...or balancing out the bonus damage by making more monsters that resist (or are vulnerable to) that type of damage is another option. It could go both ways.
That too. Even though, it's generally easier to go with an approach that maintains the status quo, rather than try an overhaul it. Dramatically increasing monster variety with a "Greater exotic damage variety"-centered approach changes the relative value of every Skill Trees that feature them. On the other hand, if you focus on abilities/physical damage/buffs or just generally go with monsters that maintain the current damage equilibrium (i.e. if you add an elemental damage monster on floor 1, you either make it 1-2 acidic, or 1-2 toxic), you can have greater monster variety and not throw off general balancing. Imo, it's not good enough for a mod to standalone - they have to work well together, to the point where playing the game with mod is almost like playing a 2.0 version of the game. Recent example of this - Dragon Whelps in Fax Pax, made the Thing mod very difficult to play as early as level 1 (granted, it would have been difficult to play as early as level 2 w/o, but you get the idea). Another example along the lines of what Lorelian mentions in the OP - The first iterations of the Elemental Warrior mod were generally deemed OP because the damage reduction/damage increase of a tree that gives a few points of damage/resistance in everything (well, not quite, but again, you get the idea) meant any "additional" stat buffs were too much power, even at higher levels. On the other hand, a one dimensional elemental tree, like say, Dragon Knight, can afford to have bigger stat buffs at higher levels because the relative value of adding +1 once you are past the ~2-3 resist point is not that great.
Really? Hard to tell, I've been using both since forever. I kind of assumed it was you, since you did Debacle and menagerie. I really should start reading the content logs. I apologize if I offended.
Yes. My apologies that my notes were mostly strategy advice not modding advice. I got interrupted in the middle of typing it, and had to rush it. I'll go edit it to make the observations more relevant to modding.
A little background for this, just for anyone who's interested: Dragon whelps were made to intentionally counter (but not nullify) early promethean builds, as well as make the rings of ash players tend to find on floor 1 a little more useful - hence the fire (but not blasting) resist and the fire damage tacked on top of the blasting, which all dragon - type monsters in the base game use (and I was too lazy to change). Of course, this made the Thing mod very hard to play, as mentioned, and even if the blasting/conflagratory weaknesses in the mod were a bit too much it still highlights the point Allyourlewts makes. I heavily encourage fellow modders to try and do your playtests with at least the mods others are likely to pick up when considering the larger picture (while of course, making sure that everything works when self-contained, too.)
EDITED VERSION OF PREVIOUS POST: That one was more of a strategy guide than a modding guide, so I've revised it here. Since it got several likes, I've decided not to delete it, but this version is a lot more on-topic for the thread. Resistances read from most resist to least resist, roughly. So if some resist appears to the left of another, that means either it appears on more monsters, or it has higher levels on the monsters it does appear on. Monster vulnerabilities and Resistances per floor Floor 1: Dungeon Vulnerabilities: Resistances: Advice to Modders: Floor 1 is probably the hardest floor of the game for a great number of builds, so some care should be taken in modding. It's a very tempting to add vulnerabilities and resistances to this floor since there are next to none, but it might actually be a bad idea. Resistances especially can completely screw-over some builds before they get started. First floor is currently the easiest on warriors, as they typically start with higher-grade equipment and have skills that are potent right out of the gate. Unlike wizards, who usually have a lame first level and have to build up to better things a couple levels into the tree. Adding vulnerabilities to monsters on this floor would alter that dynamic, boosting wizards who have early spells of that type. It would do this at the expense of warriors, because one is unlikely to have reliable elemental-damage equipment on the first floor (indeed, you're unlikely to have much control over your equipment choice at all on this floor). Floor 2: Catacombs Vulnerabilities: Resistances: Advice to Modders: There's a very strong undead theme on this floor, and they are typically vulnerable to (and to a lesser extent). When