MM6 skill emphasis mod (#74)

The role-playing games (I-X) that started it all and the various spin-offs (including Dark Messiah).
tnevolin
Scout
Scout
Posts: 168
Joined: 19 Oct 2015

MM6 skill emphasis mod (#74)

Unread postby tnevolin » 21 Apr 2020, 20:35

Hello fellow players.

I adore M&M series, most often 6 and 7. Used to play them a lot back then. The sad fact about it, though, is that it is not much of a RPG in might department, especially in 6. While magic skill proportionally increases spell damage/effect, weapon/armor skills do not. Fire bolt damage grows 10 times at skill level 10. Whereas advancing axe skill (supposedly most devastating weapon) to the master rank level 10 gives you about 40-50% increase in total damage rate (attack, speed, and damage combined). Magic 900% increase vs. weapon 50% increase is just beyond ridiculous. Not surprisingly knight is considered the most worthless class in MM6.

I modded this game to correct such injustice. That is the main driving force and I didn't plan to change it in any other way. Although, I've collected some other minor changes along the way just to play well with this modification. I do not pretend this is in any way perfecting an original game. I just always wanted to play it as a real RPG where every invested skill point matter and now I can!

Feel free to share my joy and give it a play testing. Keep in mind it is still under development so report any problems and/or concerns about balance back to me. I will appreciate feedback.

Here are links.

Readme
https://github.com/tnevolin/mm6-skill-e ... /Readme.md
Changelog
https://github.com/tnevolin/mm6-skill-e ... angelog.md
Installation
https://github.com/tnevolin/mm6-skill-e ... llation.md
Releases
https://github.com/tnevolin/mm6-skill-e ... /_releases

Last one is a release folder. Grab the latest one and follow installation instructions.
Also read a readme and go back to me with your thoughts on whether my approach and rationalization is valid as well as with you own ideas for this mod.

Thank you everybody and enjoy.
Last edited by tnevolin on 19 Jun 2022, 22:21, edited 6 times in total.

User avatar
tomchen1989
Pixie
Pixie
Posts: 136
Joined: 21 Jun 2008
Location: Europe / China

Re: MM6 skill emphasis mod

Unread postby tomchen1989 » 22 Apr 2020, 15:27

Looks good. Great job!

Jayce
Leprechaun
Leprechaun
Posts: 1
Joined: 23 Apr 2020

Re: MM6 skill emphasis mod

Unread postby Jayce » 23 Apr 2020, 03:07

Hey man, this looks amazing. Exactly the kind of mod I'd been hoping for for this game. Do you have Discord btw? Would love to get in touch and help with balance and the like. Thanks for your work.

tnevolin
Scout
Scout
Posts: 168
Joined: 19 Oct 2015

Re: MM6 skill emphasis mod

Unread postby tnevolin » 23 Apr 2020, 14:45

Jayce wrote:Hey man, this looks amazing. Exactly the kind of mod I'd been hoping for for this game. Do you have Discord btw? Would love to get in touch and help with balance and the like. Thanks for your work.
You are welcome!
Discord username: Bear#9006

tnevolin
Scout
Scout
Posts: 168
Joined: 19 Oct 2015

Re: MM6 skill emphasis mod

Unread postby tnevolin » 27 Apr 2020, 17:59

Version 25 released

New cool feature. Keyboard shortcuts to brings certain walking professionals to party if they are available. No more hundreds of reloads to find these elusive randomly generated professions. Ugh. More time to actual world exploring!

Currently there are only couple of professions in the summon list. I'll add more by people request if needed.

Warning
Highly experimental feature. I had to dig into the code as this is not in MME. Please report any weird behavior.
Update
This is in MME but not in help. GF pointed me to right methods. I am going to reprogram it in next release. Still this feature is experimental.
Last edited by tnevolin on 28 Apr 2020, 14:52, edited 1 time in total.

tnevolin
Scout
Scout
Posts: 168
Joined: 19 Oct 2015

Re: MM6 skill emphasis mod

Unread postby tnevolin » 28 Apr 2020, 15:00

Merging with other mods
Just for everybody information. It is quite easy to merge this mod changes into other MME mods. I didn't plan on revamping whole experience. Just equalizing might and magic (plus some small utilitarian fixes). It may make sense to just use it as engine update in some other mods as well. Please share your thoughts about which bigger experience mod could benefit from it. Thank you.

