Walls of text? Battles of Drogs? Count me in.
I think that you, Leonidus, fell into the same trap a lot of moders tend to fall. Instead of gently pushing the game into right direction and trying to fix what is broken, you decided to create your own version of Arcanum, suited to your powergaming needs. Based on community type of play, as who else would know where to find wooden rings but arcanumfags who played game for years. Yeah, I know that "gently" doesn't sound like it would help Arcanum, but otherwise you're just breaking the game in some other way.
The fact that you are basing things on a late game and high levels and recommend level cap remover (max level 127, woo, here I go golden bears!) speaks for that, I believe. I doubt that many people even reach level ~50 in most of their runs, because you don't get enough experience from quests. Sure, people probably would reach it if they try to search every nook and cranny, or just farm monsters, but most of the interesting quests end at level ~30. Then it's just either busywork or clearing dungeons. Most people probably go from ~30 to ~50 by slaying stuff on Thanatos, in Vendigroth and kicking lizards in the Void.
Firstly, I made the mod only by changing the game files(.mes and .txt from the .dats).
Your resources are limited, I'm sure everyone got that from your first post. No one is pointing a gun to your head because Arcanum is so hard to mod.
Arcanum's easy combat dilutes the player's choices in character development to a mostly meaningless selection of similar flavors. That is to say, you can pretty much build your character however you like and still cheese through the game regardless.
I don't think it's true for Arcanum. Playing as a lone thief, a techie or wizard with spells feels different. Actually, that's why Arcanum is such a replayable game. And as MCA showed us, you can create a crappy character even in Arcanum. I don't think Arcanum is easy, although I don't think it's hard either. I would say it can be both, but in the wrong way - like some of the spells or items being crap, while others overpowered; some enemies weak, others wrong way of powerful.
They do a lot more damage, have a lot more hp and resists, and there is variety in their basic stats.
Like that saved any RPG combat ever. Different stats and resists is good, but I don't see how brutefangs eating your face in two strikes brings something new to Arcanum.
with some extreme damage or hp in the thousands
HP bloat is not the best asnwer to problems in combat either, in my opinion.
This makes certain spells and weapons better vs certain enemies, which is very important for combat. There are fun extremes, such as a monster with 95 DR
And how should player discern these changes and abilities, unless he is playing a mage with Divination? Did you bother to add some books to the game dealing with those monsters or rumors? Or at least made these changes with common knowledge in mind, like giving high DR to, say, werewolves or stone golems? I did not notice zombies being vulnerable to fire, or molten masses of living magma shruggin off bullets. A shot from LGR can bring down those, but, say, Molotov's don't even scratch most of the monsters in your mod, even those which it should be useful to.
Yeah, I know you are hampered by crappy editor, but then maybe you shouldn't give a small lizard more HP and DR than an armored ogre, and should keep stuff low key instead.
One of the key challenges here is how Arcanum monsters were placed.
Yes, I've met a level 49 golden bear south of Shrouded Hills, and a small level 20 dragon which was almost immune to my abilities. I was not amused.
Allies benefit greatly from this, and in order to make worse allies more useful, all of them have some kind of decent combat contribution.
A useful addition, but then instead of making all characters unique and do something which suits their personalities, you are making them killing machines. Jaina Stilles with level 5 of marsmanship, really? I think that a balanced approach should be taken, with a thought of what types of characters would pick companions. For example, Jaina is a natural choice as a healer for techie party, yet as she progresses in levels, your party can't even heal poisons. Because she refuses to put skill points into what her character really is. I had to grab level 1 healing spell, which solved all my tech party problems - apparently it did't care for my tech app, and I could heal through everything because of how cheap it is. Even without meditation.
You shouldn't make every character a combat machine. And it's important to somewhat suit abilities of companions to what player faces at a particular stage of the game. Companions should provide an interesting selection of combat, crafting and magic skills in the beginning and midgame, and start developing their combat skills more in the end, in preparation to places like Thanatos, Vendigroth and the Void.
A key decision was between real time and turn based combat.
Well, fine, that's my way of thinking too, although there is a "but". But not everyone is interested in mowing down wolves and rats in TB *yet again*, or casting all spells only in TB to avoid some bugs with fatigue.
Half-ogres get insane ST and 10 free DR? Beyond unbelievable.
What's so unbelievable in monsters bred specifically for being bodyguards to be characters suited for combat best? Choosing a half-ogre dictates specific playing style and makes you act as a retard in dialogue.
Oh boy. 'Er we go.
Nature spells should feel like nature spells
Your Nature spells follow the most retarded concept ever, well, with the exception of disabled spells, which are even worse. That is, a player investing in them does not gain anything, and should do as much as going through "dump" spells which require high WP and CON, to get some crap like Entangle. Meanwhile, fun spells like Calm animals or Control animals get replaced with some garbage like turning yourself into a lizard. Which is also a fun concept, but is quite useless because even with high STR, without a decent weapon and close combat masteries mage will still suck in combat.
