Editorial Combat In Oblivion

[Fresh]

And another thing I remembered - if you yield to a NPC, will he/she be able to take some of your belongings?

.. and vice versa. Ie will you be able to take the NPCs belongings?

I liked Gothics way of handling this with the NPC being able to take your wielded weapon and/or some amount of your cash. Not only did you get your ass kicked by a NPC, he also gave you excellent motivation for coming back and taking back your stuff.

.. I never liked the fact that in most RPGs your possesions are "sacred" and almost never in danger of being stolen/taken. Walking around with tons of cash/eq (with the possible exception for quest-spec stuff) should result in NPCs getting awfully itchy fingers and trying to relieve you of your "burden" one way or another. This especially so when you´re surronded by NPCs with much higher level than your character.

 

[Elwro]

Another thing would be fun. I think it's a safe bet that at some point in the game the PC becomes a walking near-invincible killing machine with high Reputation parameter. Normal everyday robbers and muggers should flee from such a person on sight.

Something that (maybe) could make the gameplay less tedious: if you kill a certain number of critters of a given species, the species develops a natural instinct of fleeing from you. E.g. if you kill 60 cliff racers the rest (even far away - to hell with realism) learn not to annoy you anymore.

 

[corvax]

-SNIP-

I do have one question - Will you be awarded EXPERIENCE for getting someone to yield or only when you actuallydo kill them? (And will the amount of XP differ?)

my guess would be no...last 2 tes games did not award expeirence on a per-kill basis rather on how often you use your primary & secondary skills...so unless yield would be part of them (speachcraft or something of that sort) then maybe???

 

[Fresh]

my guess would be no...last 2 tes games did not award expeirence on a per-kill basis rather on how often you use your primary & secondary skills...so unless yield would be part of them (speechcraft) then maybe???

Oh yeah thats right. So what would be the incentive for accepting someones yield (besides not wanting to kill/murder people out of "moral reasons")? Disposition/reputation?

 

[crpgnut]

That's my guess, !H. Disposition and reputation were large factors in Morrowind. It sounds like it's much more of a factor in Oblivion. There could be other reasons too. Say you're fighting low-level NPCs who really don't have anything you need. If you accept their surrender it saves on you using up your resources to finish them off. As a mage character, I'd want to save my Magicka for other battles rather than waste it on fodder. Do I really want to kill this guy for his 3 copper and a bent knife?

 

[MrSmileyFaceDude]

!HyPeRbOy! -- no XP -- Elder Scrolls games don't use XP. Instead, character progression is done through skill usage. Your "class" determines your major & minor skills. As you use each skill, they slowly increase. When enough major skills advance by enough points, you level up. There are other stats that go into NPCs disposition towards you -- notably fame, infamy, and bounty -- that get modified when you engage in combat & commit crimes. Those can be used to do the types of things you're thinking of.

Elwro -- kinda sorta. Crimes that are committed against an NPC which are detected by other NPCs with a high disposition towards the victim may result in the victim's buddies entering combat or doing other things (like fleeing or going to get guards to help). It depends on character traits like responsibility, confidence and aggression, plus faction membership, and disposition towards the attacker. The "Radiant AI" uses these factors & more to decide what to do in cases like you describe, so the behavior might end up doing what you describe. Except for the taking of belongings. The only NPC's that'll take stuff from you are guards, if you get arrested and go to jail.

(but that all ends up in an evidence chest at the jail, so you do have a chance to get it back).

 

[Shagnak]

As you use each skill, they slowly increase. When enough major skills advance by enough points, you level up.

This was easily exploited in Morrowind (e.g putting a weight on the crouch key and walking away for half a day, and coming back to find you had maxed you Hide skill or woteva it was).
Are you doing anything to address this?

 

[space captain]

i doubt it - i think the prevailing philosophy is that if you want to take the time to do it, go ahead...

with TES you can make your PC an uber-god anyways

 

[MrSmileyFaceDude]

Well, there's a bunch of stuff we're doing to try to prevent exploits, such as only having skill usage increases on success (for example swinging a sword doesn't increase your blade skill, but hitting someone with it does), but if someone wants to cast spells on themselves over & over again for hours & hours to raise their Restoration skill, it's kinda hard to prevent that.

The challenge comes in making the game fun enough and the difficulty progressive enough so people don't feel the need to do that. Some will regardless -- it's their choice -- but personally I think it's more fun to just play the game, use my major skills and have my character progress "naturally".

 

[Fresh]

MSFD - You said that no NPC besides the guards will take eq from you. Does this mean you will not be able to take stuff from NPCs either? ..That is if they yield to you. Will you miss out on equipment/cash by letting some1 live instead of chosing the uber-violent path?

(I dont know if you purposefully didnt answer this question earlier, but I dont see any harm in just asking again. )

 

[MrSmileyFaceDude]

You can pickpocket stuff from them if your sneak skill's good enough, but right now there's no plan for allowing you to take stuff from an NPC who yields to you.

