XLEngine's "Feature Requests"

Talk about the mods you'd like to see in Daggerfall Unity. Give mod creators some ideas!
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DovahkiinDemon
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Joined: Wed Jul 01, 2015 8:50 am

XLEngine's "Feature Requests"

Post by DovahkiinDemon »

POST IS UNDER CLEAN-UP

I thought I would port over a majority of an extensive thread I started on the XLEngine forums. I think that having it here will be a lot handier and cleaner for my use in the future, and possibly for anyone who is curious in knowing about some old vanilla Daggerfall flaws.

My Posts:

- Children
- Realistic terrain and mountains
- Sprites/models match character portraits
- NPC's are more realistic. i.e. go in shops, purchase goods, have conversations with each other, go on trips, explore dungeons, eat, ride horses, sail ships
- Make the starting area (which was covered in a mudslide) look like it was covered in a mudslide
- Place guards atop city walls, and have more of them patrolling the city and keeping watch
- If you're reading a book, you should be looking at a book texture instead of a scroll
- Spelling errors. e.x. Riften is spelled Rifton in the Real Barenziah series (or leave it alone for nostalgia purposes)
- Overhaul cities. The big cities need placed near the sea as they are "port cities" (doesn't do them a bit of good if they are located 50 miles from the coast) and add ports. There you could board your boat and stuff, and also travel to the other port cities from here. It would add a bit of depth to the lackluster ship aspect of the game. Also the palaces need redesigned. For one, most of them are labyrinthine and counter-intuitive (not very regal, in my honest opinion) and also are ridiculously ridiculous. The interiors half the time definitely do not fit the teeny tiny exterior.
- A.I. that actually thinks and does not clip through walls
- Improved water textures, and also noticeable depth. Puddles and ponds cannot be differentiated in the original
- Requirement of owning a horse before you can use a cart
- A little less "HALT!"
- Stopping the music that was playing during your demise before it continues into your funeral and into the title screen
- Language perks overhaul
leave the individual language entries alone, but have them linked so that improving one language also provides a lesser amount of improvement in related languages. This would still allow a certain amount of specialization without completely neglecting related skills. A system like that could even work with other groups of skills.
- Usable torches and candles
- Implementation of unused characters
- More darkness

Other users' posts:

- Greenlight said:
One think I'd really like to see: Generated plants and rocks (i.e. more objects outside).
When walking through a middle-european forest, there are (aside from the trees) many other plants on thre ground, often so dense walking is difficult there. Procedurally generating grass, shrubs and rocks, even low-poly ones, would increase the look of the game really much. The landscape in Daggerfall was pretty much flat and empty, and due to the higher view distance in DaggerXL keeping it like that would look awkward.
->In sum: Procedural-generated terrain features
- NPCs react to character being nude.
- Re-implementation of the demo's "death by cold" feature.
- Friendly/Hostility variables:
At this point I'll start to question the "basic formula" of nearly every RPG since the beginning of the genre: There are hostile and friendly NPCs. Enemies will attack and try to kill you, friendly NPCs are there for talking, trading, getting quests, etc.

My overhaul idea in this regard would be to have a variable that determines the hostility of a NPC towards the player. Friends and people from the same guild will have a very high value, maybe high enough so that they follow the player or offer other things the player can't get from regular NPCs (this would be a long-term aim). Within the "friendly range" there will also be NPCs that are quite hostile, but for human ones within towns there should be a higher threshold for attacking the player. So although a merchant can get really angry on the player for various reasons (racism, failed quests,...), it is unlikely for him to attack.
Monsters then should also have this variable. Depending on the appearance of the player (huge warrior with claymore vs. small mage in robes) and the race and language skills, monsters would or would not attack the player. If the player manages to calm down (or not even attract) enemies, they could become NPCs to talk and trade with (the latter usually only with humanoid creatures).
I don't think it will be any easy to implement actual dialogue much aside from the one that is already built-in. It requires texting and a lot of coding to get the phrases appropriate for each situation. However the regular dialogue screen will work for humanoid creatures (humans, elves, orcs, khajiit, argonians, daedra, vampires, lichs ?). Maybe some basic algorithm could run over the text to change certain syllables to simlulate different pronounciations - like changing "s" to "ss", "z" "sz" or the like. This of course would require some testing to prevent too many awkward expressions.

