Devious Followers - Continued

[keitsoru]

7 minutes ago, Bane Master said:

 

OK - well just to buck the trend: "LIKE" (although can see why no like folks would want a toggle)

I do like the idea of the dismissal restriction as an optional feature. I would add that I feel it should be something tied to willpower. If you're out in the wild, or in a dungeon, it makes sense the follower wouldn't want to leave the player character all on his/her own. Why pass up the chance for more money or for more control over the player character? If he/she dies, then there go both options.

[lcewolf]

Hi,

 

Can you please tell me if there is a way to reduce the number of times our PC says I am a slut?

 

I had to talk to an NPC more than 15 times before I could talk to him with the standard functions. (Deal Slut part 1)

 

Thank you

[Lupine00]

3 hours ago, lcewolf said:

Can you please tell me if there is a way to reduce the number of times our PC says I am a slut?

Is this with the "real" 2.13.4 ?

 

If so, what was the exact dialog your character used, and what was the dialog that NPCs responded to you with?

 

But even with older (recent) versions, there are mechanics to prevent this scenario, and I went over them again yesterday and saw no sign of them being broken except in the one case where you could get a lot of sex events.

[Lupine00]

5 hours ago, keitsoru said:

I have concerns with using that for the maid idea (Assuming that's what it's in relation to).

Might have jumped the gun a bit on that one. I was simply commenting that he did a great job making something that is analogous to the Aradia rogue set, in that it adds DD features to a non-DD outfit in a way that makes sense. It's also very non-standard in its approach, and designed to fill a specific need of not triggering or clashing with any "real" clothes slots.

 

I didn't mean to suggest it was intended for use in the (still a future plan) maid deal.

 

If I like a mod, it doesn't mean it will be a DF feature. I like Pama's crucifixes, but I'm not going to implement a system for you to execute followers, or for them to execute you... Or even install the mod in my game unless some other mod makes use of it for something other than revenge on NPCs. (That said, if I could use it to murderize every one of those pirates from Devious Cidhna...)

 

People raise a good point about maid outfits though. I can't see that feature making sense if it's bound to one specific maid outfit.

There are lots of maid outfits and everyone has their preferred versions.

Nor do I want to spend months chasing creators for permission to bundle 27 different outfits.

I rather like the one that is used in CD myself. There are newer and higher polygon alternatives, but a remake of that with SMP would be nice... for something.

 

The maid deal would definitely need a way for a player to set whatever maid outfit they like. By that point, the ability to define (and keyword) an outfit spread across arbitrary slots might be a generic feature of SLAX. But it's also logical that it could be like custom whore armor, that you set up prior to running Skyrim.

 

But the maid deal concept is only partially about the outfit anyway, it's more about the tasks you perform - about performing mundane chores for the follower, having certain dialogs, and behaving as a servant.

[Lupine00]

5 hours ago, keitsoru said:

I do like the idea of the dismissal restriction as an optional feature. I would add that I feel it should be something tied to willpower. If you're out in the wild, or in a dungeon, it makes sense the follower wouldn't want to leave the player character all on his/her own. Why pass up the chance for more money or for more control over the player character? If he/she dies, then there go both options.

Discussing how to make this feature add more value is way more helpful than twenty paragraphs on why it needs more player control - which believe it or not - is a function I want it to have.

 

I lost a day to ESP corruption, delaying bug fixes I wanted to get out quickly.

Then I had a limited window of time yesterday to release the new update.

And time pressures lead to compromises ... or mistakes ...

 

That feature was already "in" but without MCM support. I could choose to delay the release another day and put out the more complete version, or I could release what seemed to me to be a perfectly good and functional version and get out the bug fixes ASAP - it would give people a chance to try that feature for real and see how it impacted their game. I wanted something in the release beyond pure bug fixes, so there would be some tiny piece of novelty to experience.

 

I didn't want people to have to wait longer for those bug fixes. Not being able to leave slavery seemed ... important.

Spoiler

 

Possibly, I could have removed the incomplete dismissal feature before release, but it didn't seem that important.

I don't really agree that there are stability requirements that mean you must release followers in empty cells or their home location.

If you have an issue with lost followers (and I've lost plenty) you would likely already know how to deal with that when it occurs - which it will whether you dismiss them or not.

 

And if your game is so brittle that running any scripts is a fraught undertaking, I have little confidence that many other things DF does are safe for you to use.

If you have genuine concerns about script-load breaking follower dismissals, then you need to rethink what you're doing with your game. It's not a sustainable scenario. If you can't reliably run scripts in your city exteriors, your game is already broken, and dragging me into the anger phase of your grieving process isn't helping get better features in DF.

 

 

 

Here's what I want to do with that feature so far:

Spoiler

 

1) add a list of extra locations within the city that are dismiss-OK: the inns, and similar locations (Drunken Huntsman) where followers commonly hang out to be recruited, and vanilla player homes.

2) add some dialog that explains why you can't dismiss the follower.

3) add an MCM control for the feature of some kind.

 

Rather than simply on/off, it might be nice to have the option of linking it to willpower/follower-lives/boredom, so options would be OFF/ALWAYS/CONDITIONAL.

