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Elder Scrolls More games should have NPC schedules

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Damn... and she looks so petite too...
 

Carrion

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You could rob stores in Oblivion at night, but there was no point. They barely had any money or merchandise.
Possibly the most fun I had with the game was robbing the Ayleid artifact collector's house in the Imperial City. You can even bribe the night guard to take a drink in the tavern so that you can sneak in unnoticed while everyone's asleep. It's a neat example of what you can do with NPC schedules, and it's not even a part of an actual quest IIRC. Too bad you'll only find level-scaled junk in there.

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.
Agent 47 from the Hitman games is probably wearing piss-soaked disguises most of the time, as half of the people he knocks out are taking a leak.
 

thesecret1

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I think the most appreciation I ever had for this kind of shit is with STALKER. It's not really schedules in the strict sense since it's randomly spawned groups going about their shit instead of persistent NPCs, but it really felt like they bring the world alive and make it more immersive.
 

Azdul

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One problem with Skyrim that Oblivion didn't have is indeed that it feels like a movie set where actors are waiting for the player to arrive so they can say their lines and walk away. This design is often necessary inside of quests, but when used in the gameworld outside of quests it's just lazy and goes against the whole concept of a living world.
It's a problem of most of modern (and not so modern) games, when designers try to create illusion through scripted sequences that they've created living world with intelligent NPCs.
Instead of emergent gameplay we get bugs, unfinishable quests, and design limitations such as unkillable NPCs.

IMO games that consists of purely scripted sequences, that were created through years of work of many designers are dead end of videogame evolution.
Even mainstream audience is bored with them, and would rather play latest looter shooter or Fortnite than next God of War or Uncharted.

The better approach is the one used in roguelikes, or Daggerfall, or Minecraft or sandbox MMOs or even Sims - don't create engaging story, give up the desire to control everything - and let the interesting situations appear naturally from interactions between world, NPCs and the players.
 

DJOGamer PT

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IMO games that consists of purely scripted sequences, that were created through years of work of many designers are dead end of videogame evolution.
Even mainstream audience is bored with them, and would rather play latest looter shooter or Fortnite than next God of War or Uncharted.

I get the sentiment, but it doesn't apply to the types of games you mentioned. Those types games benefit from scripted sequences/levels because they are purposedly linear given the focused nature of their gameplay and experience.

The better approach is the one used in roguelikes, or Daggerfall, or Minecraft or sandbox MMOs or even Sims - don't create engaging story, give up the desire to control everything - and let the interesting situations appear naturally from interactions between world, NPCs and the players.

That approach works for sandboxes and roguelikes, because absolute liberty and mess with world is the whole point of their experience. RPG's need structure and meaningful handcrafted content. That's why in the end random generated content doesn't work for this genre (you mentioned Daggerfall and that game is a good example of this).
 

Azdul

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RPG's need structure and meaningful handcrafted content. That's why in the end random generated content doesn't work for this genre (you mentioned Daggerfall and that game is a good example of this).
Everything that happens before the game starts is fine. There may be ancient artefacts, existing NPCs, hand crafted locations, books, etc.

But each time designers want to create pre-planned situation that happens after the game starts, it does not end well:
- You cannot run away from boss fights, even if you're playing non-combat character. Fail persuasion check, battle music starts - and boom - the game becomes unwinnable.
- You cannot hurt NPC - because the same NPC needs to die in some dramatic fashion few chapters later on.
- There is a wooden door that looks like every other wooden door, but even atomic explosion cannot damage it, because quest designer has some other ideas for quest solutions.

To deal with it you can build even bigger scripts to control even more possible circumstances (and introduce even more bugs) - see Obsidian.
Or you can limit what player and NPC AI is allowed to do.

It's sad that 25 years later in modern RPGs you cannot do things you could do in Daggerfall.
The same applies to Lords of Midnight on Spectrum and modern strategy-RPG.
 

grimace

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Oblivion with Obscuro's Overhaul and the Better Cities mod is the only rpg ever created worth playing, everything else is inane storyfaggotry, and everything else can't be considered a game in comparison.

What if the mole speaks the truth?

He was only one letter off!

Oscuro's Oblivion Overhaul
 

DJOGamer PT

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You cannot run away from boss fights, even if you're playing non-combat character.

Deus Ex already fixed this 20 years ago.
Also boss figths are entirely a matter of structre, and you can build your game in a way that a player migth not have to deal with a single boss.

You cannot hurt NPC

Morrowind fixed this, you can kill all major NPC's and still finnish the game.
Or you can go the Deus Ex route where NPC's that the devs don't want you to kill yet, are put in situations where it's impossible for the player to hurt without dying (for example an attempt on the live's of any one at UNACTO will obviously result in the entire base becoming hostile).

