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6 hours ago, Lupine00 said:
On 9/29/2019 at 3:17 PM, legraf said:

With this in mind, I think using "lives" as  a "frustration" stat for the follower might be useful, to make them more demanding if the player constantly refuses their helpful suggestions.

Possibly, though this could make the follower a bit predictable. One problem is that losing lives can be entirely the follower's fault, and it can be unfair on the PC.

If Lives were treated as a measure of mood/frustration, it seems reasonable for the follower to become a bit predictable.  If the follower is in a foul mood, the PC is likely to become the target of that follower's frustration.  If things are not going well, the follower is going to blame you for it. 

 

The point about traps is fair, but there's a mod that prevents any follower from setting off traps.   Setting aside the traps problem, if the follower does other stupid things, it seems like blaming you is exactly the kind of thing a DF would do.  I'd actually made a few small tweaks to make the DF more cranky as lives decreased, such as being less likely to allow you more gold under gold control. 

 

I like it that way.   Sometimes I got "punished" (DF becomes harder to deal with) because I made some bad choices and the DF lost lives.  Other times I just got unlucky, but that was okay too.  I liked that the follower responded to a run of bad luck.  That might drive me to go rest sooner than I would have otherwise.  I liked that it made keeping the DF happy an important consideration.  I'd personally like to see Lives affect the follower's mood. 

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6 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

They are games the follower sometimes plays with the PC.

  Hide contents

 

One happens if you're wearing slave boots, and lacking certain other devices ... but only rarely.

The other happens if you're collared in a Jarl's palace and have low willpower, and lacking certain devices. I think there's a deal limit as well.

 

 

Do I need to have deals for those to trigger or be enslaved?

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1 minute ago, HexBolt8 said:

I like it that way.   Sometimes I got "punished" (DF becomes harder to deal with) because I made some bad choices and hte DF lost lives.  Other times I just got unlucky, but that was okay too.  I liked that the follower responded in a sense to a run of bad luck.  That might drive me to go rest sooner than I would have otherwise.  I liked that it made keeping the DF happy an important consideration. 

Truth - I personally did not mind a follower blaming their idiocy on the PC.  When they step on that spike wall trap 5 times in a row, I'd expect them to be thoroughly embarrassed and frustrated (also dead, but Skyrim) - and just like some personalities in real life the only way they deal with it is to blame others.  Especially if those others are their submissive underlings and won't talk back (or are gagged). 

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Another thing on Lives.  I also manually adjust the maximum number of lives up or down depending on how I see the relationship with the DF progressing.  If we're not getting along, I deduct a life.  If we've been doing well, I add one.  A DF who's pleased with the PC will take a little longer to get frustrated, and the reverse.  A pissed-off DF with fewer lives can't be fully satisfied even with a night's rest.  That added a little variation between playthroughs, and made the relationships feel different.

 

Edit:  I'm not suggesting that the mod should try to adjust max lives, just explaining how if lives are treated as a measure of mood, there are ways to play with that to make a particular DF more or less moody.  So linking remaining lives to some DF behavior seems more immersive.  It's up to the player to set max lives appropriately.  If I had to keep moving the max down, that reflected a deteriorating relationship and a downward spiral, which imparted a real urgency to getting myself free from that increasingly hard to please follower. 

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3 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

e.g. After having a level 3 slut deal it might take a long time before people forget what you told them, so often.

Or after having a level 3 bondage deal, people might assume you like being tied up and offer their help DCL style.

Or after having a level 3 ownership deal, people might assume that you are assuredly property.

And so on.

I don't know if it's wise to make DF that wide of a mod.  Part of the charm of DF is that affects only a specific slice of gameplay, and just does that one thing really well.  DCL has run into a similar problem, while it has the amazing cursed loot feature, it branches out into so many different things, and many of those things it doesn't do very completely.  I think Mod's are at their best when they do their one thing really really well and then users can build from there.

 

While the idea of a fully immersive "devious world" is obviously nice sounding, I think you could hit the same 'fun button' by limiting these idea's to just followers.

 

1. You escape your follower after being in deep, including a level 3 slut deal

2. You get back to full willpower and decide to recruit someone new

3. Your new follower "Hey if you need help with money, I know you have done sex work in the past.  Maybe we can work something out" 

4. You take a willpower hit from the reminder of your past humiliation, or maybe there is no actual 'gameplay' ramification at all.

 

You would still be playing the same 'slow decent' game with a coy and tricky follower, the follower just has some new ammunition to use against you. 

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I'm building up a new mod list for a new play-through, so I haven't started using DF *yet*.   But, reading the description, one of my first reactions was that "lives" was a terrible name for whatever that stat tracks.   I thought maybe "patience",  "tolerance", or "good will".  But "frustration" is pretty much the same thing.

 

Also, conflict checking shows that DF and Sexlab Survival both define a global named _Dwill.

 

One defines _Dwill as a float and one as a short and at a wild guess, even if the types aren't an issue, the two mods probably don't want to share this stat.   Well, unless, there's a framework  or at least a shared vision of a definition of what master's will means.   But all the sloppiness on how various mods mistreat SLA's "arousal" and also all the unused frameworks makes me think that getting frameworks right is hard (and/or out of the control of the framework author).   [ /babble-mode-off ]

 

Edit:  Just looked at your other mods and found SexLab Aroused eXtended.   Hooray!  Fixing SLA(R) and the run-away levels has been very badly needed.

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33 minutes ago, MikeWander said:

One defines _Dwill as a float and one as a short and at a wild guess, even if the types aren't an issue, the two mods probably don't want to share this stat.   Well, unless, there's a framework  or at least a shared vision of a definition of what master's will means. 

While I can't speak for coding/implementation - I'm fairly sure this is just SLS hooking into the Devious Followers "will" stat as a soft dependency.

