>"These NPCs are not scripted. We give them general goals and they figure out on their own how to accomplish them."It's been almost two decades, why can't RPGs ACTUALLY accomplish this now? It would make their worlds far more believable and alive and feel less dead.
>>3475801I often see people saying "npc schedules don't matter, doesn't affect gameplay" so maybe devs took the hint and stopped wasting resources on a feature that some people barely notice and appreciate.
>>3475801Fucking hated how Skyrim turn down the schedules and radiant ai overall
>>3475801they can do that though, but it doesn't lead to believable worlds (see any heavily botted mmo) and costs a ton of processor power that most gamers don't have
>>3475821>it costs a ton of processor powerOh shit I guess i can't run fucking oblivion
>>3475823You can, since there's rarely more than 10 npcs in one cell
>>3475825I had plenty of situations with more than 10 npcs, very likely if you go into a rampage in the university (or cause someone else to go into a rampage)
>>3475828No stuttering? You got a beefy PC
>>3475834Actually no, I have a laptop that can run games like until 2020 with no problem but I just remembered I play most of my games on low graphical settings because I don't like it heating upMaybe that was why I had no problem with lots of npcs in one cell, I could see it going to shit if you have all the graphical setting on max like most people do
>>3475842Might be. It's most noticeable when multiple NPCs load in the same location, causing a dip in the framerate.
>oblivion>sims 3 and 4>watch dogs 2 and legion
>>3475801They just break down into sims/dwarf fortress madlib behavior. It can be fun but only in a slapstick way, not an immersive way
>>3475801>why can't RPGs ACTUALLY accomplish this nowbecause the average player(and the hardcore trannies) doesn't appreciate the work that goes into it at allyou can add 5 different unique NPC interactions but people will still mock you for not having even more and at some point adding a single new NPC will become exponentially more work
>>3475938This is bizarre cope, bethesda gutted it themselves before oblivion released because it made their normal quest marker following gameplay too annoyingOther people don't bother making Sims AI because it's inevitably cartoony and silly
>>3475952>Other people don't bother making Sims AI because it's inevitably cartoony and sillyBut that's a good thing
>>3475955Cute for an hour, lame forever
>>3475952>because it made their normal quest marker following gameplay too annoyingSource, or I'm going to have to call you a lying bitch
>>3475963That e3 bullshit video vs how it actually works in the finished game you stupid cunt
>>3475966So nothing about quests then. Thanks, lying bitch!Some interviews said it was unpredictable and caused issues, like guards attacking prisoners for food, so they toned it down a bit.
>>3475801Because just like in Oblivion itself it's a waste of development time after the player gets over the novelty.
>>3475971Glad we had this conversation you stupid pedant cunt
>>3475973I wish you wouldn't lie and twist facts from now on, though
>>3475972Nah it was fun and cool
>>3475966>That e3 bullshit videoWhile recently replaying and lightly modding Oblivion, I was amused to find files named "e3_whatever" in the code and so on, stuff made especially for that.
>>3475801>These NPCs are not scriptedThey are literally scripted. Radiant AI is a macro-script so Bethesda has to do less work and, in theory, use this time saved to create more complex daily routines on a larger scale. However, many games do this, and most of them aren't RPGs, because this isn't an RPG mechanic. (and obviously Oblivion is not even REMOTELY close to anything that could be defined as an RPG) Examples of complex dynamic NPC scheduling include: Stalker, Red Dead Redemption 2, The Sims, Dwarf Fortress. Also, by simplifying scripting, this also reduces how meaningful an NPC's behavior can be, and in Oblivion's case, make the entire game feel like 30 minutes of unique content copy-pasted for 100 hours of padding.
>>3476029The fargoth's gold quest in morrowind is similar, nothing else in the game uses scripts anything like that because it was just there to wow subhuman games journalists in guided demos
>>3476084All TES games are basically a mountain of snake oil.
>>3476052>Also, by simplifying scripting, this also reduces how meaningful an NPC's behavior can beHow?
