How Do Fallout’s NPCs Get Home?

[@any_austin]

Use code ANYAUSTIN50 to get 50% OFF your first Factor box plus 20% off your next month at bit.ly/3XFDRf4

[@any_austin]

Anyway, thanks everyone, have a great day. 2 more videos coming in July.

[@iplay4us]

@@any_austin Holy smokes, is this your first sponsored video???? congratz you’ve come so far man

[@Horsethe666]

I didn't sell out son, I bought in. Chillzone radiation Island bluray DVD next??

[@ToweringToska]

That peek into your home life you shared was pleasant, do all of your chosen Factor meals employ tofu? That makes me happy if so, that's truly excellent. ^^ Don't feel like you're failing at anything if I'm mistaken though, you're very cool either way.

[@any_austin]

2026

[@Scruntbaby]

I married a blacksmith orc in Skyrim and his pathing or whatever must've been all fucked up bc he never went to bed. He had a bed in the corner but just made swords and ate bread. Never slept. Had to download a patch in order for my man to get some well-deserved shuteye. This is barely related to the video sorry.

[@RivLabs]

It's important if you ask me, fun game anecdotes are always worth hearing :3

[@wormedw]

what a beautiful story

[@Man-xk9rz]

It's important to get sleep. You saved his life by downloading that patch.

[@roerose4449]

i missed the “in skyrim” part and i was like oh so you just have the coolest husband

[@TheLetsRead]

You & Your Insomniac Orc Husband Are Valid 🖤

[@seth1130]

Imagine you're going shopping at your local Winn Dixie, you've just accidentally run your cart into a wall, you're super embarrassed and quickly look around to make sure nobody saw and just as you look behind you, Austin's head pops back behind the end of the aisle and you hear the distant sound of pencil on paper

[@ShintogaDeathAngel]

Love this mental image 😂

[@mariecarie1]

“Uh, hi, ma’am? Yeah, sorry to interrupt. I’ve been observing people here to see how much they act like NPCs, but since you’re here…are you employed?”

[@KorbAgain]

If you try asking for rumors in real life as you ask for them in Oblivion, the real people would answer the same way as NPCs answer. - Hello! - Good day! - How are you? - Could be better. And you? - I'm fine, thanks! Have you heard the news? - Oh, that fire was huge! Glad nobody were hurt. - I heard that building had problems with electricity. - What do you think about politics? - Nothing in particular i would think about. - Good bye! - Be seeing you. - Hello! - Hi! - Bye! - Take care.

[@mctadn]

forever haunted by the glint of hairclips darting between the aisles

[@Ale-ft4re]

and them he cried: "that fat woman is a npc, we are in the matrix"

[@RAHelllord]

I'm glad you actually went the extra mile to watch them walk places, but this has actually been known and implemented since Morrowind, albeit in much more simple form. However there are a few fun things the engine does that you didn't cover here. At the base core of how characters move in the embryo engine are two system, a dynamic movement mode that can freely move around the (currently loaded) area, and a navigation mesh (usually called nav mesh) for less dynamic but guided movement. Think of the nav mesh as system of invisible roads that cross the entire game map, plus all interior areas, and have been placed by the developers to help the game calculate routes for NPCs to take. That nav mesh usually follows the geography of the area, so it has specific "roads" that follow actual roads and paths. This is what NPCs usually use to move between any given points, both close and distant. They will generally only stop using that when either of two things happen: They follow another actor (usually the player character or their AI tells them to directly interact with another NPC right NOW), or they're in combat. In both those cases they switch to dynamic movement which is basically just trying to take the direct route to the target. However, all of this only happens when the NPC is actually loaded, and thus near the PC. If the NPC is unloaded, but still gets simulated to be moving somewhere, two tricks are applied to reduce the amount of calculations needed: 1: The NPC is now clamped to the nav mesh only and will follow it perfectly. If the player gets close enough to load them in, they will be somewhere on the nav mesh. 2: The nav mesh has a time information applied to it that tells the game how long it takes for a character to travel along those roads. This ensures NPCs don't teleport across the map, but are more realistically pushed along like a train on rail roads. And allows them to be encountered in the wild. The latter is what is used for all NPCs that tell you they're going to meet somewhere with you, and usually the movement across the nav mesh while unloaded is faster than actual movement across the map, for both player and NPCs. Also while an NPC is on the nav mesh while unloaded they're safe from all dangers, as enemies only spawn when the player is near, and thus they don't encounter any threats, unlike if you stick around to watch them walk to their destination. This also means in order for NPCs to die during travel you have to stick around, that's the only way they can naturally die. Though occasionally that's what kills them on accident, as they can become loaded in near raiders that only spawn because you entered the area at the same time, and suddenly they're in the middle of a raider stronghold getting massacred and you're getting a notification that your quest failed. Well done. Edit: The nav mesh is also used to move the player character during fast travel sections, and is what calculates how long the travel will take.

[@any_austin]

okay everyone upvote this comment these are the technical answers we need in uncertain times

[@any_austin]

My only confusion here is that I took a ton of footage where I’d send Dogmeat home and then run back ahead of him to wait. I waited days and days in-game (three times longer than it took to walk back with him) and he never showed up until I fast-traveled away. I should’ve kept that segment in the video but I’m curious what that’s about, or if I just did something wrong.

[@RAHelllord]

@@any_austin I'm not sure, it could be a quirk with the engine where bethesda is trying to not have NPCs materialize right in front of you, or alternatively he's being held up just at the edge of the render distance killing some random enemy that's there. If you still have a save game from those you could just load back into one, and wait in front of the PC while letting the game run, he might just spawn at the edge and walk normally towards you. If you're on PC you could also use the console to teleport yourself to him to see where he is and what he's doing. The command for that would be "player.moveto 6A775", without the quotation marks, that will instantly place you into dogmeat, wherever he is.

[@afz902k]

@@RAHelllord in other Bethesda games, I've noticed stuck NPCs which are not making progress getting to their "travel destination" while they are supposed to be fast travelling. Upon entering an area, I've seen these NPCs being physically stuck or just standing somewhere idle for a while, until they suddenly seem to wake up and start moving again, sometimes even getting physically unstuck or teleported a short distance into a more open area. So, maybe the navmesh isn't perfect. There could be spots that are natural "sinkholes" for NPCs, such as loops in the navmesh or local minimums. And only when the player gets close enough, the NPCs are loaded in and then they actually get a better path calculated for them, eventually freeing them up to move again.

[@RAHelllord]

@@afz902k Oh absolutely. The nav mesh in most bethesda games has some fun bugs like every other part of the game. Occasionally it dips into the ground or clips through objects that NPCs can't step over, which is why occasionally some NPC you have to follow will try and blindly walk into a rock or tree for a minute or two. Similarly a few quirks happen with locked doors. NPCs ignore locked doors if they're unloaded, but honor it while loaded. Which can lead to them getting stuck in areas the player can't reach normally. Occasionally some fast travel points will be used by NPCs, but they have long travel times so for that duration the NPC is in limbo invisible at the start point. Sometimes the engine "loses" an NPC and moves it to the origin (usually the center of the map) and in Skyrim in particular that is high enough in the air it'll kill those NPCs via fall damage. And yeah, when an NPC switches from unloaded to loaded the game has to recalculate the path and uses a slightly finer nav mesh version, which can cause them to suddenly change direction because they think it's suddenly the better way.

[@DizzyDJW]

The irony is that by following her you were actually stressing her out, or at least her code. Think of her like a Meseeks. Her job was to be untied by the player then run far enough away to no longer be rendered (finally rest), and by following her you prevented her from resting, you literally terrorized her (again or at least her code). Until, inevitably, she succumbed to the wasteland.

