Influence

[SteveThaiBinh]

The influence system is not terribly realistic, because it's superficially too powerful. While I can accept that Atton can be twisted to the Dark Side, it's less plausible for Disciple or Mira, given the life choices they've made until now. Or at least, the alignment screen makes influence appear too powerful. Perhaps the problem is that we're looking at an alignment screen with the Disciple as a glowering figure framed in red and black, and expecting something of that to be reflected in his behaviour and speech.

 

In any case, they made an in-game explanation for having influence this way, that the Exile makes force bonds and people follow him blindly because of his force-enhanced leadership abilities. Counter-intuitive, but useful for understanding why influence works the way it does. I suppose realism isn't the only factor in game quality, you also want to manipulate characters as you wish, even though that wouldn't happen quite so smoothly in real life.

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

The influence system is not terribly realistic, because it's superficially too powerful.  While I can accept that Atton can be twisted to the Dark Side, it's less plausible for Disciple or Mira, given the life choices they've made until now.  Or at least, the alignment screen makes influence appear too powerful.  Perhaps the problem is that we're looking at an alignment screen with the Disciple as a glowering figure framed in red and black, and expecting something of that to be reflected in his behaviour and speech.

 

In any case, they made an in-game explanation for having influence this way, that the Exile makes force bonds and people follow him blindly because of his force-enhanced leadership abilities.  Counter-intuitive, but useful for understanding why influence works the way it does.  I suppose realism isn't the only factor in game quality, you also want to manipulate characters as you wish, even though that wouldn't happen quite so smoothly in real life.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

That aspect of the influence system is because of the Exile PC though. With a different PC it would work in a different way to that. The exiles bonds are so powerful that those around him become like him , even non organics. Thats compounded if you take Sith Lord or Jedi Master (though it does odd things to some characters from what I saw).

 

Just because they happen to come in line with you because you sort of supress them, it dosnt mean that they will be your friends and tell you everything about themselves.

 

I'd like to see the influence system in action with a different character anyway.

 

On the speech thing. There are some differences, though they are pretty subtle. And given that the whole thing is voiced you have two major concerns. Cost - Twice as much speech means more money on the VOT budget. Space - The disk is a finite space. You know Sqenix dropped a whole alternate Rikku romance because they couldnt fit it on the disk.

[odium]

The worst problem with it is that Influence is practically independent of the character you are playing. Your Persuade skill is irrelevant and I can count the number of times I used Awareness, INT and WIS on one hand. The Influence system is not about having a charismatic or persuasive character. It is about the player telling the characters what they want to hear. If you say what they want to hear, they agree with you and gain Influence. If you say what they don't want to hear, you lose Influence. Regardless of your INT, WIS or CHA, there is never an option to actually change their minds, to convince them that they are wrong or to at least make them doubtful. Instead, to gain Influence you must be a demagogue and a flatterer.

 

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Well you can look at it two ways.

 

1. You tell people what they want to hear. It's suprisingly similiar in real life ya know. Tell people what they want to hear and they open up to you. It may require that you put aside your own beliefs but it works.

 

2. You agree with people because that is how you feel, people who are friends usually agree on a wide range of things. Rarely will you be buddies with someone who has a totally opposite world view than you do.

 

There are a couple of places you can use pursuade, but that will lose you influence since most of the characters are too smart to fall for that.

 

So in effect you are critisising the system for mirroring real life too closely, which I find rather funny. The only thing missing in the game is you cant buy influence with gifts

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

you would be surprised. In real life if you really know what you are doing, go opposite of what they belive and still convince them. you own them.

roughly put

[SteveThaiBinh]

Another question is, which came first?

 

Did the developers start out with the character of the Exile who makes force bonds and has an unnatural power over others, and design the influence system to suit that character?

 

Or did they start with the influence system, making it as realistic as was feasible given the constraints of complexity and disk space, and then invent a 'cover story', an explanation for why the Exile would influence people in precisely this way?

 

I have to say I suspect the latter. I hope that the experience gained is allowing Obsidian to attempt the former with NWN2; the potential is huge.

