[MattCaspermeyer]

Okay, I've inlined both @jorko80's and @Fatt_Shade's comments where appropriate and responded accordingly...

Originally Posted by Fatt_Shade

Hello jorko80

Glad you stayed with this mod. As i said before enemy heroes fights are great part of this mod.

That makes two of us!

Originally Posted by jorko80

Hello Matt!
I didn't had much time to play in the last two weeks, but I have some feedback now.
In general I cleared the pirate lands and the dwarven lands including the subterrains and Mechgard. The game is interesting ,but the challenge is definately not like impossible. The pirates were like normal and the dwarves felt like hard at best, so maybe some meat% increasing should be done or creature stats changed if possible.

I have some ideas to make the normal battles tougher, but I was saving them for AP / CW and then possibly roll them back into TL.

You know, when I play TL now, I do as much as possible without even fighting, I think the last game I played I got up to level 5 or 6 before I even fought my first fight.

There are quite a few quests that you can do before you go to the Western Islands without fighting - it sounds like you are also using this strategy.

When I first did my TL mod development, I was not nearly as good as I am now. Also, I didn't know how to edit the *.LOC files, etc.

Now that I've gained all this experience with not only modding and playing TL, I've got some even better ideas for making it harder.

So we'll see how it goes as I continue to work on AP / CW and eventually roll what I learn there back into TL...

Originally Posted by jorko80

The hero vs hero fights are really interesting,very good job . I liked Duke Sov fight very much, he was a real pain in the ass.

Thanks! This part of the mod works really well and you'll find that it is continuously challenging throughout the game.

The problem with the normal battles is that you simply have a huge advantage against them as they have no spell caster to help them.

Originally Posted by jorko80

When James is killed you can go to the dwarven lands. So going in the upper and lower Haddar is good,but then when you get to Taron mines ,you can without any problem bypass the creatures and access the Dwarven King's palace and then his sons palace and that is too much. You get many things too easily. So this is solved in the GM-mod, by making one immobile guard in Taron mines,so you can't get past it without fighting and I like it a lot.

I did not change this part of the game so everything is as it is.

Originally Posted by jorko80

In the standard version of the game it is also possible to continue even further - descend from Taron mines to the zone where the Demon world entrance is and enter bypassing the guards. And in the demon world there are so many precious things and experience that it must be not so easily done also. So the decision is another immobile guard in front of the entrance.

I do not currently know how to implement the immobile guards, but this sounds like a good idea. Although I think I'm a bit spoiled as I really enjoy running around everyone to get the goodies (plus it gives me a chance to get Gerda), but you are right about putting garrisons to make the game more challenging.

I'll have to learn how to affect the creatures movement paths as I have no idea on how to do this.

Originally Posted by jorko80

Another thing is the Gremlin castle that you buy from the dwarven king. Entering there gives you access to at least 2 black dragon eggs,which are easy to get again bypassing the guards. And again there should be immobile guards to the eggs, otherwise getting 2 black dragons so early means devastation of everything.

Wow, you know all the shortcut strategies. Immobile guards sounds like a good idea - looks like I've got more to learn!

Originally Posted by Fatt_Shade

2) Gremlin castle making it so you have to fight first before entering is good idea and i like it, which would make ppl wait before buying it. Because game is set so difficulty of item battles is determined on hero lvl in moment you buy/get item. This i figured out by accident when got 2 same items and suppressing them gave me different battle and different exp. So higher hero lvl = tougher item battle = more exp. So why buy gremlin castle as soon as you get to dwarf king, if you can w8 and get it 10lvl later and get bunch more exp for it, instead those 2 dragon eggs and some gold if you get it soon and kite around it.

This is a really neat idea! I wonder how to do it, though...

Originally Posted by jorko80

Next point : my favorite theme - the Spirits . Zerock seems to be ok so far,not overpowered and usable,the same goes for Slime. But then comes Lina. The Ice thorns are nicely changed, I like them so far, the ice ball seems to be ok, but I didn't developed it much so I cant really say. But the Chargers are seriously overpowered. Being able to cast them every turn replenishes everything way too easy even with the mage and I suppose with fighters is easier. They should be nerfed a lot. At least a bigger rest and lower their number.

