Dungeon Master Forum

Lunever wrote:Monster footsteps - would be great if you could take walls into account in some future release

It is worth considering.

Lunever wrote:Rockpiles - many players back then were - wrongly as far as i know - assuming rock piles were harder to hit when the were not attacking (opening themselves).
Since it seems logical AND Nexus actually does something similar (they use a closed state like parrying), it might be a nice tweak to actually implement this.

I'm only worried it might be seen as diverging too much from DM to do it this way. I agree that it's a nice idea, and I've actually done it this way in my probably-will-never-be-released custom dungeon, but, I'm concerned about tweaking the base code too much...

Lunever wrote:Diamond Edge - Please let stabbing be Ninja. According to the original game instructions lots of light blades SHOULD be ninja, but in the entire game, only one actually does. If that was to be changed, I would rather go the other way round, and make more light blades be ninja, like the rapier.

... so unnecessary tweaks like this one probably should go! I'll make it a ninja skill, like it is in DM.

Lunever wrote:2nd hand stat bonuses - sounds reasonable so far. I hope that all kinds of weapons will be 2nd hand compatible.

Pretty much everything that gives a stat bonus gives it from either hand.

Lunever wrote:Monster speed - Don't want to stress RTC comparisons to much, but I liked that RTC allowed to increase monster speed (although you had to raise the entire difficulty in order to play a faster game).

What do you mean by "increase monster speed" exactly? You can of course tweak the monsters to move and attack faster, by changing their delays. Or do you mean making the whole game go faster?

Lunever wrote:Weapon skills - I remember back then on Amiga, playing through DM for the first time. I noticed that Hissssa didn't get Berzerk with the Hardcleave while Stamm did, though Stamm was not the more experienced fighter. It dawned then to me, that somehow the characters were more complex than the player's eye could see directly. I thought this was awesome. I hope very very much this will be implemented in DSB.

The system of defining attack methods in DSB is, in all honesty, kind of an annoying piece of crap. I can add this without too much difficulty, and I probably will. Some sort of eventual overhaul of it might be nice... but I don't know. I'm definitely not opposed to improving this aspect, though, particularly since it'll result in more similarity to DM.

Thanks for the post Sophia!

With the worms, I always remember that when taking Stamm on the speed runs, the chop with the axe was not that effective, hence I trained to use the rapier thrust (and thus discovered that you got it very shortly after Journeyman - I guess this is the hidden stats thing). This time chop seemed to hit harder, and I cleared them much quicker. I think with the rockpiles I was used to many low level hits when punching, it just seems fewer and far between. I cam back up with improved characters and hit them harder though, and more often!

Same with the knights, the thrust and chop seemed to hit harder than I remember for the same levels.

I generally do like the monster AI, I think I was just unlucky with the Spiders (in the room with the Helm of Lyte). Killed them though! I like the 2ndary stat boosts, and as mentioned previously, the poison seems more realistic. Seems to be a lot of flexibility in the design, and I am sure that a dungeon designer could tweak many things to his liking easily.

I would say the two main noticable differences to gameplay for me though were the projectiles and lack of damage from monsters.

Well, since most players (who don't know the code) intuitively assume the rockpile vulnerability, I'd love to see this be that way by default. Just tell anyone complaining truthfully it's in the latest original game version too

To match the original intend, imho EVERY weapon that can be considered a light blade or a monk weapon in a classical rpg should be changed to ninja, at least with one of its attack manoeuvres, like stab and thrust. Since there are part-fighter-part-wizard weapons too (Vorpal Blade), having weapons be partially fighter and partially ninja absolutely makes sense imho - if at some later point I get a nexus-weapon-speed-lua going, that'd even produce the awesome result that ninjaing becomes part of combat.

2nd hand - so what items actually insist on main hand only?

Speed - if you increase the overal dificulty in RTC (manually in the config or automatically by the import difficulty adaptation), the monsters became not only stronger and tougher, but also faster. On archmaster difficulty they were pretty fast. I absolutely liked that because it created a more fluent game and prevented DM veterans from totally outmanoeuvering monsters.

Skill system - It'd be great to have it. It's one of the most powerful tools of DM. Especially if you take a look at the DM2 information extracted so far. An astonishing number of items modifies some internal skill. It's what makes DM be more subtle than other rpgs. However, a couple of internal skills should be overhauled - ninjas should have more important skills than a complete skill just for coin-flipping

PS: Slow projectiles are awful. If they can be made faster, pleaseplease do so!

If you ever need a negative example, play original EOB. You can overtake your own missiles there ...

Lunever wrote:so what items actually insist on main hand only?

Actually, after looking at it, in DSB, only a cursed sword has its effect in only the main hand. Everything else gives its bonus in both hands. Well, except the rabbit's foot, which gives a bonus anywhere it is (like in DM and unlike in RTC)

Unless there are big objections, I'll just leave it like this.

Lunever wrote:Skill system - It'd be great to have it.

For DSB 0.41 I'll set it up so you can specify a sub-skill when you specify a minimum level for an attack method.

Lunever wrote:Slow projectiles are awful.

The projectiles can't be sped up without making the whole game faster because they travel one sub-tile per tick.

Of course, that part of it could also be changed relatively easily, by running, say, two updates per tick so the projectiles go one entire tile per tick. There would be no risk of the projectiles "going through" anything because they'd actually occupy the intermediate positions for an instant-- there would be two full updates. However, I fear the animation might be even clunkier than DM's already is.

