Mod Idea: Conversing with pacified enemies

[Macadaynu]

Another way of doing this, is have the pacified enemy fight along side and follow you. Whilst they are with you if you still haven't found the quest item, every time you interact with him/her they say eg. 'The _questItem_ is below us, to the North.'

If you have already found the quest item, you could do the same but with the exit. (or maybe just use a tele2exit, seeing as you will already know where the dungeon exit is on your map)

[andromacus]

That's right!

And another idea that just came to my mind: maybe different type of mobs can offer different type of help.

All of them could offer the support to retrieve the quest item or the exit, plus:

Warrior-type humans and creatures (orcs, giants, centaurs...), could fight at your side
Healers or nymphs could restore your health/fatigue
Magical-type humans or creatures (imps, daedras) can restore your mana

Possibly the best would be to have 2 or 3 possible random actions for each mob, of which one of them is selected randomly when you click on a pacified one

[Macadaynu]

This type of thing could make healer/buff type characters viable. Pacify an enemy, and when you next get into combat cast an invisibility spell on yourself, and then ensure your pacified friend is kept healed/buffed to take out the other enemies.

[Regnier]

This type of thing could make healer/buff type characters viable. Pacify an enemy, and when you next get into combat cast an invisibility spell on yourself, and then ensure your pacified friend is kept healed/buffed to take out the other enemies.

I just downloaded the create atronach mod and i was able to heal the flesh atronach (not sure about the others). I instantly thought of this playstyle.

[andromacus]

Actually, another thing that just came out in my mind.

If I remember correctly the language skills are automatically checked when you are in proximity of an enemy, right?
If that's so, I also think they are checked only once per encounter, so basically you have only one chance to pacify an enemy.

I think another nice evolution would be to make possible more than an attempt of pacification. For example, if you switch to "Dialogue" mode and you click on the enemy, every time you click there is a check to see if you have pacified the enemy.

[l3lessed]

Working on a dynamic pathfinding system right now I plan on using to allow pacified and friendly enemies to join you. I wanted conversing with them and having to win dialogue/diplomacy checks as part of it, including bribing.

I just started on this yesterday with working on getting the 3d animals to do a very simple pathfinding/roaming behavior in a defined area. This will build into the follower/pathfinding framework.

[Macadaynu]

I was going to try setting the enemy target to the player, whilst making them non-hostile, doesn't that achieve the same thing without the complexity of additional pathfinding?

That's just if you wanted the enemy to follow the player though.

[Macadaynu]

I think another nice evolution would be to make possible more than an attempt of pacification. For example, if you switch to "Dialogue" mode and you click on the enemy, every time you click there is a check to see if you have pacified the enemy.

This is a cool idea, I picture it like you're pleading with the enemy to yield with your hands up

But it would be best if it defaulted to a pacify attempt every time, rather than you having to switch to Dialogue mode.

[l3lessed]

I was going to try setting the enemy target to the player, whilst making them non-hostile, doesn't that achieve the same thing without the complexity of additional pathfinding?

I don't think this would work because of how enemy attack behavior and enemy ai work. If my understanding of the code is correct, what this would do, if it worked, would have the enemy follow you around with their extremely rudimentary pathfinding system and constantly get stuck anytime you tried to go anywhere past the room or hall they are in. The pathfinding has no logic outside walking in a straight line towards their targets position. Good luck pulling them through a large dungeon with this behavior.

The enemy attack script uses the current target to figure out a number of things to decide if and when to attack, from their position and distance to if they are in a range and view angle to initiate a roll based attack. And because this is an older gamebased on chance based D&D, the enemies don't even have a raycast when they attack. They merely try to get within a certain range and view angle, and if they do, then it plays attack animation and does a roll check to see if you take damage or not. This means they would always been following and trying to attack you, but wouldn't because you're friendly, so they would do nothing.

[l3lessed]

How about if you are unarmed, before every enemy attack, it checks for a pacify attempt. As said, it's like you're struggling with the opposition, trying to convince them to not engage in their own suicide by attacking something that can clearly kill them.