adding new monsters to this floor, just remember that every new monster waters down that theme. The vulnerability here (on the ectoplasmic excession) is interesting, especially because it happens so early and on a floor that has a high monster as well. There's some design space open there for an early low-power spell that does just a point or two of . It would be of great help on this floor, but quickly fade to uselessness later, which is very much in keeping with the current paradigm of how first-level mage spells work. Floor 3: Moonbase Vulnerabilities: Resistances: Advice to Modders: This floor is 's one and only time to shine. Not that it's terrible later, since few things have resistance, but here is the only place where gives meaningful bonus damage. So a monster with on this floor is probably a bad idea, since it would devalue the spotlight moment for things like the first level of Viking Wizardry. Likewise, this is pretty much the only floor where is truly worthwhile on a PC, since so few main-game monsters do volatic damage. Every new monster on this floor dillutes the frequency of the Unfriendly AIs. Every new trap reduces the frequency of the RoboBolt traps. So if you're adding a lot of either monsters or traps to this floor, it's probably worth throwing in an extra one that does so you don't upset the original balance too much. Floor 4: Sauna Vulnerabilities: Resistances: Advice to Modders: There is no clear-cut theme to the resistances or vulnerabilities of this floor. The best damages for PCs to deal are also the worst, just depending on which specific monster they're facing. That makes the floor very swingy for Promethean mages and the like. Which sort of makes this the first level that's truly open to significant modding without worry of drowning out a theme. Floor 5: Library Vulnerabilities: Resistances: Advice to Modders: There's three damage types that do really well here, and I'd take some care to not upset that too much. But again, that there are relatively few resistances here does mean you could probably get away with a monster that has a specific resist intended to make things hard on a specific caster type or skill. For example, a single creature with added here could be a nice speed-bump for Necro without really upsetting the existing themes at all. One thing to remember though, is that this is the first floor with significant corruption or resource-stealing. Melee characters find this floor an exercise in caution and micro-management, so care should probably be taken to not introduce anything that makes melee less effective on this floor. Floor 6: Fungal Vulnerabilities: Resistances: Advice to Modders: This floor is clearly good for users of and . I'd be especially careful not to drown out the potency of as Floors 7 and 9 can be pretty tough on fire-dependent character types. The base damage vulnerabilities are just on the Blink Batty, and since half the level already has , I wouldn't worry too much about making them more or less potent. Resists here are not particularly themed, and probably as open to modding as floors 4 and 5. Since there's no monsters with harmful on-hit procs, you probably have more lattitude when modding here than floor 5. Floor 7: Ice Vulnerabilities: Resistances: Advice to Modders: The main theme of the the floor is the liberal application of and the the monsters deal. Weakening those themes would be an unusual choice. There's a single monster with but he resists 20 of it. Which means that every new monster you add is just making this floor easier on Promethean mages, who already have a lot of power. If you add a lot of monsters here, you'll want to make sure one of them has some to keep that threat in place. The vulnerability to is on the only corrupting monster on the floor. That would make me personally rather hesitant to add any monsters with here, but it's probably not game-breaking to do so. Floor 8: Mines Vulnerabilities: Resistances: Advice to Modders: There's really no theme here in terms of resistances or vulnerabilities. I'd probably go easy on , since the very next floor is so punishing on Prometheans, but otherwise, it's fair-game on anything. Floor 9: Lava Vulnerabilities: Resistances: Advice to modders: This level is, and should remain, trouble for fire-users. If it could use anything, I'd say it's more to further push the theme. Floor 10: Pandemonium Vulnerabilities: Resistances: Advice to Modders: The one thing I'd actively avoid on this floor is monsters that have . Those Robos can be pretty tough in melee, and it'd be a shame to see the best weapon type against them watered down by adding an enemy that was strongly resistant to it. Not that +3 damage is particularly potent on floor 10, but still, it's the thought that counts.
