We don't have very many opportunities to introduce a Mac-oriented mod these days, but here is one rare gem under development.
Mongrel
Mod Maker: Incompetent
Version: Diablo II LoD v1.10
Introduction
The mod will be for LoD 1.10, unless there's a) a huge clamour for 1.11 and b) I can find some tools which work with 1.11.
I'm a Mac user, so the only tool I've been using so far is Souricette's MPQTool. But I'm getting a new computer soon, at which point I'll (hopefully) be able to switch to PC tools under emulation. Rest assured though, this will be a MPQ-only, 100% Mac-compatible mod.
This is my first attempt at Diablo II modding, and what I've been able to actually put together so far is quite limited. But it's a mod I've wanted to make for some time. I owe a big thank-you to Brother Laz: playing his Median and seeing it develop was what got me seriously interested in the modding process, and his posts here and techniques have been inspirational.
Progress so far: As I say, not much on the actual implementation side - I've put about 15 skills in place, but they were the easy ones, and most of them still don't do what I want them to do. But I have a lot of ideas, and I'll post them later.
Basic plan:
- First and foremost, this will be a skill mod. I won't try to make 7 character classes, just 1, the 'Mongrel' (currently based on the Druid, but this may change), and many of his skills will be copies of vanilla ones. But the idea is that every single one of his skills will be useful (including <gasp> Attack, if I can manage that!), and they'll all be quite different from each other, so that a large number of different builds are possible, and characters will benefit from having several active skills. I have a draft skill list put together, so I can post that soon once I've tidied it up a bit.
- Initially I won't do anything new and exciting with items, but they'll be subject to a major rebalance. Overpowered affixes and items will be toned down, weak affixes boosted, the usual. My aim is to fight the spectre of 'must-have' items that currently hangs over much of vanilla by reducing the gap between 'uber' items and the kind of stuff an SP player could actually find.
- Nothing fancy with monsters, just a rebalance. Essentially the plan is to make monster HP go up much more slowly in Nightmare and Hell, but also to make the player's killing ability go up more slowly with levels - ideally players won't become godly at high levels, they'll just be very versatile.
(Yes, I know some of this sounds a bit Medianish. But I'd thought of a lot of the basic plan before even playing Median - in fact I first downloaded Median because it looked like the kind of mod I wanted to play!)
Skills
'Destruction' skills:
Damage - buff which increases damage
Blood Strike - melee attack which does magic damage and chance of crushing blow, but costs life
Whirlwind - as vanilla
Fire Wall - as vanilla
Wrath of the Gods - spectacular melee lightning attack, but which has a long casting delay and gives the character severe penalties after use.
Plague - Rabies, but longer duration and cast like a curse
Drifter - Very slow but long-lived exploding missile. Some weapon damage.
Axe of Madawc - Piercing 'throwing axe' with limited range which does weapon damage. Levels increase range.
Comet - Meteor, only cold and smaller AoE.
Mark of Malice - curse which lowers AR and pierces resists (and prevents monster heal?)
Destroyer - summons a demon from a corpse, which has high damage but low life. The demon will get weak if it isn't fed corpses, and will die if it isn't given enemies to leech off. Can only have 1 demon at a time.
Bladestorm - Blade Shield
'Survival' skills:
Toughness - buff which increases physical, elemental and magical resistance and max resistance
Regeneration - buff granting dual leech, life/mana regen
Sonic Blast - Warcry-style attack which has knockback
Slow Missiles - as vanilla
Smoke - monsters within a small radius are blinded and have reduced AR
Life Tap - as vanilla, only a bit weaker
Carrion Swarm - summons a swarm of insects from a corpse. The swarm is weak but has high physical resistance. Fairly high summoning limit.
Purity - While active, the player can't be frozen, poisoned, cursed (or knocked back or stunned if possible). Downsides are reduced mana and a casting delay.
Ice Form - Confers various ice-related benefits to the character. The downside is YOU are chilled while you use this.
Paralyser - Trap with Holy Freeze aura
Howler - Grim Ward, only doesn't require corpses (?)
Hold (Demon) - Stuns a demon for a long time.
'Versatility' skills:
Luck - buff granting increased AR, DR and MF
Speed - buff granting increased attack, walk/run and cast speed
Flurry - Frenzy, but one-handed. Maybe also some lightning damage.
