More Difficult Monsters

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Description

How Far Down Can You Make It Before Crying?​

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This mod is pretty simple, it makes the monsters harder. A good portion of the monsters you face will be more fearsome. They also blend in with the crowd, so you need to pay attention to recognize which are the nasty ones. This mod was meant to be played on Going Rogue difficulty. Goal is to see how far you can go. Oh, and monsters in the Wizardlands, Diggle Hell, and Mystic Portals can spawn as the new version, so be careful.

How nasty are they?

All of the normal monsters (non-special, non-boss types) have about a 50% chance to spawn as the hard version. Currently they have 50% higher base stats, based on <insert technical talk> NumRog, NumWiz, and NumFig. This means that at the low levels, monsters get a little more powerful, but not by that much. It's 50% more, but going from say a stat value of NumFig="2" (i.e. 2 warrior levels) to NumFig'"3" results in an additional 1 warrior level, or a gain of:

2 1 1 2 1 2
4 2 0.66 0.66 0.5 0.33 0.49 1 1.5 0.5 0.5 1

Not that bad right? However, as you go deeper in the dungeon, monsters become more fierce. Take an example of a higher level creature, the scary Rogue Diggle Scientist, found generally on floor 13. His original stats were <stats numRog="20", i.e. 20 Rogue levels. The more difficult version gets an additional 10 Rogue levels, or:

10 10 20 20 20 10
30 20 3 3 10 7 7 10 30 5 10 5

more in additional stats. Now that seems like more of a challenge, right?

This mod does not modify any other stats. The before and after code for the example Scientist is:

Before:

Code:

    <monster name="Rogue Diggle Scientist" level="12"  diggleHell="1">
        <sfx attack="diggle_attack" hit="diggle_damage" die="diggle_die" spell="diggle_cast"/>
        <ai aggressiveness="4" span="10" spellPercentage="10"/>
          <spell name="Diggle Acid Flask" />
            <spell name="Aetheric Death Ray" />
            <spell name="Sonic Blast" />
        <stats numRog="20" xpValue="200" />
        <damage slashing="1" piercing="1" acidic="5" toxic="5" />
        <resistances voltaic="5" aethereal="5" />
        <secondarybuff id="4" amount="-10"/> <!-- crit -->
        <secondarybuff id="6" amount="4"/> <!-- dodge -->
        <secondarybuff id="0" amount="-2"/> <!-- hp -->
        <secondarybuff id="23" amount="2"/> <!-- wands; ITS FOR THE DEATH RAY I SWEAR -->
        <secondarybuff id="20" amount="2"/> <!-- tinker; ITS FOR THE SONIC BLAST I SWEAR -->
        <secondarybuff id="21" amount="2"/> <!-- alchemy; ITS FOR THE ACID FLASK I SWEAR -->
        <palette tint="600"/>
        <info latin="(Poingus Manius Sciencium)" text="Stand back! This Diggle is going to try SCIENCE!"/>
        </monster>
    </monster>

After:

Code:

<monster name="Diabolical Rogue Diggle Scientist!!!" level="12"  diggleHell="1">
        <sfx attack="diggle_attack" hit="diggle_damage" die="diggle_die" spell="diggle_cast"/>
        <ai aggressiveness="4" span="10" spellPercentage="10"/>
          <spell name="Diggle Acid Flask" />
            <spell name="Aetheric Death Ray" />
            <spell name="Sonic Blast" />
        <stats numRog="30" xpValue="200" />
        <damage slashing="1" piercing="1" acidic="5" toxic="5" />
        <resistances voltaic="5" aethereal="5" />
        <secondarybuff id="4" amount="-10"/> <!-- crit -->
        <secondarybuff id="6" amount="4"/> <!-- dodge -->
        <secondarybuff id="0" amount="-2"/> <!-- hp -->
        <secondarybuff id="23" amount="2"/> <!-- wands; ITS FOR THE DEATH RAY I SWEAR -->
        <secondarybuff id="20" amount="2"/> <!-- tinker; ITS FOR THE SONIC BLAST I SWEAR -->
        <secondarybuff id="21" amount="2"/> <!-- alchemy; ITS FOR THE ACID FLASK I SWEAR -->
        <palette tint="600"/>
        <info latin="(Poingus Manius Sciencium)" text="Stand back! This Diggle is going to try SCIENCE!"/>
        </monster>
    </monster>

Balancing

The mod is currently working fine, but likely needs balance work. I have not yet done a full play through, so use at your own risk!

Updates:
Version 1.1: Monsters level 0 and 1 (i.e. those found on floors 1 and 2) were reverted back to normal. Most characters don't have the skills at that level to deal with the difficulty. Just be careful when you hit floor 3!!

Version 1.2: Reverted 1.1. Was a bug causing the low level monsters to take on higher level abilities. Fixed it, should be balanced now.

Requirements:
Non-Pirated version of the game. Self destruct code is built in so dangerous things happen otherwise. Works with all 3 expansions, and I do not think any are required.

 

this mod legitly seems like it might make "broken" mods be hella fun and actually challenging. still could be balanced maybe, gonna try it out, but...yay

 

Ok, doing my first play through on GR NTTG. Playing a pure melee class using the Swashbuckler mod, along with Chuck Norris/Bruce Lee. Currently working my way through level 2. Level 1 was a bitch frankly. I then reverted the level 0 flagged mobs back to normal, and it was still a bitch. Guess that's just how it is as a melee with no pets, no range, no heal, and no gear. My next update will set the noobie monsters back to vanilla levels.

