Highwaymen: What's going on?

[wetblanket]

...I pretty much gave up trying to scroll with my mouse to find a location I recognized in the other places...

 

Are you sorting by co-ordinates (the location heading) in the Cell View window? From finding the co-ordinates in the Use Info window to seeing the particular highwayman in the Render Window should only take a few seconds.

 

edit. I can confirm the 'BanditTemplate' Highwayman, the one the wiki doesn't acknowledge, is where the CS indicates ingame.

Edited February 23, 2011 by wetblanket

[Ferryt]

Striker879

 

• Heheh ... yabetcha! My current plans are to get the Highwaymen actually organized (they'll have a sort of guild). Each one will have an area he covers, so it's going to be pretty hard to just walk on the road and not get accosted a couple times, at least, if you're traveling from, say, Leyawiin to Anvil. On the other hand, it's also going to be difficult to just anticipate where a Highwayman might be at any given point. He might be sleeping in his nearby camp, he might be going for a little walk, or he might be hiding in any of several locations, just waiting for an unsuspecting passerby. I'm also going to remove the auto-detect and confront BS that the devs built into them. You can be in 100% Chameleon mode, or have AI Detect turned off, and you'll still get stopped by these guys. Makes no sense to me at all.
   
  I'm seriously thinking about making them tougher and possibly even giving them a little help. Even at low levels I really have no trouble killing these guys, and it's a shame, because I think Khajiits are cute -- even the bad guys. This means you'll have additional opportunities to weasel your way out of either a fight or just handing over money. As it stands you don't have a persuasion option with them. You either give them the money, fight, or claim that you're poor, in which case he'll still attack you 1/3 of the time, even if you really can't afford the 100 Gold.
   
  This will also get rid of the two 50% respawning Highwaymen. I'll probably replace them with a single named NPC, since they're actually very close to each other (just a few minutes' walk, in fact). I presume this is an attempt by the devs to simulate one that wanders a bit.
   
  Anyway, I found all seven of them. Yes, seven. The wiki is wrong. That missing one based upon the BanditRobberTEMPLATE (located in the Khajiit section of the NPCs in the CS) is found just at the juncture of the Yellow Road and the road that leads to the Ayleid ruin Mackamentain.
   
  I can attest, personally, for the one at the turnoff to Lord Drad's Estate. He stands right near the chest just to the east of that low stone wall that frames the side road. I don't travel the roads very much because I browse for alchemical ingredients, so I had never actually met him until the last time I played a character involved in the quest where you have to meet the Count, there, but he's definitely there.

 

wetblanket

 

• Actually, you can go to the NPC in question (or the leveled creature marker, as the case may be) just by double-clicking the line in the "Used in these cells" section of the Use Report window. My issue with having to mouse around was finding out where they were when I was trying to go by the wiki location descriptions, since some of those could indicate a number of cells, and I had no idea what I was looking for. I've been figuring out how all that works on my own, so it's just taken a bit of time. I'd never have found the two respawning Highwaymen had it not been for micalov, since I never would have thought about looking anywhere but under the Khajiit NPCs.
   
  It's all cool, now, though. I know where all seven of them are and I'm trying to decide where additional Highwaymen need to be placed.

[wetblanket]

Thanks for the tip :)

[Striker879]

I'm sharpening up a couple of blades and mixing up some nice toasty fire-effect poisons ... bring 'em on!!

 

I like the idea of giving them a little nap time too. Always seemed dumb to me that the bandit camps, with nice cozy tents and all, never get slept in until I clean them out for my companions. It'll be fun to stumble upon one of your boys while he's snoozin' ... ya snooze ya lose!!

Edited February 23, 2011 by Striker879

[Ferryt]

Don't bet on it, Striker. Right now what I'm considering is a total of seventeen Highwayman teams. Each one will be made up of two named NPCs (one tougher than the Player, and there's a chance at any given location that you might meet one, both, or neither of them), a 75% chance of a support archer, a 50% chance of a support mage, and a 33% chance (each) of four support fighters, who may accompany the named NPC. This means you could, theoretically, be facing up to eight opponents. In the camps, themselves, you will be assured of meeting at least some of these people, including a sentry (also a leveled spawn) that will always be there.

 

Oh, did I mention they might have guard dogs, as well? The idea is that Highwaymen will no longer be pushovers. They're organized, better equipped, and will be much tougher opponents than they have been in the past, without being too overpowered. This means that both stealth and diplomacy will be more valuable than just raw fighting ability in dealing with them on the road and at their camps ... and don't expect to be able to take out the entire camp without waking someone up, especially with the guard dogs lurking about. The one thing about this that I'm still weighing, though, is just how high to make the leveled lists for their gear and loot. I just can't buy the possibility that they'll always have the best available at the Player's level. If they could afford Daedric armor they wouldn't be making a living robbing travelers. Same goes for all bandits and marauders, in fact.

