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Legend of Grimrock 2 is worth playing now that there are some good mods!

cvv

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Btw I have a lot more positive things to say about this mod than negative but imma put off my final thoughts until I finish (assuming I summon enough strength to push through the bosses :))
 

anvi

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Is there some sort of water walking spell? I keep finding places that I can't reach even with teleports.
 

RuySan

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Is there some sort of water walking spell? I keep finding places that I can't reach even with teleports.

Wasn't that the case with the unmodded game?

I really enjoyed the difficulty on LoG1 puzzles, but in the second one it was a bit too much.
 

Unkillable Cat

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anvi there's a Conjure Ice spell, you can find it in the pyramid.

@Andak: My party was Lvl 25-27 when I started the dragon fight.

And yes, I was noticing that spells weren't really doing that much more damage though the "Arcane Bolt" spell may be an exception, but the system for that spell to pay off is way too complicated.

For those wondering, it's like this: Every time a caster rolls a Critical when casting a spell, it's cast with extra power. Damage spells do more power, and duration spells last almost twice as long. In addition a "charge" will then be temporarily present with the caster, as indicated by a number by its health/energy bars. This charge can then be used in one of three spells that have the word "Arcane" in them: An explosion-like spell that targets every monster within a 2-square range, a spray of projectiles and finally one large bolt. Using the spray usually adds more charges (though further crits will also do this) all the way up to 5 charges. I haven't tried it with the explosion spell, but the large bolt spell will hit with 5x the normal damage if fired with 5 charges. I've seen it do hundreds of points of damage this way.

But anyway, back to the boss fights. Adding more HP only works so far before the boss fights become ridiculous. But then having the HP scale to the party's level? Absolutely absurd. Everything has to scale together, and once a Grimrock party reaches Lvl 16+ the party weapons and spells just don't keep up.

So, "fixing" the boss fights seems to be a simple case of just giving them a higher HP amount, but one that isn't absurd to begin with and doesn't scale to anyone's level.

I'd like to bring up a couple more things regarding this mod:

# Where's the documentation? Except for a list of changes available on Nexusmods, it's all in-game, and not always in the best possible form. If you're planning on making this a mod for other modders to use, having proper readmes is the first thing that needs to be fixed.

# The Firearms fix of eliminating jams right at Lvl 2 is a good one. It should never have been there to begin with and this is a good workaround.

# Having the Aura and Strong Mind traits have such a huge impact upon the spells is not good game design. It's not that having a trait improves the power level of a spell, but the double combo of it being these two traits and how powerful some spells become as a result. Instead of these two traits now being viable options to consider they are now the ONLY options to consider. NOT taking them now is stupid.

# On that note, I'd suggest looking into other ways to make the Traits useful, or determine the power levels of the spells.

# The spell selection in Grimrock was scarce, but now it's overflowing. In my books every spell that deals multiple types of damage (or protects against multiple types of damage) is redundant. Have one for each type, then one more that covers all the types, and be done with it.

# Likewise the 'Detect' spells are detrimental to the game. Previously you had to look for secret buttons and items to find them, now you just cast a spell and they're readily visible, even through walls! I don't mind that there are Detection spells in the game, but the three provided in the mod are pretty bad. The purple-eyed one is OK due to its restricted detection fields, but the green-eyed and blue-eyed ones are totally OP. If there is to be a Detection-esque spell in the game, make it detect something useful, but not game-breaking elements like secret buttons and items!

# Daemonic Pact is a very cleverly designed spell that starts out useful but becomes dangerous later on due to its increased duration. I think it's the best spell out of the whole bunch.

# The Transfer, Swap, Magic Bridge and Conjure Ice spells open up a whole new dimension to the game. Unfortunately they also break it in various places, so they must be handled with care. Case in point: On the castle roof, stand on the square just before entering the "arena". Cast Transfer. Wait. Enter portal to end game. Fuck you, dragon!

# One thing I didn't get is the Darkbolt spell: If there are so many spells available for all kinds of situations, then how come there couldn't just be a Lightbolt spell to counter the Darkbolt one?

# I'm not sure it's a good idea to have spells that do the same things as potions and crystals do. Just saying.

# Changing the Medusa so that one melee attack equals at least one petrified party member makes them very dangerous, but at the same time the best protection is a spell with a monstrously long duration. Once I found it I only needed to cast it once before I had cleared the pyramid of Medusas. I would cut down the duration on that spell considerably so that Medusa still remain dangerous.

# Bombs are useless now. They weren't much to talk about to begin with, but at least Frost Bombs could buy some time against tough opponents. Now all the bosses (and most monsters) are immune to being frozen.

# The new weapons are a hit-and-miss affair. Every gun type in the game now has a "manabound" variant (yes, even the cannon!) and they are just OP. I would change them so either they don't need ammo but have an Energy cost instead, or that they use ammo just like regular guns. Some of the weapons I discovered in the castle would have been much more useful at earlier stages in the game.

