MM6 skill emphasis mod (#74)

[tnevolin]

Extracted design idea from our conversation.
https://github.com/tnevolin/mm6-skill-e ... d/issues/2

[tnevolin]

On the topic of the +30 Level Well: SkEm gives bonuses per level to weapon attacks for certain classes. +30 levels is a pretty significant increase with that in mind: a Champion is picking up +120 damage per attack just from drinking from the well.

I believe this is per skill level. Probably not clear wording. I doubt I would give anyone increase in damage just because of their level. Let me test it.

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Update.

Just tested it. Created standard party with paladin. Then edited it to become a Hero. Then gave him +10 level. His damage didn't change.

You scared me just a little here. I trust my test above. However, if you test it on +30 level well and it does increase knight/paladin damage - please let me know. If may be a different issue with that.

[raekuul]

naturally you're posting that while I'm still brainstorming a solution for the ailments problem (current idea is to base the ailment modifier on the curing spell - anything that can be cured by resting would be left out since you could just go rest at the inn instead, Curse would add 5 MP to the recovery, etc)

wrt The Well: or we could just remove the temporary +30 level effect entirely. In vanilla it just provides a HP/MP buffer to work with since that's all levels do naturally (and SkEm benefits from emphasizing training due to how the skills are reworked). Having that well do some other temporary effect that doesn't wreck game balance would be nice, maybe have it grant a small amount of permanent resistances instead?

[tnevolin]

+30 level well.
Again, this should not increase knight/paladin damage. I believe I never tied these parameters to a character level. Everything should be tied to skill level. That is why it is a SkEm mod.
Updated description title: https://github.com/tnevolin/mm6-skill-e ... or-classes


If you see any non vanilla effects from this +30 well - let me know.

I don't see much point to not cure weakness in temple even if it can be cured by sleep or spell. That is fine to have multiple ways to cure an ailment.
With the heal cost formula I proposed it will already be relatively balanced and I don't think we need to super polish it at the moment. Maybe later - after we test this iteration first.

I would appreciate any suggestions on ailment curing cost parameters such as relative cost coefficient between more and less severe conditions. We can take a vanilla multipliers those are in 2-10 range, I believe.

[RawSugar]

+30 levels, its a huge boost of +50-100% hp/sp, it means even with your mod doubling monster damage im no longer in constant danger of dying by a few hits. it also means you can go twice as far pr rest/temple.
I dont think it needs fixing as such, just mention game is balanced to not use it. otherwise yes disable it or add a cost of 10% current XP or -10 permanent to all abilities and resitances or some such.

healing at temple: gold income increases much faster than linearly, so its not an issue that it will be too much endgame imo - there's always resting. quadratically or N(N+1)/2 should be fine. Ideally ailment should not increase cost more than to double at most, if the base cost becomes this much.
I'd base it on level not hp/sp recovery. I like that partial heals cost full, its a tactical decision and melee parties are already favored because you dont need to heal knights at temple but can just give them a few heal spells.

archer/paladin: if a knight gets rank 6 in axe, he gets same rank with all other melee weapons. Im suggesting archer should do same when ranking elemental magic skills. It could even be tied with bow skill so if he's rank 20 with bow he's also rank 20 with fire/air/water and earth (for palas it would be melee weapons for clerical spell abilities). Even if was just the magic skills being raised concurrently it would give these classes a special ability, but i dont know if you can make it work just for them.
Its not neccesary, its really a vanilla issue and you've already given them some abilities with the mod but i just dont see myself using them currently.

dodging/skirmish/ranged: thanks for tip on shields, will try that out. Its not a difficulty thing though, but a gameplay issue. In vanilla there's a lot of benefits to realtime and its fun to dodge etc if a little easy. In your mod all those benefits are gone and I use turn mode almost all the time, except when taking cover behind corners...its a little static.
Ideally monsters should be (almost?) as fast as players not faster so that skirmish allows you to get some extra shots off than stand and fire but you still get caught, and dodging should reduce damage but not as much as in vanilla, maybe half the monsters should have homing attacks, others not. Sure it's kinda a damage coefficient but its also a reward for playing the game well. But it would be a big change i think requiring a bunch of testing etc, its not neccesary just my personal preference.

