Devious Followers (8 June 2019)

[naaitsab]

Liking the idea so far, has come a long way since the earlier versions

 

Some things I ran into on the last build:

-When wearing a chastity belt from one of the 2 belt deal outcomes you can't insert anything from the plug deal. So temporary disabling this quest when wearing a belt or better script-wise (un)equipping the plug(s) would fix this.

-When wearing the tape gag the force-greets for the denial belt (dice game) and 'pissing' game bug out due to a priority issue/conflict with the gag dialogue from DDi.

 

Small idea for deals.

-The rubber deal. Wear a catsuit -> gloves+socks/ballet -> gasmask

-Pony deal. Wear the ponyboots -> pony plug -> briddle gag

-Chaste deal. Wear the belt with edging-only plugs -> bra -> panel gag

As the deals have overlapping parts with other deals they can't all be done together.

[HexBolt8]

On the Other Mod Settings tab, there are 3 sliders for SS enslavement outcomes:  Deal Enslavement, Normal Enslavement, and Normal Then Deal Enslavement.  However, the help text for the first two sliders seems backwards (the help for Normal talks about Deal enslavement). 

 

Deal Enslavement:  "Weight that you'll be enslaved when you are sent to this mod from Simple Slavery."
Normal Enslavement:  "Weight that you'll have a set of deals to pay off when you sent to this mod from Simple Slavery."

 

I had to look at the script source to determine that the labels are correct, it's the help that's wrong (it could have been the other way around).  Lozeak, would you mind fixing this to be less confusing?

 

Also, minor issue since the label is self explanatory, but the help text for "Sent to Simple Slavery Chance" is $DF_SSLVCHANCE_DESC. 

[Lozeak]

So mini update 0 progress basically, work and social obligations taking up too much of my time and stressing me out. It's like impossible to creative in that mind set so I need to wait. Maybe i can bugfix though.

 

I have a good bit of time coming up at the start of august so my plan till then is chill until then so i can try and get a decent content update out by week 2 of august. 1 new deal or stage 3 and some bug fixes and mcm stuff. I want to look at SS one time too to make sure it's working.

 

Thank you for all the feedback and kind words recently it helps me and making the mod ^^.

 

 

[Naps-On-Dirt]

I've noticed a problem with some of the mercenaries (the followers you have to hire.)  Most of them have the DF intro line as the first thing they say to you and then they immediately follow you even if you don't hire them.  I didn't think that DF was supposed to be active on two followers, so I'm guessing this isn't intended behavior?  

[Mexicola88]

Yeah you should "Pause" DF before you hire them. Or else you can never dismiss them anymore.

[Lupine00]

I've been playing around with Gold Control (in version 1.706), and it's a great feature. Thanks Lozeak for this awesome addition.

 

Even when things are going well, the reduced ability to track debt and use money creates lots of uncertainties and obstacles.

 

I also like that I don't have to fuss about paying the follower, and the struggle to raise money for accommodation without undermining my self-esteem

 

If the follower loses a lot of lives, you have zero cash available, and it becomes tricky to raise money for a room without whoring, which is great.

In most cases where that happened, I asked the follower for more money, and got it.

 

It has occurred to me that you could buy a load of drinks or food from a merchant when you're vending items, then sell them to the innkeeper and rent a room immediately.

This would sneak around the cash limitation, by converting free cash into stuff you can trade with an innkeeper.

 

One reason that I'm really hoping for auto-vending one day  If that feature was available, not only would loot management be less of a chore, but you'd be much more at the mercy of the follower. I imagine it could work as a "deeper step" beyond gold control - that you'd have to "buy out" of auto vending before you could get out of gold control.

 

 

It's good that it's harder to get rid of the follower, but...

 

I think it's a bit too hard, in situations where you have no debt, and high willpower, I've found it is still impossible to get rid of the follower, and I'm not sure that's right.

 

I voluntarily opted into gold control mode, with a range of 100 - 500. I have been holding at 10 willpower, and I have over 2000 gold in credit, and have always been in credit at the end of day, but for seven days straight, the follower has refused to return control, and when I ask to part ways, the follower emits the "get my share of the money" dialogue.

 

Only once, in about ten days (around day 3) did the daily summary say that I could leave gold control.

This has become an annoyance, as I want to swap the follower for a different one, and can't, despite high will and good credit.

 

 

It seems reasonable that the chance to be allowed out of gold control should be directly related to willpower. e.g. with willpower 10 it should be at least 80% on any given day.

 

 

So, when I ask to part ways, (as mentioned above), I get the "want my share" dialogue, and can't get rid of her - presumably because I'm in gold control mode and have to leave that before I can pay her off.

 

If you ask to leave in gold control mode, you should get a more appropriate dialogue...

Asking for her share seems wrong, and confusing, as she already HAS all the money - I'm in credit by more than 1000.

 

 

I don't think the summary, or the follower, should tell you whether you can leave gold control or not. You should have to ask and try your luck.

 

e.g.

On a request to part ways, if you are allowed to leave, and if you're in credit, the follower should say something more like:

"You can leave if you want, but I'm keeping all the money." (And she should NOT tell you how much that is).

 

And then you should get the choice to drop the follower, at the cost of losing all your credit, or refuse and keep the follower and remain in gold control.

 

And if you're not in sufficient credit, or you aren't allowed to leave anyway, the follower should say.

"I'm disappointed that you want to run out on your obligations, so I'm going to charge you for that."

"Maybe that will teach you to be better behaved?"

And then it should add half the regular punishment debt, and you don't get to leave the follower.

 

 

 

I did have an experience in an aborted path, where the follower gave me a chance to leave gold control mode, but then sort of "took it back" by saying, (approx) "You can leave today, but I'll keep all the credit, or wait until tomorrow." I opted to leave immediately, but then she said I wasn't fit to take care of my finances, and wouldn't let me leave, despite zero debt, and having just fleeced me for 1300 gold.

 

In that case I quit and reloaded because it was so annoying! Since then, I've never even been allowed the chance to leave gold control (see above), which feels inappropriate for a willpower 10 character with good credit.