But overall this mod is a great addition to Legend of Grimrock 2 - it just needs a balance overhaul.

---

Now, at the time I quit playing I had only 4 secrets left undiscovered. I've found 2 of them (I think) but I can't figure them out.

The first one is at the bottom of the Crystal Mines, where I sensed activity and stuff on the far eastern section of the map. How do I get there?

The second one is on the third level of the castle, the floor where the Cursed Compass is needed. There's a square on the East side where an item can be seen through the wall, but I can't find a way to get to it.
 

anvi

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Is there some sort of water walking spell? I keep finding places that I can't reach even with teleports.

Wasn't that the case with the unmodded game?

I really enjoyed the difficulty on LoG1 puzzles, but in the second one it was a bit too much.
Yeah me too, I did every LOG1 puzzle by myself, maybe took a while to think about some of them but I did them all pretty quickly. But LoG2 was too obtuse at parts. Stuff like the rock paper scissors puzzle just annoys me because that is not a game people tend to play in my country and it is not something I associate with a fantasy world either, it is too real life. There were other puzzles too that just bugged me.

I do love the game though, especially with all this extra magic. Although I think the hp is too high on some bosses.

anvi there's a Conjure Ice spell, you can find it in the pyramid.
Great thanks, I'm heading there next.
 

anvi

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Just killed Rat Boss's brother, pretty proud of how much I kicked his ass :P I made him follow me so I had my back to a wall so he couldn't knock me back and I had him just fighting me right in my face. I have Energy Whirl which I kept up all fight which basically gave me infinite mana, I also did the hp drain and osmosis and I could basically just spam heals as often as I needed. I kept Misdirection up so the only character taking damage was my badass tank who barely took a scratch from each attack. And then I used the Scythe with the power attack on it doing about 800 damage when it triggered. I also spammed spells constantly. It still took a minute or so to take him down but I did it easily and ended with full health and mana. Uber spells!
 

cvv

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Yeah, about that boss. Andak Raïnor, my man, I've been fighting that dude for over 15 minutes now. I must've dealt at least 15000 damage to him. At this point I don't know if he's bugged or he has like 100 000 HP or some such because my head is spinning from all the strafing. Night and day changed during the fight and I starved twice. :lol:

I'm giving up on the mod too for now, until you have a look at some of the balance issues.

Btw when I said the HP pools are waaaaay too big I meant just bosses. So far I found HP and damage of all regular mobs just perfect for Hard (the fights in the spider infested mines were pretty epic). But the bosses should be taken care of - no HP scaling, no HP bigger than 4k. Damage balance is ok.

As for other feedback - pretty much seconding what Unkillable Cat wrote. The traits - I'd suggest removing the Aura and Strong Will bonuses altogether, they're way too strong right now and I don't think your spells even need boosts like this.

I also think the number of spells is unnecessary. Definitelly all the shield spells, completely redundant. I actually like all the combined bolt spells, very handy on Hard, but not having them would be fine too.

I'm very torn about Oracle and Water Breathing. Oracle does eliminate the hunt for secrets, then again I was never too excited about checking every single wall manually. Plus the item reveal feature is awesome, many of the items are too tiny and blend with the ground too much. I for one vote for keeping Oracle, maybe with some clever adjustments. Definitely keep the item reveal. Water Breathing is great, I've always thought the holding breath period is too short but it also completely eliminates any tension under water. I'd probably scrap it and extend the time you can hold your breath. Teleport is very nice but Transfer and Magic Bridge break the game at places. I absolutely love the idea of Transfer, unfortunately it's basically console cheating. Same for Magic Bridge.

Yes, bombs are useless now. Maybe it'd be a good idea to make them a little bit more scarce but MUCH more powerful. They could be your ace up your sleeve against bosses or the "oh shit" button, capable of one-shotting most mobs.

As for Medusas and Firearms, can't say, didn't make it to the Pyramid yet (and I'll hold off on my playthrough for now, until some of the issues are resolved).

The new areas and puzzles are very nice, I like the idea of subtle hints (although some are maybe too subtle - like there are 3 puzzles with the Balance rune but Dispel works only on one; I "cheated" the other two with Transfer). The new armors are fantastic, love the design. Some of them render old powerful armors like the Meteor Set obsolete, not sure if they're not too OP (the Life Set for example).

Btw a possible bug report - the "Power me up" puzzle in the mines can be activated only by Shock, Lightning Bolt doesn't work (I think it did in vanilla).

Btw have you done something to the respawn mechanics? Somehow I thought monsters don't respawn in Grimrocks but they do here. Not a problem, just asking.

