The Balance Thread

[desophos]

Something else I've noticed is that magic find is a lot more valued by vendors (or at least it seems so) and all the Treasure Finding Elixirs give only +40% magic find. Did you change the magic find formula, or are these changes inadvertent?

[Bluddy]

Originally Posted by Castruccio

I think that the new monster speed may be such that characters who have slow spells (like ice bolt, etc) can't use those spells to slow certain monsters enough to run away from them anymore. In other words, now that the monsters are faster the effect of "slow" is drastically negated for many monsters (thus decreasing incentive to get "slow" spells).

I reduced the frost effect that occurs when you do ice bolt and other cold spells. The effect is kind of a 'freebie' that you get with cold spells, and the main problem is that it makes other spells, like permafrost and net trap, unnecessary. It does slow down their attack time more, and it should be noticeable because within the mod the monster attack speeds are synchronized to their attack times.

Additionally, around 1/3 of the time, monster go into sprint mode, which is faster than their regular speed.

Can you say which monsters you're having the most trouble with? I'll take a look at it -- maybe I reduced frost too much or sped up some monsters a little too much. Also, monsters get faster with higher difficulty levels, so that could be a factor too -- so tell me what level you're having difficulty with.

[Bluddy]

Originally Posted by desophos

Something else I've noticed is that magic find is a lot more valued by vendors (or at least it seems so) and all the Treasure Finding Elixirs give only +40% magic find. Did you change the magic find formula, or are these changes inadvertent?

Great finds on both counts!

The first problem (value of magic find) has to do with a mistake I made in setting the values. I thought the value I was changing was for procs (magic CHANCE of occuring).

The second has to do with a larger problem in the game that's kinda annoying. Everything in the game increases dramatically with level, including potions. This makes sense for some things but not for others. If you're at level 80, why should there suddenly be potions for 200 magic find, when at level 10 there were only potions for 40? Rather, by level 10 you should already have a variety of potions available randomly, and each one should cost a different amount.

Anyway, I tried to reduce the amount of increase for treasure finding potions to 0.5 per level, and the game doesn't tolerate decimal values at some places and it seems this is one of those places, annoyingly enough. I've found this problem in other potions previously, and I need to fix it here as well.

Good job!

[Bluddy]

Originally Posted by desophos

I hadn't played a vanilla Necromancer, so I didn't have an expectation about cooldowns. I actually expected there to be just a shorter cooldown in vanilla and was surprised when I found that there wasn't. I think that if skeletons were tougher, there would be more incentive to take care of them and the cooldown could be even longer. As it is, however, being able to get a lot of skeletons fairly easily means they would be OP if they were too strong.

OK I'll have to play around with it a little and see if I can decide which way to go with it. Thanks for the feedback.

I was actually going to suggest that you improve the drops from chests. As it is now, chests are still as underwhelming as they were in vanilla. I really like the idea of getting loot primarily from chests -- it makes Disarm Trap and especially Pick Lock much more worthwhile.

Yeah I also like it because it gives you options to power up if you're not strong enough to fight monsters, so long as you can sneak around and run. I'll try boosting chest drops some. It's really important to look at the chest type though. Most chests are generic bronze ones, and those have the least magic boost (actually I think it's 0)

Cash is fantastic. Inflation is so low that I find myself actually caring about how much cash I have and trying to conserve it. However, leprechauns no longer drop money -- is that intentional?

Awesome. Leprechauns were a problem. They're really a joke in the vanilla game as they just seem to multiply your money. I've made them run fast after they steal from you, and they don't give you money (I couldn't find how to make it so that they don't multiply your money). Having them be a source of money makes them really easy targets, since they're wimpy. I'm ok with them having no money, so that they're now a real danger in the sense that you may lose your money if you don't get them fast (although you can always track them down once they steal your money so it's not a huge deal. I wish I could make them hide some of that money or something).

I haven't noticed it that much. I've only had one item worn so far, because I just repair all every time I go back to town.

Hmm... I've tried making repair more expensive... Not sure how to give an incentive not to do that -- I want things to come close to breaking Maybe I should take away the 'repair all' button?

Me too. I'd be glad to test this mod as much as you need. I could even help develop the mod if you'd like.

Awesome. The thing I need most is testing and feedback. However, I'm about to do a really big change that'll take a lot of work (changing how monster levels work), so I may be able to take you up on that offer as soon as I have the design worked out in my excel sheet.

