Non-hostile encounters mod?

[ladlon]

One thing I wish could change in Oblivion is that all encounters are immediately hostile to you.

 

One of the things I really loved in STALKER is that you'd have something like, say, a pack of dogs in the distance, but they wouldn't immediately chase after you and attack. Instead, they might circle around, approach slightly (and cautiously), wander, etc. So, you'd be keeping an eye on them from a distance (as well as scoping around for any others that may be circling around), and play this excellent 'guessing' game, as far as what they were thinking (afraid? about to attack?). Oddly enough, I found it immensely more intense to be keeping a wild dog at a distance, having him approach a bit, then retreat a bit, all the time with me pointing my weapon at it, deciding each second whether to let it be, or take it out.

 

Beyond it being a BIT weird that almost everything in Oblivion wants you dead, it gets a bit tedious... especially since it is a bit hard to lose something that is chasing after you. Often, I'd run into other humans (or elves, etc), that SEEM like they would (in reality) just kind of wave to you and say 'Hey, man... How you doing? Pretty brutal weather we've had the last few hours... Did you see that band of goblins to the north?'... but, instead, they all just attack you. It's like outside of the city, everyone is uber paranoid (or just has unrelenting blood lust)!

 

I love the wandering patrol guys... That really adds to the atmosphere, and certainly comes in handy when you are being chased by something that outclasses you (...kind of like running to mommy, sadly enough!). It's a shame that 'regular' encounters (elves, humans, etc) are always hostile. It would be great if they would be (relatively) neutral, but obviously attack you if they feel threatened (or end up, randomly, being a group with bad intentions... which is totally fair and cool, too).

 

There SEEMS to be some attributes like there is in STALKER (fear, agression)... but they seem to be more apparent in human encounters. It would be great if wilderness creatures (and even monsters) would sometimes not bother with you (...they'd keep an eye on you, but would try and just 'move on'), and there was a bit more of a psych play to encounters... where you kind of stare each other down, trying to make the other back down... where there is apparent thought (on the part of the creature) on whether it would be wise to attack, flee, or just hang back and hope you go away. I just find that adds SO much to encounters, rather than the current 'you are a magenet, they are steel' status. I tend to play very stealthy, and would really think this would enhance it.

 

That all said, is there a mod that addresses this? I suspect some of the bigger ones do, but unfortunately also address/change many other things which I may not want (...bascially making the game too difficult).

 

Just throwing in my 2 cents... I love Oblivion, and think (even today) it's a masterpiece.

[Striker879]

I totally agree, it would be great. Sadly I don't recall ever seeing anything like that. You may want to post this query in the Oblivion Mod Requests forum and perhaps one of the scripting gurus will like the idea enough to give it a go.

 

I use the console rather liberally in my game. It would be rather immersion breaking compared to what you've described from Stalker, but you can click an NPC and then change their disposition towards you. If their disposition is the same as their aggression towards you they'll be neutral towards you, if it's higher then they'll be friendly. here's a link to the UESP Wiki on Console Commands.

[ladlon]

Hey, small world, Striker879!

 

Actually, I just ran into a mod that seems to kind of address that. It's called T.I.E (Total Immersion Experience?). Among several changes, it adds a lot of travellers and NPCs of various positions (guards, hunters, adventurers, etc). They will even pick pockets and steal. The vid showed various characters you can run into (who don't attack you). Really made you feel you weren't the only one adventuring.

 

I think it adds several other things that may not be of interest... or maybe they would be. I just looked at it briefly.

 

I love mods that allow you (within Oblivion's interface) to enable/disable various aspects, and even adjust various things. So often, a mod will add something you like, but change other things.

 

One example is MMM (Monster mod). I am blown away by the incredible number of completely unique (new models) creatures it adds, but was frustrated by the fact that I was now running into creatures every few minutes (...it felt like they were all distributed 50 feet from each other), not only making for a lot of battling (or, more specifically, running away), but also felt very artificial... like the wilderness was this museum of random creatures (many of which seemed oddly out of place). I loved the variety (...like, finally having spiders in Oblivion!), but really disliked the frequency of encounters. I prefer it when an encounter is something that happens somewhat rarely, and therefore is a true 'event'... as opposed to me running into things every minute, running away, only to run into another 'display at the museum', and very soon having a varied parade of creatures running after me (...and, oddly enough, not often being interested in battling the rest of the parade!).

 

That mod also could have used the ability to switch things on/off... as spiders were REALLY great, but some would release tons of little spiders, which would make your CPU scream and crawl. Would be great to be able to turn that feature off. Looks like some mods are wising up to that, like Unique Landscapes, which allows you to turn of CPU killing features, yet still run the mod.