Continued from previous, because I hit the character limit for posting... Floor 11: Deeper Dungeon Vulnerabilities: Resistances: Advice to Modders: See "Advice to Modders re: the late-game" following after the stats for level 15 and Dredmor himself. I put all the advice for floors 11 to 15 in one block to cut down on redundancy. Floor 12: Dojo Vulnerabilities: Resistances: Floor 13:Mechanarium Vulnerabilities: Resistances: This is the only late-game floor with literally no . Modders should take care not to disrupt that unintentionally. This floor can be said to have themes, unlike the ones directly above or below it. All the creatures are casters, none of them have armor, and 2/3rds of them can fly. Floor 14:Forest Vulnerabilities: Resistances: Floor 15:Ossuary Vulnerabilities: Resistances: Dredmor himself: Advice to Modders re: the late-game: Floors 11 to 15 need help. Floor 13, in particular, has very few monster types and could definitely use some more variety. From floor 11 on down, the game is sorely lacking monsters with vulnerabilites to anything other than . In the early game, optimal play involves a lot of swapping out weapons to target specific monsters. From here down, that's not as strongly encouraged, which is sort of a shame given that Chest of Evil weapons so dominate the late-stages of the game. There's ample design space for high-danger monsters on these lower floors that have a (obvious?) vulnerability to one or two damage types, especially if those types aren't the ones you see commonly on CoE weapons. I suspect that CoE weapons would be feel less over-the-top if resistances and vulnerabilities were more themed on the last few floors. That way a CoE weapon that kicked butt on floor X might prove far less useful on floor Y. The high on floors 11 and 13 are all about the two new Deth variants added in 1.0.10, and thus appears on just one monster per floor. Just the same, it might be a possible theme for either floor 11 or 13 to add a bunch more monsters to give Necronomiconomicists a "just skip it" level just as the Prometheans have floor 9. Dibs! Mostly kidding. I do of course plan to work in a few of these observations and tweaks myself. As many of you know, i am currently hard-at-work on a (multiple, actually) new version(s) of Interior Dredmorating. There have been some delays that may keep me from getting the release(s) out the door as soon as I'd like to. So chances are someone will scoop me. Which is mostly okay, as frankly no one should have to draw that many individual nearly-identical monster frames. I don't know how dbaumgart survived it. EDIT: Floor 13 has more of a theme than I was giving it credit for. It alone (of the mid to late game levels) has zero . Plus all the monsters are casters, and 2/3rds of them fly. There's themes there a modder could build on. Also, I updated and corrected the levels of and on this post and the previous one.
This thread has grown to be a lot more than I originally expected. o_o To expand on R.B. Berstrom's excellent ideas, I'd particularly like to see monsters with vulnerability to , as that is currently the most useless damage type in the game from the looks of things. Tons of crap resists it and nothing is vulnerable to it. Makes Skatha's Roots, Bolas and poison cloud effects much less appealing than they could be.
Fire elementals would make sense too - no air = no fire. Holy mother of... Great work. Makes me doubt your sanity, but great work. There are a few holes here and there, but that sums up almost everything any prospective modder should know about damage resistances and floors. Probably the only thing I can add to what's already been said (I assume you picked up my earlier comments on toxic damage being bad and what not), but essentially on damage types like lightning, which monsters don't usually resist - Remember that the game is also balanced on the assumption that few monsters have any resistance for those relevant damage types. Here's a list of those damage types that don't occur frequently as weaknesses or resistances for your modding convenience occurs as level 1/2 vulnerabilities, so be careful about giving those out for lower level abilities. Also a dredmor killer. These don't occur frequently, but Dredmor has a godly resistance to them, so keep that in mind occurs as a rare resistance, but is a dredmor killer Here's the list of resistances/vulnerabilities that occur frequently, and arguably "broken" ways Unless it's a lutefisk, almost everything seems to be weak to this. You could almost say that one is worth two of most other types. Also a dredmor killer. A quick look at dredpedia tells you that at least one monster PER floor has extremely strong resistance to this. In fact, double digits for these start happening very early. Two are almost worth as much as one of everything else. In fact, the way the game is now, I'm not even sure there's any way for abilities dealing to be satisfying unless they near one shot those enemies that don't resist it. Not as bad as , but still very common resistances. However, those resistances tend to be not quite as high as , and are generally restricted to undead. Aside from this, I don't really know what more there is to add on this issue