 

 

Being able to "drop a follower at their home" would be nice. But I'm not sure how to determine a follower's current home reliably.

It's easy enough to make them want to be in a location, but I don't think there's any way to know about other packages they might have that could make them do stuff. Some followers have built-in wander mechanics of their own and a quest tracker you can use to find them.

 

Nightgate Inn and Riverwood are two places you often find followers. I'd like to allow dismissal there with some kind of limitation. (See below).

 

There are other features that are related, but different, that might be interesting alternatives.

For example, what if there were an option where paying a toll (one way, or another) set at least a day of remaining contract?

It would have an even stronger impact, but wouldn't limit dismissal location at all in any strict sense.

It would make dismissal restriction based on location unnecessary.

 

 

As I'm about to look at license mechanics for SLS, that might be a way to solve some problems.

If the follower manages your licenses, then dismissing them likely leaves you devoid of licenses.

If the way a new follower obtains licenses for you is restricted in some way it might make dismissing your escort a really dumb and costly move.

 

In that case, the dismissal restriction feature might not make any sense, except for immersion, in which case it might not be worth keeping in at all?

I think this is simpler to implement than the toll-minimum-contract mechanic too.

 

 

This circles back to the issue of dumping and re-hiring followers to reset boredom.

Spoiler

 

Even if I make boredom a persistent follower property - so you would need to change follower to reset boredom - it's still rather easy to dodge boredom that way.

I have maybe ten followers available in Riverwood, just cycling through them would make boredom irrelevant for most of a game without even visiting any of the other locations followers hang out.

 

Though, in my games, I almost never manage to dismiss a DF. It's something I can't really do anyway, and I imagined most people have a similar situation.

Boromir: "One does not simply pay-off a Devious Follower."

When you have the cash to pay them, you usually want them around, and when you don't have the cash, you can't get rid of them anyway.

Apparently not. It seems some people change DFs like they change their underwear.

But boredom does give an incentive to cycle them when you can afford it, and I'm not entirely happy with something so artificial.

 

 

Maybe some kind of familiarity stat is required, so that it's (potentially) better to stick with a follower if you can keep the boredom under control?

 

Some random thoughts on that - what could familiarity do?

 

Spoiler

 

• sometimes reduce or skip a punishment debt (more chance if more familiar)
• sometimes allow daily deal chores to roll over to the next day
• let you sometimes refuse a specific deal offering for free, or more cheaply
• let you volunteer for modular deals of your choice - typically easier ones
• enable the time-off feature that is way down the track right now
• get bonus follower lives
• cheaper device removal
• bigger/better gambling outcomes
• better key-game terms
• less obstructive gold control
• increase resistance losses when the follower is near (because you're used to submitting to them) - or maybe just harder to lose resistance fatigue?
• unlock unique games/content

 

Familiarity is way down the track too, so having a design that connects it to time-off isn't completely ridiculous.

 

 

[Darkwing241]

46 minutes ago, Lupine00 said:

Maybe some kind of familiarity stat is required, so that it's (potentially) better to stick with a follower if you can keep the boredom under control?

 

Some random thoughts on that - what could familiarity do?

I like the idea of a familiarity stat.  In general I enjoy when the PC is baited along rather than being straight forced.  I'm not sure the perks of familiarity should be related to making the DF easier to manage though.  It seems like it would make for a bit of a MCM balancing hell where it is difficult to find that perfect DF is helpful>DF is enslaving transition.  Boredom does a great job of making it so you can set a modest pay scale for the DF and then no matter what they eventually overwhelm you.  

 

What about buffs for the follower?  It could be as simple as boosts to the followers combat strength (maybe even let the player pick the perks?).  As the PC weakens due to deals the follower gets stronger and makes up for the deficit.  The PC becomes more and more reliant on the DF the more familiar they are. 

[Lupine00]

47 minutes ago, Darkwing241 said:

What about buffs for the follower?  It could be as simple as boosts to the followers combat strength (maybe even let the player pick the perks?).  As the PC weakens due to deals the follower gets stronger and makes up for the deficit.  The PC becomes more and more reliant on the DF the more familiar they are. 

This might be a bit hard to balance.

In theory it's a good idea, but the starting point for different followers is so disparate.

A character like Yuriana makes any encounter into easy mode, and that's if you turn off half her (over-)powers, while followers I use a lot, like Bora, are ... relatively pathetic.

Buffing the former does nothing meaningful, while the latter would make a difference, but not as much difference as simply getting a different follower.

 

It's not to say it invalidates the idea, but it certainly works better when you can control all the pieces, and you never can in modded Skyrim.

 

 

As the benefits (as I see them) of familiarity should and could be relatively modest, so I doubt you'd needs more than a selector with three levels of impact in the MCM.

Adding a couple of extra lives (for example) changes comparatively little, except for people that tuned their lives super-low to start with (which rarely works well, because followers are so stupid).

Or being able to evade a percentage of a punishment debt once a day simply partially mitigates that one time you forgot to offer sex or something.

Those are (I think) plausible examples of modest benefits that wouldn't change a lot, but you'd still want them.

 

Being able to gamble for more is a double-edged sword.

