Devious Followers Framework Development

[ponzipyramid]

52 minutes ago, Darkwing241 said:

I really like the Idea of jobs, but I think everyone really underestimates how strict the controls need to be and overestimates how radical the jobs need to be.

 

The charm of DFC has always been that it lets you play out the kink fantasy while still playing Skyrim.  Enforcement systems have a place in kink mods but it's important to remember that the point of enforcements systems existing is for players to try to get out of them, cheat them and beat them.  A big part of the fantasy of DFC is that the follower is outsmarting the PC. 

 

Things like inventory and item management, mass dialogue overhauls ect. are EXTREMELY intrusive to actually playing skyrim.  They rely on the writer keeping the player on the perfect narrative track, and not breaking out of it at all (which players will do  if you make that the game).  

 

My vote was always for a very simplistic job giving/enforcing experience.  Something as simple as the follower suggesting which quest to do, or more likely generating simple skyrim-like quests is good enough.  

 

"dear PC go to xxx NPC and do xxx and I will give you a discount/credit on your debt" works just fine for a follower as equal narrative

 

"dear PC go to xxx NPC and do xxx or I will increase your debt/increase my daily pay/require a new deal" works just fine for a demanding follower narrative.

 

The best thing is that the enforcement for these can be very simple.  A follower-equal is offering money that the PC needs, the player gets to CHOOSE to obey (or potentially not obey if other Skyrim stuff needs doing).  A Follower-leader only needs a super simple enforcement mechanic of a timer to make it a demand.  The player then gets to experience the stress of obeying or not obeying and the genuine fear of punishment for disobeying.

 

As for the Jobs themselves, creating your own simplistic quests that parallel normal skyrim quests allows you do drip feed in the deviousness.  For example clothing fit for a jarl could be copied to show off armor for the legion.  Depending on the state of things you could be modeling actual armor or it could be the slutty stuff from the outfit deal.  Have the legates react with some dialogue and that's all you need.  The submission play is all there, getting ordered around, getting dressed up, potentially having the legate "see through you" in practical armor, or humor you in less practical armor.  

 

In general things like prostitution jobs don't have a lot of value, there are TONS of mods that do that game already.  You don't need the follower to interact with that at all.  If the player likes prostitutions scenes they will surely have a prostitutions mod installed already.  The PC will need money so the enforcement is already handled.  

In total agreement about why DFC is great. I use Requiem + SL Survival which greatly increases your reliance on a follower especially in the early game. Under normal circumstances you can just use them as a get out of jail free card but with DFC you have to intelligently and creatively manage their interests with your own. You still get to fight and clear dungeons but there's that extra element of tension.

 

At the same time, I want legitimately disruptive systems that arise out of failure. That failure could be not managing debt properly or failing a combat encounter (which leads to an post-defeat enslavement outcome). I see extremely intrusive systems like those in SD as the new quest objective: escape by whatever means possible. The game switches from being about adventuring to escaping your situation to get back to adventuring, a (hopefully memorable) roadblock on your way to becoming the DB.

 

That being said, I think we can solve this problem by just leaving the configuration up to the user. Since the user gets to decide which add-ons to install and toggle off the deals they don't want they can choose how intrusive the mod is. Though as I'm typing this out, it could be a frustrating trial and error process. Building out these complex systems would be really tough so an initial attempt would closely resemble what you're describing either way. 

Edited April 10, 2023 by ponzipyramid

[Aldid]

The ability to add more games/events and jobs would really go a long way toward making the PC-Follower relationship feel more alive! It's a big part of why SLTR works so well.

 

 

3 hours ago, Darkwing241 said:

The charm of DFC has always been that it lets you play out the kink fantasy while still playing Skyrim.  Enforcement systems have a place in kink mods but it's important to remember that the point of enforcements systems existing is for players to try to get out of them, cheat them and beat them.  A big part of the fantasy of DFC is that the follower is outsmarting the PC.

I do agree with this though. A more formalized loss of control like that could be a lot of fun, but it runs the risk of reframing the DF experience as a straightforward progression to more and more slavery. Part of the fun with DF is the fact that you can return from practically being enslaved to having a more normal relationship, only to slip into slavery again. Any implementation of definitive progression would have to avoid being an inescapable downward spiral while still allowing a player to unwittingly end up at the lower levels. That said, I do like the thought of general progression outside of whatever state the random deals throw at you.

 

3 hours ago, Darkwing241 said:

In general things like prostitution jobs don't have a lot of value, there are TONS of mods that do that game already.  You don't need the follower to interact with that at all.  If the player likes prostitutions scenes they will surely have a prostitutions mod installed already.  The PC will need money so the enforcement is already handled.  