tnevolin
Scout
Scout
Posts: 168
Joined: 19 Oct 2015

Re: MM6 skill emphasis mod

Unread postby tnevolin » 30 Apr 2020, 19:10

Version 27
Two nice additions.
Hirelings search
This is purely convenience thing but it is huge time and frustration saver. I programmed keyboard shortcuts to find and bring you desired hirelings. Just a few types for now but the list can be extended by request. One click of a button and you get whole collection of desired hirelings literally at your hand reach! No more hundreds of reloads to find these elusive professions. Let me know if you like it and want to add more professions shortcuts.
Dragon towers homing fireballs
This is a continuation of my work to make all missiles homing. Dragon towers were a laughingstock in vanilla. They never hit flyers in real time. Pathetic. In this regard, the second Archer promotion quest seems like a useless monkey errand. Not anymore. Now these fireballs are homing and catch you in real time too. So flying really becomes dangerous until you finish this quest. That gives this quest real meaning and insentive.

Keep in mind these features are experimental. Please report any problems with them, crashing, etc. Thank you.

tnevolin
Scout
Scout
Posts: 168
Joined: 19 Oct 2015

Re: MM6 skill emphasis mod

Unread postby tnevolin » 03 May 2020, 04:27

Shrunk gold dragon in temple of the Snake. Funny.
:-D
Image
Last edited by tnevolin on 03 May 2020, 04:28, edited 1 time in total.

wsmithjr
Leprechaun
Leprechaun
Posts: 1
Joined: 10 Jul 2020

Re: MM6 skill emphasis mod

Unread postby wsmithjr » 10 Jul 2020, 02:19

Just discovered this mod and love the idea of it.

I kind of had a crazy thought. I also like the idea of the Chaos Conspiracy mod ... the older/original version. Had a thought that maybe the 2 mods could work together, so I gave it a shot. Surprisingly enough to me, they did work ... except the changes made to monsters made it brutal and the first group of enemies I ran into in Ellesia wiped me out. Ever considered merging your changes with that mod, or making a version compatible with it?

I want to play through the game with your mod but also thought it would be cool to play the completely new CC campaign in this manner.

Just a thought. Thanks for the work on it.

P.S. I registered here just so I could post this. :)
Last edited by wsmithjr on 10 Jul 2020, 03:38, edited 2 times in total.

tnevolin
Scout
Scout
Posts: 168
Joined: 19 Oct 2015

Re: MM6 skill emphasis mod

Unread postby tnevolin » 20 Nov 2020, 02:44

Thank you for that successful experiment. The mod just changes mechanics here and there and *should be* fully compatible with other theme mods those *do not change mechanics*.
I sure can adjust it to make work better with other mods in balance department. However, since there are tons of them around, it is impossible to fork it for every one.

Is chaos conspiracy make monsters stronger by itself? How specifically, you know? Tougher, stronger to hit?

tnevolin
Scout
Scout
Posts: 168
Joined: 19 Oct 2015

Re: MM6 skill emphasis mod

Unread postby tnevolin » 30 Nov 2020, 06:23

A lot of changes since last post. Feel free to read through changelog.
https://github.com/tnevolin/mm6-skill-e ... angelog.md

The most notable one: displaying a summary character damage rate that takes all combat parameters (attack, recovery, damage) into account! A huge improvement. Now player does not need to guess or compute numbers in their head to understand which combo is more offensive. A number is clearly visible on stats screen.
The damage rate is calculated against some imaginary enemy with average AC. Obviously, effective rate will be higher against weaker enemies. However, this is not that important. What is important is that different weapons can be compared directly by some offensive value!

tnevolin
Scout
Scout
Posts: 168
Joined: 19 Oct 2015

Re: MM6 skill emphasis mod

Unread postby tnevolin » 02 Dec 2020, 16:52

# version 39

* Staff adds small amount of all resistances to all party members.

anjinsanroland
Leprechaun
Leprechaun
Posts: 10
Joined: 10 Feb 2021

Re: MM6 skill emphasis mod

Unread postby anjinsanroland » 10 Feb 2021, 10:40

I just registered to the forums just to say that i loved this mod. just like you i hated the things that break the flow of the game. when i accidentally realized that with this mod i can just use a shrine without the hassle of calender keeping and seer visiting i had to come here and thank you.

Edit: I acted hastily, shrines still has to be interacted within their month and the seer must be seen beforehand, however for the first shrine you don't have to talk to the seer.
Last edited by anjinsanroland on 13 Feb 2021, 20:44, edited 2 times in total.

