Factions You Wish Existed in Skyrim

[Gatx]

6) Your Own Hold to Rule.

No, just, no, and anyone who understands TES lore can tell you why also.

Your character is meant to be forgotten, they can't do anything that would put them in a political role like Jarl/Emperor because it would be far to hard to explain in lore later, and would defeat the entire "mythic hero who becomes so famous no one actually remember who he/she really is" point of the series.

Um, I would think that becoming Nerevarine was a pretty big deal, and also becoming a god at the end of Shivering Isles.

 

[MrSuperman]

I wish the nWo were in Skyrim.


Sorry.

 

[Ganpot]

I want to be able to join a gang of bandits. I'm always disappointed when all of the factions are "legitimate" factions. I just wanna be part of one of those bands of bandits out roaming the countryside sacking merchant carts and overrunning small villages. I wanna strong arm for protection money, I wanna threaten people. LET ME BE BAD DAMNIT!!!!!

A Necromancer guild. I want to be the new King of Worms.

I imagine both of you are going to be quite pleased with SkyNet (the multiplayer Skyrim mod, not the entity from the Terminator movies).

 

[Mycroft Holmes]

A joinable counter faction to every faction. Silver Swords to fight companions. Thalmore operations to fight the mage guild. Form a group with Mjoll and that dorky guy to fight the thieves guild.

 

[Elfgore]

No, just, no, and anyone who understands TES lore can tell you why also.

Your character is meant to be forgotten, they can't do anything that would put them in a political role like Jarl/Emperor because it would be far to hard to explain in lore later, and would defeat the entire "mythic hero who becomes so famous no one actually remember who he/she really is" point of the series.

To be honest I don't even think Bethesda gives a shit about the lore at this point. If fans wanted a DLC in which you owned a hold they would make it. Lore doesn't make money, DLC does. This is another example if they make a TES game in Black Marsh it would be awful because I wanna say 2/4 is pure toxic to anyone but argonians. But they would gladly break the lore to give people what they want. Which is quite depressing.

OT: I would like to see an arena faction rise again. And maybe something involving the Vigil of Stendarr.

 

[DoPo]

-snip-

Are you shooting down ideas immediately without even thinking about them?

2. Nonsensical, the NPC would have to appear there EVERY SINGLE TIME, or else we still run into the same problem of "NPCs die by hand other then your own" breaking quests because of actions other then your own. There can be no "chance" it would HAVE to be a 100% certainty.

2. Introduce infirmaries. If killed off screen, normal NPCs have a chance of appearing there and being "saved". Essential NPCs always end up there, unless killed by the player. Actually, that's probably the easiest solution I can think of.

Or apparently without reading them.

Not only that but it destroyed any sense of NPCs being in danger in just the same way setting them as essential does, defeating the purpose of things like Vampire/Bandit/Dragon attacks on cities.

Gee, if you think Bethesda cannot figure it out, they should just hand in their keyboards and go pick up a job that involves no imagination or creative thinking whatsoever. There are dozens of solutions that are easy as fuck. Not only that but I it's not different than how the game currently operates, sans the fact that a killed NPC might survive. The chance here can be tweaked depending on how in danger you want them to be, and, in fact, you can put them into even more danger by increasing the intensity and/or frequency of the attacks. You could do so much with this solution that saying "no, it won't work" outright is a sure proof that you rejected it without even attempting to understand why I suggested it.

3. That doesn't help all the normal town folk who give out quests, and who wouldn't logically be in some safe house at all hours of the day, unless you are suggesting all NPCs stay inside all hours of the day, which defeats the entire idea of a living world.

All NPCs? I thought I mentioned essential ones.

OK, this isn't as easy - you could have the essential NPCs not be exposed to danger.

Oh...I did. And don't some of them, you know, do that already? I haven't seen many of the Jarls going to pick berries in the forest. And as I said, it would need some reshuffling of the world - you only need the plot essential NPCs inside somewhere. Or with easy access to a safe area, so within sprinting distance of their house, for example.