 

I'm not sure that it is working correctly at all... Or maybe it is, but in that case it's counter intuitive, or the dialogue is unfairly misleading.

It's a brand new game, made to test that DF version, so there can't be any "upgrade issues".

 

The thing with the dialogue in DF, is that the follower really shouldn't lie to you. At that point, it feels like a rip-off, or that the entire thing is a dice roll.

If your willpower is low, it's totally fair for the follower to boss you about and demand things, but when it explains rules and then doesn't follow them, it creates frustration and annoyance. It's fine for the follower to unfairly add demands in a bondage game for a low willpower character in bondage, but not fine to lie about money, or passively block everything, when you are fully armed, willpower 10, with a load of credit.

 

If you have a high willpower, you should still be in control (up to a point), and it doesn't really feel like you are in 1.706.

[Lupine00]

Playing with gold control, I started to get the feeling that there was an important element that is missing: your relationship with the follower.

 

DF doesn't really have any kind of tracking of past history.

 

If you're in credit, the follower is nice, and when you get in debt, or the follower has no lives, the follower gets nasty - even if the follower was a moron who kept walking into a gate trap.

 

There's no sense of an evolving relationship.

 

 

In my game, I've been in credit since the start, high willpower since the start. I could have been in debt the entire time, but I wasn't. I could have taken deals, but I didn't.

I think it would be good if the follower remembered more about your history and reacted to it somewhat.

 

Mechanically, this should track a few statistics, something like...

• the average follower lives at the end of each day
• the PC's average willpower at the end of each day
• the average time between sleeps
• the average debt/credit state (for gold control)
• the number of times you were whored out or used solicitation to raise money
• the average number of DD items worn at the end of each day
• or the average debt (for not gold control) - should use whichever one you are currently in
• the base disposition of the follower (which could be in a form list, or random)

(In practice you might sample every eight game hours or something, and keep it secret from the player when you're doing it).

 

These stats could then be used to drive:

• random emotes from the follower
• responses to a "How are we doing?" dialogue option
• decisions taken by the follower about mode changes, deal options, punishments, and demands.

 

This would give more of a feel of an ongoing relationship and make experiences with one follower distinct from another.

I think this would add a lot to replayability.

 

For example, you recruit a follower, and a run of bad luck and DCL events follow, you're in debt, in deals, low willpower, always failing...

The follower should treat you with contempt, joke about your misfortunes and complain about your debts; talk about how she's helping a hopeless case, etc.

 

In contrast, you recruit a follower, and pile up a ton of credit, stay willpower 10, and sleep regularly.

The follower should speak to you as a friend and companion, say how she looks forward to the next profitable adventure; talk about how dependable you are, etc.

 

Some comments might be quite specific... Hints directly related to follower average lives remaining...

e.g. "I really think we need to rest more often, I can't take this pace." vs "That was a good night's sleep. I feel ready for anything."

 

When it comes to decisions (the important part), a follower might give a player they like more money for deals, or regulate deal buy-out chances based on how much they like you.

For example, if they hate you, the option to buy out of deals might not show up on some days!

 

OTOH, a friendly follower might let you run up bonus debt before getting cranky, or sometimes heal a life automatically, or not lose one when they normally would.

 

A PC who is always in a lot of devices might get sold when one who is rarely bound doesn't.

 

The application of stats to rules is a space of broad possibilities. In the extreme case, it would make entirely new mechanics for some things that are currently just random rolls. But you could always retain a minimum portion of randomness, because that's also good - it's better if things aren't purely mechanical.

 

 

Yes. It's all work, but it adds a lot of immersion.

Tracking the stats is fairly straightforward if you use a sampling model for most of them. It would be possible to collect all the stats in a normalised form (from 0.0 to 1.0 or 0 to 100, scaled based on the current configuration at time of sampling, so even when the scales jump all over the place in Chaos Mode, it still works.

 

 

Follower disposition could be mapped in a table that holds the names of all common followers (load from json, so players can tweak it).

Maybe adjust for racial compatibility, and throw in a random factor when you first recruit.

Maybe they could have a "care factor" for each stat, that biases how much they pay attention to it, vs being entirely random - so Lydia might be very particular about lives, but not care at all about debt?

 

Then, you might find that Cassandra treats you very differently to Siv, and Lydia very differently from Mjoll.

 

 

Just a suggestion anyway.

 

Gold control made my game much more immersive, much less mechanical, and I started to want my dull ultra-basic follower to do more than just run up and hit things, I wanted some recognition of past events.

 

 

[Lozeak]

9 minutes ago, Lupine00 said:

I've been playing around with Gold Control (in version 1.706), and it's a great feature. Thanks Lozeak for this awesome addition.

 

Even when things are going well, the reduced ability to track debt and use money creates lots of uncertainties and obstacles.

 

I also like that I don't have to fuss about paying the follower, and the struggle to raise money for accommodation without undermining my self-esteem

 

If the follower loses a lot of lives, you have zero cash available, and it becomes tricky to raise money for a room without whoring, which is great.

In most cases where that happened, I asked the follower for more money, and got it.

 

It has occurred to me that you could buy a load of drinks or food from a merchant when you're vending items, then sell them to the innkeeper and rent a room immediately.

This would sneak around the cash limitation, by converting free cash into stuff you can trade with an innkeeper.

 

One reason that I'm really hoping for auto-vending one day  If that feature was available, not only would loot management be less of a chore, but you'd be much more at the mercy of the follower. I imagine it could work as a "deeper step" beyond gold control - that you'd have to "buy out" of auto vending before you could get out of gold control.

 

 

It's good that it's harder to get rid of the follower, but...

 

I think it's a bit too hard, in situations where you have no debt, and high willpower, I've found it is still impossible to get rid of the follower, and I'm not sure that's right.

 

I voluntarily opted into gold control mode, with a range of 100 - 500. I have been holding at 10 willpower, and I have over 2000 gold in credit, and have always been in credit at the end of day, but for seven days straight, the follower has refused to return control, and when I ask to part ways, the follower emits the "get my share of the money" dialogue.

