Devious Followers - Continued

[Lupine00]

2 hours ago, HexBolt8 said:

I'm excited about the Confessions.  C'mon, can you give us a hint?  Is it like confessing to having a fetish?

Yes.

 

2 hours ago, HexBolt8 said:

To limit abuse, you could implement a minimum value/weight ratio so you can't pay the DF with junk. 

I thought about things like that... It starts to get difficult to explain, so when we get to that point, I guess we'll see how it plays and what people like and don't like. It seems perfectly simple to a long-timer user, but to a new user it may seem more like an overwhelmingly complicated barrier to entry.

 

I could imagine the DF simply accepting your junk, but giving you no reward for it. Maybe the percentage value that is assessed could be relative to value per weight, so a 400 gold base-value necklace adds 250 gold to the total, while a 400 gold warhammer would only add 80 gold to the total. You'd then get ... say ... 30% of the total as your cut, depending on willpower, and how you configure.

 

I don't think the DF should take things unless you have a notable amount of debt, or you have a low willpower, or are enslaved.

 

I particularly want this kind of feature for enslavement, because then the DF can take everything except weapons/armor that you begged them for.

But in the enslaved case, they won't carry or take anything until you reach a town - you have to carry it for them - and then once you reach civilization they take all the loot, and sell it, and apparently give you nothing. It counts towards your freedom payoff, but I'd like to hide that, so you don't know how much you have to pay, or how much progress you are making. And the amount is no longer unlimited, it's limited by the PC's carry capacity.

You would periodically get a chance to beg for your freedom, and if you've paid off your debt, there's a chance the DF says yes - like getting out of gold control. If they say no, you can't tell if it's because you owe money, or whether they simply don't feel like it. Maybe not an option everyone wants, and I guess they could not enable it, but I think it would be ... immersive  

 

I'd love to do more with gags during enslavement too. The follower should have more ways to use gags, and if you use a needs mod they can be extremely punishing. I like the idea of the follower gagging the slave in town so they can't cut any deals behind the follower's back, or annoy citizens with their pleading and sob stories.

 

 

Another thing I would like to do but ... who knows when? ... SLS license awareness. You can let the DF handle license purchases, and they can do things like force you to use bikini license, or not let you have a magic license sometimes because "Your magic isn't good enough. It would just be a waste of money." And of course, license costs plus a percentage mark-up would be added to your regular debt. This helps you if you're in gold control and can't actually raise enough money to buy a license without using the gambling game repeatedly. Plus, if you part ways with the follower, they take all the licenses that they paid for. It opens up mechanics where the follower demands deals for licenses too. It might not be too hard to add, but I guess it would depend how great an idea people think it is. The follower could suggest the PC get past the guards for free, or if you ask nicely, they will pay and mark that up too.

 

For enslaved follower, they could not buy you any licenses, but could give you gear to use in dungeons, and take it back when you leave. Might need a special mechanic for mages though. They'd probably need a magic license no matter what.

[drunken toad]

6 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

I'd like to do ... something ... but I'm primarily interested in ways for the spouse to be a DF without demanding money or using the wrong sort of dialogs ... an in a way that might work with PetProject.

 

Reported humiliations ... it's sort of sexual fame stuff. It's nice, but how does it fit, what are the mechanics? Is it just flavor?

 

I think that spouse stuff is a way off for now, as it needs new ways to "pay" and new kinds of "debt" that work ok with as many existing features as can be contrived.

Yeah mostly just for flavor. There's not much spouse content as is. You could add consequences too though. Your spouse could refuse to speak with you or lock you out of your house until you're no longer indebted to your follower. Maybe eventually they would just leave you and take over your house. If you do manage to pay off your bills they could become super controlling afterwards. Make you wear a chastity belt, or even start following you around to make sure you don't do anything else to shame them. Basically discipline you until you become a proper wife. I understand this sort of content would be low on your priorities right now. Anyway thanks for reading.

[HexBolt8]

1 hour ago, Lupine00 said:

It seems perfectly simple to a long-timer user, but to a new user it may seem more like an overwhelmingly complicated barrier to entry.

 

I could imagine the DF simply accepting your junk, but giving you no reward for it.

Hopefully there's a way to keep things simple without ruining immersion.  I can imagine a new user giving the DF a lot of rubbish and thinking "Hah, what a dummy!" because there's no feedback that the junk gained nothing.  It could take quite a while to figure that out.  If the follower seems to be foolish, the player loses respect for the follower, spoiling immersion.  I believe that SD+ masters have an angry response when being offered items of little worth.  If the DF reacts to junk items, the player will understand that that sort of nonsense doesn't work, and the DF will seem more real.  If it's tricky to implement it's not worth it. but I like when NPCs respond intelligently to my attempts to trick or exploit them.  "Some of that 'loot' was useless.  I threw it away.  Do you need motivation to do better?"

2 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

You would periodically get a chance to beg for your freedom, and if you've paid off your debt, there's a chance the DF says yes - like getting out of gold control. If they say no, you can't tell if it's because you owe money, or whether they simply don't feel like it. Maybe not an option everyone wants, and I guess they could not enable it, but I think it would be ... immersive

Sounds fun. 

2 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

I'd love to do more with gags during enslavement too.

Yes, a slave should be seen but not heard.  But if you gag the player in towns, that could block completing quests by speaking to NPCs.  You might want to limit this to outside of towns, and perhaps for shorter periods, enough to make the point that you can be gagged if you become annoying without blocking quests too much. 

[Lupine00]

20 minutes ago, HexBolt8 said:

I believe that SD+ masters have an angry response when being offered items of little worth.

The SD+ masters have a split personality on that one.

Owner: "What is this worthless junk?"

Your owner smiles.

Owner: "Good slave."