[@systemloc]

This is the saddest and most brilliant conclusion ever

[@Croftice1]

Same with Dogmeat. The game still keeps him as your companion, even when you dismiss him (send him home), it won't magically forget the companion mechanics, so by following him, the game becomes confused and doesn't know, how to act. Normal behavior would be to despawn Dogmeat as soon as you're not looking at him, because that's the game mechanics, but since you're following him, his normal companion behavior (walking/running randomly few feet in front of you) takes over the last given command (go home). The thing that he finally found the way to Vault 101 is, that the player somehow managed to get there by randomly following Dogmeat. I guess the same mechanics works in Fallout 4, but I'm not gonna test it, since I'm using mods for enabling more/all followers, thus have no need to dismiss Dogmeat at all, he's quite useful.

[@mrosskne]

the fuck does meseeks mean?

[@serenitygaming3553]

@@mrosskne It's a species from Rick and Morty summoned by a box. The Meeseeks then does whatever task the person who summons them tells them to do, and then they die. Luckily, dying is all they desire to do, but they are functionally immortal unless their task is complete, so they're willing to do anything to finish their task, even if it includes killing the person who summoned them.

[@mrosskne]

Christ

[@griffonsarcade]

Similarly: in Fallout 4 after you defeat Kellog and trigger the Prydwen to spawn into the map, you can actually follow it all the way to the airport, where it then awkwardly rotates into position and fuses with a duplicate of itself.

[@TheSpylight]

i saw that too in a video.. was it Itsjabo? Or maybe joov? i forgor

[@garmtpug]

@@TheSpylight ManyATrueNerd did a video where he literally run on foot from Fort Hagen to the Airport seeing if he could outrun the Prydwen when it appeared over the Fort. He did outrun it and showed how the skimpy duplicate was there and came together with the Prydwen that he outran. It was a fun video!

[@Croftice1]

That's because the moving Prydwen is a vehicle/functional model, while the moored one at the airfield is a static prop. It's a game, you can't expect overall realism, can you?

[@TheRuneCollector]

@@garmtpugwhat is that video called I cannot find it!

[@garmtpug]

@@TheRuneCollector I just looked. It's called "The Fastest Man in the Commonwealth". It's funny and surprising.

[@clippp585]

With that last NPC, it's probably a good guess that her destination was to keep running so far that she got past your line of sight and despawn

[@fearmynerves]

And that was the real reason she lost all hope? That's pretty dark.

[@Ephemeralanimal]

My thought exactly, when she did this is hopless I knew she was talking about shaking the pursuer

[@rompevuevitos222]

The question is, is her destination randomly generated? Would the same generation happen in all playtroughs (which can happen if the "seed" is the same in all games) If not, how many points does she have defined? Whould she eventually loop and repeat her journey?

[@danny98432]

​@@rompevuevitos222im not an expert but her destination probably changed as she moved to wherever the nearest point is that is outside of the simulated areas of the map. so as the player moves she changes her goal, since the simulated areas are only around the player.

[@aipsventures]

that's what I was thinking, it was hopeless bc he kept following her

[@SolarMechanic]

I love it when an NPC asks if you want to head to a new location together or just meet up there later. I ALWAYS say let's go together, not just because I want to get all the story content I can out of a game, but because I love imagining I'm inconveniencing them by not letting them fast travel like they would have otherwise.

[@mrziiz6893]

Truly a spiteful god

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

Sometimes I use them as pack mules. When I already have a follower and we just went to rescue another, I tend to give one of them all the loot and travel with the other. And since in FO3, FO4 and Skyrim the NPCs will walk to the destination, I can just say I see them later, load up my current follower, then run up the other and casually start a conversation "Oh, are we going into the same direction? interested in traveling together?" Then send the first one to a location of my choice.

[@AKKK1182]

This is some villain tier autism.

[@168toretiro]

you're just being mean 😢

[@VerdaTal]

You should make a video about games that have "RUN!" sequences, but don't actually punish you for not immediately leaving the area. Compare how well or how poorly they fake action or background noise.

[@Racingboom]

This is genius. It applies to so many Bethesda games too.

[@c.a.k.comedy692]

Cough cough Spider-Man 2 lol

[@AbsolXGuardian]

Then there's Pokemon Ranger Shadows of Almia that can and will kill you, making it until Legends Arceus, the first pokemon game where a game over screen explictly represented your character's death

[@any_austin]

this has actually been on my list for a few months! The idea that if you stop walking forward in Call of Duty, you can actually stop World War 2 in its tracks. Among others. Great idea.

[@Malel21youtube]

in metal gear solid 3 there is also a fake sequence where supposedly dogs chase you but you can just stand there and the action music will loop badly

[@Sleeepy.]

I appreciate that you seem to commit yourself to interacting with games so directly, practically role playing. When you said that the hostage NPCs ran faster than the player character I fully expected you to open the console and start zipping around the map at ridiculous speeds, and was pleasantly surprised with you commenting on how interesting of a challenge the quick rough calculations for the shortest path ended up being.

[@otterpus]

In the beginning of Fallout: New Vegas when you help Sunny fight geckos by the water pumps there is a blonde NPC who is being attacked. If you save her she thanks you and walks back to town and I enjoyed seeing her every time I went back as a little reminder of my good deed. I forget who she lives with but she does have a bed and tends garden like the other locals and will occasionally be in the saloon.

[@Suwako__Moriya]

She lives with Easy Pete btw (Why do I know this off the top of my head?)

[@azrani2023]

@@Suwako__Moriya I also weirdly remember a lot of the names of NPCs and places in Bethesda games and it's so useless but I'm not mad about it

[@Suwako__Moriya]

@@azrani2023 I see the bearded Bosmer face from Morrowind in my dreams. No joke.

[@vinnyethanol]

I’ve never seen Dogmeat’s doggie paddle animation before. Cutest thing in the game.

[@any_austin]

Right?

[@picahudsoniaunflocked5426]

I knew someone else would say what I was thinking.

[@PopeGoliath]

Not cuter than Snuffles you take that back.

[@clonemarine1]

@@PopeGoliath Isn't Snuffles from New Vegas?

[@GhostGlitch.]

@@clonemarine1 yes, but like cmon, new vegas is practically an official mod.

[@TheBreadPirate]

It's scary to think about NPC's as prisoners. They are trapped in a deadly game and their only options are to... 1) Cease living by entering a door. 2) Run endlessly until they die.

[@thatcat_]

Oh hey, I didn't know you watched Any Austin

[@chompythebeast]

I mean, if existence is only ultimately defined by how it ends, we ourselves share a pretty similar fate, even if our universe, our prison, is larger

[@picahudsoniaunflocked5426]

Box the Fish Man with Many Abs.

[@cacaw_0]

... i think she knew that entering any door would end her existence...

[@paladinkhan]

Truly hopeless

[@VerboseToast]

When I was a kid playing this game for the first time, I tried to follow Dad all the way from the garage back to Rivet City instead of just letting time pass and warping there since I didn't know I could do that. He kept aggroing radscorpions from 100 meters away, diverting from his path to charge at them minding their own business in a field somewhere. The best part is, he would always say "didn't want to have to do this" while charging them with nothing but a fucking lead pipe. No gun or nothing. Crazy man

[@any_austin]

Hahaha

[@brysonharrison5698]

I did the same thing lol

[@mrziiz6893]

The Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree eh?

[@eliseallen3617]

I'm losing it I just posted a comment about this and because of this I constantly say "I didn't want to have to do this" to my friends 😂

[@PlayerZeroStart]

I did the same thing because even though I fast traveled to Rivet City and tried to wait for him, he'd never arrive at the city and his icon on the map was stuck in one place.

