Real Men Don't Play in Tiny Dungeons

Discuss Daggerfall Unity and Daggerfall Tools for Unity.
Lokkrin Zhataros
Posts: 256
Joined: Thu Nov 21, 2019 9:27 pm

-

Post by Lokkrin Zhataros »

-
Last edited by Lokkrin Zhataros on Wed May 26, 2021 6:53 am, edited 2 times in total.

User avatar
BadLuckBurt
Posts: 948
Joined: Sun Nov 05, 2017 8:30 pm

Re: Real Men Don't Play in Tiny Dungeons

Post by BadLuckBurt »

Lokkrin Zhataros wrote: โ†‘Wed Mar 03, 2021 8:24 pm Lol, yes and no. I think the OP is trying to be helpful and he does give very good advice about dungeon navigation. I posted about my issue with the title and made a fool of myself in my overreaction. I mean, the title and beginning of the post assumes 2 things:
1 Only MEN play Daggerfall (or games in general)
2 The only reason you would ever play with Smaller Dungeons is because you are "wimpy" and/or lack the intelligence to navigate the default Large dungeons.

Obviously neither of those are true at all
I'm just poking fun at his title :D

This always comes to mind when someone mentions real men :lol:

DFU on UESP: https://en.uesp.net/w/index.php?title=T ... fall_Unity
DFU Nexus Mods: https://www.nexusmods.com/daggerfallunity
My github repositories with mostly DFU related stuff: https://github.com/BadLuckBurt

.

Lokkrin Zhataros
Posts: 256
Joined: Thu Nov 21, 2019 9:27 pm

-

Post by Lokkrin Zhataros »

-
Last edited by Lokkrin Zhataros on Wed May 26, 2021 6:52 am, edited 2 times in total.

User avatar
King of Worms
Posts: 4752
Joined: Mon Oct 17, 2016 11:18 pm
Location: Scourg Barrow (CZ)
Contact:

Re: Real Men Don't Play in Tiny Dungeons

Post by King of Worms »

Some of my best memories of daggerfall back in 90s was emerging from a dungeon after 2 real time days Ive spend in it.. real nerds in big caves ๐Ÿ˜‚

User avatar
Blue Footed Booby
Posts: 17
Joined: Wed Jun 14, 2017 4:32 pm

Re: Real Men Don't Play in Tiny Dungeons

Post by Blue Footed Booby »

Lokkrin Zhataros wrote: โ†‘Wed Mar 03, 2021 8:24 pm
BadLuckBurt wrote: โ†‘Wed Mar 03, 2021 10:14 am Real men don't whine about what others do but instead mind their own business ;)
Lol, yes and no. I think the OP is trying to be helpful and he does give very good advice about dungeon navigation. I posted about my issue with the title and made a fool of myself in my overreaction. I mean, the title and beginning of the post assumes 2 things:
1 Only MEN play Daggerfall (or games in general)
2 The only reason you would ever play with Smaller Dungeons is because you are "wimpy" and/or lack the intelligence to navigate the default Large dungeons.

Obviously neither of those are true at all
It's also a symptom of the same male posturing mentality that makes forums for hard games useless for getting advice on boss fights.
"Any tips on beating the final boss?"
"Pffft, that fight was so easy. Git gud."
For real, we're talking about playing a videogame here, not something constructive. Nothing good can come from gatekeeping and elitism.

Actually on topic, kinda, a feature I'd love to see in Daggerfall that would make me way more likely to play full size dungeons is something like those glowing stones in Dark Souls that you could drop all over the place. They persisted, so you could, eg, mark the way you'd come from when choosing your path at an intersection. It wasn't hugely important in the DS series, but I feel like it'd be a pretty handy feature in Daggerfall. Or even just a piece of chalk that lets me draw on walls. I've never had a good sense of direction, and having to mentally reverse engineer the generation system to navigate feels like it's against the spirit of RPGs. Or at least this kind of RPG; I expect it from roguelikes and such.