Gold controls draining less limit on location change depends a lot on other factors, but ultimately you're still in gold control.

And so on.

 

It's hard to be sure something won't have unintended consequences, but what are the obvious pitfalls? Those can be avoided.

[keitsoru]

12 minutes ago, Lupine00 said:

This might be a bit hard to balance.

In theory it's a good idea, but the starting point for different followers is so disparate.

A character like Yuriana makes any encounter into easy mode, and that's if you turn off half her (over-)powers, while followers I use a lot, like Bora, are ... relatively pathetic.

Buffing the former does nothing meaningful, while the latter would make a difference, but not as much difference as simply getting a different follower.

 

It's not to say it invalidates the idea, but it certainly works better when you can control all the pieces, and you never can in modded Skyrim.

 

 

As the benefits (as I see them) of familiarity should and could be relatively modest, so I doubt you'd needs more than a selector with three levels of impact in the MCM.

Adding a couple of extra lives (for example) changes comparatively little, except for people that tuned their lives super-low to start with (which rarely works well, because followers are so stupid).

Or being able to evade a percentage of a punishment debt once a day simply partially mitigates that one time you forgot to offer sex or something.

Those are (I think) plausible examples of modest benefits that wouldn't change a lot, but you'd still want them.

 

Being able to gamble for more is a double-edged sword.

Gold controls draining less limit on location change depends a lot on other factors, but ultimately you're still in gold control.

And so on.

 

It's hard to be sure something won't have unintended consequences, but what are the obvious pitfalls? Those can be avoided.

I think honestly, it's good to come back to a point you've made in the past when discussing the different BDSM/slavery mods out there. That being rewarding/punishing the player, versus rewarding/punishing the player character. Why do people use Devious Followers?

Obviously, the answer to that question will vary from player to player. However, I think the overwhelming consensus is going to be they use Devious Followers to gradually put their character in BDSM scenarios. The ultimate destination for a lot of people is making the PC in to a debt slave, beholden to their follower's whims. Rewarding or punishing the PC in this context is irrelevant obviously, as it's not the PC choosing to switch followers. It's the player.

As for ways to reward the player for sticking with an individual follower... honestly any way I can think of runs in to the same problem. You can't account for every player's tastes, and you can't account for the specifics of every follower.

Another way to go about it might be to trade the carrot for the rod. Maybe as the PC goes along his/her journey, a reputation builds. If the PC has regularly had to enter in to deals, or has had long lapses in payment, maybe a completely different follower won't want to just go along with the PC without any payment up front first? Whether that be in gold or in deals. If gold, it means the player has to set aside funds to switch followers. Followers with familiarity, meanwhile, will allow you to come back to them with no cost upfront, at least for a time. (That would depend if you even want to bother with the effort of coding in a decay system for familiarity.) On the other hand, if it's deals, there could potentially be narrative context given around the deal chosen. "I don't want you trying to run off without paying me, so you get to wear this hobble dress". Or it could be shackles, or anything really to inhibit the PC's movement for a time. This punishes the player for a time (likely a duration configurable in the MCM), and then the Devious Follower lets the PC out of the initial deal free of charge, and business resumes as normal.

Of course, then you run in to the quandary of players not enjoying being penalized for playing musical followers. So, you'd still want it to be togglable, even if the whole point is to mitigate the player's ability to game the system.

[Herowynne]

46 minutes ago, keitsoru said:

Why do people use Devious Followers? Obviously, the answer to that question will vary from player to player. However, I think the overwhelming consensus is going to be they use Devious Followers to gradually put their character in BDSM scenarios.

 

I am probably in the minority, but I use a devious follower very similarly to how I use a SubLola master.

 

I deliberately choose a follower to be devious, meaning that I always exclude a follower from being devious before recruiting them unless I want that particular follower to be devious.

 

Then immediately after recruiting the devious follower, I spend about 30 minutes or so on dialogue agreeing to all the specific deals that I want to experience with that follower.

 

That is why I have asked @Lupine00 to consider a new MCM mechanism to make all the deal activities separately available in non-deal format, simply as actions or events that the devious follower would do, just like how SubLola works.

[keitsoru]

20 minutes ago, Herowynne said:

 

I am probably in the minority, but I use a devious follower very similarly to how I use a SubLola master.

 

I deliberately choose a follower to be devious, meaning that I always exclude a follower from being devious before recruiting them unless I want that particular follower to be devious.

 

Then immediately after recruiting the devious follower, I spend about 30 minutes or so on dialogue agreeing to all the specific deals that I want to experience with that follower.

 

That is why I have asked @Lupine00 to consider a new MCM mechanism to make all the deal activities separately available in non-deal format, simply as actions or events that the devious follower would do, just like how SubLola works.

Oh, believe me, I wasn't trying to invalidate anyone else's way of utilizing the mod, I'm just going off of the general purpose of it for users, based on what I've seen.

