Devious Devices Framework Development/Beta

[Solatium]

7 minutes ago, Kimy said:

Ok, the features people generally seem to be less fond of are the unlock cooldown and the key break mechanics. I am open to suggestions how to make these features more interesting/less annoying, if people got any ideas.

My ideas:

1. Put the shield on magic chastity gear, and please call it something other than “too tired”. “My chastity belt is evil and won’t let me go” is way more fun than “I can fight dragons but not turn a key twice in a minute”. Lots of additional fun could happen when failing to remove the device (Captured Dreams has a mechanic where trying to remove certain gear shocks the player, a mechanic I absolutely adore).

2. I want to be upfront, I don’t like making this suggestion as I’ve seen the equip code and it might make it difficult to refactor: tiered keys. Anywhere from iron to ebony, where iron has the highest break chance and ebony has the lowest.

3. Possibly decrease the failure chance after each failure. I can imagine this being an extra property in the equip script that increases each time the unlock failure occurs. That would be plugged into an equation so that each failure chance gets progressively smaller. Or maybe just a hard limit on failure chances, if simpler mechanics are better.

[Solatium]

18 minutes ago, worik said:

Key-break ideas: better skill level = less breaking? e.g. smithing or lockpicking or both. But that's probably a bit too much influenced by my playstyle

If this is implemented, there should probably be limits on skills in case an uncapper is involved.

[Laura]

I always had keys dorp very rarely, knowing that it would free me when I found some.

 

I would like to see a seperation between overal difficulty and key effectiveness.

[Reesewow]

1 hour ago, Kimy said:

Ok, the features people generally seem to be less fond of are the unlock cooldown and the key break mechanics. I am open to suggestions how to make these features more interesting/less annoying, if people got any ideas.

From the perspective of someone who isn't really annoyed by anything in DD4 and is quite enjoying the changes so far - my suggestion for the unlock cooldown is that it would be best if it was a rare feature.  From the perspective of someone who gets into a set of 5/7 generic chastity items all the time due to Cursed Loot, the failed unlock cooldown is often at best an annoyance as in practice it means "press T and wait a few seconds to try again".  It should also not be included on items that already have a similar "hard to unlock" feature such as bondage mittens, since the unlock cooldown chance happens after the already random key fumbling unlock events.

 

I think the feature would be best used by "magical" custom items that react to trying to be unlocked as @Solatium suggested, or restricted to heavy arm restraints where the "I'm too tired to keep trying" is a bit more reasonable.  Another option would be to have the difficulty slider cause the unlock cooldown to regress to 0.1 hours at the easiest setting, effectively disabling the feature.

 

Key breaking I think is fine, I like the ideas that have been mentioned about tiered keys or inventory items affecting chances as gameplay elements.  Again this is from the perspective of someone who uses Cursed Loot and so has full control on how many keys I find.

[mangalo]

I haven't played with DD4 a lot but I also like the tiered key idea, you could make it so that DCL finds crappy rusty keys in dungeons, which have a higher chance of breaking, and find some better keys at stores for a high price or in places a bit more rare.  Magic belts would need magic keys etc.

[galgat]

thank you Kimy. For not bashing me for mentioning things that I miss.

 

I wish I did know how to set it up, differently, But I am sorry, all I can say is I sort of liked being able to choose those difficulty setting's.

 

I fully know you had to make choices, in the design. 

 

I don't want anyone that wants to have it really hard from not having that Option, I was just thinking about my self, personally, Not trying to make the choices for everyone else. 

 

   But would it ruin everyone Else's Fantasy, if we Had those Option ?

 

I would just like being able to have those choices.  But if it makes everyone Else Mad, I surly don't want that.  Those things were just things that I had gotten use to having in DDI, and I personally very much miss them.

 

1 hour ago, Kimy said:

Ok, the features people generally seem to be less fond of are the unlock cooldown and the key break mechanics. I am open to suggestions how to make these features more interesting/less annoying, if people got any ideas.

 

[Code Serpent]

1 hour ago, Kimy said:

Ok, the features people generally seem to be less fond of are the unlock cooldown and the key break mechanics. I am open to suggestions how to make these features more interesting/less annoying, if people got any ideas.

