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The Trappings of Fate

Frayed

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chrisblue619

chrisblue619

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3 minutes ago, chrisblue619 said:

Great mod from what ive played so far however I have become stumped after

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taking the blindfold off. would it be possible to get a hint as to what to focus on next?

 

Spoiler

never mid if just figured out how to unlock the first door

 

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Frayed

Frayed

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10 hours ago, screennamebob said:

General design thoughts

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  • Puzzles are always hard to design, because if a player comes into a puzzle not thinking the same way as the designer, "obvious" hints can easily be overlooked.  I loved the 3D, move things around interaction...once I looked at this thread and saw that was a mechanic.  I doubt I would have ever thought to do that otherwise.  I think the beginning could be a better mechanics intro, if after escaping the pole and getting out of the armbinder, player progression was 100% blocked until they interacted with an item and were forced to move that item to progress.  Ideally having an obvious popup on initial "examine", referring to moving something without picking it up.  That would go a long way getting the player thinking with the mechanics you used here.
  • Forced DD Blindfold Settings - In my option, this is just a bad idea.  I was playing this on a fun save, so I didn't care but if I installed a mod and noticed it had changed other mod settings I had, I would immediately uninstall and never revisit it.  If there are settings for the intended experience, I would put those recommended settings on the mod page as a suggestion, but trying to control how a player interacts with your mod is, I think, always a losing battle.  Also to note here, I much more enjoyed seeing my character tied up at the beginning of the mod when I changed my DD blindfold settings back to what I had, instead of just seeing darkness pretty much everywhere.

 

Puzzle specific thoughts

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  • I would put an activator covering the whole first door, and add a message that the character doesn't feel like they should explore until they can see.  I missed rug interactions in the Lia's games and here as well.  Honestly don't remember how long I had my blindfold on the first time I played.
  • I could pickup the Black Bear Key in third person without the broom, simply rotating the camera to the right angle.
  • I don't think the cart shouldn't be in the initial room, it should be in the cave room where it's needed.  That will probably make that solution more obvious for others, but for me moving that cart is just a pain.  In one test play through I almost died to physics damage trying to get it into the cave room.
  • The Clavicus Vile mask needs something make it more obvious, IMO.  My first play through, I went into the water, saw the strongbox at the bottom, saw I didn't have a key and left and never came back.  Only found it existed after looking through thread spoilers once I failed my first escape attempt.  Even now, when I know it's there, I sometimes have to go back up for air before I can find it to start the conversation.

 

Technical issues/thoughts

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  • I have to manually close my inventory after drinking the wine at the very start of the quest.  Happened both times I started the quest, I believe there is a way to force the menu to close before adding the paralyze effect.
  • Having the dropped items be static and non-moving, makes sense so the player doesn't lose them, but depending on what items you remove where sometimes they are very difficult to see.  I didn't unlock the strongbox in the water, or the second bookshelf solely because I didn't think to interact with the gag as soon as it was off, and I couldn't find it afterwards.  IMO I think it would be better if they could be physics enabled objects that could be moved around, then the "dropping" after removal would be more obvious, and encourage player interaction to find those keys hidden in items.
  • After the cart is used for the lamp and you are rag dolled back to the group, the cart always ended up in the water for me.  This made getting in the water and looking around even harder, as the cart would push me around and physics damage me, as well as get in the way when I tried to get out of the water.  Maybe keep the cart locked in place after the sun lamp, and have everything else fall down.
  • I had trouble with both the mask and alter conversations.  I could not skip/fast forward any of their dialogue and there would occasionally be long breaks where I thought the conversation had stopped, so I tabbed out to end the convo, which either reset or broke the conversations.  It also would be nice if the dremora could force greet the player after saying they are going to leave them in the pillory, instead of having the start the conversion myself.  Don't know if that is how it's designed currently or not.

 

6 hours ago, serranna said:

Bug info

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So I ran into an issue removing the plug. When I got the plug out, I was unable to find it on the floor. I was standing over 2 other devices when I removed it, so Im assuming the game just wasn't able to find a good place to set it on the ground, so whereever the mod placed it was inaccessible. I reloaded an older save, went to a spot where there was nothing to get in the way, removed the plug and it appeared right there on the ground where it was supposed to be. As it is now, you need to make sure you're not standing near anything when you try to remove it.

 

Other thoughts

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I'm not a fan of the blindfold effect. I get the idea of making it harder to see which might add a little more challenge in the beginning, but being able to see the character is frankly the best part and the blindfold effect detracts from it. At least make it an MCM setting or something.

 

I figured out how to set up the cart over the water to reach the lamp, but maybe it's just poor skill on my part but I was just unable to jump up the cart to touch the lamp fast enough. It got to the point where I had to run into the first room to touch that first crest, then run to the cart, turn on no clipping and run up to touch the lamp because I kept falling off and failing to touch the lamp on time. I tried for a long time before I resorted to no clipping mode. If it has to be done within a time limit I suggest a much longer time limit for those of us who are not quite as skilled.

 

 

Thanks for the great feedback, it's much appreciated. To answer a few things:

 

On moving things around:

Spoiler

@screennamebob Blocking progression like you suggest is what the hood key puzzle does. If you try to pick up the key you'll always drop it, and a message pops up saying you can only move it. This to me sounds like what you're suggesting, so maybe I'm not sure what you mean?

