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Yeah for me the only difficult part was the middle of the game. That big ratboss in the sewers and the undead dude in the dungeon that has 3 skull keys to trigger him. I think at that point I wasn't strong enough to tank them, my mana regen wasn't that good, and my damage output wasn't very good, so they were long fights. But later in the game I became A BADASS! The Lindwurm, Trickster, and Island Master, I whooped them good. Lindwurm took quite a long time, I think like 15-20 minutes or something, but that is only really because he keeps flying away when I am trying to own him. I just quick saved mid fight and then finished him the next day. But the Trickster And Island Master I killed in under 5 mins. I had so much mana regen I could just use all my best stuff constantly. And the Scythe really helped a lot, lots of 2000 damage crits.
I think the magic nukes were not that powerful, but All Must Fall seems like an exception. I also cast it about 4 or 5 times and it seemed to get good when you had multiple copies of it working. But I think there might be a bug if you cast it too many times, because I couldn't cast any other spells.
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.
You make a DPS calculation for a boss (while seemingly ignoring the fact that he only makes himself vulnerable to attack for a short amount of time) and realize that the DPS required is within the realm of possibility, so you conclude that there's nothing wrong? Even though the "realm of possibility" is dependant upon a munchkin party build and exploitation of overpowered spells created by your mod?
Not everyone plays the game in the same manner. Not everyone is looking to squeeze out every drop of damage the game can offer.
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...
As I had already said, the dragon boss fight is the weakest part of the game, and it's not going to be easy to fix that. But with the mentality you're sporting it's going to be even harder.
# 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.
Yes! Start by making a standard readme.txt which is included with the mod file, but outside of it. Let people have easy access to it. Then you should consider making another text file that explains every spell in the game. That could just be a copy/paste from each spell's in-game description, but when you have so many spells their effects need to be made available out-of-game.
Another problem I came across while experimenting with some of the spells that I had rarely used, which underlines how the mod has too many spells: If the mod requires that the spell scrolls be found first before the spell can be cast (even though the spellcaster fulfills every other requirement), then the game mechanic of having to draw the runes becomes redundant. Juggling dozens of rune drawings is a micromanagement chore no one wants to do. That is one of the reasons why both Grimrock games don't have that many spells to begin with.
If I were to design Grimrock's spells, I would do it so:
# Have each level in every school grant access to at least one new spell.
# For the elemental schools I'd have Level 1 be an attack spell that targets the square in front of the party.
# For Level 2 I would have the shield spells for each element.
# For Level 3 I would have the "standard" projectile spells.
# For Level 4 I would put in useful spells, but not identical spells with an elemental variant. The Trap Rune for Fire, the Conjure Ice spell for Water, the rapid running spell for Air and some kind of healing spell for Earth (one that's not too powerful though) is a good example.
# For Level 5 I would put in the Mega projectile spells for each element.
# In addition to the above, I would put in some spells that require levels in other elemental schools. An all-encompassing elemental shield that requires all elemental schools at level 2, and a powerful Megadeath projectile spell of all the elements that requires all elemental schools at 5, plus a few others.
# For Concentration I would put in the utility spells: Dispel and Daemonic Pact for Level 1, Light and Darkness for Level 2, Darkbolt and Lightbolt for Level 3, Invisibility and Force Wall for Level 4 and a couple of cool utility spells for Level 5.
# I would keep the total amount of spells to a fixed number. 36 sounds nice, maybe 40 if need be. (The above example has 32 spells.)
# Your rune drawings for many of these spells are simple and logical, I would keep them and go from there.
# 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 ). 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?
The problem is this: Grimrock does not normally allow for spells to target specific party members (that's what the potions are for), so any spell that's supposed to benefit the party must do so by default, which is what the vanilla spells do. Without the Aura trait you have many useful spells that either pick the caster or automatically pick one member of the party, making them somewhat balanced. The Aura trait circumvents that drawback, hence its power.