I agree it would be good to have at least some of the deals available as games, though then that brings with it the question of how to truly differentiate the game versions, and the deals. Yes, giving the ability to toggle each modular deal to one or the other allows you to pick and choose, but I think personally what I'd love to see are less extreme versions of some deals handled as games, until the actual deal finally comes up. Example: The "I'm a Slut" deal could come in to play in a variant where the follower walks up and implies something about the PC, and at high willpower, maybe there's the option to say what the Devious Follower is saying is a blatant lie. On the other hand, at lower willpower, all you can really do is agree and let it go.

That's just an idea off the top of my head, but I think the idea of sprinkling in a few more less intrusive games at low debt, and high willpower, could be a very good one.

[SacredDatura]

I tend to play Devious Followers rather "monogamously", that is I try to stick with one follower for the long haul - I don't use the minimum contract option (just in case I need to terminate the follower for meta reasons) but I play as if it's on, because that's where DFC truly shines - the sensation of slowly sinking in quicksand over the course of many, many hours.

 

When I think about which follower to run with for a particular playthrough I think about the arc I'd like to experience. Is it a lovestruck girl falling under the spell of a handsome bard? An orphan latching on to a father figure? A proud fugitive being semi-blackmailed by a local with connections? It's always about the very particular relationship these two characters have with one another.

 

So I have to say I've never thought much about the mechanical advantage of swapping out followers regularly, because swapping DFs mid-game almost feels like "lost progress" in a way.

 

I do like Darkwing241's idea of buffing long-term DFs in combat as a carrot. Playing as a pure support (ie healing and buffing only), I find that followers that scale with the player have a tendency to fall off in combat effectiveness because as you level, the game's combat balance assumes you're not only more powerful but also fight smarter with a larger arsenal of skills. But of course the follower AI at level 40 will fight as idiotically as it did at level 5. Certainly modded followers can have power levels that are all over the place, but balancing with vanilla and vanilla-adjacent followers in mind seems like a reasonable lodestar.

 

Plus I like the idea of a DF becoming more powerful from a thematic POV as it mirrors their growing psychological dominance over you.

[Lupine00]

4 hours ago, keitsoru said:

If the PC has regularly had to enter in to deals, or has had long lapses in payment, maybe a completely different follower won't want to just go along with the PC without any payment up front first?

That's a good idea, and it could tie in to a compulsory minimum contract too.

As familiarity is probably a good way off, I'll put some notes in the roadmap.

 

 

3 hours ago, Herowynne said:

That is why I have asked @Lupine00 to consider a new MCM mechanism to make all the deal activities separately available in non-deal format, simply as actions or events that the devious follower would do, just like how SubLola works.

Now you've explained what you do, I "get" it.

 

It's still the case that DF was written to do deals a certain way, and though I have made some changes in how you get them, the function of the deals is done the same way it always was. They're still enforced by dialogs that are checking a lot of hard-wired-in conditions, and a majority of the dialogs are written in terms of deals and compliance. It's often awkward to see how they'd work without debt, because DF only enforces compliance via debt.

 

SLTR enforces compliance with added slavery days, or beatings, or forcing devices onto you, or taking your stuff, or lost submission (that can potentially block you from leaving slavery).

If you enable keep forever in SLTR, it loses some of its teeth, because adding days is not an option any longer, and low submission merely excludes you from events in most cases. It wasn't designed for keeping an unwilling PC in indefinite slavery (we can safely assume the player is always somewhat willing). SL was originally all about voluntary submission and wanting to pursue that life. There's a little bit of a split personality going on there now, though nothing you can't ignore if you're willing.

 

Moving DF away from a deal-driven mentality would be quite a large task. Just like the idea of willing submission being in all the old SL dialogs, the idea of deal compliance and debt as punishment is central to the DF dialogs.

 

I can add a debug feature that would give a faster way to do what you do though... but maybe I have a better idea?

 

 

Some kind of hybrid approach could work, where if you meet the criteria, DFC gives out deals much more aggressively than normal forced deals.

 

e.g. If you have more debt than the value of a single deal, you're automatically given a deal to pay it off - without having to ask for that deal, or cross the enslavement debt threshold.

 

That could be tied to willpower.

 

I'm thinking you set a "Forced debt-reduction willpower" ...

 

Set it to -1 and you never get an auto deal.

Set it to 6, and as soon as you have willpower <= 6, the follower shifts into auto-deal mode.

Set it to 10, and you can get them as soon as you have enough debt - with a mercenary, that could be right away.

 

If you meet the willpower condition, if you have debt >= value of a deal, you are simply given a deal.

Then, if you set your deal value low, you will easily get a lot of deals.

 

What other conditions might play into this?

Maybe if you're wearing a collar, or heavy bondage, that's enough to enable it too?

Maybe add a 'naked adjustment' that raises the required threshold willpower by one.

Other ideas?

 

 

It really is pretty easy to do. There is some busy work to make the dialogs announce your deal, but I might be able to re-use the forced device deals branch. (Looked at this, I can, but it is certainly a bit of a hack, not sure if it's better just to make new dialogs).

 

I'm also thinking that it would use blocking dialog to trigger the deal assignment instead of a forcegreet, so you can easily avoid it at critical moments in dungeons, but that might not be a great idea. A forcegreet is probably fine, maybe with a condition that it doesn't happen in dungeons.