 

On intended DD settings:

Spoiler

I'd rather not put these as a "suggested setting" on the mod page, because there can be a significant amount of time between when someone downloads the mod and when they play it, so they're very likely to forget about it. I could put a prompt at the start to set the recommended settings, but that's a bit immersion-breaking. I could just ditch the modification, but I do think it adds something. I can try to make it a bit smarter, perhaps: only boost the blindfold effect if the current settings suggest the player would appreciate that.

 

Also, as a note: I revert back to the original settings once you remove the blindfold. So no permanent changes to settings are made ;)

 

On a "movable box":

Spoiler

I might move the cart up one room and shrink it a bit. Should make moving it and jumping on it a bit easier. Can't move it to the target room, though, there's no space: the trigger box for the cart in that room is huge to avoid problems. I can keep it fixed in place after the trigger fires, though, sure.

 

On stuff clipping into the ground:

Spoiler

This is a tricky problem. I'm not sure it's even possible to make physics-enabled activatables, nor whether that's a good idea. If they're physics-enabled there's a higher chance they fly off somewhere when you walk over them and you lose them that way. I'd rather keep them fixed. I'll do some testing to see if I can make them clip less, but I don't know how to prevent this reliable yet. Perhaps I'll just make the ground devices a bit bigger, that might work as an easy fix.

 

@screennamebob:

Spoiler

- The activator on the door is a good idea. I'll add that.

- I didn't know the activation range changes in 3rd person! That's hilarious, I'll have to test that.

- The piercing puzzle is supposed to be easy to fail for both lore and mechanical reasons: really it just leads to a different way to complete the quest. Having the mask be hard to find even when you're looking at it and you know it's there is not intended. I'll move it a bit to make it easier.

- The mask/alter dialogue not being skippable bothers me as well, but unfortunately this is Bethesda Jank (tm): dialogue with talking activators is not skippable. I can try to find a workaround, but I don't see this as high priority.

- I tried getting the dremora to forcegreet like that, but never got it working. Not sure why. The current solution is a compromise, where the player can't do anything but initiate dialogue, which kind of makes sense, since you're supposed to be the one starting the conversation. I'll admit it's a bit janky, though.

 

 

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Frayed

Frayed

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4 hours ago, Joji vlogs said:

Amazing mod you made mate. I understand there is more for the mod to come, but i had just a quick question. Do you plan on doing "themed" puzzles? Like the first one is with normal restraints like your armbinders and your harnesses, but will the others be focused on other kinds of restraints, like catsuits/latex, armbinders, dresses, etc? Lovely work truly

 

Thanks! The first quest has these devices simply because I like them and they're the sort of "basic" devices. I don't have the devices for the future quests picked out yet. Could be anything, if I can tie it (?) in to a fun puzzle. Not a fan of the gas masks or garishly pink/teal stuff, though, so those I probably won't use.

Edited by Frayed
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darksong

darksong

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Posted

Posting again because of how much I enjoyed this one versus the Chloe questline in DCL, which is similar only in it restricts your freedoms to progress the quest.  This is some excellent work, huge kudos to you. Assorted comments/observations follow:

 

I re-learned that the "long hold" activate allows you to carry things, but in my games - both in LE and SE - 90% of the time it is a kludgey and frustrating process requiring luck to make it work. But that's a Bethsoft issue/fault, not yours. However it mostly works as desired in your mod, for some perverse result, thank the Daedra.

 

I still had to cheat using TCL to get to the lamp thingy

Spoiler

There was no way in hell I could manage to get the cart out of the initial room, never mind move it to where it needed to be. Perhaps I'm stupid, but the only way I found to move the cart was to get behind it and "bump" it - with random results. So I never got a chance to attempt stacking crap on it, which I would expect to be a disaster, unless carrying it over magically "locks" it into place

 

 

The stone mask is VERY hard to see -even in first person view-, and even after I accidentally triggered it's dialog, I had to go back later and look really closely to find it. And the only reason I had a clue of what to look for was some of the comments in it's conversation - I was looking for a completely different looking mask.

 

One or two of the items I managed to remove out of pure blind luck of trying things. And some items, when I removed them, were VERY hard to find on the ground after. Especially the plug. The hood seemed to vanish completely, as I never found it after removing it.

 

Honestly, my biggest problem with it was the aforementioned issues with the Bethsoft engine activate to pick up and carry items mechanic, that frankly has plagued me in all their games - FO3, NV, FO4 and Skyrim. I don't remember Oblivion, too many years ago.

 

Once again, huge kudos to you. Looking forward to more from you, as this has the potential to put you up with the Legends like DocClox, and other mods like Captured Dreams, Laura's Bondage Shop and others my brain is missing at the moment

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GreatCroco

GreatCroco

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A few notes on part 1 from start to finish:

Spoiler

Quest Start:

I'd change the start of the quest. Currently a courier delivers you a note and you drink the wine and then your character is teleported to the dungeon. There are a few problems with that. First, is suspension of disbelief. In my first playthrough the courier delivered me the note, I Ignored it because I was currently at another quest and then started the quest by accident in the middle of the wild. Who fetches you after being drugged?

Second is simply gameplay wise. The gift is not marked as quest item, thus can be sold or dropped, which makes it impossible to start. You can also start the quest by accident in a Draugr run when chugging a few drinks in the middle of a fight (Pic totally related). Also you asked in the DD thread how to replace non-quest items, because you have to make sure the PC doesn't have items on them.

