So I Left the Guy Naked in the Adventurer's Hall...

[PsychoBlonde]

 

In other words, you can't strip them naked and leave them unarmed - you have to give them something usabl as a replacement.

 

I could see this being incredibly annoying if you have a situation where you want to swap stuff around and some items can't be used by some characters. It'd be like playing musical chairs or the towers of hanoi with equipment.

 

Granted, that could be a way for them to include that damn ubiquitous towers of hanoi puzzle without it being obvious. :D

[PsychoBlonde]

It'd certainly make for interesting vendor visits as the companions offload various junk items (or, items they consider junk) and buy potions. You could even have personality oddities like one character being a pack rat who refuses to sell ANYTHING without prodding because they "might need it", while one is a miser who won't spend cash even on necessities like healing potions, while a third is perpetually buying useless trash. (This would definitely have to exist alongside a system where you don't have to constantly stock up on stuff like ammo, though, otherwise you'd be having a war with this AI every time you went in a shop and it would become UNBELIEVABLY annoying.)

 

Not necessarily.

As long as the companions prioritize what they need and reserve room for it, it woldn't be a problem.

wouldn't be that hard to implement either.

Let's say 5 healing (or mana) potions and 2 stacks of arrows are a minimum stock a party member might mantain.

 

I was worried more about the hassle of forcing them to buy 10 stacks of arrows because you're planning a long hike and you don't want to have to stop every other fight to get more. In Baldur's Gate 2 stacks of ammo was nothing I'd usually fill almost all inventory slots when I was in town to restock. If they couple a character who has to stock ammo with an AI mode that requires you to persuade them to stock up, that character is going to wind up getting ditched at the first opportunity.

[Shades]

In other words, you can't strip them naked and leave them unarmed - you have to give them something usabl as a replacement.

 

I could see this being incredibly annoying if you have a situation where you want to swap stuff around and some items can't be used by some characters. It'd be like playing musical chairs or the towers of hanoi with equipment.

 

Granted, that could be a way for them to include that damn ubiquitous towers of hanoi puzzle without it being obvious. :D

 

Hmm, what if as soulmata mentioned they had default equipment that you couldn't strip off them. But, that default equipment kinda didn't count as an item. So when you stuck a new item like armour on top, you didn't get their default armour (it just kinda... vanishes, let's say they stash it away somewhere that you can't find it), but if you took that new armour off they would go back to their default armour. That way they'll always have something, but you can also swap things around as much as you like.

 

As a random idea, speaking of paying wages and leading expeditions... When they're in my party they reasonably expect me to cover all their equipment needs, food rest etc without taking a share. Maybe if I come across a particular item they want when at a shop they'll mention it, bother me endlessly about it, or just go ahead and buy it without my permission if it's that important to them (I don't mind them pestering me if it's 1 or 2 specific things that are really important to me, I just don't want to end up haggling over every single magical item I happen to come across). But how about they take a percentage of the partys earnings/gold when they leave? For example if I went through BG2 and ToB with a set of companions, then after the end they all or one or two of them split. I'd imagine they would divide the total amount of gold between them so as they left they each got a share. You could base it on party numbers, though they might end up taking quite a lot that way (6 people in your party, one leaves and they take 1/6 of party gold, 2 people in party, they take 1/2) so perhaps percentages could work better (maybe say the leader is entitled to a bonus and the party itself needs a certain amount left to keep them going). Though it would kinda act as an incentive to keep people in your party, not swap them about, which might mean any companions beyond the first 5 you find would have a smaller chance of being used by the player. Hm, just a thought anyway.

[Sylvius the Mad]

All party members are player characters. I should have equivalent control over all of them.

[JWestfall]

All party members are player characters. I should have equivalent control over all of them.

 

I concur.

[TrashMan]

In other words, you can't strip them naked and leave them unarmed - you have to give them something usabl as a replacement.

