A:EftP Hardtype Discussion Thread

[RaustBlackDragon]

I'm planning on making what I generally categorize as a "Noble Hack" of A:EftP soon, and I just thought I'd share my plans with you guys in case you had any input. Here's the premise of what a noble hack is:

 

It will be a mod intended to make the normal difficulty (the only difficulty the mod would be intended to be played on) harder (read: more tactically demanding) than torment mode of the original, un-modded game. However, while it will be more tactically demanding, it will also be rebalanced, with various underpowered builds made more viable, and a massively overhauled spell list.

 

A more detailed list of intended changes is below. Note that a ?* means that I'm not 100% sure this is possible to implement:

 

*Load screen tips will be changed to warn the player about seemingly innocuous things that may come back to bite them in the butt later on

 

*Wards and Cloaks will be completely removed to make room for more spells. The issue I have with them is that they're per-party, and that heavily encourages homogeneity in your characters' methods of attacks, as well as what they're vulnerable to.

 

?*Belts will, on top of whatever else they do, provide a uniform, massive bonus to the first aid skill, enough to fully replenish all HP and MP after every battle, which will allow for the magic system to be balanced to a per-battle basis. Spells will be more expensive than before, and energy potions will be less hoardable.

 

*Invulnerability potions will be completely removed, as any battle that is possible without them is laughably easy with them.

 

*Certain spells will be removed to make room for new ones.

 

*Buff spells will start out as single-target, with group ones being a separate spell, like with group healing.

 

*Bonus boss battle will be added, accessible after completing the three victory quests, which will be an ultimate test of your party's skills, and which will explain why your heroes are nowhere to be found in avernum 2.

 

Any thoughts?

[The Reverend]

This could be interesting. You might want at least skim through what Slarty did with his AEFTP remix. His goals weren't exactly the same as yours, but there was definitely some overlap (e.g., trying to make more types of builds viable).

[RaustBlackDragon]

Yeah, I saw his work, it looks awesome, and it definitely inspired me, but I think I'm going to go about this task rather differently.

 

First off, I'm balancing it with reference to one difficulty level, as many aspects of the game are inherently overpowered on low difficulties and underpowered on higher ones, namely evasion and summoning.

 

I also intend to discourage the practice of loading everything into one stat, in that I hope to balance the game such that there would be genuine consequences.

[Hume]

What about higher difficulties? Do you simply remove them or let people play at their own peril?

[RaustBlackDragon]

I can't remove them, so yeah, the latter

[Tyranicus]

Originally Posted By: RaustBlackDragon

*Bonus boss battle will be added, accessible after completing the three victory quests, which will be an ultimate test of your party's skills, and which will explain why your heroes are nowhere to be found in avernum 2.

Your heroes are nowhere to be found in Avernum 2 because they escaped to the surface.

[RaustBlackDragon]

Originally Posted By: Tyranicus

Originally Posted By: RaustBlackDragon

*Bonus boss battle will be added, accessible after completing the three victory quests, which will be an ultimate test of your party's skills, and which will explain why your heroes are nowhere to be found in avernum 2.

Your heroes are nowhere to be found in Avernum 2 because they escaped to the surface.

That's confirmed? I thought the only confirmed accomplishment of the first heroes was assassination of the emperor.

[Tyranicus]

Originally Posted By: RaustBlackDragon

Originally Posted By: Tyranicus

Originally Posted By: RaustBlackDragon

*Bonus boss battle will be added, accessible after completing the three victory quests, which will be an ultimate test of your party's skills, and which will explain why your heroes are nowhere to be found in avernum 2.

Your heroes are nowhere to be found in Avernum 2 because they escaped to the surface.

That's confirmed? I thought the only confirmed accomplishment of the first heroes was assassination of the emperor.

They also defeated Grah-Hoth and found the exit to the surface.

[Mosquito---Slayer]

Originally Posted By: RaustBlackDragon

I also intend to discourage the practice of loading everything into one stat, in that I hope to balance the game such that there would be genuine consequences.

This one i will really appreciate, do you have an idea about how you are gonna do that?

[RaustBlackDragon]

Yep. Enemies will be balanced assuming that half of your stat points, no more, have gone into your primary attack stat, and so loading everything into your attack stat will generally be overkill, and I intend to make the other stats quite necessary, as status ailments will be far more common, and the best way to resist them is to evade attacks.

[The Almighty Doer of Stuff]

I don't know about A:EftP, but in E:EftP, you are given the choice to either escape to the surface or remain in Exile. Either way wins and ends the game.

[The Reverend]

Originally Posted By: RaustBlackDragon

Yep. Enemies will be balanced assuming that half of your stat points, no more, have gone into your primary attack stat, and so loading everything into your attack stat will generally be overkill, and I intend to make the other stats quite necessary, as status ailments will be far more common, and the best way to resist them is to evade attacks.

It seems like all-DEX archers will still be fairly effective in this setup, unless you add a lot of enemies that do cold damage. In the current game, the majority of attacks can be evaded by a high-DEX character, so my archer actually had better survivability than my tank on hard.

[RaustBlackDragon]

Thing is, armor will be far heavier than it is in the existing game, and without wards, armor will be more important than before, so pure-dex characters will still be susceptible to poison and acid, as well as cold.

 

Speaking of which, I'm not sure if I can increase the base damage that poison and acid and lightning inflict, but I will make an effort to increase the amount of time spells and abilities inflict them for.

[Lilith]

Originally Posted By: The Almighty Doer of Stuff

I don't know about A:EftP, but in E:EftP, you are given the choice to either escape to the surface or remain in Exile. Either way wins and ends the game.

um the game doesn't end if you don't choose to leave. why would it

[The Almighty Doer of Stuff]

I believe it tells you you decide you don't ever want to leave because Exile is your new home, and you want to stay and support your fellow countrymen in their struggle against the Empire, and that's the optional resolution to the game. You've still succeeded in that you've FOUND the exit, and that was the main goal.

[Lilith]

i'm pretty sure you imagined that. i remember getting the "you found all three ways to win the game" congratulation message after killing Hawthorne in Exile, which would be impossible if both resolutions to the surface quest ended the game

[Earth]

so heroes escaped to surface but left their equipments incl. found objects like orb of thralni to cave?