Devious Followers - Continued

[SkyAddiction]

10 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

DF clearly has two progression axes: willpower and debt, and so a simple linear path will not work. Instead of a line, we have quadrants, and thinking about that space and what the quadrants should look like in ideal is probably helpful from a design perspective.

 

I hadn't thought of that. Good point.

 

8 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

More seriously, there's no great technical obstacle to supporting mod-introduced player homes, and conceivably even locating their containers then changing their ownership to a neutral NPC and locking them. To what extent the player would need to help this process along ... I don't know yet.  It would need a detailed examination of popular player homes to answer that. I think some custom containers may be very special, and some may not be containers in the Skyrim sense but activators that open a remote container, or a invisible race NPC, or who knows what?

 

Easiest of course is not to use player homes. I never used one. I don't see the point, unless Srende, Kimy, Delzaron or Monoman made it  Then it would probably be a suitable home for one of my characters.

 

Supporting any homes at all would be the first hurdle ... and delivering some content there.

 

Perhaps the ideal solution (by which I mean in some crazy utopia) would be custom homes purpose made for DF.

(This is certainly something I considered long ago).

 

A fully built out player home (usually a Hearthfire one), 50k gold, and a follower is typically where I start a new game.

 

One thing I know you can do is lock up all the vanilla homes in one way or another, and you can also make them auto-purchased, though that's a lot more work. That enables you to use any one specific vanilla home or a custom home for DFC purposes. Having a DFC-specific home opens an absurd amount of opportunities. I considered that with my mod, but I couldn't decide on what to do with it - there are just sooo many options.

 

I also know there are some pretty basic custom homes floating about here on LL that could probably be had for the asking and would require minimal asset stripping, so there is that if you ever decided to go the custom home route.

 

 

[Lupine00]

5 hours ago, HexBolt8 said:

I understand that most players want a lot of enforcement.  They enjoy trying to beat the system.

I don't think that's it. Sometimes it just feels wrong and you want to get around it.

 

 

The foundation here is that the mod is the enforcement. That's not all the mod is, but it's half of a duality.

The fantasy that you create of immersion in it is predicated by two things:

1. The story the mod spins. (Text or voice, usually).
2. The mechanics it uses to make that story "real" in the game world. (Enforcement, usually).

 

While some players create their own mechanics based on the story, most want both.

 

And sometimes, the mechanics create story. Some of that is the best kind of story, because it's emergent, variable and possibly surprising.

 

 

We can ask some things of the player in terms of immersive fantasy, but the mod delivers more impact when the story and the mechanics are well aligned.

 

 

Sometimes a mechanic is sort of dumb, and you want to subvert it - and maybe you can - like the gag deal. You're wearing a ball gag, so you can't eat. You get the follower to wait, sneak off and secretly remove the gag. You gorge yourself on food and drink, replace the gag and return to the follower, who notices nothing amiss.

 

In a case like that, cheating the enforcement makes a kind of sense, and feels immersive too.

It also adds scope (that Lozeak didn't like) for new behaviours, such as allowing the DF to punish you by locking the gag. In that case you would want a dialog to beg the follower to let you eat or something. It is the lack of this dialog that forces you to sneak off in the first place.

 

 

A less satisfactory exploit is "giving the follower keys to carry" (SLS nerfs this a bit now I think, but I don't do it, so I don't know). If you put your keys on the follower, DCL can't steal them, and you don't have to play the key game or pay the follower for release. It's a big cheat, and it feels like cheating because it's not immersive. That said, with modern DD, with a lot of heavy-bondage now, you have no real chance to unlock yourself even if you have a key. You need the DF to do it, or use something like Devious Helpers. It's not well enforced in DF; DF lacks awareness of the keys, and doesn't handle them immersively - whatever that ultimately means. This is a case where a player may well limit themselves, because it feels like exploiting a loophole, not righting a wrong.

