Creatures Set: Second Empire Ruins

Model, texture and sound development of P:C
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Infragris
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Creatures Set: Second Empire Ruins

Post by Infragris »

The Second Empire Ruins were part of a fortification and highway network founded by Emperor Reman I to safeguard his newborn Empire, and continued by his sons. Many of these ruins fell into disuse with the death of Reman III, and the last of them were abandoned after the fall of the last Potentate. Many of them are still inhabited, not by undead spirits or magical constructs, but by the apparitions of Reman's Legions, animated by their undying loyalty to him. Reman, who fashioned himself a god, demanded an oath of ultimate loyalty of his forces "even into death". It is unknown if it is this oath that continues to propel these beings, or if it is an mythic effect of Reman's infamous attempt at conquering the Nordic Underworld.

Hollowed Wraith
Although every aspect of these soldiers has long since turned into dust, these suits of rotting armor are still animated by their loyalty to the Emperor. Sworn to guard against foreign invaders, they viciously attack anyone who does not belong in the ruins of their former garrisons.
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Court-Mage
Of all the Emperors of Cyrodiil, Reman had perhaps the greatest number of mages and wizards in his service. It is said that he was greatly fond of their tricks and amusements, and encouraged them to seek out ever greater power against all risks. As a result, more than one court-mage bartered away his soul to the coffers of Oblivion for a chance at eternal life. These enemies are basically liches.

Akaviri Faithful
The Akaviri were tsaesci, immortal vampire snakemen from the uttermost east. Their defeated invasion force, spared in return for the promise of eternal service, was the root of Reman's victories. Their superior training, swordsmanship, and knowledge of eastern tactics and logistics caused sweeping reforms in the structure and composition of the Legions, making it far superior to other Tamrielic forces at that time. It is said that a skilled Akaviri swordsmen, knowledgeable in tsaescence, cannot die unless killed in honorable combat. After the fall of the Second Empire, many were trapped between their sense of honor and the last commands they received, which were "remain at your post until further notice". Now, the few remaining Akaviri reside deep in the tunnels of their fortresses, preying on unwary investigators for sustenance.

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R-Zero
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Post by R-Zero »

May I propose an idea on Hollowed Wraiths? How about we make their armor condition their actual HP pool? What I mean is, the Player would defeat them not by direct health damage, but by breaking their armor instead. This way, Disintegrate spells would work the best against those animated armors.
Or we could go with a mixed approach and just make them weaker when the armor is destroyed.

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Infragris
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Post by Infragris »

Disintegrate armor spells should definitely affect them - good catch. I do wonder if it would not make them too easy for mages to deal with. I think it would be best if disintegrate armor weakens them strongly, but it shouldn't finish them off completely.

Istreddify
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Post by Istreddify »

Maybe make it work similiar to the Grahl - a disintegrate armor effect will remove some of the abilities the creature would possess (possibly including a fortify health effect)?

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R-Zero
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Post by R-Zero »

Istreddify wrote:Maybe make it work similiar to the Grahl - a disintegrate armor effect will remove some of the abilities the creature would possess (possibly including a fortify health effect)?
This would work, but would make it possible to remove these abilities with Disintegrate Armor 1 pts on target - a VERY cheap spell.
This can also be done organically by giving the armor pieces an enchantment - when armor is destroyed, NPCs automatically unequip it, thus removing the enchantment effects too.
Alternatively, GetArmorType could be used - if it becomes zero, the script removes an ability/modifies the stats etc. This method is pretty good because this way we can actually use any armor pieces, without even making special ones.

Of course, this all would work if we make these Hollowed Wraiths as NPCs, not creatures - creatures can't wear armor, after all. The downside is that they won't be possible to soutrap. But as creatures can actually wear shields, and shields are affected by Disintegrate before all other armor pieces anyway... Maybe something could be done using dummy shields.

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Infragris
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Post by Infragris »

Don't skeletons use shields? If we build the creature around the skeleton's animation ... skeleton, shouldn't it work fine? I don't know much about this stuff, honestly. I would prefer these to be set up as creatures, both for the soultrap stuff and for balance reasons: killing one of these wraiths shouldn't grant the player a complete set of armor every time.

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R-Zero
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Post by R-Zero »

Infragris wrote:Don't skeletons use shields? If we build the creature around the skeleton's animation ... skeleton, shouldn't it work fine? I don't know much about this stuff, honestly. I would prefer these to be set up as creatures, both for the soultrap stuff and for balance reasons: killing one of these wraiths shouldn't grant the player a complete set of armor every time.
The problem is that shield's durability is only reduced by actual attacks either on a successful block or on Shield bodypart hit (hit location is chosen randomly, for the Shield it's 10% chance). And I'm not even sure if these 10% apply for creatures, as they have no bodyparts. In this case the mages will have even more of an advantage over martials, as latter won't have a truly reliable way to break the armor. Also, we'd have to forfeit using two-handed weapons on them in this case.

