Weekly Poll 5/25/20 - Living City AI.

[Sardukhar]

Fallout 1,2, etc.

MorrOblivRim

Red Dead.

Witcher 3.

Many of you remember the "living world" claims for different games. Some, like Oblivion, had to be toned down when the NPC fireballed the dog in irritation.

So. 2077 is up! NPC life scripts and routines, AI that reacts and evolves in the Dark Future!

Of course CDPR has put a lot of work into this, but what kind of depth do you think we'll see here?

You have FOUR (4) choices! Choose...wisely!


And for even more pollibilities!

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

Voted 4, 6, 8. But I would want to expand on that since NPC's being "believable bots" isn't all there is to a "living city", it's the interactivity that makes it more than an illusion...

I once (twice?_thrice?) made very long post about this specific matter and I can't seem to.... oh look, I actually did find it. Two of them in fact. Much to my amusement and the irritation of others...

Read 'em if you wish, but that has been my idea of this topic for years and it hasn't changed.

So here we go...
Somehow it just feels kind of pointless to have all those bots wandering around and all the care put into them and their routines, but yet... there's absolutely nothing of any merit you can do to/with them.

Spoiler: A more recent one with a spectacular MS-paint image to exemplify a point

It'd be really neat if the NPC bots in the city were being tied to a set of simple interactions that would trigger based on random difficulty check against COOL and a skillcheck from thereon (like intimidating, pickpocketing, seducing, asking for simple "rumors" (few simple words to hint for something), and stuff like that).

The chatter need not be anything but V asking something like: "Hi, anything going on around here lately?" And the responses might also be singular oneliners... from denials (that probably would be the bulk of them) "Leave me alone", "Fuck off asswipe" or "I don't have time for this" to something like, "I heard there was some ruckus between the 3rd and Maine" or "Cops just rushed into Edna's Diner, wonder what's that about." Mechanically handled similiarly to how the soda ad worked but with an included "random encounter" if the player decides to check it out.

For a crude Example:

Spoiler: An older one, with stuff that's not happening, but a solid idea still

The AI bots roaming the streets like robotzombies that you can't strike a conversation with. That is fair and it can't really be changed without going full Morrowind on it, and that ain't happening. But adding interactions with random results based on the area...

E.g. you walk to a random bypasser, right click and the dropdown menu would give something like the following options
- Pickpocket
- Interrogate [cop] - Interview [media] - Blackmarketing(?) [Fixer] - Charm [Rockerboy] - Chat/somethigsomething [other roles]
- Provoke
- Seduce
- Stalk

Pickpocket would iniate a short animation sequence in third person that's either the PC bumbs into the NPC and lifts his hands for "Sorry pal, my mistake" and continues on, or enages into a short interaction similiar to this (starting approx. at 5 minute mark):

Nothing major, just a couple of seconds during which the skill check is made and the possible loot drawn from the pool set for that NPC (difficulties and pools according section of the map and NPC social level).

Interrogation, Interviewing and such might provide class related interactivity with similiar semi-abstract implementation a pickpocketing above (not much extra dialog needed, just some subtle indications of what's going on)... cops might get random tips about lawlessness nearby or perhaps the NPC himself cracks up at the spot, Medias might get story tips and perhaps hints for something big that can be collected together during the game, Fixers might try to acquire customers that he can sell to someone (lowly NPC's might be easier to get and sell for less and vice versa for higher classes) with supplylines for what ever merchandise or maybe he can "try to" sell shit on the spot for few EB (might require some human perception to know if offering drugs to "this particular NPC" is such a wise idea, he might be a civilian cop, some militant antidrug maniac, or a cyberpsycho just on the edge) and so on...

- Provoke can get you a fight on the spot, but if cops see you two take one each other, there'll be an intervention
- Seduction might get you a temporary follower (few minutes), and who knows what else
- With Stalk you can mark an NPC and use the Shadow/Track skills to follow him (maybe for nothing else than to get him suspicious and panicked for fun), or maybe he at some point enters an alleyway to the a piss and you can mug him there, maybe this is a useful skill in some missions.

All kinds of little things to try and see what happens and perhaps collect a bit of a reward there. And of course using your skills might ease their future increases (depending on how CDPR goes with it). And I only used the most common skills as examples... What possibilities are there with the rest of them....