[@wildste]

I love the fact that it appears you did this in the base game. Like, i have to imagine there is a mod out there that can make you fly and it would have made this a lot easier. But you chose to just run behind them and it made it a lot more wholesome

[@the-kris5554]

Don't even need a mod, the in-game console commands will get you there and beyond (you can even make npcs essential / god mode or increase your walk speed :P Props for Austins determination x)

[@widdly-scuds]

Press ~ and then type tcl in any bethesda game lol no mods needed, player.setav speedmult 115 if you wanted to more easily chase the fast NPCs

[@Deviationism]

I don't know if you've been psychologically scarred by reading comments yet or if you'd even be notified that one was sent, but I wanted to say that your channel immediately became one of my favorites shortly after discovering your Skyrim Hydrology video. I've watched your entire catalogue going back almost two years over the last couple of weeks. I really appreciate that you're doing whatever the hell "weird and boring" thing you feel like doing. It works. It works great.

[@corylong5808]

The fact she kept saying “This is hopeless” tells me she knew she was eventually going to die no matter how long she ran.

[@any_austin]

It’s sad 😔

[@bob-rogers]

It also suggests the developers anticipated someone would follow her.

[@A_Bag_of_Potatoes]

@@any_austin A horrifying thought is, are NPC's self-aware but due to their coding & limitation they don't have control over their own actions, a powerless prisoner of predeterminism who we are unable to understand. An even worse thought to me is, what if your character, the character you control is self-aware but stuck in the same powerless predicament as the NPC, do they remember each time they've died, each time you've quick saved to blow the head off an annoying NPC, do they know that you haven't played the game in 6 months, what would that be like in theory. If true, then I think our characters must hate us as creators.

[@Rad-Dude63andathird]

​@@bob-rogers She was cowering when she said it. Sorry to pop your bubble, genuinely, but she only said it because Fallout 3 and NV characters often say that while fleeing.

[@w415800]

She kept saying it because she knew he didn't save the game a single fucking time.

[@nocturnal9765]

"anyway so i started following people around IRL"

[@picahudsoniaunflocked5426]

That "Now that's a lady who knows how to escape captivity" would hit different if that ran over the Winn Dixie footage.

[@drakethedrake]

One of my favorite NPC quirks in Skyrim was from my scaly husband. I married Derkeethus who lives in Darkwater Pass and mines in the small mine there. After marrying he moved into my home in Whiterun and I didn't think anything of it. But one time when I was exiting a dungeon between Darkwater Pass and Whiterun I saw someone sprinting by. Ran over to see who it was and low and behold it was Derkeethus. Turns out each day in the morning he'd leave Whiterun to run all the way to Darkwater Pass so he could work the mine.

[@Avendesora]

the argonians yearn for the mines

[@FrostyFoxDrake]

he yearns for the bones in the deep. the earth bones

[@JosefinaQB]

Derkeethus be like: Cuz I’m a grinderrrr o o o o o o cuz I get money fr. O o o o o o

[@whatTFisThis]

man's got dedication

[@Muscleduck]

Diggy diggy hole Diggy diggy hole

[@UnhorsedGoose]

3:45 I've literally never seen this animation in my life

[@Jimbojaxify]

This is the same reason I love Stalker GAMMA. You can receive a quest from an NPC in one zone, go do all the stuff, and then find that the same NPC has now moved with their squad to an entirely different zone, because the A-life system simulates all NPCs and mobs even when the player isn't nearby. You can walk past a group of people one day, just to find them all murdered by a mysterious beast the next. Not a quest or scripted, but just an organic event that came out of the simulation. It's such a cool feeling to be a part of a world that simulates things even when you aren't there.

[@keythealien]

Did not expect for this quirky "following NPCs" video to include "very gentle" and "not weird" real life stalking of randos in a supermarket or existential cogitations regarding the functionality of the perceivable universe based on it being literally perceivable in that moment or not.

[@blakewhite3131]

I just thought it was funny because I've been hyper aware of how I act in a grocery store my whole life, it's called crippling social anxiety! So other people not even being aware of the poor irl pathfinding of ppl in grocery stores is very amusing

[@CWCvilleCop]

@@blakewhite3131 I've always done the same but it's because I've assumed there's always a chance someone like Austin is creepily watching me for their own niche reasons like making a video on NPC pathing vs real life behavior and I'm just shopping for English licorice candy and don't wanna be studied like that.

[@GelatinCoffee]

for real, i was also like "there is no way that is real right? people actually are that stupid??? i go in the store and say to myself over and over out loud "mom needed 2 dr pepper, uncle needed all the sprite zero they got if they have any" then my list "i need to stop by the discount bakery shelf. no dozen donuts though (quieter voice) oh shit i think that person heard me. they gave me a weird look. anyway, i should also check to see if they got any food marked down for a sale or discontinued. like that spicy dill pickle beef jerky, it tastes awful but not so bad if i chop it up and put it in ramen" and i walk around like a high schooler that's gotta get from one end of the building to the other in a 2 minute hall period 😂

[@zxyatiywariii8]

​@@blakewhite3131Me too, but for another reason: I'm some sort of security guard magnet. Wish I had a dollar for every time I got stopped! So I'm always hyper careful to walk dead-center of aisles whenever I'm not actually reaching for something off a shelf, and I avoid even walking PAST the jewelry section, even at Target. And don't even get me started on how TSA seems to "randomly" select me. . . !

[@CycleMantis]

I had a great moment playing Elder Scrolls where I completely lost track of Martin Septim. After some experimentation, I discovered that if I spawned a Jauffre clone, he would start sprinting in some direction. Using these homing Jauffres, I eventually made it to the a cave I'd been through long ago. And inside with Martin were the dozen Jauffres I had released. So I was able to continue the main questline

[@W4iteFlame]

Quite a story it is

[@ellaisplotting]

That's the funniest thing I've ever heard, gosh

[@canofraidantandroachspray8415]

"Homing Jauffres" is the greatest phrase I have ever laid my eyes upon. Thank you.

[@electricperfume7870]

janky problems require janky solutions.

[@brysonharrison5698]

Sounds like a Willburger video lmao

[@hotjoesummer]

My favorite Creation Engine lore is that the only reason in New Vegas your companions despawn and don't run back home like Fallout 3 is because Boone would just wreak havoc and solo the entire Legion army on his way back to Novac or Lucky 38.

[@sethmadlad5573]

*gamebryo engine

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

I now accept that as headcanon. Some scientist captured Boone (up to you if it's Big MT or aliens) and implanted him a teleport thingy that brings him instantly back to Novac because they need to keep the NCR-Legion conflict going.

[@kg30004]

@@sethmadlad5573then why does it work in the previous game? “Gamebryo bad” is ignorant.

[@RolandTheJabberwocky]

Common Boone W

[@GelatinCoffee]

easy solution. play on very hard, boone is pretty poopy then, unless you give him an expensive weapon and lots of good ammo for it 🙃🙃

[@trwijbenga]

I always liked your videos, but watching this video I couldn't help noticing how well everything is put together. The delivery, the pace, all these little jokes and philosophical ruminations, the editing, the dead pan humor, there is not a single dull moment during the 15 minute video. This isn't just a video of a guy following NPC's for fun, this is high quality content that gives many professional content creators a run for their money. Keep them coming Austin!

[@aipsventures]

I agree, I find these videos so pleasant to watch! they are so smooth~

[@liamarter8232]

There was this one shrine quest in BOTW where you had to solve a puzzle in a little graveyard like alcove area with little statues. Nearby was this researcher NPC's house (I don't remember his name). I decided to visit him and talk to him and he talked about his theories on how to solve the puzzle. I hung around long enough to find out that he had a cycle to get up leave his house, go to the puzzle area , and then hang there for a while before going home and starting over. What's cool is that he had different things to say depending on what stage of his cycle he was in and would react differently depending on if he was there when you solved the puzzle or not. These cool details that were just going on there own and not tied to what I was doing with a quest -- just moving in the background -- it was so cool. Made the world feel alive.

