Devious Followers (8 June 2019)

[Lupine00]

I've been wondering for ages how DF could make followers more necessary, and asking for features that might do that.

 

The "toll" feature in SL Survival that prevents you leaving town without an "escort" is exactly the sort of thing I had in mind.

 

I hope that a softer (and/or tougher?) version of this could be added to DF.

While SLS sort of does the job, it's a bit all-or-nothing, and though I love the idea of it, it seems like quite a pervasive mod, that would often be more than I want.

 

e.g. If you leave town without an escort, you have to pay a toll, or do something devious (see consequences in SL Survival), or you have to sneak out with the possibility of getting caught and being fined or imprisoned.

 

However, if you have a follower, the toll is reduced, or even zero, but settable to a minimum if you want.

Maybe toll the should be level based?

 

I can see some great interactions between this and the gold control mode.

 

Also, with the softer penalty for not having a follower, you aren't forced to have a follower, just encouraged. After all, you can always pay the guards with something other than gold...

 

How would you soften the penalty?

 

(1) Sometimes guards just let you go through anyway because they're in a good mood.

(2) Thanes are allowed through for free.

(3) If you've killed a dragon nearby, you probably don't need an escort.

(4) Higher tolls at night, cheaper during the day.

(5) Sneaking past (easier at night).

 

How could you make it tougher?

(1) Guards demand money based on willpower. Choose whether higher willpower is cheaper or more expensive.

(2) Thanes pay more.

(3) Homeowners pay lots more.

(4) Sneaking very likely to get you a stint in PoP.

(5) Unescorted characters with no money and no local home may be thrown into slavery to pay their "exit debt".

[eulexia]

Quote

The other way.... is SLUTS mod which lets you be a pony girl and make deliveries but you are bound and can't do anything but run round making deliverers while this is safe it's more boring. (still fun that I feel I'm forced to do this though). You can also use this mod to pay off bounties so I can be force to be a pony girl.

Either way, my character is a bad situation but the struggle against the deals I made is fun and failing is fun too  but there needs to be a chance cause it's much more fun if your about to get free to ..... to end up worse off or find out .... you can't yet.... maybe one day.

Unfortunately, I find it doesn't play that well with S.L.U.T.S., because that mod includes a "must walk home to get your stuff while naked/tattooed".  

 

The stuff you have to get includes any deal items, so if you have a deal where you have to wear cuffs/collar/etc, you just get screwed instantly.  

 

Would be awesome if you could rig it so your follower relieves you of those obligations until you recover your gear. 

[eggsalad]

1 hour ago, Lupine00 said:

I've been wondering for ages how DF could make followers more necessary, and asking for features that might do that.

I just decided to roleplay as a fragile and delicate character who doesn't want to engage in direct combat, preferring to hire someone else to do it for her, while she can stick to providing support. Admittedly, it made dungeons somewhat boring, when I'm just spending all my time spamming heals on my follower, who has no concept of trying to avoid taking damage. While it helped a lot to have I Am Your Shield installed, which lets you assign your follower as the tank, I think it's just beyond the scope of modding to make it fun to support an AI-controlled companion. If I were to try again, I'd probably make a glass-cannon mage or a non-stealth sniper, someone who can fight, but prefers to have a follower to protect them.

 

Also, if you're playing with Cursed Loot, device removal gives you a really good reason to want to bring along a follower. When you're in the middle of a dungeon and you get stuck in a hobble dress with no keys, it's really a blessing to have someone who can help you right there and then ...even if it might not feel like a blessing when you're still trying to pay them back for the favor a week later. Even without DCL, it just makes sense from an in-character perspective to not want to wander into unexplored territory alone, even the bravest heroes live longer with a companion who can get them out of a pinch.

 

As for the whole toll concept, I think it would be pointless to simply make it unviable to leave town alone, as you can achieve the same just by telling yourself not to leave town alone and maybe coming up with an in-character reason for it. It could maybe be interesting if you have to weigh the decision, whether to leave alone and face whatever consequences, or bring your follower, which has its own consequences. Unfortunately, I think that's hard to achieve with how DF works currently. Hiring and dismissing your follower when it's convenient for you only works when you have no debt or deals, so you have to be actively avoiding all the content of the mod just to have the option to not bring along your follower.

