Daggerfall Unity 0.4.x - "Fighters" Update

For all talk about quest development - creation, testing, and quest system.
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jman0war
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Re: Daggerfall Unity 0.4.x - "Fighters" Update

Post by jman0war »

Hey thanks for showcasing my Terrain Flats on your main page!

Here's hoping others with 2d skills come onboard. :D
Find my Vibrant Terrain Flats mod at Nexusmods: https://www.nexusmods.com/daggerfalluni ... ?tab=files

Hurricane Otter
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Re: Daggerfall Unity 0.4.x - "Fighters" Update

Post by Hurricane Otter »

Interkarma wrote:Not sure about the bear. Try setting that as your only quest (comment out others in the Temp-FightersQuests table) and run it a few times. Let me know if you can reproduce and what building you were sent to (a screenshot of exterior automap while you're standing outside building should suffice).

Also have a listen to see if you can hear the bear growling somewhere inside the house. It could have spawned in the attic (click ladder) or somewhere else unexpected. You can also try "tele2qspawn" to see where the target is hiding. Sometimes, just like in classic Daggerfall, these things can be hard to find haha. :)

Cheers!
No can do now that I've exited the game, but I remember the location was Gondyn's Quality Supply Store in Gothway Garden. (I've since had another quest dispatch me to Doctor Mordistyr's Gear and it worked just fine.)

I've run through several quests this morning and they've all worked fine. Killed a Lich, killed a Daedroth, killed a Spider in some guy's house, killed a Tiger and a Bear. I can't tell you how great it is to be able to play though these silly little quests all these years later! Really grateful to you for doing all this hard work Interkarma, I hope the rest of the project is all downhill from here. :)

Are you intending to fix these broken quests from the original game for the 1.0 release?

(Nothing to do with quests, but the more I play, the more I realize there's something about the way the game treats the sky that makes me feel dizzy and physically ill -- I think it might be the way the sky texture tilts upward whenever I look down, or something about the way it slips and slides all over the place when I move the mouse in little circles, even though the buildings are a static frame of reference. Just a graphical critique, don't remember what the original game behavior was.)

Does the game drop the quest mob into the dungeon from the moment you enter, or does it wait until you're within a certain proximity to spawn? Just thinking about the Acute Hearing talent and how its utility might be affected if the latter -- although it was always kind of useless.

Powered through another couple quests, no issues to speak of. Out of time for now, but I'll be on to run some more later today when I get a free moment.

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Interkarma
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Re: Daggerfall Unity 0.4.x - "Fighters" Update

Post by Interkarma »

sonicboom12345 wrote: No can do now that I've exited the game, but I remember the location was Gondyn's Quality Supply Store in Gothway Garden. (I've since had another quest dispatch me to Doctor Mordistyr's Gear and it worked just fine.)

I've run through several quests this morning and they've all worked fine. Killed a Lich, killed a Daedroth, killed a Spider in some guy's house, killed a Tiger and a Bear. I can't tell you how great it is to be able to play though these silly little quests all these years later! Really grateful to you for doing all this hard work Interkarma, I hope the rest of the project is all downhill from here. :)
Great to hear you had more success on subsequent attempts. :)
sonicboom12345 wrote: Are you intending to fix these broken quests from the original game for the 1.0 release?
I'm leaving this open to community efforts for now. The decompiled quests already includes previous community fixes from Fixed Quests and DFQFIX, and now fixing the remaining problems are easier than ever - just need to edit a text document.

If nobody gets to this by the time I'm in the final stages of this thing, I'll work through and fix some of the more glaring problems.
sonicboom12345 wrote: (Nothing to do with quests, but the more I play, the more I realize there's something about the way the game treats the sky that makes me feel dizzy and physically ill -- I think it might be the way the sky texture tilts upward whenever I look down, or something about the way it slips and slides all over the place when I move the mouse in little circles, even though the buildings are a static frame of reference. Just a graphical critique, don't remember what the original game behavior was.)
The sky works the same as classic Daggerfall, but changes to aspect ratio (4:3 to widescreen), freedom to look all the way up and down, and larger draw distances serve to enhance the disconnect between the physical world and what is literally a 2D image sliding around behind everything. Daggerfall didn't even have a proper skybox setup. There are ways to improve this (like mapping texture to inside of a cylinder) but they result in distortions to the sky art that are also uncomfortable. Trade offs either way.

