[tsl] Hardcore Tsl

[ChAiNz.2da]

beancounter,.... with these results you have just justified Super-Mods® just for the sake of survival!

 

Looks outstanding, in a very *gulp-ish* way... heheh

[Darth333]

I just go away from the forums a couple of days and I miss the release of the most wanted mod! This just looks great Beancounter! Donwloading immediately and placing it permanently in my override folder!

[ChAiNz.2da]

[off-topic]

ACK! Who are you and what have you done to Darth333's avatar!... hehe ... good to see you back

[/off-topic]

 

@beancounter

Just one thought. If the mod doesn't grant additional XP. My character(s) rarely ever get to level 30.

 

This may be suicide for the PC, but would adjusting it -5 PC levels for each difficulty group make a drastic change?

 

ie -

PC = LVL 5 / LVL 15 / LVL 25

 

or perhaps adjust -5 between the mid and upper

 

PC = LVL 10 / LVL 20 / LVL 25

[beancounter]

Hey Chainz,

 

The mod works by slowing buffing the NPC for each level you get. The figures above are just a summary at what their bonuses would be at that level. So when your character is Level 5, the bonuses will be half of the value in the level 10 column. When you are level 25, the bonuses will be between the Level 20 bonus and the level 30 bonus. The bonuses increase gradually with each level you get. This is the same way the current mod works.

[ChAiNz.2da]

Ahhh... even better man! This is definitely going to be a Hard-Core..Hard-Core Mod... I think I just confused myself.. hehe

 

Thanks for clearing that up, makes perfect sense now. Sorry for the "speedbump"

[Darkkender]

I can't express how eager I am to see the version 2 of this mod released.

[SpaceAlex]

That's fantastic beancounter. I belive your mod will make this game much better.

[Juriel]

I have actually come to think that the game's difficulty issues lie in more fundamental aspects than just the enemies' actual stats.

 

Rather, they are symptomatic of the fact that 99% of the game you are fighting mundane cannon fodder. You are fighting speed bumps, instead of worthy opponents. If one makes those challenging, then it takes away from being a Jedi - if one has those be push-overs, then it is a boring game.

 

I think one should fight mundane opponents on the way to a named 'boss', one with their own dialog and personality. And preferrably some additional aspects to the combat (constantly appearing reinforcements, disabling power grid with one character while the others fight at the same time). The mundane opponent would be the filler that establishes that you are powerful and a hero, while the boss at the end would be the one that offers the challenge that one needs to have in a game.

 

Why Obsidian chose to go with 'only fight filler for the whole game', I do not know. Likely because their gameplay designers are nowhere near their writers in quality.

 

Note that I am not saying 'each dungeon should compose of random combats and then a mandatory boss at the end'. But I do think the basic idea of that would be preferrable to the current situation.

 

I am not sure if it would be all that hard to mod, even. A crude fix would be to spawn additional NPCs at certain points, and offer them a slight dialog of their own.

 

*slight spoilers follow*

 

Good examples would be the big droid at the end of getting the shuttle on Telos, or the twi'lek bounty hunter faced shortly before that. A crude way would be stuff like just placing a single Sith Lord at the end of tromping through Ravager - that alone would not be hard. But to lend any SUBSTANCE to it, one would have to of course have a trigger that moved the camera to show his face and offered some dialog...which would take a moment to implement.

 

Just my thoughts after finishing the thing.

[Grifman]

Juriel, I agree with your thoughts in many ways. But alot of the "bosses" aren't hard at all:

 

SPOILERS:

 

1) The big robot at the underground base was a piece of cake. They have a big video of him coming out and I wax him in a couple of rounds

 

2) The Serocco and Exchange bosses in the refugee sector are pieces of cake as are their personal guards

 

3) The Sith assassins should have been the highlight challenge at the end of Peragus but were really nothing

 

4) The guards in the Nar Shadda boss's arena area were a piece of cake

 

5) All the bounty hunters were easy when they should have been a challenge

 

6) The beast on Dxun that the Mandalorians were scared of was a pet. I didn't need my companions or the Mando with me to take it out.

 

And note, half the examples I'm complaining of are AFTER using the current hardcore mod (please not, that's not a knock on Beancounter, just an indication of how easy the game really is).

 

These were all plenty of places to provide moments of appropriate challenge, but they just didn't exist. I could have accepted cannon fodder - and indeed that would have made sense vs. my Jedi, but opportunities that existed for challenge were not taken by the developers.