What I imagine the final result to be like is that it is very well possible to play a character almost entirely without combat. After the player built up enough skills the required amount of combat to crawl though dungeons would then reduce to the point where the player can get a non-combat way though almost all situations.
When implemented properly (i.e. make it rather a hidden mechanism that works "under the surface" instead of a prominently featured key featue), this could work without having to change too much. Remember, we need to code all this. Adding a new variable to the NPC-class is much less work than coding an entire language response system.
Stealth Improvements-

- Advanced sneaking that takes sound, skill, attributes, and armor into account
Greenlight:
Take the stealth system for example. In Daggerfall stealth was mostly random and it was never clear how illumination, sound, skill, attributes, armor, etc... were squashed into a chance of being seen. I would make actual stealth combat (approaching and killing an enemy) very difficult for low-skilled players, because I think it's the crowning achievement to kill someone without being seen. A skill lower than 25 would mean that the character is untalented in stealth and will be seen/heard under almost any circumstances (maybe not if it's raining, stormy, foggy and night :P). From 25 to 50 a character would be able to sneak by enemies in some distance if the boots (and maybe armor in general) is fitting and it's dark enough. A skill between 50 and 75 would then improve on that and allow some closer sneaking and maybe some combat, but only with a skill over 75 (expert, I think) actual stealth combat is useful. By this I want to prevent characters that are simply not made for stealth (e.g. warriors in heavy armor) to "abuse" the sneaking system for some extra damage. Players that want to focus on stealth and choose it as a main skill won't have to deal with the low-skill-problems.
But a skill above 100 then shouldn't allow walking in front of enemies in daylight as it is in some RPGs. I'd rather focus on sound: If a player is an absolute master in stealth and can walk almost completely silent, he could sneak behind anyone at any light condition, as long as the person doesn't face him. A distraction option as in Skyrim would be useful. The player could throw small stones or shoot arrows to distract the enemies and control the direction they face a little with that.
I would also like to allow a mage-stealth character. In the past TES games casting a spell always voided the disguise. Also, casting a spell while not being seen gave you no extra damage. A set of stealth-focused spells that only work properly if the player is unseen could help with that: It always seemed a little dumb that the oh-so-intelligent mages take fireballs to burn the enemies. It would be much more realistic if they just took a needle, accelerated it with telekinesis and threw it into the brain of the enemy. There would be no screaming, exploding or anything, just a suddenly dead enemy. Spells like this should be rather difficult though, as they take little magicka and pretty much insta-kill most enemies.


Then something I already discussed a little on the IRC channel: Advanced climbing. In vanilla Daggerfall you were only able to climb 90° walls. All other terrain, no matter how steep could just be run up and down without any problems. However, the system the later TES games use (allowing only a certain terrain angle) isn't perfect, either, as it doesn't include climbing.
So my idea would be that every terrain that is steeper than a certain angle (say 45°) in average over a short range (so the player won't "hang" onto every small rock) requires climbing. Up to 45° you can walk, maybe with reduced speed, but still in regular movement mode. But over 45° you switch to climbing which means you can't use your weapons and rest (among other possible limitations, e.g. no quick travel, no spells, no armor/weapon changing). Your climbing skill (and maybe agility and luck) determines how well you can climb the terrain. A low skill will make climbing slow and exhausting, while a higher skill allows climbing steeper terrain much faster. I also thought about the dropping element found in vanilla daggerfall. The player could have a certain chance of loosing the grip and dropping down. Then there is also a chance that he/she can re-gain hold and continue climbing. For low skilled players the chance of dropping would dramatically increase for steeper angles while at the same time the chance of grabbing on again decreases. Then the player would slide back to the last spot below 45°, maybe while taking some damage depending on the speed/total drop height.
Smaller leaps and ledges could be approached in a different way. As long as they are within a certain height range, the player can simply jump and grab onto them. So for getting up a 1.5m ledge the player doesn't have to climb it up like a wall, but can simply pull himself up. I remember that Gothic I&II had a similar climbing feature.
Maybe the terrain type can also be included in all this. A dune is way harder to climb up than a rocky mountain side. Also the weather can have an effect on the climbing abilites. If it is rainy or snowy outside, climbing can be more difficult but maybe also easier than with normal weather. Grabbing on a ledge would be much harder if it's cod and rainy compared to dry and sunny weather.
A problem with this could be: "What if the player drops down somewhere (either in the landscape or in a dungeon) where he can't get up again so easily? In this case I suggest an optional auto-stop feature as in Minecraft (while sneaking): The player automatically stops at dropoffs that are steeper than 45° and the player has to press a key or do something else to actively go down.
As I posted I'd take sound more into account. Unless the player is invisible (or uses chameleon enchants) the visibility in light should remain very high, only crouching and moving slowly could help a little.
A master of stealth would then move mostly silent with some extra abilities, such as throwing small stones/whatever to distract enemies.