 

I propose the following solution: You're still getting a note from the courier starting the quest, maybe even a complimentary wine. But instead of being teleported into the dungeon, you're sent to an NPC located in the Frozen Heart in Winterhold, which will give you the rest of your reward. I chose Winterhold, because then there'd be a nice hook to a possible backstory of the whole dungeon thing being a dark secret of the College, which not even the Archmage knows. However, any inn can do the job, really.

This NPC then greets you based on what the PCs currently wearing. If they have any restraints on them, they'll be sent away with "I'm not dealing with slaves, go fetch your master". You then need to remove all restraints or the NPC's not going to talk to you again (Bonus: If you speak to them after loosing the restraints, they'll comment: "Oh, you weren't a slave after all, huh?). If the PC doesn't have any restraints on them they'll offer you a drink, which teleports the PC to the dungeon.

 

Solves the problem of suspension of disbelief, the player accidentally throwing away the quest starter, and the player having restraints on them that would block the dungeon from completing.

 

Dungeon in General:

* Move the doors a bit further off the ground. This makes moving the broom below it a bit easier.

* The purpose of the cart isn't entirely clear. Moving it up a room helps but it'd be better to give a few more (visual) hints. First you should remove the curtain, which makes the pool(?) a bit more obvious. Then use the gargoyles and their light-beams to hint to the cart and the direction it should be pushed.

* If the restraints are remove the player should either automatically get the keys (dropped on the floor or into the  inventory) or they should at least get an earlier hint (the message on the stool is a good point for that) that they should be interacting with the removed restraints. This would require acquiring the key to the hood be changed a bit. I'd suggest dropping the hood altogether. It's really unlikely that a person with mittens and no sight could jam a small key into a crack in the wall. Then the player would have to remove the armbinder first, then the blindfold and then they could read the note and get the hint that they need to interact with the restraints after removing them.

* Instead of the hood add a posture collar and let the player remove that. To make this fit, change the harness into the new collar-less harness

* Railroad the player a bit more. Yes, the freedom to remove most of the restraints in the order you want is nice, but it makes it much harder for first timers and you can also reason less about the state the player is currently in. Especially the second room can go wild and any direction. Making it harder to write and debug

 

Here's my suggestions for a revised questline:

1.  Change the keys to be a bit more descriptive, e.g. remove the tadpole (not many non-native speakers will know that term) and use the fish key to open the lockbox in the water.

 

1. Remove the interaction with the tentacle pole and the moon crest altogether. It's likely that the player will interact with the crest and the pole, thus accidentally advancing the harness escape without realizing, since the debug message in the top left is so short. It will also push them away from the moon/sun interaction in the cave. The required four orgasms will be achieved mostly on the side, with only the last one requiring player interaction. With a few message boxes this makes it more clear that the player needs a single remaining orgasm to unlock the harness.

 

2. The player can only remove the next restraint all previous have been removed (with a few exceptions).

 

3. Use the sun/moon interaction for the mittens, not the boots. Climbing the cart with ballet boots is... highly unlikely. First change the cell to make have a lightray shine on the moon crest. Also have a barred window into the cave where the player can see the sun lamp. As another hin use the captors note which has something like "A wonderful half-moon night, wouldn't you agree? Although I think basking in the warm light of the sun feels much nicer." Something along these lines

When the player has interacted with the moon/sun combo, start the first orgasm and then throw the PC off the cart like it's now.

 

 

4. The next step should be to remove the boots. This can be done as currently the mittens are removed. Since we now have free hands, the player can just be given the key and doesn't need to fiddle with small items as much.

 

5. Next step would be to remove the gag. After the player has interacted with the removed boots, the next orgasm is triggered and the PC finds a key wrapped in a crumpled note in the boots, hinting towards the pool ("Aren't you thirsty after all this time?"). The rest goes like it's now.

 

6.  At this time the player only has the collar, harness, belt, plug, and piercing remaining as well as the door. At this point the player still doesn't know the whole Daedra thing. Consolidate the two books into one. So this is the next one. Broom has already been used so it's not the best to make the player use it again. So just use the key under the bench to open up the display case. Currently bench and grinding stone are too close together. Since we're not using the tentacle pole anymore we can reshuffle a few objects on the map. Keep the bench and add another to the pool. Makes the whole room feel like either a bath, or place where the devious elf throws their bound victims into the water for a bit of fun and then watches.

Swap tentacle tree/restraint post and Dremora altar/bookshelf. Next to the bookshelf add the grindstone and add a workbench for aesthetic purpose. This would be the area where the elf would craft locks and restraints with the help of the Dremora.

 

7. Inside the gag was the key to the Bookshelf, where the player can find the consolidated study book.

 

8. At the alchemy station the player can find another note hinting towards the key for the belt. The note could say something among these lines: "Lost the key for the belt of my last plaything. I remember playing with it in the pool cave a few days ago..." This can be done pretty early and out of order. Removing the belt will trigger the third orgasm.

 

9. Inside the Daedra book there's a note to combine the effects of two Daedra (the one with the unpredictable effects for the subject and Herma Mora). The elf speculates that by using a potion to alter the effects they can get results. Now the player has to find the note for the recipe (or just play at the alchemy table), which can be just a note that you placed behind a shelf or desk, indicating that it slipped from the tabletop. The player then needs to drink the potion and use the tentacle pole, triggering the last orgasm. 

