MM6 skill emphasis mod (#74)

The role-playing games (I-X) that started it all and the various spin-offs (including Dark Messiah).
anjinsanroland
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Re: MM6 skill emphasis mod

Unread postby anjinsanroland » 17 Feb 2021, 18:00

Just checked the vanilla version (with grayface patch of course) for shrine mechanic. Started a game, went to bootleg bay shrine and I got the bonus without visiting the seer first. So yeah, it was indeed from vanilla.

Ludmeister's spreadsheet for magic mastery distribution reminded me of MM10 but I can't give feedback for whether somethink like that would make MM6 a better experience or not.

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Re: MM6 skill emphasis mod

Unread postby tnevolin » 17 Feb 2021, 18:40

Yeah. They learned MM6-7 lesson and started to distribute magic more between classes. Actually, MM8 did first step in this direction already.
No. I didn't mean to implement it in MM6 exactly like that. Too few classes to distribute magic across. I guess player will still distribute magic schools between party members. Like archer masters air while sorcerer takes usual fire, etc. The only problem is that paladin and archer have little SP pool. So player may want to give them some other type of magic and don't get locked into spirit and air, for example.

Anyway, it is minor. I believe current mod composition is good enough to enjoy the game in general.

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Re: MM6 skill emphasis mod

Unread postby anjinsanroland » 21 Feb 2021, 12:46

My characters are near level 50 now and I remembered why I can't finish my repeated playthroughs; it is because inventory management becomes such a chore.
In the first couple playthroughs it doesn't matter much because you are new to the game and enthusiastic about everything the game offers. But with subsequent plays to try out new party formations, there comes a time when it doesn't worth all the inventory hassle. Then I begin wasting all my skill points to give everyone master repair and master merchant just to keep it bearable. Then I consider to give everyone master ID and whatnot instead of raising weapon and magic skills but then the combat gets difficult and then I ask myself why bother to keep playing.
I think what this game needs for swift repeat playthroughs is like something you did with grouping weapons and armour. What I mean is, raising a skill point in one character's merchant, repair, ID, perception and disarm should raise everyone's skill with it. If it is not possible, then whenever any party member uses one of these skills, the skill of the highest among the party should be tested automatically.
What do you think about inventory management. Am I the only one that gets so frustrated with it?

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Re: MM6 skill emphasis mod

Unread postby tnevolin » 21 Feb 2021, 13:44

I agree this is exceptionally annoying especially repair passing item every time back and forth every time it broke. Also looking for broken ring across whole party.

I can try to raise such skills simultaneously for all characters. However, this is slightly different from raising all melee weapon skills for a single character for example. With shared party skill it becomes indeed shared pool of SP. Any party member can contribute to it to raise for everybody. That would remove the lore of specialization when you have dedicated disarmer, identifier, merchant, repairer, etc. Now everybody are. I guess it is fine with me.

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Re: MM6 skill emphasis mod

Unread postby tnevolin » 21 Feb 2021, 15:28


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Re: MM6 skill emphasis mod

Unread postby anjinsanroland » 21 Feb 2021, 15:56

OMG I can't believe you solved all my problems so fast :-D
I can't thank you enough.
So is this mean you agree with my frustration? If there are others who feel the same you should now advertise your mod's new features for those people.
Well done sir, I bow to you :yes:

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Re: MM6 skill emphasis mod

Unread postby tnevolin » 21 Feb 2021, 16:33

I have the same frustration as, probably, all other players. I just didn't think of this in term of modding before as it seemed to be in line of other RPG elements. That is you have a disarmer, a merchant, an identifier, etc. However, once changed this for single character skill groups I don't see why we could not do it for other party beneficial skills.

You are welcome. Modding development time is unpredictable as it may require reverse engineering and stuff. This time, though, I already had the code for skill groups so adding another similar functionality was easy.

I agree that game may get tedious in details and micromanagement. However, keep in mind that some people play not only to win but for the story and immersion as well. These small things may be fun to fiddle with for some. That is why we should simplify things thoughtfully. Otherwise, we can end up with one big button on a screen reading: "win the game"! That is it. No long traveling location, killing monsters, grinding skills, and other micromanagement. :D

I am already advertising it here and on https://www.reddit.com/r/MightAndMagic/. Usually I get ~50 visits/week on my github page + few downloads. So people get interested in it occasionally but the real feedback like you posted is rare. I can sure post it some other places if you know other communities. I just don't know any bigger than this one.