Not true. is a basic damage type, so protects against it. Dredmor has 20 or 30 depending on whether he's the floor 10 or floor 15 version. So is less effective than, say, against him. That misunderstanding suggests that additional data is required. Average Monster per floor: Floor 1: Zero . Not a single floor 1 monster has armor. Modders should probably respect that, since the player has so little control over equipment on floor 1. Floor 2: Max Armor: 1 22% of monsters have armor. Floor 3: Max Armor: 5 Mean: 2 Median: 1.5 Mode: 0 66% of monsters have some amount of Floor 4: Max Armor: 5 Mean: 2.6 Median: 2 Mode: 2 88% of monsters have some amount of Floor 5: Max Armor: 5 Mean: 2.5 Median: 1 Modes: 0, 1 and 5 71.4% of monsters have some amount of So while this floor has a lot of reasons to want to avoid melee (kleptoblobbies and magic golems) it compensates by slightly downgrading the damage-soaking abilities of the monsters (compared to the floor before it, anyway). Modding in a monster with high armor here might be a mistake, as melee warriors already have a lot (other than damage) to worry about. Floor 6: Max Armor: 5 Mean: 1.4 Median: 0 Mode: 0 43% of monsters have some amount of Base damage has an even easier time on this floor. I wasn't really expecting that, but it's possible it's ended to give melee fighters a breather after trying to avoid corruption and theft on the previous floor. Modding in a monster with high armor here would go against that sub-theme, and may be inadvisable. Floor 7: Max Armor: 8 Mean: 3.6 Median: 4 Modes: 1 and 4 89% of monsters have some amount of Monster armor has a lot of variance on this floor. If you're modding in two or more new monsters to this floor, you might want to consider making one have very low armor, and one have reasonably high armor, to retain that unpredictability. The snow baal and the magic dragon give two very different reasons for melee characters to be cautious here, and every new monster waters that down a little bit. Floor 8: Max Armor: 6 Mean: 3.6 Median: 5 Mode: 5 80% of monsters have some amount of . Note that without RotDG installed this is 100% and the minimum armor is 2. There's less variance in total armor level here than there was on floor 7, making traditional melee weaponry a little more consistent and predictable than it was on that floor, though certainly not any more effective than it had been. New monsters here should probably have about 5 armor, unless you're intentionally altering that dynamic for a reason. Somewhat surprisingly, this is the first floor to feature absolutely no . (I should go update my other posts to reflect that) Floor 9: Max Armor: 12 Mean: 5.4 Median: 5 Modes: 0 and 10 75% of monsters have some amount of . Armor on this level is very swingy, and nearly any value would be appropriate for a freshly modded monster. Floor 10: Max Armor: 10 Mean: 3.9 Median: 4 Mode: 0 57% of monsters have some amount of . Overall, a little squishier than the floor before it. Probably to compensate for the high damage outputs, corruption, those damn djinn fizzes, etc. Floor 11: Max Armor: 15 Mean: 5.8 Median: 4 Mode: 0 50% of monsters have some amount of . There are only 4 monsters on this floor, with armor values 0, 0, 8 and 15. It's hard to find any patterns in so few data points, but it's certainly even less consistent than floor 9 was. Mod to your heart's content. Floor 12: Max Armor: 10 Mean: 5 Median: 7 Mode: 0 60% of monsters have some amount of . The high frequency of and on this level make it harder on traditional melee weapons than those stats might appear. On the other hand, who isn't using a CoE weapon by this point in the game? It's hard to predict the patterns and interactions at this stage of the game. Either you've got the right weapon, and everything dies, or you flail ineffectively. Floor 13: Max Armor: 0 Nothing on this level has . I don't know how intentional the lack of armor was on this floor, but it definitely gives weapon-skill toting characters a leg up here. Given what a tough time (non-wizard) melee builds have traditionally had in the game, one should think good and hard before introducing tanky monsters to this floor via mods. Floor 14: Max Armor: 20 