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Sacred 2 Balance.txt


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  • 9 months later...
  • 2 months later...

It's also a good idea to change this...it modifies how much time items dropped from the mob stay on the map, you might want some extra time to go through the drops if your inventory fills up very very quick:
dropTimeItemReserved = 300,
dropTimeItemDestroy = 300,
dropTimeItemUnloadedDestroy = 300

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  • 2 months later...

Hey folks, a few questions here.

I love playing the game as it is but as I have more responsibilities in life I have less time to play a game that's such time consuming as Sacred 2. As all of you know we can really loose a lot of time in this game just trying to go from level A to level B, and sadly I'm finding that I don't have as much time as I'd like in that respect. So with that in mind I was thinking about rebalancing the experience gain to be able to have a faster progression curve and be able to play more levels in less time. At first I thought about not doing it from level 1 and only after level 100 because of the huge penalty that kicks in, but I thought about it a bit more and I'd like to start out faster and then be able to compensate past level 100. Basically I want to be able to level up faster but not feel like I'm getting rushed through level after level without much effort.

So, as to make the way from levels 1-100 faster, would changing this default value to its double be too unbalanced in terms of XP gain? It's basically like running a mentor pot all the time so I think that it shouldn't cause a bad impact on the gameplay feel right? Well, I can effectively quadruple the XP gain with a mentor pot, so I guess that's why I'm asking for opinions here. PS: Scratch that, I was dumb. Mentor pots give 50% increase and hero statues 100%, so maybe the best way is to make the value 1500 instead, which would equate to running with a mentor pot all the time? If then I'd pop a mentor pot I'd get a bit over twice the base value the game has (1000=100%; 1500=150%; 150%*50% increase=225%) right? A hero statue would effectively triple the XP gain instead of doubling it too right (150%*100% increase=300%)?

MP_experience = {1000,1150,1325,1550,1825}, => changed to MP_experience = {2000,1150,1325,1550,1825},

As for the penalty past level 100, I was looking at these values:

ExpLS100 = 985,
ExpLS125 = 980,
ExpLS150 = 975,
ExpLS175 = 970,

What happens if I raise them over 1000 (100% XP gain, thus no penalty)? Will the game run smoothly with values above 1000? Because what I was thinking was about inverting the penalty and making it a boni, as to have you gain incrementally more XP the more you advance, thus making it feel like the game was progressing further instead of stalling due to diminishing returns. Something like:

ExpLS100 = 1015, (+1,5% instead of -1.5%)
ExpLS125 = 1020, (+2% instead of -2%)
ExpLS150 = 1025, (+2,5% instead of -2.5%)
ExpLS175 = 1030, (+3% instead of -3%)

Would this work?

What do you guys think? Would these changes be well balanced in terms of progression through the game or would it feel like rushing through it? Any thoughts?

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Worth a shot.  I used to keep the values at 1000 in my mods, but with CM Patch 1.60 all sources of XP per Kill stack now.  It's much easier to go beyond level 100 without endlessly grinding now.  

Of course I also put big increases to quest XP, because I'm a mission-oriented player.  I like objectives and stoylines, can't stand aimlessly wandering around grinding.

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Oh right, I need to edit these in order to increase the XP gain from quests in the same ratio right?

QuestExplow = {20,25,30,40,50},
QuestExpmax = {4020,5025,6030,8040,10050},


What new values would you suggest, all base values multiplied by 1.5 to fit the enemy XP ratio?

QuestExplow = {30,38,45,60,75},
QuestExpmax = {6030,7538,9045,12060,15075},

 

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These are the values I'm using in the upcoming release of Enhanced Edition and D2F:

  QuestExplow = {30,55,100,200,400},
  QuestExpmax = {4020,8250,16300,32400,64500},

 

As you can see I really ramp it up on the higher difficulties.  But I'm also not doing any other changes to XP.  Basically I want the player to tackle quests and to be able to make it comfortably to the upper 100's without grinding.  And with Mentor Potions + Altars + Hero Statues + Gear, it shouldn't be too hard.  Throw in the SuperSpawn module for extra giggles.  :)

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And here I was asking if I was modifying my numbers too much, yours are huge compared to mine! :D Thanks for your numbers as they're a good way for comparing. I think I'll try editing the file and see how it goes via LAN. I really don't want to change it that much in the end, just trying to have a more interesting and faster progression.