Absolutely love the smoothed levelling curve, the fact you can go up to lvl 25 or higher is amazing. Overall great job, thanks for putting in all the effort and good luck with the rebalances ;)
 
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anvi

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I disagree about aura and strong will, I like the boost they give and healing each character individually would be a PITA. I thought it wasn't very good that you need those traits at the start though without any warning beforehand. I was lucky I had them. Oracle is vital to me. The thing that pisses me off about wall buttons is that there are so many in the game, and if you play as a completionist, it means you have to look at every-single-wall-in-the-damn-game. It drove me insane like OCD when I first played, but this time I just use Oracle. I still have to remember to do it and then look for the blue glow, so at least I am doing something, not much harder than just looking for buttons.

I agree about the boss hp though. I would reduce it by about 15-25% on normal. On normal mobs it is fine but the bosses just take ages to kill. I usually like long fights but there isn't enough interaction in these fights for it to be fun, it is just me sitting in a corner drawing the same few shapes over and over and clicking my attack keys whenever they pop up.
 

cvv

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I agree about the boss hp though. I would reduce it by about 15-25% on normal. On normal mobs it is fine but the bosses just take ages to kill. I usually like long fights but there isn't enough interaction in these fights for it to be fun, it is just me sitting in a corner drawing the same few shapes over and over and clicking my attack keys whenever they pop up.

On Hard you can't really sit and tank bosses so the fights CAN be fun. But bosses having tens of thousands of HP is clearly ridiculous. Btw 15% reduction would not solve anything at all on Hard. The boss HP pools don't need reduction but a complete rework.
 

anvi

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I think just a reduction would work on medium. It still wouldn't be interesting to fight a boss but at least it wouldn't drag on so much. I dread to think how long it lasts on hard. I kinda think that the only way to make boss fights work with this mod would be to redesign the bosses so they do more, like pick up the party and throw it around so you can't hide in the corner or pin the boss, and you can't just out regen the boss, and have them use some of the new spells, etc. But that is probably beyond the scope of this mod.
 

Andak Raïnor

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Sorry for not answering to the previous comments, I was a little busy since this WE, but tomorrow I will answer to every one and start preparing an update for the mod based on your feedback! (Immortal FTW!!!)
 

Akroma222

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Some very interesting feedback here!
It's great, no... -inspiring- to see the enthusiasm you folk have for Grimrock mods :P
Andak's Spell Pack (Magic of Grimrock) has been a massive project & is continually being polished and improved
Glad to see your Project making waves buddy!

(....coz, lets face it, we ALL wanted a lot more Spells ;) :cool: :D )
 

cvv

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Yo Andak Raïnor, another possible bug report. After I retrieved the Gloves of Spirituality from the Crystal Mines - the area with the fire troll - game started to periodically crash, about every 20 minutes. (Mind you, the trigger could've been anything, really, it's just I've noticed the crashes right after I got the gloves.)

Btw, finally got to the castle, I hope I've discovered everything there's to discover from the mod (I'm missing one or two items from the fire and water sets, I hope they're in the castle otherwise I'm stumped). While traveling and backtracking I ran into many of the respawned enemies and I definitely love the level scaling on the regular mobs. I just beseech you to remove it from the bosses because with the massive base HP pools (cut those down too) it gets out of control.
 

Andak Raïnor

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Can you please get a screenshot of the error when the game crashes? If not it will be nearly impossible for me to find it without knowing exactly what went wrong.

The castle only contains weapons, all armor pieces and spells are obtained before that.

Also, sorry but I did not have time to prepare an answer for every one yet, I hope I can do it tomorrow :P
 

anvi

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I just completed the game :( :( :( Sad times. It was a great play through, some of the most fun I've had in an RPG. The mod transformed the game for me. The hp was big on the end bosses but some of the spells are so crazy powerful and the better gear, they weren't too hard to kill, I was kicking so much ass late game, doing 2000+ damage hits regularly with just my warrior. Dragon boss took me about 15 minutes to kill because he keeps flying away which is annoying, but the trickster took about 5 minutes and the final boss Island Master only took about 5 minutes to kill as well.

I used almost all of the spells regularly, except for the shielding spells (I only used 2 shield spells). Some of the spells work together with a sneaky synergy that is very powerful. Not sure if it was intended but I could tank anything and barely take a scratch, but I had to keep on top of the spell rotations or I would die. There are tricks to kill stuff easier as well. For example if you use All Must Fall, then everything around you gets almost permanently frozen, so when the dragon summons huge amounts of allies, you can just walk behind them all and backstab them to death. Especially if you have the sword that does flurries, you do like 8 instant backstabs so every normal mob dies instantly. Also you can cast All Must Fall two or three times, with both wizards... so it is spamming the hell out of the enemies, extremely powerful.

