Any way to shift cataclysm into full fantasy mode?

Game Talk The Bunker
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I’m mostly asking if there’s a mod that does this because I know the base game has nothing that can help you fully achieve this. I’ve been thirsting for a game that handles and plays like cataclysm but with a more fantasy rpg sort of vibe to it.

I know magiclysm already provides an aspect of it and I could enable the classic rogue classes mod for another step in the direction I want to go. I can also remove cities and roads entirely to eliminate most modern aspects but whoever heard of an rpg with no buildings of any kind? Even so, some things rear their head regardless to spoil the immersion.

Dwarf fortress can be left out of the suggestions. I have it and am enjoying it but cataclysm has a less complicated, or more fun, interface so I tend to hop into cata before I even think of tangling with DF.

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Caves of Qud is sort of medieval tech + ancient modern tech. It’s got less depth than CDDA, but it makes it easier to get into (not that that should be a problem after getting into CDDA and DF). It’s a more classic roguelike that’s based more on exploration and getting destroyed by elites rather than a “rebuild society from scratch/survive during an apocalypse” sort of game. It’s not perfect for what you’re looking for, but probably closer.

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Unfortunately, the perfect full-fantasy concept with the same level of detail of Cataclysm or the depth of DDA or DF just isn’t out there.

There’s only a few frequent updating roguelikes out there like Cata, and I’ve yet to hear of one to the very, very exact flavor you are looking for.

Magiclysm is the closest you’ll get to a High Fantasy conversion to my knowledge. Out of the mod roster, I don’t think you’ll find your exact flavor either. It unfortunately sounds like a new mod project to completely overhaul the CataDDA base into a new game. Needless to say, what you’re after, in a perfect sense, would be a herculean task to bring out in full detail.

I can’t say I don’t dig what you’re after either, and would certainly be playing it if it -did- exist.

Your best odds would be to explore all of the fringe mod packs for code and then splice your favorites together, if you are able to do so, and get something close to what you want without having to script things together yourself.

A lot of the Cata code seems to be friendly to general retrofits and re-skinned AI codes to varied extents the last time I took a look.

I know quite a few RLs, but aside from DF I don’t think any get to the level of detailed immersion you’re craving either.

A businessman might be tempted to create a product in such a setting, and I can’t say I wouldn’t buy something like that myself.

The TL;DR of the matter is that a High Fantasy conversion mod that is more RPG-orientated than CataDDA but more Intuitive than DF’s adventure mode with proper immersion development and proper adherence to classic roguelike element doesn’t seem to exist. The best on the market are generally DF deviants, clones, and various other roguelikes that use high fantasy as a base but lack proper depth of concept. The concept is a holy grail to Roguelike players, just like either DF or CataDDA would be if they were in heavy development with dozens of dedicated developers. Perfect if it exists, but unlikely to be true.

If anyone has such a perfect recommendation, do, do let us know.

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Your best chance is doing it yourself. Two major things are required: high fantasy content and changes to engine that would allow total conversion mods.

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Y’know, I see it being a massive undertaking, but mainly just a tedious one. Do you want a CDDA Fantasy style? Or just a fantasy rpg only with the gameplay/UI/similar feeling of cataclysm?

Fantasy conversion Rant

The first would honestly be pretty easy (but tedious,) as it would just be converting a lot of the attributes and looks of the current game along with dropping a lot of modern weaponry and buffing a lot of the more medieval weapons with magically enhanced versions. Make houses and building out of wood and stone instead of their current walls, and add in new enemies like goblins and ogres, etc. Hell, re-texture a lot of the current enemies along with changing their description and boom, goblins are children zombies, ogres are hulks, trolls are brutes, and zombies can be…well, zombies! Change their drop tables from cash cards to gold pieces and suddenly it it VERY much more RPG than before. Make all skills slow way down and books are consumable, and you can make the grind good again! EXP will just be values attached to each monster much like how the current system tracks the number of a certain creatures you kill, and make it give a point you can then distribute to your skills. Make it go along much faster than before and more forgiving. Like 1 point can increase a skill by 20%, or you can save 10 to increase one of your stats. Or maybe you just get stat points separate from skills, which would be its own mod. Mutagen already provides a lot in the way of fantasy races, and character creation would be you picking what your character can do in addition to what the race you choose allows. IE, the current profession system which already allows for profession based mutations. Remove medical and prime, and you have drider, dwarf, elf, Beast-people, and more! NPCs can already be bandits, but cities would probably be the biggest hassle when it comes to NPCs. The only downside from this conversion is that it still doesn’t have much in the way of story though, so yeah. Not great.

But if it’s the second, Elona+ is pretty great for a fantasy roguelike. Very different from CDDA, and late-game progression is a problem if you don’t metagame (Hmmmmmm) but it is still pretty good. Don’t know how active it currently is, but last time I played it scratched the open world hardcore fantasy magic and more itch pretty good.

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That game is a trip, though I do believe that it’s less polished than what the OP was after. Since they ruled out DF as an option since it’s gameplay wasn’t refined and intuitive enough, Elona and or Elonaplus don’t really fit the bill either.

Again, that game is a trip.

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The lore:
World is low fantasy
Some wizards wanted more power, did some rituals and some wacky stuff
World is high fantasy now

Honestly quite easy to “reskin” CDDA enemies into traditional fantasy creatures. Necromancers and their undead horde is basically the Blob, (evil) druids are either Mycus or the plant bois, Migos are basically Warlock summoned demons, no?

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A reskin only takes care of the surface level stuff and is ultimately just a description change of the majority of things which would only work if you don’t have a tile pack active. Not to mention you still have road generation, city and building generation, etc to change.

I’m afraid that in order to get what I want I’ll either have to make another game myself(quite a lot of work) or wait until mods are allowed to change the game on a more fundamental level, at which point I’ll try my hand at making a mod that’ll cover my needs(less but still a lot of work).

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I think it could be done but there is no getting around that it would take a huge amount of work, you’d basically have to tossout almost all prefab stuff entirely and redo them from scratch, blacklist tons of recipes, redo item spawn lists, redo professions and create a whole bunch of new enemies, factions and items etc.
Some of the code for a leveling system is probably already there at least since I bet you could modify the stats through skills/stats through kills mods to get something to work and spell affects/magic item could be done thanks to all the work Korg has put in.

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I’d recommend trying out TOME4 (Tales of Maj’Eyal), it’s more hack & slashly and has much less randomization regarding the world, but you’d probably enjoy it.

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In the end, the best potential advice I can offer would be to reach out to some of the devs on [Discord] and see if any of them like the idea of adding additional Map gen options to potentially get the world scenario you are after. Once the Map gen is fixed, all that is left is a matter of compiling mods and pieces of code you like into the game you want to play.

That’s my advice, hopefully this is the best ‘Solution’ for the your hunt. The game in your vision may not be there, but hopefully some devs might find it to be a good idea to add even more map gen features for both modders and players who want to shape their worlds to their preference.

Fortune to you~