 

Only once, in about ten days (around day 3) did the daily summary say that I could leave gold control.

This has become an annoyance, as I want to swap the follower for a different one, and can't, despite high will and good credit.

 

 

It seems reasonable that the chance to be allowed out of gold control should be directly related to willpower. e.g. with willpower 10 it should be at least 80% on any given day.

 

 

So, when I ask to part ways, (as mentioned above), I get the "want my share" dialogue, and can't get rid of her - presumably because I'm in gold control mode and have to leave that before I can pay her off.

 

If you ask to leave in gold control mode, you should get a more appropriate dialogue...

Asking for her share seems wrong, and confusing, as she already HAS all the money - I'm in credit by more than 1000.

 

 

I don't think the summary, or the follower, should tell you whether you can leave gold control or not. You should have to ask and try your luck.

 

e.g.

On a request to part ways, if you are allowed to leave, and if you're in credit, the follower should say something more like:

"You can leave if you want, but I'm keeping all the money." (And she should NOT tell you how much that is).

 

And then you should get the choice to drop the follower, at the cost of losing all your credit, or refuse and keep the follower and remain in gold control.

 

And if you're not in sufficient credit, or you aren't allowed to leave anyway, the follower should say.

"I'm disappointed that you want to run out on your obligations, so I'm going to charge you for that."

"Maybe that will teach you to be better behaved?"

And then it should add half the regular punishment debt, and you don't get to leave the follower.

 

 

 

I did have an experience in an aborted path, where the follower gave me a chance to leave gold control mode, but then sort of "took it back" by saying, (approx) "You can leave today, but I'll keep all the credit, or wait until tomorrow." I opted to leave immediately, but then she said I wasn't fit to take care of my finances, and wouldn't let me leave, despite zero debt, and having just fleeced me for 1300 gold.

 

In that case I quit and reloaded because it was so annoying! Since then, I've never even been allowed the chance to leave gold control (see above), which feels inappropriate for a willpower 10 character with good credit.

 

I'm not sure that it is working correctly at all... Or maybe it is, but in that case it's counter intuitive, or the dialogue is unfairly misleading.

It's a brand new game, made to test that DF version, so there can't be any "upgrade issues".

 

The thing with the dialogue in DF, is that the follower really shouldn't lie to you. At that point, it feels like a rip-off, or that the entire thing is a dice roll.

If your willpower is low, it's totally fair for the follower to boss you about and demand things, but when it explains rules and then doesn't follow them, it creates frustration and annoyance. It's fine for the follower to unfairly add demands in a bondage game for a low willpower character in bondage, but not fine to lie about money, or passively block everything, when you are fully armed, willpower 10, with a load of credit.

 

If you have a high willpower, you should still be in control (up to a point), and it doesn't really feel like you are in 1.706.

 

Little hard to follow I don't know what you are doing with the colors. Still, I'll try and comment ^^

 

Workarounds for gold mode: Some I'll patch out but the vending item thing is something the player will forget and get caught out so I'm cool with it. Besides, that kind of cheating the system is cool ^^.

 

Not being able to leave: So, gold mode is a teir of slavery so yea you can enter it voluntarily but that's your choice if you get stuck in it that on you. Tweaking it a little so you can move follower or better chances at high willpower (it is something worth considering after willpower rework). 

 

Auto vending: If I can work it out sure, there are A LOT of problems working out correct values for items and on top of this detecting/working out what you can and can't sell. Then, the script impact it could have on the game. It's a big kettle of fish lol.

 

You leaving and being instantly put back in gold mode: This is likely a bug (kinda funny though) basically gold control mode is triggered when you break punishment debt. Considering you were in credit it shouldn't have happened. 

 

Yes, the follower should never lie to you in a direct way. With gold mode, you either agree to give the follower control and they do say it has rules for it being fun for them and one of those rules is they will decide if you can leave each morning.

The chances to leave were borked, it was meant to be 50% but I added to the mode and it got borked at 33% at high willpower and at lower willpower the chance actually increased lol.

It will be fixed next version and at 0 willpower it should be like a 25% chance you can leave and 50% at 10 willpower.

 

Messages vs asking to find out. That was the idea behind leaving without cred/with cred. Maybe I'll make an MCM setting to disable daily messages but I think it's important and feels to me the follower is telling me my rules for the day. 

 

I will consider concealing credit numbers so a player doesn't know ^^.

 

[Lozeak]

35 minutes ago, Lupine00 said:

Playing with gold control, I started to get the feeling that there was an important element that is missing: your relationship with the follower.

 

DF doesn't really have any kind of tracking of past history.

 

If you're in credit, the follower is nice, and when you get in debt, or the follower has no lives, the follower gets nasty - even if the follower was a moron who kept walking into a gate trap.

 

There's no sense of an evolving relationship.

 

 

In my game, I've been in credit since the start, high willpower since the start. I could have been in debt the entire time, but I wasn't. I could have taken deals, but I didn't.

I think it would be good if the follower remembered more about your history and reacted to it somewhat.

 

Mechanically, this should track a few statistics, something like...

• the average follower lives at the end of each day
• the PC's average willpower at the end of each day
• the average time between sleeps
• the average debt/credit state (for gold control)
• the number of times you were whored out or used solicitation to raise money
• the average number of DD items worn at the end of each day
• or the average debt (for not gold control) - should use whichever one you are currently in
• the base disposition of the follower (which could be in a form list, or random)

(In practice you might sample every eight game hours or something, and keep it secret from the player when you're doing it).

 

These stats could then be used to drive:

• random emotes from the follower
• responses to a "How are we doing?" dialogue option
• decisions taken by the follower about mode changes, deal options, punishments, and demands.

 

This would give more of a feel of an ongoing relationship and make experiences with one follower distinct from another.

I think this would add a lot to replayability.

 

For example, you recruit a follower, and a run of bad luck and DCL events follow, you're in debt, in deals, low willpower, always failing...

The follower should treat you with contempt, joke about your misfortunes and complain about your debts; talk about how she's helping a hopeless case, etc.