 

Maybe if future updates added some ways to dismiss your follower without completely clearing your debt and/or finishing your deals. Such as.... follower converts your deals to debt and leaves you, but only after locking you in some indestructible devices as insurance that you'll pay them back to get them removed. With your partial freedom, you can go out and make money on your own without worrying about increasing debt, but you might just come crawling back when you realize how hard things are on your own. Or maybe a system that allows you to request to be sold off somewhere, instead of waiting until you get sent to Simple Slavery. I believe S.L.U.T.S. and Captured Dreams have their own debt systems, so you could just get your debt transferred over, work it off, and then be left wondering whether to risk it all again just to avoid paying a toll. Or maybe an escape option, trick your follower and run away from your debts. Then, when you realize you can't make it on your own, you'll probably want to just recruit another follower, but when you do, they'll just tie you up and bring you to your old follower, who had placed a bounty on you, which you'll be paying back in addition to your old debt.

 

Hard to come up with ideas, and even harder to implement, but essentially what I'm trying to get across is that it needs to be easier to bounce back and forth between having your follower with you and going alone before it becomes relevant to have more features that encourage you to bring a follower or punish you for going alone.

[Lupine00]

4 hours ago, eggsalad said:

Hard to come up with ideas, and even harder to implement, but essentially what I'm trying to get across is that it needs to be easier to bounce back and forth between having your follower with you and going alone before it becomes relevant to have more features that encourage you to bring a follower or punish you for going alone.

 

I don't really understand this, and as phrased, simply do not agree. While it would be fine to have that kind of feature, I don't think its a pre-requisite for features that encourage having a follower. The toll feature in SLS doesn't require an ability to bounce in and out of having a follower to work, it's already fine - the issues with it are that it needs SLS (which brings baggage), and is a bit of a blunt instrument that makes a follower a bit too obligatory.

 

Sure, it would also be good to have a feature where you can "take a break" from a follower, and then come back to them later, such as described above, but I don't think its as fundamental. I could say why I disagree with each point above, one by one, but I think it should be obvious that it's basically a matter of taste. I for one don't want SLUTS in my LO, revamped or otherwise. It isn't well balanced, and frequently, it is bugged. So there simply is no scenario where I swap over to using it right now - not unless the revamp gets a lot better. As for SD+ etc, once DF improves its own slavery mode a bit more, I don't think I'll have any more need for SD+ at all, ever. DF is already better in most cases, and simply lacks one or two slavery features, and a way to surrender directly into it on defeat.

 

Clarifying a bit... Sure, you can "just decide" to have a follower, this is probably the default for most people, even though they know the follower is more trouble than help. Or you can play a weak character, though that gets old after a few tries. Or you can set DCL to make things hard, but really anything DCL does to make things harder only makes a follower doubly treacherous, so its still not making a follower a genuine benefit. DCL is, and always has been a way to add pain and delays to skyrim, and DF simply lets you convert that pain and delay into different pain and delay.

 

DF adds "trouble" to having a follower, so it seems only fair that it could make not having a follower even more trouble. In fact, I think it should. Possibly Lozeak feels that's the job of other mods to do that, but apart from SLS there aren't any such mods (I just don't think the DCL argument stacks up). You could consider the whole realm of things that happen without a follower out of scope, but I think they are very much the concern of DF in this context.

[eggsalad]

I'm just trying to imagine what it would be like to get punished more harshly for not having a follower, and currently, I can't see how it would really affect anything unless you've started a new game and haven't decided to recruit a follower yet, or you're trying to avoid the content of the mod by going solo whenever you can. The former just doesn't happen often enough to build features around it, and the latter isn't something I can imagine anyone wanting to do, but maybe I just find it hard to grasp because it doesn't match my way of playing. It's fun to try to "resist" and get pulled in anyway, but not when it leads to spending hours before getting to the meat of the mod because I keep dismissing my follower before my debt gets too high.

[Gimlord]

Hello, i have the deal where the follower whores you out for 50g. When i select to resist, i get a message saying some stuff and also that the follower binds me with handcuffs. The last one doesn't happen for me.
Also when the follower controls my gold, i can't see the show dept dialogue and the one to pay.

[Kalthen]

8 minutes ago, Gimlord said:

Hello, i have the deal where the follower whores you out for 50g. When i select to resist, i get a message saying some stuff and also that the follower binds me with handcuffs. The last one doesn't happen for me.

Does it happen when you progress the slut deal regularly, too? Not getting bound? You have two options for the final stage. The rope bind is from DDx 4.1

Also I remember having had that once, too.

[Gimlord]

1 hour ago, Kalthen said:

Does it happen when you progress the slut deal regularly, too? Not getting bound? You have two options for the final stage. The rope bind is from DDx 4.1

Also I remember having had that once, too.

