Making people surrender

[Scarecrow]

Will this be possible? If you engage in combat with someone, and you totally kick his ass, will you be able to scream at him to lay down his arms and surrender? Or even before the combat starts? In Skyrim for example, the enemies would often get knocked down after a while, even saying i submit at times. I tried to spare them half a million times to no avail, as they would just stand up again and charge at me. I think it would be cool if you could try to spare someone and try to get information out of them and stuff, or even taking them captive and selling them to a slave driver later (or some crazed thaumaturge who wants to experiment).

Not a critical thing to include, but i think it would add a lot to the game and it would be really cool. Just wondering if this is something that has been considered, or if it could be possible to implement it.

 

[Parco]

i think it would be cool if you could make people to surrender, make them beg for mercy. openly wielding a weapon and facing towards someone within a specific range could be taken as an act of aggression and could make some flee/backing off, begging to not be harmed or get ready to fight. how they act and the range before they feel threatened depends on their personality. during fights i guess trained soldiers would fight to the death, thieves and bandits would most likely run away and farmers and townspeople would beg for mercy if the health got too low.
i hope you can shout/talk to people before and in fights, telling them to surrender, making the chance of them actually surrendering higher (depending on personality ofc) and if you have some rope then you can restrain them after they have surrendered.
edit: another thing that would be cool is if you dismember their arms/legs then you could tie them up and threat their wounds making them live longer so you can do whatever you want with them, like feeding them to your ghouls that are guarding your house.

 

[Rod_Lightning]

Yeah I've always hated the fact that every single enemy will fight TO THE DEATH over the most trivial of things.

 

[cosmo bozo]

Yeah I've always hated the fact that every single enemy will fight TO THE DEATH over the most trivial of things.

To be honest though...picking up a mug off the counter by mistake instead of talking to someone is a mortal insult.
I had a mod for skyrim that made the surrendering a bit more sensible and realistic... there's a lot of silly stuff about skyrim if you actually stop and think....not really sure why I enjoyed it so much.

Would be nice if you could have a bit of a stand off, 2 characters glaring at each other with weapons drawn, but you could possibly intimidate or talk them down, or even back down yourself, rather than fighting over every little disagreement

 

[ZaratanCho]

A system like this can open up alot of possibilities.

 

[666jet]

i think it would be good to implement it

 

[Fawz]

I would really love to see a system implemented where when an NPC realizes he is loosing begins to act very differently. Either changes his tactics drastically (starts using cheap shots), tried to run, tries to bargain for his life, surrenders, ect...

That would be really cool and I think it was mentioned previously where NPCs would value their lives and not be mindless meat sacks for you to smack on and have loot and experience fly out of.

 

[Rod_Lightning]

That would be really cool and I think it was mentioned previously where NPCs would value their lives and not be mindless meat sacks for you to smack on and have loot and experience fly out of.

^

I can't stress this enough!

 

[fluffydino2000]

I think it's been confirmed that enemies will always have higher motivations than killing you (i.e. continuing to live) but whether these will result in enemies surrendering is interesting. I thinks it's likely, but could depend on the way the dialog works. Maybe if the player could set up quick talk keys (like the commands in ARMA) to tell people to surrender quickly it could work. But it may just be that the AI would stop fighting and perceive when you stop fighting.

 

[Granville]

I would love to see this happen, but it would have to be very clear when an enemy was surrendering otherwise you could just carry on and kill them. A possible way to deal with this would be to temporarily treat a surrendered enemy like a dead one so they can't be hurt, but then have a dialogue option for execution, stealing from them, taking them prisoner, letting them go, that sort of thing. And if they get left for too long, or you move too far away from them they get back up. This could be interesting, as a hostile NPC you chose to mistreat, but not kill, in some way could intentionally seek you out down the road, but come back stronger or with better gear/friends. It's a great opportunity to add consequences.

 

[Empire²]

This is a very interesting concept indeed. It would of course completely depend on the context of the fight, the personality of the NPC and your own reputation. An honorable knight will never surrender to an ordinary bandit or cutthroat, and will prefer going down fighting to being at the mercy of some lowlife.

That all depends on your gameplay choices though. If you spend your time doing legitimate mercenary jobs and build up a sizeable fame and following doing so, you will have a different impact on someone than you would as a hedge knight or something of those sorts.

Imagine you encounter someone at the fighting pits in an encampment in the woods. They claim to be the most valiant and skilled warrior in the entire province, and challenge you to a duel. According to your fame and gameplay style/choices, they will know/not know your name and be incredibly cocky/ humbly ask for a duel. When you're having the upper hand, the warrior will continue fighting until the end when "your fame does not precede you". They refuse to surrender to some stranger without a memorable name. Winning this fight, and thus killing the warrior or completely incapacitating them, will result in you getting a lot of fame, which will make future duels to turn out differently.