Holy Hand-Grenade - AoE 'bomb' which heals allies and damages undead
Wisp - low-(weapon)-damage, long-range missile which pierces everything and leeches mana. Useful for scouting.
Telekinesis - as vanilla, except does useful damage.
Charge - as vanilla
Narcotic Spray - Inferno-type attack which poisons and confuses enemies
Taunt - as vanilla
Revive - as vanilla, but rebalanced
Feedback - short-lived buff which gives fire and lightning absorb and retaliates a la Chilling Armour.
Masochism - buff gives increased life and damage reflection, at the cost of defence and resists.
Teleport - as vanilla
Mongrel
Mongrel
Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
~ Mark Twain
Run Diablo II in any version for mods: tutorial
The Terms of Service!! Know them, abide by them, and enjoy the forums at peace.
The Beginner's Guide v1.4: (MS Word | PDF) || Mod Running Scripts || TFW: Awakening
~ Mark Twain
Run Diablo II in any version for mods: tutorial
The Terms of Service!! Know them, abide by them, and enjoy the forums at peace.
The Beginner's Guide v1.4: (MS Word | PDF) || Mod Running Scripts || TFW: Awakening
-
Incompetent
- Angel
- Posts: 938
- Joined: Wed Mar 02, 2005 12:45 pm
Re: Mongrel
Thanks Myhrginoc!
5 December:
I haven't done any more on the implementation side, because the machine I'm using is s l o w and I need to do some work. That will change in a week though, so hopefully things will get moving then. I have done some more thinking though. Here's what I've got so far:
Revised skill list (not final, but closer to what I want)
'Destruction' skills:
Damage
Mark of Malice - reduces defence and pierces resists
Bloodwrath - buff which adds magic damage and crushing blow to your attacks. The price is a heavy life drain while it is active.
Poisoned Dart - missile which does poison damage to a single target - DPS will be modest, but the duration will be HUGE at high levels.
Axe of Madawc
Drifter
Fire Wall
Comet
Flare - Summon somewhat like Skeletal Mage, but flares will a) be immune to their own element, b) die almost instantly to anything else, c) have more powerful and interesting missiles, d) have a casting delay so you have to look after them if you want to keep a lot at once.
Wrath of the Gods - big FREEZING attack which leaves Mongrel exhausted
Slayer - melee attack which ignores defence and resists and does extra damage to demons, but you'll take extra damage if you're hit while swinging
Dragon Tail
'Survival' skills:
Toughness
Regeneration
Purity
Slow - enemies are slowed, BUT so are you (to a lesser extent)
Smoke
Grim Ward
Carrion Swarm
Telekinesis - does no damage, but has useful stun length
Wisp
Life Tap
Heat Drain - melee-range attack which does cold damage and freezes target. For a while after use, you get a bonus to cold resistance.
Sonic Blast
'Versatility' skills:
Luck
Speed
Holy Hand-Grenade
Charge
Taunt
Feedback
Masochism
Teleport
Whirlwind
Narcotic Spray
Blade Shield - damages nearby enemies and boosts defence, BUT slows your movement.
Frenzy
Regarding synergies and skill levels
It's likely my mod will have no skill-to-skill synergies at all, certainly no 'must-haves'. Instead, direct (ie non-weapon-derived) skill damage and a few other things will get a boost from:
clvl, with a bonus something like max(1,clvl/10) (ie at level 10, the skill will do the same as at level 1, but thereafter it'll do 10% more per level)
character attributes, formula (100 + stat)/100 or something like it. There'll be some variation as to which attribute will boost the skill; in most cases it'll be Energy, but not always. For example, summons' life will depend on your Vitality, so if you think you can ignore life by having an unkillable wall of insects, think again.
For several skills, skill levels will also work quite differently from vanilla. Instead of increasing raw power, they'll increase other properties to make the skill more useful. For example, a maxed out Axe of Madawc will do barely more damage than a level 1 version - BUT the latter will barely get out of melee range before dissipating, while the former will reach to the edge of the screen. This means that while maxed skills can do a lot more than mid-level ones, there will be times when a lower skill level suffices. Max your favourite skill by all means, but don't feel you have to max everything you use.
The plan is to make both weapon and skill damage go up quadratically, approximately like this:
clvl 20: 1x damage
clvl 50: 4x damage
clvl 80: 9x damage
Lastly, some opening thoughts on items.
