Hey! Just wanted to make a response to some recent comments, but more importantly to show life.
As stated in the mod description, the mod was released incomplete, and mainly targeted towards already max-level players - thus the oddity of the upgrading costs, which I've left as is. I wanted to add those way sooner, but hadn't had the time or the motivation. I am slowly getting back at it and working on two things that should alleviate this mod's weaknesses:
transfer the cost in gold & material from the +2 upgrades to +1, that of +3 to +2 ; and add my own +3 costs instead, which will be exaggeratedly pricey and thematically coherent to the item (ie: Southron Iron x16 / Cursed Dullahan Bone x4 / 22.500 gold for the Battahli Shotel). The goal is to deter new players from upgrading to +3 too soon, add some kind of Monster Hunter vibe to the progression, and generate uses for a bunch of underutilized materials, implements and other valuables (rewarding exploration and gathering all in the same throw). This idea might turn up unpopular, weird or unbalanced, but I think it'd be fun to try anyway. I've already listed the materials and need to work the amounts.
in the absence of mods such as Wild Loot, the way gear progression works is very shallow: buy what's best on your first visit to town and keep it until the next town. The idea with the soon™ update of Masterworks All is this - without moving anything from any store or chest: every piece of gear from one merchant will upgrade at a different rate, meaning that the item that has the lowest base stats will also upgrade the best for the first two upgrades, up to the exact level as the best piece of gear of that "tier" (which I've generally linked to a zone or town) at +2. The goal is to encourage players to buy gear based on aesthetic preferences instead of raw stats - gear that they would then be able to upgrade to bridge the gap if they so wish. The gear that is only found during quests or exploration will scale better or the same depending on where they are found in relation to the merchant that sells gear of that tier (again rewarding exploration, ever so marginally.) This solution is far from perfect, as some of Capcom's gear distribution is extremely questionable and basically unworkable from a balance & player experience approach. But I think it might serve as a band-aid to a very flawed design on DD2's part.
The issue with these changes is that they involve a lot of numbers, across 4 different enhancement paths, which means a lot of spreadsheeting, sometimes more than what my limited brainpower can handle. I'll first release a version that only has those changes for the weapons, while I work on the rest of the gear. I'm not sure when I'll be done with the weapons, but that shouldn't be too long now. Although KCD2's release might hamper that some...
Anyway, thank you for reading. I'm unhappy to have left this mod unfinished for as long as it has. I love this game, and seeing the fantastic work of other mod creators (Nick and Mura <3 but not only) keeping the flame alive is very motivating.
Hello! Hope your fine! I just have two questions...
1. What's your settings for Custom Difficulty Tweaks to make it perfect with? 2. Also, it will be my first playthrough, I see that it's not recommended to play with your mod for the first time. I have installed Dullahan, Durnehviir and Weaponlords. It feels right to me, it look like it enhancing the experience but I would like to know what you think about that. Should I remove them as well or it's ok? I also plan on playing with Lock-On Combat with Dodge.
Right now I generally advise against playing with this mod on a first playthrough. I'm currently working on an update that will fix that somewhat. I very much recommend playing with Dullahan (I personally uncheck some of the changes), Durnehviir and Weaponlords. All fantastic and flavoured mods.
Feedback: Having this take effect at Enhancement 3 without any change to the costs or materials of Upgrade 3 makes this mod... odd. Suddenly, weapons aren't being replaced by the next-best thing, they're struggling to be worthwhile over the easy-to-upgrade starter weapons.
End-Game Dragonforged Gear got around this by only being for Dragonforged (which you don't get for a while) and costing more to upgrade them (so by the time you can, you probably have access to near-equal gear). You can take your starting trusty sword to Versworth and have your level 5 Fighter rocking the same power in their hand as the Dragon's Dogma itself within the first two hours of the game if you're quick. Versus... somehow getting a truckload of Crystals (hard or tedious), sneaking into Battal (dangerous at low level), finding the Dragonforged, and then getting your god-sword "early."
I've been intentionally not upgrading to Enhancement 3 because it wildly throws off the power curve that feels good. I like how they're balanced statistically... but not how easy they are to cheese. They need to either need late-game upgrade materials inverse to their obtainability, or to be bumped up only at Dragonforged tier. I would use End-Game Dragonforged gear instead, but they're MIA since they posted the mod and it conflicts with everything.
Hello and good day Synmachus, thanks very much for the mod! Its greatly appreciated for a variety of reasons, as I'm sure you can imagine.
I had a few suggestions regarding balancing early game weapons against late game weapons, as currently it seems a bit easy to take an early game weapon to end game status simply because of the availability of the materials.
I had two suggestions in regards to this, either increase to raw cost of the work by 4x+ to make a player really hesitate over the investment in gold farming. Or alternatively, add three wyrmslife crystals to level 2 and 5 to level 3 upgrade for 'low tier' equipment. Reduced to 1 and 3 for 'mid tier' equipment. Thus you need to claw enough power into your character to successfully challenge a wyrm before you can upgrade to weapons to turn the early and mid game into a cakewalk.
