Run slower when chased

[Pablo]

After starting the game and looting some houses, the guards come at you. When the guards reach my avatar, I start running slower,,,has this happened to anyone else? Need help please >.<

[Dominus]

This is on purpose. Be more virtuos!

[Knight Captain]

This also happens in general, the Avatar cannot outrun pursuers in Exult but I think they he could in DOS.

[Dominus]

It also happened in Dos and it’s meant to make the game a bit harder. The fastest running speed is just too fast and otherwise it would be too easy to outrun every opponent

[Pablo]

I tried in Dos and the avatar does not run slower when chased...this only happens when playing on exult. I was just wondering if this is on purpose or if it is a bug.

[Dominus]

I just tested this in the original on Dosbox and the Avatar *is* slower when being chased.
Example: teleport to the desert near the shrine of sacrifice, enable Power mode (F2 cheat menu) and see if you can steer up the spiders or scorpions. let them chase you and run away at full speed. They will keep up with you. Enter combat mode, engage and kill them, then run away. You will see a drastic speed burst.

(Edit: it seems it is not always happening quite that drastic but you can see it most of the times - when you attack NPCs and the guards are called it's also noticeable IMO)

[Knight Captain]

Is it a DOS engine limitation that causes the alowdown? In gamea of that era many sprites could slow the engines down. I'd be curious if the same speed issues appear running from a single enemy?

[Pablo]

Not sure if it happens when being chased by a single enemy, but I tried using exult and Dos and the slowdown only happened when using exult. Does this happen to everyone or is it just me?

[paulo]

It's 'obviously' on purpose. Devs probably thought the game was easy enough without running through mobs... or didn't want to bother moving them back into position if they got out of it.

[Dominus]

Like I first wrote, it‘s on purpose and *I* can see it happening with the original. If you run the original on a fast Dos machine or in Dosbox at high cycles you might not notice it in BG as that had no speed limiter. But try with SI.

[Knight Captain]

Are we at the point where I need to dig out a 386 or 486 and record direct from VGA?

Did either engine ever use Dexterity for move speed?

[Gotcha!]

You had best not do that, Avatar!

I'll join the bandwagon in saying that it does indeed happen as well in the DOS version, as intended.
Imagine stealing something, the guards getting called and the Avatar blasting off like the Roadrunner, with his dollar-sign eyes and while screaming: Crime does paaaaaaaaaaaaaay! ... That'd be silly.

[Pablo]

I've seen videos though, where the avatar gets chased but doesn't slow down and is able to quickly outrun the guards

[agentorangeguy]

I was always under the impression that running speed in combat was based on the Avatar's dexterity. NPC's with low dexterity aren't as fast in combat either I don't believe.

It makes me remember a moment where I was being an a-hole in LB's castle and somehow dropped unconscious in the nursery. One of the babies in the castle came up to me and SLOWLY started attacking me. It was hilarious because I was defenseless and it kept landing hits on me every now and then which was enough to keep me unconscious

I think they had low dexterity and would move slowly. Another thing that comes to mind is the statues that come to life in SI (like in shamino's castle).

[Dominus]

there is definitely something going on with dexterity and combat, there was a lengthy discussion about this years ago (which was actually about the combat/success/danger music). And it seems Exult doesn‘t do that correctly.

And again, this chase-slow-down is intentionally in Exult!
And again, I see it in DOSBox with BG, I didn‘t have time for a SI test even though that would likely more fruitful because of SI‘s frame limiter.
The frame limiter or rather the lack of it in BG is important - a faster machine (pentium class real machine or Dosbox at high (>8000) cycles is not a good way to test this with the original. Hence some videos on YouTube might not be a good reference.

But regardless of whether it happens in the original, we are not likely to change this behavior

[_Olarin]

For the purposes of movement speed, there are three different possible situations:

1.) You are not in combat mode, and not in danger
2.) You are not in combat mode, but the game considers you in danger (enemies nearby)
3.) You are in combat mode

In situation 1, you always move at the same, rather fast, speed, no matter what your dexterity (and your companions always keep up at the exact same pace).

You can tell if you're in situation 2 because when you take the cursor to the edge of the screen, the arrow won't get as long as it does in situation 1. In the original, enemies and the Avatar will have their movement speed determined by dexterity in situation 2, but companions will still keep up with the Avatar even if their dexterity is lower. Currently, none of this seems to be implemented in Exult, so instead everyone gets the same fixed movement speed in situations 2 and 3, making it impossible to run away (whereas in the original you could run away from enemies with lower dexterity than you, and enemies with higher dexterity would not only keep up but have time to get a swing in at you or your companions occasionally while chasing).

Situation 3 is identical to situation 2 except that, in the original, the companions also get their individual speed determined by their dexterity - so if the Avatar is faster the companions can get left behind in combat mode (even if there's no enemies to fight and they're still just trying to follow the Avatar), which can't happen in situation 2.

Further quirk I just noticed in Exult - if you're holding down the right mouse button running during a transition from situation 1 to situation 2, the game doesn't seem to shorten your cursor arrow and limit your speed until you let go of the mouse button.