Daggerfall Mechanics thread: Volunteers welcome

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Jay_H
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Daggerfall Mechanics thread: Volunteers welcome

Post by Jay_H »

Hey everyone. Development of DFU is moving away from world/scene creation and toward the everyday mechanics that generate gameplay directly. This means there's a great deal of information we can start to put together based on our own testing, which will undoubtedly make the programming easier when the time comes. So I wanted to make this thread so we can begin to coordinate what we know and don't know, and what we've tested, showing any conclusions we have so far. Character stat information (max health, encumbrance, etc) is currently established.

We can begin by breaking the game down into its sections and starting from there. This will largely be built out of the experimenting I and others decide to do. If anyone does any testing, no matter how little it is, feel free to post about it in this topic.

Also, any mistakes and ignorance found here are mine. It's quite likely others around here can correct me on some of the things I have written, and if so, I welcome it. I'll be italicizing sections that have been answered or where testing has begun. I want to set in bold any matters that have been absolutely and completely settled (open to further testing, of course).

If you think of any sections that can be added, post away.

Character Mechanics

Name and class: How many characters each can be. What characters are permitted (number, punctuation, etc). Class can be up to 14 characters, and allows letters, numbers, and ! @ # $ % ^ & * ( ) - _ = + , < . > / ? \ | ] } [ { ' " ; : (all tested punctuation). Name can be up to 31 characters and allows the same as Class.

Skill increases: Skills appear to increase with fewer uses at low % and more uses at high %. What numbers are required for skill-ups?

Critical Weakness to Paralysis: What does this do? Does it increase duration? Reduce "Spell effect failed" occurrences by enemies? (planning to cast a self-paralysis spell, and measure duration w/ diff chars)

Critical Weakness to Element: How much does the damage alter with these? (find a Fire Daedra or Frost Daedra and let it launch spells, test w/ diff characters; or just cast an AOE damage spell on self.) Does it change damage at all, or does it only alter resistance?

Critical Weakness to Disease: Underflow glitch is known, but what has to happen for underflow glitch? Several of my characters with just CritWktoDis have never been diseased. Is disease just that rare? UESP establishes it at 5% and 2% per hit. If it's a fixed 5% or 2%, what does this disadvantage do? Some testing has been combined with that of Medical, below.

Acute Hearing: What does this do? My pretended theory a long time ago was that this allows the character to be interrupted from rest without alerting the enemy (enemy spawns but is still asleep).

Dodging: What triggers Dodging skill-ups?

Medical: What does this skill do? Increase health restored during rest? Preliminary test: level 32 Argonian, 1 endurance, 100 medical, normal to disease, vs a Giant Bat, resting for 8 hours afterwards. First set of 10 hits: no disease. 2nd set: no disease. 3rd set: Stomach Rot after resting for 2 hours. 4th set: no disease. 5th set: Brain Fever after resting for 2 hours.
Medical test: level 32 Argonian, 1 endurance, 1 medical, normal to disease, vs a Giant Bat, resting for 24 hours afterwards. First set of 10 hits: no disease. 2nd set: no disease. 3rd set: no disease. 4th set: Brain Fever after 2 hours. 5th set: no disease. Current conclusion: Medical does not help to diagnose diseases quickly. Medical also does not aid in the prevention of diseases.
Out of 100 strikes, presumably 3 led to infection. Could be 2%, 5%, or in between. Needs further testing.
Critical Weakness test: level 32 Argonian, 1 endurance, 1 medical, Critical Weakness to disease, vs a Giant Bat, resting for 24 hours afterwards. First set of 10 hits: no disease. 2nd set: no disease. 3rd set: no disease. 4th set: no disease. 5th set, no disease. Another reversed inequality sign?
Immunity test: level 32 Argonian, 1 endurance, 1 medical, Immune to disease, vs a Giant Bat, resting for 24 hours afterwards. First set of 10 hits: no disease. 2nd set: no disease. 3rd set: no disease. 4th set: no disease. 5th set: no disease. Not surprised with this one, it was just a reciprocal test.

