Devious Followers - Continued

[Lupine00]

6 minutes ago, HexBolt8 said:

New game.

Try the test mentioned above of getting a deal.

 

What is wrong with the description of the willpower regain mode toggle? It seems sufficiently explicit. Do you mean a different toggle?

This was added for people who wanted the old behavior, so there's some complexity over what is regained.

[HexBolt8]

14 minutes ago, Lupine00 said:

Try the test mentioned above of getting a deal.

I just did that.  I got the Deep Debt Deal and the Modular Deals page did not update.  If I try to turn off Deep Debt Deal, when I return to Modular Deals that option is enabled again.  I can't turn off Deep Debt Deals.  I exited the game and tried again.  Same result as before, deep debt deal and no modular deals listed on that page.

 

14 minutes ago, Lupine00 said:

What is wrong with the description of the willpower regain mode toggle? It seems sufficiently explicit. Do you mean a different toggle?

No it's that one, the limited willpower regain toggle.  It says the amount recovered will be limited and reduced by deals & devices.  I took that to mean that the maximum gain is capped at something less than max, and that cap is then reduced by debt & deals.  Did I misread that?  I tend to overthink things, and my reading of descriptions can be very literal (I'm not trying to be a pain).

[HexBolt8]

Different topic.  I meant to mention this in my feedback but forgot.  Device removal costs now scale.  If the player also has a mod that allows for paying a smith to remove devices (DD Helpers, Devious Lore, etc.) those mods use fixed prices.  At low levels, it will be more advantageous to pay the follower to remove a device.  At higher levels, paying the smith is more and more attractive.  Of course, if you're in a remote location, the smith isn't very convenient so maybe it's worth paying the follower more. 

 

I've thought about this and I don't have a solution.   Maybe it's one of those things that just isn't worth worrying about.  I only mention it because the price scaling is new and there are side effects like this.

[Lupine00]

36 minutes ago, HexBolt8 said:

Did I misread that?

No, that's what it does.

 

23 minutes ago, HexBolt8 said:

If the player also has a mod that allows for paying a smith to remove devices (DD Helpers, Devious Lore, etc.) those mods use fixed prices.

Indeed. Beyond my control. A lot of those mechanisms have conflicted with DF. Devious Lore and Devious Helpers both allow followers to remove devices for nothing and make nonsense of DF. I mentioned the DL feature to the author, but there's no sign of an option to disable it as yet, possibly never will be.

[Lupine00]

40 minutes ago, HexBolt8 said:

I just did that.  I got the Deep Debt Deal and the Modular Deals page did not update.  If I try to turn off Deep Debt Deal, when I return to Modular Deals that option is enabled again.  I can't turn off Deep Debt Deals.  I exited the game and tried again.  Same result as before, deep debt deal and no modular deals listed on that page.

It seems your modular deal controller is broken, not simply uninitialized. Getting a deal forces it to init, so if that didn't fix it, it's simply broken.

That is not something I saw.

[HexBolt8]

40 minutes ago, Lupine00 said:

It seems your modular deal controller is broken, not simply uninitialized. Getting a deal forces it to init, so if that didn't fix it, it's simply broken.

I reinstalled 2.12.  I install manually, so there's no mod manager wonkiness.  I looked at the scripts folder and confirmed that the timestamps for the mod's MCM and mod deal controller match those in the archive.  Not that it should matter, but I use NFF (the latest version) and DFC is lower in the mod order (overriding NFF), as per the instructions.

 

I loaded a very early save of my new game from before I recruited a follower.  I did not touch this mod's MCM.  I was using all default values.  I recruited the follower and promptly saw the "I hope you don't cheat me comment".  Good.  I selected the Click Me dialog and saw the pop-up introduction.  I checked the modular deals and the list was blank.  I asked for a deal and got the plug deal.  Modular deals page still listed no deals, though the General page showed she plug deal active.  Taking a deal didn't update the modular deals list.

 

I reloaded that early save again and repeated the process.  Default values, saw the don't cheat me, etc.  Asked for a deal and got deep debt.  Modular deals list still blank.  Asked for another deal and got another deep debt.  Modular deals list still blank. 