And then the big final bosses, they have a lot of hp and I had to keep all my defensive stuff up carefully or I would die, but I could pin the baddies in the corner and whoop their ass. I was doing 2000 damage crits regularly, so the enemy hp went down at a decent rate. I could also spam my biggest nukes constantly. Mana regen was so fast it was basically endless mana, but even if you manage to spend all your mana, you can recover it all in 2 seconds by using Mirror and then a heal and all characters are back to 100%.

Also if you summon the force field in one of the small square rooms, you can just pin the Island Master in there. If you do that, he wont summon any clones so you can just hack him down. Spam the biggest spell constantly, while 3 or 4 copies of All Must Fall is ticking away, and then regular 2000 crits from the warrior, and he gets pwned, I would guess I killed him in maybe 4 minutes or so, but it could have been twice as fast if I rushed and maybe macroed some attacks.

I wish I could play more :/

p.s. If anyone wants to know some of the tricks I figured out I can post them in a spoiler. I ended level 25, Warrior had 565 health, 302 protection, 52 evasion, about 50% resists to all stats, +45 health/m. My wizzies were key to whooping ass but the warrior is kind of the thing that keeps it all together because he stops me taking any damage and I never had to move in combat after about half way, I could just stand still and destroy any enemy, and if the enemy moved, I would pin it in a corner and whoop it. My rogue was just kind of filling a slot by the end, not useless but I would have won just as easy with just the 2 wiz and warrior.

pps. you should see how fast I could run at the end lol! I think I had about 100% boost to air magic from gear, but then with a crit as well on the run spell, it was like Superman speed! I am gonna miss playing this :/
 
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Andak Raïnor

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(If you made a let's play video you could play it more :P, why not with the same party imported to reach even higher levels hahaha!)
 

anvi

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Lol. Hmmm :) It is tempting to play it again, maybe not right away, but I would like to play hard mode because Medium was quite easy. I have never done a lets play though.
 

cvv

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Lol. Hmmm :) It is tempting to play it again, maybe not right away, but I would like to play hard mode because Medium was quite easy.

Yeah, Hard really isn't that hard, you just have to kite more and use shields and Misdirection a lot.
 

anvi

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I think I got everything but there was one room I could never figure out how to get in. It was in the north of the sewers. There is a grate door but no key and no switches anywhere nearby.
 

cvv

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After I retrieved the Gloves of Spirituality from the Crystal Mines - the area with the fire troll

I'm only missing 4 secrets, but I don't remember no fire troll.

Tell me more.

Kinda bitch to find. That puzzle in the Mines "Only the fearless may pass"? Drop through the NW corner trapdoor (cast Wind Runner first), then go from there.

I think I got everything but there was one room I could never figure out how to get in. It was in the north of the sewers. There is a grate door but no key and no switches anywhere nearby.

Don't get it, where exactly in the sewers do you mean?


Btw the only puzzle so far I didn't get was the one in the Mines - there's a greem slime behind a grate and a hole with a teleport in front of it.
 

Unkillable Cat

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Btw the only puzzle so far I didn't get was the one in the Mines - there's a greem slime behind a grate and a hole with a teleport in front of it.

I solved that one. Cast "Stone Rain" to kill the Slime and solve the puzzle.
 

anvi

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I think I got everything but there was one room I could never figure out how to get in. It was in the north of the sewers. There is a grate door but no key and no switches anywhere nearby.

Don't get it, where exactly in the sewers do you mean?

You know in the sewers to the north, there is a gap in the water and you can swim through to a new area with lots of water and some platforms in the water. To the side is one of those elemental monsters that needs killing with the special blade or dispel. To the left is a room that I can't get in. I think you maybe have to stand on the platforms in some order or something.
 

Andak Raïnor

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Hi, I finally take the time to respond to the massive feedback you have thrown at me :)
First, I must say a few things to make my intentions clear:
- I can't change everything quickly. It is a lot of work so things need to be built one step at a time.
- Game balancing is a very delicate matter, the difference between impossibly hard and boringly easy is most of the time surprisingly small.
- So I will have to comment a bit on the fights you all reported, don't take it as a personal attack or anything like that.
- I am working on the real mod the spells were created for, so the most time consuming ideas for Magic of Grimrock won't be possible for me to implement, but I am willing to try and update it.
- I will say I disagree with several things, feel free to disagree with me too and convince me to make changes :P


And...I'm done. Spent 40 minutes on the Lindworm boss fight (my party was Lvl 25-27 when I started) and I'm not even gonna bother trying again, or contiuning... Your solution is the worst one possible: Jack up his HP without making any other changes.

