Manteras Mod - Detailed feedback

[tommyg]

My in depth feedback on the mod:

GENERAL FEEDBACK

- Insane mode really is a lot harder! Level 1 caves seem much harder which is really nice. It truly feels like the environment is against you now, rather than games where you have to purposely play not to take advantage of bad game mechanics or balance. After a few difficult starts I managed to find a tactic by using my warrior to tank, supported with heals from my magelord while archers attacked.

In my opinion, the difficulty level of this mode is just fine, it is designed to be very difficult and for more experienced players. It's difficult without being impossible or frustrating, though I have yet to kill Balkoth as I couldn't pierce his armor yet.

- The bonus attribute scrolls, which allow a champion to gain some additional bonus points are a nice touch and add a small degree of personalization to your champions, making champions which you've had a long time and given additional stats to even more valuable. I notice these only seemed to drop early game from lower level dungeons, these are so much fun to use, maybe also add them to higher level encounters too?

- New Spells: it was a pleasant surprise to see bonus spells available for research at the library, having played my fav faction, life, so many times the new spells really adds some fresh mystery back into the game. I will be playing through Chaos and air, my other favorite factions, at another point to check out their new spells. Props on the lore description of the spells too, they seem to fit well within the context of the rest of the game and don't feel out of place, they are also very well written and match the tone of LOM.

One question about spells, I noticed I couldn't research Ray of Hope, how can I gain this spell, I cleared out all the dungeons within my territory so not sure how I can get this final combat spell? Are all the faiths most powerful offensive spells acquired in the same way, or just life's?

- I had zero stability issues or crashes, so no issues there.

- Obvious point, but balance is hugely improved over the original, I was not sad to see my elven archers had been nerfed as they were too powerful in vanilla and made the game too easy by just spamming whole armies of the same unit.

LATE GAME

- As I’ve mentioned in other threads, the late game (100+ turns) has always felt lacking. By this stage, your main army has become so powerful and maxed out their XP, most of the rival lords or dead, usualy by Balkoths hand or their own stupid AI decisions, and the game starts to become too easy and begins to stagnate.

Insane mode fixes some of these issues, the fact each faith gets x3 Lords is awesome and wars against other faiths actually feel like long term affairs father than just getting that lucky snipe against their lord. Wars feel epic now, and the rival lords are actually something to be feared! This in turn makes diplomacy far more important, I was actually in a situation where I needed to give Air tons of units to bring up their attitude toward me and stop sending troops at my capital, as I wasn't powerful enough to defeat them yet. I’ve never been in this situation before in vanilla LOM as the AI was so stupid and easy, even on hard mode.

Though the game still has that issue over what to do with your most powerful army in later stages, as it feels pointless still using your main army when they are maxed out on XP unless you really need to. I therefore suggest raising the XP level cap to 15 for champions and 10 for basic units. However, before you think this is crazy, I propose making XP gain extremely slow once the champion hits level 10, or level 5 for standard units.

So the soft level cap would be 10 for champions, once they hit 10 any XP gain is very slow. This would encourage you to still use your main army and the player can feel like they're still gaining levels and progressing, just a lot slower. And when I say slower, I mean like x10 or x20 times slower than standard XP gain, so in most games they would probably never actually hit the level 15 mark, but the option is there if they want to keep leveling.

Another issue with late game is now small the standard Urak map is, and with everyone having x3 lords, the game can feel a little crowded. Insane mode with an expanded Urak map would be the logical next step, but I've mentioned this in other threads.

There is also a lack of dungeons to explore and conquer late game, again a larger map with more dungeons is the logical solution. Obviously, this is not a criticism of the mod, as these issues exist in the vanilla game.

GRAPHICAL CHANGES: While most of my feedback is positive, my strongest criticism of the mod are it's unnecessary graphical changes to the Lord character portraits. The mod switches certain lord portraits with either fan made custom sketches or existing champion portraits, I don't understand the motivation or thinking behind this.

Although some vanilla champion portraits are objectively terrible, the Lord portraits are in general the best out of the lot. They are not bad portraits and there's no need to replace them, the new portraits could replace some of the lesser quality champion portraits.

