[MONSTERS] Champions Mod v1.06

[Velari]

When the first adventurers arrived in Torchlight and fought their way to their goal, many of the creatures lurking under the once peaceful village felt shamed, as they had no champions within their ranks to challenge the brave heroes in combat.
To restore their honour, the various beasts vowed to find the strongest within their ranks. When more adventurers arrive in Torchlight, they will surely face the strongest warriors these creatures have to offer ...

Yeah, whatever.


As is the case with pretty much every Torchlight mod, take the mod directory called "Champions Mod" found within the zip file and place it in your mods directory.

This mod adds the following:
- a couple of enemy types
- champions for pretty much every enemy type
- bonuses to champions, mostly following the Diablo II schematic, with things like elementally enchanted stuff, stone skin, extra fast, etcetera
- added skills to some champions
- champions should now be immune to conversion/charm. Why this wasn't the case already eludes me to this day
- changed the map scrolls to a level 1-1000 range, so you don't always end up in the same tileset, such as the fortress when you previously took the level 15-30 map scroll

Note that I did not say "new enemy types." Considering they are basically just alterations of stuff already in the game, I don't feel I can call them "new" >_>

Download: http://www.runicgamesfansite.com/downlo ... ile&id=473
A video preview can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFoMTkvRSQw
Video preview of new stuff in version 1.01: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2w7H84oc_M
Video preview of new stuff in version 1.05: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efP7RSASuh8
Video preview of new stuff in version 1.06: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCLgn-XSNz8

Hardcore characters are advised to be careful, I've found that some of this stuff can be kind of dangerous. Then again, I had 0 poison resistance at the end of the game on my test run

The monsters will appear pretty much everywhere in the game, specifically the main dungeon, Hatch's portals, the standard map scroll dungeons, and the infinite dungeon. Version 1.02 of the Champions Mod will also affect the "challenge rooms" Runic Games added to Torchlight in the 1.15 patch for the game. Version 1.05 of the Champions Mod will also affect the little areas that Phase Beast portals lead to. If for whatever reason you don't want a certain dungeon to be affected, instructions are included to accomplish that.
While on this subject, this mod will inevitably conflict with anything that alters the normal dungeon files.

I guess I'll inevitably have to come back to this mod for balancing at some point or another - I certainly expect some of the random dungeon monster groups to not work out perfectly, for one, but I'll keep tweaking if necessary.

[Jonaleth]

YAY for randomness!!!

Great idea

[ChrisFiftyTwo]

Looks like a really good initiative to fix/improve several things I actually wanted to see in the game. I do however have some specific ideas what I want to change from the original (I am a semi-purist) so there are a few things I would rather not have in your mod.

My opinion on your changes:

- a couple of enemy types
Not quite clear on what you actually did here if you don't feel like you can call them "new". Can you be a bit more specific on what types that has been added? As mentioned I am a bit of a purist so if its minor changes I can probably live with it but too big stuff probably would put me of from using it.
- champions for pretty much every enemy type
Love this one. Been annoyed by the fact that a limited amount of enemies seem to be able to become Champions.
- bonuses to champions, mostly following the Diablo II schematic, with things like elementally enchanted stuff, stone skin, extra fast, etcetera
A bit torn about this one. Taking inspiration from Diablo II makes it have some potential so think it could work but could easily make them overpowered.
- added skills to some champions
Would like some clarification on this one. What kind of skills? Might also make champions a bit overpowered depending on what skills it is.
- champions should now be immune to conversion/charm. Why this wasn't the case already eludes me to this day
Great change
- added maps for all random dungeon types for the given level ranges. So if you now use, say, the level 15-30 map scroll, you can end up in any of the standard tilesets, rather than always finding yourself in the fortress
Good change as well

Hope you keep working on this mod and tweak it to perfection. Quite sure I will use it once I am bit more clear about the changes.
Would probably use it directly if there was a way to use the mod without the added skills, added bonuses and added enemy types. Is that a possibility by perhaps removing one of your modified files or do I have to use all of them for the mod to work?

