It depends, if you get used to it in real life, barking is not so annoying. Still their bark is different as the occasion is. When i come back home my Bella is almost crying 
, she begs for some rubbing, games and treats ofcurse. When a stranger appears the bark is serius, the same on thanderbolts , now when a cat appears… OMG. So you see they have their own language and it is not so difficult to understand. That means, if it is going to exist an AI for dogs it demands the attention that must have. As my friend Barnes said it must be scientific and not just an appear for dogs.
I am aware. My hope is that the devs can extrapolate from my suggestion, and find a similar solution for the consoles. If all button-combinations for consoles are taken, then prioritize. Something else will have to be buried in a radial menu. Switching a follower to passive is important to do quickly, or a lot of combat will continue to be incredibly frustrating.
Thralls (again):
Keep your distance!
When I’m swinging a 2-hander, have the simplest amount of intelligence, and DON’T WALK RIGHT INTO THE SWING!
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Personally I feel the battlecry would be the best option, though then you’re stuck trying to figure out keybinds for it. I can’t imagine what kind of fresh hell it’d be to try and use the thrall radial menu in a combat situation.
EDIT: well, apparently I can since I chose to qualify as ‘fresh hell’
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While I do agree with you for this specific kind of command, I don’t think that’s applicable to all commands. I’m not sure if my brain has chosen proper names for these, but I think of commands as something that can be divided into two categories: strategic and tactical.
A strategic command would be something like “follow me” or “guard this spot” or “help me harvest”. It should be something that influences the AI’s behavior constantly and doesn’t need to be changed in the heat of the battle.
A tactical command would be something along the lines “heal me” or “back off” or “attack that specific enemy”. It should be a short-term or one-off instruction for a specific situation, layered on top off the strategic command, and is expected to be used during combat.
For strategic commands, radial menu is just fine. For tactical commands, a key binding on PC is fine, but they should come up with something better for consoles.
The AI needs to deal better with friendly fire during raid times. I’ve had casualties while being purged due to my own swings.
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I agree with a lot of what has already been suggested. Some very good ideas indeed.
Such as, Commands to tell thralls exactly what to do:
Wait (stand right here and do not move ever until I tell you different).
Follow with fine control over this behaviour. Ex: Follow (only follow and attack nothing). Defend (attack only when player is attacked). Attack (attack any unfriendly on sight).
Disengage and Follow (meaning stop attacking and run with me). Useful to reposition or to retreat.
Horses and mounts (hopefully we will get some additional mounts) need these same action controls as thralls. I do not want my horse to engage in a fight ever if my character is not mounted on them. Now if I had a Sandbeast mount I could possibly want it to attack.
Being able to set a thrall a patrol path or area for a base or camp would be most helpful instead of them standing there like a lump.
Musician Thralls would be fantastic. Being able to choose dances for Dancer Thralls would be very nice as well.
I do like the suggestion of being able to level crafting thralls.
Being able to recruit ally thralls instead of enslaving them would be a good option.
It comes down to the fact that Thralls need a whole lotta help and this threads ideas would add greatly to the gameplay in Conan: Exiles.
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I wound’t mind an onscreen checklist for the things that you can find (as part of the journey steps), like for the various lorestones and journals. Maybe the same for emotes and recipes.
Just a thought.
Yes, please! I totally forgot this!
I would like to see,
Settings for followers, like attack anything in sight or fight only when I am in combat. Maybe even hold ground commands so they stay in place and attack only if enemies are in range or pursue like normal. And maybe allow them to do rolls as well in combat to make them unpredictable or even allow them to get on mounts to add potential for future purge types and units.
The AI needs to stop melee when the target is dead. For some reason, it continues to attack a dead body until I move far away from the dead.
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Here is my wall of text what thralls need…
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Immunity to lava damage on top of pathing around lava. This way, thralls will not go thru lava and even if pathing is not as good, they won’t die from lava. It would be nice if immunity could be disabled shortly if thrall is kicked etc. This would fix all of the thrall issues with lava and we could get back instant death from lava for players because we are talking about lava afterall…
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Different behavior based on race, weapon etc. Some examples:
Enemy thralls should try to get out of line of sight and wait there if I want to kill them with a bow from a safe place.
Melee fighters should not run straight in line and stack, instead they should try to flank and surround us.
Melee fighters should get in line behind a thrall with a shield if there is any and then try to surround us.
Different races could have different behavior patterns.
