I've always thought the way companions interact was bull****. Sure, it was overpowered to have too many of them, but the way they thinned themselves out, and were the only thing available (claimant/partner/mod character/other aside) often seemed really contrived.
-Companions should not be set characters. I don't want to run into Rolf of house Rolf every game. Maybe Dave of house Rolf, but the same guy? If players end up looking up some meta-stuff, things are worse than they could've been, because it limits how much we see of someone, we might never see certain dialogues because we've spoiled ourselves and are avoiding them.
-Rather than tavern hunting, companions should come up, dynamically, in interesting ways that are relevant to what kind of person they are. We escort a caravan, and one of the caravaneers could join us. We save a village or a prisoner, and we might get a volunteer who does X, is of Y nation, and wants to join us for vengeance/honour and glory/because they lost everything. Maybe a soldier we train up might go POP and become a companion.
More or less, characters should pop up with a similar kind of character generation as the player, befitting of how and when they were found. "Father was something appropriate, I became something appropriate,something appropriate happened along the way, I come from appropriate land, have a tie to appropriate thing, I've joined the player for an appropriate reason, and I have an appropriate personality." with maybe smaller chances to generate something wild (I had a fun time writing some crazy wild cards, but they were all too silly to put together in one go, it'd detract from the post) If not they could have more goals than a player could at character creation, like wanting a specific piece fief they believe to be rightly theirs, to hunt down a specific character that'd wronged them (which could be the player) or to travel to many locations (think personal revenge, loss of a loved one, forced from home and wonderlust as achievable goals)
-Companions should be able to die (or have their own "win" conditions which have them retire and give the player and other companions a lot of xp). Maybe with a comparatively low chance compared to regular troops, maybe only on a total loss or other player-mandated screw up. In return, they should level up faster. The player (and NPCS) should run through companions, with some being short lived affairs whilst others become lifelong friends who have new interactions with every new name. As bannerlord won't have much voiced dialogue, some level of this wouldn't be so hard to implement.
-Companions should not be set characters. I don't want to run into Rolf of house Rolf every game. Maybe Dave of house Rolf, but the same guy? If players end up looking up some meta-stuff, things are worse than they could've been, because it limits how much we see of someone, we might never see certain dialogues because we've spoiled ourselves and are avoiding them.
-Rather than tavern hunting, companions should come up, dynamically, in interesting ways that are relevant to what kind of person they are. We escort a caravan, and one of the caravaneers could join us. We save a village or a prisoner, and we might get a volunteer who does X, is of Y nation, and wants to join us for vengeance/honour and glory/because they lost everything. Maybe a soldier we train up might go POP and become a companion.
More or less, characters should pop up with a similar kind of character generation as the player, befitting of how and when they were found. "Father was something appropriate, I became something appropriate,something appropriate happened along the way, I come from appropriate land, have a tie to appropriate thing, I've joined the player for an appropriate reason, and I have an appropriate personality." with maybe smaller chances to generate something wild (I had a fun time writing some crazy wild cards, but they were all too silly to put together in one go, it'd detract from the post) If not they could have more goals than a player could at character creation, like wanting a specific piece fief they believe to be rightly theirs, to hunt down a specific character that'd wronged them (which could be the player) or to travel to many locations (think personal revenge, loss of a loved one, forced from home and wonderlust as achievable goals)
-Companions should be able to die (or have their own "win" conditions which have them retire and give the player and other companions a lot of xp). Maybe with a comparatively low chance compared to regular troops, maybe only on a total loss or other player-mandated screw up. In return, they should level up faster. The player (and NPCS) should run through companions, with some being short lived affairs whilst others become lifelong friends who have new interactions with every new name. As bannerlord won't have much voiced dialogue, some level of this wouldn't be so hard to implement.
