The Balance Thread

[Bluddy]

After completely taking apart my old laptop and installing a new fan, I finally have my halfway decent computer back and hopefully I also have a little more time for playtesting.

I'm working on fine-tuning the values in the mod. Version 0.42 reduces the passive mana regen values a little. I may keep playing around with these values. Also, I made the archer's elemental arrow skills faster. I think that's the only way they can be a viable alternative to the regular attack skill (aside from multishot and explosive arrow, which attack multiple targets at once).

Regarding the items, after playing a game of DoP, I think I've locked onto the problem. There's nothing wrong with common, rare items etc. The problem is with the unique items that are hand crafted. You see, the random items are great, and you keep on searching for the best ones. Eventually you find really powerful items. But the unique items are very few. When playing DoP, I was informed that a rival covenant found a certain unique item. I went to the trade screen to view this item, and I saw that it was really quite ordinary compared to my random item. Sure, it had an extra modifier, but that didn't make it good enough to compete with what I had chosen as my weapon. I'm pretty sure I want to make unique items have awesome modifiers, rather than more of them.

The problem is more severe with set items. Set items have set bonus modifiers that are quite high for their level. The key words are "their level". The problem is that the psychology of sets is such that you tend to keep set items for a long time. Say you find a set item of level 5. You'll keep it way past level 5 or even 10. Maybe you'll think of keeping it up to level 35 in the hopes that you'll find the set's partner, in which case you hope to get the bonuses. But if you do happen to find the other members of the set, chances are that by then even the set bonus won't be worth much, and if it is a strong bonus, its relative strength probably won't last. That's why I *think* that the set bonus should slowly build up to the point that with the full set, you have 1 modifier that is super awesome for the whole game -- even if the item is a low level item. Then, it's your choice whether you want to keep this set and have that one awesome stat, or to let go of it and move on to more decent gear for your level.

Anyway, modding items is a lot of work so I'm not sure if and when I'll get to it.

[Bluddy]

I just finished version 0.43.

The big change here was slowing everyone down -- PC, NPCs, and mobs. I realized it wasn't enough to just reduce the mobs' sprinting. Ranged characters need time to shoot a couple of arrows/spells into mobs, but mobs move so fast that they cover the ground between themselves and the PC too fast. Now there should be time to fire off some shots as well as to use debuffs and such, so I'm hoping that'll make debuffs more worthwhile as well.

DoP is once again at fault here. Somehow, I always felt the movement in DC to be too fast, while the same movement values were just right in DoP. Part of it has to do with the fact that in DoP you could zoom out very very far, so your attack range was actually pretty long. DC is much more limited in the zoom department.

Interestingly, Kivi's Underworld also has slower movement speeds, and also takes place in an underground environment. I think the fast movement speeds were right for DoP's huge open world areas, but not so much for the relatively smaller caverns in DC.

I started out making this change as an experiment, but as often has happened throughout the life of this mod, the change was so beneficial, I had to put it in.

[Bluddy]

I'm working on fixing up the endgame and mid-game. Thanks to Roswitha's character, I have a character in the endgame, and I have a few more in the midgame. I'm trying hard to avoid glass cannon syndrome -- at least for warriors.

[Bluddy]

Version 0.44 is now ready for download.

This thread by Sarkazein made me go back and check if the archer class has issues, and let me tell you -- it really really does.

The main problem with the archer class is that most of the arrow abilities (flaming, shock bolt, multishot) convert regular weapon damage to elemental damage. This sounds ok but it turns out it doesn't really work. I noticed at around level 50 that putting only 1 point in flaming arrow annihilates mobs. This makes sense because mobs have less elemental resistance than armor percentage absorption, and as the game goes on, the difference between the 2 gets bigger and bigger. So in previous versions I reduced the archer skills' strength by a lot to make it so 1 skill point investment in them won't make them OP. Had I thought about it some more, I would have realized that this couldn't possibly have solved the problem. I just moved the problem elsewhere. Now when you get flaming arrow as your first skill, it's useless because I nerfed it too much! And since I've made the early game more challenging than the walk in the park it used to be, you now really need that first skill to be useful! Aargh! Obviously the problem is that you can't really convert physical damage to elemental damage -- it creates issues.

So I redesigned the archer class. The problem is that all 100% of the damage got converted from physical to elemental right away. If I could convert only 10% of the damage to elemental and leave the rest as physical -- that should be fine for 1 skill level. Unfortunately there's no command to do that. There is, however, an ability to make buffs that do that (like Concentration Poison). So that's what I did. I changed both poison arrow and flaming arrow to a short buff that cools down quickly. It's similar to the way they were before, except now they just add some flaming/poison damage to regular arrows. The other cool side effect of this is that you can now combine them with Fast Draw for some awesome power. You can also combine them with multi-shot and shock bolt.

Speaking of which, multi-shot and shock bolt both shoot regular arrows. Again, this is to bypass the conversion of regular damage to elemental damage. There was no need for multi-shot to hit for magical damage. Sure, it's a magic trick/spell, but magic spells can shoot regular arrows too. Shock bolt is now a little disappointing since it shoots a regular arrow with a little extra damage and stun chance. I hope to add some non-scaling electrical damage soon.

So this was a big change, but I'm also working heavily on balancing the mid and end-game, as I mentioned before. I've changed some difficulty parameters, and I've also reduced all scaling skill mana costs. After testing with some characters I found that they were quite a bit too high (as others have pointed out in this thread).

Next I hope to do another round of tuning of the non-scaling skills and to keep balancing the mid- and end-game. Unfortunately I'm still missing high level casters. Since items are less influential on casters, I may use the XP cheat to get myself a nice high level caster in a couple of hours.