 

In contrast, you recruit a follower, and pile up a ton of credit, stay willpower 10, and sleep regularly.

The follower should speak to you as a friend and companion, say how she looks forward to the next profitable adventure; talk about how dependable you are, etc.

 

Some comments might be quite specific... Hints directly related to follower average lives remaining...

e.g. "I really think we need to rest more often, I can't take this pace." vs "That was a good night's sleep. I feel ready for anything."

 

When it comes to decisions (the important part), a follower might give a player they like more money for deals, or regulate deal buy-out chances based on how much they like you.

For example, if they hate you, the option to buy out of deals might not show up on some days!

 

OTOH, a friendly follower might let you run up bonus debt before getting cranky, or sometimes heal a life automatically, or not lose one when they normally would.

 

A PC who is always in a lot of devices might get sold when one who is rarely bound doesn't.

 

The application of stats to rules is a space of broad possibilities. In the extreme case, it would make entirely new mechanics for some things that are currently just random rolls. But you could always retain a minimum portion of randomness, because that's also good - it's better if things aren't purely mechanical.

 

 

Yes. It's all work, but it adds a lot of immersion.

Tracking the stats is fairly straightforward if you use a sampling model for most of them. It would be possible to collect all the stats in a normalised form (from 0.0 to 1.0 or 0 to 100, scaled based on the current configuration at time of sampling, so even when the scales jump all over the place in Chaos Mode, it still works.

 

 

Follower disposition could be mapped in a table that holds the names of all common followers (load from json, so players can tweak it).

Maybe adjust for racial compatibility, and throw in a random factor when you first recruit.

Maybe they could have a "care factor" for each stat, that biases how much they pay attention to it, vs being entirely random - so Lydia might be very particular about lives, but not care at all about debt?

 

Then, you might find that Cassandra treats you very differently to Siv, and Lydia very differently from Mjoll.

 

 

Just a suggestion anyway.

 

Gold control made my game much more immersive, much less mechanical, and I started to want my dull ultra-basic follower to do more than just run up and hit things, I wanted some recognition of past events.

 

 

 

So yea, more stats, and stuff. Forget it, it will be too much work.

Debt, Willpower, and Lives that's it. 

 

Basically, with just that I literally have a ton of options with dialog more options would mean I would either just not use some stats or my workload would increase.

There is an issue of willpower of it being either 10 or 0 a lot so I feel if I can fix that the player will feel a more of a sense of progression. I don't know when I do that but I will.

 

I do want to create a comment system (follower/random people) based of things that are happening/have happened this is gonna be post 2.0 though.

 

Setting up how each follower acts..... just configure the MCM before you hire them. Maybe I'll create more save slots, but I'm not managing arrays for individual followers it's just work for almost nothing.

 

Now, let me just say the ideas you have are good it's just it's too much work for what I feel could be better spent somewhere else. I do want to finish 2.0 so I can one day think about my next mod/project.

 

[Lupine00]

Unfortunate synergy between DD, DCL and DF...

 

This problem/heap of bugs, involves an interaction between problematic features in all of the above.

I'm going to report this in the DCL forum too.

 

 

I enabled combat defeat in DCL, disabled follower support, but left followers can wear armbinders checked.

I had robbery 100%.

I had a DF follower, with no deals, in gold control mode.

 

I was defeated in combat in the wilderness by some ice-wraiths, up near the border of the snow line south of Morthal.

 

I found myself in the hog-tie game (located up in the mountains south of Helgren).

While I was playing the hog-tie game, my follower ran up from ... quite some distance away.

The follower was wearing some DD 4.1 steel shackles (basically an armbinder in functionality, and using armbinder animations).

 

DCL should not have bound the follower, as follower support was not enabled.

Perhaps it did this because armbinders on followers was still checked? Perhaps not.

 

I escaped the hog-tie, and was naked in an armbinder.

 

I asked the follower to remove the armbinder using the DF remove heavy bondage dialog.

The follower charged me 500, but said as I had no money she'd add it as debt.

This struck me as misleading, as I was in gold control to start with.

 

The armbinder was removed. This would be fine, except the follower was bound in shackles!

If she had a key, why didn't she free herself? If she didn't have a key, how did she free me?

 

I checked my items. I hadn't been robbed, despite robbery 100%. I re-equipped my gear.

 

The follower was still bound in the shackles. I asked to trade with her and tried to remove them. No luck. I had no key.

 

I had NO WAY to get a key for the follower, because:

1) I had keys only drop when bound set in DCL.

2) I wasn't bound any longer.

3) I couldn't ask the follower to play for keys, because I wasn't bound.

 

 

Some wolves showed up, and the follower pulled out her sword and set about them.

She ignored the DD binding completely, and animated in combat as normal.

 

After combat was over, she returned to the bound animation, now holding a sword between her legs like she was trying to ride it like a broomstick.

 

I set off walking to Helgen.

Some more wolves showed up. This time the follower seemed unable to fight - perhaps the wolves didn't hit her, only me?

 

 

Frustrated with the situation, I consoled a key and removed the shackles from the follower.

 

 

Issues here:

1) DF lets a follower remove bondage from the player while the follower is in the exact-same bondage. This is silly.

2) DCL binds followers when follower handling is disabled.

3) DCL doesn't port followers when it ports the player on defeat - I can't think of any time that it shouldn't do this unless it's going to dismiss the follower and send them home

4) DD doesn't seem to reliably block armed NPC combat when NPCs are bound, but it does do something ... sort of random and inconsistent.

5) DF has no way to unbind followers if you don't have regular access to keys, but one of the features of DF is that you should be able to manage without key drops.

 

Not really sure if the follower ran all the way from Morthal, but if she did, it was a bit quick. Follower must have been ported to some other location. Not sure whether DF or DCL is to blame for this.

[Lupine00]

1 hour ago, Lozeak said:

So yea, more stats, and stuff. Forget it, it will be too much work.

Debt, Willpower, and Lives that's it. 

 

Basically, with just that I literally have a ton of options with dialog more options would mean I would either just not use some stats or my workload would increase.