 

To make up for the difficulty in beating them, I'm working on an expanded way to interact with them. You can plead, lie out your teeth about not having money, and other things that really made no difference with vanilla Highwaymen. Like I pointed out, if you don't have much money the game just makes a random determination (1/3 of the time) that the Highwayman will attack you, anyway or (2/3 chance) simply let you go. It's not going to be that simple, and since these guys are persistent, unique NPCs they're going to remember you from event to event. Play your cards right and you might even get to be friends with them. Or you could make enemies who will attack you on sight without even asking for your money.

 

If you're a Khajiit, like they all are, they'll tend to like you better from the outset, but each of the named ones are going to have their own, individual racial likes and dislikes. I'm halfway thinking about introducing the possibility for the Player to give them a little "sugar" as a bribe to let you go without paying. For female characters, well, I think you probably get the idea. For both males and females, if you have Cobl installed that could be "Moon Sugar", assuming you happen to have some. At this point, though, I'm not sure about the wisdom of making this mod dependent upon Cobl, but I don't want to redundantly introduce Moonsugar into the game for those people, like me, who play with Cobl. It makes sense, though. The Highwaymen will be involved in the Skooma trade in Oblivion and Moon Sugar is one of the components used to make Skooma. On the other hand, I really can't imagine running Oblivion without Cobl, myself, but I know that's just a personal preference that not everyone shares.

 

Right at this moment, I'm working on the named members of the teams. The support members will simply be from a custom leveled list. I want to get just this basic concept finished and distributed so people can test it and tell me where it needs to be tweaked.

 

The next stage will be to add the control network, which will consist of Charter Houses in or near each major city, except for Imperial City (which is where the HQ will be -- actually, probably on the outskirts of Weye), and couriers which transmit orders and collect loot and money. All in all, I'm looking at adding a total of 56 new, unique Khajiit characters to the game. They're already named (all lore-friendly and none of which have appeared in either Morrowind or Oblivion), they've been assigned specific jobs within the organization, and I've got partial backstories worked out for some of them. At that point I'll probably introduce several other new characters as fences for the organization, as well as a special group of people in Anvil and Leyawiin to handle the details of Skooma trafficking.

 

I'm mulling around the idea for a final stage of this project which will be to add some player interaction with the organization, itself, something like how the Player can get involved with the various guilds, although you're not going to be able to become the head of it. I really don't even like that idea for the guild questlines, to be frank. I do like the idea, though, of allowing the player to do "work" for the organization in turn for "free passage" and even pay. That could include things like ridding the areas where they operate of bandits, marauders, goblins, and other groups that might interfere with them, maybe replacing a courier who is laid up with injuries, and other things of that sort.

 

Conversely, I'm also considering the possibility of an alternate questline where the Player will be working as an independent agent for the Imperial Legion, under direct orders from Adamus Phillida (or Giovanni Civello, in the event of Phillida's retirement). In this case it would be the Player's duty to infiltrate the organization and gather enough information to bring it to an end, either himself, or with the aid of the Legion.

 

I'm good at stories. Now let's see if I can make it all work with the CS.

[wetblanket]

Would you consider making them more of the 'gentlemen rogues' as per the legendary types of English history? I think this would work well with your Charter House idea and better differentiate them from Bandits and Marauders. You could give them upper-class clothing and a shield buff to make up for the lack of armor. There's some nice 'fine' swords out there eg. Addonnay's Classic which would complement them. Beth hints at this origin, I think, since they not necessarily murderous as opposed to Bandits and Marauders.

 

 

Anyway, just an idea :)

[Ferryt]

Actually, that's a pretty good idea, and I'll give it some thought and see how I can work it in. I still want to retain the sense of danger when dealing with them and I really don't want them as "upper crust" types. One reason they're doing what they're doing is that they don't have a lot of money and they need the work, plus I imagine many of them are immigrants from Elsweyr. However, each of the named NPCs is going to have a unique AI and dialog package and they aren't all going to look like, speak alike, or dress alike. I was just tired of all the "sameness" you get with bandits and such, and the vanilla Highwaymen are really nothing but a variant of the bandit class in virtually every way except for their ambush AI package.

 

But, yeah ... I think you'll find most of them to be polite, even gentlemanly, as long as you don't ruffle their fur. After that, though, all bets are off. These aren't "all noblemen who have gone wrong", to borrow a phrase from the Libretto of Pirates of Penzance by Gilbert and Sullivan.

[Striker879]

To build on wetblanket's idea you could have the nefarious 'boss' living the good life in the IC in complete anonymity. Be a good end-quest goal for the Legion infiltration idea (find me the guy who's pulling all these strings). You've got me salivating.

[wetblanket]

...I was just tired of all the "sameness" you get with bandits and such, and the vanilla Highwaymen are really nothing but a variant of the bandit class in virtually every way except for their ambush AI package...

 

Yes. In my own game, not that I've got round to playing it yet, I've reduced Bandits to, effectively, murderous beggars. Armour rare, except on bosses and confined to fur and leather. Mix of clutter weapons and rusty iron. Marauders I'm leaving alone, and it seems I don't need to bother with the Highwaymen :D

[MarkInMKUK]

Nice addition to the game! I look forward to it!

 

Re the "sugar" ... you could give the highwayment a % chance to be gay ... then a male player could flirt and "offer" something too. You could also give them a % chance to be female as well.