The Balance Thread

[Bluddy]

Originally Posted by Kilgor

I hope you tweaked when a tornado happens,I lost like two towns because of it... I hate tornados LOL the hunger is annoying as well,they should die so fast.

I did try to tweak tornadoes -- they should only last for a very short amount of time now, so there's little chance of them killing the whole town. I could definitely use feedback if it's still too much.

I also tried to tweak hunger. It's definitely one of the most annoying things in the game. It should be much more rare for NPCs to die from hunger now, though I'd also like to reduce the chance of hunger happening. My ideal change would be to make hunger a speed and strength-reducing status effect, but it doesn't seem possible currently.

But what I think it's a pretty neat change is that one to tweak certain skills to make them more useful and the ones that are OP aren't much important than the others. I can trust this since you are playing this game for a lot longer than me, so I'm sure you know pretty much about all skills in the game already.

This is something that I've been working on for a long time, but I could always use more feedback. It's really hard to get the skills to be balanced. Also note that mage spells are currently OP. I want to adjust the spell damage down but I just haven't found the time/drive for it yet. All I have time for is small, relatively easy things like doing the UI mods.

Definitely I will continue playing and help with some feedback,even though you got most of it in the previous pages

Thanks. I definitely appreciate feedback. I hope you enjoy the mod.

[Nemeo]

If half of what you said about the current game mechanics is true, this game is badly broken. I bought it because the idea behind it is good, but it features the worst skills I've ever seen. in the vanilla version their order don't make sense and some of them are overpowered.

Your modification is nice. Thanks for your time. People are starving less often (I wonder how this annoyance could make it to the final version). Skills seem much more balanced. They are still uninteresting though.

The only grip I've found so fare is that I can't spend every point in the same tree (I have to spend points in other skill trees, which is quite annoying). I looked at the skill file and removing this limitation doesn't seem very hard. I realize this could break the balance of the game (again) but other skills are truly unappealing. Could you please help me remove this limitation?

I don't know if you toyed with any other script but the gambler spawned in the dungeon and doesn't want to leave. I didn't play the vanilla version long enough to know if your mod is to blame. It's not a big deal anyway.

[Bluddy]

Originally Posted by Nemeo

If half of what you said about the current game mechanics is true, this game is badly broken. I bought it because the idea behind it is good, but it features the worst skills I've ever seen. in the vanilla version their order don't make sense and some of them are overpowered.

I don't think the game is broken. Many people (including myself) enjoy the vanilla game very much as it is, and some of that is because the skills aren't the main attraction of the game -- the dynamic town and dungeon are.

I do agree that the order of the skills doesn't indicate their strength. This is something I tried to play around with in the first iteration of the mod and it proved to be a huge mistake since it creates a massive incompatibility with the vanilla game. Just accept the fact that skills aren't ordered by strength. The cost of skills is such that even though they may seem expensive right now, by the mid-game you get so many skill points (another thing I couldn't touch for compatibility reasons) that the difference in cost means very little.

It's true that some skills are OP in the vanilla game. Some skills tend to dominate, but that's ok -- it's not the end of the world. The vanilla game is also far less forgiving, so you need everything you can get (including sometimes OP skills) to get far into the game.

Your modification is nice. Thanks for your time. People are starving less often (I wonder how this annoyance could make it to the final version). Skills seem much more balanced. They are still uninteresting though.

A lot of things can slip through the beta of a small developer, as I've found out through another developer's beta. When you're talking about a small team with no dedicated beta testers, they rely strongly on the fans who pre-order the game to test it. This means a lot of things can be missed. Also, feedback is hard to gauge: everybody has feedback, and you can't tell who's got a good sense for game design, and who's just complaining because they don't like something.

In the expansion beta, the big issue towards the end of beta (IIRC) was that the town quests, such as traitors, were overwhelming. They were happening too often, making the town itself (rather than the dungeon) the center of the game, which was not the intent of the expansion. Once the big beta outcry for toning down the town betrayal quests was answered, other things (like NPC hunger) didn't seem as big. So while I think some modification was made to hunger, in the current design of the expansion which is pretty darn good IMO, the hunger stands out as being particularly annoying. A fresh set of beta testers looking at the game would probably have noticed the issue, but small game makers don't have that luxury.

Sorry if you find the skills uninteresting. The fighter skills are pretty basic as they usually are. The hunter and archer have some interesting ones, as do the necromancer and the mages. I'm willing to spruce up some skills if I can think of good ways to do it -- I just don't want a kitchen sink approach of throwing random stuff at the skills just because it's possible. There are also the limitations of the modding interface that prevented some of my more creative ideas from being implemented. I think the skills are pretty good myself though. So far, for example, I'm pretty happy with the way that mage spells are affected by elemental resistance in the mod rather than a mastery skill.

The only grip I've found so fare is that I can't spend every point in the same tree (I have to spend points in other skill trees, which is quite annoying). I looked at the skill file and removing this limitation doesn't seem very hard. I realize this could break the balance of the game (again) but other skills are truly unappealing. Could you please help me remove this limitation?

