Echo's MM8 Monstrosity Modling v1.0

The role-playing games (I-X) that started it all and the various spin-offs (including Dark Messiah).
User avatar
overall
Pixie
Pixie
Posts: 125
Joined: 05 Feb 2010

Re: Echo's MM8 Monstrosity Modling [++ utility & difficulty, new items, new textures]

Unread postby overall » 15 Jul 2016, 13:54

yeah that's quite close and in colors :) quite clever to use those earth cracks as lightning but also you could just use real lightning picture?...
or if you are trying to do like sky sphere tearing a part?...in that case crackles might be better...

User avatar
Echo
Demon
Demon
Posts: 342
Joined: 02 Aug 2012

Re: Echo's MM8 Monstrosity Modling [++ utility & difficulty, new items, new textures]

Unread postby Echo » 15 Jul 2016, 19:14

@ Arret
I was thinking perhaps giving Minotaurs access to GM of Spirit/Body/Mind would be more thematically correct? The Axe you mention can be buffed, sure. Same with plate & some fight-related skills.

I've never used a Knight in MM8. What's so awesome about him? I rolled vampire+elf instead as the melee fighter doing just fine. Daggers are cool. But when I played with one of the other difficulty mods from around here they became irrelevant anyway with Necromancer and Dragon being the only valid characters due to the powerful AoE and Cleric due to her buffs. The elf was a merchant and cast the wizard eye which was more than the vampire could do tbh :D The knight would be even more useless.

Wasn't rock blast present in the Plane of Earth always? I seem to recall the location being quite hasslesome due to major AoE damage that was really difficult to get around with with monsters sitting on my face from the start.

I think Cleric can get master body building as they're mostly buffers anyway. I could also look into increasing the HP gains for the Lich a little. I mean yes, they should be squishy by design, but there is a point at which it might get ridiculous. Giving them a little more fighting chance could be a good idea, especially since the promotion quests are no longer stupidly easy.

I cannot modify what a skill does so GM regeneration is what it will be. I'll add the armsmaster to the troll, but removing plate GM from the Knight would be an odd choice. Perhaps some utility skills could be moved to the troll such as repair. Some people don't do alchemy, or so I heard :D

What's the name of the vampire in Ravenshore? Do you remember?

@ Overall
I could use lightning, but I was going for cracks indeed :) Inanimate lightning doesn't sound so cool!

User avatar
Echo
Demon
Demon
Posts: 342
Joined: 02 Aug 2012

Re: Echo's MM8 Monstrosity Modling [++ utility & difficulty, new items, new textures]

Unread postby Echo » 15 Jul 2016, 19:43

CLASS CHANGES SO FAR (not in the uploaded file yet):
feel free to add suggestions, if no suggestions come in a few days I'll upload the file as is

Lich HP Factor +1 [4]
Priest of Light HP Factor +2 [5]
War Troll HP Factor +2 [10]
Minotaur Lord HP Factor +2 [8]
Patriarch HP Factor +2 [6]
Nosferatu HP Factor +2 [6]
Knight Unchanged [8]
Dragon Unchanged [10]

Minotaur SP Factor +1 [2]
Minotaur Lord SP Factor +3 [5]
Patriarch SP Factor +1 [5]
Lich SP Factor +1 [6]
Priest of Light SP Factor +1 [6]
Nosferatu Unchanged [4]
Dragon Unchanged [10]

Nosferatu can now get M in bow.
Nosferatus can now get M merchant.
Nosferatus can now get E in dark magic.
Nosferatus can get GM of perception.
Nosferatus can now get E of learning.
Nosferatus can now get E in armsmaster.

Minotaur Lords can now get M in sword.
Minotaurs can now get E of self magics. Minotaur Lords can get GM of self magics.
Minotaur Lords can now get E in light magic. [master would be too much I think given their fighting abilities]
Minotaur Lords can now get M of learning.

Patriarchs can now get M in spear.
Patriarchs can now get GM of elemental magics.

War Troll can GM in Chain. [would give him plate, but I don't know if there are assets to cover it]
War Trolls can achieve GM of armsmaster.
War Trolls can get GM in repair.

Clerics can only have E merchant.
Clerics can get E in body building.

Knights can only get M in repair.

Wyrms can only get M of perception.