 

Returning to the gag, another detail is that DF doesn't care if the gag is a ring gag, or a ball gag, or the one with the removable plug. It gives you a ball gag ... probably ... not sure if it uses LDC properly. If the mod was aware of the difference in gags we could have TWO deals for the price of one: ring gag deal vs ball gag deal. Throwing in locking and unlocking, a simple gag deal could have four permutations. If the DF was aware of these nuances, it would probably feel better.

 

 

So, enforcement matters, and it makes gameplay, and it creates immersion, but it's not everything. The player has to believe and want to play along, because once they think it's dumb they will surely find a way to break it.

[Lupine00]

5 hours ago, HexBolt8 said:

I could see the PC being allowed a single chest -- with limitations.  Many follower-friendly houses are designed with a nook or small room for the follower, often with a chest of two.  The PC has the whole big house, but the follower just gets a small area.  I think the role reversal of having the DF as boss is better supported by having a tiny amount of storage rather than zero, just as it feels more humiliating to have a tiny scrap of clothing that doesn't really cover anything than it does to be completely naked.  Maybe the PC stores toys here for bondage fun during down time (would work well with DD Helpers play time) or outfits to wear in town. 

Ha ha. Way ahead of you on this thinking ... or right with you ... or whatever feels best. I totally agree.

 

 

1 hour ago, Zagzaguel said:

"just dont use them" isnt exactly an argument if this "boss follower" behavior will be thing in the future. It should have some interaction with idealy all vanilla features, but especially the more central ones like player homes. 

That wasn't really what I meant, even if I said it  

Firstly, I don't use modded player homes, so I was hoping for some explanation of how they fit into a DF game.

Secondly, I'm saying that if it was a choice between a player-home management feature in DF and no feature, simply because modded homes can't be supported, I would do the feature and not support modded homes.

That's probably not an issue, as I may never do the feature, but if I did, it would probably work with modded homes as much as possible.

 

See more on homes in next post.

[HexBolt8]

30 minutes ago, Lupine00 said:

And sometimes, the mechanics create story. Some of that is the best kind of story, because it's emergent, variable and possibly surprising.

 

We can ask some things of the player in terms of immersive fantasy, but the mod delivers more impact when the story and the mechanics are well aligned.

I'm in full agreement.  Enforcement that's impossible to get around is the sort that I'm disappointed with.  Enforcement that's designed with a chance to be subverted (my example with picking locks when no one's looking, your example with sneaking the gag off to eat) is fun.  It allows choice.  I asked for (and received) fixes in SL Adventures to get enforcement working right for laws against using magic and weapons in cities.  It wasn't enough for me to simply not do it.  I wanted the choice to commit the crime and hopefully get away with it if a guard doesn't see.  And I have.  I need the game to play referee and determine if I'm successful.  The "oh no" moments of the failures have been memorable.  But if the game had instead force-unequipped a weapon or spell whenever I tried to use one, that would feel pointless.  I might as well not even try. 

[Lupine00]

In terms of the "boss follower" fantasy ... my wish list for the vaguely possible ...

 

First, I see more than just one extra stage. I think the DF stages would be like this:

 

• PC leader
• Equal partners
• DF leader
• Indentured service
• Hardcore enslavement

 

A ladder you can move up and down, depending on factors that ultimately the player configures how they like.

 

 

DF leader is something I'd really like to have.

 

The DF chooses target locations to explore, PC guides them there.

The DF doesn't control your gold, but does control your income.

There are troublesome living expenses.

In the mode I could implement (not saying there aren't others), the PC isn't actively fighting, they are a packhorse and healer.

 

On leaving a city, the DF records all the items the PC carries: those are the PC's stuff; her things that the DF knows she owns.

Anything else you come by belongs to the DF.

 

The DF gives you an outfit (you can customise what it looks like, as with whore armor) to adventure in.

It has a big carry capacity buff, a health bonus, and a magical protection effect. It isn't armor.