It would also be very, very, very nice if you added some elemental enchantments to a few of the red classes weapons. One of the reasons they feel so inflexible is their reliance on buffs to effectively deal damage. The fact that Edens Warden, Almace and Caladbolg weren't properly recreated in DD2 is such a shame. Caladbolg should be a thunder enchanted cutlass, Almace a Frost Enchated Cinquedea, and Edens Warden a Fire Enchanted Trusty Sword. The lack of ability to deal fire or thunder damage with an enchanted sword is such a handicap. It would be nice to round out the maces, longswords, hammers, and heck even the duo spears if only because it would look cool to have a thunder wings asunder, or a holy soul of antiquity.
Wouldn't say no if you restored Almace to a Cinquedea either, there's a Silver Cinquedea available in DD2. Trusty Sword for Eden's Warden and Cutlass for Caladbolg as well.
Just wanted to say, I'm still on my playthrough so I'm holding off installing this til playthrough 2 as per your recommendation, but I am really excited someone is taking on this work, and looking forward to using it when I can! Thank you for your efforts!
Love what I see in the description. I'm glad you took the vocations in mind so that mages don't end up with +1k knockdown resistance for example. Thank you for this!
Alright after playing some with it, I have a few feedback, mainly regarding Mystic Spearhand, Warrior and Fighter body armor.
It feels off to see that Fencer's Jacket, a cloth/leather armor, has slightly higher defense, equal knockdown resistance AND over 150 higher magick defense (max dwarven + dragonforged) than Valiant Armor, a full metal plate. MS armor also have equal magick defense to sorcerer apparel, while having significantly higher knockdown and defense. It's like it's getting the best of all worlds, making it the defacto BiS for the Arisen, which is unlike how it's balanced in vanilla for that vocation. I think some heavy rebalancing should be done for MS body armor, so that it doesn't trump over all the other vocations so significantly.
A good way to see how unbalanced and unfair this is for Fighter, it's by looking at hybrid body armor. At this moment, body armor for Fighter will always be inferior to all hybrid body armor that includes fighter (e.g. Creedbound Armor, Dominion Armor, Thrasher's Surcoat & Grand Surcoat are all objectively better than Stygian Omen in every way), and they'll always be inferior in every way to Warrior's too, making Fighter gear the defacto bad option for red vocations. Suggestion
Spoiler:
Show
Reduce MS body armor 0 resist & physical defense to be lower than Fighter
Reduce MS body armor magick defense to be lower than Sorcerer
Buff Fighter magick defense body armor to be higher than Warrior, so Warrior gear aren't 100% superior to Fighter either
I do agree that Mystic Spearhand's gear, by nature of being an hybrid vocation, is especially strong in comparison to other vocations. And it is a bit jarring to have a leather coat be stronger and more resistant than a full plate of armor (tho bringing gear that looks "simple" up to par is kinda the point of this mod in the first place). It was one thing that convinced me not to take the Sovran's set into account during my calculations, as it turned MS into even more of a machine.
I still proceeded with this method without making exceptions, for a few reasons: one, because it felt quite bad to derive from the rule for a single vocation (just me being autistically maniac) ; and two, because I didn't think the difference in stats was that drastic. But you make a good point and you surely have more experience in playing than me, so it's definitely something I will take a long look at to come up with the best solution. I was actually already thinking of a new way to adapt my method to a more balanced state. I still need to think on it.
Thank you very much for your feedback. I sometimes lose sight of the overall picture so those ideas are very valuable.
You give me too much credit haha. My suggestions are simply that, so you're always free to take or leave as you see fit! That said, thanks for reading and considering.
I think it's great to bring things up to par for the less armored stuff, which is why my suggestions aims to keep your philosophy without leaving Fighter as the objectively inferior option in all stats (for body armor).
Working great so far. Feels fair without being overpowered. I really like the Elven line now; my Arisen Spearhand uses that for all the gear and it significantly cuts the weight over Dwarven. I got my heavy tank Pawn and my nimble DPS Arisen. Even as is I like it much more than vanilla.
21 comments
As stated in the mod description, the mod was released incomplete, and mainly targeted towards already max-level players - thus the oddity of the upgrading costs, which I've left as is. I wanted to add those way sooner, but hadn't had the time or the motivation. I am slowly getting back at it and working on two things that should alleviate this mod's weaknesses:
The issue with these changes is that they involve a lot of numbers, across 4 different enhancement paths, which means a lot of spreadsheeting, sometimes more than what my limited brainpower can handle. I'll first release a version that only has those changes for the weapons, while I work on the rest of the gear. I'm not sure when I'll be done with the weapons, but that shouldn't be too long now. Although KCD2's release might hamper that some...
Anyway, thank you for reading. I'm unhappy to have left this mod unfinished for as long as it has. I love this game, and seeing the fantastic work of other mod creators (Nick and Mura <3 but not only) keeping the flame alive is very motivating.
Hope your fine! I just have two questions...