[@macroglossumstellatarum5932]

A couple funny ones from New Vegas: Vulpes Inculta from Nipton: walks east towards Cottonwood Cove. Unfortunately he does so in a straight line, up several cliffs and through Camp Searchlight, which is held by the NCR and filled with ghouls, which will kill him, though it's a close match. Oliver Swanick (the lottery winner): walks south into a lake infested with giant scorpions. He stops and cowers until they kill him. If the player removes the scorpions, he continues into crescent canyon, which is full of giant geckos, who kill him. If they are also removed he will stand around not doing anything. Malcom Holmes (the star bottlecap guy): spawns at Mojave Outpost once you pick up a sapsarilla star bottlecap, navigates to the player in a straight line wherever that takes him, which may take a while as you fast-travel around him. After talking to you he walks back in a straight line again, enters the bar at Mojave Outpost, but never appears inside. Benny fleeing the Tops casino: He only does this in a few very specific conversation paths. A normally unopenable elevator on the ground floor becomes unlocked until he enters it, so if you're fast you can go inside before him. There is an entire extra section of basement, where Benny apparently blasted his way into a sealed section of nearby Vault 21. However, there is no working exit, and overall a very barebones area with only one explosives crate to loot. One that I don't know, but always wondered about is where the Brotherhood patrols that sometimes exit the bunker ~2am go. They only ever leave, never return. They are also hostile, but you can slip by to start the brotherhood questline as early as you want. I think they only appear if you have the interiour of the bunker loaded, so you need to wait in front of the locked door. (I know most of these thanks to Many a True Nerd, who did something similar a few years ago.)

[@AbstractTraitorHero]

The second one was obviously intentional.

[@ellaisplotting]

I was about to say, hey I remember these from Jon's video 😆

[@radicalfishstickstm8563]

Malcolm spawns some time after you get the star bottlecap at wherever you’re currently at so it’s kinda up in the air if he intended to go to the outpost

[@iCookCrystalMeth]

i ❤ crescent canyon

[@wadespencer3623]

Apparently Boone is why they stopped companions from walking back to their places, cause he would walk through Legion encampments and depopulate the entirely.

[@TheJillers]

Im sure some of those NPCs were walking in the wrong direction, realized it, but wouldnt change direction because someone was nearby and could see them...at least i do that. Ill walk around a city block so that people dont see me turn around like a fool that doesnt know where theyre going.

[@any_austin]

this is a good take

[@NiiRubra]

Oh god, are you me? Going somewhere only to realize it is closed today for some dumb reason, and I should probably have checked if they were open on maps or something, but now I can't just turn around and go home, so I need to keep walking and act like this is just one stop among many on my busy route today, but it actually isn't, I was just going to this one place this time.

[@Yoarashi]

what i do is i take out my phone and pretend to read something on it before turning around. i wasnt going the wrong way, ive simply received new information and adjusted my plans accordingly. im normal

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

When I have to turn back I pretend that I have to for some reason. Like indeed "receiving" a message on my phone that tells me things changed. Or pulling out a paper with "directions" that I "accidentally misread"

[@Tine_of_Nice_Dreams]

​@@YoarashiI love this comment. So real

[@ShadeTheBade]

I did this once with NPCs in Cyberpunk 2077. There's so many people just walking the streets of Night City that I just had to follow a couple of them to see where they were going. Often it was nowhere, but one time I followed an NPC for like 10 minutes, and they walked into a building. It was exciting

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

The developers ever intended the player to stalk NPCs. So someone just walking along makes it feel populated, but once you break the expectations things get weird.

[@saschaberger3212]

I did this when the game came out. They seriously went in 100m circles. Or entered the train station and went out 10 seconds later. It was a mess. I'm positively surprised someone of yours had waypoints for 10 minutes

[@theRadcafe]

I did this recently to an npc that was wearing an odd, slightly out of place outfit with a name tag. I started following her & she seemed to get freaked out and started walking faster while checking behind her, then shortly started running from me. It was really fascinating. Still following, I got slightly distracted by NCPD officers doing something strange and when I looked back she was gone. Couple irl days later I saw her working at a diner but I can't remember which. God I love video games

[@Coka-Rolla]

Bro, if you would watch my pathing in the grocery store, you’d definitely think I was programmed by Bethesda.

[@darrennew8211]

You can find Tullius walking about to Soltheim and the Thalmor lady going back to the embassy. You can follow Daphne from Whiterun back to Riverwood after she talks to Farangar but before you're dragonborn. You can follow the three guards from whiterun back to riverwood after you report the dragon attack. You can follow Malborn back to Windhelm and protect him, and he gives you another quest if he makes it there.

[@Cahleeeb]

I love that Austin actually goes and does the stuff I've always wondered about

[@Terminated_Account]

wandered*

[@elliotgandersen]

True!

[@ofconsciousness]

THIS. it's a public service, truly.

[@colbemugen9932]

dudes a fucking legend

[@loud_shitting]

like stalking people in a grocery store? lol

[@someguywithatophat7599]

I wonder if DogMeat taking a round about way to get to valut 101, was because he was, at least at first, was trying to get away from you, so that he could get far enough away to 'despawn' maybe its a way to avoid dogmeat and other companions from dying randomly on that route, yk, to get far enough away so that they can just teleport without it being obvious to the player

[@renaigh]

I think that is exactly it, because in New Vegas followers will immediately despawn when dismissed instead.

[@someguywithatophat7599]

@@renaigh I might have to download fallout 3 and check to see if Dog Meat will follow a similar/the same route or not, and how much that depends on my position around him

[@ammarally3055]

@@renaigh In New Vegas they actually walked back to their original location the issue was they would almost always get killed by something like Deathclaws or Cazadors. this was changed in an update to what you see now

[@mrziiz6893]

@@ammarally3055 the mohave is simply too dangerous for anyone other than a brain damaged mailmen to walk around

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

@@someguywithatophat7599 might be worth looking for a mod that gives a map marker for companions so that you can see if he always takes the same route. But then, he is a dog, so he might just do dog things. You send him back to Vault 101, but nowhere was it implied that he takes the shortest route.

[@gentlegallon]

I've been playing FO3 recently and found my dad at Vault 112. I told him I would meet him at Rivet City instead of going with him. Not even a minute later, I got a notification that "Dad is unconscious" :/ I used a scoped rifle to look for him and found him getting into a fight with a Robobrain. I watched his stick straight body rise from the dead like a vampire out of a coffin and immediately start going fisticuffs with the robot again.

[@Spazcakes]

Whenever I tag along with him on his journey, he always manages to get himself into trouble, I guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, eh? One time he took on an entire raider camp with a pipe, bless him

[@thomasmiller8289]

He also will pick up stronger weapons, and then keep them in later scenes. I have a doozy of a screenshot with him at the jefferson memorial, clipboard and pencil in hand, minigun strapped to his arm.

[@theAlchemyst11]

I watched that man take out an entire raid of supermutants using nothing more than his little dinky revolver... and a missle launcher he stole from the corpse of one of the mutants. Seems like no matter what universe he exists in, Liam Neeson is destined to be a badass lol.

[@danielvidmar5519]

Hm,thats weird,when I played fallout 3 for the first time I thought you had to follow him so I followed him bu he didn't die

[@TheRealRusDaddy]

@@danielvidmar5519i had a similar experiance my first time playing i decided to follow dad back but not continue the quest and pretty much until we got to dc it was a calm boring run along the roads then it was a couple mutants and a really small group of raiders that bothered us as we entered then it was nothing again but sometimes dad’ll just take you on a wild ride acting like hes the main character

[@ConiferCreates]

NPC following in Fallout 3 is a really fascinating pastime. One of my favorite ones was following Mister Crowley from Underworld all the way up to the fort after turning in the quest.

[@atmaweapon2803]

On a historical note, the first game to give NPCs schedules in real time where they left their bed in the morning, went to work, had tea somewhere, ate food, and finally went back to bed...well, you would expect it to be a game this century, right? It's actually Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny in 1988. It's weird seeing little pixel characters in 16 color low res graphics have entire lives, but it's true. If you ever want to cover something from the stone ages of gaming, that might be an interesting choice.