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

you would be surprised. In real life if you really know what you are doing, go opposite of what they belive and still convince them. you own them.

roughly put

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

You can do that in KOTORII just go the negative influence route. The only thing you cant do in KOTORII is to go the middle road. Trying to make up for bad influence by doing something nice.

 

I don't know who you hang out with, but most of the people I know are way too smart and or willful to fall for that one.

 

The major difference between life and KOTOR of course is that KOTOR gives you only a limited pool of potential friends. If we only had one shot at romance in real life, most of us would end up being bachelors.

[odium]

loooool.......... that was rich

 

the point is not for them to be stupid

but for you to be smarter than them

[odium]

Another question is, which came first?

 

Did the developers start out with the character of the Exile who makes force bonds and has an unnatural power over others, and design the influence system to suit that character?

 

Or did they start with the influence system, making it as realistic as was feasible given the constraints of complexity and disk space, and then invent a 'cover story', an explanation for why the Exile would influence people in precisely this way?

 

I have to say I suspect the latter.  I hope that the experience gained is allowing Obsidian to attempt the former with NWN2; the potential is huge.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

they could have started it to cure cancer for all the difference it does now

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

loooool.......... that was rich

 

the point is not for them to be stupid

but for you to be smarter than them

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

You were aware that you could open up the conversations through negative influenve I take it?

[odium]

loooool.......... that was rich

 

the point is not for them to be stupid

but for you to be smarter than them

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

You were aware that you could open up the conversations through negative influenve I take it?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

 

for the love of me i can't understand whi you pple always jump in extremes

..one chance in life at romance. WHAT IN GOD"S NAME does that have to do with anything.

 

If i were in a turkish prison right now i'd be happy to be still able to count my teeth

but seeing as i'm not......

 

and seeing as that is just a game i was simply talking of balancing things and creating a certain level of immersion. NOT ensuring the continuation of my genes

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

for the love of me i can't understand whi you pple always jump in extremes

..one chance in life at romance. WHAT IN GOD"S NAME does that have to do with anything.

 

If i were in a turkish prison right now i'd be happy to be still able to count my teeth

but seeing as i'm not......

 

and seeing as that is just a game i was simply talking of balancing things and creating a certain level of immersion. NOT ensuring the continuation of my genes

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Oh , it just highlights one of the major differences between real life and game life thats all.

 

Your point was that in real life you can manipulate people into your way of thinking right? Well you can do that in the game too. So just what are you complaining about?

 

What exactly do you expect from the influence system ?

[Orchomene]

Well, I would expect the influence system too be a bit richer :

-more opportunity to influence NPCs, but less obvious personalities, i.e. with twisted characters like atton, it would be interesting to trigger positive influence by different ways.

Also, I'd like to have some more requirements in terms of Attributes or skills, it would make the influence dialogues last a bit longer for some NPCs.

Sure, all spoken dialogues is good in terms of aesthetics, but I think it's too expensive in terms of dialogue trees. When dialogues in games were only written, you ould see many more dialogue answers to your arguments : in Kotor and K2, it's blattant sometimes that whatever you say you're endind with the same answer.

 

In the end, I'd rather have not spoken dialogues sometimes with my NPCs (for long and twisted dialogue trees) than all spoken but too poor in terms of quantity/adaptability to answers.

[Memnoch]

Hmm, interesting stuff here. I had been confused about how influence works. Also I didn't realise you could unlock conversations with NEGATIVE influence as well as positive. I suppose all that means is that the person will hate your guts and be an opposite alignment to yours, right? So if as a Darksider I treat Hanharr like the scum he is I'll actually push him towards the Light?

 

Some Sith Lord I am, eh. :D

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

Hmm, interesting stuff here. I had been confused about how influence works. Also I didn't realise you could unlock conversations with NEGATIVE influence as well as positive. I suppose all that means is that the person will hate your guts and be an opposite alignment to yours, right? So if as a Darksider I treat Hanharr like the scum he is I'll actually push him towards the Light?