 

 

And in terms of toggles? Yes, this, and behaviors associated with familiarity would need MCM controls.

I hate it when some mod adds a feature that can't be disabled that easily could have been made optional.

 

I already wrote the MCM option for the follower dismissal - it's not as if I was ever not going to do that unless I simply removed the feature.

I think the dismissal restriction feature is worth keeping, as with the optional willpower mode it's still immersive even if you don't use SLS, and is still worth having for those people who don't use licenses in SLS, or SLS at all.

 

I like this enough that it could go in after license support... But for me, license support is the most important thing to make the follower relationship make sense immersively.

My poor poverty stricken characters cannot afford licenses without borrowing off the follower anyway.

The existing way to do this is just so tedious and doesn't feel "right" either.

[keitsoru]

e.g. If you have more debt than the value of a single deal, you're automatically given a deal to pay it off - without having to ask for that deal, or cross the enslavement debt threshold.

 

I like this idea, though I think it would make sense to somehow tie it in to boredom. Boredom is made out to be this driving mechanic, but in the end, as long as you keep things under control (e.g. paying your debts, regularly sleeping, paying priests), it's hardly an issue. I did notice with a collar equipped to comply with the lack of Freedom License in SLS, that caused the DF to act as if the Slut Deal was active and tell NPCs to "fuck her slave". Though, that seemed to be a bug with the previous version, that judging by previous posts, you've since addressed.

It never did make sense to me that if boredom is this thing to be mindful of, you still have to go and ask the follower to give you a deal. I feel like at a certain threshold (combined with debt and willpower), they would just insist on forcing a deal on you.

[r3mind]

Thanks again for the great mod. Just a few ideas to make followers more devious when using them to kill enemies: 1) a follower can refuse to go into a dangerous dungeon / place without additional payment; 2) a follower can suddenly stop fighting enemies and offer them PC's body to "rest" a bit; 3) some mechanic to share profit from looted enemies with a follower, because it feels too "easy" to just loot everyone and get all the gold.

 

Also a random question (sorry if it's too off-topic): is there a way/mod to replace default female followers in Skyrim? I'm also using SL Survival and only male followers make much more sense to me. I had to hire a female follower to get out of Whiterun and she wasn't very useful.

[Lupine00]

1 hour ago, Vigor said:

Also a random question (sorry if it's too off-topic): is there a way/mod to replace default female followers in Skyrim? I'm also using SL Survival and only male followers make much more sense to me. I had to hire a female follower to get out of Whiterun and she wasn't very useful.

Male followers are in short supply.

For every one I think there are fifty females.

 

There's this: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/17163/

Replacing Jenassa seems sort of plausible, but I don't know of a mod to make her male. Even VectorPlexus doesn't seem to have one.

 

I guess you could do it yourself. A follower mod is an easy place to start.

 

 

  

1 hour ago, Vigor said:

1) a follower can refuse to go into a dangerous dungeon / place without additional payment; 2) a follower can suddenly stop fighting enemies and offer them PC's body to "rest" a bit; 3) some mechanic to share profit from looted enemies with a follower, because it feels too "easy" to just loot everyone and get all the gold.

1) Would be nice, but I don't really know how I would do it. How do I even know you're about to go in? I could know you have gone, so maybe that part can be solved. Some players would see the follower waiting at the entrance a convenience feature though - no stupid follower in the way. Not all of course.

I don't rule this out. it could work.

 

2) That requires doing something correctly that defeat and other combat rape mods all struggle with. If I could do that, I'd make a defeat mod first - then add it to DF - I don't really want to do it right now. Maybe eventually.

 

3) NFF will do cash splitting for you, but it's not that great really.

I thought this is a redundant feature, because you aren't getting all the gold, the follower charges you for their help, and if you want them to charge more, or more randomly, DFC already has those features.

 

But on reflection, it's really just a loot divider. So, for people who don't use a scarcity mod, it might be useful. For me, getting any loot is hard, splitting it would make the game silly, but as a lightweight scarcity alternative, it could be useful for people who don't have a bunch of factors sabotaging their income I guess.

[keitsoru]

3) NFF will do cash splitting for you, but it's not that great really.

I thought this is a redundant feature, because you aren't getting all the gold, the follower charges you for their help, and if you want them to charge more, or more randomly, DFC already has those features.

 

I feel as though while this may seem redundant at lower debt, at higher debt and lower willpower, it would make sense. My understanding is the Devious Follower is already set to steal items from you on occasion, but it makes sense they'd cut to the chase and demand a share. "Hey, you owe me a lot of money, and I'm putting my life on the line, so I'd like a share of what we find in here."

[r3mind]

3 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

1) Would be nice, but I don't really know how I would do it. How do I even know you're about to go in? I could know you have gone, so maybe that part can be solved. Some players would see the follower waiting at the entrance a convenience feature though - no stupid follower in the way. Not all of course.

I don't rule this out. it could work.

Triggering this event inside a dungeon is perfectly fine, but now I think that PC can still "cheat" and drag enemies to the follower either he waits inside or outside. I guess I'm just bad at roleplaying and always looking for workarounds  My character relies on a follower a lot to kill mobs and carry stuff and when he is willingfully doing all of these, it loses the "devious" nature a bit.

