Language Usage Via dialogue mode (Or making dialogue modes NOT useless)

Talk about the mods you'd like to see in Daggerfall Unity. Give mod creators some ideas!
hannafamilycomputer
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Language Usage Via dialogue mode (Or making dialogue modes NOT useless)

Post by hannafamilycomputer »

On how pacifcation and language skills work...
ACNAero wrote: Fri Dec 28, 2018 6:57 pm
Hazelnut wrote: Fri Dec 28, 2018 6:36 pm It always worked automatically, with the only difference in DFU is getting a message to inform you that you pacified something.
Huh. I thought you had to sneak up on them and talk to them for it to work in classic.

goes to the googles.

Huh, well, apparently not. :oops: Well, glad to see that classic isn't as clunky as it seems, if nothing else :p.
Edit: above is from viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1662 (scroll down, 1st page)


It is weird how you can pacify monsters through walls.

My suggestion: a feature which turns off the ability to pacify eneimes automatically. Like a game setting.

Language and pacifcation checks will work as normal, except you have a 0% chance of pacifying them, unless you click on them while in dialouge mode. That way, leveling those skills will work as normal. It dosen't matter how far they are away, as long as you can see them you can yell to them, sneaking wouldn't be nessisary. (Maybe a more advanced option would modify the chance of success based on distance)

Basically, it would work just like how info mode identifies objects at any distance when clicked on, except dialouge mode would pacify enimes based on languages.

This should not conflict with anything, since dialougue mode is useless, and dosen't work on enimes anyway. (You can talk to people in grab mode)


This would be much more realistic and immersive, since currently it seems your charecter is just yelling "please don't kill me" in every known language while wandering dungeons.
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Lokkrin Zhataros
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hannafamilycomputer
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Re: Language Usage Via dialogue mode

Post by hannafamilycomputer »

I meant using dialogue mode and grab mode on npcs just do the exact same thing right now. The only modes that do anything different with npcs are steal (which dosen't do anything on non-wandering npcs), and info, which just tell you who they are, saving you from having to open dialogue with them.

I agree with the 1 chance thing. It wouldn't change much since I think you only have 1 chance anyway; when you get within range of that eneimy.

Edit: Maybe also have it alert the eneimy to you if they hadn't spotted you already if you fail the skill check, since they would know you are there if you are yelling to them.

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DigitalMonk
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Re: Language Usage Via dialogue mode

Post by DigitalMonk »

I just had a weird thought that was brought on by the idea of shouting down the hallway at an enemy: Could you use Info mode as a form of observation prior to using Dialogue mode, such that it would improve your odds by some percentage? Real world, this would be similar to watching how somebody was dressed / carried themselves / spoke to other people / what their mood was / etc for awhile before introducing yourself, compared to turning the corner and bumping into them and just having to go with a knee jerk "Hey! Wassup?" level of dialogue...

I could also see something similar to the bow draw/hold time in the Roleplay Realism mod, where a single look would give you some info, but extended observation provided (diminishing) improvements to your understanding of the situation (and thus success likelihood). Mechanically, I'm not sure if that would be based on holding down your mouse button in Info mode, or by performing multiple Info clicks (there'd have to be some kind of time interval enforced between them -- frantically clicking in Info mode doesn't seem quite right -- or maybe every Info click on an enemy burns a noticeable amount of Fatigue, simulating attention saturation and mental fatigue. Rapid click if you want, but it's diminishing returns for increasing costs, and if it fails you're gonna be in a fight while worn out...)

Could be interesting. Could be tedious. Definitely take a lot of balancing to work out...

On a side note...
Talking to an NPC in Grab mode does sound bad... But if we think of it as "Interact/Use" mode instead of "Grab" mode, then it seems fine to me. That seems to be how DFU currently treats Grab mode anyway. I don't have enough experience with Classic to know. I know that I hate having to switch those modes constantly, and really appreciate being able to use "Interact" mode as the "yeah, do what I almost certainly wanted to do when I clicked there", and then have Steal/Info/Talk as overrides for unusual situations where I don't want to do the normal thing. But then I also have gotten used to the fact that newer games treat Crouch as Steal mode, which removes one of the reasons for a separate interaction mode.

Interaction mode switches feel extremely early 90s to me, like a leftover from text adventure games or the Maniac Mansion style graphical adventures, before we figured out that you can almost always contextually determine what the user meant to do. And yes, Classic DF is from that time and that's how it was played, but I like having some of the newer amenities. But I can certainly understand making them optional.