This may sound superficial, but for some players the character portraits help them become attached to their lord, it also brings back a lot of nostalgia. I was very surprised to find that the life warrior portrait has been changed, the original portrait is beautiful and iconic to LOM, similarly, the Air Thief lord portrait has been switched, despite the original capturing the cheeky and childlike quality of the farie race perfectly. As a long time LOM fan, it's sad to see these iconic lord portraits discarded for the sake of change.

Perhaps one option would be to release a separate PIC file for the mod without these changes, perhaps this already exists?

IMPROVEMENTS

- When you hover over an allied unit it should show the HP bar, this would be useful when dishing out healing spells. (I understand this feature may not be possible to mod!)

- BUG: Life heal wounds doesn't appear to show magic graphic effect when cast on target unit.

- The semi transparent menus look nice but in some cases they can cause confusion, cases where semi transparent UI is particularly confusing and should be returned to standard panels: In City screens when accessing tavern/Temple/Market etc. Also in parley screen when selecting items to trade.

- Thieves should receive XP for carrying out stealing or espionage activities, they should still get the XP even if this fails, but there should be a daily XP ceiling to protect against exploitation of repetitive actions and XP farming.

The reason I mention this, often I'd like to send out my most high level thief out into the world, and engage in some thieving shenanigans, but I just can't afford for her to miss out on the XP gain from dungeon crawling with my main army.

It's so important to get a high level champion of each faith for experience transfer in your buildings as soon as possible, you can't afford to send your thief out thieving. But if these champions received XP for thieving actions, then this could be a viable career option for your thieves. Also, thieves should get a small amount of static xp when they are successfully stealth in enemy territories. But this would be hard to implement, and most likely outside the scope of this mod.

- Still on the subject of thieves, if a thief from another lord gets caught and goes into combat, the faith which discovered the thief should not become loathed for killing the thief in this way. I’ve had factions which were empathy with me auto enter combat with a thief that was probably just espionage for information or possible stealing from me, the faction then loath me for killing their thief. When really, it's their thieves fault for getting caught, if anything, it should be me that should be insulted not them.

- Also, this is more of a personal request but could the life thief get a little buff to damage please? She is so paper thin, in vanilla LOM, she is super vulnerable, but she makes up for it by her damage. It feels like the Life thief got nerfed a lot in the mod and is just super vulnerable without bringing much to the battlefield.

Anyway, this is my feedback of the mod, sorry it's so long, but I wanted to give some in depth thoughts on the positives and negatives. The mod does a great job of fixing or improving on some of the shortcomings of the original, but there are still some big issues with the game in general that would be too big for the mod to address, perhaps these can only be fixed through a remake, given the technical limitations of modding such an old game.

Thank you again to Booster who has dedicated so much time and enthusiasm in developing this amazing mod! It was great fun reliving this old game from my youth and I plan to start a new game as an Air Mage Lord next, on insane mode of course

[Boaster]

Thanks for the input!

The experience for thief activities was considered. The only thing I decided to go with, at least for now (or then)--on a practical basis--was executing a Prisoner. Execution of Prisoners will yield experience, as it now eliminates the reason to release a prisoner to then engage it in combat.

When I balanced all units, I tried to give each unit their own sensible flavor. The Life Thief's strength comes from their marksmanship with their bow and not so much their daggers. So, Life Thief is meant to be swift, and powerful at a distance. Like for example, Death Thieves are powerful close-range killers, but not great melee fighters. Fire Thieves are stout and slow, and pack a knuckle sandwich if you get close enough. Ranger's are the jack of all trades, but kind of slow like Fire Thieves. Air Thieves have flight, and good range, but they're rather fragile. Each has its own pros and cons.


I don't know about the HP bar thing. Not sure how I could isolate such a feature.


I can potential code-in the graphical interface changes can to be toggled. So, this can be done.