Mean: 5 Median: 0 Mode: 0 20% of monsters have some amount of , and when they do, it's always 20 . Don't be fooled into thinking this floor is like the one before it. In addition to two high-armor monsters, there are also a few critters with exceptional and . Traditional weaponry is situationally unreliable here. The theme for modders to keep in mind is "all or nothing", at least in terms of basic damage. If you're considering how much resistance to a basic damage type a particular monster should have, the answer here is either none at all or right around 20. Floor 15: Max Armor: 20 Mean: 3.3 Median: 0 Mode: 0 17% of monsters have some amount of , and when they do, it's always 20 . Everything I just said about floor 14 applies here as well. Dredmor Himself: 30 (only 20 if you're encountering the non-RotDG version on floor 10). 10 (5 w/o RotDG). A few generic observations: levels are less than I'd expected them to be. There's a lot of zero armor monsters all the way into the end game, which makes exotic damage types somewhat less important than I had imagined. I knew was a weak damage type for players to utilize, but I didn't really realize it's probably less potent than in the big picture. Floor 13 has a much stronger mechanical theme to it than I had previously given it credit for. The strange selection of creature types doesn't particularly enhance the metallic visual theme of the level, but at least you can determine what the "rules and mechanics" identity is of the level: it's (intentionally?) the lone late-game floor where you don't need fancy weapons. I'd previously considered the limited monster selection on the floor to be a detriment, but second thought, I think it's actually a strength of the level. When you further consider that all 3 monster types here are casters and 2/3rds of them fly, suddenly it becomes a theme we can build on. (Expect future iterations of ID to capitalize on that.) Floors 11, 12, 14 and 15 are still frustratingly hard to categorize or summarize, and could probably use further development in specific thematic directions either via modding or from the devs. This is more a strategy observation than modding concern, but is much weaker than I expected it to be, especially in the early game. The first 6 floors are more resistant to than they are to or even . For that matter, is a lot better than overall. I have updated my previous posts to fill in where and fit in the per-floor resist hierarchies.
First off, I'd like to apologize if I misled anyone into thinking was a basic damage type. I wrote most of my posts on the assumption that people understood that, and never bothered to specify it anywhere. My objective was to emphasize that of all of the basic damage types, nothing really resists , so even though it is not "exotic" you should STILL take that into consideration when modding. As for being a Dredmor Killer, you could also argue that are also dredmor killers in so far that Dredmor does not have specific resistances to them. The important thing to remember is that the high stats are there to compensate for the fact that it's not difficult to break the 30 damage wall. "Doul's possible sword" negates it outright. Dual wield those, with sword masteries, and all of a sudden even 20 lutefisk avatars become paper tigers. However, w.r.t to those two damage types, their strength is mitigated by the fact that monsters do have specific resistances for them, over and above AA, while blasting doesn't. So while you can code in a few points of slashing/crushing every level or so without worrying about the details too much, you do have to be more careful with blasting. The key notion is that while AA does mitigate basic damage, it is important to remember that people who are going to be using basic damage types BUILD FOR IT. It's easy to put in +1-2 of X damage type for each level of this tree for the sake of flavor, without realizing what is going to happen when people start throwing in other skill trees into the picture. Even if you make a based nuke instead of an extra on-hit effect, the way the game is atm, anything that does not have AA will die to it. And enemies that have substantial amounts of AA (relative to the relevant level) tend to be few and far between until later on. I also assumed most people were aware of this when I made my posts - humbling lesson; never assume people know everything you know, that just opens the way for an awful lot of confusion. But yes, is broken atm. Since we are on the topic - early game seems to be here specifically to prevent crossbows from cheesing the early game. Remove this specific resistance stat from all monsters in the first few floors, play through them, and you'll see what i mean.