There is an issue of willpower of it being either 10 or 0 a lot so I feel if I can fix that the player will feel a more of a sense of progression. I don't know when I do that but I will.

Sure. It makes sense to worry about return on effort, and there are lots of other ways to add to the mod.

It might be that such things would be better for an entirely different mod that was sort-of like DF, but based around custom-built followers.

 

 

If you completely rule out any tracking of history, the follower will never be able to comment on history, only the present.

As the follower doesn't even comment on the present at the moment, so I can see that worrying about past events might seem like a bit moot.

 

 

However, the idea that a follower personality can be crafted in the MCM is a hard sell. I'm not buying it.

The biggest problem is exposure. It suffers from TMI syndrome.

 

As a player, it takes the existing problem of hand-tweaking the settings for challenge (which already feels like cheating to make yourself fail) and adds a new level of unwanted revelation to it. If it's up to me to twiddle Lydia's settings so she feels different to Mjoll, there will be a powerful absence of surprises.

 

Also, the MCM lacks the functionality to tweak every little detail, because the mod lacks those tweaks. But if new tweaks are added, should they always be exposed in the MCM?

Even if the behaviours existed, I don't agree they should always be exposed in the MCM. It destroys the illusion, and complicates the MCM.

 

The simplicity of the existing MCM is a virtue, and TBH, the amount of cruft around deal configuration is already starting to niggle me a bit.

The only reason I can see for it is to disable a deal you think might break some other mod you're using, and I've never had to do that.

Or to disable a deal that is temporarily buggy.

 

 

Much of the charm of DF relies around "surprise" and the more you fiddle with detailed settings as a player, the more you know about what the NPCs can and cannot say, the more that surprise collapses and the illusion of immersion crumbles. If you know exactly how it works it's boring. That's why I prefer to play mods other people make

 

The only way this would work is if you could tweak Chaos Mode so it randomises settings one time, each time you hire a new follower (and hides them from you). This is already somewhat possible.

 

I can't set the re-roll duration longer than 14 days, but I can set 0. I'm guessing this results in no re-rolls, but I'm not entirely sure.

 

Maybe you could add a "chance to re-roll" to chaos, so when a roll is due, it might not happen?

That would be useful to lots more people, as they could do things like set duration to 1, and set chance to 50%, to get quite variable times between re-rolls.

 

It would seem a virtue if Chaos always re-rolls when you recruit a follower. I'm not sure if it does, or whether it's only on first-enable of Chaos Mode.

Possibly, actively dismissing a follower should disable Chaos Mode so you have to re-enable it? Maybe it already does?

 

If that needs a small change, I think that would be a reasonable return on development effort, but it would be utterly random, and would thus never allow a player to assign an opaque personality type that hadn't personally predicated by manipulating the ranges in the first place.

 

Right now, Chaos Mode can't drive gold control. Would be nice if that were added; I think lots of people would get some use out of that.

 

 

Possibly, on top of that feature, you could allow the player to pick a "current personality type", for Chaos Mode which would post-tweak (certain) Chaos Mode rolls, depending on the type picked. The tweaks would be a simple set of hand-crafted "fudges", unique to each type. One personality type might secretly ensure that Lives are at least 10, while another might not make any changes to Lives at all, but instead change device removal multiplier and max removal cost.

 

I think that opaque but directed Chaos tweaks of some kind would be a good thing, even if there were very few. The important thing about them is that they'd be a (relative) mystery to the player, rather than completely revealing their function. With the stats hidden, you wouldn't know what stats are getting tweaked, or how much - without reading the code - the people who want a feature like this aren't going to spoil it for themselves on purpose.

 

 

You could use a similar approach to add "Easy, Default, and Hard" settings to Chaos, saving the player from having to hand-craft a rather burdensome number of values that new users of the mod might not even know the ramifications of.

 

 

The more you know, they less illusion of immersion is created and the more you see the workings of an extremely simply machine. It's better to know less, as long as you still have meaningful choices. Personally, I really do not want to see the detailed workings. Once I perceive that crude clockwork, the immersion collapses, there are no surprises, and in the absence of surprise, honestly, why bother? I could just as well console devices and stick them on myself  and Slaverun already delivers all the horse rapes and crawling on your elbows you'll ever need (and then some more, just in case).

 

 

As for additional options that aren't currently available in Chaos Mode settings, that could exist in the mod to tweak follower behaviour, I think there could be a few.

 

• Chance follower doesn't lose lives on bleedout.
• Chance follower doesn't lose a live on removing DD items.
• Bias towards more punishing games (kind of presumes that there are more games being added though).
• Bias towards never letting you part ways (some followers could be a lot more carefree in this regard, others verge on stalkerishly obsessive).
• Chance to refuse to help with bindings for a number of hours.
• Chance for follower to sometimes waive the binding removal cost.
• Bias to the gambling game (more or less fair).
• Bias to the key game (more or less fair).
• Biases on various probabilities within gold control.
• Biases on the type of dialogue emotes produced.

 

The value of color in dialogue emotes shouldn't be underestimated. Yes, I'm well aware what a huge pain Skyrim dialogues are to construct, but there are some things you can do with globals to manage them as sets that streamline this, as well as adding and removing an actor from an alias to enable or disable entire sets of dialogue functionality en-masse. Conditions aren't for free, but an equality test on a global isn't terribly costly, and would (for example) allow you to customise any dialogue based on personality type, incrementally, on a preferential basis.

 

Using a quest for each personality type (for example), you could add custom dialog in a completely incremental and maintainable way - for example starting with a "housecarl" quest that allows you to leverage your thane status, or be mocked for it - not that I'd ever want such a feature, just saying

 

 

I guess I see dialogue color as not-so-hard, because I can write dialogue pretty easily, and can see how I could take a single event and write it three ways to convey a particular bias in the speaker, but sure, the mechanics of typing the lines into the CK is still pretty tedious.

 

There already are a lot of emotes, even without comments on ongoing events, and those could possibly be expanded to reflect personality sometimes.

 

When the dialogue comes from DF, there is no way to make that functionality part of the follower, and not part of DF.

Only DF can ever do that, without some extremely painful and unmaintainable patching.

