[MOD IDEA] Porting Modron Maze from PSTEE to BG2EE
argent77
Member Posts: 3,434
I've been thinking for quite some time if there is a way to port the Modron Maze, which is unique in the whole series of IE Engine games, from PST to BG(2)EE or IWDEE. The biggest (but by no means only) hurdle is the hardcoded way how the maze is implemented in PST(EE). Not all of it can be emulated by clever use of scripts or other features of the game engine. Other issues, such as the different scale of maps or PST-exclusive creature animations, are still a challenge but can be solved.
A couple of weeks ago I have started working on a new mod that attempts to ports modron maze functionality and resources to BG2EE. The plot will be different (i.e. there will be a proper story), but the maze itself will be implemented as faithfully as possible. I can't fully simulate the randomized nature of the maze, but I can provide a dozen or more pre-made configurations, so that the maze still feels like a randomized construct.
Until now I have ported the whole maze (with some adjustments), which includes the engine room, dungeon entrance, the partially disintegrated area where you would meet Nordom in PST, the boss room, and of course the actual maze areas. The mod will also provide a great number of new creature animations. Some animations are from PST, some have been imported from other games. The plot has been outlined, but not yet implemented.
I plan to turn the mod into a testing ground - or arena - where the party can (theoretically) battle an endless amount of opponents in an ever-shifting maze, earn XP and loot collectibles that can be traded into useful items. Number and types of opponents are determined randomly whenever you enter a new map. Difficulty of battles will be adapted somewhat, based on average party level. And all of it is connected to a nice little quest with its own rewards.
As this is my first mod that focuses mainly on combat challenge, what do you think is important or desirable to keep battles challenging and interesting?
First "work in progress" release of the mod is now available for testing.
Project: https://github.com/Argent77/A7-TestYourMettle/tree/devel
WIP download: https://github.com/Argent77/A7-TestYourMettle/archive/devel.zip (32 MB)
(Download links to the raw mod archive. You can find the required WeiDU binary here: http://www.weidu.org/~thebigg/ . Simply rename it to "setup-A7-TestYourMettle.exe".)
It is pretty much complete content-wise, i.e. you can play the whole quest from beginning to end, with complete dialogs, journal entries, quest rewards, etc.
For the combat in the dungeon maze there is certainly room for further improvement. As I rarely play the games with AI enhancement mods myself I am very interested in your feedback. Is combat too easy/difficult? Does it get boring too fast? What combat AI improvements you would like to see? Is there anything else that can be improved?
A couple of weeks ago I have started working on a new mod that attempts to ports modron maze functionality and resources to BG2EE. The plot will be different (i.e. there will be a proper story), but the maze itself will be implemented as faithfully as possible. I can't fully simulate the randomized nature of the maze, but I can provide a dozen or more pre-made configurations, so that the maze still feels like a randomized construct.
Until now I have ported the whole maze (with some adjustments), which includes the engine room, dungeon entrance, the partially disintegrated area where you would meet Nordom in PST, the boss room, and of course the actual maze areas. The mod will also provide a great number of new creature animations. Some animations are from PST, some have been imported from other games. The plot has been outlined, but not yet implemented.
I plan to turn the mod into a testing ground - or arena - where the party can (theoretically) battle an endless amount of opponents in an ever-shifting maze, earn XP and loot collectibles that can be traded into useful items. Number and types of opponents are determined randomly whenever you enter a new map. Difficulty of battles will be adapted somewhat, based on average party level. And all of it is connected to a nice little quest with its own rewards.
As this is my first mod that focuses mainly on combat challenge, what do you think is important or desirable to keep battles challenging and interesting?
First "work in progress" release of the mod is now available for testing.
Project: https://github.com/Argent77/A7-TestYourMettle/tree/devel
WIP download: https://github.com/Argent77/A7-TestYourMettle/archive/devel.zip (32 MB)
(Download links to the raw mod archive. You can find the required WeiDU binary here: http://www.weidu.org/~thebigg/ . Simply rename it to "setup-A7-TestYourMettle.exe".)
It is pretty much complete content-wise, i.e. you can play the whole quest from beginning to end, with complete dialogs, journal entries, quest rewards, etc.