Didn't notice that cause i tried not to get to hard bondage for the jarl event

[Reesewow]

5 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

DF adds "trouble" to having a follower, so it seems only fair that it could make not having a follower even more trouble. In fact, I think it should. Possibly Lozeak feels that's the job of other mods to do that, but apart from SLS there aren't any such mods (I just don't think the DCL argument stacks up). You could consider the whole realm of things that happen without a follower out of scope, but I think they are very much the concern of DF in this context.

I do think that things like a toll or other incentive to having a follower is outside the scope of Devious Followers, especially if another mod like SLS already offers that exact functionality and DF could be considered a companion mod to that.  Similarly I don't think DF should include random devices being equipped as a base function (ala Cursed Loot) as again that is outside the scope of the follower and other mods already provide that functionality.  I believe one of the reasons DF has been so successful as a mod is that it has a very tight focus and really tries to avoid blocking gameplay, which translates into it being a highly compatible mod that accentuates other mods rather than fights with them (at worst requiring a pause for long scripted enslavement type mods).

 

It is unfortunate that SLS has too much baggage to be viable for you (I haven't been able to use it either because of its hard dependency on Needs mods I don't want to install), but hopefully someone spins its ideas about city tolls/taxes ect into a lighter package.

 

Of course, that someone "could" be Lozeak if he's interested.  I know he said long term he had killed Devious World and would instead possibly work on a "Devious Cities" type mod that would be a companion mod for DF and make settlements more devious.  Your gate toll ideas would be perfect features for a mod like that IMO.

[Mexicola88]

1 hour ago, Gimlord said:

Didn't notice that cause i tried not to get to hard bondage for the jarl event

You just need 5 or more deals for that, then ONLY wear a collar and go to the jarl of whiterun. I only did it one time to find out what it is.

 

Something is weird lately if i have all deals active, then very often there is a endless circle of tapping on shoulder and piercing shock if i talk to npcs.

 

 

How is that piercing shock triggered by low willpower or because the debt hasn't been paid or it's random or punishment for something else? Piercing deal is just nasty now completely ruins the game. Talk to npcs get shocked, talk to npcs get shocked an endless circle. Every few minutes i was able to speak to a npc and then i got tapped on the shoulder that killed the conversation, then i got shocked again, and again tapped on shoulder. It was endless. Something is off with the slut and piercing deal. And everytime i go to sleep 6 hours right after i wake up i lose my willpower again because the DF fucks my PC. Is that wanted that it's really impossible to keep willpower? I always ended up with 0 at some point with no chance to get it back. Also endless circle sleep 6 hours clean DF lose willpower, try to sleep again wake up clean DF lose willpower and so on.

 

Is there a hidden option in the MCM that adjusts the willpower gain if i let my PC sleep? I haven't found it.

[Reesewow]

Just now, Mexicola88 said:

How is that piercing shock triggered by low willpower or because the debt hasn't been paid or it's random or punishment for something else?

Piercing deal level 3 requires you to be naked to talk to NPCs - if you are not naked your follower shocks you to remind you to "show your piercings".  I imagine the nudity detection is based on keywords, so if you have accessories on that use armor keywords they may trigger the shocks even if you aren't wearing chest slot armor.  Basically level 3 piercing deal is "soft" nudity requirement - you can wear armor for adventuring and talking to your follower (triggers the "checking your piercings" event as well), but need to be naked for talking with any other NPCs.  It isn't related to willpower.

 

As for willpower, there isn't an MCM menu *yet* that lets you change willpower gain/loss amounts.  It does sound like one is planned.  However, I do think that if you have multiple high level deals active at once you are intended to hit 0 willpower and pretty much stay there - your PC will be getting used constantly by your follower and you'll always be in bondage so sleeping doesn't gain you much willpower.  The solution is simply to save up and buy out of your deals, or at least pay off the nastier ones so you aren't constantly being used by your follower.

 

Having "ALL" deals active however is pretty nuts, I don't think you should really expect to keep any willpower in those circumstances - your poor PC is basically a slave in all but name at that point.

[HexBolt8]

16 hours ago, eulexia said:

Unfortunately, I find it doesn't play that well with S.L.U.T.S., because that mod includes a "must walk home to get your stuff while naked/tattooed".  The stuff you have to get includes any deal items, so if you have a deal where you have to wear cuffs/collar/etc, you just get screwed instantly.  

Doesn't your Devious Follower have a dialogue option for asking for more devices or whore armor if you lost yours?  If you found any that your follower won't provide to you again, why not make a list and maybe Lozeak would want to add follower dialogue to give you another set, for a price of course. 

[HexBolt8]

On taking a break, eggsalad, Lupine00, and Reesewow all had good points. 