(((medical/10)+6)% of maximum health) + endurance modifier

Healing rate: Specific numbers on healing per rest. Endurance, Regeneration, and Rapid Healing are known factors. Medical possible. Strength? Luck? I pastebinned a lot of the research here, for documentation purposes. It was too big for this post. You can ignore tests 1-9 for the most part, they're pretty contaminated since I was using 1 endurance instead of 50. They at least demonstrate the effects of reduced endurance. I could've made this a lot simpler starting from there, but it's over now. I'm also attaching my spreadsheet. Results: Healing Rate = ((Medical/10)+6)% of max health +- endurance modifier (as corrected by R.D.). Endurance modifier appears to be (modifier + 1) when endurance is <50. Rapid Healing adds 4% of max health per hour rested. Regeneration adds 15 health per hour. I just tested luck as well, and 1 and 100 luck each provide no change to healing rate. Additional credit due to Narf the Mouse in this matter.

Regenerate Health: Under what conditions do Regenerate Health in Darkness and in Light occur? Is it time of day? Dungeons? Indoor locations (any)? 1. A "dark regenerate" character applied it in a tavern at 13:00 hours. This tells me that "light" will be sunlight, and "darkness" will be anything that is not light. 2. A "light regenerate" character applied it outdoors during daylight. 3. A "dark regenerate" character applied it outdoors during nighttime. Working theory: "light" is anything outdoors between 6AM and 6PM. 4. A "light regenerate" character applied it outdoors at 6:10 AM. "Light" is considered by the game to mean outdoors from 6AM to 6PM. "Darkness" is any circumstance that is not light.

Light- and Dark-Powered Magery: To what extent is magic reduced at each time? A "light-powered" character had max magicka reduced to 2/3 (667 instead of 1000) in a tavern. When resting, the regular 12.5% of max was restored, of the adjusted max (667), granting 83 per hour. Light- and Darkness-Powered Magery appears to only reduce maximum magicka by 1/3 during the adverse conditions. (Question: Does this affect spell power in any way?)

Chameleon and Shadow: What do these spells do? Knowing what we do about Daggerfall's light and darkness settings, I'd guess Chameleon improves stealth skill and/or checks in light and Shadow does the same in dark.

Critical Strike: What does this skill do? I think it causes that recoil-knockback effect that makes monsters bleed from the mouth. Does it also cause a persisting stun effect afterwards? What triggers Critical Strike skill-ups? As noted by LypyL, a formula for Critical Strike and Backstabbing success rate is given in Daggerfall Chronicles.

Phobia/Bonus to Hit: What effects do these have on To Hit? Are they the CareerMod effects in the To Hit chance? Does a phobia grant the enemy a larger chance to hit you?

Jumping: What determines jumping height? Does Strength affect it? If there are multiple factors, what is their proportion?

Swimming: Determine factors for breath and swimming speed.

Resistance/Immunity to Magicka: Does this affect all magicka, or only non-elemental?

Damage from Sunlight/Holy: How much damage is taken? How often? Does the time of day affect sun damage?

Training: LypyL notes as follows: "Each training session is roughly equal to 15 uses of a skill and can increase skills up to 50%. The cost of training is 100 * your character's level. After training...9 hours and you will be able to train again."

Leveling formula: LypyL notes: "Level is determined by the equation (L= floor((S− S0+ 28)/15)), where S equals the sum of your three primary skills, two highest major skills, and highest minor skill, and S0 equals the sum of the starting values of each of those skills. In simpler terms, you must raise the total of these skills by 15 points in order to get a level increase. Any combination of skill increases will work as long as they total to 15 points. Increases in Miscellaneous skills do not count toward level increases, although the character will still be better at doing those things. "

Combat

To-Hit chance: While the explanation given at the UESP is trustworthy, there are still some unknowns in the formula, so it's not yet conclusive. Working this out will likely require a large amount of tested information. Specifically: Swing Type, Adrenaline1, Adrenaline2, generalMod1, generalMod2, CareerMod, CareerMod1, CareerMod2, Racial-mod. Testing has begun on the combat formula.