Btw, is the event when a follower equips pony gear and tells PC to visit a stable from this mod? If yes, I tried 2 stables (Whiterun and Windhelm) and both times my follower couldn't find a horse. I don't have any special horse mods.

[SacredDatura]

9 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

3) NFF will do cash splitting for you, but it's not that great really.

I thought this is a redundant feature, because you aren't getting all the gold, the follower charges you for their help, and if you want them to charge more, or more randomly, DFC already has those features.

 

I like the way SubLola does it more than NFF's method. The follower skims all incoming gold automatically.

 

Might work as an tier addition/alternative to gold control? Follower says "from now I'll hold on to half of your gold" and takes five out ten coins you loot.

 

It feels better than a scarcity mod, because you still get that "ooh, shiny" endorphin rush when you open a container, but then your follower skims off the top. It's a constant reminder of his domination over you. With scarcity mods dungeons are just less exciting because you find less stuff, period.

[Anunya]

My perspective on switching followers/ familiarity etc. The intention here is not to say "do it this way" but to share my specific use-case and priorities, and to brainstorm a bit in case anything useful comes from it:

• Sometimes I need to switch/ dismiss followers for debug or narrative reasons and I'd like to be able to do so with minimum hassle (this has already been covered, I'm just including it for completeness).
• The idea of being trapped and unable to leave is obviously a key part of DFC, and expanding on the way that is implemented is interesting and worthwhile as long as it's clearly communicated in game and configurable (which it sounds like it will be). Layering on additional conditions or requirements can add flavour. Some potential ideas for additional conditions (with no strong suggestion that any one of them are actually GOOD ideas ^_^ ) :
  • "Sorry, only on Mondays or Tuesdays... you'll have to wait a few more days."
  • "You're not ready to make it on your own as long as you're wearing devious devices...."
  • "We're not parting ways until we're in [randomly selected walled city]..."
  • "Sure we can part ways. As a parting gift, here wear this devious device as a souvenir of our good times together..."
  • "When we part ways, we have to do it at one of the standing stones to formalize the ending of our relationship properly." - "Okay, I'm not your follower anymore, bye bye" - "Oh, what is this a tough levelled bandit encounter and you don't have anyone to help you? I sure hope you win or at least don't have harsh defeat mod settings...."
  • "Sure we can part ways. By the way, there's now a bounty on you in this hold for some shit I did but you got blamed for...."
  • "I expect a parting gift. How about [some item which is somewhat expensive and inconvenient, but not impossible to get]. Bring it to me in two hours." (bonus for having the item change from a random list each time the player asks). "If you can't, I'll add debt and you try again tomorrow."
  • "We met [at location], we part at [location]. We have to go back."
  • "At least give me a quick good-bye fuck... or maybe a gang-bang with a few other people..."
  • "Let's play this gambling game that has 1/3 chance that you go, 1/3 chance that I add a bit of debt "for fun", and 1/3 chance you can try again tomorrow..."
• I'm really keen on the idea of distinguishing between different DFC in the same game. If you add a familiarity stat, that could make a difference. Some ways to potentially use the familiarity stat:
  • Discount on daily debt for high familiarity.
  • Lower (or higher?) rate of boredom accumulation.
  • Lower deal duration.
• What I REALLY would like is a way to differentiate the DFC personalities of different followers. This could mean trying to keep the current follower because the next one might be worse, but it could also mean working really hard to escape a particularly demanding follower in the hope that the next one is better. It would also add a bit of uncertainty to being sold into DFC slavery and the like. To that end (and this is potentially non-trivial) I propose a few features:
  • For any ON/OFF MCM toggle (especially deal availability, but also things like gold theft after sex and what have you) add a MAYBE option. When you start a DFC relationship, that follower either does or does not use that option but you have to find out through play. If/ when you go to a new follower a new set of MAYBE outcomes are calculated. Maybe your new devious follower will want to impose the maid deal, or maybe they won't... you'll have to play to find out.
  • For anything with numerical ranges (Boredom, Number of Lives, Daily Debt, Deal Duration...) add the option to use a range on a per follower basis. That way one follower may charge less per day, but get bored more easily and so on.
  • This would allow a different feel for different followers in the same game, but it could also add some replay value across multiple games without too much MCM fiddling beyond set-up. A bit of unpredictability can be good that way.

Those are my thoughts, take them as you will

 

(and now I want to start a new game to try out the most recent version of DFC... especially since Maer is not DFCing right now and she's a while away from where it would make sense narratively)

[SacredDatura]

3 minutes ago, Anunya said:

"Oh, what is this a tough levelled bandit encounter and you don't have anyone to help you? I sure hope you win or at least don't have harsh defeat mod settings...."

 

Ooh. I like the sound of this a lot. Might be a good way to punish dismissing DFs out of walled cities while not hard-locking the possibility.

[Lupine00]

15 hours ago, keitsoru said:

"Hey, you owe me a lot of money, and I'm putting my life on the line, so I'd like a share of what we find in here."

That sounds OK. I'm not against it, but I am trying to give it a ... priority against other features.