4. Rubber banding NPCs is also nonsensical, and wouldn't be acceptable in a modern game.

Yes, because as we all know everybody should be like the guards in Oblivion and never give up the chase, never letting it down. It just makes sense, right? That's how REAL humans also act - in any fight they lock on to one person, and don't engage another even if that means actually leaving the fight behind and sprinting for half a kilometre. That's how the human mind works - we never give up, even if it's actually in our favour to do so.

I would love to see NPCs essentially just teleport halfway across a city to escape danger, that's more immersion breaking then just having them be unkillable.

Oh, right you just don't know what I'm talking about, so you dismissed it out of ignorance. In Diablo 2 - the example I gave, the enemies would just stop chasing and GO BACK ON FOOT. Also known as "teleporting" apparently and for some reason it applies to the chased, rather than chasers.

5. Unless the swarm behavior makes it 100% impossible for enemy NPcs to attack anyone but guards, which defeats the purpose of bandit/vampire/dragon attacks on cities, then it is flawed, entirely.

Ignorance truly is bliss, isn't it - you can just say I'm wrong without knowing anything about what I said. 1. swarm behaviour refers to a collection of agents operate individually but to a common goal. In this instance it could be "bandits attacking". 2. Yes, you could have them attack only guards but you could also have them attack other NPCs. You could have them avoid essential NPCs, if needed. 3. I've got no clue why you keep thinking I want every single NPC to be immortal, especially when I'm giving suggestions how essential ones can be not immortal. 4. Seems I have to spell it out for you - it's a pretty basic algorithm, that means that anybody can apply modifications to it, also there are dozens, if not hundreds, of already known modifications.

Spoiler: Here is a pretty basic implementation

Here is a pretty basic implementation. Even then it's not completely basic, as the boids have a target but it's more or less the most basic one I could find. Just look up bird, for example starlings, flocking, if you want to see the core of it.

Spoiler: Here are boids being attracted and repelled to objects

Here are boids being attracted and repelled to objects

Spoiler: Here are they implementing predator and prey behaviour

Here are they implementing predator and prey behaviour

Spoiler: In case you thought boids can only fly in 3D, here is a human army

In case you thought boids can only fly in 3D, here is a human army

Spoiler: And here are boids in a maze

And here are boids in a maze

Furthermore, 5. it's not the only implementation of agent behaviour in the world, there are more. I thought if I mentioned "here is one basic thing" that it goes without saying there are more and advanced ones. I mean, I am, after all, suggesting that people have done research and development in the area. Which, by the way, has been around for multiple decades.

 

[ImperialSunlight]

House Telvanni, I know it doesn't make a huge amount of sense for it to be in Skyrim but i don't care, those guys have style.
Helping in the growth of a new mage dominant faction in a hostile land would be awesome, maybe even an underground organisation because of the mistrust the meatheads in Skyrim have of magic.

Well, not only is House Telvanni based in Morrowind, but there are basically only a couple known members of their house left after the Argonians decided to kill them all.

OT:

I would like to see factions that already exist in the lore, but are unjoinable. Notably, witches, bandits, the imperial cult/priesthood, the silver hand, the forsworn (if you're a Breton), Battle-borns/Grey-manes (would pretty much work the same as Morrowind's houses), town guards, pirates, and reavers in Dragonborn (I would've also liked them to explain how reavers are not just bandits). Also, I would like to be able to work for Belethor, at the general goods store.

 

[samgdawg]

Before Bethesda adds more factions I would enjoy seeing the current factions fleshed out more. It's pointless to ask for factions if they are going to be as half-assed as the current ones. I would love factions for building shiny new battle toys made from dwemer materials. Or focusing on enchanting items and gear and explaining how it works. But I would hate for them to be as poor as the current groups.

 

[nexus]

If you join the Dark Brotherhood, you should get a mark, or tattoo that identifies you as such. Somewhere on your body.. wrist, neck, whatever.. "concealable". So if you try to join the Thieve's or any other guild, then they refuse you.