[Velari]

Well, first off, I didn't elaborate much on any specifics in case people want to be surprised. If you want you can try the video preview to get an impression as far as the added stuff is concerned.

Simply removing a couple of files is probably not going to be sufficient to tailor this to your wishes. I guess I could make an alternate version, but that would certainly take some doing
I might look into what it'd take to alter it to just add "normal" champion versions of the original Torchlight enemies, while retaining some minor stuff like no conversion on champions. Then you'd basically have Torchlight with greater champion variety but without anything special added. Might actually not take <i>too</i> much trouble, thinking about how I structured this stuff.

At any rate, to supply you with some more specific information:

Spoiler: show

Again, the video will show a lot of this, but here we go.

Added enemy types include enemy versions of the Alchemist's golems and imps, scaled differently. I've thrown in unused enemies from the game, such as Cuddles (a troll meant to be a miniboss in the crypt section), Varkolyn Warriors and Dark Varkolyn, Corrupted Disciples, and an enemy version of Punchbag, a small troll enemy that originally does nothing and just has has a ton of HP. Also, there's the Dark Priestess, basically a Zealot with the "good zealot" skin (which is what Valeria uses), who doesn't have killer poison bolts and doesn't summon Enslaved, but has a decent bunch of spells to make up for that). You'll also find champion versions of these guys

Added skills to champions for example means that champion Tu'Tara Oathmasters can actually heal, as per their description. Even though normal Oathmasters should be able to heal, they actually don't have the healing skill they were intended to have ¬_¬ Champion Elementals have added skills. The Ice one spams more Ice Meteors, the Fire one has an added fireball type and a modified version of Doomquake. Champion Grave Robbers can dig up more than just the basic unarmed Skeleton. Champion Goblin Mages have Hexfire Potion, which is the name used in-game for Pyre. Modified it a bit, though.
There's a few more, but this should give you an idea.

[ChrisFiftyTwo]

Thanks for the explanation. Hope I have not been too much trouble for you
When knowing a bit more exactly what changes you made it seems like you expanded on the original rather then added new stuff onto it.
Think this is a great mod to have to add some more randomness to the game and some extra challenge.

You wont be needing to make a separate version if you ask me (not now when I understood the changes better).
Thanks for your time and for the mod, will return here if I find anything to report about it.

[Velari]

Well, I can understand your concerns, since I personally don't use mods that make any major changes. Most of the mods I use are mostly or purely cosmetic in nature.

At any rate, I've been looking over everything, and I should be able to make a trimmed-down version without it taking a ridiculous amount of time. So if there's ever a demand for a more straightforward version that stays as close to the original Torchlight as possible, I should be able to fill said demand

[Jupiah]

This mod sounds awesome and I'd love to play it, but unfortunately Torchleech has found a few mod conflicts with some other mods I rather enjoy and don't really want to uninstall.

More Maps - your mod seems to do the same thing as this one, so I'm guessing this one would no longer be necessary and can be simply uninstalled?

Shadow Vault +: media\dungeons\randomdungeonpool.dat - I tried looking at the conflicting files to see if I could merge the changes from both, but it's beyond me.

Unearthed Evil: media\dungeons\main.dat - same problem as the previous mod, but the conflicting files are even larger. I have no idea how to go about merging them.

I'd really appreciate it if someone could combine these conflicting files I can use all these mods together.

[Velari]

Well, I don't use any of those mods so the degree to which I can post something meaningful here might be pretty limited, but oh well.

More Maps - your mod seems to do the same thing as this one, so I'm guessing this one would no longer be necessary and can be simply uninstalled?

Depends on your definition of them doing the same thing, as I see two likely differences (again, don't have the mod, so I'm making a few assumptions here based on its description).