So, killing the Lindworm at this level in 40 minutes requires about 1700 damage per minute (~28 damage per second). The mod allows you to get higher damage than that, even the vanilla game allows it, with appropriate characters builds of course. The Lindworm in particular has 10 times the vanilla health, but it can not be directly compared to vanilla because I can tell you a LOT more is different in the mod than only health. Without the health boost, and with all the buff spells on, it can be one shot before the combat begins... You could argue that even in vanilla with the highest damage builds, you can do the same thing (dual wielding barbarians with cumulative rage potions for example...). Letting the highest damage builds kill bosses in a few seconds could have been the solution, but in the previous versions when it was the case, I got clear feedback that said it was ridiculous.

So as I said, there ARE many other changes to monsters AND characters scaling in the mod that make it not so simple to just compare health pools. For example vanilla characters damage or armor doesn't scale at all at level up, only their health and energy. It is the case in Magic of Grimrock.

But it is also true that the scripting of the boss fights itself is unchanged. Redesigning them is very ambitious and is more something that I do for my future mod than this demo (yes it is mainly a spell system demo).

What your feedback suggests me is more the problem of the huge difference you get between using every possible boosts the game offers and very few of them. A monster's health cannot be properly balanced for 2 situations with such a gap. A typical balance solution in this case is to reduce the gap; stronger base damage (or smaller monsters health), and weaker available boosts. For example changing Might which doubles attributes to +10% attributes instead...



The dragon boss is easily the most boring fight in the game, as it relies on timing and wasting time on killing minions while waiting for a window of opportunity to open to do damage against the boss. With such MASSIVE HP bloat as is going on here, we're talking about a fight that'll take DAYS in game-time and far too long in normal time. No one wants to slog through this. The dragon fight is broken by default, you only made it worse by making it take much longer. This is a bad design decision on such a scale that it breaks the entire mod. The easiest fix at this point is to drop the shield and have the dragon be a constant factor in the fight, not just something that pops in for a few moments. At least then the HP bloat is justified. If this makes the fight too easy in your opinion, blame the spells you put in the mod.

Again, 10 times a one shot situation is not that absurd... I am not sure what to think about it; on one hand, reducing the spells effects and the boss health would solve the problem, on the other hand I am not that enthusiast to make spells optional.

About dropping the shield: it would require a new script for the fight, which I did not plan originally and is a lot of work. The Lindworm is a "juggernaut" monster and occupies 5 tiles in cross shape, that means he destroys all the spawned adds he walks on, that is why the original game makes him stand still. An easier idea I could propose to prevent fights from taking ages is a wipe mechanic that would progressively kill the party after say 5 minutes (a massive aoe the Lindworm would charge up when not moving for example).

My verdict for your mod is this: It's too much of everything. Too many spells, too many quick solutions to new problems, too many ways to exploit the spells, etc. It's a great showcase mod and really opens up new possibilities for the game, but it needs balancing work.

Another proposition for balancing: why not a little menu poping through a button in a corner so every one can scale up or down the bosses health bonus?

Too many spells: I can understand that, and I am not against a new pass of consolidation of the spells. However I have a goal with the pack I don't want to loose; at least one new available spell each time a caster levels up (that is at least one spell for each magic skill point). Alternatively, I would say it is fine if a skill point brings an upgrade to a previous spell other than just more raw power.



I'd second Unkillable Cat for the undead twins boss fight and the rattling boss fight too. The rattling is very easy actually, the minions are dispatched fast enough, it's only those 10 minutes of kiting the cannon rat around the pillar that prolongs it unnecessarily. At that point you can't really lose, the fight is not a challenge anymore, you're just grinding the massive HP pool down, chip by chip. As for the twins, as I said, they have way too much HP on Hard. Sorry but 9000 HP on level 1 (meaning around 15 000 when you actually fight them) is absurd. I put some good crits in Xarant, hurled a few spicy spells, looked up - and his health bar was hardly affected. That is too much, even for Hard.

Health is the same in all difficulty modes, as it is in vanilla. The 3 difficulties only change the damage, cooldowns and moving speed of monsters. Again in this example, the boss could use a wipe mechanic to make the fight shorter :)

You probably thought "people can use many powerful spells now" and that's true, god knows the vanilla is shamefully stingy with spells. But the spells are not THAT powerful, it's not like any of them do hundreds of damage. And more importantly, there's just a point where a fun and challenging fight (which the Xarant fight certainly is) becomes a grindy slog. Fights should be fierce, brutal and short. I'd say cut the HP pools in half, remove HP scaling for bosses and increase boss damage. There shouldn't be a boss (maybe except the final one) with more than, say, 4000 HP on Hard.

They DO hundreds of damage :)
The "one shot" Lindworm from vanilla has 3000 HP, so 4000 would be very low.
For the scaling system, it is not planned to be removed from any monster. The idea was not to copy Bethesda games (It seems this forum does not like it :o) but to allow players to use the "import party" function of the game, and still have some good fights. That is also why I had to adapt classes and so many other things. So I say yes to reduced boss health, but no to scaling removal (that would lead to bosses weaker than basic monsters at high level). Increasing boss damage is interesting though.



