Hey I'm getting ready to play a fresh run after a long, long break. Your mod looks the most promising for what I'd like to see in game. I see in one of your comments you maybe had an update planned. Is that still on your radar?
The descriptions on some guns (Launcher, Stake Shooter, Boomstick, Nail Gun, Long Barrel, Banshee and Infinity) reference a flag {wp-maul-extra} that is never defined in the language file.
Those guns don't seem to have any additional effect it could be referencing in weapons.txt either.
Are they supposed to cause turn delay like mauls do?
In version 2.1, Mauls and Guns had a modifier for -ve Accuracy {wp-maul-extra}. In the last update I removed the modifier, removed its instances for Mauls, but forgot to remove the field for Guns. It does not affect anything or cause any errors.
wp-maul-extra=(-{accbonus} accuracy)It's a copy of the accuracy modifier that Crossbows and Rapiers use. wp-crossbow-extra=(+{accbonus} accuracy) Thanks for pointing it out. I have an update planned, corrected this.
Minor documentation error: In the PDF document, Clockwork Hammer and Stunning Sledge say Random Debuff (85%), but the correct debuff is Slow (85%). The in-game description shows Slow (85%) and correctly applies it. I'll update included PDF document if another update happens.
Hey man, just wanted to say I really appreciate people like you making mods like this. I love revisiting an old game after adding a well-designed balance patch from the modding community. Looking forward to this playthrough!
Version 3.0 - 21 April, 2023 ----------------------------------------- It's been a year, and I balanced a lot of things. The mod is quite polished right now and unless anything needs a change, this big-sized update will be the last one.
Bought back Doublehand and a dummied-out accessory, the Power Locket (Crafting = Gold Thread x1, Platinum Thread x2).
Split base stats into three tiers: Slow, Normal, and Fast (minor variations) to avoid early game speed ties.
Reworked Axes, Maces, Rapiers, Mauls, and Scythes for greater variety.
Reworked Cloth Armor, Shields, and Monster Collars. Elemental resistance for weapons and armor is reduced across the board.
Balance changes to most things not explicitly mentioned.
I am LOVING your changes here, really interesting stuff. Any chance you're working on a class compilation or something that could get bundled with this? A lot of classes on here are kinda overpowered (mostly with growths), and your balance sensibilities bundled with this mod could make something amazing.
Not really. There are too many custom classes to even think of balancing, and many of them were designed to be OP. If your only interest is growths and stat totals, then my calculations in the attached PDF might be of use to you. Stats are present in Jobs.xml.
I do have one more update planned and that is for the monster Collars and some weapon balance.
---Bzils--- I don't think they need any change. Bzils were designed to be master-of-all-trades and they most certainly are. The game gives you only one bzil, and he's probably the best character because of his sheer flexibility.
---Variants--- Again, they're fine. The only odd one I observed is that the Mystic variant gives spell range+1 and that's useless to most physical monsters. Still acceptable because I lowered MP cost for Soul Tendrils from 22 to 16.
---Monsters--- I made ability changes keeping monsters in mind. The 2.1 patch has some buffed monsters: Vangal - Stunning Strike is a nice finisher and Fortitude has ATK/MND Down immunity. Pack Leader variant - Power Strike and Mind Strike were buffed. Tangrel - Defensive Hit and Health Expert were buffed.
If you have any thoughts/ideas on either bzils or monsters, please share.
Hello! I have used your mod before with humans, being very satisfied with it, amazing job! Now I'm planning on doing a monster-only run, do you have any plan to tweak the monsters too?
In fact, I do. I started a monster-only run two months ago, got till Fenfjord, and then put it on hold.
My thoughts so far:
The monsters and their variants are fine. The only slight annoyance is that they cannot go out of their stereotype, and that's acceptable as it's intended by design.
I only plan to change the Collar equipment to allow for some flexibility.
