Difference In CharGen With DOS Game Intended?

[Kraggy]

I only discovered Unity over the weekend, I don't want to be 'that guy' whose first post on the forums reports a 'bug' that isn't because he didn't RTFM so I'm posting this observation to see if this is intended behaviour of Unity or not.

I used Search on "ebony dagger" and "character creation" to see if I could find any mention of what I experienced but didn't find anything obviously similar, I am very aware that the Ebony Dagger question which I'll mention in a moment is not always given but given I created a Custom class I would always expect it to be given for that class creation option.


I discovered Unity from a recent Zhakaron tweet where he mentioned that it is nearing the end of development and is very playable in the main so I decided to take a look.

I had already watched one of his videos https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... kuKNzE7YFl and decided to investigate Unity using that as a sort of 'guide' .. I last played/competed the main quest in 1999 so I've kind of forgotten much detail.

Anyhow, to the point of this post. I used the build he shows in this video in Unity and found a difference after clicking Exit on the first creation page where you set skills, etc. I elected to answer the 12 questions instgead of using auto-generation of backstory and Unity diverges from the DOS version (as installed by DaggerSetup 2.15) in the questions it asks.

The first question shown in the video (which is also the first one given by the DOS version) asks about a magic school you have studied longest .. in Unity the first question is which Thieves skill have you found hardest to raise.

Another difference is that while the DOS version gives you the question granting you the Ebony Dagger, Unity does not.

I re-created this build 5 or 6 times in Unity, placing skills in different orders and sections, but these differences always happened.


A second 'oddity' happened when I used the Classic load option in Unity to load the Save I did in the DOS version immediately on spawning in the cave in Privateer's Hold, but the character loaded outside the Hold in the same position as it did when fast travelling there: oddly even though I was in the 'world' the game text said I was in the Hold and the M key displayed the dungeon map.


So, are these differences expected? Note that my comparisons are done using the same DF installation from DaggerSetup, running it in the DOSBOX and then Unity.

I ended up entering the Hold and playing it in reverse, making my way down to the starting point the character was at in the imported save and it was great fun, everything was working as expected, so I intended to carry on playing it but thought I'd ask about these differences in how things work.

[Interkarma]

Welcome to the forums.

Biography questions are pulled from the Arena2\BIOG*.txt files in both classic Daggerfall and Daggerfall Unity. Each class gets their own set of questions, and as you know not all classes receive the question for ebony dagger. Once a class is selected, these questions will appear in the exact same order as classic as they both use the same BIOG data files.

When creating a custom class, the BIOG questions served will depend on the character's nearest class affinity. Your affinity is calculated based on the skills chosen relative to the available classes. This is a simple process where the class with the most matching skills in each group (primary, major, minor) is selected as your nearest affinity.

It's quite likely that DFU uses a different method of selecting closest affinity than classic, but that doesn't mean the selection isn't appropriate. It's also possible DFU is selecting a more appropriate class kit than classic. If you can share a screenshot of your skills at character generation time, I'll be able to tell you which class affinity is calculated from those skills. Then we can see if that was an appropriate result or not.

[Deepfighter]

Welcome to the forums!

Additionally to what Interkarma said, you'll actually have a high possibility to get the Ebony Dagger question. The only pre-made classes (respective, the classes your custom made class comes the closest to) are:

• Battlemage
• Knight
• Nightblade
• Warrior

[Kraggy]

Hi and thanks for the welcome.

I tried taking a screenshot of the chargen screen but couldn't see it anywhere in my PC so don't know if the game takes screenshots or not, so instead of messing about with MSPaint I'll simply type info here.