CERBOT
Leprechaun
Leprechaun
Posts: 11
Joined: 04 Nov 2017

Re: MM6 skill emphasis mod

Unread postby CERBOT » 14 Feb 2021, 13:51

Hi - is this mod compatible with the MM Merge mod?

tnevolin
Scout
Scout
Posts: 168
Joined: 19 Oct 2015

Re: MM6 skill emphasis mod

Unread postby tnevolin » 14 Feb 2021, 17:49

anjinsanroland wrote:I just registered to the forums just to say that i loved this mod. just like you i hated the things that break the flow of the game. when i accidentally realized that with this mod i can just use a shrine without the hassle of calendar keeping and seer visiting i had to come here and thank you.

Edit: I acted hastily, shrines still has to be interacted within their month and the seer must be seen beforehand, however for the first shrine you don't have to talk to the seer.
Thank you for post, man. I obviously love feedbacks! Feel free to post any small comments and notes about it as you play through.
:D

It's been long time since my last update. I distinctly remember that I was annoyed by seers visit for shrine activations and I wanted to disable this requirement. However, I don't remember if I actually did. Let me know.

I checked my last updates and it seems that I was fiddling with weapon skill progression and magic strength to keep them about same useful as the game progress. Whatever small modification I do will still be better than vanilla unbalanced way but I am looking for sweeter spot so the game stays interesting to the end - not too hard, not too easy. Let me know your feeling about it.

tnevolin
Scout
Scout
Posts: 168
Joined: 19 Oct 2015

Re: MM6 skill emphasis mod

Unread postby tnevolin » 14 Feb 2021, 17:54

CERBOT wrote:Hi - is this mod compatible with the MM Merge mod?
You mean this one?
https://www.celestialheavens.com/forum/10/16657

I didn't try it but I would guess not since that mod is based on MM8 engine. Whereas mine is on MM6.

anjinsanroland
Leprechaun
Leprechaun
Posts: 10
Joined: 10 Feb 2021

Re: MM6 skill emphasis mod

Unread postby anjinsanroland » 15 Feb 2021, 20:56

tnevolin wrote: Thank you for post, man. I obviously love feedbacks! Feel free to post any small comments and notes about it as you play through.
:D
Thank you. It is indeed better than vanilla.
NPC summon shortcuts is a nice touch. You should make a standalone mod of it for people who prefer vanilla skills.
As I discovered, after the first interaction with a shrine, I need to keep visiting the seer for the other ones. For smooth progression of the game, I have the following idea about shrines but I don't know if it is moddable: I think the shrines should not be tied to the months. Every shrine should provide +10 bonus for only once. However the player may visit only one shrine in each month regardless of which shrine it is.
I have three 30th level knights with 4 skill points in master plate and they share the incoming damage among themselves. So my sorcerer gets hit very rarely. Knights dying heroically besides a full hp sorceror is funny. I should change tactics now.
I don't have a reason to use any other combo than spear and sword. It is fast and provides high AC. Off hand weapons seem to contribute too much speed. In low levels I used spear and dagger for its inherent recovery bonus.
Ranged mobs are very annoying running away with their inhuman speed off the charts of the map. They are always around, never within reach.
Low level shotgun spells felt very good without breaking the balance.
Thanks again for this nice work. I am happy to return to a game I almost memorised and keep having fun.

tnevolin
Scout
Scout
Posts: 168
Joined: 19 Oct 2015

Re: MM6 skill emphasis mod

Unread postby tnevolin » 16 Feb 2021, 04:22

anjinsanroland wrote: NPC summon shortcuts is a nice touch. You should make a standalone mod of it for people who prefer vanilla skills.
Eh. Good idea but I had too much work supporting one mod already. This is all matter of benefit/efforts. This is an exceptionally old game and community is very thin. See how rare people post here, for example. There are no new people coming to play this old game with outdated interface. Only those initially played it when it was new. There will be only less and less of us with time.
:(
anjinsanroland wrote: As I discovered, after the first interaction with a shrine, I need to keep visiting the seer for the other ones.
Do you mean first time you pray at the shrine it grants bonus without getting seer blessing? Does it happen any time or only in appropriate month?

Other ones = other visits to the same shrine next year or other shrines?
anjinsanroland wrote: For smooth progression of the game, I have the following idea about shrines but I don't know if it is moddable: I think the shrines should not be tied to the months. Every shrine should provide +10 bonus for only once. However the player may visit only one shrine in each month regardless of which shrine it is.
Everything is moddable the culprit is in benefit/efforts ratio. See above.
:)

Good idea. I think we don't even need to restrict it with one in a month. Early on player travels slow and cannot easily reach some shrines. So if they can collect all shrines in 3-6 months that should be fine. The only restriction should be to keep a year for each shrine to grant next bonus.

