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BW Monsters Improvements and Fixes for DS2 and Broken World

this mod makes the following improvements and fixes to the monsters in Dungeon Siege 2 Broken World:-
main download link

Legend:
(added a legend to mark out and seperate pure bugfixes from subjective improvements and enhancements some users may not like and for easy browsing by modders who want to implement some of the bugfixes i caught, fixed and to put it in their mod. if there is sufficient demand i might make just a pure bugfix version of this mod.)

* - denotes a bugfix
# - denotes a subjective improvement or enhancement

#1. the giant trilisk endboss' monster level has been fixed to follow the windstone fortress grand wizard's level. it is now lvl 22 in mercenary, lvl 56 in veteran and level 83 in elite.

#2. the knotted shambler endboss' monster level has been fixed to follow the vai'kesh warlock/prophet's level. it is now lvl 28 in mercenary, lvl 60 in veteran and level 86 in elite.

*3. the undead azunite archer hero's monster level has been fixed to follow the undead azunite mage and soldier hero's level. it is now lvl 30 in mercenary, lvl 61 in veteran and level 87 in elite. gpg messed up the template somehow and set the level too high.

#4. reduced the fire, lightning and death resistances of the ganth stats in elite to 50%.

#5. the ganth_zaramoth's level has been fixed to follow the qatall attendant's level. it is now lvl 40 in mercenary, lvl 68 in veteran and level 94 in elite. also added a power level rating in the template so that the ganth can be respawned by the game's monster tuning system.

#6. the ganth_act3_respawn's level has been fixed to follow the act 3 dark wizards' level. it is now lvl 38 in mercenary, lvl 67 in veteran and level 93 in elite. also added a power level rating in the template so that the ganth can be respawned by the game's monster tuning system.

*7. the level of the xzeihoranth summon of the act 3 dark wizards has been fixed to follow the act 3 dark wizards' level. it is now lvl 38 in mercenary, lvl 67 in veteran and level 93 in elite. gpg set xzeihoranth's level too high in mercenary, veteran and elite. xzeihoranth has also been given high resistance to power damage like the dark wizards. its health in mercenary has been fixed to follow the life value of 35,000 used by DS2 NOX. gpg messed up the template somehow and omitted one zero from the life value giving it only 3,500 health.

#8. mimics aka mock chests now have 8 times more health in contrast to the default game which gives mimics only 5 times more health. fixed the broken world mimics not having any resistance to power damage. mimics now have high resistance to power damage like endbosses.

*9. lieutenant namyek, the windstone fortress boss you are supposed to kill for the inner vault key has been fixed to follow the windstone fortress grand wizard's level. he is now lvl 22 in mercenary, lvl 56 in veteran and level 83 in elite. gpg set namyek's level too high in veteran and elite.

#10. the durvlas that spawn on top of snowbrook castle during the first talon endboss fight with the ballista have been fixed to follow the durvla's default level. it is now lvl 33 in mercenary, lvl 63 in veteran and level 89 in elite. gpg set their levels too high and they were set to not give any experience by gpg. not to mention, the continuous durvla spam is extremely annoying...

#11. guardian commander wethril's level has been fixed to follow the vai'kesh warlock/prophet's level. he is now lvl 28 in mercenary, lvl 60 in veteran and level 86 in elite. his health and armor calculation formulas have been changed to follow luun's health and armor formulas. he has also been given some state resistances commonly found on minibosses.

*#12. arinth the mad's level has been fixed to follow the snow va'arth glacial avalancher's level. he is now lvl 33 in mercenary, lvl 63 in veteran and level 89 in elite. gpg set arinth's level too low since u can only collect the last part of his staff to release him only in snowbrook valley. his health and armor calculation formulas have been changed to follow advisor kynos' health and armor formulas. he has also been given some state resistances commonly found on minibosses.

#13. luun the assassin now has 10 times more health. his level has also been fixed to follow the act 3 dark wizards' level. he is now lvl 38 in mercenary, lvl 67 in veteran and level 93 in elite. he has also been given some state resistances commonly found on minibosses.

#14. magrus, the half giant you are supposed to fight in lothar's innocence has had his level fixed to follow the forest va'arth barbarian's level. he is now lvl 24 in mercenary, lvl 57 in veteran and level 83 in elite.

#15. advisor kynos now has 8 times more health. his level has also been fixed to follow the act 3 dark wizards' level. he is now lvl 38 in mercenary, lvl 67 in veteran and level 93 in elite. his attack damage has been set to follow mage boden's attack damage. he has also been given some state resistances commonly found on minibosses.

#16. mage boden's level has been fixed to follow the morden-gral despoiler's level. he is now lvl 36 in mercenary, lvl 65 in veteran and level 91 in elite. his health and armor calculation formulas have been changed to follow advisor kynos' health and armor formulas. his state resistances have been changed to follow that of minibosses instead of endbosses which are immune to everything.

#17. the ai processing of the morden npcs in the tutorial have been disabled so that they do not steal experience from you when fighting in the morden tunnels thus allowing you to reach lvl 3 more easily.

#18. the ai processing and actor_may_attack permission of the human male mercenary npcs in the tutorial at the bracken defender and the shell have been set to false so that they do not steal experience from you.

#19. the morden-viir chief and the respawn chief have been toughened up. his health and armor calculation formulas have been changed to follow luun's health and armor formulas.