Beacon; its not quite a suggestion yet, i want to test it first but especially caster parties can be really powerful when they dont need to consider resource management, just blasting spells as fast as they can. In a way beacon+reasonably small temple fees greatly increases the power of a caster party. So unless the temple fees are increased im considering making beacon cost a lot of mana; a 50% or 100% manadrain. It would still be worth using even at that cost.

[tnevolin]

+30 levels, its a huge boost of +50-100% hp/sp, it means even with your mod doubling monster damage im no longer in constant danger of dying by a few hits. it also means you can go twice as far pr rest/temple.

+level does not give you HP/SP boost. It raises max only. One should also heal at the temple or use some other means (potion, spells) to actually fill up this increase with real HP. And if temple healing would have reasonable high cost = then this level boost also cost player a small fortune and people won't be able to use it all the time. So they would need to plan when they want to use for some critical encounters it and, in my mind, this is what balances it and makes game more strategic.

Resting does not help as it clears the level boost effect too.

archer/paladin: if a knight gets rank 6 in axe, he gets same rank with all other melee weapons. Im suggesting archer should do same when ranking elemental magic skills. It could even be tied with bow skill so if he's rank 20 with bow he's also rank 20 with fire/air/water and earth (for palas it would be melee weapons for clerical spell abilities). Even if was just the magic skills being raised concurrently it would give these classes a special ability, but i dont know if you can make it work just for them.
Its not neccesary, its really a vanilla issue and you've already given them some abilities with the mod but i just dont see myself using them currently.

I am all for giving paladin/archer some spice but making them excel in magic better than spellcasters seems like an extreme and lore breaking. Would everyone prefer them to caster then?

If anything, we can specialize them in certain spells. Not based on magic school but specifically picked. Like all low level arrow/projectile spells. Similar to Fire Archer monster. Or even make them advance in certain school level better (Air). Similar to Maestro mm7 mod.

dodging/skirmish/ranged: thanks for tip on shields, will try that out. Its not a difficulty thing though, but a gameplay issue. In vanilla there's a lot of benefits to realtime and its fun to dodge etc if a little easy. In your mod all those benefits are gone and I use turn mode almost all the time, except when taking cover behind corners...its a little static.
Ideally monsters should be (almost?) as fast as players not faster so that skirmish allows you to get some extra shots off than stand and fire but you still get caught, and dodging should reduce damage but not as much as in vanilla, maybe half the monsters should have homing attacks, others not. Sure it's kinda a damage coefficient but its also a reward for playing the game well. But it would be a big change i think requiring a bunch of testing etc, its not neccesary just my personal preference.

Real time combat is already more advantageous in mm6 as party cannot move in turn based one. So, you are right, party can run backward and shoot few more times at approaching mob. Same with hiding behind obstacles - which you can call some type of dodging, etc. Personally, I play turns when in tight interior where I am pretty well covered already and I play real time outside to be able to react, hide, and withdraw quickly if things go bad. So each mode has its merits.

Beacon; its not quite a suggestion yet, i want to test it first but especially caster parties can be really powerful when they dont need to consider resource management, just blasting spells as fast as they can. In a way beacon+reasonably small temple fees greatly increases the power of a caster party. So unless the temple fees are increased im considering making beacon cost a lot of mana; a 50% or 100% manadrain. It would still be worth using even at that cost.

With proper temple healing cost balance it should loose this exploit benefit and serve as a fast travel tool only.

[RawSugar]

+30; sure you need to heal up, but thats one or two healing spells and you can go to temple 100s of times, clearing several dungeons, with a single well visit. Temple prices would need to be raised so high you'd never consider them over other means of healing for the well to not be gamebreaking. I think its better to remove the well, either by coding or by suggestion, than balance other game elements on its existence

archer/paladin: letting them rank many schools simultanously makes them jacks of all trades but they still have far less mana and lack access to light/dark, it gives them special abilities with magic while still being less useful casters.

turn mode/RT: if you find use for RT maybe its not an issue. I dont really see the benefit though, you can react in turn mode as well - even turn while in pause mode. And monsters are so fast skirmish doesnt give you more shots off far as i can see. anyhoo lets put a pin in this one.

temple healing: increasing cost is indeed a key to balancing the game, including beacon. I wonder if there's a way to tie cost to how many times its been used in past 24 hours or to the time of day? that way it would still daily be available at low cost but constant use would be impossible or extremely costly.

