Devious Devices Escape Overhaul

[Shakx88]

Devious Devices Escape Overhaul

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This is an in-development mod. Please, read the notes section.

 

I've never quite liked the way DD framework handled escaping from devices. It puts me out of controls as a player. Then I had my time playing with the mod "Devious Lore" which provided a good alternative, putting me back in control. However, I didn't feel fully satisfied with it so I've decided to create a mod that would handle escaping (and escaping only).

 

Current features:

• By pressing a configurable hotkey you can open an escape menu. There you can choose what device you want to escape from.

• Three supported ways of escaping from a device: unlocking with a key, struggling out of a device, or picking its lock.

• To unlock a device, you must succeed in a minigame. You have to balance a key in order to unlock a device via a minigame.

• Struggling is implemented as a minigame where you are supposed to guess in which direction you should move your body to weaken the device by pressing W, A, S, and D. Each attempt to guess costs you a bit of stamina. Failing or succeeding to struggle out of a device exhausts your character (configurable).

• Picking the lock is implemented as an actual Skyrim's lockpicking minigame! Beware that you have only one shot at picking a lock before failing. Breaking the lockpick may jam the lock.

• Lock repairing minigame.

• Difficulty and availability of all escape methods are based on DD's settings as well as various settings provided by this mod.

• Wrist restraints (also known as heavy bondage) can be configured to prevent certain ways of escaping from them. They can also block ALL lockpicking.

• Blindfolds and bondage mittens can make it harder (or even impossible) to escape in certain ways.

• NPCs can assist player in escaping from a device (not fully finished).

Requirements

Devious devices 5.0 and its requirements.

Notes

• The mod is currently in a relatively early stage of its development. Expect bugs to happen. Escaping from devices may feel too easy or too hard because I didn't spend a lot of time balancing the difficulty. Try adjusting DD's difficulty levels to your liking and see if it helps.
• Although the mod is called an overhaul, it doesn't modify DD framework itself (almost). The standard way of escaping devices is still there.
• The mod supports only generic devices. Non-generic and quest devices aren't properly supported for obvious reasons (you can enable a setting to bypass them, but it is recommended to do so only if a mod explicitly suggest that you have to struggle out of a device).

Known issues

• Devices with lock shields aren't normally supported. Unfortunately, it is a limitation cause by DD framework.
• Lock timers aren't supported. This means that if a timer elapses, this mod won't recognise it. Unfortunately, it is a limitation cause by DD framework.

Planned features (these are supposed to be added at some point of time in the future, priority order)

• Finish NPC support
• Possibly add magical means of escape

 

Credits

@S.MayLeR - Russian translation

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• Submitter
  Shakx88
• Submitted
  01/08/2021
• Category
  WIP / Beta
• Requires
  Devious Devices 5.0
• Special Edition Compatible
  No

 

[ahboojiga123]

(related but slightly off topic, feel free to ignore)

i recall seeing a conversation either in DD beta thread or DD5 thread, about the DD escape system

about "player" escaping device vs "character" escaping device

about how much player involvment is too much, and whether the escape should be RNG-based(influenced by character skill level) or player skill-based

 

what's your take on this question?

just for curiosity's sake

[Guest]

It sounds promising!

As much as I like DD, any kind of new mechanics is just what a serial replayer of Skyrim needs! ?

?

[jfraser]

i also find this promising, thanks for making it. may i suggest implementing a way to cut bonds with sharp objects if the binding is something that is cuttable? 

[Shakx88]

20 minutes ago, ahboojiga123 said:

what's your take on this question?

just for curiosity's sake

I'd say somewhere in-between. While player's skill should determine the outcome, character's skills and RNG should make it harder or easier to achieve a certain one. My goal is to create a system which would make escaping feasible on the very first try but not guaranteed. At least that's what I want it to be like.

[Shakx88]

16 minutes ago, jfraser said:

i also find this promising, thanks for making it. may i suggest implementing a way to cut bonds with sharp objects if the binding is something that is cuttable? 

I initially wanted to add cutting as an option. However, I couldn't come up with a decent way of implementing it. I don't want it to be just another button for struggling. What I have in mind is making struggling easier if a restraint is something cuttable and you have a sharp item in your inventory. But that's something to do later. Right now my priority is integrating difficulty of individual devices into the overall escape difficulty.

[mangalo]

Will keep an eye on it.  My keyboard layout isn't qwerty though, wonder how it will affect things

[Zaflis]

2 hours ago, Shakx88 said:

Known issues

• After launching Skyrim the first time you try to pick a lock when some device is supposed to prevent it, the prevention mechanism may fail. It should work fine afterward. I'm not entirely certain why it fails.

DD framework doesn't initialize when you launch Skyrim the first time. Loading a game is needed for the startup to happen. And this is done intentionally (not a bug).

[Hex Bolt]

Thank you for this.  I thought Devious Lore's escape game was promising, but I didn't want all the other stuff that came with the mod.

 

I'd like to suggest the ability for players to remap the struggle keys.  WASD might not be convenient for everyone.  I understand that the mod's in an early stage and that isn't a top priority, but it's something to think about.

[Guest]

Now that I think of it: does it have a gamepad support yet?

[Yukitemi]

Me very likey that.

I also like asking npc for help and often be denied :3 Do you plan on doing some of that? Other mods that do that. either make escaping too easy, buggy or they simply bland\not satisfying.

[Hasha]

The author, but a function will be added when the NPCs themselves try to get out of the devices when they are in standby mode, i.e. to stand?