 

All just far to easy.

 

That said, hats off to Beancounter. I like all the options, and one can experiment and easily see which level of difficulty suits one's ability.

[l33tleboy]

Unfortunately, the game balance is broken. While mods like this might help make this problem less obvious, it can't really be fixed without changing the whole rule set. The d20 system upon which KotOR is based wasn't designed to support level 30 characters, and the more one gets close to the higher levels, the more apparent this flaw is.

 

I know this may draw flak from some, but I think a good idea for a HC mod would be to contain somehow the rampant leveling. With lower level characters and an AI that actually used combat feats and Force powers as often as the player, perhaps there would be no need to artificially buff the NPCs. I don't know how difficult this would be to implement, or even if it can be done at all.

 

Anyway, it's still good to have mods like this to actually play the game rather than just 'watch' it. Good stuff.

[beancounter]

Good posts here and I agree with you. A major problem any open ended RPG faces is balancing difficulty. The only one that did a half way decent job was Baldurs Gate 1 & 2. But even those series became easy if you knew the mechanics of how the game worked and where all the good equipment was.

 

I also agree with you about adjusting your maximum level down. But, do you know what one of the most sought after mods was for KOTOR I? A mod that would allow your character to advance past level 20! (Even though no one could get it to work) So Obsidian was just giving the customer what they wanted.

 

Now, I am not trying to defend Obsidian, they really dropped the ball on the balance issues. But I think the casual gamer *wants* there character to be unstoppable. They want the the uber equipment and powers.

 

If you REALLY wanted to balance the game, you would scale down all of the overpowered equipment, cut back Force Powers, adjust the leveling and buff up the bosses. (I even thought of doing this for my own game) BUT, your mod would be the only one the player could use because it would be incompatable with just about everything. So, you kind of have to work with what you are given.

[Juriel]

Juriel, I agree with your thoughts in many ways. But alot of the "bosses" aren't hard at all:

Yes, that is very much true. Which is why my suggestion would need to go hand-in-hand with buffing each wanna-be-boss. Anyway, it wasn't a 'solution' to current issues as much as just a general thought on the gameplay structure that I think would work much better than Obsidian's silly decision.

 

It is something I will be aiming to mod (additional 'boss' characters sprinkled throughout the game, preferrably with dialog/cutscene of their own), soon as Obsidian patches the game so that it doesn't often crash for me at area transitions.

 

Edit: And slow down the levelling rate in the end, as you just zoom through the last 10 levels and have trouble deciding what useless power to pick now, since you have to take one. And make the beginning as skippable as possible, without losing story aspects of it. For me, the game doesn't really start until you hit the Telos surface.

 

And yeah, another way to balance the game would be to lower the effectiveness of Force Powers (especially the Area of Effect ones like Heal, Insanity, Stasis Field that you can just spam without a worry) and modify the lightsaber parts' power down. The first may be fixed by the partial immunity Hardcore Mod grants, though, and the second is just so much trouble, as you'd have to modify multiple items' properties. Even if it is a bit silly to be doing 60 base damage with each of one's four hits in a round.

 

Oh yeah...thanks for the work, Beancounter. The game is flawed at its very core, but your work can help patch things up somewhat.

[Eli_Starstrider]

One concern - There are times when some of your individual party member will have to fight on their own and if the enemies recieve the full set of bonuses, it will be very frustrating.

 

beancounter's mod is really great for making the game more challenging, but the fundemental problem is not even with the rules itself - it's with the designers. It's like a D&D DM who hands out magical items, boons, free feats and experience points easily. I am already level 15 by Dantoonine, less than 1/4 of the game!

 

Then there's YOURNAME crystal, free Echani fighting feat, the light-side/dark-side mastery bonus (which is ridiclously easily to get), various implants, armour underlays which effortless give you +2 to strength and dexterity, almost limtless supplies of adrenal boosts thanks to the workbench...then the Jedi powers which gives you a plus to all stats and saving throws...

 

I could go on and on. And perhaps with the enemy design.

 

But those things are cool! I like them! So if we recieve good things, then our enemies must be stronger.

 

Ranting aside, here are some suggestions:

 

- NWN have a cap on stat boost. Your maximum boosted stat is original stat + 10. So if you have a Strength of 18, the maximum strength you could get is 28.

