MM6 skill emphasis mod (#74)

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Tomsod
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Re: MM6 skill emphasis mod

Unread postby Tomsod » 17 Jan 2022, 14:05

A bit too late, but: if you still want an unique ability for spear-class weapons, how about increased melee range? That is, the maximum distance beyond which the player attacks with a bow instead of a melee weapon. Given that spears are long, it makes perfect sense. As far as I can tell, the relevant check is at 0x42a1a1 in mm6.exe.

tnevolin
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Re: MM6 skill emphasis mod

Unread postby tnevolin » 17 Jan 2022, 14:33

Hi there.

Check this thread from the beginning. Yes, some people tried it and left feedback you may find useful.

This is not a "total conversion experience" mod but a collection of separate engine modification. It is open for suggestions and further modification requests. Moreover, it could be ported to 7 and 8 engines or 6-7-8 merged mod or whatever else "experience" mods are there. The porting work will be time consuming but I can be up to it with enough demand from user community.

I have already asked in 6-7-8 merged mod thread if they want me to merge this to it but got no answer. See if you are more lucky with that.

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Re: MM6 skill emphasis mod

Unread postby tnevolin » 17 Jan 2022, 14:41

Tomsod wrote: 17 Jan 2022, 14:05 A bit too late, but: if you still want an unique ability for spear-class weapons, how about increased melee range? That is, the maximum distance beyond which the player attacks with a bow instead of a melee weapon. Given that spears are long, it makes perfect sense. As far as I can tell, the relevant check is at 0x42a1a1 in mm6.exe.
I think similar suggestion was discussed somewhere else. I was considering it and it didn't seem as very distinctive feature.
Think about it. Player already has longer reach than monster. So they can position themselves (behind fences, for example) so they can hit monsters with melee but they cannot retaliate. In this case extra spear reach is irrelevant. Another case when monsters are not blocked to run to party. In this case they engage in melee combat right away and, again, extra spear reach adds nothing. I cannot imagine a game situation for regulars player where they distinctly benefit from it or even notice it.

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Re: MM6 skill emphasis mod

Unread postby Tomsod » 17 Jan 2022, 15:19

Fair. I can think of a practical (and fairly common to me) case where a longer reach is useful, but it's unfortunately not relevant for MM6 in particular. Specifically it's the usage of Berserk to provoke infighting: you'll want to stay far away enough from the affected monster group so that they prioritize each other over your party, but close enough to hit in melee. With vanilla reach it's actually a very fine balance. Too bad there's no Berserk in MM6! But maybe I'll repurpose the idea for my MM7 mod instead.

Another idea, then: this is a bit of a stretch, but what if spears pushed monsters away, like lances in NetHack? Sufficiently frequent attacks could then keep the monster out of its attack range but within the player's. The strength and/or chance of effect would need fine-tuning to keep it from being OP, but it could work? Although it would probably be hard to make it useful but not game-breaking both in real-time and turn-based mode. Perhaps introducing diminishing returns over multiple uses on the same monster would make for a sufficiently mode-agnostic nerf.

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Re: MM6 skill emphasis mod

Unread postby tnevolin » 17 Jan 2022, 17:22

You are right. This is indeed a very fine balance. I never even thought of staying close to berserker. Usually I cast it by letting other half of monsters to engage berserker while fighting other half.

Regarding pushing them away - you are facing exact same problem that you properly described: fine tuning to make them not to be pushed too far or push them too often, etc. Anything requiring that amount of tuning will be a pretty fragile feature and most likely not noticed by unaware player. I see that you are pretty experienced and mechanics aware players but most are not. We need to keep game simple and pretty pronounced for them.

Look for Stun spell. It is absolutely useless by the way it is implemented. You are essentially proposing to use auto-stun cast by spear attack. Exactly because of its uselessness I have replaced mace Stun effect to Paralyze. Let's not introduce it again for other weapon.

I clearly understand that in the world of HP and damage there is not much novelty can be invented. I'd say if we cannot come up with something clearly standing out let live it as is. This mod is still better comparing to vanilla in weapon usage. It is fine if we leave it not 100% perfect.

Regarding distinctive feature example check out dagger. They were weakest weapon and get discarded past mid game anyway. This mod gives them crowd extra damage ability (still hitting just one target but for extra damage when THEY are congested). This way player may keep some good daggers around to fend off large crowds. The point of distinctive feature is to be a trade-off so each weapon may shine sometimes but suck some other times.

