Devious Followers - Continued

[CaptainJ03]

24 minutes ago, titlover123 said:

I have an issue where DFC won't register the SLAL mini-pack, i use a mod manager so i have it installed correctly (i hope) it also seems that SLAL itself won't register the animations, i have STA installed and it appears to work correctly, any help would be appreciated.

All I can say: try again. I just (re-) installed DFC and the spanking animations, works without problems.

Did you go into the SLAL sub-menu for the spanking pack? Click on enable, click on register, go back to DFC menu (maybe close MCM once inbetween) and DFC realized that it's registered and Mistress spanks me whenever I ask her to.

[titlover123]

7 minutes ago, CaptainJ03 said:

All I can say: try again. I just (re-) installed DFC and the spanking animations, works without problems.

Did you go into the SLAL sub-menu for the spanking pack? Click on enable, click on register, go back to DFC menu (maybe close MCM once inbetween) and DFC realized that it's registered and Mistress spanks me whenever I ask her to.

I'll try that, i might have been too impatient.

 

Edit: i tried what you proposed but DFC still says that dx - spank is missing, am i supposed to merge the two files or have i misread the install instructions on the DFC page?

[CaptainJ03]

1 hour ago, titlover123 said:

I'll try that, i might have been too impatient.

 

Edit: i tried what you proposed but DFC still says that dx - spank is missing, am i supposed to merge the two files or have i misread the install instructions on the DFC page?

Damn. In that case, someone with real experience needs to help you.

No need to merge those files, this mod (and 99% of the others) is for noobs like me, who have no idea how to merge anything.

[titlover123]

11 minutes ago, CaptainJ03 said:

Damn. In that case, someone with real experience needs to help you.

No need to merge those files, this mod (and 99% of the others) is for noobs like me, who have no idea how to merge anything.

Oh well... the spanking was just for the novelty, i can do without it, thanks for the help at any rate.

[nimawi]

There seems to be an issue with the plugs - it is possible to get both the whore sign and the tail (the one that forces the player to walk on all fours) at the same time - resulting in my follower gettting stuck in a loop of reprimanding me for not having both equipped - which is impossible. 

[Lupine00]

1 hour ago, nimawi said:

There seems to be an issue with the plugs - it is possible to get both the whore sign and the tail (the one that forces the player to walk on all fours) at the same time - resulting in my follower gettting stuck in a loop of reprimanding me for not having both equipped - which is impossible. 

It's double impossible, because there is no check for a specific plug. Any plug will do if you have a plug requirement.

 

So, for the whore sign, any plug is fine. For the (ordinary) tail, any plug is fine.

 

The special walk on all fours plug that is used in slavery is used only in slavery, when no deals apply.

It is checked for explicitly, but as it's a plug, if fulfills any regular plug requirement.

 

Is the problem that you were you enslaved but still had deals operational?

That would be a bug.

 

I don't doubt that something was wrong for you, but you may need to provide a bit more detail for me to know what - let alone determine whether it's a bug, or just your install.

[Lupine00]

5 hours ago, titlover123 said:

I'll try that, i might have been too impatient.

So, you installed and registered the spanks in SexLab?

Do you have ... quite a few ... SexLab animations by any chance?

 

Use the SLAL feature to count your animations.

 

Did you exceed the SexLab animation limit? I think without any patching to SexLab it may be as low as 250, or 350? I forget the specific value.

 

 

If you did, some of the animations are unplayable, and that's what DFC is checking for - are they locatable and playable in the SexLab registration?

 

Just because you can FNIS it, doesn't mean SexLab can play it. SexLab has its own animation limit.

This can be extended with patches, up to 1000, but by default SexLab allows far fewer animations than that.

It should be apparent that the FNIS limit is much higher than this, so it's easy to exceed the SexLab limit and have a load of animations you can't actually play.

[titlover123]

2 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

So, you installed and registered the spanks in SexLab?

Do you have ... quite a few ... SexLab animations by any chance?

 

Use the SLAL feature to count your animations.