Frankly there needs to be a "good and evil" side to each faction, instead of just a linear promotion system.

-Join the Dark Brotherhood and perform a coup d'état and convert them into an Imperial or Stormcloak assassin/spy company. (Aside from the current "secret" path that exists.)

-Mage's (College), Necromancy should have been forbidden still, and that could have been a proper "Rogue Mage" plot, as well as Conjuring Dremora or Soul Capturing. That is all very Black magic as far as magic is concerned, in my opinion. Just plot wise, it's very dangerous and evil.

-Companions, should have been able to join the Silver Hand upon learning of the Companion's secret.

-Thieve's Guild could stay roughly the way it is, except you could choose to betray them at certain intervals for your personal gain, or maybe the option to become an informant against them.

I've never done the Civil War, so no opinion on that.

 

[Emiscary]

Relating to the whole "You can't be a Jarl because arbitrary lore constraints demand you remain a nameless figurehead!" thing:

It's dumb. I'm sorry, but it's idiotic. If that's the excuse Bethesda are rolling with, then they need a new one. It's flat out dumb to try and build a story wherein you're the central figure and your choices shape the world, but you can't be remembered. Or leave any trace of your passing. At all.

You might as well make a puzzle game where you don't want players to figure out the solutions, or non-violent fighter games, or...

You get the picture. The whole reason people playing RPGs in the first place is because they want their fucking choices to matter. If your basic design demands that none of them do, then you have a problem.

It's the creative team's job to come up with an explanation for exactly how (or if) decisions you made in previous games carry over to subsequent games. And if their solution is (and always will be):

"Oh don't worry, none of it will ever be mentioned again. We wrote the story in such a way that we'll never have to explain or revisit or change anything. Nothing you've ever done will ever carry over, and none of your decisions will ever actually matter beyond the act of making them. Enjoy."

Than they're not doing an awesome job. Just sayin'.

Oh! And the Greybeards don't want you to not use your power, they just want you to use it when its necessary. Defeating Alduin? Necessary. Growing your power to do so? Necessary. Selling your soul to multiple deadra, murdering legions of petty thugs, signing on with lunatics/criminals/meatheads or killing anyone or anything *besides* Alduin? Not really.

"You need dragon souls!"

Do I? Seems to me like anyone else who knows the voice (human or otherwise) can freely "gift me" with their understanding of shouts, so no problems there. And for that matter, why don't I have the option to spare a dragon once I've beaten it? They're intelligent creatures, they can't *all* automatically want to die rather than submit.

"You need to fight to live!"

Says who? Between the sneak skills, illusion magic and the inclusion of new shouts I could easily go through the game without killing anyone.

"Well you still need to kill Alduin so ha!"

Welllll... not really. You'll note earlier I said it was necessary to "defeat" Alduin, on account of him being able to personally end the afterlife, but who says I need to kill him? Why can't I "purify" him? Or seal him in a magical can for eternity? Or convince all his fellow dragons to turn on him and have *them* kill him? The fun thing about a high fantasy setting like TES is that literally anything is possible.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now that the peanut gallery has been addressed, I just thought of another faction that I personally would wanna see (and I only think of it now that multiple people have mentioned a prostitute faction from one of the older games...):

7) Drug Runners/Dealers/Manufacturers

I'm a big fan of Breaking Bad, and I feel like the alchemy skill desperately needs some loving. So my proposition would be this: introduce a faction of brilliant sociopaths strapped for cash with a knack for mixing up illicit substances.

Balmora Blue for instance?

You could hunt down exotic ingredients (hint: plant/fungi monsters, beautifully rendered flowers in hellhole caves, blood samples drawn from nobles wacked out on sleeping tree sap maybe?), run from the law, mercilessly exploit the desperate and foolish, eliminate competitors- you name it!

Maybe I'm just twisted, but it sounds like a hell of alot of fun to me. Scrambling to tear down your lab as guards pound on your front door, nervously sampling your own product to see the effects, cutting your goods with filler to increase your profits- reminds me of Goodfellas. Good shit.