Melee combat range: How close an enemy must be for the character's hits to connect. Also, how close the character must be for an enemy to connect (I presume these to be different, based on my experience).

Dodging mechanics: DF Chronicles establishes dodging percent to be (dodging skill / 10).

Collision damage: What gives the enemy momentum to collide? How is damage calculated on enemy collision? Does collision damage occur when reeling from an AOE spell? Is momentum different per enemy?

Weapon swing speed: Exact speed determination, and on what variables. Do Reflexes alter weapon swing speed?

Equipping hands: What alters the speed it takes to switch weapons? My presumption relates to weapon weight, and UESP suggests it's related to Speed. Would Weapon Skill also affect?

Resting distance: What is the proper distance to rest? It seems inert enemies allow resting (inert meaning not spawned yet rather than pacified). (Need to paralyze an enemy and choose a long hallway, probably Sentinel Palace guard. Does line of sight affect?) My testing so far shows that it's based on what monsters are spawned and despawned. In Sentinel Palace throne room, I was unable to rest with both guards alive on this spot. If I moved back any further, the guards and that section of the room would despawn, and then I could rest. So it appears linked, incidentally or not, to the despawning of any enemies in the area. Once the character is outside the radius to render them and they despawn, resting can occur. I would set the above screenshot as the proper distance for this to occur for now, which we can measure with proper X/Y inside Unity when that's possible. That will at least provide an experience sufficiently close to Daggerfall, even if despawning doesn't occur in Unity.

Pacification: LypyL has notes stating that the pacification check for monsters is ((player's language skill + (player's personality ÷ 10) + weapon status) ÷ 200), and for humanoids is ((player's personality ÷ 5) + ((player's etiquette skill ÷ 10) + weapon status ) ÷ 200).

Hand-to-Hand damage: Noted by LypyL. Further investigation by R.D. into damage calculations.

Monster stats: Are these coded in a visible place in the game, or is this something we have to work out through testing?

Armor: How does Daggerfall determine damage reduction through armor rating?

Weapon type: Several players have noted differences between blunt and edged weapons against enemies such as skeletons. Determine the extent to which this is true, and which enemies it affects. Some preliminary testing shows this to be true. Determining which enemies it occurs with remains.

Archery range: Does character archery skill alter the range of arrows?

Magic

Multiple castings: Casting the same spell on Self with a Duration component appears to stack the duration, adding more Rounds on to that which is currently in place. Not known whether the same applies to targeting others.

AOE spell range: Tested. Daggerfall's AOE range is much bigger than I expected. I paralyzed the skeleton in Privateer's Hold over this spot. I then cast an AOE shock damage at the ground while levitating. This spot was too far to reach the skeleton, and this spot was close enough to reach it. Once we can get specific x-y coordinates from Unity for this, we can get a nearly exact radius figure for AOE spells. I want to assume caster-based AOE has the same radius but I don't know how to test it. (Question: does a spell gain AOE range as it travels through the air? This seems further than I expected, and I don't think every spell I've cast had that range.)

Spell cost calculation [per effect] in magicka and gold (rounded down)
Self: 1x
By Touch: 1x
Ranged: 1.5x
Area Around Caster: 2x
Area At Range: 2.5x
As suggested by EpicSpellsword404, Mages Guild quality (Rusty-Incense), Personality, and Mercantile have no effect on Spell Maker costs.

