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Elder Scrolls More games should have NPC schedules

Deleted Member 16721

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Oblivion's schedules and conversations were incline. It's a shame they got rid of them for canned moments in Skyrim.

If they expanded their AI and we actually saw radiant AI (which unfortunately we still haven't seen, most of it was cut in Oblivion and Skyrim), then the games would really be more immersive. Conversation system in Oblivion is incline because it's randomized and adds life to the game. Like someone mentioned, it gave the illusion that the game didn't revolve around your character. The schedules are great especially if you stalk somebody for a quest or something. You get to see their daily lives which while sounding corny is incredibly cool in the game. They should expand that so you could ask where a specific person is to other townsfolk. Like "have you seen Jim?" and they give you directions to where he currently is. A lot can be done with both the schedules and conversations to take it to another level, I hope they revisit that style in TES 6, I really do.
 

Chunkyman

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I hope they revisit that style in TES 6, I really do.
Unfortunately Skyrim sold really well so by their metrics they know they can get away with the wooden post people who stand at their designated spot and spout lines at you when you walk by. I think that's been the general problem with the Elder Scrolls series, as they realize that cutting features doesn't reduce sales noticeably, so they try to save money and make it as simple as they think they can get away with. I mean they didn't even bother dropping in the "Radiant AI" as it was present in Oblivion into Skyrim, they just cut it out completely. The only hope is that Fallout 76 doing poorly might make a few of the executives rethink their strategy, although that's unlikely.

gyeodgqvqk011.jpg
 

Deleted Member 16721

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Please keep in mind that we haven't seen TRUE Radiant AI by Bethesda. They had much more intricate AI designed for Oblivion that they had to cut, so the end was just a shell of what their true Radiant AI was supposed to be. They had plans for Skyrim as well that didn't work out. So we still haven't really seen Radiant AI in its full glory. Maybe TES 6 will be the one?
 

Carrion

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doesn't do anything, unless there are quests that force you to pay attention to an npc's schedule
It makes a huge difference for especially thieves and assassins. Oblivion was trash, and the Radiant AI can be ridiculed for lots of things, but the schedules were one genuine bit of incline over Morrowind.

For example, the Thieves Guild in Morrowind was kind of lame since more or less everything you had to steal was located either in an empty room, or right under the eye of an NPC who wouldn't budge from her spot even if you waited for a hundred years. Or how about Larrius Varro's quest, where you need to take out the bad people at the Council Club — instead of being able to stalk them and take them out one by one, you're forced to take the most reckless course of action and take on all of them at once since not one of them will ever leave the building even for a bathroom break.

You have to play Outcast. Finding NPCs can get very annoying:
"Have you seen that person (talan)?"
"I have not seen that person today."

"Have you seen that person?"
"I have seen that person a while ago on the rice field."

Which would be the organic way to do this.
Or questmarkers to every NPC.
The one is annoying and the other is lame.
Outcast's system was goddamn great. Characters literally pointing you in the right direction was also a nice touch. The fact that nobody has attempted to replicate it just shows how deep the decline goes.
 

Bad Sector

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doesn't do anything, unless there are quests that force you to pay attention to an npc's schedule

There are quests in Oblivion that expect you to do that. IIRC one of the first quests you come across in Imperial City is about tailing some merchant to figure out where he's getting his stuff.
 

Bruma Hobo

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I have nothing against NPC schedules, but games like Gothic and Majora's Mask were so much better than Oblivion in this regard that it's hard to believe people here is praising Oblivion for one of the most souless and immersion-breaking implementations ever. They were all fucking retarded robots living in fantasy Disney Land, ffs.
 

undecaf

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NPC schedules work when time matters and the gameplay systems notify that. Most games don't do that.
 

Bad Sector

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I have nothing against NPC schedules, but games like Gothic and Majora's Mask were so much better than Oblivion in this regard that it's hard to believe people here is praising Oblivion for one of the most souless and immersion-breaking implementations ever. They were all fucking retarded robots living in fantasy Disney Land, ffs.

The retardation mainly comes from the presentation (VO, random lines, potato faces, etc), not the schedules which is what we're talking about.

Having said that, i haven't played Majora's Mask (the last console i owned was Master System 2) but i do not remember Gothic's NPCs to have any elaborate schedules - their behavior was affected by the day/night but i do not remember them doing anything as elaborate as those mentioned in this thread or anything more than wandering around, eating and sleeping. It has been some time since i played the game though, so i might be forgetting, do you have anything specific in mind?
 

Quillon

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NPC schedules are great, the problem is devs don't utilize it enough in quests or generally can't use it effectively because of heavy resource usage of real time simulation which leads to players hand-waving it by saying "I don't like it when shops are closed at nights". Even Tim Cain hand waved it with the same exact argument, like its the only reason not to implement schedules ffs. Put robots/assistants to the stand in the off hours, problem solved.

The best Skyrim mod I've tried was Immersive Patrols, where as bands of faction NPCs roam the map in real time, clash with each other, take castles from each other etc.

Even NPCs just moving from place to place in real time adds so much to the immershun; once I followed Lt. Hayes from Primm all the way to the Camp Forlorn Hope, it is so much better than having him just teleport there.

