A Guide to Vilja's Optional Settings

[Seyheb]

This thread is about developing a guide to Vilja’s optional settings and follows the posts quoted below (amongst others) taken from the Mod Support forum. Altering the actual layout of Vilja’s dialogue choice tree is a separate issue and would require a separate topic at some stage if it was decided to do that. As I expect it would require much work by the team to do that, I suggest concentrating on a basic guide for now as this is something we should be able to produce in the short term. I'll start putting together something soon, but things are a little slow at my end at the moment for family reasons.

As a starting point, here is a link to the existing interactive Vilja in Skyrim Dialogues Chart which illustrates graphically all of her dialogue choices. This doesn’t provide a direct index to the settings but should be useful in conjunction with a guide.

I’m a strong believer in giving players choice and I would be opposed to reducing that choice. Giving players choice is a very good thing. What is unimportant to one player will be important to another and vice-versa. I believe one of the great strengths of the Vilja mod is the choice players are offered. The problem isn’t that choice but the fact that some players aren’t always aware of the choices available to them. Also the options tree can sometimes be difficult to navigate for someone not familiar with it. In fact players sometimes ask for choices that they don’t realise are already there. The tree has been added to incrementally over time and maybe it would benefit from some rearrangement of the order or at least a separate guide just for the choices available, such as you suggest, Sniffles. I don't think we need to burden Emma, Amgepo and Wolf with preparing such a guide, though they would have to approve the final draft of course.

As for the way Vilja’s dialogue tree is arranged currently, I suspect altering it would require a lot of work on the part of Emma, amgepo and Wolf, and although the idea has been raised in the past, I'm inclined to suggest just preparing a guide to the optional settings for the time being. I think the best approach for the guide would be to list her available options together with explanations of how to access them. That way at least players should be able to find out easily what optional settings exist first of all and then how to access them. I'm prepared to help produce such a guide, so I'll post in the WIP section first, then if it is agreed we can follow it up. In any case it needs a separate topic if it is going to be taken further.

[Sniffles]

Seyheb, I hate you. I've just spent several hours trying to make that danged tree!! ARRRRRGGGGGG!
That's wonderful though.

[zedtsayid]

Nice work Seyheb

[Sniffles]

That is very nicely done. It also gives a graphic example of how complex Vilja is. Even at a quick glance there is no obvious quick fix. Even the redundant double entries serve a purpose.

What I have been mulling over with pencil and paper was a way to split the menus into two aspects. The actual game play dialogue interactions and purely game mechanics. That still appears the best way.

I propose, for consideration, using terms a friend told me about from old on line gaming. IC, In Character, and OOC, Out Of Character. The Vilja menu split into IC and OOC would help somewhat to keep track of things.

IC: verbal interaction with Vilja. OOC: Game mechanics, the Vilja settings. The plan would be to not alter or rewrite what already is in place but to simplify by denoting what is IC and OOC and having them separated or at least denoted with highlight, a different font or similar.

[Seyheb]

Oh gosh! No, I didn't make that! It has been in existence for a while now as an annexe to the FAQ for Vilja in Skyrim. I think Dova or MikeSierra made it, or perhaps both of them, but I think Dova will be able to tell us who did. I'm not sure if it is fully up to date with 4.01, so that needs checking. However although it is a very useful tool, it isn't indexed, so unless you already know the command you are looking for, you cannot easily look up how to access it ('root' allows you to select a command that you know exists and then look up the branch that leads to it).

What I think we need to go with that chart is a basic list of the final commands or options so people know what exists, together with a brief description as to how to reach each one. This could be a document or a chart like that one, or both. As mentioned above, it is quite common for players to ask for options that already exist because they don't know what options are available. Similarly we often also receive requests from players who do know an option exists but they don't know how to find it.

Such a list may not be simple to prepare as it might seem however, as there is quite a lot of variation in the dialogue branches.

[edit] P.S. Sniffles, I hadn't seen your last post when I posted this and welcome your ideas of course.

[Dova]

It's a simple javascript applet I utilized to start charting everything since last year. Everything should be up to date to 4.01, as the latest revision was right before the release of the updated FAQ, back in mid May. EDIT: The hovering tooltip gives a brief description of each dialogue.

