Project Delicate Rebalancement: Tales of the Wild Coast

Re: Are The New Mods Making The Game Unbalanced?

Note: Thread split from the Game Difficulty: Are The New Mods Making The Game Unbalanced? thread for GM discussion.


Maybe the answer is to make added quests for the higher levels so they come AFTER completing the main storyline. Of course, this might seem anti-climactic after Zuggy...

On the other hand, if you are getting to level 10 after these side quests, perhaps they should be viewed as an ALTERNATIVE adventure module. ie Either do the Temple OR get distracted by other matters and leave the Temple bashing to more "focussed" adventurers. After all, if you gallivant off somewhere else, don't be surprised if some other adventurers happen along and steal your thunder by clearing out the Temple before you get around to it!

 

Re: Game Difficulty: Are The New Mods Making The Game Unbalanced?

I thought the vanilla game, pre-mods, was a cake walk. I completed it with no losses with a team of 5 wizards, and a duo of a Babarian/Rogue and a Bard, all well before there were any mods. No reloads. I never soloed the game all the way through, but I soloed the Moathouse with a wizard then got bored. Only the nodes were seriously tough, and I gave up on playing them because they were too buggy. Occasionally someone would claim to have soloed with a 1st level rogue and while I expect that's what's known as a "lie", certainly soling with a rogue would be possible if you didn't care about killing your way through and just wanted to get the end sequence.

With the mods, the game is harder, and more interesting, before you get to the temple and in a few places once you arrive. The Tower battle, with foes using spells intelligently, is fantastic.

With only a few exceptions, the rest of the temple is too easy for 8th-10th level characters.

I don't really like the Cut the XP solution, but it has the advantage of being quick, simple and effective. If your characters are lower level, the challenge will be that much greater. Unless someone wants to seriously re-mod the encounters in the temple, that's probably the best answer.

A much harder but probably more entertaining answer would be to introduce leveled encounters within the temple to more seriously tax the characters. If you're level 4 in the Earth Temple, encounters remain as they are. If you're level 5, you face more foes, including some spell casters. If you're level 7, you face an entirely different group of monsters, and so on.

A few high level enemies patrolling the upper floors (just as enemies patrol the bottom level) might be easier to mod, and would help add some tension.

Allyx's Node FIxes might partially take care of this. If players could go into the nodes again without the frickin freezes, they wouldn't care so much that the first floor of the temple was a bit of a pushover.

 

Re: Game Difficulty: Are The New Mods Making The Game Unbalanced?

I think what makes many encounters too easy are the small numbers involved: A few bugbears here, a handful of gnolls there, even a spellcaster all by himself. This can't easily be fixed either since the whole temple consists of tiny rooms and narrow corridors.

The high clerics, senshock... they're all sitting by themselves, waiting to be outnumbered. In order to make encounters more challenging, we would need to merge a bunch of encounters together, so that casters can actually cast while your party is busy with the dozen monsters attacking you. Memorable combats such as the fire temple, the watchtower, Hedrack, all involve large areas with lots of opponents. The game needs more of this, but there aren't that many large areas in the temple to use. The nodes would be great, but they're so buggy they're not worth the annoyance.

All I can think of for modding is that once the "alarm" is sounded, have all the faiths gather in their respective temple areas (earth troops in the earth temple, etc). This would make for great combats... if you survived.

 

Re: Game Difficulty: Are The New Mods Making The Game Unbalanced?

Maybe someone who can find that earlier thread could link it here, or merge it? I haven't been able to find it yet, but it sort of got dropped as many topics do. Other more pressing matters, I guess...

http://www.co8.org/forum/showthread.php?t=4008&highlight=experience+multiplier

Here it is...though I don't get exactly where there was a "hue & a cry" against it. Maybe it was simply put on the back burner, and then forgotten?

 

Re: Game Difficulty: Are The New Mods Making The Game Unbalanced?

Well, the option I liked from the previous discussion was to have some form of XP selector in the Front-End. Set your XP/difficulty from Normal (current awards) to Hard (50% or so) to Really Hard (33%).

That said, I think reducing the XP awards would be a problem because as mentioned elsewhere, the early levels are where the game seems to be most difficult, and reducing the awards compounds that. Also, reducing the awards makes it far less-likely for folks to be able to use all the additional spells various folks have worked hard to include in the game.

I'm willing to help out in making existing NPCs tougher if that's the route we want to go down, but as I found out in my creature overhaul for 5.0, there's a lot of stuff I don't know how to do.

 

Re: Game Difficulty: Are The New Mods Making The Game Unbalanced?

I was before and am now a proponent of the xp-modifier solution, as this seems easiest of all. I don't know how hard it would make for people to progress early in the game, and may not turn out to be the best solution. So, for the sake of adding to the discussion, I'd like to suggest as option 5 that the Mods be made tougher & placed at the end of ToEE rather than during the middle of the journey. That seems easier to do than fixing everything else, and would let those who created them expand upon their work. Obviously, way more discussion is in order, but fixing this ought to be a priority.

 

Re: Game Difficulty: Are The New Mods Making The Game Unbalanced?

I would really like people to play through the first part of the game with the the XP award reduced before they pronounce judgment on it. I have gotten through the Moathouse so far with the XP award reduced from the stock 70% to 50%, and I haven't really noticed any difference in level progression. Due to the geometric increase in the XP needed to gain each new level, I don't think the award reduction will really be noticeable until higher levels.

 

Re: Game Difficulty: Are The New Mods Making The Game Unbalanced?

Maybe some work with random encounters could toughen things up. I know a lot has already been done, but is there any room to work with. Then again, tougher monsters mean more xp also. 5 or 6 random's in a row while trying to rest is a pain, but it adds xp. I'm not so sure a long, difficult scripting is really needed. No matter what is done, the "manipulators" will find a way around it.

 

Re: Game Difficulty: Are The New Mods Making The Game Unbalanced?

Adding just a few good spell casters to the Earth Temple would make quite a difference, though it wouldn't work as well as the tougher option of allowing the entire temple to respond at once. Fireballs are not an option (not enough room to toast the PCs without getting monsters), but a few Charm Persons, Hold Person, or Prayer spells cast by enemies could make those Earth Temple fights into something very different.

Level two of the Temple seems better balanced to me; certainly the Fire and Water Temple fights can result in a TPK if a player isn't cautious. Again, just a few Witches or Wizards could make the softer areas more challenging.

Can a high level patrol be added, like the Captain who patrols on level three?

Just random thoughts here.

 

Re: Game Difficulty: Are The New Mods Making The Game Unbalanced?

If the XP reduction applies only to foes killed and not to quest rewards, you'll still be about level 2 heading to the Moathouse. Going through the MH, you'll reach level 3, which is enough to complete the place. The fighting in Nulb can all be handled by a level 3-4 party, though a level 5 party will find it easier.

An XP reduction probably wouldn't be a problem.

 

Re: Game Difficulty: Are The New Mods Making The Game Unbalanced?

I think you have hit the nail on the head. However, assuming that rebalancing the Temple for higher level characters will be a Herculean task, the XP adjustment option sounds the most practical. Having it customisable from the front end would be wonderful.

(Another solution could be changing only the mods. 1)Make THEM more challenging and place them later in the game. 2)Instead give their encounters artificially low CRs in order to award hardly any XP-if the mods are there for the fun but don't add to the XP haul, then they won't make characters too powerful later on.)
Edit- posted just after previous post, so I now see that my last suggestion would still leave the party rather well equipped, even if not over experienced. Hmm...