What if : "Jim, this man's a Klingon!"?

why, they'd join in on the beatdown, of course!

I'd like to see more varied reactions of npc's, but it's a game- how complicated can their reactions really get? I mean, is it feasible to think that the npc can react a certain way based on several different factors?




Here we go again with the whole you being better, you glorified veteran RPG player...all the peons are so confused. *eyeroll* Can't people vote for a joke answer in a poll?


How about we get an NPC that says things like, "I'm a doctor, not a..."

Well, if the dead guy is a thief/scumbag/beggar, and I am the Champion/Hero/Legend/Awesome Dude of Skyrim, then the commoners should ignore it, but say something to the effect of "Wow, I bet he made you angry, huh?"

On the other hand, if I am a scumbag, and I am killing nobles/commoners/guards, then people can overreact.

but for that we'd need to have some sort of karma system or something

As long as they dont just walk right by a dead person.
If I killed someone in console in Oblivion, people act like it didnt just happen.
I would want to see freaking out at the very least, not just maybe one guard walking up, poking him, then walking away.

I think a guard even going as far as poking him would be great

I'm pretty sure guards would naturally poke the dead bodies in Oblivion, which of course instantly led to the idea that I, among the other five people standing around me, must have been the murderer.

It's very unrealistic and complicated to have an NPC react in tons of different ways to another one's death. Maybe not on a "I just sniped a bandit in a cave by himself" standpoint, but from a "I just killed a person in a huge crowd of other people, and I want only the people who could see the way my arm moved to be alerted, and even then they don't recognize me and I can sneak into the crowd unseen because I was wearing a hood and then threw it on the ground; making the guards put out a bounty on somebody in a hood of my race/gender instead of me. And so I escape from jail and they get hauled off... or so I thought! A random vigilante by the name of "The Knight of Light" barged into my home because he recognized my face from weeks before when he was delivering me food, because he works on a farm, and orders that I turn myself in."

A game can't process that much info with like... 40 NPCS around you having to all calculate exactly what they'd do and how seeing somebody get stabbed will change their lives forever.

If somebody sees you kill someone, in a normal setting, I think that people with a low amount of confidence should run to their home (or just another cell) immediately, people with a normal amount of confidence should alert a guard, and people with a high amount of confidence will give chase if they've got a weapon handy or there's a weapon nearby. People with high responsibility would only do the last two options, though.

On the same note if you kill somebody innocent, people who see you do it should fear you/hate you. Possibly alerting a guard if you come by again, if they have a high level of Responsibility, and if there's still a bounty on your head.

If you kill an enemy, the other enemies within hear-shot/eyesight should:

1. Go looking where the arrow/spell came from. (if you used a ranged weapon)
2. Not let their guard down.
3. Be more aware of their surroundings.
4. Alert other enemies.

This could also work with creature intelligence, an enemy with 1/4 intelligence or less could just do #1, 1/4-2/4 could do #2, 2/4-3/4 could do #3, and 3/4-4/4 could do #4. So if you kill a rat the other rat will just be like "Gasp..." and look where the sound came from while a Goblin's gonna go tell other goblins and they're all gonna go on a little scouting mission to look for you.

So if you kill a bandit from afar in the shadows, and they have high confidence, they should go look where your spell/arrow came from, if they don't find you they should alert the others. A scared-cat bandit should immediately scream from help and run to find the closest one who's in their faction.

If NPCs discover a dead body, I really liked the auditory response of the guards when they found a dead body. "Excuse me sir are you alri- *gasp* This person is dead!". NPCs, if in a faction that's protected by guards, should look for a guard and tell them, then a couple of guards will stand around the body for a few hours, and eventually they'll haul it off somewhere, a gravestone will be made (like they did in SI), and more guards will be in the general vicinity (within a few hundred feet) for a few days. For these guards, they could just be randomly generated wandering guards since they only serve a single purpose. The more people you kill, the more guards should come.

If you kill enough people, guards should be on the lookout for people acting shady, which means if you go sneaking through a district where you've killed 10 people they should chase after you and question you. If your public infamy is very high, you should get blamed for deaths in the area, or at least questioned. If they find substantial evidence like blood on you/your weapon, then they should haul you off, even if they didn't see you do it. It'd make for very realistic "It's pigs blood! I swear!" situations. Because of this you should be able to duck behind items and objects so that you can avoid guards entirely. Some simple duck/crawl animations would easily do the trick, and make being a thief more fun.

If you have your face covered, it should go onto that outfit's notoriety. So you could have "assassin clothes" to increase your infamy while still being able to be not chased down by the guards every time there's a murder.

BUT, on that note I'd like to say that there should be a way to dispose of corpses. Burning would be quick but would attract people's attention, carrying away would be the quietest but only a temporary solution, you could raise it into a zombie and have people kill it (assuming you know necromancy), or maybe if you have a shovel and your character's foot is in contact with the Earth you could bury it... assuming you can carry dead bodies.

That'd be great for immersion, burying your fallen allies (with a model of a mound of dirt), and putting something over their grave to remember them by. Of course the mound would eventually disappear, but it'd be good to use.

On another note that could be a way for werewolves to store food, kill somebody and bury them and then eat them again another day.

These would all be simple systems to implement that are somewhat possible already in Oblivion's engine if you have OBSE and know a good deal of scripting.

