[WIP] Belua Sanguinare Revisited

[MofoMojo]

 

hmm how about an spell that opens a menu and there you can change how mutch health it should thake that way everybody wil be happy and can play watterer type of bloodsucker they want

 

Actually, on that note I have two ideas.

 

1) Beth implemented the ability for mods to have their own INI files. What is yet to be seen is whether you can add custom properties to be read from an ini. I will be testing that soon.

2) I have GlobalValues defined for some things for our hunger implementation such as what's the maximum satiated level, how much it should drop when it drops. How often if should drop in seconds, etc,.

 

If I go with scripted health damage (which I likely will) over just using a magic effect, adding in health damage multipliers or greater to control via either the .ini or at least allowing the player to use the CK or SkyEdit or Console to change the values is trivial. I'd like to make some of this configurable so it's a good idea from the perspective of making it open enough to allow the player to decide some things for themselves.

 

-MM

[elricshan]

 

hmm how about an spell that opens a menu and there you can change how mutch health it should thake that way everybody wil be happy and can play watterer type of bloodsucker they want

 

Actually, on that note I have two ideas.

 

1) Beth implemented the ability for mods to have their own INI files. What is yet to be seen is whether you can add custom properties to be read from an ini. I will be testing that soon.

2) I have GlobalValues defined for some things for our hunger implementation such as what's the maximum satiated level, how much it should drop when it drops. How often if should drop in seconds, etc,.

 

If I go with scripted health damage (which I likely will) over just using a magic effect, adding in health damage multipliers or greater to control via either the .ini or at least allowing the player to use the CK or SkyEdit or Console to change the values is trivial. I'd like to make some of this configurable so it's a good idea from the perspective of making it open enough to allow the player to decide some things for themselves.

 

-MM

 

i am not shure how but i think it is possible to make three sun damage script (all the same exept for the damage) and then the config menu ingame can choose between. human, vampire and nosearatu damaga (non, normal, high)

[MofoMojo]

i am not shure how but i think it is possible to make three sun damage script (all the same exept for the damage) and then the config menu ingame can choose between. human, vampire and nosearatu damaga (non, normal, high)

 

Just from a technical perspective, It's likely impossible to dynamically assign scripts that way, however... that doesn't mean you couldn't have a globalvariable that defines X, say a choice the user made in a menu, and some other script using that value the player chose, whether it's 1, 2, or 3, to determine how to apply damage.

 

Call my a purest, but I'd rather settings like that be controlled OUTSIDE of the game, rather than in the game. Once I'm playing, I don't want to be interupted by immersion breaking menu popups. Outside of the game I have a different mindset.

 

-MM

 

Edit: I say likely because there are things that we thought impossible that with some ingenuity have become possible.

Edited February 14, 2012 by MofoMojo

[elricshan]

i am not shure how but i think it is possible to make three sun damage script (all the same exept for the damage) and then the config menu ingame can choose between. human, vampire and nosearatu damaga (non, normal, high)

 

Just from a technical perspective, It's likely impossible to dynamically assign scripts that way, however... that doesn't mean you couldn't have a globalvariable that defines X, say a choice the user made in a menu, and some other script using that value the player chose, whether it's 1, 2, or 3, to determine how to apply damage.

 

Call my a purest, but I'd rather settings like that be controlled OUTSIDE of the game, rather than in the game. Once I'm playing, I don't want to be interupted by immersion breaking menu popups. Outside of the game I have a different mindset.

 

-MM

 

Edit: I say likely because there are things that we thought impossible that with some ingenuity have become possible.

 

i under stand that. but lets say you get a quest mod and then discovers that you need to disable sun damage to manage it or something like that then it is better to have a spell that opens a menu for yu instead of stopping the hole game...

[MofoMojo]

i am not shure how but i think it is possible to make three sun damage script (all the same exept for the damage) and then the config menu ingame can choose between. human, vampire and nosearatu damaga (non, normal, high)

 

Just from a technical perspective, It's likely impossible to dynamically assign scripts that way, however... that doesn't mean you couldn't have a globalvariable that defines X, say a choice the user made in a menu, and some other script using that value the player chose, whether it's 1, 2, or 3, to determine how to apply damage.

