Call-out for Hades...

[AlaricQelDroma]

Hey Hades, man, I want to talk to you about my little rebalance mod ideas I've come up with recently for KOTOR (I have had my life stuck in XWA all these years, so this game is somewhat new but not unfamiliar to me)...:

 

1. I like your idea of giving Guardians/Marauders/Weaponmasters 2 feats per level...But I have a new idea...

 

Every three levels, the "jedi soldier" classes get two feats, and the in-between level-ups they get one feat. All solider classes get one force power per level.

 

The "Jedi Scout" classes should have two feats per every four levels, and one feat every other level, and they should get two force powers every 6 levels.

 

"Jedi Politician" classes should get two feats every 7 levels and 1 feat every 3 levels, and two powers every other level.

 

This way, we heavily accentuate each classes' strong points, and ALSO their weak spots...The soliders get hellah feats for combat mastery and physical boosting way beyond the other classes, and the scouts get huge skill progression and reasonable feat progression and power progression, a jack of all trades, but a master of none

 

The master classes...Hoo boy, they may be able to endlessly cast like hell, but not a one of them is going to be able to enhance themselves and their combat abilities as much as a soldier or scout will

 

This way, the soldiers could use ALL of the available feats by they time they hit level 30+, the scouts will be able to hack&slice just about anything that comes their way, and masters will be able to spam powers like mad but won't be able to fight worth a crap.

 

We also should look at potentially changing the enemy's AI a bit beyond what beancounter has done...I have already done some preliminary work with Kreia at the end of the game to make that pre-saber-toss duel you get far more challenging and interesting because she will use a myriad of feats and powers at you until she either runs out of FP's (which can almost not ever happen ), or until you out-fight her as a weaponmaster, or sneak-kill her with a scout-class.

 

Over-powering Nihilus and Traya might prove a much harder challenge, even when spamming crush

 

There might be a way to let the bosses resist the Crush-spam technique that has become so rampantly popular in everyone's playing strategems...

 

For the real bosses, we should add more general force resistance, maybe through a belt or something...I know there is that one belt that adds +14 points of force resistance, if a belt can do that, then a mod could certainly do it

 

Crush spamming needs to be quelled a little bit, because once you get it, the game is just cheesey spamming after that...I hate it when I can spam the AI with a single attack and have it kill abseloutely anything ALL the time

 

Giving the bosses force crush might make things more interesting as well!

 

I will continue scripting AI changes and see what I come up with, I always use the Traya's Arena mod thing to endlessly test these ideas...

 

As nice as beancounter's idea is, it needs further modding to make it REALLY worth the effort

 

When you have an AI that almost NEVER uses a single force power, and when they do, it's almost always the WRONG power(s), all the stat-boosting and hardening you can do to the AI NPC's won't do a damn bit of good.

 

I love your mod, Hades, but I guess what I am trying to say is that I want to uh...Help you. Contribute my ideas and experience and maybe add a fresh method of modding to your cause?

 

You seem to like rebalancing games, which is something I have been doing since I first got X-Wing back in '93....I think if you and I could work on these balance problems as one collective, we may attain a better assimilation threshold...Uhm...Yeah

 

I have some really new ideas that would add a great deal to your changes and beancounter's...Two is better than one, and three is better than two, right?

[jaguars4ever]

Just for the record, XWA still rocks!

 

Oh, and you might want to get that glaucoma seen to. ^_^

[AlaricQelDroma]

Just for the record, XWA still rocks! 

 

Oh, and you might want to get that glaucoma seen to. ^_^

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Pah, I've had to wear glasses since I was five...My eyes without them are as blind as Kreya's are...I see through other means...I've learned how to sense when people are near...I can sense their movement as they make noise. It's really not that hard once you learn how to genuinely focus yourself.

 

Anyway...I am somewhat of an outcast of the XWA community these days...I always have been since Datamaster's shut down, actually....I know how to change just about everything with XWA, and I've spent the last 7 years creating my own story in the EU just for my mod...It is nearing completion...The mod is done, all I have left are the 100 or so missions to do with AlliED...That will take a little while because I have to do all the voiceovers...sigh..Thank the Force my father has an ultra-expensive pro studio so I can do the voiceovers just right

 

I try to insist upon perfection when I make any mod...I may just do my work without Hades, but I'd rather be working with him than without him...His mod already does some of the things I want K2 to do, and it wouldn't take all that much to add my stuff to the mix.

