Soulvizier AERA - General discussion

[siegefried]

I have played SV for many many years... playing it mostly over TQAE too.

With regards to item requirements I would say it depends on the scale of how large the change is. I play untwinked, generally the stat requirement is very low for the character's standards by the time I get something really worthwhile. I'm guessing the change is to make things a bit harder for twinkers - this is not a new concept, since at least normal (can't remember offhand for epic/leg) SBC had its requirements raised in SV over IT. Which made it much more troublesome for casters to equip early SBC, and iirc would go over the min DEX requirements for mythics if they want to push for it really early due to quest rewards. It would depend on what soa envisions I guess.

Personally I would wait to test how the game goes before raising requirements too soon though, item variety was actually not too well done in SV imo, despite the variety there is. (At least for those of us who were/are doing the untwinked hardcore). The issue was the resistance penalty, which was too high. Once you get high res gear (i.e. Tunic of the Magi, Geras' Walking Stick) it is very hard to let go. (because maintaining resistances involves swapping a lot of gear, not just switching out an armor piece) Since I believe we are not doing charms/relics in uniques now, that variety would be a bit more restricted as well. To allow for more interesting options or to make gear requirements a larger consideration... this one would be hard I guess. For twinkers, donning legendaries in Normal Act 3 or so should be simple to accomplish with current standards. I wasn't the only one in the untwinked hardcore thread who reached level 38 to 40 or so in Act 2, which might help to put things in perspective. Since res penalty will be back to default (or at least not as harsh as original SV), I find it very hard to imagine how tweaking the stat requirements (aside from level) would turn out without a lot of play testing. I would vote for increasing the level requirement of items mostly.

I'm not sure what kind of benchmark soa would want with regards to leveling, but just in case it is helpful, in current IT SV I roughly encounter this leveling curve.

Level 10 - Nessus
Level 18 - Gorgon Sisters
Level 24 - First Telkine

These milestones were noted because they are more consistent and the relative difficulty compared to the other bosses.

The Telkine generally is the first really hard fight of the game (and like x10 in difficulty if he has his soul). On most characters if I can, I will try to push past him asap to get access to Egypt where we can level faster and easier than we do in Greece. This does not mean that I can clear Telkine at Level 24 on all classes though, only that I usually reach him around that level. This does not include fully clearing maps, but does include the following

- Farming Shaman at least twice if not more, iirc he has a higher chance to drop soul than most enemies, and it is really helpful at the start if you do get it
- Using EXP shrine for quests as much as possible
- A few rounds of clearing Pythian Caves till around Level 20/21, in case I get lucky with SBC drop

Depending on how hard it is to face the Telkine, taking time to farm for some EXP and upgrades on items (lightning res is still okay to manage, Demon's Blood is obviously great for vit res, I tend to go to the cave after Delphi if I have not accumulated enough Demon's Blood. The characters that had a tougher time usually ends up around 28, latest case probably 30. Interestingly, I tend to end up with a copy of the level 10 mercenary contract in Act 1... I would estimate around 70% of my runs.

Now that I think about it, the level discrepancy can be quite large o.O", in any case, playing hardcore, I tend to reach 38 to 40 before entering Act 3. Lowest level clearing the Egypt Telkine is around 32, most are around 35, on the verge to 36. This fight has a comparatively easier feeling than the Greece Telkine, since we tend to have unlocked some of the more powerful stuff at this point. Not sure if others have a similar experience with me, but this is how the leveling goes for me. Reaching Egypt Telkine at 32 is normal for me. Leveling in this case is from the Egypt Telkine run (Obelisks + elite undead/heroes for massive exp and shrine on the way), or if I clear the Telkine, the Thebes west gate run for 2 chances of shrine, 9 obelisks and high chance of elite undead. From here on, the data is haphazard due to ahem... lots of tomb stones. And where pet builds start to suck (even more so than before). Pet builds are of course playable, but they require certain items to shine, and I don't have access to them untwinked. But if my characters finish Normal Act 4, they tend to be around 55. Generally with lesser leveling in Orient and more in Act 4. This also of course means that if I have twink gear, I would be able to equip Mythics mid Epic. It is also at this point that level tends to not be so important since you have all the stats needed to equip items (which can also signal lack of progress in itemization for twinkers, aside from legendary souls some of which will require you to grind a bit), all the core skills for your build, and are just deciding between the bonus stats between going beyond mastery 40 or to dump a bit more SP into some not as important skills.

Not sure how much of that is useful, probably not much, but just contributing what I can because of how much I love SV...

