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[Rencini]

Will adventurers be able to reproduce in the next release? How does it happen, if at all? Will we be able to play as the son/daughter of x adventurer if they manage to reproduce?* On a related note, will we be able to fast forward time once world gen is complete? Can our adventurers even marry next release?**

Moreover, happy birthday! This thread is one year old since February 15th, 2012!
*I can imagine legacy adventurer mode games. Brace yourself for much !FUN!
**Asking about kids and talking about adventurer legacy games, but I don't even know if they can have a spouse!

[Footkerchief]

Will adventurers be able to reproduce in the next release? How does it happen, if at all? Will we be able to play as the son/daughter of x adventurer if they manage to reproduce?* On a related note, will we be able to fast forward time once world gen is complete? Can our adventurers even marry next release?**

Nope, all adventurer companionship is still platonic.

[Mephansteras]

Related to the most recent Dev post:

Will the faction AIs do anything on their own, especially based on player actions? For instance, if the player destroys much of an invading force will the AI then decide that it is safe to stage a rebellion to force them out entirely?

[EnigmaticHat]

Yes and no.  If you retire an adventurer they will become an NPC and thus be able to marry and have kids.  However this is only because all historical figures can do that, not because there are any special new systems in place.  You won't be able to directly start a relationship or have kids as an adventurer, the AI will have to do it for you.

[DVNO]

Are there any positive interactions an adventurer can perform with a companion this release?

Staring vacantly off in the distance as my companion drops to his/her knees, overcome with tears at the sight of his/her hamlet in smouldering ruins seems kind of ... well, awkward.

The largest part of being a leader is getting your people back up after the blows are dealt, afterall. I'd hope to be able to give them a 'We'll get them for this, grrr' and put a reassuring hand and on them without the game recognizing it as combat and the party reacts to it as a mini civil war and all turns into murder. Is the game at that stage, coming next release after this, or ...?

[Valtam]

Moreover, happy birthday! This thread is one year old since February 15th, 2012!

Make it two years, since we're in 2014 now.

People lying to you in varying degrees, now that's pretty sweet and game-changing.

[iceball3]

I got a few questions:
-With combat receiving all these recent changes, do you think at some point (not in this update) we will be seeing 'mental' skills, like liar, observer and intimidation affecting the flow of combat? For example, liar skill vs observer and judge of intent in terms of dealing with feints, bluffs, and the like?

-With the new "multi attack" option, will we see an option to commit an 'attack sequence' at some point?

-What sorts of other combat maneuvers would you like to see in the game, Toady?
The new update upcoming has me so excited~

EDIT: I may have to clarify - by 'attack sequence', i mean specific arrangements of actions such as the classic 'flurry of fists'
 or other martial maneuvers.

[Footkerchief]

-With combat receiving all these recent changes, do you think at some point (not in this update) we will be seeing 'mental' skills, like liar, observer and intimidation affecting the flow of combat? For example, liar skill vs observer and judge of intent in terms of dealing with feints, bluffs, and the like?

Observer is already used, and you can expect the others to become relevant where reasonable:

Rainseeker:    So what is... How does the uh... What skills have you incorporated into this in the new stuff you do?
Toady:   There's no, there's no, if I remember, there's no new ones but the observer skill comes up a lot more. It used to... The observer skill used to give you... which is the sort of... it's called situational awareness in the code and it's just sort of for … for observing.
And a kind of paying attention to your surroundings and especially during a fight. And it used to just help you with being hit from the side and so you wouldn't get the 'hit you from the side' minus or whatever, and it also helped you judge when people were going to charge so you didn't get surprised by people's charges. But now it's used to give you for four or five little pieces of information about the attack, depending on how good the roll is, and that can really make a huge difference in your decision making so that skill became a lot more important. I haven't broken up parrying or anything like that, so there's not like 'defense with a sword' versus 'offense with a sword' - and I'm not going to do any kind of break ups of those skills until we get to the actual combat styles and techniques, in which case this is going to blossom into, you know, a hundred different things and you know, get rather out of control which is nice, for that part.

-With the new "multi attack" option, will we see an option to commit an 'attack sequence' at some point?

-What sorts of other combat maneuvers would you like to see in the game, Toady?