 

I hate the default AI that these KOTOR games ship with...Even Dark Forces had better AI

 

Erm, no offense, Obs...I tried to put that as politically as I could, but alas, the truth is hard to shield with lies

 

EDIT: I've been doing some work trying to find out if staring at 60HZ for most of my life was what ruined my eyes early...Probably so. I was always too close to the tube and I didn't know anything of refresh rates until I had my GeForce 2 Ultra...Sad though that is...

[beancounter]

Interesting. What kind of changes have you done with the AI? Are you actually changing the AI scripts or are you just giving them new powers? I have experiemented with changing the actual AI scripts. To be honest, the AI is not that bad and I have seen a lot worse. Morrowind always comes to mind for the absolute worse AI. The AI just seems bad for TSL because the NPC's have such a poor selection of powers and feats to use.

 

If you give the NPC's higher level feats/powers and then switch them to run the Boss AI, they are much more dangerous. This is something I have been testing for the next version of the Hardcore Mod.

[AlaricQelDroma]

Interesting.  What kind of changes have you done with the AI?  Are you actually changing the AI scripts or are you just giving them new powers?  I have experiemented with changing the actual AI scripts.  To be honest, the AI is not that bad and I have seen a lot worse.  Morrowind always comes to mind for the absolute worse AI.  The AI just seems bad for TSL because the NPC's have such a poor selection of powers and feats to use.

 

If you give the NPC's higher level feats/powers and then switch them to run the Boss AI, they are much more dangerous.  This is something I have been testing for the next version of the Hardcore Mod.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Yes, of course...However, progress is slow because I'm also working full-time on getting my XWA mod done, which has been on my plate for the last 7 years....

 

I've been trying to snap things up with K2, but reprogramming an AI to make it use more of it's abilities isn't as easy as it first sounds...I'm also trying to extract data from Republic Commando to try and snap up that AI as well, good as it is, it still isn't quite enough, and I don't think you should have to order your "elite" troops to take positions and man turrets, that should be automatic behavior

 

I am also trying to change how your own AI handles things...If you put a Jedi on Jedi Support, they will cast the most useless of their powers FIRST, THEN, if they have the FP's, they will cast the spells that you have spent time building-up...Also, I've never seen ANY allied AI mode EVER use a single feat more than once in a single battle with a single enemy, they use it once, then swipe them off with a second hit....Also, has anyone ever seen the droids actually use their shields and/or their special arm weaponry? I never have seen it since KOTOR 1 myself, and then I had to use the Jedi Support option on the droids as well...

 

I also want your allied AI to be using their personal shields (if equipped) when they enter a battle...I've been trying to make all of these changes, and I've had some limited success, but again, it's not easy to work full-time on two entirely different games at once...It's like trying to hold onto an X-Wing running full speed, and an A-Wing full speed, and trying to hold them in place so they don't smash into one another

 

Anyway, I'll continue working on the uh...AI's retarded-ness...When I come up with something, I'll seek you out again...By then you may have found your own solutions anyway, eh?

[vadrillan]

In response just to one point- in KotOR1 I found the Droid Support a bit much cause he'd use his special weapons (though not shields) almost constantly!

 

In KotOR2, I don't bother giving allies too many different active feats (like Flurry) cause even if you've got it to the highest level (where there are no penalties for using it), they still insist on using normal attack!?!?!?

[beancounter]

Alraic, forget XWA for now. If you have not finished your mod after 7 years, you might as well wait a couple more months! I have adjusted Kotor's AI so that the NPC would consistently reapply shields, cast force breach at your character and cast master speed. But there is a big show stopper with this. Some of the individual NPC's will use their own AI battle script for a couple of rounds. This causes these NPC's to act very erractily for the first couple of rounds.

[Drakron]

"Rebalancing" this game means having to remake large sections of it.