Webbstre's Modding Challenges

[SixshotOverdrive]

New version, based on Rusty's build.

The spawn rate has been reduced. Tier1 now spawns two tier2 monsters on death, and tier2 spawns three tier3.
Tiers 2 & 3 have had their damage and health reduced. The worms should now be more of an annoyance than an actual threat.
I got rid of the camera shakes and loot drops (for all but the boss), and the monsters disappear on death, so the screen won't fill with bodies.
That should make things a bit more manageable.

http://www.mediafire.com/?kdrlxp5p4bbjt34

[Phanjam]

New version, based on Rusty's build.

Woohoo! So FAST as usual - thanks heaps Sixshot will check it out ASAP (while i still have some weekend left !)

[Phanjam]

Hi All. Great work Sixshot on the new build, it's MUCH more playable now!

But I felt it was a little too nerfed. So I...

- increased the S2 spawns from 2 to 3
- increased the chance slightly for S2s to produce an S1
- increased the S3 spawns from 3 to 5
- upped the health and damage slightly for all splitters, and
- gave the S1 a ranged skill (based on ember bolt)

Also put in some placeholder spawnclass files which are supposed to make this unit spawn more in the crypt levels.

I'm numbering this version 0.4. Here is the download link.

I confirm the "no more drops" is working. The effects still seem to hide what's going on though

I think the dwarf and worm models work fine together for this monster. Maybe just some texture-work now to get them into one theme-look.

I'm gonna see if I can come up with a good mix of sounds too for this monster-set

[Arkham]

I think the dwarf and worm models work fine together for this monster. Maybe just some texture-work now to get them into one theme-look.

Would tinting the dwarf's skin to a more greenish-yellow color work?

[Rusty]

I think the dwarf and worm models work fine together for this monster. Maybe just some texture-work now to get them into one theme-look.

Would tinting the dwarf's skin to a more greenish-yellow color work?

I already shifted all their colors from the normal green-blue to a vibrant purple. I did not change the armor though.

[Phanjam]

Hi Ark and Rusty - I'm just noticing how these undead dwarves all have beards - could we not paint gaping mouths here instead of having the beards? Should make it a more distinct monster vs. the dwarves

Anyway that's just an idea - I'd like to work on some sounds since you guys are better than me at textures anyway

[SixshotOverdrive]

The effects still seem to hide what's going on though

Alright, I'll rework the particles... or just remove them completely. They don't really need to be there.

I'm gonna see if I can come up with a good mix of sounds too for this monster-set

New sounds would be awesome, especially for the worm.

[Rusty]

Hi Ark and Rusty - I'm just noticing how these undead dwarves all have beards - could we not paint gaping mouths here instead of having the beards? Should make it a more distinct monster vs. the dwarves

Anyway that's just an idea - I'd like to work on some sounds since you guys are better than me at textures anyway

I can work on the beards a bit, although I know that some of them are built into the models and animations. Maybe I will just make the flaming orange. Or maybe I will just put that creepy talking Orange mouth on it.

[Phanjam]

Or maybe I will just put that creepy talking Orange mouth on it.

Yeah that IS creepy !

[SixshotOverdrive]

Here's a patch for Phanjam's version.

It tones down the particle effects a lot, but if it's still too much we can just remove them.
The boss buff skill is now working properly, and gives the worms extra damage and life steal.

[Webbstre]

You guys are awesome. For the next mod I think I'm going to have to do something different, like a class mod or something

[Phanjam]

Thanks Webb!

Here's a patch for Phanjam's version.
It tones down the particle effects a lot, but if it's still too much we can just remove them.
The boss buff skill is now working properly, and gives the worms extra damage and life steal.

Thanks Sixshot! I went ahead and patched the previous version 0.4 with your new files. The particle activity is better now and I confirm the Boss buff-skill works fine! Great job as usual!

I did however get some one-time crashes on first use of the .layouts to spawn the S2's . Over on the acid monsters thread, Spacepirate suggested that a "warm-up" .layout that loads but doesn't display the particles might help eliminate that.

The spawn rates, health stats and damage stats were back to pre-0.4, so I upped them again slightly like I did the last time. The ranged skill for the S1 that I put in didn't fire, so I upped the cast chance (of course, it could also be just broked ).

I'm numbering this version 0.5. Here's the DL link.

It would be great if we could all give it a quick run-through just to check the balance

I'll try to get some sounds in as quick as I can. Can't wait to see what Rusty and Arkham come up with on the textures !

[Rusty]

Okay, so I left the skin color the garish purple.
I did change the teeth color, and my wife drew in the shark teeth on the one (she really wanted to).
The armor has been changed and they look garish, so that should be fun.

