Rebalance mod

[MasPingon]

I'm working on fixing this game balance, especially xp rewarding system and combat. I have finished the game and found that a highest difficulty level sucks. I want to make it harder, more rewarding. For now these are the things I have changed:

- stamina is now 200(not 100)
- dodge takes 40 stamina
- roll takes 100 stamina
- light attack takes 15 stamina
- heavy attack - 30 stamina
- parry - 10 stamina
- counterattack - 50 stamina

I'm testing it right now, I can already say that fight with ghouls at the beginning is no more a button mashing. This way you parry more, use quen only as additional protection, and use dodge more thoughfully. Using rolling is unaceptable. Fights are slower and longer, you must constantly watch your stamina level .

I want to nerf quen and make signs more important:

- quen takes 100 stamina, duration: 15 sec, damage absorbed: 120
- aard takes 70 stamina, knockdown: 0.20
- igni:100 stamina, dmg: 120
- yrden: 100 stamina, duration:15 sec, slows: 50%
- axii: ?

Quest:
- Change: main quests gives you less xp, subquests and contracts gives you more. It's retarded that you can be given 15 xp for solving a quest now, for example "Precious Cargo". I say you should get 120 xp for that. Kaer Morhen fight is also beyond retarded - you've done close to nothing, but the game rewarded you with about 4 lvl up. No more, now you get about 2000 xp for the whole encounter. I want to make all the shit you are doing important, because second time you play - nice story is not enough to hook you in.

Skills:
- make the combat more varied and attractive. Swordsman skills, signs, alchemy can now be activated after spending 5/12/20 points in it, so you won't have to wait until the end of the game to use a Whirl(damn fun to watch). This needs nerfing the skills.

Any suggestions? Would you like it?

 

[Baron Dupek]

Something about AI? Bigger aggression? No more "one attack, rest of the group watch".

 

[rezaf]

Any suggestions? Would you like it?

No.

I understand your reasoning, but TW3 isn't designed for each battle to be a meaningful, time consuming affair. Things are bad enough as they are, the only way to even survive many of the battles is to cheese by spamming stuff the game gives you, such as rolling and quen. If you take away these tools, I can see a random encounter with a single drowner feel like a truly challenging boss battle, but the actual boss battles will basically be unwinnable.

I'm curious, is there a significant amount of people who like TW3 combat enough they want the experience drawn out to the max?

 

[MasPingon]

You know what? You are right, the game is designed that way. I have played a couple of hours with modded stamina and it's just not right. Enemies AI is non-existant so while the fight last longer it gets really boring. Checkmate.

 

[cvv]

Something about AI? Bigger aggression? No more "one attack, rest of the group watch".

 

[Perkel]

Wait ? How do you mod it ? Game doesn't even have REDkit yet let alone any tools...


As for rebalance. FLATTEN GAME PROGRESSION. I don't know what you are capable off but game really needs that.
What does it means:

EQUIPMENT:
- Difference between worst and best sword shouldn't be more than 2x. Maybe some few relic swords that would have 3x damage over normal starting gear.
- Give each sword type something interesting. For example Novigrad Longsword would by your typical sword. But Temerian Pointgard would have more armor piercing etc. Blunt weapons should have stagger as standard stat
- This goes as well for Relicts. Let's say some relic is really shitty (has damage like starting gear) but it gives you Ard intensity + 30%
- FLATTEN ARMOR VALUES and damage reductions. Light armors shouldn't give you almost any protection because they give you a lot stamina regen for queen and other signs. On other hand Heavy armor should give you protection.
If you flatten armor values and WEpaons damage starting armor should work way into game instead of being switched after hours or two.
- Same as weapons give armors interesting values. For example heavy armor would be awesome against scratching attacks of Drowners but would be not really effective against troll smash or Griphin beak. Though i don't think there are different attacks for monsters...