If you are unarmed (known healing spells are allowed) you get a speed boost from the outfit too.

If you do not wear it, the DF gets annoyed and reduces your cut of the loot substantially.

 

 

The DF fights. Your job is to loot. The DF says things like:

"Just run on ahead and check for traps. I'll be right behind you."

or

"Scout ahead for me and run back if you find anything."

 

The DF fights, and you loot the corpses. The DF scans your inventory periodically and records any new items seen.

You can consume potions, but you will be billed for them - they aren't yours.

You can wear armor you pick up, but see notes on the outfit.

 

The goal is to loot as much valuable stuff as you can, but if you drop anything its value comes out of your cut.

(Used/dropped item values have a configurable scale).

 

If you can grab a potion and use it before the follower scans you, well that's your win. Good luck.

Possibly, everything you pick up is tagged stolen. Probably an option.

 

If you are knocked down in combat, you will enter a perma-bleedout until the follower comes back to "rescue" you... Because you're a follower.

She might give you a potion (you'll be charged for it), or heal you. Otherwise you can't get any health back until you're standing again.

Rescues will always have some deduction attached.

If the follower goes down (whether you are standing or not), then you get a popup. You can choose to surrender through your defeat mod of choice, or accept DF defeat, in which case you go to SS or get a DF enslavement directly.

 

 

Back in town, the follower removes all items they own, and also takes the adventuring outfit the provided back.

They will give a (you can configure it) slooty outfit for you to wear in town; it's completely optional, but you may well not have anything else on you.

If they are unhappy with you, they might give a locking rubber suit instead  

 

The follower totals the value of looted items and calculates your percentage. Configurable, and maybe level adjustable, but probably a low amount, like 5 or 10% of the total. It will be lower still if you didn't wear the proper outfit.

 

Then any deductions are made:

• Outfit rental.
• Anything you consumed or dropped.
• Any help you had to ask for (can you remove this device?)
• Any food or drink you asked the follower for.
• Rescues.

 

You get what's left, or if there's nothing left, your debt increases.

 

When the follower takes items, totals up and gives you back anything she was "holding" for you, then you're in "rest" mode. The follower no longer follows. She goes to her home. You have to find her again to go adventuring. This doesn't make you free of the follower. If you adventure without her, there are consequences...

 

 

You have punitive living expenses. Inns priced like Realistic Inn Rental (200 gold for a night at the Winking Skeever, but only 50 for the Sleeping Giant).

You will have a quest to eat and drink certain items. Get them however you want. If you don't get them, you get a willpower-fatigue penalty.

Consumable items will have a target cost. They might be hard to find.

 

With Skooma Whore, instead of getting the items, you can consume skooma.

The more you use this feature, the more skooma will be needed to satisfy in future.

 

Food/drink items will be chosen to help satisfy any needs mod needs.

 

 

You will have a quest to sleep in a nice bed. If you sleep in a crappy bed you fail the quest end ... you guessed it ... get a willpower-fatigue penalty.

You can replace this with skooma too.

 

 

If you can complete the eat/drink/sleep quests, you can opt to do them again instead of adventuring. In this case you can get willpower-fatigue reductions, or with enough carousing, bonus skill points. You're totally free to just to this with skooma ... I'm sure there would be no problems as a result  

 

If you can earn enough money, the follower may allow you to become a partner. If you get too deep in debt, then the follower will allow you to become her indentured servant. In that case you can't quit, and you must live with the follower. You won't get to control your gold any more, the follower will hold it, and ... but I don't have time to discuss that mode now. You can guess how it might be though. Definitely a maid outfit. Slavery is getting close.

 

 

If you leave the current hold without the follower, the  follower will be annoyed, and will demand a large fee (you can take as debt) to work with you again.

You can't get rid of the follower though. There's no option to part ways once they are leader. You asked to work for them, and they assume you will do it until they want to stop.

