NPC commands

[Winge]

I'm having a spot of trouble getting past a certain part of Ivanwood that requires a bicycle.  Actually, I am doing fine...but Player 2, whom I can't control and am rather angry with right now, keeps dying to certain enemies that the bicycle is supposed to protect you from.

IIRC, there are "chat commands" that I can use to get Player 2 to do what I need to without having to plug in a controller and try to manage both of them...is there a place where I can find them?  Alternatively, in single player, can Player 2 hop on the same vehicle Player 1 does?  There is at least one other (hilarious) vehicle-related bug that would be solved by that.

[mrhanman]

Would it be possible to change the behavior of Player 2 when there is no second human player so that he/she follows immediately behind Player 1?  Sort of like how Breath of Fire and Earthbound do it.

[x4000]

There aren't any commands for Player 2, no.  However, there are some things with their placement and AI that we still have yet to really fix up.  If anyone has problem spots they want to bring to our attention, by all means please do so!

[Winge]

***Possible spoiler alert***



Ivanwood, Flower Path (and everything after that, up to where the Shadow Man appears).  P2 gets completely destroyed by the Blue Flowers...I only once made it to where the Shadow man shows up, only to realize that I was still missing a level.  Can the Player 2 NPC just board the bike with me?  I could work with the situation then.  Or just make it so that I don't have to babysit an NPC for the whole game.  Just have her step off of the main character when there is dialog to be had (sort of like Final Fantasy sprite-based games).

I'm sorry if I sound a little fed up; I just hate escort missions, and the entire overworld is feeling like one now.  Maybe I should take her back to the Deadlands for a bit more dunking...

[mrhanman]

She just gets hit too often.  Especially wandering around Stantonsburg, for example.  It seems like if she moved at the same speed as Player 1, it would be more manageable.  Honestly, most of the time I wish she wasn't there at all.  At best, she's useless.  At worst, she gets eaten.

[nas1m]

There aren't any commands for Player 2, no.  However, there are some things with their placement and AI that we still have yet to really fix up.  If anyone has problem spots they want to bring to our attention, by all means please do so!

I noticed that Mary really took an insane amount of hits in the areas I played today (Stantonsburg, the Sewers, Deadlands). The main reason seems to be that she does not stick close enough to the player character and tends to hang back often, due to her speed being lower than Darrels apparently (she apparently likes to dawdle ; )). This makes her run into the exact same enemies that Darrel just dodged, which just feels - frustrating. Sometimes she even gets lost completely and runs around some random section of the map, probably because she got stuck on a corner. 

Honestly I begin to think that it might be the best solution to make Mary/Lela invulnerable when not controlled by a human player. Anything else will always have the potential to frustrate the player (and especially me) as the AI will likely always create some kind of issue like this (as long as Mary/Lela are not locked to the player location)... 

[x4000]

Yep, don't worry folks -- there's lots of changes coming for the non-controlled NPCs this week.  Please do keep bringing things up -- it's generally best not to assume we know something, just in case -- but there are lots of things planned for this.

[x4000]

Step 1:

* The NPC versions of player 2 are now invulnerable, so that they aren't contributing to the difficulty (or frustration) of any sections of the game.


More coming.  I agree with you guys, I hate escort missions as well.  That's not what this was ever really intended to be, but it just wasn't implemented as well as I'd have liked.  This was a recent-ish addition to the game, and something that we had not had enough testing on.  Though Zack had actually complained about the Deadlands before we even went to alpha, and I just hadn't had time to deal with it yet.  The only reason for the two characters to be going together like this is for story reasons and so that they can talk to one another; nothing to do with gameplay, really.

[Penumbra]

* The NPC versions of player 2 are now invulnerable, so that they aren't contributing to the difficulty (or frustration) of any sections of the game.

This makes me so happy, I can't even.....

[x4000]

Frustration of the player was never our goal (naturally), and don't worry about having shared your frustration -- that's a key thing for us to know!  Very glad to be able to resolve it for folks.

[nas1m]

* The NPC versions of player 2 are now invulnerable, so that they aren't contributing to the difficulty (or frustration) of any sections of the game.

This makes me so happy, I can't even.....

I can only concur here = ). Thanks a lot Chris!

Frustration of the player was never our goal (naturally), and don't worry about having shared your frustration -- that's a key thing for us to know!  Very glad to be able to resolve it for folks.

And this is exactly why "Arcen" is just another word for "awesome"...

[Winge]

Step 1:

* The NPC versions of player 2 are now invulnerable, so that they aren't contributing to the difficulty (or frustration) of any sections of the game.


More coming.  I agree with you guys, I hate escort missions as well.  That's not what this was ever really intended to be, but it just wasn't implemented as well as I'd have liked.  This was a recent-ish addition to the game, and something that we had not had enough testing on.  Though Zack had actually complained about the Deadlands before we even went to alpha, and I just hadn't had time to deal with it yet.  The only reason for the two characters to be going together like this is for story reasons and so that they can talk to one another; nothing to do with gameplay, really.

That will work...thanks