Our thralls should try not to attack 1st thrall we hit truncheon. Additionally, our thralls could try to interrupt attack animations with kick (since those happen all the time when capturing). I am not sure how would that interfere with capturing process.
- It would be nice to have button to override current actions from our thrall. For example, I want thrall to attack specific enemy, it would be as simple as pointing to the enemy and press the button. Button could be universal for “move to location” but we would need some indicator in that case what is thrall doing when command is issued. If last behavior from examples is done right, this type of command would be fastest from player perspective and it would allow micro-management.
Thralls
- Thralls need AI stances. Right now you already have predator and prey. Do this for thralls and allow players to set the statuses. Agressive (attack anything you see), Defensive (attack anythign in a smaller radius), Protective (attack anything that attacks your clan), Evasive (avoid the attacker and allow hp to regen).
- Give thralls specific weapons and heal slots. The player can set primary weapon for fighters and ranged and secondary for archer. This way the ai never gets confused about which weapon to use. This also gives archers a benefit to make up for their lesser hitpoints, rather than one weapons slot and one shield slot (if 1h weapon) it has weapons slot, ranged weapons slot and quiver.
- Arrow pots for archers. Feeds archers with arrows, like thrall pots feed them with food.
- Thrall tether distance. I think one of the problems with making thralls work properly is that they seem to reset when they teleport. Enable players to set tether distance to close, normal and distant to manage this.
- Thrall blocking. I hate it when thralls block doors. Make it possible to walk through thralls, or give an interaction to a thrall to move. I once got stuck in teh warmaker dungeon when my follow thrall blocked me in a corner after the skeletons pushed me into it and he killed them from behind.
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I like most of what I see here, adding a few ideas regarding thrall command/stance mode ideas:
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for thrall stances/commands, on defensive or “guard me” mode have the thrall intercept attackers that are after me - they need not actually hit me first, so if elephant is charging me and has not reached me yet, thrall will step up and intercept it. Thrall needs not have perfect perception, it can have a chance to notice attacks coming your way but maybe not react at first if not in thrall vision path or just as random chance, so more perceptive thrall may react quicker.
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dancers - ability to turn off “dance mode” so thrall goes into ordinary mode like other thralls. Lets dancer rest or do something other than dance awhile. Only count as “entertaining” when dance mode is on, however. Those dancers deserve a break, and also if you are traveling with them or using them to fight it is best they not erupt into dance between steps, so a dance mode on/off option would be nice. And as others say, more dances & let player select what dances a thrall rotates between. & let dancers learn all the dances the player discovers.
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Stay close mode for thralls, which has them stay within easy “trade” reach (so your bearer does not sit up on a cliff looking down while you mine & are overloaded & cannot reach them). This could be in addition to combat stances, so thrall could still have aggressive/passive/whatever mode plus stay close when not actually in a fight. Could have a hang back mode to let thrall give you more space as well. Alternatively (or additionally) could have command to have thrall come right up to you, though still might be nice to have them just following very close while you gather without having to call them up all the time
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Archer mode/skirmisher mode - Thrall with bow & this command would melee only when attacked up close, & would resort to archery after. Thrall with this mode command would never start a melee or pursue in melee, but switch back to bow whenever foes are not in melee range.
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More speech/dialogue from thralls would be good (though maybe with a quiet vs talkative mode as an option). Sometimes would be nice to hear more sayings out of thralls, other times not.
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Possibility for thralls not to obey - if we do get commands, maybe some thralls obey better than others. Thralls low on health might flee from combat. Could add thrall personality so some are more aggressive than others and might disobey or exceed orders. Could add loyalty, obedience, bravery, etc. characteristics to thralls (both followers and A.I.) to add more character to them, depends how far devs want to take the A.I. here
Enough for now, but very interesting topic & like most ideas others put forward so far!
- Aggressive, defensive and passive controls, perhaps with some intelligence as to automatically switching modes such as switch from agro to defensive when below 20% health
- City / non defence thralls for RP that do not count towards the limit, similar to Pippi thespians but with dynamic roles and animations, such as
– Base patrol / routes
– Musicians
– Farmers
– Animal handlers
– Harvesting / carrying wood or other mats - Time or location based variations on the city thralls so that they sleep, eat, wander, socialise etc at different times of day or if not busy. Ideally they will come to attention when you come too close, and perhaps interact with you in some way
- Animals that graze or move about. The horses are amazing but good god do they look rigid.