And yes, I was noticing that spells weren't really doing that much more damage though the "Arcane Bolt" spell may be an exception, but the system for that spell to pay off is way too complicated.

The arcanic charge system is shamelessly inspired from wow arcane mages :P
To me this spell school is supposed to be the most complicated...
Arcane Storm is supposed to be an inefficient cheap Storm spell compared to elemental Storms spells, but can be manipulated to become the most mana efficient Storm spell when combined with other arcanic charge mechanic spells.

But anyway, back to the boss fights. Adding more HP only works so far before the boss fights become ridiculous. But then having the HP scale to the party's level? Absolutely absurd. Everything has to scale together, and once a Grimrock party reaches Lvl 16+ the party weapons and spells just don't keep up. So, "fixing" the boss fights seems to be a simple case of just giving them a higher HP amount, but one that isn't absurd to begin with and doesn't scale to anyone's level.

weapons gain 1 damage per associated attribute (I should rework firearms so they do that too), which go up on level up. Spells also gains 2% power per willpower. I still agree bosses health could take a nerf though, but still scale to keep up with characters attack power.

# Where's the documentation? Except for a list of changes available on Nexusmods, it's all in-game, and not always in the best possible form. If you're planning on making this a mod for other modders to use, having proper readmes is the first thing that needs to be fixed.

The readme is at the root of the archive "Spell pack basic dungeon". Did you see it? Do you think it should contain more things?

# The Firearms fix of eliminating jams right at Lvl 2 is a good one. It should never have been there to begin with and this is a good workaround.

Firearms should probably also scale with say dexterity. I will look at it.

# Having the Aura and Strong Mind traits have such a huge impact upon the spells is not good game design. It's not that having a trait improves the power level of a spell, but the double combo of it being these two traits and how powerful some spells become as a result. Instead of these two traits now being viable options to consider they are now the ONLY options to consider. NOT taking them now is stupid.

I am a little surprised some of you think these traits are so powerful. Strong mind is a minor boost to some spells power/duration, generally 10%, and reduces cost of other spells; most of them non combat utilities and turn one inefficient bolt into an efficient one. Aura just splits healing spells between characters but does not alter their power. Aura also in not very useful in Toorum mode! (Yes I tested entirely Magic of Grimrok with a one character party before publishing it, I am not that lazy :P). I don't see it as game breaking, but I think I could propose to add more traits to the spells bonus effects in the future. Any ideas about that?

# On that note, I'd suggest looking into other ways to make the Traits useful, or determine the power levels of the spells.

Do you mean removing the spells effects and making those 2 base traits more powerful (adding for example something like +10% spell crit to one of them?) or adding more traits to the bonus effect system?

# The spell selection in Grimrock was scarce, but now it's overflowing. In my books every spell that deals multiple types of damage (or protects against multiple types of damage) is redundant. Have one for each type, then one more that covers all the types, and be done with it.

I did exactly that for the future mod "One Room Round Robin 3" by the way :P
I agree some spells are uninspired, especially the elemental shields spells. I think they will make more sense in my future mod where monsters will also cast multiple elemental storm spells! Another option would be to let the 4 basic shield spell stack and remove the others (in vanilla and in Magic of Grimrock, a shield spell removes the previous one).

# Likewise the 'Detect' spells are detrimental to the game. Previously you had to look for secret buttons and items to find them, now you just cast a spell and they're readily visible, even through walls! I don't mind that there are Detection spells in the game, but the three provided in the mod are pretty bad. The purple-eyed one is OK due to its restricted detection fields, but the green-eyed and blue-eyed ones are totally OP. If there is to be a Detection-esque spell in the game, make it detect something useful, but not game-breaking elements like secret buttons and items!

Well this is an utility spell, that is useful :P
I am not sure it is that bad. The idea was to help people who have lost some quest/important items, and I also saw a lot of feedback from numerous players who say they really don't like to look at walls for hours and rejected Legend of Grimrock for that reason. I thought it would give them an alternative to enjoy the game. The green one reveals monsters, why do you say it is OP?

# Daemonic Pact is a very cleverly designed spell that starts out useful but becomes dangerous later on due to its increased duration. I think it's the best spell out of the whole bunch.

Personally I think Osmosis beats it once available, not so long after Daemonic Pact. I wonder if this spell could get an upgrade (I don't know what...) from a trait or a higher skill level at some point, to make it better at high level...

# The Transfer, Swap, Magic Bridge and Conjure Ice spells open up a whole new dimension to the game. Unfortunately they also break it in various places, so they must be handled with care. Case in point: On the castle roof, stand on the square just before entering the "arena". Cast Transfer. Wait. Enter portal to end game. Fuck you, dragon!