While in this deal, no other follower will join you, and all major vendors will refuse to buy items from you "You couldn't have got those yourself. I'm not buying stolen goods." (There will be some vendors you can sell to, but they will be few and dispersed, khajit for example).

 

You can ask the follower to hire others, but they will reduce your cut. You can ask the follower to get rid of them, but it's up to her.

 

 

You can ask to stay with the follower instead of using an inn. The follower will charge you rent.

You will get a bed and a chest to use. The bed will meet requirements for the sleep quest.

The follower will say "Put anything you like in that chest. Trust me. I won't steal any of it, and it will be safe here."

This is largely true. However, if the follower is angered, all bets are off.

The follower will not feed you. Instead they will expect you to cook for them. There will be a shopping quest.

Fail to cook and there will be a financial penalty. You'll still have your own eat and drink quests too.

Go adventuring by yourself and find all your stuff is gone. "I didn't think you were coming back so I threw that useless clutter out of my house."

 

 

You can still take deals, but debt mechanics are completely different - follower is paying you, if you collect enough stuff.

Punishment with debt is more worrying because you have less ability to clear it. You're only getting 5 or 10% of a loot haul, and you have to rely on flaky Skyrim NPC AI to fight (the follower will be buffed in this scenario, so shouldn't be stupidly unfair) though you can heal them to help, if you can afford to buy the spell. (The follower will sell it to you for debt).

 

The buy price of regular clothes should probably be highly inflated, so if you buy some you'll feel the expense.

(Could be a quest to buy nice clothes).

 

 

So there are some ideas. But I don't know if I'll do that sort of thing... It's on my mind.

[Lupine00]

What I might do in practice, in DF as we know it now ... is something like the chest mechanic.

 

Follower can steal from player house chests if you need to be punished, or to satisfy debts, or as part of a game.

[Clea Strange]

I like the idea of the follower being the leader and the player the follower, if you were to implement that how would you do it where the leader who is not the player talks to npc's in your place and the npc's talk to the leader.

 

Would there be an option to get out of the deal where the DF is the leader if you were to implement it

 

Edit: I use the mod bwitch where if you are gagged the follower speaks for you, could you do something like that but instead the DF speaks for themselves and not for the player cause the player is now the follower

[SkyAddiction]

2 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

In terms of the "boss follower" fantasy ... my wish list for the vaguely possible ...

 

First, I see more than just one extra stage. I think the DF stages would be like this:

 

• PC leader
• Equal partners
• DF leader
• Indentured service
• Hardcore enslavement

[...]

 

So there are some ideas. But I don't know if I'll do that sort of thing... It's on my mind.

 

This is really good. If you pulled that off, it would be amazing.

[HexBolt8]

3 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

In terms of the "boss follower" fantasy ... my wish list for the vaguely possible ...

I like this a lot.  You're clearly devoting a lot of thought to this concept.  If you can make it work, it will be great fun!

 

Is the PC supposed to be able to advance (in Skyrim adventuring terms) at DF Leader level and below?  Any character that has Heal Other can serve as a healer, but that seems to favor mage PCs.  Might there be support roles for warrior or thief oriented PCs?  Obviously the PC is a "sidekick" or worse at this point, but having interesting things to do on adventures would be good.  A strong-willed PC would be focused on regaining his/her freedom, but a weak-willed or submissive character might accept a "follower" role and should ideally have interesting things to do even if the loot share is terrible.  For instance, Nethers has a taunt ability for followers.  A warrior PC might taunt opponents off the DF, sparing the DF several hits.  The DF might reward the assist with free healing for the PC's likely downing (you're a screw-up but at least you're loyal) especially if the DF is not a warrior (you might actually have saved the DF, who will never admit it of course).

[legraf]

4 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

In terms of the "boss follower" fantasy ... my wish list for the vaguely possible ...