>>3475801I don't know you and I don't care to know you>>3475807I don't know you and I don't care to know you>>3475818I don't know you and I don't care to know you>>3475821I don't know you and I don't care to know you>>3475823I don't know you and I don't care to know you>>3475825I don't know you and I don't care to know you>>3475828I don't know you and I don't care to know you>>3475834I don't know you and I don't care to know you>>3475842I don't know you and I don't care to know you>>3475859I don't know you and I don't care to know you>>3475931I don't know you and I don't care to know you>>3475936I don't know you and I don't care to know you>>3475938I don't know you and I don't care to know you>>3475952I don't know you and I don't care to know you>>3475955I don't know you and I don't care to know you>>3475961I don't know you and I don't care to know you>>3475963I don't know you and I don't care to know you>>3475966I don't know you and I don't care to know you>>3475971I don't know you and I don't care to know you>>3475972I don't know you and I don't care to know you>>3475973I don't know you and I don't care to know you>>3475975I don't know you and I don't care to know you>>3476006I don't know you and I don't care to know you>>3476029I don't know you and I don't care to know you>>3476052I don't know you and I don't care to know you>>3476084I don't know you and I don't care to know you>>3476088I don't know you and I don't care to know you>>3476090I don't know you and I don't care to know you
>>3475801>It's been almost two decades, why can't RPGs ACTUALLY accomplish this now?Because what's the point? it sounds impressive when you're doing a press conference and need a quick bragging point but what is the actual merit to any of this? Honestly it's kind of more annoying than anything else. NPCs being more predictable certainly sounds duller but it's more a matter of function. Not to get all Jeff Goldblum but these people more in love with the idea that can do something they don't really put any thought into wondering if they should do something.
>>3476517>these people more in love with the idea that can do something they don't really put any thought into wondering if they should do somethingdaggerfall fans in a nutshell.
>>3476517>Because what's the point?Bethesda has set out to create living worlds, and npc schedules were a big part of that. It adds believability, and gameplay opportunities. If that's not your thing, play something else Morrowind's static NPCs received criticism already in 2002.
>>3476517Nah I can do some funny shit with it, you're just not a creative gamer and thats not my problem
>>3475801This has already been done.The game is called rainworld.It's a cult classic at best and people endlessly rage about how "Bullshit" it is when the uncaring ecosystem squashes their character like a bug.
>>3476660Example
>>3475821They should learn to fucking code, devs these days are such shitty optimizers it's shamefull
>>3475801A lot of stuff they say sounds better than it actually is. Bethesda games are such empty voids broken up sporadically by some artist's pet project decorating the landscape that doesn't matter. People are willing to suspend disbelief and accept some conceits if the overall gameplay is decent enough. Developers that talk like that quote aren't selling RPGs, they're selling hype to their unthinking fans.
>>3476868>Developers that talk like that quote aren't selling RPGs, they're selling hype to their unthinking fans.Or in a less bitter view, they're excited about a new system they're still developing, and the possibilities that come with it. You would be too, if you created one for your own game and weren't dead inside.Also there's nothing false about that quote, problem is that it leaves too much room for imagination to run wild.
>>3476963Lol, bethesdrones never cease to dissapoint.
>>3475807The thing is, there were actually a lot of quests that took advantage of it, especially for the Thieves' Guild, and you'd never go through a city without a decent amount of NPCs gossiping at the very least. I thought even that little bit went a long way.>>3475834That's more a problem with the engine not being optimized for modern CPUs. There are fixes.
>>3475801>why can't RPGs ACTUALLY accomplish this now?Because it isn't possible.
>>3477289>a lot of quests that took advantage of itTrue. And right off the bat, it affects thief and assassin gameplay anyways.In a Mages Guild quest, you can inform vampire hunters of their target location, and go with them to help slay all the vampires. Alternatively, you can assassinate them during the day at different parts of the city, or wait until the night when they're asleep at the inn.In the main quest, you're told about spies seen during the night. If you don't want to wait, you can ask the guard for anything suspicious, check out the house of a person mentioned, and find the spies there during the day.