 

Everything seems to be working except displaying the modular deals to be toggled on or off.  I don't know what else to try.  Maybe a Refresh Deals List button in the debug section would help?  

 

I'd made a hard save before activating this mod, so for now I'll go back to that.  No harm done.  If there's something else you'd like me to try, or if you have a debug script you'd like me to run, I can do that.  It's late here so I'm signing off for a awhile.

[Lupine00]

8 minutes ago, HexBolt8 said:

Everything seems to be working except displaying the modular deals to be toggled on or off. 

Yes. I can reproduce that problem and know the cause.

 

Don't worry about the bugs found so far until the next alpha.

 

It may be worth taking a look at the issues Zaflis raised. 

[Lupine00]

Updated alpha

Defunct. There is a new alpha. Look at more recent posts.

 

Should address the aforementioned MCM issues.

 

 These are the changes:

Spoiler

2.12

• Fixed poor wording in debug add follower dialogs.
• Debug add follower dialogs now only show up on PotentialFollower and PotentialHireling faction members.
• Overhaul of MCM layouts so less scrolling is required and General page less crowded.
• Fixed bug where MCM updates would lead to some MCM entries behaving as OTHER entries until you'd re-visisted every page.
• Total rework of all costs and level scaling.
  •     Daily follower cost is now determined by fixed "cost at level 1" and "cost at level 100" values, along with a difficulty curve (or line).
  •     You can choose from preset curves, or put in your own exponent value.
  •     See the main post above for details on the curves.
  •     Most other costs now scale off the cost per day, so you can set up "fair" scalings and tweak the overall mod difficulty by adjusting only the cost per day values.
  •     No more need to constantly tweak Enslavement Threshold or Maximum Debt (which now has a new, clearer name).
  •     Punishment Debt and Deal values are all based off the per-day cost.
• Fixed Chaos updates to they don't only occur if you sleep 6+ hours, but instead occur on all debt updates sleeps.
• Total rework of Chaos system.
  •     Chaos prices are now all scale values too, so your Chaos setup should work with almost any debt configuration.
  •     Chaos doesn't change or overwrite any of the main settings but is completely separate.
  •     If you disable Chaos, your regular settings should take over without having been altered or corrupted.
  •     Chaos settings that are multiplier ARE evenly distributed across the scale range you choose.
  •     The proportional weighted update of chaos values works properly, even for lives.
  •     Chaos does not restore follower lives every time you adjust a setting.
  •     Disable the re-enable chaos will cause a complete (100%) re-randomization of chaos values.
  •     The hide values now only impacts the special chaos values display on the chaos page, and doesn't change or hide any settings in the main configuration - all those values will continue to work as normal; chaos is just a scale applied on top of them (lives and deal duration are an exception to this, in that either the chaos or the normal value is used, but the two do not interfere with each other).
• Added modular "Expensive Deal" - this is a seemingly harmless deal with a 10x normal payoff cost. It can be obtained multiple times, and as a level 1, 2 or 3 deal.
• Fixed willpower-resistance fatigue removal by religious donation.
• Fixed bogus log spam about none items, relating to worn item removal.
• Fixed forced follower start so it doesn't occur while mod is paused.
• Fixed (stopped) enforcement of deals while enslaved.
• Added variant "debt added" follower announcements, depending on gold-control mode and willpower.
• Reworked device application system for enslavement events.
• Fixed various info/tooltip items that were not displaying, or had bad information.
• Raised quest priorities, which should hopefully make more followers reliably devious without causing problems in other mods.
• Updated chaos tooltips which were mainly useless placeholders.
• Fixed inability to disable modular deals in MCM introduced in earlier alpha.
• Fixed broken slider for daily debt increase due to boredom.
• Improved labels and tooltips on main deals menu page.

 

 

Also has some boredom related dialogs about spanking that do nothing. (Part of ongoing development).

Only show up if you have some boredom and highish willpower. Only mentioning them as they do not do anything.

