np NP: Friday, April 8, 2016

[Scotty 1,061]

I know in Oblivion and Skyrim, NPCs reacted to you having your weapon drawn. I think FNV did as well. Mainly just comments like "hey, watch where you point that thing." I can't remember if it affected how you interacted with NPCs though. I want to say it affected trying to get information in Oblivion (that speech wheel mechanic) but can't 100% remember if it did or not.

[ijuin 572]

One should only point a gun (or other ranged weapon) at someone when one intends either to shoot or to threaten to shoot them. When you are dealing with people rather than NPCs, a gun pointed at them gives them a reasonable suspicion that you intend to shoot, and motivates them to likewise draw their weapons in order either to get you to back down, or to shoot you first.

[Matoyak 51]

2 hours ago, Scotty said:

I know in Oblivion and Skyrim, NPCs reacted to you having your weapon drawn. I think FNV did as well. Mainly just comments like "hey, watch where you point that thing." I can't remember if it affected how you interacted with NPCs though. I want to say it affected trying to get information in Oblivion (that speech wheel mechanic) but can't 100% remember if it did or not.

IIRC it lowers your speech checks, barter checks, and other such stuff. Makes it harder to accomplish things via smooth talk. (Though that may have been a mod?)

[The Old Hack 2,448]

4 hours ago, Matoyak said:

IIRC it lowers your speech checks, barter checks, and other such stuff. Makes it harder to accomplish things via smooth talk. (Though that may have been a mod?)

Well, that puts paid to Al Capone's claim that you can get more done with a kind word and a gun than you can get done with a kind word alone. o.o

[partner555 170]

1 hour ago, The Old Hack said:

Well, that puts paid to Al Capone's claim that you can get more done with a kind word and a gun than you can get done with a kind word alone. o.o

I think it would be better to try kind words first before including a gun.

[The Old Hack 2,448]

28 minutes ago, partner555 said:

I think it would be better to try kind words first before including a gun.

To be fair, this was the man who thought the St. Valentine's Day massacre was a perfectly normal and reasoned response to the policies of a competing business.

[hkmaly 490]

12 hours ago, Sweveham said:

Characters pointing their guns at each other willy-nilly is something that tends to annoy me in video games.

In some games you can't really NOT point the gun - it's always out and ready. At least in some FPS it's justifiable, but yeah, it should be possible to hide it or point it at ground around NPCs.

9 hours ago, InfiniteRemnant said:

Or have character refuse to talk to the main character unless they holster their weapon first.

Not "refuse". It should make the only option to talk about being the "Don't point that on me" or similar. With the IMPORTANT talk options - those the character needs to talk about to progress - being only accessible with gun hidden.

There is also option for lazy developers, though: make impossible to trigger the talk with gun out. Like, when you have the gun out, cursor is always crosshair and clicking is shooting, and you need to hide the gun to get other cursors like talk.

[CritterKeeper 1,102]

Another option to add some realism would be to have a small but non-negligable chance of the gun going off accidentally any time you point it at someone.  A few great runs ruined by having a vital NPC getting taken out before they can help you might teach players to respect their weapons a bit more.

[hkmaly 490]

16 minutes ago, CritterKeeper said:

Another option to add some realism would be to have a small but non-negligable chance of the gun going off accidentally any time you point it at someone.  A few great runs ruined by having a vital NPC getting taken out before they can help you might teach players to respect their weapons a bit more.

Wait. I though that most NPC are unkillable because the chance of friendly fire is big enough to make players complain the game is too hard if they kill something by mistake.

[CritterKeeper 1,102]

14 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Wait. I though that most NPC are unkillable because the chance of friendly fire is big enough to make players complain the game is too hard if they kill something by mistake.

So, make an exception to their un-killability when it comes to pointing your gun at them.  Or just take it away completely, and teach them not to be so careless in firefights.

[Matoyak 51]

20 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

38 minutes ago, CritterKeeper said:

Another option to add some realism would be to have a small but non-negligable chance of the gun going off accidentally any time you point it at someone.  A few great runs ruined by having a vital NPC getting taken out before they can help you might teach players to respect their weapons a bit more.

Wait. I though that most NPC are unkillable because the chance of friendly fire is big enough to make players complain the game is too hard if they kill something by mistake.

In games like Skyrim and Fallout it's mostly a case of "this quest is given by this NPC, and were we to allow them to be killed it'd either mean we'd have to replace them via another NPC or cut that quest out entirely"* combined with "this game is on average 20-60 hrs long***, and with the possibility of multiple factions, betrayals, and the insanely complex and complicated clockwork world and physics simulation we've created, it'd be really bad form to allow quest givers to die."**

*Bethesda does both of these. The former means the characters are SUPER bland and generic, and the latter would be really bad design as the default in a game like what they make. Too easy to accidentally kill someone, or for them to get accidentally killed by the hundreds of potential threats they face in the wasteland even when you're merely in the area.