 

10. Now it's time for the barrier door. The key to the altar was in the plug, the player removed after the last step. The initial interaction up to the pillory sex is the same. But since the player doesn't have any restraints on them anymore except the collar and piercings and struggling out of the pillory is dirt easy, we need to be a bit more devious.

After the player struggled out of the pillory, the collar activates, paralyzing the PC (blackscreen and messagebox). The Dremora now locks a few new restraints on the player. I'd suggest a new type of arm cuffs that lock behind the players back, similar to the already existing lockable gloves (animation and posture wise). They also add a pair of slave ballet heels and put the player into an extreme leather open hobble dress (wanna look at that shapely plot, right?). The last they lock on the player is a harness ring-gag. The dremora also replaces the piercings for iron nipple piercing and adds vaginal piercings.

Note: I'd prefer to add a whole slew of new restraints, but that'd be too much work adding new places to the dungeon for little gain. So keep the additions to a minimum, it's a good chunk of work anyway.

 

 

11. To remove the cuffs, the player needs to use a something from the Daedra studies (after all the cuffs are not locked by a lock, but by magic). Don't know what yet.

 

12. Removing the dress then should be simply undressing it. There's no need to make this very hard, but the player doesn't know that when the Dremora locked that on them in the first place.

 

13. The player can now leave the area to confront the Elf. They still have the ring gag and piercings. Piercings first: They can still interact with the mask to remove them. Depending on the dialogue, the player owes a small or big favour to Cavicus Vile. The small will just replace iron piercings with the old soulgem piercings, but keep the vaginal piercings. The big favour will also remove the vaginal piercing. The player can also just ignore them, jut like now.

For the gag. The player has the option to keep it, and the elf will wonder why it's a ring gag and why the player didn't remove it. But they won't think anything of it, putting it to their scatter brain and or lack of sleep and then removing the gag to talk to the player.

The other option is to simply remove the gag by the same method the PC removed the ball gag, just that the Dremora teleported the knife somewhere in the dungeon.

 

 

 

I'm not entirely happy with that, but this is the best I think I can come up with in an hour or so and not a complete dungeon rewrite.

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SilentAntagonist121

SilentAntagonist121

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On 5/27/2022 at 2:50 PM, darksong said:

 

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There was no way in hell I could manage to get the cart out of the initial room, never mind move it to where it needed to be. Perhaps I'm stupid, but the only way I found to move the cart was to get behind it and "bump" it - with random results. So I never got a chance to attempt stacking crap on it, which I would expect to be a disaster, unless carrying it over magically "locks" it into place

 

 

 

In case you play through again:

Spoiler

it does magically 'lock' into place. The quest is built around the mechanic of moving items, so it's pretty generous with it. If you get the keys vaguely near the wall, you get the prompt to wedge them in, if you get the buckets anywhere near the gargoyles, they're blinded, and if you get the cart into the pond room it auto locks it in place and stacks stuff on it to make the climb easy.

 

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Grumbrum

Grumbrum

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On 5/27/2022 at 7:10 AM, serranna said:

To those who are having trouble getting the courier to appear, remember you have to not only be level 9, but if you are past level 9, you need to level up again in order to trigger the courier.

When I installed the mod, I tested it by using console commands to give my character enough skill experience to level her up. I was in Solitude at the time so I fast traveled to Whiterun, and got no courier.

After that, I fast traveled outside some cave, use console commands to level her up again, fast traveled back to whiterun and the courier arrived.

In other words, if you are still having trouble, make sure you are not in a townspace, get a level up, the go to town. The courier should arrive at that point.

Tried that, did not help. No courier ever! I did not know that it is sooo tricky to trigger a courier event. I thought that it is pretty standard for almost all quest mods. Always some courier delivering a letter. This is the first time the courier never comes. Very strange!

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B_86

B_86

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Posted (edited)

Best DD-themed mod on the site. For such a fresh mod, this is incredibly polished and detailed. I really like that each stage can be completed with pretty much a single try, and there doesn't seem to be a heavy reliance on DD's boring escape mechanics. 

 

I did get stuck a couple of times and had to use the hints to progress. Namely, 

Spoiler

the key outside the first door was difficult to spot, and the wooden plaque it's attached to was extremely difficult to activate. I'd suggest moving the plaque's activator message to the key itself, since it was much easier to see and activate. 

 

I also had trouble fitting the cart through the door, but I can see that one's already under consideration.

 

The Hermaeus Mora altar was a red herring, I guess? The books and the barrier door's hint seemed to indicate I could use it to unlock the second door, but I couldn't. The Moon symbol changed the effect but didn't help me progress. By the way, activating the HM altar under the Moon symbol's effect triggered the vibrator I had already removed, which didn't really make sense.

 

(I really wanted to read "The Art of Deviance," but it was static. Is a readable version included in some other mod?)

 

Thank you for the excellent mod. I'm very much looking forward to what you come up with next!

