Companions

[wisdom000]

From a storytellng perspective, randos aren't that interesting because they're basically blank and disposable. I like the idea of defined characters with personalities, backgrounds, and agendas. If it's possible for your companions to also turn into your love interest, then it's more interesting if they aren't randos, otherwise you have a Skyrim-like situation where you're the only living thing in the entire world. I don't want to go through that again, so I'd like companions which are alive.

And Chris, if you're making the game boring by looking up a walkthrough, then that's not the game's fault.

Okay, but if the point is to "be surprised" by companion recruitment, then I'd rather have a system where it's possible to miss out on companions because of your choices. And perhaps getting a new person to your side opens up some other missions. That way you have something new to look forward to with each playthrough.

I gotta go with flash (ah-aaaaaahhhhhhhh) here pal. Random generated character just can't really have the kind of personality that would make them worthwhile....

I would much rather have a limited number of companions with choice personalities.... I mean Kinzie in SR3 was probably the best thing about the game (Other than the vtol, man that thing was sweet). I frickin loved that nerdy chick...

My alcoholic trader chick in Fallout New Vegas, or the Raoul, the ghoul cabarello in New Vegas.... the companions were memorable...

Now, that being said...

ALSO having the ability to just call up random dude or dudette to come be your backup, and if you like em letting em stay hired on... that would be kinda cool too...

 

[chriswebb2020.736]

I gotta go with flash (ah-aaaaaahhhhhhhh) here pal. Random generated character just can't really have the kind of personality that would make them worthwhile....

Why? This is what I don't get. I'm trying to work out if it's possible to randomise certain elements at our characters and still maintain said companions memorable nature. If not, then why not?

 

[thewarsend]

Fallout and New Vegas are really the only games that I have played that ever did companions right... they weren't annoying, if you didn't want them around you could tell em to stay put, leave at your place, or send em home... and they could die....

and best of all, they each had their own little story, running alongside your own...

You could also get them to wear different outfits... which was kind of a bonus, though you could never make em wear the sexy undies...

I've said this before, and i will say it again, i loved the way the way companions were handled in Fallout New Vegas, and i was very disappointed about the Skyrim companions. I wish every RPG game chould have companions like New Vegas had, complete with their own back stories, feelings, purposes, wants and needs. They had their own quests. They didn't fallow you around blindly. They would even turn on you if you upset them.. That's what i'm looking for.

I'm looking at it more from a longterm perspective. Rather than creating a new character and going off recruiting companions quickly and easily, (because I've already worked them out once,) I would like to see completely new companions, still with a vibrant backstory and personality, who would be unique to that characters playthrough.

As i do want unique companions with vibrant backstories and personality, i really really hate the idea of voiceless companions.. I really despise it.. I despise it so much, i can't even describe it. It ruins the game for me. I will cry myself to sleep if they go with that plan... In my opinion, without a voice, they cannot even have a solid personality.

I gotta go with flash (ah-aaaaaahhhhhhhh) here pal. Random generated character just can't really have the kind of personality that would make them worthwhile....

I would much rather have a limited number of companions with choice personalities.... I mean Kinzie in SR3 was probably the best thing about the game (Other than the vtol, man that thing was sweet). I frickin loved that nerdy chick...

My alcoholic trader chick in Fallout New Vegas, or the Raoul, the ghoul cabarello in New Vegas.... the companions were memorable...

Now, that being said...

ALSO having the ability to just call up random dude or dudette to come be your backup, and if you like em letting em stay hired on... that would be kinda cool too...

This! Cassidy was awesome and Raul was a blast to have around. I much rather have few companions like them than have many random companions who lack that certain element.

 

[cmdr_silverbolt]

I gotta go with flash (ah-aaaaaahhhhhhhh) here pal. Random generated character just can't really have the kind of personality that would make them worthwhile....

Now, that being said...

ALSO having the ability to just call up random dude or dudette to come be your backup, and if you like em letting em stay hired on... that would be kinda cool too...

Like any good corporate, you don't realize when I've gotten to you. But I guess my koolaid wasn't strong enough this time

I agree- that call up some randos idea isn't bad. I'd like to see something like that, actually. Very useful.

And like I said, it might be interesting to hinge companion recruitment on your choices for the story/gameplay. That way you'll have access to different companions when your choices are different. I imagine there might be some situations where you always choose the same thing, but that won't happen throughout the whole game, so at least you'd still get new companions or scenarios.

