I like the concept but I'm not sure that altering equipment is the most efficient or elegant solution to the problem you seem to be aiming to address. Apologies in advance if I misrepresent that at any point in the following.
If it's difficulty you're after I think playing the game without leveling up is a more reasonable solution than needing an entire mod. Unlike a Souls game, you can use every piece of equipment and every gift regardless of level so reducing the effectiveness of equipment across the board just ends up being about the same. On the other hand, on Lv1 you'll die in one hit from nearly everything from Ridge of Frozen Souls onward (which is less of an issue in every Souls game other than Bloodborne) and if you're Solo you can't be revived. I don't think it's a controversial stance that the reason many detractors think the game is too easy is the ability companions have to revive the player.
Or, barring that, I'd just reduce the benefits of leveling up across the board so you end up somewhat weaker at each stage of the game but still have a sense of progression. I am somewhat familiar with the speedrun for this game and even reaching level 30 is a tremendous power boost over the base level. At around 50 you can demolish late-game bosses trivially with Final Journey (even after it was nerfed), and the game gives you so much Haze you'll easily be near 100 by then unless you are dying constantly. Which...roughly evens out with the equipment power reduction. To be fair, I'm not sure if those values are as easily editable as those of weapons and armor. I'm also not sure when the diminishing returns kick in level-wise because I've never played the full game other than lv1, but presumably that could also be altered.
I agree with most of the points given here, just running Level 1-70 and no higher on NG+ an onward is already good enough. Most of the spike in damage comes from level up scaling and using some of the "end game" gifts, even more so if you have the DLC, you're never forced to use anything in particular because you're always given the choice to play how you want to. (Within reason)
Gifts too broken to use even while handicapping yourself? Don't use them.
You don't want to be invulnerable to 2 different elements and physical damage on NG? You know what to do.
For min-maxing there's already established veils that push you into certain code builds. Even if the options are lacking. If you want literally no defense, there's veils that give just that, it's worse on higher difficulties when most stronger grade "lost" will already make mincemeat out of the player should their hit connect with you even if you're max level.
Free revives too cheesy for less punishing mistakes? Just get rid of the AI partner. Even if you start with Oliver you can yoink him out on the first mistle you see which is a requirement for run challenges which are solo. The game was never intended to be played solo, but it's very much doable. If one wants to keep companions in-game I would suggest increasing the cooldown timer for revives.
People forget they can take advantages of parrying and blocking, plus various utility and "safety-net" gifts that people simply never explore.
In NG+4 to +6 (At higher than +6 all scaling stops, unless you're playing the DLC with difficulty altered), companions are already only good for revives and their damage is pretty low later on, they are more vulnerable than the player, even more so when they decide blocking an attack which they don't know would break their block and kill them regardless. A Co-op partner will out-do the AI partner in almost every way no matter what host's level is, since they can have the same arsenal as the player while even having the ability to stack certain effects.
Anecdotally AI partners run out of Ichor often enough for them not even revive you in the first place, or they just dodge in one place even if they're not being attacked, nothing people can do will fix this at this point in time unless someone knows how to change AI weights for their actions.
Anything people edit right now is only a tiny band-aid for what's imbalanced ever since there has been no gameplay mechanic patch officially that balances everything across the board and taking every NG+ difficulty, players' level, gear, stat scaling, enemy scaling and enemy AI into consideration.
I'm not knocking your mod, you might be on to something here. It would require more than just a few multiplier and % reductions achieve "balance" in a certain way, which is VERY subjective and opinionated on how it should work. Even I have my own perfect vision on what should be changed, but currently I am mostly happy with handicapping or min-maxing myself (should I want to) if I need a challenge or more enjoyment from this game.
I might be missing the mod creators' intent, if this mod is meant to try and simulate "Dark Souls" franchise (Considering the name of it) closer, than by all means you're welcome to try. You've got your work cut out for you if you want to change a lot of the aspects in-game. It's doable, but only to a certain extent due to the closed nature of modding some UE4 games, stifling creativity. (A different matter, I won't get into)
In my opinion RNG/Randomness factor is the ultimate Achilles' heel of this game, it makes it more interesting even through the drawbacks in some areas and fights in the world, with most (if not all) cases in combat encounters can handled entirely by the player adapting to them, no matter what their playstyle or skill is even if the game caters to some of them very underwhelmingly on a new character. There are some problems that cannot be addressed without filling the gaps although I'm not sure what was the entire vision for some of the blood codes, gifts and other mechanics that didn't make it to the game.
The main takeaway is that it's all really player choice for the things that people have total control over on how they want to play and interact with the various mechanics at work.
i wrote a guide, the tools heilos made are far more user friendly than hex https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_ukCPhoCmj9zdpkmcCHJ5l92-CjnmwlOi76kn9TfdNg/edit?usp=sharing
Do you mind if I link this to the Code Vein modding discord, this is some very interesting stuff, especially to to the guy who made all those hex edited mods.
