Test: Explore

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• Items
  • Provision
  • Loot
  • Trinkets
• Specs
  • Classes (Resistancies, Properties, Modifiers)
  • Hunger
    • Growth rate
    • Food requirement
    • Appetite and Energy efficiency
    • Healing with food
  • Miss and Dodge
  • Avatars
    • Scale
    • Dimensions
  • Stage
    • Viewport
    • Floor
    • Wall layers
      • Horizon
      • Layer stack
      • Image quality
      • Image size / Scale
      • Seamless tiling
  • Scenery categories

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Each character, be it hero or foe, is derived from a specific character class which defines the base resistances and other properties.
When a character is instantiated, he inherits (a copy of) the default settings of his class.

	Name	Default value
RESISTANCES
0	DeathBlow	67 %
1	Stun	(varying)
2	Blight	(varying)
3	Bleed	(varying)
4	Disease	(varying)
5	Debuff	(varying)
6	Move	(varying)
7	Stress	(varying)
8	Darkness	(varying)
PROPERTIES
9	Food efficiency	100 %
10	Appetite	100 %
11	Scout chance	(varying)

On top of that, a character's array is extended by individual Modifiers:

	Name	Default value
MODIFIERS
12	MaxHP	0 %
13	ACC (melee)	0 %
14	ACC (ranged)	0 %
15	DMG (melee)	0 %
16	DMG (ranged)	0 %
17	CRT (melee)	0 %
18	CRT (ranged)	0 %
19	Dodge	0 %
20	Speed	0 %
21	Prot	0 %
22	Heal	0 %
23	Heal Recieved	0 %
24	Move skill chance	0 %
25	Stun skill chance	0 %
26	Blight skill chance	0 %
27	Blight skill DMG	0 %
28	Bleed skill chance	0 %
29	Bleed skill DMG	0 %

The values of the entire array can be altered by buffs/debuffs and trinkets.

The hunger value [0 ... 100 %] represents energy/calorie requirement (ERQ).

At mission start, a hero is always full (ERQ at 0 %).
During a dungeon run, hunger gets incremented by each segment (room or hallway part) visited.

Below 75 %, hunger value is no concern.
When ERQ reaches 75 %, the hero signals a 'hungry' message.
When ERQ reaches 90 %, the hero signals a 'very hungry' message.
When ERQ reaches 100 %, the hero is about to starve and enters a Death Door State.

Walking hungry (ERQ > 75 %), each crossing of a segment lets the hero suffer an increasing dose of stress which can accumulate quickly.

Hunger can only be decreased by giving the hero something edible; typically a Food ration (meal), which on average equals 37.5 % ERQ. Alternatively he can be fed Medicinal Herbs (worth 0.5 Food = 18.75 % ERQ), Happy-P or Hycatox (both worth 0.25 Food = 9.375 % ERQ).

Per visited segment, ERQ raises by about 3.125 %. In other words, if a hero eats nothing, then...
... the first 'hungry' message likely appears on the 24th segment (~ 5 rooms) after the starting room,
... the 'very hungry' message follows on the 29th segment (~ 6 rooms),
... and starvation risk finally occurs on the 32th segment.

ROOM
0					1					2					3					4					5					6					7
																								H					V			!
0	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29	30	31	32	33	34	35
SEGMENT

Typically, the best time to feed a character is when his hunger value has risen above ~40 % (so the entire Food unit can be exploited) and is still under 75 % (to avoid the unnecessary stress related first hunger event).

The following table shows the absolute minimum of Food needed to avoid hunger events for non-modified characters.