Originally I just added map scrolls along the same structure that the already available use. This works fine for me since I almost never use maps and it was a relatively minor thing I just thought to implement. It wasn't long before a friend mentioned that the almost thirty generic maps added this way make it far less likely for map scrolls to dungeons people designed to show up. I didn't really consider this because I basically never use them >_>
Anyway, I scrapped that structure. Now instead, I changed the original seven map scrolls and the dungeon files they reference to to be available and accessible to levels 1-1000. This approach adds zero maps to the pool and should thus avoid the problem mentioned. So basically I tossed the entire idea of tying level ranges to these things out of the window, and now anyone can access any of the seven dungeon types at any level (unless someone has a mod that makes them able to level up to 1.000.000 or something ). Reading the description of the mod you mentioned, this is a different approach to achieving roughly the same goal.

The other thing is that that mod was put up by one of the Runic guys. That makes it easy for me to assume that they lead to dungeons with the standard spawnclasses. Mine, however, lead to dungeons that have altered spawnclasses (to make the added champions and whatnot show up).
... I could make a small separate mod for dungeons with the standard spawnclasses if people like my approach but want it outside of the scope of this mod, I guess.

Shadow Vault +: media\dungeons\randomdungeonpool.dat - I tried looking at the conflicting files to see if I could merge the changes from both, but it's beyond me.

Well, I said it would inevitably conflict with anything that alters the already existing dungeon files
That mod does a bunch of things to that file. Mine changes the spawnclasses it references to, again, make the added champions show up and that kind of thing. Without knowing the structure of what that mod does the only suggestion I have to possibly make them both work at the same time is to change the spawnclasses to the non-boss floors that are in that mod to the spawnclasses I used that are appropriate to that tileset.
... That would make the mods sort of cross-reference each other and I honestly have no idea whether that would work out. I've certainly never tried anything like that >_>

Unearthed Evil: media\dungeons\main.dat - same problem as the previous mod, but the conflicting files are even larger. I have no idea how to go about merging them.

That's the file for the main dungeon, so again, the same type of conflict I said would happen, and again for the same reasons. Could try cross-referencing again if you want to try having both mods work by either altering the spawnclasses in his main.dat to reflect mine and then deleting mine, or adding his stuff to my main.dat (I assume his new stuff is at the end of the file which would make it easy to find) and then deleting his main.dat. But again, I have no idea whether that would work out in a good way >_> Such alterations should definitely have a "proceed at your own risk" sign accompanying them


I don't know whether any of that helps, but at least I was able to elaborate on the conflicts >_> <_<

[ChrisFiftyTwo]

Been playing with your mod for a few hours now and I am really liking it. You defiantly notice how more types of monsters have the ability to become champions.
As you know I was worried about the bonuses and skills being added to the champions but seeing them in-game has convinced me its a good change. To be totally honest I didn't really notice them until I started looking more carefully at their descriptions and attacks. I think that is a good thing as it looks and feels natural, as if it was there all along. So think you did a great job with this mod.

Will defiantly have to be more careful in HC now. Some of them new champions I have meet have been deadly.

[Velari]

Well, I'm glad to hear that the things you were concerned about didn't end up ruining it for you

And yeah, as I mentioned, some of them can be kind of dangerous, heh. For example, personally I was pretty sure I'd die to the first Elemental champion I would encounter, and that's exactly what happened. Of course, it was a Poison Elemental, and as I mentioned I sort of lacked poison resistance on my test run.

If you ever run into something that seems ridiculously overpowered rather than just say, strong, dangerous, or challenging, feel free to let me know. It being perfectly balanced right off the bat is pretty much impossible. Especially without access to a horde of playtesters And who knows how this stuff will work out at say level ninety >_>

[TomaLexi]

Hey. Added this mod to the Ultimate Modlist Thread Website. Let me know if you want the description to be changed by telling me in the Ultimate Modlist Thread or via PM (:

[MONSTERS] Champions Mod
More different random champions, new bonuses etc, check the thread.
http://forums.runicgames.com/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=9523

[Velari]

Updated. Mostly some technical and cosmetic changes, tweaked a skill here, changed a scale here, restructured this one thing, did something to this other thing. You probably won't even notice any of it, honestly.

