CHANGELOG 1.1-1.2 - fixed high risk high reward version. 1.3 - added 3 more PotD flavors, details on desc page. Less Glass-Cannony is very very mild PotD edit for ranged characters which would prefer not to one-shot most enemies, but not to be occsionally one-shoted as well. Spongier NPC is self-explanatory, just a 60% boost to health and 30% - to stability and elem. accumulation. Extreme is nothing crazy actually, might me a good option for later game. All options have companions damage slightly boosted, because even after patch their contribution is minimal. 1.4 - added small food tweaks for PotD fans in Optional Files - one file reduces amount of HP/essence food regenerate (to 50% for normal cooked food, to ~35% for OP high-tier food), another makes food regeneration continuous out of combat as well (faster than in combat, but anyway you can't rush from encounter to encounter without potions). Both can be used together and with any of difficulty options. 1.4.1 - small tweaks to PotD Extreme: NPC dmg 2.75 -> 3, NPC stats 3.5, 2.5, 2.5 -> 3.5, 2, 2 (stun and elemental accumulations were a bit too high to reach either stun or elemental combo in most fights). 1.4.2 - updated PotD Extreme, merchant prices are even steeper now (1.5 -> 1.6), but all gems can be sold for x5 coins more. that should reward exploration. 1.4.5 - updated PotD Extreme (attack speed 1.2 -> 1.35), added on request PotD Extreme with even higher prices (x2.5).
So far I have only tested the 'Merchant Pricing' aspects for the different versions of this mod but, as far as I can tell, they all work as advertised.
Here is an example breakdown to get an idea of what to expect depending on which version you decide to use...
Spoiler:
Show
EXAMPLE: (using Purchase Price for Health/Essence Potions) LOWER than vanilla / HIGHER than vanilla
All values are directly from a merchant shop while in-game, NOT from my math or assumptions
STORY MODE =75 -- Better Difficulties (x0.2 prices) =15 -- Better Difficulties (x0.5 prices) =38 -- Better Difficulties Plus =53
NORMAL =75 -- Better Difficulties (x0.2 prices) =15 -- Better Difficulties (x0.5 prices) =38 -- Better Difficulties Plus =75
HARD =86 -- Better Difficulties (x0.2 prices) =17 -- Better Difficulties (x0.5 prices) =44 -- Better Difficulties Plus =90
POTD =98 -- Better Difficulties (x0.2 prices) =20 -- Better Difficulties (x0.5 prices) =49 -- Better Difficulties Plus =113 -- POTD Extreme =120 (this version ONLY makes changes to POTD)
Versions that DO NOT alter any vanilla pricing: -- Better Difficulties (High Risk High Reward) -- POTD Less Glass-cannony -- POTD Spongier NPC
Please keep in mind the warning from the author that you MUST PICK ONE VERSION of this mod.
ANY changes made to one difficulty level via a mod makes any other mods that alter ANYTHING touching difficulty levels INCOMPATIBLE - one mod will ALWAYS override the other
Changing the mod names will NOT fix the compatibility issue
As far as I can tell, merchant PURCHASE pricing is tied directly to difficulty levels
So, NO, you cannot use either of the 'Better Difficulties (x prices)' versions WITH any other version that is geared more towards altering combat (even the ones that do not makes changes to the vanilla pricing)
RECOMMENDATION:
In the situation where you are wanting to use a combat focused version of 'Better Difficulties' but take issue with the resulting economy, try the 'game.ini' tweak found in the mod linked below to adjust SELL prices. This gives you the ability to make a customized tweak for achieving overall "balance" closer to your personal liking.
Selling Ratio (Prices) to Merchants This method will NOT interfere with any version of 'Better Difficulties' since the SELL price of items NEVER changes regardless of difficulty level. However, look for a comment I made on the 'Selling Ratio' mod page for a bit more information regarding compatibility.
Hope the info is helpful. Good luck folks and happy modding!
