Extra henchmen functionality for the OC - feedback is required
JuliusBorisov
Member, Administrator, Moderator, Developer Posts: 22,758
From yesterday's stream:
We’re torn on the subject of extra henchmen functionality for the OC in Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition and would like to reach out to the community about their suggestions on better ways to execute it.
http://blog.beamdog.com/2018/02/february-16-livestream-recap.html
Share your feedback here.
During the stream Trent mentioned scripting commands are one of the things he's interested in to hear about.
We’re torn on the subject of extra henchmen functionality for the OC in Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition and would like to reach out to the community about their suggestions on better ways to execute it.
http://blog.beamdog.com/2018/02/february-16-livestream-recap.html
Share your feedback here.
During the stream Trent mentioned scripting commands are one of the things he's interested in to hear about.
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Comments
I'm sure books can and will be written about AI improvements. "Be Awesome" button goes without saying
A radial command to toggle melee / ranged during combat would be most excellent.
There is no amount of ai that can fix this.
There is no amount of AI that can get you to tell your fight her to walk into that room in front of you and take all of the Agro.
Neverwinter nights 2 knew this and just allowed you to take control of that character. Sure the AI didn’t make all that much sense, but you can take over the character and fix the mistakes and take the Agro or go invisible and get rid of the Agro.
If that is not something that is possible in this version of the game then having a command like ‘guard me’ or ‘take Agro from me’ And having confidence that it will work may mitigate this. Not a skill check.
Some of these sound like general requests for improving the henchmen AI, and there's a trello card for it here
https://trello.com/c/M27Vvlnw/20-provide-customizable-ai-and-clean-up-buggy-behavior So, please, vote for it. There's a thread here for it https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/67617/any-chance-the-henchmen-ai-will-get-an-upgrade
Anyways, it would be kinda nice to be able to control equipment on henchmen in the OC. Honestly I don't have that strong of an opinion on the OC, since I don't play it much, so it's not a huge deal to me. I suppose, since it'll be most new players' first experience with the game, allowing them to customize their gear might not be a bad idea. It would make things consistent with SoU and HotU, in that regard.
@Proleric the "focus on one enemy" sounds like a great idea, and should probably be added to the Provide Customizable henchmen AI trello card. Maybe @JuliusBorisov could add that one to the cutomizable henchmen AI card? That card is getting kind of long, but might be worth adding, even if everything in the card doesn't get implemented. I think it probably belongs there, since it'd be a general AI customization, and not exclusive to the OC.
That is the main reason I prefer the second game to the first. It's annoying having "henchmen" running around aimlessly. Would prefer to have a real party.
If you wanted to go further, you could check out The Last Remnant, an RPG that has your companions ASK you what they should focus on when they level up, or ask you for a weapon you are carrying that they'd like to use. It should not have the micromanagement of other RPGs where you dictate every precise move. The companions should act on their own volition and ideals, with an "overarching, big picture" input by the player. The main character will be responsible for leading the party and keeping them alive "long-term", and managing the big picture issues, while the AI is responsible and takes their own views on those orders. Just build on the system currently there and give more detailed "bigger picture" tactical decisions to make. Avoid full party control or having to micromanage companions in combat.
The current system can be a great strength for the game if it is improved as there are no RPGs quite like it currently in that way (one main character + AI companions.)
So in other words, make it dope!
It would be nice to have the dialog requests for buffing spells and other stuff they added in the expansions, ie identify my equipment, use bard song, etc.
1. Clicking on an enemy creature will command all of your companions to attack target.
2. Clicking on a neutral/friendly creature or a location will command all of your companions to move to that creature/location.
3. Clicking on a trap will command any companions flagged to try to disarm traps to deal with the trap.
4. Clicking on a locked object will command any companions flagged to try to open locks to deal with the lock.
It'll be available to play around with in the Aielund Saga within the next week or two, and then I'll release a non-Aielund specific version on the vault once I get some feedback and make any necessary changes. I have some good news for you...
Going to the end of a hallway with two entrances to rooms and “telling” your henchmen to go into the room and get agro and keep himself alive while the Charname fireballs the room until it looks like a piece of glass sounds like a hard thing to program
A clicky power (like fireball) to get your henchmen to go “over there” is possible. But I would think that you would need to make quite a bit of these powers to be viable in many situations.