 

Events in Sexlab Survival and Spank that Ass can both cause "willpower" to drop - but AFAIK Willpower is only used in Devious Followers.  They are meant to be used together, but it is not required.

 

Example is in the "misc features" section on the Sexlab Survival download, where Devious Followers is listed as a recommended mod:

 

Quote
  • Male Npcs have a chance to slap your characters ass if she gets too close. Slaps decrease your Devious Followers willpower. 

 

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23 minutes ago, Reesewow said:

While I can't speak for coding/implementation - I'm fairly sure this is just SLS hooking into the Devious Followers "will" stat as a soft dependency. [ ... ]

 

Yes, you're right.   I just took a very brief look at code.  Here's one snippet from SS:

Function DecDflowWill()
    If DflowInstalled
        Int Will = _DWill.GetValueInt()
        If Will > 0
            _DWill.SetValueInt(Will - 1)
            Debug.Notification("Your willpower has decreased to " + (Will - 1))
        EndIf
    EndIf
EndFunction

So, yeah.  If DeviousFollowers is installed (as represented by DflowInstalled), SS will occasionally manipulate the PC's will.

 

Dunno if the engine automatically handles the conversion, but it might, so this may not matter much.   However, I think SS should probably be updated to be a float just like DF.

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7 hours ago, HexBolt8 said:

Another thing on Lives.  I also manually adjust the maximum number of lives up or down depending on how I see the relationship with the DF progressing.  If we're not getting along, I deduct a life.  If we've been doing well, I add one.  A DF who's pleased with the PC will take a little longer to get frustrated, and the reverse.  A pissed-off DF with fewer lives can't be fully satisfied even with a night's rest.  That added a little variation between playthroughs, and made the relationships feel different.

That's some nice roleplay there - unfortunately clunky to implement, but I like it and might adopt it myself.  I quite like the aspect of keeping the follower content in ways other than just controlling debt.  And I love what several have said both about how the Follower's bad luck really should be taken out on the player, and that the Follower has a pretty good case that their bad luck is the player's fault.  "You were leading... why didn't you help me avoid that?  And I only ran back across it again to save your sorry ass from that draugr that you could have noticed was coming.  If you knew the area wasn't safe, why didn't you ask me to wait back a ways?  Sometimes I wonder if you're fit to lead at all, or more cut out for a ... different role."

 

As to the lightfoot perk, I always remove that from followers, and usually from my PC as well - it's just so fun to maneuver a follower into walking over a plate, especially if they've been annoying.  "And that's 1... 2... 3 poison darts for you!  Mwa-hahaa".

 

I agree that "lives" should be called something like "patience", but I'd ask to at least keep their current functionality, even if expanding it is out of scope for now.  But how cool would it be if other mods hooked into that too, as they do for Willpower?  SLS already has a comment when a follower has goods confiscated because the player doesn't have the right license... "your follower won't like that".  Add a 1-point drop to "lives", and the statement means something.

 

Actually, I think I'll go mod a tiny tweak right now to cost lives when stalling on "come here, your master/mistress requires your body".  Fun!

 

edit: though the concern about predicatability is a good one.  For this as for most stats, I think it's better as a modifier to a dice roll (or vice versa), not a strict "above 7 this happens, from 3-6 this occurs, etc.".

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1 hour ago, legraf said:

though the concern about predicatability is a good one.  For this as for most stats, I think it's better as a modifier to a dice roll (or vice versa), not a strict "above 7 this happens, from 3-6 this occurs, etc.".

Exactly.  It's been a while, but as I recall what I'd done was that if DF had determined that the follower would grant more gold that day, I added a chance that the follower actually might not, increasing as follower lives (yes it's a poor name choice) decreased.  As a mood gauge, it could be used to modify quite a few things without being completely predictable.  Certain outcomes would just be more likely. 

 

"Lives" should really take a few more things into account.  I think it was initially based on bleedout, from which the name came, but then Lozeak added a few other things that could lower it.  I don't think he added rape (of the follower) but that would be a natural thing to include.

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9 hours ago, HexBolt8 said:

I liked that the follower responded to a run of bad luck.  That might drive me to go rest sooner than I would have otherwise.  I liked that it made keeping the DF happy an important consideration.

DF could solve the lightfoot problem by adding the perk itself.

 

 

More broadly, lives are an under-developed feature, so concrete suggestions are helpful:

9 hours ago, HexBolt8 said:

I'd actually made a few small tweaks to make the DF more cranky as lives decreased, such as being less likely to allow you more gold under gold control. 

Such as the above... Which reminds me that gold control needs some love. I did a bit of tweaking of that in the past, but in lost all that back before 2.X

 

 

9 hours ago, Reesewow said:

I personally did not mind a follower blaming their idiocy on the PC.  When they step on that spike wall trap 5 times in a row, I'd expect them to be thoroughly embarrassed and frustrated (also dead, but Skyrim) - and just like some personalities in real life the only way they deal with it is to blame others.  Especially if those others are their submissive underlings and won't talk back (or are gagged).

There's room for some amusing dialog here, but it's hard to detect the cause of a bleedout reliably.

 

"Stupid girl! You made that trap go off at me on purpose! My hair is ruined. You'll pay for this slut."

> "Don't blame me for your mistakes. I tried to help you." (will > 7) -> follower gets even grumpier (lose another life?)

> "But... It wasn't me..." (will > 4) -> less chance for getting grumpy, but might add some debt

> "Sorry. Sorry. Sorry." -> follower adds debt, chance that a life is restored

 

I think it's probably not implementable in a reliable way, but I can see the appeal.

 

 

9 hours ago, HexBolt8 said:

I also manually adjust the maximum number of lives up or down depending on how I see the relationship with the DF progressing.

