LE Random overworld & dungeon maps

[stebbinsd]

WARNING: LONG POST AHEAD! THIS IS GOING TO BE A COMPLICATED REQUEST, SO BEAR WITH ME.

 

Section 1: The Problem

Many hardcore roleplayers like to avoid "metagaming." That is to say, when they're roleplaying a character, they'll only act on the knowledge that their character either accumulates in his adventures, or is likely to already know before he comes to Skyrim.

 

For example, when watching SorcererDave's LP of Oblivion, using Idris, he went to the Imperial City to sign up with the Mages Guild. He freely acknowledged that he knew about the whole "Recommendations" mini questline. However, although HE knew it, his CHARACTER didn't. His character had no reason to sign up at a local guild hall when the Arcana University was the only destination he cared about.

 

The problem with this, as far as roleplaying is concerned, is that it requires self-enforcement on the player's part. Just like the recent mod "Dead is Dead," that mod was designed to eliminate the possibility of human error in your own self-enforcement of your roleplaying rules.

 

I find this similar problem when I'm trying to roleplay. For every dungeon I visit, I already know exactly what I'm supposed to do. There's no surprises anymore.

 

Going through Bleak Falls Barrow (or "BFB" for short) is like clockwork to me.

 

• I know to stay behind while the bandit tries to pull the lever, because I know the poison darts are going to kill him.
• I know to turn each of the pedestals on the left side of the room precisely 1 time, 2 times, and 2 times (from left to right) to open the door without suffering the same fate as him.
• I know, as I descend the spiral staircase, to have my weapon out, since I'm going to be ambushed by a couple of skeevers.
• I know to kill Arvel the Swift as soon as I cut him down, since he's just going to run away, anyway.
• I know where the swinging spike door is, and I know to side-step the pressure plate to avoid triggering it.
• I know where the swinging axes are, and how to avoid them.
• I know, at the dragon claw door, to simply activate each of the three wheels on the door twice each.
• I know about the hidden chest behind the word wall.
• I know to pull the lever to activate the stone slap so I can get out.

There's no surprises with me anymore!

 

Not only that, but even the overworld itself has become boring, now that I've practically memorized it. Who needs a map when you know the whole layout from memory just as good as your own house?!

 

Section 2: The Requested Solution, Part 1 (the dungeons)

The first two games in the series - Arena and Daggerfall - had randomly-generated dungeon layouts, generated at the time you entered the dungeon.

 

Arena even had a randomized overworld layout. You walked in a random direction until you came across a dungeon, the interior of which was also randomly generated.

 

I'd like to see a mod that can do that with Skyrim.

 

Have a series of hallways, rooms, door puzzles, and enemy spawns that possibly could appear. We'll call these "layout factors," things that the game takes into consideration when deciding what to randomly generate.

 

For example, the game could generate ...

 

• An opening room, with a random number of doors.
• The doors would have a 50% chance of having a booby trap on them. If they have a booby trap, the precise TYPE of booby trap (e.g. pedestal switching, swinging maces, etc.) would also be randomly determined.
• On the other side of the door, there's a 50% chance of being either another room, or a hallway.
• If it's a hallway, there's a 50% chance of it having a trap of its own (again, randomly selected between swinging axes, battering rams, or any other hallway-appropriate traps).
• Hallways always have to have rooms on each end.
• "Floor" traps (such as magic runes or bear traps), as well as enemy spawning locations (along with the strength of enemies) would be randomly placed wherever.

 

Due to increased memory capacity since Arena, the VARIETY of layout factors should greatly increase. With arena, the whole "random dungeon layout" thing merely delayed the inevitable, since there were only a handful of possible layouts.

 

With today's PCs, we can have hundreds of possible choices for the random generator to generate! Billions of combinations, and trillions of possible overall game worlds! You may never live to see every possible combination!

 

Give me about 250 possible "room" maps, 250 "hallway" maps (e.g. whether they're straight, do they twist and turn. or perhaps a spiral; is it a four-way intersection, or a T-junction? If there's more than two destinations, would it spawn a door at a particular end, or a valuable treasure chest guarded by a mid boss), and 250 boss chamber maps.

 

At first glance, it would seem as if that would come out to 15,625,000 combinations, which would ALREADY be massive! However, keep in mind that this wouldn't require a single room, with a single hallway, and then the boss chambers. Only the boss chambers would require the dungeon end at that point. However, whether a door leads to a boss chambers, or another regular room, would itself be determined by random generation.

 

We'd place a limit on that, of course. We don't want you plundering into a hundred thousand rooms and hallways, forever and ever, and never actually coming across the boss. So, we'd probably script it so that "starter" dungeons (like BFB) would only have ~10 rooms and hallways before it has to cut to the boss chambers, while end-of-questline dungeons like Skuldafn Temple could generate up to 100 rooms and hallways before the odds of a boss chambers appearing becomes 100%. The more rooms and hallways that have already been generated, the greater the chances of a boss chambers appearing.

