• New Horizons on Maelstrom
    Maelstrom New Horizons


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Mods and Game Difficulty

<!--quoteo(post=228029:date=Dec 27 2007, 10:49 PM:name=Pieter Boelen)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Pieter Boelen @ Dec 27 2007, 10:49 PM) [snapback]228029[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->We could, for example, give each blade a "type" attribute, such as "heavy", "light", "quick", etc. Then depending on which blade is fighting which, there are different damage statistics. Better ideas would be welcome.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

Give me some time.

We've got three stats to work with. Damage (expressed in a range), block percentage and pierce-blocks in a percentage. That's enough to fabricate stats by extrapolation, making generic assumptions about the relative impact energy, speed and balance of each design.

For example, that huge scimitar-looking thing from Damascus looks nose-heavy. If it operates like most Saracen-styled blades, its cutting power is astounding, and its ability to batter aside defenses also formidable ... but trying to use one on defense is probably a wasted effort (it takes two days to get one of those turned around for an effective block).

Pictures of each blade in the game would be helpful ... some of them are sort of rare, after all, and I would like to be assigning the right stats to each weapon. If I can pull the pictures from the appropriate data file, instructions would do the job.
 
You can use the <a href="http://www.s31clan.com/privateftps/pietersmods/potc_downloads/tools/txconverter.zip" target="_blank">TX Converter</a> to view the items#.tga.tx files in RESOURCE\Textures\INTERFACES. That should help you with the blade item pictures. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/doff.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":doff" border="0" alt="doff.gif" />

If you need, we can also add additional attributes to the various blades. But then we also need to know what effect these attributes would have in the game.
Also: Wouldn't it be interesting to have pirates use different weapons than, say, British marines?
 
Playing Devil's advocate again (or maybe gamer's advocate), I can see the value in having varied swords and limited ability to carry or employ them. It forces you to think ahead and think strategically to an extent at least. But I still have an issue with limited ammo and powder for the guns. It's just far too much of a hassle manually doling out looted balls and powder after the initial allotment (assuming you have an Officer-Gunner and <i>he</i> only gives out balls and powder to officers - not landing party crew members) is used up.

The easy fix here is to just disable that limitation all together. The harder fix is a general logistics screen that would display all crew members that spawn on land and their allotments of consumables (health potions, powder, balls, and degradeable melee weapons) along with the ship's general stores (or officer's inventory - depending on how inventory shapes up - if a realistic inventory is used this would be less valuable). At one fell swoop if you can equip your fellows it's much less hassle - though probably still much more of one than is really ideal in a game about high adventure and high excitement. Also giving each character an expanded allotment might be a good idea too.

Dealing with ammo allotments and degrading weapons in a swashbuckling action game just seems counterproductive to me. But if the consensus is that it's essential then the ease of use must needs be radically ramped up and made much more playable.
 
I only added the degrading weapons mod, because first somebody added different qualities of weapons, then somebody else added the blacksmiths so that you can increase your weapon's quality, so I also added the bladedamage mod thinking that it makes no sense to have various qualities that can be increased if it won't ever decrease. After all, names like "worn saber" do suggest that the saber is supposed to be able to wear out. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/dunno.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":shrug" border="0" alt="dunno.gif" />

But I do think that perhaps it adds a tad bit too much hassle for the player. Which is why we have the toggles on those kinds of mods. I wouldn't want to remove those mods though, nor have them turned off by default, because somebody did go through a lot of trouble to make those mods and I don't want to see that works lost. Of course that isn't really very valid reasoning: keeping a mod even though it doesn't contribute to the gameplay. I would much rather be able to figure out something so that those mods actually do contribute something to the gameplay.

One thing the bladedamage does add to the gameplay is that swordfights do become a little more varied because occasionally enemies' weapons will break and they'll either flee or continue to fight with their fists, knocking out your allies. That is at least a little bit different from the usual whack-o-rama swordfights we have. But still far from being perfect.

The same kind of reasoning went into the ammo mods, both for characters and ships. To add some more interest by adding another factor for the player to take into account. Of course this factor can either contribute to gameplay or detract from it. If it causes a lot of messing around in inventories, it causes detraction from gameplay, rather than improvement.

I think what we REALLY want is a more interesting swordfighting (and also sea battle) system that makes each swordfight (and sea battle) more interesting instead of each fight being the same as all the other ones. The fights tend to become rather monotonous in the game, especially in the original game where enemies would never break their blades or use special weapons or flee and enemy ships would never surrender or cannons would never exlode or fire would never reach powder magazines, etc.
 