MONSTERS:
- FLATTEN lvls. Imo LV should be only information on how hard moster it is not some booster for stats. So Drowners in Skellige and Drowners in White Orchard should be the same. Upgraded only versions of Drowners should be better but not by much. Thanks to FLATTENING sword damage you will be fighting same way drowners in all places.
- FLATTEN MONSTER DAMAGE. Drowners in different parts of world should deal different damage. On other hand Wyvern or other big monsters lunge attacks and hits with hard parts should be really lethal.
- If it is possible improve monsters leash range
- If monsters have armor values then rebalance them. For example Bear skin is way thicker than drowner so you should use weapon with armor piercing instead of pure damage type.

LEVELING or XP.
- Remove any stat gain from leveling (currently it adds some HP)
- Remove XP from killing monsters completely

POTIONS:
- Rebalance a bit potions.
- More effect intensity but at higher toxic price. You shouldn't be able from start drink potions 4-5 times.
- Thunderbolt should have better effect but it should have at the same time something like 60toxicity from get go.
- Increase a bit timers. Alchemy tree does improve timers a lot but i think potions should have minimum something like 40 seconds for most potions (blizzard one should be shorter though than that)
- Swallow on other hand should be highly toxic as per lore but with long lasting effect. So maybe something like 10 minutes at 30-40toxic cost but with very slow regeneration.

OILS:
- More swings. Currently oils last for only like 15-20 blows.
- Initial oil damage should be something like 20% instead of 10%. Improved one should be 30% and superior (if it exists idk) something like 40%
- If it is possible make monster changes so that for example Warewolf regeneration will be slowed down a lot if you use right oil.
- If it is possible add oils that will outright disallow regeneration for certain monsters.

HUMAN ENEMIES:
- There should be clear distinction. Bandits lowest tier, raiders (like when you sail to skellige) next tier, Soldiers/guards, Witch hunters and then elite soldiers highest tier
- Each tier has set values for life regardless of their lvl. Armor values can vary slightly but overall bandits should have much armor.
- Elite soldier on other hand in full place should be really hard to take. So you should use maces or swords with armor piercing with from best materials.

Something about AI? Bigger aggression? No more "one attack, rest of the group watch".

I think you should play on Death March.
In big groups they often attacks you in waves and they encircle you for backstab.
Almost every dude who is directly behind you will attack you regardless if someone attacks you or not.

 

[Perkel]

I'm working on fixing this game balance, especially xp rewarding system and combat. I have finished the game and found that a highest difficulty level sucks. I want to make it harder, more rewarding. For now these are the things I have changed:

- stamina is now 200(not 100)
- dodge takes 40 stamina
- roll takes 100 stamina
- light attack takes 15 stamina
- heavy attack - 30 stamina
- parry - 10 stamina
- counterattack - 50 stamina

- quen takes 100 stamina, duration: 15 sec, damage absorbed: 120
- aard takes 70 stamina, knockdown: 0.20
- igni:100 stamina, dmg: 120
- yrden: 100 stamina, duration:15 sec, slows: 50%
- axii: ?

Also Stamina is i think governed by SIGN tree so improving signs in that tree would make you better swordmaster going by your changes.

Imo leave stamina alone and focus on monster equipment balance instead and try to flatten damage, armor etc so that starting witcher gear would be as good by end game but finding other gear would give you more options or different builds.

 

[Perkel]

Also i noticed that one decotion handles stagger and knockdown on geralt so i think it is possible to give armor values for it thus making for example Heavy armors highly resistant against stagger in combat.

light armor - no stagger resistance bonus
med - some stagger resistance bonus
heavy armor - huge stagger resistance bonus

this way Geralt in heavy armor will be rarely staggered by nekkers attacks in group and he would be able to fight well.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Perkel]

OILS:
- More swings. Currently oils last for only like 15-20 blows.
- Initial oil damage should be something like 20% instead of 10%. Improved one should be 30% and superior (if it exists idk) something like 40%
- If it is possible make monster changes so that for example Warewolf regeneration will be slowed down a lot if you use right oil.
- If it is possible add oils that will outright disallow regeneration for certain monsters.

