NPCs Should Fear You

[evilneko]

Fallout 3 had a morale mechanic. You see it most often when using weapons that set people on fire, and even more often when using the Rebalanced Fire mod. >

Come to think of it Fallout 3's morale mechanic is better than Skyrim's. :/

Also the guards in Skyrim should just stop bitching about the shouting after the main quest. I saved the fuckin' world, so what if I shout a few times. Hey, wanna see my pet dragon? Y'know, the one I called down in defense of Whiterun? The very same one I rode off on when I went off to save the fuckin' world?

 

[Podunk]

Best game with fear is No More Heroes 2. When you turn into a tiger everyone cowers or falls and tries to crawl away. There should be more games where you are scary, and many more games where you get to be a tiger!

EDIT: Also, this!
http://youtu.be/PFQX2YsjjBk

 

[the abyss gazes also]

I could see it going too far maybe, but I'm also wondering why you would attack someone wearing armor made out of the scales/bones of the dragons he has killed. Occasionally the guards notice, but the bandits seem clueless.

Might work if it was armor made out of the faces of bandits...

 

[Contradiction]

maybe the enemies have more heart then brain.

I think NPCs should auto-fear me. In vegas i killed any NPCs i didn't like and ate them.

that actually made me laugh

unlocking the Dine and Dash perk didn't help my addiction

Now that you mention it NV definitely had the 'fight bail' set up. I had to chase this final raider around for like 5 minutes because they would keep darting in and out of some ruined house (I was playing mellee for the record)

 

[solemnwar]

... blood is red because of the iron in it that oxidises when it contacts air. Wouldn't the air thusly smell of IRON, not copper?

 

[gim73]

Back in the day there was this side story to the Shin Megumi Tensei series, maybe you have heard of it:

PERSONA!!!

the third and fourth games are really great and use a mechanic that makes the shadows run away if you are so many levels higher than them. The first two games (or three in japan) have a weird little game you can play with the monsters where you chat with them and make them sad, angry, happy or afraid. Based on this they would give you various things, run away or even go beserk. It was a neat little mechanic, but it eventually was gotten rid of in favor of things like social ranks (which are awesome!) and indirectly controlled allies (which seriously held P3 back for me as being a good game).

 

[mrdude2010]

In the later assassins creed games if you kill like 7-8 people without taking a hit the rest of them get scared and run away.

 

[Doclector]

In skyrim I can see why they don't do it. There's spells and some actions that will cause enemies to run in fear, some of which have been featured in previous elder scrolls games, and thus someone would probably b**** about it if they were removed/made practically useless. I approve of them because fear is a badass spell, it makes me feel like the scarecrow, and turning into a werewolf, seeing some knight in shining armour shout "die, beast!" and then roaring at him and seeing him piss his pants is f***ing hilarious.

Also, skyrim's main religious beliefs are similiar to viking beliefs, in that they believe dying in battle will lead to a glorious afterlife. It kinda makes sense, then, that a lot of enemies wouldn't run.

Still, there is something to be said for enemies reacting with fear to you. Especially in stealth games, I find. Picking off enemies one by one, them knowing that you're there, but not knowing where you are. The batman arkham games do this pretty well, with your detective view actively telling you how scared the enemy is.

 

[Mycroft Holmes]

My favorite was the child in solitude going: "you don't look so tough, I bet my papa could beat you." to me while I'm wearing full enchanted Daedric armor and duel wielding. I made sure to murder his father. I mean, I wasn't really sure who his father was, so I just wiped out solitude.

It really does not seem like it takes that much effort to add it in, and it adds a huge level of immersion. I mean I can't remember even half the quests from assassins creed(1 or 2 I forget, maybe they both had it) but I definitely remember chilling out and instantly counter-killing everyone without getting touched. Until its just one poor guy left, who takes a look at me, goes 'fuck this', drops his sword and runs. I usually chase those people down and kill them though. Aint nobody gets to attack me and then dip out just cus things don't look good.

 

[DoPo]

... blood is red because of the iron in it that oxidises when it contacts air. Wouldn't the air thusly smell of IRON, not copper?

No, blood is red before it contacts air. And it's just a phrase - blood does smell/taste metallic due to the iron. How copper came around to describe it, I'm not exactly sure, though.

 

[Emiscary]

... blood is red because of the iron in it that oxidises when it contacts air. Wouldn't the air thusly smell of IRON, not copper?

No, blood is red before it contacts air. And it's just a phrase - blood does smell/taste metallic due to the iron. How copper came around to describe it, I'm not exactly sure, though.

Not sure myself, but the first time I heard it someone was comparing the way blood smells to the way a penny tastes (not a contemporary one, obviously).

 

[Lugbzurg]

[Prototype]. When you start wreaking havoc, people run away screaming. Some of them even get down on their knees and start praying. Grand Theft Auto does something like this, too. Although, for both of these franchises, I'm not so sure about the actual enemies behaving like this. I haven't played their more recent installments.

 

[ABLb0y]

In the later Assassin's creed games, if you kill all the members of a group of guards except one, sometimes the remaining one will run away screaming.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

I don't know about that, but I certainly liked it better when NPCs didn't speak unless spoken to. I'm looking at you Diablo III.

 

[samaugsch]

I think NPCs should auto-fear me. In vegas i killed any NPCs i didn't like and ate them.

Yeah, you'd think anyone who catches someone devouring thugs would be like, "Oh shit." and run away. Or at least attempt to kill you without being seen. Also, you'd think the corpses would turn into skeletons after being eaten.

Do you have any idea how much meat is on your average human being from their skeletal muscles alone? I'll give you a hint: Far too much to fit in your stomach.

Doesn't stop my character from eating like 100 human flesh from his backpack at one time. But for the sake of realism, that wouldn't explain why he can't strip meat off with the Dine and Dash perk as long as he has room in his pack.

 

[Montezuma's Lawyer]

So in anticipation of Dawnguard I've been mucking about with Skyrim, and I think I may have pinned down what (for me anyway) is the most immersion breaking thing about the game. And it's really simple:

Non player characters need a capacity to feel fear. Or at the very least a capacity to *learn* to be afraid.

In an effort to prove this, lemme ask you a quick question. How many times over the course of your time playing games have you faced the following scenario:

You're high level. You have all your favorite gear equipped. You've just finished piling up corpses around you four layers deep. There is so much blood the air tastes of copper. And you haven't even broken sweat yet. And as you stand triumphant over the bodies of your foes- you catch something out of the corner of your eye. Why, it's Bumfuck McMook! The last bandit/goblin/insurgent/terrorist/whocares standing. He has just finished watching you effortlessly slaughter everyone he's ever met. And what's this? He's charging at you headlong with a sword in hand. Why Bumfuck you brave, brave soul you.

You get my point here right? Unless I'm facing down mindless automatons or the criminally insane, my enemies should demonstrate that they value their own lives. I'm aware that they're just collections of 1's and 0's, but as long as you're calling them "bandits", they should behave as such.

If I get jumped by some thugs on the highway and I kill 3/4s of them in under 7 seconds by myself, then my guess is that the survivors first priority would be pissing themselves. Not charging headlong into certain death.

There are other more subtle examples of NPC fearlessness that mess with my immersion ("So you what, fetch the mead?") but the above is one of the most glaring examples, and it's one of the easier ones to fix mechanically.

Thoughts?

They're Nords, they never run.


DUH!

 

[MASTACHIEFPWN]

Far Cry 2 did this,
Eventually after fucking enough things up and killing enough soldiers, vehicle convoys tend to crash into you head on while you're reading the damned map while in your car, and lone enemies will drop their weapon and run to the hills.