 

[SajuukKhar]

snip

1. False, because most RPGs have you do more then just talk to people.
2. by that logic you also get extra lore points for building houses as well, because those houses being there gets added into the lore.
3. I can because its my opinion, try harder.
4. I just listed two because you only asked for an example, not every single one in the game, there are several more.
5. and Skyrim has the MQ, guilds, town questlines, other side quests, and random dungeons quests, all fleshed out with lore that isn't anywhere near as generic as BG's because BG is from D&D, and D&D is the singular most generic fantasy game in existence.

Skyrim is more fleshed out and interesting because it at least tries to be original, with all the mytho-poetic mantling, schizophrenic gods where all variations of said god exist, are the same god, and can plan against their myth brothers, and various other lore bits such as CHIM, which has literally written gameplay mechanics such as time pausing when you open menus, loading save games to bring yourself back to life, and using the construction kit, the mod tools, to alter the game world, into the canon lore, instead of just copying a world that was written for them over 20 years ago like all D&D based games do.

Um, I would think that becoming Nerevarine was a pretty big deal, and also becoming a god at the end of Shivering Isles.

No one remembers who the Nerevarine was though, just that he/she existed, and no one knows the champion of Cyrodiil became Sheogorath.

snip

Spoiler

-It's hard to know what you are talking about when you use the games terms incorrectly.

-There is no difference between normal NPcs, and essential NPCs, as most essential NPCs are normal NPCs. to have essential NPcs to go this infirmary, which your use of the word "chance" is contradictory to your always statement, making your original statement even more illogical, so would literally EVERY other NPCs, both essential and not, have to appear there also, or else we run into the same problem of "NPCs dieing by hands other then your own".

-And you are not event attempting to understand that Bethesda CANNOT allow any NPC to die, ever, by anyone's hand but your own, the sheer and simple fact that they have a chance to die and not return to the infirmary means the system is flawed.

-As mentioned before, and as you so blatantly ignored, NPCs, be they essential or not, cannot be allowed to die by anyone's hands but your own, dawnguard has shown why, or to be more clear, becuase people hate it.

-And as I mentioned before, that doest help protect every other NPC in the game world that gives out quests.

-Nice straw man, no, people should not be lik guards in Oblivion, but they aren't anymore in Skyrim already, so your point falls flat because that's already in the game as is.

-That's not what rubber banding is, excuse me for not knowing what you were talking abut when you, once again, use a term incorrectly. rubber banding is an effect caused by lag in multiplayer games when you randomly appear to teleport around the map because you get so much lag that trying to walk around messes up the game. When you used the term "rubber banding" I assumed you were using it in a way somewhat close to what it actally is.

-And ONCE AGAIN, you ignore the ENTIRE point that NPCs, essential or not, CANNOT be allowed to die by hands other then your own, and your nonsensical arguments are made further nonsensical by your incorrect distinction between normal, and essential NPCs.

furthermore, none of the videos you posted deal with anything related to keeping normal NPCs alive.

snip

Spoiler

Making a RPG where your character doesn't get remembered is totally unlike a puzzle game where you are told not to complete the puzzle.

Furthermore, if you knew anything about TES lore, you would know that your decisions DO carry over, despite you being forgotten.
-The Champion of Cyrodiil's actions led to the downfall of the Septim empire, resulting in the world we play in in Skyrim with the Emprie and the AD going head to head, and he became sheogorath, who we met in Skyrim.
-The Nerevarine's freeing of the Heart of Lorkhan is what caused Red Mountain to explore, destroying Morrowind, and allowing the Argonians to invade.
-The Agent of Daggerfall's helping reactivate Numidium caused a massive time rip that was necessary for Alduin to invade in Skyrim.
-the Eternal champion of Arena was responsible for saving the whole empire, and setting up the very world that caused all the other games t be able to happen in the first place.
Not to mention EVERYTHING that the heros of ES 1-4 did was part of what allowed Alduin to come back.