As I will be busy during this period of time I won't be able to contribute much to beta testing so I will wait for the release. Very much appreciate the work done by soa for this, it has been my hope that I would be able to play SV in AE ever since I tried AE. (Sorry to Zyddie and the officials, but I really find SV to be better than AE... heck I had Grim Dawn waiting on my list and still played SV more).

[soa]

edit: but really.. i don't get why you should raise the requirements when we will play it untwinked anyway.. the only OP items are ragnarok items and we'll only likely get that on act 5 legendary anyway

I'm guessing the change is to make things a bit harder for twinkers
[...]
Since res penalty will be back to default (or at least not as harsh as original SV), I find it very hard to imagine how tweaking the stat requirements (aside from level) would turn out without a lot of play testing. I would vote for increasing the level requirement of items mostly.

My goal is not to bash untwinked chars, it's more to make things harder for twinkers. When I played SV I remember I could equip legendaries (or green items from Legendary difficulty) very easily while in normal. Then I had no progression in items for like 30 levels, and I don't want that.
So I raised mostly the levels, and a bit the stat requirements too. But by the time you hit the required level, I think you will have enough stats even if you don't invest in said stat (by doing quests that raise your attributes or investing in the mastery bar).
In the end I'm not sure if this will really change things for untwinked chars, and again this is not my end goal. It also depends a lot on the XP/leveling progression, so I won't make any new changes to the requirements before I get some feedback from players. If it turns out to be a mistake, I'll still be able to revert back to the official game, or to tone it down.

Regarding resistance penalty and relics/charms into uniques, my reasoning is simplistic but I think it's a start : not allowing to socket uniques is roughly compensated by not having more resistances penalties. If it's not accurate I'll just have to give more penalties in the future. But I needed something to compensate, otherwise the game would have been too difficult.

In general, I think one of the weaknesses of SV balance is to deviate too much from the original game. I mean, the official game balance surely has its faults but I think it's a good start. At some point, the more you deviate from it, the harder it becomes to get a good balance.
SV tends to balance things by always deviating more from the original :
- let's boost the number of monsters
- the player has too much XP/levels, the game is too easy, let's boost the monsters damage and resistances
- the player is getting crushed now, let's make uniques socketable
- the player's too strong now, let's give him huge resistances penalties
- the player's too weak now, let's create new ultra strong items
This is a never ending way of balancing and can get out of hand quickly. If I go too far when changing something, I'm more inclined to adjust the slider to a less extreme position, rather than moving another slider to "full speed ahead" to compensate. By deleting resistance penalties and socketable uniques, I'm merely returning to a more "official game" state. Not saying the official game is perfect, but I think it's a more reasonable start.

Level 10 - Nessus
Level 18 - Gorgon Sisters
Level 24 - First Telkine

Well, my reference was closer to the official AE game. Because they change a lot the XP curve with Ragnarok and it's hard to compare SV AER with SV0.98i if they don't have the name number of acts (not even talking about Atlantis).
I had a playthrough in AE with the following levels, clearing all the map besides Atlantis or any secret passage.
8   Tegea A1
9,8   Megara
13   Delphi
16,5   Athens
17   Herakleion
19   End Laby/Rhakotis
27,5   End Egypt
30   Zhidan
33   Typhon/Rhodes
36   Charon
40   Hades/Corinth
46,6   Surtr/Epic
48   Eleusis
50,5   End Laby/Rhakotis
54,5   End Egypt
57   Yaoguai
57,8   Typhon/Rhodes
61,7   Hades/Corinth
65,3   Surtr/Legendary
67,2   End Laby/Rhakotis
69,2   End Egypt
71   Typhon/Rhodes
73   Hades/Corinth
Around 74-75 End.

As you can see this is far lower than Soulvizier. This was my reference chart when adjusting requirements, now the leveling when playing SV : AER will probably deviate from this chart. And my requirements will not be as good as I want, but it's not a big deal. I can adjust them differently in the future.
Note that Soulvizier, like xmax, doesn't give less XP per monster despite spawning more. So the player ends up with more levels and in the end the game is somewhat easier than the normal game. To counter that, SV boosted the damage and resistances of monsters as well as giving penalties to the player.
I chose to give less XP per monster in SV : AER. In the end, I'm hoping to get a XP curve that is closer to the original AE game. Or something between AE and SV0.98i. But because you have a fifth act, and Atlantis, it's hard to know exactly where it will end up.