 

 

22 minutes ago, HexBolt8 said:

But if you gag the player in towns, that could block completing quests by speaking to NPCs. 

I guess that's the idea, but it would only occur if you were in trouble, and there should be various ways to get ungagged. In practice, DD gag-talk lets you talk in the vast majority of gagged situations anyway - it's just PoP and some Zaz gags that block things completely. Even "The Silencer" from DCL does not, in fact, silence.

 

I suspect that enslavement is going to play awkwardly with many quests. You wouldn't want to go see Parthurnax, crawling naked, through the howling wind on your hands and knees, possibly gagged so you can't use the Clear Skies shout. Never mind fighting Alduin up there.

 

I think that's OK. SD+ enslavement would be even worse. Enslavement is not supposed to be play-as-normal, but a punishment for failure, that you seek to avoid.

 

There was some conversation on the SLS forum about bad ends, and I think DF could have an optional bad end if you have 0 willpower and run up a huge debt despite being enslaved. "Endless Mode" is another story ... I need to give that some love too... It was Lozeak's preferred mode, but I don't think it works particularly well in 2.X

 

 

 

I'm still looking at the problems with the Forced Follower quest where the guard cuffs you ... it shouldn't have a problem firing the dialog because the follower gets put in a forcegreet. I think problems occur if some other mod gets on the follower and mucks up the packages. If you have AI Overhaul or something...

 

I added a mode where you can initiate the dialog yourself, but there's still another bug where you simply use "follow me" on a candidate and the quest sticks and you will be stuck forever. Even if you reset the quest, you'll still have the cuffs. I'm fixing that now, but the only 100% fix would be adding a button in Debug that removes the cuffs (or the DD end all quests button).

 

It's been highly educational looking at this quest. It's not well designed, and so has endless pain points.

It seems like this general sort of thing is where a lot of authors come unstuck. Veladarius had chronic issues in CD, Delzaron always seems to have trouble with NPCs even showing up, and Lozeak clearly had a few problems. Kimy usually gets it right, but even then, there are problem points, like the infamous teleport to the mansion. There has to be a mod that sets the gold standard for this sort of complex interaction working 100% reliably. Any suggestions?

 

Quests with forcegreets, dialog choices, and scenes mixed together are definitely trouble. In this case, I don't think DF is helped by this being split over two separate quests (more than two really) and using NPCs it doesn't really control.

 

 

I think, in future, I would be very wary about how scenes get initiated and how dialog end scripts are used having worked with this. Forcegreets are only safe on an NPC you completely control, using an ActorBase that hopefully will put AIO from messing with it. Probably even then they can fail. Slaverun suffers from this too, IIRC.

 

I believe that using a scene is always going to be more reliable because you line up all the pieces, lock them down and do the scene. Problem is that the PC can't make any choices until the scene ends. The design needs to default to something sensible if the PC doesn't enter a dialog afterwards. It's possible...

 

In the scene:

  Quest giver: "So, my pet, you can either go and collect that butt-plug for me, or suffer the consequences."

  PC Puppet: "But, what if I don't want to?"

  Quest giver: "We can discuss that if you can come up with a good enough reason."

Scene ends...

PC can now either walk off, in which case they have accepted the quest by default, or they open a dialog to argue.

 

[rjn]

In the Nether Follower Framework there is provision for paying followers in two ways. (And it works fine with DF in my games)

 

1. An adjustable trigger level minimum for lump sums (no-barter) payments.  For instance set it at 150 and when you turn in the golden claw for 400 and it splits the 250 excess with all your followers. (You can have them say "Thanks" or just keep still).  Biggest payout: picking up my stuff from the chest in Dreamworld (Sanguine's Debauchery) I split thousands of Septims between my 2 followers and kept 150 for myself.

 

2. A weekly pay per follower setting.  The follower will leave if you don't pay this amount each week.  Interesting feature of this setting is that if you change it before you get another follower they will want the new amount/week and the original follower will want the original amount/week.

[Balgin]

1 hour ago, HexBolt8 said:

Yes, a slave should be seen but not heard.  But if you gag the player in towns, that could block completing quests by speaking to NPCs.

Follower: Tell him you're a slut.

 

Player: But I just want to finish this quest.

 

Follower: Tell him.

 

Player: But I just-

 

Follower: you're...

 

Player: want to -

 

Follower: a slut.

 

Player: Alright. I'm a  slut.

 

Follower: Good. Now tell him again!

 

Ever been stuck in this loop anybody? It doesn't only apply to gags.

[Bane Master]

9 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

This is a cheat, in that you can loot an infinite weight of items, so I might track that and do something with it, but I don't see the weight being capped.

Actually I would like to suggest there is an (optional) cap - This could silently track the weight of items destroyed, limit it to a sensible carry weight (?MCM parameter) and reset when the Merchant covo happens to further encourage that interaction. 

[Lupine00]

33 minutes ago, Balgin said:

Ever been stuck in this loop anybody?

I don't think I've had it loop indefinitely. If that happens, your game may be a bit broken.

There seems to be a chance the follower will demand it on each dialog, so it can trigger sequentially in some cases.

Possibly there's a race condition with the gag dialog that can result in it breaking.

There might be some other mod involved in the stuck loop behaviour too.

 

Sometimes it might trigger several times.

 

It's one of those mechanics where, honestly, I'm amazed it works at all. I might be able to improve it a bit, but it's pretty fragile.

[windlepoons]

9 minutes ago, Lupine00 said:

It's one of those mechanics where, honestly, I'm amazed it works at all. I might be able to improve it a bit, but it's pretty fragile.

It works brilliantly, it's just annoying enough especially when you are always gagged - after you go through the gag talk 'Oh I think I understand what you are trying to say!' bit only to get the hand on your shoulder, you say your piece and then you have to initiate dialog and go through it all again.