For the combat in the dungeon maze there is certainly room for further improvement. As I rarely play the games with AI enhancement mods myself I am very interested in your feedback. Is combat too easy/difficult? Does it get boring too fast? What combat AI improvements you would like to see? Is there anything else that can be improved?
Post edited by argent77 on
7
Comments
-A battle that is designed for a certain level, but can be overcome at a slightly lower level with clever use of strategy, but without cheesing. For instance, I find the final battle in Rasaad's SoA questline to be rather poorly designed in that regard, because there are tons of enemies, and in the end it boils down to either being high level enough that the enemies will look like clowns, or cheesing the battle with either AI exploit or quaffing 10k potions and hoping for the best.
-If there are mid-battle events, like, say, a second phase which changes the way to battle an enemy, that's more interesting too. To some extent, Kangaxx fills that criterion. Except Vanilla demi-lich Kangaxx is just an imprisonment machine gun. But once you've installed SCS it's a great, enjoyable fight.
-Not too long, repetitive and tedious. Having a wizard that has a very limited number of offensive spells but 10k defensive spells isn't fun, because once that wizard is out of offensive spells, he'll just run around casting stoneskins. Not quite fun
By the way, I don't know how you intend to do your preconfigurations, but one way I could think of to make a randomized maze would be using a timer that loops, and transitions from one area to another will be based on the current value of the timer.
For example, let's say you have 16 different areas, and from the area you are in you want to have a 1/15th to go to each other area. Just make a timer with 15 ticks, when it's down to 0 it's sent back up to 15, and the transition is to area 1-15 based on the value of the timer at the time of the transition.
I honestly don't know how viable a solution this can be in this case though, but it's just a suggestion. If nothing displays the current timer on screen it will essentially appear to be random for anyone using it.
Another aspect is combat AI. If opponents are too predictable combat will become boring. I've borrowed some ideas from SoD's combat scripts, which are more sophisticated compared to the default BG1/BG2 combat scripts.
I have added a few surprises already, but I'll see if I can spice up the battles a bit more.
If you know the Modron Maze from PST, you will also know that it IS repetitive to a certain degree. The whole maze consists only of three different-looking maps.
I have randomized a lot of aspects of the battles, which will hopefully keep them interesting enough even after conquering the maze once or twice. In any case, they should be more interesting than the original PST maze battles.
For the different configurations of the maze I have written a small WeiDU mod that converts simple color-coded 8x8 bitmaps into BAF scripts with the logic to activate the right transitions per configuration. For now I have added 16 different maze configurations that way. Even with fewer configurations the player shouldn't really notice any difference, as each maze consists of an 8x8 grid of areas connected in different ways.
I adore your mods and this idea is just brilliant. YOU ROCK!
Random modifiers (a la Path of Exile and Diablo) would certainly help variety, and would require occasional change in tactics. A modifier that caused eliminated enemies to explode dealing substantial AoE damage would require a change in tactics (*glares at Volatible Flameblood mod from Path of Exile). These modifiers could also be basic stuff like "resistance to Cold, deals bonus cold damage with attacks."
There is an elephant in the room with any combat experience for BG2/ToB, and it's magic users. Having every single high level fight start with the exact same Time Stop + Contingency for Globe of Invulnerability + Mirror Image + Stoneskin + PfMW gets tiresome after about... 2 fights. I think if you very aggressively themed spellcasters, it would make them feel more unique (e.g. "oh this Cleric is a Warpriest, so they're gonna be combat focused" or "oh this is a high tier transmuter, we better look out for Disintegrate and Flesh to Stone").
I think having certain rooms be designated check points/rest areas would also make resource management a bit more important. While 1 in 8 rooms may be check points, the path to the next checkpoint could be many more than that. This allows you to provide more of a risk/reward style of play for this kind of content. EDIT: If you want this to be *really* challenging, don't allow players to save outside of checkpoints zones AND don't let them retrace their steps to get out; players can only save, rest, and leave the construct at designated checkpoints.