Wrong:

- better quality oils give you more swings(superior is 60 i think). Also There is skill in tree that helps
- superior gives 50%. Improved is 20%
- With investment in alchemy tree you get poison
- As such it can match and surpass monster regen.
Not sure about bombs and regen, only recently I started playing with them.

tl;dr;
I believe that oils are fine

I didn't know about better quality oils having more swings.
My point with oils in % is that starting 10% is just to small to give a shit.
Change it to:
normal - 20%
enchanced - 30%
superior - 40%
And people will give a shit on every level not just enchanced.
Poison hardly does any damage and it no way surpasses regeneration.

 

[Carrion]

Poison hardly does any damage and it no way surpasses regeneration.

Actually, poison is very effective and can vastly surpass the damage done by sword swings, especially against enemies that are several levels above you. Not sure if the effectiveness of poisons is based on the enemies' HP or something (perhaps a percentage or the enemy's health rather than a fixed damage value?), but poison may cause an enemy to lose hundreds of hit points per second, even draining the majority of a boss' health bar before it wears off. In one quest I was fighting a chort, and it regenerated 6 hit points per second while the poison damage was over 200, so yeah, you could say it surpassed regeneration in that case. I think one of the most useful abilities I've picked in the game is the one in alchemy tree that gives you a high chance of poisoning the enemy as long as you're using the right oil, and it works as a better incentive for using oils than whatever damage bonus they happen to give.

fake edit: D_X was faster.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[made]

Haven't finished game yet so can't speak to overall XP balance, especially with the XP bug (feature?) in place. Think there are some fishy mechanics in place to ensure you're neither over- nor underleveled by the end of the game.
Ideally, I'd want to have to seek out and complete most of the contracts and side quests to be able to finish the story. The more involved ones should give more XP, trivial tasks very little. Main quest XP drastically lowered, especially for parts where you just run between and talk to NPCs, or the bit in the cursed tower where you get 50XP for every scene where you use the lamp for something like 500xp in total. Instead of 0XP for grey quests the leveling curve should be adjusted (there is already a mod out that does that).
Not sure how combat XP would figure into the equation, there's a lot of random monsters you run into while exploring.

While your combat changes sound interesting, I'm not sure I want to engage in long drawn-out encounters every time unless the frequency were reduced accordingly. DS has far fewer enemies than this game.

 

[Beowulf]

Well, I would like to play a mod that incorporates changes suggested by Perkel - i.e. flatten progression all around, item stats, HP, damage for monsters etc.
I also agree about oil. It is ridiculous that you have to open your inventory every now and then in a fight to replenish oil (which you have infinite amount of) on the blade, because it so quickly wears down. It would work better applied the W2 way - it lasts longer, but cannot be replenished or change mid-fight. But I doubt it will be easy to mod.

 

[Mrowak]

I'm working on fixing this game balance, especially xp rewarding system and combat. I have finished the game and found that a highest difficulty level sucks. I want to make it harder, more rewarding. For now these are the things I have changed:

- stamina is now 200(not 100)
- dodge takes 40 stamina
- roll takes 100 stamina
- light attack takes 15 stamina
- heavy attack - 30 stamina
- parry - 10 stamina
- counterattack - 50 stamina

I'm testing it right now, I can already say that fight with ghouls at the beginning is no more a button mashing. This way you parry more, use quen only as additional protection, and use dodge more thoughfully. Using rolling is unaceptable. Fights are slower and longer, you must constantly watch your stamina level .

I want to nerf quen and make signs more important:

- quen takes 100 stamina, duration: 15 sec, damage absorbed: 120
- aard takes 70 stamina, knockdown: 0.20
- igni:100 stamina, dmg: 120
- yrden: 100 stamina, duration:15 sec, slows: 50%
- axii: ?