How 'bout this:

 

When the player tries to struggle out of or unlock a device, they have to have a certain amount of stamina. If they do, they'll start playing some animation (optional), and their stamina will start to drain. The rate is dependent on the device and how the player is trying to get out of it.

 

The player then has to press the WASD move keys to continue struggling. One of the movement keys will slow the rate at which their stamina drains, and which key that is changes after a few seconds. The player has to continue pressing and holding the right keys to keep their stamina from draining to quickly.

 

If the player manages to continue struggling for a certain amount of time without running out of stamina, the device is unlocked. If not, then they're out of stamina, and have to wait to recover before they can try again, not because of some magical timer, but because they are actually too tired in-game. It would also mean that getting out of devices would be harder when the player is exhausted through other realism mods.

 

If the player has the telekinesis spell, then they could also try to struggle out of the device while using magicka.

[SirCrazy]

I like the tiered key idea. I also like the idea of the player taking an active role in the escape attempt.

 

Suggestion: Combat Removal

For some types of items, taking damage in combat could have a small chance of the restraint being damaged and falling off.  Also for some types of items, doing damage in combat could have a small chance of the restraint being damaged and falling off. Some types items would not be damaged in combat. 

 

For example: Attacking an enemy while wearing mittens might damage the mittens.

Another example: Getting attacked while in an arm binder might damage the straps causing it to fall off.

 

Why implement this? Because this means that engaging in bound combat may not always be a death sentence and will encourage players to try playing while bound.  Note: Bound combat damage should scale with level or skill to be useful at higher levels.

[Reesewow]

2 minutes ago, SirCrazy said:

Note: Bound combat damage should scale with level or skill to be useful at higher levels.

This gets a big +1 from me, possibly as an addition to the "used to bondage" buffs.  A large +unarmed damage buff based on level while wearing arm bindings would make bound combat much more fun at higher levels (and not almost pointless against anything beyond a skeever).  Of course this is a problem with the base game since unarmed combat does not scale beyond a few specific items, but as DD forces unarmed combat it could be a good place to add a bit of playability to it.

[Laura]

2 hours ago, Comrade Laura 'Lokomootje' said:

I always had keys dorp very rarely, knowing that it would free me when I found some.

 

I would like to see a seperation between overal difficulty and key effectiveness.

I would like to add something to my own post.

 

What I prefer and what I see mentioned alot.

Is that people don't seem to like the difficulty presets.

Some people want keys to be indestructible guaranteed escapes, but they want the struggling to be hard.

Some people want keys to break and jam the locks, but they want to be able to struggle and lock-pick their way out.

 

Making these changed would make DD-using mod creators and users (including me) very happy.

 

Thanks for taking the time to listen.

[neosuduno]

One Idea, make them optional. Two boxes that can be unchecked to remove them. Same with timer. Restoring the sliders that allowed for adjusting chances would work too. I get what you were trying to do Kimy, but unfortunately, when you origionally had choice in previous versions and suddenly took it away, people did not like that.

[SirCrazy]

I feel that the reason you are getting so much push back for the key break and lock shield timers is because certain bondage items make moving forward in the game impossible.  Ideally this would only happen if the player is wearing several items, rather than just one.

 

I believe that this can be fixed by making adjustments to some of the item effects.

Gags: Blocks Magic, Potions and Shouts.

Mittens: Blocks holding weapons and shields but allows the use of all Magic.

Yokes, Jackets and Arm Binders: Blocks holding weapons and shields but allows the use of only conjuration Magic.

 

Reasons:

The gags would block magic because the player is not able to speak the spells.

Mittens would not block spells because spells are not held in the hands, they float above them.

Yokes, jackets, and arm binders would block any spell that requires aiming because the hands are trapped in place.

 

Why implement this?

Because it gives the player a way to move forward if locked in only one restrictive restraint. A mage stuck in a gag would be forced pick up a weapon and swing it around desperately hoping to find a key. A warrior trapped in mittens would be forced to brush up on their magic or shouting skills. Naturally, every enemy looted has just as much chance to make the situation worse rather than better.  

 

It also opens the possibility for more interesting items and game play mechanics.  Kimmy could sell enchanted locking items for brave (perhaps arrogant) adventurers who think they will never get trapped in something else. These items would require a special key to unlock and the enchantments would not work if the key is with the player.

 

Examples:

Mage Mittens: Lower spell costs, more magic, more magic regeneration, etc.