There is a wooden door that looks like every other wooden door, but even atomic explosion cannot damage it, because quest designer has some other ideas for quest solutions.

Replace said object with something the game's engine don't let you destroy.

It's sad that 25 years later in modern RPGs you cannot do things you could do in Daggerfall.

Yes, but most novel things that Daggerfall had either were rarely used and some even had very specific use, or were simply fluff to "sell" the ilusion of a living world. So in both cases those things were inconsequential and unneeded to the overall experience.
 

Wayward Son

Fails to keep valuable team members alive
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There is a wooden door that looks like every other wooden door, but even atomic explosion cannot damage it, because quest designer has some other ideas for quest solutions.
Tbh this is one of my favorite things about Wasteland. If there’s a door in your way, just fucking smash the bitch. Or blow it up. Or pick the lock. Or crowbar it.
 
Self-Ejected

MajorMace

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Whether you use scripted interactions on specific events or let npcs behaviour follow a few basic scripts and a more or less constant schedule, the most important remains what you do of it.
There were a couple of quests in Oblivion that made use of this schedule gimmick, but some obvious opportunities have not been seized. At the end of the day, the whole thief's questline (from what I can recall) takes the player through either uninteresting robberies or definitely scripted levels. This was a huge opportunity to put, let's say, 10 "big target" npcs whose you could have known about their fortune from hearing npcs conversations and then exploit their schedule. Obviously, another matter here is that you can't expect something as precise as Hitman's targets in terms of schedule and level design, so it'd still be not that great.
At the end of the day, some NPC going from point A to point B once every day/month/year needs to be either meaningful or significative. Without the proper quest design to support it, it doesn't feel that compelling.

Someone commented that Skyrim npcs felt like actors who waited to awkwardly say their line then walk away as the puppets they are, I absolutely agree but I really don't see the difference with oblivion's npcs. You can give a schedule to your puppet telling it to go to the next city every now and then, it still felt artificial to me. At least Skyrim had actual dialogues. And at this rate, maybe the next Elder Scrolls NPCs' dialogues will actually be interesting, who knows ? Maybe we'll consider it once we learn that Avellone works on it ?
 

DalekFlay

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I think a lot of this schedule obsession stuff is anal retentive nonsense to be honest. No classic game was ever ruined by having the shopkeeper in the same spot all day. Playing Pathfinder: Kingmaker right now and the trading post guy standing by the fire 24/7 has literally impacted my enjoyment of the game 0%. Not saying more reactivity can't be cool... a fisherman moves to the lake during the day, the person running the bar changes at night, the streets are less crowded at night, etc... but I don't think it's that important to fully dive in on planning every NPC's day.
 

DraQ

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No matter what you think of oblivious' schedules, they were just huge waste of effort.

For schedules to matter you need to have some motivation to get involved with them as a player.
In oblivious:
  • you sure as fuck don't want to hang around NPCs more than strictly necessary for fear of your brain dribbling out of your ears from sheer fucking inanity.
  • there is no point to ever steal anything apart from filing TG quota to progress. Reason? No one has shit worth stealing because level scaling.
  • Orc drug rings, NPCs derping around from city to city, etc. are never relevant to anything interesting or worthwhile, therefore they are meaningless.
So yeah, reducing that in Skyrim was sane not only from business perspective, but also from actual quality perspective - having work to put where it matters.
You still have:
  • Khajiit caravans travelling between cities.
  • Companions running around randomly killing shit
  • Travelling bard
  • A number of NPCs counting as random encounters, but actually travelling around.
  • Fallion, the friendly neighbourhood necromancer derping in the swamps occassionally around his summoning circle
  • All the NPCs derping around in their villages and cities (eat, sleep, work, go to tavern)
And, on top of that:
  • A bunch of random encounters (of varying quality) just spawning
  • basic NPC reactivity to stuff happening around
  • a number of scripted events that can be triggered by player's interactions with NPCs and their stuff
  • a number of quest relevant NPCs with more extensive schedules.
That actually has much more impact on anything player might experience even if finite number of predefined random encounters means shit will get repetitive - guess what? NPCs derping back and forth and blurbling about mudcrabs are also repetitive in addition to not being gameplay, nor lore, nor anything worth playing for.
 
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Messages
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Codex Year of the Donut
No matter what you think of oblivious' schedules, they were just huge waste of effort.