This pilgrimage thing adds some lore but play wise it is just senseless grinding.
anjinsanroland wrote: I have three 30th level knights with 4 skill points in master plate and they share the incoming damage among themselves. So my sorcerer gets hit very rarely. Knights dying heroically besides a full hp sorceror is funny. I should change tactics now.
This is by design. Somebody should die. Why not knight who has most HP? Their chance to cover team member is 10-20-30%. So three Champions should take up to 90% sorcerer damage. It will still be damaged occasionally.

Do you think it is too much? Should it be 10-15-20 instead? From the other hand, taking 1/5 of damage from other party members is not much noticeable. If they are exceptionally weak it won't help them anyway.

I was thinking to distinguish between physical and magical attacks. Where plate wearer would protect against physical only. Like they can practically stay in the path of arrow or sword thrust but armor should be useless against fireball for example. That would also make a lot of sense as magical members usually much better protected from magic themselves. I don't remember if I implemented it.
anjinsanroland wrote: I don't have a reason to use any other combo than spear and sword. It is fast and provides high AC.
For knight/paladin axe-sword is more devastating and they rarely need extra AC especially later on against magical attacks. However, your combo makes sense as well.
anjinsanroland wrote: Off hand weapons seem to contribute too much speed. In low levels I used spear and dagger for its inherent recovery bonus.
That is a flip side of "everything is additive" paradigm. You should not care about the speed per se. Only total damage rate (= damage * hit chance * speed) matters. Besides, with progressive speed scale, there won't be too much speed. Even +100 bonus to speed only doubles the damage rate and the more you add the less the effect.
anjinsanroland wrote: Ranged mobs are very annoying running away with their inhuman speed off the charts of the map. They are always around, never within reach.
He he. They are not that dumb and helpless anymore, are they?
:)

Seriously, you need to attack them from certain directions to push them to the center of the map. Or just come back later when they reset to their default locations.
anjinsanroland wrote: Low level shotgun spells felt very good without breaking the balance.
Yep. I always felt that they are pathetic at level 1 and at level 3 you don't want them anymore as there are better ones.
anjinsanroland wrote: Thanks again for this nice work. I am happy to return to a game I almost memorised and keep having fun.
Glad you liked it. Feel free to check reddit forum. It seems to be little more active.

Have you seen Lumdmeister's mod for MM7? It does a pretty good job distributing magic skills among classes. I was thinking doing the same in MM6 to make magic classes more distinct. However, there are only 6 of them in MM6 so it may be difficult to realize and may be not even needed.

anjinsanroland
Leprechaun
Leprechaun
Posts: 10
Joined: 10 Feb 2021

Re: MM6 skill emphasis mod

Unread postby anjinsanroland » 16 Feb 2021, 17:02

tnevolin wrote:There will be only less and less of us with time.
:(
and less looking for mods I guess
tnevolin wrote:Do you mean first time you pray at the shrine it grants bonus without getting seer blessing? Does it happen any time or only in appropriate month?
Only in the appropriate month. Yes, the first visit is seer free regardless of which shrine/month you begin. And then the next month you have to visit the seer for the next shrine. For example I missed january, then visited Misty Island in february and gained the bonuses. Then I couldn't get any bonus from march shrine without visiting the seer.
tnevolin wrote: Other ones = other visits to the same shrine next year or other shrines?
Other shrines. I am still in the first year.
tnevolin wrote:...if they can collect all shrines in 3-6 months that should be fine. The only restriction should be to keep a year for each shrine to grant next bonus.
You are right
tnevolin wrote:...three Champions should take up to 90% sorcerer damage...Do you think it is too much? Should it be 10-15-20 instead? From the other hand, taking 1/5 of damage from other party members is not much noticeable. If they are exceptionally weak it won't help them anyway.
No, no, I don't think it is too much. Please keep it as it is. It just seems funny because of my extreme playtesting with 3 knights. Normally I would use between 0 and 2 knights. Extreme parties have their own cons and bonuses.
tnevolin wrote:...armor should be useless against fireball for example. That would also make a lot of sense as magical members usually much better protected from magic themselves. I don't remember if I implemented it.
Plate wearers take magical hits for other members too. That is why they die sooner since plate does not provide resistance whereas leather provides good resistance. But if knights wear leather than they don't choose to take hits for other members.
I also think expert shield should provide nice bonuses for both AC and resistance, and master shield should share some of these bonuses for the whole party. This would make shields and therefore clerics viable. I think the player should also have a hard time deciding how to use their knight/paladin's off hand (whether for defence or offence)
tnevolin wrote:Have you seen Lumdmeister's mod for MM7?
I skipped mods for MM7 since I don't really like MM7. Its graphics seem too plain and its system too sterilized. I find MM7 as a technically fine tuned game without a soul. But if you provide a link to Lumdmeister's mod, I may read about the spell class changes.
Last edited by anjinsanroland on 16 Feb 2021, 17:49, edited 2 times in total.