Here is a small write up after completing a full playthrough on PofD Extreme version, useful for first timers and players who are not sure yet;
This was a fully modded run as well, including the; - companion mod that increases their damage (I chose the overpowered version of that mod, can highly recommend it if you pair it with this one) - mod that gives more ability and attribute points per level (x2 attribute, 2 ability points and 4 per 5 levels)
My observations: - Early game you are underpowered, bosses are very buff, you will need to bring a combination of cc, good parries, a shield or stun build. Companions will carry you. - mid game starts to feel really good (nuanced take, end of act 2, start of act 3 is where it becomes fun) - in act 3 and 4 I started to experiment a lot. You can do very fun things, stun builds for example are very worth it since enemies still take a lot of hits to go down. Skeletons, with a full damage 2h hammer stun build still took 4 or 5 hits excluding crits. - because of the health buffs, (I applaud all other buffs, especially the attack speed increase, could be even more to make parry builds more viable. Will make mob battles harder though), it can sometimes feel tedious, but the goal to have hard enemies and especially bosses feel like bosses is accomplished. Take the Maegfolc, they are truly hard fights and I had a lot of fun to take them on.
Conclusion: for a new player I recommend either the Plus version, or any PotD version depending on personal preference.
I realise it is probably not possible, but my ultimate version would have to be the PotD Extreme minus the health increase, or at least lowered, everything else is good.
A small section about the attack speed; I think it could be even increased, it will make parry builds more viable since waiting for the next attack from a single enemy is way to long, excluding a few specific foes. Bears for example are great, they have short pauses, different attacks and will take you down if you break focus. I can understand that mobs will be even more deadly than they already are (most of my deaths became of bad positioning according to mobs of spiders or summoning skeletons where I could not close the gap fast enough to shut those down), and a solution to that would need to be considered.
EDIT: I've slept on this and I am totally wrong about attack speed. The issue I have in fights is that enemies are staggered to long, and if you want your parry effects to be used you usually wait precious seconds for your foe to recollect themselves, all the while you are getting hammered in ranged or summoners recalling more of their pets into the fray. If it is possible to adjust stagger resistance or decrease stagger window, please do!
At any rate, this mod is a great enhancemant for mod junkies like myself, I do not regret using it on my very first playthrough, if I could start over I would probably do it again because as i've told, I loved every buff from the Extreme PotD except the hp increase.
thanks for detailed feedback. I mostly made Extreme (and food tweaks) for myself, so yeah, HP buffs might not be to everyone liking, but lengthy fights where you need to actively use companion skills and food buffs and non-oneshotable with rifles elite enemies is how I like it.
And you are right that PotD Extreme is very tough early, so its indeed not advisable to use it in Prologue at least. Late game is probably bit too easy than needed, but again, I believe player got to feel their power at some point.
In any case I'm not actively modding Avowed rn, but will consider your suggestions if I get back to it.
I do never writing any comments here, but i really need to thank u. I dowloaded some mods from you and now my gaming experience is so much better and now i have a lot of fun with the game. Thats a feeling now like its a very good reamke. Delves should see ur work and can learn something from u !
Something to be aware of with High Risk/High Reward. This will multiply on top of the enemy damage. So for Path of the Damned, this is x6 enemy damage (PotD, 3 times normal, x2 from mod)
It's just not clear whether it's more dmg or less, especially since it applies equally to both easier and harder settings. So both player and enemies do 15% more dmg on both easy and hard and this somehow makes easy difficulty easier and hard diff harder? For example if easy is supposed to become easier I'd expect enemies to do 15% less dmg, vice versa for hard diff, yet a mutual increase in dmg is, presumably(?), presented as being able to make the game both easier and harder at the same time making me think there's something else going on.
Don't mean to be a bother, maybe I'm overthinking it, it just feels unintuitive and other mod variants more clearly state what changes are applied and where.
story/easy is easier, meaning multipliers are better for a player (for story 0.5 enemies damage turns into 0.5*70%=0.35, player's damage multiplier 2.0 turns into 2.0*130% = 2.6), hard/potd gets harder, multipliers are worse for a player (for PotD enemies damage multiplier 3 turns into ~4, player's vanilla 1 become 0.7).
This is amazing. Thank you! Instead of asking you for this\that value changes, can I alter the changes once I download? (e.g., change the hard diff+ to something harder\easier) seems I can't directly edit with notepad++ the pak\ucas\utoc files. any other options?