Chameleon: Illusion. Normal/True. Duration. Any target, non-elemental.
Charm: Thaumaturgy. Duration, Chance. Non-self, any element.
Climbing: Alteration. Duration. Any target, non-elemental.
Comprehend Languages: Mysticism. Duration, Chance.
Continuous Damage: Destruction. Fatigue/Health/Spell Points. Duration, Magnitude. Non-self, any element.
Create Item: Mysticism. Duration. Self-only, non-elemental.
Cure: Restoration. Disease/Paralysis/Poison. Chance. Any target, non-elemental. Paralysis more expensive than other two (1.5x).
Damage: Destruction. Fatigue/Health/Spell Points. Magnitude. Non-self, any element.
Detect: Thaumaturgy. Enemy/Magic/Treasure. Duration. Self-only, non-elemental.
Disintegrate: Destruction. Chance. Non-self, any element.
Dispel: Mysticism. Chance. Daedra/Magic/Undead. Self-only, non-elemental.
Drain: Destruction. Magnitude. 8 stats. Non-self, any element.
Elemental Resistance: Alteration. Duration, Chance. Five elements. Any target, non-elemental.
Fortify Attribute: Restoration. Duration, Magnitude. 8 stats. Any target, non-elemental.
Free Action: Restoration. Duration. Any target, non-elemental.
Heal: Restoration. Magnitude. 8 stats/stamina/health. Any target, non-elemental. Stats more expensive than health.
Identify: Thaumaturgy. Chance. Self-only, non-elemental.
Invisibility: Illusion. Normal/True. Duration. Any target, non-elemental.
Jumping: Alteration. Duration. Any target, non-elemental.
Levitate: Thaumaturgy. Duration. Self-only, non-elemental.
Light: Illusion. Duration. Any target, non-elemental.
Lock: Mysticism. Chance. Self-only, non-elemental.
Open: Mysticism. Chance. Self-only, non-elemental.
Pacify: Thaumaturgy. Chance. Animal/Daedra/Human/Undead. Varying expensiveness. Non-self, any element.
Paralyze: Alteration. Duration, Chance. Non-self, any element.
Regenerate: Restoration. Duration, Magnitude. Any target, non-elemental.
Shadow: Illusion. Normal/True. Duration. Any target, non-elemental.
Shield: Alteration. Duration, Magnitude. Any target, non-elemental.
Silence: Mysticism. Duration, Chance. Any target, any element.
Slowfall: Alteration. Duration. Self-only, non-elemental.
Soul Trap: Mysticism. Duration, Chance. Non-self, any element.
Spell Absorption: Restoration. Duration, Chance. Any target, non-elemental.
Spell Reflection: Thaumaturgy. Duration, Chance. Any target, non-elemental.
Spell Resistance: Thaumaturgy. Duration, Chance. Any target, non-elemental.
Teleport: Mysticism. No modifiers. Self-only, non-elemental. 0 gold cost.
Transfer: Destruction. Magnitude. 8 stats/stamina/health. Non-self, non-elemental.
Water Breathing: Alteration. Duration. Any target, non-elemental.
Water Walking: Thaumaturgy. Duration. Any target, non-elemental.
My methodology for the spells was to cast each one, individually, until magicka was exhausted. I then rested and repeated this process until gaining skill in a magicka school; I then repeated to ensure they don't belong to a secondary school. I had thought that some spells like Spell Reflection belonged to two different schools, but some verification afterwards showed me that it's only dependent on one, just the same as the rest. I set a single magicka school at a time to 99 to verify the drop in casting cost, reducing all other schools to 1. Very few spells didn't reach 5, and none (I believe) was higher than 10. Nearly all spells were left at their initial values, and they were only increased to raise their natural casting cost above 5 for comparison purposes.
Due to work by Al-Khwarizmi, ifkopifko, and Narf the Mouse, all spell values have been calculated and the formulas have been recorded.

How much does mixing spell effects alter magicka cost: A preliminary test (Soul Trap + Damage Health) showed that the magicka and gold costs are added simply, without further alterations. Through additional testing, spell costs are shown to be added simply.

Character magicka: LypyL has notes as follows: "By default a character may only have a totality of 0.5 x Intelligence in spellpoints. There is an inverse correlation between skill in a magical school and the amount of magicka a spell from that school will cost. The minimum amount of magicka a spell may cost is 5 spellpoints. But some magicka-heavy spells will never cost that little even with a skill of 100% in the related school."

Magicka restored per hour of resting: Appears to be percentage-based. What percentage? Magicka is restored at 12.5% per hour, rounding down. 1000 magicka rested for 1 hour granted 125. 100 magicka rested for 1 hour granted 12. 300 magicka rested for 1 hour granted 37.