Conjurer's Arm Binder: Greatly reduces magic costs, adds a perk that lets the player summon an extra minion, etc.

Conjurer's Dress: (straight jacket hobble dress) Extra armor, reduced magic costs, adds a perk that lets the player summon an extra minion, etc.

Warrior's Gag: Extra stamina and/or health, extra weapon damage, etc.

Thief's Gag: Better lock picking, better stealing chance, better sneak, etc.

Archer's Gag: Better bow damage, better sneak, etc.

 

To make things more interesting, there could be a chance that when the player returns home to grab the special key, they find that it has been stolen and replaced with a note from a thief who wants something in exchange for its return.

 

 

On a personal note, I installed DCL to make the game play more challenging, not impossible. Running through every dungeon with my full set of enchanted armor and weapons just made the game so boring. Sure I could run with lesser gear, but every challenge was still solved the same way. DCL made it so that every time a trap was triggered there was a chance that something important would be removed causing me to rethink my tactics. This made the game more engaging, even when running through the same dungeons over again. Thank you for all the fun you have given me!

[kplh]

4 hours ago, Kimy said:

Ok, the features people generally seem to be less fond of are the unlock cooldown and the key break mechanics. I am open to suggestions how to make these features more interesting/less annoying, if people got any ideas.

Well, to start with there are some weird behaviors at the moment, the one I ran into was: I had two keys for a gag, tried to unlock, the key broke and jammed the lock, I repaired the lock - succeed first try, used my second key and it said I was tired and had to wait a while - uhm I have a key right here, using key is not that physically challenging especially when my hard were completely free...

[rjn]

All you need is one change:

 

A toggle button in the MCM that says "Keys always work on first try on generic devices"

[galgat]

   A lot of Idea's here, But what I mainly see is that, we all enjoy playing mods, and we all seem to have a difficulty level that we like [ Our own personal Fantasy Level ].  ( Or that is what I think I am seeing )

 

   Some seem to be very adamant, and feel they know what everyone want's or how everyone should think, and some seem to think, that Options are a good thing.

 

   I guess this is why I, for MY Personal fantasy, like being able to roll play, but if that roll play gets a little to Frustrating, I like being able to Opt Out.

 

I know you will say just use the Take it all off Option, but the catch to that is, Sometimes it is only one Item that is Offending my game play, good examples would be the Gag, The Yoke, The ArmBinder.

 

   Quite often the Quest I am doing, may have nothing to do with those Item's, so there removal, won't effect my Game play, and It would be nice if I had a key, and used it.  

 

    I could be sure that it would work >> For Me.  After all it is just a game, and I am playing it for fun...Right! I think that is why many game makers now have a story mode, which is so easy, anyone can beat it on that level, or should be able too, but they also have an Insanity Level.

 

  Why ruin my game, in such a way that I start avoiding running mods with DDI4, because they are just to discouraging for me, and I am losing the fun factor ?

 

   Or I never finish them, because I just got to frustrated, and quit. The Off/On Option's were really helpful to Me.

 

  I mean this is where I am at now.  The good thing is I use MO, so I can have a profile with DDI4, and use it only when I have to, for games I truly want to try, and that force DDI4 on Me, by dependency.

[valcon767]

as as a user of this (and other mods) i do like what has been done overall very much.

 

so first a big THANK YOU to all who have contributed (in any way)

 

having played with it for a while now (i did start playing on a development build and switched to the main build when it was released), i find most

of the changes a good thing (and most of my problems were simply teething problems - me getting used to the newer way it is done).

 

in the new version the only thing i kinda have a problem with are the cooldown timer, and the jammed lock repair chance.

 

i usually play with either default or higher difficulty

 

i do not know how feasible my ideas are (or would be to implement)

 

cooldown timer - i do find it hard (from a roleplaying perspective) to understand how you can be just as tired trying to remove leg cuffs (that you have easy

                         access to) as trying to remove a straightjacket (which l really do love btw), especially if my toon is a high level.

 

idea - make a quest (available only on higher difficulties), that would (after completion) lower the cooldown timers on regular easy to access items 

         (such as leg cuffs, armcuffs, regular or posture collars, ankle chains, and maybe corsets).

 

idea 2 - change the flavor text on cooldown time from just "to tired" to something like Solatium said "the magic in the device will not let me try again yet".