[@Leeches-]

I remember doing this with NPCs in GTA SA as a kid. You'd just follow an NPC for like 45 minutes in real life time and they'd end up walking all the way from Los Santos to the middle of no where near Mt. Chilliad. The best was when you'd get an NPC that normally didn't walk the streets, like a soldier or firefighter, destroy their vehicle and then watch what they did now that they're unable to hop into their truck/tank and drive off again. One of those things you did with one hand while eating your dinner with the other. Good times.

[@rompevuevitos222]

I always liked how you could clear the wanted level with cheats and cops would instantly go "it's whatever, see ya around"

[@gibleyman]

An extremely rare occurrence I absolutely love is a Cop stealing another Cop's car to drive off. Happens when a Cop in the passenger seat gets out and has to get in again, this sometimes causes him to default to car hijacking mode instead of getting in the passenger seat. I've only seen this happen once in all my years of playing, I used the "no longer wanted" cheat while I was surrounded and noticed a Cop straight up stole a civilian's car to drive off. And the civilian just proceeds to walk around like nothing happened. San Andreas NPCs are just so hilarious.

[@FancyNoises]

So what DID the soldiers & firefighters do?? 😂

[@FancyNoises]

​@@gibleymanso what, the other cops just let him get away with their car?

[@rompevuevitos222]

@@FancyNoises Usually they just stand there throwing gang signs.

[@goldrush9560]

I'll be the creation engine knowledge guy. The npc's have a point they're supposed to walk to. Important ones like dogmeat get there and stay, unimportant ones are "disabled", or disappear. The route they take is determined by "navmesh", which are invisible lines that determine what npc's see as valid route and terrains. Theres a bunch of them and they all intersect, but the sensible route to vault 101 probably just didnt have navmesh at some point, so dogmeat could only figure out how to get there the way he did. The captives were probably heading somewhere toward the edge of the map. The reason why it looked like one of them vanished when you went through the cell door is because waiting or transitioning between doors autocompletes the "package" that npc is using. So when you followed him into the sewer, he autocompleted his route and then disappeared forever once he got there.

[@chrismetzger6746]

The “this is hopeless” lady really should’ve taken a leaf from the “punches giant monsters” kid. Then maybe she wouldn’t be goo.

[@inerdify]

I love observing this in The Division from time to time, since the game will randomly send out supply runs you can either assist, or rob. theyre mapping is cool to just watch. as well as Hitman, where EVERY NPC is coded to have a pathway you can interrupt, stop, delay, re-route, etc. You can even if you look away you can consistently time when an NPC reaches a desired point.

[@theSwiftest04]

loving the fallout 3 content! i remember when i was little, i used to do this all the time to see where npcs go. you can even usually follow caravans around, and catch them in the world! they even go to places, and will only stay in front of a town for so long!!! for a seventeen year old game, it's surprisingly held up really well and still continues to impress me almost every time i play it.

[@nickelion1760]

I feel so bad for the escaped lady. She never knew where she was going, always running, down on her luck at the bottom..only to get turned into goop. RIP lady. I don't know your name but you don't have to run anymore.

[@picahudsoniaunflocked5426]

She looks like a "Beth". RIP Beth

[@dirty_duck]

@@picahudsoniaunflocked5426 First name: Beth Last name: Esda (?)

[@erikgilson1687]

@dirty_duck lol this was a monster factory joke. "Hi my name is Bethany Esda. I made Fallout 4 this is my game"

[@dirty_duck]

@@erikgilson1687 ahah, didn't know that, but i guess that after all those years, almost every joke was made (oh, and don't forget to buy Skyrim)

[@erikgilson1687]

@@dirty_duck if you never watched Monster Factory's fallout 4 videos I'd really recommend it they're up there with the funniest video game content ever

[@RAPartisan]

This mechanic generates a weird cheese strat I've abused when i was a kid. You can just follow the caravan with a couple of sadistic guards that will obliterate everything even remotely demonstrating any danger to them, loot it and immediately sell to the same caravan. This is absolutely legit and does not make any sense at the same time

[@Potatezone]

I think you're just RP'ing as that caravan's scavenger at that point. Not everyone's gonna be happy with rifling through corpses, you're providing a service they mutually benefit from.

[@gamerdomain6618]

Some robbers will force people to buy things off of them instead of forcibly taking the money for free, so you're just selling the caravan's wares back to them as a highwayman.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

I do that during one part in New Vegas. There is a caravan somewhere behind Nipton that goes to Novac. That caravan will get jumped by nightstalkers and legion forces along the way. They protect me from the nightstalkers, and whoever goes down in the fight against the legion finances me getting medical services and the motel room in Novac. A similar situation north of Novac towards the 188. There are always raiders, there are fire ants. Sometimes there are legion assassins out for me. But it's also a caravan route. Together we have more firepower and there is a save way to get loot. And yes, I know those schedules by now.

[@mariuszpudzianowski8400]

It always felt weird that you can't be a caravan guard as a side quest, this is such a classic Fallout job.

[@stinhuffine4422]

This is probably the only way how you can get any starting gear at all in Fallout 1 or 2

[@NickJerrison]

Somebody could write an entire short story set in the Fallout universe about a slave who was freed, only to be doomed to run across the Wasteland for days without sleep in search of shelter, surviving wildlife and multiple ambushes, only to just be shot down by a random dude with a plasma rifle. It would really fit the Fallout universe whatever way they try to portray it, be it sentimental with a message of hopelessness in the post-apocalypse, or with dark humour of just how ridiculous her whole situation was.

[@leviticusprime4904]

Suprised there isn’t much comic book material about fallout, the only one that comes to mind is the new Vegas prequel, but that’s it.

[@Salted_Fysh]

Meanwhile a really creepy man with a microphone and hair clips runs behind them the entire time without a word, killing anything nearby.

[@wyattbottorff2473]

Why either or? Both hopelessness and humor!

[@SomaCruz500]

Flock of Seagulls- “I ran”.

[@blehh_mae]

i think a bunch of times in fallout theres implications that its hard or annoying to get into some settlements, especially if youre a ghoul or probably other random factors like fear of synths, but no matter what you can pretty damn easily go wherever you please as the main character honestly, and im just now realizing how weird that is

[@TalonWaterZ]

14:49 Obvs not. He worked on the engine. Look at the beard, my guy for sure works from home.

[@neilmarkcorre5524]

As a game developer, this is very interesting. Thank you for this. Gonna go stay up late now binging your videos. Cheers!

[@anomonyous]

No wonder we get so many shite games these days. You're all just watching KZbin vids! /s

[@neilmarkcorre5524]

@@anomonyous lol fair point. Binging video essays and playi- ehem - researching these new cooler games that keep popping up.

[@SpeedyC16]

I may be wrong, but I think the reason Dogmeat goes the opposite way is because at first the AI attempts to get away from the player's field of vision so that they can "teleport" to the location instead of walk there, (since it might be faster than actually walking back there) however, once you start following Dogmeat, the player kinda forces the NPC to just walk there. as for prisoners, it is the same logic, they keep running until they are far enough to disappear. I am by no means a modder, or a creation engine expert, however this is my assumption knowing Bethesda games (and a bit of game dev)

[@That-Will-Do-It]

I could be wrong, but I remember having to wait an hour or two in order to get NPCs to come to me because I beat them by fast traveling.