Ray of Hope, as per the research book says it can be learned in one of three implicit ways: Spell Scroll (in this case, yes), Artifact (such as "Legendary - Staff of Light" which in this case, yes) or by Special Building (in this case, no). Most artifacts will yield full knowledge under conditions of wielder level and current turn. I have considered making tweaks to the conditions with these artifacts (like including Wisdom as a consideration).

I had planned for the GS6 (basically a pipe dream at this time) for one Military Unit from each faith being able to achieve Level 6, where the sixth level would require basically the same experience it took to reach Level 5 to make it to Level 6.

At one point, I had it for Lords going from Level 14 to 15 took an extremely high level of experience. In some ways, yes, it's pretty extreme. But, at level 14, you're a pretty powerful and experienced Lord. And level 15 only yielded the benefit of the Level itself, no other stats except double the normal 'HP per Level' gain.

Stability issues with the game would often occur with graphics, which was remedied in the only way I could: Increasing 'maxgraphics'.

Cure Wounds should show a graphic for healing, but the game started reacting meanly when I expanded the complexity of spell functions (like 'pre_mods', 'post_mods' et al).

The Bonus attribute scrolls should typically be found in higher level encounters. However, maps with randomly generate dungeons may behave differently based upon number of available encounters and difficulty level. Try some of the maps included with the mod RAR file, in the maps folder. They have pre-placed dungeons, and plenty of them.

The file 'PORTRAITS5.gs' can be modified, if you choose, to reset portraits to how you want. Often times, you can right-click a champion's portrait and find you can switch to originals or additional alternates. Open up the character stat panel, and right click the protrait.

[tommyg]

Feb 23, 2022 19:19:04 GMT -6 Boaster said:

Thanks for the input!

The experience for thief activities was considered. The only thing I decided to go with, at least for now (or then)--on a practical basis--was executing a Prisoner. Execution of Prisoners will yield experience, as it now eliminates the reason to release a prisoner to then engage it in combat.

When I balanced all units, I tried to give each unit their own sensible flavor. The Life Thief's strength comes from their marksmanship with their bow and not so much their daggers. So, Life Thief is meant to be swift, and powerful at a distance. Like for example, Death Thieves are powerful close-range killers, but not great melee fighters. Fire Thieves are stout and slow, and pack a knuckle sandwich if you get close enough. Ranger's are the jack of all trades, but kind of slow like Fire Thieves. Air Thieves have flight, and good range, but they're rather fragile. Each has its own pros and cons.


I don't know about the HP bar thing. Not sure how I could isolate such a feature.


I can potential code-in the graphical interface changes can to be toggled. So, this can be done.

Ray of Hope, as per the research book says it can be learned in one of three implicit ways: Spell Scroll (in this case, yes), Artifact (such as "Legendary - Staff of Light" which in this case, yes) or by Special Building (in this case, no). Most artifacts will yield full knowledge under conditions of wielder level and current turn. I have considered making tweaks to the conditions with these artifacts (like including Wisdom as a consideration).

I had planned for the GS6 (basically a pipe dream at this time) for one Military Unit from each faith being able to achieve Level 6, where the sixth level would require basically the same experience it took to reach Level 5 to make it to Level 6.

At one point, I had it for Lords going from Level 14 to 15 took an extremely high level of experience. In some ways, yes, it's pretty extreme. But, at level 14, you're a pretty powerful and experienced Lord. And level 15 only yielded the benefit of the Level itself, no other stats except double the normal 'HP per Level' gain.

Stability issues with the game would often occur with graphics, which was remedied in the only way I could: Increasing 'maxgraphics'.

Cure Wounds should show a graphic for healing, but the game started reacting meanly when I expanded the complexity of spell functions (like 'pre_mods', 'post_mods' et al).

The Bonus attribute scrolls should typically be found in higher level encounters. However, maps with randomly generate dungeons may behave differently based upon number of available encounters and difficulty level. Try some of the maps included with the mod RAR file, in the maps folder. They have pre-placed dungeons, and plenty of them.

The file 'PORTRAITS5.gs' can be modified, if you choose, to reset portraits to how you want. Often times, you can right-click a champion's portrait and find you can switch to originals or additional alternates. Open up the character stat panel, and right click the protrait.