AllurlewtsRbelongtome, do not worry. Most of us understand all of what you said. I only mentioned the little detail above in case others reading here did not know that. I was certain you and most if not all others already communicating in this thread knew that. *Edit* My post went poof!?!? I had mentioned that is effected by . Was that another thread? /sigh Either way, what I said is appropriate. Most of us understand you just fine. When we do not, we ask for a clarification.
I'm really having a hard time wrapping my head around that. Maybe this is just semantics, but that argument strikes me as rather dubious. Yeah, you can get weapons that do 30 or easily enough... but 30 is pretty rare. Even if we hand-waive that, there's still the fact that late game you're all but guaranteed to have access to your choice of several CoE artifact weapons, each of which will have 26 to 30 points of , , , or . Until/unless COE's get some sort of nerf, exotic damages are only going to trail a handful of points behind the basics at most. 60 (or or ) to Dredmor takes away 30 of his . 60 to Dredmor takes away 32 of his . 60 to Dredmor takes away 32 of his . I don't see how that makes a "Dredmor killer" without and also being "Dredmor killers" - and and are literally his highest resistances. If those are "Dredmor killers" then the term is utterly meaningless. A real "Dredmor killer" would look more like this: 60 to Dredmor takes away 60 of his . 60 to Dredmor takes away 60 of his . Or maybe even: 60 to Dredmor takes away 50 of his .
I'm thinking of adding a link to this in the quick reference thread, as I've wanted to reference it a couple of times in the last few days and it had dropped off the first page (obviously, its back now). Do modders actually use it, or should I just put it in my personal DoD favorites folder? Also, to make this more on topic: will get bonuses if you have them. (RaustBlackDragon had a post about the weirdness between and "basic" damage types somewhere, to summarize tends to get split among them, so a character with a enchantment can, theoretically, rack up some major blasting damage). So huge numbers aren't impossible. They're just rare. But yeah, I'm not looking to it as a core anti-D strategy at the moment.
I do. Heck, I'm revising select parts of ID based on what this analysis has taught me. My approach to floor 13 was completely wrong. I thought the point of Raust's thread was that his was getting subdivided and rounded down? But, sure, I do see that adds to but not to . That's a valid point. Gotta say though, this notion that and are super good at killing Dredmor really seems to fly in the face of the various threads where people are calling for Chest of Evil weapons being nerfed and the weapon skills pumped.
I agree. Just mentioning that does, in fact, scale all the time. My point was actually more along the lines of, "Since it scales all the time and no one's noticed it being broken, I wouldn't say that it's broken." As for what's super good at killing Dredmor, in my experience, whatever you're using had better come in obscene quantities. CoE weapons are viewed as overpowered because they do give obscene quantities of a new damage type. Of course, Dredmor's often resistant to those damage types, but they're a huge boon in getting there.
Alright, moar clarifications. Ahum. In practice, few damage types can actually do any damage type to dredmor unless you have them in meaningful numbers. A "dredmor killer" is therefore a relative term; how many points of it you need to actually breach the damage wall that dredmor has for that relevant type. While non-exotic damage types have a higher ceiling than exotic damage types, its important to remember that people who actually do favor those damage types (i.e.melee people) tend to have an easier time surviving until Dredmor, and the proposition that they won't be dealing enough basic damage to bash through dredmor's is dubious at best. So on paper, may not seem like damage types that you would want to try killing dredmor with, but in practice you can kill him with those damage types, esp. given scaling. That being said, I will be the first to agree that currently is nothing of a Dredmor killer. The damage type is rare, and it is currently difficult to get any kind of meaningful (i.e. the kind that would make dredmor stand up and take notice) out. However, this thread is about MODDING new stuff into the game, rather than what currently is in it. And if you get careless with scaling figures thinking that "oh, it's ok to have high basic damage types, because everyone knows Dredmor is nigh on immune to them" then it's not difficult to get to the point where basic damage types will start doing nasty things to Dredmor. Very nasty things. has to potential to be a very bad offender here because only mitigate it, and it is nowhere as common as anyone tends to think (see R_B's /floor stat for details).
