game option/old age - Page 3

Xietor · #21 April 29th, 2007, 06:53 PM

No offense taken Edi, and none meant,

but i think many people, if not a majority, favor twinking the existing game more than new content. The casual player, which does not include people on this forum that make up a very small percentage of Dom III players, do not make mods, and for them there is already a lifetime's worth of content.

While old age may not be near most people's list of where the twinking effort should be, I think improving the AI is a top concern of almost everyone. And that does not fall under new content.

of course fixing bugs should be done as a matter of course, and i do not think that warrants to be a separate category.

Finally, I thought I made it clear, if I did not i apologize, that i would like to see the old age optional feature made a part of Dom IV, not a high priority item that needs to be done in the near feature.

So, you see, there is nothing in my request that should "grate" you. You either agree with it or not. And I certainly do not think anyone should agree with every suggestion made by me or anyone else.

I do think the forums are the right place to express your likes and dislikes about a game.

llamabeast · #22 April 29th, 2007, 07:08 PM

Fair enough, Xietor. I'm happy to give you a hand making a "no old age" mod, if you want. In fact, if you can just give me a list of the units you want changed, I should be able to do it pretty quickly.

llamabeast · #23 April 29th, 2007, 07:17 PM

Actually don't worry, I can use Edi's database to find old units.

llamabeast · #24 April 29th, 2007, 08:39 PM

Okay, here it is! Hopefully this mod should get rid of old age in all units in the game.

Ideally, all previously old units will now be 4-5 years below the age at which they're considered "old".

There's more than a couple of odd things going on with the age modding commands. I've worked out and compensated for a couple of these, but there's still some stuff going on that I don't get - for example, I can't work out why the Abysians have ended up with the ages they have. Still, they're not old, and their ages aren't completely ridiculous, so hopefully it doesn't matter too much.

Let me know if you find any issues or problems, I can quickly fix them.

If a future patch fixes the age commands, this mod'll go a bit haywire, but it'll only take a couple of minutes to produce a fixed one.

Incidentally I'm not a big fan of this idea personally, and won't be playing with it - but if it'll make other people enjoy the game more, then I reckon that's a good thing.

PS Thanks to MaxWilson for getting me started on this one.

Edit: Old mod version removed - see later in the thread for new versions.

Edi · #25 April 30th, 2007, 03:19 AM

Thanks, llamabeast! That should be helpful to new folks. If you want to know how the aging mechanics work, look up the thread by that title. I haven't done the math for all that many units, but it does seem like it works exactly that way, though there is probably an upper limit as well as a lower limit for fire magic effects, since it is not as severe for units with high maxages.

MaxWilson · #26 April 30th, 2007, 05:45 PM

Nice! Thanks, llamabeast. It will be nice to have something to point newbies to if they ask for this feature.

-Max

Xietor · #27 April 30th, 2007, 07:47 PM

The mod is a good balance. It does not eliminate old age, just extreme old age.

My 2nd crone I bought was old, but he was barely old. With the random age variation, you still get units that start old.

llamabeast · #28 April 30th, 2007, 08:01 PM

Oh, I'd thought that setting them 4-5 years below their maxage would be enough to stop any of them being old. Would you prefer it if they were never old, or are you happy with it as it is?

Xietor · #29 April 30th, 2007, 08:31 PM

No, a little old age is not bad. It is not a wholly useless feature of the game. I think the mod is perfect.

In my game I am presently playing with the Beowulf mod, no old age, worthy heroes, and black steel of ulm turned on, 2 of my 1st 4 crones were old.

But that makes it still enough of a factor to take growth, and give them nature boosting items, which is part of the game. And some old age is not bad to manage, i just thought the extreme old age of some mages, and even heroes, was bad.

Graeme Dice · #30 May 1st, 2007, 03:23 AM

Quote:

Edi said:
Frankly, and this is a general statement not aimed at anyone in particular, this demanding new features every time something isn't tailor-made to suit a particular player's PREFERENCES is starting to grate.

In my opinion, these sorts of things are exactly what the devs should be spending their time on. Options that allow people to tailor the game to the way they want without having to mod dozens of units. User interface issues that have been around for years such as blood slave micromanagement for sacrificers, game logic issues like the still broken morale system, etc. These are things that are useful to the players, and which can't be fixed by the players, unlike the addition of even more nations, which is something that players can accomplish using the mod tools.

Instead, what we get is a major nerfing of fire magic and the nations which use it. Never mind that fire was only better than water magic in Dom 2. Never mind that the fire nations were well behind the power curve, and are now even more so. (Well, you can make an argument for Abysia, but their power came from blood magic, not fire, and Machaka, unlike Marignon, has usable death, nature, and earth magic.)

Quote:

My picks are obviously a and b.

Mine are a and c, since they are what actually need to be fixed in the game. I don't really care at all about new content, since I expect it to be much like the new content in Dom 3 - badly balanced and haphazardly thrown together with little thought as to how it will actually work. I suspect that we'll continue to wait for several months or years for balance fixes. I mean, we've been waiting for more than five years for something to be done about Ulm.