[Reesewow]

Just now, Lupine00 said:

Unfortunate synergy between DD, DCL and DF...

 

Issues here:

1) DF lets a follower remove bondage from the player while the follower is in the exact-same bondage. This is silly.

2) DCL binds followers when follower handling is disabled.

3) DCL doesn't port followers when it ports the player on defeat - I can't think of any time that it shouldn't do this unless it's going to dismiss the follower and send them home

4) DD doesn't seem to reliably block armed NPC combat when NPCs are bound, but it does do something ... sort of random and inconsistent.

5) DF has no way to unbind followers if you don't have regular access to keys, but one of the features of DF is that you should be able to manage without key drops.

 

Not really sure if the follower ran all the way from Morthal, but if she did, it was a bit quick. Follower must have been ported to some other location. Not sure whether DF or DCL is to blame for this.

This string of events sounds like it is 99% just DCUL being a bit goofy, and not really much to do with DF.  Thoughts/opinions on these issues:

 

1 - DF does not make any attempt to detect follower bondage.  Since DF doesn't ever attempt to put bondage on a follower, I think this is fine and simply something that is not covered by the mod.  It *could* be a feature down the road IMO that certain features are locked if a follower is bound, but IMO I don't think it should be a high priority (and it could be quite complicated and cause more issues than it solves).

 

2 - Try toggling follower handling on and off, and remove "armbinders for followers" just incase that has an effect.  On occasion I've noticed followers getting bound when this is disabled, but usually toggling it on and off will fix it for a long period of time and through many DCUL events. 

 

3 - DCUL generally doesn't port followers when it repositions a player for any of its events - they will catch up naturally cross-country or if your follower framework has a teleport function.  It functions this way for stuff like Little Bondage Adventure as well I believe. 

 

4 - In my experience DD is *pretty* good at blocking NPCs from using weapons, but sometimes they will be able to equip a weapon and get a few swings in before their combat animations are overridden, especially right after getting the items.  Full shackles for instance I believe does not allow bound combat - possibly the DD slotting hadn't blocked your follower in time for the first set of wolves and had kicked in properly for the second set - causing them to not engage in combat.

 

5 - Related to #1 - since DF doesn't ever lock a follower up in DD, I don't think it having a method to unbind followers is something it should be concerned about - that should be the job of DCUL since it put the items on your followers in the first place (erroneously in this case).  If you really didn't want to console in a key to fix DCUL's bugged addition of items to your followers, you could get around this by simply putting the armbinder (or any DD item) back on and manipulating the locks to play the key game.  Any mod that offers NPC binding should offer a way to get them free, and I don't think it is DF's job to offer detection/freedom options for followers unless it gets into the business of equipping them to followers in the first place (with appropriate dialogues ect).

[Reesewow]

Just now, Lupine00 said:

The simplicity of the existing MCM is a virtue, and TBH, the amount of cruft around deal configuration is already starting to niggle me a bit.

The only reason I can see for it is to disable a deal you think might break some other mod you're using, and I've never had to do that.

Or to disable a deal that is temporarily buggy.

 

Personally disagree about the deal config options - I'm finding the current level of deal customization is very helpful for my gameplay preferences.  For instance I dislike the original chastity deal, but love the new denial deal.  I also find that sometimes I want to disable deals like the slut deal/piercing level 3/gag level 3 to make my multi-deal low level experience more streamlined with a possibility of willpower recovery while bound.  Prior to these options, I found often I'd be avoiding taking a deal more because I knew the deals in the pool were ones I did not enjoy as much, and at low willpower I couldn't refuse them if offered.

 

Quote

Much of the charm of DF relies around "surprise" and the more you fiddle with detailed settings as a player, the more you know about what the NPCs can and cannot say, the more that surprise collapses and the illusion of immersion crumbles. If you know exactly how it works it's boring. That's why I prefer to play mods other people make

 

The only way this would work is if you could tweak Chaos Mode so it randomises settings one time, each time you hire a new follower (and hides them from you).

I think that would be a reasonable return on development effort, but it would be utterly random, and would thus never allow a player to assign a personality type.

 

Possibly, on top of that feature, you could allow the player to set a "current personality type", which would post-tweak the Chaos Mode rolls, depending on the type picked.

 

I think that personality types of some kind would be a good thing, even if there were very few. The important thing about them is that they'd be opaque to the player, rather than completely revealing their function. With the stats hidden, you wouldn't know what stats are getting tweaked, or how much.

 

The more you know, they less illusion of immersion is created and the more you see the workings of an extremely simply machine. It's better to know less, as long as you still have meaningful choices.

These ideas sounds cool but may be a lot of work for what would essentially boil down to MCM menu config presets within DF.  While they could be fun for awhile, I think fairly quickly people would understand what each preset *does* and either pick a favorite or go back to customizing settings to fit specific preferences.

 

I do think this could be a cool feature for some that like less visibility to their mod's workings, but I think I'd personally still prefer dev time be spent on content like new deals ect.

 

I think it could be cool if people shared their "presets" to be loaded via the save/load function of DF between users... but I'm not sure how much use such a function would get.  Especially since so much of the fun of DF depends on balancing a player's "normal" gold gain/hr against how much the follower and other mods/gold use sources demand.

[Lupine00]

1 hour ago, Reesewow said:

These ideas sounds cool but may be a lot of work for what would essentially boil down to MCM menu config presets within DF

Except right now you can't do half the things in the MCM at all anyway.

 

And I simply disagree that "people find out" is a reason not to have mystery in a mod. Right now, the different "games" aren't spelled out, for a reason. Some people come on here and ask how to trigger, maybe one of them that they heard about. The rest remain surprises, and many will play the mod without reading the entire DF forum.

 

There will always be dispute over what feature should or should not be most important. ALL features are work. Right now, new deals are verging on the point of diminishing returns, and the scope to add more that are genuinely different, but equivalent in weight to existing ones, is quite small.