 

Some Sith Lord I am, eh. :D

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

The between screen hints do go awfully fast, but there is some useful stuff in there.

[Handel]

Handel, what exactly are you saying?

 

I found the influence factor really did affect my decision to replay the game. In fact, I've played the game four times as many times as I played the original game, just to see/receive the various treats...T3's holo-recording of Carth; HK-47's imitation of Bastila/Carth; Visas' force sight lesson, etc. Sure I can read about it on the forums, but it was still nice to discover for myself.

 

I guess it could be slightly annoying that you can't affect the way your character perceives your actions - but I understand that that would have taken a great deal more scripting/voice recording. I think it works pretty well as is, certainly more interesting than how communication with your party members works in other games.

 

As for turning characters to Jedi, I found that to be extremely useful. Especially when it came to Freedon Nadd's tomb on Dxun. Characters are just so much more powerful as Jedi.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Well, I don't think any game is worth replaying just to watch "T3's holo-recording of Carth"...

 

The game can be replayed if you really can have different choices and play different games. I don't think a different choices are "I will kill you without any need" and "I will save you and will give you my hard earned money"

I hope there are ppl wich like a real PRG games - like Fallout and Baldur's Games...

Did someone tryed to play Fallout 2 with a character with 1 inteligence (the min value)? This was really new game and was real fun... as well as playng as female character.

 

And I feel sorry for the Galaxy, if the actions of your here depends only on gaining/not gaining influnces with few insignificant ppls.

[Althernai]

1. You tell people what they want to hear. It's suprisingly similiar in real life ya know.  Tell people what they want to hear and they open up to you. It may require that you put aside your own beliefs but it works.

 

It works. That's what I meant by "demagogue."

 

2. You agree with people because that is how you feel, people who are friends usually agree on a wide range of things. Rarely will you be buddies with someone who has a totally opposite world view than you do.

 

Right. But this will only work for the very small subset of people with whom you sufficiently agree.

 

Both of the above are true, but they do not address my problems with this system...

 

So in effect you are critisising the system for mirroring real life too closely, which I find rather funny.

 

... and this is where I disagree. The system does not mirror real life closely; it mirrors one aspect of real life and completely ignores everything else. Yes, it is possible to gain influence with people by telling them what they want to hear. However, this is not the only way. First, with many people (I've seen experimental verification of this on message boards) if you make a sufficiently good argument and show yourself knowledgeble in the field you are discussing, people will not lose and will most likely gain respect for you even if they disagree with what you say.

 

The second way is more important. There is a way to gain much greater influence; an influence that goes far beyond the type you gain by telling people what they want to hear. Roughly, it is the influence you gain when you change what people want to hear. People have been convinced to change religions, betray their families and/or nations, change their values altogether, etc. etc. because of the actions of extremely influential individuals. Based on the story, the Exile should be one such individual (at least if he has the right stats) and based on the in-game stats like alignment he in fact is. However, this form of influence is simply not implemented in TSL -- and I believe it is by far the more interesting one.

[Janson]

Well, I don't think any game is worth replaying just to watch "T3's holo-recording of Carth"...

 

The game can be replayed if you really can have different choices and play different games. I don't think a different choices are "I will kill you without any need" and "I will save you and will give you my hard earned money"

I hope there are ppl wich like a real PRG games - like Fallout and Baldur's Games...

Did someone tryed to play Fallout 2 with a character with 1 inteligence (the min value)? This was really new game and was real fun... as well as playng as female character.

 

And I feel sorry for the Galaxy, if the actions of your here depends only on gaining/not gaining influnces with few insignificant ppls.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I really do hope that English isn't your first language.

 

I have played 'real' RPG games like Baldur's Gate etc. I do recall it being very hard to be evil in BG because loss of reputation resulting in really expensive items in stores and unfavourable responses from crowds. Also, I don't really recall there being any more 'choice' than the KotOR games. There was still a very strongly defined good/evil divide. I'm not even sure what you're trying to say about playing a female character with 1 intelligence. What bearing does that have on what I had to say about KotOR's influence system?