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Re: MM6 skill emphasis mod

Unread postby anjinsanroland » 21 Feb 2021, 16:56

tnevolin wrote:we can end up with one big button on a screen reading: "win the game"! That is it. No long traveling location, killing monsters, grinding skills, and other micromanagement. :D
You are so right. A game isn't a work to get over with; though sometimes some parts of a game can feel like one. Of course we shouldn't get carried away trivializing them.
tnevolin wrote:I can sure post it some other places if you know other communities. I just don't know any bigger than this one.
I don't know much about it but GOG forums of Might and Magic series seem active.

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Re: MM6 skill emphasis mod

Unread postby tnevolin » 21 Feb 2021, 17:23

Here is the one on reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/MightAndMagic/ ... er_mod_50/

I'll check GOG forum too. However, it seems cluttered with technical questions like "my game doesn't start".

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Re: MM6 skill emphasis mod

Unread postby tnevolin » 22 Feb 2021, 01:21

This being said I was thinking about further optimization of some especially annoying features. Just thoughts so far.

Identify Item should identify all visible identifiable items immediately without need to right click them.
This operation happens like 10,000 times a game. There is no need to perform sacred ritual every time.

Repair Item. Same idea. Broken item should get immediately fixed as long as there is a party member with enough skill.

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Re: MM6 skill emphasis mod

Unread postby raekuul » 22 Feb 2021, 01:49

tnevolin wrote:Identify Item should identify all visible identifiable items immediately without need to right click them.
This operation happens like 10,000 times a game. There is no need to perform sacred ritual every time.
Disagree - you only need to ID an item if you're looking at its details, which requires right-clicking anyway. However, I would like to see the green Unidentified coloration in the regular inventory view, so that I don't have to play "guess the new item".
Repair Item. Same idea. Broken item should get immediately fixed as long as there is a party member with enough skill.
Partial agree - making it automatic party-wide would defeat the purpose of restricting (mastery of) the repair skill to one or two classes. Make it automatic, yes, but on a per-character basis.

Also, there's an engine bug/limitation, where repairing an unidentified item automatically identifies it, so there's also a priority issue in there somewhere.
Last edited by raekuul on 22 Feb 2021, 01:51, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: MM6 skill emphasis mod

Unread postby tnevolin » 22 Feb 2021, 02:22

raekuul wrote:
tnevolin wrote:Identify Item should identify all visible identifiable items immediately without need to right click them.
This operation happens like 10,000 times a game. There is no need to perform sacred ritual every time.
Disagree - you only need to ID an item if you're looking at its details, which requires right-clicking anyway. However, I would like to see the green Unidentified coloration in the regular inventory view, so that I don't have to play "guess the new item".
Makes sense generally. However, strangely enough unidentified item is green only when you are shopping. Outside of shops in chests and inventory they are not!!! So one has to click every item to understand whether it was new and the only indication of that is character exclamation. What if I turns the sound down? All in all I think it is much easier just to identify them immediately. One rarely mix up equipped good item with picked up garbage.
raekuul wrote:
Repair Item. Same idea. Broken item should get immediately fixed as long as there is a party member with enough skill.
Partial agree - making it automatic party-wide would defeat the purpose of restricting (mastery of) the repair skill to one or two classes. Make it automatic, yes, but on a per-character basis.
Didn't understand about restricting mastery to classes. This is MM6 where mastery is not restricted on any skill.

Besides, this was actually my idea to use the top repair skill mastery/level regardless of player currently possessing the item to avoid stupid passing it back and forth. You teach some party member to repair items. Why spend mouse clicks 100 times a battle passing them around? Even worse is to pass it around only to understand that it cannot be repaired.

Also I don't see any harm on auto applying it either. What good is to know that item was broken if you can fix it?

Actually, with last mod version everybody will have same repair skill. So no passing around needed anymore. Only auto applying left to do.
raekuul wrote: Also, there's an engine bug/limitation, where repairing an unidentified item automatically identifies it, so there's also a priority issue in there somewhere.
Good to know but this is exceptionally minor issue. Items usually do not get broken first half of the game and after that identification is good enough already.
Last edited by tnevolin on 22 Feb 2021, 02:59, edited 3 times in total.

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Re: MM6 skill emphasis mod

Unread postby tnevolin » 22 Feb 2021, 03:01

Oh well. I think it is too complex functionality to auto apply any action. I won't do this.

Sharing skill level for miscellaneous skills should solve "passing around" problem well enough and I think this should be satisfactory for now.

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Re: MM6 skill emphasis mod

Unread postby tnevolin » 22 Feb 2021, 13:55

Actually, guys, you can help me out with some tuning.
I have been increasing monster health and damage since generally both might and magic became stronger. However, it is difficult to find right spot. Initially I set them double health, double damage. It seems pretty passable yet require a little more grinding at least at the beginning. Reducing these values makes game easier but maybe somewhat too easy maybe?

