Conceptual Balance Series (Mod)

[Pocus]

real good mod Zen, congratulations, I think its a step forward in godmaking for dominions .

I have a major problem though on the Blood Thorn that you modded to Blood 4 Nature 1 IIRC. If the purpose is to reduce its attractivness as a melee weapon, then you should lessen the damage, and not rise the cost. Because as it stands, you are making the life very difficult for blood nations just wanting the item for a second blood level boost. (In essence you forgot that the blood thorn has 2 usages)

[Zen]

I didn't ignore it, but I haven't been able to find a happy medium. Blood is one of the few paths of magic with 3 Path Boosters (Brazen Vessel, Armor of Souls, and the Blood Thorn).

The Weapon and Armor portion of the Item Mod is not complete (it is still very much in beta) in order for me to find a happy balance between the Life Drain weapons and their secondary functions).

I might consider doing just that, lowering the damage significantly, this in and of itself might be just what it needs (I was thinking -3) and removing the Nature component to the cost.

So Pocus, thanks for Pretender portion of the series and I am going still looking at the Items portion and it's not near done.

I just gave a half-list of what I was currently working with in the mod to Alenyea if you wanted to try it out and it's not currently released. (Mostly if you have people over there in France who don't like non-site gem income)

As you have been able to see from the Pretender Mod, I go back and forth on a few things trying to figure out a proper balance while taking into consideration the intent and usage of the items.

[Edi]

Zen said:
I didn't ignore it, but I haven't been able to find a happy medium. Blood is one of the few paths of magic with 3 Path Boosters (Brazen Vessel, Armor of Souls, and the Blood Thorn).

Actually, most paths have three boosters. Not counting rings of sorcery and wizardry and unique items, all of the elements have two plus staff of elemental mastery, blood has the three you named, nature has four (thistle mace, moonvine bracelet and Treelord staff, which counts as two boosters even though it is incompatible with thistle mace, and Armor of Twisting Thorns, which boosts both nature and blood). Only astral and death have just two boosters each, but death has a large number of cheap artifact boosters (Sceptre of Dark Regency especially), more than any other path.

Edi

[Zen]

Ahah! Yes, Edi is right (DAMN THE EDITORS!).

But Blood ones are particularly easy to come up with. The Thorn and the Vessel are only 20 Slaves (10 normal gems) and the Armor is 40 Slaves (20 normal gems). It's not too hard to bootstrap up to make these things and then have access to the entire selection of blood because of it's nature.

Like I said (again!) the mod hasn't been released at all, so that means any and all decisions haven't been thoroughly tested enough for me to keep them or adjust them based on the limitations of nations and so on.

I may just end up changing the Damage of Lifedraining weapons so that even if a high strength unit is using them they arn't causing enough lifedrain damage to keep them alive (though out of fatigue).

There are alot of ideas out there and I only want to tackle one at a time. This may open up alot more if/when IW adds a few more modding tools (especially Rate of Attack) for the modding community to try to use.

Back to Pretenders: Anyone have a chance to comment on that?

[Cohen]

As modding commands there should be a lot to be implemented.

Especially for items, and spells.
Adding new magical forgeable items, or spells under certain categories, chosing an already existing animation, or allowing to summon new creatures is a good thing.
Giving all skill range to be modded (I mean giving someone Banefire Shield, or Flaming Weapon, or Astral Shield by default could be nice)
Adding global spellcasting bonus (Like enchantment bonus and such).
Well I could continue with the list but I'd prefer to stop here, not wanting to say a too much stuff that probably I won't never see realized.

[PvK]

Zen, you were mentioning (I guess in a related thread about the item mod that I didn't see tonight), changing the requirements to forge magic items? Is that possible? Is there a new modding manual? I don't think my modding manual has been updated by a patch since 2.12, and I don't see a way to change those things in there.

PvK

[Zen]

Yes there are ways to change Magic Items Pathcost and Forgecost, as well as their Construction level. But the Modding Manual has not been released and I haven't asked for the "Okay" to kind of maul the thing out to everyone. I do know that Psi has been working dilligently on a new Modding Manual so I definitely don't want to release any of the commands without the O.K.

This is a factor to why I have the Item Mod on the backburner.

[Zen]

Since I overlooked (or perhaps was crazy and neverlooked!) the Shapechanged forms I have rereleased the Mod to 1.6. Find it with the attatchment or here www.techno-mage.com/~zen/conceptp16.zip

(I'd like to apologize to anyone who was planning on using the mod for a game to test things out and the massive rerelease of Versions. I didn't intend for it to be like this, but I am a slight perfectionist. Again, I'm sorry)

For those starting games that have Dragons in them, or the Serpent King/Smoking Mirror this will be a slight improvement to their shapechanged portions.

Also I have added in the name breaks. I guess Edi wanted that in there so other people could copy the mod better?

I'm sure Edi will have a Readme for it as soon as is convienent.

P.S. I still wouldn't try to use some of the shapechanged forms for combat purposes (like the Jaguar or the Serpent forms) though I had some interesting results when they hit the 'near death' stage in human form and converted over. In particular this change helps out the Jaguar who had terrible MR for some reason (I guess shapechanged Jaguars are none to fond of magic).

[Edi]

Zen said:
Also I have added in the name breaks. I guess Edi wanted that in there so other people could copy the mod better?

Actually, those make it a lot easier to both copy the mod or parts of it, and to troubleshoot and tweak and to do actual proofreading of the mod code. It'd have taken me a lot longer to catch the BQ/crone issue if the comments hadn't been there.

Edi

[archaeolept]

ok, guys, we need a set location where the latest beta of the mod can always be found - I'd suggest as an attachment to the first post of the thread, perhaps.

as it is, it looks like the only place to find Version 1.65 is the un-named attachment to Edi's post 4 Posts above this...