The character is a female Nord, the skills I selected are those shown in the video I linked to at time c. 9:00, these are (in the order shown):

Primary: Critical Strike, Short Blade, Restoration
Major: Stealth, Mysticism, Thaumaturgy
Minor: Running, Medical, Mercantile, Illusion, Destruction, Alteration

I changed nothing else before clicking EXIT and then opting to answer the 12 questions. I did this in both Classic and DFU, with Classic giving me these questions:

1) What school of magic have you been studying longest
2) What motivates you into life of adventure
3) In between formal study you spent yout time ___
4) Since childhood you have saved ___
5) In gratitude for services rendered the Emperor gave you ___
6) As you grew you received additional magical training in ___
7) As a child your nickname was ___
8) You are friendlier than most with ___
9) Of all disagreeable types you have the most personal hatred for ___
10) You are intimate friends with ___
11) What god do you worship
12) You have the most trouble ___

while DFU gave me these:

1) What thieving have you been studying the longest
2) What school of magic have you been studying longest
3) Where is your expertise in combat
4) As a child your nickname was ___
5) You are friendlier with most ___
6) As you grew you received additional magical training in ___
7) In between formal study you spent your time ___
8) Of all disagreeable types you have the most personal hatred for ___
9) What motivates you into life of adventure
10) What god do you worship
11) Before you set out for the Imperial City your mother gave you ___
12) You have the most trouble ___

After creating the same character in Classic and DFU I loaded them into their respective game and both were as expected, so next I tried doing what I did before and used the Classic Load Game option to load the save taken in Classic into DFU.

I got the same result as before, instead of the character loading into the cave in Privateer's Hold she spawned outside it in the wilderness, in the same location as she does if I Fast Travel there. I didn't get the option to start the main quest which the DFU-created character got so the imported character can't seem to get the main quest started so this way of getting a character into DFU doesn't seem viable even if I wished to, which I don't really as it seems more sensible to start entirely within DFU.

My aim posting this isn't actually to get the Ebony Dagger, it'd be nice to have and would fit my intended character (which won't have exactly these skills), I'm trying to understand where DFU differs from classic when it comes to creating a character.

[Deepfighter]

Your Classic class is a Mage and your Unity class a Nightblade (and therefore no Ebony Dagger question). You custom build shares 9 skills with the Nightblade and 8 with the Mage, so pretty close to each other.

Now, on the technical part only Interkarma or on of the other devs can tell you why the same skills tend to different classes in classic/unity.

[Interkarma]

Thank you Deepfigher.

Daggerfall Unity selects the class with the closest affinity based on total skill matches. To see if this is an appropriate selection or not, let's compare Mage and Nightblade with your skill selections:

Your Skills
Primary: Critical Strike, Short Blade, Restoration
Major: Stealth, Mysticism, Thaumaturgy
Minor: Running, Medical, Mercantile, Illusion, Destruction, Alteration

Mage (8 matches)
Primary: Mysticism, Alteration, Thaumaturgy
Major: Illusion, Destruction, Restoration
Minor: Medical, Short blade, Blunt weapon, Dragonish, Daedric, Dodging

Nightblade (9 matches)
Primary: Illusion, Stealth, Dodging
Major: Thaumaturgy, Short blade, Lockpicking
Minor: Alteration, Critical strike, Mercantile, Destruction, Restoration, Backstabbing

What's likely happening is that classic is adding more weight to matches in the Primary and Major groups.

I think that either Mage or Nightblade is an appropriate affinity to select here. Your skill choices do technically give you the most in common with a Nightblade. But if we weighted the Primary and Major groups more, then the Mage would have been selected instead. All three classes are very similar, so it's really splitting hairs.

[Kraggy]

Right, I see exactly what's going on here now.

Knowing nothing about how the DF system works I was implicitly assuming it was entirely deterministic based on data files somewhere; I knew that the questions offered were determined by the class and while the 'Custom' class is an exception I kind of assumed there were preset rules for that too.

However I now know this is based on analysing the options entered and not per se based on the 'class' .. and I totally agree with your closing comments that either derived sets of questions works for the skills selected.

Many thanks, I appreciate the time you took to answer my original question, that answer being "not 'intended' but a result of the game's design".

I must say that after playing DF in DFU for only a couple of hours I'd find it hard to return to the 1998 graphics of the original, this is an excellent environment in which to play a game I've always loved but rarely felt drawn to play since it's early years as for me graphics are important and DF's graphics didn't age well.