 

Did you exceed the SexLab animation limit? I think without any patching to SexLab it may be as low as 250, or 350? I forget the specific value.

 

 

If you did, some of the animations are unplayable, and that's what DFC is checking for - are they locatable and playable in the SexLab registration?

 

Just because you can FNIS it, doesn't mean SexLab can play it. SexLab has its own animation limit.

This can be extended with patches, up to 1000, but by default SexLab allows far fewer animations than that.

It should be apparent that the FNIS limit is much higher than this, so it's easy to exceed the SexLab limit and have a load of animations you can't actually play.

I don't use a lot of animations, i have the ones that come from the "core" mods that is required for the few sexlab mods i have to work, so i doubt it's me hitting the limit, but as i posted before, the spanking was more of a novelty that i wanted to see, but it's not something i need.

[nimawi]

5 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

It's double impossible, because there is no check for a specific plug. Any plug will do if you have a plug requirement.

 

So, for the whore sign, any plug is fine. For the (ordinary) tail, any plug is fine.

 

The special walk on all fours plug that is used in slavery is used only in slavery, when no deals apply.

It is checked for explicitly, but as it's a plug, if fulfills any regular plug requirement.

 

Is the problem that you were you enslaved but still had deals operational?

That would be a bug.

 

I don't doubt that something was wrong for you, but you may need to provide a bit more detail for me to know what - let alone determine whether it's a bug, or just your install.

i was not enslaved tho- he just gave me the plug to "remind me of how the relationship between us stands" but there was never anything triggering the slavery- in fact i have done this in a clean save- also it wasnt the "whore sign" but the one where others know they can rent the player out - when i walked around on all fours he asked me why i wasnt wearing it and how he is supposed to make money- 

 

Beforehand i didnt even have any debt at all just activated some deals for fun

[Lupine00]

3 hours ago, nimawi said:

also it wasnt the "whore sign" but the one where others know they can rent the player out

That is the whore sign that comes from the whore deal.

 

But to be sure... Does it have the ID XX0D8DA5 in the console view of equipped items and XX0D8DA4 in inventory?

 

Did you see this dialog: "You lost your sign? How am I supposed to make a living if my whore doesn't advertise properly? Here's another one. Not for free though."

Or this? "I can tell by the way you're walking, you're not carrying that little plug where you promised. I'll add some debt!"

Or this? "More debt then! You can be naked, or you can wear the armor I gave you. You're my little whore and I want you to look like one."

 

Or this? "Excuse me... but you should be wearing your pretty tail while company is present. More debt for you."

 

 

Or none of the above?

 

I need to know exactly what dialogs you were getting to be sure I found your problem.

Also, can you post exactly what deals you had shown in the stats page?

 

It won't be a device issue, it will be a bugged dialog condition.

Most likely, if you have the deal, and are in a dwelling or town, you will get the punishment dialog, no matter what you wear.

 

But though I've fixed this for a few deals, I haven't fixed it for the exact dialog you describe yet.

[Buridan]

Re-reading the 2021 roadmap,

 

Quote

Houses

• Follower takes main bed.
• PC bed may be swapped for furniture that functions as a bed, bedroll+straw, stone bed, etc.

 

I've been playing with Kalmah's Submissive Lola - an Extension, and one of the features I really like from it is the option to have the master automatically take the bed when you activate a bed at any inn, and the player gets an invisible bed activator on the floor that they actually sleep on. Not sure how that works under the hood, but that might be easier than swapping furniture?

 

More generally, I'd also love for this to be a DF deal, or be incorporated into some deal. It does nothing really but as a bit of flavor I love it almost more than anything else in it or its parent mod.

[Lupine00]

1 hour ago, Buridan said:

I've been playing with Kalmah's Submissive Lola - an Extension, and one of the features I really like from it is the option to have the master automatically take the bed when you activate a bed at any inn, and the player gets an invisible bed activator on the floor that they actually sleep on. Not sure how that works under the hood, but that might be easier than swapping furniture?

I think a few of those SLTR features were originally proposed for DF, and so fit quite well there.

