Likelihood of creature to attack

[Marxist ßastard]

First, allow me to say that I realize that, as a thread seeking input for a plugin, this has some place in the Plugins forum -- however, I also feel that, as a discussion of Morrowind's flaws not dedicated to the announcement or discussion of a plugin in specific, this also has some place in the General Morrowind forum. Ultimately, I leave it up to the moderators to decide.

 

I've started working on the background scripts and planning the main components of a mod that will replace the static fight ratings of creatures with dynamic ones that respond to the player's actions and appearance.

 

At this point, I have a good idea of what some of the provoking and intimidating actions and conditions should be, and I am confident that some of these conditions will add depth to gameplay.

 

However, I am not confident that the conditions I have worked out at this point are all completely salient additions, and I cannot help but feel there is an important action that I have left out -- in addition to this, I am not sure of the amount by which my conditions affect the final outcome (that is, the creature attacking or not attacking).

 

...And thus, I bring this matter to you all by posing this question: what do you think should provoke a creature into attacking, or make it less likely to attack, and how much should certain factors weigh into the likelihood of a creature attacking? The following is a chart of the things that, at this point, will factor into a creature's decision to attack the PC, so that you may all see what I have so far -- note that all of the conditions can be changed in-game or by modifying the plugin, so I am looking only for what you think should be the default conditions and weightings, not individual preference:

 

|¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯|
|       Contributions to creature fight rating          |
|-------------------------------------------------------|
| Individual tendency to attack         | 10            |
| Per-region and season attack tendency | 40            |
| PC running directly past creature     | 40 (1)        |
| PC wounded                            | 1 (2) 1.2 (3) |
| PC fatigued                           | 0.5 (2)       |
| PC attacking creature of same type    | 40            |
| PC attacked by creature of same group | *             |
| Creature has woken up PC              | *             |
| PC diseased / blighted                | 25            |
| Creature blighted                     | 50            |
|¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯|
|        Penalties to creature fight rating             |
|-------------------------------------------------------|
| Individual tendency to attack              | 10       |
| Per-region and season attack tendency      | 40       |
| Shield effect active on PC                 | 2.5 (2)  |
| Armor equipped on PC                       | 2.5 (4)  |
| PC weapon drawn                            | 20       |
| Creature diseased                          | 20       |
| Guards near / actor following PC           | 30       |
| PC maximum fatigue                         | 0.25 (2) |
| PC has casted spell in area                | 20       |
+--------------------------------------------+----------+

1:  Specific to healthy Nix-Hound and Alit, along with all wolves
2:  Per spell effect / percentage (for health and fatigue) / attribute
    point
3:  Multiplier for rating increase while PC is in area
4:  Per piece of armor worn (using proportions; greaves, helm, boots,
    &c. = 1); each piece of armor is multiplied by the armor class
    (Light = 1, Medium = 2, Heavy = 3).  For instance, if the PC is
    wearing only a Steel helm and cuirass, the resulting penalty will be
    37.5 -- 2.5 * ( [ 3 * 1 ] + [ 3 * 4 ] )

An asterisk indicates that the action will provoke an unconditional attack

[NinjaSalad]

Perhaps taking food from a plant, would affect it? (Taking it's food) also noise level or fighting near it, too close to a certin area (It's home?)

 

If you are going to create some kind of dayly/weekly/mothly time when the creatures are mating, thus making them aggresive.

 

Time of day, sleeping animals don't like to be woken up.

[Malchik]

The creatures might be more sensitive (especially at night) to those who are wandering around with a blinding night-eye effect. They could also be affected by weather conditions - storms etc. discourage some creatures and make the sound of PC harder to hear, fog makes them harder to see etc.

 

Were you intending to make creatures diurnal/nocturnal as that's always struck me as a bit odd in MW?

[batesmotel34]

Along the food line, the creature should be more likely to attack if the player is carrying materials/alchemical ingredients that would normally be in the creature's diets, esp. for carnivorous creatures. I'm sure lots of juicy guar or rat steaks in an adventurers inventory would appeal to all the local Kagouti, Nix hounds, etc. Probably less so for herbivores.

[Abramul]

How 'bout if you cast a Cure Disease on a diseased critter, it won't attack (and might even help you for a bit), and same for blighted critters?

Malchik, did you mean Light effect? After all, Khajiti have an innate Night Eye spell(perhaps it would make your eyes do that cool cat-eye glow thing?) Both Light and Night Eye are ridiculously powerful when making homemade potions...yet no-one notices a glowing PC?

Perhaps if you DROP some of those steaks, the carnie would go after them instead...far less crunchy than an adventurer!

Alit: Dang, I got a Daedric Dagger stuck in my teeth again!

[Malchik]

Abramul, you have a point about Night-Eye. I suppose the spell is merely meant to show you what you can see but it certainly seems to light the place up like a beacon. I don't use light because night-eye is more effective but I think that you are right. The brighter the PC the more likely they will be spotted by creatures. (Which could also mean the more likely the creatures are to run away if timid and attack if aggressive.)

[NinjaSalad]

Would certin critters have a tendeancy to run fom you, like smaller animals, Rat, scrib?

[Marxist ßastard]

First, I would like to thank you all for your response. Your replies are much appreciated, especially after the less-than-stellar initial response I got on Usenet. Now, getting down to individual requests -- is your request isn't listed or denied, as a member of a certain category, consider it approved:

 

NinjaSalad:

 

Time of day [should contribute] -- sleeping animals don't like to be woken up.

 

If there's already a plugin that implements sleeping creatures, I would be more than happy to support it. However, I will not do such a thing within my own plugin -- it would introduce the challenge of having to guess which creatures are nocturnal, along with creating the hidey-holes necessary to support daytime slumber, and would be a generally sloppy thing if new animations weren't added. Besides that, it would mean giving creatures the ability to sleep while NPCs still could not.

 

Would certain critters have a tendency to run fom you, like smaller animals, [such as] rats, scribs, [&c.]?

 

Can't do it. Unless you can have the creature run at insanely high speeds, there would be just as much a chance as the creature going toward you as there would be for the creature moving away from you if I used AIWander.

 

Malchik:

 

[The fight rating] could also be affected by weather conditions -- storms &c. discourage some creatures and make the sound of PC harder to hear, fog makes them harder to see &c.

 

That would be a detection issue, and thus would have to be dealt with by sneaking enhancements such as The Lighting Mod -- the same goes for detecting the Light effect on the player.

 

...And don't stop submitting those ideas -- I can still use more conditions, and some insight into weightings would definetly help.

[NinjaSalad]

Another idea would be the ability to feed animals to calm/charm them according to what they eat, this I guess could be a skill (like alchemy) to know what animals like to eat, as the skill got higher the tougher the animal you could feed/charm.

[Marxist ßastard]

I am not going to consider things involving food, with the exception of increased aggressiveness as a result of dialog-announced (not to be confused with dialog-induced) random famines, perennial food shortages in certain regions, and per-season global food shortages. My latest post has been modified to reflect this.

 

If the members of this forum don't think that the implementation of more specific things involving food would be worth the significant complications involved, then I may possibly reverse this stance.