Combat styles

    Combat styles involving weapons or natural attacks with associated stances and moves
    Ability to learn moves, etc. from others with whom you have a high enough reputation
    Certain moves may only be available as specific counters, while others might just be regular attacks
    Ability to create new moves/styles when highly skilled

Spoiler: DF talk segment on martial arts (click to show/hide)

Rainseeker:   Let's talk about martial arts. So I see that you have specific skills for fighting monsters, you have a skill for hand-on-hand combat against a dragon ...
Toady:   I'm not sure how specific it's going to be, but once we put in things like if you're fighting a giant who's way taller than you then it would make sense that if people have been doing that for centuries then they'd have strategies. I'm not sure what those are going to be specifically, if it just gives you a knowledge against a monster and a bonus then that would be the easiest way to do it, but it would be way more fun to have particular things that you can do, to jump up on them, or attack them when they're swinging down at you, people practicing strikes to hack a dragon in the head when it comes down to bite them or whatever. There might be stereotyped ways of doing that, although I don't think enough people fight dragons and survive to really learn that stuff ... it'd be kind of weird to see the training facilities with the giant cardboard dragons, people practicing against them ...
Rainseeker:   Well you never know when a dragon's going to show up ...
Toady:   The main thing with the martial arts is just fighting against other people, and 'martial arts' used in the most general sense, so it would include fencing, wrestling, boxing type stuff. So a simple example of martial art moves would just be something like boxing where you'd have people that are unskilled using their hands just throwing these punches where they just do their attack with the punch, and it might be that you can aim your shot - if someone has no skill at all and they're just fighting they can aim at someone's head - so when we put in aimed strikes you could throw a strike at the head, but then there would also be people who have some kind of skill in a particular randomly generated skill who might learn something like a left jab, and then the left jab would be more efficient, faster, have a longer range, than someone going all wild, and it would be better to learn those things. Then there's the idea of having different guards, just in a general sense perhaps, like you're holding your hands in front of your head ... It would be a really loose concept in general, because people generally aren't holding both of their hands to the left of their head, it doesn't need to get like that. Although we were thinking of having it so that you start with a general guard and you could move it higher or lower depending on ... like if you were fighting a dog or something it's not like you should be totally covering up the top of your head ... and then we were thinking ... there's this whole change of the combat flow thing where our overall goal is that if you stick a human in the arena and another human in the arena, and given them the same equipment and the same skills ... Right now if you play one and you assume control and you have those two guys fight each other you still basically do the roguelike thing where you press arrow arrow arrow and fight and you're flipping a coin to see if you're going to live. And there's sometimes when things dodge or when you fall over and you have to decide whether you're going to stand up or throw another strike or step back so that you can wait for the guy to come in so you can get a first strike on him, that kind of thing: so there's some skill involved that isn't just flipping the coins. But it's still the case that ultimately your chances aren't very good. I'm not saying that situation's necessarily going to change that much in terms of your survivability but we should at least make it more fun. You should be more survivable, you should at least be able to be more cautious about things, but basically what we're getting at is that you shouldn't just swing and then have the other person swing back, this is where we're getting at the idea of these reaction moments. So you could be standing there and someone could swing at you, but instead of how it is now where you press the button, it does the attack and then there's a delay of ten steps where you're recovering yourself so that you can attack again, when you attack it would start swinging an attack and then that attack is going to hit after five steps, and so during that time it could bust out and be like you see this incoming swing and you have a chance to react sometimes. So your reaction could be 'I want to try and block this thing' or 'I want to jump out of the way' or 'I'm going to try my little jujitsu move I've been practicing where I grab his wrist and twist him and get him on the ground', where you'd be balancing risks, balancing your skills and being more involved in the combat even though ultimately it's going to come down to some dice rolls still. Because there's that whole thing of if you've got an action game then you've got the player's skill as the determining fact - the player, the user