[Balgin]

2 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

Possibly there's a race condition with the gag dialog that can result in it breaking.

I was mostly joking in reference to what HexBolt was suggesting in combination with the slut dialogue (and refusing to play along) sometimes interrupting attempts to speak to the same npc 3 or 4 times in a row. Sometimes more often with electric shock tingles which automatically end the conversation and then have a high chance to interrupt again.

[HexBolt8]

8 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

There was some conversation on the SLS forum about bad ends, and I think DF could have an optional bad end if you have 0 willpower and run up a huge debt despite being enslaved.

I like the possibility of bad ends, as long as they can be toggled.  The weird potion is like that.  There could be ways for the PC to permanently trade away a freedom.  For example, admit that you can't make it without the follower, and permanently give up the ability to do something, such as requesting to exit gold control or to dismiss the follower.  You get some one-time debt relief, and the follower likes you more and perhaps gains an extra life (+1 max lives).

 

A more devious way of making the follower permanent would be an agreement to always have at least one deal, perhaps as a confession that you secretly like them, and with a deal active the follower can't be dismissed.  Obviously that would please the follower.  Just thinking out loud.

[Lupine00]

12 hours ago, Bane Master said:

Actually I would like to suggest there is an (optional) cap - This could silently track the weight of items destroyed, limit it to a sensible carry weight (?MCM parameter) and reset when the Merchant covo happens to further encourage that interaction. 

Clearly possible. But then you start to wonder whether the follower should optimize what they carry, and that's plausible. So, you end up with the follower (code) doing loot optimization for you. And you start to wonder why the follower doesn't give feedback on how full they are and... They're questions that can be answered, but the first thing is to have the system at all, then when you really know how it plays, tune and add the options that people want the most. I'll be impressed if I get to this before April  

[Lupine00]

5 hours ago, HexBolt8 said:

I like the possibility of bad ends, as long as they can be toggled.  The weird potion is like that.  There could be ways for the PC to permanently trade away a freedom.

By bad ends I mean a fairly acknowledge the PC failed, is doomed, and perform a dramatic reset and start-over as a new character. In the SLS thread, the suggestion I made was something like CoC restart, where you get set to a low level, but get bonus perks and other things (spells, shouts, money, gear, some skills?) based on your previous level. 

 

Weird Potion is a deal-reset mechanic, but it isn't an "ending" at all; it's definitely a point on that same character's journey.

 

More mechanics like weird potion would be interesting, but they're going to be highly situational. Most people don't trigger Weird Potion, and not everyone enables it.

 

 

I guess my focus for now is thinking about how to make the core DF experience more interesting, and that seems to come down to fixing the complaint that people don't have to take deals in a way that isn't just forcing deals on the player, and which feels fair.

 

DF forces the player to focus on loot. Maybe too much. You find yourself loot optimizing and managing your trades and time very carefully.

It can get a bit loot+vendor centric sometimes. Instead of the experience of a sexy follower who is trying to trick you out of your freedom, it can get like you're working in an Amazon warehouse or something. Got to meet those targets!

 

 

People who use the mod a lot want new content. They want new games, new scenes, new Easter-eggs ... and I want those things too, but they are wasted if you don't get to experience them because you're never in debt, and you're never in debt because you have twisted your game by making it all about how you maximize profits.

 

I don't think the "fatigue" mechanic solves this. It helps a bit, but the problem has multiple roots:

 

1) we can't easily know what level of loot is a reasonable baseline for a given game at a given player level

2) a mod based entirely around cash mechanics will always push the player to be cash-driven

3) cash and loot are actually nothing to do with what the mod's primary purpose

4) cash sinking is a purpose of the mod, just not it's primary purpose

 

The "obvious" answer is to make the follower create "debts" or obligations that involve payment in ways other than cash.

 

Another thing is to make the looting and selling less of a chore, which follower-managed-selling would do.

Instead of wasting real hours running around cities squeezing every septim out of every merchant, you can just go to the general merchant, trigger the scene and be done.

It could nerf the value of (easy to raise) speech skill, and you can put your perks somewhere else instead, or a value could be preserved for speech.

 

Right now, one of the main causes of disaster I get in DF is a parasite that impairs speech/prices. So maybe it would be a mistake to lose that?

 

 

But returning to non-cash debts ... that's kind of what deals are right now ... you exchange non-cash for cash ... you pay the follower in humiliating acts and wearing devices. Debts create an exchange mechanism between non-cash (actions you take) and cash.

 

I don't think that the deals as they stand are a very fair exchange mechanism, because there is a clear difference between piercing-deal-level-1 and arm+leg-cuffs-deal-level-1. One is basically only an issue because it can lead to piercing deal level 2, the other messes with your armor and puts you in visible bondage.

 

Some deal stacks are much harsher than others, and some level 2 deals are much harsher than others. 

 

Ignoring modular deals, which are a total crapshoot...

 

Bondage Deal:  1 = harmless, 2 = potentially serious, 3 = potentially serious, 4 = can go wrong and lead to massive debt

Slut Deal: 1 = harmless, 2 = potentially serious, 3 = probably very serious and annoying, 4 = highly dependent on what other mods you have

Ownership: 1 = troublesome, 2 = irrelevant, 3 = almost certain willpower collapse

Piercings: 1 = harmless, 2 = harmless, 3 = probably very serious

Slave: 1 = harmless, 2 = probably serious, 3 = mainly just annoying but may lead to willpower collapse

 

The thing with the deals is that the impact each one has is highly contextual. It depends on what other mods and deals you have. Getting covered in cum is not that big a deal in some cases, but if you have mods that handle cum-cover and punish it, it may be very important.

