Fallout 4: The Good - Companions

What back to this topic?

Why yes, yes indeed.  The complaints about companions getting in your way, stepping in front of you just as you're lining up a long range shot or just, generally, not having a good combat AI must be factored in with the actual attempt to make sure the companions were not just generic followers.  In The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, the main complaint for companions was that they were generic.  Do a quest, do a mission or become a Thane and you got a free companion/follower.  That changed with the Dawnguard DLC and Serana, who came packed with her own mental model that ran in the background which kept track of what you had talked about, how you presented yourself and what your goals were, as well as how you felt about her as an individual.  That was an impressive feat to attempt at that point, and when it worked it was very impressive compared to the more generic followers in the game.  Skyrim was the project between Fallout: New Vegas (FNV) and Fallout 4 (FO4), done by Bethesda Game Studios.

Obsidian was hired to create FNV and they took a different approach to companions than Bethesda did, in that they wanted their affiliation towards the player character (PC) to happen in stages.  Thus every time you talked to someone who was old and important around Raul, he would want to have a bit of a chat with you.   When going with Veronica, there were places which would trigger her personal quest line and affiliation and get more information about her.  Mostly these were exposition dumps of the 'I need to get this out in the open' sort of deal, and were monologues.  This is a form of storytelling about the individual and the wider wasteland and how events happened outside of the immediate setting, thus were an RPG game element that required some game mechanics as well.  Cassidy didn't really like it if you have been stealing everything that hasn't been nailed down, and trying to talk with her if your Karma was negative turned out to be a no-go.  Cassidy had a built-in system of judging you by your general presentation based on what you had done: she could judge the PC by Karma.  Fallout 3 featured this to an extent with Talon Company and The Regulators, who would go after you if your Karma was too high or too low, respectively.  But those are groups making decisions based on contracts or what you have done, not individuals and not companions.  Still if you worked well with the slavers in FO3 you could get a slave follower, so points to Bethesda on that.  The changeover from Karma to personal review of an individual happened with Serana in Skyrim, and she was a very lore friendly and quite appealing companion, as well and that helped immensely.  There was still a theft and bounty system in Skyrim, so stealing what wasn't nailed down was still possible, of course, as was getting a bounty on your head if you did so.

Those game mechanics were removed from FO4 which had no Karma system, no Bounty system and, in general, if you stole something when no one was looking it wouldn't be pinned on you.  Bethesda did not go the complete route on that, however, and still marked items as STOLEN, which makes no sense at all for generic items or even some unique items.  That power armor set you stole from Raiders?  Yeah, some of your companions don't like it overmuch that you stole it and every time you get into it their favor can drop a bit.  How they know that is beyond anything the game mechanics actually want to cover as there is no Karma to give you an aura of sorts and if there is no witness, then identifying it as stolen when the owner didn't see it to pin it on you is absurd.  Steal something half-way across the Commonwealth and, somehow, it will still be known as STOLEN.

Without the proper game mechanics to explain this, the game element of something being stolen is detached from a framework to use it for particular situations.  You can't buy/sell some items to traders if it was stolen...how and why they know an item was stolen is not explained.  Karma gets your PC an aura or air about them, and some people can tell that right off the bat.  Stealing something in a system with a bounty attached can make some sense if you are the only one it can be pinned on or someone else who wasn't an owner saw you steal it.  Neither system is implemented and only the trade and use portions show up for companion and vendors, which, given the conditions of the wasteland, how are either to know that this wasn't yours to start with?  Remember most of the Raiders you see can't read or write, so they don't have a nametag on them...just the tag from the game engine marking it as STOLEN.

Outside of that, how you generally act towards others can gain you like/dislike with companions, and each have their own subset of activities to trigger that sort of event.  All Companions, indeed everything that can react to the PC or to each other in the game has AI behind it.  Simply put it is a script with variables that can change over time and circumstances.  Simple AI is put in place for everything else, with variations based on internal faction variables, so that Raiders just don't go shooting each other on sight.  Indeed removing that temporarily and putting a  high combat status on that individual will allow them to go berserk against the nearest person or creature, which has an entertainment value and has been part of how Bethesda codes NPCs that you can't recruit.  It is also possible to add the PC's faction to a list of allied factions for an NPC, so that they won't attack you, as well.  As a combat game mechanic it functions pretty well, but without proper RPG elements and scripts to back it up outside of combat, it isn't so useful.