Yes, some spells feel out of place. Regeneration in particular is head scratching for a Tier 5 spell. But it is not your job to dictate to me what spells should be concidered useful or fun and changet them for your own concepts. Turning yourself into a bear? Fine, I like it, makes sense for high level spell, although it goes against Arcanum logic of magical aptitude. If you're changing spells people are used to, please be sure to check for a few things:
1) It should follow Arcanum logic in how powerful it is; i.e. it should grow in power with magical aptitude. So by all means, add shapeshifting, but then you should gain new animal forms as your app progressed. It would just make spell better. In case of shapeshifting, it could lead to cool tactical moves, like picking Nature Mage and turning into better animal by standing in the forest.
2) Make damn sure that spell was *really* useless. Because in case of, say, Charm Beast, that spell is quite useful for some playthroughs and runs. There aren't many spells which are completely useless, imo, it's just that other spells in vanilla outperform them so greatly.
3) Make sure that your new spell is not *really* useless. I don't know what were you thinking where you changed stuff like Stone Throw&Harm, but these are so weak now you can't even whack a mosquito with them. A mage is better with a sword, Tidal Wave & 1 point in melee than using them! These are supposed to be bread&butter spells. You're supposed to bring spells like Harm down from the stratosphere of powergaming to that level, not just make them spells which you pick to get to better ones. Speaking in D&D terms, Magic Missile - good, Ray of Cold - bad.
This is a thing I actually LIKE about Arcanum magical ap mechanics. As you progress, your basic spells also grow in power, catching up. So they have a lot more uses than killing wolves near crash site. And this is what you actually broke in many of your spells. Like many good damaging spells becoming very weak and being replaced by one-shot super expensive AoE's (goes well with unlimited mana, duh!).
I really like that in Arcanum, getting new spells presents you with new options. Like, you are not stuck as a lone fag if you're not going for Summoning school. Elementalists gain fun summoning spells too. Really, what game doesn't need is more damaging spells. Just make use of what there is already, and balance that out by monster resistances, so I'd have to switch from Harm to Fireball against different targets, ect.
Damn, if Harm&FoD would do 0 damage to undead enemies that already would be a terrific improvement.
4) If you can't or don't know how to fix it, then don't touch it. Disabling stuff does 2 things. First, it makes you look like a grumpy GM who can't balance abilities of his players, so he just invents some shitty argument why they don't work. Which just sucks all the fun in playing with the system. I don't want your "balanced" spells, I want to turn people insane and control their minds, I want raise Beauty if I am playing an ugly orc by a water spell, or charm somebody, and so on. Don't take fun shit away from me.
And second, if my "lol I want to mindrape Gilbert bates" argument sounds too silly: you ruin player's leveling plan because now somebody who want to be, say, a psionic, should put dump points into his school just because you couldn't fix Stun effect. Either provide reasonable replacement for every "broken" spell, or don't even start. It just makes your changes seem half baked and your work amateurish.
And speaking of removing stuff, with Meditation, you just cut most but all resource management in the game AND opened a can of worms, giving mage characters an option to unload all their mana on one encounter without thinking, just to be fresh and healthy after that. Strong fuck? Unload all, meditate! Powerful poisons? Pff, level 1 heal. Dungeon filled with hundred of deadly traps? Level 1 heal, meditate.
Maybe it's convenient for you, but I won't call that a good design. Also, note that by your design, mage is stuck with his basic mana pool for every encounter. Meaning, a gunslinger could kite something forever, doing hundreds of damage per turn, while mage, even if he's master of herbalism or whatever, can only do one single "boom". Sometimes it WORKS, and sometimes, yes, it makes you think what spells to use, but at the same time it cheapens OTHER encounters and resource management, so, again, the game is broken, just other way around: killing 100 solitary enemies is easy, while killing something with 1000 HP or whatever can often be solved by savescumming. Nobody is going to continue the fight if a monster just crited Virgil for over 9000 damage.
So first let's begin with normalization.
Let's. You realize the way you balanced weapons, NONE of them feel any special anymore, many feel just stupid (electrostaff without electrical damage, great; rapier with damage of a dagger), and their prices in shops now don't make any sense? Was it that hard to add more fatigue damage to maces and hammers, why did you remove that completely?
Why would I want to buy a 2-10 Broadsword for ~1000 gold pieces instead of 1-8 Longsword for ~150?
If the only thing which matters in DMG is STR, then some things happen. First, you want fastest weapon with good DMG, so most of expensive badass swords and axes are out. And you want to crit a lot, so broken shit like Tidal Force is a way to go.
You also make character growth very predictable. With low SPD and DAM, any fighters without VERY high STR are out. Which also affects companions, so Magnus just goes for lifting. AND companions also stop using their weapons often, because their low SPD affects AI (which you mentioned). So I present teh best melee damager: a spell casting able (ogres are out) dude in leather armor (which gives SPD +5... yes, armor makes you faster than being naked in this mod), shiny shoes (+1 SPD!), 20 STR and some sword. And beware of armor, because even basic chainmail weight 1000 units... fukking grand.