Your Charger mileage will probably start to decrease when it becomes more important to do damage than replenish mana / rage. Also, you don't get much experience for Lina if you use them a lot, so I think you'll find that the Chargers strategy will put you at a disadvantage later, with a lower level Lina (which you'll need for her to get some levels otherwise you'll be in big trouble later).

So think of them as candy - they taste really good now, but later you'll be regretting that you ate so much!

Originally Posted by Fatt_Shade

3) spirits are better then in original game settings, i like them. But as you said some changes are due. I set some things weaker then in Mat`s settings and it`s not difficult, but if you`re not sure what you`re doing better ask for advice then make problem with game files. Making Lina chargers is fast and i could help you , or Mat could give you advice how to do it.

I think all the Spirit abilities now have a place in the game, but you'll find that sooner or later ones that you thought were really awesome are now not doing it for you and you'll move on to other ones.

But if you really want to change values, then they are in:

• ZEROCK.ATOM
• SLIME.ATOM
• LINA.ATOM
• DEATH.ATOM

Originally Posted by jorko80

Scroll prices - I think they are too high , I've got too much money selling them,that means I can loose much army and replenish it easily. At least in impossible you should make them 3-4 times cheaper.
Trade skill is useless - you spend so much runes to get it to lvl3 and you can never sell so many things so that you can buy your runes back. So with so high scroll prices I just leave it to lvl1 ,keep my runes and still get much money from selling scrolls to be able to buy army and some runes.

All the scroll prices I computed via formula, They are based on how much the spell increases per level and stuff like that. You probably haven't spent any money on Tibold's Runes, yet, and so you're rolling in the dough. But you'll find that you won't get enough runes to get all the skills you'd like and then you'll be wanting more income and wish you hadn't sold them before you got your trade skill up.

I'm always out of money at the end of the game, because I'm buying crystals and runes. So we'll have to wait and see if you have excess runes at the end of your game.

I did have quite a few extra Mind Runes at the end of my last Paladin game, but this was the first time that ever happened with my mod so I slightly tweaked the Paladin Rune level up. Made me wish I had implemented the AP / CW Rune Exchange system since I wanted another level in Dark Commander since I was running with Demons and didn't have enough Might Runes, but plenty of Mind Runes. I think I might know how to do this and was planning on implementing it some time in the future...

So keep playing and we'll see how you're doing when you want some more Runes...

If you're playing no loss, you really only need a very small amount of money to buy enough troops if you stick with them throughout the game.

I like to trade wives and switch armies a lot so I end up spending a lot more money on troops than normal to take advantage of the wife / kid bonuses...

Originally Posted by Fatt_Shade

4) Trade skills/scroll prices etc ... Gold never was big problem in this game, and to me and i`m sure many other lvling trade is only because we want skills after it. But that particular skill really have low potential, and nothing better to do with it, so bear with it and lvlup other skills more useful.

This part of the game, I really didn't affect directly. I think the original TL you can get gobs of money, too, but can spend it on Runes really quickly as I mention above...

Originally Posted by jorko80

Meditation skill is also not comparable to the other skills so it just stays to lvl1 ,maybe it must give something more to give some incentive to the player to spend the runes on it.

Yah, meditation is a toughie to make useful, but the Runes aren't really that much, although I can see not putting much into it until you start using a lot of level 3 spells and find that you're low on mana a lot.

Originally Posted by jorko80

You have increased the mana needed to cast many spells and also increased the mana that the hero acquires by leveling and skills. I think it's well balanced with one exception. You left the artifacts that give mana the same and that makes them useless. For example there is a picture artifact that gives 20 mana and that was a major artifact in the original game, now I don't even consider using it, it makes almost no difference and it's not competitive with the other arts. It should give at least 40-50 mana to be competitive. And the other mana-arts should be increased respectivly.

Yah, well you can see that I left all the original items alone. You can actually get that artifact without fighting a single battle at the beginning of the game, so it is still useful early. You just out grow it quickly if you're a mage. It is still useful to Warrior and perhaps Paladin...