Initially this will be quite an 'austere' mod item-wise until I get the balance right, then I'll may start spicing up the item system. I know it sounds bad to take lots of stuff away, but my hope is that this will encourage players to look at items they used to ignore.
+all skills will not exist in my mod. Nor will +skill tab. +individual skills may be available for some skills, but generally you won't be able to get plusses to a skill from several items at once. Basically if you want a skill to be good, invest in it! This is not to say there won't be equipment geared towards casters...
Most of Blizzard's sets, uniques and runewords go completely against my idea of 'unique' items, so they'll be disabled. Hopefully I'll come up with my own (somewhat more specialised) runewords, but I'm still not sure whether my mod should have sets/uniques at all. In any case the best items a player has will usually be magic, rare, crafted or just plain old socketed items with a variety of jewels, gems and runes stuffed in them.
The +ED% affixes on weapons will be weakened by a factor of 4. In vanilla these affixes are absolutely compulsory for most combat builds, which strangles item variety. Of course, monster HP will be adjusted accordingly, especially in Hell.
Ethereal will not generally spawn on weapons, as with the changes to ED it would be too powerful. It may return for some unique items or crafts, but this would have to be carefully balanced.
None of my skills will require a bow, though some may require a melee weapon. This leaves bows a bit out in the cold, except as Rogue weapons. A few options here:
- giving bows some fun oskills for those who insist on using them
- leaving bows as Rogue-only (eg by removing Arrows) - the trouble is this will confuse players unless I can make bows 'Rogue-only'
- killing bows off altogether and rethinking the Rogue merc's equipment
- relenting and tacking 3 or 4 bow skills onto the trees, at the cost of some other skills (not likely!)
Throwing weapons are also a kind of melee weapon, so they'll survive. The innate skill 'Throw' will have its uses, as throwing weapons will generally have quite good throwing damage.
Rune frequencies will shift towards the higher end, so SPers actually see mid-high level runes occasionally, but aren't drowning in 'El's. I'll probably also help players out by introducing a blanket 'rune*2 -> next rune' recipe, and maybe even a 'rune + cheap(ish) stuff -> previous rune' recipe. Without the overpowered runewords and with some changes to certain runes (eg Ohm), this should be workable balance-wise.
It will be very easy to socket white items; other items however will stay as they are socket-wise. It will also be easy to derive white items from magical ones, so if you really want to use socketables, you'll have no trouble doing so.
*Possible item* Mongrel will have a unique small charm, his 'keepsake' or 'keeper'. This may have some initial bonuses (generally oskill passives that I've used to rebalance things), but the important thing is that bonuses can be added to it via cube recipes. Each such upgrade, however, will increase the level requirement; if you put too many upgrades on, you'll have to run a modified version of the upgrade recipe to 'downgrade' it to a useable level. I haven't decided yet how easy the cube recipes should be, or what upgrades will be available - any suggestions are welcome.
5 December:
I haven't done any more on the implementation side, because the machine I'm using is s l o w and I need to do some work. That will change in a week though, so hopefully things will get moving then. I have done some more thinking though. Here's what I've got so far:
Revised skill list (not final, but closer to what I want)
'Destruction' skills:
Damage
Mark of Malice - reduces defence and pierces resists
Bloodwrath - buff which adds magic damage and crushing blow to your attacks. The price is a heavy life drain while it is active.
Poisoned Dart - missile which does poison damage to a single target - DPS will be modest, but the duration will be HUGE at high levels.
Axe of Madawc
Drifter
Fire Wall
Comet
Flare - Summon somewhat like Skeletal Mage, but flares will a) be immune to their own element, b) die almost instantly to anything else, c) have more powerful and interesting missiles, d) have a casting delay so you have to look after them if you want to keep a lot at once.
Wrath of the Gods - big FREEZING attack which leaves Mongrel exhausted
Slayer - melee attack which ignores defence and resists and does extra damage to demons, but you'll take extra damage if you're hit while swinging
Dragon Tail
'Survival' skills:
Toughness
Regeneration
Purity
Slow - enemies are slowed, BUT so are you (to a lesser extent)
Smoke
Grim Ward
Carrion Swarm
Telekinesis - does no damage, but has useful stun length
Wisp
Life Tap
Heat Drain - melee-range attack which does cold damage and freezes target. For a while after use, you get a bonus to cold resistance.