Skills - good to hear that we'll have weapon skills next release. How about the supernatural skills?

Missiles: Well, I'd like to see them becoming faster, or at least arrows shot from a bow should be faster if possible.

Speaking of missiles - In Nexus some ranged weapons offer attack methods that will very rapidly cast several of them. For example you have attack methods "Throw 1 Shuriken", "Throw 2 Shuriken", "Throw 3 Shuriken", same goes for the repeating speedbow. Might be a nice tweak for DSB too.

Throwing and actions - Imho, since you can throw any item anyway by clicking it in the screen, every item that does not have alredy 3 actions should get a throw action. Every item that is consumable should have a consume action. I know I can custom-dungeon it, but I mean by default.

Lunever wrote:Throwing and actions - Imho, since you can throw any item anyway by clicking it in the screen, every item that does not have alredy 3 actions should get a throw action. Every item that is consumable should have a consume action. I know I can custom-dungeon it, but I mean by default.

For what it's worth, I don't think this is a good idea. First, it is inconsequent - some items have a throw action, some don't. Second, if you have a melee weapon with only one or two regular actions and accidentally misclick on "Throw", you are suddenly fighting empty-handed.

Lunever wrote:Skills - good to hear that we'll have weapon skills next release. How about the supernatural skills?

Supernatural skills? I don't know what you mean, except wizard and priest sub-skills will be usable too...

Lunever wrote:Missiles: Well, I'd like to see them becoming faster, or at least arrows shot from a bow should be faster if possible.

Speaking of missiles - In Nexus some ranged weapons offer attack methods that will very rapidly cast several of them. For example you have attack methods "Throw 1 Shuriken", "Throw 2 Shuriken", "Throw 3 Shuriken", same goes for the repeating speedbow. Might be a nice tweak for DSB too.

Hmm, I wonder if these might not be too un-DM. It might be a good hack for a custom but I am rather hesitant to put stuff like this into the base code.

Skills - yes I meant the priest and wizard skills.

Actions - well, my next question would have been whether and item can have more than 3 actions. RTC allowed it, though the menu scrolling wasn't that practical in combat. For plot items it would be a good idea though.

What I'd actually really would like with additional actions is: An item has its 1 or 2 or 3 standard action, and as a new tweak, on the right border of the 3 action lines, there could ALWAYS be 3 tiny symbols - a sonic symbol for warcrying, a boot for kicking, a hand for throwing. That'd be logical and intuitive (though not original DM). Why wouldn't you be able to warcry with a sword in your hand? Why wouldn't you be able to throw an axe? Of course there already are some items that can be used in close combat and for throwing, like a club or a dagger. Paired with a nexus-weapon-speed-script, the kicking attack would always return first, so if you wand to quickly attack again - boot to the head (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_Y6231uAmo).

Just an idea to really develop the combat menu further. And to make ninjas less superfluous.

Missiles: Well, the throw 2 / throw 3 actions of course are tied to higher levels. I don't think that every good idea of Dungeon Master Nexus should be labeled un-DM1 a priori. Would love to see a couple of things reappear in DSB.

Lunever wrote:well, my next question would have been whether and item can have more than 3 actions. RTC allowed it, though the menu scrolling wasn't that practical in combat. For plot items it would be a good idea though.

It does? In the RTC editor, you can only specify three attack methods, anyway. For DSB, this is something that could be done, but would require a bit more hacking around in the engine to create some sort of scrolling and such... I'd rather not do it unless I was sure it was going to get used somehow.

Lunever wrote:What I'd actually really would like with additional actions is: An item has its 1 or 2 or 3 standard action, and as a new tweak, on the right border of the 3 action lines, there could ALWAYS be 3 tiny symbols - a sonic symbol for warcrying, a boot for kicking, a hand for throwing. That'd be logical and intuitive (though not original DM). Why wouldn't you be able to warcry with a sword in your hand? Why wouldn't you be able to throw an axe?

I guess to tell you that this would not be terribly hard to do with custom Lua is not what you want to hear.

Well, I'm aware that some of my suggestions are considered to be to un-DM by some to be default engine elements. But it's good to hear that I can do that in lua. Right now I'm only familarizing myself with playing DSB, editing and scripting will have to wait til later, but I'll keep that in mind. If I can later create a script (hopefully with at least a little initial help) that will allow me to use such functions, I'll be happy. Of course, I'll be even more glad for every suggestion I can convince you to implement by default or as an option. Default implementation customizable via an options menu is always the best imho. Everyone can use it with but a click, no has to use it.

Actions - Right now I don't remember which, but I'm pretty sure in RTC-DM2 there were multiple actions for items. Could be though, that I'm confusing it with the multiple options for pushing/pulling stuff - but in any case scrolling between more than 3 actions is there.

An action can generate a menu. The table is an example of it, and it's the same idea - you could have it for a weapon.

Sophia wrote:Ok, as I suspected, the problem is that the sound that it's trying to use is undefined. I'm not sure why Joramun changed all of the names of the movement sounds, but he probably had a good reason.[/code]

It's simple: for translation from RTC to DSB, I use a list for objects, but there is no such list for sounds.
Since I didn't want to hardcode a complete list of sounds, RTSB just takes the RTC name of sound, and put it in lowercase with 'snd.' in front.

The small list of sounds in startup.lua is just a small fix. I have no idea why I commented some lines however.