Spell resist: What determines spell resist? What likelihood? (for character and enemies, if different) A character with 10 willpower resisted 13/50 self-cast AOE damage spells on first test. A character with 100 willpower resisted 18/50 self-cast AOE damage spells on first test. I KNEW IT!! Willpower really is useless for resists!! (Further testing: (testing 100 willpower, level 1) vs Vampire Ancient: 0/6 resists; 0/13 resists; 0/14 resists.) (Further testing: (testing 1 willpower, level 50) vs Vampire Ancient: 4/6 resists; 5/6 resists; 7/9 resists; 6/9 resists. Appearing to gravitate around 66%. Willpower does not appear to factor into spell resist at all. Need to test 100 willpower+level 50 to see if it grants absolute resist. Also, must test to see if 1 willpower is better for resists than 100; could be a reversed > somewhere.) (Further testing: My character resisted an AOE Soul Trap spell about 29 times out of 30, but an AOE Continuous Damage/Regeneration spell only 2 out of 5 times. Does save vs spell change depending on the spell?)

Spell Absorption: The current statement on spell absorption is that it's ((willpower+intelligence)/2)%. Is that true? My own testing doesn't reflect this statement, and the above conclusion re: spell resists throws willpower into question. (Test 1: Level 50, 100 int, 100 wil vs vampire ancient: 6 Save vs Spell, 6 Absorbed.) (Test 2: Level 50, 100 int, 100 wil vs vampire ancient: 6 Save vs Spell, 6 Absorbed.) (Test 3: Level 1, 100 int, 100 wil vs vampire ancient: 6 Save vs Spell, 6 Absorbed. Round 2: 5 Save vs Spell, 5 Absorbed. Round 3: 5 Save vs Spell, 5 Absorbed. 100% absorption and save vs spell on 16 attempts.)

Spell rounds: How long does a round last, in seconds? A round lasts for about 5 seconds. A spell effect seems to begin blinking when two rounds, or <10 seconds, are remaining. Recurring spell effects such as Regeneration and Continuous Damage occur at the start of each round. Rounds are always ticking in the background, and the first round of a spell will use the current, expiring round; this means a spell with duration 1 could last 0.01 seconds, if cast at the very end of the round. My methodology was creating one spell (Detect Enemy) with a duration of 1+1 every 20; creating a Camouflage spell with a duration of 2+1 every 20; and a Comprehend Languages spell with a duration of 3+1 every 20, and seeing how quickly they would tick off. As each one ticked on and off, I could time the rounds. Rounds last 5 seconds under Very Slow reflexes as well.

Fatigue loss: Some testing shows Running has a minimal or zero effect on running speed, but it maintains Fatigue while running. A character with 1 Running seems to wither away. How much does Athleticism deter Fatigue loss by? Endurance? Strength? Encumbrance? Does swinging a weapon reduce Fatigue? Climbing? Testing needed. (Test 1: Level 25 Argonian, 100 Str, 1 Agi, 1 End, 40/150 enc, 11 running. Running for 60 seconds, lost 11 fatigue.)

Fatigue: I just witnessed it: fatigue uses fractions of integers (decimals). My character had 1 str and 1 end, making 2 max fatigue. Some hopping around in the room cut fatigue down by 10% (0.2) each time, allowing for 10 hops before being totally exhausted

Fatigue gain: How much per hour. Fatigue regenerates at 12.5% of max per hour rested, same as magicka. A character with 1000 fatigue regained 125 in one hour.

Athleticism: What does this skill do? Does it affect running, swimming, jumping, etc? EpicSpellsword404 states: "Athletecism makes you jump higher. I think it's the same as having a Jumping spell up all the time because I remember casting jump with a character that had Athletecism and it had no noticable effect." Narf the Mouse: "Athleticism seems to provide a minor boost to run/climb, although I have no certain data; just intuition from having played a lot. Which might be confirmation bias. Possibly also swim."