 

 

However, regardless of what features get done or not done, mystery is essential to fun in a mod like DF. The moment you know how everything works the magic vanishes. Once you've been through all the dialog and inspected the conditions, the fun is gone and all that's left is a collection of gambling games where you bet against DCL smashing you, bet against getting a nasty deal, bet against getting screwed on a key game. I guess some people find gambling addictive, but I do not.

 

 

Right now, for me, there's new stuff I haven't pulled apart. Once I go in and read it all, it will be spoiled for me and I won't be able to play it except as a dull test. I'm trying to put off that day. Fortunately, Lozeak adds new stuff so fast that DF keeps being refreshed for me.

[Lupine00]

2 hours ago, Reesewow said:

This string of events sounds like it is 99% just DCUL being a bit goofy, and not really much to do with DF.

Mostly it is DCL, but I already made that blindingly clear. You say it like I didn't, but I did, so it's not exactly a counter point to the DF issues.

 

2 hours ago, Reesewow said:

2 - Try toggling follower handling on and off, and remove "armbinders for followers" just incase that has an effect.  On occasion I've noticed followers getting bound when this is disabled, but usually toggling it on and off will fix it for a long period of time and through many DCUL events. 

This has absolutely no effect. DCL does not retroactively remove bondage on followers. Or if it's supposed to, I've never seen it work. Case in point, I tried it. It didn't work.

2 hours ago, Reesewow said:

3 - DCUL generally doesn't port followers when it repositions a player for any of its events - they will catch up naturally cross-country or if your follower framework has a teleport function.  It functions this way for stuff like Little Bondage Adventure as well I believe. 

There was no follower framework in play, as I already noted. Nor could the follower run cross-country from Morthal to south of Helgen in the twenty seconds I spent playing the hog-tie game. That is why I'm noting it. It's quite peculiar!

 

2 hours ago, Reesewow said:

- In my experience DD is *pretty* good at blocking NPCs from using weapons, but sometimes they will be able to equip a weapon and get a few swings in before their combat animations are overridden, especially right after getting the items.  Full shackles for instance I believe does not allow bound combat - possibly the DD slotting hadn't blocked your follower in time for the first set of wolves and had kicked in properly for the second set - causing them to not engage in combat.

Close, but not quite right. I found the follower could still fight after the second encounter. Whether they did so might have depended on script-lag or somesuch. Any combat blocking that relies on handling an event is useless, so perhaps something else is required. Of course, if you'd mentioned that on the DCL forum rather than here, it might be read by someone who can do something about it. I posted a note on the DCL forum, along with a possible fix strategy. Probably I should post it on the DD forum, but I haven't. If DCL hadn't put bondage on the follower despite being told not to, there wouldn't even be a DD issue.

2 hours ago, Reesewow said:

5 - Related to #1 - since DF doesn't ever lock a follower up in DD, I don't think it having a method to unbind followers is something it should be concerned about

Sure, and I didn't suggest it should. However ... see below.

 

 

DF not understanding bondage on the follower, at all, seems a bit of an oversight.

 

When you think about it, there's an entire area of functionality that could exist there and clearly doesn't.

DF doesn't bind followers. This is hardly an answer. They can easily get bound. Why is everything always the player's problem/fault?

I turned off binding in DCL, but guess what? DCL doesn't care.

 

Perhaps, DF should not allow the follower to do anything special while bound, including, but not limited to:

• Initiating games.
• Making new deals.
• Playing key game.
• Gambling for money.
• Unbinding the player.
• Parting ways.
• Punishing the player.

Clearly, some of these would depend on the specific binds, a blindfold or gag would be different to an armbinder, different to leg-cuffs, etc.

Debt should continue to accrue.

 

There could be a "per device" debt penalty if the follower gets bound. The follower should make the player pay for the inconvenience to the follower.

 

 

Very few mods deal well with followers in bondage, but DF probably needs to cope somehow because DF followers can get bound. They certainly can! And DF is about the followers, most other mods are not.

 

With effort this could be turned into a positive feature that adds fun for the player. What if there were bondage games you could play with the follower that weren't always player submissive? People have asked. Not me, but others. It's a thing.

 

 

Alternatively, DF could simply remove all follower binds automatically, which would solve the problem fairly definitively.

 

What the heck happens if the player locks a follower in Queen Sarah gear? Does DCL have a melt-down when it sticks the follower in an alias that should only have the player in it? Maybe it never happens. Either way, not DF's problem. Sure... But that's an outlier. Mostly it's going to be stock-standard DD items.

 

If it's not keyworded as special, simply remove it.

[Reesewow]

Just now, Lupine00 said:

Mostly it is DCL, but I already made that blindingly clear. You say it like I didn't, but I did, so it's not exactly a counter point to the DF issues.

Was probably just a bit confused as I read the overall purpose of your post as a question of DF compatibility problems since it opened with the "unfortunate synergy/heap of bugs" line and I read it on this thread first.  I was simply pointing out that none of that content was a "bug" related to DF, beyond DF lacking content relating to followers wearing bondage.  The rest is totally appropriate DCUL observations, some of which I've experienced myself.

 

For sure this could be a point of content at some point, but it would probably require a robust blocking system where most of the mod's functionality was stalled when the mod detects the follower is wearing certain types of items (or simply have DF's detect and remove DD items detected on them, which could get messy if anyone wants to play dress-up with their follower).

 

Quote

 

This has absolutely no effect. DCL does not retroactively remove bondage on followers. Or if it's supposed to, I've never seen it work. Case in point, I tried it. It didn't work.

The fix I was noting won't remove items already on your followers - the "free me" option should do that but of course it will also remove all the items on the player at the same time.  What I meant is that toggling follower tracking on and off in DCUL should hopefully *remove* your followers from DCUL's detection going forward - so they don't just keep getting items every time you trigger an event.  I don't know what actually causes followers to be detected + deviced despite the MCM menu toggle being off, other than that for me it is quite rare.  I've only had it happen to me a few times since I turned it off to make DF more immersive way back when.

 

Quote

There was no follower framework in play, as I already noted. Nor could the follower run cross-country from Morthal to south of Helgen in the twenty seconds I spent playing the hog-tie game. That is why I'm noting it. It's quite peculiar!