 

Again, STALKER has some nice aspects in that respect... where creatures will battle other creatures, and you don't feel like the center of the universe. Oblivion seems to have that too, but sometimes it seems like it doesn't happen, and everyone is soley interested in you, despite the parade of other creatures running with them.

 

Then again, maybe I just have really lousy luck...

 

But, ya, for things like wolves, it would be nice to have one wander nearby, make you go on alert (ex. point your bow at him) and kind of track him until he wanders far enough away not to worry.

Edited June 24, 2011 by ladlon

[Striker879]

Your caveats on MMM are what keeps me away from mods like that. I'd love a mod that randomizes whether or not a bad guy will spawn at any one of the various spawn points (and perhaps adds more spawn points). I know where pretty well every bandit/goblin/highwayman/bear/wolf/etc will spawn ... takes a lot of the replay fun out of the game. The vanilla game includes quite a few travelers who are not hostile towards you (you'll run into them along the roads between cities), but unfortunately most will be killed off by the wildlife and bandits before your game progresses very far. For a while I'd make it my job to make sure they made it to their destination safely or revive them if I came across their body (a bit of console lovin'), but when I started a new game (I'd been playing the same game for quite a long time previously) I realized how many there were, and how many had died early in my first play through. Now I just set them to essential using the console and be done with it. Just another of those game design decisions that Bethesda made that makes no sense to me ... create a bunch of NPCs to make the world seem alive and vibrant and then allow them all to be killed off.

[ladlon]

Interesting... Ya, having now restarted (running GOTY this time, rather than just Oblivion), I just noticed that the 'outside guardians' of one dungeon/temple were the same as my previous game. I thought those were random. So, that's a bit of a letdown, but not a complete showstopper. I do appreciate (greatly) that things SEEM to be random, rather than the usual uber-scripted, linear stuff that annoys me these days. I'm a HUGE fan of Arma2, for example, because it's not scripted (...and because it's an incredible game, and packs a HUGE amount of modes, stuff to do, ways of playing, etc for a single game).

 

I remember being very worried that there wouldn't be random encounters in Fallout3, when it was in development... and was releived to see it was random (...or, relatively random, as the case may be).

 

I knew there were spawn points, but not that the same things would span there... if that's what you are explaining here.

 

It's interesting what you say about the NPCs too. I assumed that they were all 'protected' from death by one means or another. Guess not! That kind of adds an interesting dynamic to the game... for better or worse.

 

It's a bit of a shame that the general gaming public appear to insist on a game always being 'on' (interesting, choreographed, etc)... with no lulls (unless it's intentionally part of the story flow). As a result, we seem to get games that are seemingly afraid to lose any control over things, and react by making everything scripted and linear... which I personally hate. Games like Arma and STALKER are rays of hope... yet even STALKER is not representitive of the game it was intended to be (with its A-Life, if I remember the name right).

 

Personally, I don't mind 'lulls'... In Arma2, that's what makes it interetsing... not knowning when things will happen, or even IF they will. With scripted games, even lulls seem to have a predictable stop point, as you can almost guage the point where the developers are thinking 'okay, we don't want them to get bored now, let's have something happen'.

 

I'll take open, unscripted worlds any day... including the almost unavoidable bugs and glitches (as no one can possibly predict each combination of events and build in mechanisms to address them all). I'm blown away with what they have managed already.

 

It would be really interesting if developers (after having achieved near photo realism now) would turn their attention to making unscripted AI really solid, and able to handle virtually anything players throw at them with logical responses..... Interesting, but probably not very likely. Just not a 'popular request' of the masses, unfortunately... They'd probably instead focus on more ways to use achievment points, online social networking and 3D.... [shiver...]

 

Sorry, ya, a bitter moment there... ;)

Edited June 26, 2011 by ladlon

[Striker879]

I think as long as PC games are by and large just ports of console games we'll have a long wait for truly random game play. Oblivion NPC AI is only a facsimile of random AI ... a sprinkling of random percent seasoned by factions and scripting to give the appearance of randomness. Even without scripting I get a close approximation of random in my 'house girls' lives (I like to populate my houses using the Construction Set), but in time the thinness of the veil becomes apparent.

 

We've had the computer horsepower for some time now to take things to the next level, what we've lacked is the will to use that horsepower room. Blame the PC games pirates, blame the complexity and cost of raising the bar or come up with your own reason why it hasn't happened, fact is PC gaming has been stagnant for years. It does work out cheaper for a guy like me. I've saved a ton on not needing the latest and greatest hardware to run most of the games I want at decent quality. Doesn't exactly keep the economy rolling though.

[ladlon]

True enough about the ports.

 

I personally have held off on a TON of games due to the ridiculous DRM and user agreements (...and the leash that the industry puts around both you and the product you 'bought'...).

 

A real shame that their methods seem to be most affecting the people who gladly pay for software.

 

Okay, I'll resist going into a 20 page rant... ;)