>>3475842your framerate is probably so bad all the time that you don't notice it stuttering. it's an ai issue with bethshit games, you can see the framerate instantly climb if you toggle the ai off.
I just replayed Morrowind and Oblivion back to back. Personally, beyond the first five seconds of “wow that’s kinda neat” I don’t think the AI schedules add anything to the game, beyond the tedium of “well shit i guess I gotta wait for 12 hours for this shop to open to sell my loot now”. I can understand the objection to Morrowind style “this NPC is still standing here at 3am because it’s just what he does” as being unrealistic, but I look at it as a gameplay conceit.Then you get into the fun stuff like “lol this level 1 NPC is coded to run cross country to this other city on the 17th of every month, sure hope he doesn’t get murdered by a land dreugh and a quest just randomly broke”. As a bandaid to this you got Bethesda slapping the essential flag on minor NPCs simply because they’re involved in some side quest, which is, to me, far more immersion breaking. I much preferred Morrowinds very sparing use of the tag, and even then, it didn’t stop them from dying, just gave you a “you just done goofed” message, even though you could still d the back door route and finish the main quest, which is really cool.
>>3477296Why isn't it possible?
>>3476650>Bethesda has set out to create living worlds, and npc schedules were a big part of thatYeah well I'm hear to play a video game. Go to hell.
FUCK OBLIVION fuck this stupid fucking game. every so often i get the itch to mod it and play it then i get 200+ saves in and everything gets corrupted, only ever bethesda game to corrupt my auto saves. FUCK THIS GAME AND FUCK YOU TODD HOWARD
>>3477751Did you play with a million mods? It was still a 32-bit game, you may have gotten to the point where your saves got too large and the game shits the bed. I recently replayed it and the only time I ran into save corruption was in the mages guild quest with the dude and the giant black soul gem, it was very specific and reproduceable, had to work around it.
>>3477751Modtranny
>>3477360> sure hope he doesn’t get murdered by a land dreugh and a quest just randomly brokeThis is such a cop out by Bethesda fags.a) Don't make essential NPCs hang out in dangerous areas, duh, gayme designb) Make essential NPC not be able to get aggro'd by other NPCs until the PC triggers all relevant questsc) Make essential NPC unkillable by anyone that's not PC or his companionsThere are a thousand ways they could have addressed this without making NPCs unkillable
Holy shit you people are so narrow minded. Really, you're equally responsible for modern games being shit alongside game devs.
>>3478120>Holy shit you people are so narrow minded.What do you mean?
>>3475801Actual reasonSourcehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsqCDLgBBSoMost companies do not have R&D departments. Say you wanted to to develop this type of code. Well it has to come out of the budget for a game you are already making. So budget that would have gone to fixing problems or making content has now shifted to making an experimental code. And you just have to work with what you had. And it's normal that games do not share code between different games. Bethsda does because it's all tied to one engine that they have a lot of control over: that's the exception. So after you made your special ai if someone else wants to improve on it they can't. They can't even look at the code. You have to start all over, and again taking budget away from the game.So laugh all you want about Bugthesda but at least they were willing to use their money for R&D, complain about how they just shipped what they had once the budget for tinkering ran out even know they though knew it needed more time to back. But remember, this is way beyond what other studies are willing to do for their R&D, in fact it's some of the best in the industry.
>>3480396It's why I roll my eyes when people demand Bethesda to switch to a new engine. Wasting the foundation, work flow and accumulated knowledge of both Bethesda and the modders, and for what?
>>3478108The post you're responding to is expressly criticizing what you're criticizing, anon, but you failed your reading comprehension check and started sperging out about "Bethesda fags"
>>3480406What it comes down to is profound ignorance and people's hate for Bethesda encouraging them to repeat those ignorances because it makes them look smarter than Todd.Sometimes when you update an engine you change the name: Unreal Engine, Unreal Engine 2, Unreal Engine 5, etc. Bethsda did not do that with their engine. So someone says "Bethsda has been using the same engine for decades!" and what the public acts like they are still using Unreal Engine 1 in current year. This gets snowballed by low tier modders who try to do some wrong so it's hugely taxing on performance and they blame the engine. It gets snowballed with how retards have brainwashed themselves into thinking that the entire company is run by Todd Howard and he has some weird hostile relationship with them personally because they OD'd on memes.