Also, it might be fun for each role to have its own unique 1-2 companions. If getting companions adds new missions to the game, then you'd be in for surprises with different playthrough.

 

[wisdom000]

Why? This is what I don't get. I'm trying to work out if it's possible to randomise certain elements at our characters and still maintain said companions memorable nature. If not, then why not?

Because what makes the companions memorable is their brief dialogs, their personalized sidestory missions, their quirks...

It's hard to provide meaningful and memorable dialog for something randomly generated...

 

[chriswebb2020.736]

Because what makes the companions memorable is their brief dialogs, their personalized sidestory missions, their quirks...

It's hard to provide meaningful and memorable dialog for something randomly generated...

Ah, now, I don't think it would be. With enough voice recordings, (or a good enough speech program,) it should be possible to get that same feeling of depth during dialogues. The basicsof their personality would be defined from the begining of your characters adventures, and you would only need a few core personalities really.

is this really something that is out of reach in the next couple of years?

 

[wisdom000]

Ah, now, I don't think it would be. With enough voice recordings, (or a good enough speech program,) it should be possible to get that same feeling of depth during dialogues. The basicsof their personality would be defined from the begining of your characters adventures, and you would only need a few core personalities really.

is this really something that is out of reach in the next couple of years?

What you need to understand is that voiced dialogue takes up a serious amount of space...and I am being shot down in my preference for having an unvoiced protagonist... with people wanting multiple voices, both male and female...

Now you want to add multiple voices for randomly generated companions...

This eats up a tremendous amount of resources.... on things you may never see or experience in the game.

And even then, the dialogue for a randomly generated character has to be really simplistic.... how many different dialogue trees can you imagine for these randomly generated characters?

It's also money they have to spend on voice actors, multiple times.... to read pretty much the same lines...

And there are only so many ways to make random dialog connect in any meaningful fashion to form a personality that's memorable...

 

[braindancer12]

What you need to understand is that voiced dialogue takes up a serious amount of space...and I am being shot down in my preference for having an unvoiced protagonist... with people wanting multiple voices, both male and female...

Now you want to add multiple voices for randomly generated companions...

This eats up a tremendous amount of resources.... on things you may never see or experience in the game.

And even then, the dialogue for a randomly generated character has to be really simplistic.... how many different dialogue trees can you imagine for these randomly generated characters?

It's also money they have to spend on voice actors, multiple times.... to read pretty much the same lines...

And there are only so many ways to make random dialog connect in any meaningful fashion to form a personality that's memorable...

because of this the idea of CD to use translator implants would be great. Its not sure yet if it will be in the game....

“Decisions are not yet made, but we are thinking about some kind of system which could tell more about the game world,” Stepien says. “The idea is to record everything in its original language. If there are, for example, Mexicans in the game, they will speak with slang. All performed by Mexican actors.”

“Then a player could try a translating implant, and according to its level, he will get better or worse translation.

 

[Mister_Lizard]

Ah, now, I don't think it would be. With enough voice recordings, (or a good enough speech program,) it should be possible to get that same feeling of depth during dialogues. The basicsof their personality would be defined from the begining of your characters adventures, and you would only need a few core personalities really.

is this really something that is out of reach in the next couple of years?

Perhaps it is not out of reach (but I think it will be, more from a budgetary stand point than tech) but it is sounding less and less random and more cookie cutter or paper doll. Differing options put over their core personality and sometimes you get an outfit that really doesn't match. I much rather prefer my companions to be well thought out and scripted so that they have some true depth and impact on the game and most of all they need to be logically consistent.

 

[dragonbird]

I don't especially like the idea of having randomly generated companions, for the same reasons as everyone else is giving. But what I would like is for the companion behaviour to be a LOT more influenced by your own actions and dialogue than in most games.

With enough random behaviour to stop anyone from writing an article in a wiki to tell you what to do to stay friends. (Intelligent/weighted random behaviour that makes sense in context).

Where their willingness to work with you / sleep with you / help you is based on a lot of little actions/dialogue choices rather than one big one so that you can't just reload to before the last decision point if your companion walks out on you.

WIth visual/audio clues that you're starting to piss them off, not a viewable stat.

With enough alternative companions who are Just As Useful, so that if one particular companion does walk out, you, as a player, won't feel that it's screwed up your chances of finishing the game.

 

[wisdom000]

What birdy said.... though I have no problem with wiki's and actually find them quite handy when it comes to my second run through where my OCD requires me to get as much of the cool goodies as I can...