For schedules to matter you need to have some motivation to get involved with them as a player.
In oblivious:
  • you sure as fuck don't want to hang around NPCs more than strictly necessary for fear of your brain dribbling out of your ears from sheer fucking inanity.
  • there is no point to ever steal anything apart from filing TG quota to progress. Reason? No one has shit worth stealing because level scaling.
  • Orc drug rings, NPCs derping around from city to city, etc. are never relevant to anything interesting or worthwhile, therefore they are meaningless.
So yeah, reducing that in Skyrim was sane not only from business perspective, but also from actual quality perspective - having work to put where it matters.
You still have:
  • Khajiit caravans travelling between cities.
  • Companions running around randomly killing shit
  • Travelling bard
  • A number of NPCs counting as random encounters, but actually travelling around.
  • Fallion, the friendly neighbourhood necromancer derping in the swamps occassionally around his summoning circle
  • All the NPCs derping around in their villages and cities (eat, sleep, work, go to tavern)
And, on top of that:
  • A bunch of random encounters (of varying quality) just spawning
  • basic NPC reactivity to stuff happening around
  • a number of scripted events that can be triggered by player's interactions with NPCs and their stuff
  • a number of quest relevant NPCs with more extensive schedules.
That actually has much more impact on anything player might experience even if finite number of predefined random encounters means shit will get repetitive - guess what? NPCs derping back and forth and blurbling about mudcrabs are also repetitive in addition to not being gameplay, nor lore, nor anything worth playing for.
tl;dr: STOP HAVING AN INTERESTING WORLD
 

DraQ

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No matter what you think of oblivious' schedules, they were just huge waste of effort.

For schedules to matter you need to have some motivation to get involved with them as a player.
In oblivious:
  • you sure as fuck don't want to hang around NPCs more than strictly necessary for fear of your brain dribbling out of your ears from sheer fucking inanity.
  • there is no point to ever steal anything apart from filing TG quota to progress. Reason? No one has shit worth stealing because level scaling.
  • Orc drug rings, NPCs derping around from city to city, etc. are never relevant to anything interesting or worthwhile, therefore they are meaningless.
So yeah, reducing that in Skyrim was sane not only from business perspective, but also from actual quality perspective - having work to put where it matters.
You still have:
  • Khajiit caravans travelling between cities.
  • Companions running around randomly killing shit
  • Travelling bard
  • A number of NPCs counting as random encounters, but actually travelling around.
  • Fallion, the friendly neighbourhood necromancer derping in the swamps occassionally around his summoning circle
  • All the NPCs derping around in their villages and cities (eat, sleep, work, go to tavern)
And, on top of that:
  • A bunch of random encounters (of varying quality) just spawning
  • basic NPC reactivity to stuff happening around
  • a number of scripted events that can be triggered by player's interactions with NPCs and their stuff
  • a number of quest relevant NPCs with more extensive schedules.
That actually has much more impact on anything player might experience even if finite number of predefined random encounters means shit will get repetitive - guess what? NPCs derping back and forth and blurbling about mudcrabs are also repetitive in addition to not being gameplay, nor lore, nor anything worth playing for.
tl;dr: STOP HAVING AN INTERESTING WORLD
I SAW A MUDCRAP YESTERDAY.

...So much for that interesting world.
 

Wayward Son

Fails to keep valuable team members alive
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Location
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No matter what you think of oblivious' schedules, they were just huge waste of effort.

For schedules to matter you need to have some motivation to get involved with them as a player.
In oblivious:
  • you sure as fuck don't want to hang around NPCs more than strictly necessary for fear of your brain dribbling out of your ears from sheer fucking inanity.
  • there is no point to ever steal anything apart from filing TG quota to progress. Reason? No one has shit worth stealing because level scaling.
  • Orc drug rings, NPCs derping around from city to city, etc. are never relevant to anything interesting or worthwhile, therefore they are meaningless.
So yeah, reducing that in Skyrim was sane not only from business perspective, but also from actual quality perspective - having work to put where it matters.
You still have:
  • Khajiit caravans travelling between cities.
  • Companions running around randomly killing shit
  • Travelling bard
  • A number of NPCs counting as random encounters, but actually travelling around.
  • Fallion, the friendly neighbourhood necromancer derping in the swamps occassionally around his summoning circle
  • All the NPCs derping around in their villages and cities (eat, sleep, work, go to tavern)
And, on top of that:
  • A bunch of random encounters (of varying quality) just spawning
  • basic NPC reactivity to stuff happening around
  • a number of scripted events that can be triggered by player's interactions with NPCs and their stuff
  • a number of quest relevant NPCs with more extensive schedules.
That actually has much more impact on anything player might experience even if finite number of predefined random encounters means shit will get repetitive - guess what? NPCs derping back and forth and blurbling about mudcrabs are also repetitive in addition to not being gameplay, nor lore, nor anything worth playing for.
tl;dr: STOP HAVING AN INTERESTING WORLD
I SAW A MUDCRAP YESTERDAY.