Lokkrin Zhataros
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mikeprichard
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Re: Language Usage Via dialogue mode

Post by mikeprichard »

DigitalMonk wrote: Mon Dec 09, 2019 9:59 pm On a side note...
Talking to an NPC in Grab mode does sound bad... But if we think of it as "Interact/Use" mode instead of "Grab" mode, then it seems fine to me. That seems to be how DFU currently treats Grab mode anyway. I don't have enough experience with Classic to know. I know that I hate having to switch those modes constantly, and really appreciate being able to use "Interact" mode as the "yeah, do what I almost certainly wanted to do when I clicked there", and then have Steal/Info/Talk as overrides for unusual situations where I don't want to do the normal thing. But then I also have gotten used to the fact that newer games treat Crouch as Steal mode, which removes one of the reasons for a separate interaction mode.

Interaction mode switches feel extremely early 90s to me, like a leftover from text adventure games or the Maniac Mansion style graphical adventures, before we figured out that you can almost always contextually determine what the user meant to do. And yes, Classic DF is from that time and that's how it was played, but I like having some of the newer amenities. But I can certainly understand making them optional.
I've brought up the issues with the terrible "Interaction Modes" system in the past, and it is possible that optional changes may be considered in base DFU to bring this into the post-90s era of gaming (including, among many other RPGs, later TES titles) by ditching the modes altogether in favor of left-clicking (for talk/use/open/loot), right-clicking (for info), and crouching (for stealing). Not only is the frequent need to switch between modes extremely cumbersome and annoying, many of the existing modes' functions overlap/duplicate each other. See the first post at viewtopic.php?f=12&t=1042 for details - here's hoping!

Lokkrin Zhataros
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mikeprichard
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Re: Language Usage Via dialogue mode

Post by mikeprichard »

Lokkrin Zhataros wrote: Mon Dec 09, 2019 11:13 pm Nope, me no like!!! (unless I'm misunderstanding something here, which is possible) With all respects, I don't like the idea of using the mouse to interact with anything, not in an elder scrolls game. The "E" key is a must for me if we are going to centralize a set of functions down to 1 shortcut.

In later TES games you used the "E" key for Use/Open/Activate/Talk or Crouch + E to Steal. The mouse is simply not a good use for these functions (in my strong opinion). Mouse is for Combat only. Actually the default controls for classic Daggerfall is Left Click to interact. So this doesn't make any sense if this is meant to be a "modern" game mechanic.

The "E" key is everything in a modern gaming system. Otherwise I'm perfectly fine with the way Daggerfall works with switching modes.
I should've mentioned that these functions would only work when a weapon is sheathed - i.e. when you're not in combat - which to me is a whole lot more natural and intuitive than keyboard clicks. But this is just one (albeit in my equally strong opinion the subjective "best"/simplest/most modern and comfortable) way to fix the existing modes for anyone who isn't an old classic Daggerfall player who's just "used to" the way things were in the bad old days - the clunky old modes would remain the default in any case for that crazy minority who don't like the 21st century. ;) But as long as there's a more streamlined alternative to the default modes, I'll enjoy DFU 100 times more.

EDIT: Thinking about this more, you're absolutely right that e.g. Skyrim had a key ("E") system as you described, rather than left-/right-clicking for these functions. However, the only thing that matters to me (and I'd confidently assume the vast majority of modern first-time Daggerfall players if polled) would be a system that's simple and captures all use cases in one format. With that in mind, how would the "info" mode be handled in your Skyrim-esque system? It's unique to Daggerfall compared to later TES games, which is one of the reasons why I proposed the system I did: between left-clicking and right-clicking, every old "mode" would be covered.

Lokkrin Zhataros
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mikeprichard
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Re: Language Usage Via dialogue mode

Post by mikeprichard »

Critical difference is "casual" (gawd, I hate that overused term) in this case is good - the only "difficulty" we're talking about here is the awkwardness of an obsolete clunky control scheme, which for this "old-school" gamer (how many cliches can I fit in one sentence?) who himself grew up playing games in the '90s, isn't a "challenge" as much as simply primitive and inconvenient design. Also, I think you're missing the fundamental point that my or your or someone else's proposal for a better alternative to classic's Interaction Modes would be optional, not the default setting - see e.g. the "click to attack" base DFU option, which the player must choose to activate as an alternative to swinging the mouse all over his/her desk to land a hit. But happy to move over to the other topic, since I've thoroughly derailed this one!

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