Reducing the dagger's damage to 0 is not really worth a 62% chance for a simple debuff Most debuffs are ranged and this kills your damage output on top of being 1 range, i'd make the debuffs have a 100% chance It's just hard to justify going for such a low chance instead of doing a more eventful and guaranteed action
Rapier progression is wonky, it's as if you just had to add all debuffs there so you spread them among them, if it was a utility weapon i'd understand, but in the doc you say it's better for melee units meaning that swapping to lower damage versions is not viable and the immunity ends up not even worth the attention. I'd make them have immunity to blind cripple and root since those directly cripple your damage output, perhaps have later ones have a combo of these 3 and maybe also weaken
I don't fully get why maces of all things get the speed ups? i'd swap this with some of the daggers
I love mauls but the damage is extreme and the only real downside is less accuracy? the turn delay and the massive debuff list should be more than enough, they have like an 80% higher damage output than other weapons
An upgraded version of the auto crossbow would be cool for the late game, they can use the same sprite
I think that Marked not being able to use spell synergistic abilities is intended for balance reasons as to not undermine other classes. Because it's her unique class doesn't mean it has to be a straight upgrade.
Thanks for your feedback. I will make changes in the next update. I had a full playtest on Very Hard and it took me 35 hours to complete. I speak from this experience, you're free to disagree.
---Daggers--- Agreed: I will buff them to 100% proc. I just didn't do it because the AI would always dual-wield and land a proc. Crits always proc status effects40% Crit + 62% proc chance = 77% favorable outcome If dual-wielding, it comes out to 80% Crit + 62% proc + 62% proc = 97% favourable outcomeThe damage formula is Damage = Base Atk + Weapon Atk - Def/2 (with various multipliers like direction) So, even having zero Atk on a weapon you still do a lot of damage. Combining the Scoundrel's "Exploit Weakness" increases crits from 1.5x to 2x, which is a direct 50% increase in damage output (100% if dual-wielding).
---Rapiers--- Agreed: I will add multiple debuff immunities. Probably Cripple to the Parry Rapiers and Mute to the Focus Rapiers. The current debuff list is 80% vanilla. Parry Rapiers are better for melee because of the +Evade, they also combine well with Parry Shields.
---Maces--- Disagreed: They are fine to me and daggers already have +Speed. In the playtest Maces had +Crit and Lances had +Speed because lances weigh less than pikes. The speedy spear was clearly the superior weapon, so I switched its bonus with the mace. Also, God's Messenger had permanent Haste, which I removed and gave +Speed. Trickled down to the rest of the line-up.
---Mauls--- Agree: They had -8 Evade and -8 Accuracy (to discourage dual-wielding) during playtest. I reduced it to -4's just before release, will change it back.
---Marked--- Neutral: I was reading the steam forums and Reddit for drawbacks, and Dark/Holy Bolt being Skills and not Spells was a complaint. I am neutral on this.
Created new base stats and stat growths by dividing classes into 3-speed tiers
Created two variants for all 13 weapon types
Changed accessories => Jewellery gives MP but costs stats, Shoes give movement but costs MP
Changed armor to better fit new stats
I've completed all the weapon changes and overall the mod is much more polished. Updates from here on will be slow and I'm mostly looking at balancing stuff.
25 comments
Those guns don't seem to have any additional effect it could be referencing in weapons.txt either.
Are they supposed to cause turn delay like mauls do?
wp-maul-extra=(-{accbonus} accuracy)It's a copy of the accuracy modifier that Crossbows and Rapiers use.wp-crossbow-extra=(+{accbonus} accuracy)Thanks for pointing it out. I have an update planned, corrected this.
In the PDF document, Clockwork Hammer and Stunning Sledge say Random Debuff (85%), but the correct debuff is Slow (85%). The in-game description shows Slow (85%) and correctly applies it. I'll update included PDF document if another update happens.
-----------------------------------------
It's been a year, and I balanced a lot of things. The mod is quite polished right now and unless anything needs a change, this big-sized update will be the last one.