Oh, and I may have added

Spoiler: show

a few enemies, such as the Brood Mother, a spider that spawns small spider hatchlings. You probably will notice this, heh.

Considered making Brood Mother champions spawn normal Brood Mothers instead of the spiderlings, but figured that that might be overkill

Video preview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2w7H84oc_M

Edit: Added link to a video showing what I mentioned in the spoilers section. The link itself is in the spoilers section as well, if you were wondering. Also adding it to the opening post.

[Juno]

I just wanted to say thanks for creating this great mod. Having more than a couple basic affixes in the pool for champions was something I wanted since Torchlight was released, and I was going to add what was missing myself...but you beat me to it! I love how this makes each individual champion seem more unique and challenging .

A few questions though: Are you planning on adding any more affixes, or is the mod essentially complete? I'm also curious if it's possible to vary the number of affixes per difficulty level- that could give very hard mode a whole new meaning .

[goro3d]

This sounds like an awesome mod and I look forward to giving it a shot in the near future!
Just 2 questions! Does it support the lastest version of torchlight v1.15?
Does it conflict with other mods?

[Velari]

Does it support the lastest version of torchlight v1.15?

I assume it does since I don't believe there were any changes that may screw this up, but I can't say with 100% certainty as I don't have 1.15. It does inherently solve the "being slaughtered by Zealot Lightning" issue, though >_>
(more on that next question)

Does it conflict with other mods?

Well, certainly I already mentioned that it will inevitably conflict with anything that touches the dungeon files for the main dungeon, infinite dungeon, random dungeons, and Hatch's portals, and as Jupiah mentioned it does indeed conflict with Shadow Vault + and Unearthed Evil, which both do just that.

Also, it sort of conflicts with zebramatt's Zealot Rebalance, although not in a bad way. Basically, mine changed Zealot Lightning to do damage since when I put it on the Dark Priestess I noticed that it didn't do any damage.
Later, when the 1.15 patch made it do somewhat insane damage rather than no damage, one of the changes in zebramatt's Zealot Rebalance is to change the damage on it.
In the end, although both change the same file, they both end up doing roughly the same thing. Make it do some damage. It's just that my point was to make it do some damage rather than none, and zebramatt's point was to make it do some damage rather than a ton.
Honestly in the end if you use both it doesn't matter which Zealot Lightning gets used, since both are much more reasonable than Runic's 1.15 interpretation.


Are you planning on adding any more affixes, or is the mod essentially complete?

I'm certainly still going to do something with it, though I wasn't planning on adding more affixes. If I happen to get a good idea for one, however, odds are good that I'll add it
It's an annoying process, however. See, what happens is not that a champion appears and it randomly gets an affix assigned to it. Because I don't think I can make the game work that way, heh. What actually happens is that I've made multiple versions of each champion, each with a different affix (or sometimes multiple). Now, when the game generates a champion, I've first made it randomly select from a number of different creature types, and then it randomly chooses one from the say ten different ones I've made for that creature type.
So if I wanted to add an affix, I'd basically have to create an additional champion with that affix for every single enemy type that has applicable champions, and than add all those new champions to the relevant spawnclasses. Sadly, it's not as easy as creating a new trait and having the game randomly assign it to a base champion, because that's simply not how it works.

That also makes the difficulty suggestion a problem. If I could just make the game assign them, I would totally have made it do, say, two random affixes per champ on Hard and three on Very Hard or something to that effect. However, it's on the monsters, rather than some game system, and there's no way to change what difficulties certain monsters spawn on.