Mission size			Energy required (ERQ %)	Food units equivalent
				total		safe minimum
Length	Rooms	Segm.		per Hero	Party	per Hero	Party
tiny	2	5	15.625	~ 0.4	~ 1.7	(0)
	3	10	31.25	~ 0.8	~ 3.3	(0)
	4	15	46.875	~ 1.3	5	(0)
	5	20	62.5	~ 1.7	~ 6.7	(0)
	'hungry' treshold
	6	25	78.125	~ 2.1	~ 8.3	1	4
	'very hungry' treshold
short	7	30	93.75	2.5	10	1	4
	Starvation treshold
	8	35	109.375	~ 2.9	~ 11.7	1	4
	9	40	125	~ 3.3	~ 13.3	2	8
	10	45	140.625	~ 3.8	15	2	8
	11	50	156.25	~ 4.2	~ 16.7	3	12
medium	12	55	171.875	~ 4.6	~ 18.3	3	12
	13	60	187.5	5	20	4	16
	14	65	203.125	~ 5.4	~ 21.7	4	16
	15	70	218.75	~ 5.8	~ 23.3	4	16
	16	75	234.375	~ 6.3	25	5	20
long	17	80	250	~ 6.7	~ 26.7	5	20
	18	85	265.625	~ 7.1	~ 28.3	6	24
	19	90	281.25	7.5	30	6	24
	20	95	296.875	~ 7.9	~ 31.7	6	24
	21	100	312.5	~ 8.3	~ 33.3	7	28
extended	22	105	328.125	~ 8.8	35	7	28
	23	110	343.75	~ 9.2	~ 36.7	8	32
	24	115	359.375	~ 9.6	~ 38.3	8	32
	25	120	375	10	40	9	36
	26	125	390.625	~ 10.4	~ 41.7	9	36
ultra	27	130	406.25	~ 10.8	~ 43.3	9	36
	28	135	421.875	~ 11.3	45	10	40
	29	140	437.5	~ 11.7	~ 46.7	10	40
	30	145	453.125	~ 12.1	~ 48.3	11	44
	31	150	468.75	12.5	50	11	44
marathon	32	155	484.375	~ 12.9	~ 51.7	11	44
	33	160	500	~ 13.3	~ 53.3	12	48
	34	165	515.625	~ 13.8	55	12	48
	35	170	531.25	~ 14.2	~ 56.7	13	52
	36	175	546.875	~ 14.6	~ 58.3	13	52

Of course, backtracking increases the number of segments to walk. So even a short mission can lead to medium mission distances when lots of backtracking is involved - usually due to additional hallways or dead ends.

To prevent the whole party from getting hungry at the same exact spot (which would be quite unrealistic), both, Food/ERQ ratio and hunger increment, can be adjusted by individual modifiers. This way we're able to simulate diverse levels of appetite, e.g. gluttony or abrosia/anorexia/fasting; also the grade of energy efficiency.

In fact, hunger growth rate (default: 3.125 % ERQ per segment) inversely indicates how efficiently consumed food is transferred to energy: the more a character's metabolism can make use of food, the slower will ERQ increase, and the longer he can walk before getting real hungry.

Formula:  HungerGrowthRate = 0.03125 / EnergyEfficiency 
Efficiency range: [~ 0.5 ... 1 ... ~ 2]

Appetite - or stomach size, if you will - is an inverse modifier for the equivalent of 1 food unit (default: 37.5 % ERQ): the bigger a character's appetite (stomach), the more she will eat until she's full.

Formula:  FoodEquivalent = 0.375 / Appetite 
Appetite range: [~ 0.5 ... 1 ... ~ 2]

As a side-effect, eating increases HP. Its effect, however, isn't as significant as real healing (via skill). Reason is that health and hunger are actually completely unrelated: even a deathly sick person can be full, and a person in rude health can starve out.
Also, a hero refuses to eat once he's full - which is usually accomplished by just 1 or 2 food units (a unit might be consumed only partially; the rest, unneeded for ERQ satisfaction, is discarded) - hence food healing can't be applied extensively anyway.

Formula:  FoodHP = 1 + FoodUnits * MaxHP / 10 

Without Dodge, hit success is equal to Accuracy:

	0	10	20	30	40	50	60	70	80	90	100 %
ACC	75 %
PROBABILITY	HIT SUCCESS 75 % MISS 25 %

However, ACC is capped at 90 %, which means that every target has at least a 10 % chance to evade hits, even if the attacker has decently high accuracy:

	0	10	20	30	40	50	60	70	80	90	100 %
ACC	98 %
PROBABILITY	HIT SUCCESS 90 % MISS 10 %

Dodging is technically a countermeasure and gets subtracted from Accuracy:

	0	10	20	30	40	50	60	70	80	90	100 %
ACC	85 %
Dodge	20 %
PROBABILITY	HIT SUCCESS 65 % DODGE 20 % MISS 15 %

	0	10	20	30	40	50	60	70	80	90	100 %
ACC	110 %
Dodge	15 %
PROBABILITY	HIT SUCCESS 90 % M 5% D 5%

Avatar sprites are PNG images.

1 px ≈ 0.62 cm (6.2 mm)
1 cm ≈ 1.6 px
1 m ≈ 161.7 px

Type	max. Width	max. Height
Hero	~ 124 px	~ 300 px
Foe (standard)	~ 124 px	~ 300 px
Foe (mini boss)	~ 248 px	~ 400 px
Foe (boss)	~ 372 px	~ 480 px

The stage consists of a floor and up to 4 background layers for parallax scrolling.