Do you mean skills like mage skills where you're level limited? Those limits have to be there to prevent insane OPing. Because these skills add damage per level, they quickly become out of control if I don't limit them that way. Right now most of those skills are limited to one upgrade every 5 levels, but that's probably a little too low. I'll probably change it to an upgrade every 4 levels. That allows you to reach level 25 by the time your character is level 100.

I don't know if you toyed with any other script but the gambler spawned in the dungeon and doesn't want to leave. I didn't play the vanilla version long enough to know if your mod is to blame. It's not a big deal anyway.

That's a part of the game. Vendors can turn up in the dungeons. Weird, but it's kinda cool too. In the mod, you can end up with a town that has nobody who can repair your stuff. In this case, you really want to guard those precious wandering vendors who can always repair stuff (not gamblers though).

[Nemeo]

Thanks for your answer.

The game has great potential indeed, and I can understand that the dynamic quest system is the selling point of the game. However, you can't expect players to overlook a bad skill system because of a good quest system. It is as if a car manufacturer made the fastest racing car ever and then put the steering wheel in the trunk. Not everyone would want to drive it. Do you see what I mean? The skill system is the tool the player uses to kill monsters. And in a hack'n slash you spend most of your time killing monsters. If something is wrong with it then most people will walk away.

I don't think the size of Soldak's team is to blame here because all the "basic" types of skills are covered. Ranged attacks, area of effect attack, direct damage, damage on time, buff, debuff... Don't take it personnally Mr Soldak because your game is otherwise well made but I think these skills were poorly chosen and poorly balanced. I won't argue much longer with you, Bluddy, as I know it takes a fanboy to make a modder

The simple fact that some skills don't scale is a design flaw. Anyone who played diablo 2 knows that a skill that doesn't scale is useless at some point and by the look of the skill trees I can attest that they did play diablo 2. The mastery skill is not a skill, it's just a placeholder. Spell damage should not be increase by some fire and forget skill. This should be the role of one or several attributes of the character.

Many skills look the same and I think something could have been done to prevent that. You can't just take a fireball, make it an iceball, put it in a new tree and call it a "new" spell. If the fireball is target based, make the iceball area based (in a straight line), then you have a new spell. I don't think this is impossible to achieve.

Another example, if you don't mind. You can summon creatures in two skill trees (necromancer and warlook if I recall). You'll probably tell me they are different because necromancer spells need a corpse. I'll call it an annoying requirement (don't worry, many of diablo 2's spells were crap too).Well, why not making these spells slightly different?

_ Raise skeleton. Requires a corpse and 20 mana and 10 hp to cast. Drains 2 hp per second. Any number of skeleton can be raised.
_ Summon scree. Require 40 mana to cast. Drains 2 mana per second. Scree may attack the caster if the caster runs out of mana. Any number of scree can be summoned.

This is not balanced and the game engine would probably collapse due to overcrowding but I think you'll get the idea. The necromancer would use his life as a ressource. On the one hand, he would have to stack life to be stronger (which makes him quite tough) but on the other hand every spell he would cast would threaten his life. The spell scales as you can raise more skeleton when you get more powerful. The warlock would have to increase his mana regeneration to be more effective. The spell scales as well. He could also threaten his life if were to summon too many demons and run out of mana. 7 pet demons turning against the caster. Great fun.

Sorry for the lengthy post and thanks for answering.

By the way, Bluddy, could you please tell me which line I should change to be able to upgrade a spell every 4 levels? This is the only modification I'm waiting for to start playing again. Thanks.

Oh, and you might consider increasing the speed of pets. As it is now they often arrive when the party's over.

Did I tell you your mod is nice?

[Bluddy]

I won't argue much longer with you, Bluddy, as I know it takes a fanboy to make a modder

I would say that I'm a fanboy, but at the same time I'm pretty critical and honest with the game as well. You'd see that clearly if you go through the pages of this thread. One of my observations has been that many of these skills were inherited from DoP, and in DoP there are so many other design elements (covenants, AI sidekicks, quests, stories, guards, raids...) that the actual skills really are a fairly minor attraction. In DC they are easier to scrutinize because you have fewer elements than in DoP. Some of the skills also had special properties (like stopping momentum drop) that made them unique in DoP, and that can't apply to DC's system.

The simple fact that some skills don't scale is a design flaw. Anyone who played diablo 2 knows that a skill that doesn't scale is useless at some point and by the look of the skill trees I can attest that they did play diablo 2.

True. At least, it's best to be uniform: either all skills scales or they all don't. Personally I prefer all non-scaling skills, because once you start playing with percentages and get to the higher levels, the monsters can rarely keep up with the percentage boosts you get to the higher level weapons. Alternatively you can make the skills that don't scale have something special to offer. Again, I think this wasn't as glaring a problem in DoP as it is here.

The mastery skill is not a skill, it's just a placeholder. Spell damage should not be increase by some fire and forget skill. This should be the role of one or several attributes of the character.

