Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity Original Sin - Beta Systemic reactions when killing NPCs

Just to check, I hit on purpose several times one of the shipless sailors in Cyseal on the Harbor, the sailor reaction was OK, after hitting him 3 times, all the sailors began to attack me, which was fine, then gradually all sailors in the area (including the ship captain) went to fight. All of this seems really OK to me.

However, no guard came to help (even if there are several close by), and after I killed every sailor which participated in the fight, the nearby NPCs (farmer, guards, etc...) did not bother at all.

Yeah, I posted about this whole problem during the alpha, and it still seems no better - basically, NPC reactions to PC actions aren't realistic. For example, you can sneak a few inches behind an NPC guard (even with no points in Sneaking) while your party loiters a few feet away and rob the harbor warehouse clean. Or again, you can bash doors and fireball containers (as long as they're not marked as "owned") right next to NPCs - no reaction. I understand Larian doesn't have the funding for true day/night cycles/NPC schedules. But I really, really hope they fix the above issues and make NPCs more aware of their surroundings prior to D:OS's final release. As it is, the game world isn't very immersive.

Judging by my small experience, I would say that "most" of the NPC reaction were realistic (and I forgot to say that the cooperative dialog after the fight was well adapted to the situation), the NPCs in the area flowed toward the PCs gradually (the farthest away coming after the others).

The problem IMO was that:
- no guards appear, even if realistically those which were in the harbor would have seen what was going on
- after the fight, the NPCs in the harbor who did not participate acted as if nothing happened

This looks for me as a kind of "radius of awareness" which seems to only take into account NPCs which will directly interact with the fight, but maybe the game need to have a second radius which would gather:
- NPCs who won't participate in the fight but who will be aware it had taken place and have a bad POV of the PCs
- guards who will participate in the fight even if they are farthest away that the standard NPCs, because it is their duty to protect the city

Mithrandir - good points as far as NPC reactions to combat, but this isn't the only NPC reaction area that needs fixing IMO (see above - vandalism, sneaking, etc.).

A simpler but easier solution would be if you could assign NPC's to certain factions, and in case a CITIZEN sees you commit a crime, it propagates to the GUARD faction and a response is given in various reaction levels. (ie, send guard 2 and guard 3 there). The first trigger of the script can always check for distances to make sure the reaction makes sense.

If Guard 2 and Guard 3 are dead and any civilian or guard sees it, escalate to reaction level 2 = Guards form up in full force trying to corner you, commander and all, and lock the city gates, and aim the ballistas at you. Give you a chance to surrender once, and then murder you ;p

And if you survive *that* a script could trigger the "Butcher of Cydalis" flag, and you'd be scorned across the world for this horrible mass murder. Which would lead to bounty hunters, and any guard that sees you being openly hostile. (And yes, if I were scripter, I'd lock you out of the good and neutral path of the main quest too, obviously not in a "you are not allowed to choose this" kind of way, but rather in a you don't get the choice at all anymore kind of way because the situations changed......

Either way, there needs to be a high-level reaction to massive death and carnage caused by the player.

No idea how vandalism or stealing could be coped with though. As I understand scripting in these games, you'd need to attach a ton of scripts on each "pickable" object.. and that's an insane number!

Ps.: A script could also handle NPC's not being suicidal, but rather fleeing towards guards, and if guards are all dead, barricade in some (together) building. ;P