 

While some of the ideas for things like a toll seem out of scope (and are already handled by other mods), I personally like the idea of somehow taking a break.  Why?  Because sometimes a quest requires you to have zero active followers to proceed.  If I'm in debt to a devious follower, I won't be able to dismiss that follower potentially for a long time, which locks me out of interesting quest lines.  I'd like to take a break and dismiss my follower to rest in town while I attend to personal business.  Pausing the mod and making the follower wait doesn't go far enough to satisfy some quests. 

 

A "break" should come at a cost.  Deals would be frozen but debt would still accrue.  As mentioned above, Captured Dreams handles indebtedness by locking the player in an inescapable belt (and possibly other devices).  If you want to ever be free you must return at some point.  Players who don't want it can ignore the take-a-break option, but having it would expand the range of possible gameplay with a devious follower. 

 

Similarly, I'd also be interested in a toggle to allow the player to be enslaved while having a devious follower.  From what I've experienced, this mod locks the player from enslavement, understandably so since the follower is essentially a master.  But it locks out other content.  I can't be enslaved by Defeat or Deviously Enslaved with a devious follower.  (I don't know if it would work with SD+'s surrender button, but I tend to die quickly when the tide turns and I would't be fast enough to press the key.) 

 

Sure, a devious follower can torment you, but I feel too safe knowing that I can't be enslaved.  A follower shouldn't guarantee that kind of safety.  I miss the thrill of knowing that if I lose to that bandit, I might become his slave.  This mod adds a lot, but I'm missing the other content.  I miss SLUTS runs.  It feels really weak to volunteer for one and at a time of my choosing, but if it's an outcome of Simple Slavery I'd have to accept my fate.  Kinda-sorta like this mod's sell-on feature, it's the idea of losing control at any moment.  A devious follower is a bitch, but it takes away the thrill and uncertainty.  After a while it feels too safe, the perils out there too limited.

 

If practical, I'd appreciate the option of unlocking my character from enslavement by other mods.  If enslavement occurs, the devious follower flees (hell, she probably traded me for her escape).  It would be like taking a break.  When I find the follower again, the deals and debt would be waiting for me, maybe with extra debt added for my "enjoying a vacation". 

 

Just some thoughts.  Different people want different experiences, but I've tried to explain why taking a break in some form and vulnerability to enslavement -- as player options -- would open up more content and more ways to play. 

[Lupine00]

5 hours ago, Reesewow said:

I do think that things like a toll or other incentive to having a follower is outside the scope of Devious Followers, especially if another mod like SLS already offers that exact functionality and DF could be considered a companion mod to that.

SLS clearly wants to integrate with DF, which is good, but SLS is tightly bound to RND, and is full of intrusive functionality that many will never want or need. Also, it takes something of a simulationist, rather than game-play driven approach to design, and as I've said many times, I feel that is almost always a mistake. But I should save such points for the SLS forum, not here.

 

What does matter is that SLS is trying to be something like Lozeak's imagined "Devious World", and I think I'd probably prefer to see the Lozeak version.

 

It might well be wise to split such functionality away from DF, but I'd still like to see it done differently to SLS. Some of the ideas in SLS are very interesting, they simply need reframing as pure gameplay and executed in robust ways. Much in SLS is highly relevant to DF.

 

As for "take a break", I have put forward various suggestions in the past. I think the "pause" functionality suffices for me. Not very immersive, but it is practical.

[Kalthen]

1 hour ago, HexBolt8 said:

Doesn't your Devious Follower have a dialogue option for asking for more devices or whore armor if you lost yours?  If you found any that your follower won't provide to you again, why not make a list and maybe Lozeak would want to add follower dialogue to give you another set, for a price of course. 

That would actually be a nice feature. To ask for some armour. In my setup with Naked Dungeons running, loosing armour is a high probability. 

[Reesewow]

Just now, Kalthen said:

That would actually be a nice feature. To ask for some armour. In my setup with Naked Dungeons running, loosing armour is a high probability. 

That actually does exist already with the plug deal level 2 or higher - you can ask for a new set of your "whore armor" for a price if that deal is running.  So that deal would actually be a somewhat beneficial one to take if you run armor destroying/removing mods like Naked Dungeons.

 

For those that have issues with SLUTS and deals there are three solutions I can think of that don't involve special coding to handle (haven't tested them personally, just suggestions to try):

 

• There is a MCM option in SLUTS that stops the mod from taking all your gear - instead *just* your gold will be taken an put into a chest.  So as long as you have enough time before you need to pay your follower you should be able to re-equip your deal items after finishing a run.  Worst comes to worse and you get stuck with doing SLUTS runs long-term you could make deals to cover your debts.
• I *think* unpausing DF causes you to receive a new set of deal items (at least it used to on previous versions).  So if needed you may be able to pause DF, exit the MCM menu and then unpause it immediately to get a set of items to wear to cover your deals.
• Likely less desireable option - pause DF for the entirety of doing SLUTS missions and unpause once you are finished.

