By firing up Wiz8.
Only Wiz 8?
Is it easier due to the different voice sets?
By firing up Wiz8.
Because thats how much control the game gives you over the recruitables, it isnt a bad thing. This games gameplay would be influenced negatively if it was.And it applied to how many characters and gear pieces? Edwin had his amulet - ok, anyone else?
Exactly, why wouldn't, for example, a somewhat asshole dwarf interesting in killing shit for fun and profit (but mostly profit) give up all his stuff and go up to willingly become a dorf roast?
Sure, except maybe thats part of your strategy, a fire immune character getting bombarded with fireballs on the frontlines would be good. That some character complained and turned against you in the middle of the combat because of this would be ass.If anything Wiz 8 RPC (oh the irony) behaviour should be absolute minimum, with personal items that are unequippable but can't get moved out of character's inventory and stuff like turning on the party if they, for example, attack character's friends.
Ideally for another game with other mechanics and a different gameplay, and it would not be better for it, it would be different.Ideally, you should have this, plus stuff like characters refusing to give up gear unless given better or equal gear of their favoured type unless in specific circumstances.
Sure, they should have added more scripts for stuff like that,Yeah, well, no.
A game where you can make a paladin with established character (or better yet, a chaotic good type) skewer orphans for no reason then whine about party being assholes instead of flat out refusing or even attacking your murderous ass is a shit one.
Uh, yeah you do, give the best armor to two of your frontliners and have the third wear a leather armor or nothing because hes going to be sitting on the backlines. i dont want him bitching that "i took his armor away". Itd be fucking retarded.You don't need to be able to strip independent characters naked or make them stab townsfolk either for vast majority of sensible strategies.
This is not impressive at all, also, it adds nothing.Even modern day bethpizda can accomplish that (see Skyrim which has - kludgy and not very useful in the thick of things, but still - command menu and characters that refuse to perform actions conflicting with their morality and don't give up their personal gear even if they can replace it with better one if you give it to them).
You had this in bg.Control is good because tactics is good, but characters should filter the commands through their own judgement. This could mean a moral character refusing killing innocents in cold blood or stealing shit
You had this in BG.a cowardly character running from battle,
You had this in BG.a berserker ignoring your orders and just charging in
Why not? They dont need it, someone else in the team does.Also pretty much any character not just giving up vital gear.
Sure, stronger personalities would be good. Tho there are tons of factors you cant communicate to the game, it could create a lot of frustration not being able to do the obviously most effective things because the game simply cant understand what you are trying to do.This could mean some interesting tradeoffs too - for example would you like a disciplined, average fighter or a powerhouse that charges in ignoring your orders and brains townspeople for looking at him funny?
I do it in every party RPG. This is probably a conversation that deserves its own thread if you're interested, but the main point is that the "main character" in a party RPG is not "you", because there is no "main character". "You" are the whole party, but that doesn't mean that they are a hivemind or should be considered such. Consider film: an actor can only portray a single character, but a director motivates all the characters, including those in conflict with one another. Be the director.How do you LARP 6-8 different characters?
Sadly it isn't (though it should).
Take BG you presumably love, for instance.
It tries to work like full party game despite it being effectively a solo game with followers.
It results in all sorts of sad mishaps like evil, self interested characters willingly walking up to the protagonist, giving up all their possessions and meekly getting the fuck out or a game built like party based one but ending when just one character bites it making it dependent on either metagaming or avoidance of certain, otherwise perfectly valid builds.
If a game has predefined *characters* joining you, they should act like independent characters which in BG only happens when they start to duke it out between themselves (which is the only part of BG I would describe as awesome), rather than player's compliant pawns.
A proper party based game is something like Wizardry - player makes all their characters and gets to define them in full, including their agendas and behaviour.
A proper solo + followers game is something like Fallout - characters not created by the player are not controlled directly and can't be made to do everything player wants (although some sort of command interface is definitely welcome addition as it enables proper tactics, a follower should be able to say "no and fuck you" if they find a command objectionable).
How so? What drawback does an inability to cheese game by making pre-made characters do shit they wouldn't confer?Because thats how much control the game gives you over the recruitables, it isnt a bad thing. This games gameplay would be influenced negatively if it was.
If he's fire-immune then a well designed AI wouldn't make the fuss because he wouldn't be affected now, would it?Sure, except maybe thats part of your strategy, a fire immune character getting bombarded with fireballs on the frontlines would be good. That some character complained and turned against you in the middle of the combat because of this would be ass.