[tnevolin]

With healing cost proportional to restored HP it wouldn't matter if you use the well or not. The amount of repair is cumulatively the same. With bigger max you'll just sustain damage longer and reduce number of temple visits. Same for healing spells. Mana cost proportional to restore in temple. +level is not an exploit anymore. Mere convenience.


Turn mode. Keep in mind game was designed with turn mode in mind. One can pass items, repair, heal, choose spell to cast, etc. Don't tell me you fight golden dragon in real time.

[RawSugar]

+50% hitpoint is a lot more than convenience unless you never take significant damage, it makes you much tougher making death and wipe much more rare. But like i said one can just not use it.
I checked out the shield bonus are you saying that goes for anything even energy attacks/spells?

In vanilla i do fight in RT, flying when you can swooping in to shoot off a volley. even gold dragons die instantly to a volley of metal shards. RT allows you to take no or little damage on the approach.

[tnevolin]

+50% hitpoint is a lot more than convenience unless you never take significant damage, it makes you much tougher making death and wipe much more rare. But like i said one can just not use it.

Yes. I meant exactly that. Convenience + extra protection against instant death for price.

I checked out the shield bonus are you saying that goes for anything even energy attacks/spells?

It should. At least this is what in game description says if you right click on shield skill.

[RawSugar]

hmm tried the shield thing i dont think it stacks when you have several shieldbearers? honestly thats a relief it'd be way too strong for druids and to a lesser extent clerics if it did. I THINK it works for the bearer/highest rank, but i couldnt get high enough rank to really test that.

Another thing; i realized that while fireblast shoots normally shrap metal has been given autoaim, making it effectively a ranged spell. tbh its too strong in vanilla and making it work at range is WAY OP

full disclosure though im not 100% my game is latest versin etc, it should be though.

regarding the healing, i think lvl^2 (so healing cost 100 in level 10 and 10K iin level 100) is about right, if you're going by hp/sp recovered then
((hp*125%+sp)/12)^2 should achieve more or less the same number once everyone is max class.

[tnevolin]

hmm tried the shield thing i dont think it stacks when you have several shieldbearers? honestly thats a relief it'd be way too strong for druids and to a lesser extent clerics if it did. I THINK it works for the bearer/highest rank, but i couldnt get high enough rank to really test that.

Let me check the code. I don't remember how it works exactly. Was too long ago.

Another thing; i realized that while fireblast shoots normally shrap metal has been given autoaim, making it effectively a ranged spell. tbh its too strong in vanilla and making it work at range is WAY OP

Yes, when I give auto aim to all projectiles it affected multi projectile blast spells as well: poison spray, sparks, fire blast, shrapmetal, meteor storm, etc. So I explicitly disabled auto aim for these kind of spells. Let me know if I missed anything that need to be excluded.

regarding the healing, i think lvl^2 (so healing cost 100 in level 10 and 10K iin level 100) is about right, if you're going by hp/sp recovered then
((hp*125%+sp)/12)^2 should achieve more or less the same number once everyone is max class.

Excellent! Thank you for formula.

However, if it squared for remainder of the HP then people would tend to heal themselves as much as possible to avoid quadratic prices. Would you like to change it to something like: hp * lvl ? This way it will grow about generally quadratically over the course of the game yet the price at each point in time will be directly proportional to restored hp.

[tnevolin]

Oops. Turns out I have a bug in my code and shield doesn't deflect projectiles. Fixed it now. Take the version 66.

And yes, it is cumulative and multiplicative. It never goes to zero but can get pretty low. Meaning if you have 4 shield wearers at level 10 (with combined shield skill 40) then projectile damage will reduce to ~45%. It is pretty neat but the cost of raising four character shield skills to 10 is pretty substantial. Player essentially is given a choice to invest into protection or damage (as usual).

