Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity Original Sin - Mods [WIP] Unfair Difficulty mod

I have the barebones effects down, and have tested them enough to know they work the way I think they should. I ran into a little trouble with the Surface effects not appearing for a few of them, but I managed to work around it with this little SkillProperty-


It provides the small surface necessary for the actual Rain effect to expand.

Behold-


And as an extra tidbit, I ran into this interesting effect earlier when I was working out how to jumpstart my Surface effect-


Up next is all the logistical work necessary for a skill- Getting all of the icons and names and stuff to be specific per skill (icons and Rain graphics will be reused), then getting it into an actual skillbook that is on a vendor.

Edit:
Now that I think about it, I might add the TargetCreateSurface effect as well I think that I would need a different surface type for the Air Rain, since 5 turns of Stun would be too Unfair

Edit #2:
Yep, I'm combining both of the SkillProperties.

It's time to release what's probably the last Part of this Unfair Difficulty mod.

I present to you:

Part 4- Nature's Bane

Changelog-


Download link is here-
http://www.mediafire.com/download/dekhr65ryjd744y/Unfair_Difficulty_Version4.zip

And now all that's left is playtesting and balancing. Feedback will be appreciated.

Wow seems really cool. The only note I have would be the redundancy of Smokescreen and Blind, since they're essentially the same mechanic. Maybe something like giving everyone Farseer while creating the Smokescreens, haha. Really good for melee since they get the crit and can close the distance utilizing the smoke.

I'll definitely give this a try as soon as I can. Do you have any plans to alter encounters for difficulty, ie. adding in custom monsters to existing fights, new encounters, etc. (since you can't take away stuff, zzz..)? I only ask since it's an Unfair Difficulty mod, so it should be harder :P. Even adding 1 enemy to certain fights (like a scout, for instance, so I can't sneak up on a group and use an AoE spell prior to being in combat) will make them much harder. Utilizing the late-game AoE spells (Hail, Meteor) prior to combat gives a huge edge. Obviously you can't fix a neutral group of NPCs in that regard. I think the reason the goblin fights were more difficult was because of those damn scouts on the bridge, linking so many groups together. And, during the fire/pre-church area, there were off-screen linked skeletons that made the fights more difficult. Stuff like that is challenging and hard to overcome without good tactics and preparation.

I think the beginning of the game is pretty hard on hard in general, but could still be harder. Around level 6 or whatever level the new spells become available, it gets easier. It varies from group to group in terms of difficulty, but then gets harder again at ~14 in the sandstorm, and varies again. Hiberheim was pretty easy in general for me (even the final boss; he only got to his second phase). After that, and especially as you approach the later levels, the game is pretty easy until the final boss.

The only problem with making things super hard may be the forcing of players to get stuff like Leech (ie. if you're balancing the game around a talent most people get because they recognize it as very good). But, it all remains to be seen xD.

I used Smokescreen because it fits thematically with the Blind Status ailment. I really didn't want to have the Air Rain provide any sort of CC for 5 turns, since that would be unfun (or broken, depending on if the character gets the immune to stun talent). I also didn't want Invisibility Rain because that would most likely lead to easy combats. As it is, melee can do their attacks and rangers/mages can still do their AoE/Projectile attacks through the Smoke via indirect targetting.

I don't plan on adding monsters to the encounters, since that would turn my mod into a heavyweight mod (incompatible with other mods that change the map). As it is, my mod is lightweight and can be dropped/merged into nearly any other mod and have its effects. I am willing to give enemies a global buff though, like maybe +1/2 to their Speed/Constitution so that they hit more and last longer in combat.

Thanks for the feedback.

Ahh okay, makes sense. Cool. Just need Larian to ...make it easier to mod I guess. I'd love to get in the editor and actually be able to adjust certain things. The fact that you have to go through so much just to change a skill (and have that only work for PCs) is pretty intense.

I also realized that the changing of healing abilities applies to PCs only, meaning enemies with healing may be much higher priority (though I don't think the AI is smart enough to utilize it; whenever I saw a heal in-game of en enemy, it was almost always a potion).

Y'all modding right now are in the trenches on the front lines. Can't wait until Larian lifts the veil and gives people more to work with. THEN things will get interesting!

-Edit-

I started a new game to test a couple things. First thing I really like is the spider. The fact that skills come from different base stats, it makes them not OP. Acid Breath/Poison Dart will do damage but have a very low chance to poison (although Acid creates the surface, so it's moot there xD). Infect will have a lower chance to set Disease. It works out really well because it makes the Spider feel like it can maintain balance. I don't know how this will work across all summons since Elementals will utilize intelligence and mostly spells, but it's a neat thing to note .

-Another note - giving a character the Zombie talent on Hard makes it really hard to combat heal (until more Poison Resist is gotten) since Zombie gives 200% resist while Hard does -100% (aka 100% resist, no healing :P).

-Another note - I bought some of the new summons and their level is still set to the original level for learning the skill. I'm not sure if you retracted the idea of making them all require level 2 or not. I'm also not sure if my combining your mod and Source Difficulty mod affected it (may very well have, but can't test currently).