>>3480416>still using Unreal Engine 1 in current yearBased colored lighting enjoyer.I don't think Todd has anything to do with games nowadays, he's just getting a paycheck for being a name and waiting to retire.
>>3480416It's nice to give out simple solutions to complex problems.Remember when people were excited about Will Shen (Far Harbor) being a Lead Quest Designer for Starfield?I know what you're thinking now:>Bethesda needs to FIRE Will Shen!!But he already left, so we are left with the only possible reasonable solution to fix Bethesda:>FIRE Emil Pagliarulo!!
>>3480447>Remember when people were excited about Will Shen (Far Harbor) being a Lead Quest Designer for Starfield?No, I don't. Also, literally who? Also, wtf is Far Harbor?But he already left, so we are left with the only possible reasonable solution to fix Bethesda:>FIRE Emil Pagliarulo!!Probably a good idea
>>3480454>No, I don't. Also, literally who? Also, wtf is Far Harbor?>"Did he make bethesda games with Todd, Emil and Pete Hines??"Will Shen was a quest designer at Bethesda, worked on the Far Harbor expansion for Fallout 4, which was considered by some to be an improvement, getting on the right track.
>>3480469I see. Personally, I disliked FO3 so I passed on 4. Imo, watching Bethesda go from Morrowind -> Oblivion -> Skyrim was a monkey's paw experience of the games improving in some aspects while getting dumber and worse in others. Imo the transition from Oblivion to Skyrim showed that while, not perfect, they were at least capable of learning from previous errors to an extent, and so I was hopeful that they might turn things around and make a good game with TES6, but after watching the abject flop that is Starfield, I think it's safe to say that old Bethesda is dead and gone and not coming back.
>>3480477The concept of TES is a perfect game for me, so it's easy to get disappointed when the reality doesn't match it.I played Dragonborn DLC for Skyrim recently, thought it was an improvement over the base game and got a bit excited for the future. Then I remembered it's already 10 years old lolI can't make any guesses about TES 6
>>3480406Starfield was a pretty compelling reason.
>>3480934Rather, there were compelling reasons not to promise Skyrim(s) in space. It was ambitious and foolish.
>>3480980Ambition is good. The fact that a company with the resources that Bethesda has at its disposal was not able to attain its ambition was pathetic
>>3480984What resources?
>>3480492>The concept of TES is a perfect game for meWhat about the reality of it? Bad combat and character building and poor itemization?
>>3476517Oblivion NPC's were the best NPC's of any game I ever played. So ya, it's worth it. I can't even play games where npc's aren't real like GTA. It's stupid. At least in Oblivion they are smart enough to pick up a weapon if a fight kicks off. Or recognize clothing and comment on it. I'll take immersion over npcs standing in the same spot, or mindlessly generating to fill the screen but they don't do anything.
>>3477741What a bizarre thing to say. You want to play a worst game? Are you retarded or something?
>>3480406I really think that people think a new engine means it's like a cpu or gpu upgrade and the game just works faster now. "Todd stupid. He need new engine. More Ram."
>>3480990$200 million, 500 developers, and 10 years of development after the idea had supposedly been marinating since 20 years prior.
>>3481019Might as well have thrown double the amount of money and people at it, it still would have been ambitious and foolish.
>>3481033Such a stupid cliche to ascribe Bethesda's failure to "too much ambition" rather than to what it really was, i.e. sheer laziness, greed, and just not giving a fuck
Idk if I’m in over my head but I’m making an rpg and my goal is to realize Bethesdas Vision of radiant AI. If anyone has ideas they want realized, like radiant AI systems, post em. Basically want schedules, reactions to fights, basically what Oblivion does. Have people be thieves. Maybe a murderer. Stuff like that. I don’t esoteric stuff gamers won’t notice. 2d rpg. Most of the game will take place in large building complexes. No a lot of open world nature.
