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[DrUcross]

Hardcore Mod
By Ucross, Forefall, and fldash
Last updated: November 15, 2009

Installation instructions:
Simply download all files into your “documents/bioware/dragon age/packages/core/override” directory

Link to modification: http://social.bioware.com/project/493/


Hardcore Mod v2.0 - - [works with saved games from v1.2 and higher]

Hard* difficulty is now the same as Bioware’s nightmare difficulty (*Playing on hard is recommended)
Nightmare difficulty is significantly more difficult
Lyrium potions, health poutices, and injury kits are not useable
AI improvement: enemies will use powerful abilities more often
All enemies have an innate 35% resistance to all spells
Requirements for spells have been changed to a level based requirement
The mana cost and cooldown of all spells and the mana pool of a mage has been significantly altered
Some spells have been removed (they can be skipped while leveling up that tree)
Heals are much less effective and have long cooldowns ( biggest change from pre-2.0)
Cleansing aura and magic weapons (flame, etc.) can now only be turned on when a mage has >330 mana
Players no longer gain small amounts of health, stamina, damage, or defense upon leveling
25 tactic slots per character
Rogues gain a skill (not talent) every level, warriors every 2nd level, mages every 3rd level
All shapeshifting is done immediately

As a note, it is recommended to play with the dagger hot fix until bioware official patches it. You can find that fix here: http://dragonage.gul...rity_fixes3.zip


Explanation of changes for v2.0

“Hard difficulty is now the same as Bioware’s nightmare difficulty
Nightmare difficulty is significantly more difficult”
Why?
Bioware’s version had little difference between normal, hard and nightmare. Players who wished to deviate in difficulty from normal had very little success in doing so. This mod makes it so that difference is drastic so players can find and play at the difficulty they choose to do so. Casual in this version is still quite easy and nightmare is now significantly more difficult (passable? I’m not sure).

“Lyrium, health poutices, and injury kits are not useable”
Why?
I have always disliked potions in games. If I went into a battle with 100 potions that healed for 50hp each it is almost the same as going into the battle with 5000 more health. I have fought battles in DA:O where I could just sit there and solo a hard boss by constantly guzzling potions. Bioware did an OK job by giving potions a small cooldown but overall they are still pretty lame. Besides, drinking a potion in the middle of a sword fight is a little ridiculous – the only reason it is accepted is because it has been propagated by previous games. Now when you go into battle you can really feel the difference a ‘tough’ warrior makes as their life is sometimes all they have. Additionally injury kits have been removed as there previously was no points to injuries when they were around. It was very easy to have 99 of these and anytime an injury occurred it was immediately removed. With the injury kits around, injuries were more of an annoyance of having to click the injuries off instead of anything else.

“AI improvement: enemies will use powerful abilities more often”
Why?
This is an effective way to make the game more challenging and at the same time improve gameplay. Spells often involve strategies to counter or react to their effects. Enemies using spells in more ideal circumstances will make the players feel like they are fighting smarter, and more challenging monsters.

“All enemies have an innate 35% resistance to all spells
Requirements for spells have been changed to a level based requirement
The mana cost and cooldown of all spells and the mana pool of a mage has been significantly altered
Some spells have been removed (they can be skipped while leveling up that tree)
Heals are much less effective and have long cooldowns ( biggest change from pre-2.0)”
Why?
Mages are quite powerful. Infact, the most powerful parties in Bioware’s version of DA:O is 3 or 4 mage parties. Their ability to disable and damage enemies as well as heal allies make them significantly more powerful and imbalanced. Using them makes the game too easy and not using them could make the game too hard. These changes are to create a more balanced class structure between the warrior, rogue and mage. Addtionally, even with a magic resistance boost there are some spell that could be arguable abused to win many battles in an unintended or ridiculous manner (e.g. forcefield on your tank after he taunts). Thus, all spells were altered in terms of mana cost and the mages mana pool was significantly raised. The mana pool was raised along with the mana costs so that increases in willpower had less effect on the spells (since the spell cost was the main balance used to control the spells as spell effects was much more difficult, and sometimes impossible to alter). Heals were nerfed because they were so powerful it was difficult to balance mages without a nerf.

“Cleansing aura and magic weapons (flame, etc.) can now only be turned on when a mage has >330 mana”
Why?
This is so players do not wait until they have blown all their mana before turning these on. The resulting gameplay is one of ‘quickly use my mana so I can turn these on’ due to efficiency. That gameplay is not ideal; so to align enjoyment with efficiency this change was inacted.