 

- Enemies who know they are fighting jedi (such as Bounty Hunters) shall know that they are fighting jedis. My Star Was Lore is not very high, but I'm sure that there are some items which can protect against Force Powers.

 

- I like the resistance idea, but I have a problem with them being random. Wouldn't it be better to have speices-based bonus to resistance against Insanity or Death Field? Then throw in some randomness?

 

- Or...is there any way to find out the stat of your enemies? One frustrating thing about Kotr is there's no way to ID your enemy. Maybe we could do a new force power "Force Probe", and have it to reveal the resistances and weakness, and perhaps the next step in its AI (if possible, new to NWN scripting anyway), so we can react and give the AI some badass actions (Throw grenades, Horror + Force Lightning etc. etc.)

 

- We can tweak the Force Powers - +1 to all stats for a rank 1 Force Power is a bit too powerful and etc..

 

- About the variable difficulty scaling...it is possible to set a global variable as a the difficulty setting, and allow the user to change it via. the cheat console? Or can we hijack the default difficultiy setting variable?

 

* EDIT *

 

BTW, I new to the modding scene, but are the mods generally, eh, 'open-source'? Can I ask beancounter if I could take his script and combine it with other .2da? Of course, asking his permission first?

 

Just my 2 credits worth.

[ChAiNz.2da]

Originally posted by Eli_Starstrider

BTW, I new to the modding scene, but are the mods generally, eh, 'open-source'? Can I ask beancounter if I could take his script and combine it with other .2da? Of course, asking his permission first?

As a general rule of thumb, yes, mods are open source. Any adjustments can be made, merged, combined etc. for your personal game.

 

Now, when/if you want to publish the mod and make it available to other players (public), that's when it would be appropriate to get the permission of all the original modder's, and give credit in your readme file. Though its not "stated" anywhere, it's a good practice to include the original author's readme file as well as your own...

 

Most modders here have been more than helpful and willing to give permissions...

[beancounter]

Originally posted by ChAiNz.2da

As a general rule of thumb, yes, mods are open source. Any adjustments can be made, merged, combined etc. for your personal game.

 

Now, when/if you want to publish the mod and make it available to other players (public), that's when it would be appropriate to get the permission of all the original modder's, and give credit in your readme file. Though its not "stated" anywhere, it's a good practice to include the original author's readme file as well as your own...

 

Most modders here have been more than helpful and willing to give permissions...

 

Very well said Chainz. As a general rule I have no problem with people modifying my mods. If you want to take this file and change the scripts or make it compatable with another mod that uses k_ai_master I would say: "Go for it". However, I am not too keen on the idea of just repacking the mod without changing anything in it. There is really no added value in doing that.

[Iluvguns]

Beany: This may only be an issue at this point in the game, but I doubt it (I'm on Telos' surface running with your mod). Force powers don't seem to do crap. With all their updated stats, you updated thier saves rediculously high. I don't even try to use Stasis or Disable Droid anymore-they almost never work at all. Could you explain why I'm wrong/fix it if I'm actually right?

[Darkkender]

Originally posted by Iluvguns

Beany: This may only be an issue at this point in the game, but I doubt it (I'm on Telos' surface running with your mod). Force powers don't seem to do crap. With all their updated stats, you updated thier saves rediculously high. I don't even try to use Stasis or Disable Droid anymore-they almost never work at all. Could you explain why I'm wrong/fix it if I'm actually right?

 

That's why it is called a Hardcore Mod. Those are not bugs you mentioned those are features. The point behind a Hardcore mod is to make things difficult and for some of the more common overpowered effects actually have a higher chance of failing. Thereby presenting the player with a challenge that they must think about how to overcome. Also when force powers start failing you know your ability scores in the Force related abilities are too low. These scores are charisma and wisdom. If these scores are too low your force powers are useless as they should be.

[Juha Avery]

i just have to dload this

[Iluvguns]

It's not an issue with them being hardER. My issue is that I can cast my freaking Stasis 10 times and it never has any effect. It is worthless. I am not asking for it to be unresistable, just unresistable ENOUGH to be USEFUL. You misunderstood what I posted.

 

My Wisdom is 12 and my Charisma is 14-I hardly think I need much higher than that. Sure, maybe a sentinal should have a little bit higher-but that would not make the powers work.

