The Balance Thread

[Bluddy]

Thanks Roswitha, but I can't get into your shared stash without messing up my game AFAIK. I did check out your personal stash and all I can say is wow! You could retire on that stash alone! In any case, I'd like to solve the rare bow problem rather than 'patching' it with an extra bow or two. I did eventually get a weaponsmith who had bows with Sarkazein's character after creating 3 new towns and I did find something decent.

Here are my thoughts for the next version:
- The archer needs to be helped. I'm going to strengthen fire and poison arrows by a little. Another thing that I found was that aside from having lower damage output, bow levels are lower in general than all other weapons. I'll change this. Additionally, I think I'll add bows to the edged weapon vendor. Arrows are edged weapons of sorts, and it's not fair that every single weapon is found on either an edged/blunt weapons vendor, except for bows. Another thing I'll do is make stamina bounce back quickly instead of needing a 2 second wait. Stamina is the lifeblood of ranged characters, and especially in my mod it is one of the most strategic resources for a kiting character.

These changes will hopefully do the trick. If I could also add some class skew to chests, that would be nice too.

- Another idea I've had for a while is to make passive skills that affect crits, crushes and bleeds, affect them directly. Currently all skills modify the current level of these skills by percentage. What this means is that in the early to mid game, it makes very little sense to invest in e.g. crushing blow since you don't have enough crushing blow from STR for it to mean anything. I want at least the passive bonuses to be independent of stats. This also means that if you plan on increasing e.g. crits via a passive skill but don't want to invest in INT, that's fine.

- Yet another idea is how to make potions more worthwhile. Currently you can only imbibe one attribute potion and one resistance potion. I don't see a reason for this limitation. At the very least I should be able to drink one attribute potion for each attribute if that's what I want. Additionally though, I think it makes sense to make potion effects last after death. If Din can resurrect you, he should be able to keep the potion going too, right? The most important use case for potions is when fighting a big bad guy. It's quite likely that said bad guy has killed you once or twice and you want to finally defeat him. If I drink an STR potion and get killed right away, I've lost the investment in that potion and it makes potions not worthwhile. It doesn't matter that the effect lasts for 15 minutes if one death makes the effect go away, especially when death is most common during those times that I need potions the most.

- Finally, there's one topic I'm really undecided about. Around the midgame, damage and armor percent modifiers on weapons become really high. This means that weapons can have damage modifiers of up to 135% (which is really 235% since it's added to the regular weapon damage). Combine this with extra damage for being magical weapons and any other damage modifiers, and you get ridiculously high damage output. What this means is that as you get past the mid-game, you'll find that you have 1 or 2 awesome weapons, and few other weapons even compete because they simply don't have those super modifiers. If before you had 50% junk and 50% good weapons, now you'll have 95% junk and 5% good weapons in terms of damage, which is what matters for weapons. For armor this problem still exists but it's not as bad since you have so many armor items and it balances out.

What this means also is that you do less and less 'loot thinking' as you go. You have your super strong weapons and those are rare, and you really don't need to compare them to other weapons.

I'd like to cap the damage boost at some more reasonable level -- perhaps 50 or 75% (meaning the damage will be 150% or 175% respectively). Of course I'd have to adjust the monster HP accordingly. What do you guys think of that idea?

[Sarkazein]

Haha, yeah I finally found a "better" bow. It's a gray 15 DPS bow. I'll have to try generating a bunch of towns to see if I can get a decent bow.

Speaking of stat potions: the same issue applies to the Enchanter Vendor. Enchanter buffs don't last through death, and the vendor doesn't restock the buffs. The one I ran into also only sold two buffs, but that was also the first one I'd seen so I don't know if that's normal or not.

[Bluddy]

Originally Posted by Sarkazein

Haha, yeah I finally found a "better" bow. It's a gray 15 DPS bow. I'll have to try generating a bunch of towns to see if I can get a decent bow.

OK we'll see if it'll be better once I allow the edged weapon vendor to stock them and I think especially raising the different bow levels should help.

Speaking of stat potions: the same issue applies to the Enchanter Vendor. Enchanter buffs don't last through death, and the vendor doesn't restock the buffs. The one I ran into also only sold two buffs, but that was also the first one I'd seen so I don't know if that's normal or not.