I'm not touching balance anymore until I get feedback from players. Now I'm focusing on content and bringing Soulvizier in full into the AE edition.
A1 creatures are done. Working on A2 creatures now. Even if this work is not complete, I think it will be good enough for a beta. Creature changes between SV0.98i and SV AER are not that big.

[botebote77]

how about you remove shared stash in favor of more stash space lolz? that way the only way to twink is through 3rd party programs so it's really not encouraged.. but i imagine many people might dislike this

i have no problem in increasing item lvl requirements

[soa]

how about you remove shared stash in favor of more stash space lolz? that way the only way to twink is through 3rd party programs so it's really not encouraged.. but i imagine many people might dislike this

If I knew how to do that, I would have done it a long time ago. But I doubt this is technically possible.

The devs should give an option to the player at the beginning like : "play twink or untwinked".
- Give more loot and more stash to the untwinked. So that they get a chance to get access to a larger set of items
- Give a very large (like TQ Vault-large) shared stash to the twinked. And if you retrieve an item from the shared stash (costs gold or another kind of special currency), you get a temporary penalty to your loot rate based on the rarity and power of the item. This way you would create a dilemma like "do I really need this ?" and discourage players from sharing the same OP item between all their chars.
But that's dreaming.

[siegefried]

It also depends a lot on the XP/leveling progression, so I won't make any new changes to the requirements before I get some feedback from players. If it turns out to be a mistake, I'll still be able to revert back to the official game, or to tone it down.

Yes, the broad range of changes that could occur given the change in leveling progression is the main reason why I would be more cautious with tuning stat requirements.

Regarding resistance penalty and relics/charms into uniques, my reasoning is simplistic but I think it's a start : not allowing to socket uniques is roughly compensated by not having more resistances penalties. If it's not accurate I'll just have to give more penalties in the future. But I needed something to compensate, otherwise the game would have been too difficult.

I was not a huge fan of the resistances penalty. It is part of what makes progression too stifling playing hardcore untwinked. Not socketing uniques is already a nerf beyond the resistances issue, I also feel this will allow you to make it easier to balance. It made getting new gear much less exciting when you had to build around at least 3 pieces of massive res gear.

In general, I think one of the weaknesses of SV balance is to deviate too much from the original game. I mean, the official game balance surely has its faults but I think it's a good start. At some point, the more you deviate from it, the harder it becomes to get a good balance.
SV tends to balance things by always deviating more from the original :
- let's boost the number of monsters
- the player has too much XP/levels, the game is too easy, let's boost the monsters damage and resistances
- the player is getting crushed now, let's make uniques socketable
- the player's too strong now, let's give him huge resistances penalties
- the player's too weak now, let's create new ultra strong items

Some of it is a legacy from Munderbunny's implementation I believe. It started from Uber mod, where orb bosses could give very interesting combination of affixes. like Divine (green ring) of the Betrayer type of affixes. In order to compete against those items, allowing uniques to be socketed would more or less be a given. When we transitioned from Uber to UL, the type of balance in mind was probably already quite different from official, and souls were only implemented in SV. Mythics were not designed for regular gameplay, they were more like tokens to chase after for end game farming. Mythics required double rare affix MIs to be crafted initially, it was pretty much impossible to get one with regular gameplay outside of insane luck. The later change of requirement for double affix with one rare took that difficulty down by more than a notch, allowing players to more conceivably farm for one. The original ultra strong items were more easter eggs that rewarded dedication than designed to be used regularly though.

Well, my reference was closer to the official AE game. Because they change a lot the XP curve with Ragnarok and it's hard to compare SV AER with SV0.98i if they don't have the name number of acts (not even talking about Atlantis).

[...]

In the end, I'm hoping to get a XP curve that is closer to the original AE game. Or something between AE and SV0.98i. But because you have a fifth act, and Atlantis, it's hard to know exactly where it will end up.

Exactly why I felt a lot of play testing would probably be needed to get an accurate picture of how to tweak the stat requirements.

I'm not touching balance anymore until I get feedback from players. Now I'm focusing on content and bringing Soulvizier in full into the AE edition.
A1 creatures are done. Working on A2 creatures now. Even if this work is not complete, I think it will be good enough for a beta. Creature changes between SV0.98i and SV AER are not that big.

Looking forward to it! If the difficulty curve is retained, I expect that like many of our forerunners, Normal Act 3 would probably be a real testing ground of builds (without twinking and massive grinding). Also just out of curiosity, any thoughts on Refresh for Nature? We had -% recharge in SV since there was no cap to recharge reduction then, there might be potential for some fun with having Refresh (or putting something similar on soul/gear maybe).

