Okay. Just found this thread today! And THANK YOU first and foremost. This is the dopest storming pet project I’ve seen.
1. I think there are some pertenant emotions that every combatant NPC in a stealth action RPG game would have. And. Maybe each one would be on a binary scale e.g. Caution—v—Aggressiveness, Suspicious—v—Secure and that could vary depending on function of the NPC or maybe the function they are carrying out.
Example: Maybe all guards have the same emotions but a guard patrolling a noise or figure in the mist would have the Suspicious—v— Secure emotion bar that you could alter at the forefront.
Whereas a guard already having seen you might approach the situation with Aggressiveness—v— Fear/Caution at the forefront.
Either way it would be sweet just to have those elements at our fingertips.
2. I can’t state how hard it would be, but possibly a toggle scenario. Where it’s single target while you are Hidden/Undiscovered/ Etc. but is more AoE when you are fighting for your life already having been caught/unstealthed
3.I think it would be cooler if we didn’t see %s and know exactly what they are feeling like it is in the books, but maybe have some spidey senses, visually color signaling to give us hints instead of deciding they are angry by the way they are running at me with their swords drawn XD. I’m imagining like the common Yellow “!” Over their heads that other stealth games use to denote suspicion but maybe tweek it to include more colors/symbols denoting different emotions they are primarily feeling?
4. Referencing back to my answer for 2, I think given your examples if you were able to pull off both depending on you being hidden/stealth or not it would be amazing and probably the most intuitive. Having more time to focus on each individual when stealthed and also requiring more input from you (only one target at a time) to remain stealthy. Whereas it would be tedious in a combat scenario after you started fighting.
5. I think rioting and soothing should feel essentially the same, with maybe a focus on choosing emotions beforehand when rioting and reacting when soothing as you wouldn’t necessarily KNOW their emotions perfectly.
6. I have listed enough suggestions as it is and so I’m turning this into an appreciation answer! Thank you so much for making this possible game even a sliver of hope in my mind. It would be revolutionary. You are doing something amazing and you deserve a big following/ support crowd! Will definitely be tuning it to the updates from now on!
7. Last bit, I recently started playing a game called Spellbreak and couldn’t help but realize the physics in that game are great and it has similar movement styles to what you are attempting potentially so it could be a great point of reference. Idk if that is even helpful or if I look like a fool now, but thanks again for this awesome thread.