 

You could try something as an experiment in follower movement - try using the player.moveto console command to move your PC from one side of Skyrim to another in the external overworld and see how long it takes your follower to catch up to you.  I kinda expect followers may not have a proper travel time for unloaded overworld cells.  This probably wouldn't work for me as I use several followers that use their own frameworks or EFF and will happily teleport closer if they are at extreme distances.

[Nazzzgul666]

11 hours ago, Lupine00 said:

However, regardless of what features get done or not done, mystery is essential to fun in a mod like DF. The moment you know how everything works the magic vanishes. Once you've been through all the dialog and inspected the conditions, the fun is gone and all that's left is a collection of gambling games where you bet against DCL smashing you, bet against getting a nasty deal, bet against getting screwed on a key game. I guess some people find gambling addictive, but I do not.

 

 

I would limit that. Mystic isn't fun if it possibly causes bugs/conflicts and you can't figure out which mod triggers it, because then even minor things can become a pain in the ass. Like, old versions of DF + mods that add horns or something + the strip deal would cause followers constantly spamming "Off they come..." and doing nothing. Not a big deal, just a bit annoying - because it's easy to figure out what's going on. If i have no clue why that happens and which mod causes that, something like that would freak me out.

Another example was a very unhappy conflict between Hdt high heels and old cursed loot versions, where the "body changes when aroused" changed the hipbone and caused my toons feet sink into the ground. I've started several new games because of that bug and never figured out what caused it, until it was fixed in cursed loot.

 

So, not opposing mystic in general but i think it should be done very very carefully. In fact i don't think it's even possible to guarantee that such things won't happen, so i'd rather prefer a "Do not read this ever!!!" spoiler for people who want mystic like you and people who prefer not to freak out like me.

 

*edit: for teleporting followers, you are aware that even the vanilla game does that at times?

[HexBolt8]

I've been catching up on the on all the recent discussion.  Reading through it, I had an idea that might go a little way toward adding some personality (as Lupine00 was looking for) and which also might be of use to Lozeak when the mod has to make certain decisions.

 

If there were a simple slider for how controlling the follower is (low, medium, high), that could influence decisions like whether you can leave gold control mode today, or whether the follower refuses to part ways even with all debts paid (try again tomorrow, with the chance of incurring more debt by then).  If the current functionality is "medium" controlling tendency, then players who want a softer more lenient experience could set that to low.  And players who want a hard core experience and a difficult time ever getting rid of that pesky follower could select "high". 

 

This could also tie in to games, possibly affecting things like how many people must be serviced when the player is whored out.  A highly controlling follower might keep the player working at it for a good bit longer (the player asked for it); on "low" the player would still have the humiliation but get to move on more quickly. 

 

If this were used to modify the player's chances at a few key points, it could change the feel of the relationship and appeal to different player tastes, hopefully without adding that much to the code complexity and Lozeak's effort. 

[Krynn]

since the last update I have somehow a small problem with the devices.
no matter what I set, it will always be created randomly, even in the colors.

 

ops, wrong mod, sorry!

[crococat]

Hello, Lozeak, i had found one thing. New version of NakedDungeons 2.0 prevents player to be enslaved by follower with any debt and deals. Moving DF right under ND in load order solves this immediately. This feature may be added to description page if you approve it is not only my game bug.

 

And about mod testing. Follower could not find right horse in Whiteran or Riften stables. Selling player to another actor does not dismiss previous follower properly, i have EEF, no EEF menu appear after selling but still no dialog options about hire or dismiss and following player. It was tested with custom followers, may be problem is in their additional dialog lines.

[Lupine00]

The chance of being allowed to exit gold control seems a bit low.

Probably ought to be higher than it is now, for willpower 10, and a bit lower with willpower 0 - not that I have any idea whether willpower currently effects it.

 

 

There's a bug in the MCM when Chaos Mode is enabled.

When you go to modify gambling jackpot, you appear to be instead modifying a multiplier for early deal payback instead, and it's not possible to edit the gambling jackpot.

[gurdilhfkk]

Hello, first i want to thank you for this great mod. With DCL and some other mod (slaverun reloaded, RND, milk addict, sexlab survival, simple slavery, deviously enslaved ...), this mod make skyrim very "interessing".

 

Some suggestion (or wish) :

-Block deal (with or without a mcm option) that you cann't fulfill (wearing a DD item, when you already have the slot equiped with a DD item)

-Integration with milk mod/skooma whore. When enslaved your follower would force drug you periodically, and would ask for milk too. This could be deals too.

-Soft integration with RND (or ineed) : A deal with a slave gag, an add-on to the whoring deal. Your follower would only allow you to eat every 3 or 5 customers.

[Reesewow]

36 minutes ago, gurdilhfkk said:

Some suggestion (or wish) :

-Block deal (with or without a mcm option) that you cann't fulfill (wearing a DD item, when you already have the slot equiped with a DD item)

Just as an FYI - the mod doesn't care if you use the item the follower gives you in most cases.  I have a set of items I use instead of the stuff my follower gives me for deals since I prefer the look.  If you are already stuck in locked devices, as long as they are the same general type your follower won't care that you can't equip what they gave you.  Right now my character is stuck in heretical nipple clamps and a cursed loot collar, but my follower is perfectly happy with my piercing and ownership deals.  I'm also using a horse-tail plug instead of the iron one.

 

I *think* the only issue I've heard of lately is you might be able to get the plug deal while wearing a chastity belt and not be able to put it in.

[HexBolt8]

3 hours ago, Reesewow said:

the mod doesn't care if you use the item the follower gives you in most cases.

In most cases, yes, and that's very handy if the player prefers a different look.  However, I noticed that this can fail after pausing and resuming the mod. 

 

For example, with the stage 1 plug deal, I can be wearing a different anal plug, but when I un-pause the mod another iron anal plug appears in my inventory, and if I don't quickly equip that one then the follower complains that I'm not wearing the plug.  To get things working again I must equip the iron plug, unequip it, then equip the one I prefer.  

[zeldashu]

Is it compatible with DCL??