Quality of Life Options and Other Mod Ideas

Talk about the mods you'd like to see in Daggerfall Unity. Give mod creators some ideas!
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Ziune Wolf
Posts: 52
Joined: Wed Aug 09, 2017 2:55 am

Quality of Life Options and Other Mod Ideas

Post by Ziune Wolf »

Hey everyone. I just had a few mod/Quality of Life (QoL) suggestions (or perhaps even suggestions in general that could be integrated as options into the core of DFU) that I think people would appreciate.

QoL:

[1] - One thing that I recall from classic is that, aside from the flashing of spell icons towards the end of a spell's effective duration, it was not very easy to tell how much longer a spell cast on the player would last. I think it would be helpful to have a small vertical bar to the left of the spell icons that slowly drained as time went on. I can also imagine this bar turning from green (66-100% time remaining) to yellow (33-66% remaining) then finally to red (0-33% time remaining), perhaps with some colors in the middle or a gradient as the bar dropped. This way, while it does not tell the exact amount of time left, it gives a better indicator of the time remaining for a spell. This could be used in addition to the flashing that normally occurs.

[2] - Spell organization would be helpful. Perhaps having multiple tabs within the spellbook would be helpful that organized a player's spells in different ways. One tab could have the spells categorized alphabetically, the second by effect (spells could be listed multiple times in this tab if they have multiple effects), and the third with a custom organization made by the player. For the second tab that organizes by effect, there would be a spell effect label first, and then all the spells underneath that label would have that effect. Also, a search option within the spellbook, by spell name and/or spell effect, would be helpful as well. I'm thinking these changes would be useful for players with large amount of known spells.

[3] - Arrow count being displayed after shooting an arrow, so the player knows how many arrows they have left in their quiver. If this is deemed too cumbersome on the UI, additional options, such as displaying when there are 1, 3, or any multiple of 5 arrows remaining would still display important information without it popping up with every shot.

[4] - Hotkeys for items/spells. I am sorry if this has already been suggested or is already in the game at this point. If not, I can see the numbers 0-9 being useful as hotkeys for items and spells the player has/knows to prevent excessive pausing and sifting through spellbooks.

[5] - A small border around the fatigue, health, and spell points/magicka bars while in fullscreen mode would give the player a better idea as to what fraction of these stats they had remaining. I remember in morrowind, there was a very subtle border around these stats. Without a border, it can be hard to tell how close to maximum you are if you don't remember how tall the bar can be. This suggestion is not huge, but an idea.

Other ideas:

[1] - In-game guide. I can see there being a button, perhaps within the character sheet, that could open up a player guide. The amount of information in this player's guide would be about the amount that would've come from an instruction manual. For example, a list of all spell effects, what they do, what all the skills mean, ect. This one would require a bit of writing. Perhaps an easier way of doing this would be a simple "Tips" button, that gave tips similar to those given by the "Loading Screen" mod.

[2] - Enemy health bar, similar to how morrowind did it, that showed how much health the current enemy had remaining.

[3] - Bounty/Crime indicator in the character screen. I can see this displaying either the amount of gold bounty the player has, or what crimes the player has been charged with (including the amount of each charge, if more than one. This would only be useful if DFU was able to track all of a player's crimes, instead of just the most recent one that classic did). Perhaps regional reputation would be displayed as well, since this is related.

These are just ideas, and not all of them are needed, of course. I just felt that they might help new players, or even veterans of the game. Having them as options, I feel, would be the best idea, to allow players have a near identical experience to classic should they so wish. Let me know what everyone things of them, as well as suggestions/adaptations of your own. :)

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mikeprichard
Posts: 1037
Joined: Sun Feb 19, 2017 6:49 pm

Re: Quality of Life Options and Other Mod Ideas

Post by mikeprichard »

Ziune Wolf - I hope you don't mind that I referenced four of your listed UI/HUD-related ideas in my topic suggesting enhancements to the UI/controls (viewtopic.php?f=12&t=1042&p=12560#p12560). I agree that there are quite a few quality-of-life enhancements that would be great to see in base DFU, either as default enhancements (going with the theme of DFU being "Daggerfall Plus") or as options at startup (e.g. as with the revolutionary "click to attack" that was added a few months ago). Everything else you've suggested here sounds interesting as well. Cheers!

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Ziune Wolf
Posts: 52
Joined: Wed Aug 09, 2017 2:55 am

Re: Quality of Life Options and Other Mod Ideas

Post by Ziune Wolf »

Mike wrote: Thu May 31, 2018 7:42 am Ziune Wolf - I hope you don't mind that I referenced four of your listed UI/HUD-related ideas in my topic suggesting enhancements to the UI/controls (viewtopic.php?f=12&t=1042&p=12560#p12560). I agree that there are quite a few quality-of-life enhancements that would be great to see in base DFU, either as default enhancements (going with the theme of DFU being "Daggerfall Plus") or as options at startup (e.g. as with the revolutionary "click to attack" that was added a few months ago). Everything else you've suggested here sounds interesting as well. Cheers!
I have no problem at all! Thank you for helping this get a little more light. :)

Regnier
Posts: 374
Joined: Wed Oct 02, 2019 6:26 am

Re: Quality of Life Options and Other Mod Ideas

Post by Regnier »

Ziune Wolf wrote: Tue May 29, 2018 4:20 am

[5] - A small border around the fatigue, health, and spell points/magicka bars while in fullscreen mode would give the player a better idea as to what fraction of these stats they had remaining. I remember in morrowind, there was a very subtle border around these stats. Without a border, it can be hard to tell how close to maximum you are if you don't remember how tall the bar can be. This suggestion is not huge, but an idea.

This for sure, i have this problem a lot.

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