That is why I proposed to give spears increased hit/damage against flying creatures (simulating their better reach for aerial animals). There are plenty of them including flying demons. That would be an interesting trade-off. Un-very-fortunately, I could not determine flying animal with existing code. Could try again one more time.

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raekuul
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Re: MM6 skill emphasis mod

Unread postby raekuul » 17 Jan 2022, 21:20

The Stun spell is more useful in realtime since it also resets attack delay, but that doesn't actually help in any meaningful situation since in the time you took casting/recovering from Stun you could have done something a bit more permanent.

If I may interject on the Spears discussion: Vanilla Spears are a halfway weapon between Staves and Axes, and are one of a small number of ways to improve on an Archer's Armor Class bonus (if you don't think this is helpful, remember that the AC bonus is the Expert perk in vanilla, and in the early game an Archer does need that extra bit of help). They're already unique in that aspect, and the shoot range modification would be in direct opposition to where I am most likely to want a spear mastery (that is, on my Archer). Since One spear in two hands is already dealing extra damage (+1d9 in vanilla, +2 per skill level in SkEm) they can remain the defensive counterpart to two handed axes (which otherwise win on speed and typically have better damage ranges at equivalent tiers).

On that note: the Readme.md for SkEm doesn't actually show the damage growth for a single spear wielded in two hands, it instead goes straight for Sword+Spear. Since sword only contributes recovery rate to an Archer's damage, it's worth comparing Sword+Spear vs 2hSpear for SkEm.

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Re: MM6 skill emphasis mod

Unread postby Tomsod » 18 Jan 2022, 02:39

That's a good point! Indeed, maybe focusing on the spear's defensive qualities is the way to make it unique. It's in fact even better by pure AC than staff, as you can wear a spear and a shield (not if you're an archer, though!) With that in mind, it's perfectly fair that spear builds deal less damage than other options, as it can't be better in every way. Although making a knight or paladin focused purely on defense is probably an inferior tactic without some kind of aggro system (incidentally, I'm gonna add one in my mod precisely for this purpose).

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Re: MM6 skill emphasis mod

Unread postby tnevolin » 18 Jan 2022, 15:44

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Last edited by tnevolin on 18 Jan 2022, 15:45, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: MM6 skill emphasis mod

Unread postby tnevolin » 18 Jan 2022, 15:45

raekuul wrote: 17 Jan 2022, 21:20 The Stun spell is more useful in realtime since it also resets attack delay, but that doesn't actually help in any meaningful situation since in the time you took casting/recovering from Stun you could have done something a bit more permanent.
Your analysis is absolutely correct. One needs a 100 ticks to cast a stun which is an one time effect of delaying monster by about skill level. I.e. 10 ticks at m10. Which is an absolute waste of a turn. Moreover, this is a description but the feature does not work at all due to implementation problem.
raekuul wrote: 17 Jan 2022, 21:20 If I may interject on the Spears discussion: Vanilla Spears are a halfway weapon between Staves and Axes, and are one of a small number of ways to improve on an Archer's Armor Class bonus (if you don't think this is helpful, remember that the AC bonus is the Expert perk in vanilla, and in the early game an Archer does need that extra bit of help). They're already unique in that aspect, and the shoot range modification would be in direct opposition to where I am most likely to want a spear mastery (that is, on my Archer). Since One spear in two hands is already dealing extra damage (+1d9 in vanilla, +2 per skill level in SkEm) they can remain the defensive counterpart to two handed axes (which otherwise win on speed and typically have better damage ranges at equivalent tiers).
You are right about this too. Spear defensive capability is its distinctive feature. However, as you clearly pointed out this benefits archer only. Knight and paladin get plenty of AC from other sources and don't need it. Even for archer it could be not that critical as this class is still better protected than casters and, therefore, most people would try to beef up its damage (giving them axe) not protection. At least I always do.
That was the driver behind replacing spear's AC bonus with extra attack. Both are of low importance so I am open to keep both bonuses to make it an archer weapon of choice.
raekuul wrote: 17 Jan 2022, 21:20 On that note: the Readme.md for SkEm doesn't actually show the damage growth for a single spear wielded in two hands, it instead goes straight for Sword+Spear. Since sword only contributes recovery rate to an Archer's damage, it's worth comparing Sword+Spear vs 2hSpear for SkEm.
Maybe I should. There are already a lot of lines on a graph. I tried to keep only most damaging combos for each class.
It is definitely inferior to 2h axe.