And not all NPC's need to have interactions all the time. They could just push you away with a "Piss offf, punk!" regardless of what your intentions were.

It is kind of a reward in itself already when you find an NPC to "interact" with, and that goes for everything else too that I've written here. Getting to this stuff need not be guaranteed all the time even if you had the skill. Some NPC's refuse to be interacted with, some houses might be under renovations or under police surveillance for what ever reason so you can't enter, some items are just too hard for you to meddle with... Although it'd probably not be hard, you'd have to seek this stuff out if you wanted it.

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Then theres the rest of the environment. Lamp posts, ATM's, firehydrants, carbage bins, parked cars, manholes electric boxes, camera surveillances, guard robots... All can have something small character related linked to them. Hack an ATM, or pickpocket a credit card and steal someone's pension (if you have the skills for those things). Overload an electric box at a wall (related skills check) and pry a firehydrant open (strenght feat check, eaier if you have a pipe wrench or a similiar tool with you) to soak the area with electricity, or kick a lamp post down (str feat check) to the water for same effect. Rig cars to explode with the right tools and skill to use them. Open manholes to hide under or possibly check if a hobo has a nest there (similiar to checking the apartments).

 

[TheNeonArcade]

2,5,7 & 10

Even though 5 kind of conflicts with 2 and 10, I think a happy medium in-between being as robust as possible and not having a visible NPC glitch or anomaly happen is probably my preference

 

[Garrison72]

1, 6 and 7. What they need is more ambient or procedural AI, so that the world feels unpredictable and organic. Good recent examples are Red Dead 2 and AC Origins.

 

[MauricioMM]

#1: Pretty self-explanatory.

#6: In case of shootouts and the like, I’d love to see some NPCs (regular pedestrians, hobos, suits, security forces, anyone) react like an inhabitant of such a dangerous city would: by getting ready to trade fire/stabs/punches with V and/or V’s foe, depending of how the fight involves said NPCs (proximity, noise, aggro levels, etc.)

#7: That’s just how reputation works: some people should definitely react to it.

#10: It doesn’t have to be something too crazy nor extremely obvious, but there should be consequences both easy to notice and subtle. Take Blood and Wine for instance:

Spoiler

After The Night of the Long Fangs, you’d see a lot of toussaintoi merchants selling garlic, stakes and mirrors.

 

[Kid_SixXx]

Voted for 3,4,7,9 but they all seem good, actually.

If the world is going to have a dynamic feel, I'd like for NPCs to have as much dialogue as possible. I know there is going to be some repetition but yeah, I shouldn't hear the words "arrow" and "knee" every other encounter with the same NPC.

I also think that NPCs should react to my appearance. Something as small as liking my Samurai jacket or me wearing Voodoo Boyz colors on Maelstrom turf should have consequences, good or bad.

My street cred should also open adventure doors that are closed at first or offer me dialogue options as people are either impressed or intimidated by my reputation. (ie. "I saw him kill three men in a bar once armed with nothing but a pencil..")

If I got another vote, I'd probably vote for 10 as it would be pretty awesome if the loss of an NPC affected the outcome of the game. The game would have a more non-linear feel and I'd be a lot smarter about who I shot if that were the case.

 

[0248991]

Hey,
I kinda like how it was done in gothic 2.

Kinda many named or secondary NPCs with more or less minor roles.
If you go around and ask you may find someone who knows something.

The thing that may need attention is background characters - like workers and stuff.
In gothic 2 they were holders for some global copy-pasted questions.
It could be cool to give each of them dialogue or two. They could describe points of interest, seeing something, history of the world, helper info for quests,...

This was partially missing in Witcher 3 for me.
To find the herbalist in the village on Skellige who cursed the child - there was only one NPC with dialogue to direct you.
Beggars, priests, city guards, immigrants and criminals of the "Big Five" in Novigrad could have used some more interactions.
Maybe also palace in Vizima, Skelligans, accomplice thieves and Olgierd and his group in HoS expansion,...

What could have been cool is to e.g. put (dead) wild hunt soldier in one of the worlds in "Through time and space" quest; and you could later mention it to the generals,...
The worlds were mostly empty and at that state should have been cut out.