I hope Arkham comes up with something more crazy or cool, but this is what I have for now.

Version 0.6

[SixshotOverdrive]

I did however get some one-time crashes on first use of the .layouts to spawn the S2's

That could also be because I linked the particle incorrectly
I put "particles/splitters/ghost" instead of "particles/monsters/splitters"

So here's the fixed file or repacked into v0.6

Now to run through and do a balance test.

[Arkham]

All right, I did a little work on the dwarf skin, but not much. I basically:

- changed his eyes (they now have a glow that can be described as "red outer edge transitioning to yellow inner core")
- made the eyes on the skull on the shield on his back glow red
- added an illumination texture which bolsters the eye glows, plus it also illuminates his blue teeth and fingernails (which looks rather interesting to say the least).
- modified the .material file to incorporate the illum texture.

Other than that, I basically left it the same as Rusty's version.
Files (new base texture, illum texture, material file) here:
http://www.mediafire.com/?kgc2c5pj1uc10jo

[SixshotOverdrive]

It would be great if we could all give it a quick run-through just to check the balance

Some notes from my run-through with a DW slash Destroyer on very hard.

-They died pretty easily, which put them on par with the rest of the monsters in the crypt.
-I'm not sure how rare we want to them, but 4 spawned on the first level of the crypt. (2 of which were together)
-The boss could do with some beefing up, he wasn't quite as imposing as he should be.
-The base monster never fired his skill. So it might be broken. Set it to 100% ctc and it worked fine, I guess he just didn't want to use it.

As for the crash, torchlight can't find the base monsters 'die' animation. I'm not sure why that's happening, it might even be because of the 'destroy on death' tag.
I'll have a play around and see if I can come up with anything.

EDIT: So they're a lot more common on the lower levels, and end up being pretty dangerous if a couple of them spawn in a tight area.
We might need to try and stop that from happening too often, but overall it seems pretty balanced.

[Rusty]

Ok, so running off of Arkham's included work:
- I changed the eyes of the other two monsters. I did not do illium files, I am stuck at work and don't have a lot of time to devote to it today.
- Also I upped the base monster skill "splitterbolt1" to 60% ctc. I was unsure if that was the correct one Sixshot?

Enjoy and modify.

[SixshotOverdrive]

- Also I upped the base monster skill "splitterbolt1" to 60% ctc. I was unsure if that was the correct one Sixshot?

Yeah that's the right one. I'm not sure we need to up it by that much though. They we're casting it when I was otherwise preoccupied, I think I was just killing them too fast originally
You can't really get a feel for balance off a single play-through anyway, so I'll respec as a more defensive build and have another run at it later.

[SixshotOverdrive]

I ran through again with a soul rend/titan stomp destroyer and the results were about the same.

Then I respeced as a pure defensive build, and while they had a hard time trying to kill me, I had an even tougher time trying to control their spawns. I was fighting for about 15 minutes off a single tier1 monster before I decided it was a bit broken and gave up.

Statwise the monsters are about right, I just couldn't manage to kill 2 of the 3 before one of them got converted. So I lowered the ctc on the conversion skill.

The other issue was with the tier1 skill. When there were a couple of them in the mix, they just kept blasting me out of strike range. So I removed the knockback effect.

The next thing on my to-do list is give the boss a team-killing death explosion. I figure by the time they start showing up, you're already getting overwhelmed. So we can throw the players a bone.

However, this is mostly to fix the animation crash. What I did was rename the mesh, materials and animation file. Then threw them into the main monsters folder so we can just piggyback on the existing skeletons. Seems to be working.
Version 0.8

[Rusty]

Spoiler: show

I ran through again with a soul rend/titan stomp destroyer and the results were about the same.

Then I respeced as a pure defensive build, and while they had a hard time trying to kill me, I had an even tougher time trying to control their spawns. I was fighting for about 15 minutes off a single tier1 monster before I decided it was a bit broken and gave up.

Statwise the monsters are about right, I just couldn't manage to kill 2 of the 3 before one of them got converted. So I lowered the ctc on the conversion skill.

The other issue was with the tier1 skill. When there were a couple of them in the mix, they just kept blasting me out of strike range. So I removed the knockback effect.

The next thing on my to-do list is give the boss a team-killing death explosion. I figure by the time they start showing up, you're already getting overwhelmed. So we can throw the players a bone.

However, this is mostly to fix the animation crash. What I did was rename the mesh, materials and animation file. Then threw them into the main monsters folder so we can just piggyback on the existing skeletons. Seems to be working.
Version 0.8

Nice work, glad it was as easy as renaming. As for the whole mod being a bit difficult to manage...should we remove the buffs? Would that make it any easier?