PS: Did the tweaking on balance.txt, after which I ran a level 1 High Elf to get the quest and kill values in both Bronze and Silver. Then I ran my level 115 Shadow Warrior on LAN and made the Runemaster's Son quest. Here are the changes and results.

TWEAKING:

  • MP_experience = {1000,1150,1325,1550,1825}, => MP_experience = {1500,1150,1325,1550,1825},

     
  • QuestExplow = {20,25,30,40,50}, => QuestExplow = {30,40,45,60,75},
    QuestExpmax = {4020,5025,6030,8040,10050}, => QuestExpmax = {6030,7540,9045,12060,15075},
  • ExpLS100 = 985, => ExpLS100 = 1015,
    ExpLS125 = 980, => ExpLS125 = 1020,
    ExpLS150 = 975, => ExpLS150 = 1025,
    ExpLS175 = 970, => ExpLS175 = 1030,

RESULTS:

  • BRONZE
    QUEST XP: 20 / 30
    ENEMY KILL XP: 14 / 21

 

  • SILVER
    QUEST XP: 25 / 40
    ENEMY KILL XP: 17 / 25

 

  • SW LV.115
    QUEST XP: 6381 / 9572
    ENEMY KILL XP: 2638 (champion->5578) / 6394 (champion->13521)


So this is it. The ratio of 1.5x the base XP gain seems well in order, and the progression with the post level 100 boni instead of penalty is definitely noticeable! I mean, a regular mob now gives more XP than a champion unit with the base XP gain. It's a 2.42x ratio of XP gain at level 115 (though in all honesty that SW has XP gain socketed so the ratio should be smaller). I think this might make the levelling more rewarding past level 100 since millions and millions are necessary to level up. What do you think? Is this a balanced way to get closer to 200 in a more productive amount of time?

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Also one more interesting parameter:

BlacksmithSkillForDiff = {1,20,60,105,150},

It sets the NPC blacksmith's skill level. Now I think that pretty much everyone who has been to Niobium just puts Niob blacskmith arts into items for their new characters, which makes them completely overpowered for many levels. Now IF you already have Niob unlocked (and have all blacksmiths unlocked so you are not cheating anyway), you can use this parameter to make it way more balanced. Just set them all to 150 and you will get much more appropriate stat bonuses for the current difficulty (the silver values are ~55% of the niob ones). I have been running for 5 or 6 levels now in gear full of niob blacksmith arts and I feel bad because the game is no challenge at all on silver and will not be for a long time. I just purged my items and put these in and it is a much better feeling. This will allow you to have much more enjoyable leveling experience without feeling brutally overpowered but just plain old overpowered :lol:.

Edited by idbeholdME
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Thanks for replying. ;)

Starting by the end on your first post, I think I made the rounding up on the max values and must've done the same for minimum values as well. Can't say for sure as my job has consumed a good part of my memory during this month. :D You're right that levelling gets a lot faster and that levels get wider with the changes I've made, and indeed new players shouldn't mess around trying new builds with such parameters. Even Flix usually tells that his tweaks to XP gain and/or enemy spawn count are made to test enduring characters, so we agree when you say that these changes are more in line with experienced players. At the end of the day I think these changes suit my original purpose. I've had a few sessions with a new BFG Seraphim build, like a version 2.0 of my previous one, and I've definitely noticed just how much faster the levelling was with these tweaks. Reaching Gold was fast, something like 10 game hours, even with a few stops for micromanagement along the way. Yet it was much faster than how much it would take me before changing balance.txt, and by a few hours. You see I've done the whole course, played untwinked, then twinked with Niob smith and a ladder of shoppers, to the point that the game got unproductive. Hell, I've even dropped my Inquisitor build on Gold because at level 60 it would wipe the floor with everything! Seriously, a Guardian run in LAN was like killing Kobolds, that's just how overpowered I made that toon via +All Skills and modifiers like deathblow and %life leech!