In Skyrim the nature of Serana's script and background tracking were quite complex for the game and script engine, and there were a number of failure states that she could get stuck in, like saying she was going to leave to get cured and then just standing there.  To a degree this is true of all the recruitable NPCs in that game, and points to some basic limitations of script implementation in a complex game in the 32-bit era.  Going further afield in the shooter category of games, there are those with goals that the player must achieve for the plot to move forward and companion characters will have that as a reference so that they don't stray far from the path to that objective.  They can be given a large number of other routines, poses, dialogue and such to help them blend in with their surroundings and craft a personality for them.  Open World games where goals can be done in any order or totally ignored makes that sort of AI impossible save on a very limited basis, like someone looking to move through a dungeon or building with enemies in it and asking for the PC's help.

Interpersonal AI takes a lot of work and overhead, plus voice acting to make an NPC truly stand out and be believable.  With a voiced protagonist, usually at higher pay than NPC voiced lines,  that means that every line spoken by the protagonist is taking at least one or two lines out from NPCs.  That is why the NPC voice acting tends to have a limited response set in games with a voiced protagonist: money.  All that interaction costs money up front, and the type and style of game will dictate just how much time and money is to be spent on voicing of the various characters.  Getting a single good voice actor for an NPC like Laura Bailey as Serana costs a fair amount, and having two voiced protagonists for the entire game plus all DLCs means a lot of the money that could be spent for going in-depth on a few more NPCs or even adding in new NPCs is spent on the protagonist.  Of course it isn't that simple as the AI, story, backstory, and all the necessary elements to place an NPC in the game world need to be worked in as well, and that also takes a lot of money per character, though it is easier to add in different elements like was done in prior entries to the Fallout franchise.  In both Fallout 3 and New Vegas the choice of perks that were chosen for the PC would open up new dialogue options with some NPCs.  Stuff like Animal Friend, Child at Heart, Confirmed Bachelor/Cherchez la Femme, Black Widow....these weren't just about changing combat results and getting a slightly better chance at convincing someone at a speech check, but could open up brand new speech options that weren't available without them.  This is a way to add depth and traits to NPCs, and even put in alternative game choices to move forward in making decisions: these are key role playing elements that depend on RPG game mechanics.  It does require extra coding and forethought on the part of the game design team, of course, and that is something decided based on the type and style of game that is being designed.  A combat heavy game won't include them, while an RPG has such elements and mechanics as a viable game option so that the player is given Agency over how to make their decisions or to even find alternatives that free them of the prior constraints presented to them in different storylines.

FO4 is a combat heavy game, and the NPCs that are enemies tend to have pretty simple AI based on their abilities, attributes and equipment.  NPCs that recognize they are vulnerable and seek cover tend to do so for a limited period of time before they finally give the bum's rush forward, tossing their life away by doing so.  Combat AI for companions isn't much better and there are rare circumstances where the shooting gallery (be it mine, building, tunnel complex, what have you) allows for cover fire advancement.  That is to say if a Companion is in cover against an opponent, the PC can then open up from their position to cover the advancement of their Companion.  And then the reverse can happen to allow the PC to move forward while the Companion gives cover fire from their position.  Thus the two can leap-frog into better range going from cover to cover seeking to flank a set of opponents from one or both sides.  The chances of this actually happening is sheer and utter luck and not something that you prepare for since there is no game mechanic in the combat side of things for the Companion AI to comprehend advancing under cover fire.  Dumb luck will get you the few situations this happen, not devising a set of tactics that the NPC understands and will then seek to enact: there is no yelling 'cover me' and then getting a thumbs-up or equivalent so that you can then advance under cover fire.  That is one reason why I classify FO4 as an action game: it is action centered not shooter centered.

If these elements, the background accessible via specialized perks and getting a good fighting relationship, are mixed together, then this thing called 'immersion' starts to appear.  Letting a Companion know that you tend towards melee combat and will ask them to give you cover fire to advance, would be something you talk about before ever getting into a fight.  If only the Companions would recognize that there IS a fight going on before asking if you have time to talk to them about personal matters.  In my very first playthrough of FO4 I had been working with Cait and getting into some rather nasty fights, and getting to understand her background, all to the well and good.  Then, in the middle of a fight where a group of advancing synths were firing at us, she decided she wanted to have the old heart-to-heart.  Yeah, we stood up, got out of cover and had it...while the blue lasers were hitting all around us.  There is no magic shield of 'I want to talk to you' protection in FO4...hell there is no concept of 'personal space' when others are talking, either.  NPC AI is decidedly lacking in something known as Situational Awareness.  Still we had that chat, survived, won the day and proceeded on to the end of her major quest.  That is the first, only and last time I will ever accept such dialogue in the middle of a firefight, and even choosing the 'Not Right Now' sort of option still means I have to stand up and get out of cover in a fight and that is usually a lethal situation.