 

lock jam repair chance - at low levels it seems well balanced to me, but at high levels (toon i had at level 87, that had earned 261 smithing level ups and 142

                                    lockpicking level ups), it seemed i failed way more than i should have (could have been just a set of very unlucky rolls??)

 

idea - maybe a small bonus to jam repair chance (+1% per 10 or more skill points in smithing/lockpicking).

         example is if default jam repair chance is 5% (i do not know the actual default chance) a skill of 19 in both skills would have a jam repair chance of 7%,

         with it capping at 10 for having a 100 (or greater) skill which in turn would mean that someone with both skills at 100 would have a 25% chance.

 

i found the key break/lock jam (not repairing a jammed lock) to be fair at both high and low level (even if you are this great smith you can make a mistake

while creating keys, whether thru complacency or just you had bad materials and did not know it).

 

this is just my personal opinion 

 

and THANKS again for all your hard work.

 

[Verstort]

Minor annoyance:

 

If the player is wearing a collar, and they try to put on a harness with a collar (chastity), DD waits until after the first two dialogue windows ("This is a harness, do you put to put it on" and "Do you want to manipulate the locks first") before the dialogue saying "you cannot put it on because the collars don't stacks" gets shown.

 

I feel the dialogue saying you can't put it on should be 1 or 2, but not the last of the three dialogue boxes in order.

[Veladarius]

Whether or not this gets any consideration or even read this is my thoughts on the escape options based on v3 and v4 by item (working from the v3 menu to start with):

 

Updated Device Escape options

Escape attempt cooldown -

--- Standard items I would prefer a stamina based system but make the stamina cost higher (1/3 of max stamina) and while the player's stamina was under 1/2 of their max stamina then a debuff on stamina regeneration would be applied. To me this is more immersive than saying that you can only try once every x hours. 

--- On custom items I could understand this being a Lockshield lite and restricts access to locking mechanism so long as it is something that is locked, if a device requires further struggling to get out of then it would use the Stamina system like the standard items do. As an example, A yoke with a cooldown attempt set means the locks are no longer accessible for the set time, once the locks were opened then it would use the stamina usage system to struggle to get out of.

*** Why I didn't like it on standard devices is this is more of an advanced feature and don't believe it should be on a basic item. I have no issues with custom items using this feature.

 

Difficulty Modifier - 

--- Not needed, options should use related skills as a modifier.

*** I never used this, never saw a reason to considering everything else was adjustable

 

Catastrophic Fail Chance - 

--- Standard items I would leave this as an option but 0% as a default

--- Custom items can use this to represent a lock that is old and fragile but I think it should be used in combination with Key Break Chance and Jam Lock Chance with them operating in order - Key Break (if using a lock pick this is the chance to advance onward) -> Jam Lock -> Catastrophic fail. Key break automatically does a Jam lock chance. Each attempt to unjam a lock that fails raises the difficulty until a maximum of 95% is reached (if set to below that value). Once it reaches that and you fail then each subsequent attempt checks against the Catastrophic fail chance.

*** I never used this as I did not feel it had any place on a standard device and pretty much every custom device was unremovable anyway

 

Key Creation Difficulty -

--- Instead of materials needed it would represent the difficulty of making a key of good condition using the Smithy skill as a base. Extreme failure and the key doesn't even fit in the lock, normal failure and it is a weak key and increases the chances of Key Break and Jam Lock even on standard devices, the lock would need unjammed of the pieces of the broken key before another attempt to unlock it can be made again.

*** I currently play with this set to hard or off, main reason being is that I use a mod the delevels the loot leveled lists so I can find a Flawless Diamond even at level 1

 

Destroy Key - 

--- optional on Standard items - disabled by default

--- Custom items could set as they wished

*** Used this on occasion where I wanted extra difficulty in getting out of items and had to scrounge for more keys than normal.

 

Key Break Chance -

--- optional on standard items but set to 0% as a default

--- Custom items could use them as they wished and could represent a lock that is difficult to operate (rusted or sticks due to age). See catastrophic fail chance for more info

*** Currently I use this option set to 5% - 10% and think of it as a weak key or bad lock

 

Jam Lock Chance - 

--- optional on standard items but set to 0% as a default

--- Goes with Key Break and Catastrophic fail. Would be thought of either as bits of the broken key/lockpick have jammed the lock or the mechanism works poorly due to age or just a cheaply made lock.