- Teach dancers other dances
- Enemies that can see and attack above eye level, perhaps even climb! It’s too easy to get away
- More roaming enemies that include all levels of difficulty, roaming merchants, and perhaps thieves or miscreants that run from you which if killed drop amazing loot. Think of the extraordinary joy you feel when chasing a Diablo treasure goblin across the map!
2 Likes
I agree with the comments made before and most of them have been stated numerous times. The npc and thrall AI are the only thing preventing CE from being one of the best titles out there.
The one I would really like to see (was spoken to somewhat in an earlier post) is having some sort of gathering system by thralls. Either actually go out in the world and gather say stone or iron OR have a mine building that you can put a worker thrall in to generate a resource. That would fit nicely with the T1 - T4 thrall system (T4 gathers more resources than a T1.) Would have to protect the resource building with thrall defenders. I do like the suggestion of allowing lower tier thralls to level up their skills and become higher tiered.
Next wish items are related to base defense:
- How about a thrall that can operate trebs for an anti-treb defense system.
- Not sure how to fix this one but it is VERY annoying to have a wall full of archers but a naked player can run up and set an explosive then die… doing this over and over until they blast a hole in the wall.
Artificial Intelligence: a spectrum of knowledge, ending with machine sentience.
If we were to introduce an actual artificial intelligence into the game, we would need to look at AI from its functional levels:
- What is the computational choice? Why are the NPCs interested in living?
This immediately requires the inclusion of an Economy System in the game. - If we’ve determined the NPC reasons to be, we must then create an algorithmic game theory to encompass a set of rules and logic.
- Upon this skeleton we can then apply the ligaments of collaborative learning.
This requires or necessitates a Reputation System in the game. - Do we allow deep learning? Will every Shemite hate me, or will only those in Set City?
- Is crowd-sourcing enabled? Do we extract player data and play habits, for application onto the AI template?
- Do we have the resources available for large scale machine learning? Can we contribute physical computer resources to the task of a learning AI?
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After a fight, the AI needs to stop backing up. It kills the target, but then it steps backwards until out of range. (it teleports itself back to the player)
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I haven’t finished reading thru the thread yet, but here are a few bits of AI that I think need to be incorporated regardless of whether we can issue commands or not.
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AI needs a way to overtake and attack and enemy on the run. Right now, all of the attacks in the game (even charges) have to start from a stationary point before being executed. This is why people can join a server at level 1 and run all over the world without fear, because even wolves and tigers will never catch up to them. Similarly, if I’m sitting on the porch of my tavern at the Sinkhole, I can watch my thralls stalking behind the undead hyenas, weapons out, but because they hyenas never stop walking, the thralls are never able to execute melee attacks. It would be comical if it wasn’t so facepalm worthy.
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Followers should synergize with the weapon choices of their master when possible. If I’m using a ranged weapon, it’s because I want to wear down an enemy before it can get into range, or thin the numbers in a camp before I go wading in. If my preference is for my thrall to go charging ahead, I can simply remove their bow, but if they have a bow, they should also begin sniping.
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Likewise, if I switch from a lethal weapon to a truncheon, my thrall should cease using lethal attacks against the target(s) I’ve been landing my blows on. If I want it to keep other enemies off me while I’m using my truncheon, I can simply make sure it doesn’t have a truncheon in inventory. Otherwise, if it has a truncheon, I’d expect it to cease lethal attacks on anyone else and help me to KO the targets I’ve been working over.
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For animal followers, I would expect them to defend me against attackers when I’m using a truncheon or employ whatever non-lethal attacks they might have, such as a wolf tripping enemies, or a cat tackling them. And yes, I understand this might require broadening the attack repertoire of animals, but that’s something that’s already necessary if we’re to have overtaking/running attacks be a thing.
- Mounts and beasts of burden need to avoid combat. There are no conditions under which I want my horse, camel, gazelle, or even rhino or elephant to attempt to help me in combat. They get in the way, and the amount of “help” they are able to provide is miniscule compared to the risk they take in doing so. Of course, there might be some other players who do wish for their pet to help, so perhaps saddle choice, fodder, or the like could determine such a beast’s disposition.
6 Likes
It seems pretty obvious, but we need better commands for thralls:
- Option 1: Don’t attack, whatever happens
- Option 2: Don’t attack, unless YOU are attacked
- Option 3: Attack everything that attack one of us or I attack
- Option 4: Attack everything that moves
And make possible to command the thrall with no need to select him or to be beside of him while following the player. He is already following, he is alread selected. One button “give following thrall an order”, and then wheel of options…
It would be great to be able to set a specific target for thralls to attack. And also to set specific targets for thralls don’t attack.
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