And seeing how costly some of the higher-level spells are in Mana, and how the mod is dependant upon those higher-level spells, it's a given that players will pick the Strong Mind trait.
You need to redesign the spells so that they only benefit somewhat from these two traits, but not make them mandatory choices.
On that note, I realize while reading this that you need to change some spells into potions. Misdirection, for example, makes for a much better potion than a spell.
On the subject of the detection spells - if you can't understand why having them makes them so powerful (to the point that they hurt the game) then I seriously start to wonder why I'm bothering here. If you want to have them in the game, fine - but have them as endgame spells, or even post-game spells. Beat the Island Master and you gain access to these spells, for example.
On the subject of the Darkness spell, an idea: Create a dungeon that has no light sources in it. At all. Not even ambient light from gemstones or whatever. Make players have to use light sources more. But, also create a monster whose appearance makes it very hard to see it in the dark (the less noise it makes the better) and that hates light, targets it and attacks it relentlessly (like a party of adventurers with an active Light spell). The key to this would be to make the monster immune to damage while it's near a light source, which will eventually make the player realize that he has to go through the dungeon in the dark. That base idea can then be expanded upon in many ways, and would create a really spooky and scary dungeon for Grimrock. It would take some work to get done, but if done properly it would be legendary.
For the Protection from Petrification spell, I would think a base duration of 2 minutes should be enough, with a maximum possible duration of 4 minutes or so. That should even give poor Toorum a chance to kill a Medusa or two before needing to cast it again.
Finally, the new firearms. The new Rifle needs to be placed much earlier in the mod, shortly after the Arquebus can be found. The manabound variants are OP as-is, having them also require ammonution is the most sensible way to balance them out.
As for the old firearms, I've always had trouble with the cannon. It's big, it's heavy, it's skill-intensive, and has a very limited amount of ammo. I think your mod adds more cannonballs, but for me that's not enough to justify even using it. For me the cannon is a "smart bomb" of sorts - point it at a monster and fire and that monster should either be dead or at death's door. I'm talking upping the damage considerably - having one cannonball do hundreds of points of damage. Something that should be used in times of emergency.
But at the end of the day these are all suggestions - I hope they'll be of some use.
Thanks Andak Raïnor for the write up, I can only post a quick, stream-of-thought kindda reaction.
1. Traits - I didn't mean they're too OP in their effect. I meant when you pick a Wizard or a Battlemage you can choose from two dozen different traits but in reality only Aura and Strong Mind make sense. You'd be gimping yourself not to take them and that, due to your emphasis on boosting your people and their abilities to the max, is not advisable.
2. I seriously didn't know bosses have the same health across difficulties. Interesting. Maybe something to look at since it's probably the only RPG that doesn't increase mob HP with difficulty. I admit I didn't use every option I had to boost my damage output and that's my bad. Making players use all the tools in their bag on the hardest difficulty is actually a good RPG design. But even then the fights would take too long for my taste. A compromise - I think your suggestion to cut down the added health by 50% makes sense.
3. The Arcane spells are interesting but in the end too fiddly. Spell crits are not that frequent and the charges don't stay for very long to accumulate multiples of them. I almost never used them.
4. Unkillable Cat comment about the redundancy of the rune-drawing system is interesting and there's something to it. Then again crawing runes in the middle of a fight does create tension. Plus I've always thought the vanilla mechanics where you can cast a spell just by googling it was kindda stupid. I actually prefer your system. It's true that drawing runes is confusing now but that's just because there are too many spells. Cut them in half and we'll be fine.
5. Oracle - as I said, I've always hated checking every wall manually so I vote to keep that spell. But if you can figure out how to keep it AND preserve SOME sense of hunting for secrets (right now you can see all the secret buttons a mile away) it'd be fantastic. Why not take an inspiration from various "Wizard's Eye" type of spells in other RPGs where your magical eye starts to blink only when you're in some proximity to a secret? That way you'd still have to check nearby walls yourself. The current system of detecting items, constructs and living mobs is fine.
