TLD: Suggestions

[Ancientwanker]

You are certainly welcome to post any and all suggestions here, and they will at least be read by the team. But don't count on your ideas getting in; we already have a very large agenda for the mod.

[Gil-Galad]

Sorry to bother you again with this but im wondernig will you be able to play as an elf in the next ver.?
if not i would suggest it!

[Danneskjold]

Simple suggestion:  I'd like to see elvish war horses be about twice as common as they are now.  In the two games I've played, I've only seen 2 (both in the first).  Rare is good, but not to the point where they are never there.

[DaBlade]

@ Gil-Galad:

Yes, I think AW is working on it.

@ Danneskjold:

I think it's possible to do, but AW can give you a better answer.

[BrightOwl]

This is a small nitpick, but I'd like to see Glorfindel in Rivendell attire rather than Lorien.

IIRC, he'd lived in Rivendell throughout the Third Age.

Congrats on an excellent mod, btw.  That was really my only gripe about it.

[Ron Losey]

This is an excellent mod.  Even not having read Tolkien's work in years, I find it very addictive.

I would like to know if anyone on the TLD project would be interested in reworking damage models.  I have been working with the Onin-No-Ran mod, where the prototype of my reworked damage scale should now be available (although I have not seen it, due to technical difficulties involving a huge earthquake and the Internet being screwed up all over Asia).  Triglav has seen my work (I know he has done textures for this project), and will confirm that it adds both playability and atmosphere.  Of course, it's not finished either - but I'm sure I could do both, because right now I have plenty of time on my hands.

In a word, the game (M&B in general) suffers from weapon inflation - not as bad as many games, but still there.  For those who missed that, it is the pattern where games over-estimate the damage a human can take.  The result is that everybody ends up carrying an axe as big as a stop sign.  Then, to make it playable, the axe has to move fast enough to keep the action going - so speed gets screwed up too.  Now, Tolkien's characters did not generally carry huge axes.  (Well, the dwarves did - but they were funny that way.)  His characters seemed to realize that something as small as a single arrow wound could kill you.  When the game misses that, it somewhat reduces the feel as a result - the value of armor is off-balanced, and the smaller weapons come off looking painfully inadequate.

Anyway, if the TLD project would be interested in such a rework, I'm offering to help.

Ron Losey

[Triglav]

I can agree that the stat rebalancing Ron did for Onin no ran made it much more enjoyable for me personally.

In a nutshell: any contact with the business side of a weapon is quite deadly.
Even lowest tier units can kick your ass with three good hits (doesn't take a super-sword to kill you, three good whacks to the forhead with a broom-handle will doo the trick just the same). One, max two arrows will get you too...no more human porcupines.
On the other hand, the value and price of armour is increased (hit a guy in a shirt with a broom-handle and he'll hurt, hit a guy in footbal-gear and he'll laugh at you).
Tactically this makes you avoid getting hit more, while helping you take out enemies with single blows if good contact is made.

Battles are shorter and fiercer this way, and in game you struggle more to get better armour, overall, it increased the gameplay fun for me. I recommend.

[Ancientwanker]

Im still taking a break but I think balance issues are one of the thorniest things to work on.  I wouldnt mind trying an alternate version with different weapons stats and balances but I dont think I would do it with the main download.  Having two versions would be a bit of a pain in the ass to maintain though, shame the editor is KIA.

I guess my answer is: I dont know but it sounds like a pain. What kind of changes are you talking about? 

[Ron Losey]

A basic rescale, really.  Changes to make weapon damage more in line with common sense.  (I don't know too many guys who can keep fighting with an arrow in the chest, do you?)

To give an estimate, say base cut damage on longswords was about 60.  Moderately heavy armor would return values of 60 to 80.  Arrow damage range of 30 to 50, but cut accuracy on bows.  (That is the problem with bows, after all - arrows are very deadly, but they're a pain to hit anything.)  It re-balances the overly powerful archer problem, among other things - by bringing other weapons up to spec.  (Archers aren't so powerful if you can ride by and cut off their heads.  Archers that take a greatsword hit and still perforate you before you can turn around - they're a little off.)  It also fixes the absurd scenes where a guy without even a shirt takes six arrows to the chest and keeps coming.  Even moderate levels of armor become extremely valuable - a bit of realism, as it really is hard to hack through 30 pounds of iron.  That makes "better" units actually better.  (Where now the difference between really good armor and fair armor is just a couple of points - neither realistic nor a lot of motivation to wear heavy armor.)

You WOULD be able to see it, but for technical reasons, they haven't got the changes in the latest version of Onin-No-Ran yet.  (Dammit.)  Back to the UE being kaput.  You'll have to trust Triglav and myself, at least until you see it.  Everybody on the ONR team agreed that these were an improvement, from the standpoint of both real/historical physics and game balance.

The good news is that the changes can be made using only the item_kinds1.txt file.  Reprogramming requires some work, but testing just requires one file be backed up and substituted.

Anyway, with permission, I'll try.  I think Triglav will help me, if he has the time.  (I'm really not a programmer, nor do I claim to be.  I'm actually a Western Civ. teacher.)  It would be a pain to convert, yes.  Once done, the results are very impressive.