 

It's a nice immersive touch, but the reason it's not something high on the list comes down to:

Spoiler

 

Not much got done on DF last year after finishing the rework of the entire cost system.

There are more important things in the queue.

And finally, I'm wary of adding a feature that has the potential to be complex and conflict-prone, for zero gameplay value.

Inns, and inn beds are an area where various mods already have their fingers - SLTR being one of them - SLS another - Go To Bed yet another.

 

SLS and GTB somehow get on OK together; and SLS was designed to be compatible with DF.

How GTB interacts with SLTR ... I don't know ... as while I have been playing around with it, I haven't had that feature activate yet.

 

For DF, it would need to be somewhat more complex. There is already a feature to have the follower sleep when you don't (which some people got confused about, unfortunately).

And DF is changing inn prices, with the intent of representing you paying for two beds under normal circumstances.

 

So, give that, what would be the best way to implement a sleep-on-floor feature?

 

I think such a feature would come at a price between follower-only bed, and beds-for-both.

This could be connected to a deal that meant purchasing any other option resulted in a punishment debt, but I'd like the player to have the option to use this any time their willpower is low enough, regardless of deal.

 

And in enslavement, I'd love to see the follower negotiate rooms and pay for them, denying you a chance to have a bed of your own.

 

In any case, such features would require a different way of handling beds and sleep to that currently done in DF.

I have some dissatisfaction with SLS's blunt-instrument approach to beds - where perfectly good beds are classed as awful just to punish you.

But again, something is needed if the PC is sleeping in potentially hazardous locations, and there is no assurance that SLS is even installed.

So, again, it's getting complicated.

 

So, to wrap it up, I like this idea, but I'm kind of slow, so I have no idea when it might ever get done.

 

 

Right now, I'm working on replacing the cloak-based sex-scanner that can sometimes cause problems.

Spoiler

 

As usual, that's turned out to be a bit more involved than I hoped, because changing this code requires rewriting the scripts for every one of the special game scenes. Also, DF currently uses only one scanner, where at least three different and distinct scanners are required for proper operation. Plus, I want to add in gender filtering.

 

However, I think it's worth doing. This is the biggest remaining bug in DF.

 

This set of changes may mean that sometimes a sex scene might be skipped for some players, whereas the old code would have drafted in an NPC from an outrageous distance away if it had to, or who was not really a good fit for the role. But the benefit will be a significant reduction in situations where your DF just completely stops working for no obvious reason. Providing smart fallbacks in situations where NPCs aren't always available for a scene is something that can be addressed later if it turns out there's a real need for it.

 

A secondary benefit is that you will be able to specify the gender of NPCs you wish to have sex with as an option in the mod, and it's that which is the most likely cause of there sometimes not being an NPC to use. 

 

One possibility is that if no NPC can be found, and only a single gender is enabled, it could fall back to considering the other gender as well?

But I think that somewhat defeats the point of the option, so perhaps it's better that the sex simply gets skipped in that case?

It's going to cause most problems for people who only want sex with females, who don't convert their hold guards to all, or mostly female.

 

The gender filter won't impact the devious follower at all. You can decide which followers are devious using the ignore feature, so that already has another way to handle it.

Also, for now, it won't be used in cases where the NPC is introduced via a dialog "hello", but those will get cleaned up during ongoing dialog reviews.

 

I've done a lot of it, but there's still some scenes left to do.

[darkfender666]

So i have a problem and some questions

 

problems:

vaginal piercing didn't get updated to last DD standard..

I guess the new ones are called genital piercings so it doesn't get added.

 

mitten and gloves can happn together but cause problems since you cannot equip both

 

Questions:

When does lvl 3 deals happens?

 

Suggestion:

the arm and leg restraints doesn't work with shackles and they are part of main deals.. 

 

But mostly:

Rope elbowbinder causes lot of issues (too few animations and such) could you make a toggle to use other restraints regular armbinder or other restraints

 

[Seeker999]

On 2/16/2021 at 6:31 PM, Lupine00 said:

Yes. I just left whatever tags they came with when I made the pack, because DF isn't using them anyway - but it causes problems - DD filter wrecks the Anubs scenes if you have a belt on, as noted on the frontpage ... as is the possibility that changing the tags might help.