*** Currently I don't use this, between the key break chance, destroyed keys (if used) and inability to find more keys I will eventually give in and pay to have items removed

 

Armbinder Escape Base Chance -

--- Leave as an optional adjustment slider as is with no changes

--- Custom items can have this lowered to represent a much tighter item but not one that is impossible to escape

*** I set this to 15% generally instead of the 5% base

 

Armbinder Minimum Struggles -

--- same as the Escape base Chance for all devices

*** I set this to 0, even with these settings I have spent 30 minutes real time getting out of an armbinder.

 

Lock Shield -

--- Standard items - I never saw this as something that belonged on a standard device

--- Custom Items I can see this being on (all options for it being adjustable but if active on the custom device can not be turned off)

*** I never used it, again I never saw the point and using it with the other options I use adding it in just made it frustrating as a player and not fun to play. On DCUR items it made sense due to the nature of the items but not for standard devices.

 

 

Legacy Escape System

Unlock Threshold -

--- Fine for standard items as a base difficulty for picking the lock

--- Custom items could set this higher to represent a difficult to pick lock and would go well with the other options

*** I generally start this at about 100 which just barely puts it within reach to start, I adjust it as I go through the game

 

Unlock Threshold Modifier -

--- fine for both but it seems to apply to every attempt to unlock the device, I feel it should only be applied when a lock is successfully picked.

*** I have this set to 0 as it seems to increase with every attempt and can quickly make it impossible to pick

 

 

V4 additions

Lock access Difficulty

--- Overall I can see this being used on devices that you don't have to struggle to escape from but where locks are in inconvenient places. If anything this should be a modifier to picking the lock

 

Number of Keys Needed -

--- not necessarily something I would expect to be used on a standard device unless the Destroy Key option is enabled

--- Custom items it could represent different keys needed but the destroy keys option with this representing the number of locks on an item fits better.

 

Destroy on remove -

--- convenient for custom items that fall apart when removed especially since I could never get the option to work in the Device Removal Function to work

 

Allow standard tools - 

--- More fitting on a custom device representing if it has a difficult or custom lock

 

Repair Jammed Lock Chance -

--- Would go in with the Broken pick -> Jammed lock -> catastrophic failure and would be between the Jammed lock and Catastrophic failure in the overall chain. Would add as an option for standard devices as an adjustable slider.

 

 

 

Generally, my style of play is that the sudden equipping of devices while dungeon delving or ransacking a bandit hideout after I've killed them all is more of an "Oh crap! I have to get these off!" rather than playing with the devices on all the time. My only exceptions are some of the things I use from my mod such as the Protector or Protector Plus belts which is voluntary or begrudgingly accepting the Debt, Free Trial or Slavery items but these are (for the most part) an option. I have times where I feel like I want some struggle to get out of items so I will turn up the chances on traps being triggered while other times I am not looking for much in the way of having to mess with devices and lower or disable traps and such. There are things I prefer to experience with DD and some I don't and being unable to adjust the settings to my style of play is why I prefer to have the options. I don't use a lot of DD mods but the ones I do I am put into standard devices (generally custom items are disabled unless I feel like playing with them which is infrequently).

[DeepBlueFrog]

Any idea if or when my small pull request will be accepted?  if I read Github well, it hasn't been merged yet.

 

Without it, custom events from devices in my Parasites, Stories and SD+ mod will not work properly. Or any custom event for that matter.

[Wykes]

9 hours ago, Kimy said:

Do people generally feel bothered by the extra dialog asking players if they want to manipulate the lock?

Personally?  Yes.  Indeed the entire escape mechanism seems to me like it's engineered to frustrate the player rather than the character (obviously, others tolerate it, so I may well be in the minority).

 

I recently started and immediately finished my first proper playthrough using v4.  After setting up various mods, putting the DD difficulty to the easiest and using an alternate start mod to place me on a wrecked ship pre-bound in DD equipment, I found myself rage-quitting as there was no way that I was going to go through a cycle of try to escape from an armbinder using several menus, go through an animation, rest for an hour, and try to escape again.  So, it looks like I'll be staying with the old version.

 

If there was something I'm missing, I'm all ears.