With gag deals, it matters if you have a needs mod. If you do, it matters a lot whether you have a ring gag or not. That's the problem with the tape gag. You have to remove it to eat/drink, and then you have to pay. The tape gag has other quirks that tend to generate a lot of punishment debt. In most of my games it inevitably means enslavement.

There are very few mods that treat a collar worse than arm/leg cuffs, so the Ownership deals level 1 and 2 are probably back to front. It depends. If you have a DEC setup that makes collars an insta-rape, you will get a willpower collapse.

And the piercing deal is pretty harmless to the point the follower starts making you strip to show them off, and what happens then depends on what other mods you have. If you have a rape mod that targets naked characters, you'll probably end up raped into willpower collapse pretty fast from the level 3 piercing deal, which at levels 1 and 2 just eats a little resistance.

Slave deal level 1 is not too bad ... anal plug, but whore armor could be a big problem for a melee build, and being whored out is not too bad, until you get some other deal, and then your willpower collapses again.

 

Modular deals are pretty much all "wear a device" and they're categorized so they should make some kind of sense, but they block more interesting hand-crafted deals and you can easily get something like always wear slave boots - which may or may not be a huge deal, depending on your other mods.

 

When you get a deal, whether it's a new deal, or a higher-level deal clearly makes a huge difference (in most cases). Having the modular deals gives more scope to get new deals, and I'm not sure it was understood how this would impact progression. With the five "classic" deals, being at six deals means you're probably in some trouble, and at twelve you're probably screwed. With modular deals, you could have six deals and be fine.

 

It's actually pretty tempting to remove the modular deals entirely and instead make the Slave, Bondage and Ownership deals have a random element. e.g. Bondage deal level 1 wouldn't always be a corset, but could be any non-visible device, and if it picked anal-plug, then when you get the slave deal, you get vaginal plug instead of anal, because you already have it, etc.

 

I guess it's important to remember that you can usually refuse really bad deals if you have the willpower to do it. There's another problem with the modular deals, you don't know what you're refusing or accepting.

 

By cleaning up deals, it would lay a groundwork for adding new deals that are more ... behavioural ... like the slut deal ... that make demands on the PC to act, not just wear things. It would also make the value of each deal more consistent for its level, so that exchange between cash and deals is more coherent.

 

 

I'm not convinced any of this forms a clear course of action right now. I'm still trying to reason through it. Perhaps people want other ways of requiring behaviour that aren't deals in the classic sense, or new ways of punishing non-compliance in deals? Lots of room for fresh ideas and interpretations.

 

And if new deals were created, then there's the question of what behaviours could possibly be added...

 

• A requirement to repeatedly offer sex to the follower is the most obvious.
• Punishment for sex with anyone other than the follower? Incompatible with various other deals though, or at least complex to manage.
• Spanking.
• Milk - for those who install MME - clearly not for everyone.
• Wearing bikini stuff.
• Staying naked.
• Wearing humiliating outfits in town.
• Sleep deprivation.
• Excessive eating.
• Starvation.
• Bathing. (A speck of dirt and you're in trouble girl).
• Not bathing + bonus filth (see existing slut deal).
• Obligatory solicitation (see existing Slave deal).
• Crawling (not as part of slavery).
• Drinking alcohol.
• Drinking skooma.
• Tattoos.
• Getting into furniture.
• Stealing (must pickpocket or break into houses).
• ??? any more ideas ???

Once an action has been identified, it's a serious task to turn it into a proper deal, but I guess this is early days, thinking about how to move forward, looking for fresh ideas.

There might be some kind of theme to the deals a given follower offers.

 

But first thing, how do people want "required actions" to be delivered/packaged? Is the existing deal mechanic the best way?

 

Should we have a concept of a follower who measures your "debt" in a completely different way?

What about a follower who doesn't care about money, but only obedience?

Or a follower who cares only about sexual exclusivity?

Or some mix-up for existing debt measures?

[Lupine00]

11 hours ago, Balgin said:

I was mostly joking in reference to what HexBolt was suggesting in combination with the slut dialogue (and refusing to play along) sometimes interrupting attempts to speak to the same npc 3 or 4 times in a row. Sometimes more often with electric shock tingles which automatically end the conversation and then have a high chance to interrupt again.

Working as intended then  The follower needs a laugh animation though.

[HexBolt8]

3 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

I guess my focus for now is thinking about how to make the core DF experience more interesting, and that seems to come down to fixing the complaint that people don't have to take deals in a way that isn't just forcing deals on the player, and which feels fair.

 

DF forces the player to focus on loot. Maybe too much. You find yourself loot optimizing and managing your trades and time very carefully.

Exactly.  New content is great but it's largely wasted if the base experience isn't working.

3 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

The "obvious" answer is to make the follower create "debts" or obligations that involve payment in ways other than cash.

Yes.  I think those obligation or required behavior could be a lot more interesting than the pursuit for loot.  And while I expect to have to pay the follower, I don't enjoy being in cash debt.  Sometimes, sure, but most of the time I want to be free to buy some things. 

3 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

Should we have a concept of a follower who measures your "debt" in a completely different way?

What about a follower who doesn't care about money, but only obedience?

Yes again.  To me the DF's demands for cash are simply the means to control you, to get you to do things.  Ideally a DF could be configured anywhere from pure cash/greed to pure control/obedience freak.  Normally, I'd want a bit of a mix, but leaning toward obedience because I find that a lot more fun than grubbing for gold.  In another game I might want a gold-focused DF, and in another one a dominant follower with a freaky obsession with the PC.  Variety is good.

[legraf]

1 hour ago, Lupine00 said:

By bad ends I mean a fairly acknowledge the PC failed, is doomed, and perform a dramatic reset and start-over as a new character. In the SLS thread, the suggestion I made was something like CoC restart, where you get set to a low level, but get bonus perks and other things (spells, shouts, money, gear, some skills?) based on your previous level. 

