Need an Opinion on a mod I'm working on. (yes its a follower mod)

[scarycave]

Hi forum!

 

I know I've been posting a lot about creature followers and the like but I just needed some personal opinions. I've started working on what I hope to be a mod that lets you recruit creature followers. I've designed a way to get all the companions to use the same three packages, (I had to make three for each in my other creature companion kennel mod) which will make the file-size small, something I'm quite happy about. :)

 

//Break Down

 

-I'm going to try to make at least one for each "creature" type.

 

-Followers will have an unmarked quest that must be completed. (Ex. A stray dog that must be cured of disease.)

 

-You can have a max of two at a time, each follower has a level/stat requirement, and/or a quest/fame/infamy/guild-rank etc.

 

-Each follower adds a "perk" to the player when "active" (following), some will raise stats and some will lower them.

(Dusty - A hunting dog - Fortify's Marksman by 4 and Speed by 1.)

(Aargh!! - *Cookie awarded if you guess what Aargh!! is* - Adds a 15% Weakness to fire, but restores 1 health per second.)

 

//Problems

With the addition of extra targets that can take hits and the "perks" I'm worried its going to be too unfair.

 

//"Solutions?"

 

(Non-Essential, but respawning)

Pro: Players would be more willing to protect their follower, since it would take 3-in game days to re-spawn.

Con: That might put some people off, since a good majority only like essential followers.

 

(Halving the Health Multiplier)

Pro: The player would have less time to use the follower as a shield/extra-damage.

Con: Certain Followers would have too-low health (Rat follower for example) and die much too quickly.

 

(Making the follower cap 1)

Pro: Players would have less followers to protect them at a time.

Con: Eliminates the "mix-and-match" thing I was going for.

 

Sorry about the words,words,words,words. :(

[Maskar]

I would just make it all optional, but by default enable the ability to have all followers and all being essential. If there's not enough challenge people can increase the difficulty level imo.

[Andy1967]

(Non-Essential, but respawning)

Pro: Players would be more willing to protect their follower, since it would take 3-in game days to re-spawn.

Con: That might put some people off, since a good majority only like essential followers.

 

Protecting a follower can be difficult for people who rely on long-range attacks as their primary form of combat. Anmials only have melee attacks, which forces them to get up close to an enemy before they can attack, getting in the way of a bowman or spellcaster player. To avoid followers constantly dying in situations like that making them essential is the easiest solution. Otherwise you might at least consider giving the player an option to control the basic aggressivness of an animal follower or how close they will stray from their 'master' if you want to make them non-essential.

[theuseless]

I personally don't use companion mods at all. But I do like the concept. I think that simply having 2 esp's would be simplest. One essential and one non. I have a castle up with a large armory. I offer it without the armory (it is smaller but by no means small). I get downloads on both files. I say leave the decision up to the end user. You could also set up a spell that sucks life out of the character to reanimate the poor hounds, as a means of Necromancy. Or you could make a script which made them resurrect after a certain amount of time, or when combat ended.

 

I personally have a problem with harming my own companions. It sucks. You could also try to find a puppy mod and make a house with a mommy and daddy dog, with puppies. This would explain where the new dogs are coming from and keep people coming back to your little cabin :tongue:

 

-edit-

 

I'm looking now for puppies. It would be cool to have maybe 30 different dogs. You would get one randomly each time you see the parents, up to the maximum of two owned at a time. This would make people try to keep their dogs alive if they liked them, or send them in to their deaths otherwise. I understand your want of a small file, I minimize mine as much as I can. But if adding extra cool means making it slightly bigger, I'd say go for it.

Edited July 31, 2012 by theuseless

[scarycave]

Thanks for the advice guys, I really appreciate having input from others. I'll try making an essential/non-essential version mod in a few days, since I just released a follower mod now that was designed around them dying, and let that cool-down.

 

@ theusless

I'm very tempted to make a puppy mod now. :)

[theuseless]

lol. Kudos to ya! I looked around for a while. I could find all kinds of farm animals, rabbits, unique monsters, and even birds and fish. I could not however find a puppy mesh on here. I would love to see you make the puppy version. I am going to request puppies on the mod requests forum. If you do make a puppy mod, please pm me if you can remember. I think it would be awesome!!!

[RazaCovek]

How about a function where the creature 'eats' the dead, incorperating their inventory. The player could go to the merchants and selectively sell the creatures inventory.

[theuseless]

Hmmmm. I'm going to see if I can't make a body disposal dog. That would be handy. A little game breaking in parts, but it would be cool to feed a vicious dog dead humans. You could have a blood splash, disable the body and then leave a skeleton's worth of bones (well, the pieces we have). I'm going to try to do this.

[RazaCovek]

CoHR already employs a method of eating the dead [health regeneration], but leaves the inventory behind. It is permanent part of my game.

[scarycave]

I think dogs get a health bonus from corpse checking. (I looked on the wiki and remember reading something like that.)

 

@TheUseless

I've started making a mod that lets you adopt a puppy. :)

I've already begun working on some meshes for it now. All I need to do is get the head working and I'll post a pic on the Nexus.

The Curse of Hiricine mod has a function like that, where you can feed on a dead body and have it turn to a skeleton. I think you could accomplish something similar if you added an ability to the dog, that gets the ID of the corpse it's checking, and...something else.

Edited August 2, 2012 by scarycave