Quest:
- Change: main quests gives you less xp, subquests and contracts gives you more. It's retarded that you can be given 15 xp for solving a quest now, for example "Precious Cargo". I say you should get 120 xp for that. Kaer Morhen fight is also beyond retarded - you've done close to nothing, but the game rewarded you with about 4 lvl up. No more, now you get about 2000 xp for the whole encounter. I want to make all the shit you are doing important, because second time you play - nice story is not enough to hook you in.

Skills:
- make the combat more varied and attractive. Swordsman skills, signs, alchemy can now be activated after spending 5/12/20 points in it, so you won't have to wait until the end of the game to use a Whirl(damn fun to watch). This needs nerfing the skills.

Any suggestions? Would you like it?

Interesting. Definitely I would like to toy with the idea. How do you change in-game values this time around. Is it in XML files, like in previous game?

 

[NotAGolfer]

For my first playthrough I'd love a mod that makes preparation for monster hunts obligatory. Like that you have to use a certain sword oil to even be able to hurt certain boss monsters.
Can't comment on the other suggested changes, am still downloading the game.

 

[a cut of domestic sheep prime]

Spoiler

Wait ? How do you mod it ? Game doesn't even have REDkit yet let alone any tools...


As for rebalance. FLATTEN GAME PROGRESSION. I don't know what you are capable off but game really needs that.
What does it means:

EQUIPMENT:
- Difference between worst and best sword shouldn't be more than 2x. Maybe some few relic swords that would have 3x damage over normal starting gear.
- Give each sword type something interesting. For example Novigrad Longsword would by your typical sword. But Temerian Pointgard would have more armor piercing etc. Blunt weapons should have stagger as standard stat
- This goes as well for Relicts. Let's say some relic is really shitty (has damage like starting gear) but it gives you Ard intensity + 30%
- FLATTEN ARMOR VALUES and damage reductions. Light armors shouldn't give you almost any protection because they give you a lot stamina regen for queen and other signs. On other hand Heavy armor should give you protection.
If you flatten armor values and WEpaons damage starting armor should work way into game instead of being switched after hours or two.
- Same as weapons give armors interesting values. For example heavy armor would be awesome against scratching attacks of Drowners but would be not really effective against troll smash or Griphin beak. Though i don't think there are different attacks for monsters...

MONSTERS:
- FLATTEN lvls. Imo LV should be only information on how hard moster it is not some booster for stats. So Drowners in Skellige and Drowners in White Orchard should be the same. Upgraded only versions of Drowners should be better but not by much. Thanks to FLATTENING sword damage you will be fighting same way drowners in all places.
- FLATTEN MONSTER DAMAGE. Drowners in different parts of world should deal different damage. On other hand Wyvern or other big monsters lunge attacks and hits with hard parts should be really lethal.
- If it is possible improve monsters leash range
- If monsters have armor values then rebalance them. For example Bear skin is way thicker than drowner so you should use weapon with armor piercing instead of pure damage type.

LEVELING or XP.
- Remove any stat gain from leveling (currently it adds some HP)
- Remove XP from killing monsters completely

POTIONS:
- Rebalance a bit potions.
- More effect intensity but at higher toxic price. You shouldn't be able from start drink potions 4-5 times.
- Thunderbolt should have better effect but it should have at the same time something like 60toxicity from get go.
- Increase a bit timers. Alchemy tree does improve timers a lot but i think potions should have minimum something like 40 seconds for most potions (blizzard one should be shorter though than that)
- Swallow on other hand should be highly toxic as per lore but with long lasting effect. So maybe something like 10 minutes at 30-40toxic cost but with very slow regeneration.