Edited by B_86
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Frayed

Frayed

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On 5/27/2022 at 3:50 PM, darksong said:

Posting again because of how much I enjoyed this one versus the Chloe questline in DCL, which is similar only in it restricts your freedoms to progress the quest.  This is some excellent work, huge kudos to you. Assorted comments/observations follow:

 

I re-learned that the "long hold" activate allows you to carry things, but in my games - both in LE and SE - 90% of the time it is a kludgey and frustrating process requiring luck to make it work. But that's a Bethsoft issue/fault, not yours. However it mostly works as desired in your mod, for some perverse result, thank the Daedra.

 

I still had to cheat using TCL to get to the lamp thingy

  Reveal hidden contents

There was no way in hell I could manage to get the cart out of the initial room, never mind move it to where it needed to be. Perhaps I'm stupid, but the only way I found to move the cart was to get behind it and "bump" it - with random results. So I never got a chance to attempt stacking crap on it, which I would expect to be a disaster, unless carrying it over magically "locks" it into place

 

 

The stone mask is VERY hard to see -even in first person view-, and even after I accidentally triggered it's dialog, I had to go back later and look really closely to find it. And the only reason I had a clue of what to look for was some of the comments in it's conversation - I was looking for a completely different looking mask.

 

One or two of the items I managed to remove out of pure blind luck of trying things. And some items, when I removed them, were VERY hard to find on the ground after. Especially the plug. The hood seemed to vanish completely, as I never found it after removing it.

 

Honestly, my biggest problem with it was the aforementioned issues with the Bethsoft engine activate to pick up and carry items mechanic, that frankly has plagued me in all their games - FO3, NV, FO4 and Skyrim. I don't remember Oblivion, too many years ago.

 

Once again, huge kudos to you. Looking forward to more from you, as this has the potential to put you up with the Legends like DocClox, and other mods like Captured Dreams, Laura's Bondage Shop and others my brain is missing at the moment


Thanks for the praise ?.

Spoiler

Regarding issues moving stuff: this works poorly for me too in 3rd person, but smoothly in 1st.

Sun puzzle will be made less frustrating in upcoming patch.

Clipping issues should be better in upcoming patch, I think I found an easy fix for it. Overlapping devices might still be tricky.

 

 

On 5/28/2022 at 8:09 PM, GreatCroco said:

A few notes on part 1 from start to finish:

  Reveal hidden contents

Quest Start:

I'd change the start of the quest. Currently a courier delivers you a note and you drink the wine and then your character is teleported to the dungeon. There are a few problems with that. First, is suspension of disbelief. In my first playthrough the courier delivered me the note, I Ignored it because I was currently at another quest and then started the quest by accident in the middle of the wild. Who fetches you after being drugged?

Second is simply gameplay wise. The gift is not marked as quest item, thus can be sold or dropped, which makes it impossible to start. You can also start the quest by accident in a Draugr run when chugging a few drinks in the middle of a fight (Pic totally related). Also you asked in the DD thread how to replace non-quest items, because you have to make sure the PC doesn't have items on them.

 

I propose the following solution: You're still getting a note from the courier starting the quest, maybe even a complimentary wine. But instead of being teleported into the dungeon, you're sent to an NPC located in the Frozen Heart in Winterhold, which will give you the rest of your reward. I chose Winterhold, because then there'd be a nice hook to a possible backstory of the whole dungeon thing being a dark secret of the College, which not even the Archmage knows. However, any inn can do the job, really.

This NPC then greets you based on what the PCs currently wearing. If they have any restraints on them, they'll be sent away with "I'm not dealing with slaves, go fetch your master". You then need to remove all restraints or the NPC's not going to talk to you again (Bonus: If you speak to them after loosing the restraints, they'll comment: "Oh, you weren't a slave after all, huh?). If the PC doesn't have any restraints on them they'll offer you a drink, which teleports the PC to the dungeon.

 

Solves the problem of suspension of disbelief, the player accidentally throwing away the quest starter, and the player having restraints on them that would block the dungeon from completing.

 

Dungeon in General:

* Move the doors a bit further off the ground. This makes moving the broom below it a bit easier.

* The purpose of the cart isn't entirely clear. Moving it up a room helps but it'd be better to give a few more (visual) hints. First you should remove the curtain, which makes the pool(?) a bit more obvious. Then use the gargoyles and their light-beams to hint to the cart and the direction it should be pushed.

* If the restraints are remove the player should either automatically get the keys (dropped on the floor or into the  inventory) or they should at least get an earlier hint (the message on the stool is a good point for that) that they should be interacting with the removed restraints. This would require acquiring the key to the hood be changed a bit. I'd suggest dropping the hood altogether. It's really unlikely that a person with mittens and no sight could jam a small key into a crack in the wall. Then the player would have to remove the armbinder first, then the blindfold and then they could read the note and get the hint that they need to interact with the restraints after removing them.

* Instead of the hood add a posture collar and let the player remove that. To make this fit, change the harness into the new collar-less harness

* Railroad the player a bit more. Yes, the freedom to remove most of the restraints in the order you want is nice, but it makes it much harder for first timers and you can also reason less about the state the player is currently in. Especially the second room can go wild and any direction. Making it harder to write and debug

 

Here's my suggestions for a revised questline:

1.  Change the keys to be a bit more descriptive, e.g. remove the tadpole (not many non-native speakers will know that term) and use the fish key to open the lockbox in the water.