 

I didn't give it a high priority, as anyone can easily change their own tags.

So how does DF find the spanking anims? I found a spanking pack that looks like it might add a lot of variety, but if DF isn't using tags, is there any way I could use them w/ DF's scenarios?

Thank you.

[nimawi]

On 2/28/2021 at 3:25 AM, Lupine00 said:

That is the whore sign that comes from the whore deal.

 

But to be sure... Does it have the ID XX0D8DA5 in the console view of equipped items and XX0D8DA4 in inventory?

 

Did you see this dialog: "You lost your sign? How am I supposed to make a living if my whore doesn't advertise properly? Here's another one. Not for free though."

Or this? "I can tell by the way you're walking, you're not carrying that little plug where you promised. I'll add some debt!"

Or this? "More debt then! You can be naked, or you can wear the armor I gave you. You're my little whore and I want you to look like one."

 

Or this? "Excuse me... but you should be wearing your pretty tail while company is present. More debt for you."

 

 

Or none of the above?

 

I need to know exactly what dialogs you were getting to be sure I found your problem.

Also, can you post exactly what deals you had shown in the stats page?

 

It won't be a device issue, it will be a bugged dialog condition.

Most likely, if you have the deal, and are in a dwelling or town, you will get the punishment dialog, no matter what you wear.

 

But though I've fixed this for a few deals, I haven't fixed it for the exact dialog you describe yet.

i got the first response, with i lost my sign, but unfortunatly i dont have the saev anymore, i might be able to replicate it tho- might take some time tho

[Lupine00]

7 hours ago, darkfender666 said:

I guess the new ones are called genital piercings so it doesn't get added.

You could edit the LDC files yourself. 

 

Maybe somebody wants to make a DD5 "genital piercing" patch for LDC?

If I fix this in DFC, it will simply be to stop using LDC for those piercings altogether and hard-wire in a particular item via form ID.

The "proper" move to DD5 and revision of LDC is planned, but still some substantial distance away. I don't want to waste time of doing that half-way, or prematurely.

Also, I don't have DD5 installed, and in any case, the only way to support both without spending time on updating LDC to be a lot smarter than it is, is via a patch.

 

 

7 hours ago, darkfender666 said:

mitten and gloves can happn together but cause problems since you cannot equip both

There is no mitten deal. How does this occur?

Please provide a repro case with specifics of the deals that caused it.

Is this related to some change to mitten flags in DD5 by any chance?

 

 

7 hours ago, darkfender666 said:

When does lvl 3 deals happens?

After level 2 deals ... assuming you did not disable level 3 deals.

There seems to be some implication in this question that you aren't seeing any level 3 deals, though you think you're overdue to get them.

Do you mean modular, or classic? 

What do you get instead of level 3 deals?

Is it "expensive deal", "deal extensions", simply nothing, or something else? What happens?

 

 

7 hours ago, darkfender666 said:

the arm and leg restraints doesn't work with shackles and they are part of main deals..

Sorry. I don't understand this. Can you provide more detail?

What do you mean "shackles"? By "arm and leg restraints" do you mean the cuffs?

Insufficient detail here to identify a problem.

 

 

7 hours ago, darkfender666 said:

Rope elbowbinder causes lot of issues (too few animations and such) could you make a toggle to use other restraints regular armbinder or other restraints

LDC exists to let you customize your devices. Remove it there.

[HexBolt8]

4 minutes ago, Lupine00 said:

Maybe somebody wants to make a DD5 "genital piercing" patch for LDC?

It eventually was clarified on the DD 5 discussion that DD For Him renames the vaginal piercings to genital piercings.  Same item, different name.

[Lupine00]

4 hours ago, Seeker999 said:

So how does DF find the spanking anims?

It uses the animations by ID from the DF spanking pack.

It has knowledge about what those animations look like, and thus can use them in a way that should be appropriate.