Stealth skills

Lockpicking percent chance:

Running speed: What determines the character's movement speed? How much? I presume this to be a mix of (Running skill, Speed attribute, Reflex setting) in some way. With 100 speed, 100 running, and Very High reflexes, running from one corner of the first room in Castle Wayrest to the other takes about 3 seconds. 50 speed, 100 running, Very High takes 4 seconds. 100Sx1RxVH takes about 3. 100Sx50RxVH takes 3 seconds. 50Sx50RxVH takes about 4.5. 25Sx50RxVH takes about 4.5. 25Sx25RxVH takes about 5. 25Sx1RxVH takes about 5. 1Sx1RxVH takes about 5. This establishes a minimum running speed at about 25 speed/25 running. (I still don't trust my computer as I should so more testing is welcome.) 50Sx50RxVeryLow takes about 4.5. 100Sx100RxVL takes about 3. It appears Reflexes has no effect on character movement speed. Once I know of a way to get exact X/Y coordinates out of Unity interiors, we can make a conversion of time to pixels and set an adjustable run speed based on Speed stat. (Question: Daggerfall doesn't use an acceleration rate, does it? All movement speed seems to be instantaneous.)

Personality skills

Buying and selling prices: How does the game determine the gold offered for items in shops? I'm not finished testing. The findings are fairly consistent but bizarre thus far. I've attached a spreadsheet to this post. It's pretty disorganized, but the main thing to show is that on page 3, Ripmarket, stores under the exact same quality vary by 4% in their buying price. This suggests that each store somehow has an individual ratio (the items do not vary individually; it's uniform per store), rather than a single ratio decided by Rusty, Cobbled, Standard, Not Fit, and Incense. This will take a lot of testing to understand well. Further testing shows that all shops post their values based on a variable daily rate, which affects all shops equally.

House sell-back prices: How much the bank offers for your used house. Testing in Aldingbury, Menevia: 1 per, 1 merc: 580890 sale; 493757 return. 100 per, 100 merc: 580890 sale; 493757 return. 85% return. Personality and mercantile do not affect sale or return price. Testing in Tulaia, Ayasofya: 468360 sale; 398106 return. 85% return. House resale percent does not vary per region.

House prices: What determines. Is it a specific cost per model, does it vary per region, etc. Testing in Chesterwark, Daggerfall: a house is listed at 468360. It has the same exterior shape and cost as one house in Tulaia, Ayasofya, but the interior is very different. Theory: House price is determined by exterior.

Peasant conversation: What determines success

Reputation rating: Does the character's reputation rating with the Big Five Reputations matter? What does it affect?

Shop ratings: What do the shop tiers affect? Quality, quantity, prices?

Quests

Quest duration: What determines a quest's expiration date? I remember one patch for Daggerfall alters quest deadlines so they aren't so tight; we should bear this alteration in mind. (Planning to head to the Wrothgarian Mountains for this test). Some preliminary testing with the Mages Guild so far. One screenshot is sorted by quest, one is sorted by time ratio. It looks like each quest has a certain weight to it (Baltham Grayman is near the middle, and Scholar Research is weighted more heavily). However, it'll take more testing to see whether this isn't just statistical irregularity.

Quest faction changes: These are found individually in each quest and stored in the UESP.

Quest rewards: Exactly how does the game determine gold rewarded for quests?

Enemies

Enemy magicka: What determines enemy magicka? Do enemies regain magicka in real-time? Why do some enemies have zero magicka after loading a save file?

Damage in holy places: UESP establishes that daedra lords, vampires, and vampire ancients take damage in holy places, and vampires in the sun. Needs testing.

Damage aura: UESP (likely based off Daggerfall Chronicles) states atronachs have a damage aura. Have never experienced this.

Flesh atronach poison: Stated in UESP to have low tolerance to poison, immunity to poison, and absorption to poison. Needs testing. (Assuming this is just wiki saturation over the years)

Attack effects: Are scorpion and spider paralysis effects stopped by spell resist?