 

[Hajo]

Maybe you should consider this. At least for a few moments you have pretty mutch control over an opponent who stopped fighting and now begs for his life.

Players wil tell you that it's unrealistic if you can't force them to hand over all their stuff in exchange for health and life.

 

[Vykromond]

Seconding Hajo: if your NPC opponent is holding a very nice sword (or what looks like a very nice sword), if you can't take it from them when they yield- as you would be able to do in a "real-life" situation, for instance- you're just encouraging the PC to kill them after all.

 

[crpgnut]

I agree with Hako and Vykro. If they won't give me their stuff then they're going to die if there is no other game reason to leave them alive. I think that when a character yields you should get a popup barter window where you can choose what items you would like to take. Maybe base what is shown in this window on a perception like ability. I notice only the obvious stuff, ie armor, weapon if my perception is low but if I'm a high-level thief I notice the smaller things that an NPC might be hiding.

 

[Visbhume]

Your money or your life !
That would be nice.

 

[jeansberg]

"Your money or your life" should definitely be part of the yielding. That´s the first thing i thought of while i read about it.

 

[MrSmileyFaceDude]

Well, you do get a "reward" in a sense -- you're not committing a murder, so your crime gold won't go up as much.

But it wouldn't be difficult to have a special dialogue sequence, where if you activated someone who just yielded to you, you could "negotiate" terms (or even just tell the guy "Very well, but don't let it happen again").

 

[Fez]

I think you should be able to force them into sex once you've beaten them up. Just like real life.

 

[Visbhume]

It must be really difficult to decide when to stop implementing NPC behaviors of that kind... each new behavior suggests other related ones, and I suppose it can be a never-ending quest towards lifelike AI (I mean, never-ending until the funds run out).

If NPCs that forfeit items after a battle are a possibility, why stop there? You could make them susceptible to intimidation. You could compel a weakling to give you his items out of fear, without any fighting involved. That, in turn, raises the possibility of false accusations and the resulting need to prove your innocence, and so on. Enough to make Minsky cry...

 

[Fresh]

Maybe you should consider this. At least for a few moments you have pretty mutch control over an opponent who stopped fighting and now begs for his life.

Players wil tell you that it's unrealistic if you can't force them to hand over all their stuff in exchange for health and life.

Seconded!

For gameplay/balance-purposes probably one shouldnt be able to take ALL their stuff, just some of it.

Another option for handling a opponent who have yieded could be to make them go turn themselves in to the "cops" and collect some form of bounty. Not all NPCs would have bountys of course, but some of em - bandits, bar-brawlers, thiefs and so on. Oh(!)- and of course the opposite would be an option - ie the NPC you yield to could take you away to the Law for a bounty or even sell you as a slave. That would be awesome.

[And yeees- Fez:s suggestion wold of course be awesome if implemented. Face down. ]

 

[Vykromond]

it wouldn't be difficult to have a special dialogue sequence

But will the OC have it? :wink:

More seriously but in the same vein, one interesting thing about the Oblivion previews so far is that the devs (yourself included) have often talked about what is possible with Oblivion's tools more than what you're including. Is this a further courting of modders, or simply because you're not sure which features are going to make it to release or not, or because you're just avoiding sprawl and leaving things like robbery of NPCs who yield to modders exclusively and not taking any of your own development time on it, or...?

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

I have to also agree with looting a surrendered opponent. What's the point of letting them live if you can't really gain as much from it as you would from a kill? Mercy is fine and all, but when we're talking about scumbags and thieves who attack you, I doubt anyone but the most moral people would be interested in not getting a bit of bounty from the beaten attacker. You could even justify it by saying that the attacker won't be as quick to attack the next guy walking down the road if he doesn't have a weapon or maybe a piece of armor.

 

[Volourn]

"Maybe you should consider this. At least for a few moments you have pretty mutch control over an opponent who stopped fighting and now begs for his life."

Bethesda should also allow you to rape any HOT gals (or guys or animals) that yeild to you too. That's also realistic, and if it's not included it'll be soemnthing else I'll point to why I'm not buiying the game! It's NOT realistic enough!


*yawn*

 

[Visbhume]

or animals

I'm not sure if animals will yield. If they don't, we'll have to rape the corpses.

Ah, the joys of interactive storytelling!

 

[Fresh]

You could even justify it by saying that the attacker won't be as quick to attack the next guy walking down the road if he doesn't have a weapon or maybe a piece of armor.

Aye. Or stab you in the back once you turn around. I sure wouldnt let someone who just tried to KILL me keep anything with a pointy/sharp edge...

BTW - I REALLY like the look of the badass-fellow featured on the frontpage of the PCGAMES mars-issue: http://www.elderscrolls.com/images/top_ ... cvr03B.jpg
Finally we some kind of art/screen of someone with attitude/cojones as opposed to all earlier screens featuring really SOFT-looking men.