Dynamic AI behavior based on personality and relationship (framework) - Concept / Future WIP

[jazzyj314]

So the purpose of this post is threefold:

1. Gauge interest before delving into the project

2. Gather insight from more experienced modders to further improve the end result from the start

3. Ensure viability and necessity of the project (can be done, but hasn't been done)

 

This was initially planned for New Vegas, my primary game of choice, but I have decided to start on a Skyrim version first, since it has recently been reinvigorated with the release of the remastered version, and New Vegas is buried behind FO4 in the franchise. I like to do these types of things for others, not myself (I don't care enough about it for me to get over the hurdles, but doing things for others is a driving motivation for me.), so I go where the people are. That said, this has the reputation system in mind from NV, with tweaks to get it to work with Skyrim.

 

The main goal of this framework is to provide a sense of individuality and freedom of choice to the AI in the game. A feeling that the AI aren't all just the same unthinking bots with a different face and dialogue.

This will be achieved with a set of three variables​ applied to each average Joe AI that work in tandem to determine how they behave towards their environment, faction, and the player. Combat is not the goal, so it's not factored in.

The three variables represent: their personal relationship with the player, their obedience to their faction, and a baseline personality that determines preferences in behavior and modifies how they respond to certain actions.

 

A quick hypothetical example would be a city guard with a peaceable personality, a high relationship with the player, and a low obedience to their faction not entering combat when you have a high bounty, but instead approaching you at the gate and telling you that you aren't welcome here right now, enter and the whole city guard will be after you, and maybe even throwing in a tip about how to clear your name.

 

It makes getting on the good side of people useful as you can see. It's also focused on working for other mods, rather than vanilla, so keep that in mind.

 

I'm out of time to write up more for now, so I will expand this a bit later.

 

Feel free to comment on the idea for now though.

[Lodakai]

One of the problems with AI overhauls are the papyrus limitations.  Scripts tend to get bogged down because most people who are modding the game tend to add a lot of scripted mods (especially from this site).

 

Another issue you may run into.  While guard Peaceful McFriendly is trying to warn you that you are not welcome in town...  Guard Bashy McSmashy standing right next to him is busy beating the snot out of you.   Guards are rarely alone, so the end result is that you will just end up crushing them all anyway.   This would basically make the functionality of this concept really fade into the background.  

 

It's not that it is a bad concept.  Quite the contrary.. it is very interesting to have people behave differently.  The concern would be that the cost of having this functionality would be additional scripts to bog down papyrus.  For something that you may not notice too often, it may be too heavy a cost vs benefit.  At least in the way I am interpreting it.  You may have a much better idea than what I am imagining.

 

To make something like this more noticeable, it would be nice to have some kind of fluctuation reflect in dialogue, due to the fact that dialogue is more noticeable than someone who is not attacking you.  Most people just ignore the npc's who are not attacking them unless they are looking for a quest.

 

If you could expand on faction ranks so instead of just  Hate, ally, like, dislike, acquaintance, friend, lover..  I think that would be more noticeable than combat AI.   For example you can add moods as adjustments to the ranks.    So you have someone in friend faction.   But it is raining today, and he/she is grumpy..  they will respond more like an acquaintance.. unless you lighten the mood temporarily by giving a gift or something.  Then you could go about weighting up or down movements through personality archetypes.   A cheerful personality is less likely to have mood loss etc.

 

I think Beeing pregnant had something like PMS where npc's would suffer lower rank responses.   Expanding on this might be interesting.

But whatever you do.. don't get too carried away with features or it will burn you out!  No matter how many times someone like me comes up with all these weird crazy concepts.

 

 

[27X]

Hopefully you'll be implementing those goals as a series of quest webs and faction rank checks with redundant strings and not 18 million cloak spells that poll every npc in a cell every second, cause that shit will take about 5 seconds to kill somebody's game.