Personally, I don't see this as much of a priority - we already do this when we give up on a character and start a new one, possibly with some cheating-up of abilities.  But if others love those, who am I to judge?

 

I do find more things like "weird potion" more interesting.  More commitments to a follower as a means of recovering from a desperate situation.  Marry the follower, for instance, or hand over ownership of a property (you _might_ still be permitted inside, when the follower wishes, under certain conditions like wearing a maid's uniform, picking up clutter, and sleeping in a low-quality bedroll at the foot of their luxurious bed).

 

As has been discussed earlier, radiant quests from the follower are, I think, a good non-cash way for the follower to influence the PCs behaviour and establish follower dominance.  These quests can come with a reward of course, or a penalty if ignored or failed.

 

I have not suffered this issue you describe, where other players find DF boring because deals are too easy to avoid.  I actually have DF settings fairly close to default, not very punishing, but my play style just isn't "optimized" enough for looting ... DF works quite well out of the box, for me.  Of course others have other styles, and one can play in a way that makes DF deals absurdly easy to avoid or buy out of.  For those players I would re-iterate my suggestion for a responsive system of costs, or continued manual tweaking of costs so that whatever style of play the player enjoys is just on the edge of supportable with DF conditions.

 

I would instead suggest focusing on other areas ... events, radiant quests, fatigue, follower boredom, etc.  And also, perhaps, soft integration with more other mods - StA gives us that resistance drop already.  Others have suggested letting the follower be responsible for license.  I'd suggest having them manage property as well, perhaps.  Or, to pull an idea from the old DF thread, events like "Follower gives the PC a gift, a nice sword.  PC can use the gift (follower happy) or not (follower mad) - the sword's not bad, but perhaps not optimal.  Or perhaps it's even cursed, and the follower "just can't see it".

 

Of course, Lupine00, if the current setup makes you feel like DF is playing a warehouse-simulator, you need to fix it in a way you'll enjoy.  Though my first suggestion is: stop playing like that.    Would your character really optimize their profit-making to the exclusion of all else?  Don't they have other demands, aspirations, and desires that might sometimes win out?  Is paying the follower to avoid deals really that top-priority for them?  Perhaps it is, and that's not for me to say - it's just not my style, so I'm still having fun as-is.

 

 

1 hour ago, Lupine00 said:

I don't think the "fatigue" mechanic solves this. It helps a bit, but the problem has multiple roots:

 

1) we can't easily know what level of loot is a reasonable baseline for a given game at a given player level

2) a mod based entirely around cash mechanics will always push the player to be cash-driven

3) cash and loot are actually nothing to do with what the mod's primary purpose

4) cash sinking is a purpose of the mod, just not it's primary purpose

 

The "obvious" answer is to make the follower create "debts" or obligations that involve payment in ways other than cash.

 

Another thing is to make the looting and selling less of a chore, which follower-managed-selling would do.

 

Admittedly, follower-as-loot-disposal is super-convenient, and I'm sure I and others wouldn't mind something like that.  But (taking things in reverse) I'm much more interested in other debts or obligations outside of cash.  After all, the current deals all exist because they are amusing for the follower - so the goal (from the follower's POV) is their amusement, not their pay.  (Actually, not everyone agrees with this view of the follower, seeing deals as punishment and "getting paid" as the follower's goal.)  Taking the former view, I agree the follower should be pushing lots of other tasks or actions.

 

But for your 4 roots:

1) We can see how wealthy the player is, which tells us quite a bit about how our balancing is going (as do stats like "days since last deal").

2) It's not doing that for me, since I, like most humans, am not a fully-rational actor.  Though I'd still recommend an option to let deals reduce payments by a percentage, just in case.

3) Some might disagree, but I don't.

4) Agreed.

 

 

 

 

1 hour ago, Lupine00 said:

I don't think that the deals as they stand are a very fair exchange mechanism, because there is a clear difference between piercing-deal-level-1 and arm+leg-cuffs-deal-level-1. One is basically only an issue because it can lead to piercing deal level 2, the other messes with your armor and puts you in visible bondage.

 

Some deal stacks are much harsher than others, and some level 2 deals are much harsher than others. 

True they're not well-balanced, but I don't think that's too big a deal.  With high willpower the PC can negotiate for a better deal, refusing the onerous ones.  With low willpower... you take what you get, and sometimes that's worse than others.  As you say they're highly contextual in ways this mod can't possibly predict, so I wouldn't waste time on trying to untangle that... trust the player to adjust their game, and the PC to try for the best deals.  It's very realistic... Christmas is coming, and not all Christmas cookies are of equal value.  When that tray comes around, I will most certainly be angling for the chocolate haystacks, and leaving the fruit crackle for the poor sap who chooses last.

 

And, for games with particular quirks, the player can turn off certain deals, right?  No problem.

 

 

 

1 hour ago, Lupine00 said:

It's actually pretty tempting to remove the modular deals entirely and instead make the Slave, Bondage and Ownership deals have a random element. e.g. Bondage deal level 1 wouldn't always be a corset, but could be any non-visible device, and if it picked anal-plug, then when you get the slave deal, you get vaginal plug instead of anal, because you already have it, etc.

 

I guess it's important to remember that you can usually refuse really bad deals if you have the willpower to do it. There's another problem with the modular deals, you don't know what you're refusing or accepting.

 

By cleaning up deals, it would lay a groundwork for adding new deals that are more ... behavioural ... like the slut deal ... that make demands on the PC to act, not just wear things. It would also make the value of each deal more consistent for its level, so that exchange between cash and deals is more coherent.