If you think it is too much bonus for this price - let me know I'll adjust the formula.

[RawSugar]

shrapmetal: for some reason it autoaims, i agree that the others dont but shrap metal hurls every shard at nearest target. it needs the damage halved if its a ranged single target spell to bring it in line with implosion but hopefully there's a way to mak it not autoaim?

shield: great that its 0.98^rank rather than just -2% pr rank, thats much more reasonable. It's still a bit much imo though. If you have 100 resist all and 40 ranks in shield you take about half damage vs 100 resist all and 40 ranks in staff

I think it would be better as 1% deduction (0.99^rank), perfect would be 1% for druid and cleric and 2% for knight and paladin, since the latter give up a ton of damage to use shield (on that note; maybe shield could increase damage to make it more viable for weaponusers? right now shield more than halves damage i think, but if it gave +1/2 at E/M it'd be more like -30% making it viable if still inferior)

I gotta admit ive been underestimating how powerful you've made the defensive stuff, like imagine a spellcaster with skill level 40. reducing that by 10% to 36 i can use those skill points to rank staff and leather armor to 12 increasinbg resist all by ~200 thus roughly halving the damage i take. i have a feeling that once i start using those the endgame might get too easy tbh, seems obvious that monsterdamage should be increased further, starting at midlevel monsters getting +25% damage and ending with endgame monsters dealing double damage (on top of current doubling, so 4 times original) but will test first.

Healing: (hp+sp)*lvl/10 works as well and comes out as much the same number, i dont think it changes much regarding the pre temple healing, i was already doing that in low and midlevels just healing mana for the healers and then using those to heal the knights. I dont think there's an issue with finding other ways to heal, temple is just a little too easy a way to replenish spellpoints.

btw can i make some suggestions for changing spells? i have a number of such

[raekuul]

The defensive side of things is more necessary than in vanilla too, because of the changes to combat. Want to actually get inside of Icewind Keep? Hope you have your defensive spells ready, because you're taking every single one of those shots.

[RawSugar]

by the time i cleared icewind keep (level 30 or so) i didnt really have the skillpoints to make massive investment in defense. i think its mostly an issue from level 50 onwards where foregoing a few points of offensive ability gets you a massive defensive boost. I think its cool the defensive skills have been made relevant but i just foresee the party getting way too tough endgame. I liked the thrill of monsters dealing double damage, if thats neutralized by abilities halving the damage i take...but im just entering level 50 and started getting some defensive stuff so guess i'll see

[tnevolin]

Thank you for playtesting it. You already helped to fix few things and gave great suggestions.

shrapmetal: for some reason it autoaims, i agree that the others dont but shrap metal hurls every shard at nearest target. it needs the damage halved if its a ranged single target spell to bring it in line with implosion but hopefully there's a way to mak it not autoaim?

Yep. You are right. I just checked the code and Shrapmetal is not excluded from autoaim. Fixed in 67.

Here is the full list of spells currently excluded from autoaim:
-- Fire Blast
-- Meteor Shower
-- Sparks
-- Starburst
-- Poison Spray
-- Shrapmetal

shield: great that its 0.98^rank rather than just -2% pr rank, thats much more reasonable. It's still a bit much imo though. If you have 100 resist all and 40 ranks in shield you take about half damage vs 100 resist all and 40 ranks in staff

I think it would be better as 1% deduction (0.99^rank), perfect would be 1% for druid and cleric and 2% for knight and paladin, since the latter give up a ton of damage to use shield (on that note; maybe shield could increase damage to make it more viable for weaponusers? right now shield more than halves damage i think, but if it gave +1/2 at E/M it'd be more like -30% making it viable if still inferior)

You are right that there is a Stuff effect protecting from spell projectiles as well. I was kinda sitting on a fence when deciding between shield granting only physical projectiles damage or magical as well. Unfortunately, there are not many monsters shooting arrows besides lizardmen. So no much use for physical protection only. True that shield now competes with staff in magic protection but I don't know what better option would be. Open for suggestions.