[@DogsRNice]

I haven't played fallout 3 so it could work differently in there but generally npcs don't teleport in Bethesda games (aside from going through an entrance) Once they're out of your field of view they get abstracted into the background basically And this includes pathfinding, they just seem to gradually move along a path until they reach their destination, nothing else happens to them You can see this in action in fallout 4 if you place a marker on all of your followers and send them somewhere, once they leave your field of view they speed up compared to their normal walking speed

[@lunchbox997]

So this will be a very techinical answer to specifically the wasteland captives, I apologize in advance for the wall of text, but if you're curious here you go. The Captives are apart of a faction in the GECK (Bethesda Editor) called FFSupermutantCaptiveVar(##) which can be HF, CF, CM, AF, AM, AAF, AAM, which probably is shorthand for where they're located. Their class is "villager", alignment neutral, disposition base 35, skilled in Barter, Medicine, Melee Weapons. Base health of 20, and calculated health of 35. They change factions when they're freed, they go from WastelandCaptiveFACTION to WastelandFreedCaptiveFACTION. Their AI data is Unagressive, Brave confidence, Helps nobody. The Quest Script removes them from the WastelandFreedCaptiveFaction, but after being freed they no longer ignore crime so they will respond to friendly fire, they're added to WastelanderFaction and also to WastelandFreedCaptiveFaction again. The script also checks for the timer, if there's no timer it sets the timer to 10 seconds, I'm assuming that this is the amount of time they want the captive to leave the screen and despawn in another cell. They also have a 50% chance to yell "This is hopeless" if GetRandomPercent

[@maxkorner6608]

I don't really know anything about AI packages so maybe you already answered it between the lines and I just didn't get it, but I have to ask: why did the first freed captive go into the subway?

[@icycloud6823]

I was wondering where the captives would go... Though I was kind of expecting that they would probably be heading outside the map, this really confirms it. It doesn't really make sense for them to head anywhere else unless the developers wanted to give them a place to go after they are free like megaton, so them just going outside the map makes the most sense. Thank you for your in-depth explanation of their AI.

[@Rad_Dan]

I for sure did not expect the Fallout 3 child to fight the creature. Good for him

[@ThommyofThenn]

I've been curious about these NPC journeys and have even followed them also; but I gave up usually after 5 minutes due to the stopping and backtracking thing. Thanks for actually examining this

[@Littlegungho]

Yes. Big yes. This brought back a core memory in oblivion where after completing some smol quest I’d explore the area for a bit but whenever I’d head on my way I’d find that npc in some random pond or something

[@Fanatic4500]

I think the NPC was speaking directly to you when she screamed "this is hopeless", Austin. She was telling you that following her is a struggle against entropy, that her painful existence will only come to an end if you allow her to run off and cease to be.

[@Skeleton---Arts]

11:00 "fuckin f*st" was way funnier to me than it should've been

[@aaronhobart934]

Yeah, that censor was so innacurately placed, it's funny.

[@saintsnakech]

Austin, your channel and your videos are truly exactly EVERYTHING I've ever hoped for a creator to do, and I adore that you remain 100% genuine to yourself. Keep making the beautiful content we all need and answering all the questions the world TRULY needs!

[@any_austin]

🫡

[@Platypi007]

In Final Fantasy XIV players have retainers, NPCs you hire to hold inventory items, sell stuff in the markets, and you can also have them level any class you have leveled and send them out on expeditions to bring you things like crafting materials, armor, housing items. If they're battle classes then they go on hunting missions, if they're gatherers then they go out doing that type of gathering (fishing, mining, botany). You sometimes see retainers out in the wild doing gathering at the same gathering nodes players use. I'm not sure if they are actual retainers or if Square Enix added NPC retainers to the wild just to give it some flavor.

[@CheeseyCat252]

0:30 when i went with Ada, I saw Codsworth get attacked and i helped him 😭

[@skbproject5589]

6:45 imagine that story. A small child living in a wasteland, finally given freedom from his warlord captors, racing across the desert as he speeds towards a Neverland bastion of hope, little lamp light. The night drags on, and he eventually is stalked by a horrific mirelurk king. To the average wastelander, that is lethal encounter, and to a young boy I can only imagine it to be the worst nightmare of his life. He runs and runs and runs, and tries to hide, but it doesn't matter, the beast is upon him... So what does he do? He stands up, and with courage and fights back, startling the otherwise fearless beast. Through the confusion and haze of conquest, the boy manages to strike the creature just enough to sprint off and evade capture once again. What an absolutely riveting tale, and I really think I'm going to write a short story about that. How interesting a moment to capture, how humorous. The jester claps sir, the jester claps.

[@BEASTYBYRD]

4:38 just got back from grocery shopping can confirm that people have weird pathfinding, especially myself

[@Yoarashi]

couldn't be my autistic ass, i optimize my grocery% runs

[@BEASTYBYRD]

@@Yoarashi each time I tell myself I'm just there for a couple specific things only for me to immediately get distracted.... my adhd is too powerful

[@N4TM4c]

My favourite one from Fallout 3 is when you rig the election in the Republic of Dave and then Dave leaves. If you follow him he goes to Old Olney (great choice) and declares his new alleyway, the New Republic of Dave.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

Dave 2: Election Boogaloo

[@ndh06]

Yeah, I followed Dave. Sadly, a deathclaw found him before he made it to his new Republic

[@mariuszpudzianowski8400]

Dave is a nutjob so it's fine, but I always wondered why Slavers just keep going if you tell them there are escaped slaves in Old Olney. You would think that after first deathclaw kills like 90% of their team they would think twice but they just keep going.

[@mushroomfish300]

I think the reason dogmeat wanders around when going back to the vault is that he is taking the path with the least amount of obstacles. The devs likely didn’t want him to accidentally get stuck on a piece of geometry so they made him take a significantly longer path so that he won’t get stuck and make the player have no hope of finding him.

[@Croftice1]

Actually nope. It's because the player confuses the game. Normal behavior would be to despawn Dogmeat as soon as you're loosing sight of him, but following him makes his follower behavior taking over again. He isn't supposed to walk/run all the way to Vault 101 on his own, the game engine just despawns him and then he's waiting inside for your return. Following him breaks this mechanics.

[@hayberdasher8625]

I love that not only does Austin make great video game videos, but also makes better commercials than professionals

[@Clump666]

they walk in Skyrim. I remember trying to hurry and catch the Redguards that were looking for the fugitive girl in Whiterun

[@Pilps]

This guy asks the questions I never knew I wanted the answers too. Love your stuff!

[@any_austin]

Thank you fellow KZbinr

[@cynic5581]

Bro! I just did this in Skyrim with the companions radiant quest ‘rescue mission’ less than 8 hours ago. For me it was a lot easier because you just need to follow them in the hold you bring them too. What they do in Skyrim is use a random background character you normally don’t interact with and wouldn’t recognize. ‘Illdi’ from the Bard college for example. Once you rescue her she walks back to the Bards college, vanishes once you walk in the door to later pop up attending classes again. Their dialogue thanking end but it’s cool to see the person you rescued living their best life.

[@Deftones445]

“Another npc I wanted to follow around was this child” 5:43

[@leahl5007]

I liked the part where Austin gave me a dang existential crisis.

[@Cat-ts9ms]

one thing I love about FNV is that all of the NPCs you can rescue, whether from the legion or some vault or whatever else, have somewhere to go to after you rescue them, and you can find them there. A lot of the time their pathing breaks and they'll just stand around in the same spot at that point, but it's still nice that it's there.

[@Bluutuber]

Special shout out to the "lottery winner" that is scripted to head directly to a radscorpion nest and idle there until they kill him. Even if you clear all the scorpions out ahead of time, he always stands right where the entrance to the nest is, guaranteeing that they will eventually respawn and kill him. It's especially hilarious because as you said, most NPCs that run off do in fact have a safe destination, whether its the Mojave outpost, the NCR refugee camp, or freeside/mormon fort. So it was definitely a deliberate "fuck you" from the devs to make that obnoxious jerk run right into a scorpion nest.

[@eliyaxue3945]

@@Bluutuber if you kill all the scorpions doesn't he run to freeside?

[@Thiccubus]

The pathing breaks *mostly* because the navmesh of FNV is near FUBAR levels of fucked. Thankfully, a modder is (slowly) repairing them. Name of InTheGrave, if curious. When that's finished, maybe one can safely follow them to their destinations.

