Doing the arena justice

[Vagrant0]

Although I have my hands full with the Colored Rooms, given that almost every member of the team is experiencing some difficulties, and that I've been feeling rather uninspired with modding, I decided to do a small side project and touch back on a part of the game that was really not ever given a decent treatment.

 

What I talk about is the Arena. Even with the overhaul mods, the arena can still be completed at low level, and provides no challenge. Even with some of the old arena mods, this is still the case. So I thought I'd spend a few hours working on it to release an improvement of sorts. This is a work in progress, so please don't take it upon yourself to do this yourself because you like the idea. Instead I'm looking for some ideas in addition to what I already have planned.

 

Planned features : Should I get to them.

 

*Arena area has spike and dart traps to discourage running around.

 

*Arena armor only needs to be worn once to set the flag, but with every rank you get a better version which makes it comparable to other armors of that type. This applies to both what you are wearing and what opponents are wearing, making for much harder end fights.

 

*Arena opponents make use of my flavored leveling method used in my Halloween mod and the Colored Rooms. This is technically just a continued test of proof of concept, but also works very well in this case to make opponents that would prove to be nearly impossible without good skills, spells and equipment. Including the beasts for grand champion.

 

*Arena opponents have racial powers, birthsign abilities, and spells suited to their class to help make them more dangerous.

 

*Arena opponents are scripted to change combat styles and react to the player.

 

*Arena opponents can be looted, and will wear either normal leveled gear, or comparable unique gears utilizing vanilla leveled lists so as to include overhaul items as well as stock. This includes things such as jewelry, enchanted weapons/arrows.

 

*Makes the battle with the gray prince nearly impossible, even with a high level character unless his quest has been done. Even then, would still be very hard.

 

*Adding in creatures that get spawned and released from the side if the battle is taking too long (crowd must be kept entertained right?).

 

*Changed betting to be less reliant on player stats, more on real chance.

 

*Added scripted intermissions which can be seen being done in the arena area when not betting (the world does not wait for you to place a bet).

 

 

 

So, any thoughts, suggestions?

[ChalkLine]

It might be cool if you could yield to an Arena opponent, and then they get the thumbs up/thumbs down from the crowd. If some combatants yielded to you and you granted them mercy, they could be used later as allies in quests.

 

Ignoring the crowd's call for mercy or death should mean you do not advance in rank for that bout, but still win. The crowd is angry you ignored them, but everyone still loves a winner in The Arena!

[Vagrant0]

It might be cool if you could yield to an Arena opponent, and then they get the thumbs up/thumbs down from the crowd. If some combatants yielded to you and you granted them mercy, they could be used later as allies in quests.

 

Ignoring the crowd's call for mercy or death should mean you do not advance in rank for that bout, but still win. The crowd is angry you ignored them, but everyone still loves a winner in The Arena!

Thought about it a bit, ignoring the complications of trying to script it, it doesn't seem to be that would really make the arena better. The arena is supposed to be about life and death, not some friendly competition. The issue most people have with the arena, and what I'm trying to fix, is that the arena doesn't provide any challenge, even for low level characters. Being able to bow out of a fight because you're losing would seem to contradict the point of making it challenging. And while having your opponents plead for mercy might be interesting in some cases, due to all the complications of fighting, the opponent would probably die before this was all able to transpire due to an accidental hit from the player as they start begging (which might also cause it to count as a murder), or by stopping while in the path of a trap. When you count the difficulty with trying to script this, especially with the group fights, it really isn't worth the effort of trying to get it right.

 

As far as death goes, I'm actually trying to work within the constraints of most of the arena scripts and dialogues as much as possible. While setting up more fights between ranks might be possible, it would take a bit more work to pull off than I can spare at the moment. Right now I'm more concerned with just getting the existing opponents setup special so that they end up being a rather significant challenge. Technically speaking, the 20 some people that you need to kill before the grandmaster fight is quite alot when you aren't offing them in 5 hits. With what I have done right now, even using a mod that boosts combat damage, on my level 5 test character I'm looking at fights that last 3-4 minutes (verses 1-2 against OOO world spawns), sometimes with me dying, and I've only finished through bloodletter rank.

[Vagrant0]

I seem to have hit a snag. For whatever reason the fighters aren't being reset right if they have already been loaded by the game. Using a level 14 test character there seems to be some conflicts with the OOO versions of the NPCs and my versions. But when using a level 5 test character (which is the level 14 character rebuilt after several quests were done) the characters are using my versions.