Every single thing you do as part of the MQ effects the world for hundreds of years to come, despite no one remembering who you actually were.

Furthermore, to say that making your actions not being mentioned makes them pointless is like saying that a RPG sequel only counting some actions in previous games as canon makes all other possible options pointless as well. By your logic all of the endings of Fallout 1, 2, and New Vegas that dont get put into canon are pointless, and making the games set canon defeats the purpose of the game, same with BG, NWN, and every other classic RPG that ever got a sequel ever. Apparently ALL of them didn't do an awesome job either, because all of them told you your choices don't matter worth squat because we chose to pick a different choice.
.
.
As for your greybeard shout thing, just giving people power often leads to them abusing it/destroying themselves. It's the entire point of the prime directive in Star Trek,or why the ancients in Stargate wont just save the less advanced races from destruction and give them ascension. It doesn't matter that they CAN just give it to you, unless you earn it, you will be destroyed by it. Look at Miraak from the Dragonborn expansion, he is the PRIME example of this.

As for Dragons, they being hellbent on domination and lordship, the dragons that dont want to try to take over the world are the ones who just fly by you and dont attack you, a dragon would almost never surrender until death.

And you can't purify Alduin because there is nothing to purify, his purpose, as his father Akatosh crated him, IS to end the world. You cant change him from that because that is what he is SUPPOSED to do. Sealing him would also be bad because he NEEDS to be around to eat the world when its time is up, letting a dead world sit around only means the Kalpa dies with it, which leads to eternal death. Alduin needs to eat the world, just not right now. And him trying to rule/eat the world now is why we are sent to stop him.

 

[DoPo]

-It's hard to know what you are talking about when you use the games terms incorrectly.

Essential NPC - one essential to the plot. Normal NPC one that is not essential.

-There is no difference between normal NPcs, and essential NPCs, as most essential NPCs are normal NPCs. to have essential NPcs to go this infirmary, which your use of the word "chance" is contradictory to your always statement, making your original statement even more illogical, so would literally EVERY other NPCs, both essential and not, have to appear there also, or else we run into the same problem of "NPCs dieing by hands other then your own".

OK, you don't understand what you're saying. There is Bob the random farmer and Karl the guy giving you the main quest. Bob falls in a bandit attack, he has, say, 10% chance of surviving (tweakable), Karl also falls but has 100% chance of surviving. When they survive, they appear at the infirmary and get medical attention. Eventually leave when healed. If you kill them, they have 0% chance of surviving. So, Bob has a chance of making it, Karl always makes it. What's so illogical and contradictory about this?

-And you are not event attempting to understand that Bethesda CANNOT allow any NPC to die, ever, by anyone's hand but your own, the sheer and simple fact that they have a chance to die and not return to the infirmary means the system is flawed.

-As mentioned before, and as you so blatantly ignored, NPCs, be they essential or not, cannot be allowed to die by anyone's hands but your own, dawnguard has shown why, or to be more clear, becuase people hate it.

So...give normal NPCs 100% chance of surviving also? Not that I really care about it, I'd want them exposed to danger but whatever. Then again, why have dragon attacks and such in the first place? At any rate, there is a big loop here, I'm suggesting ways to make essential NPCs not immortal but safe from random deaths, it turns out I don't have to, since Bethesda shouldn't be trying to kill them or any other NPC at all, so immortality is not needed to begin with.

-And as I mentioned before, that doest help protect every other NPC in the game world that gives out quests.

Good? Because I never really intended to protect them. Or, you know, they can also have 100% chance of making it after random attacks. It would take about 5 minutes to implement.

-That's not what rubber banding is, excuse me for not knowing what you were talking abut when you, once again, use a term incorrectly. rubber banding is an effect caused by lag in multiplayer games when you randomly appear to teleport around the map because you get so much lag that trying to walk around messes up the game. When you used the term "rubber banding" I assumed you were using it in a way somewhat close to what it actally is.