Better than one shooting the Lindworm :D
Isle of Nex was not designed with those spells in mind, that's right. "Summoning" will be!

# One thing I didn't get is the Darkbolt spell: If there are so many spells available for all kinds of situations, then how come there couldn't just be a Lightbolt spell to counter the Darkbolt one?

split it in two spells and remove the effect? Why not, I was just trying to make Darkness more useful when I made that, maybe I should make a "dark arcanic charge" system to make concentration spells more complicated :lol:

# I'm not sure it's a good idea to have spells that do the same things as potions and crystals do. Just saying.

Yeah, in "Summoning" I also remade the alchemy system and removed for example the shield potion. That leaves the rage, speed and resurrection potion problem. Note that the rage potion stacks, which is incredibly OP, but not the rage spells. It is a work in progress. Maybe I could put it in Magic of Grimrock too (I have some beautiful potion models with nice particle effects inspired from other modders in it!). Better potions and crystals with new exclusive effects would be nice I think.

# Changing the Medusa so that one melee attack equals at least one petrified party member makes them very dangerous, but at the same time the best protection is a spell with a monstrously long duration. Once I found it I only needed to cast it once before I had cleared the pyramid of Medusas. I would cut down the duration on that spell considerably so that Medusa still remain dangerous.

I turned that spell in a duration spell with immunity for the "Toorum mode" precisely. With only one character, petrify means direct game over! When you see a medusa, run!!! So it can not be a very short duration, or you would spend most of your cooldowns recasting it. That said, what duration are you thinking about? something like 1 minute would fit?

# Bombs are useless now. They weren't much to talk about to begin with, but at least Frost Bombs could buy some time against tough opponents. Now all the bosses (and most monsters) are immune to being frozen.

I did not change any monsters immunities, except the ratling boss! They still can be frozen exactly the same way. But I agree that bombs, like potions and crystals, could be improved. That would also add one more way to deal good damage and reduce boss fights duration.

# The new weapons are a hit-and-miss affair. Every gun type in the game now has a "manabound" variant (yes, even the cannon!) and they are just OP. I would change them so either they don't need ammo but have an Energy cost instead, or that they use ammo just like regular guns. Some of the weapons I discovered in the castle would have been much more useful at earlier stages in the game.

I must admit the weapons are taken from another modder resources, and I placed them very randomly!

The second one is on the third level of the castle, the floor where the Cursed Compass is needed. There's a square on the East side where an item can be seen through the wall, but I can't find a way to get to it.

Just to the north you have a receptor in the room of the cursed compass. throw any spell at it to open/close the doors in front of this item. To get past the two doors, you will need to use teleportation.

Yeah, about that boss. Andak Raïnor, my man, I've been fighting that dude for over 15 minutes now. I must've dealt at least 15000 damage to him. At this point I don't know if he's bugged or he has like 100 000 HP or some such because my head is spinning from all the strafing. Night and day changed during the fight and I starved twice. :lol: I'm giving up on the mod too for now, until you have a look at some of the balance issues. Btw when I said the HP pools are waaaaay too big I meant just bosses. So far I found HP and damage of all regular mobs just perfect for Hard (the fights in the spider infested mines were pretty epic). But the bosses should be taken care of - no HP scaling, no HP bigger than 4k. Damage balance is ok.

Again HP scaling is needed for imported characters, and 4k is too low for a boss to last more than a few seconds. See my previous propositions and tell me what you think of them.

As for other feedback - pretty much seconding what Unkillable Cat wrote. The traits - I'd suggest removing the Aura and Strong Will bonuses altogether, they're way too strong right now and I don't think your spells even need boosts like this.

Minor boosts and split healing, you are seeing too much in that :P (see above...)

I also think the number of spells is unnecessary. Definitelly all the shield spells, completely redundant. I actually like all the combined bolt spells, very handy on Hard, but not having them would be fine too.

Shield spells are definitely my next target.

I'm very torn about Oracle and Water Breathing. Oracle does eliminate the hunt for secrets, then again I was never too excited about checking every single wall manually. Plus the item reveal feature is awesome, many of the items are too tiny and blend with the ground too much. I for one vote for keeping Oracle, maybe with some clever adjustments. Definitely keep the item reveal. Water Breathing is great, I've always thought the holding breath period is too short but it also completely eliminates any tension under water. I'd probably scrap it and extend the time you can hold your breath. Teleport is very nice but Transfer and Magic Bridge break the game at places. I absolutely love the idea of Transfer, unfortunately it's basically console cheating. Same for Magic Bridge.

Not really a problem, breaking puzzle we all know perfectly well in Isle of Nex is not a big deal. And using a spell to break a puzzle is perfectly legit from my point of view! Removing Water Breathing and holding breath longer would be the same as just reducing Water Breathing duration.

