Perraine Posted October 7, 2012 Share Posted October 7, 2012 It made quite a few changes to NPC AI as well.I've mentioned in other posts that I believed Serana was a "test case" for NPC's interacting with there environment (though with Serana it was a bit of overkill) and it seems that, with Hearthfire, Bugthesda have expanded the repertoire for NPC idles ... Lydia now sweeps the floor, cooks and ... sleeps! in bed !!!!!!Hearthfire made zero changes to the AI, all it did was add several new animation zones for NPCs to interact with, something that already existed in the base game. Interesting ... So the fact that NPC's Pre-Hearthfire stood around a room doing nothing, now interact with the environment, though absolutely nothing was added to the room ... But they didn't make any changes to the sandbox or idle AI packages ... Hmmm. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sajuukkhar9000 Posted October 7, 2012 Share Posted October 7, 2012 (edited) Interesting ... So the fact that NPC's Pre-Hearthfire stood around a room doing nothing, now interact with the environment, though absolutely nothing was added to the room ... But they didn't make any changes to the sandbox or idle AI packages ... Hmmm.NPCs pre-hearthfire regularly swept, cooked at the cooking bowl things, used alchemy tables, used arcane enchanters, and did various other things. I have had Aela do those things many times since skyrim came out. Also, Lydia never slept before due to a bug in the placement of her bed in Breezehome, they may have fixed that. Edited October 7, 2012 by sajuukkhar9000 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Perraine Posted October 7, 2012 Share Posted October 7, 2012 Interesting ... So the fact that NPC's Pre-Hearthfire stood around a room doing nothing, now interact with the environment, though absolutely nothing was added to the room ... But they didn't make any changes to the sandbox or idle AI packages ... Hmmm.NPCs pre-hearthfire regularly swept, cooked at the cooking bowl things, used alchemy tables, used arcane enchanters, and did various other things. I have had Aela do those things many times since skyrim came out. Also, Lydia never slept before due to a bug in the placement of her bed in Breezehome, they may have fixed that. Don't want to hijack a thread, but 1 last post ... After 1172 hours of Skyrim, (pre-Hearthfire) Aela (or any other NPC before Dawnguard) has ever sandboxed outside of there "home" location. Aela has never swept/cooked/smithed anywhere and neither has any other NPC/companion I've had. Serana will sandbox, after only about 5 secs, with absolutely anything around her (very funny/creepy during a certain funeral cutscene) however without one of the NPC AI tweaks (BDO or UFO) no other NPC's will interact with any of the per-exisiting "sandbox/idle" locations ... Post-Hearthfire NPC's (including now Aela and of course Lydia) will sandbox everywhere ... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sajuukkhar9000 Posted October 7, 2012 Share Posted October 7, 2012 (edited) That is what I was talking about... NPCs have done all those things in their home, be it their default home or one you moved them into. Post Hearthfire NPCs, while following you, still don't do jack. Edited October 7, 2012 by sajuukkhar9000 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dragonslayer2k12 Posted October 8, 2012 Share Posted October 8, 2012 I still have not tried npcguard er... I mean dawnguard yet and now hearthfire comes out and haven't tried that yet either. So from what I am reading here you can now build homes in the minor holds or at least some of them. But why falkreath? That is a creepy place there is nothing but corruption and graveyards there. Ohhhhhhh.... ok so later you get to buy another DLC that allows you to find out why falkreath is so gloomy all the time blah blah:-( They are just setting this stuff up for money. I think that instead of just adopting children you should be able to let non housecarl followers live at and or guard your house too. Like that guy in morthal that keeps applying for the guard position but never gets it or that young stupid bored guy erik at rorikstead that just can't wait to get out of that town. There are a bunch of npc in the game that could live at the player houses for one reason or another to add some useful reason for owning so many houses. The player moves on up to the east side lol eventually aka windhelm or goes to solitude and maybe sets up some less fortunate npcs in their old homes from when they were just starting out? Also at some point, the dragons need to leave the minor holds alone if the player owns a house there but only if the player has completed the main quest and showed the dragons who is boss. They really need to fix the housecarls so they do things like clean the house, sleep at expected hours etc. Also it should be that if the player gives a housecarl money they will go out and buy food and ingredients when the player has used some of that stuff up and or if the housecarl has eaten all their food and some of the food in the house. The housecarl should go to the blacksmith to get ingots and leather strips etc if the house came with those things and the player used up some of them too. This kind of stuff could also be dumped on an apprentice if the player has hired one or took one on because