The armor itself can be pretty low-level and with poor durability, but actually work much better for the Wraiths themselves if we just inflate their Armor skills. That way they will have pretty high AR on the initial hits, but the armor will very quickly wear out too, so in the end the only thing Player will get will be crappy almost broken armor.

I'm not happy about no soultrapping either, but for me it looks like the NPC way would be better for this specifc enemy concept. Maybe we can try to explain it somehow, like, Reman's domain over his soldiers' souls is so strong that it rivals even Arkay's blessing, making it impossible for anyone else to claim these.

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Infragris
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Post by Infragris »

I really dislike that kind of lore copout with the souls: there's no way of communicating it elegantly to the players. And even if armor was useless, it would still burden the player with a full set of armor every time they fight this frequently occurring enemy. Even worse, if they didn't use a disintegrate armor spell this stuff would be in good condition and worth a lot of money. I'd be interested to see if OpenMW's can't change these spell magnitude and creature/shield behaviors.

Let's sidestep the entire affair and stick to the basics: a creature that loses a percentage of health/defense buff when hit by a disintegrate armor spell of a certain magnitude. Is this feasible through scripts? If it is, then we don't need to worry about the other stuff.

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R-Zero
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Post by R-Zero »

Infragris wrote:I really dislike that kind of lore copout with the souls: there's no way of communicating it elegantly to the players. And even if armor was useless, it would still burden the player with a full set of armor every time they fight this frequently occurring enemy. Even worse, if they didn't use a disintegrate armor spell this stuff would be in good condition and worth a lot of money. I'd be interested to see if OpenMW's can't change these spell magnitude and creature/shield behaviors.

Let's sidestep the entire affair and stick to the basics: a creature that loses a percentage of health/defense buff when hit by a disintegrate armor spell of a certain magnitude. Is this feasible through scripts? If it is, then we don't need to worry about the other stuff.
Well, that's the problem - we can detect the fact that creature is hit by a Disintegrate Armor spell, but sadly, not its magnitude. If it was possible, then I wouldn't even propose using NPC as a base.
With the creature implementation, on the other hand, we can make one that is less restricted by the way armors should look on Player and other NPCs - they can have actual hollow parts, which I think is really freaking cool and immediately sets the animated armor creature apart from normal armored foes.
Here's how my favorite animated armor in a videogame looks like, btw, to illustrate:


So yeah, in the end both ways have their advantages and disadvantages. I'll try to think up a way to correctly implement the Disintegration mechanic for creature-type armors then.

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Post by worsas »

If I may add my two cents, I would go for a regular creature with a shield with low durability that gives it some enhancing abilities as long as it is worn. The advantage given to mages is absolutely justifiable, because a mage already suffers many disadvantages. I would see this as an opportunity for actually making some use of the otherwise little useful damage armor spell.

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R-Zero
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Post by R-Zero »

Sad news - I tested it in the game and it seems Disintegrate Armor doesn't work on creatures, period - even those with a shield. So, looks like there goes the idea. Nevermind then.

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TerrifyingDaedricFoe
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Post by TerrifyingDaedricFoe »

Would it be possible to set the wraiths up as NPCs, but script them so that when they die their actual armour is replaced by useless misc. items (or just significantly worse armour)? The centuries have reduced the armour to rusted metal, and only the magical nature of the wraiths gives it strength. When the wraith is destroyed the armour dies, and when the armour is destroyed the wraith dies.

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Post by R-Zero »

Made a small showcase of how NPC wraiths could work. For testing go to (or just coc) Caldera.

The Wraith wears the equivalent of Iron armor, but with much much worse durability and lower monetary value. At the same time it has very high Armor skills, so its AR is very high at start but, since all the damage reduced by armor is transfered to its durability, lowers down pretty quickly, making dealing damage to Wraith's actual HP easier. With strong enough Disintegate spells the first phase of the fight can be bypassed.
When Boots or Cuirass break, Wraith gets momentarily knocked down.

Also included another neat, in my opinion, feature - when an armor piece is broken, the Wraith drops it from its inventory, kinda simulating its armor suit falling apart.

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Thinking again, I wouldn't even worry about the armor not being total crap - in vanilla game low-to-low-mid level armors can be hoarded with ease by slaughtering the local bandit/smuggler population.
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Infragris
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Post by Infragris »

Akaviri Oathboud should sort of follow this design:
Image

For the model, we can adapt Antares' Medusa creature (or Ashtaar's Harvester from the Doors of Oblivion mod).

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