Setting lives per follower seems a reasonable option.

 

Also, rather than altering max-lives, how about a mechanic where cranky followers can lose lives for non-bleedout events?

Then we'd have a mood setting on a per-follower basis, maybe: Forgiving, Neutral, Cranky, Plain Nasty.

 

Trying to come up with something concrete off the top of my head...

 

  • You get a punishment debt - high chance to lose a life
  • You owe money when debt is recalculated - fair chance to lose a life
  • It's 10PM, and the follower isn't warm and cosy in an inn or player home - chance to lose a life.
  • It rains on the follower - chance to lose a life.
  • You wake up before 7AM - chance to lose a life.

 

 

A counter-balance to this - I think might have many uses, is gifts.

 

Give follower gifts (cash, or expensive high value per weight loot) and get a chance to regain a life.

If lives did more than just stop adventuring dead (which is much how they are now) then gifts would be useful, and would be yet another cash sink - but an optional one.

 

So what would lives do?

 

  • Impact chance of entering gold control.
  • Impact gold control decisions, when in gold control.
  • Impact 'game' chance decisions.
  • Impact theft chance decisions.
  • Lock off device-removal menu for some time period.
  • Lock off key-game menu for some time period.
  • Lock off gambling menu for some time period.
  • Trigger nasty stuff we don't have yet, such as - skooma events, administer spanking, demand sex
  • Other ideas? Please suggest...

 

In the case of locked menus, sufficient gifts would reliably unlock them.

Also, handing cash or keys to the follower would simply be seen as a nice generous gift. No more cheating using that trick.

For skooma events, I am thinking of a skooma mechanic, where the follower demands you drink skooma, or demand you give them skooma.

If you don't have any, you're in trouble (chance to lose a life).

If you have some you can still refuse to drink it or refuse to hand it over.

If enslaved you don't have to carry skooma but the follower is likely to administer it to you.

Some followers will prefer to drink skooma themselves. Others will prefer to addict you.

 

e.g.

Normal mode: "I'm fed up with your lazy ways slut. Drink this! Maybe it will get you moving?"

Enslaved: "Here's your morning fix slave. You'll get another for lunch. Don't say I never feed you. *Force feeds you skooma* "

 

Of course, if you have no skooma, you can ask the follower for skooma, and they will sell it to you.

If enslaved, you can beg for a fix any time, and they'll add a little debt.

 

It needs more design to make three deal stages out of it - but it would be deal-only for non-slaves.

 


 

Just some stream-of-consciousness ideas. Not finished designs. But gifts seems like a good mechanic if it can be done right: a discretionary cash sink where you decide if you can afford to pay seems very attractive. Rather than horde that 5000 gold windfall to pay off future debts, you might be tempted to splurge on the follower to gain a long-term mood adjustment.

 

 

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I'm interested in an idea parallel to deals, but less strict.

They'd follow their own dialog path, rather than being formalised as deals, would not count as deals, and would not be managed via deal dialogs.

 

An example:

Spoiler

 

The skooma game:

 

On reaching low lives in dungeon or wilderness:

"You're draining the life out of me with your adventuring failures. I need something to get my energy back. Maybe some skooma would do it?"

 

If you give skooma within the next couple of days, the follower regains their lives, and says:

"Thanks pet. That's just what I needed. I think you should lay in a supply of this."

<Blathering from PC about how expensive it is>.

 

In future, on low lives, the follower will simply say:

"Do you have any skooma my sweet?"

> Yes

>> PC hands over skooma, follower says "Thanks, you're a life saver." (lives restored)

> No

>> "You useless bitch. Didn't I tell you to get some? What am I supposed to do now?" (lives zeroed)

 

If the PC ignores the initial request, the skooma requests stop there. The same request will rerun after a good long delay.

 

If the PC gives skooma, then you're going to get the skooma dialog every time lives get low.

 

 

If you give skooma a sufficient number of times - let's say 3, or 5 - then after the last time, the mode changes...

 

Follower now demands skooma on waking up in an inn or house:

"Do you have any skooma on you darling?" (high will)

"Get me some skooma you useless wench." (low will)

 

Failure to give skooma gives an immediate life reduction. We also have the previous demands, whenever low lives hit in wilderness of dungeons.

 

Then after a few morning skoomas...

Follower demands skooma whenever you eat food.

Same rules as morning skooma.

 

If you refuse skooma for long enough, the requests stop.

 

 

As the only affordable way to get skooma is Skooma Whoring, the follower's appetite is an issue for the PC.

 

 

Or a parallel version:

Spoiler

 

PC gets put in some devices and needs help. On using the device removal menu, you first get this...

"I'm sick of your sulky mood. Perhaps this will put a smile on your face? *forces you to drink skooma* "

 

Then afterwards:

"I like you much better this way. You should drink more of that stuff."

 

It's just an intro..

 

 

Next time you leave an inn, the follower will demand you drink Skooma again.

"You're slow and sulky again this morning. You need a boost. Drink this. *gives skooma* "

Fail to drink, and after a minute the follower punishes you. 

They'll try again next inn departure. However after three refusals it stops.

 

 

After a few times, the schedule kicks up.

The follower now offers skooma on every cell change (with a ten minute cooldown, so you aren't spammed).

 

 

After a week or so, the follower says:

"All that skooma you've been drinking has cost me a fortune. I think it's time you paid up."

The follower demands you make five deals, and you can't pay any debt off until the deals are agreed.

 

You're probably also addicted to skooma at this point, but if you don't have SW, this one still works fine.

 

 

 

The follower now gives skooma on request. The price is quite reasonable, but they administer it, so you can't just sell the bottles.

The follower's skooma comes in flavours, so its useful to all character builds.