of the program's skill - whereas if you've got an RPG it's more the character's skills that matter in the outcome of the combat and you just make some strategic decisions. The RPG part has to be respected a lot in this game, but you're going to be able to have more decisions to make. So if you end up doing something like someone throws a kick at your head and you have a high guard you'll have a chance to block it, but if you react to it you might be able to block the side of your head that it's coming toward, like how you actually have to be proactive if you want to stop someone from kicking you in the head. And you might then up with something like your left arm guarding the left side of your head ... we don't want to make it too complicated, but if your body is broken up into three zones or something, and your guard can just be general or you might be guarding one of those zones more than others but after you do a specific block or something for a time one of your grasping limbs might be blocking a particular side of your head just briefly. It's not something where you're going to be controlling yourself like a marionette but it's just going to be for text and the situation that it describes the announcements.
Captnastic:   'You raise your hand to block', 'you bring your shield down', that sort of stuff?
Toady:   Yeah, and it'll be talking about that in the announcements and it will also lead to situations, so if someone tries to kick you in the side of your head and you raise your arm to block it, it says that, but then if some kobold comes up with a dagger and tries to stab you in the gut then that left hand is not going to be available for your defence without a good reaction roll. So multiple opponents should be harder and you'll be strategically trying to get into situations where you're not surrounded. Even more than usual: right now they get bonuses to attack you but you're not really tied up the same way. So that should help a bit. For people who don't want to deal with that, especially if you're fighting people you know you can beat you can just have it do the thing it's going to do with them which is select the options for you, so if you get attacked it selects an option for you, so you can play it the same way if you want and it'll just have more interesting text for you to read. But you should also be able to make the decisions, and that should change things a lot. We have that advantage in a turn based environment to be able to let you interact more with what's going on and stop and think about things and so on, so we should take advantage of that. It should turn out pretty well, we just don't want to overcomplicate by having directional attacks on each part of the bodies ... but the zones thing is a little tricky too, if you're laying down you'd have your head zone and your body zone and your leg zone but they'd all be low on the ground. We're hoping that something like the zones could be used to do the thing with the giants too, where the giant's head zone is, when he's standing, is way out of reach for a typical person, and you might have attacks like a jab or some kind of sword strike that comes up that can only be used to hit the upper zones and then a person would be able to block that kind of attack by guarding their top zone from below ... not something that you have to set up in advance, you wouldn't be holding these weird guards when you're walking around, but it would be kind of a blocking event ... The things we're thinking about is like, we want to be able to do things like blocking head kicks or whatever in specific ways, so it would say what your arms are doing, but you don't want to walk around with ... When you see people fighting they're moving their arms, they might be holding their left arm near their head and their right arm near their body, but then they'll switch it up and they'll have the right arm near their head and the left arm near their body, and it would be really annoying to have to switch every turn to get that behaviour, it's like 'I want to do this and this and then step toward the guy, and we're still twenty feet away from each other, and then I want to do this and this ...' So there'd be just this general guard concept and that kind of specific blocking would be something that you'll only do when you're being attacked. Now there are exceptions to that, like if you want to hold both of your arms blocking the back of your head when you're running away or something ... you run away, you're being shot at, you hold both of your arms over the back of your head, maybe your arms will get shot instead of the back of your head ... It'd just be a funny and embarrassing way to go out, but you'd be able to say 'I want to do that'. That would be in an improved wrestling menu or something where you'd pick the limb and pick what you want to do with it, but we don't want to get too Twistery, we don't want to get too strange. It's unrealistic to have the arms act completely independent of each other, that's just not how it works; there's some independence but you don't want to have 'I want to punch him in the head with my right hand and simultaneously punch him in the gut with my left hand while I'm kicking him with both of my legs' ... It'd be kind of goofy. I guess when people are clapping ears, or