OILS:
- More swings. Currently oils last for only like 15-20 blows.
- Initial oil damage should be something like 20% instead of 10%. Improved one should be 30% and superior (if it exists idk) something like 40%
- If it is possible make monster changes so that for example Warewolf regeneration will be slowed down a lot if you use right oil.
- If it is possible add oils that will outright disallow regeneration for certain monsters.

HUMAN ENEMIES:
- There should be clear distinction. Bandits lowest tier, raiders (like when you sail to skellige) next tier, Soldiers/guards, Witch hunters and then elite soldiers highest tier
- Each tier has set values for life regardless of their lvl. Armor values can vary slightly but overall bandits should have much armor.
- Elite soldier on other hand in full place should be really hard to take. So you should use maces or swords with armor piercing with from best materials.

Something about AI? Bigger aggression? No more "one attack, rest of the group watch".

I think you should play on Death March.
In big groups they often attacks you in waves and they encircle you for backstab.
Almost every dude who is directly behind you will attack you regardless if someone attacks you or not.

I agree with your points about flattening game progression and enemy levels being roughly the same per species. So many of the high level enemies are high level enemies "because it's a game". So many of the armors and weapons have higher protection and damage values "because it's a game". It's lame and unnecessary design. Keep it simple and quit reminding me I'm playing a video game by level scaling the drowners every five minutes.

 

[Prime Junta]

At least for me the biggest balance issue is about outleveling the content. I have crazy amounts of money, three sets of witcher gear upgraded as far as I can use them, and piles of quests that are below my level. At level 22, and still -- I think -- a fairly hefty chunk of the main quest to go. I don't have any reason other than curiosity to do any of the sidequests or do any exploration at this point. Might slog through the rest of the main quest to see how it ends, but interest in the game is fading rapidly.

I also really dislike the standard enemies coming in different levels. Like level 3 ghouls, then level 6 ghouls, then level 9 ghouls, on and on and on. Kills the sense of progression.

So if there's a rebalance mod, I'd like it to nerf XP and money across the board so I'd actually need to do some of the sidequests and contracts and explore more to get anywhere. And secondarily, rebalance the monsters so you outlevel scrubs quickly but nastier ones are a lot nastier.

 

[uaciaut]

I'm working on fixing this game balance, especially xp rewarding system and combat. I have finished the game and found that a highest difficulty level sucks. I want to make it harder, more rewarding. For now these are the things I have changed:

- stamina is now 200(not 100)
- dodge takes 40 stamina
- roll takes 100 stamina
- light attack takes 15 stamina
- heavy attack - 30 stamina
- parry - 10 stamina
- counterattack - 50 stamina

- quen takes 100 stamina, duration: 15 sec, damage absorbed: 120
- aard takes 70 stamina, knockdown: 0.20
- igni:100 stamina, dmg: 120
- yrden: 100 stamina, duration:15 sec, slows: 50%
- axii: ?

Also Stamina is i think governed by SIGN tree so improving signs in that tree would make you better swordmaster going by your changes.

Imo leave stamina alone and focus on monster equipment balance instead and try to flatten damage, armor etc so that starting witcher gear would be as good by end game but finding other gear would give you more options or different builds.

Tweaking items a bit should be possible, i doubt he can start tweaking enemies/creatures though since that would be a shitton of work.


Also re: the stamina changes since i advocated them since TW2

- roll should be about 60, so you can dodge 3 times
- dodge around 30-40, 5-6 dodges per full stam seem about right
- i wouldn't touch attacks since exhausting stamina = you can't do anything but slowly back away is bad design. Making everyone plan combat ahead wrt how many times you can afford to dodge or hit just encourages save-scumming and becomes tedious at high diff levels. If you really want to touch this make adrenaline generation a trade-off for stamina, since adrenaline generates based on how much you swing basically (afaik), so when you hit shit enough to get 1 adrenaline point you could take away some stamina for it since it also encourages the player to use the adrenaline for something. Trust me making attacks use stamina is a bad choice and a p dumb one too.
- parry should be 20 stamina i dont remember if you take any damage from parrying or shit though
- counterattack - should be cheap as fuck since it's not always easy to pull off and doesn't do that much damage to begin with but rather opens the player up for more combos. 10 stamina, 20 max maybe.

signs - no clue since i didn't experiment much with them. their scaling is a bit off though, as in i often find myself doing more damage with igni to opponents higher level than me than with a sword and i've invested no points in signs lol. You obviously can't let them use 100% stam anymore but you should probably standardize them and not do much to their damage/effect other than light tweaking.