 

I would be very glad to see the modular deal experiment declared a failure and thrown away, in favour of expanded and interesting "themed" deals.  You list a bunch of interesting ones that could be triggered on/off according to player preference.  I'd add, again, some sort of radiant quest "deal" - go to X before this day.  Or even, horror of horrors, simple fetch quests - "Sure I'll knock off 100 debt, for ... oh, get me a Blackbriar Mead.  I'll make it 300 debt if it's stolen ... nothing like the thrill of pickpocketing to make mead taste sweeter".

 

 

 

 

 

1 hour ago, Lupine00 said:

But first thing, how do people want "required actions" to be delivered/packaged? Is the existing deal mechanic the best way?

 

Should we have a concept of a follower who measures your "debt" in a completely different way?

What about a follower who doesn't care about money, but only obedience?

Or a follower who cares only about sexual exclusivity?

Or some mix-up for existing debt measures?

I would be fine with throwing away the money idea entirely, and going entirely with something like mood - which sounds a little SD-like, now that I think of it.  It'd still be fun to have the follower manage PC money in some arrangements, and perhaps criticize the PC for poor management ... without having "pay/don't pay the follower" as the be-all and end-all.  It sounds very interesting, really.  There are other money sinks available (including a foul-mooded follower, in various ways).

 

 

[HexBolt8]

Regarding the ideas for new deals:

 

Monogamy would seem an obvious choice, but too many mods have the PC engage in sex, and not all of that is "rape" (victim flag set), so the PC could get punished for things beyond control.  A clever player might avoid most of those situations, but at the cost of missing fun content in other mods.  You might instead have a no masturbation rule, but unless the player has a mod that makes that a real need, that doesn't have much teeth.  I suppose that could be coupled with plugs to keep the PC frantic for release, but that gets old and might work better as a short term punishment. 

 

Offering yourself to the follower for sex makes sense, but it should be more interesting.  Sometimes the follower might be dismissive ("No, I don't want you now") in which case you might have to offer again after a shorter interval next time.  I don't care for events that are 100% predictable (offer sex -> accepted).  This could also tie in to fetishes, or at least likes & dislikes.  Determine what forms of sex the PC enjoys, and which the PC doesn't want.  Depending on the DF's current attitude when offered sex, the PC might get pleasurable sex, or not.

 

Spanking.  As above, determine whether the PC likes or dislikes (simplest is to let the PC specify in the MCM).  If likes, it would only be reward with a buff, otherwise a punishment with a debuff.  A lot of overlap with StA, but not everyone uses it (I like the concept but I'm not using StA).  Could be expanded to include whipping, with stronger buff/debuff.

 

Wearing humiliating outfits in town.  Public humiliation, I like it.  Please let the worn item(s) be player-customizable, which can be done with a keyword check.  Don't require it to be the body slot. 

 

Obligatory Solicitation.  To make it different from the slave deal, turn it around.  The DF selects an appropriate NPC and tells you to sell yourself to him.  Keep it simple, no actual exchange of gold (the DF gets it all), just a bit of dialog.  Perhaps the DF gets a follow package to stand near and watch ("I like watching you fuck") since follower frameworks often allow followers to wander.  Repeat for X number of clients.  As with sex with the follower, this could link to PC sex preferences ("Be sure to tell him how much you like it in the ass").  I'd like for a chance for a client to refuse (lack of certainty) but I can't think of a way for that to enhance the "scene", since it would be random and beyond the PC's ability to influence.

 

Obligatory Solicitation Part 2.  The DF informs you that the captain of the guard has paid to have you service the men.  Go fuck X guards in the barracks.  The mod would have to be smart about detecting how many guards are there, including those who leave or enter, so you don't get stuck short of your goal, unless you allow sexing the same guard more than once.

 

Not a deal, but there's room to borrow game ideas from other mods.  I like the "Bring Me an Ale" task from Submissive Lola.  The time limit is tight and the follower doesn't follow behind you so you really have to run (sometimes I've burned a stamina potion).  I'd make it so sometimes the DF will accept an ale (or whatever beverage is demanded) that the PC is carrying, since anticipating a follower master's needs is good.  You carry the extra weight for that very reason.  But sometimes the follower demands a fresh one.  That could be influenced by the follower's happiness with you.  Follower happiness could also affect what consumable is requested (if the DF is happy, it will be something that inns will very likely have).

[justbob2]

I have a question (or request?) about the "cute pony tail" deal.  Since it is a "pony" tail, could you be given a hair tail like the one used in the S.L.U.T.S. mod?  Does the deal work with any tail plug?  For instance, if I were to use the S.L.U.T.S. tail, would it satisfy the deal?

 

 

EDIT:  I answered one my own questions.  I tried the S.L.U.T.S. tail and it didn't work.

[Darkwing241]

Wow, interesting post.  So much to think about!

2 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

DF forces the player to focus on loot. Maybe too much. You find yourself loot optimizing and managing your trades and time very carefully.

It can get a bit loot+vendor centric sometimes. Instead of the experience of a sexy follower who is trying to trick you out of your freedom, it can get like you're working in an Amazon warehouse or something. Got to meet those targets!

I agree with this wholeheartedly.  Cash is a great motivator but I think it's important that its not the only motivator.  I'm pretty ignorant about mod making outside of modeling, but some of the idea's being discussed about having the follower manage loot seem like they would be crazy complicated to make, and are pretty much guaranteed to be clunky and exploitable.   Looking at some of your other idea's I think they are pretty much ALL a better use of your time.  

 

2 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

The "obvious" answer is to make the follower create "debts" or obligations that involve payment in ways other than cash.

 

Another thing is to make the looting and selling less of a chore, which follower-managed-selling would do.

Instead of wasting real hours running around cities squeezing every septim out of every merchant, you can just go to the general merchant, trigger the scene and be done.

It could nerf the value of (easy to raise) speech skill, and you can put your perks somewhere else instead, or a value could be preserved for speech.