Pickpocketing should work the same way it does in later TES games. You can basically steal all items in the inventory except for worn armor. Depending on your skill you can see different items. I don't know if including the dice rolling "failed pickpocketing" mechanic should be still used. If the player is caught, most players will just reload and try again, which is dull and useless. I'd rather say that the character is careful enough not to get noticed, but then can only acess a limited amount of items and limited types of items. Stealing/placing a letter or a ring is much easier than doing that for larger, heavier objects (for a first try, the object weight could be used to determine this).
- Adda mentioned something about placing explosive potions on people
- Adda added onto Greenlight's second post about sound and stealth by saying
If sound is included in the sneaking mechanics, it's a given that armor affects it, I guess there is no need to mention that.
But it would also mean that the levitate spell would improve sneaking, as you wouldn't be touching the ground, no foot steps, no risk of stepping on something that makes a noise.
and
stealing from nobles should send hoards of guards after you, while stealing from peasants, might send one or two.
Stealing from the underworld, wouldn't be illegal, but they would take matters in to their own hands and try to have you assassinated.
Last edited by DovahkiinDemon on Wed Jul 01, 2015 10:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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DovahkiinDemon
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Re: XLEngine's "Feature Requests"

Post by DovahkiinDemon »

A slightly large post:
Today I decided I would look around on the internet for anything Daggerfall-related to see what I could find. I looked through Bethesda's preview and screenshot collection which UESP has posted. One of the screens (TOWN02.GIF) itself was not particularly interesting, but its caption caught my eye:

"...is a shot taken while scurrying over the rooftops (you can, of course, break in through a window, but the view is not as nice), with a view of Anticlere Castle in the distance."

It is disappointing that so much stuff was cut from the game. If the game's original plan was carried out, and the team did not have to rush its development, this game would have been one of the most innovative and definitive RPG and video game titles of all time. Now I guess it's our turn to do just that.

In addition to this I found two shots of the game's old intro sequence, before it was cut and cast into the depths of Oblivion:

Image

Image

The former is of the army of Daggerfall meeting the army of Sentinel at the Battle of Cryngaine Field,and the latter is of Cameron, the late king of Sentinel, preparing for battle at his castle in Hammerfell.

Some kind fellow also posted a video taken from Winter CES 1995 which included a recording of the intro itself:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Xh3IfMFO6o

Thanks to Shadowbeast from the What Daggerfall was "meant to be" thread, and my own ears, I believe I have deciphered the speech.

"After the days of Tiber and the traitor Jagar Tharn, when the Septim dynasty has ruled the land of Tamriel for four-hundred and five winter moons. Then the White Moon Cameron, King of Sentinel, will shine dark on his mortal enemy, King Lysandus, the Dragon of Daggerfall. Though the Dragon shall combat with the Moon, there will be no victory in Cryngaine Field.

For it is written that dark sorcery, war, and forbidden acts shall bring terror to the ravenous courtroom of Daggerfall."

I feel it would be nice to have a recreation of this video for use in the project, and have it play if you linger a bit in the main menu, just to do this old game a service.
And while it would be cool to recreate the cinematic in 3D, I think a style similar to the intro to Redguard would fit just nicely. A bunch of drawings with narration over it, possibly weathered or tattered and torn to add to the Daggerfall mood. Or maybe, a moving drawing like the Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition. -> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egfgFZATd5E

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Interkarma
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Re: XLEngine's "Feature Requests"

Post by Interkarma »

G'day DovahkiinDemon. Welcome to the forums. :)

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DovahkiinDemon
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Joined: Wed Jul 01, 2015 8:50 am

Re: XLEngine's "Feature Requests"

Post by DovahkiinDemon »

Thank you very much. I've always admired your devotion and incredible work for this game. You've really done a lot for the community. Godspeed! :)

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Cristalnoir
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Re: XLEngine's "Feature Requests"

Post by Cristalnoir »

That's 4 years there are more update to XL.
Cristalnoir studio

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