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

im pretty sure that the jade empress is still an option on the front end, i like to use her to give my PCs a lil character but i only buy ordinary stuff from her.

as to the rest of the game, i dont think the orcs in the cave add enough to really change the balance of the game at that point. now veb and HB i can see all the xps from them makingit easier afterward. course i found veb very easy as i was 7th level when i got to the temple and thats without doing HB. i did HB once to check it out and its fun but i dont really need all the xps from it as i really dont do much crafting., i will probally do it just before finishing the temple. veb is worth going to just for the scroll shop if you have a wizard. they could both be great adventurs for after the temple if we can do that. word of your heroic exploits in the temple has reach veb and the send for you to deal with something there. a clue at the end of the temple could point to a mustering of evil forces (HB) and you might feel the need to take care of them. both mods would probally have to be beefed up some more to deal with 10th lvl plus characters though

 

What will happen a year or two from now is that KotB, and possibly another module, will be out. For the most part we are done with Temple of Elemental Evil adventure. We are now working on a whole new module, Keep on the Borderlands, that uses the ToEE engine but has nothing to do with the Temple of Elemental Evil module. That is the future of modding on this forum: Whole new modules with new adventures.

I acknowledge the game now suffers from balance issues do to the new additions. I proposed a solution (reducing the experience multiplier), but nobody seemed to like it much. Many of the problems of re-balancing the game have been mentioned in this thread, but not the most important one: Time. To re-balance the game, practically rewriting the game, would take a modder months of dedicated effort, and even then it would most likely only be subjected to much criticism. You will note that very few modders have posted in this thread. It is for just that reason.

 

The sidequests are for entertainment value. Play 5.0.2 straight-up without MaxHP or Humble-npc and see how well it goes.

 

Trying to dictate to gamers how a game is to be played is a hopeless task. If the game is played as intended by the storyline, it's not unbalanced. Verbobonc and HB are for their entertainment value and NOT part of the main storyline. If people are using them as xp boosts, well that's their business. I wouldn't say the game is broke. 5.0.2 played fair and square with no console/protos/dlg tinkering is challenging.

 

I'm not a very good gamer, but I wonder how some of these people have it so easy. The best i've been able to do is lvl3 after Lareth and Co. Approx, 4500xp. Jusr over 5000 after Nulb and go to the Temple for 1 easy fight and back to Hommlett. Wizards don't get fireball and craft armour until lvl5, so recruit Burne. Do the hillgiant/masterworks thing. There is no great power weapons/exotic things. The highest rated shield is +4, sword +2, ring +2. Usually, you don't have money or xp to do much crafting until much later in the game. So how are these people getting so powerful that temple lvl2 is a breeze? Never has been for me and i've been playing on a regular basis for 2 years now. I wonder.

 

Someone changed the title of my post. :anger: I didn't mean it that way. I was under the impression the original game's design was at fault too.

I think adjusting *when* the new content comes in would have been sufficient, really. The levels of the temple of the original game may be just like that- somewhat monotonous. Seriously, my good aligned party is getting bored. Kill kill slaughter slaughter bugbears and guardsmen. I mean, i've seen the combination of beserker bugbears and guardsmen since the moathouse, yeesh.

 

Gaear:

I noticed another point. In fact, you admit your own guilt.

The original scenario had only 5 characters. You run 8, all designed with your know-how to beat the game. The idea behind 5 was to use flawed, less buffed NPC's. I know, I am guilty. I am using 7. Consider just 3 of my characters:

Dwarven fighter, level 7. Specialization with improved crit for Greataxe. 22 str. Mithral plate+2, buckler +2. Not even at the temple yet.

Dwarven fighter, level 7. Specialization with improved crit for Spike Chain. 22 str. Dwarven plate +1 with +2 buckler.

Elven fighter, level 7. Specialization with improved crit for Longbow. 22 dex. Mithral shirt with +2 buckler.

Get my point?

With only 5 characters, no choice, you are much more dependant on NPCs, which I think is an intergal part of the game. With the ability to go out with a party of 8, most encounters have no hope.

Funny, there is no option for what happens in a large party for infighting, infidelity, ego clashes....... The grass is always greener on the other side.

Look, I am just as guilty. But with 8 possible PCs, you can ensure every base is covered with reserves. The game was not designed to handle 8 strong PCs.

Maybe time to eliminate the option of choice on the PCs and see what can be done on 5 with the dependance on NPCs. After all, this is what role playing is about.

 

I generally play with a party of 6, 5pc and Fruella(always), or 4 pc and Meleny and Fruella. Meleny and Fruella have been protos mod to a little better stats, nothing exotic, just respectable. Right now i'm about to recruit Burne to go to the temple. Everyone is level 4, and ac 18-20. The +1HolyLongsword is the most powerful weapon in the game. Not exactlly a uber overpowering bunch. I do Verbobonc and HB(I love it) if I feel like it. I do the Moathouse re-spawn to get Burne some experience so he can scribe some Fireball scrolls. Once the party wizard gets to level 5 and can craft and fireball, Burne goes back to the castle to be the magic merchant. I may give the S&W50 to the female half-elf wizard for protection. No gun control laws here. She will shoot Senshock if he doesn't apologize.Yes, the new content had unbalanced the game somewhat, but it's great that the options exsist because of what the modders have created. The game is better for it. Play it the way you see it and enjoy. I do.