---

It would also work very well with allies. So if you ally is in the beginning of a cave and they get ambushed, and they're a scaredy cat/they're outnumbered/they're injured, they could scream, and then immediately run and find you. No use in making it complicated there, they should be a homing missile to you compared to running aimlessly through every trap. We can't be too mean to the AI system and have a person run aimlessly screaming "HELP!" after they set off in the direction they last saw you.

Although maybe running aimlessly, yelling for help, until they hear/see you could work too.

that sounds AWESOME
but I understand
I think the 'Confidence' and 'Responsibility' stats would be perfectly fine to gauge their reaction

There's klingons on the starboard bow!

I think reactions like that could be made if they were scripted so that if certain NPCs see you kill somebody they do certain things. Maybe some person could be a vigilante and hunt you down the next time you sleep, maybe some person could invite you into a faction of assassins if they see your skill, or maybe store-owners and inn-owners won't let you buy a room if you killed somebody, depending on their responsibility.

If they're in running distance from a guard or on horse back, run...if not, fight.

No need to make it complicated. :shrug:

But if they were a weak little peasant, they'd logically just hide in the corner hoping you'd spare them.

you bring up a ton of good points (I imagine bethesda employees face-palming because it's too late to change what they did)
something else that annoyed me was that once you remove the bounty on your head after you kill someone, everything goes back to normal and everyone forgets about it
maybe it could be something as simple as service refusal
also, I kind of want to see corrupt guards

I'd imagine the more factions a person shares with the victim, assuming your crime(s) has/have gone public and they know you did it, the more angry they'd become about it.

It wouldn't be hard to make it so that a person with a low enough disposition won't sell anything to you, talk to you, let you go into their home, train you, etc. Maybe people hating you could open up some quest options, especially if they have a lot of enemies. I can just picture the title of one of them "The enemy of my enemy...". Lol.

People would hate you more if you were a known murderer. Crowds moving away from you, guards telling you what they think of you, old friends having a lowered disposition and therefore not being so friendly and you not having the same privileges you had before. (Assuming Bethesda adds privileges to befriending NPCs).

I can just vividly imagine a character walking into the streets and the NPCs clearing the way out of fear, and that'd be simple too, if you just made them have more of a chance to move away from you the higher your infamy to a certain radius like... 20 feet or so.

I imagine a powerful dark mage walking into a town he had murdered a person in, and having shutters closing all along the street, people backing into dark unsafe alley ways, as they are far safer than the streets, hugging their children close. Guards will eye you suspiciously and merchants lock their doors. This will clearly not be in Skyrim, but it would be magnificent
It's such a vivid picture, too...
It feels like a much more deep and complex version of karma, because the opposite would obviously be obtainable
doing good deeds for a town to the point where people will invite you for dinner, and the mayor may award you something

The illusion of it could be obtained though. People trying to stay away from you, people being unfriendly, children and easily frightened people running away from you, a guard or two following you. All of those sort-of things can be done.

As for the opposite...

Random fans could generate in the town and faun over your character as they through the streets, special discounts could be made for the "town hero", people giving you gifts, people being more friendly. But then you could never enter those secret organizations and bands of thieves because you're well known for being a little goody-two-shoes.

I wonder how an adoration system would work... (cogs start turning)... but this isn't the thread to discuss such a thing. :shrug:

yes, I suppose it isn't
at any rate, I still think a second attribute set could be taken into account

Bravery: First and foremost would be bravery. Bravery would decide if they would stay and fight, or run away. If the character has high bravery (strongly influence by physical skills, weapons, magic, ect.), they will be more willing to attack the PC (or whoever the initial aggressor may be) at first sight of conflict, lower bravery will cause them to run.

Confidence: If they decide to stay and fight, confidence will decide if they seek help, or wish to take you on alone. If a character has high confidence (strongly influenced by social skills, speechcraft, mercantile, ect.), they will consider confronting the PC about their actions alone, however, if the character has low confidence, they will seek help with a guard or friends from the same faction.

Responsibility: Their responsibility would be checked if they decide to run away. If the character has high responsibility, they will report to a guard, or stay nearby, but not enter the fight unless provoked because of their low bravery (strongly influenced by rank, profession, faction, ect.). However, if the character has low responsibility (as a thief or liar would) they would run and not both alerting guards.


how does that sound as a system? hypothetically, of course.

Sounds like it'd be a great inclusion. :thumbsup:

Would add a lot of personality to characters it was applied to.

I said not at all because you tempted me

:chaos: BEWARE MINE WRATH, MORTAL
DON'T BE TEMPTED BY THOSE WHO CHANGE FATE (of the poll)

the deed is done!
the poll shows its TRUE colors!

I was tempted to, too.

Other:

It should depend on the NPC's disposition on crime, and disposition towards the player.

NPC's should not just all scream and run at the sight of a body; (They did that in Postal 2, and it gets very annoying ~and leads to absurdity).

Gizmo, your avatar just almost made me have a heart attack. Lol.

I agree to the point that I think it shouldn't effect followers too much, other than maybe a comment like "How could you do such a thing?" and their disposition lowering if they're responsible (and therefore don't approve of crime). Maybe eventually they'd just leave you after you kept killing innocent people.

And I agree that they shouldn't all just run and scream at the sight of a body, some should, while others should probably do as was proposed on the last page and have varied reactions.