[soa]

Also just out of curiosity, any thoughts on Refresh for Nature? We had -% recharge in SV since there was no cap to recharge reduction then, there might be potential for some fun with having Refresh (or putting something similar on soul/gear maybe).

Why not on souls or gear. Maybe a special MI for A5. For now, I'd rather let Nature as it is and gather feedback.

[Vadumee]

Hi, I wondered if there is still some spots as beta tester, I would have no problems with the conditions (I usually play from level 1 & untwiked in multiplayer), and having to delete my character isn't really an issue for me either.

In any cases, I'm happy that the mod is still been worked on, props to you guys ! 

[icefreeze]

Hm, i wonder if the BETA start or not?
Today is the last day of the duration that mentioned to get it (maybe the 1st wave).

[soa]

I'm preparing a link right now. Currently all the people who asked will be granted a link.
Trying to fix one more bug before sending it though.

[soa]

A link has been sent to the participants of the beta. This is the version 1.00 of the mod, not because it is finished, but to help making the difference with the previous version (SV 0.98i).
Tell me if you haven’t got your link.

The mod is lighter (around 500MB) because the map is the same as the original game for now, and I don’t use several resources files from the original Underlord/Soulvizier.

Changelog of the last few days :
-   Fixed some nasty bugs in the mod and in the official database (Ragnarok loottables)
-   Integrated half of A2 creatures (in A1 only wraiths are not done)
-   Artifact formulas and forge items now appear in merchants inventory (artifact+scrolls for mage merchants, forge formulas for regular(“warrior”) merchants. “General merchants” that sell both types of stuff are treated as mage or warrior depending on the case
-   Playtested a bit, adjusted the XP curve (I gave too much XP at the beginning) and reduced difficulty (still more difficult than base game, and you may still meet heroes or bosses that you can’t seem to defeat).
-   Changed player animations to be closer to Soulvizier animations

Now thank you all for your support and participation, I’m waiting for your feedback !
I wish you all a wonderful New Year !

Feedback can be posted here or by private message, as you wish (try to avoid emails for that). I need to make a proper presentation thread for the mod, this topic is a bit of a mess.

[icefreeze]

Can you packed the mod  into custom map folder when the mod finished?

[soa]

I recently changed the mod to be a "hard" mod (not in custommaps, need to replace some existing files) because I hope that it will help to solve some bugs.
I'm not sure of it though.
But for now, you only have 2 files to replace (database and text) in game directory. For templates, even if a bit different should work OK even with the official game.

When I played the original Soulvizier, I just made a .bat file with a shortcut for Soulvizier that changed the name of files (database, Resources, Saves). And another one for the official game.
That way there was no accident like entering the official game with a Soulvizier character.

[icefreeze]

I recently changed the mod to be a "hard" mod (not in custommaps, need to replace some existing files) because I hope that it will help to solve some bugs.
I'm not sure of it though.
But for now, you only have 2 files to replace (database and text) in game directory. For templates, even if a bit different should work OK even with the official game.

When I played the original Soulvizier, I just made a .bat file with a shortcut for Soulvizier that changed the name of files (database, Resources, Saves). And another one for the official game.
That way there was no accident like entering the official game with a Soulvizier character.

I hope you packed it as custom map, it easier to swap between original game and Soulvizier mod.

BTW: do you online much on forum's Discord channel?
I think you should add any Admin create a section for Soulvizier mod on there, so people can report about Soulvizier mod for you asap.

* Report: why there are many "neon-green" turtle at beach before reach Megara. Each of this turle strong like a hero (about dmg), and they using range attack...

[siegefried]

* Report: why there are many "neon-green" turtle at beach before reach Megara. Each of this turle strong like a hero (about dmg), and they using range attack...

In Soulvizier there are elite mobs. These mobs can be extremely challenging to deal with, and it is recommended that you avoid engaging them if you are not ready. Elite mobs drop their own (new) charms though. They also tend to give a hefty chunk of exp if you clear them. Not sure of the build and the exact issues you are facing, but elite mobs can easily be a cause of death in SV...

[botebote77]

aye I'm going to download as soon as i can but as soon as i can maybe means in a few days

iirc, soulvizier always replaces the original game.. soa is just sticking to the original soulvizier.. no problem with that.. i remember clearly i had a different installation folder for SV and i ended up not touching the original

* Report: why there are many "neon-green" turtle at beach before reach Megara. Each of this turle strong like a hero (about dmg), and they using range attack...

ah the memories