 

Call my a purest, but I'd rather settings like that be controlled OUTSIDE of the game, rather than in the game. Once I'm playing, I don't want to be interupted by immersion breaking menu popups. Outside of the game I have a different mindset.

 

-MM

 

Edit: I say likely because there are things that we thought impossible that with some ingenuity have become possible.

 

i under stand that. but lets say you get a quest mod and then discovers that you need to disable sun damage to manage it or something like that then it is better to have a spell that opens a menu for yu instead of stopping the hole game...

 

Understood where you're going there. A part of me says "You're a vampire, deal with it", use the shadows to your advantage and carry a lot of health and magicka potions! :) The other part of me says, I don't want the choice to restrict the player from being able to enjoy any quests they may want or more importantly NEED to do.

 

-MM

[Leeira]

A spell able to do that would be really hard to do, maybe impossible (as far as I know). But some kind of patcher writen in Java (saw that with a customizable light-mod) to change some values would be great.

 

To make damage depend on lightlevel is not a good as long as you can not only take the sun's light into account. Getting damaged by bright magic or other bright lights would not kill the player, but the atmosphere. IF there is a way to make only the lightlevel of the sun count, this would be the best way offcourse, but as far as I know it's not possible in the engine (Correct me if I'm wrong, you know much better than I).

 

"you get a visible indicator something is wrong, by being on fire for a few moments, and then your health meter is dropping."

Do I get it right that you burn? This would be very lore-unfriendly. Seeing something burn brightly, stepping into the shadow and stop burning without having any wounds... Would you talk to him normally or flee from him?

[elricshan]

i dont think it would be to hard as many oblivion mods had that kind of spells and items

[MofoMojo]

To make damage depend on lightlevel is not a good as long as you can not only take the sun's light into account. Getting damaged by bright magic or other bright lights would not kill the player, but the atmosphere. IF there is a way to make only the lightlevel of the sun count, this would be the best way offcourse, but as far as I know it's not possible in the engine (Correct me if I'm wrong, you know much better than I).

 

You have that correct. You can't distinguish the light level between sources, just the light level applied to an object from all light sources. What I'm a little more set on is just detecting that

 

• 
   
  
• You're in an Exterior
  
• You're not in Sovngarde
  
• The game hour is between 5am and 7pm
  
• The lightlevel on the user is > 100 (or 120)
  

 

Then, Damage the user a SET amount.

 

If you take into account the above, a light level greater than say, between ~100 and ~120, is generally a good indicator that the player is in direct sunlight regardless of other lightsources that might be applied. Occassionally if you're in the heat of battle and casting or receiving something like flame damage, it will push the light level up enough to take light damage if it's daylight outside but NOT direct sunlight. That value needs more testing but i've been using it on my Vampire since the day I figured out how to apply sun damage and still be able to fast travel under safe conditions. I said this earlier in this thread or in another, but it's really cool that there are days where it's raining or overcast and I my vampire can walk freely WITHOUT regen disabled, stats dropped, and of course, taking damage. For whatever reason, I get even more personal gratification walking around DURING the daylight hours when it's overcast and I'm safe than when I could walk around ANY time with no damage concerns.

 

If anyone would like play with that proof of concept let me know. I'll code one up that works with the normal Sun Damage spell for regular vampires and you can give it a test drive. Worst case you'd have to Feed before experiencing it and maybe feed again after removing the mod.

 

"you get a visible indicator something is wrong, by being on fire for a few moments, and then your health meter is dropping."

Do I get it right that you burn? This would be very lore-unfriendly. Seeing something burn brightly, stepping into the shadow and stop burning without having any wounds... Would you talk to him normally or flee from him?

 

Yeah, I'm kind of on the fence, and in game had the same reaction....even though I coded it. lol. "I'm walking through Whiterun, I just burst into flames, and no one things that's odd?" Now, what happened next was funny... I had the fire spell equipped and a little girl ran up to me and said ' You shouldn't play with fire'". So yes, that is a problem. I still use the original "The sunlight makes your vampire blood boil" sound and visual effect each time you walk into and out of the direct sunlight which is probably enough of an indicator that we could drop the bursting into flames.

 

Edit: @elricshan - That might also address your quest concern. Need to do a quest during the day. Better wait til it's overcast or raining.