All of this to say that my main idea was to level quickly through the pre-mastery levels and really start banging it at Platinum and Niobium. I usually end the main quest in Niobium around levels 110-120, so what do I do for the next 80-90 levels when I've already killed the toughest enemies in Ancaria?! With these tweaks my primary intention is to end the main quest in Nibium closer to level 200 than to level 100. I do hear your doubts about the XP penalty being turned into a boni, that's why I did a Guardian run in Niob with my level 115 SW to see the difference in XP gain. Before I'd get a bit over one million XP, and with the tweaks and boni the value now is closer to three million, which isn't much when you need over twice that value to get to the next level. Plus you're "not supposed" to play that bit over and over again, so if you want to consider the game being less grindy then these changes are bound to make pure questing and the path on which that happens more rewarding in terms of XP gain. At least you'll feel like you're advancing towards a goal, that being level 200.

This is all theory though, but that's also why I started a new BFG toon to see how it fares in the long run. Right now it's working nicely, ten hours in at level 45 and Gold, so I should hit mastery level and Platinum difficulty within or below one day worth of gameplay. Then I can really have fun with my already strong build in harder difficulties. I'll try to keep making some updates regarding the progression, especially when I get over level 100. ;)

Regarding your Blacksmith tweak, nah, I don't bite. :D I've already been through the "put Niob arts in Silver gear" and it just takes the fun away. Even if the idea is to put a bit of restraint into it I'm not interested. I just don't want the early levels to be inconspicuous in the way that I can just mop the floor with every mob, I actually don't mind feeling a bit of stress on early levels because like I said above I already plan ahead for strong toons. That bit of challenge actually makes me feel like the progression is more balanced because it's early and your toon isn't fully developed in terms of skills nor does it have the best possible equipment. So even though you level up considerably faster and reach higher difficulty levels faster as well you'll have to play more carefully and plan better ahead. And then progress noticeably more the more you advance towards level 200. At least that was my intention, we'll see how it goes once I get past level 100 with my new Seraphim build. Like I said above this is a work in progress and I'll post my findings about these changes when I can. ;)

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And if you tried the leveling spots like the toxic elementals outside of Thylysium or southeast of the Swamp (IIRC from 6 years ago) with statue buff maintained by potions, I think you would just fly through the levels. I remember I grinded a lot of levels in the swamp with a statue buff after I disabled the experience penalty before I stopped playing back then. Went at a pretty decent rate. I wouldn't say that bosses are the way to speed level.

I don't mind a bit of farming and effort to hit the max level so optimally for me, I would finish Niob somewhere around 170 range. Then the last levels would be an option to grind if I wanted. I don't rush through the game at all though. Even on silver, I explore every corner of the map and finish every quest. Right now I'm on level 48 and am like 30% done with the second act on silver after 43 hours of playtime (probably a few of those are alt-tabbed but even then). Only after finishing silver, I rush through gold/plat to go into Niob. I also plan a pure speedrun through the game on bronze in full Visibility Range gear to get the highest map revealed %. But I take Silver as the "Main" part the game has to offer. So if your goal is to play on Plat/Niob ASAP, I can understand the need to hit it fast. After my long pause in playing this game, I'm sure that your settings would feel way too fast for me. I just think that the philosophy of "Every subsequent level should be harder to reach" should be maintained, especially when nearing the cap. That would be hard to do with an exponentially increasing bonus experience for kills.

Using a bargaining network for new chars just kills the point of the game for me. Just slap +skills into everything and you're done. My first character was incidentally a HE with bargaining. Think I stopped at level 129 as bargaining started to take on irreversible diminishing returns. So I just have her now as a Niob shopper mainly for jewelery. But every new character that wants to make use of that has to reach those levels so it's not problematic. I don't mind using the blacksmith when I've already reached Niob before but also admit that using full powered Niob arts in silver is overkill. The tweak made it less drastic and I can still reap the rewards of having played the game before. I get the feeling that even if I went through the hassle of leveling up a Blacksmith character very high, I would end up not using it for anyone but him because it would be even stronger than the NPC ones. Only for socketing rings and amulets into lower tier sockets. I might still toy around with the blacksmith levels to find a more even middle ground. Or if it gets too boring/imbalanced, I will just start a Gold LAN game after I reach 60 and put those regular arts in.