 

Then provide about 50 possible spawn points for each room, and 1 spawn point for each hallway. Each spawn point has a 1 in 3 chance of having either a floor trap, an enemy, or nothing at all. Propped against the walls would be "treasure spots," which have a 50% chance of having treasure chests containing loot that is - you guessed it - randomly-generated.

 

Now, make sure to do that separately for each dungeon type. For example, the generation of military fort layouts would pull from a completely different 250-250-250 list than, say, the generation of a cave. And they both would pull from different 250-250-250 lists than a Dwemer ruin.

 

This would really assist the role-players who like to stay in character, but also the casual gamers who like to play the game multiple times, but want some new experiences with each go. You won't know what's coming!

 

Of course, this is only half my vision:

 

Section 3: The Requested Solution, Part 2 (the overworld)

The cities and towns should stay in the same spot. However, the wilderness should have randomly generated "dungeon outsides." What I mean by that is ... randomly select between about ten or twelve "fort exeriors," ten or twelve "cave entrances," and ten or twelve "dwemer ruins" exteriors.

 

The dungeon names would have the same names as in the vanilla game. Because remember: Sometimes, voiced dialogue specifies the names of these dungeons. Of course, their locations are almost never given by the voice actors, and thus, their locations can be randomly generated. For example, Astrid says she knows where Volunruud is, but she never tells you where it is. She never says "It sits on the border between Whiterun Hold and the Pale, north-northwest of Whiterun City." Instead, she just marks it on your map for you.

 

Thus, the overworld could randomly place that dungeon just about anywhere, and it would still be consistent with her dialogue.

 

Even if the general location is given, its extremely rare for its precise location to be given. For example, Tolfdir just says that the Ruins of Saarthal are "nearby." Thus, have it randomly appear anywhere inside Winterhold Hold, and you're good.

 

There's only one dungeon in the game whose precise location is specified with voiced dialogue, and that's BFB. Your Helgen partner (Ralof or Hadvar) points it out to you on your way to Riverwood, and Camilla Valerius tells you that it's "just up the hill, past the abandoned watchtower." This voiced dialogue is pretty hard to get around.

 

As such, BFB would be the only dungeon whose location wouldn't change from game to game. Of course, the interior dungeon layout would still be randomly generated. But that's about it.

 

However, for every other dungeon, there would be about 2,500 possible spawning points, with about 250 of them actually having dungeons appear there.

 

The rest would have random geographic features, such as ponds, hills, trees, or even statues to one of the Divines (preferably Talos, since his worshippers now have to worship in hiding, out in the wild, though other statues would be possible) would be randomly selected to fill the remaining 2,250 spawn points, in order to give the world itself (rather than just the dungeons) some unique flavor with each playthrough. Last time, you were able to get from Whiterun to the randomly-generated spawn point for Halted Stream Camp, without any obstacles? Well, this time, you'll have a pond or a bigass hill you'll need to detour around.

 

Section 4: What I DON'T want

 

I should address this, because I know some people are going to not think about this unless it's spelled out for them.

 

Once the dungeon map has been randomly generated (which happens when you enter it for the first time), then the dungeon should be locked into that layout for the remainder of the game. After all, once your character knows the dungeon layout, it makes sense that he or she would know, in advance, what's coming up, if he or she decides to revisit the dungeon.

 

Also, the overworld should be set after you exit the Helgen Keep through the cave entrance for the first time. This would enable you to have a unique new overworld each time you start a new game, even if you start from the automatic hard save that the game makes right before Hadvar says "Ulfric Stormcloak, Jarl of Windhelm." Remember, the location of Meridia's Beacon has already been decided before that, so if you want a unique overworld each time, make it be rendered at the time you exit Helgen Keep.

This would be adjustable. Some people may prefer the same overworld all the time, but still want random dungeons. That could be configurable.

 

Section 5: Conclusion & wrap-up

This will be a tall order. Sure. But it would be worth it. Skyrim is already supposed to be about 500 hours long, anyway; with this, you'll effectively never run out of content, until you get bored, even after you've got the game mechanics down to a science.

 

Any takers?

[DoctorKaizeld]

 

Any takers?

not possible with the Skyrim engine sorry

[Sjogga]

Some elements could possibly be randomized, but the overall layout and purpose of dungeons must remain the same. The game wasn't made to be randomly generated; even radiant quests are tied to a specific set of locations. Same goes for overworld.

 

That said; it is possible to add a bunch of new traps to every existing dungeon in the game and give each a chance to be enabled when the dungeon is first loaded. Say that each dungeon is given five new traps. Each trap has a 25% chance to be enabled when you first enter the dungeon. Some dongeons might have 5 new traps added to them, while others have no new trap.

It is also (probably) possible to randomize most pillar puzzels to some degree, though they wouldn't really be much harder considering the correct picture is often located nearby.

[Derwan]

 

 

Any takers?

not possible with the Skyrim engine sorry

 

care to explain mr supermodder?