[Lozeak]

22 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

I've been wondering for ages how DF could make followers more necessary, and asking for features that might do that.

 

The "toll" feature in SL Survival that prevents you leaving town without an "escort" is exactly the sort of thing I had in mind.

 

I hope that a softer (and/or tougher?) version of this could be added to DF.

While SLS sort of does the job, it's a bit all-or-nothing, and though I love the idea of it, it seems like quite a pervasive mod, that would often be more than I want.

 

e.g. If you leave town without an escort, you have to pay a toll, or do something devious (see consequences in SL Survival), or you have to sneak out with the possibility of getting caught and being fined or imprisoned.

 

However, if you have a follower, the toll is reduced, or even zero, but settable to a minimum if you want.

Maybe toll the should be level based?

 

I can see some great interactions between this and the gold control mode.

 

Also, with the softer penalty for not having a follower, you aren't forced to have a follower, just encouraged. After all, you can always pay the guards with something other than gold...

 

How would you soften the penalty?

 

(1) Sometimes guards just let you go through anyway because they're in a good mood.

(2) Thanes are allowed through for free.

(3) If you've killed a dragon nearby, you probably don't need an escort.

(4) Higher tolls at night, cheaper during the day.

(5) Sneaking past (easier at night).

 

How could you make it tougher?

(1) Guards demand money based on willpower. Choose whether higher willpower is cheaper or more expensive.

(2) Thanes pay more.

(3) Homeowners pay lots more.

(4) Sneaking very likely to get you a stint in PoP.

(5) Unescorted characters with no money and no local home may be thrown into slavery to pay their "exit debt".

 

18 hours ago, eggsalad said:

I just decided to roleplay as a fragile and delicate character who doesn't want to engage in direct combat, preferring to hire someone else to do it for her, while she can stick to providing support. Admittedly, it made dungeons somewhat boring, when I'm just spending all my time spamming heals on my follower, who has no concept of trying to avoid taking damage. While it helped a lot to have I Am Your Shield installed, which lets you assign your follower as the tank, I think it's just beyond the scope of modding to make it fun to support an AI-controlled companion. If I were to try again, I'd probably make a glass-cannon mage or a non-stealth sniper, someone who can fight, but prefers to have a follower to protect them.

 

Also, if you're playing with Cursed Loot, device removal gives you a really good reason to want to bring along a follower. When you're in the middle of a dungeon and you get stuck in a hobble dress with no keys, it's really a blessing to have someone who can help you right there and then ...even if it might not feel like a blessing when you're still trying to pay them back for the favor a week later. Even without DCL, it just makes sense from an in-character perspective to not want to wander into unexplored territory alone, even the bravest heroes live longer with a companion who can get them out of a pinch.

 

As for the whole toll concept, I think it would be pointless to simply make it unviable to leave town alone, as you can achieve the same just by telling yourself not to leave town alone and maybe coming up with an in-character reason for it. It could maybe be interesting if you have to weigh the decision, whether to leave alone and face whatever consequences, or bring your follower, which has its own consequences. Unfortunately, I think that's hard to achieve with how DF works currently. Hiring and dismissing your follower when it's convenient for you only works when you have no debt or deals, so you have to be actively avoiding all the content of the mod just to have the option to not bring along your follower.

 

Maybe if future updates added some ways to dismiss your follower without completely clearing your debt and/or finishing your deals. Such as.... follower converts your deals to debt and leaves you, but only after locking you in some indestructible devices as insurance that you'll pay them back to get them removed. With your partial freedom, you can go out and make money on your own without worrying about increasing debt, but you might just come crawling back when you realize how hard things are on your own. Or maybe a system that allows you to request to be sold off somewhere, instead of waiting until you get sent to Simple Slavery. I believe S.L.U.T.S. and Captured Dreams have their own debt systems, so you could just get your debt transferred over, work it off, and then be left wondering whether to risk it all again just to avoid paying a toll. Or maybe an escape option, trick your follower and run away from your debts. Then, when you realize you can't make it on your own, you'll probably want to just recruit another follower, but when you do, they'll just tie you up and bring you to your old follower, who had placed a bounty on you, which you'll be paying back in addition to your old debt.