Width: 1200 px
Height: 580 px (480 px background + 100 px floor)

Total room width: 1200 px (≈ 9.06 m)
Total hallway width: 4392 px (≈ 33.15 m)

The floor is tiled (1 row) with a preprocessed (perspective warp) trapezoid image.
These tiles get additionally transformed (parallel shear) at runtime - drawn on a canvas element.

The trapezoid base image size is 400 × 100 px (top border width: 278 px), having included factor ×6 visual height/depth shortening, hence represents a floor area of 400 × 600 px, or approx. 210 × 315 cm in reality.


Example: Base image

Each background layer is made of (1 row of) tiles.

Front tiles generally have a width of 1064 px and a height of 480 px (≈ 8.03 × 3.62 m).

As for room sides, we insert narrow tiles of 68 px width to accomplish the viewport span:
(68 + 1064 + 68 = 1200 px)

Same applies to hallways:

A

B

C

D

(68 + 4 × 1064 + 68 = 4392 px)

Due to occasional camera tilt effects, which uncover a bit more of the background horizontally, those side stripes must actually have a width of 86 px.

Sky height (above horizon): 253 px
Ground height (below horizon): 227 px

These add up to the 480 px background height.

Background tiles are JPG or PNG images, depending on whether they are final (no layers behind) or transparent (having one or more layers behind).

Final (JPG)

Transparent (PNG)

Unused

Internally, the front layer has index 0, followed by the mid layers (index 1 and 2) and the backdrop (index 3).

One of the simplest setups consists of just a backdrop. This is the case in the dungeon start room only, where no scrolling occurs:


Another minimal setup consists of a front wall only; allowing a basic scrolling effect:


For parallax scrolling we use at least one more layer.
or or

In-between layers are optional; however, the depth effect will be lessened.
or or or

Because of being usually out of focus, deeper background levels (1/2/3) don't need to be as sharp as the front layer. We can easily simulate this blur effect by serving smaller images, and let the browser enlarge them to their size as needed. This way we also have a lower data transfer volume, thus optimized download times.

Index	Layer	Behaviour	Scroll speed	Real Z distance	Scale	Tile image W × H (px)
						Screen	File	Factor
3	backdrop	(fixed)	(0)	(horizon)		1405 × 480	562 × 192	2.5
2	far mid	scrolling	×.3	~ 24.03 m	1 px ≈ 2.52 cm	724 × 480	362 × 240	2
1	near mid	scrolling	×.65	~ 5.55 m	1 px ≈ 1.16 cm	612 × 480	408 × 320	1.5
0	front	scrolling	(×1)	(0)	1 px ≈ 0.75 cm	1064 × 480		1
	front side					86 × 480
	curios	(scrolling)	~ ×1.14	~ -1.31 m	1 px ≈ 0.66 cm
	avatars	(scrolling)	~ ×1.22	~ -1.86 m	1 px ≈ 0.62 cm
	stage edge	(scrolling)	~ ×1.44	~ -3.15 m	1 px ≈ 0.52 cm
	camera			~ -10.3 m

To maintain a fluent visual transition, we need to provide seamless images.

In the simplest case, borders would show half a global pattern/object (e.g. pillar), so all front tiles were automatically matching each other.
Room:
Hallway:

A slightly better solution, which diminishes repetition, would be to define at least two different, alternating borders (e.g. pillar and bricks).
Room:
Hallway:

For the near/far mid layers we don't need that much of variation; most of their areas are probably hidden by the front layer anyway. Therefore, mid layers are based on a single (repeating) tile each.
Near mid:
Far mid:

The static backdrop is just a single tile without repetition, thus its borders don't need to be seamless.


As we see diverse environments in Darkest Dungeon, ...

• Cove (caves near the sea)
• Ruins (remains of the Ancestor's manor)
• Warrens (subterranean tunnels)
• Weald (sprawling forest with rotted boughs, hosting a hideous kind of fungi)

... there's analogous locations in MLD; probably even mixed up within a dungeon/mission.
Interesting environmental themes might be...

• Castle (medieval architecture, corridors, halls)
• Caves (jagged walls, flowstone)
• Hamlet (huts, shags, narrow lanes)
• Ruins (broken walling/windows)
• Swamp (moorlands, sparse, nebulous)
• Warrens (subterranean tunnels, pipes)
• Wasteland (scrub, dunes, collapsed walls/buildings)
• Weald (trees, shrubbery, deep forest)