Originally Posted by Fatt_Shade

5) items losing usefulness comparing to original game. I think this was main idea. Making you have kids with wife, instead telling her you should wait with family plans, and keep her as simple mule to lug items around. You can carry what ever you want in inventory, but leave your wife to rise children, and keep her busy And randomness with kids is great thing, you can get great pick, or you can have shi.y luck and get battle oriented kids with mage hero or opposite spell kids with warrior/paladin On this topic, what wife/kids you running in your build ?

Right! Now you want to have children so you can get better items for your mage...

I'll second the wife / kids question!

Originally Posted by jorko80

The spell sheep is too powerful because of it's duration , I think it should be with at least -1 base turn duration. Now when I cast it I don't think for that creature too long, that's too easy.

Well, you'll be cursing it when it's used on you and it lasts that long! Plus, you probably haven't noticed, but a unit's resistance affects spell duration. Cast spells on troops with magic resistance and the spell duration increases if it is a bonus spell or decreases if it is a penalty. Fire resistance affects the duration of burn, etc.

Originally Posted by jorko80

Spell Fireball is a bit weak, in the center it does less damage then the flaming arrow and in general it is not so usable, it should do 20% more compared to flaming arrow ,it is quite expensive ,so more damage is required.The same goes for Fire Rain, it is also a bit weak.

This is by design. Think about it, why would you use Flame Arrow if it does less damage than Fireball / Fire Rain to one target? Mana may be one reason, but usually this relegates use of the spell to the end of the combat when you are more trying to surgically weaken enemies for recovery.

The purpose of single damage spells / rage abilities is that they will do the most damage to a single target, this round. The multi-target damage spells like Fireball / Fire Rain are meant to do more aggregate damage to targets, possibly for this round (depends on the number of units you can target), but should provide more damage in the long run.

Also consider Fireball / Fire Rain - how should these spells be different? You'll note that Fireball damages the central target more than Fire Rain, but the periphery less. So you can see that Fireball is sort of a mixture of Fire Arrow and Fire Rain in a way.

Also you'll note that all the demon male enemy heroes use Fireball and demon females use Fire Rain!

So there is a lot more strategy to spell choice now as you have to consider whether you want to do more damage to a single target or spread it out and whether you want to maximize damage on this round or over many rounds.

Also, there is Greasy Mist that you can use as well to drop their resistance in hopes of doing more damage in the long run.

I think you'll find that there are a lot of subtleties like this that dramatically increase the strategy of how you fight a battle...

Originally Posted by Fatt_Shade

6) spells, as you mentioned pure spell dmg is not main effect but burning/poisoning effects, and more attention is toward buff/debuff spells because here high intellect bonuses work as was described in original game but never implemented (blind,sheep,haste... all those spells work longer for high int bonus).

Right, I think you'll find that you're really going to crave intellect now. Remember what the description for a mage says at the beginning of the game? It says that the Mage's armies are much smaller and so you're going to find that this is actually the case, but your spells will be potent if you can get that intellect up. And so will the enemy mage hero spells with their high intellect...

Originally Posted by jorko80

Unit Canonner - there is no logic that it has no melee penalty.

I didn't change this - but I think I can understand the logic. The cannonball actually might do even more damage if you were in front of it!

I don't think I'd want to stand in front of a cannon!

I don't think Bugs Bunny can stick his carrot into the barrel and have it explode in the Cannoneer's face! Ha! That'd be funny!

Originally Posted by jorko80

The hero Big Pato - he is supposed to be a super dumb warrior and you gave him the ability to cast spells. He was very challenging before anyway. So maybe you should remove the spells and make his creatures harder or whatever you think fits,but no spells

That's what you think!

Big Pato has a skill tree just like you and he picked his level-ups just like you picked yours! So he decided to pick a couple of Mage School Skills and spent his hard-earned crystals on learning some spells!

So leave poor Big Pato alone!

Originally Posted by jorko80

Now some bugs I encountered :
-Another 2 heroes that dont appear in battle : Zombie Noric and Thorny Dog

Fatt_Shade is right here...

Originally Posted by jorko80

-Red Beard tries to cast something,maybe it's phantom ,but it just gives a writing on the screen and nothing happens.

I don't think I've ever fought Red Beard - let me check his spells and see if I can find the problem...

