Dev Brainstorming: Faction Favors and Benefits

The following is a list of ideas Ive been thinking about for services provided by factions:

• Item Crafters: Ive noticed that players tend to run huge stacks of consumables later into runs, and this makes me worried that either the game is too easy or that consumables just arent useful enough compared to the amount you get. From a supply and demand perspective, there is not enough demand. So in the interest of adding more uses for consumables, I added buyer NPCs in the previous update, who will gladly purchase items from you. However, one of the main uses of gold is to buy consumables from the shop, so it doesnt actually solve the problem that well. To resolve this, Im exploring the idea of "smiths", basically NPCs who will craft rare items from you in exchange for raw materials (such as ectoplasm, motions, bombs, etc)
• to tie this into the faction system, I was thinking that you find rarer types of smiths if your reputation with a faction is good. Although I was also thinking of having the smiths be their own "blacksmiths" faction, so that idea is still up in the air
• With Purple locks requiring a command word spell to remove, I was thinking that spellcaster NPCs can be asked to help out, but they may expect a tip, or else add to your "favors owed", a hidden variable.

One of the issues I have with Devious Devices and related Skyrim mods is the amount of Forcegreets the dragonborn encounters in the various kinky debt scenarios. It interrupts the flow of the game and possibly applies a restricting situation right in the middle of adventuring, which is believable for a trap but a little immersion breaking when your follower decides to confiscate your items in the middle of a deadly dungeon exploration.

The solution may be similar to the way orgasms are handled: the player drives when these occur. However, there needs to be reasons for the player to do so, otherwise it feels like the only way to have kinky fun is to intentionally sandbag yourself, and that's no good.

One idea to fix this is to make it so that further allying with enemies requires you to take on certain challenges. For example, I've recently changed the Champion mechanic for Goddesses such that in order to gain significant benefits past a certain amount of reputation, you have to be wearing restraints associated with that Goddess.

For factions, this is a little trickier because factions don't have as rich of a presence in the game as the Goddesses (who have shrines in every level and you can always call upon them). NPCs only have a chance to spawn and they might end up hostile to you if you fight their allies in the level. But if you have a good reputation with everyone then levels become a breeze--you have tons of allies who don't engage you and help you fight the factions you are still hostile with.

It's this feast or famine problem that's tricky to solve, and I'm currently thinking of a faction favor system which basically makes it so that when factions help you in battle, out of restraints, use Command Words for you, help you craft items, follow you/take your orders, etc, it accumulates expectations for the player to pay back their fair share.

I'm not super sure what paying back one's fair share looks like. Perhaps it's different for each faction. Perhaps you have to wear a uniform, like the maid outfit, and perform tasks (such as cleaning up hostile slime molds that appear in crevices, or pruning hostile plants for the elves, or finding shiny objects for the catgirls, etc) to get your favors down or else you will find your rep ticking back to zero. Or perhaps you are more likely to find dominant members of the faction who will treat you as lower-ranked and expect you to wear restraints. Another idea I've been thinking of is quests, whether that means something similar to a cleaning tasks, or whether that means that if you are allied with a faction, you get a message at the start telling you that you've been assigned a task to defeat a miniboss such as a giant slime, or perhaps there is a wanted bandit chief on the map, and failing to do this by the end of the level will hurt your reputation and knock it back down from friendly. it seems like a fun way to create some story without some of the tedium of enemies surprising you and telling you "you have to wear this now, even though you are an ally."

Anyway, let me know your thoughts. And let me know if you would enjoy more stream-of-consciousness dev musings in the future :)