 

 

[blarghxxx]

So turns out the potion quest debuffs work as intended but wasn't noticeable to me because a) I somehow expected to see it under magic effects and b) as a mage the effects aren't as drastic because only weapon damage, incoming damage and worn clothing weight seem to be scaled. Spell damage seems unaffected and plain clothes weigh so little that I didn't really notice the increase in my testing. Well, I guess I should have looked more closely at the values and should have let myself get hit in combat ?

 

This does bring up another question/request: Would it be possible to have the curse affect spell damage as well? Or generally have some more noticeable effects that are detrimental even outside of combat? Like reduced speed or reduced stamina (-regeneration), reduced carry weight, etc.

Does the follower ever withhold the cure from you or does he always help?

 

Great mod all in all. Can't wait to test 2.12

 

[Lupine00]

16 minutes ago, blarghxxx said:

Would it be possible to have the curse affect spell damage as well?

Yes. I suspect it was always intended to do so.

17 minutes ago, blarghxxx said:

Does the follower ever withhold the cure from you or does he always help?

Their behavior varies.

 

18 minutes ago, blarghxxx said:

Can't wait to test 2.12

Make sure you keep a save from before install the alpha.

 

That said, I don't expect to make any changes that will cause a problem for someone upgrading the release over the alpha.

When the release comes out I'll make clear whether people who installed the alpha need to revert before installing it, or can simply upgrade.

[HexBolt8]

5 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

Should address the aforementioned MCM issues.

Unfortunately it has not, not for me.  I see the other MCM improvements (thank you!) but nothing I try causes the modular deals list to appear.  It's still like the screenshot I posted earlier.  The ability to disable deep debt deals works now though. 

 

My latest attempt was with a brand new game.  When my character entered the world (Skyrim Unbound alternate start) I checked the MCM.  No modular deals listed.  I disabled deep debt deals but made no other change in the MCM.  I immediately recruited a follower.  A few seconds later I saw "don't cheat me".  I clicked the Click Me and saw the pop-up.  I checked the MCM.  No modular deals listed.  I asked for a deal and kept checking the MCM.  No change after 2 deals, though the General screen correctly showed the deals I'd been given. 

 

I started all over again and repeated.  This time my first deal was a Wolf deal with No Deal because I'd disabled deep debt deals and no modular deals were displaying.  Shouldn't the mod have given me a classic deal instead?  With the default settings they were all enabled.

[HexBolt8]

I got the modular deals to work, by cheating.  I know it's risky to second-guess someone else's code, but I could not see any place where DealsBuilt ever gets set.  I looked at the _DFlowModDealController quest in the esp, and noted that the DealsBuilt property is set to 0.  I changed it to 17.  With that, the modular deals list appears.  Maybe I did the wrong thing forcing it this way @Lupine00, but I'm sharing my result in case it helps.

[HexBolt8]

Limited Willpower Gain

 

Returning to this topic because I don't think I communicated my request well.  I won't continue to push it; I just wanted to clarify.

 

Spoiler

The willpower recovery mode is handled in the RestoreResist() function in _Dftools.  If the limited option is selected, willpower regain is scaled based on the total number of deals + devices, the "score".   The maximum possible regain with no deals or devices is 5:

 

        If score >= 13.0
            willRegained = 0.0
        ElseIf score >= 9.0
            willRegained = 1.0
        ElseIf score >= 6.0
            willRegained = 2.0
        ElseIf score >= 3.0
            willRegained = 3.0
        ElseIf score >= 1.0
            willRegained = 4.0
        Else
            willRegained = 5.0
        EndIf

 

This is the classic 1.x recovery algorithm.  I was requesting a way to scale that result with a new Limited Willpower Scale slider, so that willRegained would be multiplied by that amount, up to a factor of 2, so that the max possible limited regain would be 10 with no deals or devices. 

 

I like reducing the regain by deals and devices, but I don't like additionally capping the best possible amount at 5. 

 

[SlayerSilverWolf]

Ran into an issue last night where the follower has a pointless option that just loops back around.

 

With no willpower and limited resistance selecting asking about deals then saying "No Thanks" has the follower respond "I know you want to so lets do it anyway" to which you can only respond "Ok" however, when the follower chooses a modular deal (Bear, deal, wolf deal, etc) you are also given the option "No thanks" once they have told you the deal which has the follower repeat their dialogue about knowing you want to and having them choose a different modular deal returning you to the same "Ok" or "No Thanks" dialogue. Choosing "No Thanks" again will repeat the above.