Ron

[Triglav]

Well, I don't really have time recently to do any serious modding, and even when I did, I didn't know the first thing on editing the game stats...I am a model & texture guy really.

[Ron Losey]

Well, I don't really have time recently to do any serious modding, and even when I did, I didn't know the first thing on editing the game stats...I am a model & texture guy really.

OK, then I guess what I need is the help of somebody who can read Python, and has a few hours to type in new stats.  Shouldn't take too long for the first round.  (I did the hard part of calculating and testing with the older version of Onin-no-Ran.  I can put them in ballpark in a few minutes.)  Then, of course, it will require a few tweaks along the way ... after it has been play-tested.  (That goes without saying.)

This really is worth the effort.  I was rather disappointed with M&B in general, until I started doing this - and I got a damage model so realistic that you could virtually feel the fear.  It was originally an attempt at historical realism, but the playability issues more than paid for the trouble.

Ron
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Edit:  tell you what... e-mail me the Python source.  (Ronlosey@hotmail.com)  I'm no programmer, but I can likely change statistics without screwing up the code too badly.  I'll punch in the new numbers, test them, and mail them back.  More specific tweaks may require some help, but that's later.  Anyway, that lets everybody see for themselves, without requiring a commitment until after you've seen results.


**If I get spam for posting my e-mail address, I swear I will hunt someone down and gut them.**

Ron

[Pellidon]

i've got a simple suggestion: would it be possible to have an uruk-hai helm that fits the head better? they look like they can't even see out of the eye holes. it just looks wrong to me, i guess there are more important things to do, but that was just a thought i had.

[Damien]

Ron: If you're talking about a change that only needs to be done in the Items_Kinds file, you don't even need to be able to read Python, I don't think. I altered the values on the weapons originally, using only the text file and the knowledge of which numbers mean what. If you know the weapons beforehand -- it's pretty self-explanatory. For instance, there will be one value on the bastard sword that reads 102, and another that reads 115. The former is the speed, the latter is the length. Then the "30" in the line is the cut damage, and the "22" (just for instance) would be the thrust damage.

'Course, if this setup has been altered at all in the latest version -- then nevermind.

But your fix sounds interesting. Although I worry for the Player when combat becomes more deadly. Dying and losing your mithril hauberk and that un-chipped, un-rusty sword you finally found is a pain in the ass.

[Ron Losey]

The text file offsets are an absolute disaster to read.  I've tried.  It would take 10 years to make substantial changes.  Even if you did, you would still need the Python source for the next version.


I sent AW a personal message asking for the Python files, but I don't have them yet.  With the files, I think I can work through the Python enough to make this work.  Or, I could just explain the scale and let someone else do the typing.  (The team over at the "Holy War" mod plans to use my model, but they're going to punch it in, and all I have to do is review and test.  Makes work for them, but a lot fewer bugs that way.)  If you like Python code, I'll send you a complete explanation of the scale, and you can impose it on any mod you like and have the source code for.

Combat is not "more deadly" as such.  For the player, who will probably have better armor than the rank-and-file troops, it would actually be less deadly at one-to-one odds.  It just requires some tactics.  Combat is quicker - you don't have to beat on an unarmored man with a huge sword to kill him.  A quick swipe with a good machete will do it.  In contrast, higher armor values mean that insignificant weapons (sticks and stones) are less likely to damage armored men.

For example, on a test fight I did in ONR, I took on a number of guys (all with huge swords, but only a couple had substantial armor).  First stroke, I cut one of them down.  A quick sidestep, and I cut another one down.  Third swing got a third one, but at the same time one got me.  Not "more deadly" - just fewer total strokes.  In another test, I knocked down a couple of unarmored guys with three or four shruiken each, but the one with armor took several hits with little or no damage.  I also got a lot of horses cut out from under me ... Japan didn't armor horses.  Gives infantry a bit more chance against light cav (but subsequently makes armored horse all the more imposing).  It balances very realistically.  Stops the "I can take three hits from an axe because I have hit points" mentality.

Chances are, if you had a mithril hauberk, it's highly unlikely that anything smaller than a cave troll could put you out of the fight ... assuming you didn't just stand there and let 12 orcs beat on you.  Well, also assuming that, with this hauberk, your head armor was not a baseball cap.  "Duh ... my chest armor could stop a ..." THOCK *gets hit in head with a rock*

Anyway, if anybody wants the details for the system, send me a PM and I'll explain them as best I can.  (Be sure to tell me what you want them for - I may need to tailor the response for certain situations.)

And if anybody has the Python source for TLD, please send them to me ... or else offer to write up the changes for me.  Once written, all we have to do is redistribute the item_kinds1.txt file to let people test it.  If it's a hit (which I'm pretty sure it will be - it's been the life of the party everywhere else that has seen or heard of it), and once tweaked, we send the Python source for the next mod version.  (If the vote is against it, nothing is lost.)

Ron

[Ron Losey]

I still haven't heard back on the weapons model tests, but on an unrelated note:

The "Holy War" mod has something everybody needs.  Imitation motion blur on arrows.

The trick was simple - the graphic for an arrow in flight was replaced by one twice as long as normal.

The first time one of these comes by you, you'll dodge and fall out of your chair.  Especially if you've ever seen a real arrow come past you.  The trick helps even more if your frame-rate is a little low.

Check it out.