Though what I am getting sick of are the puns or references. Sometimes it felt like there were more puns than the story.
Make a legend, don't imitate it

 

[Rawls]

2, 5, 6, 10

 

[Spockprime]

5, 6, 7, 8

What I want in theory is a robust "living world", where each character is an individual with a back story; dynamic behavior to changing situations based on goals that differ by individual and personality; dynamic conversation choices based on the evolving world and the characters trying to achieve their goals in it; etc.

However, technology isn't advanced enough to give that in a $60 video game. Just trying pull together all of the voice acting in the various languages would be a monumental task, without having technology that can auto generate vocal conversations across a spectrum of voice tones. And even attempting to do that would mean gutting everything else in the game just to be able to try to run it.

Thus, what I hope to see is a reasonably good superficial veil of dynamic behavior, that I can somewhat pretend is realistic if I don't take too close of a look at it.

 

[CyberBrett]

2 , 6 , 7 and 8

 

[Mawnark]

4, 6, 7, 10.

The NPCs in W3 improved the atmosphere and made some good jokes, but at the end of the day, I was still just questing. Completely fine, but it'd be cool if they did something new and gave me a reason to stop and pay attention once in a while.

 

[LordSerion]

1 6 7 8 and 10.

 

[Sardukhar]

Ah- HA!

"-While there are some areas in the Witcher 3 where villagers don’t have a daily routine, they are planing to improve this with giving more than a thousand NPCs a handmade routine. "

From the German podcast translation.

 

[DinSnide66]

3 seemed best.

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

Still seeing little to no point in handcrafting schedules to NPC’s the player can do nothing of any note with. *shrug*

 

[MauricioMM]

Still seeing little to no point in handcrafting schedules to NPC’s

Well, to make their virtual world feel a bit alive. They don’t need to overdo it though, some open world games like the latest GTAs managed to make their cities feel believable without giving each NPC a routine other than walk around, make phonecalls and run when hearing gunshots. The background NPCs I mean, I do expect a bit more of AI variety on secondary characters.

the player can do nothing of any note with. *shrug*

Not with all of them, certainly, unless they managed to implement some sort of a mix between Skyrim’s Radiant AI and RDR2’s NPC interaction system, which I highly doubt, plus those two games had way less background NPCs. And I’m certainly not expecting to, for instance, go bowling with every non-background character, at least not without the risk of having both repetitive and tedious activities.

What good examples do you have of games that did this (NPC interaction) to your liking, by the way? At least games as big as this one. The best one I’ve seen in that regard is RDR2 (disclaimer: I haven’t played it first-hand yet) but, again, with a smaller NPC count.

 

[kofeiiniturpa]

Well, to make their virtual world feel a bit alive.

I don’t think that much extra work is needed for that, because the player can not do anything with or about those NPC schedules, and certainly there’s not going to be many who will actually follow the NPC’s to confirm they actually have schedules. It certainly gives a ”cool(tm)” feeling that the developer goes through that much of trouble, but it is ultimately a wasted effort.

Not with all of them, certainly, unless they managed to implement some sort of a mix between Skyrim’s Radiant AI and RDR2’s NPC interaction system

CDPR once responded to my question (one of the forumites interviewed them in some conference and asked questions from the forums) about the interactivity, beyond bumping into or killing them, of random NPC’s, and it kinda came as a sort of shock to me that that response was something like ”What do you mean, what else could you do with them?”

I don’t think there’s a need for anything Skyrim or RDR2, though. A simpler system would do just fine.

What good examples do you have of games that did this (NPC interaction) to your liking, by the way? At least games as big as this one.

None, of this caliber and type, because I haven’t seen any to really even try.

Well, I’ve heard you can recruit random NPC’s in one of the Waych Dogs games, but I’ve no idea what that means there.

 

[MauricioMM]

Well, I’ve heard you can recruit random NPC’s in one of the Waych Dogs games, but I’ve no idea what that means there.

Ah yeah, Watch_Dogs: Legion. That “Recruit almost any (non-hostile) NPC” feature looks very ambitious but I’m sure they’ll pull it off, although at the cost of probably having a lot of shallow characters (there’s so much they can do with so many NPCs) and an apparent lack of a proper protagonist, which could lead to having little engagement with the plot, at least from my point of view.

It’s still an interesting mechanic. If I were into the Watch_Dogs games I’d be cautiously excited about this one.