 

And I really don't understand the last paragraph either. The influence system has no real bearing on the main story of KotOR. You can play the entire game and rescue the galaxy without having to talk to your companions. I made a remark that it was handy to gain influence to turn characters into Jedi because that made the game more interesting to play. It was a comment on the playability of the game and not the conseequences of the story.

 

So, your post is a reply to my post and yet does not address any of the issues in my post, except the first paragraph, which is purely a matter of opinion anyway.

[ShadowPaladin V1.0]

... and this is where I disagree. The system does not mirror real life closely; it mirrors one aspect of real life and completely ignores everything else. Yes, it is possible to gain influence with people by telling them what they want to hear. However, this is not the only way. First, with many people (I've seen experimental verification of this on message boards) if you make a sufficiently good argument and show yourself knowledgeble in the field you are discussing, people will not lose and will most likely gain respect for you even if they disagree with what you say.

 

The second way is more important. There is a way to gain much greater influence; an influence that goes far beyond the type you gain by telling people what they want to hear. Roughly, it is the influence you gain when you change what people want to hear. People have been convinced to change religions, betray their families and/or nations, change their values altogether, etc. etc. because of the actions of extremely influential individuals. Based on the story, the Exile should be one such individual (at least if he has the right stats) and based on the in-game stats like alignment he in fact is. However, this form of influence is simply not implemented in TSL -- and I believe it is by far the more interesting one.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

That may be true, but then you are not getting a population in a game like you do in real life. Only a few individuals will ever be eligable to "be your friend" in a game. You cant just go upto Joe on the corner tell him how great you are and get him to tag along. Even in games like Suikoden where you have 108 "followers" you can still only get the 108 that were intended for you. Of course the larger number of followers gives you a much greater sense of importance.

 

It is more interesting. But it's also pretty much beyond the realistic scope of a game too. It's a roleplaying game not a political science game after all. Religion is a powerful tool , because it holds the keys to the "afterlife".And for a race that lives much of the time knowing of it's own mortality that is a powerful thing, whether or not it is true. It's not really applicable in a SW games though.

The exile does cause people to act out of character. But what is never clear is whether he does it conciously or not. If it's not intended, then the way the influence system works makes perfect sense. Kreia never changes her alignment regardless of influence (at least from what I have seen) because Kreia is immune to your powers and because her will is as strong or stronger than yours?

 

Considering that previous games went something like.

 

Gain a level - talk to NPC. Gain another level - talk to NPC some more until you ran out of conversations. The influence system even as is , is a big improvement.

[Mad_Scientist]

Influence isn't bad, but there are definitely some ways it can be improved in future games. It's a very nice idea, and I'm sure as Obsidian's experience grows, they will be able to expand upon it and make it something really, really cool.

 

I think Orchomene has a very good point about spoken dialogue. While I love good voice acting in a game, it may sometimes tend to hold back a game's conversation complexity. In a game with little spoken dialogue, there is little limit to how long, complex, and varied conversations can be. But when every single line of dialogue has to be recorded... Some of these ideas I'm listing below aren't necessarily super hard from a programming or design standpoint, but they would greatly increase the amount of dialogue. Would they be feasible for a game with all dialogue spoken? I have no idea.

 

One thing about influence that could stand to change is that, especially in some cases, it is too easy to unlock all of a characters conversation options very quickly. While KotOR I's "go up a level and hear more backstory" system may not have been the best, at least it did tend to ensure that the character development of your party members was pretty evenly spread out over a large portion of the game.

 

So for future cases where some sort of influence system is used, it would be nice if there would be a way to ensure that you don't exhaust all your conversation options early. Perhaps level requirements or something similar. Or perhaps similar to the Handmaiden in KotOR II: she wouldn't answer your final questions until you had finished sparing with her, and you had to wait a while between each sparring match.

