Bossfall: Unleveled [now a .dfmod!]

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[Osorkon]

I don't turn on a ton of RPR settings either, but you use way less than me. I use RPR mainly for the horse sprint so I don't get eaten by Vampires Glad to hear you haven't seen any immediate issues.

Good question on the precise Shield mechanics. I think you're exactly right - in my experience, once the Shield is "broken" (magnitude of 0), the effects of the Shield spell get removed at the start of the next Magic Round (which ticks every 5 seconds). It sounds like when you re-cast Shield before it gets removed, it'll refresh the duration but not the magnitude, so you end up with a useless effect because the Shield doesn't block any damage. I've seen custom code for the Shield spell, but I'll have to take a closer look. It would be cool if I could make Shield effects stack so you get more protection... I added it to the v1.3 to-do list. I'll let you know!

[yabay]

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[Osorkon]

In v1.2 Formal Cloaks only will generate in stores of average quality or better. If the store message is "sturdy shelves" or "rusty relics" they'll never stock Formal Cloaks. I figured Formal Cloaks are pretty fancy and terrible quality stores would never sell them. I wanted to make Formal Cloaks even rarer but I thought with C&C I'd better not... then everyone would freeze

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[Osorkon]

Bossfall v1.2.1 is now using DaggerfallUnity 0.13.4 and it's never looked better! Included a few changes for v1.2.1 - plus, I finally got a MacOS version built:

CHARACTER CREATION:

Bossfall essentially requires a custom super-powered character, so I rebalanced custom character creation
Moved default custom class HP/Level to 20 rather than 8, did not increase default skill advancement difficulty
Most advantages are cheaper, most disadvantages drop difficulty dagger much more
Reducing HP/Level below 20 drops difficulty dagger much more per point

COMBAT MECHANICS:

Restored enemy strafe timer to vanilla functionality (not working right previously due to my error)

DUNGEONS:

Streamlined random selection of enemies, dungeons may load a bit faster
Sabertooth Tigers/Grizzly Bears removed from Mine dungeon types, more Giant Bats and Rats

ITEMS:

I noticed I reduced Weapon generation in General Stores. I forgot to add that to v1.2 Changelog

I've been working on two projects that have significantly delayed v1.3. First, I've been busy adding [OSORKON] code comments to everything I changed (you can find these commented scripts in my GitHub repository if you're curious). I've changed a ton of stuff and writing and editing comments has taken a lot longer than I thought. I've still got a lot of scripts to go. Second, I've been working on releasing Bossfall on NexusMods. I got the release written up and published, but NexusMods' automated virus scanner didn't like the Bossfall zip files for Windows and quarantined them. Thus, I hid the Bossfall NexusMods page until I can get in touch with NexusMods and see what the next step is to get those files out of quarantine. All in all, I haven't had much time to code (which is the fun part). Once I get these projects out of the way, it'll be back to v1.3. Until then - Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

[yabay]

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[yabay]

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[Osorkon]

!!!

I'll admit I'm rather shocked - I assumed Bossfall wasn't that well-known. Good to see the word getting out, though! Thanks for letting me know. It's good encouragement to keep rolling on v1.3 because I've got some big plans

Speaking of Bossfall v1.3, I finally wrapped up the "add comments to everything I changed" project a few days ago and I immediately started working on the new version. My first task was improving existing Bossfall code, and I've greatly improved efficiency in much of the code I've added. It's been a lot of work on something the player probably won't notice, but it's worth mentioning.

Some highlights from v1.3 so far:

BOSSES:

Added one-time HUD warning message when boss is nearby (warning distance is about half the width of a dungeon block)
Assassins will not trigger one-time HUD warning message (they're too stealthy)

ENEMIES:

Reduced fast enemy movespeed to reduce annoyance factor when fighting them

ITEMS:

Shield armor scales with material tier, now shields made of high tier materials are actually useful
An Iron Tower Shield grants 3 armor, an Elven Tower Shield grants 5 armor, a Daedric Tower Shield grants 10 armor
Leather/Chain/Steel/Silver shield armor values unchanged

SKILLS:

Greatly reduced most skill advancement difficulties (apologies to all who suffered through previous versions)
Climbing/Running/Weapon/Spell skills are still harder compared to vanilla, but not nearly as difficult as v1.2.1


Regarding the skill advancement difficulty change - I came to the conclusion that sky-high skill difficulty makes the game annoyingly tedious rather than more difficult, and I don't want to make Bossfall boring.

Now, some ideas I've had - these are not implemented yet but I plan on doing so:

-SET ITEMS. This will take a ton of work, but I've already thought up 7 class-themed sets with unique bonuses. The more set items player has equipped, the more bonuses they get. Standard RPG stuff. They'll be really rare from standard enemies but bosses will frequently drop them. This'll be the toughest, most time-consuming thing to add. I hope to write the code so that it's possible to add to vanilla DFU (for set item mod support) if Interkarma wants to, but that's an issue for another time.

-Overhaul loot (again) so dungeon loot piles better match dungeon type. For example, there would be a lot of Dwarven material in Mines, there would little weapons/armor in Natural Caves, there would be a ton of Religious Items in Desecrated Temples, and so on.

-New spells with new effects. Slow/Haste spells, new potions, reworks of Shield/Heal/Regeneration spells and many others.

-As usual lots of other minor tweaks and changes.

These are some big goals so they won't happen overnight, but I hope to have more to share in the days to come!

[yabay]

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