I disagree here though. As shown in both DF and SLTR, the main point of prostitution for the follower is generally not to actually gain any money, but primarily a tool for breaking the PC.

6 hours ago, ponzipyramid said:

Housecarl support: I'm kind of eh on this. I don't really buy any of the housecarls being this awful to their thane at least going by their in-game personalities. Also very time-conused on getting the basic deal injection system working since it forms up the foundation for everything else (this is just a bit of very premature speculation).

I do think there are ways to make it work (the Troubles of Heroine interpretation of Lydia, for example), but I generally don't feel like it's worth spending time on. It's an awful lot of work for a dubious relationship that not a lot of players will actually engage with.

 

6 hours ago, ponzipyramid said:

Follower expects more money (since you're equal partners they should be getting an equal split, right?)

Possibly this could be done through a system like SLTR's gold sharing? A certain percentage of all gold earned goes directly into the follower's pockets.

[Darkwing241]

13 hours ago, Aldid said:

I disagree here though. As shown in both DF and SLTR, the main point of prostitution for the follower is generally not to actually gain any money, but primarily a tool for breaking the PC.

I guess my point isn't so much that a tailored DFC brand prostitution system would be a bad thing.  It likely would have value since any narrative could be structured to match DFC's tone better. 

 

I'm mostly concerned with two things, development time/effort and mod conflicts.  Even operating under the assumption that a very good DFC brand prostitutions gets made, that's immersive, interesting, selects scenes well, is bug free ect. All of that effort a modder put into the new system is likely at best going to be a small upgrade over just using one of the many other systems out there.  DFC players are likely to already have mods like Cursed Loot installed anyway.  So the gain isn't really "a prostitution system" it is just the slight value difference between DFC's system and another.

 

The value gain is further offset by mod conflicts, big robust systems tend to conflict with each other, even if is just at the level of modifying NPC dialogue in a tavern.  It's not a fun experience to have three different prostitution dialogues pop up when you go to an NPC, and then having to play the save reload game to try to figure out which triggers the Followers quest.

[Aldid]

30 minutes ago, Darkwing241 said:

I guess my point isn't so much that a tailored DFC brand prostitution system would be a bad thing.  It likely would have value since any narrative could be structured to match DFC's tone better. 

 

I'm mostly concerned with two things, development time/effort and mod conflicts.  Even operating under the assumption that a very good DFC brand prostitutions gets made, that's immersive, interesting, selects scenes well, is bug free ect. All of that effort a modder put into the new system is likely at best going to be a small upgrade over just using one of the many other systems out there.  DFC players are likely to already have mods like Cursed Loot installed anyway.  So the gain isn't really "a prostitution system" it is just the slight value difference between DFC's system and another.

 

The value gain is further offset by mod conflicts, big robust systems tend to conflict with each other, even if is just at the level of modifying NPC dialogue in a tavern.  It's not a fun experience to have three different prostitution dialogues pop up when you go to an NPC, and then having to play the save reload game to try to figure out which triggers the Followers quest.

Oh, I fully agree! Any prostitution content is best added by just using any of the multiple mods that already accomplish that.

[ponzipyramid]

Just wanna make it clear that prostitution would never be added by the framework itself. I'd leave it up to add-on authors to decide whether they want to implement their own homebrew system or just build a bridge to Radiant Prostitution like SLTR does with the latter being preferred.

[ponzipyramid]

The first version is available on the main page. As stated, this doesn't do anything yet and may contain significant issues. I appreciate any playtesting and bug reports. While people are hopefully trying that out, I'm going to start working on the first add-on, a classic hood deal.

[Aldid]

On 4/16/2023 at 2:13 AM, ponzipyramid said:

The first version is available on the main page. As stated, this doesn't do anything yet and may contain significant issues. I appreciate any playtesting and bug reports. While people are hopefully trying that out, I'm going to start working on the first add-on, a classic hood deal.

I tried it out! But the current version doesn't seem to work, a debug notification says that the selected deal is 0, corresponding to deal extension, so that's the only deal that gets offered at the moment...

[ponzipyramid]

Should be a log file for this mod wherever your saves for Skyrim are located so for me: Documents/My Games/Skyrim Special Edition/SKSE/DeviousFollowersFramework.txt. Can you post that here? Seems like an issue with deal/rule registration.