Edited by idbeholdME
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I understand what you're saying, and I used to play a lot of time in the lower difficulties as well. Go back a few years and you'd see me trying to do every quest in Silver and Gold, but eventually I'd get bored out of repetition and not play the later difficulties. And since modifiers get better with each new difficultly I then started doing the inverse course by running fast through easier difficulties and then taking my time at harder ones where I can get much better loot. I guess we just differ in the way that we play.

 

Regarding reaching level 200, I honestly was never able to endure it. I just don't have it in me, maybe I could do it if I repeated the game's completion on every difficulty level but I just don't want to play through the same content four times in a row like that. Plus, nowadays gaming is secondary to everyday life, sometimes even tertiary, ha ha. So the lack of proper time leads to a lack of progression in the game, which leads to me trying out these changes to try and see a bit of movement in the few hours I'm able to play. And without changing the game that much, that was my original intention.

So yeah, I'm not breaking the wheel here or reinventing the game, just adapting its progression to my personal needs. I may come to find that progression past level 100 is too fast, I'll give you that, but I'll try to have some fun while finding it out. ;)

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  • 1 month later...

Quick question. These values listed below rule over the mobs' attributes, so increasing the first value on the left will increase their attributes no matter what level and difficulty they're at right?! Is there a way to make mobs progressively tougher on each difficulty, or given the natural scaling of the game's difficulty levels changing that sole value will suffice?

MP_damage = {1000,1050,1100,1160,1220},
MP_combatvalue = {1000,1100,1210,1330,1460},
MP_lifeHP = {1000,1300,1650,2100,2650},
MP_EShieldHP = {1000,1300,1650,2100,2650},
MP_armor = {1000,1100,1210,1330,1460},

So if I'd change it from 1000 to 1250 the mobs would cause 25% more damage, have 25% higher values of attack/defense (I assume), and 25% extra HP/armor/energy shield. How would that translate from Silver to Gold to Platinum to Niobium given the already standard progression of the mobs from one difficulty level to the next?

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Those values add attributes based on how many people are in the game.  Each value to the right is +1 player.  So if you're just playing single player and you edit the left-most value, that would add, say 25% extra damage/whatever on top of the base value of each difficulty.

Damage, hp, combat values, etc., would still scale with difficulty, they're just not controlled by those particular lines.

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I tried changing the high level experience penalties into bonuses a long time ago when I was trying to test some spells.txt modifications I was farting around with. By the time I got to like 180, I was leveling like almost every kill. So yeah, it works both ways.

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10 hours ago, Flix said:

Those values add attributes based on how many people are in the game.  Each value to the right is +1 player.  So if you're just playing single player and you edit the left-most value, that would add, say 25% extra damage/whatever on top of the base value of each difficulty.

Damage, hp, combat values, etc., would still scale with difficulty, they're just not controlled by those particular lines.

So there's no way to increase the mobs' attributes by different values on different difficulty levels but the natural scaling with each difficulty and enemy level will still take into account any changes made to the first value (yes for SP).

Another question then, how much is too much to make the game unbalanced? Or better put, let's say I want to make the game more challenging and feel like every new area is harder than the previous one. What order of values over 1000 would be good enough for that and which values would be nightmarish and one-shot wonders? Is a 10% increase too little or too much? That sort of thing.

I haven't played in a while because with moving it hasn't been possible, but I'd like to eventually get back to it but feel more challenged. Basically rebalance the mobs' "hardness" with the added experience gain so that every incursion on a new area would be a potencial risk, making exploration more of a necessity. But with added experience gain it wouldn't be a grinding task.