6. Breaking puzzles - the only instance I absolutely, adamantly disagree with you. But this is Codex, it's all about having rought disagreements. Letting players to break puzzles in a puzzle game isn't a big deal? I can't believe you actually said it. Cue Margaret Thatcher - NO, NO, NO! Bad design!
7. I fully support shortening the Water Breathing duration, absolutely. As I cast it now it lasts 160 seconds or so which is WAY too long. No tension under water.
8. Bombs - absolutely, if bombs were significantly more powerful (capable of one-shotting most mobs or seriously hurting/disabling bosses) there'd be too many of them (I think I found what, 25 lightning bombs so far? And that's just one type).
9. Firearms - I've never used them in any of my playthroughs but I agree with Unkillable Cat 100%. The new weapons from the castle as described should be probably removed and instead make the current ones more useful. Especially the cannon!
Good luck making the adjustments (the faster the better of course :D).
4. Unkillable Cat comment about the redundancy of the rune-drawing system is interesting and there's something to it. Then again crawing runes in the middle of a fight does create tension. Plus I've always thought the vanilla mechanics where you can cast a spell just by googling it was kindda stupid. I actually prefer your system. It's true that drawing runes is confusing now but that's just because there are too many spells. Cut them in half and we'll be fine.
Precisely. If you have many spells (like the Eye of the Beholder games do) then a menu system will be needed to manage and cast them. But Grimrock's system requires that the number of spells be kept in check - we're not supposed to have to install macros or print out a couple of pages to be able to use the game's spells.
The other topic is whether the spells should be available at any time, or that the spell scrolls need to be found first. This is a question of replay value - going through a game a second time, just to make your way to that one location where the one scroll of "Awesome" lies makes about as much sense as creating a specific character just so that he can cast a powerfull spell right after the first level-up. I think the most sensible solution would be to split the spells down the middle - some spells are easily known and are lways accessible, some spells need the scroll first. Best of both worlds.
I don't like the spell drawing thing that much. I did ok, I didn't even use macros in the end because I mostly used the same several spells over and over. But I thought a good way to do it might be to let the player put the spellbook in your hands. Then to cast a spell you click the spellbook and it opens to reveal all the spells, and then you just click the spell icon you want. And ideally if you could move the spells in the book, it would be almost like making your own hotbars.
I don't like the spell drawing thing that much. I did ok, I didn't even use macros in the end because I mostly used the same several spells over and over. But I thought a good way to do it might be to let the player put the spellbook in your hands. Then to cast a spell you click the spellbook and it opens to reveal all the spells, and then you just click the spell icon you want. And ideally if you could move the spells in the book, it would be almost like making your own hotbars.
I missed that post tbh, also I mentioned EotB first Eotb way would be better really, but it is a bit different to what I described because it has the spell names in text, and it also has spells sorted by level. I was thinking more of having it like EverQuest where you have a spellbook and you can move spells around, so you put emergency stuff on page 1, and then less important stuff on the next page, and then just buffs on the page after that etc. But Eotb way would be best.
Another problem I came across while experimenting with some of the spells that I had rarely used, which underlines how the mod has too many spells: If the mod requires that the spell scrolls be found first before the spell can be cast (even though the spellcaster fulfills every other requirement), then the game mechanic of having to draw the runes becomes redundant. Juggling dozens of rune drawings is a micromanagement chore no one wants to do. That is one of the reasons why both Grimrock games don't have that many spells to begin with.