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Re: MM6 skill emphasis mod

Unread postby Morbus » 17 Apr 2022, 18:06

Hello, thanks for the mod. im enjoying it except for the monster speed. its too fast, how can i adjust this in the mod file?

Thanks

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Re: MM6 skill emphasis mod

Unread postby tnevolin » 17 Apr 2022, 22:22

Definitely. How slower you want them to be?

Keep in mind, though, that this is intentional to make them run faster than party and make hit-and-run tactics more difficult to implement. Thus forcing player to use obstacles and more sophisticated movement on a field. Not just stupidly run away.

I have tried to play it and I had no major problems with monsters having at me at once as long as I get prepared for battle (buffs, spells, etc.) and not wander to areas I cannot yet handle.

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Re: MM6 skill emphasis mod

Unread postby Morbus » 18 Apr 2022, 00:02

After playing for some hours, I think you're right. It was tough in the beginning but after getting some levels and skills it has been good.

Cheers for the Great Mod

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Re: MM6 skill emphasis mod

Unread postby tnevolin » 18 Apr 2022, 01:25

Glad you enjoyed it.

Yes. It was intentionally made *somewhat* tougher. Original game is just a cakewalk. It is interesting in "exploration" terms but combat and challenges are down to newbie level. So after few speed runs it is not fun anymore. I have scrutinized a little so it is still passable but requires actual thinking, battle preparation, travel planning, learning every spell possible (even at the very beginner level !), advancing skills (even at the very beginner level !), etc. Check the readme.

It may shock you initially but after getting used to careful operation planning it becomes real fun!
;)

I see some faint download traffic from my repository but didn't get feedback for ages. Not that I am actively engaged in this anymore but still would appreciate comments if any.

Since this is pure mechanical mod it could be merged with any conversion mod to make it more challenging. I've asked this question before but nobody seemed interested.

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Re: MM6 skill emphasis mod

Unread postby RawSugar » 30 Apr 2022, 06:08

was gonna wait but since you ask ill give my preliminary impressions:

I love the mod, and sorry if this got a little long :)

I'm level 27 with 2 parties, one caster (SSCC) and one melee (KKCD), having cleared up till and including free haven. Balancewise its much better, the knights finally have an actual role in the game, which is what i was searching for when I found the mod, on the other hand the casters still have their AOE and burst damage allowing them to clear areas the knights need to stay clear of.
Difficulty was an unexpected benefit, everything is a struggle but a manageable one, the knights cant yet get to castle stone because a magyar matron will 1 shot the healers but i still have a few areas to clear and should be able to make it eventually (the casters meteor showered their way). Im very much reminded of early day WOW and pulling murlocs, because when monsters are faster than you, the pulls is what determines life or death.
Im running a third game as well, as solodruid and honestly playing 1 guy in vanilla is easier than 4 in this mod.

So really happy and everything is good or great. I die a lot and scumsave, and use every exploit i can think of other than NWC dungeon, but its a good change from how mindnumbingly easy the vanilla game is when you've learned how to play it.

Some issues/suggestions though;
Possible bug where if you hold down attack in turn mode sometimes you go into overkill mode and attack 1000 times before enemies get to attack, might be connected to the recovery change.

Early game is too hard, when especially snakes can 1 shot your guys. I fixed this by hiring a gate master and doing the coach/money quest and getting some items and levels, but would be nice if fx the quest w the letter to ironfist was adjusted to give ~30K XP and 10K gold to get the game started. I also found that without mana regen the game was unplayable when healing at temples is so expensive, would be great if starting rings could be made to have that ability. There's a workaround though, with gatemaster.

healing debuffs a temples is a little too costly imo, id rather the cost of healing was increased but debuff healing at most doubled. Again there's a workaround using expert or master healer followers.

I'm a little sad the game is now so often turnbased since you cant run or skirmish or dodge, I wonder if increasingg hitpoints (again) and setting speed to 150% rather than 200% wouldnt be better, also increasing ranged damage for monsters that lack strong one, but reducing the homing. Would also fix the issue that overpulling means wipe. On the other hand the game works as is, its just a little static.

increasing healing from body spells makes sense to make them keep up with monster damage but mana cost should be doubled for cure wounds and powercure should be 3 pr skillpoint, it was already a super strong spell. first aid i'd set to heal 5/10/10 while changing cost to 2/1/0

weapon/caster hybrids are still a little underpowered, especially archers. would it be possible to link their magic abilities the way weapon abilities are linked for skill points? that would give them a unique ability

but yeah great work, thanks for making this game interesting again.