[coffeeink]

On 4/10/2023 at 3:48 AM, ponzipyramid said:

 So for example if coffee and @Anunya's SLTR add-on is converted to a DFF add-on (no pressure ) it could be used in SLTR, in DFC, and even in SD+.

i"m up to it.

I have tons of code which is i have to say very mighty in a lot of cases.

For me it"s still not clear what the benefit and work for it would mean.

 

The issue is that the current code is heavily lola depended on be fitting in the lola game flow world.

 

With the plans i have in mind and now that the foundation is somehow stable i would say the addon is currently aimed to double the content of lola.

I finished now with the main foundation works and big quests and push out now the content and i make pure polish afterward (like some scene dialogues etc., sometimes it's just a message box and that's it)

Some quests i really like now (like my current dev with the Slave Caravan, that works surprisingly well during my tests right now.)

 

Depending on what your plans are a lot of this content is basically very generic and i only hook in into lola for punishment, playmate etc. (and sex, device calls to be in line with lola)

The only big thing i truly miss at lola are real punishments and "actual slave work" and "training". But i have something in mind for that.

 

What you need to have in mind (and that’s what I don't like on DFC sometimes) is compatibility between tasks.

Lola is solving this with the Story Manager. You add your restrictions over there, and you can be sure that it works before you define and think about another structure.

 

And before you create another system for calling and managing that stuff I highly recommend having a look at how lola does these things.

SM works on a good setup perfectly and you can simply add your conditions.

 

But what i fear is killing your idea in the end is the binding to the main mods. Things like equipping a device etc. And that's only the start. Configs, internal Score Systems etc.

 

If you really want to see a very great mod even if it never finished is Maria Eden. This was from quests, tasks and immersion just top level. (That's what I would like to recreate a little bit with my lola add-on). Never saw a mod which takes over that slave master immersion like that(esp. the last debug versions).

 

For Maid Deal etc.

you have to be careful. i had a working prototype for myself in Battelborn Family. (like the real reason why they are rich). The issue with maid Slave content ... it"s getting boring very fast. You cook 5 times, you collect stuff, you clean and it's getting boring very fast. So either it should be limited to  short and rare occasions or you go all in like wartimes in the upcoming version. This looks just stunning and is what I would say the best adaption of a maid slave mod.

Captured Dreams suffered from that a little bit. Really liked the Manor Slave content, but i caught myself cheating over it on some areas. Collecting ores for several real time hours is not much fun if nothing else happens (I learned in that mod that you can fast as fuck harvest ores by dual wielding the pickaxe). Or smiting thousands of belts. It was fine and I really miss that mod but it had some issues.

 

[Aldid]

3 hours ago, ponzipyramid said:

Should be a log file for this mod wherever your saves for Skyrim are located so for me: Documents/My Games/Skyrim Special Edition/SKSE/DeviousFollowersFramework.txt. Can you post that here? Seems like an issue with deal/rule registration.

Hmm, I checked there and didn't find anything, even after restarting

[ponzipyramid]

30 minutes ago, Aldid said:

Hmm, I checked there and didn't find anything, even after restarting

Interesting, looks like the plugin isn't registering Are there logs from other SKSE mods you have installed (i.e. Fuz Ro Doh)? What version of Skyrim are you running?

[ponzipyramid]

1 hour ago, coffeeink said:

For me it"s still not clear what the benefit and work for it would mean.

If I'm being honest, there's not much benefit since you already went through the process of digging into SLTR to figure out how to build an add-on. The framework simply reduces this barrier of entry and allows the author to focus on building content instead of writing hooks or resolving conflicts with other add-ons. Assuming I or someone else builds DFF add-ons the framework would prevent conflicts from arising (more on that below).

 

1 hour ago, coffeeink said:

What you need to have in mind (and that’s what I don't like on DFC sometimes) is compatibility between tasks.

Lola is solving this with the Story Manager. You add your restrictions over there, and you can be sure that it works before you define and think about another structure.

 

Conflict resolution has constituted the vast majority of my development time . The front page includes a spec for config files that DFF uses to arbitrate conflicts. The first iteration is pretty strict meaning it eagerly excludes deals it thinks will conflict though this can be relaxed over time. Here's an example of what that looks like. This is a config file for a currently active DFC deal.
 

espName: DeviousFollowers.esp
formId: 0x01C866
builtInId: 0
stages: 
  - index: 1
    name: Wear a corset
    rules: 
      - type: wear
        slots: 
          - 58
  - index: 2
    name: Wear gloves & boots
    rules: 
      - type: wear
        slots:
          - 33
          - 37
  - index: 3
    name: Wear a gag
    rules: 
      - type: wear
        slots: 
          - 44
    alt:
        - index: 4
          name: Wear a tape-gag
          rules: 
             - type: wear
               slots: 
                - 44

 

I use the slots and rule type to determine conflicts upfront. So when I get another rule like this:

 

type: wear
builtInId: 3
slots: 
   - 44
levels: 
   - 1
   - 2

 

I see both the deal and rule requires the player to wear something in slot 44 and so the manager auto-excludes it from being selected. I plan to extend these configs to let authors get more control on when and where their deals, quests, and events are started. Open to any suggestions on that front. The manager can auto switch to alternative stages for a given deal for greater variation.