So directly controlling a henchmen would be easier....but may not be possible or the vision of what is desired
) which allow for much of what has been asked for in these sorts of threads; (inventory control, familiar behavior, Henchmen guarding, fleeing, stealth, ranged, melee, etc.) There are those who will want to change the NWN's default behavior for these AI creatures. Full control is often stated- however it is important to realize that henchmen are not the hero of the story. They are supporting cast, and if the HotU conversations are to be taken into account, a limited supportive cast. Many will reject that- as there are thousands of ways to play NWN, including a community made system to have every henchman available at the same time, BG party style: https://neverwintervault.org/project/nwn1/hakpak/more-1-henchman-oc-override Which I believe will make the OC horribly easy to get through, even on the hardest difficulty. There in lies the rub, Changing the default behavior of henchmen, animal companions, and familiars will, cause balancing problems for the OC.
What this translates to is this, improving the henchmen system, adding "party style" or even HotU "2 henchmen at once" will cause further time and resources to be spent by Beamdog rather than on, in my opinion, more needed revisions. I do not wish to come across as someone who belittles the idea of better henchmen control. There is obviously a great desire for it by many of the community. I am however more concerned that the predominantly glaring impossible to work around issues faced by PW/multi-player get attention, especially since there will be a great new influx of multi-players when NWN EE goes live, with Steam support/ server hosting. I support this opinion with this, most likely when NWN EE is live, and after playing through the EE OC, the majority of players are going to log in to a server, where there is no henchmen available. These players, even if playing familiar, or animal companion having classes, will have the opportunity to see multi-player party campaigns and probably not need to summon the familiar, or animal companion at all. That does not that mean I do not want an overall AI upgrade. I simply do not see the need for multiple henchmen in a game made for multi-player, especially when the community has already created the systems to allow for that, and those same systems will remain importable to the EE release.
Tony ai for henchmen is great but it breaks everything.
If you are having a problem with the game the solution is (much of the time) to disable Tony’s script.
If BD can make a better solution, isn’t that not better?
On the subject of inventory/level up, and in lieu of controlling your spell casters in combat... Being able to control spell selection would be useful - let me add/remove spells available to a henchman or perhaps define what spells a caster can use in combat. I currently kind of do this via a mod. Essentially what I do is give arcane casters spells that I think the AI can't screw me over with. For example no AOE damage spells, only a limited number of long duration buffs, limited or no short duration summoning spells etc. Basically a selection of spells that "work" with the AI in it's current state in that they a) don't kill me via friendly fire and b) don't burn all the henchies spell slots uselessly in a the first combat after a rest.
Thinking out loud on the second option above... The ability to flag what spells you want the henchman AI to use autonomously (and maybe an order in which to use them??) would be pretty useful. Then you could leave the rest of their spells in their list to use via dialogue, radial menu, shortcut bar button or whatever. I'm thinking this approach would help address AI spell selection with toons who have access to all their spells at each level, eg divine casters as well as arcane ones.
I think having a feature to tell everything to "Guard Me" in one click would be fantastic. As well as this, having a quick way to tell your entire party (or just select henchmen, familiars, etc), to attack a certain mob would be fantastic. Either through one click on the radial menu or through a keybinding (and I desperately want customisable keybindings and more action bars).
group select.
select target for entire group.
fire at will.
defend ground position/hold position
assign teams (1), (2), (3) etc by group select
Advance and fight on the way to position.
Just the basic Starcraft set is enough.
Regarding individual inventory and spell selection --- this isn't always a simple scripting decision.
I suggest having two selectable modes: Roleplay AI and Puppet AI.
Roleplay AI is where the AI does all levelling+inventory choices on its own. It shuold follow the personality assigned to the character in the game.
Puppet AI is where every item is controlled by the player.
Maybe players could be given the power to between modes during gameplay.
However, switching back to roleplay AI may cause the AI is change back their inventory.
Also using keyboard to access depths of the Radial Menu can be quick too. A few keystrokes and you're there.
-JFK
We? On the forum? At a bd meeting? Who needs to talk about this?
Anyways, a Baldurs gate style fpc isn’t what is asked. Dm “possession” is what we are asking, I think.