1. What's your settings for Custom Difficulty Tweaks to make it perfect with?
2. Also, it will be my first playthrough, I see that it's not recommended to play with your mod for the first time. I have installed Dullahan, Durnehviir and Weaponlords. It feels right to me, it look like it enhancing the experience but I would like to know what you think about that. Should I remove them as well or it's ok?
I also plan on playing with Lock-On Combat with Dodge.
Thank you!
Right now I generally advise against playing with this mod on a first playthrough. I'm currently working on an update that will fix that somewhat.
I very much recommend playing with Dullahan (I personally uncheck some of the changes), Durnehviir and Weaponlords. All fantastic and flavoured mods.
End-Game Dragonforged Gear got around this by only being for Dragonforged (which you don't get for a while) and costing more to upgrade them (so by the time you can, you probably have access to near-equal gear). You can take your starting trusty sword to Versworth and have your level 5 Fighter rocking the same power in their hand as the Dragon's Dogma itself within the first two hours of the game if you're quick. Versus... somehow getting a truckload of Crystals (hard or tedious), sneaking into Battal (dangerous at low level), finding the Dragonforged, and then getting your god-sword "early."
I've been intentionally not upgrading to Enhancement 3 because it wildly throws off the power curve that feels good. I like how they're balanced statistically... but not how easy they are to cheese. They need to either need late-game upgrade materials inverse to their obtainability, or to be bumped up only at Dragonforged tier. I would use End-Game Dragonforged gear instead, but they're MIA since they posted the mod and it conflicts with everything.
I had a few suggestions regarding balancing early game weapons against late game weapons, as currently it seems a bit easy to take an early game weapon to end game status simply because of the availability of the materials.
I had two suggestions in regards to this, either increase to raw cost of the work by 4x+ to make a player really hesitate over the investment in gold farming.
Or alternatively, add three wyrmslife crystals to level 2 and 5 to level 3 upgrade for 'low tier' equipment. Reduced to 1 and 3 for 'mid tier' equipment. Thus you need to claw enough power into your character to successfully challenge a wyrm before you can upgrade to weapons to turn the early and mid game into a cakewalk.
It would also be very, very, very nice if you added some elemental enchantments to a few of the red classes weapons. One of the reasons they feel so inflexible is their reliance on buffs to effectively deal damage. The fact that Edens Warden, Almace and Caladbolg weren't properly recreated in DD2 is such a shame. Caladbolg should be a thunder enchanted cutlass, Almace a Frost Enchated Cinquedea, and Edens Warden a Fire Enchanted Trusty Sword. The lack of ability to deal fire or thunder damage with an enchanted sword is such a handicap. It would be nice to round out the maces, longswords, hammers, and heck even the duo spears if only because it would look cool to have a thunder wings asunder, or a holy soul of antiquity.
Wouldn't say no if you restored Almace to a Cinquedea either, there's a Silver Cinquedea available in DD2. Trusty Sword for Eden's Warden and Cutlass for Caladbolg as well.
Cheers, thanks again and good luck brother!
It feels off to see that Fencer's Jacket, a cloth/leather armor, has slightly higher defense, equal knockdown resistance AND over 150 higher magick defense (max dwarven + dragonforged) than Valiant Armor, a full metal plate. MS armor also have equal magick defense to sorcerer apparel, while having significantly higher knockdown and defense. It's like it's getting the best of all worlds, making it the defacto BiS for the Arisen, which is unlike how it's balanced in vanilla for that vocation. I think some heavy rebalancing should be done for MS body armor, so that it doesn't trump over all the other vocations so significantly.
A good way to see how unbalanced and unfair this is for Fighter, it's by looking at hybrid body armor. At this moment, body armor for Fighter will always be inferior to all hybrid body armor that includes fighter (e.g. Creedbound Armor, Dominion Armor, Thrasher's Surcoat & Grand Surcoat are all objectively better than Stygian Omen in every way), and they'll always be inferior in every way to Warrior's too, making Fighter gear the defacto bad option for red vocations.
Suggestion
Currently
Proposed changes
I still proceeded with this method without making exceptions, for a few reasons: one, because it felt quite bad to derive from the rule for a single vocation (just me being autistically maniac) ; and two, because I didn't think the difference in stats was that drastic. But you make a good point and you surely have more experience in playing than me, so it's definitely something I will take a long look at to come up with the best solution. I was actually already thinking of a new way to adapt my method to a more balanced state. I still need to think on it.
Thank you very much for your feedback. I sometimes lose sight of the overall picture so those ideas are very valuable.
I think it's great to bring things up to par for the less armored stuff, which is why my suggestions aims to keep your philosophy without leaving Fighter as the objectively inferior option in all stats (for body armor).
Cheers and keep up with the amazing work!
Working great so far. Feels fair without being overpowered. I really like the Elven line now; my Arisen Spearhand uses that for all the gear and it significantly cuts the weight over Dwarven. I got my heavy tank Pawn and my nimble DPS Arisen. Even as is I like it much more than vanilla.