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Re: MM6 skill emphasis mod

Unread postby tnevolin » 10 May 2022, 16:21

Thank you for feedback. It is always good to have other view on things!

Somehow this forum does not notify me by email. Feel free to file issues/feedback right on github. That should reach me better if I don't respond.
https://github.com/tnevolin/mm6-skill-e ... mod/issues
RawSugar wrote: 30 Apr 2022, 06:08 was gonna wait but since you ask ill give my preliminary impressions:
I love the mod, and sorry if this got a little long :)
No need to. Every piece of information matters. This is a free forum and the fun project by the way. Not some formal working process.
:)
Also don't worry about response speed. I am not working actively on this project anymore so can not visit this forum for years myself.
RawSugar wrote: 30 Apr 2022, 06:08 use every exploit i can think of other than NWC dungeon
I guess you are absolutely welcome to go there as long as you survive dragon fire. I don't see a point to make it any harder than it is. Let me know if you want to reduce its bonus or make it more difficult to pass so the party needs to advance few levels before being able to go there.
RawSugar wrote: 30 Apr 2022, 06:08 Possible bug where if you hold down attack in turn mode sometimes you go into overkill mode and attack 1000 times before enemies get to attack, might be connected to the recovery change.
Could be. Does it happen when you hold the attack key and then switch to turn mode? Or just hold attack while in turn mode? Do you need to hold it for long for this to happen or it starts instantly? Does it happen every time? Is it reproducible or random? How often does it happen? Is it for melee or range attack? Does it happen when party is advanced enough or could happen at the early game too?

It could also be related to monster recovery from damage which is the feature of vanilla as well. If party can hit monster faster than it recovers from damage the party can keep hitting it without retaliation. Makes it more pronounced with higher party speed.
RawSugar wrote: 30 Apr 2022, 06:08 Early game is too hard, when especially snakes can 1 shot your guys. I fixed this by hiring a gate master and doing the coach/money quest and getting some items and levels, but would be nice if fx the quest w the letter to ironfist was adjusted to give ~30K XP and 10K gold to get the game started. I also found that without mana regen the game was unplayable when healing at temples is so expensive, would be great if starting rings could be made to have that ability. There's a workaround though, with gatemaster.
Could be. However, when I collected a two handed sword from stone, gave everybody bows, drank all potions, applied all buffs, and learned low level spells - I could cut through goblins without problems. Queen cobra is a challenge, though, but it is in dungeon so should be somewhat tougher.

I can reduce monster attack strength. Currently it should be 2x. Another option is to give fixed HP boost to all characters. Will help weaklings more at the beginning. Later on this bonus will be overtaken by level advancement anyway.

I would advise you to try all the buffs possible (potions, magic buffs, hirelings, spells) to see if game is still impassable this way. If it is then sure - we need to tone it down to avoid grinding. However, I recall I was able to clear all areas and advance relatively easily when I employ all the easy buffs I can get. Of course, one need to advance in level to meet higher level enemies, etc. But other than than I didn't feel it excruciatingly hard. Let me know. I myself don't want to turn it into overly hard exercise.
RawSugar wrote: 30 Apr 2022, 06:08 healing debuffs a temples is a little too costly imo, id rather the cost of healing was increased but debuff healing at most doubled. Again there's a workaround using expert or master healer followers.
Sorry. I don't remember if I reduced healing effect at temples. Just the cost.
And you are right. Healer followers are there for that exactly!
RawSugar wrote: 30 Apr 2022, 06:08 I'm a little sad the game is now so often turnbased since you cant run or skirmish or dodge, I wonder if increasingg hitpoints (again) and setting speed to 150% rather than 200% wouldnt be better, also increasing ranged damage for monsters that lack strong one, but reducing the homing. Would also fix the issue that overpulling means wipe. On the other hand the game works as is, its just a little static.
Inability to dodge is the main idea. Without it party can cross "monster controlled" areas without problems which defies the idea of "territory controlling". I eyeballed increased monster health and damage. So we surely can tune it a little bit based on playtesting.

Monster speed is a little tricky thing. They all have different speed in vanilla. I increased their speed intelligently so that slowest monsters get bigger bonus to catch up with the party. It is not linear. Again, making them slower than player makes running past them too easy.