Perhaps not redundant - needing to remember the rune combos for each spell is tapping a player's 1) short/long term memory skills -and in conjunction with- 2) their (real life) reaction time/dexterity under pressure
.... which is fitting with Grimrocks evasive combat system imho, however, youre probably right that the decision to have such a low # vanilla spells was due to this consideration
tbh - Running through my LoG1 mod (which included ~120 spells), even I the maker of it, had alot of trouble (well, I just couldnt) remembering all the rune combos
Needing to find and learn scrolls before casting has been very popular idea in the forums as most modders dont want folks stat dumping and then fireballing their way through early areas of the game
(sorry if that was obvious)
The problem is this: Grimrock does not normally allow for spells to target specific party members (that's what the potions are for), so any spell that's supposed to benefit the party must do so by default, which is what the vanilla spells do. Without the Aura trait you have many useful spells that either pick the caster or automatically pick one member of the party, making them somewhat balanced. The Aura trait circumvents that drawback, hence its power.
On the subject of the Darkness spell, an idea: Create a dungeon that has no light sources in it. At all. Not even ambient light from gemstones or whatever. Make players have to use light sources more. But, also create a monster whose appearance makes it very hard to see it in the dark (the less noise it makes the better) and that hates light, targets it and attacks it relentlessly (like a party of adventurers with an active Light spell). The key to this would be to make the monster immune to damage while it's near a light source, which will eventually make the player realize that he has to go through the dungeon in the dark. That base idea can then be expanded upon in many ways, and would create a really spooky and scary dungeon for Grimrock. It would take some work to get done, but if done properly it would be legendary. .
I am working on bonuses from other traits, and from the magic skills levels themselves.
Here is what I have for now:
- 4 elemental schools reduced to 2 spells, 3 elements to 3 spells, 2 elements to 4 spells.
- removed all multiple elemental shield. I will add to the 4 vanilla shields this: with 5 points in Concentration, casting a shield spell will not remove other elemental shields.
- Daemon ancestor trait double the health to energy transfer rate of Demonic Pact instead of Strong Mind. At 3 points in fire and air magic, you gain spell critical chance equals to half your missing health percentage.
- Haste requires fire and air magic 2 (Time Bolt moved to 5), applies to all characters for fire and air 3, and gets the Alter Time effect at fire and air 5 (Alter Time is removed).
- Flow of Mind gets the Energy whirl effect (which is removed) in a reduced version at fire, air and water 2 and in full version at 4. Also it uses the Poison Resistance trait instead of Strong Mind to double its duration.
- Other similar changes... I plan on working on reducing single magic schools spells today.
Sorry but I don't understand what you mean. What do mean by streamlining the stats? Also, I don't plan to remove lots of spells, just the elemental shields and merging a few others that don't do much together so they become more interesting (and reducing bosses added health). Also spreading bonus effects on all traits the game offers instead of aura and strong mind.
At this point with elemental shields removal and spells consolidation, it means a reduction of 17 spells, from 105 to 88 spells. Do you think it should stay at 105 instead? That could be, but in this case I would need 11 new ideas of spells to replace the shields. Or do you think the shields must be kept?
The streamlining bit was sarcasm, it is what Elder Scrolls does! I think 88 spells would be ok though, removing or combining some of the shields seems like a good idea, and I never used them anyway. I just used the angelic shield thing, and the standard physical protection shield. But I think removing or combining other spells would be bad.
The streamlining bit was sarcasm, it is what Elder Scrolls does! I think 88 spells would be ok though, removing or combining some of the shields seems like a good idea, and I never used them anyway. I just used the angelic shield thing, and the standard physical protection shield. But I think removing or combining other spells would be bad.
And I think 88 spells is way too much. Remember, you yourself had to set up mouse macros to compensate for all the rune-drawing you needed to do.
When you have a game mechanic that requires real-time on-the-fly actions such as drawing a simple image, you can't go about making it overly complicated by dumping dozens of images on the player.
This is why I suggested cutting down the number of spells to below 50% of their current number, and turning some of the spells (like Misdirection) into potions. Because your tactic of using Misdirection to cheese your way through every battle is something that I (if I were developing this mod) would nerf at the first possible opportunity, and forcing you to expend resources to pull it off is an obvious first step.