There's a lot of interesting thinking here, and some very ambitious dreams as well.  I think a small fraction of that would be very interesting, even without the more complex elements -for example, the DF picking the destination would already be great.  Taking the bulk of the loot would already be a fascinating addition.  DF downtime in the city, while the player has limited options until they are ready to go out again, lovely.  Many disparate elements that sound very good, piecemeal, even if the unified whole is never reached.

 

The more elaborate plans make for a narrower view of how things play out, of course (for example that the player is to be a healer/hauler rather than a fighting slave), which might be good but might also reduce the "audience".  But if that inspires you to work towards this goal, more power to you!

[SkyAddiction]

19 minutes ago, legraf said:

The more elaborate plans make for a narrower view of how things play out, of course (for example that the player is to be a healer/hauler rather than a fighting slave), which might be good but might also reduce the "audience".  But if that inspires you to work towards this goal, more power to you!

 

It's actually a bit better than that, since Lupine00 laid out a system where you can ignore the armor/unarmed requirements if you're willing to forgo the buffs they give and are confident you can overcome the DF's irritation with a big haul. 

[Lupine00]

4 hours ago, Hiderius said:

I like the idea of the follower being the leader and the player the follower, if you were to implement that how would you do it where the leader who is not the player talks to npc's in your place and the npc's talk to the leader.

 

Would there be an option to get out of the deal where the DF is the leader if you were to implement it

Some, commonly used settings, such as hiring a room at an inn, or trading in a shop could be constructed as scenes, and the DF and the vendor would run the scene - the PC would watch. What scenes fired would be determined by prior interactions with the DF. A lot of actions would be implicit. If the DF wants to go to an inn, they already know what they want to do there. Once you're in rest mode, the DF might be walking around Whiterun on a patrol path, playing various appropriate scenes as they bump into people.

 

At Belethors:

"I have a consignment for you Belethor."

"Let me see what you have."

"Ah. Some of these items are pretty badly damaged."

"Sorry about that. My ditzy assistant sometimes picks up junk. I won't charge you for that stuff."

 

At the temple with Danica:

"Good to see you <followername>. The temple needs the help of people like you so we can care for the wounded."

"Yes. I know there isn't much I can do, but take this gold."

"Thankyou so much."

"Not a problem."

"I hope you can show that selfish follower of yours some good behavior. She just comes in here, prays and walks out again."

"That girl isn't so smart, you need to make allowances for her. It's not her fault."

 

In Dragonsreach with Irileth:

"I hope you had a successful trip. Did you clear out some of those bandits?"

"I did. You won't have to worry about <place> for a while."

"How's that follower you hired to carry your bags working out?"

"She can't manage much, but little by little I'm teaching her to do more and work harder."

"Ah... Young people now expect everything to be handed to them on a silver platter."

"I know what you mean. Too many of them are good for nothing but drinking skooma and whoring."

 

 

Other situations might begin with the follower handing off:

"Go and book a room for me."

or

"Go and get us both ales."

 

Sometimes the "BWitch" type approach can work. I use it myself, but it really just amounts to seeing "Your follower speaks for you," before the dialog comes up.

 

 

There would, of course, be ways to leave service up until you're indentured. To leave indenture you have to earn your way out.

If you're fully enslaved, there's no concept of a debt. Rather than the DF buy out mechanic, I think it would need to be time and quest based.

 

So to leave enslavement, you have to stay a slave for a minimum period, or complete a leave slavery quest.

The quest would be the choice of a couple of conditions at each stage, with maybe five to seven stages.

I have some ideas for stages - fetch quests, visit quests, set collecting quests, stuff with sex, etc.

[Lupine00]

2 hours ago, HexBolt8 said:

I like this a lot.  You're clearly devoting a lot of thought to this concept.  If you can make it work, it will be great fun!

 

Is the PC supposed to be able to advance (in Skyrim adventuring terms) at DF Leader level and below?

Firstly, I don't think this really works as an expansion of change to DF. It's probably a new project.

So when I talk about "the DF" I mean, the follower in this imaginary mod.

