Different dialog options to cause different results

littlerave

Hello everyone,

I'm trying to get different things to happen based upon the player's dialog choices. Making the NPC attack the player, follow or die. I know I can place different NPCs with different behaviour and set their Appear When to the appropriate dialog prompt but then they appear during the conversation and not afterwards. Upon clicking Done the player can restart the conversation, choosing different dialog options and soon we have one guy for three times, once attacking, once following and once dead ...

Is there a way to get the proper NPC to appear after the conversation?

angrysprite

When NPC B appears, NPC A disappears - set on dialog choice.

I do this in my "Black keep" quest... you pickup an object and then a "phantasm" appears, you talk. Based on your choice of dialog he either goes away, a big bad boss (or close to it) appears, or a bunch of minions appear.

I'm not entirely sure what you are asking, but based on what I'm describing:

Phantasm disappears at end of dialog - he is NOT in the story board. HERE IS THE TRICK

For each dialog tree there is a final "fake" dialog.

So it look like this:

"This is your test:"

Q1 - Player Response - .
Q2 - Player Response - .
Q3 - Player Response - .

So on Q1: he dies: hide NPC "when this component complete" - appear dead guy "on dialog" select the "." under answer one.
OnQ2 - he fights - do the same thing, but the encounter appears on dialog - select the . dialog under answer two, etc.

Now I will explain the dialog with nothing but a person in it:

NPC asks a question, the player must choose an answer - the player must respond.
However, if the NPC disappears on a particular dialog that dialog will close abruptly, player doesn't get the chance to interact. So the "fake" dialog has nothing but a person in it - because it's so small. When that dialog appears it will quickly blink away. because it's a period the player will likely not even notice when this dialog appears.

This is the trick: use a "fake" dialog that actually triggers your event. In that fake dialog put only a period (.) in there, that way is will disappear so quick the player may not notice it.

If you want to actually see how it works, you can play my Quest "The Black Keep" - when you pick up the "Talismans" the guardians will ask you a riddle - if you pass you win, if you fail then you must fight. You only get one chance at an answer and your response dictates what happens.

littlerave

Not sure if I understand but I'll try that later on in a different map on a different encounter. Atm I just can't get the guard to follow properly. He gets stuck everywhere. Empty large room, works. Exiting the room and walking through a small dungeon hallway, nope. Placing a few pillars in the empty room, nope. Switching off the lights in the room, nope (yes, this one is kinda surprising) ...

maegmaag

Besides that u cant "force upon the PC" anything thats not triggered by the PC (u can manipulate the environment only), keep in mind that any NPC/encounter positioning/movement behavior depends on pathfinding/nodes which are built during publishing. That said, so far (and i dont expect a change here), NPC/encounter wont ever follow the PC through a teleporter.

imaginaerum1

angrysprite wrote: »

This is the trick: use a "fake" dialog that actually triggers your event. In that fake dialog put only a period (.) in there, that way is will disappear so quick the player may not notice it.

I do pretty much the exact same thing, but I put "..." instead of "." because it's the usual designation for "nothing is said".

The great thing about using the dialog ender that way is that, if you set the contact being spoken to as vanishing at that dialog prompt, it will end the dialog at that time, so if you're spawning a mob, it won't leave the player still in conversation while the mob pummels him.

torontodave

You can also use alt-255 .. gives a blank space with 'data' in it so it force shows. For some encounters, I'll give alt-255 as name and group, so no text appears above the mob.

But yea, NPC dissapear when: dialog prompt reached (own dialog), will close the window and not let the player fully read the last response.

I use it in my quest (in my sig) when I want an imp that's appeared in a burst of flame, to disappear just as abrubtly. the last character's input is

"1. Wait- what?"
and then he quickly sees dialog box that says "Bye!" for a half second which auto-closes, while the imp waves goodbye, then a burst of flame and the imp is gone.

[If you want to see this effect in action, the imp is at the first hidden treasure chest in the bar. ;D]

angrysprite

imaginaerum1 wrote: »

I do pretty much the exact same thing, but I put "..." instead of "." because it's the usual designation for "nothing is said".

The great thing about using the dialog ender that way is that, if you set the contact being spoken to as vanishing at that dialog prompt, it will end the dialog at that time, so if you're spawning a mob, it won't leave the player still in conversation while the mob pummels him.

^Yes - precisely this.

NPC following player: the quest must be published for this to work reliably at all, as it was stated: path nodes are required and they are built/generated during the publish process. In the Foundry - NPC that follows the player may or may not work well at all.

eldarth

@littlerave, if you're still having trouble when you try later make sure you throw another message in here about it and I'll draw up a visual dialog diagram showing where/how to put the Appear When/Disapper When triggers.

littlerave

@angrysprite: That is a very useful information. I may put the follow on dialog option back in then and try the conversation thing today ...

and get back to @eldarth if I'm having trouble. Thanks for the offer