Preserving vanilla unbalanced DF with exploits or fixing it?

[jayhova]

If someone points me to where the, preferably upscaled, animation of the guards is, I can redo them with bows for future use. It would be nice if you could also point me to the animation for the archer shooting so I can match the body positions.

[Jay_H]

I think the reason classic guards didn't use bows was because any damage you incurred after committing a crime automatically brought up the surrender prompt; try committing vagrancy and then jumping off a city wall in Daggerfall classic. You'll be taken to court with no guards nearby.

Alternate alternate solution:
Limited number of quests to choose from. Quests are offered for a certain random amount of time then expire to be replaced by others. You might need to go to another guild hall when one runs out of quests to give you

"Apologies, my dear Journeyman, but you have rejected every viable source of work available at this guild hall. Perhaps you will learn to be less picky if you wish to progress in our ranks. Could you check back tomorrow, friend? I am certain urgent tasks will call on skills such as those you provide."

[jayhova]

I think the reason classic guards didn't use bows was because any damage you incurred after committing a crime automatically brought up the surrender prompt; try committing vagrancy and then jumping off a city wall in Daggerfall classic. You'll be taken to court with no guards nearby.

The problem I see arising is that guards with bows will continue to shoot until you are dead even it you try to surrender. If you just run they don't shoot. but attacking a guard changes that. If you sheath your weapon and stand still they will pursue you and demand a surrender.

"Apologies, my dear Journeyman, but you have rejected every viable source of work available at this guild hall. Perhaps you will learn to be less picky if you wish to progress in our ranks. Could you check back tomorrow, friend? I am certain urgent tasks will call on skills such as those you provide."

Nice! Exactly!

Perhaps the number of quest a guild hall has is limited. Perhaps affected by the population of the city. Big capital cities are likely to have a good number of quests that get cycled through regularly. Guilds in shall towns might have just a few stale quests. New quest might take some time to come in.

[UserOfThisSite]

Perhaps the number of quest a guild hall has is limited. Perhaps affected by the population of the city. Big capital cities are likely to have a good number of quests that get cycled through regularly. Guilds in shall towns might have just a few stale quests. New quest might take some time to come in.

But this will change nothing, your character doesn't need to eat, he doesn't age, he doesn't have fatal disease that will kill him within certain period of time. You can sleep for ages with no consequences for you. Time isn't resource in TES games, thus you can always wait. No quest? Ok, loiter for a day, just stand there like a plant infront of NPC, stare at the wall like a zombie, then ask for a quest again, loiter for a month, if needed. It just forces player to do stupid things, if you can't loiter, then sleep, you can sleep for free inside fighter guilds, there's even a trainer, you can increase all fighter trainer skills to 51 while waiting for a quest, by training 3 hours / sleeping 9 hours non-stop. Need money? Teleport to a shop at night lol :D

[Jay_H]

I've notice guild halls use quality markers like shops do, but I've never seen the point. Perhaps that could be used to determine the number of quests alternatively.

But this will change nothing, your character doesn't need to eat, he doesn't age, he doesn't have fatal disease that will kill him within certain period of time. You can sleep for ages with no consequences for you. Time isn't resource in TES games, thus you can always wait. No quest? Ok, loiter for a day, just stand there like a plant infront of NPC, stare at the wall like a zombie, then ask for a quest again, loiter for a month, if needed. It just forces player to do stupid things, if you can't loiter, then sleep, you can sleep for free inside fighter guilds, there's even a trainer, you can increase all fighter trainer skills to 51 while waiting for a quest, by training 3 hours / sleeping 9 hours non-stop. Need money? Teleport to a shop at night lol

The idea is that of a soft deterrent; as it stands, nothing prevents a player from scumming through quest invitations until they get the easiest ones. The player now has to make the decision of choosing a less-than-ideal quest or having to waste time traveling somewhere else or sleeping until the next cycle appears. The commodity isn't on the character, but on the player.

[BansheeXYZ]

The idea is that of a soft deterrent; as it stands, nothing prevents a player from scumming through quest invitations until they get the easiest ones. The player now has to make the decision of choosing a less-than-ideal quest or having to waste time traveling somewhere else or sleeping until the next cycle appears. The commodity isn't on the character, but on the player.