I'd also like to rebalance upper magic tier find (12-15 I believe) because even with EP maxed out there's still a lot of set pieces barely dropping. I got a Seraphim to level 120 and couldn't complete a Genesis Sideria by one piece, so I'd like to be able to do so in a timely manner as well. I remember you saying that anything above 8% gain would be too much?! Something like that. I get the feeling that EP does more for yellow items than for the remaining upper tiers, but I could be wrong.

So yeah, I'm into trying to rebalance the game here, but without breaking it.

@Bezlonir - I'm curious as to how much of a bonus you turned the penalties into to get one level per kill. Care to elaborate further? ;)

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57 minutes ago, Androdion said:

@Bezlonir - I'm curious as to how much of a bonus you turned the penalties into to get one level per kill. Care to elaborate further? ;)

From my experience, just add a couple of zeros: MP_experience = {1000,1150,1325,1550,1825}. So, MP_experience = {100000,1150,1325,1550,1825} should do the trick.

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If you want to make the game harder in a fun way, try changing creatureinfo.txt and adding stat bonuses to monsters and making elites spawn in larger groups.

 

I don't think I changed those high level penalties by much. You have to keep in mind that they're going to have an exponential effect. If it's 5%, that's going to apply for each level, I think, so after 50 levels you're looking at 1.05^50, which is 18X xp, and that's just from one bonus, and they all apply, so you might be getting around 60000% xp at a high level off of those values just being at 5%.

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I'm quite horrible at math, but even going by the formula on the Wiki page step by step with the potencies and just by inverting the values from negative to positive (ExpLS100 = 0985 to 1015, etc.) I'm getting a bonus at level 199 of... +1866%?! So even if an enemy just gave 100k worth of XP that would mean it'd turn into almost 2 million worth of XP! And even if my math is a bit off, I mean damn... That's probably why idbeholdME was telling me not to turn it into a boni!

@idbeholdME - If you're reading this mate, you were right. It gets out of hand very easily!

IMPORTANT NOTE FOLKS: DO NOT PUT THE RED VALUES OVER 1000 AT THE RISK OF BREAKING YOUR XP PROGRESSION!

ExpLS100 = 985,
ExpLS125 =
980,
ExpLS150 =
975,
ExpLS175 =
970,

Sorry for being so dramatic folks, but I believe this is an important note for newcomers. If I almost screwed it up then it's perfectly easy to do so. :blush:

 

3 hours ago, Bezlonir said:

If you want to make the game harder in a fun way, try changing creatureinfo.txt and adding stat bonuses to monsters and making elites spawn in larger groups.

Yeah, but wouldn't that require editing every single creature entry? Making every creature type more hardened via balance.txt seems like a cleaner way to do it. It's just that between a Kobold and a Nameless Guardian +10% can be very little or too much, so I'd like to get some insight on the scale for changing those values. ;)

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11 hours ago, Androdion said:

So there's no way to increase the mobs' attributes by different values on different difficulty levels but the natural scaling with each difficulty and enemy level will still take into account any changes made to the first value (yes for SP).

Wha?  Try these lines:

  DefenseFactorDiff = {650,1000,1500,2500,4500},

  NPC_speedfac_any = {1000,1150,1200,1275,1350},
  AttackFactorDiff = {800,1000,1750,2750,4500},
  DamageFactorDiff = {1000,1050,1200,1350,1500},
  LifeFactorDiff = {1000,1400,2000,3000,4000},

  NPC_attrWdam_fact = {1000,1100,1250,1500,2000},

  AllEnemy_lvl = {1,10,20,200,250},
  Enemy_armor = {900,1000,5000,7200,10000},
  Enemy_weapondamage = {650,850,1000,3300,3630},
  Enemy_spelldamage = {750,950,2000,3800,5450},
  SpellAttackFactorMT = {1000,1330,2000,2000},
  SpellDefenseFactorMT = {1000,1750,2500,2500},
  HitFactorMT = {1000,1500,2000,2000},
  DamageFactorMT = {1000,1200,1400,1400},
  LifeQuotientMT = {2500,800,125,125},

 

Some of those might also affect the player, but the ones with "NPC" and "Enemy" are a safe bet.  I don't know what the "MT" lines do.

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