whatever happens in the action movies, that would be an attack simultaneously, but it's not like those attacks are knocking anybody out, so you'd get severe minuses for your velocity if you're not putting your body into it, you're just swinging both of your arms at once and your whole body can't be used to increase the momentum in either direction so it ends up being wimpy. So we'll just account for that stuff, and we don't want it to be much more complicated to use than it is now, it's half just getting the text to be good and getting it so that multiple opponents are way more difficult: things like that. So it should be fun, it ultimately comes down to - because we've got character skill to account for - it still ultimately comes down to some coin flipping, but you can build your advantages and take advantage of things and take advantage of the AI making mistakes more than you could previously. We're not going to be satisfied with it until just creating two guys in an arena and having them fight is something that you'd want to do for fun sometimes. Right now you do it just to see them explode, or you're testing a mod, but it doesn't sell itself as a thing to do on its merits as a game. Hopefully when we're done with all the martial arts and guards that'll be a lot more fun, and you'll be able to do things like, when we get the mounts we'll probably allow mounts in the arena then too so you can test them out and have fun with that, learning how to use them.
Rainseeker:   How are you going to plan on improving the skills in adventure mode as far as martial arts is concerned. Are there going to be a lot of different martial arts skills or is there just one that you practice, or do you go to seek a trainer, or how are you planning ...
Toady:   We're thinking that you'd start with something ... they're probably going to be entity dependent to some extent. There are questions to be answered there. There are general martial art skills, and that's what we just have under skill striker, skill sword; the actual skill that there is in the game right now. And then you tack specific techniques on top of that that aren't part of becoming familiar with sword fighting necessarily but becoming familiar with the particular style of sword fighting, like fencing. The issues come up when you're like ... is a certain move in fencing the same as it would be in kendo, or are they related, are you just using different words for the same stuff, what are the actual differences ... That kind of question is basically going to be answered, that's what sword skill is, that's the commonality, and whether we break that up into more sections or not is an open question, we're probably not going to at first. That means that when you learn a combat style it would basically be an entity thing that would be a specific thing like kung fu or fencing or whatever, and that would be something that if you start as a fighter in an entity you would have some of that information, some of that skill already, some of the specific moves that you can use when you're fighting. Then it's a matter of ... there are a bunch of other skilled fighters in the entity and as you build your reputation just like people would be throwing free items and places to sleep and stuff like that at you and you'll be able to have people join up with you and go on little adventures with you if you have a good reputation because they trust you because you've been defending them against bandits and night creatures and all that kind of thing, then you can just have someone help you out, someone will want to teach you stuff, or you'll be sparring with people or whatever. It's not necessarily something that you're going to act out necessarily, it could just use the farming mechanism where you pass a season and just say 'I want to pass a season hanging out with these crazy mead hall guys and they can teach me about how to kill boars', or 'I want to hang out with these guys and learn how to box' or 'I want to hang out with these guys and learn how to fence' or 'learn how to do judo throws'. Then you'd increase your repertoire, you'd trade in your time and the years of your life for some more skills, and you could then practice them on people as well when you're actually fighting, and you could get better at them that way, but you won't learn new skills that way, unless you fight people long enough and then you suddenly realise 'I know how to do the eagle punch all of a sudden! I understand the deep mystery!' There could be things like that especially if we have universes that are move like Fist of the North Star, then that kind of thing would start to happen, but mostly we're thinking training with warriors and so on.
Rainseeker:   Cool.
Toady:   I don't remember if I put it up or not, but it would be funny if you learn enough stuff that you'd be able to create your own style and have it live on after you, you could teach it to other people and it'd be kind of cool to have your next guy, and there would be these guys that you were hanging out with in your previous game and they all know the punch that you named after yourself, it would be amusing. It should be pretty cool, and just trying to work that stuff into the fights and getting it so it all works together and isn't too annoying should be pretty cool.