Ah, so it is possible to script XP gain for thief actions? Have you ever played Total War Warhammer? It's probably the closest modern game to LOM available, and mixes turn based strategy with real time combat. They have hero characters in the game which can perform similar functions to a thief but also have a combat role, so you can decide to level your hero up through combat or overland by performing actions against enemy armies. The system works fine in Total War, and I think it would really add more "career" options for your thieves.

With regard to the flavor of every faith, I completely agree, and you’ve done a great job of making all the faiths unique in their own way whilst also balanced. I've previously worked on a lot of Warcraft 3 modding, designing grand strategy maps with wildly different factions, so I know how difficult it is to get balance right. I think the term is "asymmetric balancing", when the factions are all completely different yet somehow balanced.

Anyway, I wasn't actually referring to the Life thief's melee attack, she's so fragile that entering her into close combat would be suicide, and that's fine as close combat is not one of Life's strengths. But what I was actually talking about was her ranged combat damage, it seemed weaker than in vanilla LOMSE? If you haven't actually changed this field, then clearly there is some unconscious bias on my part! (The life thief is one of my favorite units) But even so, I would argue that her ranged attack doesn't make up for her poor close combat skills, fragility, and slow missile speed.

 

About the HP bar, I thought it would probably be too much of a stretch for the mod, it's more of a quality of life feature request than essential change, especially for faiths like water and life who rely a lot on healing. It can be hard to target the exact unit that needs healing.

With regard to experience gain, in my opinion only allowing the player to have one level 6 troop unit is overly restrictive and simply not worth it. The difference between 1 level isn't particularly huge, I strongly believe an extension of level gain beyond the standard level 5 and level 10 would add to late game content. On a large map with three times the dungeons as standard Urak, and the Insane mode 3 lords per faith option, extended leveling would make use of all the extra dungeons. The balancing factor would be the sheer amount of XP required to reach levels 11+ on a champion and 6+ on a troop unit, and would require multiple level 11 dungeon encounters to get there.

I'm not sure if I understand the complexities of the Healing graphic bug, but I totally understand how hard it must be to mod a game of this age, it's amazing what's already been achieved!

From my play through of the mod I was sure I was getting the attribute scrolls on 4-8 level dungeons, but I could be mistaken. My next game I intend to use Mummra's extended Urak map on Insane mode, once I’ve placed all the many dungeons on my edited version, hopefully I will get more attribute scrolls on this play through.

I didn't know you could change the champion portraits in game, just tested it on the Life thief lord, and it works, thanks!

On the topic of graphics, I notice the new item pictures all appear to be from Blizzard classic games. Is this because Sierra was brought by Blizzard many years ago, is this a self-imposed restriction in light of potential copyright? If so, I don't think you have anything to worry about. I've made Warcraft mods with countless asset rips from other, non Blizzard games. I made a Lord of the Rings mod that used a lot of ripped game assets and I didn't get Tolkien estate lawyers at my door, even though they are notoriously protective about their copyright. As your mod is free and not for commercial purposes, it's highly unlikely any company would attempt a copyright claim. I mention this because I feel like there are better visual options available for new items that would better mesh with the artistic style of LOM, let me know if you want help finding potential images.

[Boaster]

The ability to change champion portraits in the mod was a creation that took a lot of figuring out and engineering. In fact, I had changed portraits around before I figured out how to implement the PORTRAIT5.gs file. Once I figured out how to manually change the otherwise hard coded portrait naming scheme, things really opened up there. If only I had figured that out before doing additional and replaced portraits in the latest version of the PIC5.

I used the graphics from other Blizzard games because I couldn't find anything remotely close to the style of LOM. I was familiar with those Blizzard games already. It wasn't a matter of copyright, as I'm not selling anything or claiming it as my own. Just in my own estimation, it seemed reasonable. Some have disagreed. I have, however, managed colorized alterations to existing icons and portraits for artifacts.

Life Thief may not be the absolute best ranged fighter, but they definitely have long range and high ranged attack.

[tommyg]

Hey Booster, so with regard to the Item Icons, the original images are hard to replicate as they are semi-realistic but with a strong light source on one side, giving it a high contrast, along with a very pixelated look (owing to the game's age).

