Random enemies don't exactly match classic at level 1 [Intended]

[Interkarma]

Lol, awesome. It looks as if Daggerfall Unity will be a little fairer than vanilla too.

And if I understand correctly, going up in levels simply extends the array, so a level 20 player will randomly encounter the full enemy variety of that dungeon type, including the lower-level monsters. Sounds good to me.

Not quite the full range. It will select within +/- 4 from the base monster power, clamped either end. Here's some more examples.

Code: Select all

Level 1:   Range 0-4
Level 10:  Range 6-14
Level 20+: Range 16-20

This range is used in a Random.Range(min, max) call. In Unity, the max range of the int overload is exclusive of maximum, so it will actually select 16-19 (which is the maximum index of a 20-member zero-based array).

Not perfect, but I think it's fairer and still gives player a chance of encountering monsters both weaker and stronger while levelling.

[CM August]

Agreed. I'm excited to try it out. With much of the level and combat calculations added in the new builds, it's more fun than ever to go dungeon-diving in DFU.

[R.D.]

Thanks for the kind words! I'm Allofich on GitHub.

Level 1: Range 0-4
Level 10: Range 6-14
Level 20+: Range 16-20

At level 20+ you will only see 3 types of enemies, right? Maybe the mid-point that the range is calculated from should be capped at 16.

[Interkarma]

At level 20+ you will only see 3 types of enemies, right? Maybe the mid-point that the range is calculated from should be capped at 16.

Correct, and that's a good idea. Thank you for suggestion.

[CM August]

Another question: I've been led to believe human enemies are the same level as the player. Does that mean any human enemies in a dungeon list can be seen at any level, or are certain classes considered stronger than others?

Thanks for the kind words! I'm Allofich on GitHub.

Thanks again for your great work!

[Interkarma]

You got it. Humanoid enemies level with player and should be a reasonable challenge at any level. Monsters are a fixed level and present a more variable challenge based on character's level and individual strengths/vulnerabilities.

Although a high-level min/max character with stacked enchantments is still likely to push over just about anything.

[CM August]

It occurs to me that certain groups of enemies, such as animals, would eventually vanish from the game altogether. Some letters of the "loot alphabet" would vanish too. The exceptions would be if a specific enemy was called in a quest, or the dungeon features a monster marker for them. I don't know how common the latter is used though. Does a natural cave typically include a number of animal monster markers, for example?

Of course, such encounters would be trivial at high levels and would exist mostly for flavour (except perhaps loot that may otherwise become harder to come by) so there shouldn't be too many of them in any case.

At level 20+ you will only see 3 types of enemies, right? Maybe the mid-point that the range is calculated from should be capped at 16.

Ancient Liches are level 21. Will they and any higher level enemies added by mods still appear?

[Interkarma]

Ancient Liches are level 21. Will they and any higher level enemies added by mods still appear?

The encounter index is not monster level exactly - it's the position in the encounter tables I linked earlier (which have 20 members each per dungeon type). Just think of the encounters as being ranked from 0 (least powerful) to 19 (most powerful).

Agree on loot alphabet loss. I think loot will need a bit of retuning at some point.

[CM August]

Silly me. Thanks for the correction, it all makes sense now.