[smirk]

People can lie about their opinion of an entity and their initial reactions are moderated based on how afraid they are of the rulers, if it fits their personality.
...
Longest function of the day is moderate_private_opinion_of_entity_through_cultural_identity(), which filters an opinion through cultural rumors/reputation and personality to change an overt hate reaction into fear, for example, and then the public opinion function continues to morph that based on the audience, so they can swap from hate to fear to "all for it" before you hear them speak.

Oh man. Oh man. NPCs grow up so fast. Brings a tear to my eye.

How much of a low-hanging fruit would you consider multiple-person conversations to be? Will we be able to address large crowds in adv mode anytime soon, or is that slated to be covered by different mechanics entirely?

[Cycle]

Question:
With the new opinion facets in play, can we be expecting large scale retaliation from villagers in sites or even in dwarfs mode?
I could imagine what kind of hell it would brew if all my dwarfs started turning against my nobles.

Can't wait to see the new AI. So much  social !!SCIENCE!! to be done!

[Footkerchief]

How much of a low-hanging fruit would you consider multiple-person conversations to be? Will we be able to address large crowds in adv mode anytime soon, or is that slated to be covered by different mechanics entirely?

Already implemented:

02/15/2013 Toady One In our ongoing 'moments of restraint' boss rush, I'm currently up against the conversation engine. I've decided I pretty much have to get conversations out into regular play so that I can tell a room full of people that I just killed a goblin patrol, but I'm trying to avoid a completely monstrous overhaul. Bartering will remain an instanteous activity for instance -- pulling that out right now is unnecessary and would take a bit of time. It is a continuing process, but the result should be cool, and it'll allow you to spread news in a more satisfying fashion (rather than telling one person and having it magically spread around instantly, though they will still spread news after a time once they are offloaded). I should have an honest insurrection in place before long here.

02/20/2013 Toady One The new conversation approach is working out well enough. Each statement takes about as much time as a regular step, so if you find enough to talk about in some later release, you'd be able to chat until the sun goes down. This also means that conversations are susceptible to interruption, and each statement made by people you are talking to is a "move" they are making either simultaneously with their other actions (like walking and fighting) or instead of them. Incidents you are a part of or rumors that you hear now go into your head, and you can pass them along or bring them up with whoever you talk to. Right now these incidents include every time you strangle a wolf out in the woods, so I'll probably have to find a way to manage the lists according to how interesting they are. In any case, since you can now bring up the occupation and related events, it's a matter of adding some reactions and conversation options geared toward getting the ball rolling.

Question:
With the new opinion facets in play, can we be expecting large scale retaliation from villagers in sites or even in dwarfs mode?
I could imagine what kind of hell it would brew if all my dwarfs started turning against my nobles.

There won't be Fortress Mode insurrections.  People can rebel in Adv. Mode by becoming bandits, joining the adventurer as a companion, or (I think) jumping into a fight that somebody else started.  I don't think a spontaneous uprising can happen yet.

[smjjames]

People can lie about their opinion of an entity and their initial reactions are moderated based on how afraid they are of the rulers, if it fits their personality.
...
Longest function of the day is moderate_private_opinion_of_entity_through_cultural_identity(), which filters an opinion through cultural rumors/reputation and personality to change an overt hate reaction into fear, for example, and then the public opinion function continues to morph that based on the audience, so they can swap from hate to fear to "all for it" before you hear them speak.

Oh man. Oh man. NPCs grow up so fast. Brings a tear to my eye.

How much of a low-hanging fruit would you consider multiple-person conversations to be? Will we be able to address large crowds in adv mode anytime soon, or is that slated to be covered by different mechanics entirely?

Isn't that pretty much already in via merchants? I know it's not multiple individual conversations, but it's multiple people talking at the same time.

[Knight Otu]

Isn't that pretty much already in via merchants? I know it's not multiple individual conversations, but it's multiple people talking at the same time.

That's not really a good answer to that question. The multiple conversations bit is the core of the question, after all. Market banter is little more than hearing a capybara somewhere - neither actually expect a response - and is only a very narrow topic.

[monk12]

Yeah, there's a difference between being able to hear multiple conversations going on at once, and being able to have a single conversation with a room full of people ("Hail, peaceful villagers, I have slain the dragon!" "You're full of shit!" "No, here's his head!" "He's a hero!" "Free beer for the hero!" etc.) It's suggested by the first Footkerchief quote, but not settled, I think.

[smjjames]

Isn't that pretty much already in via merchants? I know it's not multiple individual conversations, but it's multiple people talking at the same time.

That's not really a good answer to that question. The multiple conversations bit is the core of the question, after all. Market banter is little more than hearing a capybara somewhere - neither actually expect a response - and is only a very narrow topic.

Yeah, there's a difference between being able to hear multiple conversations going on at once, and being able to have a single conversation with a room full of people ("Hail, peaceful villagers, I have slain the dragon!" "You're full of shit!" "No, here's his head!" "He's a hero!" "Free beer for the hero!" etc.) It's suggested by the first Footkerchief quote, but not settled, I think.

I misread the question the first time, or maybe didn't read the whole question.