[desophos]

Originally Posted by Bluddy

Yeah I also like it because it gives you options to power up if you're not strong enough to fight monsters, so long as you can sneak around and run.

A problem with this idea is that with your changes to stamina, it's very difficult to outrun monsters or run past groups. If you have Stealth it's plausible, but not otherwise.

[Bluddy]

Originally Posted by desophos

A problem with this idea is that with your changes to stamina, it's very difficult to outrun monsters or run past groups. If you have Stealth it's plausible, but not otherwise.

Well stamina is one of those resources that in the vanilla game quickly becomes irrelevant. Also, monsters in the vanilla game are much much faster. The idea behind my changes to stamina are that if you're playing a character that needs to escape regularly or to shoot from a distance, items that give you extra stamina are really helpful, unless you have stealth, or can slow down monsters, or have some super speed thing. VIT also gives you stamina, so that's a good investment too (though that's always a good investment).

Additionally, in the vanilla game, pausing for a second to regain your breath won't give you stamina right away -- there's a 5 second cooldown period there that doesn't make much sense. In the mod, as soon as you stop you're regaining stamina, though at a slower rate than in the vanilla game.

Anyway, that's the idea. That doesn't mean it's 100% there

[Bluddy]

I've just finished version 0.75.

This version consists mostly of tweaks. I've incorporated or adjusted towards many of the recent suggestions in the thread from . I've also reduced the light radius a little more (it's now 40). I think this is a pretty good value -- it gives a good incentive to find at least one light enhancing item, while not being SO dark that you can't see anything. Those lamps are now even more important though.

One thing I'm trying in this version is to have rylor bombs hurt enemies as well. Not sure how this will work out, so it's currently an experimental change, that I may have to undo later on.

I'm trying to work on items drops, making some better stuff drop faster since there are fewer drops. It's going to be in very small, incremental changes though, just to make sure I'm not suddenly spawning too much all of a sudden.

One final thing: I really did end up removing the 'repair all' option at vendors. I think it's a feature that's a little too convenient. It's too simple to just push that button and forget about how much money it costs you to repair items. That same money can be used for potions and items, but it's too easy to just push the button. At the same time, it deprives one of the experience of degrading items, which I think is an important experience. Anyway, give it a go and see how you like it.

[Castruccio]

Looking forward to trying it out. I sort of wish you hadn't removed the repair all button, though. I'm still not going to think about how much it costs and I'm just going to have to click the repair button a whole bunch of times instead of clicking it once. All that removing the button does is inconvenience the user. Repairing is not a strategic option but rather a strategic necessity. To that end, I'm going to repair whenever I have to regardless of the price and I will sacrifice other things to do it.

Give it some thought and maybe consider putting the button back in. You can even charge higher prices if you like, but I'd rather pay more gold than have a less convenient interface.

[Bluddy]

Originally Posted by Castruccio

Looking forward to trying it out. I sort of wish you hadn't removed the repair all button, though. I'm still not going to think about how much it costs and I'm just going to have to click the repair button a whole bunch of times instead of clicking it once. All that removing the button does is inconvenience the user. Repairing is not a strategic option but rather a strategic necessity. To that end, I'm going to repair whenever I have to regardless of the price and I will sacrifice other things to do it.

Give it some thought and maybe consider putting the button back in. You can even charge higher prices if you like, but I'd rather pay more gold than have a less convenient interface.

I'm definitely willing to put it back in -- consider this another experimental change. I'm just wondering if it's a psychological thing (which a lot of things in games are after all). Kind of like how they removed the warp potions in AVWW because it was too convenient. Psychologically, putting the button there encourages players to fix everything, while having to click on every broken item encourages fixing only what one has to fix ie. it sends a message that there's no need to fix stuff unless you absolutely have to. So give it a shot and see if it really is as bad as you think it is right now.

[Shadow]

Originally Posted by Bluddy

I'm definitely willing to put it back in -- consider this another experimental change. I'm just wondering if it's a psychological thing (which a lot of things in games are after all).

Just a side note: these are the type of changes that are really hard for developers to make because anything that changes the status quo without having an obvious and direct benefit to the player is not liked by gamers, even if it is best in the long run. Having said that I don't know if this is a good or bad change.