Faction system - potential overhaul of the AI characters

[Will]

Hello!

With the customization, perks & progression update done, it's time to start thinking about the next update. In said update, I want to work on improving the AI characters and potentially making some pretty huge changes.

My idea of what to do with the AI characters is to create a faction system. There will be 2 factions - most likely Orcs & Humans. The AI characters will spawn in a similar way to how they do currently, however some will be orcs & some will be humans.

Humans

1. The humans will be neutral by default. In this neutral state, they will act similarly to how they do now, but friendly fire will be off.
   
2. Humans become "friendly" (indicated by a flashing green outline) if the player fights alongside them, and stays with them for a while. Friendly humans will try to stay near to the player, and will follow the player on to future levels.
   
3. On rare occasions, humans could be hostile (indicated by a flashing red outline), where they will attack other humans and the player.
   
4. One problem with this system is that they will pick up items & blessings, and the player will not be able to do anything about it if there is no friendly fire. A potential solution to this is to stop them from picking up items, and implement a system where the player can drop items for friendly humans to pick up.

Orcs

1. Orcs will be hostile by default.
   
2. Instead of trying to get to the end of the level, as the humans do, they will be more territorial, or they will roam around the level looking for humans.
   
3. As well as spawning randomly throughout levels, there could be small orc camps with 2-3 orcs sitting/walking around, and they become alerted when you get too close.
   
4. They will most likely have a sword which works similarly to humans, and throwing spears which are slower, but more damaging than bows. The slower spears should solve the "aimbot" complaint that some people have with the current AI, since there will be a short animation before throwing, and the projectile itself will move more slowly.
   
5. They will not pick up blessings or items, but I'd like to have some amount of random modifiers which they could spawn with in order to make them more varied.
   
6. Potentially, there could be some way of becoming friendly with the orcs, making all humans hostile.

This idea still needs a lot of development, but I think it could be a massive improvement over the current system. If you have any thoughts, please post them below!

Thanks!

[<color=#E03C28>WeariedCoffee2]

My thoughts on this.
Humans
this sounds great, a way to get a team of adventurers by showing them your loyalty, Great idea. but i dont know for sure about 3. On rare occasions the adventurers will be aggresive, i dont like the idea of that being rare, i like fighting adventurers its one of the main (and many) things i like about Caveblazers. 4. I really like how adventurers can pick up items but with no friendly fire i could see this getting frustrating, but i also see it as what if i want the adventurer to have that blessing/item? I dont know what your going to do here, tricky spot right here.

Orcs
the idea to have another creature similar to humans is amazing. Not to mention they get spears! And maybe instead of a sword they get a battle axe? 3. i like this idea, and i thought having a rare big orc camp with a leader that on sight of you, does an animation and gos into rage mode alerting all nearby orcs would be pretty cool. 6. idea, (this has to do with my leader idea) if you kill the leader orc of a big orc camp it drops a banner which you can equip to make the orcs friendly, while making humans see you as a threat. OVERALL! this sounds Fantasticly Greatly Amazingly Awesome. Good job on the development of this game. I cant wait

[ryanninjasheep]

I could go either way, personally. The npc system is what makes caveblazers unique, and while this new system will retain parts of it, I would almost prefer just a general AI overhaul - make them more like normal players, as opposed to (what seems to be) either aggressive or friendly. Give the npcs different stats like greed, fear, trust, and friendliness and have the stats interact to make cool behavior.

On topic, though, I do really like the idea. I have a few reservations about it (namely how to deal with items and blessings for your buddies), but having most npcs be friendly and having a separate faction would add a lot to the game and give it room to grow in cool ways. I'd suggest a inventory management system where you can assign items and blessings, but that would be difficult to do and I feel goes against the spirit of the game. Honestly, I think the best option is to have npcs grab items and blessings as usual. Maybe you could give them bows/swords to have it swap out? That would be a good way to get items back from 'em. Blessings I guess would be a race, which could be pretty fun - even adventuring buddies fight over the gold!

Oh, and I'd just like to support WeariedCoffee2's idea for orcs to have battleaxes :D

Would the orcs replace the current "anonymous enemy guys" that are in the game or would they remain?

EDIT: If you do include some unfriendly humans, I'm against having a red outline or some other identifying characteristic. In my opinion (which, admittedly, is just one of many), the humans should have no visible indicator of their affiliations. If they're friendly, you'll notice them sticking near you, but there shouldn't be any beacon saying "HEY THIS ONE IS ALLIED WITH YOU"

[Conmaan]

My suggestion would be to implement it in the form of a recruiting system, where each race (Human and Orc) have different general methods of being recruited (Orc through combat, humans through donating goods).

Then, you can have a number of sub-factions within the races (such as human rogues, which require gold tributes, or human peasants, which require food tributes) which make each encounter unique.

There could be different consequences for not recruiting. For example, rogues might pickpocket you. Peasants might shame you (debuff). Orcs might attack you.