[Cybersquirt]

Very cool - simple and effective. Why are some boxes green and others are orange?

[Dova]

Jul 31, 2015 22:44:21 GMT Cybersquirt said:

Very cool - simple and effective. Why are some boxes green and others are orange?

Green = will expand into more options; orange = nothing more. I hope the description and option panel on the right is helpful.

EDIT: I know sometimes they don't align quite nicely, especially when it's showing the multiple ways you can get to an option, using the option panel to switch how you are looking at the chart will often help.

[Cybersquirt]

Okay, that makes sense. Thanks!

I had suggested in the other thread the idea of a configuration horn, similar to the "quick-chat horn" that we can select certain options for. I love that quick-chat horn and have several dialogue options set to trigger with it.

As for the tree itself, what do y'all think of move the 2 "Attack" options to "Let's talk fighting strategy.."? There's a quick horn for both of them and it would narrow the initial options a bit.

Along the same lines, what about putting "Let me look...extra storage" into "Let me check your gear" or removing it altogether and renaming the inventory item "extra storage" to "0extra storage" so it's at the top of the inv. list? (fwiw, I very rarely selected extra storage on it's own, since each extra storage gets full independently; when I hit that containers' limit, I'd have to go through 'all that' dialogue again. The one extra storage option I was regularly checking was "items...to sell".)

Please delete traveling together > off-topic > "you shouldn't have extra storages" or make it work.

[Dova]

Jul 31, 2015 21:01:00 GMT Seyheb said:

However although it is a very useful tool, it isn't indexed, so unless you already know the command you are looking for, you cannot easily look up how to access it

The chart at default will be in normal mode until you switch to the root mode. You can always reset the chart to root at the Dialogue Chart option, or simply refresh the page. All dialogues are arranged according to the priority in creation kit, so it's organized exactly as how you will find it in game. So the idea is to explore the options without the inconvenience of in game UI and improve some discoverability.

As for other suggestions for rearranging the topics in creation kit, it will take a good amount of effort, will let Emma know and see what she thinks once she's back from vacation. There's no guarantee anything will change, since it can be hectic to re-calculate all priority from dialogues in different quests, while Emma has her reasons to plan it the way it is now.

[Seyheb]

Aug 1, 2015 14:53:17 GMT Dova said:

Jul 31, 2015 21:01:00 GMT Seyheb said:

However although it is a very useful tool, it isn't indexed, so unless you already know the command you are looking for, you cannot easily look up how to access it

The chart at default will be in normal mode until you switch to the root mode. You can always reset the chart to root at the Dialogue Chart option, or simply refresh the page. All dialogues are arranged according to the priority in creation kit, so it's organized exactly as how you will find it in game. So the idea is to explore the options without the inconvenience of in game UI and improve some discoverability.

As for other suggestions for rearranging the topics in creation kit, it will take a good amount of effort, will let Emma know and see what she thinks once she's back from vacation. There's no guarantee anything will change, since it can be hectic to re-calculate all priority from dialogues in different quests, while Emma has her reasons to plan it the way it is now.

The chart is certainly useful. I am aware of root mode and I am also aware of the fact the chart is arranged in accordance with the dialogues. However as there is no index list it is not easy for someone to learn what options exist or easily find where to look for them unless they have some prior knowledge. That is where the proposed guide comes in. It is not being proposed to to look at rearranging the topics as part of this exercise for the very reason it would require a lot of effort by Emma, as mentioned in the first post in this topic. That is something that has been raised in the past and was not pursued for that reason.

[Cybersquirt]

Is "Let's perform together" location specific? I've never seen that in my root dialogue.

[Sniffles]

Aug 6, 2015 0:11:25 GMT Cybersquirt said:

Is "Let's perform together" location specific? I've never seen that in my root dialogue.

Yes. Vilja refuses to play for draugr, things covered in fur, things reptilian, and the uncultured.

[Seyheb]

I thought I'd better mention that summer activities, various commitments and my mother's health are to the fore at the moment, so I may be a little slow in contributing to this.

[Bard Skye]

Aug 9, 2015 13:30:56 GMT Seyheb said:

I thought I'd better mention that summer activities, various commitments and my mother's health are to the fore at the moment, so I may be a little slow in contributing to this.

Real life happens. And family comes first.