...seems I can't directly edit with notepad++ the pak\ucas\utoc files... even if you use unreal unpacker most of the files are not in pak, but in ucas and require more modding abilitiy to work on it
this is the reason why people asking for this\that!
Hello, I know that's not the purpose of the mod, but could you remove the damage from your companions to zero, since there's no way to get rid of them?
This would open the door to challenges like a solo game with greater difficulty.
I was able to play only the prologue without the companion.
But there was no way to get past the prologue, unfortunately.
can you make: POTD Sponger with Merchant Prices 1 POTD Extreme with Merchant Prices 1 i think give the best challenge without penalize collectors that do not sell/dismantle unique weapons
81 comments
I'm open to suggestions about difficulties settings, but only 1-2 more versions will be added.
A bit of vanilla difficulties data (Story, Easy, Normal, Hard, PotD):
CHANGELOG
1.1-1.2 - fixed high risk high reward version.
1.3 - added 3 more PotD flavors, details on desc page. Less Glass-Cannony is very very mild PotD edit for ranged characters which would prefer not to one-shot most enemies, but not to be occsionally one-shoted as well. Spongier NPC is self-explanatory, just a 60% boost to health and 30% - to stability and elem. accumulation. Extreme is nothing crazy actually, might me a good option for later game. All options have companions damage slightly boosted, because even after patch their contribution is minimal.
1.4 - added small food tweaks for PotD fans in Optional Files - one file reduces amount of HP/essence food regenerate (to 50% for normal cooked food, to ~35% for OP high-tier food), another makes food regeneration continuous out of combat as well (faster than in combat, but anyway you can't rush from encounter to encounter without potions). Both can be used together and with any of difficulty options.
1.4.1 - small tweaks to PotD Extreme: NPC dmg 2.75 -> 3, NPC stats 3.5, 2.5, 2.5 -> 3.5, 2, 2 (stun and elemental accumulations were a bit too high to reach either stun or elemental combo in most fights).
1.4.2 - updated PotD Extreme, merchant prices are even steeper now (1.5 -> 1.6), but all gems can be sold for x5 coins more. that should reward exploration.
1.4.5 - updated PotD Extreme (attack speed 1.2 -> 1.35), added on request PotD Extreme with even higher prices (x2.5).
So far I have only tested the 'Merchant Pricing' aspects for the different versions of this mod but, as far as I can tell, they all work as advertised.
Here is an example breakdown to get an idea of what to expect depending on which version you decide to use...
EXAMPLE: (using Purchase Price for Health/Essence Potions)
LOWER than vanilla / HIGHER than vanilla
STORY MODE =75
-- Better Difficulties (x0.2 prices) =15
-- Better Difficulties (x0.5 prices) =38
-- Better Difficulties Plus =53
EASY =75
-- Better Difficulties (x0.2 prices) =15
-- Better Difficulties (x0.5 prices) =38
-- Better Difficulties Plus =60
NORMAL =75
-- Better Difficulties (x0.2 prices) =15
-- Better Difficulties (x0.5 prices) =38
-- Better Difficulties Plus =75
HARD =86
-- Better Difficulties (x0.2 prices) =17
-- Better Difficulties (x0.5 prices) =44
-- Better Difficulties Plus =90
POTD =98
-- Better Difficulties (x0.2 prices) =20
-- Better Difficulties (x0.5 prices) =49
-- Better Difficulties Plus =113
-- POTD Extreme =120 (this version ONLY makes changes to POTD)
Versions that DO NOT alter any vanilla pricing:
-- Better Difficulties (High Risk High Reward)
-- POTD Less Glass-cannony
-- POTD Spongier NPC
Please keep in mind the warning from the author that you MUST PICK ONE VERSION of this mod.
- ANY changes made to one difficulty level via a mod makes any other mods that alter ANYTHING touching difficulty levels INCOMPATIBLE - one mod will ALWAYS override the other
- Changing the mod names will NOT fix the compatibility issue
- As far as I can tell, merchant PURCHASE pricing is tied directly to difficulty levels
So, NO, you cannot use either of the 'Better Difficulties (x prices)' versions WITH any other version that is geared more towards altering combat(even the ones that do not makes changes to the vanilla pricing)
This gives you the ability to make a customized tweak for achieving overall "balance" closer to your personal liking.