>> adding body building to Liches would be... odd. It's hard to build up those bones, don't you think? :D <<

Lol. I just noticed my rank is Super Peasant. Can't unsee the cape blowing in the wind as I stand with my pitchfork on the cliff.
Last edited by Anonymous on 16 Jul 2016, 10:43, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
Arret
Hunter
Hunter
Posts: 540
Joined: 12 Oct 2011

Re: Echo's MM8 Monstrosity Modling [++ utility & difficulty, new items, new textures]

Unread postby Arret » 15 Jul 2016, 22:54

Knights do an enormous amount of damage. 250 per attack with minimum(30) recovery time pretty early. Especially with dual wielding artifacts they just deal a ridiculous amount of single target damage (remember you can use the seer to recover Ebonest!). Their value drops a ton once you start cranking dark, but remember your lich still has a ton of skills to invest in and even level 10 won't really mow down rooms, especially until you have meditation cranked enough to cast more than a few times. My knight helped me immensely me until I had cleared the Regnan Fleet. It was only once I started going to the Planes that the Lich began catching up, and even then anything that gets into melee won't die from virtually anything but physical damage or Shrapmetal. Also by contrast he almost never dies while the Lich drops every couple attacks.

Karanya Memoria is the name of the Vampire. She is in the first house on the left when you get off the boat.

When you add spell ranks, you need to increase the meditation skill to match or they won't end up getting used (alternatively the easier way may just be increase the spell points factor on leveling).

Yes Rock Blast was in the Plane of Earth before, but the effect of increasing the spawn makes it much different. You can heal through 1 or 2 pretty easily. Healing through 10 is basically impossible so it requires some maneuvering. This isn't a bug, but it's definitely noticeable.

User avatar
Echo
Demon
Demon
Posts: 342
Joined: 02 Aug 2012

Re: Echo's MM8 Monstrosity Modling [++ utility & difficulty, new items, new textures]

Unread postby Echo » 16 Jul 2016, 10:28

When I played with increased spawns whenever things got into melee I was using Soul Drinker. It both kept my Lich up and served as a great AoE. I find that with spawns increased so severely, single target damage becomes way less efficient. I guess that's also why the Rock Blasts weren't that huge of a problem for me in the Plane of Earth? I'm not sure, I can't remember so well anymore, it's been a year or so ago.

Fair point about the spell points factor. I'll look into it as well.

Questions:
- I wonder if perhaps some monsters could use additional resistances to promote a more varied play style?

- going deeper into the classes, I wonder perhaps recreating some of them would make more sense? I mean, there's nothing like a Druid around and some of the classes have no identity whatsoever.

Say, Knight vs Troll vs Minotaur.

Nosferatu vs Elf

Now Minotaurs are more akin to Paladins, just a bit more cleric-sufficient, so there's that. But what do trolls have to differentiate them from Knights really? And what could be the reason to pick a Nosferatu over an Elf?

I wouldn't want to go too far away from the race-lore, because that could get silly, but maybe something fun could be done here? :D I'll munch on it, feel free to throw around ideas.

Mini to-check list for my use:
- karanya
- spell points
- necromancers/vampires mix for crypt
- power of ebonest vs baltharar's axe

EDIT: Karanya won't join my test party saying I'm too low level, so probably Overdune might come ever sooner. Tried adding level+experience+main quest rewards, but whatever NPCs check for before joining is none of these. If someone's a troll lover I guess they can just start with one :D

User avatar
Echo
Demon
Demon
Posts: 342
Joined: 02 Aug 2012

Re: Echo's MM8 Monstrosity Modling [++ utility & difficulty, new items, new textures]

Unread postby Echo » 16 Jul 2016, 13:55

I've looked into the class thing more in depth, I don't know if it's any good, but here's what I've pieced together for now. Just on paper, didn't yet modify the file with this, I could've made a goof :D

The thing in the [] is the class 'identity' thing :creative:. I've turned Trolls into the Druid-like class. I think their lore can survive it somehow :creative:

Necromancer [ GM of Dark, GM of Elemental, weak combat, many SP ]
Priest [ GM of Light, GM of Self, weak combat, many SP ]
Knight [GM of Armsmaster, GM of plate, best combat, no magic ]
Elf [ GM of Merchant, GM of Elemental, good combat ]
Vampire [ GM of Disarm&Perception, M of Dark, good combat, less SP ]
Minotaur [GM of Self, M of Light, good combat, less SP ]
Troll [M of Self, M of Elemental, good combat, good defense, most SP ]
Dragon [ OP as ever, it's the dragon ]

SKILLS, after promotion

Necromancer:
Dark G, Elemental G

Staff M, Dagger B, Bow B
[no more dagger dual wield to encourage staff use]

Leather E

Alchemy G, ID Item E, Learning G, Meditation G, Regeneration E
[ID item moved to other classes]