 

Hard to come up with ideas, and even harder to implement, but essentially what I'm trying to get across is that it needs to be easier to bounce back and forth between having your follower with you and going alone before it becomes relevant to have more features that encourage you to bring a follower or punish you for going alone.

14 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

 

I don't really understand this, and as phrased, simply do not agree. While it would be fine to have that kind of feature, I don't think its a pre-requisite for features that encourage having a follower. The toll feature in SLS doesn't require an ability to bounce in and out of having a follower to work, it's already fine - the issues with it are that it needs SLS (which brings baggage), and is a bit of a blunt instrument that makes a follower a bit too obligatory.

 

Sure, it would also be good to have a feature where you can "take a break" from a follower, and then come back to them later, such as described above, but I don't think its as fundamental. I could say why I disagree with each point above, one by one, but I think it should be obvious that it's basically a matter of taste. I for one don't want SLUTS in my LO, revamped or otherwise. It isn't well balanced, and frequently, it is bugged. So there simply is no scenario where I swap over to using it right now - not unless the revamp gets a lot better. As for SD+ etc, once DF improves its own slavery mode a bit more, I don't think I'll have any more need for SD+ at all, ever. DF is already better in most cases, and simply lacks one or two slavery features, and a way to surrender directly into it on defeat.

 

Clarifying a bit... Sure, you can "just decide" to have a follower, this is probably the default for most people, even though they know the follower is more trouble than help. Or you can play a weak character, though that gets old after a few tries. Or you can set DCL to make things hard, but really anything DCL does to make things harder only makes a follower doubly treacherous, so its still not making a follower a genuine benefit. DCL is, and always has been a way to add pain and delays to skyrim, and DF simply lets you convert that pain and delay into different pain and delay.

 

DF adds "trouble" to having a follower, so it seems only fair that it could make not having a follower even more trouble. In fact, I think it should. Possibly Lozeak feels that's the job of other mods to do that, but apart from SLS there aren't any such mods (I just don't think the DCL argument stacks up). You could consider the whole realm of things that happen without a follower out of scope, but I think they are very much the concern of DF in this context.

11 hours ago, eggsalad said:

I'm just trying to imagine what it would be like to get punished more harshly for not having a follower, and currently, I can't see how it would really affect anything unless you've started a new game and haven't decided to recruit a follower yet, or you're trying to avoid the content of the mod by going solo whenever you can. The former just doesn't happen often enough to build features around it, and the latter isn't something I can imagine anyone wanting to do, but maybe I just find it hard to grasp because it doesn't match my way of playing. It's fun to try to "resist" and get pulled in anyway, but not when it leads to spending hours before getting to the meat of the mod because I keep dismissing my follower before my debt gets too high.

1 hour ago, HexBolt8 said:

On taking a break, eggsalad, Lupine00, and Reesewow all had good points. 

 

While some of the ideas for things like a toll seem out of scope (and are already handled by other mods), I personally like the idea of somehow taking a break.  Why?  Because sometimes a quest requires you to have zero active followers to proceed.  If I'm in debt to a devious follower, I won't be able to dismiss that follower potentially for a long time, which locks me out of interesting quest lines.  I'd like to take a break and dismiss my follower to rest in town while I attend to personal business.  Pausing the mod and making the follower wait doesn't go far enough to satisfy some quests. 

 

A "break" should come at a cost.  Deals would be frozen but debt would still accrue.  As mentioned above, Captured Dreams handles indebtedness by locking the player in an inescapable belt (and possibly other devices).  If you want to ever be free you must return at some point.  Players who don't want it can ignore the take-a-break option, but having it would expand the range of possible gameplay with a devious follower. 

 

Similarly, I'd also be interested in a toggle to allow the player to be enslaved while having a devious follower.  From what I've experienced, this mod locks the player from enslavement, understandably so since the follower is essentially a master.  But it locks out other content.  I can't be enslaved by Defeat or Deviously Enslaved with a devious follower.  (I don't know if it would work with SD+'s surrender button, but I tend to die quickly when the tide turns and I would't be fast enough to press the key.) 

 

Sure, a devious follower can torment you, but I feel too safe knowing that I can't be enslaved.  A follower shouldn't guarantee that kind of safety.  I miss the thrill of knowing that if I lose to that bandit, I might become his slave.  This mod adds a lot, but I'm missing the other content.  I miss SLUTS runs.  It feels really weak to volunteer for one and at a time of my choosing, but if it's an outcome of Simple Slavery I'd have to accept my fate.  Kinda-sorta like this mod's sell-on feature, it's the idea of losing control at any moment.  A devious follower is a bitch, but it takes away the thrill and uncertainty.  After a while it feels too safe, the perils out there too limited.