Also, a "hoof it to the entrance" button when you achieve a quest objective would be lovely, even if it has a random encounter chance or something. There's Recall, but not every character is a magic user.

User avatar
Shalval
Posts: 32
Joined: Sat Feb 06, 2021 12:38 pm

Re: Real Men Don't Play in Tiny Dungeons

Post by Shalval »

You can sort of achieve that by dropping useless loot on junctions (make two piles to designate your direction). I remember some players doing that back in classic with arrows, but here on DFU the automap is so good, at most I use the corpses as reminders.

Recently I missed a quest object while having explored everything, and my heuristic earlier in this thread was all but useless. Instead I proceeded to visit each room and added a marker in the map for each of them, until I narrowed it down to the correct room.

User avatar
Blue Footed Booby
Posts: 17
Joined: Wed Jun 14, 2017 4:32 pm

Re: Real Men Don't Play in Tiny Dungeons

Post by Blue Footed Booby »

I don't know why, but the mental image of a seasoned adventurer leaving a trail of underware is his wake is giving me the giggles.

User avatar
Shalval
Posts: 32
Joined: Sat Feb 06, 2021 12:38 pm

Re: Real Men Don't Play in Tiny Dungeons

Post by Shalval »

Practicality to a fault :lol:

A mod that adds a way to write on walls/floors using the cursor with some chalk (using decals?) would be interesting and could reconcile a few players with bigger dungeons, maybe :)

On that subject, while I have always played with the default dungeons, I do have to express the sentiment that it makes the Main Quest dungeons less special. While it is great to grow your navigational skills to the point that you easily get to your objective and leave quickly, you also get to the point where you feel like you have seen it all.

Not to mention how strange it is that every little hole in the Illiac Bay is the Mines of Moria. Well, I guess these still dwarf anything in Daggerfall by a few orders of magnitude (pun intended).

ragray
Posts: 11
Joined: Tue Sep 29, 2020 12:17 pm

Re: Real Men Don't Play in Tiny Dungeons

Post by ragray »

I half-wondered whether my facetious title would troll anyone out. It seems that it did in a few cases. Hilarious!

I have discovered since I wrote last that, while it seems to remain true that the non-main quest dungeons contain at most four dungeon blocks, that is not so regarding the main quest dungeons. Scourg Barrow is not alone in having more than four dungeon blocks. After carefully labeling all passes as described in my article, I found that Castle Llugwych had five blocks and the Tomb of Lysandus had seven -- yes, 7!

After exhaustively exploring the Tomb of Lysandus the final block was, I believe,'wnneee'. (What a grueling expedition that was! No wonder people give up on this quest!)

It is admittedly a judgment call as to whether a block has enough content to be deemed a dungeon block, but I trust my conclusions in this area.

To those who wrote that dropping clutter in passes or marking walls would be useful: I don't see how. Such things won't appear on the automap.

My exploration method is similar to the one spoken of in one of the comments. At each branching point I drop a position marker on each branch other than the one I'm going to take. I also mark where I am doubling back because the branch I am on is taking me too far from the block I started in. Generally, it is better to finish clearing one block before beginning another, but that depends on recognizing when you have left the first block, something that is not always obvious.

It is also generally better to explore down before you explore up in order to avoid automap cluttering -- again, sometimes a hard thing to accomplish.

And remember, boys and girls, to remove obsolete Not Explored markers because it is confusing as hell if you don't and you have OCD about not missing a single piece of the dungeon. (And you constantly do this.)

Thank you for all your comments, even those that missed the point of the article. RAG

ragray
Posts: 11
Joined: Tue Sep 29, 2020 12:17 pm

Re: Real Men Don't Play in Tiny Dungeons

Post by ragray »

PS. I should have named my article ...

Tiny Clowns Play in Tiny Dungeons


Yeah, that's it!

Post Reply