Priest:
Light G, Self G

Mace M, Bow B

Chain E, Shield E, Leather E

Merchant E, Learning M, Meditation G, Bodybuilding E

Knight
Sword G, Spear G, Axe M, Mace M, Staff E, Dagger E, Bow M

Plate G, Chain G, Leather M, Shield G

Merchant E, ID Monster G, Repair G, Armsmaster G, Bodybuilding G

Elf
Elemental G

Bow G, Spear G, Sword M, Dagger E, Axe M
[spear & axe always seemed like the fitting archer weapons in MM games]

Chain G, Leather E

Merchant G, Perception M, Disarm E, Alchemy M, Armsmaster M, Learning M, Meditation M, Bodybuilding M

Vampire
Dark M, Mind G
[no more self magic for vampires since minotaurs took over this niche]

Dagger G, Sword E, Bow M, Axe E, Mace E

Leather G, Chain E

Merchant M, Disarm G, Perception G, Alchemy M, ID Item G, Repair G, Armsmaster M, Learning E, Meditation E, Bodybuilding E, Regeneration M

Minotaur
Self GM, Light M

Axe G, Bow E, Mace M, Sword E

Chain E, Shield M, Leather E
[due to the master of light magic and self magic buffs the defenses should be a bit lower I think]

Merchant E, ID Item M, Repair M, Armsmaster E, Learning E, Meditation E, Bodybuilding E

Troll
Self M, Elemental M

Mace G, Staff G, Bow E, Sword E

Leather G, Chain G, Shield G
[due to lack of GM of any magic and ability to dual wield weapons I think good defense should be a good idea]

Merchant E, Alchemy G, ID Monster G, Repair G, Armsmaster M, Learning M, Meditation G, Bodybuilding M, Regeneration G

Dragon
ID Item G, ID Monster G, Learning M, Meditation G, Bodybuilding G
[no big changes really, can't well nerf these because then dragons will have no skills to invest in at all lol]
Last edited by Anonymous on 16 Jul 2016, 17:16, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
Arret
Hunter
Hunter
Posts: 540
Joined: 12 Oct 2011

Re: Echo's MM8 Monstrosity Modling [++ utility & difficulty, new items, new textures]

Unread postby Arret » 16 Jul 2016, 15:32

Souldrinker has a horrible recovery time, so it never dealt enough damage for me to act as anything other than a desperation heal. To each his own. The major difference between Knights and Trolls will come down to plate armor and mace paralyze.

Balance looks MUCH better now. If you are concerned about Vampires then you might not know that at release Vampires could learn spirit and mind, but not body (look at the Vampire hirelings, none of them even have basic body; it was added very quickly afterward). I might add those two back but absolutely not body.

Karanya isn't an immediate pickup, I think she requires the blackmail quest finished. Trolls were never a major issue for me, I just considered it an oversight.

For dragons, reduce learning to master. Their overpowered attacks (especially flame blast) are massive, but that combined with lich levels of experience gain is what makes them so powerful late. Their autoattacks are very slow. Flame Blast has a major problem, it does fire damage. If you want to make it harder on dragons, dump a bunch of fire elementals/salamanders/efreeti in annoying places. The ones in the Tower of Khel (for the Necro promotion) were super annoying with dragons.

Looking more and more like a great mod!

User avatar
Echo
Demon
Demon
Posts: 342
Joined: 02 Aug 2012

Re: Echo's MM8 Monstrosity Modling [++ utility & difficulty, new items, new textures]

Unread postby Echo » 16 Jul 2016, 17:08

Yeah, I can see how an undead casting Heal would ruffle people's jimmies :D Same goes for Resurrection, tbh. Mind magic is thematically okay for them, but is it ever useful? I will add it to the vampire for the sake of lore to make up for my Troll Druids :D

Speaking of recovery rates, I've reduced them for most of those never-used spells like reanimate, shrinking ray, deadly swarm etc to perhaps make them occassionally useable. Or at least make derping around with useless magic quicker and more fun :p

The thing with dragons is though, many players who seek additional difficulty simply don't hire them. I'll nerf the learning, but I don't think more salamanders will be in order :) Monster diversity could suffer from it.

User avatar
Echo
Demon
Demon
Posts: 342
Joined: 02 Aug 2012

Re: Echo's MM8 Monstrosity Modling [++ utility & difficulty, new items, new textures]

Unread postby Echo » 16 Jul 2016, 20:07

All right, I've updated and uploaded the new files to the first post. I hope I didn't upload some outdated ones :D I never trust myself with those things.