You mean an actually good one?Ideally for another game with other mechanics and a different gameplay
You could turn the script processing off, so not really.Sure, they should have added more scripts for stuff like that
A guy sitting in the back would probably be using a long reach or ranged weapon and specialize in it or sling spells. Again different characters should consider different equipment essential and preferred. A ranger for example could for example have bias for leather armour. There are many flexible ways to do it - a character could switch their preference for armour depending on weapon given, but only swap out the weapons for another ones (unless a monk or caster), there could be a function checking entire party inventory so if you had less suitable gear pieces than characters capable of using them, they could (reluctantly) give them up without swapping, there could be alignment/reputation/adventuring time function to check the level of trust character puts in the protagonist, etc.Uh, yeah you do, give the best armor to two of your frontliners and have the third wear a leather armor or nothing because hes going to be sitting on the backlines. i dont want him bitching that "i took his armor away". Itd be fucking retarded.
Of course it's not impressive, it's bloody fucking common sense and trivial to make.This is not impressive at all, also, it adds nothing.
Characters refusing to attack or grab stuff? That's news to me.You had this in bg.
Yeah, but it ddn't really made much difference between characters. The only notable exception was Khalid who was a bit prone to sir Robin-ing his way out of the fray.You had this in BG.
It's vital if its lack makes the character just sit on their ass waiting to be killed by shit. Also it's not necessarily needed by anyone if the party is swimming in loot.Why not? They dont need it, someone else in the team does.
The thing is most effective to you doesn't mean most effective to your party members and not everyone is rational anyway. Choice between mediocre but reliable, and awesome, but not would be fun to have.Sure, stronger personalities would be good. Tho there are tons of factors you cant communicate to the game, it could create a lot of frustration not being able to do the obviously most effective things because the game simply cant understand what you are trying to do.
Yeah, but it breaks its main significant strength.Baldur's nativelly allow you to make your own party, through the multiplayer mode.
So it actually let you choose between building and recruiting.
Wouldnt know, they seemed like bad guys so i murdered them on my first playthrough.How so? What drawback does an inability to cheese game by making pre-made characters do shit they wouldn't confer?
And it doesn't even take particularly cheese-minded person to end up exploiting this - you leave Candlekeep without having the foresight to get spare leather and some stabby bit for Imoen as a good-aligned guy, meet the derpy wizard-halfling duo and want to ditch them immediately because hey they seem incompatible with your goody-two shoes fuckwad (and why the fuck would you even be able to see their alignment on character sheet anyway?), but the halfling has a shortsword and studded leather and you can help yourself to wizards scrolls - oops, you have just made the game go full derp ahead by refusing to LARP actively.
Sure, my point remains, just how good does it need to be? how many variations or permutations of skills and effects can you possibly prepare your AI for?If he's fire-immune then a well designed AI wouldn't make the fuss because he wouldn't be affected now, would it?
No, i mean a different game. There are few universal rules to game design, and a lot of circumstancial ones that come down to both how well executed it is and how apropiate it is.You mean an actually good one?
It would detract from the tactical experience that provides the game if some RNG assholery ruined your entire tactic. A fairly rustic implementation of it was done in BG1 in the form of morale, and it was shit. Your party members running away in the middle of battle because they had low hp detracted from the experience. Which is why it was scrapped in BGII.As I see it it would reinforce the sole advantage the BG actually had - when the party members did show the bit of autonomy they had and for example tried to spill each other guts rather than being obedient drones working together for greater good(TM) regardless of their actual worldview.
Was refering to scripted events. so whatever.You could turn the script processing off, so not really.
Blah blah blah, i dont care for your inanity and your bullshit, fighters were perfectly capable of staying in the back and using ranged weapons or going to the front and wrecking havoc and if you were panning for such a flexible strategy you may either keep them heavily armored and in the back or lightly armored and in the second line or maybe preparing the field for the lightly armored warrior to make a beeline for a character that is weak to melee but strong or immune against most forms of ranged attack, or you could have ran out of ammo or ranged spells etc.A guy sitting in the back would probably be using a long reach or ranged weapon and specialize in it or sling spells. Again different characters should consider different equipment essential and preferred. A ranger for example could for example have bias for leather armour. There are many flexible ways to do it - a character could switch their preference for armour depending on weapon given, but only swap out the weapons for another ones (unless a monk or caster), there could be a function checking entire party inventory so if you had less suitable gear pieces than characters capable of using them, they could (reluctantly) give them up without swapping, there could be alignment/reputation/adventuring time function to check the level of trust character puts in the protagonist, etc.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA "my modded experience made this thing possible in this simplistic 1 character rpg where you get to give a simple order to your companion so that he will try and fail to execute." You really are fucking retarded.Of course it's not impressive, it's bloody fucking common sense and trivial to make.