I'll try to think of more shit later and post it here.

 

[Perkel]

I'm working on fixing this game balance, especially xp rewarding system and combat. I have finished the game and found that a highest difficulty level sucks. I want to make it harder, more rewarding. For now these are the things I have changed:

- stamina is now 200(not 100)
- dodge takes 40 stamina
- roll takes 100 stamina
- light attack takes 15 stamina
- heavy attack - 30 stamina
- parry - 10 stamina
- counterattack - 50 stamina

- quen takes 100 stamina, duration: 15 sec, damage absorbed: 120
- aard takes 70 stamina, knockdown: 0.20
- igni:100 stamina, dmg: 120
- yrden: 100 stamina, duration:15 sec, slows: 50%
- axii: ?

Also Stamina is i think governed by SIGN tree so improving signs in that tree would make you better swordmaster going by your changes.

Imo leave stamina alone and focus on monster equipment balance instead and try to flatten damage, armor etc so that starting witcher gear would be as good by end game but finding other gear would give you more options or different builds.

Tweaking items a bit should be possible, i doubt he can start tweaking enemies/creatures though since that would be a shitton of work.


Also re: the stamina changes since i advocated them since TW2

- roll should be about 60, so you can dodge 3 times
- dodge around 30-40, 5-6 dodges per full stam seem about right
- i wouldn't touch attacks since exhausting stamina = you can't do anything but slowly back away is bad design. Making everyone plan combat ahead wrt how many times you can afford to dodge or hit just encourages save-scumming and becomes tedious at high diff levels. If you really want to touch this make adrenaline generation a trade-off for stamina, since adrenaline generates based on how much you swing basically (afaik), so when you hit shit enough to get 1 adrenaline point you could take away some stamina for it since it also encourages the player to use the adrenaline for something. Trust me making attacks use stamina is a bad choice and a p dumb one too.
- parry should be 20 stamina i dont remember if you take any damage from parrying or shit though
- counterattack - should be cheap as fuck since it's not always easy to pull off and doesn't do that much damage to begin with but rather opens the player up for more combos. 10 stamina, 20 max maybe.

signs - no clue since i didn't experiment much with them. their scaling is a bit off though, as in i often find myself doing more damage with igni to opponents higher level than me than with a sword and i've invested no points in signs lol. You obviously can't let them use 100% stam anymore but you should probably standardize them and not do much to their damage/effect other than light tweaking.

I'll try to think of more shit later and post it here.

How do you edit that stuff ?
And what do you mean by monsters being to much work ? Aren't they just per type based ? So when you edit type all monsters of that type change.. ?

 

[Gerrard]

How about you go play Dark Shits and fuck off if you want to play a fucking wimp who can't even swing a sword a few times without getting tired.

 

[Eyestabber]

Isn't it better to wait for Redkit? o.O

If you manage to REMOVE random animations, making every attack consistent I will endorse/upvote/support your mod on every single website you upload it to.

 

[polo]

First we need to fix the controls, then u can make combat harder. Im playing on hard difficulty, and the real hard thing about this is the game locking randomly to whatever enemy it decides to, and gettting critd in the back by the enemy i actually was attacking. FFs, so bad. I NEED to spam dodge because otherwise the lock on system fucks me up pretty hard.

 

[MoonlitKnight]

in my opinion remove adrenaline completely, I still don't understand why does it exist