Here are the final class tables:
[moved]
Last edited by Anonymous on 21 Jul 2016, 00:40, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
Arret
Hunter
Hunter
Posts: 540
Joined: 12 Oct 2011

Re: Echo's MM8 Monstrosity Modling [++ utility & difficulty, new items, new textures]

Unread postby Arret » 16 Jul 2016, 21:37

You weren't kidding about those troll druids. Just from experience I can say not having master sword for the troll would be annoying simply due to the lack of 2h maces and abundance of sword artifacts. I can see it either way considering all the magic skills trolls got as a result, but would lean toward giving master because you decided not to give armsmaster GM. I can't overstate how powerful armsmaster is when you can enchant 25 skill.

I think your disarm row alignment is messed up and you should have dark elf E, Patriarch E, Vampire M, Nosferatu G.

User avatar
Echo
Demon
Demon
Posts: 342
Joined: 02 Aug 2012

Re: Echo's MM8 Monstrosity Modling [++ utility & difficulty, new items, new textures]

Unread postby Echo » 16 Jul 2016, 22:16

Disarm is indeed all messed up, good catch :D Fixed & reuploaded.

When it comes to trolls, they get a lot of HP, a lot of mana, and GM in shield+chain. I think making them go into 1H+Shield fits better this way because they're more of a tanky-mage right now than a face-masher. Plus GM in Mace should make 1H mace+shield a valid combination. M in armsmaster is already making them pretty good fighters, I was worried they are already bordering on OP tbh :D

The only thing Knights have going for them is the Armsmaster. They should be significantly better fighters than all others, especially now that Trolls received much more utility and have an improved survivability. Like I said, I never used a Knight and was fine even with difficulty mods. I think it's more of a matter of taste here - if you like to have the melee hard-hitter you will always choose a Knight :) And now Troll has other things going for it so it's not a competition between the two that Knight is simply stomping.

I personally will never choose a Troll or a Minotaur no matter how strong they'd get, because I very much don't like the way they look :D And I'll likely still won't use a Knight because there's just something about having every type of magic available that I can't seem to resist, even though I don't know if I ever used the vampire magic ever...

User avatar
Arret
Hunter
Hunter
Posts: 540
Joined: 12 Oct 2011

Re: Echo's MM8 Monstrosity Modling [++ utility & difficulty, items, terrain textures, balance]

Unread postby Arret » 17 Jul 2016, 03:03

Ok that makes sense. Shield skill is pretty weak, but you are giving a ton of defense with GM regeneration, leather, chain, and shield GM and building the troll as a mostly defensive character that has master magic skills. If that's the case, then even master Armsmaster might be a bit much.

I personally prefer Leather GM to Chain GM in MM8, but you leave it to the player to pick.

User avatar
Echo
Demon
Demon
Posts: 342
Joined: 02 Aug 2012

Re: Echo's MM8 Monstrosity Modling [++ utility & difficulty, items, terrain textures, balance]

Unread postby Echo » 17 Jul 2016, 09:28

He also has the highest base HP and HP growth per level. You might be right about the Armsmaster... hm. But I wouldn't want to make him subpar to other things again seeing how he can't GM in any magic and Minotaurs/Elves now can, with Vampires having access to Dark Magic. Balancing 2tricky4me :D

Why do you prefer leather? The elemental resistances? I don't remember what chain gives though, shield effect? In that case leather could indeed be better, but if that's the case, I could buff armor stat on chains perhaps?


*****
Also, I derped around and remade one vampire. I won't include him in the mod file, because I accidentally liked the result that came from putting a bunch of remake-layers on top of one another in the 'temporary' file and I decided to go with that particular mess, it looked kinda feral :D Which means the portrait looks a bit too different from the normal MM8 style. On top of that I didn't want to spend too much time on it so the more turned frames are a bit wonky.

So I'll just leave it here as separate files in case someone doesn't mind the issues it has. And maybe at some point make an alternative icons.lod if I'll remake some more characters: http://speedy.sh/6DCmD/VampireM.7z

Image

User avatar
Arret
Hunter
Hunter
Posts: 540
Joined: 12 Oct 2011

Re: Echo's MM8 Monstrosity Modling [++ utility & difficulty, items, terrain textures, balance]

Unread postby Arret » 17 Jul 2016, 15:26

Chain makes physical damage do 2/3. Leather gives resistances. Unlike in the other MM games, an enormous amount of time is spent in places where all damage is elemental, and they actually use all four elements. There also aren't anything like Behemoths which would punish you for lapsing on physical reduction unless you do something stupid like getting in melee of a Great Wyrm.

Balance is always tricky :wall:. If I felt the game was balanced correctly by NWC, I wouldn't have come up with so many changes. Expert to master isn't a huge change either way. It's not the damage that makes armsmaster powerful, its the recovery time reduction (and the effect of doubling that reduction at GM).