Let's say you approach the same situation, this time having built your reputation as a freelance knight beforehand, winning tournaments and battles all across the lands. The warrior will approach you rather than you approaching them, and introduce them with a lot less attitude. Nevertheless, you still fight the warrior. Should you be very close to death, they will show their mercy and end the duel, complimenting you on your fighting skills or saying they thought you were made of tougher steel. Should you be on the upper hand, they will surrender. As a legitimate freelancing knight, you are expected to honor this warrior and his cries for mercy. Ignoring them and finishing the warrior off will result in a change of your reputation. However, should you be known as a ruthless mercenary, killing the warrior despite his cries will not result in the same dent in your honor.

Should your fame be plentiful enough and the situation fitting, the warrior could offer your their services, either for money or for the glory of battle. Should you choose to deny this offer, they would still remember the mercy you gave them, and come to your aid should they ever catch you fending off a small group of bandits and looters.


I'm not sure about the implementation of an actual real-time "intimidation/threatening" feature in-fight. An emote-like menu would ruin the immersion for me, and a hotkey which triggers a voice saying "Surrender now!" doesn't really seem like a viable option, considering the general atmosphere of the game, much less so a text balloon with Comic Sans. However, if something like a gesture could be done, that would be nice. When an enemy is tired and injured, standing quite far away to catch their breath, you could hold your sword out, pointing the tip straight at their neck. They would go down to their knees and drop their weapons, and you'd be given a choice of some sort.

 

[Granville]

something like a gesture

My worry is, from what i've seen from videos, a gesture may be hard to see. This wouldn't be a problem if it's you signalling an enemy, but if they signal you it would be extremely easy to miss and therefore, perhaps, change your reputation in a way you weren't intending. Too many cases of this would ruin a character if you're trying to role play an honourable knight.

 

[Empire²]

My worry is, from what i've seen from videos, a gesture may be hard to see. This wouldn't be a problem if it's you signalling an enemy, but if they signal you it would be extremely easy to miss and therefore, perhaps, change your reputation in a way you weren't intending. Too many cases of this would ruin a character if you're trying to role play an honourable knight.

My apologies, I should've cleared up that I was thinking about a gesture from you to the opponent. The game recognises it even if you don't see it yourself, and the enemy will respond accordingly.

 

[Scarecrow]

My worry is, from what i've seen from videos, a gesture may be hard to see. This wouldn't be a problem if it's you signalling an enemy, but if they signal you it would be extremely easy to miss and therefore, perhaps, change your reputation in a way you weren't intending. Too many cases of this would ruin a character if you're trying to role play an honourable knight.

You could do it as simple as the enemy saying "Yield now, or die!" really, even if its not going to be voice acted. When he says that, he may momentarily pause the fight as well, giving you a chance to sheath your weapon or something. What happens after that depends on you, the one who captured you, and a bunch of other factors.

 

[Granville]

I think that if an enemy is going to yield they should do so automatically and from that you should have to enter a dialogue box containing choices. The choices being looting, restraining, entering a conversation, etc. Yes, no?

 

[fluffydino2000]

I think it should be more dynamic than that. In that the choice you make is done by regular gameplay, you just interact as normal. You'd loot as if you'd pick pocket, kill as if you'd kill, and talk as if you'd talk or just up and leave.

 

[Empire²]

I think that if an enemy is going to yield they should do so automatically and from that you should have to enter a dialogue box containing choices. The choices being looting, restraining, entering a conversation, etc. Yes, no?

Personally, I am not a fan of dialogue boxes in a game which has limited HUD to improve your immersion.


Perhaps something like them immediately dropping their weapons upon realising they are screwed. This way, you'll clearly see they've surrendered without having the game snap you back to reality (I had to try really hard not to start rapping the Eminem song there).

 

[Granville]

I still think there needs to be some sort of option box to go through to choose what you want to do with them. for example if you wanted to talk/loot/restrain them you'd have to use the same button (unless you had one specifically bound) in order to access any one of these options.

 

[Granville]

Also an execution option would open up the possibility of some cool cinematics.

 

[Empire²]

As much as a pop-up box and execution cinematics open up a lot of possibilities in terms of mechanics and gameplay, I have the feeling it doesn't quite fit with the "bare essentials" approach Sui Generis seems to be taken. As of now, there is very little UI. No minimap, displayed hotkeys or anything like that, which fits the genre the game is in and the current style they seem to be going in. I feel like a box popping up, pausing your game after a fight, that says "What would you like to do with your opponent?" feels incredibly misplaced. We need as many things as we can to be fitted into the context of the game, without making it look like they snatched a bunch of graphics together and threw them on a screen.

Sui Generis is not meant to be very fast-paced, but rather slow to give the player just enough time to think and react to their surroundings. For example, by suddenly zooming away from the isometric camera to one that rotates around you decapitating a foe would feel weird, because it would snap back to that isometric view afterwards.

I only hope there is a way to include a lot of features, including some mentioned here, without having you feel suddenly disconnected from what's happening inside of the game's world to make a decision that could be done through a hotkey and a simple animation, followed by actual dialogue.