 

For me, the gameplay mechanic is "cash scarcity".

 

In terms of play, there's little need to limit the cash supply to a high-debt character with low willpower, as they already have insufficient income, and actively reinforcing that creates an insta-slavery mechanic that shortcuts one of the best bits of the experience: where you're tottering back and forth on the border between your deals being a little humiliating, vs deals that make you into a sex-slave pet who acts as a loot mule for the follower.

 

It adds more "play" if it kicks in when the PC is doing a bit too well rather than already in trouble.

So I guess the cop-out answer to that difference of approach is "configuration options".

 

Most money you get it ultimately from item sales not looted. You aren't in a dungeon - you're in a shop when you get that cash. It's certainly detectable, the question is should it be split? Again ... options ... the player could choose whether splits apply to vendors, or the vendor split could be an escalation.

 

A bigger question for me with splitting is how is it immersive in a dungeon? If you split on every loot, it's weird that you're constantly teleporting cash to your follower. (Yeah, I know, gold control already waves past that, but it's much less frequent).

 

So, for it to be forced, the follower has to forcegreet you, and forcegreets are fragile. Sure, they can be tweaked to try and occur at sensible moments, but they need to be kept relatively sparse or else they will happen at game-breaking times.

 

 

If you can delay handing over the split for a time, maybe a long time, it starts to look a lot like your ordinary debt payments.

This is especially true in gold control, where the player is manipulating your held cash on cell changes. And a high debt character is likely to be in gold control.

 

 

So, while it's possible to put some nice messages and atmosphere around it, and there's potentially a lot of ways for the player to customize the feature, there's a lot of work in it too - and it will always have some amount of risky/annoying forcegreets as part of the immersion.

 

 

You can get a lot of the same effect simply by changing your debt curve, or base daily debt.

That doesn't add a new, sometimes fun, interaction, but it's also zero effort because it's already implemented.

 

 

If what you're really looking for is a "debt accelerator" where low willpower increases daily debt, that's something else again, and there are easier ways to do that than loot splitting.

 

 

Maybe it would be nice to be able to enter gold control simply because you have low willpower, even if your debt isn't high?

Because once you're in gold control, the difference between loot splitting and paying debt is nuanced.

(Splitting is an income divider, while the debt accrues regardless - there is a mechanical difference, I don't dispute it).

 

Eager gold control could be combined with an optional "follower overcharges at low willpower" mechanic, which could also stack with the enslaved penalty, so slaves with low willpower pay back very slowly...

 

Probably most players aren't aware this happens - but if you're enslaved, any debt payments you make are halved.

The difference between reducing the player's income and scaling what they have to pay to reduce debt - without changing the actual debt per day - is mechanically almost the same as a loot split that eats a part of your income - because you can only pay money you earned.

 

I can see that as a single slider - where you set the penalty percentage at zero willpower, and something I could do very quickly.

Combine with a feature that forces you into gold control at low willpower and it gets more interesting.

Those two things also fit nicely with that idea of low-willpower/boredom leading to forced deals "early", before you have the high debt that would normally trigger them.

 

This leads to a triplet of new features:

• Willpower gated gold control entry at low debt
• Willpower based payment reduction at any debt level
• Willpower gated eager forced deal-making

 

Those three could lead to a follower who is a bit more pro-active in terms of pushing you into total servitude.

 

 

I have a new game where I'm testing DFC and just playing the game, and I find that compared to SLTR, it feels very hands off.

 

SLTR is constantly in your face, making sure you do things, setting you disruptive chores to complete, messing with your equipment, and so on.

It feels like "stuff is happening" right from the start, and the requirement to ask for tasks keeps up a feeling of things going on.

 

Bearing in mind the SLTR experience, I think it's good to have some stuff where DFC can act sooner and more aggressively, especially for players who aren't long-term users. Or put another way, new users can feel that "nothing is happening" when they get their first DF.

The DF as patient spider doesn't work for everyone. They want "stuff going on" right away and all the time.

Once you've played weeks of the game, the hands-off approach of DFC can feel very welcome, and playing something else made me appreciate that.

There are times you want one thing, and times you want another.

It's very hard for a mod to deliver both well, and harder still to deliver them at the right times.

 

But... making willpower a lot more important (if you choose) would let players choose a spicier and more immediate way of playing without massive effort.

 

A splitting mechanic still fits somewhere, but feels less urgent than easy high-impact stuff like this.

[Lupine00]

14 hours ago, Vigor said:

Btw, is the event when a follower equips pony gear and tells PC to visit a stable from this mod? If yes, I tried 2 stables (Whiterun and Windhelm) and both times my follower couldn't find a horse. I don't have any special horse mods.

Yes, that is DFC.

 

When you say "couldn't find a horse", do you mean it didn't progress?

Or do you mean it started horse sex, then nothing happened?

 

I know that the horse sex is super-reliable, but the precursor part may still be some old code that won't work if you aren't playing in English.

 

If you can confirm the specifics, I'll look into it ASAP.