In short. This mod requires monster to be stronger. How much?

Existing modifications

Learning skill grants multipliers: 3,4,5 instead of 1,2,3 vanilla. And it is now worth to improve it to master 12 instead of master 7 in vanilla. So with teacher and instructor around one can increase their XP by 95% instead of 55% vanilla. That will account for about 12% more character levels which is not much especially counting that one doesn't get full learning bonus from the beginning.

Current monster settings

HP multiplier = 1
damage multiplier = 1
AC multiplier = 2
level multiplier = 1 (this account for monster accuracy)
XP multiplier = 1

Modified monster settings

What should they be? I feel like above settings are too easy.
I also want to keep at least their health and damage more or less proportional to maintain their attack/defense balance.

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Re: MM6 skill emphasis mod

Unread postby anjinsanroland » 22 Feb 2021, 18:16

I am glad you didn't implement auto repair. When fighting monsters who break items, checking character portraits to catch when an item is broken is part of the adrenalin. It is like keeping track of hit points. And since the version.50 quickly repairing everyones items with right click is fun.
Also since version.50 everyone can ID items, we don't need to listen to the same character ID voice. Listening to four different character's voices when they ID items can be fun too.
About monster difficulty, currently it seems fine. Cuisinarts are still painful.

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Re: MM6 skill emphasis mod

Unread postby tnevolin » 22 Feb 2021, 20:27

Are you trying to beef up your characters before battle? Like hire weapon master and squire (or equivalent magical helpers), cast all buffs, drink all potions, get all temple blessings, etc.? I recall that with all of that battle became quite easy and I don't want that. On a scale of toughness from 0% (no buffs or aid at all) to 100% (all possible buffs and help imagine) I would like to see it somewhere at 50%-75%. Meaning that battle preparation should be needed for most key battles otherwise it becomes quite difficult to beat. At the same time, full scale preparation should not be needed for most outdoor monsters - just partial should be enough. But they should not be a complete cakewalk either.

I am very interested in feedback about healing. Now it progressively cost more money as your characters experience. Does it add up to challenge? Does it force you to plan your healing/resting/eating routines? Does it make you cherish HPs more and, therefore, do not just use grinding (hit-heal) runs but protect well in each battle?

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Re: MM6 skill emphasis mod

Unread postby tnevolin » 22 Feb 2021, 23:59

Here.
https://github.com/tnevolin/mm6-skill-e ... version-51

Plate wearer now covers against melee attacks only.
Shield wearer reduces projectiles damage. All of them including magical including energy attack that has no other defense in the game. I think it is but didn't tested it against energy attack explicitly.

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Re: MM6 skill emphasis mod

Unread postby anjinsanroland » 23 Feb 2021, 19:45

In vanilla I used to beef up my characters before battle, but with your mod I try my luck with key battles unbuffed. So you are right. It is a bit easier. Though it is also a result of skill being more effective than other buffs. 1 skill in a weapon provide the same bonus for 4 levels of hour of power. No attribute bonus of a fountain can reach it.
Healing costs made me more careful about resting. I prefer mixing restoration potions instead of using temples. I use unlimited HP fountain of free haven sewer. And for the last resort I rest on grass using 1 apple. I collect apples on all occasions and I didn't neet to buy apples on Inns. Sometimes I prefer resting at an Inn.
Access to free haven sewer makes a lot of difference. Maybe you want to tweak it. However there are HP and SP regeneration items as well.
Since my party relies on brute strength I can't give feedback on healing for mana.

Edit: Trying version 51 with an old save results in the following error whenever an attack is made to a target:

Code: Select all

...Magic 6 Skill emphasis Mod\Scripts\General\skill-mod.lua:698: attempt to index local 'player' (a nil value)

stack traceback:
	...Magic 6 Skill emphasis Mod\Scripts\General\skill-mod.lua: in function 'getPlayerEquipmentData'
	...Magic 6 Skill emphasis Mod\Scripts\General\skill-mod.lua:1446: in function 'v'
	...d Magic 6 Skill emphasis Mod\Scripts/Core/EventsList.lua:101: in function <...d Magic 6 Skill emphasis Mod\Scripts/Core/EventsList.lua:96>

arguments of 'getPlayerEquipmentData':
	(*temporary) = nil

local variables of 'getPlayerEquipmentData':
	(*temporary) = (table: 0x0d62f7b0)
	(*temporary) = nil
	(*temporary) = nil
	(*temporary) = nil
	(*temporary) = nil
	(*temporary) = nil
	(*temporary) = nil
	(*temporary) = "attempt to index local 'player' (a nil value)"
Trying version 53 with an old save results in the following error whenever a character sheet is accessed:

Code: Select all

..Magic 6 Skill emphasis Mod\Scripts\General\skill-mod.lua:1267: attempt to index global 'main' (a nil value)

stack traceback:
	...Magic 6 Skill emphasis Mod\Scripts\General\skill-mod.lua: in function 'v'
	...d Magic 6 Skill emphasis Mod\Scripts/Core/EventsList.lua:101: in function <...d Magic 6 Skill emphasis Mod\Scripts/Core/EventsList.lua:96>

arguments of 'v':
	(*temporary) = (table: 0x0e4cd570)

local variables of 'v':
	(*temporary) = (table: 0x0e4cd7f0)
	(*temporary) = (table: 0x0e4cd8e0)
	(*temporary) = 0
	(*temporary) = (table: 0x03bd9c68)
	(*temporary) = nil
	(*temporary) = 46
	(*temporary) = 10
	(*temporary) = 3
	(*temporary) = 11
	(*temporary) = "attempt to index global 'main' (a nil value)"

upvalues of 'v':
	getPlayerEquipmentData = (function: 0x03848118)
	attackBonusMultiplier = (table: 0x03bd9c68)
	attackBonusByMastery = (table: 0x03bd9bd8)
	classRangedWeaponSkillDamageBonus = (table: 0x03bda2c8)
	weaponSkillDamageBonuses = (table: 0x03bd99f8)
	damageBonusByMastery = (table: 0x03bd9de8)
	classMeleeWeaponSkillDamageBonus = (table: 0x03bda1d8)
	twoHandedWeaponDamageBonusByMastery = (table: 0x03bd9f98)
	weaponACBonusByMastery = (table: 0x03bd9e78)
	armorSkillNewBonusBySkillAndRank = (table: 0x03bc1300)
Last edited by anjinsanroland on 25 Feb 2021, 06:38, edited 4 times in total.

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Re: MM6 skill emphasis mod

Unread postby tnevolin » 25 Feb 2021, 15:17

anjinsanroland wrote: In vanilla I used to beef up my characters before battle, but with your mod I try my luck with key battles unbuffed. So you are right. It is a bit easier. Though it is also a result of skill being more effective than other buffs. 1 skill in a weapon provide the same bonus for 4 levels of hour of power. No attribute bonus of a fountain can reach it.
Well, exactly. That is why we need to make monsters tougher. I don't have doubt about it from the very beginning. Just looking for a sweeter spot.

Let's try to double both their HP and damage. Will do it in next version.
anjinsanroland wrote: Healing costs made me more careful about resting. I prefer mixing restoration potions instead of using temples. I use unlimited HP fountain of free haven sewer. And for the last resort I rest on grass using 1 apple. I collect apples on all occasions and I didn't neet to buy apples on Inns. Sometimes I prefer resting at an Inn.
Access to free haven sewer makes a lot of difference. Maybe you want to tweak it. However there are HP and SP regeneration items as well.
Since my party relies on brute strength I can't give feedback on healing for mana.
Good to know it adds another strategic component to the game. Or, to be more specific, this component already existed it just was overlooked due to extreme cheapness.

Yes, unlimited HP fountain in sewers is another exploit. I'll see if I can put a limit on it.

As for HP restoration items - I don't think they are exploits. One need to find them. The effect of multiple items is not cumulative. The HP restoration is slow so with higher levels and higher total HP it may take few days to restore which is roughly equivalent to resting.

Besides, I didn't mean to make healing an insane trouble. Just to make it an element of the game player should be mindful about as it probably planned by designers.

Tavern vs. temple vs. resting
Tavern cost is same as temple but it heals whole party.
Temple heals just one character at a time but may fix bad conditions.
Resting is cheaper than tavern as you can buy 10 food for the price of night but it gets consumed in map crossing in bulk. So one may hire guides just to save on food.
Last edited by tnevolin on 25 Feb 2021, 15:30, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: MM6 skill emphasis mod

Unread postby tnevolin » 25 Feb 2021, 15:34

anjinsanroland wrote: Edit: Trying version 51 with an old save results in the following error whenever an attack is made to a target:

Trying version 53 with an old save results in the following error whenever a character sheet is accessed:
Sorry. I cannot possibly test compatibility with all previous versions every time. They may be incompatible.
:(

I'll look into your errors anyway and will try to guess what could be a problem.


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