 

Thanks for pointing out the Story Manager, haven't had a chance to dig too deep into SLTR's internals. Are there specific scripts I can take a look at where this is implemented?

 

 

1 hour ago, coffeeink said:

For Maid Deal etc.

you have to be careful. i had a working prototype for myself in Battelborn Family. (like the real reason why they are rich). The issue with maid Slave content ... it"s getting boring very fast. You cook 5 times, you collect stuff, you clean and it's getting boring very fast. So either it should be limited to  short and rare occasions or you go all in like wartimes in the upcoming version. This looks just stunning and is what I would say the best adaption of a maid slave mod.

 

Part of the reason I started working on this was wanting to adapt some of the ideas from Wartimes Tweak as DFC deals.

Edited April 17, 2023 by ponzipyramid

[Aldid]

2 hours ago, ponzipyramid said:

Interesting, looks like the plugin isn't registering Are there logs from other SKSE mods you have installed (i.e. Fuz Ro Doh)? What version of Skyrim are you running?

Yes, I've got plenty of other logs, just not this one sadly...

 

[ponzipyramid]

13 minutes ago, Aldid said:

Yes, I've got plenty of other logs, just not this one sadly...

 

What version are you running, 1.5.97, ..., 1.6.640?

Edited April 18, 2023 by ponzipyramid

[Aldid]

1 hour ago, ponzipyramid said:

What version are you running, 1.5.97, ..., 1.6.640?

I'm on 1.5.97

 

Edit: Looking through the Papyrus log I see some errors along these lines:

 

error: Unbound native function "ToggleRule" called

error: Unbound native function "SelectDeal" called
error: Unbound native function "LoadRuleMaxStage" called

Warning: Assigning None to a non-object variable named "::temp9"

Edited April 18, 2023 by Aldid

[ponzipyramid]

33 minutes ago, Aldid said:

I'm on 1.5.97

 

Edit: Looking through the Papyrus log I see some errors along these lines:

 

error: Unbound native function "ToggleRule" called

error: Unbound native function "SelectDeal" called
error: Unbound native function "LoadRuleMaxStage" called

Warning: Assigning None to a non-object variable named "::temp9"

Huh I'm also on 1.5. Yeah, it looks like the SKSE plugin just isn't registering which provides the bindings for those native funcs. Is there a file called DeviousFollowersFramework.dll in Data/SKSE/Plugins?

 

EDIT: Also if you don't mind, can you post Documents/My Games/Skyrim Special Edition/SKSE/skse64.txt or at least check if there's any mention of DeviousFollowersFramework.dll?

Edited April 18, 2023 by ponzipyramid

[ponzipyramid]

Oh wait, do you have Address Library installed?

[coffeeink]

6 hours ago, ponzipyramid said:

 

Thanks for pointing out the Story Manager, haven't had a chance to dig too deep into SLTR's internals. Are there specific scripts I can take a look at where this is implemented?

 

There is not too much to see.

 

in vkjmq is in the onUpdate Routine a check for a periodic Event, If its possible to get a event, a var gets set to show the line for the player. if the player asks for a task the script event is fired (this is why the kneeling scene is in between to hide that Manager Times, but this is only necessary because the player directly asks for it. This is then triggering a ScriptEvent and goes over the keyword to the corresponding Story Script Event node.

 

So a periodic event is basically just "xxxxx.SendStoryEvent()"

 

Some other quest's and Task are triggered over the location management node. (this is the vast majority)

The rest is working over normal Condition functions.

 

The only recommendation i heard from zaira for Story Manager is to have a decent high Framerate. to have a decent reaction time. But that's a common recommendation for Skyrim scripting, => More FPS == Better Scripting Performance.

Yeah i fucked up in my mod on some occasions by not using Story Manager, but it's easy fixable step by step

The good thing it's pretty reliable and easy to understand.

If you want to add a new mod you simply go in the node and add your quest with conditions which needs to be fulfilled. Skyrim takes care of that.