Level 2 is better since I have some skills now. The new mobs are definitely harder, by quite a bit. I sometimes have to blow cooldowns against just 1 of them, and certainly if there are a few around me. I would say they are tougher than the named mobs, by a decent amount, but I am managing ok. As an example, if I have 1 old monster and 1 new monster side by side, I can sometimes 1 hit the old mob and am in no danger, but the new monster takes me like 3-6 hits to kill, and might kill me pretty fast. A zoo at this point would be...challenging. I am sure I will find out very soon

 

I am going to revert the level 0 and level 1 monsters back to normal. You just don't have the tools to fight them that early in the game. I did notice that the wizardlands use the old mobs, so those are pretty easy for farming. Don't even consider Diggle Hell though at early levels.

Version 1.1 is up.

 

Did testing of the deeper levels 13-15, using a high level pure vanilla melee class with available high end gear (although not perfect, just what I quickly hacked together from the debugger). I ran the levels with and without this mod to compare. Results: monsters are alot harder, but not over the top IMO. I was afraid of getting one shotted by everything, but that wasn't the case, even with low resistences. With my block almost capped, and a 70ish counter attack, 30ish plus armor, the melee mobs definitely are tougher. More HP, hit harder, and they are alot harder to hit. Spells are painful, so to clear the zoos at this level, you would want decent resists. Didnt play a ranged class, but I would imagine they are easier, assuming they don't get hit in melee.

I like the balance for the deep zones and think I will leave it as is for now.

 

Ranged classes get a recommendation from me to get two sources of controlled teleport and at least one renewable source of invisibility and crafting materials (so Clockwork Knight + Burglary is a good start here). Other than that, it's doable even if somewhat annoying when named monsters require debuffing to take down, but that was the point of this mod.
Though it was only an hour's worth of testing on just one floor (13), so others might not agree with me.

Though I prefer the normal version of DoD for the most part, because most of the time I'm playtesting things instead of actually playing...

 

Mod currently has some unresolved problems, and the early monsters are really deadly. Working on a fix.

Update...Fixed. Was a bug in the code that gave the low level monsters more abilities than they were supposed to have, thus way tougher than expected. 1.2 is newest version.

 

Thanks for the feedback. Yep Kazeto, I think you are right. This mod isn't for everybody or every play through probably. But sometimes, you just gotta turn up the difficulty! And as Dawnbomb said, it could be good to use with some of the more powerful class mods out there.

 

Did more testing one on one with the new monsters versus old, and looks to be working fine. It is a bit hard to tell sometimes when you are fighting alot of them at once, because a lot of spells/attacks don't scale, so they are unchanged. But alot do scale, and those seem to be working as expected.

Note: I removed the Corrupt Armor and the Shroud of Darkness spells from the new mobs, so there should be alot (up to 50%) less chance to get those effects (too much in the original game IMO). Bosses not changed, just normal mobs.

 

This idea is brilliant, I really like challenges, nice mod

Btw I wonder what'll it be if I use your mod with Elvish Reality Reborn

 

Your characters will keep on dying violently.

 

Well I find my mod easy to normal at least on first 4 levels. DIdn't go further because of the saves incompatibility.

 

Heh, have not tried the Elven Reality mod yet, added to my list though. Just played a vanilla melee to 4th floor on hard setting, and you definitely notice a difference between normal mobs and the new ones. I noticed it more as I went deeper. Also started a perma-death caster, but died in a wizardland around 3rd floor. And I was wrong, new mobs can spawn in wizardlands, mystic portals, and diggle hell.

 

Yeah wizardlands is the place I died couple of times when trying permadeth, Hate them Evil Clones

I don't really know how ERR would be for a caster without smithing and crafting though. With 2 I got killed by 1 Enraged or Sick Diggles on the 1st flour, after 4 and 2-3 almost nobody on first flour can cause . But without - 3 Diggles would cause 12-18 and slash you to death. Then again I've never played as a caster

Btw it would've been a great feedback to ballance it to the caster builds.

Just for the info my build is always the same:
Axe mastery, Dual wielding, Berserker, Master of arms, Clockwork Knight, Smithing, TInkering

 

This is the one you want. He did lots of work that I gave up on when I was doing it. (Only a few people ever really liked it, and I never found a good balance of difficulty for upper and lower levels.
http://community.gaslampgames.com/threads/core-elvish-reality-reborn.5146/#post-59974

 

I've just cleared 6 level of Dredmor using Elvish Reality and More Difficult Monsters. Amazing, plainly amazing. This two mods together give an outstanding and challenging expericence. For the first time playing DoD I had to use EVERYTHING I had just to survive some encounters. I'm emptying every Food Dispenser complitely. I used crusts for the first time, on Going Rouge I survived without them at all. I made to the 4 dungeon level without bloody grinder and it was like walking on a vibrating razor a hell of an experience running around with 10-20. I even went as far as going upstairs to the 1st flour from the 3d just to buy some food and then I run out of money so I had to visit Wizard dimentions to farm a little Anyway it was loads of fun and it is still challenging even though I'm a level 6Smith and Crafter and have almost the best crafted equipment.

Btw Opening Zoos that is full of Ubers always fun
And killing a monster which have Uber in his name is soo satisfying

So all of the above is some kind of thanks to MonsterMod

 

Some of the Uber mobs have the most amazing names. I just saw Snow Baal's Chance in Hell. There's also the Poorly Cloned Hero That Likes Ponies and Addicted to Heroine mobs.

 

I know I'm resurrecting this thread after a long time, but is there a chance of uploading this mod to steamworkshop?

 

Why? You can use both Steam Workshop mods and these without any trouble.

 

That's not the point, I play Dredmor on different computers (four at the moment) steam syncs savegames for me and mods from workshop, but I have to add this one manually. I could upload it to the workshop myself, but I;m not the author, so...