 

1. Remove the interaction with the tentacle pole and the moon crest altogether. It's likely that the player will interact with the crest and the pole, thus accidentally advancing the harness escape without realizing, since the debug message in the top left is so short. It will also push them away from the moon/sun interaction in the cave. The required four orgasms will be achieved mostly on the side, with only the last one requiring player interaction. With a few message boxes this makes it more clear that the player needs a single remaining orgasm to unlock the harness.

 

2. The player can only remove the next restraint all previous have been removed (with a few exceptions).

 

3. Use the sun/moon interaction for the mittens, not the boots. Climbing the cart with ballet boots is... highly unlikely. First change the cell to make have a lightray shine on the moon crest. Also have a barred window into the cave where the player can see the sun lamp. As another hin use the captors note which has something like "A wonderful half-moon night, wouldn't you agree? Although I think basking in the warm light of the sun feels much nicer." Something along these lines

When the player has interacted with the moon/sun combo, start the first orgasm and then throw the PC off the cart like it's now.

 

 

4. The next step should be to remove the boots. This can be done as currently the mittens are removed. Since we now have free hands, the player can just be given the key and doesn't need to fiddle with small items as much.

 

5. Next step would be to remove the gag. After the player has interacted with the removed boots, the next orgasm is triggered and the PC finds a key wrapped in a crumpled note in the boots, hinting towards the pool ("Aren't you thirsty after all this time?"). The rest goes like it's now.

 

6.  At this time the player only has the collar, harness, belt, plug, and piercing remaining as well as the door. At this point the player still doesn't know the whole Daedra thing. Consolidate the two books into one. So this is the next one. Broom has already been used so it's not the best to make the player use it again. So just use the key under the bench to open up the display case. Currently bench and grinding stone are too close together. Since we're not using the tentacle pole anymore we can reshuffle a few objects on the map. Keep the bench and add another to the pool. Makes the whole room feel like either a bath, or place where the devious elf throws their bound victims into the water for a bit of fun and then watches.

Swap tentacle tree/restraint post and Dremora altar/bookshelf. Next to the bookshelf add the grindstone and add a workbench for aesthetic purpose. This would be the area where the elf would craft locks and restraints with the help of the Dremora.

 

7. Inside the gag was the key to the Bookshelf, where the player can find the consolidated study book.

 

8. At the alchemy station the player can find another note hinting towards the key for the belt. The note could say something among these lines: "Lost the key for the belt of my last plaything. I remember playing with it in the pool cave a few days ago..." This can be done pretty early and out of order. Removing the belt will trigger the third orgasm.

 

9. Inside the Daedra book there's a note to combine the effects of two Daedra (the one with the unpredictable effects for the subject and Herma Mora). The elf speculates that by using a potion to alter the effects they can get results. Now the player has to find the note for the recipe (or just play at the alchemy table), which can be just a note that you placed behind a shelf or desk, indicating that it slipped from the tabletop. The player then needs to drink the potion and use the tentacle pole, triggering the last orgasm. 

 

10. Now it's time for the barrier door. The key to the altar was in the plug, the player removed after the last step. The initial interaction up to the pillory sex is the same. But since the player doesn't have any restraints on them anymore except the collar and piercings and struggling out of the pillory is dirt easy, we need to be a bit more devious.

After the player struggled out of the pillory, the collar activates, paralyzing the PC (blackscreen and messagebox). The Dremora now locks a few new restraints on the player. I'd suggest a new type of arm cuffs that lock behind the players back, similar to the already existing lockable gloves (animation and posture wise). They also add a pair of slave ballet heels and put the player into an extreme leather open hobble dress (wanna look at that shapely plot, right?). The last they lock on the player is a harness ring-gag. The dremora also replaces the piercings for iron nipple piercing and adds vaginal piercings.

Note: I'd prefer to add a whole slew of new restraints, but that'd be too much work adding new places to the dungeon for little gain. So keep the additions to a minimum, it's a good chunk of work anyway.

 

 

11. To remove the cuffs, the player needs to use a something from the Daedra studies (after all the cuffs are not locked by a lock, but by magic). Don't know what yet.

 

12. Removing the dress then should be simply undressing it. There's no need to make this very hard, but the player doesn't know that when the Dremora locked that on them in the first place.

 

13. The player can now leave the area to confront the Elf. They still have the ring gag and piercings. Piercings first: They can still interact with the mask to remove them. Depending on the dialogue, the player owes a small or big favour to Cavicus Vile. The small will just replace iron piercings with the old soulgem piercings, but keep the vaginal piercings. The big favour will also remove the vaginal piercing. The player can also just ignore them, jut like now.

For the gag. The player has the option to keep it, and the elf will wonder why it's a ring gag and why the player didn't remove it. But they won't think anything of it, putting it to their scatter brain and or lack of sleep and then removing the gag to talk to the player.

The other option is to simply remove the gag by the same method the PC removed the ball gag, just that the Dremora teleported the knife somewhere in the dungeon.

 

 

 

I'm not entirely happy with that, but this is the best I think I can come up with in an hour or so and not a complete dungeon rewrite.

 

That's a lot of notes. Thanks!

 

Regarding the quest start: I'm changing this a little bit to reduce the chance of it triggering at an illogical/bad time. Will be in next update.

 

Regarding general notes:

Spoiler

The sheer number of changes you mention is already pretty close to a nearly full rework :P I will not be doing that at this stage. There's good ideas in there I might use for the second quest, though.