 

There are some things that make the game easy from the beginning.
First - killing traders immediately pops experience level to 3 and 3 level party is much stronger than 2 due to new feats and new 2 level spells. WEB - this spell rules the game and is the key to many victories! Those traders also have very nice equipment. In the mod they try to escape but still they are too easy to catch. Trip them and use spells such as Charm and Command (to fall) thus give them no chances to escape. All this could be dine even before 3 level of experience. To give better challenge they should better fight and be armed stronger than with shortswords. Just compare with the first giant. It seems impossible to kill him before 3 exp level. And still it needs Web or some other paralyzing spell since he is too strong for melee challenge. But perhaps traders may be let to escape right after a player fulfils those quests of revealing agents. A players visits the store but there is nobody already - or something like this.
Second - masterwork weapons and armor appear too soon. +1 to attack is very significant for a low level warrior. Perhaps it would be better if all masterwork items appear in Otis' shop. Not earlier. Early availability of tower shields gives a big advantage. As well as big disadvatage for choosing 2-handed or 2-weapon combat style.
Third - enemies have no (or almost no) spellcasters and it's very easy to stop them. Just compare - at the beginning there are 3 spiders who cast web and bite with poison. Battles against them are always difficult. Perhaps Lareth the Beautiful should be transferred from his room. Or another spellcaster should be added to his guards... Orc shaman should better cast spells than rush into melee. It would also be nice if random encounters include more enemy spellcasters. Perhaps it's the best thing to improve the game by adding more enemy spellcasters. That undead priest at Emridy Meadows was quite a nice surprise.

 

Well, I've just come back to ToEE and am deciding whether or not I want to try the new, modded sub-quests. They must be rather extensive additions if they are resulting in parties initially entering the temple at level 10 (I seem to remember entering at around level 5 or so).

As far as the balance of the game goes, when I played ToEE with Co8 FE 4.0.0 I felt that I had quite a few difficult encounters throughout the game. It wasn't the hardest game I've ever played, but the difficulty was sufficient enough to challenge me most of the time. It felt just about right.

Not to piss anyone off (considering the hard work they've done), but I am sort of surprised that the people making these add-on quests didn't forsee the problems it would cause with the original campaign. It would have made more sense to plan stand-alone adventures, or have new content occur after the original ToEE content. I don't think that tweaking xp on a grand, global scale would be wise either. In fact, doing so may even create more unbalanced problems overall.

I'll prefice this next part by, again, saying that I haven't played Co8 5.0 yet and that I know next to nothing about coding, modding, and the like. So, if my suggestion is totally implausible, just disregard and don't flame me ;o)

If the goal is NOT to re-arrange when the new content becomes available, during the course of the campaign, then I think one possible solution might be to rework the xp gained during these new quests. If you were to significantly scale down the experience gained (probably forcing some tweaking of the levels of the encounters in the new content), so that when the party is finished with the new content and enters the temple they are closer to level 7 or so, and then simply beef up the first couple of levels of the temple (but likewise scale down the xp), then by the time the party reaches the third or forth level things will have worked themselves out (the party will now be level 9-ish, like in the OC, and can complete the rest of the game without the need for further modifications).

Anyway, I'm not sure exactly how much work that would entail for the modders, but I would think it would be easier for them to alter what they have written rather than make vast changes to the entire temple.

Also, I'm not as concerned about being able to put overpowering enhancements on weapons and armor (or buy overpowering items outright) because, while doing so can indeed break a game, ultimately a player can simply choose not to over-do it.

 

I could make the 1st three levels of the Temple more interesting. *smirk*

 

Re: Housekeeping

Brother:

By allowing 8 PCs of the PLAYERS choice you can maximize their effect relative to the game. By taking only 5, and using the NPCs, you are forced to use players that might not be up to standards. My party of 8, in a previous game, all maximized my knowledge of the game and what was needed. The extra 3 characters I added were far better than any NPC in the game.

I guess the fact is that with players such as I we KNOW what is going to happen and plan for that, consciously or not. With a choice of only 5 rather than 8 I think the balance would be better. I know that the options are limitied by using only 5 generated characters, but it then makes the game more reliant on NPCs that are more flawed than any pregenerated character.

This is to say nothing of the generated magic a party can make for weapons that can be used far beyond the original game expected. Do you really think the firstl level of the temple expects characters with about 70-90 HP with an AC of average 23-25 with at least +2 weapons? Not likely.

I guess my point is this: with added mods, make the temple harder. Ettins get boring with an uber party made possible by unforseen XP and magic. Give them better AC, HP and MR. You don't need numbers, but from what I have seen, the aforementioned stats could easily be reworked to make them harder to hit, kill or subdue. A better challenge for a better party.

 

Mod away, Krunch!

 

The easiest, self imposed way to make the game more challenging is to ignore crafting (and Frag/Scather). Play through using only the equipment you can find or buy. The demons are much tougher when you don't have whole squads of troops wielding holy frost weapons and every battle will be that little tougher when your PCs don't have stats boosted into the high 20s courtesy of crafted +6 items. The game still might not be tough, but it will be a little better and you will appreciate that small handful of genuinely useful weapons in the game.