[@Птица-ы3в]

​@@Bluutuber I killed all the radscorpions and he ran straight into the nighstalkers nest 😢

[@XcatisX]

Wow. Hundreds of hours in Fallout 3 and I have NEVER seen that Dogmeat swimming animation

[@picahudsoniaunflocked5426]

The animator deserves a hi-five.

[@DapperDemon]

I learned this when looking into more about the urban legend in Skyrim about foxes leading you to treasure. For Bethesda games, part of their path finding is based on how many triangles of the navmesh they are crossing. For the fox, it's scripted to "run (X) triangles away", which means functionally it ends up running toward stuff where things are instead of the open woods because the triangles of the navmesh are smaller in areas they expect you to interact with, so it can cross more triangles quicker. My guess is the "head home" pathfinding works on an opposite function, especially in earlier games. they're probably scripted to "get from A to B in as few triangles as possible". mathematically, this makes sense, but functionally it means they will seek out out-of-the-way areas so they can cross a larger space in as few navmesh triangles as possible. I love when game design that sounds functional on paper ends up with weird behavior in practice. side note, for NPCs in Fallout 4 that you rescue and choose not to send to a settlement, if they are scripted to not despawn they go to Diamond City and just stand there forever

[@zxyatiywariii8]

Excellent point.

[@brunatheeldar]

I have no clue how I got to your channel, but in 4 days, I watched all of your Bathesda content. Absolutely delightful. Please keep it up. I will watch you talk about any trivial and/or ridiculous aspect of those games for however long you make content about it.

[@Yamchasbestfr]

2:53 what monster working at Bethesda came up with the idea that dogmeat can die. If I ever come face to face with that man he will regret it.

[@harpy5629]

I once followed an NPC for the Dark Brotherhood quest line from Solitude (I think) to Dragon Bridge, and that dude was in water, going the opposite directions, getting stuck on trees, I was following him for like an hour. It was wild. Eventually I just teleported to Drago Bridge so he could just get some rest.

[@TheDanishGuyReviews]

Dogmeat can doggy paddle? What a treat! The developers didn't have to do that, but they did, and I love it.

[@wyattbottorff2473]

13:47 This is the kind of thing that keeps a lot of us so attracted to Bethesda style games. The depth of these worlds can grasp you in surprisingly profound ways, I argue, more often than the jank detracts from the experience.

[@zxyatiywariii8]

This exactly.

[@JJMortris]

I once found the count of Skingrad in the sewers of the Imperial City while playing Oblivion. No idea why or how he was there, but I followed him all the way as he walked from there to Skingrad, falling over every few feet from the sun damage (because of his "condition").

[@oath_of_ancients3803]

The one time I did a legion playthrough for completion's sake, and when the raiders at nipton walked off I followed them. They just walked into the hills to the side of town, started panicking and running in circles, and then died fighting the raiders down the road

[@MCLuviin]

Companions follow a marked route home. Think of airplane routes in the sky. A net of lines with waypoints in-between. So they wherever they are move to the closest "beacon" on that line and then travel to the next one. Through combat the beacon is lost. They move to fight. And then take the first beacon nearby and follow the route. Its important to know that the beacon they follow is one that goes away from the PC, so by following Dogmeat you push him to the next beacon away from you. Until you get to the end of a line and he cuts left or right. Then because you are away from the vault and the beacon is between him and the vault it turns into a "direct" route When you dont follow them they walk towards the first beacon and usually get far enough away to just despawn.

[@Merivio]

all because they couldn't keep their NPCs from dying while you're around...

[@B4D4617f]

M'aiq the Liar is one of the weirdest eldar scrolls characters. He is reoccurring in every game, says weird stuff, then runs off into the distance. There might be a video there.

[@FrostyFoxDrake]

m’aiq started as a silly way for the devs to poke fun at their/the higher-ups design decisions, but he kinda just became a weird traveler who references fast travel (also ESO actually gave him lore for some reason)

[@DomyTheMad420]

5:00 this is actually due to our uncanny ability to be both sentient beings AND being able to 'zone out' on the regular. "when you miss your exit on the highway" is both one of the most terrifying and awe inspiring feats we accidentally pull off.

[@zxyatiywariii8]

True, but it doesn't happen until behavior becomes deeply coded until we develop a sort of internal autopilot. I can zone out while walking, but I never had to drive much (NYC kid, cars were an unnecessary expense) so it still awes me when people can.

[@SpotTiger]

This is very cool!! Interesting stuff!! The boring reality in most games is probably: 1. Go out of render distance/Get caught by occlusion culling. 2. Despawn. 3. Respawn at DESTINATION if player within render distance. Ive read the comments, and people seem to know a lot more, so this is just a basic understanding. Apparently the game tracks the unloaded people along the journey they are supposed to take and loads them in if you're nearby. Very cool!!

[@bobbinsgaming3028]

It's always been a known factor in Fallout 3 that a lot of NPCs can just be killed in the wasteland based on their journey. It's why quests have redundancies built in because so often the NPCs related to them are dead or later killed.

[@jacob2389]

I find it really interesting how games path characters. They clearly define paths that stretch across the map, I assume it saves processing power so they don't actually have to make pathing decisions, but they basically can see a giant network of crisscrossing highways that they're meant to follow and when you release them, it's like a Friday afternoon commute. It would be really interesting if you could get 10 or so NPCs and send them back home from one out of the way corner of the map, i bet they'd just form a caravan that slowly sees people take their exits. Would be hilarious to watch

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

Should be possible in Fallout 4 by having all your companions in one settlement, then pick them up and dismiss them to another settlement one-by-one, and follow them around. The closest thing to having multiple followers without having multiple followers.

[@Matty002]

the cosmic absurness of her getting plasma gooped after all that is crazy

[@MonochromeWench]

The NPCs try to take paths along predefined roads. They can take shortcuts through interior cells. If an npc moves into an unloaded cell the game does not load the cell so they never encounter hostiles or objects like doors that block their path. NPCs can change cells through locked doors without the key. Movement through unloaded cells is much accelerated. NPCs can move great distances while time elapses as the player fast travels, making it difficult for the player to get ahead of them without using teleport console commands.

[@DogsRNice]

Yeah I noticed this with fallout 4 I sent all my companions to the castle from sanctuary and followed along with them and they almost always just stuck to the roads It was pretty fun but a bit annoying because they all have different walking speeds So instead of staying in a group they would eventually turn into a long line But they'd get bunched up again when we encountered some enemies Eventually they did split into two groups near the castle for some reason

[@Ryyi23]

14:26 Just like Forrest Gump!

[@weltinator4953]

When I'm in a store and I remember I needed something in an aisle I passed and I have to backtrack, or I forget what I was looking for and stand staring at a shelf for a minute, it is a major source of anxiety that people might notice and think I'm weird, and the only way I can reassure myself is by telling myself no one notices or cares. The fact that you actually went to a store and paid attention to people doing stuff like that is going to haunt me.

[@krozareq]

@any_austin 14:34 The tech they developed and use is called Radiant AI. It's been in use since Oblivion. NPCs are given at least 1 role (AI package) and it tries its best to fulfil that role. They have a place they work, certain dialog which can be tailored to player's past actions, and even a home where they go after work. If that NPC is killed, then it's possible for another NPC to take on the role. I.e. if you kill the owner of the Bannered Mare in Whiterun, Ysolda will later take over the ownership. You can play around with it more in-depth with the Creation Kit. There are a bunch of default AI packages you can assign to a character and you can create your own. They can change to other AI packages depending on time of day, day of the week, and other events that you define. When you create a custom package, you can select a template (Guarding, Patrolling, etc) or use "sandbox." Set the rules such as to allow sleeping, sitting, wandering, idling, using items within a set radius, etc. Then there's a procedural tree and conditions you can define. Can define the package within certain times, in specific cells (such as inside the Bannered Mare inn), and a lot more stuff. You can also look up the NPCs you were following and see exactly how they were scripted in the Radiant system.