There is decision making in the code around how those animations are selected; it's not just playing any spank animation it can grab hold of.

 

Obviously, I was well aware of the tag-based approach when I wrote the spanking, and I believe that has rarely ever, produced a good outcome in any mod.

The hoops that SLD jumps through to try and find appropriate animations by tag are convoluted, and it's just trying to play a vaguely appropriate sex animation.

To get the spanks to work well, tags just didn't work for me - though that was before I had my own animation pack where I could set my own tags.

Typically, tags aren't set appropriately, they aren't set consistently, and in the case of some animators, they are barely set at all.

If you can't rely on certain animations being available, you can't deliver a consistent/correct behavior.

 

Tags seem great in principal, but in practice produce the nonsense we constantly see in Skyrim.

DFC was written using a basic tag-driven approach for most of the sex scenes, and it's one of the weakest parts of the experience.

 

Most users have hundreds of sex animations installed, but rarely ever see one that is really appropriate to the events they imagine to be taking place.

Even the supposedly clear distinction between aggressive and non-aggressive animations is unreliable.

There are so few lesbian animations (which is absurd given the state of most LL-oriented Skyrim installs) you'll see the same two over and over.

Animation filters wreck your selection, and still fail to produce good results, because a participant is in a pet-suit or a hobble-dress...

The list of issues goes on and on.

 

I decided it was better to have specified animations that work well and are what is intended, rather than worrying about extensibility, to add animations that might not be well-suited - and that didn't even exist at the time. (I did try the "new" spanking pack that was already available at the time, and it didn't really contain spanks, and the animation standard wasn't something I wanted to bring into DFC).

Users aren't likely to have the knowledge of why one animation is picked over another to assign appropriate replacements - at least not without studying the code - and if you're at that point, swapping in your preferred animations is possible via code change.

 

As I was (eventually) able to get the creators of the majority of good-quality spanking animations that were available at the time to let me put them in the DF pack, I was also able to create additional mashups of those Anub spank, which was previously a sadly underused animation because it was "hidden" inside a long rape scene. I might have done things differently if I'd know I'd be able to do that from the start, but now it's done, it's just not a good use of time to go back over it and change how it works just to support spanking animations that I haven't seen yet.

 

If there's a high quality spanking animation that DF doesn't support, let me know the pack and animation name, and I'll see if I can contrive explicit support for it. That's probably the easiest way at this point.

[Lupine00]

24 minutes ago, HexBolt8 said:

It eventually was clarified on the DD 5 discussion that DD For Him renames the vaginal piercings to genital piercings.  Same item, different name.

I would imagine that to cause this problem, you need to have an old LDC JSON that you ported to DD5 or DDfH without ever rebuilding it.

Simply rebuilding the LDC JSON may fix the problem.

 

But the LDC may be running into a naming clash. It can't work if multiple items have the same name.

 

The way the LDC works is not what I'd have chosen.

I proposed a more flexible approach, that also didn't require a quest to hang the script off, and that would safely multi-thread, but Lozeak didn't show me the code until it was more or less complete, and by then he had no enthusiasm to start over.

 

Writing a better solution isn't terribly hard, but these things all take time. I plan to replace LDC with the DD5 update. I hope I can find time to do all that stuff this year. Last year I managed basically zero development after about this point in the calendar.

[Seeker999]

17 minutes ago, Lupine00 said:

It uses the animations by ID from the DF spanking pack.

It has knowledge about what those animations look like, and thus can use them in a way that should be appropriate.

There is decision making in the code around how those animations are selected; it's not just playing any spank animation it can grab hold of.

 

Obviously, I was well aware of the tag-based approach when I wrote the spanking, and I believe that has rarely ever, produced a good outcome in any mod.

The hoops that SLD jumps through to try and find appropriate animations by tag are convoluted, and it's just trying to play a vaguely appropriate sex animation.

To get the spanks to work well, tags just didn't work for me - though that was before I had my own animation pack where I could set my own tags.

Typically, tags aren't set appropriately, they aren't set consistently, and in the case of some animators, they are barely set at all.