Highly recommend you get Lypyl's Enhanced Sky mod from the Released Mods page. Not only is it beautiful, it's a proper modern skybox that won't slip around and make you uncomfortable.
sonicboom12345 wrote: Does the game drop the quest mob into the dungeon from the moment you enter, or does it wait until you're within a certain proximity to spawn? Just thinking about the Acute Hearing talent and how its utility might be affected if the latter -- although it was always kind of useless.

Powered through another couple quests, no issues to speak of. Out of time for now, but I'll be on to run some more later today when I get a free moment.
There are a few main steps to the process:
  • Quest defines a Place resource: "Place _mondung_ remote dungeon"
  • Quest defines a Foe (or Item/NPC): "Foe _werewolf_ is Werewolf"
  • Then quest allocates the Foe to the Place: "place foe _werewolf_ at _mondung_"
  • Internally, this creates a SiteLink which enumerates quest markers and assigns Foe to a random marker in the Place.
  • When player enters the target Place, the transition code in PlayerEnterExit will call a post-layout step to step through SiteLinks and inject monster (or Item/NPC) onto their target marker position.
Up until most recent builds, the monster could only be placed at time of transition into building/dungeon. This broke certain quests (like "Domestic Squabble" / M0B30Y08) where the zombie would only be allocated at night once player was already inside the building. But Daggerfall Unity could only place monster at the time player entered. This catch 22 was resolved in latest builds and Daggerfall Unity can now hot-place monsters at assignment time even if player is inside target location.

Thanks for testing! :)

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Interkarma
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Re: Daggerfall Unity 0.4.x - "Fighters" Update

Post by Interkarma »

CM August wrote:One quirk I forgot to mention: I've been unable to remap the run key. Or rather it lets me, but the new key does nothing and I must still hold shift to run. The handful of other actions I tested seemed to remap fine.
Cheers for letting me know. I've added to my bug list and will look at this soon.

Edit: Fixed now. Will be included with next round of builds.

CM August
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Re: Daggerfall Unity 0.4.x - "Fighters" Update

Post by CM August »

Awesome. :) Quest testing has proceeded merrily along and working as expected - that case of the missing wereboar for example hasn't manifested itself any other time the quest has popped up - so I have only general observations.

I encountered a dungeon piece in Tricerlas, Dak'fron that was not properly aligned, leaving the player character trapped at the top of the stairway, unable to move or jump. I had to use the teleport command to escape. It may be a vanilla content issue but I'm letting you know just in case.

Mostly cosmetic stuff follows:
Spoiler!
  • The info mode would identify enemies in vanilla, living or dead.
  • Speaking of which, I noticed that not even vanilla allows you to identify wandering NPCs in info mode (trying to do so just brings up the dialogue screen), unlike the static NPCs in interiors. I'm curious as to whether the inconsistency is a limitation of the engine, or they just went with different behavior outdoors for whatever reason.
  • Receiving quest rewards in vanilla had a unique container icon: Vanilla, Unity
    I also didn't realize until now that the UI's horizontal ratio is different, unless my eyes are playing tricks on me. Is that right?
  • Vanilla has noticeable day and night lighting for interiors. Is this to be an intended feature for Unity as well?