[goro3d]

Well I used it with the mods I have installed with no problems its very fun and I had a great time killing that oversized mech golem lol.
BTW how did you make those huge widow spiders purple?
Also do you think you can make the green spiders different colors? They are boring just as green I would like to see a rainbow of colors such as red,orange yellow and blue seeing green and purple are in your mod !
Awesome job so far I really have enjoyed these fights this far keep up the great work!
When I say rain I don't mean the spiders to be rainbow I mean each single spider has its own color red,orange,yellow,green,blue and purple maybe even white and brown would make interesting colors as well but a bit hard to see in many dungeons !
Maybe glowing eyes haha well its up to you just throwing out suggestions now !

[Velari]

BTW how did you make those huge widow spiders purple?

It's just a different texture that's already in the game. There's about half a dozen different textures/colours/whatever if you look around in the directory that contains the spider stuff. I've just used the remaining ones for different enemy types, so now outside of the Shadow Recluse and Tunnel Spider you now have Preying Spiders and Widowmakers, which are just modified Shadow Recluses with one of those other textures applied, and Brood Mothers, which are modified Tunnel Spiders with the other texture (normally used for Tunnel Spider champions) applied.

Right now I have a pet Brood Mother for the Crouching Pet, Hidden Beast mod that I'm testing for balance

So at any right, it's just something that's available already. I'm not a wiz at using graphical stuff, so I can't really just make ten more colours in a snap or something >_>
Technically I could put in the other colours for the normal spiders, but I'd rather not for two reasons:
A) one is used for the pet Shadow Recluse, if you feed your pet a Web Fish. Using that might make it hard to distinguish which one is your pet and which ones are hostile. There are ways around that, such as scaling them so that their size alone is enough to tell them apart, which is mostly what I did with the stuff in Crouching Pet, Hidden Beast.
B) I'm using the remaining one for a pet Preying Spider in Crouching Pet, Hidden Beast >_>

At any rate, in v1.01 you should already be seeing more "normal" spiders because of the Preying Spider and Widowmaker, though admittedly they aren't as common as the Shadow Recluse.

I still have some ideas for this mod, but right now I want to finish the Brood Mother pet first

[goro3d]

Well whatever you can do no big deal !

[Velari]

I wasn't planning on doing an update right now, but I finally bothered to grab the 1.15 patch, and decided to make the Champions Mod affect the new "challenge rooms" that were added in 1.15.
So, that's the most significant change in v1.02 - greater champion variety and the added enemy types in the new "challenge rooms."

Other changes are present, but it's mostly minor stuff no-one will notice. The ones that are worth mentioning, though:
- Cosmetic fixes to champion spider enemies
- Changed Brood Mother behaviour
- Mana Burn on Troll champions works now. Though technically only Rock Troll champions can have Mana Burn, but oh well.

[Velari]

Another update, although mostly cosmetic. I made notes, though, so I can list all kinds of specifics >_>

So, it's basically the spawnclass and cosmetics update.

On the cosmetics side, well, originally I just wanted to make the Dark Priestess a bit more awesome by giving her a more fitting weapon. That, and I imagine that the average Torchlight player flies into a blind rage at the sight of a Zealot Polearm
... I ended up distributing new weapons to a bunch of enemies who use weapons and are either new enemy types, or champions of enemy types that did not have champions before. Specifically, to

Spoiler: show

Corrupted Disciple
Corrupted Disciple Champion
Darkelf Warrior
Darkelf Warrior Champion
Blood Disciple Champion
Tu'Tara Shieldsnapper Champion
Tu'Tara Edgebreaker Champion
Tu'Tara Warcutter Champion
Dark Priestess
Dark Priestess Champion
Stabber Pygmy Champion
Skeleton Archer Champion
Skeleton Knight Champion
Dwarven Wight Champion
Soulless Cutter Champion

On spawnclasses, I made modified drops for many of the new enemy types and for a bunch of the champions of enemy types who originally didn't have any champions. You may have already noticed that some champions had non-standard drops, such as champion Burrowers, Elementals, Grave Diggers, and Wisps.
A list of non-standard drops in case anyone cares:

Spoiler: show

Embergear Golem
Drops gold or socketable

Embershard Golem
Drops gold or Chaos Gem

Embergear Golem Champion
Modified champion drop, guaranteed to drop a socketable

Burrower Champion
Only drops socketables
Already had this drop since the original release

Corrupted Disciple
Can only drop Polearms as weapons

Corrupted Disciple Champion
Modified champion drop, can only drop Polearms as weapons

Cuddles & Huggles
Changed from standard champion drop to Troll champion drop
(which effectively just means they can drop a Juggernaut Mace)

Darkelf Warrior
Can only drop Polearms as weapons

Darkelf Warrior Champion
Modified champion drop, can only drop Polearms as weapons

Disciple Champion
Modified champion drop, can only drop Polearms as weapons

Infernum, Froidier, Dokueki, Shan Dian (Elemental Champions)
Drops amulets, rings, socketables, spells, consumables
Already had this drop since the original release

Grave Robber Champion
Drops amulets, rings, socketables, spells, consumables
Already had this drop since the original release

Tu'Tara Warcutter Champion
Modified champion drop, can only drop Swords, Axes, and Shields as weapons, Necklaces as trinkets, Helms, Gloves, and Belts as armour

Tu'Tara Shieldsnapper Champion
Modified champion drop, can only drop Bows as weapons, Necklaces as trinkets, Shoulders, Gloves, and Belts as armour

Tu'Tara Edgebreaker Champion
Modified champion drop, can only drop Polearms as weapons, Necklaces as trinkets, Shoulders, Gloves, and Belts as armour

Tu'Tara Oathmaster Champion
Modified champion drop, can only drop Shoulders, Gloves, and Belts as armour. Drops no weapons. Increased chances of dropping spells, scrolls, trinkets.

Crawler Champion
Modified champion drop, guaranteed to drop a socketable

Dark Priestess
Modified standard drop, can only drop Staves as weapons, Gloves as armour. Increased chances of dropping spells, scrolls, trinkets, socketables

Dark Priestess Champion
Modified champion drop, can only drop Staves as weapons, Gloves as armour. Increased chances of dropping spells, scrolls, trinkets.

Pygmy stabber Champion
Modified champion drop, can only drop Polearms as weapons, Helms, Gloves, Boots, Belts as armour

Ratlin Champion
Only drops gold
Already had this drop since the original release

Skelly Archer Champion
Modified champion drop, can only drop Bows as weapons

Skelly Knight Champion
Modified champion drop, can only drop Swords and Shields as weapons, Helms and Shoulders as armour

Deathcaster
Can only drop spells
Already had this drop since the original release

Small Troll Champion
Troll Champion drop
Already had this drop since the original release

Dwarven Wight Champion
Modified champion drop, can only drop Swords, Axes, and Maces as weapons

Soulless Cutter
Modified champion drop, can only drop Axes as weapons

Wisp
Only drops socketables
Already had this drop since the original release

While on the subject of spawnclasses, fixed a couple of issues with spawnclasses.

While playing, noticed a few enemies with incorrect drops. Fixed them for this update. Specifically, the Skeleton Archer Champions had the same drop as normal Skeleton Archers. Darkelf Warriors had no drop whatsoever >_>
(Darkelf Warrior Champions had the intended drop. Only normal Darkelf Warriors had no drop at all)

Fixed an issue where sometimes it would spawn a group of Varkolyn Dark consisting of nothing but champions in the Tu'Tara Caverns. While great for your experience and fame, this was certainly not intended >_>

Unrelated to spawnclasses, toyed around with the value on Mana Burn and Stone Skin.

Changed Brood Mother behaviour some more

Spoiler: show

And there might be a rare champion lurking about in Sunken Ruins areas.
That's just hearsay, though. Wouldn't worry too much about it.