If you can't rely on certain animations being available, you can't deliver a consistent/correct behavior.

 

Tags seem great in principal, but in practice produce the nonsense we constantly see in Skyrim.

DFC was written using a basic tag-driven approach for most of the sex scenes, and it's one of the weakest parts of the experience.

 

I decided it was better to have specified animations that work well and are what is intended, rather than worrying about extensibility, to add animations that might not be well-suited - and that didn't even exist at the time. (I did try the "new" spanking pack that was already available at the time, and it didn't really contain spanks, and the animation standard wasn't something I wanted to bring into DFC).

Users aren't likely to have the knowledge of why one animation is picked over another to assign appropriate replacements - at least not without studying the code - and if you're at that point, swapping in your preferred animations is possible via code change.

 

As I was able to get the creators of the majority of good-quality spanking animations that were available at the time to let me put them in the DF pack, I was also able to create additional mashups of those Anub spank, which was previously a sadly underused animation because it was "hidden" inside a long rape scene.

 

If there's a high quality spanking animation that DF doesn't support, let me know the pack and animation name, and I'll see if I can contrive explicit support for it.

Thank you for the explanation. I don't want to swap out your animations, I just thought these might fit in as additional options. I understand your reasoning and respect that. I'm not a coder or programmer and appreciate the work you modders do for our benefit. I will be more than happy to use these animations the way I use any other animation packs. FYI, it is a pack I just found today though it's been around for over a year: Cobalt Animation Spanking Pack. The link is to the LE version, but I am using the SE one.

 

I also want to take the opportunity to let you know I am enjoying the new dialog. I know you spent a lot of time on it and it shows. Kudos!

 

 

[Lupine00]

13 minutes ago, Seeker999 said:

I just found today though it's been around for over a year

Unless it's had some refinement over the initial release, I don't think you're missing out on much.

 

I evaluated that pack when I did the spanking code, and it's mostly whipping, not spanking, and both the whipping and spanking animations are not really finished. Not so say that whipping isn't an animation we need more of, but it's a slightly different feature.

 

As it stood, I couldn't find anything in it that added value.

I hope the author will revisit it and polish it up a bit further, as it would be good to have a fair-sized pack of whipping and spanking animations.

[darkfender666]

14 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

You could edit the LDC files yourself. 

 

Maybe somebody wants to make a DD5 "genital piercing" patch for LDC?

If I fix this in DFC, it will simply be to stop using LDC for those piercings altogether and hard-wire in a particular item via form ID.

The "proper" move to DD5 and revision of LDC is planned, but still some substantial distance away. I don't want to waste time of doing that half-way, or prematurely.

Also, I don't have DD5 installed, and in any case, the only way to support both without spending time on updating LDC to be a lot smarter than it is, is via a patch.

 

Seems a problem with DD.

If you install "DD for him" (standard choice) you ONLY get genital generic

If you don't you get regular ...

 

14 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

There is no mitten deal. How does this occur?

Please provide a repro case with specifics of the deals that caused it.

Is this related to some change to mitten flags in DD5 by any chance?

 

I guess mittens have a keyword with slavery or something... i will check

 

14 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

 

After level 2 deals ... assuming you did not disable level 3 deals.

There seems to be some implication in this question that you aren't seeing any level 3 deals, though you think you're overdue to get them.

Do you mean modular, or classic? 

What do you get instead of level 3 deals?

Is it "expensive deal", "deal extensions", simply nothing, or something else? What happens?

 

 

Frankly i don't understand how level 1-2 and 3 are triggered... wich is the trigger?  how is level defined?

 

 

 

14 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

Sorry. I don't understand this. Can you provide more detail?

What do you mean "shackles"? By "arm and leg restraints" do you mean the cuffs?

Insufficient detail here to identify a problem.

There is a deal who adds leg and arm cuffs

One of the possible "binders" options is shackles.

And they use same slot maybe but for sure they are not compatible.

 

14 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

 

LDC exists to let you customize your devices. Remove it there.

I will ty but What does LDC stands for?