**This is mostly covered by the first asterisk but it can't be over emphasized. These kinds of worlds are monstrously large and the potential combinations of possibilities approach "stars in the universe" levels of big. The devs have no idea what will befall any one quest giver at any time.

***These are REALLY conservative numbers. I spent 200 hrs in Oblivion before beating the main quest in my first playthrough. 300 in my second. 80 in Skyrim and never beat it. These games (by default) need some kind of allowance to get these quests to kick off. Invincible quest givers is the least bad option, honestly.

[Don Edwards 548]

3 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:

Another option to add some realism would be to have a small but non-negligable chance of the gun going off accidentally any time you point it at someone.

A decently well-made gun in good condition being competently handled, the chance of that happening is negligible. Something, you know, about not having a finger on the trigger - and with some guns, where the safety is easily reached, having the safety on - unless you positively intend to fire the gun in the next couple seconds.

[The Old Hack 2,448]

2 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

A decently well-made gun in good condition being competently handled, the chance of that happening is negligible.

Unfortunately, it is not always a three for three in the real world -- or for that matter, in games. I could certainly envision a gun you loot off some bandit or mook being in an atrocious state of maintenance, for example. What is that term, a Saturday Night Special?

One of my own favourite comics about how to handle guns may be found in the first panel of this Grrl Power comic.

[InfiniteRemnant 141]

12 hours ago, Don Edwards said:

A decently well-made gun in good condition being competently handled

aren't we talking about Fallout though? way too many of the guns in that series are either rusted messes, or improvised from spare parts... 

and whether the player is even slightly competent with that type of weapon depends on skill progression.

It's Entirely possible to be 0-3 here.

[Sjmcc13 42]

2 hours ago, InfiniteRemnant said:

aren't we talking about Fallout though? way too many of the guns in that series are either rusted messes, or improvised from spare parts... 

and whether the player is even slightly competent with that type of weapon depends on skill progression.

It's Entirely possible to be 0-3 here.

NV is not FO4. the Mojave survived better than most other areas thanks in part to a certain billionaire prepper. There is still some industry there (NCR, the enclave and the BoS all manufactured a portion of their own arms IIRC, and were active in the neighbouring areas), and stashes that are in decent condition, and there are plenty of decent quality arms around. 

[InfiniteRemnant 141]

It's still entirely possible to build a character in those games that is so inept with a particular variety of firearm, you have to wonder how they figured out which end is the barrel. even more so back before they got rid of percentage based skills in favor of expanding the perk tree.

[hkmaly 490]

14 hours ago, The Old Hack said:

Unfortunately, it is not always a three for three in the real world -- or for that matter, in games. I could certainly envision a gun you loot off some bandit or mook being in an atrocious state of maintenance, for example. What is that term, a Saturday Night Special?

One of my own favourite comics about how to handle guns may be found in the first panel of this Grrl Power comic.

Not this or this?

20 hours ago, Matoyak said:

20 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Wait. I though that most NPC are unkillable because the chance of friendly fire is big enough to make players complain the game is too hard if they kill something by mistake.

In games like Skyrim and Fallout it's mostly a case of "this quest is given by this NPC, and were we to allow them to be killed it'd either mean we'd have to replace them via another NPC or cut that quest out entirely"* combined with "this game is on average 20-60 hrs long***, and with the possibility of multiple factions, betrayals, and the insanely complex and complicated clockwork world and physics simulation we've created, it'd be really bad form to allow quest givers to die."**

*Bethesda does both of these. The former means the characters are SUPER bland and generic, and the latter would be really bad design as the default in a game like what they make. Too easy to accidentally kill someone, or for them to get accidentally killed by the hundreds of potential threats they face in the wasteland even when you're merely in the area.

**This is mostly covered by the first asterisk but it can't be over emphasized. These kinds of worlds are monstrously large and the potential combinations of possibilities approach "stars in the universe" levels of big. The devs have no idea what will befall any one quest giver at any time.

***These are REALLY conservative numbers. I spent 200 hrs in Oblivion before beating the main quest in my first playthrough. 300 in my second. 80 in Skyrim and never beat it. These games (by default) need some kind of allowance to get these quests to kick off. Invincible quest givers is the least bad option, honestly.

Yes. That's what I'm speaking about. Alternatively, with quest depending on each other, the game might easily became unwinable in like 70% cases even with PC being extra careful.

[Scotty 1,061]

In Oblivion and Skyrim, an unkillable NPC is most likely unkillable due to being connected to the main quest line, at least until such a time during the quest line that requires an NPC to be killed or prevented from being killed. Most other side quest NPCs could be killed and there were times where you either couldn't complete a quest because of a random dragon attack killed half a village or didn't get the opportunity to get a quest because the NPC died to bandit as you were coming up to them.