[abode]

I'm using DF with simple slavery. It seems like I am automatically being placed with vanilla followers. I've been using console command to give them the money to be a follower but often times they don't seem to have all the menu options. Right now I can only say "I'd like to pay you", "what rules", and "what should I be wearing." Is there a way to fix this? I've tried the debug menu to make someone a devious follower with no effect. Also, is there a list of devious followers and their locations so I can hopefully work around this issue? I've searched this topic but haven't seen any indication of there being a list.

[HexBolt8]

11 minutes ago, abode said:

I'm using DF with simple slavery. It seems like I am automatically being placed with vanilla followers.

You must select a potential follower in advance for the Simple Slavery outcome.  In the MCM under Other Mod Settings, select "Make nearest NPC slaver for SS outcome" when standing very near to the follower that you want to be sent to.  You'll see a confirmation message. 

 

This mod doesn't add any devious followers or make any NPCs devious by default, so there is no list.  If you recruit a follower and don't already have a devious follower, that follower should become devious automatically unless you've specifically excluded it from being devious.  You'll see a comment something like "I hope you don't cheat me" when that happens.  If not, then you'll have to use the debug option to make an NPC devious.

[Lupine00]

6 hours ago, abode said:

I'm using DF with simple slavery. It seems like I am automatically being placed with vanilla followers. I've been using console command to give them the money to be a follower but often times they don't seem to have all the menu options. Right now I can only say "I'd like to pay you", "what rules", and "what should I be wearing." Is there a way to fix this? I've tried the debug menu to make someone a devious follower with no effect. Also, is there a list of devious followers and their locations so I can hopefully work around this issue? I've searched this topic but haven't seen any indication of there being a list.

Those are acting as DFs. They have DF dialogs. They cannot have those dialogs and not be a DF.

 

If you are a slave, you won't have much more dialog than that. It's normal.

 

I'd need to check more carefully to see if you are missing a dialog, but when you are enslaved you are not getting the full DF experience, you're in slavery mode, and it is different, on purpose.

 

The goal of slavery mode is to get out of it.

 

To do this, you need to pay the follower lots of money and not break their rules.

However, as a slave, they are prone to be quite nasty to you. You may get gagged, chained, used as a whore, or otherwise abused at any time.

You get to hold the amount of gold the follower decides, and they tend to reduce it every time to change cell.

It will be reset on sleep - which you somehow have to pay for if an inn is required.

 

I strongly advise you combine this with a solicitiation mod.

Slaves can't gamble with the follower, can't make deals, and have limited ability to get the follower to remove devious items from them.

 

The approach to get out of slavery is to do dungeons as much as you can. The problem with this is if the follower gets bored or cranky (due to lost lives) they will slap you in heavy chains, or heavy chains and a gag, and demand to return to an inn or similar, for sleep, and further opportunities to mistreat you in public.

 

If you get gagged, the follower won't hear anything from you until you get back to town, at which point you will be aggressively whored for a pittance.

(Sadly, this sometimes breaks. If the whoring thing sticks you will need to reset the mod). It's a bit fragile and is much in need of a fix.

(I plan to fix it after the new scanner goes in SLAX, as it will be able to use that).

 

As a slave, you should be given the following items:

• slave boots that make you crawl
• magic slave mittens that stop you holding things but turn into gloves in combat
• a collar

 

That's all you need to wear, and you aren't allowed to wear any clothes or armor in the body slot, except in dungeons.

[Lupine00]

15 hours ago, SlayerSilverWolf said:

With no willpower and limited resistance selecting asking about deals then saying "No Thanks" has the follower respond "I know you want to so lets do it anyway" to which you can only respond "Ok" however, when the follower chooses a modular deal (Bear, deal, wolf deal, etc) you are also given the option "No thanks" once they have told you the deal which has the follower repeat their dialogue about knowing you want to and having them choose a different modular deal returning you to the same "Ok" or "No Thanks" dialogue. Choosing "No Thanks" again will repeat the above.