Sonic Blast
'Versatility' skills:
Luck
Speed
Holy Hand-Grenade
Charge
Taunt
Feedback
Masochism
Teleport
Whirlwind
Narcotic Spray
Blade Shield - damages nearby enemies and boosts defence, BUT slows your movement.
Frenzy
Regarding synergies and skill levels
It's likely my mod will have no skill-to-skill synergies at all, certainly no 'must-haves'. Instead, direct (ie non-weapon-derived) skill damage and a few other things will get a boost from:
clvl, with a bonus something like max(1,clvl/10) (ie at level 10, the skill will do the same as at level 1, but thereafter it'll do 10% more per level)
character attributes, formula (100 + stat)/100 or something like it. There'll be some variation as to which attribute will boost the skill; in most cases it'll be Energy, but not always. For example, summons' life will depend on your Vitality, so if you think you can ignore life by having an unkillable wall of insects, think again.
For several skills, skill levels will also work quite differently from vanilla. Instead of increasing raw power, they'll increase other properties to make the skill more useful. For example, a maxed out Axe of Madawc will do barely more damage than a level 1 version - BUT the latter will barely get out of melee range before dissipating, while the former will reach to the edge of the screen. This means that while maxed skills can do a lot more than mid-level ones, there will be times when a lower skill level suffices. Max your favourite skill by all means, but don't feel you have to max everything you use.
The plan is to make both weapon and skill damage go up quadratically, approximately like this:
clvl 20: 1x damage
clvl 50: 4x damage
clvl 80: 9x damage
Lastly, some opening thoughts on items.
Initially this will be quite an 'austere' mod item-wise until I get the balance right, then I'll may start spicing up the item system. I know it sounds bad to take lots of stuff away, but my hope is that this will encourage players to look at items they used to ignore.
+all skills will not exist in my mod. Nor will +skill tab. +individual skills may be available for some skills, but generally you won't be able to get plusses to a skill from several items at once. Basically if you want a skill to be good, invest in it! This is not to say there won't be equipment geared towards casters...
Most of Blizzard's sets, uniques and runewords go completely against my idea of 'unique' items, so they'll be disabled. Hopefully I'll come up with my own (somewhat more specialised) runewords, but I'm still not sure whether my mod should have sets/uniques at all. In any case the best items a player has will usually be magic, rare, crafted or just plain old socketed items with a variety of jewels, gems and runes stuffed in them.
The +ED% affixes on weapons will be weakened by a factor of 4. In vanilla these affixes are absolutely compulsory for most combat builds, which strangles item variety. Of course, monster HP will be adjusted accordingly, especially in Hell.
Ethereal will not generally spawn on weapons, as with the changes to ED it would be too powerful. It may return for some unique items or crafts, but this would have to be carefully balanced.
None of my skills will require a bow, though some may require a melee weapon. This leaves bows a bit out in the cold, except as Rogue weapons. A few options here:
- giving bows some fun oskills for those who insist on using them
- leaving bows as Rogue-only (eg by removing Arrows) - the trouble is this will confuse players unless I can make bows 'Rogue-only'
- killing bows off altogether and rethinking the Rogue merc's equipment
- relenting and tacking 3 or 4 bow skills onto the trees, at the cost of some other skills (not likely!)
Throwing weapons are also a kind of melee weapon, so they'll survive. The innate skill 'Throw' will have its uses, as throwing weapons will generally have quite good throwing damage.
Rune frequencies will shift towards the higher end, so SPers actually see mid-high level runes occasionally, but aren't drowning in 'El's. I'll probably also help players out by introducing a blanket 'rune*2 -> next rune' recipe, and maybe even a 'rune + cheap(ish) stuff -> previous rune' recipe. Without the overpowered runewords and with some changes to certain runes (eg Ohm), this should be workable balance-wise.
It will be very easy to socket white items; other items however will stay as they are socket-wise. It will also be easy to derive white items from magical ones, so if you really want to use socketables, you'll have no trouble doing so.
*Possible item* Mongrel will have a unique small charm, his 'keepsake' or 'keeper'. This may have some initial bonuses (generally oskill passives that I've used to rebalance things), but the important thing is that bonuses can be added to it via cube recipes. Each such upgrade, however, will increase the level requirement; if you put too many upgrades on, you'll have to run a modified version of the upgrade recipe to 'downgrade' it to a useable level. I haven't decided yet how easy the cube recipes should be, or what upgrades will be available - any suggestions are welcome.