 

When I played v3, I usually left hardcore mode off, unless I was attempting to escape from an armbinder, where it was a simple two clicks to try to escape (I also disabled the new escape mechanism, and disabled any chance of key failure, as I detest having to wait for anything, let alone having it forced on me).  Hell, even though I wrote the initial version of the Lock Shield for v3, I personally only used it for one specific play-through on a single specific character (which is why I left it disabled by default when issuing the pull-request, and allowed it to be disabled mid-play-through).  From what I'm reading, it's enabled by default on devices now?  That would put me off as well.

 

Bottom-line:  While a huge amount of work has gone into v4, first impressions are that it's not my cup-of-tea; I'm quite happy being a Luddite and sticking with the older version.

[bicobus]

A consideration came to mind while I was reading @Veladarius. Could it be that the DDi framework is over designed? In that I mean, could it be possible to simplify how devices work while retaining the same amount of functionality?

 

So, @Kimy, I would like to know if what I'm going to propose is technically possible and/or feasible. From the little amount I understand, each device has an "OnEvent" fire when the player tries to put it on. That event takes data from the item itself to govern the unlocking process. Could all that data be displaced, from the item to a StorageUtil/JContainer/JSon file (the data would be generic)?

 

What I have in mind is a restructuring of the data. Each item would have at least 3 parameters:

1. A difficulty modifier: how hard is it to remove the item. Changes the chances of failures for the rng thing.
2. The type of item, and how it can be removed: key hole, cutting, struggle, mix, none (quest item), specific item.
3. The domain to fetch the data from: provides a way for modders to create their own devices by pointing to the right json file or JContainer thing or StorageUtil stuff.
4. If the item requires a specific item, another parameter should be reserved to point to it.

Alright, I don't know a lot about how this stuff works. I just hope you understood what I'm proposing here. So this would remove a bit of uniqueness from each item, as this deals with general rules. But it would probably provide the greatest amount of freedom at each level: user and modders alike. @Veladarius could simply create his own config file named "HOTSAUCEBBQNOESCAPE.json" that would be fine tuned to his playstyle, and another file named "CapturedDream.json" to govern over the items sold in the shop. What's more, those config preset could be shared and also remove the need to use the MCM for every god damn new game. DDi wouldn't even need to have a MCM to configure each difficulties, and such MCM could easily be crafted by an angry user since it would only involve a read/write interface.

 

To this point I'm certain I'm forgetting something, if I do it'll probably be raised later in this topic.

 

Frostfall does something similar, which is partly where this idea comes from, but frostfall needs to store the items RefID which increases the level of complexity.

[Veladarius]

15 minutes ago, bicobus said:

A consideration came to mind while I was reading @Veladarius. Could it be that the DDi framework is over designed? In that I mean, could it be possible to simplify how devices work while retaining the same amount of functionality?

 

So, @Kimy, I would like to know if what I'm going to propose is technically possible and/or feasible. From the little amount I understand, each device has an "OnEvent" fire when the player tries to put it on. That event takes data from the item itself to govern the unlocking process. Could all that data be displaced, from the item to a StorageUtil/JContainer/JSon file (the data would be generic)?

 

What I have in mind is a restructuring of the data. Each item would have at least 3 parameters:

1. A difficulty modifier: how hard is it to remove the item. Changes the chances of failures for the rng thing.
2. The type of item, and how it can be removed: key hole, cutting, struggle, mix, none (quest item), specific item.
3. The domain to fetch the data from: provides a way for modders to create their own devices by pointing to the right json file or JContainer thing or StorageUtil stuff.
4. If the item requires a specific item, another parameter should be reserved to point to it.

Alright, I don't know a lot about how this stuff works. I just hope you understood what I'm proposing here. So this would remove a bit of uniqueness from each item, as this deals with general rules. But it would probably provide the greatest amount of freedom at each level: user and modders alike. @Veladarius could simply create his own config file named "HOTSAUCEBBQNOESCAPE.json" that would be fine tuned to his playstyle, and another file named "CapturedDream.json" to govern over the items sold in the shop. What's more, those config preset could be shared and also remove the need to use the MCM for every god damn new game. DDi wouldn't even need to have a MCM to configure each difficulties, and such MCM could easily be crafted by an angry user since it would only involve a read/write interface.

