Future Mod: "Better Intrinsic Classes"

Talk about the mods you'd like to see in Daggerfall Unity. Give mod creators some ideas!
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Jay_H
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Future Mod: "Better Intrinsic Classes"

Post by Jay_H »

My recent experiences with the roleplayer generator have shown me just how incredibly unwieldy Daggerfall is with the ordinary classes. Drawing from Morrowind mods such as BAMF and RAMF, I'm recording what I want to modify in the future in an online document. I'm hoping this will help alleviate the difficulty new players find when they try Daggerfall for the first time. I'll keep changing it over time as I try to figure out a good play style for each class, so it'll likely take me some time to get everything written down.

EDIT: I've also decided to modify races, on the assumption that race-based stats can be fixed.

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NikitaTheTanner
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Re: Future Mod: "Better Intrinsic Classes"

Post by NikitaTheTanner »

Here are some of my ideas about class system:

As much as I enjoy Daggerfall's original ideas in class creation, a lot of it is either pointless and/or broken. Advantages and disadvantages are totally random, some useful, some completely useless. Overall, I understand why Bethesda moved to Birthsigns, they provide more solid overall experience, though they weren't balanced greatly either.

I personally think that races should give slight boosts and resistances only, classes determine specializations and skill growth, and birthsigns give some unique advantages and disadvantage.

It's cool to see races being different, but they shouldn't completely limit player's choice, for example, making Bretons and Altmers only good spellcasters. That's rubbish. But having an extra edge, like water breathing and poison/disease resistance for Argonians, cold resistance for Nords, etc., makes races quite interesting. Some boosts to Attributes and Skills are good, but these shouldn't be OP by any means.

Classes are ideally professions, so they should determine only your skills and attributes. I don't think that limiting leveling to your major class skills is a good idea, instead every skill level up could add to your total XP, like in Skyrim. Just because it limits your character too much. But having good boosts to Attributes and Skills at the beginning of the game is always helpful.

As for gear limitations, I wouldn't mind Attribute based limitations, like inability to learn spells with low Intelligence or inability to wield Warhammers with low Strength. It makes more sense than arbitrary disadvantages. Your starting gear can also depend on your class, that would make sense, since you are not a prisoner there.

Birthsigns are a must, they are a big part of TES lore. Plus, they give good explanation as to why your character is this way. Would love to see them more balanced and interesting than later TES games, but not over the top, afterall, they are just like Zodiac signs, so there should be plenty of people under the same sign and it wouldn't make sense for everyone to breathe fire or something.

As for variety, I think good idea would be to include more versions of one sign. E.g. Warrior with Prime Aspect of Masser, Warrior with Prime Aspect of Secunda, etc. Also saw it in a mod for Morrowind and I think it's a pretty good idea, plus lore friendly.

P.S. Just my opinion and you're welcome to disagree, especially since it's different from original Daggerfall so much, but after playing TES 2-5 for a long time, I kinda have a list of problems each game has and want to solve them all in Daggerfall :)

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Jay_H
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Re: Future Mod: "Better Intrinsic Classes"

Post by Jay_H »

That's great :) What I've written is based on how Daggerfall currently exists and what I think each class was intended to be. You're mentioning several things that can be great additions to Daggerfall if they're added in, like birthsigns; for example, I wanted to make some classes unable to use armor of a certain condition but use their weapons, and your idea of "no X when attribute is under Y" is a great one. I didn't go that far in this mod but that's something that could totally work once the major alterations begin.

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jman0war
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Re: Future Mod: "Better Intrinsic Classes"

Post by jman0war »

BirthSigns are Oblivion and Skyrim so i wouldn't have them in Daggerfall.

I like the differences between races.
Class skill adjustments look pretty good.
I would probably put Skill Expertise of Rogues to ShortBlade rather than LongBlade.

Though i wouldn't mind seeing some stuff just down to a random roll.
Like maybe the forbidden stuff or weaknesses.
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Jay_H
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Re: Future Mod: "Better Intrinsic Classes"

Post by Jay_H »

Good point, I changed the Rogue expertise :) I'm curious about what you meant regarding rolling advantages and disadvantages. Would it be a 1:1 ratio where the game randomly picks an equal number of each, with specific possibilities for each class?

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jman0war
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Re: Future Mod: "Better Intrinsic Classes"

Post by jman0war »

Jay_H wrote:Good point, I changed the Rogue expertise :) I'm curious about what you meant regarding rolling advantages and disadvantages. Would it be a 1:1 ratio where the game randomly picks an equal number of each, with specific possibilities for each class?
I hadn't really put much thought to it.
But just thinking it might be interesting to bundle the negatives into a random roll of some sort.

Oh i noticed that Burglar has Mercantile as both Major and Minor skills.
I would put it at Major only.

Oh wait it's crossed out as a Major.

Hey, why doesn't a Ranger have archery as a primary?
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Jay_H
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Re: Future Mod: "Better Intrinsic Classes"

Post by Jay_H »

It felt as though Rangers would just be duplicates of Archers. I decided to aim more for an Aragorn-style Ranger, one who's good at combat in general. That's not set in stone though, I'm always willing to listen to feedback.

One thing I forgot to mention is that some classes, like Ranger, Barbarian, and Mage will be much easier than others. I'm planning on letting them be unbalanced so newer people can be pointed towards certain "starter" classes.

The Mercantile loss for Burglars was a sacrifice I made. I want to ensure as many combat-related skills enter into Primary as possible, so it had to be Major or lower. I had to choose between Mercantile and Lockpicking for Major, and I figured Lockpicking is more important for a character's survival. I could also drop Climbing to Minor but I figured that's more survival-related for a character with no magicka.

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jman0war
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Re: Future Mod: "Better Intrinsic Classes"

Post by jman0war »

Jay_H wrote:It felt as though Rangers would just be duplicates of Archers. I decided to aim more for an Aragorn-style Ranger, one who's good at combat in general. That's not set in stone though, I'm always willing to listen to feedback.

One thing I forgot to mention is that some classes, like Ranger, Barbarian, and Mage will be much easier than others. I'm planning on letting them be unbalanced so newer people can be pointed towards certain "starter" classes.

The Mercantile loss for Burglars was a sacrifice I made. I want to ensure as many combat-related skills enter into Primary as possible, so it had to be Major or lower. I had to choose between Mercantile and Lockpicking for Major, and I figured Lockpicking is more important for a character's survival. I could also drop Climbing to Minor but I figured that's more survival-related for a character with no magicka.
Yes i think that makes sense for the Ranger.
They should be separated from an Archer.
Without a 'Scouting' or 'Tracking' skill to work with what else can you do.
Though in other games (Everquest for example) Rangers are also minor Healers and have some minor magic skills.
I would imagine, more than Archers would have.

I do think that Thief or Burglar should have Mercantile as a Major as they need to be able to fence their loot..
Actually maybe Minor is good.
Those classes are limited enough. Leather only for Thief and lots of forbidden material for Burglar.
Find my Vibrant Terrain Flats mod at Nexusmods: https://www.nexusmods.com/daggerfalluni ... ?tab=files

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