Reflex effect: Are enemies affected by the various Reflex choices, and how much? The thief near the start of Privateer's Hold initiated 67 attacks in 120 seconds on Very High, and 50 attacks on Very Low (only counting the first strike of any combo). The enemy paused for much longer between attacks, but the speed of the attacks themselves (the combos, specifically) appeared to be the same as on Very High. All said, it's a 25.37% attack speed increase between the lowest and the highest reflex settings. The skeleton in Privateer's Hold ran from one extreme of the throne section to the other in 13 seconds on Very Low, and in 13 seconds on Very High. It therefore appears Reflex has no effect on character or enemy movement speed. The skeleton attacked 63 times in 120 seconds on Very High, and 34 on Very Low: a 46.03% drop. The skeleton was visibly attacking far less often than the thief, although I don't believe the actual attack animation was slower. It paused for far longer. This suggests a difference that varies per enemy. (Question: Are monsters limited to a number of attacks per round(s), via Reflex setting?)

Enemy equipment: Daggerfall Patch 1.05.195 says enemies will use their equipment to fight. Needs testing on whether this occurs and what monsters it affects (would zombies use a Daedric War Axe, for example?).

Enemy resist: What determines when an enemy resists a spell? Level, Willpower, individual setting, etc? What determines when a damage-over-time spell ends early on an enemy?

General quirks

Time: How fast does time pass in Daggerfall? Does character movement affect time change?

Classmaker dagger: If you pile on a LOT of advantages (or disadvantages) in Classmaker, the dagger seems to move far more at the end than at the beginning. Is this just me?

Falling damage: Does carried weight affect falling damage? Does the Jumping skill reduce falling damage? My testing is as follows, from the city wall in Chesterwark:
5000H, 100 str, 100 end, 149 enc, 1 jumping: 8
5000H, 1 str, 100 end, 149 enc, 1 jumping: 8
5000H, 1 str, 100 end, 11 enc, 1 jumping: 12
5000H, 100 str, 100 end, 11 enc, 1 jumping: 8
From the top of Direnni Tower:
5000H, 100 str, 100 end, 149 enc, 1 jumping: 112
5000H, 100 str, 100 end, 11 enc, 1 jumping: 112
5000H, 100 str, 100 end, 149 enc, 100 jumping: 112
500H, 100 str, 100 end, 149 enc, 100 jumping: 112
500H, 100 str, 1 end, 149 enc, 100 jumping: 112. Current theory is fall damage is generated by air time only.
Test 1: Chesterwark wall: 1.5 seconds, 8 damage.
Test 2: Direnni Tower, 2.75 seconds, 120 damage.
Test 3: Privateer's Hold above throne: 2.25 seconds, 4 damage.
Test 4: Privateer's Hold Highest staircase to bottom in throne room: 3.3 seconds, 60 damage.
Test 5: Direnni Tower, 2.6 seconds, 112 damage.
The results are odd so far, but there has to be some linking formula. I'm fairly certain my computer was slowing down in Privateer's Hold so it may need more testing. My decimals weren't perfect but I think I got them fairly close. (I'm making this harder than necessary. This should be satisfied with levitating at various altitudes and measuring the fall damage and time elapsed. Finding the zero-damage limit and the max damage possible are the most important parts.)

Wagon weight: In patch 1.04.191, "Item weights in the wagon are incorrectly marked as 0 kg." is listed as a known bug. This can therefore be corrected since it wasn't intentional on the developers' part.

Peasant dress: The outdoors peasants aren't determined by region. Some cities in Sentinel use Breton peasants. There are also other regions that don't use Breton or Sentinel peasants, but more like robed Redguard peasants. What determines this.

Kill spells: A fairly bizarre one. I was testing an AOE Soul Trap spell on a human archer (Privateer's Hold). It gave the usual "This spell does not work on humanoids" message, and after casting it about 30 more times, the Archer died. Soul Trap has no damaging component. I'm getting some theories in my mind but I'll leave it at this for now. (Could be because of collision damage, now that I think about it.)

Shop inventory: What shops buy back what goods? What shops buy leather goods? Iron? What's the formula for determining how many goods a shop has? General stores always use a very routine formula for filling their stores; what is it? I recorded some testing in the Daggerfall region in the DF Shops spreadsheet attached to this post. On the test I made, through 3 shelves a regular general store had 70 items, an incense general store had 70 items, and a rusty one had 39. Each slot had a very limited range of things it could display, so I'm assuming each slot is programmed to choose one of like 6 objects, one of which being blank.