And it adds quite a lot even with bethpizda design especially after you mod the game so that you can't reliably do everything yourself - can't open locks and don't have criminally minded/unquestioning follower? Too bad, you won't be getting shit from that chest.
They could comment on your behaviour and leave. true. because they couldnt recognize what you were doing other than it was a bad thing. But i distinctly remember having to either side with dynaheir and misc or edwin and thats more than you could ask for.Characters refusing to attack or grab stuff? That's news to me.
All they could do was whine and eventually leave.
Sure, and its perfectly doable. But what you are asking for is an AI capable of determining exactly what you are doing and reacting realistically to it. and you are saying its a failure of the game not being able to do it? and you are quoting skyrim as a game that did it more sensibly. the game were you put buckets on merchants heads.A pally wouldn't have left after you made him stab too many orphans. He would have done so before the first one and tried to kick your ass either immediately or by returning with backup.
All of them could run away in BG1 due to low morale, in BG2 berserker did take control out of your character as well.Yeah, but it ddn't really made much difference between characters. The only notable exception was Khalid who was a bit prone to sir Robin-ing his way out of the fray.
Sure, lets add item recognition to the matrix that will be running the AI, sounds like our budget RPG will be grate. and before you tell me BGs were not budget RPGs, they certainly are compared to the costs of what you are proposing.It's vital if its lack makes the character just sit on their ass waiting to be killed by shit. Also it's not necessarily needed by anyone if the party is swimming in loot.
Sure, lets put every single reason anyone could think of for every scenario to justify every action the player makes that the characters may not be on board with. in dialogue, and as it is nowadays, fully VA.The thing is most effective to you doesn't mean most effective to your party members and not everyone is rational anyway. Choice between mediocre but reliable, and awesome, but not would be fun to have.
Its main significant strenght was its combat, itemization and content, especially in 2. characters were decent tho and playing it multiplayer was ass.Yeah, but it breaks its main significant strength.
No one's saying Skyrim doesn't have problems, but its many failures don't actually undercut his point. As bad as Skyrim's AI is, it's a (blundering, baby) step towards good, procedural behaviors. It's bad that a merchant will sit still while you put a blindfold on him, but it's good that he has to have line-of-sight on you to see you steal shit. The one does not nullify the lessons learned from the other.Sure, and its perfectly doable. But what you are asking for is an AI capable of determining exactly what you are doing and reacting realistically to it. and you are saying its a failure of the game not being able to do it? and you are quoting skyrim as a game that did it more sensibly. the game were you put buckets on merchants heads.
Bro, half the fucking companions need a teleport to the player, otherwise they get lost. No idea in what world this is a step forward. Also line of sight has been there since probably the 80s, so i dont see the big advancement there.No one's saying Skyrim doesn't have problems, but its many failures don't actually undercut his point. As bad as Skyrim's AI is, it's a (blundering, baby) step towards good, procedural behaviors. It's bad that a merchant will sit still while you put a blindfold on him, but it's good that he has to have line-of-sight on you to see you steal shit. The one does not nullify the lessons learned from the other.
Sounds like a lot of work to me, and very prone to bugs or glitches. Not to mention that it sounds like something that would stop you from enjoying the game at every oportunity it gets. Whiny companions that dont want to do what they are told when im too busy trying to win the game is not my idea of a leap forward. Not to mention that said interactions would hold little to no weight in the main storyline or in your relationship with said character. He will not bring up the time you had to bitchslap him when he didnt want to use a bow when fighting those pesky goblins and their king.You're describing a situation in which every possible permutation of behavior and every possible reaction must be hand-scripted ... but this is silly. You don't have to write a unique script for each orphan in the game, or for each paladin in the game. You can flag all orphans as something paladins like, and create a routine where any paladin (or any other heroic character) will react any time you harm any orphan (or any other innocent). There doesn't have to be a chart of every possible weapon loadout with a separate script for each to determine whether a given character will tolerate being assigned light armor. It's pretty easy to envision an algorithm encompassing available inventory and weapon/armor assignments to the rest of the party, and assignment thresholds of "reasonable" and "unreasonable".