Last edited by Incompetent on Tue Dec 06, 2005 2:07 am, edited 2 times in total.
-
Incompetent
- Angel
- Posts: 938
- Joined: Wed Mar 02, 2005 12:45 pm
Re: Mongrel
7 January
OK, here's the situation:
I know what I want to do with almost all of Mongrel's skills. I've also read all the help I can find on the Keep for editing txt files, so I know what my plans translate to in terms of txt files. BUT there seems to be a serious bug whenever I try to make state-based skills. This is very bad as more than half my skills will use states somewhere or other.
I can rebalance monsters, items etc (unless more craziness shows up), but doing so is meaningless without either new player skills or rebalanced cLoD skills.
This gives me a few options, none of which look great at the moment:
1. Find a miracle cure/workaround to the states bug and make the mod as I had intended (but how?)
2. Switch to PC tools/LoD and hope it fixes the problem. (I can do this but it'll be a lot of hassle, as I'll have to set up a virtual PC; also, getting PC LoD would involve spending money on a game I already have.)
3. Release a bunch of Excel files, in the hope that someone can compile them into an MPQ or show me where I'm going wrong. (But even if someone helps me out, I'd be working blind up to that point, with no way of testing it for myself.)
13 January:
OK, I give up. I can't get what I want to do to work on the Mac. Instead I'll try to make Plan B, a simple balance mod.
OK, here's the situation:
I know what I want to do with almost all of Mongrel's skills. I've also read all the help I can find on the Keep for editing txt files, so I know what my plans translate to in terms of txt files. BUT there seems to be a serious bug whenever I try to make state-based skills. This is very bad as more than half my skills will use states somewhere or other.
I can rebalance monsters, items etc (unless more craziness shows up), but doing so is meaningless without either new player skills or rebalanced cLoD skills.
This gives me a few options, none of which look great at the moment:
1. Find a miracle cure/workaround to the states bug and make the mod as I had intended (but how?)
2. Switch to PC tools/LoD and hope it fixes the problem. (I can do this but it'll be a lot of hassle, as I'll have to set up a virtual PC; also, getting PC LoD would involve spending money on a game I already have.)
3. Release a bunch of Excel files, in the hope that someone can compile them into an MPQ or show me where I'm going wrong. (But even if someone helps me out, I'd be working blind up to that point, with no way of testing it for myself.)
13 January:
OK, I give up. I can't get what I want to do to work on the Mac. Instead I'll try to make Plan B, a simple balance mod.
Last edited by Incompetent on Fri Jan 13, 2006 12:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Mongrel
It is unfortunate but clear that Mac compatibility was an afterthought to Blizzard. Otherwise they never would have put in the stupidity of a txt-to-bin compiler that screwed up on endianness. Also I know there are Mac coding wizards out there (every system has had a few at least, even the humble Sinclair ZX and Commodore Vic-20), but somehow this game slipped by every one except Souricette. So the tools base is limited and the game code is uncooperative, and the people who might make a difference aren't stopping by in droves.
You probably want to regroup and start from scratch (or nearly so), and your new effort will undoubtably be substantially different than the original premise for this mod. Please let me know if you want this thread locked.
You probably want to regroup and start from scratch (or nearly so), and your new effort will undoubtably be substantially different than the original premise for this mod. Please let me know if you want this thread locked.
Do the right thing. It will gratify some people and astonish the rest.
~ Mark Twain
Run Diablo II in any version for mods: tutorial
The Terms of Service!! Know them, abide by them, and enjoy the forums at peace.
The Beginner's Guide v1.4: (MS Word | PDF) || Mod Running Scripts || TFW: Awakening
~ Mark Twain
Run Diablo II in any version for mods: tutorial
The Terms of Service!! Know them, abide by them, and enjoy the forums at peace.
The Beginner's Guide v1.4: (MS Word | PDF) || Mod Running Scripts || TFW: Awakening
-
Incompetent
- Angel
- Posts: 938
- Joined: Wed Mar 02, 2005 12:45 pm
Re: Mongrel
Yes please, lock this thread. I'm giving up on Mongrel for now. Plan B will be quite a different mod if it gets made - what the two (potential) mods would have in common is my philosophy on item and monster balance.