 

I could see this being incredibly annoying if you have a situation where you want to swap stuff around and some items can't be used by some characters. It'd be like playing musical chairs or the towers of hanoi with equipment.

 

 

Last time I checked there are no item restrictions based on class.

[Jarmo]

All companions (perhaps excluding custom-made) have their own, default equipment, which you can never take from them - it belongs to them.

 

There's a slight problem with this, which FO:NV handles better and Skyrim not so much.

There are some followers in Skyrim with default heavy iron armor, when you give them a better one they have to carry both.,, and can't carry much else.

FO:NV doesn't give them very heavy stuff, it's not such a big deal to lug around an extra power fist or shotgun, and those can (and do) come in handy sometimes.

 

Could be a similar problem in Eternity, assuming there's this knight with his own Plate Armor, give a plate +1 and he's encumbered.

 

This could be handled easily enough though, with a dialogue option enabling you to gift the given item instead of (default) lending it.

So you give the new armor through gift item, say "I want you to have this for your own", he'll either say:

"gee, thanks!" and further "guess I don't need my old one anymore" and then you can remove the old armor from him.

Or he goes "thanks, but no thanks" if you're trying to gift him a leather loincloth and a wooden stick so you'd be able to steal his better stuff.

 

Some problems abound, when item is not strictly better in every detail.

Say try to give a mail hauberk giving +2 strength in exchange for his plate armor.

Maybe go by item resale value?

Edited October 11, 2012 by Jarmo

[soulmata]

I think it would be an acceptable break from reality that these owned items simple vanish into nothingness when you give them something better, and re-appear if you were to ever take said items back. Then there's no need to worry about encumbrance.

 

Of course, should I opt to savagely murder said companion in a back alley at some later point, I want full access to that equipment.

 

Who else remembers really, really hating Nalia, and hating her even more when you found her enchanted ring wasn't on her corpse?

[Radres]

While those are cool and totally new concepts, I'm afraid creating an ai that powerfull , or making the rewards shared would very hard to implement. I'm a programmer and know that sounds cool, but it's also very hard to do.

 

A system like in BG where companions threatened you to leave to was based on your reputation solely. this simulates some aspects well. but coul be made deeper. Combining this with a system like Kotor 2 where your companions shared their knowledge based on how much they like you would be much easier to implement and serve for role playing purposes without being much of a hassle.

 

To sum it up;

- The game should adjust the view of your companions about you , based on the correlation between your actions and the character taits of your companions.

- The player should be made aware that the viewpoint of his companions about him/her is changed

- Dialogs, quest progressing should be a factor.

- Obviously leaving your companions should have adverse effects, especially when they grow fond of you. Even a motivation for revenge or payback could be in. This would be truly new.

- While leaving someone naked could made the character leave searching for something to wear on, its not a deal breaker to me. But They can give some witty or funny remarks , those are always welcome.

- A party with conflicting characters should very hard to be keep together. A certain amount of skill ( diplomacy, charisma) and wisely choosing your reply when in dialog with your party should be cruical. ( BG2 with it's slayer and reputation mechanic was awfull)

Edited October 11, 2012 by Radres

[Hassat Hunter]

1. Obviously no. I want to have full control. If I leave them, they just stick to the Adventurers hall. I don't see why "naked" adventurers still have basic clothing (like in Baldur's Gate). It's really not needed to go the Dragon Age route leaving them in their shorts. That immediately solves that problem.

 

2. Depends really on the character. Some might be with you for a reason, free. But some more merc ones could work too. Or events where the player needs to assist (kinda keep style, but with your party member), like giving some money to send meds to his/her hometown, without turning full sidequests.

 

3. I'd like that. Also in line with suggestions here, and something Dragon Age did good you could give some special items to a particular NPC and that would turn into a "special item" for that character, just to be used by them. I also like the idea of keeping around unique items, but I have no fear OE will adhere to that. Wheter you can replace them (either being forced in the inventory or totally free afterwards), can absolutely not alter them or something else really depends on the situation. Heck, it may even change after a sidequest if that precious family ring had a nasty story behind it, and the character who treasured it before now doesn't want anything to do with it.