...So much for that interesting world.
HORRID CREATURES. THE FIGHTERS GUILD IS HIRING.
 
Joined
Jan 14, 2018
Messages
50,754
Codex Year of the Donut
No matter what you think of oblivious' schedules, they were just huge waste of effort.

For schedules to matter you need to have some motivation to get involved with them as a player.
In oblivious:
  • you sure as fuck don't want to hang around NPCs more than strictly necessary for fear of your brain dribbling out of your ears from sheer fucking inanity.
  • there is no point to ever steal anything apart from filing TG quota to progress. Reason? No one has shit worth stealing because level scaling.
  • Orc drug rings, NPCs derping around from city to city, etc. are never relevant to anything interesting or worthwhile, therefore they are meaningless.
So yeah, reducing that in Skyrim was sane not only from business perspective, but also from actual quality perspective - having work to put where it matters.
You still have:
  • Khajiit caravans travelling between cities.
  • Companions running around randomly killing shit
  • Travelling bard
  • A number of NPCs counting as random encounters, but actually travelling around.
  • Fallion, the friendly neighbourhood necromancer derping in the swamps occassionally around his summoning circle
  • All the NPCs derping around in their villages and cities (eat, sleep, work, go to tavern)
And, on top of that:
  • A bunch of random encounters (of varying quality) just spawning
  • basic NPC reactivity to stuff happening around
  • a number of scripted events that can be triggered by player's interactions with NPCs and their stuff
  • a number of quest relevant NPCs with more extensive schedules.
That actually has much more impact on anything player might experience even if finite number of predefined random encounters means shit will get repetitive - guess what? NPCs derping back and forth and blurbling about mudcrabs are also repetitive in addition to not being gameplay, nor lore, nor anything worth playing for.
tl;dr: STOP HAVING AN INTERESTING WORLD
I SAW A MUDCRAP YESTERDAY.

...So much for that interesting world.
wow if they didn't get it perfect the first attempt then nobody else should attempt it or try it again because it's obviously awful
 

Ranarama

Learned
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Dec 7, 2016
Messages
604
wow if they didn't get it perfect the first attempt then nobody else should attempt it or try it again because it's obviously awful

It is obviously awful. We are in agreement.

The number of times I'd rather have the stores in an RPGs be replaced with a single menu is every time.

Hunting down some dumbfuck NPC so I can navigate a menu to sell vendor trash is not engaging gameplay. In fact, schedules and moving NPCs are one of the reason minimaps and markers are seen as necessary by developers.

Schedules work and are effective gameplay in Thief 1&2 and Hitman. What RPG has actually used schedules to create interesting gameplay on that level?
 
Joined
Jan 14, 2018
Messages
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Codex Year of the Donut
wow if they didn't get it perfect the first attempt then nobody else should attempt it or try it again because it's obviously awful

It is obviously awful. We are in agreement.

The number of times I'd rather have the stores in an RPGs be replaced with a single menu is every time.

Hunting down some dumbfuck NPC so I can navigate a menu to sell vendor trash is not engaging gameplay. In fact, schedules and moving NPCs are one of the reason minimaps and markers are seen as necessary by developers.

Schedules work and are effective gameplay in Thief 1&2 and Hitman. What RPG has actually used schedules to create interesting gameplay on that level?
why even have NPCs if their only use is to act as a vending machine that buys your junk and dispenses quests? Might as well cut out the middle man.
 

Azdul

Magister
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Messages
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Location
Langley, Virginia
Oblivious' more complex schedules don't seem to be helping here.
Oblivion schedules and NPC AI were heavily castrated during development.

You need to dig really deep to find traces of original implementation: There is a war between goblin clans which are invading and stealing totems off one another, with one guy that self-identifies as a goblin taking part in it. There were members of Mythic Dawn hiding among the population there were supposed to wreak havoc.

The problem for Bethesda was that just like in real world, those stories play on no matter if players takes a part in them or not. You may find dead Breton named Goblin Jim somewhere in the mine, and never know why and how he died.

Designers basically chickened out and remade Oblivion as paint-by-numbers action-RPG with AI and schedules acting only as a decoration.
 

FreeKaner

Prophet of the Dumpsterfire
Joined
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Messages
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Devlet-i ʿAlīye-i ʿErdogānīye
Witcher 1 has quite bit of it, including uneven schedules. Certain types will be at the inn at different times of day for example, with more normal types being there at evening and shadier types being there past midnight, as well as unique schedules for quite bit of NPCs.
 

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