 

If practical, I'd appreciate the option of unlocking my character from enslavement by other mods.  If enslavement occurs, the devious follower flees (hell, she probably traded me for her escape).  It would be like taking a break.  When I find the follower again, the deals and debt would be waiting for me, maybe with extra debt added for my "enjoying a vacation". 

 

Just some thoughts.  Different people want different experiences, but I've tried to explain why taking a break in some form and vulnerability to enslavement -- as player options -- would open up more content and more ways to play. 

1 hour ago, Lupine00 said:

SLS clearly wants to integrate with DF, which is good, but SLS is tightly bound to RND, and is full of intrusive functionality that many will never want or need. Also, it takes something of a simulationist, rather than game-play driven approach to design, and as I've said many times, I feel that is almost always a mistake. But I should save such points for the SLS forum, not here.

 

What does matter is that SLS is trying to be something like Lozeak's imagined "Devious World", and I think I'd probably prefer to see the Lozeak version.

 

It might well be wise to split such functionality away from DF, but I'd still like to see it done differently to SLS. Some of the ideas in SLS are very interesting, they simply need reframing as pure gameplay and executed in robust ways. Much in SLS is highly relevant to DF.

 

As for "take a break", I have put forward various suggestions in the past. I think the "pause" functionality suffices for me. Not very immersive, but it is practical.

 

Basically, adding reasons to have a follower really falls outside of this mod. I am aware that it's something that would help the mod. 

Initially, I wanted to add debuff for low willpower or a buff for followers but considering nearly every player has there own version of skyrim or custom followers doing this will basically not be a solution so I decided against it.

Things happening at low willpower so I might add something to this but I have injected the Variable into Update.esm so any mod can react to it if they wish this is basically for future mods when I get to them (most of my mod will use the willpower system in some form because it's a good tool)

 

Either way, discussed this before and balancing the game is out of Devious Followers scope and unless I add a lot of things it's just not gonna do the job.

 

When i get to other mods, yes it will react to you not having a follower.

 

Their is one idea I do have of a stalker that will basically force them self on to you as a follower unless you have a follower and well they will be worse than having deals but this is post 2.0.

 

19 hours ago, eulexia said:

Unfortunately, I find it doesn't play that well with S.L.U.T.S., because that mod includes a "must walk home to get your stuff while naked/tattooed".  

 

The stuff you have to get includes any deal items, so if you have a deal where you have to wear cuffs/collar/etc, you just get screwed instantly.  

 

Would be awesome if you could rig it so your follower relieves you of those obligations until you recover your gear. 

 

I just use pause and set SLUT not to take the players items. 

 

=======================================

 

Some mentioned device reissuing. It's something planned at some point it will hopefully be a system you can access the a range of devices too so you can pick and choose what devices you wear. It's not in near future though but I want to add this before 2.0.

 

 

 

 

 

[Lupine00]

10 hours ago, Lozeak said:

Basically, adding reasons to have a follower really falls outside of this mod. I am aware that it's something that would help the mod. 

Initially, I wanted to add debuff for low willpower or a buff for followers but considering nearly every player has there own version of skyrim or custom followers doing this will basically not be a solution so I decided against it.

Things happening at low willpower so I might add something to this but I have injected the Variable into Update.esm so any mod can react to it if they wish this is basically for future mods when I get to them (most of my mod will use the willpower system in some form because it's a good tool)

 

Either way, discussed this before and balancing the game is out of Devious Followers scope and unless I add a lot of things it's just not gonna do the job.

 

When i get to other mods, yes it will react to you not having a follower.

 

Their is one idea I do have of a stalker that will basically force them self on to you as a follower unless you have a follower and well they will be worse than having deals but this is post 2.0.

As the idea of getting a follower you didn't ask for was on my wish list, I'm happy with that ... whenever it happens.

That said, I'm more interested in that happening as a result of "rescue" circumstances, or low willpower, rather than without obvious cause.

 

I don't think this is about balance though.

 

For me, it's never been about balance, it's been about immersion.

 

I need to justify to myself some reason, roleplay, or practical, why I should recruit a follower, who I know will be expensive.

When the costs have been tweaked the way I like them, the follower will almost certainly be a liability, so I look for an in-game rationale for taking on that liability.

 

While the roleplay "weak character" is OK once or twice, it gets tired, and isn't entirely believable, as the PC inevitably is forced to become stronger as the game progresses, even if you try (and I have tried).

 

I don't believe in that DF can be balanced against no follower, and I'm not asking for it.

It simply doesn't make any sense to try, given that the costs and penalties will vary widely from one player configuration to another.