Not.
But bah. It doesn't matter, cause everybody would have STR 20 when we reach Thanatos. Or whatever.
Vanilla Arcanum melee is broken as fuck, but at least you can approach it from different angles. You can make a lot of attacks with average STR by buffing yourself with spells, potions, gadgets, and so on.
I don't know if it is possible, but modifying STR damage scaling would produce a much better effect than making most weapons shit and slow and same.
That is why some schematic components were changed.
Oh no, fuck that. You don't make hand cannons out of wooden rings.
It goes against so many things it would take another wall of text just to explain. I'll try the short version:
- Makes player invest into skills which do not give any reward, often waaaaay before he even gets a chance to aquire a component like wooden ring, black diamond, ect.
- Goes against common and world logic.
- Goes against gameplay logic. Technology is supposed to be avaible to the player, he shouldn't go onto some great quest to aquire occult artifact with highest DPS. You are supposed to use many items and combine them to handle encounters, not overpower them. It has exceptions, but those in world of Arcanum are few - largest dwarven clan has unique schematics, and there are some others; but usually you can get through most of the stuff just by your own wits and inventions.
If you want to do it RIGHT, then please do follow the logic of gameworld you're changing. Lower the damage of basic guns in shops a bit. Also lower stats of common inventions like LGR and Elephant gun, or make them use more ammo a little. Then one should create mid and end game replacements for them. For example, Tarant could have very few schematics available. Add shit like High Velocity weapons in some dungeons and make them better. Add even more powerful schematics to Caladon, and make Vendigroth stuff most powerful. So player would have to change his guns from "Tarant" ones to something post-Tarant, then to Caladon-time and finally Vendigrothian weaponry. You could then make Tesla Rod as it was, not with diamond necklace, but make Tesla Cannon very powerful, but unavailable before post-Caladon, ect.
Yeah, I remember doing something like that can be impossible with editor and so on, but what you did with schematics for now is such bullshit and hurts game so much it's better you just bring back vanilla schematics.
Bessie Toon mine document to make Regenerative Jacket, vorpal bunny eat my face. So bad.
I have to keep ammo availability high in my game because otherwise it is a huge waste of time to get the amount needed to kill the monsters. That's also why molotov creation was increased. It's for gameplay, and this being a balance mod, gameplay has to trump immersion. If there is something that would make characters really hate playing which I could easily change, even though some purists won't like it, I have to do it. Players annoyed by unrealistic outcomes (in a fantasy game)
Oh for crying out loud, don't pull that "it's FANTASU and GAMU, so everything goes" on people. Let me check on that folder again. I believe it is called "ArcanumEquilibriumRebalance", not "MyOwnSpecialArcanum". Is there any ethics in moders community?
Wait, don't answer that. I've read RK Skyrim LP, I know there isn't.
If you want to REBALANCE the game, that should do exactly that. It should be the same game, familiar to people who actually like it, and it should not alienate players with locked spells, random, metagaming-based changes in crafting or companions who suddenly become master marksmen instead of peaceful healers. That not to mention that your 400 bullets per craft drag a small train of changes which make game economics make even less sense.
How does that even can work, gameplay trumping immersion? Isn't immersion is something you experience when gameplay is actually great multiplied by quality of the setting and all others parts of the game? Gameplay can't trump immersion, you get immersed because of all the things working together in it.
Yes, I am still angry on wooden rings.
Now to wrap things up.
First of all, I hope I did not went full retard completely on you and at least presented my, yeah I know, very puritanical, opinion on Arcanum and how your mod changes it. I don't want to be a jerk and just go all "lololo you are no Drog", cause I actually like Arcanum a lot, and I think there are some things in your mod which push Arcanum into right direction. Like, some of the spells are better, and it's nice to see guns doing something, and so on. But I also think your design vision is flawed, and many changes from your mod just stick out and seem illogical, untrue to the spirit of the game, break game even more, require a lot of suspension of disbelief to go with them, or just aren't that amazing.
Charming full level of animals to pass safely, or charming somebody who hates your guts, or raising BEU for that; taking Bates for a walk with Dominate, raising STR for your little gnome with spells to actually lift that tombstone and bring back it for reward; trying all the fun inventions you made just by going through world's shops and streets; all that little stuff is really important for me and makes Arcanum, and I won't change it for a few AoE spells and a Stoneskin.
To be fair, I don't even think Arcanum needs more combat or dungeons with bosses.
I played your mod with a few characters, with two spellcasters and one techie, so I kinda tried it out. And yeah I finished BMC mines (twice, actually) with it and went even a bit further than ~30 level. I know I haven't seen everything, maybe a lot, but I think I've seen enough to make points above. If I have to reach level 127 to fully understand your genius, sorry, I'm not going to. I do promise I'll go into more dangerous late game areas to see what's there though and to broaden my experience and make better opinion on mod if I will defeat my laziness.