 

Specifically Jakisthe, ok and others, what do you think of the trespassing idea? I know we mentioned earlier that keeping vampires from actually trespassing would be VERY difficult to do, so what if we gave you an incentive to "don't trespass for long because you're dying" when they trespass? I know we're taking some liberties there but it addresses that part of the lore, in a way that's doable. And if we can label holy places (chapels and the sort) as holy, we can probably do those too.

 

-MM

Edited February 14, 2012 by MofoMojo

[Jakisthe]

I think that physically keeping a player out would be both too time consuming and not very fun, to say nothing of possibly breaking the game and not being particularly lore friendly. I mean, the entire point was to symbolize a vampires inherent distaste for being around holy areas because it hurt them..not that they wanted to be around such places and they physically couldn't. So, actually, the trespassing=hurt thing is pretty much exactly what we're looking for to begin with.

 

Flames are...part of that subset of ideas where I think "well, this would be cool and possibly immersive to a degree" but then when you think about it further, it just doesn't make sense in the game world (ie, people not noticing) and with the AI (as they just detected it as general fire instead of a person just happening to be on fire). Now, not to say things like...having the player smoke very slightly at incredibly high light levels would be as bad, but I do tend to force myself to edit for the sake of ingame realism.

 

As far as light from fire...well, I think that if you're close enough, in combat, and in sunlight, I don't think anyone will be truly caring if you suddenly begin to lose health slightly faster. And if they do, well..uh...the..heat interferes with the players naturally colder vampiric blood! Or something. I dunno. I think it's pretty much a non issue.

 

I think, right now, the biggest gameplay thing I'm looking at is the effect of hunger on power. Luckily, I have help! But still, MM, send me that PoC and I'll see how it feels. Maybe some slight tuning like with the reflexes stuff could be the happy result, but who knows!

 

Right now though, I have a Stochastic Econometrics exam in a few hours, so you'll have to forgive my continued and [now explained] silence :wallbash:

[MofoMojo]

I think that physically keeping a player out would be both too time consuming and not very fun, to say nothing of possibly breaking the game and not being particularly lore friendly. I mean, the entire point was to symbolize a vampires inherent distaste for being around holy areas because it hurt them..not that they wanted to be around such places and they physically couldn't. So, actually, the trespassing=hurt thing is pretty much exactly what we're looking for to begin with.

 

Excellent - I will keep the trespassing stuff in place! :)

 

Flames are...part of that subset of ideas where I think "well, this would be cool and possibly immersive to a degree" but then when you think about it further, it just doesn't make sense in the game world (ie, people not noticing) and with the AI (as they just detected it as general fire instead of a person just happening to be on fire). Now, not to say things like...having the player smoke very slightly at incredibly high light levels would be as bad, but I do tend to force myself to edit for the sake of ingame realism.

 

Sounds like the best thing to do is leave the flames out and perhaps see if we can get some smouldering smoke or some very light shading going on if at all. I don't know how many people REALLY play in 3rd person, although with your arms extended out with weapons/magic in hand, it becomes another visible clue. Ok, I'll investigate some shader work and see if we can get something really subdued.

 

As far as light from fire...well, I think that if you're close enough, in combat, and in sunlight, I don't think anyone will be truly caring if you suddenly begin to lose health slightly faster. And if they do, well..uh...the..heat interferes with the players naturally colder vampiric blood! Or something. I dunno. I think it's pretty much a non issue.

 

Agreed wholely.

 

I think, right now, the biggest gameplay thing I'm looking at is the effect of hunger on power. Luckily, I have help! But still, MM, send me that PoC and I'll see how it feels. Maybe some slight tuning like with the reflexes stuff could be the happy result, but who knows!

 

I'll try and get some more of the hunger implemented this weekend. The satiated bit and timing is all done and tweakable, what happens after that isn't. I am going to be away from a computer for the next...48 hours or so, except maybe at night time. I'll see what I can get together tonight if I'm able to acces the 'net.

 

Right now though, I have a Stochastic Econometrics exam in a few hours, so you'll have to forgive my continued and [now explained] silence :wallbash:

 

I hope you did well!

 

Everyone, keep the ideas, thoughts, and criticisms rolling in please!

 

-MM