He's right, though. The dungeon quests can be hours long, so a deterrent of a couple minutes sleeping or traveling around won't deter the player from cheesing the quests. Quests should've come in a hard order where declining delays, but never skips. Only the names and places should randomize on offers.

[jayhova]

But this will change nothing, your character doesn't need to eat, he doesn't age, he doesn't have fatal disease that will kill him within certain period of time. You can sleep for ages with no consequences for you. Time isn't resource in TES games, thus you can always wait. No quest? Ok, loiter for a day, just stand there like a plant in front of NPC, stare at the wall like a zombie, then ask for a quest again, loiter for a month, if needed. It just forces player to do stupid things, if you can't loiter, then sleep, you can sleep for free inside fighter guilds, there's even a trainer, you can increase all fighter trainer skills to 51 while waiting for a quest, by training 3 hours / sleeping 9 hours non-stop. Need money? Teleport to a shop at night lol

Most of these things are good candidates for mods. You don't need food while travelling because you camp out which means you hunt for food or you stay in an inn. I could see a mod that requires you to have food and drink in the dungeon. Rat meat anyone? Just buy food provisions at the inn like arrows 7 days at a time. Water jugs automatically refill whenever you click a fountain or stay at an inn. You can also get wine and beer to go and have plenty in your cart. These could stack like potions.

What are the consequences in real life for getting a hotel room and staying there? We can just assume you are doing whatever you are doing. Killing time.

The truth is that the player character is super rich and can just loiter around with no consequences. It's that way in real life. Maybe the PC should age but if they become a vampire not so much.

[jayhova]

He's right, though. The dungeon quests can be hours long, so a deterrent of a couple minutes sleeping or traveling around won't deter the player from cheesing the quests. Quests should've come in a hard order where declining delays, but never skips. Only the names and places should randomize on offers.

IRL you can do the same. If you are rich and have no pressing engagements you can just sit around waiting for the job you want. Most guilds the quest giver is just a fancy jobs bulletin board.

[UserOfThisSite]

Most of these things are good candidates for mods. You don't need food while travelling because you camp out which means you hunt for food or you stay in an inn. I could see a mod that requires you to have food and drink in the dungeon. Rat meat anyone? Just buy food provisions at the inn like arrows 7 days at a time. Water jugs automatically refill whenever you click a fountain or stay at an inn. You can also get wine and beer to go and have plenty in your cart. These could stack like potions.

What are the consequences in real life for getting a hotel room and staying there? We can just assume you are doing whatever you are doing. Killing time.

The truth is that the player character is super rich and can just loiter around with no consequences. It's that way in real life. Maybe the PC should age but if they become a vampire not so much.

No, I meant that "time" is nothing in TES game, so using it to limit something is automatically useless and overall bad game design, unless it's changed somehow. Eating and aging are actually even worse game design and were only examples. For example Skyrim has food mods, but they are all stupid and only force players to do more mouse movements and clicks and clutter their inventory with garbage food items. This is wrong approach and may be good only for certain hardcore RPers who REALLY want to be immersed, when they click on that food, imagining that they're eating it.

For Skyrim making time valuable is very easy: Alduin could be destroying cities one by one, if you're too late and he destroyed all cities - game over. Or opposing side (Empire or Stormcloaks) could be capturing your side cities over time, if you lose the war - game over. This way player can't just wait for ages and he doesn't need to perform idiotic tasks like eating food. Time becomes a resources and thus now you need to spend your time wisely.

In Daggerfall, I don't know. May be Daggerfall's ghost can become more and more aggressive over time and send undead minions to other cities and provinces? Or instead of level scaling, add time scaling - creatures and NPCs level with time, thus if you're waiting for too long - you become relatively weaker. Something like that. Then waiting for days/weeks/months for a newer quest may become a strategic choice or a mistake.

[BansheeXYZ]

IRL you can do the same. If you are rich and have no pressing engagements you can just sit around waiting for the job you want. Most guilds the quest giver is just a fancy jobs bulletin board.

In real life, rich people don't need jobs. In real life, there's no certainty that passing on other jobs will cause the one you want to appear.

No, I meant that "time" is nothing in TES game, so using it to limit something is automatically useless and overall bad game design, unless it's changed somehow.

It's bad as a cheesing device, but it's not bad design to let the player shelf the main quest for as long as he wants to progress his character in the world. It would've been annoying to be interrupted and threatened by royals constantly while you're doing guild quests.