Originally Posted by jorko80

-Drammina has the shroud bug . I removed shroud from her spells and left her with the other two. One of them was the ghost blade I think, but it was strange that she didn't cast anything for the first 2 turns of the fight.

This is fixed now, right? Shroud should work now - I tested it out with Dirty Butory and Shroud worked fine. I'll check her spells...

Originally Posted by jorko80

-The Archmage's Telekinesis is not working correctly or maybe you changed it somehow. Sometimes it works and sometimes not, I couldn't figure it out.

I haven't had any trouble with it, but I'll check it!

Originally Posted by jorko80

-The Royal Thorn's Entangle skill works on ghosts ,no logic in that.

This shouldn't be as ghosts are floating and Entangle shouldn't work on any floating units (this should be Ghosts, Dryads, Sprites, Dragonflies, etc.). So I will check this...

Originally Posted by jorko80

-You added a decription to the Giants that says they can't be frozen, but the Lina's Ice thorns did freeze them.

It's Resistance to Cold, not immunity, but I see that the comment is in there for Geyser and Ice Snake. I didn't consider this for when I did Lina's Ice Thorns.

I probably should change the description as Fire Immune creates can't be burned, but Fire Resistance ones can.

Technically, there are no Cold Immune creatures in the game, but the Resistance to Cold was meant to act like immunity.

So I'll think about this some more, but probably make it consistent with Fire / Poison Immunity / Resistance...

Originally Posted by jorko80

-I cast 2 flaming arrows on the first turn and set on fire two creatures. When their turn comes ,the first one burns and playies and then the second one doesnt burn. It burns on the next turn with full burn damage if there is no creature that burns before it. That applies to poisoning also or any combination between them, just the first creature takes damage.

This is one of my listed bugs. The way it works is that if effect kills enemy unit, then if the next turn is another enemy unit, then the damaging (any, i.e. burning, poison, etc.) effect is not applied. So if burning kills an enemy stack and the next turn is another enemy stack with burning (or poison) then it will not do anything. If the enemy stack is not killed then it always works.

I tried really hard to squish this bug, but I think it is a bug in the game as I noticed that in AP / CW the amount of damage will always attenuate such that it never kills a stack.

I'll still try to squish this one, but I haven't found a way yet...

Originally Posted by jorko80

I like the changed mechanics for burning and poisoning that the creatures take half the damage and so on
This is what I can say so far.

I'm a huge fan of this system!

Well, thanks again for the awesome comments! These are very helpful!

Originally Posted by jorko80

Now about the mod you work on for Armored Princess. I have a proposal.
Armored Princess has so many mods already. So many creatures,so many changes, it is flooded. So my point is that you can do a mod for Warrior of the north,instead of giving your time and efforts on the Princess. It has a good potential and desperately requires a mod to make it more challenging and balance many things.The way it is in the moment makes it absolutely boring to be played for a second time and so on. Please consider it . If you do, I can give some feedback. And I don't understand modding so well, in case you ask "why don't I do this myself"

I hear you completely! I never played past the Spider in WotN because of all the bugs, and then I played a little last night and was fighting the Undead in the snow in Nordlig and it crashed after I fought 4 stacks and was going to go talk to Dorri (or whatever that drunk's name is that was accused of stealing the necklace). Sigh.

Well, with things the way they are with my current state of affairs of the too many tomes problem, it may actually be possible to mod AP / CW / WotN simultaneously.

It seems like there's going to be no more updates on WotN as far as I can tell and since I'm doing my best now to rename functions I modify (unlike TL where I just modded the original functions) and place them in new files it is easy to transfer them to a new expansion even if there are more updates.

I really like a lot of the game mechanics that I've added to TL and it has been a great learning experience. The developers have made the expansions a lot more robust with respect to modding in AP / CW (and hopefully WotN, too). For example, if you misspell a template macro in TL and highlight the item, the game just freezes! In AP / CW, the game says #NF so that you can go fix it!

So I'll see what I can do about modding WotN, too, but I've got to be careful not to spread myself too thin, otherwise I'll end up working on this forever and not get anything done!

It'll be great to hear your comments as you get further into the game - thanks!

And, as always, thanks to @Fatt_Shade's comments, too!



Matt

/C\/C\