That's a great point! I remember encountering the Enchanter and wondering why I'd want to buy enchantments if they barely last. It appears that the Enchanter only stocks between 2 and 4 enchantments, which is far too little IMHO.

As an aside, having looked some more at potions, I have to say that I really don't like the way they work in the later game. Why should every potion in the later game give you 150 of a stat? That's a ridiculously large number, and it requires limiting potion imbibing to 1 per type. I think it makes much more sense to limit stat change to around 20-30, and allowing several potions to be imbibed if you want the increased effect. I don't really know what to do with the fact that there are 15 different kinds of each potion though. I want to throw out more than half of them but I'm afraid that'll mess up people's games.

The same thing actually applies to food types, of which there are SO many. Instead, you can have 3 food types, with one giving you 30% of HP, another giving 60%, and the last one giving 100%.

[Bluddy]

Version 0.46 is ready.

I've packed quite a few changes into this version.

Potions are now really powerful. They last past PC death, they stack (up to 4 of each kind right now), and the boosts don't get insanely high.

Enchanter enchantments also last past PC death, stack as much as you want, and the enchanter should now have far more of them available. It may seem extreme to have the enchantments stack freely, but I feel the Enchanter is rare enough that it doesn't matter that for that rare instant you can upset the balance of the game. Maybe I'll place some limitation on this later.

I boosted the archer class, but I also noticed that there's a slump around level 13-17 for some other classes. I lowered monster HP to help with that, and it does seem better now.

EDIT: I'm aware that non-scaling skills (spells etc) don't fit the monster HP so much anymore. Until I'm done adjusting monster HP, I'm not going to modify these skills since it's a lot of work. You should still be able to use them, they might just get a little too powerful, especially in the higher levels.

If anyone has a save right next to a bag vendor who has no bags in stock, please post the save. Also, the more high level characters are posted, the better I can do balancing.

[Sarkazein]

Awesome! Did you add bows to weapon vendors and edged vendors in this version? I just finished my town and got transferred to a new town with both a weapon and edged vendor.

Also, another balance issue I've noticed: There seem to be many situations where I'm tasked with finding some NPC in the dungeon (for a delivery, rescue, info retrieval, etc.) but as soon as I get to the NPC, they're surrounded by a horde of monsters and die almost instantly. Especially if Arcane Rylors are around. Their firebombs are ridiculously powerful. I know that town NPCs are not equipped with useful gear by default, but could dungeon NPCs be changed to have at least some decent gear so they can defend themselves a bit?

Alternatively, on the off chance that I can get to the NPC, is there a way to heal/cure NPCs without being a healing class?

Side note: the dungeon vendors seem to be able to handle themselves a bit better. Perhaps they are higher level than their quest NPC counterparts? I know they still come equipped with statless clothing, so it has to be something else... Come to think of it, I believe the vendors have actual weapons, whilst NPCs tend to only have fists.

[Roswitha]

Originally Posted by Sarkazein

Also, another balance issue I've noticed: There seem to be many situations where I'm tasked with finding some NPC in the dungeon (for a delivery, rescue, info retrieval, etc.) but as soon as I get to the NPC, they're surrounded by a horde of monsters and die almost instantly. Especially if Arcane Rylors are around. Their firebombs are ridiculously powerful. I know that town NPCs are not equipped with useful gear by default, but could dungeon NPCs be changed to have at least some decent gear so they can defend themselves a bit?

I _think_ the monsters can't attack the NPC until the player reaches a certain distance, like right at the edge of the screen. Can we shorten the distance a bit, so the player has half a chance of getting to the NPC?

Alternatively, on the off chance that I can get to the NPC, is there a way to heal/cure NPCs without being a healing class?

You can drop food or a health potion on the NPC from a distance.

[Bluddy]

Originally Posted by Sarkazein

Awesome! Did you add bows to weapon vendors and edged vendors in this version? I just finished my town and got transferred to a new town with both a weapon and edged vendor.

Not in this version, no. I want to first see if the other changes I made to bows will make them come up more.

How was finishing the town (with the previous version)? Was it hard? Easy? Let me know if you feel a difference with this version.

