From a long time fan of these games... I got a small gripe with this.

Discuss Daggerfall Unity and Daggerfall Tools for Unity.
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King of Worms
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Re: From a long time fan of these games... I got a small gripe with this.

Post by King of Worms »

Its just not truth that respawn rate is lower in dfu than in daggerfall.

Yes it is set up lower in DFU but there is some mechanism in Daggerfall which prevented some of the respawns...

So at the end of the day, the REAL EXPERIENCE you get as a player is, that DFU has Higher respawn rate. And the background to that is IRRELEVANT to the end user. He cares only about the results and rightfully so.

Yes Interkarma opened this part of the game to modding recently. I hope someobe can tune it..

Narf the Mouse
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Re: From a long time fan of these games... I got a small gripe with this.

Post by Narf the Mouse »

King of Worms wrote: Tue Nov 05, 2019 9:39 pm Yes it is set up lower in DFU but there is some mechanism in Daggerfall which prevented some of the respawns...
It does seem to me, as well, that spawn rates when sleeping are too high. If Daggerfall prunes spawns either accidentally or deliberately through some mechanism, that would explain it.
Previous experience tells me it's very easy to misunderstand the tone, intent, or meaning of what I've posted. If you have questions, ask.

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Ralzar
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Re: From a long time fan of these games... I got a small gripe with this.

Post by Ralzar »

dashyr89 wrote: Tue Nov 05, 2019 9:14 pm Any suggestion of mods you guys can give me that adds to the game without feeling too much like a departure from the base game? I'm looking for a vanilla + kind of thing.
Archeologists
RoleplayRealism
Enhanched Sky
Improved Interior Lighting
Ironman Game Systems (go into the settings for this and turn off the first half of settings)
Ironman (Answer NO to actually playing ironman when starting a character)
Mountain And Hills
TediousTravel (It seems insane, but together with Warm Ashes, it's actually pretty amazing.)
Villager Immersion Overhaul
Windmills Of Daggerfall

This is what I play with. It doesn't drastically change anything (except maybe TediousTravel+WarmAshes), it just plugs some design holes and improves what was already there.
In addition, I would recommend going into the settings of DFU and adjusting dungeon and night light way down. This makes you have to use torches or Light spells. Which really improves the dungeon crawler feeling.

I have not installed any of the real graphics upgrades, as I really enjoy the original Daggerfall look I grew up with. The only exception is Enhanched Sky, but that's because the original skies look all wrong with Mountains And Hills.

Image

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Ralzar
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Re: From a long time fan of these games... I got a small gripe with this.

Post by Ralzar »

King of Worms wrote: Tue Nov 05, 2019 9:39 pm Yes it is set up lower in DFU but there is some mechanism in Daggerfall which prevented some of the respawns...
Yeah, I think the leading theory was that vanilla Daggerfall often spawned the monsters in invalid spots, so they never appeared.

RonFromHighRock
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Re: From a long time fan of these games... I got a small gripe with this.

Post by RonFromHighRock »

I am also an original Daggerfall player, and have played the original game from the beginning in the days when a Pentium 90 was cutting edge. I played it for years, then took a break until DOSBox made it playable once again and again logged many hours in the game. I just today found this forum, Unity, and the Daggerfall project. I can attest that in the original game, in most dungeons, it was possible to rest enough to keep your health up. In particular, in Privateers Hold, you could with 100% certainty retreat to the first cave with the campfire and rest undisturbed. I must have started a dozen characters in the original game on my first PC and never had a problem with Privateers Hold (except for poorly though out characters who were born too weak to be viable because I was playing with weird builds.

I have no idea what the mechanism was, possibly there were areas that were marked safe. Or as someone stated above, the monsters spawned and fell into the void as often as not. I remember often resting on stairs or ramps in dungeons where it was more difficult to rest undisturbed, which may lend credence to the "spawn and die" theory. All I know is that I used my memorys of custom character creation to build a custom Fighter/Caster and despite being +4 Damage and +2 to hit I am struggling to get past the first few monsters due to thieves and bears spawning inside the cave while I am resting. I suspect that this is going to be a problem that was caused by a game bug (monsters suiciding) for which there was a workaround, (more monsters) that is going to be a plague on the new developer to try to balance. I don't see how you can play the game without constantly saving and loading if every encounter can leave you wounded with no way to rest and heal. That wrecks immersion pretty quickly, witness the old retired guy here writing when he could be dungeoning.

It is wonderful what you are doing, and I look forward to watching it grow and develop and I am very excited to have Daggerfall back in a stable, playable form. Many thanks.

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Hazelnut
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Re: From a long time fan of these games... I got a small gripe with this.

Post by Hazelnut »

My vote would be to reduce the spawn rate for characters of level 1 & 2, and leave it unchanged otherwise.
See my mod code for examples of how to change various aspects of DFU: https://github.com/ajrb/dfunity-mods

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pango
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Re: From a long time fan of these games... I got a small gripe with this.

Post by pango »

I have a different hypothesis, so it could be true :D

TL;DR: random enemies spawns only last while they're "awaken" enemies in the dungeon.

I managed to rest for hundreds of hours in a row in cleared dungeons.
Or even partially cleared dungeons, after I kept resting in the same place, killing whatever arrived, repeating that a few times. After a few attacks it just stops.

However if I approach some enemy near enough that if I try resting I immediately get "they're enemies nearby", even if I had no contact with that enemy, then I can go back to the "safe place" I created by the procedure above, I'm sure to be attacked again a few times by enemies (I'd say by 1 to 3 enemies total). They're random enemies, not the same class as the enemy I "woke up". I also noticed while going back to my safe place that I would sometimes get "they're enemies nearby" from places that were safe before, so I suspect I really "woke up" some enemy and that it's now moving around.

So it seems it's the "they're enemy nearby" message that "adds credits" for a few more random spawns (or maybe activates random spawns for some time, until the enemy calms down?).
Last edited by pango on Mon Dec 02, 2019 10:34 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Interkarma
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Re: From a long time fan of these games... I got a small gripe with this.

Post by Interkarma »

I like your hypothesis, Pango. This mechanism would better explain why there's such a disparity between the reverse engineered chance functions and observed spawn rates inside of dungeons. It also allows player to create their own "safe zones" through clearing enough of the dungeon.

I'll take this on board and see how it plays. Thank you. :)

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mikeprichard
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Re: From a long time fan of these games... I got a small gripe with this.

Post by mikeprichard »

Very interesting, pango - I now wonder if the previous assumptions re: both classic and DFU spawning mechanics have been wrong all along. I've always felt that infinitely spawning enemies in any RPG is both a tedious and extremely unimmersive mechanic (does every cave have a rat factory installed?), so if it ends up being consistent with classic to be able to eventually "clear" a safe zone within a dungeon - i.e. not simply be able to sleep in a certain dungeon area from the start without ever being interrupted, as was possible in classic - I'd be all for it. Failing that, I like Interkarma's proposed solution of hugely reducing spawn rates for character levels 1-3, then somewhat reducing spawn rates thereafter (viewtopic.php?f=4&t=3090&p=35703#p35702).

EDIT: And Interkarma likes it too! Great news.

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pango
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Re: From a long time fan of these games... I got a small gripe with this.

Post by pango »

By the way, the design of the very beginning of Privateer's Hold is particularly evil :evil:

The corridor spirals around the first 3 rooms, so it's almost impossible to find any place far enough from enemies that you can rest safely, and instead you awake some of the enemies you haven't killed yet and trigger new random spawns...

It would be interesting, based on enemies detection radius, to check what are players options (what sets of rooms (s)he can clear to reliably create some safe resting spot)
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