 

[227]

Randomness tends to come at the cost of depth. You can't just throw back story 26 onto random face 77 with random personality 9 and have that character connect with players; what draws people to characters in general tends to be a lot of little subtle details. How that back story informs their personality, for example, so that everything is tied together like a real person rather than a mishmash of random qualities. Creating anything random that's remotely compelling would require a ridiculous amount of work, and ultimately it would still be less interesting than set characters.

What if you could create your own companions after finishing the game, complete with back story and personality? A companion-creation kit, if you will. Maybe you could even set their reactions to some of the things that happen in the game and then upload them so that other players could use them in their games. That'd be kind of like random companions, but they'd have the advantage of having been written rather than randomly generated.

 

[Garrison72]

How about no companions, and instead well fleshed out NPC's...

 

[dragonbird]

What birdy said.... though I have no problem with wiki's and actually find them quite handy when it comes to my second run through where my OCD requires me to get as much of the cool goodies as I can...

I like wikis EXCEPT for this one particular usage, the fact that they can give you the dialogue sequence necessary to get someone to like you. I'd much prefer a system where you have to rely on cues, and where it doesn't really matter too much anyway. Like the DX:HR boss dialogues, which I always bring in as an example at this point

Worst ever: Anders in DA2. Quite apart from all of the other reasons for complaining about Anders, I think it was particularly bad design that they skewed the game design to try to make it NECESSARY for you to have Anders in your final team. On a first playthrough, if you didn't know what was going to happen, he was an obvious choice as mage (or as healer/backup mage if the player was a mage). Then you get the Big Decision, which I'm pretty sure a huge number of players made as "I'm fucked for the final battle if I remove him from the party", rather than "I love Anders and totally approve of what he just did".

That isn't clever "grey morality", it's just developers messing with you.

How about no companions, and instead well fleshed out NPC's...

Fine, but the same really applies. Whether or not they help you depends on their opinion of you, their opinion of you isn't based on a single event, and if they decide not to help you, there's always an alternative.

 

[cmdr_silverbolt]

Well, I don't care if they're NPCs or companions (NPCs who assist you in person on missions), but might be cool to have a mix of both.

It would also be cool if your relationship with NPCs is dynamic, i.e. likely to change depending on your actions, and I think this is what db is saying too.

This has the potential to blow up in the players face, e.g. if you made friends with an NPC, did something which offended them, and then found out you need their help but can't get it now. That would suck for the player if there wasn't a previously hinted or established understanding that such and such action might result in pissing off a certain person.

I mean, even IRL you have an understanding after getting to know someone that if you do X, that wouldn't sit well with them, so it might not be a bad idea to help the player achieve this understanding if something like this likely.

 

[dragonbird]

This has the potential to blow up in the players face, e.g. if you made friends with an NPC, did something which offended them, and then found out you need their help but can't get it now. That would suck for the player if there wasn't a previously hinted or established understanding that such and such action might result in pissing off a certain person.

That was the third part of my requirement. No one companion should be THAT important. No plot immunity, no need for a player ever to feel the need to reload an old save because my bff just had a hissy screaming temper tantrum and walked out on me (or because he decided to blow up a group of civilians on his day off). If you lose a companion, you just go out and find another one.

But yes, you should get hints. Verbal ones, non-verbal ones, anything that doesn't involve a sliding scale with numbers from -100 to 100. Or colour-coding.

 

[Sardukhar]

Well, if they are that replaceable, they don't have much value then, do they? I mean, I should regret it if they leave otherwise why have them?

 

[dragonbird]

Regret, yes. Curse and swear, maybe. Feel an absolute need to reload, no.

Maybe equal in importance to someone blowing up Wisdom's favourite vehicle? Or an expensive weapon getting stolen?

 

[Sardukhar]

Yeah, I'd go with that. The car replacement was the very example I had in mind.

Although I've been known to reload when that happens. Because I am weak.

 

[d1am0ndback]

Adding in, I would love to take multiple companions. They can all be from the same gang or mixed and matched to your discretion. I would love to just be able to run as a pack of rabid cyberpsychos, with numbers on your side your enemies will be overwhelmed I'm presuming. An old fashioned "jumping" in initiation rituals or what have you. Great to roleplay as a gangster/outlaw as they always have an entourage of sorts.

This would be a great add on for late in the game for when you're already a god amongst gods and shit. Or at least until you've reached a certain point in climbing the gang of your choice ladder.