So much a developer could do with this, without completely locking out stuff or making supreme convoluted systems as some here suggest...

[TrashMan]

Simple.

 

Regular worn items - can be taken, but have to be replaced with something equally usable.

You can't just ake away someone's armor. You have to drag&drop another to replace it.

 

No default intangible/weightless equipment.

 

Important NPC items:

either they can't be taken away

OR

they can, but if you do sell them or drop them, the specific party member will get angry. Quite angry. And buy it back/pick it up. After which they wont' let you touch it.

[Hassat Hunter]

You can't just ake away someone's armor. You have to drag&drop another to replace it.

As another user already stated though, that can be annoying if you just want to change the armor of 2 characters with each other.

 

You can't just swap them (since the first would have none), you need a bogus armor to swap around the first, the swap it with the second, then go back to the first and give him the seconds armor.

 

That's just bad design in my book.

[Tsuga C]

I have no problem with the NPCs wanting to keep their own equipment so long as I can assign them other items to use as I see fit. If I need an archer, then the NPC fighter in question can keep his favorite axe in inventory and put it to use when hard pressed in melee. Otherwise, I want him sticking opponents with arrows, period. Some sort of Bag of Holding equivalent would facilitate this quite nicely when it comes to armor.

 

As I'm in charge, I'll decide who gets what from the pile of swag, thank you very much. If the NPC in question doesn't agree, they can always leave. This is one reason why we have the Adventurer's Hall, yes?

 

Gift giving between the PC and NPCs or amongst the NPCs themselves is fine by me. It's not disruptive of my control of the party and it adds to the verisimiltude.

[AGX-17]

It makes sense if the character is some merc hireling who's only in it for the loot, but you can't have some Paladin refusing to uphold his oath to destroy the great evil because the leader of the great-evil-destroying-party won't give him a present. Obviously there would have to be some negotiation involved with a merc, they couldn't just claim the best stuff for themselves as they wouldn't be there if they hadn't been hired by the PC.

 

Besides, if the party acknowledges and accepts the PC as the designated leader, they're naturally deferring to him/her on tactics and such anyway. And food and lodging typically don't matter or are covered by the player's out of pocket money.

 

If an NPC owns their own prized equipment, the player shouldn't be allowed to just snatch it and pawn it. If you want to give them better gear, they should go ahead and use it, while still keeping their family heirloom, trusty Seax or what have you.

 

As I'm in charge, I'll decide who gets what from the pile of swag, thank you very much. If the NPC in question doesn't agree, they can always leave. This is one reason why we have the Adventurer's Hall, yes?

 

Well, they've got to be paid in some way if they're swords-for-hire. If you give them the rusty sword of tetanus when they did the bulk of the fighting and saved your life from a horrendous tentacled beast, they ought to go back and tell all the Adventurers "hey this guy is an ****, don't work for him," and maybe hire one of those rival adventuring parties to give you a good killing.

Edited October 11, 2012 by AGX-17

[Tsuga C]

If you give them the rusty sword of tetanus when they did the bulk of the fighting and saved your life from a horrendous tentacled beast, they ought to go back and tell all the Adventurers "hey this guy is an ****, don't work for him," and maybe hire one of those rival adventuring parties to give you a good killing.

 

Hyperbole much? And, yes, I agree with you.

Edited October 12, 2012 by Tsuga C

[Hassat Hunter]

Oh, that would be nice.

If you treat the merc badly, he turns up later in a hostile party of the enemy. Nice!

[happyelf]

Whatever the conclusion of this discussion, I vote that the thread title become the new 'So I kicked him in the head until he was dead, haha".