 

This could then be a setup for Weird Potion, or some other skooma tampering game.

 

 

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11 hours ago, Darkwing241 said:

I don't know if it's wise to make DF that wide of a mod.  Part of the charm of DF is that affects only a specific slice of gameplay, and just does that one thing really well.  DCL has run into a similar problem, while it has the amazing cursed loot feature, it branches out into so many different things, and many of those things it doesn't do very completely.  I think Mod's are at their best when they do their one thing really really well and then users can build from there.

Darwing241 has a good point, I think - especially when it comes to adding dialogue to NPCs, with so many other mods doing the same, it can get pretty fragile even if DF does everything conscientiously (as I suspect it would) ... it's more likely to run into problems due to other poorly-behaved mods.  Limiting direct effects to followers keeps things much better contained.  The idea of later followers being influenced by the player's "reputation" earned with past followers is excellent.  One could also take this slightly further - if significant past followers are remembered (which at least for the Potion quest they might be, but there could be a memory of one or two other recent devious followers) the player's reputation could provoke reactions in these select NPCs.  A conversation between the current and a past follower would be interesting, and might provoke the new follower to suggest a deal or game on the spot.  And if the player doesn't have a follower when they bump into a past one ... there could be appropriate dialogue, or even (at low willpower) a happy reunification and forced assignment of a follower.

 

Even if DF does very little itself, if it tracks past followers, or just recent ones that reached a certain level in certain deals, this could be something that other mods might exploit.  In SLS, for instance, what could be more natural than an enforcer, on finding the player without an escort, saying "Oh, and I know just the person... I believe you already know (DF-ex)?"  Bang, follower assigned.  With so much interest in the DF mod within the community (no pressure, Lupine00!) I can think of a half-dozen mods off-hand that could implement small tie-ins, or better, to everyone's benefit.

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2 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

Just some stream-of-consciousness ideas. Not finished designs. But gifts seems like a good mechanic if it can be done right: a discretionary cash sink where you decide if you can afford to pay seems very attractive. Rather than horde that 5000 gold windfall to pay off future debts, you might be tempted to splurge on the follower to gain a long-term mood adjustment.

Would certainly add a lot more depth to follower lives and give players some knobs to make individual followers have different levels of "difficulty" associated with them due to their attitude. 

 

I like the idea of having a follower who's just a salty old bastard who blames the PC for the sun being too hot, but gets a little less cranky if you throw a few buckets of gemstones his way.  Likewise, it could be fun to have Lydia join the PC as a somewhat devious but still generally pleasant Housecarl, and have her become extremely jaded after half a dozen dungeons of getting knocked over by axe pendulum traps and bent over by every second draugr without seeing any form of apology gift from her inept Thane.

 

 

 

I'd like to suggest an alternative option to "gifts" being purely monetary however, as that might cannibalize a bit on the main gameplay loop of DF.  The main gameplay loop being IMO the follower demanding payments that about equal the player's net profit, which allows bad luck or player mistakes to result in taking deals they need to replay down the line.

 

An example of a non-monetary way to improve the followers mood mid-dungeon could be to ask them if they need anything.  They could then request a specific class of item, and the player would have a certain window of time to gift them that item to restore some "lives".  The item types could be things like food, alcohol, gemstones, magic tomes, soulgems, crafting items, a particular class of weapon ect.  If you are a packrat you might generally have what they want, but otherwise you'd have to be a bit lucky and have them request something you already have or can easily loot nearby.

 

If the player does not have or cannot find the item type requested in time the dialogue option could disappear for a period of time, taking away the opportunity to regain follower lives mid-dungeon cheaply.  Pure gold or high-value items could always be an option however, with the knowledge you are directly affecting your ability to pay your follower or save up for anything in the future (assuming your DF debt settings are somewhat strict).

 

2 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

I'm interested in an idea parallel to deals, but less strict.

They'd follow their own dialog path, rather than being formalised as deals, would not count as deals, and would not be managed via deal dialogs.

More games/deals are always good IMO, assuming like most things in DF they are toggleable.  This seems like a feature who's success would heavily depend on a user's load order as it relates to skooma - it wouldn't fit well with mine personally as I just use Skooma as a Apropos 2 heal item with a serious downside (100% change to trigger SL Pheromones) and it isn't easily found unless I go out of my way.

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2 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

There's room for some amusing dialog here, but it's hard to detect the cause of a bleedout reliably.

I don't think the cause needs to be certain ... whenever a follower goes into bleedout, it's always, at some level, the player's fault.    It's nicer, for dialogue, to differentiate between traps and enemy action, but the wording can be generic.  However, here again I think making a variable available for other mods to modify opens up many possibilities - those other mods can recognize their own situations and then, optionally, request a willpower change or a patience/lives change.  More simply they can change the value directly as Spank That Ass does for willpower.

 

Gifts as a means of improving mood - simplest of course to just have a percent chance to increase mood by 1 based on sqrt(value) or something similar, with a 12-hour timeout perhaps.  Though some of your ideas suggest using gifts to get past a temporary block on something like device unlocks, which is lovely if it's not too much bother.  Probably any costs should in some way be proportional to the chosen "debt per day" setting, to let players tune costs to their world's economy (if debt is "per level" makes a huge difference!).

