Finally… hope others will get it too and stop comming up with some obscure solutions 
I would do it like this:
When you attack important NPC, character says something like “let’s spar” and act like it’s just training. So battle automatically stops if one of characters is near death.
But there should be some cursor color/other indicator which would warn that you cannot kill the character. Otherwise player would fight for his life only to notice it’s unkillable NPC. That would get frustrating after a while.
yes, lets spar with mace and warhammers. sigh…
How many Assassin’s Creed games have you played? And did you complete them? I understand it may not be a game that everyone excells at and enjoys. However, it is not inferior garbage. It is a very successful Franchise. I do agree that it would be unrealistic that all npcs would have “notes” on them; it is still possible to incorporate that aspect in the game as an option for certain characters for certain quests.
That would be Option 1 and or 2 at the top, in regards to the npc not dieing. Not sure if a “Spar” option would be realistic if you just attacked an important character.
I hate the idea of Henry saying “I cannot do that, she is too important to me” again and again. It can quickly become tiresome. Arrow to the knee, anybody? Not even allowing to initiate the attack in the first place by not making the NPC attackable is IMO better than “I can’t do that” line.
TES 3 had this notification pop up:
Interesting, but allowing the player to wreck the world is not what we want in an RPG. It is ok tu build a game on it, like the Goat Simulator, but thats as far as I would take it.
I was just thinking aloud. Well, on my keyboard. Should’ve probably added a smiley to make it clear that I am not really prepared to defend that idea.
That makes sense for some characters. Friends and so on. But not every VIP NPC in the game.
and shields. Why not?
2 Likes
Every Npc should be killable but you should be notified by it, and if they are essential to the main quest you can make their own symbol on the crosshair so you don’t accidentally kill them. This gives a lot more replay value, first playthrough I might just want to fight to restore the true king and on my second playthrough I want to kill every nobleman I find, except I can’t because they’re magically protected. Come on Warhorse, we guys and you guys want to have the freedom that so many other developers doesn’t seem to care about 
i would go with hardcore mode for when i beat the game i plan on experimenting on how many i could kill before i die,
I like option 3, but please be sure that they don’t die stupidly by themselves
Option 3 - the Morrowind way. If someone really wants to go on a killing spree, that person should also be willing to bear the consequences: a possibly broken game. I’m getting more and more fed up with the constant handholding in other games, where the game restricts the player from killing certain people. It takes me right out of the game. The game shouldn’t do that, common sense should. In a game that’s all about authenticity, you shouldn’t even want to go around killing everyone whose face you don’t like. And if you do, well, you should be prepared to either be unable to advance, or load a previous save. Seem simple enough to me.
Of course, those important characters should then not be killable by anything else, in order to prevent the game killing them off accidentally without the player’s involvement.
3 Likes
Opinion three for sure !
Post 101. Woohoo!
I believe the majority have seemed to voice option 3. I agree that a “hardcore mode” would sate others desire for a free form truly unrestricted game, while also having a normal mode for those who desire to be pampered. 
For me @Hellboy this is a real sticking point. Every RPG player at some point says to themselves, “Hey, I wonder how many people I can kill before I get taken out?” It is then the player finds either that they CAN kill everyone in the city (unfeasible) or they cannot, no matter HOW HARD they try, kill certain individuals (illogical). Maybe there’s another way. In some games they have a ‘threat level’ based on the crimes you commit; the more you run amok, the more local law enforcement gives you a hard time. This could be done in a realistic manner, and enacted quickly enough that the player only has mere moments before they are arrested or killed. Of course it only takes a moment to kill a noble, but perhaps that could be worked around by having weapons surrendered to the noble’s guards in certain locations (such as their castle, where they would likely have as few people as possible holding weapons near them). This would mean that for the player to kill a noble, they would need to either conceal a weapon or steal a guards, making it a very risky endeavour to assassinate a noble. Add in an auto-kill behaviour for the noble’s guards and you’ll find most players will probably not risk it. And perhaps to be safe, for some of the major NPCs to have a slightly altered questline for the player should the NPC be killed.
As an aside, having players surrender their weapons at the door might be a good workaround for your polearms, as I know your team was worried about clipping indoors.
NEVER USE IMMORTAL NPC!
The ugliest thing is to have immortal NPC just like in Skyrim or Fallout. This is a complete turn-off!
Either limit the gameplay to somehow imposing inability to kill them - for example inability to hit them or preventing to draw weapons near them. By inability I mean stopping your weapons BEFORE you swing and nothing like swinging in mid-air like NPC are some kind of transparent ghosts.
Or you can just make everyone killable and deal with the consequences! Remember the good old RPGs, where you could do anything to any NPC? I think that if every NPC can be killed at will this will make the game more realistic and also more deadly. A good team of designers like @warhorse should be able to program the gameplay model properly in order to be able to kill any NPC and still progress the game.
Whoever shouldn’t be killed must be programmed that he shouldn’t be able to get attacked in the first place - maybe a King or any other important story NPC. For example the guards take your weapons away prior to meeting the NPC or you can’t draw any weapon in their presence as I suggested above.
This is the only proper way to do a game in my humble opinion!
1 Like
Having just played and finished Fallout New Vegas (+ DLCs and mods) I was pretty damn impressed how it was handled there.
Basically, you can kill anyone, and the game counts with it, very smartly. There are about 4-5 paths the main quest can take, and one is always accessible even if player kills everyone - the independent Vegas ending, due to the fact that Yes Man (robot character) is unkillable (if killed, he transports his AI personality into another robot unit). It was a really smart way to deal with this, since it gives player complete freedom while also allowing finishing the game. And Yes Man being “immortal” made sense in context of the world. Obsidian is just so good for finding this solution! Bethesda would never figure stuff like this, so instead it is immortal NPCs galore.
Obviously, for medieval RPG you can’t have indestructible robots, and the main story must have some NPCs driving it. So personally I am for either option 3, with possibility of breaking the game (and Henry informing the player about it in a immersion non-breaking way) or option 2 with Henry simply refusing to attack certain NPCs. Both are fine really.
2 Likes
Option 3 obviously. But you should also implement other option for casual players.
yes they have unlimited development time and budget, don’t worry.
i think they ask because it’s an either or proposition.
I like that everone is mortal, my thought on this is that those “suppoose to be immortal” should have some npc around them to protect them or atleast do it the way that if you kill one of those you will probably die (cause so many people will go after you) and if u survive then there could be a little side quest for "breaking the game out of primary cause.
I would vote for game to have a Harcore mode. Just like in New Vegas. In normal mode game would use 1 or 2 (with Dekssan addition - Player tryting to attack, character saying: I can’t harm this person, she/he is important to me), and on Hardcore mode game would use 3. Also hardcore mode could have other harder and more realistic things like this blocking system Blocking enemy attack suggestion , maybe some evil random events. Nobody would be dissapointed with this.