of some quest related dialogue where a follower became an apprentice. Yeah, an apprentice:-) Much more useful that a kid and you can train them for whatever they are apprenticed for. Magic, combat, alchemy, whatever. While they are apprenticing with the player they live at a designated player house and if they make whatever they are apprenticing in like alchemy would motivate them to make potions and gather ingredients. Combat would motivate them to buy/make weapons and armor arrows etc. Those kids would either have to simply be charity cases which is not very useful or they grow up after an extended amount of play time and become someone useful like merchant, warrior, alchemist, blacksmith etc. So the trophy house with kids can be replaced by the ideas above if anyone can make it happen. Hearthfire has provided the framework for some of this stuff to be possible. This way it is not a total waste of time to have hearthfire DLC? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sajuukkhar9000 Posted October 8, 2012 Share Posted October 8, 2012 (edited) I still have not tried npcguard er... I mean dawnguard yet and now hearthfire comes out and haven't tried that yet either. So from what I am reading here you can now build homes in the minor holds or at least some of them. But why falkreath? That is a creepy place there is nothing but corruption and graveyards there. Ohhhhhhh.... ok so later you get to buy another DLC that allows you to find out why falkreath is so gloomy all the time blah blah:-( They are just setting this stuff up for money. Ummm no. Falkreath, Danwstar, and Morthal holds were chosen as locations for houses because all the other holds had buyable houses in them, well except for Winterhold. They really need to fix the housecarls so they do things like clean the house, sleep at expected hours etc. Also it should be that if the player gives a housecarl money they will go out and buy food and ingredients when the player has used some of that stuff up and or if the housecarl has eaten all their food and some of the food in the house. The housecarl should go to the blacksmith to get ingots and leather strips etc if the house came with those things and the player used up some of them too. This kind of stuff could also be dumped on an apprentice if the player has hired one or took one on because of some quest related dialogue where a follower became an apprentice. Housecarls are supposed to guard your property, not pick up after you. Also Housecarls do sleep, all of them do, except Lydia, because of a bug in the positioning of her bed in Breezehome. Furthermore, with Hearthfire, you can make the Housecarls, and indeed many other follower NPCs, into stewards, who you can ask to buy stuff for you, such as building materials, furniture, buy cows and chickens, a bard, and several other things. Edited October 8, 2012 by sajuukkhar9000 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dragonslayer2k12 Posted October 8, 2012 Share Posted October 8, 2012 The bard should be a just graduated bard that needs a place to start barding, so they work for little money at first in the player home and then move on later unless you want them to stay there and pay them normal bard pay whatever that would be. Just buying a bard kind of ruins the immersion a bit. Maybe tie it in to the bards questline so if the player did all the quests they could petition a bard from the college to bard at their house? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnkhAscendant Posted October 8, 2012 Share Posted October 8, 2012 I think that instead of just adopting children you should be able to let non housecarl followers live at and or guard your house too. Like that guy in morthal that keeps applying for the guard position but never gets it or that young stupid bored guy erik at rorikstead that just can't wait to get out of that town. There are a bunch of npc in the game that could live at the player houses for one reason or another to add some useful reason for owning so many houses. Interestingly enough, both of your examples are people who can be made into stewards of your new homes. ;) I like the idea of being able to move any NPCs you want into your homes, but your rant was ironic. Of course, if every NPC you liked could live in your houses, the cities would be pretty empty. With a spouse, a housecarl, a steward, a bard, a carriage driver, and two children, at least one of your houses can be full to overflowing. Use the mod "My home is your home" and they all can be, since you can make any follower live anywhere you want. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scorch621 Posted October 9, 2012 Share Posted October 9, 2012 The bard should be a just graduated bard that needs a place to start barding, so they work for little money at first in the player home and then move on later unless you want them to stay there and pay them normal bard pay whatever that would be. Just buying a bard kind of ruins the immersion a bit. Maybe tie it in to the bards questline so if the player did all the quests they could petition a bard from the college to bard at their house? Considering how well the bards actually sing (Sonir anyway) one could say they are trainee bards...or banshees in disguise... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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