 

Ideas for additional patience/life lowering or raising events:

  • Integration with frostfall or needs mods - comfort/discomfort, satiety, and so on ... probably a nuisance to add the soft dependencies?
  • Leaving the follower waiting somewhere for a long time.
    • This could also be due to unintended events like imprisonment
  • Getting the follower raped or unintentionally bound (better, probably, to let the responsible mod make the change)
  • Refusing deal offers (low chance to lower, or one "free" refusal, but repeated rejection of deals leads to loss until a deal is accepted?)
  • Having multiple deals active amuses the follower, has a chance to raise mood daily
  • "Games" (pony, Jarl, etc.) amuse and cheer up the follower
  • Stubborn, angry, or accusatory dialogue choices by the player in DF events could lower mood, whereas submissive ones might simultaneously raise mood but lower willpower
  • Buying out of deals could raise or lower mood, perhaps based on follower personality, perhaps just randomly
  • Accepting deals, going into gold control, or otherwise playing the follower's game improves mood

 

 

Ideas for ways patience/lives can influence behaviour, beyond those already mentioned:

 

  • Reduce/increase the value of each new deal accepted
  • Impact odds of allowing player to exit gold control or to become dismissable on paying off debts (could be too frustrating?)
  • Increase odds of follower playing a game, playing a trick on the player, or insisting the player "go somewhere" if that idea is implemented

 

As I'm thinking about these suggestions, I admit there's some overlap with the willpower system... so that harsh and possibly inescapable events are the result of both lower willpower and high follower frustration.  Does that mean "lives" are redundant?  Yet I feel they aren't ... even if the consequences end up being possible from low willpower and just more likely with low "lives", I still find appeal in the player having to manage follower mood outside of simple debt.

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1 hour ago, legraf said:

Darwing241 has a good point, I think - especially when it comes to adding dialogue to NPCs, with so many other mods doing the same, it can get pretty fragile even if DF does everything conscientiously (as I suspect it would) ... it's more likely to run into problems due to other poorly-behaved mods.  Limiting direct effects to followers keeps things much better contained.

Yes. I meant to post my agreement with this, but there are so many things coming up, it's easy to miss responding to one.

 

However, there are probably some things that could be added as flavour that would be non-disruptive and could operate based on simple factions, as the innkeeper code in DF already does.

 

For example, I'm not a fan of how DCL's device comments work. They're rarely appropriate, and often immersion breaking. I don't want to replicate that sort of thing. However, an innkeeper who occasionally triggers a dialog:

"Make sure your customers don't cause any trouble here whore."

Is probably not going to break any mods, and there are no conflicts, as it's done simply with dialog conditions.

 

The player might even find they can suggest the following to the innkeeper, if they activate him for conversation:

"Why did you call me a whore?" >> "You've got a reputation around here."

"I'm not a whore." >> "Is that so? We'll see, won't we?"

"Don't worry sir." >>  "Remember, slut, the customer is always right."

 

But I'm also mindful of clogging up dialogs with pointless trivia.

It would need the choices to be hidden in a starter topic.

I might move all DF innkeeper interactions to within a starting topic, to clean up the innkeeper interactions anyway, so adding it then would be clean.

 

But the only reason to add something like this is if it can - sometimes - make a real difference.

I don't have any pressing ideas for where to take it, so unless you have an awesome idea based off it, probably best not to worry about it.

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5 hours ago, Reesewow said:

Likewise, it could be fun to have Lydia join the PC as a somewhat devious but still generally pleasant Housecarl, and have her become extremely jaded after half a dozen dungeons of getting knocked over by axe pendulum traps and bent over by every second draugr without seeing any form of apology gift from her inept Thane.

Lydia is already the queen of passive aggressive. Though I imagine she was written with a conventional male PC and 14 year old male player in mind - so it's the designers having a bit of a laugh with the player.

 

But in principle, I'm all for more personality.

 

 

I suggested personality types to Lozeak, and he really didn't like it...

But I guess that's not entirely dead now :) 

He was afraid of the dialog weight, but it's really no big deal if you isolate them in their own quests and make them self-contained.

 

That lack of personality in DF made me think the path was to write a DF-like mod that was written around the personality of a single custom-designed follower, rather than any follower. I did make a start on that, but then SLD ate all my time. The problem was I wanted to write a lot of infrastructure first, and on reflection it was a bad way to start making a mod. A lot of people do that, then the support code takes forever and there's nothing to show for it, and it's often not used much. Pet Project has some of that - there's a really nice scene system in there, but it's barely showing a fraction of what it can do. XDFF is another example of pretty code still in search of a purpose. Currently, Leon enslavement is even less interesting than it was before XDFF. Maybe Kimy will get to that one in this "slice"? 

 

 

With DFC, I want to do small, fun-sized changes that people can immediately get a new experience from. I want to avoid anything large of complex that would mean no releases for months; I don't have time for that sort of thing anyway.

 

5 hours ago, legraf said:

I don't think the cause needs to be certain ... whenever a follower goes into bleedout, it's always, at some level, the player's fault.    It's nicer, for dialogue, to differentiate between traps and enemy action, but the wording can be generic.  However, here again I think making a variable available for other mods to modify opens up many possibilities - those other mods can recognize their own situations and then, optionally, request a willpower change or a patience/lives change.  More simply they can change the value directly as Spank That Ass does for willpower.

 

That sums it up. I guess that is what I was implying. It would be better to identify trap-fail vs other fails...

 

But maybe it's time DF added the lightfoot perk?

I guess we could have that as an option.

 

If the dialog is unfair enough, it could be anything...

 

"What were you doing while I was saving us? Painting your nails? I deserve a bonus for saving you, don't you agree?"

"Still alive. No thanks to you - running at the first sign of trouble. I know you're cowardly, but really?"

"What were you doing there? I know I can't expect much. All you're good for is collecting the loot and carrying my stuff around."

 

I think those are a bit weak though. Needs to be more over the top.

 

5 hours ago, legraf said:

Ideas for ways patience/lives can influence behaviour, beyond those already mentioned:

  • Reduce/increase the value of each new deal accepted
  • Impact odds of allowing player to exit gold control or to become dismissable on paying off debts (could be too frustrating?)
  • Increase odds of follower playing a game, playing a trick on the player, or insisting the player "go somewhere" if that idea is implemented

The new one here is "Reduce/increase the value of each new deal accepted".

