FO: NV (General Discussion)

[Slowtrain]

They don't die, but that doesn't mean they don't fall down. They cease being a meatshield when they're unconscious on the floor.

 

 

OH ok, its the Bethesda version of unkillable NPC. Thanks.

[Wrath of Dagon]

The dog will run off and get itself killed. If you have to reload every time it would get really annoying.

[Lexx]

There have been only very very few situations where my companions died.

[Walsingham]

I was just reading on the Fallout wiki that in NV non-hardcore mode companions can't die? Is that true? I mean, I assume it is, but didn't people find that pretty gamebreaking? How much fun can a non-hardcore game be if you get to run around with an unkillable meatshield at your side. Unless one wants to solo the game, is there any point to playing non-hardcore?

 

Just play it on hardcore. Game gets even better all round.

[Labadal]

F:NV RPGOTY @ RPGWatch.

[Slowtrain]

I was just reading on the Fallout wiki that in NV non-hardcore mode companions can't die? Is that true? I mean, I assume it is, but didn't people find that pretty gamebreaking? How much fun can a non-hardcore game be if you get to run around with an unkillable meatshield at your side. Unless one wants to solo the game, is there any point to playing non-hardcore?

 

Just play it on hardcore. Game gets even better all round.

 

 

I do believe that such will be the plan!

[Guest Slinky]

There have been only very very few situations where my companions died.

Then you have been very very lucky as far as I'm concerned.

 

I mostly used Cass and ED-E, and both of them got themselves killed more than enough times. There wasn't much problems outdoors (ED-E did go kamikaze time to time), but indoors they went completely nuts. Especially vaults went like this: We go in, shoot the possible bad guys in the first room and then the companions were off. I heard them much more than saw them, rampaging all around the place until they got killed.

 

Changing between aggressive/passive didn't seem to have any effect in their behavior.

[Slowtrain]

I love it when developers simply substitute flipping the old "can't die' flag rather than spend the time working with the AI until it isn't brain dead.

[GreasyDogMeat]

I love it when developers simply substitute flipping the old "can't die' flag rather than spend the time working with the AI until it isn't brain dead.

I'd like it both ways. Good AI and an option to have killable or unkillable NPCs.

[Calax]

There have been only very very few situations where my companions died.

Then you have been very very lucky as far as I'm concerned.

 

I mostly used Cass and ED-E, and both of them got themselves killed more than enough times. There wasn't much problems outdoors (ED-E did go kamikaze time to time), but indoors they went completely nuts. Especially vaults went like this: We go in, shoot the possible bad guys in the first room and then the companions were off. I heard them much more than saw them, rampaging all around the place until they got killed.

 

Changing between aggressive/passive didn't seem to have any effect in their behavior.

It'd get even worse with Veronica as melee... she'd be GONE

[Slowtrain]

I love it when developers simply substitute flipping the old "can't die' flag rather than spend the time working with the AI until it isn't brain dead.

I'd like it both ways. Good AI and an option to have killable or unkillable NPCs.

 

 

Definitely. Options are always great.

[entrerix]

in new vegas' defense, they did so much awesome stuff with such a short dev time that I am not bothered by the weak ai for companions.

[J.E. Sawyer]

I love it when developers simply substitute flipping the old "can't die' flag rather than spend the time working with the AI until it isn't brain dead.

How much time do you think it would take?

[bigcrazewolf]

6-12 months?

[Gorth]

AI is a major research area in a bunch of universities. The best you can probably hope to come up with in less than 5 years is something that pretends to be fairly intelligent while still cutting a lot of corners

 

Nevermind path finding which is a science all of it's own (having fond memories of Graph Theory).

[Wrath of Dagon]

We want it all and we want it now!

[Serrano]

It's not strictly relevant but this made me chuckle

[Slowtrain]

I love it when developers simply substitute flipping the old "can't die' flag rather than spend the time working with the AI until it isn't brain dead.

How much time do you think it would take?

 

 

Ummm...Shouldn't companion AI be a priority? You know, more so than implementing killcams and grenade machineguns and gambling minigames? I mean, if companion AI is so problematic in the engine, then maybe don't spend time implemeting them. Or just make so many generic ones that they become disposable and not a big deal when they die.

 

I'm not expecting miracles here. Been playing computer games too long for that. AI is rarely good. But at least have it workable so you don't have to make them unkillable, just to keep them from getting...killed.

 

 

I could understand a friendly-fire on/off since it might be more difficult to keep companions out of the way of player attacks.