Mercantile use: Narf the Mouse states: "Mercantile goes up by single item; it goes up much "faster" if you buy/sell one item at a time, rather than a bunch (that is, select an item, buy or sell; rather than select a bunch of items, buy or sell). I'd rate this as "beyond a reasonable doubt"."

Loot: Narf the Mouse: "Luck does seem to have an effect on the acquisition of higher-level gear from corpses, but this may be confirmation bias. I know I've sometimes left PH with little more than Iron, and other times, with more than one Elven."

Fighters Guild benefits: UESP establishes that the Fighters Guild grants reduced repair costs at ((10 - Rank) ÷ 10) × RepairPrice. Verification needed.

Shop prices data
Spell cost data
Attachments
Spells edited 8.zip
(172.09 KiB) Downloaded 282 times
DF Shops.xls.zip
(4.85 KiB) Downloaded 267 times
Last edited by Jay_H on Sat Mar 25, 2017 7:23 pm, edited 112 times in total.

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Interkarma
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Re: Daggerfall Mechanics thread: Volunteers welcome

Post by Interkarma »

Thanks for posting this Jay. :)

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Jay_H
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Re: Daggerfall Mechanics thread: Volunteers welcome

Post by Jay_H »

No problem. Be sure to mention if you think of something that would be a priority for you.

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EpicSpellsword404
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Re: Daggerfall Mechanics thread: Volunteers welcome

Post by EpicSpellsword404 »

You know the general idea for the swing types, but not the specific values?

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Jay_H
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Re: Daggerfall Mechanics thread: Volunteers welcome

Post by Jay_H »

That's correct. As far as I know, Daggerfall Chronicles and the in-game tutorial provide all the information we have on the matter.

My idea of testing them is just to find a punching bag of some kind (level 100 Thief enemy?) and swing away, seeing how many hits connect and how many are necessary to kill. Test 1 would be left to right, test 2 would be top to bottom, etc. Running each test multiple times would narrow the probabilities and allow us to draw some reasonable conclusions.

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LypyL
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Re: Daggerfall Mechanics thread: Volunteers welcome

Post by LypyL »

This is a great idea...I have some stuff buried on my computer somewhere, I'll try and dig it up when I have the time.

I would caution against taking the information on the wiki / Chronicles at face value...I've often found it to be incorrect once I started testing.

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Re: Daggerfall Mechanics thread: Volunteers welcome

Post by Jay_H »

LypyL wrote:I would caution against taking the information on the wiki / Chronicles at face value...I've often found it to be incorrect once I started testing.
Very well said. I believe everyone's doing the best they can but I imagine many things got altered between the time Chronicles started printing and Daggerfall finished beta; likewise, in any wiki setting authority is something easily misinterpreted.

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EpicSpellsword404
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Re: Daggerfall Mechanics thread: Volunteers welcome

Post by EpicSpellsword404 »

Is there any way to find formulas and stuff in the code, or is that just too much work?

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Re: Daggerfall Mechanics thread: Volunteers welcome

Post by Jay_H »

Getting original code out of a compiled program tends to be a very dodgy thing. I guess in one sense it could be compared to trying to get the eggs out of an egg salad again. Lucius at XLEngine gives some insights into how he's been able to turn complete Daggerfall into uncompiled Daggerfall. However, his statements suggest that his code would only duplicate Daggerfall on a new platform, not return the code to how it was originally written. AFAIK, our only real hope to get the original code would have been getting it from Bethesda, and they lost it through hard drive failures several years ago.

EDIT: For a more in-depth explanation on the weaknesses of decompiling programs, there are some very readable explanations here. That only makes it so much more impressive how Lucius has been able to do so much.

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EpicSpellsword404
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Re: Daggerfall Mechanics thread: Volunteers welcome

Post by EpicSpellsword404 »

I see.
It just sort of bugs me that we are testing the formulas like this because it's random. Random is a lot less random than people think at is, if you get what I'm saying. And even if we do 1000 tests, it will be hard to figure it out.
Not that I'm complaining. I appreciate the work you're doing.

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