Have mini-bosses and main bosses that are drawn from a larger list, and prevent exiting their arenas (which should be themed towards the boss, a Dryad Grove for an Evil fey for example), so players can't prebuff too much. Also on this note, maybe instead of having the same square room, have a variety of rooms using existing map tilesets from all of the games. As long as each room could support between 2 and 4 exits, the underlying code could be the same, but you aren't running through the same grey and brown square rooms until you find one of the two rooms that are interesting. This also means that rooms can be of different sizes/layouts (or even multiple levels in the same room) as long as they have the necessary number of exits.
I'm curious as to what (other than XP) you think the rewards should be? You can easily have WeiDU generate a set of random magical weapons (e.g. Axe/Warhammer/whatever of Frost/Radiance/Fire/Undead-bane). Random items for a random maze would probably be fine.
Balance is still an issue though, as you can theoretically earn an endless amount of XP. Not sure if I should keep monster XP at a realistic level or reduce it to a marginal amount.
The maze is still thematically related to modrons (and the backstory I came up with), so the enemies you will encounter will be different from the rest of the game. I can probably experiment with variations in monster behavior. But there is a limit, as the monsters should still be identifiable as per description in the D&D monster manuals.
It took me a while to come up with a method to reset the maze areas without having to clean up defeated enemies or removing dropped loot whenever the configuration changes. The method I'm using has its own weaknesses, but it works well enough with the setting I have designed. One side effect is you can't save while in the maze, regardless of whether enemies are in sight or not. However, you can always return to a safe location if you need to.
The loot system will also be special. I have briefly mentioned it in my first post. Remember the bogus items you could loot from defeated constructs in PST? This mod will provide the same items. However, they will have a use now. At the dungeon entrance there is a device where you can exchange them into useful items. Turning in more treasure from the maze means getting better items back as a result.
And funny you say that about the bogus items in PST. I was planning on adding a small mod that adds a Merchant that allows you to trade those items for actually useful things to the Modron Maze.
I think you should at least offer an option to tune down monster XP.
I wouldn't worry about people "abusing" your mod for XP farming, you can already do that by using the "Rest" button. The problem is if monsters yield full XP people might feel compelled to stop playing the mod just so they avoid outleveling other content, despite them enjoying it. (That, or having to cheat down XP.)
Really looking forward to this one. Your mods are always high quality and highly entertaing!
In any case, thank you for your feedback. It has given me a lot of food for thought. I will try to implement at least some of it.
Story and dialogs have been fleshed out as well. I will soon be able to publish a first beta.
Apart from that I'm also looking for interesting devil animations (e.g. barbazu or spinagon). The animations I'm using are currently all from the IE games.
I have also ported almost all the Diablo II demons. If you need them, I can share them. They will be implemented into the next IA release.
I would be interested if some of your animations resemble a barbazu (kind of a bearded demon) or spinagon (looks like a porcupine or gargoyle, depending on D&D edition).
Another idea I had was adding an opportunity to the trials of the luremaster guy to the tavern chapter 2of bg2. The luremaster adventure is pretty standalone. For that matter Heart of Winter is pretty standalone though somewhat more tied to IWD.
Can you give me a link for that?
There was talk on the EET form about integrating BP once but I thought the idea was abandoned?
I would totally wait for 2.5 before going at it. I think it's rather likely Kathos will be back and IWD-in-EET released.
For the combat in the dungeon maze there is certainly room for further improvement. As I rarely play the games with AI enhancement mods myself I am very interested in your feedback. Is combat too easy/difficult? Does it get boring too fast? What combat AI improvements you would like to see? Is there anything else that can be improved?
Project: https://github.com/Argent77/A7-TestYourMettle/tree/devel
WIP download: https://github.com/Argent77/A7-TestYourMettle/archive/devel.zip (32 MB)
(Download links to the raw mod archive. You can find the required WeiDU binary here: http://www.weidu.org/~thebigg/ . Simply rename it to "setup-A7-TestYourMettle.exe".)
I'm itching to try this but I don't want to do a new install since I've just made one.
Do you forsee any major issues with just adding it at the end of a big EET installation?
The mod is pretty much separate from the rest of the game. The only common link is a minor modification in the first level of the Planar Sphere. It's actually only a change of a single spawn script.