 

For the level 14 test character I've already tried PCB in console, and ran the game through 500 extra game days, purging the buffer several times, saving, fast traveling, entering other places, and it still ends up using the old inventories. Furthermore, I have part of the scripting for the mod setup so that when the script initializes it is supposed to resurrect all the combatants that aren't dead, forcing an inventory refresh. However, this doesn't seem to solve the problem. When I resurrect them in the arena area however, they spawn in with the right stuff.

 

The level 5 character doesn't need any of this, and fights the right versions despite not being a fresh character.

 

So, can anyone think of any solutions? I know it conflicts with OOO, and probably every other overhaul mod, but it is loaded last, so this should not be a factor. And as the correct versions are being used when resurrected, can only mean that my changes are taking priority.

[Deepblue686]

Here's an idea for the Grey Prince fight.

If you've completed his quest and you talk to him during the fight, you can ask him to put up a fight if you want rather than smack him around while he stands there doing nothing

 

The topic could be something like "I'd rather have you fight than die like that" or "I wouldn't feel right fighting someone who doesn't resist"

 

Differing arena armours for each rank would be great too, visually as well as usefulness.

[apocalypse1138]

Here's an idea for the Grey Prince fight.

If you've completed his quest and you talk to him during the fight, you can ask him to put up a fight if you want rather than smack him around while he stands there doing nothing

 

The topic could be something like "I'd rather have you fight than die like that" or "I wouldn't feel right fighting someone who doesn't resist"

 

Differing arena armours for each rank would be great too, visually as well as usefulness.

I really like this idea, and second it.

If you ask him to fight, then you wouldn't "murder" him in the arena and the DB wouldn't approach you about killing him, which doesn't even make sence, as it is an entertainment fight.

 

P.S. I am very interested in your "Colored Rooms" mod, sounds very creative and free-form. I'll post my "resume" as you might call it on your forums as soon as I register, so be to check my post there!

[Vagrant0]

Here's an idea for the Grey Prince fight.

If you've completed his quest and you talk to him during the fight, you can ask him to put up a fight if you want rather than smack him around while he stands there doing nothing

 

The topic could be something like "I'd rather have you fight than die like that" or "I wouldn't feel right fighting someone who doesn't resist"

 

Differing arena armours for each rank would be great too, visually as well as usefulness.

I was actually planning on just changing it to where if you did the quest the fight would be easier (he wouldn't have his special buff, and wouldn't have a unique sword) instead of him just standing there. He may want to die, but he is also a champion who wants to die in the glory of battle. So... easier fight, not easy fight. If I didn't change this, as it stands now, the player would likely be whacking away at him for a good 9-10 minutes without him doing anything... kinda boring.

 

Still having the update problem though, so this mod may be dead in the water since people wouldn't be able to use it without starting a new game.

[jonesjoshuar]

It do not know about how to fix the snag, never looked into arena scripting. (sorry)

 

This is a good idea, I thought awhile back that i should go and make an arena in every city. So that the player would have to do the "circuit". Would not be able to do the imperial city until you were made champion of the others. It seems in the editor more arenas were planned, but was toned down for simplicity or time. Kvatch even has ruined parts. Another city i cannot remember which i believe still has a cell with the arena in its id. These could be easier and the IC tougher. Cause I always thought it was toooooo easy. Not saying hey need to do it! Just rememberin. The arena was so watered down it seems your mod here would make it worth while and not "something to do".

[Vagrant0]

It do not know about how to fix the snag, never looked into arena scripting. (sorry)

It's nothing to do with the arena scripting. It's that the NPCs are placed, persistent actors that are in a holding cell who are having their inventory changed. It's the same situation as in other cases, like guards, or other actors who have their inventory changed. The problem is that the usual method, calling a resurrect on the actor, or waiting a few days, doesn't seem to be solving the problem.

 

As for the multiple arenas bit, the biggest problem on that end is all the work involved with making those new fights, and having to rearrange Chorrol to fit an arena somewhere. This is beyond the scope of what I would have time for, or would want to do since it would be a rather serious undertaking.

[jaysus]

arena armor: take it out completely ;) i alway hated that ugly piece of *selfcensorshiprules*, or give it a new model and do what you intended

 

mercy: use a dialogue package which forces dialogue to prevent the pc from accidently hitting him, maybe combines with disableplayercontrols --- make it random and dependant on the actors speech skill or/and personality

 

betting: make luck less important but keep it as a factor

 

npc change problem: try disable then immediately enable on them

 

prince: make him superweak if the quest is done, just use an ability (damage health or somin) for that if you dont wanna change or cant change his base health

let him fight tho as you intended, i agree on the "he want to stay in our memories as a glorious champion" idea

 

the rest seems quite cool to me :)