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Interkarma
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Re: Daggerfall Unity 0.4.x - "Fighters" Update

Post by Interkarma »

CM August wrote:Awesome. :) Quest testing has proceeded merrily along and working as expected - that case of the missing wereboar for example hasn't manifested itself any other time the quest has popped up - so I have only general observations.
Happy to hear you've had more success lately. :)

CM August wrote: I encountered a dungeon piece in Tricerlas, Dak'fron that was not properly aligned, leaving the player character trapped at the top of the stairway, unable to move or jump. I had to use the teleport command to escape. It may be a vanilla content issue but I'm letting you know just in case.
I know a few spots like this, it's a problem with the underlying geometry. If you look carefully from a few angles, you'll see a one-sided bit of geometry sticking up where you were stuck. Daggerfall uses a very basic collision setup and the player just glides over these spots. But Unity's more detailed physics setup can't handle the one-sided geometry and gets stuck instead. I've made a few changes to reduce the incidents where this happens, but the problem is fairly common. The geometry in caves is particularly bad. Fun fact, the teleport console command was developed specifically because of this problem.

I'll invent a better solution eventually.

CM August wrote: The info mode would identify enemies in vanilla, living or dead.[/*]

Speaking of which, I noticed that not even vanilla allows you to identify wandering NPCs in info mode (trying to do so just brings up the dialogue screen), unlike the static NPCs in interiors. I'm curious as to whether the inconsistency is a limitation of the engine, or they just went with different behavior outdoors for whatever reason.
Info mode not implemented yet on enemies. I've noticed classic's behaviour on town NPCs as well. I'll probably just go with classic on this one.

CM August wrote:Receiving quest rewards in vanilla had a unique container icon
Cheers, I'll fix that loot target icon soon.

CM August wrote: Vanilla has noticeable day and night lighting for interiors. Is this to be an intended feature for Unity as well?[/*][/list][/spoiler]
For interiors, classic uses different ambient light levels depending on time of day (which it uses palette shifts to accomplish). DFUnity interiors have a more tuned lighting setup with real coloured point lights and shadows. I agree it would be nice to emulate the lower lighting levels at night. I can probably lower overall intensity by a bit at night. Something to look at later.

CM August
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Re: Daggerfall Unity 0.4.x - "Fighters" Update

Post by CM August »

Interkarma wrote:I know a few spots like this, it's a problem with the underlying geometry. If you look carefully from a few angles, you'll see a one-sided bit of geometry sticking up where you were stuck. Daggerfall uses a very basic collision setup and the player just glides over these spots. But Unity's more detailed physics setup can't handle the one-sided geometry and gets stuck instead. I've made a few changes to reduce the incidents where this happens, but the problem is fairly common. The geometry in caves is particularly bad. Fun fact, the teleport console command was developed specifically because of this problem.

I'll invent a better solution eventually.
I'm glad you intend even the bad geometry in vanilla to be traversible. Thanks. :) That being said, is it already possible for an enterprising modder to fix these pieces themselves using DTFU?
For interiors, classic uses different ambient light levels depending on time of day (which it uses palette shifts to accomplish). DFUnity interiors have a more tuned lighting setup with real coloured point lights and shadows. I agree it would be nice to emulate the lower lighting levels at night. I can probably lower overall intensity by a bit at night. Something to look at later.
Yeah, I think we're supposed to imagine the position of the sun outdoors affects the light and colour of interiors, though it can look funny when the building doesn't have windows. I chalk that up to a texture limitation. :)

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Interkarma
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Re: Daggerfall Unity 0.4.x - "Fighters" Update

Post by Interkarma »

CM August wrote: I'm glad you intend even the bad geometry in vanilla to be traversible. Thanks. :) That being said, is it already possible for an enterprising modder to fix these pieces themselves using DTFU?
With TheLacus' model swap setup, it should be possible to export the bad dungeon piece from Daggerfall Modelling, correct the bad geometry, and provide the fixed model to players.

I definitely need an out of the box solution, but yep modders could potentially take a crack at this as well. :)

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Re: Daggerfall Unity 0.4.x - "Fighters" Update

Post by CM August »

Incidentally, I can't wait until gold pieces get their pickup sound. It amazes me sometimes how seemingly trivial little touches in games can make actions feel much more satisfying.

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Re: Daggerfall Unity 0.4.x - "Fighters" Update

Post by CM August »

Rat spawned in, or fell into, the building geometry and was trapped. Fortunately I could still kill it.

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