“Players no longer gain small amounts of health, stamina, damage, or defense upon leveling”
Why?
In Bioware’s version of the game it goes from hard to easy as you progress through the levels. This is not ideal for those who want a challenge as they often find it off the bat only to be disappointed through the rest of the game. This change is to make the characters stronger off the bat and then gain less as the game goes on. It should make the game maintain a more consistent level of difficulty instead of progressively getting easier. The mana alteration on the mage should have a similar effect.

“25 tactic slots per character”
Why?
This change is to allow players to improve the AI of their allies to help automate a lot of their functionality. This gives players more control and prevents the players from having to micro manage as much if they so wish. For some players this will increase their enjoyment of the game. For others it should have almost no effect.

“Rogues gain a skill (not talent) every level, warriors every 2nd level, mages every 3rd level”
Why?
Simply rogues could use a lot more skills than the other classes and warriors could use more than mages. Mages need almost none. This just distributes those skills a little more appropriately

“All shapeshifting is done immediately (instead of requiring a cast time)”
Why?
Just because shapeshifting sucks so bad this should hopefully make it a little stronger.

Modifié par DrUcross, 15 novembre 2009 - 11:24 .

[FLdash]

The reason we are making this modification is because we will the game is too easy, even on nightmare (especially if you use potions and use mages). There are certain spell combinations that simply make mages overpowered. And the fact that potions have low cooldown, and do immediate health increase means health/mana potions really just add to the overall health/mana amount of your characters due to your ability to chug them.



The formatting in UCs post is a bit crazy, but you can see we have already began making massive changes...

[Arkenor Oakshadow]

Seems to me you're trying to make two mods in one. One raises the difficulty levels, while the other rebalances classes, mostly consisting of making the rogues much better, and boosting the subclass bonuses.

You may want to consider making those two separate mods. There is always a temptation to make large mods combining everything, but the more you add, the more likely it is that a user will find something that puts them off using it. Keeping things seperate as much as possible avoids that.

Edit: The original OP has been drastically changed, so this post does not make an awful lot of sense any more. I mention this just so folks don't think I'm a crazy person.

Modifié par Arkenor Oakshadow, 11 novembre 2009 - 10:12 .

[FLdash]

Point taken, that said, the goals for the mod are outlined:



The goal:

- larger variation between difficulties

- balanced the classes and class spells/talents

- more realistic gameplay

- improved enemy AI



We don't expect everyone to enjoy the modification. Only those that want more of a challenge and slightly more realism. Thanks for your feedback.

[Chromie]

Well this sounds great and all but the balancing of classes, could that be a seperate mod?

I still wanna finish the game on normal first before doing anything diffculty wise but the balancing would be great.

[FLdash]

We'll look at making the difficulty changes a separate download, but really we plan on making them go hand in hand with out balance changes. Meaning when we test our changes, it will be on our preferred difficulty level of 'hard'.

[DrUcross]

You'll still have the option to play normal or casual. Those difficulties will not be changed.



Hard will be made to be harder than normal (right now there is little difference) and nightmare will be very challenging.



So if you want it easy or normal you can still play that way.



However, if you want it hard, finally you get it hard. ANd if you want it on nightmare, it will be truely difficult.

[Koreos]

Improved tactics. Smarter, more of them.

[DrUcross]

good suggestion. Updated to v0.8.

[Jinnth]

Interesting, I was actually asking for a new difficulty level as nigthmare isn't challenging enough.

As many said, I am not so sure about the class balance but would gladly take the difficulty increase.

 I am not sure that the reduction to mage's power should be global, looks like lazyness more than balancing to me, many spells , I believe, are balanced and will just be made useless by this change, you should target specific spells and spell combinations and balance them individually. I am not sure about the 50% reduction to healing either, sounds excessive at first glance and will hurt non-mage PCs who can't have a 3 mage party(better CC and healing) far more than mage PCs who are the ones who require nerfing. Also, while it is not that big of an issue, the 1 specialization point will make warriors/rogues gain close to nothing from leveling as they only have a quite limited amount of talents to suplement a specific playstyle, so once you have all those talents , everything else is a waste. Rogues made even more useless than they already are...

Basically while nerfing mages you are, I believe, hurting warriors and rogues more than mages. So all in all I think I'll do like the others and take only the difficulty increase and not the class balances.

Modifié par Jinnth, 11 novembre 2009 - 08:18 .

[maikanix]

Honestly I'd like a mod like this, but I'm turned off by half of what you've put there...making me want to just do something myself. I agree with the poster who said to separate what you're changing.