User avatar
Echo
Demon
Demon
Posts: 342
Joined: 02 Aug 2012

Re: Echo's MM8 Monstrosity Modling [++ utility & difficulty, items, terrain textures, balance]

Unread postby Echo » 17 Jul 2016, 17:42

You could avoid getting in meleee with Behemoths too, no? They liked to get stuck in every hallway :D I only ever had issues with them in the Pit with hugely increased spawns.

As far as recovery goes, at least there are no Blasters in MM8 :D Those always meant the end of the game in MM6-7.

I've added the quest for druidic circlet to the mod based on GrayFace's quest example/template thingie. It seems to be working fine for me :)

User avatar
Echo
Demon
Demon
Posts: 342
Joined: 02 Aug 2012

Re: Echo's MM8 Monstrosity Modling [++ utility & difficulty, balance, items, terrain textures, 1 quest]

Unread postby Echo » 17 Jul 2016, 18:44

My tiny brain finally wrapped itself around the MM Level Editor and I can add monster spawns now!

EDIT:
It's not the smoothest of things since spawns seem to be pretty limited, but on the bright side, it seems I can add various monsters 1 by 1 and they appear just fine! Also, gives some possibilities for diversity :D I might be out of time soon again so I'm not polishing the locations madly, but it's pretty fun to do this. I've done DWI, Ravenshore and Garrotte so far, here are a few screenies to show some things I've done :)

[moved to 1st post]

And here's the Druidic Circlet quest: Image
Last edited by Anonymous on 21 Jul 2016, 00:45, edited 1 time in total.

User avatar
Echo
Demon
Demon
Posts: 342
Joined: 02 Aug 2012

Re: Echo's MM8 Monstrosity Modling [++ difficulty, utility, balance, graphics, areas pimpage, missing quest]

Unread postby Echo » 18 Jul 2016, 21:25

I've finished revamping all of the outside world areas. First post updated. If anyone plays it and finishes it successfully, it'd be great if you left a note here saying it's okay/what's not okay. I don't know when I'll have the time to play the game again, so sadly I cannot be 100% certain it will all go smoothly.

During my fly-around testing I encountered only one crash on the bridge in Ravenshore, but removing a mace seemed to solve it. So did flying around the bridge, in the worst case scenario. I >think< it was the mace, but that was literally my only idea so I won't be able to solve any real problems I fear :D

Still. It was a fun thing to do!

Now I'm gonna peace out and go catch up on real-life work T-T

EDIT: Cleaned up in the first post and moved most screenshots to 1st and 2nd one so that it's all neat and sensible. Ciao.

User avatar
the beavers1
Assassin
Assassin
Posts: 299
Joined: 20 Feb 2011
Location: Lil town in Oregon

Re: Echo's MM8 Monstrosity Modling v1.0

Unread postby the beavers1 » 23 Jul 2016, 10:59

is there any way you can make your mod one file? also, any faster hosts for dl? this one downloads at about 30 kb/s.... looking forward to trying out this mod though!
"Rot in Hell You Penny Pinching Miser!"

User avatar
Echo
Demon
Demon
Posts: 342
Joined: 02 Aug 2012

Re: Echo's MM8 Monstrosity Modling v1.0

Unread postby Echo » 23 Jul 2016, 17:22

I'm honestly green when it comes to hosting, if you suggest something better I can reupload the files np.

EDIT: Okay, I can reupload the files from what I got in my folder, but they include every change, so if you'd like to use the files with smaller difficulty/no redone portraits/no redone Ravenshore (I did not plan to upload RS at all since it's unfinished and has experimental windows) the links here would be to go-to. If you just want the whole shebang I'll pack it up and put wherever you recommend.

###
The past few days I've played through DWI (not the temple, no time still) with a team of 5 with zeroed skills and stats set to 10 in the editor as I tend to start all MM games. Doable, but needs a little creativity since I used the 2nd, more cluttered file. The important thing was - no crashes or anomalies happened whatsoever, traveling between locations works all fine for me. I hope it means everything else will be A-Okay too.

User avatar
the beavers1
Assassin
Assassin
Posts: 299
Joined: 20 Feb 2011
Location: Lil town in Oregon

Re: Echo's MM8 Monstrosity Modling v1.0

Unread postby the beavers1 » 23 Jul 2016, 21:05

cool, now i have the game installed with most of the components, all but the harder escaton palace, and quest. Units are comming up all static looking, most of the pirates and some of the lizardmen, instead of the normal sprites.
"Rot in Hell You Penny Pinching Miser!"


Return to “Might and Magic”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Bing [Bot] and 64 guests