[Achilles]

Which of the hardcore mod "settings" are you using? I know that beancounter set this up so that you can edit how powerful your enemies are. If you're finding the current settings to be too challenging you might want to change them. Also, are you leveraging your items and "object:self" force powers to help gain an advantage?

 

I know that when I play Guardian, I tend to limit my force powers to those that I can cast on myself (Speed, Valor, Energy Resistance, etc) or offensive powers that will still do half damage if saved against. The challenge with playing Sentinel is that at some point you have to make a decision to be lean toward combat or force abilities.

 

I hope this helps.

[Darkkender]

Originally posted by Iluvguns

It's not an issue with them being hardER. My issue is that I can cast my freaking Stasis 10 times and it never has any effect. It is worthless. I am not asking for it to be unresistable, just unresistable ENOUGH to be USEFUL. You misunderstood what I posted.

 

My Wisdom is 12 and my Charisma is 14-I hardly think I need much higher than that. Sure, maybe a sentinal should have a little bit higher-but that would not make the powers work.

 

Actually with the hardcore mod stats like those for force powers are to low. When you rely on the higher level powers like you are talking about you need a much higher wisdom & charisma so that your force powers can overcome resistance as well as be stronger. If you play a counsoler those stats should be your number 1 boosts for those powers and should start out with a 16 and a 14 in one of them at game beginning. Otherwise you will end up poned. If your playing a sentinel focusing on these type of powers then those stats need to be higher. For guardians and sentinels focusing more on ability boosting powers those stats are fine. The reason being low stats in wis & cha and high stats in str & dex are all you need for a front line brawler.

[beancounter]

Actually, I have not yet released the version with the four difficulty levels above. My personal computer with all of my Kotor Mods is down, and it will not be up until probably Monday when the new hardware comes in. Until then I am stuck with my work laptop. So the revised Mod should be out Monday night.

 

Iluvguns, I have noticed when you are low level your powers are really ineffective. However, once you start to get higher in levels they will still almost never fail. If you are running around on Telos I am assuming you are probably around level 8. Wait until you go up a couple of more levels and you will begin to see a huge difference.

[RedHawke]

beancounter,

 

I have been playing through with your HC Mod, and even on the base mod setting, with My mods installed, it really is a very good challenge...

 

I even made some killer items for the NPC's, and if I wasn't careful, I was still getting my backside handed to me...

 

Very, very nice work!

[lilric27]

I was wondering when I played TSL about the combat. I thought the battle was over to quick. I thought leave the dmg the same but increase everyones vitality by like 2x or 3x. All it should really do is make the battles longer. Also I thought if possible there could be some way to slow down the animations. I actually wouldnt have a issue I dont think if the animations were at 2/3rd speed.

 

If one could increase vitality across the board by 2x-3x and slow down the animations some what the battles would almost take on epic status in a way. I think that would be a good thing some might think it is too drawn out. I dont know for sure.

 

But this beancounter thing with increasing vitality and increasing their saving throws, attack rating is right on the money. Also adding universal resistance to some npcs and random resistance to others is a fabulous idea.

 

It would make almost every battle different. Getting the force sensitive npcs to use their force powers would be next step. Although there are not that many.

 

What interesting for example to me is just yesterday I must of battled the Sith Governor in KOTOR I on Taris? about 20x's 1 v 1.

 

What was interesting is when he is above 50% health he uses stasis and he alternates between imp critical strike and imp pwr attack. When he is below 50% health he switches to life drain.

 

But he has enough force to cast at least 5 stasis at 20 a pop. I dont think he has much more than that.

 

If he does not stun you with critical he will stasis you unless you make your saves.

 

1 vs 1 its quite challenging and it slightly plays out different each time, I was barely able to win 1 out of 5.

 

In TSL I cant really recall any particular battle that involved force use like that or was as challenging.

[karto]

Thanks a lot for this mod... It's sad when a game with such good storytelling has such little in the way of combat.

 

Anyways - just a quick thought:

Wouldn't it be possible to make everyone with forcepowers use the jedisupport behavior?

It seems like partymembers at least are quite good at making those powers count when set to jedisupport (too much so - they'll wipe anyone by themselves).

 

 

It is quite an anticlimax to enter the ancient Sith tomb on Dxun - without you PC - and kill 3 Sithlords or whatever they were, in less than 30 seconds. I spend more time walking than fighting, even though the place is crawling with Sith, and they hardly made any show of force - if any.