 

Would it be possible to make the games progression move away from money as things heat up?  We discussed the idea of making deals upkeep reducers instead of lump sum payments.  I think it could be a game changer in regards to the penny punching.  It could be at a certain amount of deals the follower doesn't even require payment anymore.  After all should the DF's ultimate motivation really be about money? I mean... that's not very sexy (sugar mom/dad kink aside)

 

2 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

I don't think that the deals as they stand are a very fair exchange mechanism, because there is a clear difference between piercing-deal-level-1 and arm+leg-cuffs-deal-level-1. One is basically only an issue because it can lead to piercing deal level 2, the other messes with your armor and puts you in visible bondage.

 

I strongly agree.  People complain about balance in games because it's important, there is no way around it.  You do have a pretty powerful tool available here though.  Make the deals have different payouts.

 

-Level 1 piercing has almost no drawback  >> low payout

-Level 3 ownership is game over >> big payout

 

It doesn't just have to be gold as a reward for the deal

 

-take a deal to somehow power up your follower (maybe even let the PC choose the buff?)

"hey if you want me to spend all day working out in the sword yard, the least you can do is ______"

-take a deal and be rewarded with legitimately useful items

(with kinky side affects at low willpower?)

               -healing potions aphrodisiac/weight+strength loss/breast enlargement

               -powerful armor for your level with useful enchantments but is progressively sluttier

               -custom spells

               -drugs

"Hey I found this great armor on one of my adventures, you can have it if you do _____"

 

3 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

It's actually pretty tempting to remove the modular deals entirely and instead make the Slave, Bondage and Ownership deals have a random element. e.g. Bondage deal level 1 wouldn't always be a corset, but could be any non-visible device, and if it picked anal-plug, then when you get the slave deal, you get vaginal plug instead of anal, because you already have it, etc.

I'm on board with removing them entirely.  I know Lozeak put a lot of work into the system, but IMO it was the last thing DF needed.  One of the best parts about the mod is the narrative, I think everything else should be working in service of that.  Procedural games are great but bondage items being equipped on my character in a random order does NOT add replay value.  I would rather have 1 well though out 3-4 step deal path than the infinite mediocre procedural ones.

 

3 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

By cleaning up deals, it would lay a groundwork for adding new deals that are more ... behavioural ... like the slut deal ... that make demands on the PC to act, not just wear things. It would also make the value of each deal more consistent for its level, so that exchange between cash and deals is more coherent.

DO THIS! The slut deal is by far the best of the deals as is, it's what made me fall in love with the mod.  The devious device mod is such a masterpeice that it's a victim of it's own success.  

 

3 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

And if new deals were created, then there's the question of what behaviours could possibly be added...

 

Some of these are great, I particularly like the idea of deals that sexualize parts of the PC's life that aren't normally about sex. I particularly like amplified versions of things we see in real life.  That way there is some grounding that makes the fantasy believable. I am also a big believer that the tier 1 deals should be almost entirely non-sexual, just about controlling some facet of the PC's life.

 

My favorites from your list

 

-Wearing bikini's/clothing control  (wear a "uniform">>look nice>>look sexy)

-Weight/diet control (eat right>>lose weight>>what matters is your looks not your strength)

-Bathing/hygiene (be clean for your health>>Be clean for appearances>>avoid things that get you dirty>>Focus on appearances>>what matters is how you look, you don't need to be rugged)

 

From a design perspective I think each deal should focus on transforming one facet of the PC's life from adventurer to eye candy/slave/weakling.

 

DEAL IDEAS

 

-A New Teammate (A free helper!... that needs daily oral but not gold)

"Hey I have a friend that's willing to help us out"

"You know my friend won't stick around unless you _______"

"Look my friend need's your tongue in the morning every day"

 

-Early stage Clothing control ideas 

"Hey could you at least wear armor that matches"

"Your posture would be better with high heels"  (Hey dear reader check out my mod! DW UUNP Armor Matching High Heels)

"It would be a shame to cover up that pretty face with a helmet"

 

-Sleep naked 

"Have you ever tried sleeping naked, you'd be way more comfortable"

 

-Forced compliments/romance/marriage (probably would need separate f/f and m/f)

"Hey when you get called out on it you need to admit you were staring at my _____"

"You know if you are trying to win me over you could at least compliment me from time to time" 

"You should really be giving me a kiss goodnight"

"Hey I picked out a ring for you to give me"

 

-Forced Hugging 

I saw this one in the new's the other day.  The Girl Scouts warned parents not to force young girls to hug relatives, because it creates a culture where girls "owe" physical intimacy to people who grant them services.  Great advice for real life parents, but in the DF fantasy world "a culture where girls can't refuse physical intimacy" seems to be exactly what we are going for.

 

 

4 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

But first thing, how do people want "required actions" to be delivered/packaged? Is the existing deal mechanic the best way?

 

Deal's probably work best for most of the idea's you posted.

 

4 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

What about a follower who doesn't care about money, but only obedience?

Or a follower who cares only about sexual exclusivity?

Follower personalities: give each DF one or two traits that dictates their actions and gives them a goal.  Players could turn traits on or off to curate their experience.  

 

"likes obedience" offers generous gold, but harsher punishment

"likes money" offers deals to extract money, cheats on money

"likes devices" offers a path of deals designed to get the PC into bondage, ignores sex

"want's you as arm candy" offers deals to focus the PC on looking pretty (rather than bondage)

"likes to lead" offers deals that focus on making the DF the leader

"likes to humiliate" 

"wants to ruin you" offers weight gain, non-bathing deals, amputation w/e

"is actually in love with you" wants exclusivity and focuses on DF+PC sex

"is disgusted by you" has no interest in sex with the PC

"actually working for someone else" the DF is trying to get you handed off to someone else

"wants to see some skin" avoids devices that cover you, focuses on revealing clothes and nudity.