[finalfrog]

Suggestion for the heavy bondage key minigame:

* Generate a random sequence (eg. UP, DOWN, LEFT, LEFT, DOWN, UP), with the length of the sequence increasing with the difficulty to use the key with the device

* Each time the player guesses the next direction in the sequence correctly give them feedback about them getting the key closer to the lock (small fatigue cost)

* Each time the player guesses the next direction in the sequence incorrectly give them feedback about fumbling the key and needing to start over and reset their progress (huge fatigue cost)

* If the player fails too much give them feedback that they've lost their concentration (aka the sequence has changed)

 

Sorta a simulation of trying to carefully maneuver the key and your body into position you can insert it into the lock and turn it while blind and/or restrained.

[LinksSword]

could we perhaps get some screenshots of the minigame in action?

[kaldwin]

for the key break feature:  You ever play a tony hawk pro-skater game?  maybe a mechanic similar to the how balance was handled while grinding or manualing. 

 

my thought is, you have a timer, and you have to keep the key steady for the duration of the timer.  The more difficult the lock, the longer you have to hold it steady.  How difficult the key is to keep steady is determined by some combination of DD difficulty settings (or just a slider on the MCM for your mod) and your lockpicking skill 

 

 

 

 

 

[Shakx88]

9 hours ago, Zaflis said:

DD framework doesn't initialize when you launch Skyrim the first time. Loading a game is needed for the startup to happen. And this is done intentionally (not a bug).

The issue is not with DD. The mod may fail to close the lockpicking menu. Either Input.TapKey() or Input.GetMappedKey() fails. I should take a closer look.

[Shakx88]

8 hours ago, Racoonity said:

Now that I think of it: does it have a gamepad support yet?

It doesn't. I should probably fix that by adding key bindings for the minigame.

8 hours ago, HexBolt8 said:

I'd like to suggest the ability for players to remap the struggle keys.  WASD might not be convenient for everyone.  I understand that the mod's in an early stage and that isn't a top priority, but it's something to think about.

That's an option. Or I could simply bind the minigame to Skyrim's movement keys.

[Shakx88]

6 hours ago, LinksSword said:

could we perhaps get some screenshots of the minigame in action?

I mean, the sceenshots would show a character playing a struggle animation and occasional notification "You feel the device weaken" in the top left corner of the screen. That is for struggle minigame.

For lockpicking, it would be a screenshot of Skyrim's default lockpicking.

Not sure either of those would be useful, but I could take and upload them.

[Baltasarr80]

Will this be a successory to devious lore?

[Shakx88]

7 hours ago, finalfrog said:

Suggestion for the heavy bondage key minigame:

* Generate a random sequence (eg. UP, DOWN, LEFT, LEFT, DOWN, UP), with the length of the sequence increasing with the difficulty to use the key with the device

* Each time the player guesses the next direction in the sequence correctly give them feedback about them getting the key closer to the lock (small fatigue cost)

* Each time the player guesses the next direction in the sequence incorrectly give them feedback about fumbling the key and needing to start over and reset their progress (huge fatigue cost)

* If the player fails too much give them feedback that they've lost their concentration (aka the sequence has changed)

 

Sorta a simulation of trying to carefully maneuver the key and your body into position you can insert it into the lock and turn it while blind and/or restrained.

That's almost what struggling minigame is at the moment and it was supposed to be unlocking minigame initially. I've decided to move the minigame because it feels like something way to difficult given that you have a key (which may be hard to obtain).

 

6 hours ago, kaldwin said:

for the key break feature:  You ever play a tony hawk pro-skater game?  maybe a mechanic similar to the how balance was handled while grinding or manualing. 

 

my thought is, you have a timer, and you have to keep the key steady for the duration of the timer.  The more difficult the lock, the longer you have to hold it steady.  How difficult the key is to keep steady is determined by some combination of DD difficulty settings (or just a slider on the MCM for your mod) and your lockpicking skill 

Looks like an interesting option. It should be easier to perform for a player. And it could represent PC trying to reach the lock and fit the key into it. I'll need to figure out a way to add a new UI element though.

 

I'd appreciate if someone could recommend a simpler way of adding a UI element (I think something like the game's health bar would suffice) than working with Adobe. I'm not aware of any.

[Shakx88]

11 minutes ago, Baltasarr80 said:

Will this be a successory to devious lore?

No, this mod is intended to focus solely on escaping DDs.

8 hours ago, Yukitemi said:

Me very likey that.

I also like asking npc for help and often be denied :3 Do you plan on doing some of that? Other mods that do that. either make escaping too easy, buggy or they simply bland\not satisfying.

It's mentioned in the planned features as "NPCs support" though I would not expect something outstanding.

7 hours ago, Hasha said:

The author, but a function will be added when the NPCs themselves try to get out of the devices when they are in standby mode, i.e. to stand?

I will consider this when all of the planned features are added.

[tuxagent7]

5 hours ago, Shakx88 said:

That's an option. Or I could simply bind the minigame to Skyrim's movement keys.

if this work with a gamepad, i am all for that

[tuxagent7]

Oh sorry for the double post

 

I feel that the PC skills should have some impact in the escape equation like no skills = more difficult  great skills = easier

 

Thanks !

[boita]

Will you consider escaping with magic, for pure mage characters ? Like unlocking with a high enough alteration or a chance to destroy with destruction while keeping something like a huge magicka exhaustion and maybe debuff for a little period

[Yukitemi]

Is it possible to not block the camera movement when struggling?

Also it would be immersive to use minigame even if using a key, but a lot easier(or not so much in case of yoke for example)