 

 

Ot at least put unkillable companions on a separate toggle apart from hardcore.

 

Don't get me wrong, you guys have done a lot of nice stuff with NV, but having unkillable companions is just pretty blah.

[WorstUsernameEver]

I seriously doubt implementing Grenade Machineguns and gambling minigames took the same time it would have took the team to implement better AI routines (though I guess they could have tweaked the values in the GECK a bit more, some modders did it and the results were pretty satisfying), but I'm not Josh.

[LadyCrimson]

Ummm...Shouldn't companion AI be a priority? You know, more so than implementing killcams and grenade machineguns and gambling minigames? I mean, if companion AI is so problematic in the engine, then maybe don't spend time implemeting them. Or just make so many generic ones that they become disposable and not a big deal when they die.

 

I'm not expecting miracles here. Been playing computer games too long for that. AI is rarely good. But at least have it workable so you don't have to make them unkillable, just to keep them from getting...killed.

What you're not considering is they'd have to program AI for every gamer playstyle known to man, and then players would have to toggle what AI style they want once they figure which they prefer. And even then, AI can only do what it's programmed to do - it can't anticipate a player's actions every time the player switches up.

 

The way I play, companions rarely "fall over"/die, even against hoardes of increased-spawn mod enemies. I occasionally have to run over and heal them during big battles and that's about it. Many people thought/think they're overpowered in NV. But it depends on your playstyle/approach to combat situations and how much you feel like actually keeping track of companion health & gear - some people do have a difficult time keeping them 'alive.' But if they self-healed as often/rapidly as human players can/may do, they truly would be overpowered, unless you gimped them so much damage-wise then no one would want to use them anyway.

 

If you don't like having to pay attention to companions while you fight, don't use companions.

Ot at least put unkillable companions on a separate toggle apart from hardcore.

If you're on PC that's an easy mod to do. But I've seen a lot of posts from HC players who have little trouble keeping them alive anyway, probably because they don't mind keeping an eye on them during the few tougher battles.

Edited January 29, 2011 by LadyCrimson

[Tigranes]

I played hardcore all the way through and on Cautious, companions dying are only ever a problem when (a) they are indoors and the aggro/alert mechanism sometimes goes berserk, I suspect due to it not accounting for walls and even less with elevation within a single cell, and (b) when you're trying to kite or snipe or camp and they blithely march up to the enemy.

 

Certainly wasn't great but not a huge deal either, sometimes you'd leave them on Wait.

[LadyCrimson]

Two key things for companion durability ... decent or high CHA and good armor. Not that you have to have either...but it makes a big difference. :D

 

However there IS a very bad poison/stimpack bug since last patch that's affecting a lot of folk...which can make HC more problematic ... when they're poisoned, if their health is middling-to-low and you use a stimpack on them to try to get rid of the poison, all remaining poison duration dmg. is subtracted from companion's health before the stimpack is applied, which usually kills them outright. If highish level and they still have almost full health they might survive it, but then it may take repeated stimpacks before their health stops bouncing up and down finally stabilizes/goes back to normal. eg, best not to use them for melee against cazadors.

[bigcrazewolf]

It's not strictly relevant but this made me chuckle

[cronicler]

J.E. Sawyer: I want to ask you a question from the other side of the AI spectrum; we all know that AI is going to be wonky and problematic no matter how much you work on it, so why not go for the other way? Why not give the player more control on the companions?

 

From most recent to oldest ME, Brothers in Arms, HL2 and Freedom Fighters have shown us that even the dumbest off the shelf aimbot can add to the players experience with just 4 commands (Attack and Hold, Hold, Come to Me, Fall Back to safe place)

 

I know there would be issues (doorways and melee ambushes / characters come to mind) but wouldn't giving more control to the player make it better?

 

 

On a similar vein, on your next game, I hope you give the player more options to customise his/her game. It would have been nice to have an advanced mode where you could tinker with the settings for the game independently (enemy damage, hp, awareness; player dam, hp, sneakiness, awareness; difficulty sliders for combat, non-combat, tech, thief; deadly headshots, killable (or not) quest npcs and so on)

 

I know you can use the mod tools to do all of these but it would have been nice to have a straight in game or (JA2 1.13 like) external config to simply tweak the game...

Edited January 30, 2011 by cronicler

[CoM_Solaufein]

Just started yet another game this time. Barring any more intrusive patches that is. Plus I had to update the FOOK mod I have installed since the version I had was not compatible with the current patched version of FNV.