Hostility of major NPCs - Apologies/Lay down arms?

[rayultine]

Come on now, it's totally silly that major NPCs like Fillarel and the Yeek Wayist turn permanently hostile if you touch them with damage once.

I recently killed Subject Z and got the "You ... saved me?" popup from the Wayist. But then somewhere in the next turn or two (can't find it in my log) I managed to splash him with a tiny bit of damage and now he wants to kill me.

A while back, I also had a Sun Paladin who was looking VERY winnable get killed by the guards holding the line at the beginning of the Charred scar level!

If one wants to stay immersed as possible in the game, then perhaps there should be a way to un-hostile some of the major friendly NPCs. Maybe their hostility could decrease if the player disarms?

[Doctornull]

Some of this could be fixed by just making more talents NOT harm via friendly fire.

For classes with pets, friendly fire is obviously a balancing factor. But for classes who don't have access to pets, friendly fire seems to be mainly a concern for escorts and plot NPCs... for those, is balance provided, or just frustration?

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

I dunno, is there... Balance? Or just MASS FRUSTRATION AND RAGE??!?!?!?!?!

I think that answers the issue. Worst of all, I never even touched her.

[Doctornull]

I dunno, is there... Balance? Or just MASS FRUSTRATION AND RAGE??!?!?!?!?!

Yeah, exactly.

I suspect the mechanic was added for balance, but it's not filling that role very effectively.

It is instead just adding frustration.

[HousePet]

That is why I have an addon that stops them going agro.

[Doctornull]

The "No NPC Aggro" one, right?

Hope it gets integrated into 1.0.5, to prevent frustration like this going forward?

[Hachem_Muche]

Maybe a better solution would be to let the personal reaction decay back to normal over time. So if you anger an NPC but stop hurting it, it will revert back to neutral or friendly over several turns?

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

Can the game distinguish between formerly friendly NPC's and regular enemies though? If regular enemies aren't attacked and therefore decay back to neutral status, this could create obvious problems.

[Doctornull]

Maybe a better solution would be to let the personal reaction decay back to normal over time. So if you anger an NPC but stop hurting it, it will revert back to neutral or friendly over several turns?

Sounds great.

Can the game distinguish between formerly friendly NPC's and regular enemies though? If regular enemies aren't attacked and therefore decay back to neutral status, this could create obvious problems.

Maybe it could look at Faction.

That could incidentally also take care of non-plot NPCs (like those poor Paladins at the end of the Charred Scar who keep walking into my burning wake...)

[Hachem_Muche]

Having reaction revert back to normal shouldn't be too hard. Reaction of NPC's is in 2 parts: the base faction-based value ("enemies" vs. "Allied Kingdoms", etc) and a possible personal value that is set to a negative number when they are attacked or damaged. All that needs to happen is to make the 2nd factor return to 0 over time.

[Hachem_Muche]

I've uploaded an addon that let's friendly NPCs become non-hostile again in most cases. (Don't kill their friends!)

http://te4.org/games/addons/tome/npc-forgiveness

A typical infraction (-50 reaction) that leaves the NPC still friendly only takes a few turns to recover from, but a more serious one (-150 reaction, turning the NPC hostile) may take 30 or more turns to overcome depending on their default reaction to the player. There is also a new reaction penalty (-25) for inflicting a detrimental status effect on the NPC.

[Hachem_Muche]

This post responds to a post in the addon thread I created at http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?p=161872#p161872 but I think my response properly belongs in this thread.

I dont like the idea of changing NPC's attitude gradually with time. What? Are they going to forget you've almost killed them 10 turns ago? Its also looks exploitable. I think there should be an ability to disarm/give up/show excuse. For example in Fable III if you accidentally harmed someone but did not kill and did not steal anything you have an option to confess and remove hostility. If the crime is more serious it won't work though.

I see major problems with hostility gradual reduction like your summons/shades will attack the NPC you accidentally hit and it will become hostile permanently. AoE effects that normally dont hurt allies like mindstar DoT aura will harm the NPC as well further increasing their hostility. That's why I think having an activatable excuse/lay down hands ability is the only option.

I've tried to remove the possibility of exploits in this addon, so if there is one, let me know, and I'll fix it. As far as your summons making an otherwise friendly NPC permanently hostile, that won't happen unless you or they kill an ally of that NPC. Obviously, if this is a problem for a character they need to control their summons better (like a golem), not use summons with abilities that harm friends, or otherwise just be careful. Note that due to the way the AI is set up for most NPCs, hurting their friends will result in them targeting you, so they will follow you around. Killing them then becomes much more likely to be seen - which will result in permanent hostility.

The system here works somewhat like the lay downs arms option, in that you have to stop hostility towards the normally friendly NPC for a substantial (at least in terms of combat) time. The problem with just disarming or using some special action to reduce hostility is implementation and balance. There are certain fights (Fillarel, Limmir, the ring of blood dungeon, etc.) where it is common to accidentally hit friendly NPC's in the middle of a fight - and there needs to be a way for the player to recover from this mistake. A disarm option that took only a turn or two would work for those fights, but would be very easy to abuse for say killing townsfolk one at a time and using the ability to reset hostility. On the other hand an ability that took several turns to execute, and that presumably severely hampered the player, would likely make some of these key fights unwinnable and would hardly be an improvement over the current situation.

I think the solution I have developed here is preferable, both because it's out of the direct control of the player (making abuse difficult), pretty intuitive in it's effects, and still imposes a permanent penalty for actually killing friendly NPCs (which is the only way to benefit from their hostility).

One possible change to this system could be a permanent reaction adjustment (but not necessarily permanent hostility) if you do something harmful to the NPC. Basically you reduce the margin of error you have in dealing with the NPC with each hostile action until there is no trust left and the NPC does become permanently hostile. I remain open to other ideas, of course.

[rayultine]

To chime in, I think only plot/sub-plot NPCs or NPCs in the visitable cities that are friendly by default should have this feature

[Hachem_Muche]

(Almost) all plot critical NPC's already have the .never_anger flag which makes it impossible to piss them off, but some of their definitions are bugged. I posted a fix here http://forums.te4.org/viewtopic.php?p=159897#p159897

[Crim, The Red Thunder]

Areyn can be angered in sunwall, at which point she chases and attempts to bump attack you. Which prompts dialog. Over and over.

Drowning her on a cornac is worth roughly 9 levels, if you're level 1.

Doesn't targeting by definition induce anger and hostility?