scrolls potions, etc) Other than that, they tend to get stuck. I hope our pathing solutions let actors more easily resolve their problems.
100% agreement with this!

A follower (whether it be an npc who is friendly or a monster trying to take a bite out of you) should NOT get hung up on a rock and sit there jogging in place.

Likewise when battling an NPC and you levitate into the air, it should not cause the NPC to flee (especially if that NPC is a mage who might decide to take to the air and fight you!). I remember one time while I was escorting some high elf in the mages guild quest from one town to another, and I tried to levitate other so he would follow me into the air. It didn't work. I finally had to have him follow me up a hill so he would be in the air to follow me over some steep hills that you normally had to take him around.

Imagine the effect of an aerial battle and an NPC casts "dispel" on your levitate!!! there is a dramatic battle idea!
Star-Demon wrote:-They tend not to buff or heal you, although I am running MCA, CM parters, and my healers actually heal me.

- They don't do things on their own - this might be an interesting IA opportunity. It'd be very neat if they could go off on their own and steal, fight, sell things, and so on.

Just to name a few, personally, other issues include relationships and romance - I like a bit of an adult edge to my games, but there's a point where a game ceases to be a RPG and starts to become an elaborate dating sim. Someplace there has to be a balance.
Doable with implementing proper script/conversation (assuming you don't mean like "carnal knowledge" side of relationships, that falls more into animation... as well as good taste ;) )
Star-Demon wrote:- They don't talk back. This is a result of writing, but also scripting. We could provide mechanisms to help them talk back, or engage the player for a change.
This is an interesting idea. I always thought it was strange that in MW, nobody talked out loud unless you walked up to them (or if you were walking by or sneaking they might mutter something like "I know someone is watching me")

If you ever played grand theft auto san andreas, the random crowd would walk up to each other and say silly stuff to each other, and the other would respond to it. Now, I think this might be doable with scripting as well (define numbered greetings and match response based upon the number) but I like the idea for realism

A lot of this will come down to what is necessary to hard-code versus what an be accomplished with the (proper) scripting.

ST
Star-Demon wrote:
sir_herrbatka wrote:
Should all NPCs be able to levitate? How about be able to levitate if you acquired the right means for them?
IMO they should be able to
a) use magic iteams
b) cast a spell
c) drink potion/use scroll
They shoul prefer spell over potion/scroll (unless chance to cast is low) and magic iteams over both.
:roll:
They already can do those, with the possible exception of scrolls. Anyone wanna test? using different setups? (vanilla, CM, MCA?)
sir_herrbatka wrote:
They already can do those, with the possible exception of scrolls.
No... NPCs are not able to do this in order to follow player (but they can cast waterwalking?). And they should be able to cast slowfall or levitate in order to prevent fall dmg. Shouldn't be that hard to implent.
Star-Demon wrote:
sir_herrbatka wrote:
They already can do those, with the possible exception of scrolls.
No... NPCs are not able to do this in order to follow player (but they can cast waterwalking?). And they should be able to cast slowfall or levitate in order to prevent fall dmg. Shouldn't be that hard to implent.
Ahhh.I probably meant in the context of scripts...although what I'm propoisng is, more or less, better AI package, perhaps smaller ones integrated into the ones that most already use.

One thing at a time, though.
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