Another option would be to slow them down but give most of the monster range attack so they can shoot you pretty often. That is another way to control the area. I don't prefer this way as this remove the distinction between melee and shooters monsters. Thus reducing the anti-melee strategy importance. But let me know if you think it is worth trying.
RawSugar wrote: 30 Apr 2022, 06:08 increasing healing from body spells makes sense to make them keep up with monster damage but mana cost should be doubled for cure wounds and powercure should be 3 pr skillpoint, it was already a super strong spell. first aid i'd set to heal 5/10/10 while changing cost to 2/1/0
Hmm. You sure about that? Just before that you complained the game is too tough.
;)

Double mana cost for cure wounds.
Power cure 3 / sp.
first aid 5/7/10, cost 2/1/0.
Agree?
RawSugar wrote: 30 Apr 2022, 06:08 weapon/caster hybrids are still a little underpowered, especially archers. would it be possible to link their magic abilities the way weapon abilities are linked for skill points? that would give them a unique ability
Hmm. I think magic abilities are directly multiplied by magic skill. What other kind of link you meant?

You are right that archer becomes quite a not interesting class. Same as paladin, actually. I gave archer increased range precision but maybe this is not enough. I am open for suggestions.

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Re: MM6 skill emphasis mod

Unread postby RawSugar » 14 May 2022, 08:41

So first update: im now level 47 and still having a blast. I finally got my hands on LLoyds beacon and had to houserule to not use the +30 level well since it made the game too easy. the balance between casters and melee group is still really good. knights are favored by being able to hit around corners but i dread when they have to actually face ranged monsters head on. Its fun having to relearn how to deal with various areas, how to lure enemies into coming at you in manageable groups etc.
I cleared till castle alamos where i found gems worth up to a million. Is that on purpose or is my game polluted with another mod i played around with at one point? I wont be using the gems, part of the difficulty is grubbing for gold.

Recovery: its in turn mode when i hold down attack key, it doesnt always happen but most obvious is when it happens to knight bows where 1 guy will suddenly get 10+ shots off while the others just wait - and sometimes it seems to happen to each character in turn while the monsters get chopped up. i try to not hold A key to make the fights fair.

Early game: A fixed boost to HP and maybe SP would do the trick as well, must be slight (25?) to not mess with endgame. Please dont make the game easier in general, its just really obvious with this mod how much you rely on running and bows early game in vanilla. when that isnt an option every fight suddenly becomes a huge challenge - and while i like some difficulty it shouldnt be every fight that is near impossible.

healing at temples: atm healing is level * 10 but even a weakness debuff adds a *5 factor to this. The issues with this are that early game your healing spells arent high enough level to heal when you exit dungeons etc, so you need the healer follower to not go bankrupt. on the other hand *10 is actually a little low at high level. 4*500 gold at level 50 isnt much. Would it be possible to make it follow the same progression as experience points? like 1/1000th so at level 50 the cost would be 4*1275=5100 and then healing debuffs should either not increase cost at all or by a factor of 2 regardless of how many or what kind.
Im torn about temple healing+Lloyd; before your mod id have sworn beacon was necessary to cut down downtime, on the other hand now i realize that resourcemanagement adds a strategic element. not sure my shardcasters will be able to function without it though...i think ill try houseruling that using beacon drains the caster of all MP, but the increased goldcost might be sufficient balance.

Speed/dodging: if you arent very much into the project like i said the game is good as it is, i just kinda wonder if a mix of the two is possible, making skirmish/dodging possible but much less effective than in vanilla - i think it would take a lot of testing to get it just right though. and the challenge now lies in smart pulling rather than microabuse.

healing: the difficulty in the game lies in monster burst damage, doubling cure light wounds cost shouldnt affect it too much, my healers still have mana long after the damage casters, so yeah those numbers look great.

archer/paladin; i was thinking that just like knight skilling up every weapon not just 1 archer/paladin could skill up all elemental/cleric magic skill. That preserves some skillpoints and gives them broad abilities that more specialized casters dont have

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Re: MM6 skill emphasis mod

Unread postby raekuul » 14 May 2022, 15:32

Honestly I always forget about the +30 Level Well (though in the context of SkEm it's a major boost). The Day of the Gods pedestal inside of NWC is a much more immediate bonus at lower levels but SkEm's changes to ranged combat make that and the outside Shrine of the Gods a lot more dangerous to get without TP or Beacon

On the subject of temple rebalancing: I was actually thinking about what Final Fantasy 2 (the actual second one, not reskinned 4) does for inns - it charges you based on the magnitude of the healing; if you use a temple to recover 50 hp and 25 mp the cost would be 750 (10 gp per point) with the training multipliers added in for promoted characters. Granted if we did that I would want to work out a "fix status only" option that fixes status conditions without healing points...