Selling Ratio (Prices) to Merchants
This method will NOT interfere with any version of 'Better Difficulties' since the SELL price of items NEVER changes regardless of difficulty level.
However, look for a comment I made on the 'Selling Ratio' mod page for a bit more information regarding compatibility.
Hope the info is helpful. Good luck folks and happy modding!
Can u pls make "easy" PotD:
Enemy Damage: 2
Merchant Prices: 1
Crafting Added Mats (PRI/SEC/TET): 0
or maybe say the way how i can edit this myself.
This was a fully modded run as well, including the;
- companion mod that increases their damage (I chose the overpowered version of that mod, can highly recommend it if you pair it with this one)
- mod that gives more ability and attribute points per level (x2 attribute, 2 ability points and 4 per 5 levels)
My observations:
- Early game you are underpowered, bosses are very buff, you will need to bring a combination of cc, good parries, a shield or stun build. Companions will carry you.
- mid game starts to feel really good (nuanced take, end of act 2, start of act 3 is where it becomes fun)
- in act 3 and 4 I started to experiment a lot. You can do very fun things, stun builds for example are very worth it since enemies still take a lot of hits to go down. Skeletons, with a full damage 2h hammer stun build still took 4 or 5 hits excluding crits.
- because of the health buffs, (I applaud all other buffs, especially the attack speed increase, could be even more to make parry builds more viable. Will make mob battles harder though), it can sometimes feel tedious, but the goal to have hard enemies and especially bosses feel like bosses is accomplished. Take the Maegfolc, they are truly hard fights and I had a lot of fun to take them on.
Conclusion: for a new player I recommend either the Plus version, or any PotD version depending on personal preference.
I realise it is probably not possible, but my ultimate version would have to be the PotD Extreme minus the health increase, or at least lowered, everything else is good.
A small section about the attack speed; I think it could be even increased, it will make parry builds more viable since waiting for the next attack from a single enemy is way to long, excluding a few specific foes. Bears for example are great, they have short pauses, different attacks and will take you down if you break focus. I can understand that mobs will be even more deadly than they already are (most of my deaths became of bad positioning according to mobs of spiders or summoning skeletons where I could not close the gap fast enough to shut those down), and a solution to that would need to be considered.
EDIT: I've slept on this and I am totally wrong about attack speed. The issue I have in fights is that enemies are staggered to long, and if you want your parry effects to be used you usually wait precious seconds for your foe to recollect themselves, all the while you are getting hammered in ranged or summoners recalling more of their pets into the fray. If it is possible to adjust stagger resistance or decrease stagger window, please do!
At any rate, this mod is a great enhancemant for mod junkies like myself, I do not regret using it on my very first playthrough, if I could start over I would probably do it again because as i've told, I loved every buff from the Extreme PotD except the hp increase.
Thanks Caites!
And you are right that PotD Extreme is very tough early, so its indeed not advisable to use it in Prologue at least. Late game is probably bit too easy than needed, but again, I believe player got to feel their power at some point.
In any case I'm not actively modding Avowed rn, but will consider your suggestions if I get back to it.
Appreciate all your improvements, hadn't had this much fun in a game in a while. :]
This will multiply on top of the enemy damage.
So for Path of the Damned, this is x6 enemy damage (PotD, 3 times normal, x2 from mod)
This would allow me to play PotD, with less spongy enemies.
I could go hard, but that would also lower the other stats, like ememy attack speed.
Don't mean to be a bother, maybe I'm overthinking it, it just feels unintuitive and other mod variants more clearly state what changes are applied and where.
Instead of asking you for this\that value changes, can I alter the changes once I download?
(e.g., change the hard diff+ to something harder\easier)
seems I can't directly edit with notepad++ the pak\ucas\utoc files.
any other options?
Thanks again!
even if you use unreal unpacker most of the files are not in pak, but in ucas and require more modding abilitiy to work on it
this is the reason why people asking for this\that!
This would open the door to challenges like a solo game with greater difficulty.
I was able to play only the prologue without the companion.
But there was no way to get past the prologue, unfortunately.
POTD Sponger with Merchant Prices 1
POTD Extreme with Merchant Prices 1
i think give the best challenge without penalize collectors that do not sell/dismantle unique weapons