What is Situational Awareness?  Bethesda doesn't go that far in implementing it, beyond putting in some generic trigger points for NPC monolog and remarks.  That just isn't all that well done, truth be told.  SA goes far beyond that on both the combat and non-combat side of things.  The combat list should include things like: don't step in front of someone aiming down a scope, don't use area effect weapons when friendlies are in the range of the effect, keep your distance in combat, seek cover and cover fire opportunities against entrenched or protected areas, utilize non-combat skills when appropriate to take care of situations and problems during a fight (like going to the side of the PC who is gravely wounded and using a stimpak).  Stuff like that.  Get out of the way of the PC, don't block doors, and give people who are talking to each other a wide berth can start to cover non-combat SA, as well.  That and the game engine deciding to spawn people and creatures on the roofs of buildings or inside locked rooms that they don't have a means to escape from....that is game engine SA for placement of NPCs, and it doesn't really exist in FO4, either.  If you've ever been blocked from getting into a house because a caravan brahmin was spawned inside of it with no real way out, and thus no real way in, you get the idea.  Sometimes it is comical, but mostly it is just non-sense and frustrating beyond belief.

With all that said the additional and interactive 'getting to know you' for Companions is a good step forward and beats the exposition dumps of FNV.  It could use some refinement by adding in actual meal game mechanics so that the PC and NPCs can share a meal, go to a bar and have drinks together, and generally unwind in a friendly environment and talk things over.  Talking things over in the field isn't really the best of all possible solutions, especially if it involves a major activity that the PC will have to do with the NPC so as to advance the storyline of the NPC.  Better game mechanics or at least subsidiary elements to existing ones in the AI would be necessary for this.  It is a bit more to keep track of, yes, and requires some forethought by the game designers, but once set up as a mechanic, then it can just be used and places set up appropriate for such dialogue (or made by the PC) so that when the PC and NPC are in that place they can then have different dialogue options and opportunities.

The best of the modded in Companions from prior games in the TES and Fallout franchises can vary from very simplistic to revising a known NPC by adding in other options that have some voiced (or even unvoiced) options to finding a voice actor (friend, amateur or professional) to speak the lines for a unique Companion.  Quests for those companions can range from non-existent to incredibly in-depth and detailed, with multiple friendship and affection waypoints that are only garnered by working with the Companion, helping them and showing that you, as the PC, are willing to do a lot of little things to build up their trust.  That takes a lot of time, effort and sometimes actual money so that the Companion will get special clothes, special weapons, other items not found normally in the game and yet lore friendly...modders do this because they love the idea of having a Companion that isn't JUST a Companion but someone that is seeking a long-term relationship and that your PC may just be that individual.  A ghoul or super mutant companion may think nothing of the Cannibalism perk, while a human companion may detest you whenever you do it when they can see you doing it.  Which means you have to adjust how you play to their likes and dislikes as well as your own method of play, all while attempting to achieve some larger goals and quests.  A Companion should be more than just a squadmate or combat buddy, and romantically they should also have preferences, likes, dislikes and such so that doing some activities is just not possible no matter how much they like you.

Are those limitations to Companions?  Yup, they are.  And they make a game more immersive, and lets the player know that no matter how good they are that there will be things they just can't do in the play through they are on.  Player Agency will have limits, but will also have the hints at expanded opportunities if different choices are made.  FO4 is a step in the right direction for Companions by lengthening the 'getting to know you' phase, breaking it up a bit, and making the Companions seem to fit in well as a friend you can travel the wasteland with.  And if you just want to chuck all of them out, well, Dogmeat will always love you.  And get in the way of your next shot.Basically the realm of AI in the Fallout and TES franchises are lacking.  The game industry, as a whole, gives some unique NPC Companions (used generically here) that attempt to blend in with the game world, move stories forward and offer opportunities for player agency, which is the breadth and scope of decisions the player is faced with and can allow an ingenious player to find new ways to play the game and come to different or better ends than just using brute-force techniques.  The real place to watch for advances in AI are not in the big technology companies, but in the gaming realm as actual humans who are seeking to advance games can have a competitive advantage by offering better NPC AI, particularly in Companion AI, that seeks to adapt the Companion to the the player and vice-versa.  Want to get human relationships from computers?  Why look at big companies that don't make that a goal in the first place?  Why not start with those who have a real monetary reason to advance the state of the art, and can prosper by doing so?  Don't expect the big boys to solve this one.  The first game company that begins to crack this nut open in a limited environment will have a real money maker on their hands as the people and the game world begin to adapt to the changes the PC brings about...some for the good, some for the bad and some will just be changes.  How to make, track and implement those changes while giving it a realistic propagation rate...that is a minor challenge compared to actually cracking that larger nut open.  Games are the prefect playgrounds for AI development.  Now if we could only convince the game developers of this.