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Re: MM6 skill emphasis mod

Unread postby tnevolin » 14 May 2022, 16:53

Excellent feedback. Thank you.

Before we go to the details let me tell you that M&M series weren't designed as a perfect strategical balanced game. It is mostly an adventure/story/fun game with very-very light and undeveloped RPG element. It proved to be best seller as such. Therefore, it is not possible to balance it to perfection ever. There always be +30 level well somewhere or anything else or anything else or anything else that we missed, etc.
Thus I don't see much point in tightening nuts too much on balance. There always be a hole and exploit someone can use to circumvent it. Consider it a game variation with stronger emphasis on skills.

Also while suggesting some variation for classes and such. Keep in mind that game is pretty feature poor. 90% of everything boils down to damage modification (party or monster). It is pretty difficult to find a niche for tactical variations. I was thinking for many months until I came up with dagger increased damage against crowd. Anything of that sort may spice an otherwise pretty plain combat.

RawSugar wrote: 14 May 2022, 08:41 So first update: im now level 47 and still having a blast. I finally got my hands on LLoyds beacon and had to houserule to not use the +30 level well since it made the game too easy.

Can you explain how +30 level well breaks the game? I always thought level increases max HP/SP only but not the current value. So one should go to the temple to replenish it. Besides, higher HP is not the silver bullet either. There will be still unpassable monsters without further skill advancement.

What can be done about it? Disabling the well? Reducing effect? Or maybe reworking HP/SP per level coefficient to make it grow more slowly - thus emphasizing skill advancement even more? Don't know.

RawSugar wrote: 14 May 2022, 08:41 the balance between casters and melee group is still really good. knights are favored by being able to hit around corners but i dread when they have to actually face ranged monsters head on. Its fun having to relearn how to deal with various areas, how to lure enemies into coming at you in manageable groups etc.

Did you try to master shield by 1-2-3 party members? They reduce damage from all projectiles physical and magical alike (I think I've implemented this - not sure). Knight/paladin can also wear shield and swap when crossing ranged fire. That may help and fighter classes would be actually main contributors to such protection.

RawSugar wrote: 14 May 2022, 08:41 I cleared till castle alamos where i found gems worth up to a million. Is that on purpose or is my game polluted with another mod i played around with at one point? I wont be using the gems, part of the difficulty is grubbing for gold.

Again, vanilla stuff probably. It become absolutely unbalanced money wise toward the end. That is why I increased healing/tavern cost.

RawSugar wrote: 14 May 2022, 08:41 Recovery: its in turn mode when i hold down attack key, it doesnt always happen but most obvious is when it happens to knight bows where 1 guy will suddenly get 10+ shots off while the others just wait - and sometimes it seems to happen to each character in turn while the monsters get chopped up. i try to not hold A key to make the fights fair.

Vanilla issue. It does this toward the end of the game with very advanced recovery. This is just a game mechanics that hit monster should recover before other monsters can even take a turn! Also monster recover in real time while party continue shooting in turn mode where time intervals just skipped and not timed. Stupid design, I know but again - not a real time strategy, remember?
I don't know how to fix this. Maybe reduce/remove monster recovery penalty from hit. After all it is not very well documented and transparent feature to user. Nor it can be used on purpose when planning combat.

RawSugar wrote: 14 May 2022, 08:41 Early game: A fixed boost to HP and maybe SP would do the trick as well, must be slight (25?) to not mess with endgame. Please dont make the game easier in general, its just really obvious with this mod how much you rely on running and bows early game in vanilla. when that isnt an option every fight suddenly becomes a huge challenge - and while i like some difficulty it shouldnt be every fight that is near impossible.

In light of +30 level well maybe I should rework SP/HP progression to make it more smooth. I.e. start at higher values at the beginning with slower increase over levels. In vanilla higher level party becomes almost immortal with huge number of HP. It does not even need healing at all while clearing out whole map/dungeon.

