Thanks to erevos, and Maxx Power: The Tome looks fixed

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Thanks to erevos, and Maxx Power: The Tome looks fixed

Post by Quatl » Sat Oct 14, 2006 9:06 pm

This is largely thanks to Erevos, and Maxx Power. Not that they gave me the answer, but if they hadn't made their exact sugestions in the exact order they made them, I may have never figured this out. I needed a very diferent thought angle to come to see this possiblity.

THE TOME IS FIXED!!!
I've said it before (I'm not sure I believe it myself yet ;) )
I'm sure something is lurking that I've missed, some odd little case in which the damndable thing will be squirly.

The way the Tome will work as of 1.5E
(assumeing nothing else breaks by then):
- You will again gain skill points per level
| (Quest rewards that granted skill points will work again too.)
- Adding a skill to the tome will cost a skill point!
| You won't be able to add new skills if you have no skill points
| thus it should be impossible for a your Tome to out level you
- You will not be able to add a skill untill your level >= skill level
| (as in: when you are level 6 or higher you can add a level 6 skill)
- You won't be able to add skills restricted by class if you are the wrong
| class (same as now)
- The Tome's level req will still increase for each skill point added to
| prevent obvious cheezyness.
- As a side effect of these changes the display only skills on the tree will
| show up as requireing level 100, don't let this worry you, it has no effect
| on the actual masteries themselves.

- You will be able to REMOVE skills from the Tome
| Combineing the Tome, a skill scroll, and a bottle of Alchahest in the cube
| will (if you have a point in the skill) remove the skill point and give it
| back, to be respent.
- Skill removal consumes niether the skill scroll, nor the Alchahest,
| so you can use them again, or sell them.
- Alchahest will be sold by whomever sells skill scrolls for 1000g

These changes are already in the Dev version, and so far are working as described. I still ned to do more testing of course.

[Alchahest by the way was one name for the legendary "Universal Solvent" from old (as in historical) alchemy. It will have other uses in LotH later, when I get around to the crafting overhaul.]
______

This will not fix current characters (they will still load but you'll be missing extra quest skill points) You CAN rip out your skill points from an old(1.4X or later) tome ... but the total points will be off, if for example you don't have the Tome maxed out for your level.

Old Tomes may also exibit some odd behaviour if you try to continue with them, so I'd recomend being ready to make new characters for 1.5E. There are too many possibilities for me to acount for them all.
_______

This new Tome scheme has other advantages for the future. It's alot more versitile under the hood, for example it paves the way for varying skill point costs if I decide that's a good idea. Also skill removal would have been very messy under the old system (which is why it never happened ;) )

_______In Other News:

While I'm in here. I'm doing another thing I said I wouldn't do. I'm addressing balance in the vannila version a bit. The main reason I had been avoiding this is that it is a huge mess, and I was thinking of LotH(V) as a milestone rather than a complete "product". The Product was to be the LotH(X) versions ...

Well I couldn't take it anymore :) LotH, while "interesting" is not fun for me, it's simply too easy (vannila D2 is too, but LotH only makes it worse.) So I am going to try to atleast somewhat address these issues in (V) prior to moveing on to the (X) versions.

My goal is not to make things really hard, rather I want to have to pay atention when playing. I've several times caught myself lately playing in a state of click-hypnosis.

This "rebalanceing" will start with 1.5E. The world will be a bit more dangerous. The changes mostly involve monster AI. They are in general more agressive, and more wiklling to use their nastier, and more obnoxious behaviours. Many also spawn in larger groups.

Character's stats now require more thought. In particular, Mana/Hp values are somewhat reduced (both from levels and vit/int) So you will need to spend some points on these, and there is now a real trade off between them. Low mana/ high hp tanks need different spending strategy than casters, or in-between-ers.

These changes are not random, they come from alot of long thinking and are part of a larger picture. I hope this will improove the fun of the game, but none of these things are set in stone, tweeking will ocure over the next several releases.

I'm also going to address skill balance at some point soon (probly after the crafting overhaul) Most spell delays will be removed. Damage/ range/ radii/ etc will be addresses more holisticly. As well as "uber combos", these will still be good, just not boreingly powerful (for example Auras in partcular are problematic in many combinations)

Synergies will be completely re-built, and will have nothing to do with the "class" the skill belongs to, rather they will be based on the roles the skill serves in game play (for example hydra and fire-golem could synergize.) In other words synergy will be based more on themes than on trees. Synergies will also be even more bi-directional (for example how fireball and firebolt synergize each other.) Character level and skill level will both be important factors in spell effectiveness.

-Quatl
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Post by Maxx Power » Sat Oct 14, 2006 9:36 pm

Wow, even when I'm not trying I still manage to help. :) Glad to have been of assistance. Now I don't have to worry about getting to Kurast since I'll be making a new character anyway. Approximate ETA?

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Re: Thanks to erevos, and Maxx Power: The Tome looks fixed

Post by Quatl » Sat Oct 14, 2006 11:46 pm

ETA a few days. Although I usualy over estimate these time things. I've said that before then released something a few hours later ;)

_______What's holding it up:

I'm doing some item-type work on the crafting stuff to try and banish problems like the one you had with lifedrain on rings (where things work on one item type but not the others as labled.) Then some more testing, of that to make sure there are no blatent mistakes in there.

It's a really boreing repetitive type thing to work on. Mostly copy and paste 5 or 15 times, then edit one element of each. It's very easy to get complacent with things like this and make stupid mistakes. I'm trying to watch myself carefuly :oops:

Crafting will be getting a complete overhaul soon, but in the mean time I think the current system should work as advertised :) The results will be similar but I'll be makeing it a bit more intracate and more involved. I'm trying for more fun and less dry/ repetitive/ mechanical.

The Tome stuff I mentioned above is continueing to behave well, no problems so far (up through 14th level on one character, and at low levels with a few diferent test tomes.) So that part of things is looking good.

The monster changes are really paying off too, I'm actualy enjoying act one for the first time in years :) I even managed to die a few times by not paying atention. Some critters still could use some fine tuneing. The critters mostly feel like they have a role now, and serve it well rather than being pretty things to click on repetedly untill treasure pops out of them like a piniata :)

-Quatl
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