Side note: the dungeon vendors seem to be able to handle themselves a bit better. Perhaps they are higher level than their quest NPC counterparts? I know they still come equipped with statless clothing, so it has to be something else... Come to think of it, I believe the vendors have actual weapons, whilst NPCs tend to only have fists.

Looking through the files... I'm not sure why the vendors are doing better as of right now.

[Bluddy]

Originally Posted by Roswitha

I _think_ the monsters can't attack the NPC until the player reaches a certain distance, like right at the edge of the screen. Can we shorten the distance a bit, so the player has half a chance of getting to the NPC?

That's a possibility but I would prefer to make the NPC stronger so it's more 'realistic'. Not sure how to do that yet. I know Shadow said he repeatedly made the escort NPCs stronger, but right now I can't find where that is. EDIT: ok just found it. It'll see if I can boost it more. The problem is testing it.

BTW thanks for pointing that out. Looking through the files, I just realized I forgot to adjust NPC speeds together with everyone else.

[Sarkazein]

Originally Posted by Bluddy

How was finishing the town (with the previous version)? Was it hard? Easy? Let me know if you feel a difference with this version.

Heh, it was a huge pain. Much easier than before, definitely, but still extremely hard. Mostly that was due to my lack of living vendors. No food/potions meant either suicide runs or being super careful, hugging health crystals, and fleeing back to town to Din's altar. That, coupled with my (still) extremely low DPS made progress slow, which led to respawns and a large number of mobs. Sometimes I would find the entrance to the next floor, go down, and be immediately swarmed by 20+ mobs. As you might imagine, I had a LOT of XP Debt Still, it felt good to stick it out to the end.

Even with the boost to the Archer skills, my DPS was still so low that it would often take 5+ hits to kill some mobs, and even more for rares/elites/bosses. I had a lot of bad luck getting mobs with modifiers like gargoyle/stone/huge/etc. ... All stuff that gives them higher armor or regen. I also had a lot of bad luck running into rooms with 3-5 green/yellow mobs.

And the Arcane Rylors... eeesh. Their fire-timebomb spell is so powerful.

Anyway, I ended powering through, and was about level 21 when I saved the town. I believe I found a few more bows with the new version. I think one of them was actually good for me, and several were at least green-quality. However, most of them were still very low level, with DPS around 10 or lower. My current bow is about 15-16 DPS I think.

Anyway, I set my new town to level 18 so I had a little leeway to find a decent weapon. I'll play through it to get a more accurate view of the changes in difficulty in this version.


@Roswitha: Thanks for the tip about dropping food on the NPCs. That'll help a lot!



UPDATE:

Been playing and I've been a bit luckier finding bows in loot and on the Weapon Vender. Actually found a 20-ish DPS bow on the vendor! WHEE!!! Now that I have a semi-decent weapon, things are a bit easier. In practice, killing mobs is still a bit random. Sometimes, I get a few lucky hits and kill a lvl 19 mob in 3 hits. Other times I'm rather unlucky and it takes up to 7-8. Still, Flaming Arrow + Fast Draw is AWESOME now. Drains my mana pool, though, so I'm starting to put more points in INT/Spirit.

[Bluddy]

In addition to dropping food on the NPCs, I think you can also drop resistance potions on them. So if you see arcane rylors on that level, you can get ready to drop magic resistance potions on the NPC right away. I think that would work (and it's pretty cool game mechanism if it does).

Regarding the mana cost, I know it's a little high. By level 50 you get so much INT and mana bonuses from armor though that the mana cost is relatively tiny, which is why I have to have the starting mana cost go up quickly. I've tried to find a middle ground with the mana costs but it's not easy. Also, I think it makes sense that to use skills a lot you need to invest some in INT. The vanilla game doesn't really require it, which makes it a challenge for me to test out characters that were made for vanilla. Let me know if you find that mana costs are really out of control. You can always post your character again at a problematic point and I'll check it out.

Glad to see you're getting some more bows now. I think there's something about the level structure of bows that makes them not turn up enough. Their drop levels are divided unlike any other weapon, probably because they weren't imported from DoP like the other weapons were. I've fixed up the lower bow levels, but I might try making all the bow levels just like the other items too.