Should partners die quicker as well on top of the lowered damage? Or is keeping them alive the best option as long as they don't wipe all the enemies for you? I'm still debating this.
Hey! I saw your guide and I just want to say thank you! It was super easy to follow. I've been looking for something like this for a very long time. So glad I finally found it.
13 comments
If it's difficulty you're after I think playing the game without leveling up is a more reasonable solution than needing an entire mod. Unlike a Souls game, you can use every piece of equipment and every gift regardless of level so reducing the effectiveness of equipment across the board just ends up being about the same. On the other hand, on Lv1 you'll die in one hit from nearly everything from Ridge of Frozen Souls onward (which is less of an issue in every Souls game other than Bloodborne) and if you're Solo you can't be revived. I don't think it's a controversial stance that the reason many detractors think the game is too easy is the ability companions have to revive the player.
Or, barring that, I'd just reduce the benefits of leveling up across the board so you end up somewhat weaker at each stage of the game but still have a sense of progression. I am somewhat familiar with the speedrun for this game and even reaching level 30 is a tremendous power boost over the base level. At around 50 you can demolish late-game bosses trivially with Final Journey (even after it was nerfed), and the game gives you so much Haze you'll easily be near 100 by then unless you are dying constantly. Which...roughly evens out with the equipment power reduction. To be fair, I'm not sure if those values are as easily editable as those of weapons and armor. I'm also not sure when the diminishing returns kick in level-wise because I've never played the full game other than lv1, but presumably that could also be altered.
I'm not too knowledgeable about this game so I wasn't too aware of this.
Gifts too broken to use even while handicapping yourself? Don't use them.
You don't want to be invulnerable to 2 different elements and physical damage on NG? You know what to do.
For min-maxing there's already established veils that push you into certain code builds. Even if the options are lacking. If you want literally no defense, there's veils that give just that, it's worse on higher difficulties when most stronger grade "lost" will already make mincemeat out of the player should their hit connect with you even if you're max level.
Free revives too cheesy for less punishing mistakes? Just get rid of the AI partner. Even if you start with Oliver you can yoink him out on the first mistle you see which is a requirement for run challenges which are solo. The game was never intended to be played solo, but it's very much doable. If one wants to keep companions in-game I would suggest increasing the cooldown timer for revives.
People forget they can take advantages of parrying and blocking, plus various utility and "safety-net" gifts that people simply never explore.
In NG+4 to +6 (At higher than +6 all scaling stops, unless you're playing the DLC with difficulty altered), companions are already only good for revives and their damage is pretty low later on, they are more vulnerable than the player, even more so when they decide blocking an attack which they don't know would break their block and kill them regardless. A Co-op partner will out-do the AI partner in almost every way no matter what host's level is, since they can have the same arsenal as the player while even having the ability to stack certain effects.
Anecdotally AI partners run out of Ichor often enough for them not even revive you in the first place, or they just dodge in one place even if they're not being attacked, nothing people can do will fix this at this point in time unless someone knows how to change AI weights for their actions.
Anything people edit right now is only a tiny band-aid for what's imbalanced ever since there has been no gameplay mechanic patch officially that balances everything across the board and taking every NG+ difficulty, players' level, gear, stat scaling, enemy scaling and enemy AI into consideration.
I'm not knocking your mod, you might be on to something here. It would require more than just a few multiplier and % reductions achieve "balance" in a certain way, which is VERY subjective and opinionated on how it should work. Even I have my own perfect vision on what should be changed, but currently I am mostly happy with handicapping or min-maxing myself (should I want to) if I need a challenge or more enjoyment from this game.
I might be missing the mod creators' intent, if this mod is meant to try and simulate "Dark Souls" franchise (Considering the name of it) closer, than by all means you're welcome to try. You've got your work cut out for you if you want to change a lot of the aspects in-game. It's doable, but only to a certain extent due to the closed nature of modding some UE4 games, stifling creativity. (A different matter, I won't get into)
In my opinion RNG/Randomness factor is the ultimate Achilles' heel of this game, it makes it more interesting even through the drawbacks in some areas and fights in the world, with most (if not all) cases in combat encounters can handled entirely by the player adapting to them, no matter what their playstyle or skill is even if the game caters to some of them very underwhelmingly on a new character. There are some problems that cannot be addressed without filling the gaps although I'm not sure what was the entire vision for some of the blood codes, gifts and other mechanics that didn't make it to the game.
The main takeaway is that it's all really player choice for the things that people have total control over on how they want to play and interact with the various mechanics at work.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_ukCPhoCmj9zdpkmcCHJ5l92-CjnmwlOi76kn9TfdNg/edit?usp=sharing
I'm still debating this.