[Sarkazein]

Heya, thanks again for taking a look at Archers. I've been poking around with the class and it's quite a bit better. I'm still running into a few problems, but that's probably related to my lack of a good bow. I'm level 17 and I'm still rocking the same 10 DPS orange bow I got forever ago. I just don't find ranged weapons as loot. I've also never had a ranged weapon merchant in my towns (I'm assuming there is one?).

I'm assuming the dearth of bows I'm running into is related to the way loot tables are constructed (I've looked around the modding forums and learned a bit about how this works). I'm guessing the problem is that there are a lot of "non-bow" type weapons that can be randomly picked for loot, so the chance of getting a bow is statistically lower, or does the system actually pick from weapon classes, instead of just "weapon"? Also, does the system take the player's class into account at all?

[Bluddy]

Originally Posted by Sarkazein

Heya, thanks again for taking a look at Archers. I've been poking around with the class and it's quite a bit better. I'm still running into a few problems, but that's probably related to my lack of a good bow. I'm level 17 and I'm still rocking the same 10 DPS orange bow I got forever ago. I just don't find ranged weapons as loot. I've also never had a ranged weapon merchant in my towns (I'm assuming there is one?).

I'm assuming the dearth of bows I'm running into is related to the way loot tables are constructed (I've looked around the modding forums and learned a bit about how this works). I'm guessing the problem is that there are a lot of "non-bow" type weapons that can be randomly picked for loot, so the chance of getting a bow is statistically lower, or does the system actually pick from weapon classes, instead of just "weapon"? Also, does the system take the player's class into account at all?

I've also noticed that there are very few bows and I really don't know why. Each weapon is given a SpawnChance number that determines how often it turns up, and though Shadow raised the chance of getting bows, they still don't show up much. Staves have a lower percent chance and the impression I get is that they show up more often. Actually, I seem to get good bows with my non-ranged classes, but that may just be coincidence.

If you're using the Extra Balance mod, you may want to uninstall it for a while since it reduces the number of items dropped. The more items dropped, the better the chance you'll get a bow. I want to move the non-loot stuff (stronger mages) from the extra balance mod into the main mod anyway -- I'll probably make a quick next version to do that in.

There is a command that 'skews' items for what the player class is (ClassSkewChance), but it's not commonly used in the game. It's used by the regular weapon vendor, so he should turn up some bows now and then. I also don't know how well it works, or if it does well with a hybrid class.

Unfortunately AFAIK there's no specialized bow vendor like the edged weapon vendors. The only exclusive bow vendors are wandering vendors.

I'd love to take a look at the character if you're willing to post a zip of the save files. You don't have to do it if you don't want to, but it could help me check if there are any skill that need boosting.

[Sarkazein]

Glad to know it's not just me. I ran around for a bit this afternoon and managed to get tons of loot, but still not many (if any) bows. Also, I'm not using the extra balance mod for precisely the reason you mention. Half the reason I play this type of game is the crazy lootfest

I'd be happy to send my save. I'm not sure precisely which files you need so I zipped up my "chars" folder. Dunno if it matters, but I'm running this on a Mac. Anyway, "Sark" is my Archer character.

I'll have to apologize for the sad state of my current town. My inability to kill monsters at a reasonable rate has allowed the local bosses to grow in power. I've also had some bad luck with my town getting cursed, someone worshiping a dark god, multiple machines constructed, and many minion raids. And I started this one as a level, hmm, 13 town I think!

Good to know that I'm not specifically missing out on a bow vendor. I'll have to keep an eye out for one in the dungeon.

I'm sure my stat and/or skill builds could use work so let me know if I've done something crazy

[Bluddy]

Version 0.45 is ready for download.

One exciting change in this version is that mana regen items now modify your mana regen by percentage. This is a really big deal, because it removed the imbalance that was caused by mana regen items. Even small numbers of mana regen (2/3) make a huge difference. Non-mage classes get regen items and make the regen too fast for their meager mana reserves, while mage classes don't get enough regen from items for it to count. It makes much more sense to use a percentage of the existing mana regen. Before, I thought making the regen items like this was bugged, but it turns out that's not the case.

I also improved multishot somewhat in this version, and I moved the monster mage boosts from the Extra mod to this mod. I think they're good enough to consider proper balance improvement.

[Bluddy]

Originally Posted by Sarkazein

I'd be happy to send my save. I'm not sure precisely which files you need so I zipped up my "chars" folder. Dunno if it matters, but I'm running this on a Mac. Anyway, "Sark" is my Archer character.

I'll have to apologize for the sad state of my current town. My inability to kill monsters at a reasonable rate has allowed the local bosses to grow in power. I've also had some bad luck with my town getting cursed, someone worshiping a dark god, multiple machines constructed, and many minion raids. And I started this one as a level, hmm, 13 town I think!

Hehe. No need to apologize. This game can be harsh. I think the main problem is indeed the low level of the bow. You're level 17 but your elite bow is level 1! I'm not sure how to make more bows show up. I wonder if the class skew of the weapon vendor is messed up since he has tons of staffs but no bows!

I'm sure my stat and/or skill builds could use work so let me know if I've done something crazy

I did strengthen multishot in the latest version, and it's a really powerful skill in general. You might also want to combine flaming arrow with fast draw.

Eagle eye currently isn't a good investment in the early game. Attack isn't so necessary yet, and critical hit multiplies by the amount you have from your intelligence, which is quite low in the early game. Better to invest some more in bow mastery or just strength. Other than that, your skill choices seem pretty good.

[Roswitha]

Bluddy, I don't know if you can get at it, but there's a bow in my character's shared stash. STR 16 and DEX 48. Let me know if I need to send another file.