That's funny...you talking about what actually is and isn't - if you bothered to type "rubberband ai" into a search engine you'd find all sources NOT be about lag. The [http://www.giantbomb.com/rubber-band-ai/3015-35/] first [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_game_difficulty_balancing] 10 [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RubberBandAI] results [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JV-kMYLYCo] in [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRwLzA6KUnU] Google [http://www.xbox360achievements.org/forum/showthread.php?t=384437] seem [http://www.operationsports.com/forums/nba-2k/596139-rubberband-ai-online.html] to [http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=rubber%20band%20ai] agree [http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=499236] here [http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/118702-Rubberband-AI-Implemented-in-AIDriverToolkit]. Notice how they aren't about lag? It's most widely used when talking about racing games, when the rival cars seem to always be able to be just behind you, even if you blew past them. It's the same concept but instead of the player, the AI could be rubberbanded to another NPC (e.g., raid leader) or a place (e.g., "where the battle is"). When they move too far away it snaps back - in racing games the rivals would speed up, in TES, like in Diablo 2, the enemy can just head back to the root.

furthermore, none of the videos you posted deal with anything related to keeping normal NPCs alive.

You don't even understand the AI concept I'm talking about, that's fine, but please don't act on that nonunderstanding. Bandits - chasers, normal NPCs - targets. That's a simple enough scenario. The chasers can also be repelled by other agents - the essential NPC on the run. In the second video, an essential NPC can act like the red sphere while normal ones are the green sphere (you can have more than one, of course). Throw in the guards who chase bandits so you have 3 groups, if you wish. We could throw in even more stuff, like non-bandit and non-guard NPCs deciding whether to fight or flee but that's getting out of scope of the movement behaviour - it can easily be build on top of it, though.

Also, why are you hyper focusing on the boids? As I said, there are numerous implementations of them, as well as other known algorithms for swarm and agent behaviour. Your expressed concerns are literally a non-issue. For comparison, it's like somebody was explaining what a car was and your critiques are "But can it move forwards? How about backwards? Can you control it in other ways?" - yes, they've been addressed even before you asked.

 

[Piorn]

I just hated how each NPC was it's self-contained bubble that was involved in one single quest (or sometimes quest chain), and never interacted with anything else ever.
For all I care, they should have focused on one big city with interesting people in it.

 

[Ganpot]

Relating to the whole "You can't be a Jarl because arbitrary lore constraints demand you remain a nameless figurehead!" thing:

It's dumb. I'm sorry, but it's idiotic. If that's the excuse Bethesda are rolling with, then they need a new one. It's flat out dumb to try and build a story wherein you're the central figure and your choices shape the world, but you can't be remembered. Or leave any trace of your passing. At all.

I agree. What Bethesda should have done is have the player be the central figure in the main story (like usual) and have it be almost devoid of choices (to enforce lore consistency). Then they should have had the player be a side-character in every potential guild story. For example, the player would never become the leader of an organization. He/she would max out as a inner member (second or third in command, maybe). That would let the guild stories focus more on NPC characterization.

 

[direkiller]

I'd love to be able to join the Thalmor. I was disappointed when my High-Elf couldn't join them and had to spy on them.

I think Daggerfall had a prostitute guild. I'd love to have that in Skyrim. That could make for some very amusing quests.

I miss the arena from Oblivion. I'd love to see an improved version of that.

Funny enough they had plans for a blood works in Windhelm but it was cut from the game part way into its development.
The Blademaster NPC is done along with 2 rivals
and it is probably why the Gaiden Shinji quote is on the loading screens with no mention of him in the game.

There is hope however:
a finished & voice acted mod The pitfighters if you have a PC version

 

[DoPo]

yes, when they remain in hearing distance of this song or come in contact with it.

-snip-

Well, thanks for the enlightenment

anyways, just wanted to say thanks for providing these videos.

No problem.

do you study game design or are you a part time/ hobby game developement enthusiast?

if the latter, can you name some sites or books you'd recommend?