 

What lola is doing in addition is to have a formlist for all quests to be able to end all tasks and quests if lola get's stopped,

[Aldid]

7 hours ago, ponzipyramid said:

Huh I'm also on 1.5. Yeah, it looks like the SKSE plugin just isn't registering which provides the bindings for those native funcs. Is there a file called DeviousFollowersFramework.dll in Data/SKSE/Plugins?

 

EDIT: Also if you don't mind, can you post Documents/My Games/Skyrim Special Edition/SKSE/skse64.txt or at least check if there's any mention of DeviousFollowersFramework.dll?

I checked and you're right, the plugin is present but just isn't loading for some reason:

 

Quote

checking plugin C:\Games\steamapps\common\Skyrim Special Edition\Data\SKSE\Plugins\\DeviousFollowersFramework.dll
couldn't load plugin C:\Games\steamapps\common\Skyrim Special Edition\Data\SKSE\Plugins\\DeviousFollowersFramework.dll (Error 126)

 

7 hours ago, ponzipyramid said:

Oh wait, do you have Address Library installed?

I do! The latest SE version

[ponzipyramid]

10 hours ago, Aldid said:

I checked and you're right, the plugin is present but just isn't loading for some reason:

 

 

I do! The latest SE version

 

Found this stickied post on the Engine Fixes pages that mentions that Error 126 is likely caused by not having the latest x64 redistributables installed. There's a link there to the packages on Microsoft's site.

[ponzipyramid]

16 hours ago, coffeeink said:

There is not too much to see.

 

in vkjmq is in the onUpdate Routine a check for a periodic Event, If its possible to get a event, a var gets set to show the line for the player. if the player asks for a task the script event is fired (this is why the kneeling scene is in between to hide that Manager Times, but this is only necessary because the player directly asks for it. This is then triggering a ScriptEvent and goes over the keyword to the corresponding Story Script Event node.

 

So a periodic event is basically just "xxxxx.SendStoryEvent()"

 

Some other quest's and Task are triggered over the location management node. (this is the vast majority)

The rest is working over normal Condition functions.

 

The only recommendation i heard from zaira for Story Manager is to have a decent high Framerate. to have a decent reaction time. But that's a common recommendation for Skyrim scripting, => More FPS == Better Scripting Performance.

Yeah i fucked up in my mod on some occasions by not using Story Manager, but it's easy fixable step by step

The good thing it's pretty reliable and easy to understand.

If you want to add a new mod you simply go in the node and add your quest with conditions which needs to be fulfilled. Skyrim takes care of that.

 

What lola is doing in addition is to have a formlist for all quests to be able to end all tasks and quests if lola get's stopped,

Ohhhh, I thought SL had its own internal story manager for content. DFF is DLL based so assuming I can troubleshoot some issues it should run pretty fast.

[Aldid]

23 hours ago, ponzipyramid said:

 

Found this stickied post on the Engine Fixes pages that mentions that Error 126 is likely caused by not having the latest x64 redistributables installed. There's a link there to the packages on Microsoft's site.

Oh, I'll try that out! Thank you!

[Rahrahs]

Hi super awesome people!

 

I had a little moment before when I thought of a great thing that I'd like to happen to my PC and someone suggested that I put the suggestion in here to see if you wonderful creative people could make it happen.

 

Long story short, it's a humiliation type thing where the PC is sold or loaned to a bar / merchant to help improve sales.

 

Original thread is here 

Spoiler

 

 

 

 

[Darkwing241]

8 hours ago, Rahrahs said:

Hi super awesome people!

 

I had a little moment before when I thought of a great thing that I'd like to happen to my PC and someone suggested that I put the suggestion in here to see if you wonderful creative people could make it happen.

 

Long story short, it's a humiliation type thing where the PC is sold or loaned to a bar / merchant to help improve sales.

 

Original thread is here 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

 

 

Radiant prostitution does something very similar to this.  You get to do a food service mini-game with sex scenes.  It doesn't have the "get sold into it" intro scene but you could just roleplay that through a defeat mod or something.

 

Monoman1 is actively working on basically this exact feature in wartime a daughters tale.  He's even posted some video's of it in the past few days.

 

Neither are likely to contain the exact house of gord serving tray thing as that model doesn't exist to my knowledge

[SkyTem]

I like your mod but I just had one suggestion.  In a future version of Devious Followers could you include spanking sounds with the SL spank animations file that would play when a spanking occurred during the animations? 

Edited April 20, 2023 by SkyTem