#20. the vai'kesh prophet rider and the vai'kesh warlock rider respawn have been toughened up. their health and armor calculation formulas have been changed to follow advisor kynos' health and armor formulas but with 5 times more health. their damage has also been increased 50% while the vai'kesh prophet on foot and the vai'kesh warlock on foot have 5 times more health.

#21. the demon of the vai'kesh (darkling) has been toughened up. its health and armor calculation formulas have been changed to follow advisor kynos' health and armor formulas but with 10 times more health. its damage has also been increased 50%.

#22. letiso the lich and its respawn have been toughened up. his health and armor calculation formulas have been changed to follow advisor kynos' health and armor formulas. his damage has also been increased 50%.

#23. rinerel of the vai'kesh in the broken world map has been toughened up. his health and armor calculation formulas have been changed to follow luun's health and armor formulas but with only 5 times more health.

#24. argir the new vai'kesh prophet in the broken world map has been toughened up. his health and armor calculation formulas have been changed to follow advisor kynos' health and armor formulas but with 10 times more health. his damage has also been increased 50%.

#25. bone minions now have 10-20% chance of spawning from barrels in certain areas compared with only 1% previously.

#26. added additional generators to spawn bone minions in the breakables of the whole of the kithraya caverns; the whole of windstone fortress and the temple of xeria; the vaikesh forest and its caves; arinth's ravine and its caves; the whole of snowbrook haven; the whole of the broken world map.

*27. the barrels in the mines of kaderak will no longer spawn bone minions due to explosive barrels being found in close proximity to regular barrels. destroying the explosive barrels would also instantly kill any bone minions that spawn from barrels, giving players free exp and a free boss drop.

#28. the first surgeon encounter has been made harder while the second surgeon encounter has been made easier, since there have been many complaints by players being unable to beat the second surgeon. the surgeons now spawn crawlers more often but the heal interval is also longer thus giving players more time to take out the crawlers to stop the surgeon's healing. also the surgeons will cast poison globes more often now as the surgeons need to get in the fight and do more damage but not heal so fast its impossible to take them out.

Comments

Dezmound's picture

We still need a download link

As you can see Thanks to RSimpkinuk57 I was able to fix the download link.
Elf

Argir of the Vai'kesh is the most blatant sign that this mod was done in an armchair fashion without any effort spent on playtesting.

Dude healed up 4 brutal attacks' worth of damage every few seconds. His heal is literally 20% of his max life. Not even ultra-specced lightning full CM party using drown can deal the required 3-5k DPS at mercenary levels.

Do yourself a favor if you download the mod, and remove all entries in actors that aren't the undead azunite archers.

On a more measured note, the mod is still very welcome. However, the aforementioned issue still stands, as well as a few others:

The bone minions take ages upon ages to kill, making you almost want to skip breaking containers in order to avoid the slog.
Making one of the few enemies normally worth using powers on resistant to powers is also a poor move. What's the point of having powers if there is nothing worthwhile to be used on?
Corollary of the above, starting with premades, you don't have access to copious amounts of lifesteal or death resist, making their grave beam exceedingly deadly and an instant save and exit situation for many compositions. (I'm talking over 200 armor at 40, not 90-140 squishies)
Additionally, certain encounters in the game have containers breaking as their script, or just as a result of the AI factions playing their battles out. In the glorydeep mine I was fighting 2 bone minions on top of the three overseers at the camp just before the cinbri city! Even after nerfing their damage by a third they were causing significant damage to my tanky party BUILT for tanking. The containers broke from the explosives tunnel quest.

Morden chief is also exceedingly tanky. For someone so slow and non-threatening otherwise, there is no justification to beef up their HP. It doesn't make fights better, unless you need to put an enemy outside the four brutal attacks burst treshold, which is something even half the health would do even if you disable power resistance.

Heck, even Vai'Kesh Prophet Argir in bw could hold up the party well enough with one third less health and half the healing. When he got to heal spamming it really stalled progress.

Again, the importance of playtesting can not be stressed enough. All the above issues could've been avoided by sending at least one party through the campaign with the changes done.

well... this mod was done this way to make players fight more strategically against certain bosses in the game instead of being the same ol' grind all the time, giving players a different experience fighting certain bosses compared to unmodded ds2.

as for the bone minions, i had to balance them that way because making bone minions spawn more often means players get better drops and end up with better equipment since bone minions almost guarantee a unique or rare item drop. so to balance it out, u'd have to fight harder, smarter and more strategically against the multiple bone minions should they spawn in close proximity to one another. think half-life whereby the boss monsters in that game can only be beaten a certain way.

ditto for making certain bosses resistant to powers and having fast healing. makes players fight more strategically instead of relying on powers to do the job for them. thats one thing i dont like about powers in this game in that it supercharges or overpowers your char for a time or in a certain instance. making bosses resistant to powers makes players fight more strategically instead of spamming powers over and over again.

by having fast healing, u have to use your party's powers more strategically by timing it all at the exact same moment he stops healing to take him out quickly before he can start healing again. thats one way of how u do it. lol. Laughing out loud

as for the morden-viir chief, i found that he is pure melee and moves too slowly so u can just constantly backpedal with a ranged or magic char against him and be completely untouched. maybe he should be given a ranged attack or a charge attack instead like in diablo or something for balance... maybe in a future version of the mod if i get down to it. lol