[obviouslyincognito]

Is it possible to detect if a collar your character is wearing is the cursed collar from Sexlab Survival you get if you don't have a magic licence? If so, I think it would be interesting to be able to convince your follower to remove it for you. Devious followers normally don't remove collars since they're not debilitating restraints, but the magic draining cursed collar is quite detrimental to characters that rely on magic. That said, it's still just a collar, and one you're forced to wear so as to not break the law; so you'd need to persuade your follower to remove it. And even then, your follower may charge you even more for the service and force you into a deal to wear their own collar in its place.

[Herowynne]

1 hour ago, obviouslyincognito said:

Is it possible to detect if a collar your character is wearing is the cursed collar from Sexlab Survival you get if you don't have a magic licence?

 

Not what you are asking for, but there is a kind of interaction between SLS and DFC with respect to the magic curse collar...

 

When your player character does not have a Devious Follower, but is wearing a collar such as the SLS magic curse collar, then DFC can trigger guards asserting that the player character is a slave and asking where their owner is, which forces you to recruit a Devious Follower.

 

I normally play SLS with Snowberry Start, which gives you the basic licenses to start.

 

I have noticed that when I don't use Snowberry Start, I very quickly end up with a Devious Follower due to the SLS magic curse collar.

[Lupine00]

11 hours ago, obviouslyincognito said:

I think it would be interesting to be able to convince your follower to remove it for you. Devious followers normally don't remove collars since they're not debilitating restraints, but the magic draining cursed collar is quite detrimental to characters that rely on magic.

It's an interesting possibility, though you might find it cheaper to buy the magic license.

Having the choice isn't such a bad thing though.

If the collar is removed in town, you'll soon end up with another anyway, but if you're out in the wilds and discover you'd rather take more debt to the follower than die because you can't cast any spells it helps even out the unbalanced and disproportionately disabling impact of the magic license compared to other licenses.

 

My issue with the magic license has always been that you can pick up a sword or armor very easily.

A follower can kill an enemy, and you're equipped.

A follower can't kill an enemy and restore your magic.

If you use the "curse", you wouldn't be able to get rid of it by removing the collar, so for those that like it that way, they would still be able to have a hardcore magic license.

 

If you look at my list of objectives, everything that's at the top is stuff I want to do so my Skyrim will be playable.

 

Right now, it isn't particularly playable with SLS licenses and DF in the mix together.

If you lose the ability to make money - for any reason - you don't just start getting into debt with the follower, you can't buy licenses, and without licenses you simply can't play the game, and that means debt spirals out of control rapidly. The next step is DF enslavement, which was designed as a (difficult) way to get back on your feet. With SLS licenses, it can mean you'll never afford another license again; you'll stay enslaved until you're sold and all you can hope is that there's a chance for escape there. That will pivot on gold control and what the follower lets you carry. I don't like my entire game pivoting on one random number.

 

I'm sure people will point out that there are alternative ways to make money. It amounts to grinding a prostitution mod. You can do that, but it's not "the game" but more a way of making yourself bored of watching SexLab. Regardless of the mod you use - and I don't find any of them particularly satisfactory. Whether it's RP, TDF, SWL, DCL, or something else, you tend to accumulate crippling Wear&Tear while grinding sex scenes for day after day to buy licenses. If you've got a greedy follower too, your debt will get worse and you'll probably end up an enslaved prostitute with a willpower of zero.

 

These various problem scenarios can be fun, once or twice. But ultimately, DF is not intended to make enslavement inevitable and recurrent, but merely possible, if you are unlucky.

 

 

This is not a new problem. SLS has had licenses for quite a while, and there are plenty of reasons for wanting to use the two mods together.

 

 

So, I'll explain how I think the "roadmap" may improve the experience, and people can pull that apart, and maybe even make it better...

Spoiler

 

First up, and in progress now is fixing the worst remaining bugs, which come from the cloak-based scanner. This ends up meaning rewrite of all the games, but players won't notice much difference other than ability to set a gender preference.

 

After that...

