LE Become the follower

[gigantibyte]

I was thinking about how poorly done follower control is in Skyrim, and how parties were handled in other RPGs. An uncooperative party member is a fairly unique problem to unmodded OB, F3, and Skyrim. (I give partial credits to NV for the companion wheel.) In other games, party members easily wear, do, and play as I direct them to. But more than that, many games let you choose which character takes the lead and who you play as.

 

Granted, there are not too many first person games that do this, but it would be awesome have that kind of control to Skyrim. There are quests that are Dragonborn specific, but for a majority it would not matter.

[nosisab]

I fear getting the feeling of a game designed for party from scratch into a game like TES would need a total reformulation of the engine. Still the companion behavior and AI can be improved and Need to. But I would not hope it going beyond it under risk of having a TES game that is neither good as party game nor as single character game.

[gigantibyte]

Implementing a mod that let's you switch identities with your follower may not be too far fetched, and the biggest difficulty would be for player traits the NPC doesn't have and physical aspects. Here's a fast break down of how I see such a mod functioning:

 

1 - Before switching, the mod script collects and stores all traits that make the player who they are. Skills, experience, level, race, inventory, name, etc. The main problem here is that I'm not sure if physical traits the player customized his character with, are values that can be accessed via script. (...but let's assume they are available for now.) Then, collect and store all trait values of the follower.

 

2. Replace player's traits with those of the follower. Not sure what traits the follower may be missing (I suspect experience for one), but they could be added and handled by the mod script. If a follower is added for the first time, something like initial experience and perks could be calculated and added using the level. (I'm amusing NPCs can have perks right? If not, back to the mod script.)

 

3. Replace follower's traits with those collected from the player, and let the AI take care of the rest. The follower will still act independently, but probably won't hurt any of the player's stats. If the follower levels, no perks would be assigned until the player assumes the identity. The beauty of this is that the player now has complete control of the follower's body and can buff them up any way they want. Play Skyrim as a fighter and a mage, or any other duo combination in the same game!

 

4. To switch back, repeat.

 

 

Even if the physical traits could not be collected, this would still be a cool mod. Someone like Faendal would just change to look like a Bosmer modded by the player, and vice-versa. It would be a minor inconvenience well worth putting up with.

 

If the follower dies while in the player's body, the mod could end the game. I'm sure the option to let the game continue could be added with some fine tuning and resets of certain quests. The main problem I guess would be not having certain shouts needed to advance.

 

Some quests may seem weird if the player is addressed as the Dragonborn while in a follower's persona, but I can take "you" as meaning, "you, the party". Whatever, I wouldn't really care. :)

 

Is there anything I'm missing that would make scripting this impossible? If not, and if this mod isn't already developed / someone else's idea, I'll take it on myself when the CK is released.

 

Edit:

 

Collecting experience points for the follower via skills, like One-Handed and Light Armor, may not be viable. However, follower could simply get points based existing calculations, or on what the player collects, and distribute them as appropriately as possible. Any ideas here would be welcome. Ideally, one would want a follower that grows at an equal rate as the player.

Edited December 19, 2011 by gigantibyte

[zebra0]

This is a very good idea i like it!

[Paajtor]

I had roughly the same idea, when playing yesterday....how would it be, to be able to switch between my character and my follower (Lydia, in my case...both of us are on level 36 now, her one-handed skill is on 96, block on 92).

So I wanted to post the idea, but did a search first...this topic came up!

 

I'm not a modder myself, but still I'd like to bump this one.