I agree with your goals. Just tossing in my observations and they're by no means written in stone as unalterable fact. You've seen me change my mind several times in these forums when folks put out good points. But I do have (probably more than is wholesome) some experience with games and gaming in general. Roleplaying and simulation gaming in particular. But I'm not a modder. This is the first time I've ever really even engaged in a modding community like this. PoTC blows my mind and the mods you guys have done are inspiring. Don't get me wrong at all.

Like the path you all weave between reality and fantasy, trying to get the best out of both worlds without offending the sensibilities of anyone too much, there's a balance between realism and action, playability and rivet counting*, that should probably be threaded as well. I love realism and historicism, otherwise I'd be off playing Halo 3 or something, but I really like the exciting stories that come out of immersive games the most. You can't have too much realism in a game. You can have too much mechanical detail that's not intuitive or that slows down the action too much. In some games, like modern flight sims, getting down into the weeds with the armaments of individual aircraft and plotting waypoints, ingress and egress, and all that actually adds to the excitement because having that kind of control is really immersive and part of what we think of when we think of what pilots do. But a swashbuckling pirate captain, the archetypal role in PoTC, we can't imagine him having to baby sit his crew and change their diapers for them all the time. They're big boys and girls. He merely points the way and promises plunder and infamy.

*Rivet counter: A flight simulation fanatic who gets upset if an aircraft model in a flight sim has too many rivets modelled on a strut or in a panel. A/k/a nitpicker.
 
the way gunpowder would work that i would like would be that you have to look after your own gunpowder and ammo, but not that of your officers. i just never give my officers pistols because it includes so much boring work of buying the stuff, giving it to your officers, one by one, and then buying something for yourself and discovering that there isn't anything left in the shop because you gave everything to your officers. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/mybad.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":facepalm" border="0" alt="mybad.gif" /> you also have to keep checking it. it's just way too tedious. now, when only you would have limited ammunition, it would be quite managable.
 
I think most coders will agree that we're all just experimenting and messing around in what hopefully is the general right direction. But really we don't have much of a clue what we're doing, So we need the actual gamers to point us in the right direction. So thanks very much. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/icon_mrgreen1.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":cheeky" border="0" alt="icon_mrgreen1.gif" />

To Morgan Terror: Doing that should be quite possible. The powder checks are already removed for NPCs.
 
good. i actually think the mod is quite fun, as long as you're the only one using the mod. (and your foes, of course)

by the way: i can confirm that blunderbusses sometimes blow up in your face. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ko.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":ko" border="0" alt="ko.gif" /> i had a good laugh when it happened to a bandit. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile2.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":))" border="0" alt="smile2.gif" />
 
<!--quoteo(post=228072:date=Dec 27 2007, 06:29 PM:name=Morgan Terror)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Morgan Terror @ Dec 27 2007, 06:29 PM) [snapback]228072[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->good. i actually think the mod is quite fun, as long as you're the only one using the mod. (and your foes, of course)

by the way: i can confirm that blunderbusses sometimes blow up in your face. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ko.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":ko" border="0" alt="ko.gif" /> i had a good laugh when it happened to a bandit. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile2.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":))" border="0" alt="smile2.gif" /><!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

<img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/24.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":rofl" border="0" alt="24.gif" />
 
Ron: Checked out the site for Onin No Ran, the Japanese M&B mod you worked on. Looks pretty impressive! Think I'm a gonna have to check that one out (after messing around with the new version of M&B for a bit).

I also found this old thread from over two years ago at the M&B forums. As you can tell, I've always been verbose. But it seems a couple suggestions there (whether it was actually my thread or someone else's) came to fruition:

<a href="http://forums.taleworlds.net/index.php/topic,1289.0.html" target="_blank">http://forums.taleworlds.net/index.php/topic,1289.0.html</a>
 
<!--quoteo(post=227998:date=Dec 27 2007, 01:09 PM:name=Pieter Boelen)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Pieter Boelen @ Dec 27 2007, 01:09 PM) [snapback]227998[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec--><!--quoteo(post=227960:date=Dec 27 2007, 02:19 AM:name=Julian)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Julian @ Dec 27 2007, 02:19 AM) [snapback]227960[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->It kinds of ruins the idea of difficult stormy starts because all you have to do is to walk about a bit and look see... and soon enough you would find weaponry giving a substantial income.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->I thought IncredibleHat did some work on that so that you don't find super high-end blades lying around anymore, at least not in the beginning of the game. And we were considering decreasing the values of blades, not increasing them.
<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

That would be indeed perfect. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/me.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":onya" border="0" alt="me.gif" />

