Briosafreak
Lived Through the Heat Death
A true brainstorm session took place on the BIS feedback forum, with Non-Playable Characters again in the centre of the discussions. First Damien "Puuk" Foletto comments on Chad "Briareus" Nicholas post where he commented that "I think we can come up with other ways to ensure that the player is the badest bad ass of the wastes without slowing down CNPC level progression.":
<blockquote>One way is to make sure the CNPC's never have all their attribute points total greater than the PC's. The PC should always have the option of being the smartest, strongest, or fastest BA in the land. Now, some CNPC's might have special perks that accent their character that the PC will never have (like, for hypothetical example, a ghoul who has a bunch of bolts, screws, and tools embedded in his head so he never needs an actual toolset to perform mechanical endeavors) but the PC will always have the potential of being better at everything.</blockquote>
And he replied this to the post of kumquatq3 where he states that "I would HATE for npcs to wander off. Realism or no":
<blockquote>I agree. It may be realistic for the CNPC to say "screw you" and wander away to god knows where, but that is not fun for the player when they want to retrieve that CNPC in the future. An alternative might be that the CNPC says, "Okay, but I'm not waiting around here, I'm going back to Blah-ville. You can find me there." But, again, this would require the player to shlep to another area to retrieve the CNPC and would be a huge pain if the player just left the CNPC outside a building for a short while, hoping to get him back in a minute. This is a prime example where fun > realism and the CNPC would be better off just staying put where the player left them.</blockquote>
The yet again kumquatq3 has another question, this time he asks "Puuk: maybe this is bris dept, but what is the reason you wouldn't have NPCs gain XP out side of your party?", and Puuk replies:
<blockquote>Because the adventure is about the PC, not the CNPC's, would be my simple answer. Bri is more equiped to answer the mechanics of how we level the CNPC's, though. I do know we are setting up the advancement path of the CNPC's so when they do level, the perks, skills, etc. would advance automatically according to what the CNPC's specialize in. Also, we toyed with the idea of the CNPC's doing some kind of check against the PC's level and then they would automatically increase to the appropriate level near the PC. Another reason why we pre-select their advancement tree.
I do like how KOTOR does it, but I don't think that would fit in VB, imo. We would like to maintain some degree of autonomy for the CNPC's that was present in the previous games.
Of course this is all up in the air until we can actually see it in action.</blockquote>
Now it`s the time for King of Crooks to ask "Hey Damy, can we beat up and intimidate our CNPCs? ", Puuk had this to say:
<blockquote>Control will be based on CH and leadership perks. It won't be handled in dialogue. Basically, if you have the CH and some leadership perks, you'll get drop down commands that you can issue. You won't have direct control of you CNPC's, but you can tell them what kind of enemy to focus on, disengage, protect me, etc. Can't get into too much detail, but the short of it is you'll have the possibility of having more control of your CNPC's than what was available in F2.
Like I said, a lot of it is still up in the air. The likelihood is the CNPC checking the PC's level and automatically adjusting to be appropriate, so that is a bit like leveling outside the party (actually, more than a little bit). I was thinking that people were asking if they could do it like in KOTOR - choose how the CNPC's advance, etc. This will not be the case. CNPC's will have a set advancement path to maintain the autonomy thingy.</blockquote>
And the thread goes on and on, we don`t have the space to put everything, so take a look yourselves.
<blockquote>One way is to make sure the CNPC's never have all their attribute points total greater than the PC's. The PC should always have the option of being the smartest, strongest, or fastest BA in the land. Now, some CNPC's might have special perks that accent their character that the PC will never have (like, for hypothetical example, a ghoul who has a bunch of bolts, screws, and tools embedded in his head so he never needs an actual toolset to perform mechanical endeavors) but the PC will always have the potential of being better at everything.</blockquote>
And he replied this to the post of kumquatq3 where he states that "I would HATE for npcs to wander off. Realism or no":
<blockquote>I agree. It may be realistic for the CNPC to say "screw you" and wander away to god knows where, but that is not fun for the player when they want to retrieve that CNPC in the future. An alternative might be that the CNPC says, "Okay, but I'm not waiting around here, I'm going back to Blah-ville. You can find me there." But, again, this would require the player to shlep to another area to retrieve the CNPC and would be a huge pain if the player just left the CNPC outside a building for a short while, hoping to get him back in a minute. This is a prime example where fun > realism and the CNPC would be better off just staying put where the player left them.</blockquote>
The yet again kumquatq3 has another question, this time he asks "Puuk: maybe this is bris dept, but what is the reason you wouldn't have NPCs gain XP out side of your party?", and Puuk replies:
<blockquote>Because the adventure is about the PC, not the CNPC's, would be my simple answer. Bri is more equiped to answer the mechanics of how we level the CNPC's, though. I do know we are setting up the advancement path of the CNPC's so when they do level, the perks, skills, etc. would advance automatically according to what the CNPC's specialize in. Also, we toyed with the idea of the CNPC's doing some kind of check against the PC's level and then they would automatically increase to the appropriate level near the PC. Another reason why we pre-select their advancement tree.
I do like how KOTOR does it, but I don't think that would fit in VB, imo. We would like to maintain some degree of autonomy for the CNPC's that was present in the previous games.
Of course this is all up in the air until we can actually see it in action.</blockquote>
Now it`s the time for King of Crooks to ask "Hey Damy, can we beat up and intimidate our CNPCs? ", Puuk had this to say:
<blockquote>Control will be based on CH and leadership perks. It won't be handled in dialogue. Basically, if you have the CH and some leadership perks, you'll get drop down commands that you can issue. You won't have direct control of you CNPC's, but you can tell them what kind of enemy to focus on, disengage, protect me, etc. Can't get into too much detail, but the short of it is you'll have the possibility of having more control of your CNPC's than what was available in F2.
Like I said, a lot of it is still up in the air. The likelihood is the CNPC checking the PC's level and automatically adjusting to be appropriate, so that is a bit like leveling outside the party (actually, more than a little bit). I was thinking that people were asking if they could do it like in KOTOR - choose how the CNPC's advance, etc. This will not be the case. CNPC's will have a set advancement path to maintain the autonomy thingy.</blockquote>
And the thread goes on and on, we don`t have the space to put everything, so take a look yourselves.