 

Corrupting Mission Vao, or how I first thought influence would be: In KotOR I, there were several cases where certain conversation options with Mission implied that you were having an effect on her outlook on life. Or more specifically, there were several cases where it seemed like you could corrupt her. So when I played DS in KotOR, I made it my mission(no pun intented) to see if I could twist Mission from an innocent girl into a deranged killer. I had her with me when I was given the offer to betray Gadden, (Was that his name?) and also later when I did indeed kill her old mentor, I used her brother to increase her distrust and hatred. But sadly, none of these things affected her alignment, only mine, and at the end of the game I was still forced to kill her.

 

So when I first heard about the influence system in KotOR II, I was like "Yay! Now I can corrupt my party members... err, and redeem them too." And while that is the case in KotOR II, and while the redemption of Visas was one of my favorite things from KotOR II, it didn't feel quite as involved as I would have hoped. Because once you get enough influence with a character, their alignment changes automatically based on your alignment. While this does make some sense from a story perspective, given the Exile's ability to make force bonds, as I previously mentioned, it doesn't feel quite as involved as I had first hoped influence would be. What I had really hoped for was something like with Mission in the first game, but expanded a bit and now actually effecting the alignments of party members.

 

Let's use Visas as an example of how I imagine this might work. Let's say I've just gained some influence with her, and therefore, her alignment has changed a bit towards mine. But it's only changed a little bit. The really big alignment changes with Visas will occur because my influence with her has just started to unlock special conversation options with her. When I talk to her right now, for example, I notice this option: "[Alignment]You mentioned once that there are many types of hate. Tell me about your hate." This allows me to have a discussion with Visas about the nature of her hate, about how she feels, etc. This time I'm LS, so I start to help her let go of some of her hate. At the end of our conversation, the message "Light points gained: Visas" appears, and I notice that her alignment has now changed a decent amount.

 

This actually isn't really that different from the current system. In the current system, as I gain influence with someone, their alignment will change toward mine quite a bit. In the system I'm proposing, as I gain influence with someone, their alignment will change towards mine a little bit, but I will unlock new conversation options that will cause their alignment to change towards mine quite a bit. Not really that different in effect, but it would make the redemption/corruption of party members even cooler, as well as provide a lot more depth to each party member.

 

Of course, there are issues with this. While the actually scripting/programming of this doesn't seem like it would be that much harder than other conversations, (though making sure the options are unlocked at the proper times would take some refinement) the amount of recorded dialogue needed would increase greatly. Still, if Obsidian could do something like this in their future RPG's, I'd be very pleased.

[Handel]

So, your post is a reply to my post and yet does not address any of the issues in my post, except the first paragraph, which is purely a matter of opinion anyway.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Well, maybe the reason is enlish is not my first, but my 4-th languahe indeed;

But it doesn't really matter - the point in my last sentence is about your last sentence - you told you are playng the game in way to gain or not to gain influence; and I told the galaxy your Exile have to save is in very big **** if it's saving depends of your gaining/not gaining influence with few insignificant ppl. Because it doesn't matter for the gameplay if you gained or not gained influence with them. The game is the same, the story is the same, the endings are the same.

That's why gaining influence has to have any significance of the actions of your Exile? I played the game twice - once naturaly, and once in twisted way, designed to gain asmuch influence as possible with all the characters. Of course, every possible group member did become a Jedi. And guess what - I forget about it once I unlock it. Because it didn't matter and I didn't care. That's why the influence didn't bring any replay value.

 

Well, about playng Fallout 2 with intelligence 1 and as female character - just try it.

[odium]

for the love of me i can't understand whi you pple always jump in extremes

..one chance in life at romance. WHAT IN GOD"S NAME does that have to do with anything.

 

If i were in a turkish prison right now i'd be happy to be still able to count my teeth

but seeing as i'm not......

 

and seeing as that is just a game i was simply talking of balancing things and creating a certain level of immersion. NOT ensuring the continuation of my genes

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Oh , it just highlights one of the major differences between real life and game life thats all.

 

Your point was that in real life you can manipulate people into your way of thinking right? Well you can do that in the game too. So just what are you complaining about?

 

What exactly do you expect from the influence system ?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

 

how can you not get it???????

 

in real life i can lie to them, i don't have to mean everything i say. I can be a child-molesting priest (no offense to priests or child-molesters)