I do have one more update planned and that is for the monster Collars and some weapon balance.
Thanks for trying the mod.
I don't think they need any change. Bzils were designed to be master-of-all-trades and they most certainly are. The game gives you only one bzil, and he's probably the best character because of his sheer flexibility.
---Variants---
Again, they're fine. The only odd one I observed is that the Mystic variant gives spell range+1 and that's useless to most physical monsters. Still acceptable because I lowered MP cost for Soul Tendrils from 22 to 16.
---Monsters---
I made ability changes keeping monsters in mind. The 2.1 patch has some buffed monsters:
Vangal - Stunning Strike is a nice finisher and Fortitude has ATK/MND Down immunity.
Pack Leader variant - Power Strike and Mind Strike were buffed.
Tangrel - Defensive Hit and Health Expert were buffed.
If you have any thoughts/ideas on either bzils or monsters, please share.
I started a monster-only run two months ago, got till Fenfjord, and then put it on hold.
My thoughts so far:
Thanks for playing.
Most debuffs are ranged and this kills your damage output on top of being 1 range, i'd make the debuffs have a 100% chance
It's just hard to justify going for such a low chance instead of doing a more eventful and guaranteed action
Rapier progression is wonky, it's as if you just had to add all debuffs there so you spread them among them, if it was a utility weapon i'd understand, but in the doc you say it's better for melee units meaning that swapping to lower damage versions is not viable and the immunity ends up not even worth the attention.
I'd make them have immunity to blind cripple and root since those directly cripple your damage output, perhaps have later ones have a combo of these 3 and maybe also weaken
I don't fully get why maces of all things get the speed ups? i'd swap this with some of the daggers
I love mauls but the damage is extreme and the only real downside is less accuracy? the turn delay and the massive debuff list should be more than enough, they have like an 80% higher damage output than other weapons
An upgraded version of the auto crossbow would be cool for the late game, they can use the same sprite
I think that Marked not being able to use spell synergistic abilities is intended for balance reasons as to not undermine other classes. Because it's her unique class doesn't mean it has to be a straight upgrade.
I had a full playtest on Very Hard and it took me 35 hours to complete. I speak from this experience, you're free to disagree.
---Daggers---
Agreed: I will buff them to 100% proc. I just didn't do it because the AI would always dual-wield and land a proc.
Crits always proc status effects
40% Crit + 62% proc chance = 77% favorable outcome
If dual-wielding, it comes out to80% Crit + 62% proc + 62% proc = 97% favourable outcomeThe damage formula isDamage = Base Atk + Weapon Atk - Def/2 (with various multipliers like direction)
So, even having zero Atk on a weapon you still do a lot of damage. Combining the Scoundrel's "Exploit Weakness" increases crits from 1.5x to 2x, which is a direct 50% increase in damage output (100% if dual-wielding).---Rapiers---
Agreed: I will add multiple debuff immunities. Probably Cripple to the Parry Rapiers and Mute to the Focus Rapiers.
The current debuff list is 80% vanilla. Parry Rapiers are better for melee because of the +Evade, they also combine well with Parry Shields.
---Maces---
Disagreed: They are fine to me and daggers already have +Speed.
In the playtest Maces had +Crit and Lances had +Speed because lances weigh less than pikes. The speedy spear was clearly the superior weapon, so I switched its bonus with the mace. Also, God's Messenger had permanent Haste, which I removed and gave +Speed. Trickled down to the rest of the line-up.
---Mauls---
Agree: They had -8 Evade and -8 Accuracy (to discourage dual-wielding) during playtest. I reduced it to -4's just before release, will change it back.
---Marked---
Neutral: I was reading the steam forums and Reddit for drawbacks, and Dark/Holy Bolt being Skills and not Spells was a complaint. I am neutral on this.
I've completed all the weapon changes and overall the mod is much more polished. Updates from here on will be slow and I'm mostly looking at balancing stuff.