 

I suspect I would want different ways to do DF as Leader; and the PC makes a choice on a per-adventure basis how they are trying to succeed.

 

The loot collector job is something you might take on as a weak PC who can't do much more - low stats, no spells, no weapon skills, no money for good armor, and a combat system that punishes hits hard.

 

You could take on a tank job, if you feel up to it. In which case the DF still expects you to loot and carry everything, but you're given different gear, and the DF will heal you, and be upset if they get hit. In that case, your job is to take the hits.

 

 

So there might be three choices, and you negotiate at the start of the trip.

And you might be able to push a role like support in a different direction by using your own gear. You probably get less money that way, but you can skill up.

You can always choose to lose money in exchange for doing more of what you want.

[SkyAddiction]

33 minutes ago, Lupine00 said:

I have some ideas for stages - fetch quests, visit quests, set collecting quests, stuff with sex, etc.

 

One of the most overlooked triggers and the one I use the most is dungeons cleared. I got the idea from Sofia, but I think SL Sex Slaves uses it too - I can't remember. 

[Lupine00]

1 hour ago, SkyAddiction said:

I think SL Sex Slaves uses it too - I can't remember. 

It does, I believe.

 

SL Sex Slaves (Mia's Lair) has some good ideas on player slavery, but they were not enthusiastically developed.

Much of the mod discouraged using a female PC, and when content was added, perceptions of the mod were already established.

 

I think the heart of the mod is dominant male PC, with a harem of female NPCs who are so adoring you may start to feel nauseous.

 

I believe Fishburger became disheartened with the reception from female players, who dominant Andrew may have been intended to please.

I don't think he was much into that stuff himself, and it shows.

Andrew is constructed like a proxy for a dominant male PC, and the female PC really does play a dumb bot that constantly offers sex.

 

Also, it plays it straight. Without a shred of irony. Your job as female PC to dominant Andrew is to be an adoring fuck-puppet.

It's not about you becoming that, or being trained to that ... it kind of assumes that you start that way.

 

If you use any of the less than compliant responses, Andrew will simply reject you and you stay casual friends with benefits indefinitely.

You have to push forward by actively choosing the bimbo dialog.

 

This is not so bad at times. He has some good dominant behaviours. But mostly you are just grinding, grinding dungeons, grinding sex scenes.

He needs about forty billion sex scenes to advance his relationship levels, and then quests too, which he can be sluggish to issue.

The quests aren't bad, but they set up an expectation that isn't delivered on, because the mod stopped being developed.

 

The full ending was never made. You get to a certain point, and then it's like the big payoff is coming and ... end of mod.

And you need to keep up the endless sex to avoid penalties, but there is no benefit other than that.

 

Past a certain point you have to act to advance, and may ask yourself "Why would I?"

And past a certain point you can't get rid of Andrew without being perma-locked in a broken not-properly-working chastity belt.

Not a DD belt either; you can't remove it with DD.

That bit would be a lot better for a small code fix.

 

But you mainly advance through dungeon clearing, exploring new areas, doing radiant quests, finding foods, and also some special quests.

In a conceptual sense, it's a great slavery mod. In practice, it's things other than the quests that let it down. 

Too much grind. Not enough impact. Too much sex with no feeling that it goes anywhere.

(Andrew changes your game in no meaningful way apart from all the sex scenes). Mostly you are rewarded for stuff you'd do anyway.

And too much of you having to push the story. Andrew doesn't dominate you into submission so much as you throw yourself at him and beg to become his slave. Repeatedly.

 

With so much sex, my poor PC was always crippled with Apropos debuffs.

Lovely Andrew had pounded every orifice to destruction and just kept on wanting more. The man is a machine!

Andrew says: "I told you fuck toy, I have needs! You've been bad!"

 

Kind of the opposite of Pet Project, where you probably won't get much sex ever again  

[SkyAddiction]

33 minutes ago, Lupine00 said:

It does, I believe.

[...]