I could draw up some outlines for a list of sub-factions I have in mind, on request.

[Will]

Thanks for the comments so far!

Originally posted by WeariedCoffee2:

My thoughts on this.
[snip]

I appreciate that you enjoy the current combat with adventurers, but I'm hoping the combat with orcs will be just as fun, if not more!
Someone on reddit suggested that orcs should pick up items instead of humans, which would give you an incentive to kill them.
There could definitely be different classes of orc with different weapons, and camp leaders would be great too!
Also like the idea of having a banner which makes orcs friendly & humans hostile!
Thanks a lot for the suggestions!

Originally posted by ryanninjasheep:

I could go either way, personally.
[snip]

I think you share my initial "pseudo-multiplayer" vision for AI characters act like other players. They do actually have greed, fear & aggressiveness attributes (no trust), but I don't think it's really noticeable. This system could probably be improved, but I think the factions system will be better.

Originally posted by Conmaan:

My suggestion would be to implement it in the form of a recruiting system
[snip]

Could definitely be interesting to have certain humans which require payment to recruit. I'm not sure about the pickpocketing & shaming, but I think it would be good to have mercenaries camped out in some levels which you can pay to recruit.

[Mega Glub]

I think that this is a great idea. However, the humans should not have an indication on who they're with/against, you simply have to find out yourself. But, you could do this where neutral and enemy humans are the exact same (except for random clothes and enchantments) and friendly humans do have the outline. Aswell, humans could become friendly by giving them items, unless the items are bad potions or useless items (I'm looking at you royal ring).

If you're looking to implement shops or trading posts, make them a neutral race, like dwarves. On the idea of that, you could just have trading posts where you give them an item and they'll give you one of the same kind back (with a small fee to prevent farming).

[Eva Dracona]

I like the sound of the orcs so far they seem interesting and cool especially the spears as opposed to bows and the small camps that the player can choose to engage.

On the flip side the making allied AI's unable to pick up items and blessings unless the player either drops them or have one of the other buttons unlock item's/blessings on the ground for allied AI's.

[Tritoch]

The Orcs should offer some reasonable reward for killing them, such as higher drop rate of good items, especially if they are as difficult as the NPCs are right now. Also please don't have them steal items, it's not a fun mechanic at all. When you get an item, you want to be able to pick it up as a reward. When some impossibly difficult NPC steals it, it's just frustrating and it makes you feel like you have to go kill it to get it back, and that just means certain death most of the time.

[Mega Glub]

Echoherb, that's one of the difficulties of the game.

[<color=#E03C28>WeariedCoffee2]

Originally posted by Echoherb:

The Orcs should offer some reasonable reward for killing them, such as higher drop rate of good items, especially if they are as difficult as the NPCs are right now. Also please don't have them steal items, it's not a fun mechanic at all. When you get an item, you want to be able to pick it up as a reward. When some impossibly difficult NPC steals it, it's just frustrating and it makes you feel like you have to go kill it to get it back, and that just means certain death most of the time.

i dont find it frustrating at all to go kill it to get the item back and i disagree with having a chance of droping an item. And when i get an item i dont find it being a "reward" if i kill something to get the item i find that to be getting a reward. Just my opinion

[Tritoch]

Well fine if people enjoy having their items stolen for some reason, then so be it. But I strongly stand by my point that killing such difficult enemies should yeild higher rewards. As it stands, as far as I'm aware, killing the other NPCs doesn't offer any higher rewards than just avoiding them at all costs.

[glider521al]

I really like the proposed changes alot.

I prefer to know human affiliation though. True, usually you can tell if they're shooting at you, but I've had a number of deaths that felt cheap because I got pogoed with a moonstone blade with no prior indication of hostility.
Though it doesn't need to be as obvious as a red/green outline (maybe just an icon above their heads when there is a line of sight to them).

If there are going to be any hostile humans, maybe limit them from using the more powerful items (e.g. being forcibly stunned from far away by an AoE divine explosive stun bow isn't that fun).

[zooboo]

I'm okay with all of this.

[Voodoo Pygmy]

Love the update! The game feels so much better, especially the whole pseudo-multiplayer feel I think you were going for, I actually get invested in my fellow humans and try hard to keep them alive, it's a lot of fun.

[Del_Duio]

I don't know if it was an orc or not but some red thing that was way more powerful than anything else on the 2nd level chased me all over the joint. Everytime I went to melee him he clashed swords with me- Approx. 3 out of 40 or 50 swings actually got through (!!)

I don't know what that was but I already hate those haha.

[Noob-a-tron]

I think there needs to be a toggle or a slider for the frequency of humans, down to zero if desired. I'm sick of them taking my gold, items and blessings. I like the way the game feels when it's just me VS the dungeon, and when I'm stalking an orc camp and some dumb human runs past me in his underwear and batman mask, it takes away from the experience. For people that are into that, they can leave humans on, but I guarantee I'm not the only one thinking this needs to be an option...