>>3480492I was super annoyed with a million aspects of Morrowind when I first played it, like the terrible "economy"But then in retrospect as more games came out nothing I thought was wrong ever got fixed and lots of things I thought were good were lost, so over time it retroactively shed all of that disappointment in "what it ought to have been"
>>3481037I implemented the start of schedule and a ton of other shit. Haven’t started radiant AI yet. But it’s coming up soon.
>>3481040What was good that got lost? Imo elder scrolls has no fun items. Weapons and armor are all terrible. Irving fun to find. They do a lot right though. Or did, decades ago.
>>3481045I could make a big list but it would probably annoy oblivion partisans. for a noncontroversial example superjumping and levitating.
>>3481049the annoy them, I want to see the big list
>>3481049I’m an oblivion Partisan but I’m making an rpg and want fun shit in it. But ya those examples make sense for sure. I always thought it was strange Elder Scrolls doesn’t have more fun magic items.
>>3481035>Such a stupid cliche to ascribe Bethesda's failure to "too much ambition"Well I didn't, I said attempting Skyrim(s) in space was ambitious and foolish. The failings probably come down to a lot of things.
>>3481049enchanting and spellmaking is a big one. got worse and worse with each iteration. i also think lockpicking shouldn't be a minigame, that shit is awful.
>>3481040>lots of things I thought were good were lostPeople say this a lot, but it's what they added that made the games worse. Quest markers.
>>3481058what should it be, just a percentage thing where lockpicks snap til they don't?
>>3481064I was thinking of losing proper directions and quest designs meant for searching things out so you could turn off markers, but it depends on which direction you come at it from
>>3481057Idk why they had to be so clever about it. They should have just made a solar system of 9 planets. Each planet has a mega city on it full of quests. Then fill the rest of the planet full of random encounters. Spend 9 years filling it full of content. Would have been epic. Instead we get a universe full of nothing.
>>3481065A roll based on your stats. There is no reason that a fighting build should be able to lockpick master locks, it makes the whole concept of a thief style build pointless
>>3481067They should have just stolen the Mars civil war plotline from Babylon 5, would have been kino. You could have had three factions, an Earth loyalist faction, Mars revolutionary, and maybe some tech-research faction on the Moon or some shit
>>3476172Based
>>3481076Well right, in terms of story anything would have been better and more impactful than what they had. That story was so bad it's offensive. Cornball shit.
>>3481065I like the gothic way, it's still realtime and it matters for stealth (a lot of lockpicking in gothic is picking a chest next to a sleeping person, and breaking picks can wake them) but it's so simplistic it doesn't get tedious
>>3481089>breaking picks can wake themI don't remember this being a thing
>>3481093might just be notr and archolos, I haven't played G1 in longer
>>3481037>I’m making an rpgNo you aren't, this is just bait to keep your shitty thread alive
>>3481122Nice schizo theory lmfao. It was a good guess, a good shot in the dark. But I am making an rpg. 2d, 3/4 view like A link to the past. But with Oblivion like AI. About a year into development. Hopefully will finish is 2 more. This thread interested me because it goes without saying that Oblivion has the best NPC and AI logic. So I checked it out
>>3481180pics or gtfo
>>3481037Hard to suggest, when we don't know anything about your game.Keep it simple, like down to schedules and reactivity, but try to make them significant. Try to design a quest where NPC schedule comes to play. Have NPCs comment on a large variety of things like events, your character, the weather, whatever you can think of.
>>3475801I always remember this dumbass khajit who tries to steal from somebody while im in town a certain time of day.thing is, she sucks and always gets caught, and the guards immediately kill her.She's even a trainer. but the lowest tier of her skill. So you have this shitty thief who can barely teach you anything fucking up at their job and getting killed off. I you come to town for the first time you could watch her die never even knowing she was a trainer to begin with.It's a small thing, but it's also sort of brilliant in a way.
>>3481012>You want to play a worst game?It's WORSE. Learn to fucking conjugate.