I didn't use macros in the end because the spells kept changing, it would have taken too much effort to make all the different ones. When you fight a fire mob you can't use anything that has fireballs, when you fight an undead, it is a waste using anything that fires poison, etc. So it is best to learn them and use what is best for each enemy. There isn't that much. I had a buffing routine that I kept up constantly which was about 10 ish spells, that was the hardest part. Then I only really used the same 3 or 4 attack spells over and over.
You can get by on using fewer spells. I think he should keep all the spells, maybe even have more (I have a game that has even more spells than this.) And just get rid of the rune drawing thing and have a spellbook instead.
I didn't use macros in the end because the spells kept changing, it would have taken too much effort to make all the different ones. When you fight a fire mob you can't use anything that has fireballs, when you fight an undead, it is a waste using anything that fires poison, etc. So it is best to learn them and use what is best for each enemy. There isn't that much. I had a buffing routine that I kept up constantly which was about 10 ish spells, that was the hardest part. Then I only really used the same 3 or 4 attack spells over and over.
You can get by on using fewer spells. I think he should keep all the spells, maybe even have more (I have a game that has even more spells than this.) And just get rid of the rune drawing thing and have a spellbook instead.
When you say "game that has more spells than this", do you mean another Grimrock mod? Or a game that actually has a rune drawing-element (or equivalent) in its spellcasting?
And maybe it's due to how I've played RPGs in the past, but I find 10 buff spells being in use simultaneously to be an absurd amount. Generally I have 2-3 active buffs in play, maybe an extra situational one on top of that. In Grimrock I have a Light spell active and maybe a relevant Elemental Shield, if needed. I can't even remember a single RPG where so many buff spells would be needed and was nothing else but overkill. In fact I'm gonna go so far as to say that such a magic system in a RPG is horribly and utterly broken, which is a pretty accurate description of the magic system in this mod.
You want a bloated, broken magic system? That's great, but I don't think you're in the majority here.
It isn't bloated though, it is just depth, all of the spells I used were unique, each doing useful things and each serve a purpose. If you don't want that, why the fuck did you get this mod? That is the whole point of it... You can play the base game with 2 spells.
Just some news of the mod, the new version 3.0 is ready. I am starting a new game with level 1 characters just now to test it before I release it in a few days
I finally kept the same number of spells, but replaced the multiple elemental shields with mage armor spells that increase some schools spell power and decrease others until canceled.
I also added a new alchemy system with a new mortar GUI, new potions and recipes, with custom models, textures and visual effects.
Also all bosses health has been reduced...
Many more little things have been improved like conditions, some new monsters and monster attacks. Among others things, the haste potion, spell and alter time can now be combined together
It isn't bloated though, it is just depth, all of the spells I used were unique, each doing useful things and each serve a purpose. If you don't want that, why the fuck did you get this mod? That is the whole point of it... You can play the base game with 2 spells.
I'm seeing this just now, and I have to seriously ask...how old are you? 14?
I tried this mod because I wanted to see how it works. Due to lack of proper documentation (which I did point out several times) I didn't have much of an idea what to expect. Now that I have played it I see it for what it is, and call it what it is. This thread documents that process pretty well.
Your "counter-argument" is to ignore all of that and rebutt with a childish logical fallacy, born out of what appears to be a temper tantrum in the making because someone dares to disagree with you and point out that your munchkin playstyle is loaded with redundancy...a fact that this thread also keeps a written track of.
The Lindwurm, Trickster, and Island Master, I whooped them good. Lindwurm took quite a long time, I think like 15-20 minutes or something, but that is only really because he keeps flying away when I am trying to own him. I just quick saved mid fight and then finished him the next day. But the Trickster And Island Master I killed in under 5 mins. I had so much mana regen I could just use all my best stuff constantly. And the Scythe really helped a lot, lots of 2000 damage crits.
). 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?