 

The puzzles are more linear than they might seem at first glance. You can usually only progress one or two at any stage.

 

I much prefer creating situations in which players have a high chance to discover a solution or interaction over railroading them by telling them about it. This is why the keys are mildly cryptic: they're essentially coded so that if you figure out the pattern, you can use that knowledge to solve the rest. Or you can just brute force them. The "click devices on ground" thing is part of the "tutorial" first room: you only have a few things you can click, so a player is likely to figure it out by experimentation.

 

If enough people have problems figuring something out, I can change it, but for now it looks like a lot of people like the current difficulty balance, and some people would like some hints in specific situations. Escape rooms usually have someone that monitors progress that can give hints to players, or somewhere they can request hints, I'll probably try to mimic something like that to keep people from getting stuck.

 

The sun lamp unlocking the boots is utterly ridiculous, yes. That's intentional, it's meant to be a bit cartoonish. :P

 

Finally: you pushed the broom under the door? The intended way is to push it between the bars on the side. I would've liked "through" to be an option, but the vanilla hitboxses aren't that precise. I'll have to try if under is even possible...

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Frayed

Frayed

Posted
  • Author
Posted
8 hours ago, B_86 said:

Best DD-themed mod on the site. For such a fresh mod, this is incredibly polished and detailed. I really like that each stage can be completed with pretty much a single try, and there doesn't seem to be a heavy reliance on DD's boring escape mechanics. 

 

I did get stuck a couple of times and had to use the hints to progress. Namely, 

  Reveal hidden contents

the key outside the first door was difficult to spot, and the wooden plaque it's attached to was extremely difficult to activate. I'd suggest moving the plaque's activator message to the key itself, since it was much easier to see and activate. 

 

I also had trouble fitting the cart through the door, but I can see that one's already under consideration.

 

The Hermaeus Mora altar was a red herring, I guess? The books and the barrier door's hint seemed to indicate I could use it to unlock the second door, but I couldn't. The Moon symbol changed the effect but didn't help me progress. By the way, activating the HM altar under the Moon symbol's effect triggered the vibrator I had already removed, which didn't really make sense.

 

(I really wanted to read "The Art of Deviance," but it was static. Is a readable version included in some other mod?)

 

Thank you for the excellent mod. I'm very much looking forward to what you come up with next!

 

Thanks! Yeah, I'm not a fan of DD's default escape settings, I find them a bit tedious. But actually I considered that some people probably like it, so I made the devices scale with DD's difficulty modifier. If players have punishing settings, this mod's devices will respect that. But they're tuned so that on the default settings most devices are escapeable in one or two tries. That said, I don't think all devices have this set up properly at the moment, but I'll fix that next patch.

 

Spoiler

I'll tinker with the plaque next patch.

 

Technically the piercings can vibrate, I think.

 

There's a bit of overlap with the hints for the harness and the barrier, I might see if I can clear that up since it's not really intentional.

 

The book is from DD. There's a "readable" version in CK, but it's not used anywhere and just has pictures of the devices, it seems like.

 

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jc321

jc321

Posted
Posted

Starting this game is stumping me! - I've installed on Skyrim SE, LE and VR and none of them are getting a courier to deliver me anything (other than the normal letter from Jarl etc..). .. so I must be doing something wrong? 

I'm using the player.advlevel command in console to bring me up over level 9 and then jumping in and out of cells (houses, locations) to get a courier to come and deliver me a letter of thanks (I assume that's the one) - The courier arrives but doesn't deliver that one.

 

Is there anything else I need to be doing? All versions installed via Vortex, the mod is loaded as I can see it if I do a help on fray in the console but the quest isn't started or at any stage at all and I can't manually start it. 

 

If it's a load order issue any advice how you change the load order in Vortex and that product seems to do it all for you. I've just moved to that from NMM so sorry if it's a newbie question.

 

This mod sounds like it's going to be great to play 

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Frayed

Frayed

Posted
  • Author
Posted (edited)
6 hours ago, jc321 said:

Starting this game is stumping me! - I've installed on Skyrim SE, LE and VR and none of them are getting a courier to deliver me anything (other than the normal letter from Jarl etc..). .. so I must be doing something wrong? 

I'm using the player.advlevel command in console to bring me up over level 9 and then jumping in and out of cells (houses, locations) to get a courier to come and deliver me a letter of thanks (I assume that's the one) - The courier arrives but doesn't deliver that one.

 

Is there anything else I need to be doing? All versions installed via Vortex, the mod is loaded as I can see it if I do a help on fray in the console but the quest isn't started or at any stage at all and I can't manually start it. 

 

If it's a load order issue any advice how you change the load order in Vortex and that product seems to do it all for you. I've just moved to that from NMM so sorry if it's a newbie question.

 

This mod sounds like it's going to be great to play 

 

I found out in my testing that the advlevel command bypasses the actual levelup event that triggers the courier. Blame Bethesda. It only triggers if you levelup the vanilla way, from the skills menu. In my testing I usually use "advskill onehanded 18000" to jump up to lvl 9 on a fresh character. Note that the actual XP values needed may be different due to mods.

 

I do see some people have trouble with the courier event not firing. I'll have a look at it, but it might be tricky to fix if I can't reproduce the problem.

Edited by Frayed
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gamefan7710

gamefan7710

Posted
Posted (edited)
44 minutes ago, AzureFlare said:

Need help.