[Jarmo]

I think it would be an acceptable break from reality that these owned items simple vanish into nothingness when you give them something better, and re-appear if you were to ever take said items back. Then there's no need to worry about encumbrance.

 

Thinking about this a bit more. I could see this becoming the standard exploit when hauling loot back.

 

One extra looted suit of armor per character is essentially weightless since the weight of their original armor disappears when adding the new one.

Same with weapons. Instead of reducing, I think this would increase micromanagement amongst power players.

You wouldn't just toss 3 armors on one guy 5 weapons for the next, but divy them up so they don't add as much total weight.

[TrashMan]

You can't just ake away someone's armor. You have to drag&drop another to replace it.

As another user already stated though, that can be annoying if you just want to change the armor of 2 characters with each other.

 

You can't just swap them (since the first would have none), you need a bogus armor to swap around the first, the swap it with the second, then go back to the first and give him the seconds armor.

 

That's just bad design in my book.

 

Why? Why couldn't you just swap them?

 

Select and dragon armor 1 from the character onto another character and drop it over their amor. Armor swapped.

It wouldn't let you drop the armor into the inventory or somewhere else, but swappign armor should be easy.

It's a mechanics/UI isse, not the conceptual one.

[Shaewaros]

I kind of like the idea that some NPCs would require payment to stay in your party or that they might occasionally just out right refuce to give some valuable item to another party member. It's also very exciting when NPCs craft something without player directly instructing them to do so.

[Hassat Hunter]

Why? Why couldn't you just swap them?

 

Select and dragon armor 1 from the character onto another character and drop it over their amor. Armor swapped.

It wouldn't let you drop the armor into the inventory or somewhere else, but swappign armor should be easy.

It's a mechanics/UI isse, not the conceptual one.

Was more thinking about the classic IE inventories where it's a screen per character. This really only would be possible if you could open multiple inventories next to each other.

Which I am not sure is such a good idea... :/

[JFSOCC]

separate lootpile for NPC's, problem solved.

[turboprop]

Having NPC companions with own attitude is fine and can colorify game experience, if it within capability of developers (budget, difficulty etc.).

 

Concerning annoying stuff-swapping, it can be assumed as non on-the-fly operation, while you still can drop one item or another to your companion without stopping, or open inventory/ies and drag-n-drop swap. Developers of game mechanics may take historical assumption that major exchange demands a full stop of entire party. Consequently, developers may think about sort of stay or camping mode, which will bring an abstract pile of all items in form of window interface. (For example see attached pic.) In such or similar way this annoying swapping may become as simple as marking items; where mark instruct NPC to whether wear, or put into backpack, or drop, or whatever. Taking into account possible companion's attitude, interface may display/text NPC's reactions or even block some items from switching/displaying in camp mode. (BTW, historically, travellers were particularly vulnerable during their camping and game may take it into account when entering a combat mode during a stay; Like learning a lesson: not to change clothes if you may encounter a threat.)

Edited October 14, 2012 by turboprop

[Gennadios]

A loot sharing/claiming interface would be dandy. At the end of every encounter a window pops up with all dropped items, NPCs lay claim on the one they want, and if the player would really rather have it they need to barter away unclaimed items of greater value to try and get it for themselves.

 

Kind of like drafting players in fantasy football.

 

EDIT: OOh, and a charisma modifier to make attaining the items you want easier, to give that trash stat some regular purpose.

Edited October 14, 2012 by Gennadios

[Jesugandalf]

Great poll!

 

I definitely like the idea of having kinda pet companions who I can dress and undress to my liking, sell their property and put into practice the saying "my things are mine and yours are mine, too", but playing with companions with personalities who could go if they don't like me, have their own property (which they could give to me if they want) and money is something very interesting, too. It would make party cohesion even more important. It would make having a party in good spirits a more important objective than in previous RPG games. It would be, I think, more challenging than mere pet companions.

 

Anyway, I want full control of the whole group, nevertheless.