 

I looked into this and observed that:

• The quest should progress even if a horse isn't found, so it's not a blocker.
• In my version, you only see the message about not finding a horse if there's no sex, and no sex usually occurs because no horse in range.
• I tested this at Whiterun when I updated it, so I'm reasonably sure it works there. I'll check again.

 

Was there actually a horse present at Whiterun for you?

 

It might be that you don't have a properly set up range value.

Try this in the console please:

show _DFSexScanRadius

 

Also, have you done this game more than once recently?

[Lupine00]

7 hours ago, Anunya said:

in case anything useful comes from it

It's a great list of story-driven consequences or obstacles for dropping a follower.

I love it in principal, but OTOH, I probably wouldn't give a high priority to making the most interesting part of the mod be when you try and dismiss a follower.

One one hand, if it stopped you being able to conveniently dismiss a follower, some players would both disable it AND complain bitterly that they can't enjoy the feature.

On the other hand, players who are stuck with their follower don't get to experience it.

 

And yet, I agree this sort of thing should be what happens - to the point where "hard gating" of follower dismissal shouldn't be a thing.

 

It would be so much nicer if your options were determined by a combination of your stats (willpower, debt, credit, boredom, expected deals, past enslavements, worn devices, current cash, etc), and the follower "personality", along with a hearty dose of unexpected randomness.

 

That's how it should be.

 

Also, follower personality differentiation was a huge topic last year, but in 2020 things hit July and I did literally nothing until 2021.

 

 

Being realistic, the DF code base is a terrible place to try and make these kinds of changes.

If these things are to happen the "best" way, there needs to be a DFC 3, rebuilt from scratch.

 

This year's roadmap will easily fill the year - certainly it won't all get done - and DFC3 is not on that map.

I won't say there's no possibility for a DFC3, but it sure isn't on my current TODO list.

 

 

 

As well as being a list of neat dismissal scenarios, there are some gameplay points that resonate strongly for me:

 

7 hours ago, Anunya said:

This could mean trying to keep the current follower because the next one might be worse, but it could also mean working really hard to escape a particularly demanding follower in the hope that the next one is better.

This is a big opportunity. Yes. SD+ actually has this sort of thing, and has since ... years anyway. But it doesn't work as well as might be hoped.

 

 

Also, the general approach to deeper follower differentiation suggested is close to what I was thinking of.

Like "Chaos Mode" but for other options.

 

Right now, the options available don't say much about the follower.

But with the willpower concepts being floated just above, it could work better.

 

Also, I could add (very quickly) a feature so that chaos mode only changes on follower recruitment.

I think I said I'd do this before, and forgot about it... I'll put it in the roadmap so I don't forget.

Chaos Mode as is, is an underused feature, and I highly recommend it - particularly if you use it selectively and pin the range for stuff you don't want to change.

 

For now, I think the first step to follower personalities is still "default deal paths", where certain personalities offer their preferred deals in a given order.

 

Putting other options under personality control is much more work, and poses MCM problems. It's not really feasible to offer a choice about what options are taken away from you, because that's so complicated to do in the MCM, it would confuse a lot of players and we'd have a SexLab Disparity MCM that scares people away, or that they never find features in. For the pure toggles, replacing with a drop-down and the "maybe" approach can work. It won't become clear how much can be done until I go to implement it I expect.

 

The consequence is that the feature would be very much "how I made it" and some people won't like that  (possibly) "follower steals gold" will no longer something they can choose without disabling the personality feature completely.

 

This isn't a reason not to do it, but I do want to set expectations  

[lcewolf]

On 3/11/2021 at 5:10 PM, Lupine00 said:

Is this with the "real" 2.13.4 ?

 

If so, what was the exact dialog your character used, and what was the dialog that NPCs responded to you with?

 

But even with older (recent) versions, there are mechanics to prevent this scenario, and I went over them again yesterday and saw no sign of them being broken except in the one case where you could get a lot of sex events.

 

I use the last version 2.13.4

 

It's was my first deaI. I was trying to talk at my second follower at Whiterun inside the Drunken Huntsman.

 

My PC say something like that ( I... i am .. a slut)

 

Follower (Playing daring game.)

 

I wait few second and try again and it do it again and again.... Until i was tired and i speak again with the Devious Follower which is my husband too. Next I accept another deal (Got the anal plug deal)

 

Then i spoke again at my second follower(  I don't know if it is important but She is my mistress with Submissive Lola) and after 7 at 10 other try i did receive the normal dialogue.

 

Just before i could  have a normal dialogue the Follower said (I can see that)

 

I did try to speak to other fellow but the same thing happen again.

[Lupine00]

  

3 hours ago, lcewolf said:

I use the last version 2.13.4

Does it actually read 2.13.4 on the stats page when you open up the MCM?

 

 

3 hours ago, lcewolf said:

I did try to speak to other fellow but the same thing happen again.

I can't reproduce anything like this. I went through all the dialogs over and over.

 

All I can think is that you keep terminating the dialogs before they've finished and the end scripts get skipped.

 

I did find an issue if you refuse to say the words, but it still won't loop like that.

I've also moved the script to the start of the dialog, so people who escape out of it should get proper script behavior.

 

All I can suggest is pay off that deal, then disable it.

See if it's resolved in next update or a new game.