With so much sex, my poor PC was always crippled with Apropos debuffs.

Lovely Andrew had fucked every orifice to destruction and just kept on wanting to fuck. The man is a machine!

"I told you fuck toy, I have needs! You've been bad!"

 

Kind of the opposite of Pet Project, where you probably won't get much sex ever again  

 

Yes, now I remember! SLSS was designed for sex interaction over play.

 

Yeah, I used the Sofia/SLSS code to trigger town events which gave the player a choice: 1) Status Quo, 2) Submissive lover, or 3) Whore.

 

The initial idea was to offer the player a way to resist the follower if they didn't like her and wanted to end the contract early, or to eventually become her submissive lover with a shortened mod timeline and lots of additional goodies. I added whore to her pimp if players insisted on choosing "I'll fuck everyone in Skyrim" options in the event dialogues. It's an insanely popular option here on LL given the things people post, and I included it for that reason.

 

I generally triggered mod events upon having cleared a dungeon. "Let's go celebrate our victory!" with choice consequences made a hell of a lot more sense than "I arbitrarily want you to do something because 24h in-game has passed." ever did. Partying, errands, and menial tasks make for quite a lot of content opportunities if you get creative and are willing to endure a CK dialogue tree that looks like a spiderweb.

 

Anyway, I'm about halfway through armored DD's if you discount the textures needed for each new set, and probably about a tenth of the way through the follower mod. Given my learning curve for art and relearning code, I'll probably finish in 2023 or so. 

 

Edit: One thing SLSS does quite well is the submissive player side where the demands are fairly simple to deal with, though I can't remember if they were complex and nuanced in the way you're proposing.

[Lupine00]

16 minutes ago, SkyAddiction said:

Edit: One thing SLSS does quite well is the submissive player side where the demands are fairly simple to deal with, though I can't remember if they were complex and nuanced in the way you're proposing.

The demands made sense, but on top of the other sex became a bit much.

The requirement to offer sex one or twice a day would be swamped by the number of times Andrew would jump you due to you being horny, or him being horny.

 

And you'd often find you had to offer more than once or twice to be sure to advance, because sometimes you'd try to offer oral and it wouldn't end up as oral, and it wasn't clear if the spanking counted, and so on...

 

With all that sex, your character gets sex crazy, and that leads to more sex, and it totally loses any novelty or amusement factor.

[SkyAddiction]

7 minutes ago, Lupine00 said:

The demands made sense, but on top of the other sex became a bit much.

 

That stacks with what I remember. Still, I have to commend fishburger for keeping it simple and keeping the mod out of the way of the game for sub play.

[Lupine00]

2 hours ago, Zagzaguel said:

Will this be the same as the current one? So you can go there either by being submissive or by high debt? 

Obvsly current one needs work, but it needs work anyway

It's not really anything because it's just some ideas. But it's not DF slavery, because it wouldn't be in DF, so I guess the answer is a clear "no".

As for people with such and such a build throwing a tantrum that they can't use it in (imaginary mod's) Follower as Leader mode, it would be unlikely they'd ever encounter that mode in that form, because it's intended for a starting low level character, with no skills.

 

It's a concept that is built for a weak-girl starting character. If you were level 20 with good skills in combat, you'd go straight to equal partners, or PC as leader, and you'd have to get into quite a mess before you hit follower as leader territory. How you'd get there, I don't know, because there's no sufficiently complete design for the other modes yet  

 

However, even if you did, you could still play as tank or dps and not as support. You would have similar restrictions but appropriate gear and buffs, and an appropriate job to do.

 

2 hours ago, Zagzaguel said:

You need to make sure that things stay enjoyable for everyone.

Can't possible do that. That's impossible. If I could do that it would be the mod to end all mods. Pleasing some of the people some of the time is as much as I could hope for.

However, having a mod that suddenly annoys you by doing something weird to your gameplay, mid playthrough ... that would be annoying. In that case you'd be annoying the few people who are the core audience for the other part of the mod.