tnevolin
Scout
Scout
Posts: 168
Joined: 19 Oct 2015

Re: MM6 skill emphasis mod

Unread postby tnevolin » 16 Feb 2021, 17:57

anjinsanroland wrote:
tnevolin wrote:Do you mean first time you pray at the shrine it grants bonus without getting seer blessing? Does it happen any time or only in appropriate month?
Only in the appropriate month. Yes, the first visit is seer free regardless of which shrine/month you begin. And then the next month you have to visit the seer for the next shrine. For example I missed january, then visited Misty Island in february and gained the bonuses. Then I couldn't get any bonus from march shrine without visiting the seer.
Hmm. Never noticed this. Could be a vanilla bug. Is this only in this mod or in vanilla too?
anjinsanroland wrote:
No, no, I don't think it is too much. Please keep it as it is. It just seems funny because of my extreme playtesting with 3 knights. Normally I would use between 0 and 2 knights. Extreme parties have their own cons and bonuses.
I agree. Extreme parties are extreme for reason!
anjinsanroland wrote:
Plate wearers take magical hits for other members too. That is why they die sooner since plate does not provide resistance whereas leather provides good resistance. But if knights wear leather than they don't choose to take hits for other members.
I also think expert shield should provide nice bonuses for both AC and resistance, and master shield should share some of these bonuses for the whole party. This would make shields and therefore clerics viable. I think the player should have a hard time deciding how to use their knight/paladin's off hand.
Damage sharing was a wield idea so it may need some polish as you noticed. One option would be the one I mentioned - let plate wearer to intercept only physical attacks. Other option would be to grant this ability to classes: knight and maybe to paladin to lesser extent. Than they can choose between plate/chain/leather to adjust physical/magical defense. I think first option is clearer to player. Second one could be quite complicated play wise.

Yes, I was thinking about other bonus sharing skills. I tend to be quite cautious about this, though. Quadrupling bonus may be quite overpowered. I kept just one shared magic protection bonus for staff as it is a stupidest weapon otherwise. This gives it some incentive to use.

Shield sharing bonuses - need to think about it to make it more interesting. Not just direct AC/resistance to all. Maybe protection from ranged attacks (both physical and magical at higher mastery). Shield protecting from projectiles is a common concept. I also keep seeing cartoons with heroes hiding from dragon fire breath behind the shield. So that may be a well known concept too.
It should not be a resistance addition as Staff does. Maybe direct damage reduction or chance to deflect it entirely?

About the cleric itself - I think they are super viable now with enhanced healing spells and buffs. No much need to improve them even more.
anjinsanroland wrote: I skipped mods for MM7 since I don't really like MM7. Its graphics seem too plain and its system too sterilized. I find MM7 as a technically fine tuned game without a soul. But if you provide a link to Lumdmeister's mod, I may read about the spell class changes.

Yeah. A good old 6. I even have its soundtrack on a disk in my car.
:)

You are out of luck then. All versions from 6 onwards were progressively losing the soul of original games. I can go even further and say that 1-2-3 had most soul in them with 3 being a paramount of soul and playability combination. 4-5 was more of a technical improvement and fun quirks (like combining two worlds into one) without much story addition.
So you definitely won't like 8-9-10 games then. I played 8 occasionally. It has some interesting concepts but it is already hugely imbalanced. Any other version beyond it I just vomit.

Ludmeister's mod
http://www.jeffludwig.com/mm7/

And this is a spreadsheet that is difficult to find on a site
http://www.jeffludwig.com/downloads/tha ... 7-mod-data
Last edited by tnevolin on 16 Feb 2021, 18:00, edited 3 times in total.


Return to “Might and Magic”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 52 guests