I pass armbinder , hood , blindfold .

and I know where the key of 1st door is , but seems nothing in the room can interact to get it .

Spoiler

Just  interact directly with the key, no need of other objects for the 1st door; switching  to first person should help to interact with the key

 

Edited by gamefan7710
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GreatCroco

GreatCroco

Posted
Posted (edited)
22 hours ago, Frayed said:
Spoiler

Finally: you pushed the broom under the door? The intended way is to push it between the bars on the side. I would've liked "through" to be an option, but the vanilla hitboxses aren't that precise. I'll have to try if under is even possible...

Spoiler

Under is way more reliable. I just tried it multiple times and out of 10 or so tries I only to got it to work once and then there was a hassle with getting the key. Pushing it under has the advantage that I can use the floor to remove a dimension from Skyrims shitty 3D movement system. 

Also: There might be people (like me) who have item hitbox and model adjuster installed, to change the cartoonish weapons into something slightly more realistic. That might interfere with your intended way, too.

 

 

22 hours ago, Frayed said:

The sheer number of changes you mention is already pretty close to a nearly full rework

I had many more ideas xD

 

22 hours ago, Frayed said:

The "click devices on ground" thing is part of the "tutorial" first room: you only have a few things you can click, so a player is likely to figure it out by experimentation.

On the danger of sounding too condescending: Don't underestimate the stupidity of gamers, or rather how many of them have blinders on. And those people usually won't complain here, they will just uninstall the mod and never look at it again.

 

I for example never actually used the "examine device" and never to the hints that there were keys in certain other parts. Only after I brute forced it at some point I got that (and then I remembers the "Lia's ..." games.

Edited by GreatCroco
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Leeeeeroy

Leeeeeroy

Posted
Posted

Well, I played the entire quest, didn't got a single spoiler, took some time but was very fun overall. Very solid, no bugs found except falling though the ground after leaving the bondage pole. But I have two critics in relation to two puzzles

 

First

Spoiler

The dwarven lamp one. It was not hard, I actually thought of using the cart at the beginning to get there, but I gave up after having it stuck on the door for like 10 minutes. The cart got stuck, fell through the floor, I fell through the floor twice trying to pass it through the door before giving up and getting stuck doing other things.
I only managed to do it after I reloaded to an older save and managed to move it out of the way withouh getting stuck at the door.
My recomendation for that part is to remove the cart use entirelly from it, as skyrim's physics is all wack and instead, maybe use the stool you find the letter on.

 

And second

 

Spoiler

The chastity belt and harness. I read the books, and I just said fuck it and kept trying random stuff until it worked. I like the book part, but maybe let the red and green magic thing be a little more visible, maybe through a temporary buff or something like that.

 

Very excited to see how the mod develops further, we need more DD quests like that

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serranna

serranna

Posted
Posted
On 5/28/2022 at 3:36 PM, Grumbrum said:

Tried that, did not help. No courier ever! I did not know that it is sooo tricky to trigger a courier event. I thought that it is pretty standard for almost all quest mods. Always some courier delivering a letter. This is the first time the courier never comes. Very strange!

 

If you're using console commands to level your character, make sure you're using the advskill command to level up a skill enough to get a level up as opposed to advlevel as discussed a few message above this.

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Dozen9292

Dozen9292

Posted
Posted (edited)

An important recommendation:

 

Spoiler

Make the whole area brighter. Dark grey items on darker grey ground ain't it. Objects vanish in shadows.

 

 

Some notes:

Spoiler

The initial room is simply too crowded. There's too much clutter to see things on the ground, which means that dropped items get covered instantly.

 

Especially this early in development, hints shouldn't be so obtuse. 

 

Things being doable out of order isn't terrible, but having it be so open-ended that there's no clear plan means that things feel random, not designed. Notably, while the altar requests that you get ungagged before progressing, the mask doesn't, which leaves you talking to it while ostensibly gagged.

 

If keys are going to have names, at least make use of them somewhere? Unless there's insane troll logic going on, names have no relation to the use of the key, which seems like a waste?

 

It should be easier to tell if something is a soft-lock or intentional. Are keys supposed to vanish when used? Why don't they all? Are they not? Then why do some vanish. Did that key get consumed or was it launched into the void?

 

The altar should have some sort of different follow-up dialogue if you reject it and then talk to it again.

 

Edited by Dozen9292
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dingdingdinggo

dingdingdinggo

Posted
Posted

Thank you for this amazing quest mod! I had a blast struggling out of my bounds. :)

 

It wasn't too hard. Once I figured out some lost magic. I swear I did not use the 'hold E' magic for like 10 years!

 

Unfortunately you locked some new ties on me. I will have to look for updates every few days now. ;)

 

Spoiler

The book shelves weren't really necessary. After unlocking the belt the plug went mad and the Harness loosened.

 

Is there already a way to be confronted with your deal decision?

 

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Leeeeeroy

Leeeeeroy

Posted
Posted (edited)
7 hours ago, dingdingdinggo said:
  Hide contents

The book shelves weren't really necessary. After unlocking the belt the plug went mad and the Harness loosened.

 

Is there already a way to be confronted with your deal decision

 

Spoiler

There's two books on the bookshelfs that explain the red and green magic, but I honestly didn't get the explanation

 

Edited by Leeeeeroy
spoiler
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