Not advocating for shit, but this is an old game and the asshole over there is criticizing it for not featuring shit that hasnt been invented yet, and that would have added NOTHING to it compared to stuff like more and better content.I agree that making stuff like this work in a way that doesn't seem forced and exploitable will be resource intensive, and may not even be possible with today's technology. But to advocate the abandonment of procedural AI behaviors and to cleave to strict case-by-case scripting is woefully shortsighted, not to say stagnant.
Sure, hopefully. Tbh i dont have any fucks to give to VA in muh rpgs, so many things are more important, but i will acknowledge that it seems to sell.As for the impossibility of procedural dialogue due to the modern necessity of prerecorded VA ... well, I've been saying for decades that game devs need to focus on sound synthesis just as much as graphic improvement. As far as I know they're still all too dumb to take the hint, but luckily voice synthesis studios are working on it anyway. I think I'll see (hear) VS good enough to eliminate the need for video game VA in my lifetime.
You're right. I should never have said that Skyrim's AI is perfect and has no problems whatsoever. Maybe I should have said the exact opposite of that.Bro, half the fucking companions need a teleport to the player, otherwise they get lost.
You should play Jagged Alliance some time. It's actually awesome.Whiny companions that dont want to do what they are told when im too busy trying to win the game is not my idea of a leap forward.
Of course he will, if you add in routines to track the arc of the relationship. Pretty simple really. Again, see Jagged Alliance. If they could do it in 1994 they can do it now.Not to mention that said interactions would hold little to no weight in the main storyline or in your relationship with said character. He will not bring up the time you had to bitchslap him when he didnt want to use a bow when fighting those pesky goblins and their king.
I don't disagree there, but please don't say NOTHING in all caps when you mean "relatively little".Not advocating for shit, but this is an old game and the asshole over there is criticizing it for not featuring shit that hasnt been invented yet, and that would have added NOTHING to it compared to stuff like more and better content.
Yeah. I'm not crazy about RPG voiceover in general either - in fact I think it's a detriment since I read much faster than people talk. The point is that once procedural voice is made viable, the VA issue ("We must have full voice so everything has to be 100% scripted!") will no longer be a roadblock to procedural AI.Sure, hopefully. Tbh i dont have any fucks to give to VA in muh rpgs, so many things are more important, but i will acknowledge that it seems to sell.
I prefere to build my own party mostly because of cRPG Companion Sass (tm). Another factor is that pre-made companions tend to throw their life story at you, just like drunk old people you meet in bars. I sometimes like to talk with drunk old people in bars, but I would rather not take them with me on a killing spree.
There are of course some exceptions, but they are few and far between so I pretty much always build my own party when I'm given the chance.
Re companion control, taking their equipment and dumping them: BG had a level of separation that made cheesing less of an issue. Stripping NPCs, or spamming wand of summoning while kiting Drittz, didn't feel like 'doing something really stupid in-game', it felt like deliberately breaking the game. There was enough abstraction that you knew you were 'cheating'.
They usually do, but they don't have to. Look at Final Fantasy VI and VII as examples. In VI you start as the player-identification character, and go for a while recruiting others, and then it turns out that that first PC isn't the blank slate you thought she was, she's very weird, and very early in the game she splits off, the party forms three separate groups, and you follow each story individually. As the game wears on there are several sequences in which you are forced to use one character or another, and by the end there's no question of who is the "main hero"; there simply isn't one. Not only is there nothing wrong with that, it's a fascinating device that draws you closer to every character. VII has a similar device in that it sort of tricks you into thinking Cloud is the player-insert character, but at one point in the game, spoiler alert, Cloud disappears and there's a long sequence in which the secondary heroes have to step up and become primaries.
All this is meant to illustrate that the western trope of the "chosen one" where you are meant to think of a particular character as "you" is completely arbitrary. It's fine that some games, like Ultima, do it; there's nothing wrong with it; but it's absolutely unnecessary, and this is true both in games where PCs are premade and when they're player-created.
i dont want him bitching that "i took his armor away". Itd be fucking retarded.
One thing I always hate about scripted companions is that they're inevitably (and often unconvincingly) bound to you for eternity. "You found my keys, now I am your indentured servant until the day I die." Writers are getting better about making this crap plausible, but that's the wrong direction to go. No matter how convincing the story, I don't want these assholes to all be my roommates until the end of days (and that includes going home to wait around at the base when they're not active in the party). Give them a reason to help me with one or two things, and then give them a reason to get back to their own goddamn lives. I'm so much happier when I can "finish" a companion NPC and get his deal over with. Accumulating an ever-increasing immortal harem of mules and meat shields, particularly when they all have heartbreaking backstories and various other baggage, is not a turn-on.