We need a committed balance critic

I've been messing around with tons of mods, particularly the fax pax, essential skills I, practical geology, Clockwork knights, Tactics, Dragon Knight, and my own SwiftStriker, and I've become increasingly concerned about balance issues with a few (not all) mods.

It occurs to me that we don't really have anybody on this forum committed to giving honest (yet polite) critique of mods, and some features that I consider to be ludicrously overpowered in certain mods don't seem to have even been mentioned yet in the mods' threads. This isn't to say the community isn't concerned with balance, of course not; it's just that we don't have anybody who's really REALLY determined to demonstrate that a mod is significantly overpowered compared to the vanilla game. We need somebody who does this, because while such a person may not always be right, there are some correct insights that only such a person can make.

We need a balance critic badly. I think I speak for everyone when I say that one of the worst things a mod can be is overpowered, especially in a game and genre that pride themselves on their level of unforgiving difficulty.

We need one, and as far as I can tell, we don't have one.

I'll take up the mantle if I must, though I'd really rather it not be me.

 

I have no problems telling people they're morons!

Seriously, though, one of my major goals was to beat the game on all difficulties, permadeath on, before adding mods. I just managed this last Thursday, and I've been picking mods to play with ever since, plus tinkering around with my own. While giving up the drunken brawler mod would break my heart (but possibly save my sanity and probably ensure someone else who wants to try their hand at the concept actually finishes such a mod) I'm kinda worried about the same things. And I haven't even played with any mods yet.

Perhaps I could run a weekly, "Lorr breaks a mod" column where I try everything I can to unbalance a mod and report my findings? Of course, that would give me two weekly projects to keep track of... Or would you rather I just build two characters with the same skills save for a mod and a vanilla skill and see how they turn out different? Or do you want someone who doesn't spend half his time arguing against the sacred cows of the modding community do it?

 

Those ideas sound great. Think you could start with mine, so I face the consequences of my actions before others do?

 

Well, it's only a mod. If its overpowered, then don't play it, or you can easily just edit it yourself to your liking.

 

Your perspective is that of a player with no qualms tinkering with the mods he loads. Raust is speaking from the perspective of a modder who wants to make mods more in line with the original game, so that when he offers them to the community they can insert them into the game with the most seamless way possible. Many players don't have the skills to adjust mods on their own, many more don't want to take the time. Modders want to appeal to them as well. I think that's a good thing, and I'm going to help with it by mauling Swift Striker as viciously as possible....

By which I mean mauling Dredmor with it as viciously as possible.

For starters, two GR games, one with Swift Striker and one without. I won't use permadeath, seeing how many times I die while hunting Dredmor will be a criteria of the test. I will file a report... sometime.

Tootles!

 

I like this idea. This will be good.

 

I like this idea too. It'll be pretty good to have someone who'll be able to tell us if there's anything wrong with whatever we create, balance-wise, so please don't give up Lorrelian.

 

I'd suggest a discussion thread about mods and then a dedicated thread on conclusions about specific mods.
This way someone who is just learning to use mods would have a thread/post with concise opinions listed.
Much the same way as Daynabs proposed Mods section.
New and Vetran Mod users could refer to the thread instead of having to sift through a discussions thread.

If it works out, the released mods thread could have the info incorporated into it. <--- This I would like a lot.

 

Before we can talk about balancing mods we should probably decide which official skills are balanced.

For example, compare The Black Spot to Killing Blow.
Or Celestial Aegis to Mark of the Black Eyeliner (literally copy+pasted Aegis then made it better).
Or Monster Toss.

 

Two other important elements are synergy and item drops. If we have a dedicated critic, is he expected to tinker with different builds until he gets a game-breaking one? And how many games must he play until we can be satisfied that it wasn't a lucky Dwarven Express Post that carried him through what could be a rough patch or a lack of decent items that lead to his death?

While I do think we could use more critical forum-goers, this seems like a monumental undertaking for one person.

 

Oh I'm not saying that it should be just one person, I was just expressing concern that we didn't EVEN have one person.

 

To answer your first question, Game breaking builds would be something to be looked for in the early stages of mod development. I'm really hoping that any kind of massively unbalanced skill combo would already have been found for most of the skills that have been out for more than a month, so I'm more going to be asking the question, "Does this skill make the game significantly easier in a fairly generic build?"

Of course, if someone wants me to actively try and break their skill, I might be able to do that too.

As for your second question, I very much intend to avoid Evil Chests for the purposes of this experiment, as practically everyone agrees they are unbalanced in some way. If there's any other wildly unbalanced things I should look out for, people should feel free to point them out (although I intend to take full advantage of shrines, as some skills, particularly those that create items, can make those more powerful.) For the same reason I will be using only one mod skill at a time, with everything else being vanilla.

Also - Raust is correct. There is no way I can do this on my own. Other people can and should be involved, if for no other reason than to counterbalance my viewpoint.

 

Yeah, I guess so. I'd volunteer but I don't really have that much time to play (yeah, the last time I actually played DoD was sometime in January).
Maybe in the distant future, though...

 

I'd offer to help as well, but I have yet to actually complete the game even on easy with no permadeath. :/ Kinda been juggling this and Dungeon Defenders.

 

I will volunteer some time on this. But I think whomever does contribute to the cause should have limited mod power so they can edit the thread. This would allow editing for organization, de-personalising commentary and editing in civility if needed.

 

Currently working on doing just this for Blood Knight - though the scientist in me says "since the entire game is random and no two playthroughs can be identical ever a proper objective experiment cannot be made - too many uncontrollable variables". And unlike Lorrelian, I will be playing to the absolute limit of the base game's options, including absuing the bejezus out of Brax's lack of inventory control, Evil Chests, pickspamming, etc - if the skill is broken, then it'll make the broken parts of the base game glare all the brighter.

 

Given how Sniktch and I are pretty much polar opposites I'd say he's a perfect candidate for this job.

I could comment on how his testing methods sound a bit unscientific to me, but I won't. I'm just that disciplined.

 

So Lorrelian & Sniktch are going be our critic's? So is he gonna put a review on every (complete) mod?
id like to know exactly how its gonna go?

 

This becomes increasingly important as more mods are created. For example, Ninjitsu alone is game-changing because it makes Throwing a viable combat method -- but Ninjitsu + Practical Geology is nearly broken, because the +5 Melee Power from Stone Fist applies to every single thrown weapon you fling, taking Ninjitsu easily into the 2-shot-kill range well into DL3 without using any of the stronger ammo for anything but named mobs.

That's a problem. Similarly, Wild Magic on it's own (or with any core skills) is kind of interesting -- but combine Wild Magic with Runecaster, and you have amazing cosmic power, because level 2 of Wild Magic plus level 3 of Runecaster means lots and lots of casting while out of danger in order to acquire stuff that you can use when in danger -- and it adds booze/food/ammo/mushrooms to the usual runes. That's also a problem.

How to actually address these concerns (because none of the skills involved are 'core') is a question I'm not prepared to answer.

 

Why not make a list of "taboo" mods to use in conjunction with it? Why not say "Using ninjitsu and Practical Geology together is ill-advised, due to it being overpowered."?