This is likely a dialog conditions bug. With low willpower you should not be able to refuse the deal.

[Lupine00]

I have some working spanking in my dev version.

I like it.

You will needs the Nibbles OBJECT pack.

It's better if you also have Anub Human.

 

I haven't looked at the new Cobalt Spanking Pack yet.

[SlayerSilverWolf]

24 minutes ago, Lupine00 said:

This is likely a dialog conditions bug. With low willpower you should not be able to refuse the deal.

Undoubtedly, simply reporting it so you can add it to your list of things to fix if/when you feel like it.

[HexBolt8]

Lupine, when you get a chance, can you comment please on whether my edit to the 2.12 esp to set the DealsBuilt property is okay?  I'm running with it that way since it fixed the modular deal list and things seem to be working as they should now. 

 

A few comments & suggestions on the whore armor, minor things that carried forward from 1.x:

 

The robe weighs 6, more than the armor does.  Since the robe is likely to be skimpy, 0.5 to 1 seems more appropriate.

 

The light armor has the ArmorMaterialBlades keyword, surely an accident from copy/paste.  I'm not aware of anything in the game that checks for this keyword, but if there is it could yield the wrong result.

 

The heavy armor weighs the same as the light armor.  Given that they're both represented by default as nipple armor maybe that was intended, and clearly we're not in the realm of reality here.  That said, the heavy slut armor offers better armor rating than a steel cuirass and is actually very nice at lower levels despite not being able to be tempered, so perhaps doubling its weight to 10 (still very generous) would be a step toward making it a bit less nice than normal armor.

[abode]

Thanks for the info Lupine. It all makes sense now. I forgot that this was a standalone mod with support for SS. I think I've got everything worked out. This is actually a really great mod which spices up the game. One of my pain points was that selling stuff for me was hard since merchants were buying everything for 1-5 gold a piece but it turns out that it was actually from another mod (Deviously Helpless) which I forgot I even installed. I unchecked the setting that gimps buying when you have devious devices on and I think everything's in order

[Lupine00]

3 hours ago, HexBolt8 said:

A few comments & suggestions on the whore armor, minor things that carried forward from 1.x:

 

The robe weighs 6, more than the armor does.  Since the robe is likely to be skimpy, 0.5 to 1 seems more appropriate.

 

The light armor has the ArmorMaterialBlades keyword, surely an accident from copy/paste.  I'm not aware of anything in the game that checks for this keyword, but if there is it could yield the wrong result.

 

The heavy armor weighs the same as the light armor.  Given that they're both represented by default as nipple armor maybe that was intended, and clearly we're not in the realm of reality here.  That said, the heavy slut armor offers better armor rating than a steel cuirass and is actually very nice at lower levels despite not being able to be tempered, so perhaps doubling its weight to 10 (still very generous) would be a step toward making it a bit less nice than normal armor.

I suspect those are reflections of the mess that TAWoBA weights are.

 

Personally, I don't like the look of the whore armor, and as it's not very functional either.

You're almost as well-off going naked (which is also allowed), which at least has zero encumbrance.

In my own games, where weight is always a problem, I usually get rid of all three and wear ... nothing.

In other cases, I used a Melodic model customized to have the settings I preferred at the time.

 

If you are using other bikini armors, they completely subvert the "mechanics" of whore armor, because DF doesn't go looking at every slot on the character for armor.

It's an ironic implementation, that leans on bikini armors for its models, but isn't genuinely compatible with bikini armors.

 

There are other parts of it I don't like. Such as being given three different armors, instead of asking for a specific one.

 

I suspect that in many cases, players edit this to be what they want and don't use it as is. It's kind of a one-shot joke that quickly stops being funny.

 

 

I can tidy it up a bit with minimal effort, but it's an area where player customization is the preferred path and a low value feature anyway.

By which I mean, there are probably other issues with the classic Slave/Whore deal that need attention more urgently.

The amount of polish and robustness present in each of the classic deals is highly variable from stage to stage.

 

It's interesting now, working on the spanks, just how much detail can be put into an apparently small feature.

