Dungeon design - Use old style levels.

algfr · Post by **algfr** » Tue May 28, 2019 1:29 pm

Hello folks,

Fully new here, I discovered the DF Unity project one week ago and I'm amazed how DF is becoming playable.

For me the biggest hurdle in this game when I played 20 years ago were the dungeons.

I have seen in the latest release the "Experimental Dungeons" option which seems to help getting the dungeons to a normal size, It seems to be working (Has this been tested ?). I don't think I have spent more than 30-40 minutes in a dungeon.

However it's still a mess to navigate because of the up/down corridors that make the map too complex to view.

I don't mind the vanilla generation procedure, maybe it could be improved but that's not too bad.

My first step suggestion would be to, as the oldies RPG used to do, divide the dungeons into "levels".

Said differently, I think it would be an improvement to flatten out the dungeon into separate floors with staircases to access the different levels. This would make the map fully usable like in good old styles RPG.

Has anybody else thought of this ? Maybe a type of "red brick" door could be used to achieve this. I really think these up/down corridors ruin the experience but maybe it's just me.

Jay_H · Post by **Jay_H** » Tue May 28, 2019 1:37 pm

Welcome to the forums!

As yet no one has taken up the task to create a dungeon block editor, which would be a prime tool to achieving what you've described. Once it exists, others and I will be editing Daggerfall's dungeons like crazy, giving them sensible, realistic proportions

Until then we'll make do with what Bethesda gave us.

algfr · Post by **algfr** » Tue May 28, 2019 1:43 pm

Thanks.

Yes I see what you mean. My suggestion would be the "step 1". i.e

- Force flatten the block generation but leave them as is otherwise.
- Replace the corridors that link blocks together by teleportation doors, i.e. break it into sub dungeons.

Fully redesign the dungeons would be afterwards of course.

I have no clue how this piece of info can be extracted from the game files.

pango · Post by **pango** » Tue May 28, 2019 5:11 pm

But there's no code for blocks generation, that's why Jay_H mentions the need for a block editor.
I think there's some misunderstanding here, maybe about how experimental smaller dungeons works.
It just makes dungeons from one inner block and 4 border blocks as stubs around the former, all taken from the classic Daggerfall blocks library.

Also, I don't think it would be a good idea to use teleportation to link blocs together. If you think ramps are confusing, teleporters would probably be twice worse, because nothing will visually tell that you'll only be teleported 10m above or 10m below; And I'm not sure you can just compensate for that with your brain.
Replacing ramps with levels and staircases okay, but in my opinion blocks should still be connected by simple doors.

Al-Khwarizmi · Post by **Al-Khwarizmi** » Tue May 28, 2019 9:05 pm

Jay_H wrote: ↑Tue May 28, 2019 1:37 pmothers and I will be editing Daggerfall's dungeons like crazy, giving them sensible, realistic proportions

And others, to increase the variety of blocks while keeping the proportions

I'm looking forward to that.

Jay_H · Post by **Jay_H** » Tue May 28, 2019 10:43 pm

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: ↑Tue May 28, 2019 9:05 pm
Jay_H wrote: ↑Tue May 28, 2019 1:37 pmothers and I will be editing Daggerfall's dungeons like crazy, giving them sensible, realistic proportions
And others, to increase the variety of blocks while keeping the proportions I'm looking forward to that.

Definitely!

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Dungeon design - Use old style levels.

Dungeon design - Use old style levels.

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