In short, I never asked for balance in the sense that no follower should be harder than having a follower.

 

But... Immersive reasons to have a follower, such as tolls, kidnap scenarios, and other things that are fun are what I'm looking for.

 

However, I agree that it's a valid choice not to put that in DF. It's something that could be in a separate mod; it's just that such a mod doesn't really exist.

SLS isn't it for me, and I think a lot of people probably haven't even heard of Sexlab Survival, but more obviously, it's not the objective of SLS.

 

[Krynn]

I have only two problems at the moment.
when the hands are tied, they will never be freed, I have also no ropes at this point, which you can visually see.
and in the chastity deal I still get none of my follower.

 

[Mexicola88]

18 hours ago, Reesewow said:

Piercing deal level 3 requires you to be naked to talk to NPCs - if you are not naked your follower shocks you to remind you to "show your piercings".  I imagine the nudity detection is based on keywords, so if you have accessories on that use armor keywords they may trigger the shocks even if you aren't wearing chest slot armor.  Basically level 3 piercing deal is "soft" nudity requirement - you can wear armor for adventuring and talking to your follower (triggers the "checking your piercings" event as well), but need to be naked for talking with any other NPCs.  It isn't related to willpower.

 

As for willpower, there isn't an MCM menu *yet* that lets you change willpower gain/loss amounts.  It does sound like one is planned.  However, I do think that if you have multiple high level deals active at once you are intended to hit 0 willpower and pretty much stay there - your PC will be getting used constantly by your follower and you'll always be in bondage so sleeping doesn't gain you much willpower.  The solution is simply to save up and buy out of your deals, or at least pay off the nastier ones so you aren't constantly being used by your follower.

 

Having "ALL" deals active however is pretty nuts, I don't think you should really expect to keep any willpower in those circumstances - your poor PC is basically a slave in all but name at that point.

Ah i see it was the punishment for wearing the Whore Armor. Okay now it makes sense i thought something is broken. I was talking to NPC's in the base of the vampirehunters (don't know the english name of it) it isn't a town löcation i guess, that's why i was allowed to wear the whore armor. 

 

Edit: It would be great if we could fortify the whore armor to legendary and maybe activate all enchanting options for it. It's mostly the only piece of armor im wearing if playing with DF active. So it would be helpful to be able to max that one piece out in any way we want.

 

Maybe i try the loose version now instead to be able to use custom whore armor. But i would probably need to edit the armor in TES5EDIT i guess, to be able to enchant it the way i like it.

[Krynn]

I can replace the whores armor with DFCustWhoreArmor, right?
Strangely, I just do not get any textures.

[CGi]

9 minutes ago, Krynn said:

I can replace the whores armor with DFCustWhoreArmor, right?
Strangely, I just do not get any textures.

it's not enough to only put the meshes in place, you need to copy the textures of the used mesh - without changing path and names - too (unless you edit those in the NiF).

[Reesewow]

2 hours ago, Krynn said:

when the hands are tied, they will never be freed, I have also no ropes at this point, which you can visually see.

You have to ask your follower to free you  - the will do it under the "can you help me with these devices" menu.  Even without that, the rope bindings are set to be very easy to struggle out of using the DD struggle option.

 

The rope bindings are a DD 4.1 item - they have a separate bodyslide listing I believe so make sure you build them specifically.

[Krynn]

nein ich glaube das meinte ich nicht...
wenn mein begleiter meine hände bindet, wegen dem deal... strip you naked and bind your hands usw...
dann werden meine hände nicht mehr aufgebunden und ich sehe auch keine grafik der fesseln, auch wenn ich diesen bound deal bezahle, bleiben meine hände immer gefesselt.
auch wenn ich mich komplett frei kaufe, bleiben meine hände immer noch am rücken gefesselt und ich sehe aber keine fesseln, die grafik ist wie mit diesen seilen, aber ich sehe keine und werden mir auch nicht mehr entfernt.

 

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

no i do not think i meant that ...
if my companion binds my hands, because of the deal ... strip you naked and bind your mobile phone etc ... *looool* that was google translate....!!!! kneel on the floor laughing! 
then my hands are no longer tied up and I do not see a graphic of the bind, even if I pay this bound deal, my hands are always tied up.
even if I buy myself completely free, my hands are still tied to the back and I see no restraints, the graphics is like with these ropes, but I see no and will not be removed.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Krynn]

2 hours ago, CGi said:

it's not enough to only put the meshes in place, you need to copy the textures of the used mesh - without changing path and names - too (unless you edit those in the NiF).

 

oh oke, i have renamed this as the original one.

I have to try once, if I have more time.

Thank you!