[Lupine00]

2 hours ago, Zagzaguel said:

I dont know if this is a bug with DD or if its on DFs side but there is an item "Chains of debt"

How did you come by these chains in game?

[Lupine00]

1 hour ago, Zagzaguel said:

Thats all I remember

Were you in endless mode at the time?

[legraf]

Ooh, Zagzaguel's "click click" comment reminds me of a request for current DF: when the follower gripes about unpaid debt, and the player accepts the "let's work something out" path which results in multiple random deals being assigned, could there please be a real-time one or two minute delay before DF starts the usual "check" cycle?  If one has a few DDs in inventory already, it isn't obvious just what deals this event has added, and by the time one's checked the MCM and asked the follower about deals, and then gotten into inventory to add the correct items, additional punishment has been added.

 

I don't mind unfairness, but this feels wrong.

 

It also, in my two experiences with it, resulted in deal buyout prices upwards of 15000 gold (!) for each deal, but I don't know if this is just because of a huge multiplier due to long expiration dates on the new deals.

[HexBolt8]

3 hours ago, legraf said:

... could there please be a real-time one or two minute delay before DF starts the usual "check" cycle?

A warning on the first few checks after a deal starts might work even better.  If you get the warnings to disappear, you know you'll be in compliance when the real checks begin.  This could even be augmented with flavor text for warnings.  "Must I explain to you which hole that plug goes in?"  "Be sure to get those straps tight.  I'll be checking."

[HexBolt8]

10 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

As for people with such and such a build throwing a tantrum that they can't use it in (imaginary mod's) Follower as Leader mode, it would be unlikely they'd ever encounter that mode in that form, because it's intended for a starting low level character, with no skills.

I think the problem there was that many people, including me, read that as being part of the sly behavior of the "regular" DF who tells you you're incompetent even though you're not, as opposed to a strong follower intended for a truly weak PC.  You've mentioned that some (or much) of the feature discussion is actually to go into a separate mod, so we're just a little confused about what will go into DFC versus the other mod, that's all.  These kinds of clarifications help us understand. 

[Lupine00]

3 hours ago, HexBolt8 said:

A warning on the first few checks after a deal starts might work even better. 

I complained about this myself many times.

 

I also know why Lozeak didn't fix it.

Adding a new dialog for every stage of every deal is ... non-trivial work. It seems like a minor request, but when you stop and think it's a lot of dialogs to add, and probably not feasible for modular deals.

 

One approach would be to add a timer and conditions to the dialogs, so every enforcement has two dialogs, the warning and the enforcement, and both would gain a costly check on the Papyrus variable.

In practice, the chance of a follower saying something to perform an enforcement is fairly arbitrary. If not gated by a timer already, it probably should be.

A lot of stuff does have timers. Some enforcements may lack them. I need to check.

 

Because the dialog in DF is not structured cleanly into the different quests, it puts a lot of load on your system when it processes dialog. I've improved this somewhat, and keep tweaking it, but there's only so much that can be done. A proper re-structure of the dialogs would be prohibitively time consuming.

 

There is an alternative fix, where the deal quest has intermediate states ... this would also be painful, and would probably cause some little niggles with the lower-level parts of the deal not being enforced correctly in the intermediate steps, but it would still be less trouble than the dialog, and would have less performance hit. It would still require the extra dialogs, but they would be gated on quest stage, which is a fast check.

 

It might require a clean save to work in an existing game; I'm not sure how adding quest stages works on upgrade. So that counts against it.

 

After getting a new deal, run away from the follower, so they don't spam hellos on you immediately. This should give you time for the item to be added and allow you to fit it.

In some cases LDC fails to give you a required item. I think this may be due to calling into it twice while it's still adding. It is not thread-safe, apparently.

I've added some delays for 2.07 to try and reduce issues with this, but they're only a stopgap.

Fortunately, in most cases it is only called for one item.