I've taken some suitable images from Google and applied filters to make them look as close to the original style of LOM as I can. I don't know how successful I’ve been, as appropriate images are hard to find, but I do think they fit better with the LOM aesthetic than Warcraft icons. Obviously, the icons look small here, but will appear much harder in game due to resolution changes. I don't know if these are helpful but feel free to use them in the latest mod, if you want any more let me know as they don't take long to make!

Boots option 1

Boots option 2

Cloak of Justice replacement

Ring Option

Example Pic:

Life Ring

Now onto an issue regarding armor I wanted to mention, it's possible to abuse the way armor works in LOM quite easily, as any unit with a high enough armor becomes almost unkillable. People have stated Balkoth can become invulnerable this way, but also other more standard units can be abused in this way. I;ve had a battle end in a stalemate as I couldn't do enough damage to finish off an enemy champion, and he was perma stun locked. In the end I just had to flee as the battle would have lasted forever.

Perhaps is possible to fix these by having all attacks deal a minimum of 0.25 damage even in cases where armor is very high?

In regard to the Life Theif, to be honest I think it's a more overall issue with the game rather than the life theif perhaps, Theives are just not at all as powerful in combat late game as a mage or high level warrior. But I suppose you are meant to use them for espionage and stealing from enemy parties, so battle is not their primary function.

[lemminkainen]

Your icons look great!

For armor, I like the current game balance since it's Lords of MAGIC, sometimes magic is indeed much needed to bypass armor. Since Boaster implemented hardest settings, I'm having a lot of fun fighting tough fights and trying to incorporate every possible spell in my army.

[Boaster]

Jul 10, 2022 8:26:15 GMT -6 tommyg said:

Hey Booster, so with regard to the Item Icons, the original images are hard to replicate as they are semi-realistic but with a strong light source on one side, giving it a high contrast, along with a very pixelated look (owing to the game's age).

I've taken some suitable images from Google and applied filters to make them look as close to the original style of LOM as I can. I don't know how successful I’ve been, as appropriate images are hard to find, but I do think they fit better with the LOM aesthetic than Warcraft icons. Obviously, the icons look small here, but will appear much harder in game due to resolution changes. I don't know if these are helpful but feel free to use them in the latest mod, if you want any more let me know as they don't take long to make!

Boots option 1

Boots option 2

Cloak of Justice replacement

Ring Option

Example Pic:

Life Ring

Now onto an issue regarding armor I wanted to mention, it's possible to abuse the way armor works in LOM quite easily, as any unit with a high enough armor becomes almost unkillable. People have stated Balkoth can become invulnerable this way, but also other more standard units can be abused in this way. I;ve had a battle end in a stalemate as I couldn't do enough damage to finish off an enemy champion, and he was perma stun locked. In the end I just had to flee as the battle would have lasted forever.

Perhaps is possible to fix these by having all attacks deal a minimum of 0.25 damage even in cases where armor is very high?

In regard to the Life Theif, to be honest I think it's a more overall issue with the game rather than the life theif perhaps, Theives are just not at all as powerful in combat late game as a mage or high level warrior. But I suppose you are meant to use them for espionage and stealing from enemy parties, so battle is not their primary function.

These do look quite nice.

[tommyg]

I'd be honored if they were used in the next mod version!

How easy is it to add new Artifacts and add them to the dungeon spawning lists? There's already a huge variety which I think the mod expands upon, but more items is always nice, especially in the Large Urak play through, as I'm finding items much harder to come by.

[Boaster]

Jul 12, 2022 3:34:05 GMT -6 tommyg said:

I'd be honored if they were used in the next mod version!

How easy is it to add new Artifacts and add them to the dungeon spawning lists? There's already a huge variety which I think the mod expands upon, but more items is always nice, especially in the Large Urak play through, as I'm finding items much harder to come by.

Just add items to the list and they'll start appearing in new games.

The artifact graphics you provide would make a good addition, or replacement I think. I don't know when I'll be able to work on that one though.