 

To this point I'm certain I'm forgetting something, if I do it'll probably be raised later in this topic.

 

Frostfall does something similar, which is partly where this idea comes from, but frostfall needs to store the items RefID which increases the level of complexity.

Devices work rather simply actually and most of the data from the devices is not called unless it is either trying to be removed or an event has triggered for it. Currently it looks like devices that have been equipped are stored in StorageUtil files and all the data is pulled from there instead of the devices themselves. Each device has its own properties and all of the values for escape and everything else that was in the MCM menu is now on each device. This was done so people could easily make new custom devices instead of altering scripts as was needed before. My (and others) issue is simply that these values can not be modified via an MCM menu before being equipped as they were before for standard items.

 

Unfortunately what you are suggesting would require rewriting scripts to pull values from the files (which every mod that makes custom items would have to create and point to). It would be far simpler to add the menu functionality for Standard devices in and allow its settings to be saved instead of every mod having to have a file and every user as well. CD has several hundred items by itself, DDi and DDx have even more and DCUR has quite a few as well. Many of these are standard devices which would need to use the player's difficulty settings while the custom items would need to use the settings from the mod. It would make it far more complex than it is now.

[bicobus]

37 minutes ago, Veladarius said:

Unfortunately what you are suggesting would require rewriting scripts to pull values from the files (which every mod that makes custom items would have to create and point to).

I was thinking about a unique set of rules for all devices, and a lone modifier per device. You then can have a base setting overwritten by another. So you don't need to write all the settings, just what you want to change.

 

It's really not that complex. The user can change the default ddi file (or to not be dirty a ddi-user, generated if it doesn't exists so to keep the default file clean), each mod have their own file if needed. If a mod uses vanilla devices, there is no need for that mod to provide a customization file.

 

What I proposed isn't a way to configure hundred of devices, but to streamline the parameters to one entry in one place for each device. So 20% chance of breaking would apply to everything, weighted by that device difficulty modifier. That 20% chance can be changed easily by the user, and a third party mod can define its own rule to put that chance to 50%. Most player wouldn't even know it is a possibility. Of course, you can break things down by tiered difficulty: an item in the tier 1 category being harder to escape than a item in the tier 2 category.

 

And yes, that would require a rewrite of a ton of shit. And legacy mod would probably get broken if they aren't handled. But to me that'd be better than individuals going for other people throats, cynical remarks and whatnot. Beside, the legacy custom devices could be handled gracefully the same way FrostFall does things.

 

40 minutes ago, Veladarius said:

It would be far simpler to add the menu functionality for Standard devices in and allow its settings to be saved

Sorry, I don't follow that part. What do you mean by menu functionality?

[Kimy]

I am pretty sure you can model all of the above with the system in place. It supports keyed and keyless devices, struggling, lockpicking...you name it. If a modder STILL needs more, they can still write custom code inheriting the base device mechanics and override/change whatever they need. There is zero need for adding more complexity on the design end of things.

 

What I am after at this point is suggestions how to tweak the existing system by removing/changing/improving elements some people might find frustrating or unfun. Some ideas I have read so far are pretty good!

 

And don't ask me what Veldarius says about the framework. I /ignored him, so I can't see his bitching postings anymore.

[Kimy]

11 hours ago, Solatium said:

My ideas:

1. Put the shield on magic chastity gear, and please call it something other than “too tired”. “My chastity belt is evil and won’t let me go” is way more fun than “I can fight dragons but not turn a key twice in a minute”. Lots of additional fun could happen when failing to remove the device (Captured Dreams has a mechanic where trying to remove certain gear shocks the player, a mechanic I absolutely adore).

2. I want to be upfront, I don’t like making this suggestion as I’ve seen the equip code and it might make it difficult to refactor: tiered keys. Anywhere from iron to ebony, where iron has the highest break chance and ebony has the lowest.

3. Possibly decrease the failure chance after each failure. I can imagine this being an extra property in the equip script that increases each time the unlock failure occurs. That would be plugged into an equation so that each failure chance gets progressively smaller. Or maybe just a hard limit on failure chances, if simpler mechanics are better.

Tiered keys is something I really like as an idea, but it's rock-hard to fit into the existing system without breaking backwards compatibility left and right. BUT...what can be done is adding different quality lockpicks!

 

I like #3. Expect that to make it in!