[@theshinken]

I have a fun Skyrim story related to this: We played through Skyrim with Co-Op mod (=Skyrim but with way more bugs and glitches, it's super fun) and because we couldn't decide which side to take (I was pro Imperial, friend was pro Stormcloaks), we did that lame "council and peace treaty at the Greybeards" option to progress through the storyline. Problem was: Delphine (that badass Blades breton girl) wouldn't show up at High Hrothgar and so the quest couldn't progress. Now there are several console options to power through such a situation (console command hacking is like half of the fun of Skyrim Co-Op) and me and my friend tried some stuff and also contemplated what to do and goofed around alot at the monastery like we always do (deep triple digits playtime for our Co-Op run). Anyway: After what felt like ages Delphine actually showed up! But, as we learned later, she didn't teleport, she ACTUALLY RAN ALL THE WAY from Whiterun Hold up the Seven Thousand Steps because of some weird scripting bug and that's what took her so damn long. I think the most amazing part is that this somehow worked and she successfully arrived. Countless more fun storys from that Co-Op playthrough so if you're interested, AMA.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

So she made her way through the troll and the ice wraiths... Oh, and the bandits at that one tower next to the bridge east of Whiterun. You know that one. They want a fee to let you pass.

[@ljubomirjovanovic2666]

​@@HappyBeezerStudiosAh yes, Valtheim tower. A place where even if you pass the intimidation check, you'll still get attacked, truly a game of all time.

[@GwenSpanner]

First time I saved dad from the simulation vault I followed him all the way to rivet city because roleplay and I wanted to protect him (had already lost dogmeat and didn't know about essential npcs), and it was a fun journey. Unless I'm misremembering, honestly I probably got distracted along the way and lost him.

[@Zack_Wester]

I think the Dad route is one that sort of actually work as the player is told to also go there. so the dev might have made sure that it works if the player follow dad as I remmber following dad and he took a somewhat straight route and safe route.

[@Yurie13]

nah, I'm interested too.. I myself did this too.. I know the feeling of following those rescued orc hostages.. I usually stick around traders and making sure they arrive at their spots whenever I met them in the wild.. the one npc that successfully did one point to another is that man that needs water.. one day I met him randomly in the wild and settled outside the water station(?) I passed some time little by little until he moves then he started walking until we arrived at megaton.. I got spawn multiplier mod by 3x so any encounter is deadly to all npc

[@ReximillionPegasus]

I am absolutely obsessed with all of your videos, this is the kind of art i want to make

[@cdakak]

Here's something i've been wondering about. In tears of the kindgdom, you know those fights some npcs have with moblins when you reach them? I wonder if they all lose or all win. You as the player always step in to help them, but are some npcs better warriors than others?

[@any_austin]

Dang good idea

[@gamerdomain6618]

Well, they use a pretty basic fighting style, so it depends on what loadout the monster is using. One red bokoblin with a spear would probably have its ass handed to it by traveling NPCs, but two silver lizalfos and a black moblin would kick three peoples' asses, which results in them being incapacitated for a short period of time.

[@ashleyneku5432]

I don't think NPCs can die to monsters. I'm not sure about ToTK, but when I played Breath of the Wild, they just went into a sitting animation with stars about their head in a comical knockout fashion. Humans are almost universally armed with "Traveler" gear (the sword and spear usually). I don't think they can do actual damage though. I'm pretty sure the fight never resolves without the player's input.

[@christhestampeder]

NPCs in both those games can be knocked unconscious by enemies. They take forever to wake up if that happens, and just lie on the ground with spirals over their heads until they do. This is what usually happens. It is possible for some NPCs with better weapons to defeat the weaker moblins some of the time, but that rarely happens. The fights play out completely legitimately based on the games' combat system, and the enemies are spec'ed to be a threat to Link whereas the NPCs are not, so it's pretty one-sided. Witnessing an NPC triumph involved finding a strong one fighting a weak enemy (which become increasingly rare as the game progresses, especially in BotW), and then hoping they get some lucky hits in while the enemy's luck in making contact is poor.

[@jorgemtzb9359]

I can actually answer that! The NPCs do in fact have "health" and will get knocked out and fall unconscious if it's depleted by enemies they're fighting. If they win they'll tend to do a small celebration gesture before going on their way. Some are better than others at it. For example gerudo guards will do quick work of wandering monsters with their spears, but a traveler might not be so lucky if they run across an enemy camp. So if you see an npc fighting monsters and you just... let them go at it. They'll be knocked out and be unable to fight. They'll wake up after a certain amount of time once the enemies are defeated, and because you didn't actually help them, rather than reward you for your valiant efforts they'll complain about being dizzy and what else. Something fun too, if you walk into their fight but rather than fight you try to talk to them they often even chastise you like DUDE WHAT ARE YOU DOING. HELP.

[@Yt_chatEnjoyer]

The first time I found out about this it was because I had gotten on the NCR’s bad side in New Vegas. While wandering the strip an MP approached me to yell at me right before I decided to fast travel away, after spending a few days about in the wasteland I saw the same dude randomly running towards me before I decided to tp to back to the strip. He got close enough to initiate dialogue this time and I was forced to kill him, but I’ll always remember the loyal NCR soldier who spend his final days tracking down courier six.

[@GelatinCoffee]

i think the moment that really got me into NPC watching sometimes in games (especially bethesda games) was skyrim. i had just gotten my xbox 360 from the trash and asked my mom if we could go to vintage stock to get some games for it, i got fallout 3 & new vegas, a couple call of duty games, and skyrim. i watched so many things about skyrim that made it seem like a sandbox so i wanted to start with it. get in, turn the difficulty to legendary, get curb stomped in the tutorial a bit. then i'm out in the world, followed the main quest a bit, wandered around the outside of whiterun. found a giant's camp, accidentally made them angry and ran to whiterun out of desperation that i could just go through the gate and be done with it. the guards were angry with the giants, eventually killed the giants. most of them went back to patrol or whatever, but this specific duo decided to run off. so i followed them, they went to kill the mamoths that didn't get angry and follow me to whiterun, then some wolfs, and at that point. they were just running around killing everything except deer and rabbits, eventually my two heros found a forsworn camp, and got massacared

[@cabuscus]

In All of this guys videos it looks like hes doing a really bad karaoke night with a birds nest on his head

[@kiraoshiro6157]

me when I see any austin upload: AUSTIN, AUSTIN, AUST- (this goes on until I am removed from the premises)

[@MFKitten]

When I played FO3, there's a part of the story where you've found your dad and he has to run to the next location. I decided to go sleep repeatedly until I saw him reach that location on the map, before fast travelling there. You could see him on the map, slowly slowly making his way across.

[@seancutt793]

Austin I suggest you follow the Forsworn home after freeing them from the prisons at Markarth. It's really fun trekking with them and fighting off dragons and other enemies. The base they go to is also very interesting and really cool payoff :)

[@thisdudegotreal]

Pathfinding for the easiest route to a node that leads to the nearest unloaded cell (map square yet to be loaded in) is what you're seeing when Dogmeat goes the wrong way. Once he reaches the unloaded cell his actor deloads, as do all actors, geometry and textures that would only exist in those cells when the player enters them. No enemy actors or their AI scripting are loaded in these cells so while the reference point for that actor is physically moving through the map at their movement speed they do not encounter geometry or active enemies unless the player is close enough to the cell to load them in.

[@defnotanny]

The first time I played Fallout New Vegas I was really curious what that bright city in the distance had to offer but the way there was way too dangerous, so I spent 45 real life minutes following a caravan that was roughly heading that direction thinking surely all caravans would go there, and indeed they did. The armed caravan guards did really well killing off any threat that came our way, and they seemed to know a certain path that is relatively safe staying mostly undiscovered. It felt very rewarding to accomplish my goal in this very immersive approach, because previously I had been trying to just get there on my own and was failing and dying there all the time (and I dont like to savescum). It taught me something about how approaching RPGs in a very immersive way and less "gamy" "minmaxy" way can be really fun.