However as far as 14a7+ high end blades are still scattered around. Remember a while ago when testing the passage to/from the jungle passage and into Charlestown as the town exist icon had been fixed - I got a fine Cardinal Guard at the very beginning just by searching under the cart at the QC blacksmith's.
<img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/yes.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":yes" border="0" alt="yes.gif" />
... as far as the prices are concerned, lowering them would mean enabling the player to upgrade the crews weaponry and increasing thus the odds in boarding. Never the less a crew armed with Atwoods and Musketoons will win every boarding with no need of interference from the player, and that would be rather unchallenging. That brings my thoughts back to the idea of availability and obtainability for the high end-blades. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/dunno.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":shrug" border="0" alt="dunno.gif" />

Assigning standards of weapons for a nation's armies, navies and eventually officers is definitely a good idea. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/me.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":onya" border="0" alt="me.gif" /> You got a good point there, and certainly a challenge for the player: You want weaponry to match the navy's you've got to conquer it!
 
If you found a Cardinal's Guard, apparently the code supposed to prevent that isn't doing it's job properly. Question to anyone who is playing or has played Build 13 + Update 3 or Build 13 Final: Did you find any high-end blades lying around in the beginning of the game? I know IncredibleHat's fix was put in there and as far as I know, it was working at the time.

Of course the decreasing of the blade prices should go hand in hand with the balancing of all the blade's stats. The intention being to make each and every blade just about as good as the others, just different. That would mean there ARE no more high-end blades.
 
I was finding Atwoods during my playthrough of Build 13 Final at Swashbuckler difficulty towards the beginning of the game.
 
Grrr. And I am pretty sure it DID work once. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/modding.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":modding" border="0" alt="modding.gif" />
 
Well, forget that code ... as soon as I get back to them, we'll make sure that the "high-end blades" are only a slight improvement over the low-end ones. That will kill the weapon inflation in general... make just about every blade at least useful for something, and the differences between a good one and a poor one rather minimal and/or not a direct scale.

Maybe tomorrow I can start on that ... maybe.

Edit: Can't get TX Converter to download. 404 not found or something. Minor setback, there.
 
Please find the TX Converter attached to this post. Unfortunately my site is down, along with all downloads that were on it. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/modding.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":modding" border="0" alt="modding.gif" />
 
OK, that both works and doesn't work. The program works, but that's just the hilt pictures for the inventory screen. I need a good look at the 3d models, so I can make a somewhat intelligent guess about their weight and balance.

They seem to be in .gm format ... whatever the devil that is. Never heard of it before.
 
Ah. In that case it's the GM Viewert you need. Find it attached. You must point the models directory to RESOURCE\MODELS\Ammo and the textures directory to RESOURCE\Textures\Ammo. Hope that helps. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/doff.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":doff" border="0" alt="doff.gif" />
 
Yeah, that helps. I can see some of the new blades that way too ... figure I can include them in this project, while I'm at it. (Although I'm not entirely sure what that will entail.)
 
<!--quoteo(post=228142:date=Dec 28 2007, 12:39 PM:name=Pieter Boelen)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Pieter Boelen @ Dec 28 2007, 12:39 PM) [snapback]228142[/snapback]</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->If you found a Cardinal's Guard, apparently the code supposed to prevent that isn't doing it's job properly. Question to anyone who is playing or has played Build 13 + Update 3 or Build 13 Final: Did you find any high-end blades lying around in the beginning of the game? I know IncredibleHat's fix was put in there and as far as I know, it was working at the time.

Of course the decreasing of the blade prices should go hand in hand with the balancing of all the blade's stats. The intention being to make each and every blade just about as good as the others, just different. That would mean there ARE no more high-end blades.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->

<img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/me.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":onya" border="0" alt="me.gif" />

I have managed to download update 3 full from your site yesterday, on top of my build 13 full.exe as polished through Sparrow Search and I had been trying to recreate some of the games situations from the previous bug tracking.

With this version installed I can make the folowing statement:
1) first item ever found, on the beach after stormy start, char. at level 1: Masterpiece spyglass [attachment=1453:Firstitem.JPG









2) entering the city: weaponry is scattered around [attachment=1454:finditem2.JPG]









<img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/whistling.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":wp" border="0" alt="whistling.gif" />

The punch line however is that I have played for hours yesterday without finding anything but antidots and potions - having to get wealthy the decent way, by seazing merchant ships, that is.

The difference between yesterday's game and today's start consists in the change of the trade option in buildsettings.h
#define IT_RPG_STYLE 0
// 1: Traders will not have items that are too good for the player
// 0: Traders will have items based on their own random level. Players can buy VERY good items at the beginning of the game.

Yesterday's setting was -1-

I'm no wizz in coding, but this could be helpfull in narrowing down the issue... also explaining why based on the free options some players experience the overflow, while the limitation code might just as well work perfectly in the default setting.

<img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sailr.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":sail" border="0" alt="sailr.gif" />
 
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