Hi guys,

So I've made a bit of progress on implementing a GOAP system to my project;

Now I've trying to figure out what naming convention to use for actual NPC Goals, this may seem strange but there's 2 reasons as to why I'm curious.

Firstly, I believe “catchfish” is a good name for a goal for a fisherman NPC, but “losefish" is not, see the idea is that the player will need to follow actions and eventually sit down with a rod after applying bait and with the goal of catching a fish in mind the fisherman sets his line out and waits till the float drops below the waters' surface, now these are actions for both goals, catchfish and losefish..

I'm confused as to why losefish would be a goal, instead of a dice roll or reeling in too early, perhaps reeling in too early would automatically imply a failure and set the actions effect to true when reeling in on time, so perhaps the actions name is ‘reel-in-on-time’ ? so losefish isn't a goals name or an actions name just an unspoken/uncoded although real effect of failing to meet the goal.

So, in your experience how do you phrase or present through naming conventions your actions and goals ?
Should goals be labeled as verbs ? actions labeled as verbs ?

Thanks,

The most natural setup for a fisherman NPC is to simply attempt to catch a fish, with success determined randomly and/or by external factors rather than by planning to lose a fish or not.

In special cases you might make “fish properly” and “fish badly” different, alternative goals (e.g. to show that the fisherman is unlucky or incompetent), but automatic success or failure is a different thing.