I agree with you which is why I made the change. I think there is some room for a skill that boosts other skills a little, but I'm not sure what that skill should look like. In DoP and the vanilla game, because the spell damage curves are mostly linear (they've been changed a little in DC, but they're still fairly linear), you need to invest a ton of points in 1-2 spells + a mastery, which provides a scaling element, in order to have a chance of competing at high levels of the game. I'm much happier with mastery deriving from resistance, which is normally a very minor part of the gameplay. To me, this is really good gameplay: take a stat that nobody usually cares about, and make it really important for some specific character or build.

In D3, they gave up on damage coming from skills whatsoever and made it all (even spells) dependent on the weapon's primary damage stat. IMO this is just giving up and going for an easy solution to a complicated problem.

Many skills look the same and I think something could have been done to prevent that. You can't just take a fireball, make it an iceball, put it in a new tree and call it a "new" spell. If the fireball is target based, make the iceball area based (in a straight line), then you have a new spell. I don't think this is impossible to achieve.

That's a good point. One of the things that really annoyed me back when I catalogued the different spells is how many classes have a plain fire and forget spell. Fiery blast and Ice bolt at least differ by their effects: ice bolt causes Frost (slowdown) and fire bolt causes burning, but arcane blast and shadow bolt and bolt of gloom are all virtually the same. Maybe I should look at revamping them again, now that I know a lot more about the modding system. I'd love to have arcane blast (the magician's weapon) have a very small chance of turning a monster into a scree temporarily. Or to make the holy bolt lethal against undead but weak against everything else. But these things involve hacks to the game system that often have issues and limitations, unfortunately.

Another example, if you don't mind. You can summon creatures in two skill trees (necromancer and warlook if I recall). You'll probably tell me they are different because necromancer spells need a corpse. I'll call it an annoying requirement (don't worry, many of diablo 2's spells were crap too).Well, why not making these spells slightly different?

_ Raise skeleton. Requires a corpse and 20 mana and 10 hp to cast. Drains 2 hp per second. Any number of skeleton can be raised.
_ Summon scree. Require 40 mana to cast. Drains 2 mana per second. Scree may attack the caster if the caster runs out of mana. Any number of scree can be summoned.

There actually is a difference between these 2 in the vanilla game. Screes cannot coexist with other demon summons. I removed this limitation because I felt it was too restrictive and made investment in screes seem like a waste.

I'd love to have pets drain your mana/HP, but unfortunately the system doesn't allow for it (at least not in a reasonably clean way). There's also no way to tie anything the demon does to your mana level directly.

The idea about demons possibly attacking you is interesting though. I could make it such that all demon summons had a slight chance of changing factions away from you. They would then fight each other as well as you. That would make choosing between screes, chaos lords and four-arms far more interesting: you could get the stronger guys, but then there's a bigger chance that they'll destroy you. I like it. I'll add it to my notes. It's actually even cooler because one solution to the problem of a turned demon is to re-summon a demon, hoping you'll replace the one that turned on you, so in a way it IS tied back to your mana level. It might not work, but I'll check it out.

By the way, Bluddy, could you please tell me which line I should change to be able to upgrade a spell every 4 levels? This is the only modification I'm waiting for to start playing again. Thanks.

In the main mod zip file, open Database/skills.gdb and search for all occurrences of MinCharLevel 5. Change them to MinCharLevel 4.

Oh, and you might consider increasing the speed of pets. As it is now they often arrive when the party's over.

I think at least some of them get faster as you upgrade them. I'll look into it though.

Thanks for your feedback!

[norari1977]

hi i'm new here i was playing Din with your mod for few weeks, and i wanted to say thank you for making this mod. i keep to play Din+DW since it released. this mod brought more replayvalue on this great game!
i just wanted to let you know, there is a player who loves this mod ( even if many of them don't post the commnet by some reason.... for me the reason were my poor English skill ) .

[Castruccio]

Hey Bluddy, is the mod compatible with the new beta patch?

[Bluddy]

Originally Posted by Castruccio

Hey Bluddy, is the mod compatible with the new beta patch?

Not yet. As soon as I have some time I'll update it.

[Bluddy]

Originally Posted by norari1977

hi i'm new here i was playing Din with your mod for few weeks, and i wanted to say thank you for making this mod. i keep to play Din+DW since it released. this mod brought more replayvalue on this great game!
i just wanted to let you know, there is a player who loves this mod ( even if many of them don't post the commnet by some reason.... for me the reason were my poor English skill ) .

I'm really glad to hear that you like the mod. Thanks for your support.

[Bluddy]

Version 0.802 is ready.

The mod now requires patch 1.025. It'll work with 1.024, but some of the things that were recently fixed in the patch, and which the previous version of the mod had temporary fixes for, will no longer be fixed, so I definitely recommend playing with 1.025.

I also added something that's been sitting on my hard drive for a long time: a preliminary version of the NPC status effect idea. You'll now notice occasional status effects on NPCs that'll inform you about what they've been up to. I think this adds a little more depth to NPCs. While I can only partially implement this idea in the mod, I think this still gives a much better feedback system for what the NPCs are going through.