1% deduction sounds good. It should not be too good anyway. It is just an additional feature to spice things out. After all shield should not be that powerful against magic comparing to staff. Another option is to give 2% for physical, 1% for magical-elemental attacks those actually throw some matter at you: fire, water, ice, stones, etc. No protection against non-material magical attack like mind spells and such.

Keep also in mind that staff adds to magic protection which means all kind of magical spells on a party. Whereas shield protects against projectiles only.

Another though is to differentiate shield and stuff protection specialty is to use shield against actual projectiles including magical. Whereas stuff should have some sort of dispel power giving a chance to deflect bad effect on party (not projectiles) like curse, weakness, fear and such. Not sure how many monsters issue such spells and how they are relevant in the game. The curse is the only one that I even remember being pretty annoying.

Another option is to give bunch of not shooting monsters arrow attack to increase the value of physical projectile protection.

I gotta admit ive been underestimating how powerful you've made the defensive stuff, like imagine a spellcaster with skill level 40. reducing that by 10% to 36 i can use those skill points to rank staff and leather armor to 12 increasinbg resist all by ~200 thus roughly halving the damage i take. i have a feeling that once i start using those the endgame might get too easy tbh, seems obvious that monsterdamage should be increased further, starting at midlevel monsters getting +25% damage and ending with endgame monsters dealing double damage (on top of current doubling, so 4 times original) but will test first.

Makes sense. However, as you correctly pointed out, this requires testing and balancing. Cumulative skill advancing party grows faster then linearly so yet, end game monster may need to be made even more tougher/stronger.

Healing: (hp+sp)*lvl/10 works as well and comes out as much the same number, i dont think it changes much regarding the pre temple healing, i was already doing that in low and midlevels just healing mana for the healers and then using those to heal the knights. I dont think there's an issue with finding other ways to heal, temple is just a little too easy a way to replenish spellpoints.

True. We are not making perfectly balanced game. Just reducing some overly abusive exploits.

btw can i make some suggestions for changing spells? i have a number of such

By all means! I would love to hear it.

[tnevolin]

The defensive side of things is more necessary than in vanilla too, because of the changes to combat. Want to actually get inside of Icewind Keep? Hope you have your defensive spells ready, because you're taking every single one of those shots.

True. I was actually thinking about reducing weapon reach range to disallow standing behind obstacle and hit them without retaliation. Pretty boring. This would make Icewind Keep even more challenging.

[tnevolin]

Thank you for active contribution, everybody.
I apologize that I won't be able to program anything major any time soon. Too busy with other stuff. Once I am back - I'll review all the notes there so be sure they won't be forgotten.

[RawSugar]

shield: i think 1% should be fine, although its unclear to me what spells it protects against, it includes stuff like firebolt and lightning bolt right? i rather like the idea of shield adding damage tbh, makes it a real option so you can make your paladin with shield.

Spells:
low level damage spells; always seemed a shame to me these get phased out (and the really low level ones dont get used at all) so I'd suggest the very low level spells like flame arrow get +1 damage pr rank and low level stuff like sparks and poison spray get cost 2 at master while fire bolt and deadly swarm get cost 1. They'd still deal a good deal less damage than knights but it gives sorcerers a low DPS high DPM option which is useful if temple heals get more expensive

first aid to 5+1 pr rank for cost of 2/1/1, (or as previous 5/7/10 for 2/1/0 cost but i like this better if doubling cost and effect of cure wounds)
healing touch should be changed to 3-7+2 pr rank
cure wounds 5 + 5 pr rank cost 10
power cure heal 10 + 3 pr rank
shared life 2/4/6 added to pool

blades: is too close to deadly swarm would double cost and damage (or 1-10)

Ice blast: damage is weirdly low even when it manages to hit its target i think it could be changed to 1-12 pr rank

incinerate: the damage pr mana is just too low given how common fire resist is, i'd change to 1-20 pr rank

Mind magic is potentially the clerical damage school but magic resistance is so common its useless if possible i'd change mind blast and psychic shock to physical damage

toxic cloud cost could be changed to 20 or damage to 1-14 pr rank

And hey thanks for everything you done so far and the bug fixes. I really love that you made this game come alive for me again