NPC missions, getting them to trust you, and factions

Game Talk The Drawing Board
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Something I’ve been pondering about. I know that factions and NPCs are pretty much an incomplete feature yet, but here’s me rambling on an idea I’ve been thinking about for a while. Just an idea, and not sure if such things are even possible. Chances are that this might conflict with how NPCs and factions are. Like, got zero coding knowledge, so this idea might not even be compatible with how NPC missions work.

Anyway, I’ve always found it odd that NPCs have the same kinds of missions. Game limitations is all that, but for a RP perspective it’s rather odd that several NPCs suddenly want American flags, then a military black box, then bring that box to a lab, then go to a hazardous waste sarcophagus and ??? there.

My thought is to make those mission lines rare, and can only happen once a game. If the NPC who gave the mission bites it… well, not sure yet, but perhaps another NPC can be found to re-continue the quest line. But once a mission of that quest line is done, it’s done period, no more re-doing from the first to the most recent step, if any.

Perhaps for this, certain specific quests can only be done from certain factions.

For more common NPC quests, just simple jobs. Like maybe take care of an individual NPC’s wants and/or needs. Like, once every few days, an individual NPC can request for certain things; like asking for a certain type of food, or an addict asking for their next hit, or killing certain amounts of enemies. Simple stuff.

NPC rewards have been a little too rewarding. Getting free skill training is nice, but it seems to easy to complete one mission currently and have access to everything an NPC can offer.

So, trust. Doing the simple missions builds up a trust meter. Get it high enough to access the good stuff; like being trained on a skill, or allowing them to learn from your player, and with high enough trust NPCs willing to take mutagen. Even send them out to do tasks, once that’s possible to do. A way to bring down trust should happen, but not to the point where you have to micromanage them all the time. Like skill rust’s IntCap… like they might not be willing to take mutagen all the time, but they won’t become hostile just because you’ve been neglecting them, unless you do something real stupid like shoot them one too many times.

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doesn’t disabling crazy cataclysm disable a lot of the possible missions? like kill a jabberwock for instance.
not actually sure how many are affected though, would be nice to know if anyone can say for sure.

not entirely sure you’re complaining about lack of variety though, just thought i’d toss that into the circle.

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Just commenting on the weirdness of NPCs giving the same types of specific missions, and the ease of getting NPC rewards. Like, for the former, the mission where you have to fetch an inhaler or antibiotics to a NPC before they die… sure, makes sense that a lot of survivors out there would be in dire need of those things. On the other hand, meeting multiple NPCs who want a small relic, then find a priest’s diary, then find another diary in a prison, then go to a cabin to fetch a certain something… having to do those kinds of specific things multiple times if you meet multiple NPCs who give that quest line just looks weird.

For that latter, if you can luck out and get an NPC mission done early, you pretty much have access to a free skill level up maybe two to three times a day, especially if that NPC has a lot of skills to teach. All you need to do is one mission, which can be easy depending on luck, and you have a NPC with free skills for little effort.

So, just spitballing on an alternative to how missions should happen. The long quest lines should be a lot more unique, and perhaps a bit more fleshed out to provide a better experience in the game outside of surviving and looting. The game has no end game, but having some long-running quests can help spice things up.