It's ended up much more complex than I planned, and I can see scope to go even further if I want.

One tiny feature has scope for considerable detail.

 

For example, I block spanking while wearing "heavy bondage", as the animations are not compatible with being bound.

Should I also block it for pet-suits? Or straight-jackets? Or hobble-dresses?

I've decided not to, and let the player make their own call, but it's doubtful it will look good with any of those items.

[Lupine00]

4 hours ago, HexBolt8 said:

Lupine, when you get a chance, can you comment please on whether my edit to the 2.12 esp to set the DealsBuilt property is okay?  I'm running with it that way since it fixed the modular deal list and things seem to be working as they should now. 

You can do what you like  But I wouldn't worry about testing the modular deal MCM features too much in the context of a version you modified yourself.

Your fix sounds right, but I haven't looked into is very deeply. Maybe there's another issue, maybe not.

I believe you identified a problem cause, but really, the intent was to remove that variable's use altogether, and I sort of half-did it and then forgot.

I need to review whether I'm going to excise it completely, or use it, but make sure it gets set (which is easy).

I fixed one big bug in the current alpha, but missed the other, as it didn't show up in my testing environment.

When I put up a new alpha please re-test it then, because that might be broken in a new way.

 

 

I could upload a new version of just the modular deal controller file for anyone that needs it, but you don't, as you already patched it.

But that might not be the final fix.

 

If anyone other than Hexbolt is testing the alpha and wants that fix, just shout out.

 

 

Often, I'm faced with existing code that makes no sense, and figuring out the intended purpose can be hard when code doesn't do what it was intended to do. Maintaining the original intent is often not the best course, if the original intent can even be discerned. The entire mechanism of "checking" modular deals in the MCM is a case in point. It's apparently trying to stop you disabling too many deals, but I'm not sure that even benefits the player. They should be able to set what they like. The issue of whether deals should be able to be disabled while you have a follower is a slightly different question again. There's no right answer to that. I'm tempted to make some more changes in that area, as it still has some needless complexity that delivers little benefit.

 

I'm not going to put up another alpha until spanks are ready to test now. Mainly because of ESP update issues you'll get if you take a half-finished version of spanking. Right now, you shouldn't have any issues with that.

 

I'm interested in more feedback on problems relating to chaos, or cost scaling, or clashing deals, or enslavement, or dialogues, or pretty much anything except the modular deal MCM, which we know is a little broken, and know will be changed.

[HexBolt8]

Thanks for the responses, Lupine.

 

I'd noticed that the Modular Deal checking is quirky.  As you said, it's trying to check the number of deals but it seems to get confused about ensuring that you have enough stage 1 or 2 deals.  And I could get around that check anyway by navigating to another page and back,  It really might be better to just remove the check. 

 

For what it's worth, it seems cleaner to remove that DealsBuilt property.  As a quest property it's going to bite people if they upgrade mid-game if the number of deals changes, and the count is already hard-coded elsewhere.  It seems like an extra moving part that can break. 

 

I'm trying using modular deals with classic deals.  Early results show it working okay in 2.12.  I like the concept of hand-crafted classic deals, but that breaks down if I want to skip a stage 1 or stage 2 deal.  I can't go all modular because deals like I'm a Slut are only available in classic, and I must have that one.  The ultimate system would be modular with player-configurable deal chains.  I know that's huge; I'm just dreaming.  Classic + modular does 90% of what I'm looking for.

 

I'm one of the players who goes all custom (I don't care for bikini armor).  I only noted the odd weights because it's a really simple update.  Especially that 6 pound robe.  IF you ever get around to enhancing that part (since yes it is low priority), a fourth outfit for town whore wear would round out the options since a "robe" might not look exactly the part in town (I assume it's supposed to serve both purposes). 

 

By the way, Tiwa44's UNP Minidresses has some options for the slut robe, particularly the Nocturnal robe which is barely there but still resembles a robe.  (The assets require permission to redistribute.  I'm just sharing the suggestion for individual play with drag & drop into the custom armor folder.)

 

No amount of effort is wasted if it's for spanking.  I believe Einstein said that.  Or was it Socrates?  Anyway, it's a truism.