 

2.13.4:

• License Awareness (for SLS);

 

2.14.0

• get fed and watered by the follower when wearing a gag;
• follower will sell items for you;
• talk to follower to fit any items you need to comply with your deal rules (and get charged for any items you didn't have in your inventory);
• follower will escape from DDs and pause DF if they can't;

 

The justification for these being the immediate priorities...

Why not changes to slavery?

Spoiler

 

By letting the follower manage licenses, they can be reliably attributed to debt. As long as the follower will give you credit, you will be able to get licenses and adventure in Skyrim.

DF as originally created will be able to reliably co-exist with SLS licenses.

If you don't want that feature, you can turn it off.

 

Not starving in a gag, should make the gag deal a bit easier to live with. It's not supposed to be so extreme.

There are workarounds, but they rely on the gag not being locked. Now that punishment has a cooldown you can already easily remove the gag and eat+drink ... if you can unlock it. But if the gag is locked, then paying the follower for unlocks will soon bankrupt you.

 

Follower sells items for you. This also relates to gags - and the SLS feature that can block trading completely when gagged - but also to other situations where you can't trade due to a mod that is heaping additional trade penalties on top of SLS. You can safely bet that the follower is still going to rip you off. You'll be penalized, but at least you will still be able to get something.

 

Fixing up states where DD won't let you equip items because you're wearing items is something the follower should do. It makes immersive sense. This can currently be worked around using the debug menu, but players sometimes struggle to work out what they need to equip and where.

 

Followers escaping from DDs... DCL and Devious Lore can both restrain followers. This breaks DF in a very obvious way. Those followers can't escape without help from the PC, but what if the PC is crippled by their own deals and the traps as well? And you're being charged for all the time they're bound? And of course the followers have no idea how to "act" as if they're bound, and just fight normally etc. It's not immersive, or fair, or interesting. Most people resolve this simply by excluding their followers from the traps, and I suspect that's still the best idea... But currently, if you thoughtlessly give your follower an armbinder to carry somehow they end up wearing it. That DD5 improves the impact of devices on followers only makes this more of a problem.

 

Every one of these issues got to where it is in the list because it's caused disproportionate and unintended disruption to test games. DF works best when unfortunate instances impair your money making ability, but don't take it away completely for an extended period. It either has to be a moderate imposition, or it has to be for a strictly limited time. It also needs to be reliably possible to get into and out of slavery.

 

When it works, DF slavery is a difficult experience, but something you can overcome. The cloak was one source of issues; it wasn't a problem in the earliest implementations. SLS licenses have created configuration difficulties that leave players feeling like they have to "cheat" to get anywhere at all - or spend hours watching SexLab play inappropriately selected scenes.

 

I don't enjoy a game where I have to go into the MCM to reconfigure options to work around some feature that ought to be enhancing your game, but is breaking it instead. Tuning the basic costs was always the issue with older DF, so much so that constantly messing about in the MCM seemed normal. I think that's mostly avoidable now, but there are still areas where it's hard to get a configuration that works at the start of a game, in the middle of a game, and later on, and also works when something unfortunate happens. Gags are currently excessively punishing and can easily trigger cascading scenarios. License purchase is another area where things can go almost unrecoverably wrong. Another area that causes issues is carry capacity. With a debuffed carry capacity, and mods that slow you down, or add devices that impair it further, builds that rely on heavy gear are simply unplayable, or at least, such poor choices that they are discouraged. Even a stealth build is marginal.

 

 

Slavery itself is going to get changes once those things are done; SLTR and SD+ hand-offs, and some improvements to the existing mechanics - the follower being able to sell is part of that. I'd like to see a DF enslavement where the follower can be more oppressive and controlling, if you want to enable it.

 

That's why the next items on the list are:

Spoiler

2.15.0 ???

• external slavery - hand follower off to other mods for the enslavement mode, and get follower back when slavery ends;
  • Submissive Lola the Resubmission
  • SD+
  • Sold via Simple Slavery++

There's some subtext to this. To make external slavery work, I will need to review the existing implementation and there are likely to be subtle but pervasive changes.