group A few important points about NPCs in the game.

[GG Cannon]

A few things I've been thinking a lot ever since I first heard about NPCs coming to the game in the future and I wanted to bring this up early since even if there is the possibility they are being considered for the NPC update, there is always the possibility that in the chaos that is the world of gamedev day to day, one or more might have gone by unnoticed.

There are 4 possibilities on how you will meet with NPCs and each of them brings up important points that must be discussed and with such I'll add in a few suggestions about each.

1- You DON'T have a "group/base" and the NPC also doesn't have a "group/base".
Group in this matter is a survival base with other NPC and/or players.
In this case, it should be possible to interact with the NPC and recruit the NPC for your group.
Starting a group from 0, setting a home base, defining which place is to rest, where food is stored, where it is safe and where isn't, patrols, watch points, all the needed inner workings of a base, maybe defining what needs to be built where and if you are the leader of the group, giving those build orders and choosing which NPC does what.
You could arm an NPC with a rifle and order another NPC to build a watch tower even if you yourself have 0 building skills, placing that NPC with the rifle to keep watch on the tower and maybe even setting more than one NPC at that watch point giving a different schedule for each one so that there is always one person there and when one gets off to rest and idle, the other takes over.

This means there should be ways to define Leadership of a group and it should be possible for an NPC to become Leader or a player to surrender Leadership.
This also means that the relationship with NPCs also needs some form of "political interaction" within the group and a way for NPCs to know who belongs to their group and who doesn't by interacting with one another and developping relationships with one another, maybe even forming inner factions.
And in MP that means that only one player gets to be the "Leader" of the group, or maybe even there could be more than one Leader by "decision of the majority"?
Things to consider

2- You DON'T have a "group/base" but the NPC does.
This makes it so that if the NPC "trusts" you they could invite you, if they don't trust you, they wouldn't and if they are evil, they could pretend to invite you and screw you over or even they could be evil but the player by doing a proper sequence of interactions still gets that NPC trust and gets to join an "evil" group.
This means that a sort of "dynamic trust system" should exist during first interactions with NPCs. Not just due to relationship points, but a sort of "first impressions" system that only is used for the first few interactions of when you meet an NPC. This would also be needed for situation 1 since if an NPC doesn't trust you, due to you screwing them over, hurting them, insulting or abandoning them in a situation of danger, they probably wouldn't want to join your group and say they would be better off alone.

3- You DO have a "group/base" and the NPC doesn't.
As I mentioned in situation 2, in this case, the "dynamic trust system" should exist so that the NPC can judge if they trust you enough to join your group, to bring you back to their "family" (smaller than a group, not a base but just a few other NPCs surviving together in a stage with smaller numbers before growing into a group and settling a safe base) so that their "family" may also join your "group/base".

 

4- You DO have a "group/base" and the NPC also does.

In this case, there should still be a "dynamic trust system" in situations that the NPC "thinks their current group/base is bad for them" and even a possibility of needing to "rescue" another NPC belonging to their "family" from their current "group/base".
OR the possibility of them bringing you to their group/base that they feel safe as a sort of ambassador of your "group/base" which brings the possibility and need of a diplomacy and diplomatic relations between "group/base" that also need to exist between NPC to NPC groups/bases.
Exchanging food for goods, doing scavenge runs together, being requested to rescue someone from their group since they are out of "runners" that can go out of the base and other possibilities that could use the radios in specific frequencies to communicate between groups.

Base to base interactions should be something almost as, if not more important than the inner workings of your own base.
There is the possibilities of war as well. Kidnappings or murder of your "runners"(NPCs defined as scavengers that go out in search of specified goods defined by the leader).

As I mentioned, I just wanted to bring this topic up as soon as possible since I know that the NPC update is already underway and I know how chaotic gamedev is and how some aspects my just pass us by when focusing on other aspects of development.

I actually very excited for the NPC update and loving the game currently, so I can't wait to see what you guys are cooking up right now.

Edited October 6, 2022 by GG Cannon
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