 

 

I don't think it should reduce initial debt reduction - that would discourage deal taking.

However, varying the buyout price based on current lives makes sense - and you can always wait until lives are renewed before attempting to buy out.

 

 

5 hours ago, legraf said:

Ideas for additional patience/life lowering or raising events:

  • Integration with frostfall or needs mods - comfort/discomfort, satiety, and so on ... probably a nuisance to add the soft dependencies?
  • Leaving the follower waiting somewhere for a long time.
    • This could also be due to unintended events like imprisonment
  • Getting the follower raped or unintentionally bound (better, probably, to let the responsible mod make the change)
  • Refusing deal offers (low chance to lower, or one "free" refusal, but repeated rejection of deals leads to loss until a deal is accepted?)
  • Having multiple deals active amuses the follower, has a chance to raise mood daily
  • "Games" (pony, Jarl, etc.) amuse and cheer up the follower
  • Stubborn, angry, or accusatory dialogue choices by the player in DF events could lower mood, whereas submissive ones might simultaneously raise mood but lower willpower
  • Buying out of deals could raise or lower mood, perhaps based on follower personality, perhaps just randomly
  • Accepting deals, going into gold control, or otherwise playing the follower's game improves mood

Needs mods don't usually handle NPCs in any meaningful way. Some do attempt to add a cost for followers in various ways.

I'd have to spend a lot of time learning each supported mod to do it, even if it could do it, so it's probably not feasible.

 

Making the follower wait is often a cheat in DF, and should get a stiffer punishment than lost lives.

If you can't help it and are imprisoned, or enslaved, or something else it should either be detected, or the player has to pause DF.

 

Perhaps, it's fine to punish all the cases, because the follower is unfair like that?

You do accumulate debt though, so that might be enough.

 

Rapes = lives lost is already a thing in DF. Do we need more?

 

More deals = happier follower - easy enough - and adds a little balancing factor.

 

Games = happier follower - easy enough, and a game could routinely restore all lives - the world would not end.

 

More impact of dialog choices ... they're usually punished anyway ... but conceptually sound.

 

Accepting a deal or starting gold control should improve mood somewhat, for sure. Voluntary gold control should earn you quite a mood boost.

 

 

I'm conscious of the overlap, and of possible feedback behaviours, so that's why:

 

  • mood needs to be something the player can control to a reasonable extent
  • personality is property of the follower and never changes (except via MCM)
  • willpower is something the player can partially control.
  • losing willpower is a consequence of deals, spanks, and especially running around town trying to sell things when you have lots of deals.

 

This last one is something that needs digesting:

Deals don't mean necessarily lead to more deals ... losing willpower due to deals leads to more deals.

 

If mood is another lever you can pull, and that also sinks cash, you have more of a game in how you choose to spend that cash.

Is it better to give presents, accept debt and take deals? Or better to pay the debt and never have the deals?

 

Clearly, DF is more fun if there's a bit of a choice.

However, I think the gift path should be slightly better financially.

That would encourage players to take deals and roll the dice on dodging a willpower collapse.

 

This suggests a key part of mood is it could/should determine whether the follower calls in the debt.

 

If the follower is happy, you can run up more and more debt and not get the talk, or enslaved, or robbed.

 

But as soon as the follower gets a bit upset, that debt catches up with you...

 

 

There was always this idea in DF, it just lacked a mechanic more sophisticated than "random".

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10 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

Rapes = lives lost is already a thing in DF. Do we need more?

Possibly.  Bleedout happens often enough, and it can be recovered from during combat, so I see it as being temporarily knocked down and stunned.  That's bad but not a huge deal.  It happens.  But rape, that's big.  If nothing else, a setting for how many lives are lost on rape and/or if debt is also added.

 

14 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

Setting lives per follower seems a reasonable option.

 

Also, rather than altering max-lives, how about a mechanic where cranky followers can lose lives for non-bleedout events?

Then we'd have a mood setting on a per-follower basis, maybe: Forgiving, Neutral, Cranky, Plain Nasty.

Both, please.  Number of lives is already in the mod.  A personality/disposition setting would add to that.

 

10 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

I suggested personality types to Lozeak, and he really didn't like it...

But I guess that's not entirely dead now :) 

He was afraid of the dialog weight, but it's really no big deal if you isolate them in their own quests and make them self-contained.

And/or add enough generic settings (like mood modifiers, or other options) that the player can customize the DF personality through the MCM.  Quests and special dialog would be great, but probably as a later addition after easier features have been added.

 

Follower personality is key to avoiding the DF feeling too samey from one to the next.  The more differently they behave, the more interesting and fresh the time with each one feels. 

 

I'd like to see a broad possible range of personalities, from mean to kind.  An example of the latter might be a kind but controlling DF who sees you as a valued pet.  Stay on your leash and do as you're told and you'll have an easy time.  DF mood would tend to be high and player requests would likely be grated.  But don't mess up because the DF becomes enraged when the pet she thought was good and well-trained does something bad.  In the MCM, the player-set levers for punishment severity would be high.  That personality would play out differently from the standard DF. 

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Mood could potentially factor into any player request.  Conceivably it could also be used as currency:  The DF goes into bleedout but we win the battle.  If the DF mood is high, the PC might be able to apologize:  the added debt is removed, but DF mood drops sharply. 

 

One feature that's not in the mod is rewards.  Obviously this would have to be handled with care, so we don't make things too easy.  A reward trigger could be opening a boss chest or giving the DF a gift.  The follower is pleased.  Chance for a reward could be based on MCM base chance modified by mood, probably with a cap or other factor so the player can't exploit it by giving a gift when the DF's mood is maxed.  As I think about it, the value for gift giving should be inversely proportional to DF mood.  It's most useful to appease an angry follower.  And it should scale with the item value.