I'm doing a computer science course and I took several AI modules out of interest in the subject. I would like to some day make my own game but I'm not an enthusiast - that would imply I'm doing some special preparation for it, when I'm just using what I generally know about software development and AI.

But for resources - "Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach" by Russel and Norvig is one of the fundamental readings and good, too - pick up either the second or the third edition, doesn't matter - whatever you find easier to get. That's the best I can recommend, there is quite a lot of other AI books, including ones on AI for games but I think plenty of them are good enough, most say the same anyway. But from my course reading lists I can suggest "Artificial Intelligence Illuminated" by Coppin (but to be honest I just leafed through it - but I didn't read it) and "Artificial Intelligence: Structures and Strategies for Complex Problem Solving" by Luger which is...a bit expensive on Amazon but it has some cool things. The AI junkie [http://www.ai-junkie.com/] website has quite approachable topics (you might want some basics covered but I'm not sure) including some sample implementation code (I believe it's in C++ but if you've got some programming background it shouldn't matter if you know it or not). The website is about limited subjects but it, as I said, it's approachable and it's informative and happens to be about some of my favourite topics - agents and genetic algorithms, so go and take a look at them when you have the time. GAs might not be useful for game design[footnote]OK, they are...but it's complicated. Technically, a GA is tasked with coming up with a solution that evolves over time into your desired solution. And this can be absolutely anything - people have used it to come up with animations for walking, for example, or you can find an optimal route between places. But you'd need to use it along with something else for it to be useful, and even then, while a GA could work, it might be an overkill. But they are fun, since you're essentially starting from gibberish and with very little work on your part the genetic algorithm comes up with an answer from that gibberish.[/footnote] but agents are good ones, since they are what you'd think of when somebody says "AI opponent" or "NPC" - they are agents. Also, neural nets on there have...some application. NNs are about pattern recognition and issuing responses based on them. I don't think they've been widely used in games but they do have applications

Spoiler: Here is a video as an example

And the info from the video description, so you know what's going on

http://cg.skeelogy.com/training-neural-networks/
The enemy robots in this mini-game uses neural networks (NN) to do decision making. Prior to what you see here, the NN has undergone some training so that it has learnt how to react based on a human player's reactions.

Notice these things about the trained robots in the video:
i) They approach me when I'm near and stop to attack when they are in shooting distance. They approach me again when I back away.
ii) Once their HP is low, they know that they should flee instead of trying to attack again
iii) Although they have started to flee, they try to attack me again when I'm not facing them. Once I point the cursor at them, they know that they should flee, even though I haven't even started shooting. This implies that they are especially good at back attacks.

And all these are done by simply training the neural networks.

Note: The fleeing in a zig-zag manner is procedural and not done by the neural networks.

I hope that helps.

 

[Gunjester]

Vigilant of Stendarr, Wild-men, would've loved to see more with the Spriggans, maybe even introducing Druids into the mix. I missed the espionage side of the Blades and to tell the truth, I would've preferred to separate the mead-swigging mercenaries of the Companions with the coven of Werewolves.

It would've been more fun if the werewolves were true followers of Hircine that you could only meet in the forest, preferrably at night, who's quests would occasionally get you to wreak havoc on the towns nearby, maybe make it focused on Falkreath and that Hircine-based quest could be the first one you do to enter their coven.

 

[Doom972]

I'd love to be able to join the Thalmor. I was disappointed when my High-Elf couldn't join them and had to spy on them.

I think Daggerfall had a prostitute guild. I'd love to have that in Skyrim. That could make for some very amusing quests.

I miss the arena from Oblivion. I'd love to see an improved version of that.

Funny enough they had plans for a blood works in Windhelm but it was cut from the game part way into its development.
The Blademaster NPC is done along with 2 rivals
and it is probably why the Gaiden Shinji quote is on the loading screens with no mention of him in the game.

There is hope however:
a finish & voice acted mod The pitfighters if you have a PC version

I'll check it out whenever I decide to play Skyrim again. Thanks.

Makes we wonder how come Hearthfire DLC got made but not this.