"sadistic" want's to see you in physical pain, spankings, ballet heels, corsets

"likes body mods" piercings, diet control, breast enlargement

 

Randomly generate them when an NPC becomes a DF?

Let the player pick?

 

OK, I've written enough.  Clearly I am excited for your mod.

[Lupine00]

2 hours ago, HexBolt8 said:

Monogamy would seem an obvious choice, but too many mods have the PC engage in sex, and not all of that is "rape" (victim flag set), so the PC could get punished for things beyond control.  A clever player might avoid most of those situations, but at the cost of missing fun content in other mods.  You might instead have a no masturbation rule, but unless the player has a mod that makes that a real need, that doesn't have much teeth.  I suppose that could be coupled with plugs to keep the PC frantic for release, but that gets old and might work better as a short term punishment. 

Sex Slave (Mia's Lair) has a "monogamy" feature with dominant Andrew. It works quite well, though the punishment isn't implemented as well as it could be with modern DD.

 

I found that every time I got in trouble was due to some rape mod triggering. Andrew just stood and watched. After a couple of incidents I tracked down and disabled all the surprise rape conditions I'd forgotten I had in various mods. Removing rape from my game was a breath of fresh air. So much utter nonsense that didn't work in an immersive way was disposed of. I probably could have left HH as it only fired very rarely.

 

Even in Slaverun the rapes don't make sense. You should be able to refuse and get in trouble for it.

 

I think a lot of rape mods set out to implement some kind of resist mechanic, and then just never get around to it.

 

SLD has a chase. I could make it so you could escape by running... I decided not to. Not because it was hard but because I wasn't sure anyone wanted it. I think though that the way a rape mod should work is that the NPCs should actually attack, either brawling or weapons, and if you fight back ... you may get a bounty ... and you may well win. If it's in a town, probably brawling only, so if you escalate to weapons, attackers probably run screaming and alarms will go off. NPCs should have to win by plausible defeat-mod-rules to rape you. If you happen to be stuck in an armbinder and slave boots, that might not be very hard for them. In short, rape should be a feature of a defeat mod, not a feature by itself. Rape without defeat is problematic for a character who has a history of violence. Even in a weak girl game, the PC is going to have to be a violent psycho, or you can't progress in Skyrim.

 

But not everyone is ready to try this themselves...

 

DF already has some obligatory solicitation of course. It's just a bit basic.

[Lupine00]

1 hour ago, justbob2 said:

I have a question (or request?) about the "cute pony tail" deal.  Since it is a "pony" tail, could you be given a hair tail like the one used in the S.L.U.T.S. mod?  Does the deal work with any tail plug?  For instance, if I were to use the S.L.U.T.S. tail, would it satisfy the deal?

The problem is that tails don't have a keyword, as far as I'm aware, so it checks by ID, or possibly by alias. It will be a simple condition in a dialog anyway.

 

Sex Slaves has several funny tails, including a cute bunny tail.

 

It's possible to fix, but probably non-trivial effort.

 

You can just hack the tail in Tes5Edit and make it use the AA of the item you like the look of.

[Lupine00]

20 minutes ago, Darkwing241 said:

DW UUNP Armor Matching High Heels

What? What? Does it support high heels for bikini armors too?

[Bane Master]

10 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

I'll be impressed if I get to this before April

I'm already impressed by what you have achieved thus far - everything else is a bonus! 

 

The reasoning behind the suggestion is that I'm playing in a cash and carry weight limited setup so having an "item sink" follower would make the weight limits less effective, wherehas having a limit and a way of immersively resetting it  would add another interesting twist to the gameplay.

[Lupine00]

I ended up butchering AFT a little.

I could do better, but it didn't seem worth the effort.

 

I made all the info items for Tweak-Actions that result in follower dismissal have perma-false conditions (so they never show up), because then the overwrites for those infos don't require a hard-dependency on AFT and can be part of DF.

 

As you can still dismiss normally I don't think it's a big issue.

 

Any AFT lovers see a problem that I don't?

 

 

You can no longer drop a follower and leave them to sandbox in place though, as when it does that, AFT is dismissing the follower. That's sort of a loss, but I still don't think worth fixing.

 

I could do this more neatly, but AFT feels kind of old and clunky. I don't want to put a lot of effort in it.

[Lupine00]

7 hours ago, Darkwing241 said:

Would it be possible to make the games progression move away from money as things heat up?

I won't answer in detail, because I largely think everything in your post above makes sense.

 

The question I'm still struggling with in terms of alternate payments, is what do alternate debts look like? How can the PC be punished?

 

When it's pure cash, it's simply. Debt = punishment, and it's effective. You do not want it.

 

With non-cash, when you're paying in fetch quests and promises of sex, or wearing slooty outfits, how can you be punished in a way that is ... effective ... but not too hard to create?

 

Say you don't wear the outfit you promised to wear? What then? The follower punishes you with something else, like cash debt, or devices?

Is it immersive?

 

Let's say the follower is your spouse? You don't wear your heels in town. Spouse gets annoyed with you.

How do they act?

 

Maybe they take all your other shoes and boots, leaving only the slooty-heels?

Or they tell the gate guards not to let you leave town?

Or they lock you in Breezehome for a week and demand you cook for them?

Or they lock you in slave boots? (Problematic?)

 

I wish they could just lock them on you, but then you couldn't choose arbitrary items as the outfit, and in that case, why not just lock them on in the first place?

It's not very DF to lock items on the PC unless they're a slave.

 

Most of those events are work to make, and they will quickly become tiring if you repeat them, so you'd need several.

So that means just to punish a clothes infraction you have to write a lot of content.