 

Rewards should be configurable, but could include debt forgiveness, cancellation of one deal, or an increased debt limit.  They should be rare enough to be memorable events.

 

Gift giving could be configurable to be required.  A demanding DF might expect a gift every x days, with no benefit for required gifts (you'd have to provide an extra one for that).   Gold is easiest but it's boring.  Ideally items like jewelry (bonus if enchanted), gems, scrolls, or vanilla healing or magic potions could be gifts.  These should probably disappear immediately so the PC can't take them back and to keep the follower inventory clean.  If you want to equip a follower, that wouldn't be a gift (I'm not sure that I like that, though).

 

Last item, a request to increase or remove the cap on negative debt when not in gold control.  I believe it's capped at 200 gold now.  I assume that it's there to keep the player from stacking deals early on or paying the follower in advance, but that feels gamey to me, an unrealistic restriction to achieve a game goal.

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13 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

gifts seems like a good mechanic if it can be done right: a discretionary cash sink where you decide if you can afford to pay seems very attractive.

Gift giving makes me think of Stardew Valley.  It was a farming game where you could woo and romance the townsfolk by bringing them gifts.  Each person had certain items they liked and disliked.  It would be cool if there was a way to tag preferred/disliked gifts to certain followers.

 

There is something inherently submissive about seeking out the perfect gift for someone, and because it's still considered socially normal, this would be a great way to role-play the early stages of the PC/DF relationship. It would definitely play to the financial domination themes already in DF.  I also love the idea of it playing into a one sided romantic domination.  The PC slips into slavery because she crushing on the DF (at least in the early stages of the progression)

 

-DFs get assigned preferences on gifts

ex. Likes: Jewelry, Enchanted weapons, Fine Clothes, Silver Bars, wisp wrappings, stolen things

ex. Hates: Hats, Flowers, Sapphires

-PC gives a gift and the DF reacts with positive or negative dialogue

-DF gains lives when given gifts they like, loses lives on dislike

-DF suggests things they like occasionally (randomly? on neutral gifts? Dislike+high willpower?)

-PC can self create quest content by seeking out these specific kinds of items and spends more of her time 'worrying about what the DF likes'

 

There's lots of room to expand on this and build new content too.  Most of these are basically just 'games.'

 

-Gift giving Holidays:  The PC scurries around search for the perfect gift for her DF, a beautiful silver necklace set with a flawless emerald.  The DF gets her a dildo, then insists she go use it (medium willpower) and that the DF gets to watch (low willpower). 

-The DF buys the PC a gift! A sword? Bikini Armor? A padded bra of +1 breast size? 'try the bikini on +1 life' 'wear the bikini for 1 day, 2 days, 7 days +1 life, Stop wearing the bikini -3 lives' (Even if it's an actual beneficial item, it's still kind of hot to have the DF saying "no you use this sword")... maybe this one is too similar to deals?

 

 

I think there is so much room in between 'The PC is the leader and the DF is her paid servant' and "the DF is the master and the PC is a fetish bondage rape slave.'  Filling in this space is what I personally would like to see the most.

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Very happy to see this great mod continue again and many new features will be adding! But I don't think it's a good idea to let this mod be too heavy. Like adding mood system, more hardcore live system.

Till now, all of the dialogs, games in the DF are still GAMES. It means if you like, you could exist any time you want. These deals, enslavement won't hurt your normal game play much. Though sometimes you are enslaved,  you are still 100% safe in durgeons. The mitten will be transfered to gloves to keep you almost safe in wilds and towns. Even you drinked the weird potion. It's just you cant leave your follower and has a sex event triggered each several days. But now some of the suggestions really hurt PC's gameplay. Yes, these ideas are great amd really excitement. But some of them are real ENSLAVEMENT not SM GAMES. SM games are fun and it's triggered under the player's desire, player are enslaved but he could exit if he really would. While enslavement is much more fun but only at its beginning. Then PC will be bored soon.

I used to like DCL very much and turned on many many options. But now most of them are disabled. The only reason is I'm bored, sometimes it could even been annoying. The cursed collar, robber doll request are all really fun. But when it's triggered again, I'm annoying because I will waste hours to see the same thing again. A bondage trap excite me much most of times. But after a 100 hour game play. I'm tired of been tied behind the scene of the final boss and must spend many times to free myself, come back. If you are in this situation many times, the thought 'fxxk, haha, let's think about how to escape my poor girl' in your mind will finally become 'fxxk'.

A follower mood system for each follower is... great. But only if it's applied on the whole of the followers. Otherwise it will persuade PC to choose those well coded followers and lose the freedom followers choosing. This I must say, is really, really, a big project. Even they are done, it will still lead to some followers with popular moods. Only few are chosen. It kind of destroy the origin follower choosing freedom and it waste the time of Dev.

The idea of giving followers gift is actually done in some mod. As far as I know the Maria Eiden has it(maybe another? I almost forget its name). And the performance is actually... bad. In skyrim, player have many many ways to make money and it's not hard to let you become a millionaire. So PC could give your followers ∞ values of the gift to destroy this system. In Maria Eiden the Dev realized it and make PC hard to get money in various ways. But people still find some other ways. It cause the competition bewteen Dev and user, make the mod heavier and heavier, but less and less interesting.

For requesting certain item in random time is similar as DCL event. It's fun at first, but is boring if it triggered many times in a long game play. A good idea is to reduce its frequency, like only triggered in town with low probability and low willpower.