RawSugar wrote: 14 May 2022, 08:41 healing at temples: atm healing is level * 10 but even a weakness debuff adds a *5 factor to this. The issues with this are that early game your healing spells arent high enough level to heal when you exit dungeons etc, so you need the healer follower to not go bankrupt. on the other hand *10 is actually a little low at high level. 4*500 gold at level 50 isnt much. Would it be possible to make it follow the same progression as experience points? like 1/1000th so at level 50 the cost would be 4*1275=5100 and then healing debuffs should either not increase cost at all or by a factor of 2 regardless of how many or what kind.

Good idea. So cost should increase not linearly but quadratically or so? Would it be too much by the game end? As you said it is not worth to make game overly hard.

As for debuffs it is vanilla formula. It is not documented and most people don't know how does it work even.

RawSugar wrote: 14 May 2022, 08:41 Im torn about temple healing+Lloyd; before your mod id have sworn beacon was necessary to cut down downtime, on the other hand now i realize that resourcemanagement adds a strategic element. not sure my shardcasters will be able to function without it though...i think ill try houseruling that using beacon drains the caster of all MP, but the increased goldcost might be sufficient balance.

Didn't get you. Can you explain the proposal?

RawSugar wrote: 14 May 2022, 08:41 Speed/dodging: if you arent very much into the project like i said the game is good as it is, i just kinda wonder if a mix of the two is possible, making skirmish/dodging possible but much less effective than in vanilla - i think it would take a lot of testing to get it just right though. and the challenge now lies in smart pulling rather than microabuse.

Not worth it. Let's say we allow 50% of shots to miss if you move fast enough. Same for you shooting monsters. So? It'll just equate to 50% less average damage from projectiles. Just another damage coefficient. This is not a pure real-time tactical shooter at all, remember? Party just get hit and then hit in return. Pretty crude design idea.
:D

RawSugar wrote: 14 May 2022, 08:41 archer/paladin; i was thinking that just like knight skilling up every weapon not just 1 archer/paladin could skill up all elemental/cleric magic skill. That preserves some skillpoints and gives them broad abilities that more specialized casters dont have

I would agree but can you explain in more details what is "magic skill up"? I think magic is already directly proportional to skill.
Besides, artificially adding to paladin/archer magic skill just because they advance in levels make their spells stronger than even dedicated spellcasters. Kinda breaks the basic game idea, isn't it?

Also I don't understand how it gives them broad abilities when paladin/cleric can learn all skills?

tnevolin
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Re: MM6 skill emphasis mod

Unread postby tnevolin » 14 May 2022, 17:08

raekuul wrote: 14 May 2022, 15:32 Honestly I always forget about the +30 Level Well (though in the context of SkEm it's a major boost).

I might be missing something here but how its value is increased by SkEm? Isn't it just increase in max HP/SP, not their current values?

raekuul wrote: 14 May 2022, 15:32 On the subject of temple rebalancing: I was actually thinking about what Final Fantasy 2 (the actual second one, not reskinned 4) does for inns - it charges you based on the magnitude of the healing; if you use a temple to recover 50 hp and 25 mp the cost would be 750 (10 gp per point) with the training multipliers added in for promoted characters. Granted if we did that I would want to work out a "fix status only" option that fixes status conditions without healing points...

Good idea but you also correctly highlighted the problem - stats fixing and overall cost algorithm is just pulled out of ass. It would take serious thinking on how to make more sense out of it.

How about: cost = <cost per HP/SP replenished> + <some fixed cost for each bad stat> * <some level or XP multiplier>. This way healing doesn't get exorbitant with severe conditions.

Also, what is "training multipliers added in for promoted characters"? Isn't they already factored into max HP/SP? So the only thing left to compute is how much of HP/SP each character needs to replenish.

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raekuul
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Re: MM6 skill emphasis mod

Unread postby raekuul » 14 May 2022, 17:42

Training costs more per level if you're promoted; you can see this fairly easily with the standard KACS once you've gotten the K and C promotions. The goal I guess of my proposal is to not unduly punish low-level parties (who typically can't fix the conditions on their own) while still attempting to dissuade abusing temples to preserve buff cycles at high levels.

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.

EDIT: for status afflictions, maybe base it on the MP cost of the curing spell? That way weakness only costs you 1 MP but eradication costs you 30? But that might require a more thorough restructuring of the ailment system in general.
Last edited by raekuul on 14 May 2022, 18:04, edited 1 time in total.


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