Yes, bombs are useless now. Maybe it'd be a good idea to make them a little bit more scarce but MUCH more powerful. They could be your ace up your sleeve against bosses or the "oh shit" button, capable of one-shotting most mobs.

Do you think there are too many bombs, assuming they would be more powerful?

The new areas and puzzles are very nice, I like the idea of subtle hints (although some are maybe too subtle - like there are 3 puzzles with the Balance rune but Dispel works only on one; I "cheated" the other two with Transfer). The new armors are fantastic, love the design. Some of them render old powerful armors like the Meteor Set obsolete, not sure if they're not too OP (the Life Set for example).

Too OP? No, old epics are just too weak :P

Btw a possible bug report - the "Power me up" puzzle in the mines can be activated only by Shock, Lightning Bolt doesn't work (I think it did in vanilla).

I did not change anything there, but I changed Lightning Bolt obviously, I will check that receptor.

Btw have you done something to the respawn mechanics? Somehow I thought monsters don't respawn in Grimrocks but they do here. Not a problem, just asking.

No changes there (except spider eggs, obviously!!!)

Absolutely love the smoothed levelling curve, the fact you can go up to lvl 25 or higher is amazing. Overall great job, thanks for putting in all the effort and good luck with the rebalances ;)

Keep your saved game ready to import your characters in the next version ;)

I disagree about aura and strong will, I like the boost they give and healing each character individually would be a PITA. I thought it wasn't very good that you need those traits at the start though without any warning beforehand. I was lucky I had them. Oracle is vital to me. The thing that pisses me off about wall buttons is that there are so many in the game, and if you play as a completionist, it means you have to look at every-single-wall-in-the-damn-game. It drove me insane like OCD when I first played, but this time I just use Oracle. I still have to remember to do it and then look for the blue glow, so at least I am doing something, not much harder than just looking for buttons.

I agree, except for the traits, they are not that powerful!!! Especially once you have Osmosis.

I agree about the boss hp though. I would reduce it by about 15-25% on normal. On normal mobs it is fine but the bosses just take ages to kill. I usually like long fights but there isn't enough interaction in these fights for it to be fun, it is just me sitting in a corner drawing the same few shapes over and over and clicking my attack keys whenever they pop up.

Again, all difficulties use the same health. But I agree to try a reduction. I think something like -50% of the added health (not the base) could work.



On Hard you can't really sit and tank bosses so the fights CAN be fun. But bosses having tens of thousands of HP is clearly ridiculous. Btw 15% reduction would not solve anything at all on Hard. The boss HP pools don't need reduction but a complete rework.

What do you mean? Scaling won't go because of imported characters like I said before. If by rework you mean re scripting the figths, that is a long term goal.

I think just a reduction would work on medium. It still wouldn't be interesting to fight a boss but at least it wouldn't drag on so much. I dread to think how long it lasts on hard. I kinda think that the only way to make boss fights work with this mod would be to redesign the bosses so they do more, like pick up the party and throw it around so you can't hide in the corner or pin the boss, and you can't just out regen the boss, and have them use some of the new spells, etc. But that is probably beyond the scope of this mod.

Exactly, but zone spells that get more and more powerful as the fight continues is something I am really considering now :P

Some very interesting feedback here!
It's great, no... -inspiring- to see the enthusiasm you folk have for Grimrock mods :P
Andak's Spell Pack (Magic of Grimrock) has been a massive project & is continually being polished and improved
Glad to see your Project making waves buddy!

(....coz, lets face it, we ALL wanted a lot more Spells ;) :cool: :D )

Yeah Akroma! Nice to see you here! Hey people, Akroma is 100% responsible for the Strong Mind and Aura trait design, let it be known :D
All of us, we always want mooore spells!

I just completed the game :( :( :( Sad times. It was a great play through, some of the most fun I've had in an RPG. The mod transformed the game for me. The hp was big on the end bosses but some of the spells are so crazy powerful and the better gear, they weren't too hard to kill, I was kicking so much ass late game, doing 2000+ damage hits regularly with just my warrior. Dragon boss took me about 15 minutes to kill because he keeps flying away which is annoying, but the trickster took about 5 minutes and the final boss Island Master only took about 5 minutes to kill as well.

Well, here you are saying the fight did not last so long after all? I am confused now :lol:
Or did you find the true power of The Multiple Magic Schools Spell Pack? :)

I used almost all of the spells regularly, except for the shielding spells (I only used 2 shield spells). Some of the spells work together with a sneaky synergy that is very powerful. Not sure if it was intended but I could tank anything and barely take a scratch, but I had to keep on top of the spell rotations or I would die.

Tanking was my life for 10 years! I can't stop tanking things now!

I wish I could play more :/

Thank you for all the fish :)
 

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