This is also not a good idea that followers blame on you while it's not your fault. A good master know how to use the stick and the carrot to make a nice slave. Many tyrant who shit his unhappy to his slave are killed finally. It has approved that everyone even submissive guys don't like to be treated like this in a very long time. It's good to teach PC how to become a good slave girl but not put as much enslave event as you can. Or your sex excitement will be disappeared with this random punishment, then get bored, get annoying.

All of the above is just my personal opinion, I'm already very happy to see this continue and I'm eager to see the new feature is added even I may don't like some of the update personally. It will be better if these are still unchanged. In short, they are

1. The events are still games not real enslavement. The mod is almost silent in durgeons because they are your followers and they know they should keep you safe.

2. Don't add too many events and let it under a fine frequency, events are fun but it could be too noisy and hurt the game play.

3. Too heavy events may lead to wasting Dev too much time but even not interesting as small events.

When painting, each color/object could let the paint more beautiful. But if we add too many colors and objects and don't care about the core of the paint, the paint may become dirty and arbitrary. Sometimes it's even a good idea if we don't paint anything in some area and keep it blank.

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12 hours ago, danta said:

Will you be adding CBBE versions of the armours ?

Technically, CBBE versions already exist, they just aren't in the mod. So I guess it's possible.

CBBE is polygons from the 1990s though :) 

 

Tracking down some new armors (with appropriate use rights) and adding them as custom armor packs you can just DL here would be nice.

There are a lot of slooty armors with generous use rights, so it's more about just getting to it than any other problem.

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12 hours ago, Ezioinu said:

The idea of giving followers gift is actually done in some mod.

Of course it is. It's not like I never saw SD+ :) 

And anyone who knows ME understands I'm explicitly referencing when I talked about the weather.

 

I think @Ezioinu has some problems in his games that are mostly choice.

 

Of course there is no way to stop players adding money in the game.

I wouldn't try. It's pointless. And right now, with no change, DF is totally undermined if you give yourself a lot of money.

 

The idea of DF payments is as a cash sink for players who want cash sinks; for players who may well install many other scarcity mods to reduce the cash in their game.

They are not going to cheat by giving themselves money unless they're doing it to fix something broken.

As for players that do, I can't do anything about them. They can do as they like, and if they still have fun, great.

 

What makes Ezioinu's comments difficult to get value from is that they lack specifics.

 

Please make suggestions about:

  • What specific things would be more than you want in your game?
  • What features are too intrusive?
  • What features are missing?

 

But without specifics, it's hard to learn anything.

 

 

If new things are added to DF, they will be optional, so I wouldn't worry it will become too boring because of those new options.

They will probably be off by default.

 

However, for the life of DF, many users have repeatedly asked for more hardcore difficulty, not less. They have done easy; they want a challenge, but not a totally random one. One that is actually some kind of game.

 

What is reasonably likely to get done:

  • willpower regain changes - this just brings back older behaviour - as an option
  • resistance changes - so you can have more effective range of willpower values other than 0 and 8-10. Or leave it as is.
  • gifts/lives influence gold control - will be optional, some people don't even use gold control
  • gifts/lives can prevent follower calling in debt - will be optional
  • gifts/lives can prevent follower forcing gold control - will be optional
  • skooma addicted follower gamelet - will be optional
  • skooma addicted player gamelet - will be optional
  • possible longer term consequences of public actions or low willpower - will be optional and no concrete plans yet

Every deal in the game is optional, so what are the odds I'd decide to add new deals that are not optional?

 

Also, the entire gift mechanic only adds ways to defer or delay penalties you would otherwise have got immediately, so it doesn't add impossible difficulties that will bore the player with their randomness. In fact, it's one of the few things that would genuinely be under player control.

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13 hours ago, Zagzaguel said:

Instead of giving a follower a random, static personality, let the personaility be dynamic

I guess that mood-concept was going into that direction, but what about a superior system above that? 

Subtlety is wasted in Skyrim. It's hard enough to differentiate personalities one from the other when you have three, let alone make a continuum.

 

If they also vary, it will mean that the personalities are essentially meaningless, fluid things.

 

In stories, good people don't gradually fade into evil, and evil people don't gradually fade into good.

Instead, defining events trigger those transformations ... but those are rarely for secondary characters ... in most stories, only the primary character has an arc, if even they have one.

 

 

It can seem like more flexibility and change is more and better, but in practice it will be difficult enough to make personality and mood distinctive things.

That's why both need more design. Without concrete mechanics, events and actions to tie them to, they're just "random follower behaviour".

 

That tendency towards simulationist gameplay - that runs overly complex sims under the hood, that the player rarely ever perceives - is rarely successful.

 

SD+ is encumbered with this. I rarely notice a difference. Masters are more or less whippy or rapey, that's it. 

SL Sexual Fame has it too with its elaborate gossip sim. 

And MME's milk markets.

They are a lot of work that delivered little in terms of distinct player experience.

 

If there are player-visible mechanics, with concrete effects, I'm happy to add more or less complex simulation under it, if the simulation actually delivers value.

But for now, we're mainly talking about some skew on the following:

 

  • when gold control starts and ends
  • when the follower will rob you to recover debt
  • when the follower ill force deals to recover debt
  • when the follower will refuse debt repayment and demand deals instead
  • when the follower will get mad and refuse to help you with devices
  • when the follower will get mad and refuse to play the gamble game
  • when the follower will get mad and refuse to play the key game
  • when the follower will change dialogs from flattery to insults

 

Proposals I made with gifts are all ways to avoid existing penalties, and don't add new ones.

Bad personality might lead to a more aggressive follower across all those actions above.

Good personality might lead to more forgiveness from the follower across all the actions above.

 

I'm not sure we have enough distinct qualities of the follower to do more than that.

 

 

But if people can come up with them, I want to hear it.

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