There is so much emergent gameplay potential that's unique to each player through simulation. I've played Arma 3 antistasi mod which is about fighting in the resistance and taking over the locations which in turn gets taken back by the AI if not defended etc. ally/enemy patrols, fortifications, road blocks... whole set off sim systems that only a server can handle :P Now RPG devs just need to marry the simulation with handcrafted content, easy peasy, it'll be glorious :P
 

mondblut

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No, fuck it. My convenience of going into a store whenever I need it without waiting for it to open trumps any immershun.

The NPCs are there to attend to my needs.
 

Bad Sector

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No, fuck it. My convenience of going into a store whenever I need it without waiting for it to open trumps any immershun.

The NPCs are there to attend to my needs.

There is always the New Vegas approach where the store NPCs go to sleep and you wake them up and take them out of their bed so you can sell them your junk :-P
 

rohand

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Diablo 1 has something very subtle in Tristam that doesn't come close to a full schedule, but the people in the village don't just stay standing in front of their stores. The smith walks over to the healer and stays there as if they're everyday talking. The innkeep goes over to the cows sometimes. Many join up with the Elder at the well in a circle (you can just imagine the elder repeating "stay awhile and listen" to them). Very minor things accompanied by the awesome Tristam theme give that great, unparalleled feeling that Diablo 1 has.
 

Curious_Tongue

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If anything, scripted schedules took me out of the game.

They wake up, they go their place of business, they leave, they go to a tavern, they sit and pretend to eat, they go home. It's so mechanical it's off-putting.
 
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Curious_Tongue

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And you usually just use the shopkeepers to buy and sell shit. The scripted shit just means they're off pretending to do living person stuff while you're just waiting out the front of their business.
 

Damned Registrations

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Yeah, stuff like this (or the incredibly bizarre 'conversations' they would generate) end up detracting from the game. It's like adding jumping/climbing over some objects into a game but still making a knee high fence an impassable barrier. If it's badly implemented an 'improvement' is just drawing attention to the problem that was previously easy to forget about.
 

biggestboss

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I only like schedules if there's a mechanics/system-based benefit to the player outside of needing to wait until daytime to sell shit or turn in a quest. Example: Robbing stores/shopkeepers at night in Ultima 7 and Arcanum
 
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It's like I died and went to retard heaven. Oblivion had the most retarded NPC schedules ever, which they stole from Gothic/Ultima VII, but in a typically incompetent Bethesda way. All their NPCs did was stand around all day outside, or walk back and forth a few paces, and then go sleep at night. It was barely noticeable, except for the weird stuff they would sometimes do due to RadiantAI, but that was so rare and weird, it didn't really matter in the big picture either.

Now Gothic 1/2 had amazing NPC schedules (even later PB games like Risen and ELEX haven't quite captured those). People wouldn't just go to sleep at night, and work during the day, they would do all sorts of other things. Sit at campfires in the evening with others, cook, fix up their houses, piss behind them, walk around the camp, etc. Between those and the overall design of settlements, and AI, those worlds felt truly alive in a way that even today hasn't been matched.
 

JarlFrank

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Now Gothic 1/2 had amazing NPC schedules (even later PB games like Risen and ELEX haven't quite captured those). People wouldn't just go to sleep at night, and work during the day, they would do all sorts of other things. Sit at campfires in the evening with others, cook, fix up their houses, piss behind them, walk around the camp, etc. Between those and the overall design of settlements, and AI, those worlds felt truly alive in a way that even today hasn't been matched.

When I noticed NPCs going for a leak in ELEX, I realized that no other games other than those made by Piranha Bytes have NPCs go out for a piss once in a while.
 

Danikas

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Now Gothic 1/2 had amazing NPC schedules (even later PB games like Risen and ELEX haven't quite captured those). People wouldn't just go to sleep at night, and work during the day, they would do all sorts of other things. Sit at campfires in the evening with others, cook, fix up their houses, piss behind them, walk around the camp, etc. Between those and the overall design of settlements, and AI, those worlds felt truly alive in a way that even today hasn't been matched.

When I noticed NPCs going for a leak in ELEX, I realized that no other games other than those made by Piranha Bytes have NPCs go out for a piss once in a while.
All Witcher games have it too.
 
Self-Ejected

RNGsus

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All those survival mechanics, like eating, shitting, hunting food, should have been given to NPCs instead. The player character is excused because they're actually an immortal. That would be a good reveal.

:ziets:
"Ask yourself, chosen one, how comest I do never piss? You are a god, chosen one. Immortal souls do not pee."

Lots of deep writing potential.
 

JarlFrank

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Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
All those survival mechanics, like eating, shitting, hunting food, should have been given to NPCs instead. The player character is excused because they're actually an immortal. That would be a good reveal.

:ziets:
"Ask yourself, chosen one, how comest I do never piss? You are a god, chosen one. Immortal souls do not pee."

Lots of deep writing potential.

Or you can have NPCs going to the shithouse etc, but the player gets to play a female character and as we all know women don't shit, so there's no explanation required for why the player has no poo meter that fills up as his character eats.
 

lukaszek

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deterministic system > RNG
 
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lukaszek

the determinator
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deterministic system > RNG
 
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