Titan Quest Fans Forum
Titan Quest - Anniversary Edition => New Projects => Topic started by: Xcessor on 06 April 2021, 19:07:34
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(https://i.imgur.com/3BSoY0W.jpg)
Stronger Monsters, Improved AI, Bigger Rewards
I've been developing a mod on and off for several years now called Combat Reforged. I'm new to this community and was recommended that I could get some good feedback here.
The idea is to create challenging gameplay with more satisfying rewards and basically overhaul every monster and boss across all 6 acts using original game resources. The goal of this mod is to make monsters stronger without bloating their health pools or damage or using ridiculously high spawn rates, but by improving their AI and group tactics and giving champions and bosses more skills to use against the player. Players must avoid getting surrounded and dodge deadly skills to survive. Monsters that are already strong like Typhon remain unaffected, and overpowered monsters like Shadowmaw may be nerfed slightly. The mod also increases the amount of loot from chests and chance to receive rare items and relics from all sources.
Here is a general overview of the changes so far:
Monster Changes
- Weak monsters (White names) have no skills and are easy to dispatch, but can overwhelm the player in large numbers.
- Champion monsters (Yellow names) have more HP and deal more damage than weak monsters and are worth taking note of. They are likely to have a new skill to buff/heal allies or that can pacify or deal high damage to a player.
- Hero monsters (Orange names) are like mini-bosses and are very dangerous compared to their counterparts. They grant much more XP and are more likely to drop Blue/Purple items.
- Boss monsters are now more like raid bosses. They have new skills and improved AI behavior that test the player's ability to counter them. The purpose here is to make some of the more underwhelming boss fights more exciting without bloating their health pools or damage which make fights long and tedious.
- Each change is carefully considered and designed around multiple playstyles.
Almost every monster has new skills or adjusted stats and these changes are too many to list here! But here is a TL;DR version of what those changes look like:
- All monsters have slightly increased damage and HP. This increase grows after each Act to keep combat challenging.
- Increased monster spawns by 2x (Boss spawns are not affected).
- Some bosses have new animations that better communicate their attacks to the player.
- Most mage monsters now have the ability to properly heal and buff their allies.
- Some dual wielding monsters such as Minotaurs have a chance to go into a Bloodrage when they take damage, increasing damage dealt and reducing damage taken for 10s but become more susceptible to controlling effects such as Slow and Freeze.
- Larger monsters such as Cyclops have increased health and strength, and some can even deliver powerful blows which have a high chance for critical hits and a small chance to stun.
- Most monsters that wield spears have a new Trapper variant and can immobilize an unwary player and prevent retreat.
- Added Volatile variant for certain zombies and insects which will cause them to explode shortly after death.
- Ranged monsters will try to keep their distance from the player and stay behind their allies. But they won't run constantly or make melee combat annoying.
- Some champions that equip shields, spears, or dual wield can Charge at the player.
- Increased pursuit distance by 5x so monsters will no longer run away from players that are too far away (prevents cheesing). But players can still outrun monsters and make a successful retreat.
- Monsters now utilize the bonuses of the charms they drop (ex. Bats now deal life leech dmg).
- Made use of some unused animations, for instance, Satyr Warrior minions can now dual wield and Yetis will throw boulders.
Loot Changes
Loot has been increased to appropriately reward the player for the extra challenge. This increase is designed to be reasonable and not to make players OP or give them all the items they want early on which makes the game boring really fast.
- Merchant sell item cap has been raised.
- Grey/Broken items no longer have a chance to drop.
- All chests, orbs, and bone piles drop 5x the amount of loot.
- Boss Chests and Orbs are guaranteed to drop at least 1-3 Blue/Purple items.
- Bosses can now drop Monster Charms and are much more likely to equip Blue/Purple items (from 0.01% > 22% chance).
- Heroes are 3x more likely to drop Monster charms and are much more likely to equip Blue/Purple items (from 0.002% > 5% chance).
- Increased Relic/Charm drop rate from monsters and chests by 1.5x.
- Golden chests are 2x more likely to drop Blue/Purple items.
- All loot from chests/orbs are balanced and each Blue/Purple item has the same chance to drop. Typhon's Orb can now drop Unique spears.
- Yellow/Green items are 2x more likely to drop from all sources.
- Monster Infrequents are 2x more likely to drop and 10x more likely to drop from bosses and heroes. (MIs felt too rare in the vanilla game and even rarer to get one with good stats. They're still rare, just not as crazy)
- Monster Infrequents now display the names of their magical effects.
- Magical effects of items are now unbiased and have an equal chance of being rolled.
- Bonuses from completed Relics/Charms are now unbiased and have equal chance of being rolled.
- Rings and amulets have a slightly higher chance to roll two magical effects.
- Quest reward equipment always have two magical effects and a higher chance for green quality, and also have a higher chance to roll Blue/Purple items.
- Chests from quests such as Lost Goods and Hades' Treasury have been reworked and now contain loot that's actually worthwhile.
Skill & Pet Changes
- Buffs such as Rune of Life, Heat Shield, and Herbal Remedy now last indefinitely and no longer need to be recast.
- Heat Shield and Energy Shield no longer have a cooldown.
- Group buffs such as Fire Enchantment have an increased radius and will always reach nearby allies.
- Herbal Remedy now heals a small amount of HP (1/4 the effectiveness of Regrowth) and has a 2s cooldown.
- Increased Shield Charge ragdoll force.
- Pets will always attack enemies that are too close.
- Core Dweller
- Properly taunts enemies and protects the player.
- Buffed stats to tank damage more effectively.
- Added new Boulder Toss skill to replace Inner Fire, which is now integrated with initial Core Dweller skill.
- Sylvian Nymph, Liche King & Nightmare
- Will now keep their distance from melee enemies properly.
- Remedied the problem of being teleported into danger when too far from the player.
Gameplay Changes
- Increased health potion cooldown from 6s > 12s to prevent spamming.
- Potion Cooldown penalty in Tartarus has been reduced to compensate.
- Potions can now be stacked up to 100.
- Scrolls can now be stacked up to 50.
- Shrines have a much larger buff radius so that it can reach all pets and group members in the area when activated.
- Players gain 20% less XP to balance XP gained from increased monster spawns.
- Dual Ranged run animation looks less feminine for male player.
- Dual Ranged/Wield both use the same attack animations and with more consistent speeds, making dual wielding feel much smoother but not stronger.
- Staff attacks and projectiles are slightly faster so they won't miss their target as often.
- Arrows and most projectiles can fly further before disappearing.
Thank you for reading. I hope to release the mod sometime within the next few months on Steam and this post is just to gauge interest and motivate myself to finish this HUGE mod. I'm open to ALL feedback and critique, so feel free to let me know what you think or what you would like to see changed or added to this mod!
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It looks very interesting. Looking forward for the release, keep up the good work!
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For me, every TQ mod is 'perfect', when it has two things set to 'safe' numbers:
- potion stack to 10 000
- merchant sell item cap to 100 bilion gold
Because seriously, these two limits are fake af, since day one, and they are only pissing me off.