Believable NPCreactions

[harhar!]

A point that is often neglected in rpgs is the reaction of the NPCs on the actions of the player and the events going on in the world. What are your ideas on how thievery, violence, murder,... should be handled?

 

The only games I know, who adressed this problem properly are the games from the Gothic series. If you get caught stealing NPCs will attack you every time they see you, if you attack NPCs out of the blue they will fight back and if guards see you doing either of these things they will attack you too but won't kill you. They will only knock you unconcious and rob some money from you. If you attack someone inside a city or farmers or other guys, that are not "tough" they will be pissed after you fought with them and won't talk to you/give you quests until you pay a fine to the city. If you murder someone, people will also try to kill you and the fine you have to pay is much bigger. If you fight with a "tough" guy though he won't be mad afterwards.

 

Apart from that the games had guilds and when a member of your guild was nearby and you fight with another dude your guildmember buddy will actually help you defeat him! There were also special flags for "friends" who might also help you and aren't mad if you quarrel with them. Additionally in Gothic 1 if you draw your weapon guys who were weaker then you would go like "Whoa dude, chill out" and tough guys would be like "put that thing away or else" and very weak guys would flee the fight if you engaged them.

 

Imo these things are really important in an rpg and one of the most undervalued things. That's why I wish for P:E to adapt the knocking unconcious, a legal system, some people being mad at you if you mess with them others not, guildmembers and friends, that help you combat guys and all the other stuff I listed above.

[harhar!]

Nobody cares?

[ArchBeast]

I think there will be at least a feature when you steal and a guard sees it hi will fight you, put to jail or something like it. Abaut giulid system im not sure they will put this tooo much of an effort mayby becouse they basicly whan't to "clone BG with extra features and content" and all BG, Icewind dale characters were much more independent than in Gothic. In Gothic your character coudn't even push storyline foreword if he don't join special gulid.

 

So in BG game player where more afecting the world then world where affeting him, in Gothic is totaly difrent world much more affecting player then player when affecting the world.

 

I am fan of BG and Gothic an it whould by nice to see not only charater affecting world (BG) but also world affectiong character (Gothic) thay need to balance it properly so they will propably put it asaide.

 

And don't expect quick constructiv and valuable answer many of member of this forum are BG fan boys that are affraid of anythig new they just whant to clone BG nothing more or they just more interested in "leveling ups" then lure and plot of the game. of coure not all of them there all allso frendly and inteligent peaople but they respond a little bit slower ....

Edited October 14, 2012 by ArchBeast

[agewisdom]

Yes, I prefer the Gothic system as well. Another problems I sometimes have is when you start lobbing fireballs at NPCs - which seem to be immune... they just go on their daily schedule like nothing's happening...

 

Immune or non-reactive NPC... I really hated this in Dragon Age 2 especially when you're fighting hordes of bandits lobbing bombs, spells etc. and a civilian just walks by nonchalantly.

[Epsilon Rose]

Sounds a lot like what they do in The Elder Scrolls series. What I'd like to see is a more believable reaction to your accomplishments or active missions. If merchant x has a job for you and sells something that would make it easier it makes sense that he'd give you a discount on it so you'd have better odds of doing what ever it is he want's you to do. Similarly, once you've saved the town/world/become god emperor it would be nice if people reacted differently to your presence.

 

Actually, the same thing goes for enemies, if your in an area where their level doesn't scale it would make sense for weaker enemies to go out of their way to avoid you or, if they don't know your level (maybe you're not famous enough), try to run/surrender when they see you using Wrath of God to takeout hapless mook #3.

[rjshae]

A point that is often neglected in rpgs is the reaction of the NPCs on the actions of the player and the events going on in the world. What are your ideas on how thievery, violence, murder,... should be handled?

 

Oblivion handled this decently well, but that was a sandbox-style game with a (presumably) large development budget. BG at least has a reputation system with significant consequences for killing innocents (which perhaps could have been implemented better but at least it was there). I agree that many CRPGs don't handle thievery well. You can often loot from containers to your heart's content, even within sight of the owners of an establishment. That's not a realistic simulation. Maybe containers should issue AI shouts that trigger appropriate behavior on nearby NPCs? (Help, I'm being looted! )