I think the 'mage nerfs' are an easy out, by the way, and likely to be more annoying to people who prefer to play mages, than an actual positive increase to difficulty. You should add physical and mental resistance, and possibly a chance to ignore stuns and other CC. Spells aren't the problem.



If you're talking about manipulating the ai by throwing AOE spells while keeping the enemy essentially standing there, i'm not sure. But I'm sure there's a way to tell the AI to run and attack if the player is trying to pull that crap. The NPC's have a habit of just sitting there, which may be fixed in a bioware patch though maybe.. so *shrug*

[musicfans]

Great,great,great,I support you.

[Arkenor Oakshadow]

DrUcross wrote...
Hardcore Mod 0.8

Hard difficulty made more difficult
Nightmare difficulty made significantly more difficult (even more nightmare)
Lyrium, health poutices, and injury kits are not useable
There are no bonus stats for choosing a warrior/rogue/mage
There are no passive gains for choosing a specialty, only the talents
Only 1 specialty slot is available (get it at level 9)
20 tactic slots per character
All enemies have an innate 35% resistance to all spells (nerf to mages – sorry mages)
Healing spells 50% less effective (another mage nerf)
Injuries are significantly more severe
Characters start off with more innate attributes (e.g. health/damage/attack/etc.) but gain none per level
Rogues gain a skill (not talent) every level, warriors every 2nd level, mages every 3rd level

My question would be, is the game completable on Nightmare difficulty with this mod? If it is, then OK, but if it isn't, then you've gone too far. There's not much point having a hardcore mod that you have to reduce the difficulty on for it to not be impossible.

With no healing potions, halved healing spell power, and beefed up opponents, I would be very interested to hear the experiences of anyone trying this out on nightmare difficulty. My suspicion is that you'll have trouble getting out of the Tower of Ishar. Unless you're playing a mage, you'll be trying to kill that beefed up nightmare ogre with no healing at all.

Not to mention that without injury kits, and with injuries made more harmful, you'll probably be the barely-walking wounded by the time you get to him. Do injuries wear off over time, or will the removal of injury kits make them essentially permanant? If permanant, unless you reload if anyone gets knocked unconcious (which is kind of the opposite of being hardcore), you're going to be a serious mess pretty quickly.


I assume the makers of this mod have tried it in a fresh game. How far through the game have you got so far, and on what difficulty setting?

Modifié par Arkenor Oakshadow, 11 novembre 2009 - 11:32 .

[DrUcross]

Jinnth wrote...

Interesting, I was actually asking for a new difficulty level as nigthmare isn't challenging enough.

As many said, I am not so sure about the class balance but would gladly take the difficulty increase.

 I am not sure that the reduction to mage's power should be global, looks like lazyness more than balancing to me, many spells , I believe, are balanced and will just be made useless by this change, you should target specific spells and spell combinations and balance them individually. I am not sure about the 50% reduction to healing either, sounds excessive at first glance and will hurt non-mage PCs who can't have a 3 mage party(better CC and healing) far more than mage PCs who are the ones who require nerfing. Also, while it is not that big of an issue, the 1 specialization point will make warriors/rogues gain close to nothing from leveling as they only have a quite limited amount of talents to suplement a specific playstyle, so once you have all those talents , everything else is a waste. Rogues made even more useless than they already are...

Basically while nerfing mages you are, I believe, hurting warriors and rogues more than mages. So all in all I think I'll do like the others and take only the difficulty increase and not the class balances.

That's a great point Jinnth. But it was not laziness. Originally i had around 30 spells balanced out and rebalanced. However, the minutiae of making sure they are appropriately balanced was really starting to push the scope of this mod. As well, I was not talented and experienced enough in the game to really be an expert on how balanced each spell is. So it seemed a lot more simple and fair to leave it with the release balance (except for obvious spells) and just nerf them as a whole. Also, I didn't want to mess with how people enjoyed the game. If they really like a spell combo and I overnerf it, they may not enjoy this mod. I'm trying to balance the classes as a goal for the mod. Balancing each spell is still possible but I'd like to see how this plays out first.

As for rogues and warriors, they are both getting more skills per level. Additionally, they are only losing 4 possible abilities with no other real nerfs. The mages, on the other hand, have a 30% resistance to all of their abilities and a 50% nerf on their healing. To me, all mages in a party have been signficantly nerfed (read: balanced) compared to warriors and rogues. If anything, a party of warriors and rogues may (for the first time) be as viable as a party with some mages.

[DrUcross]

maikanix wrote...

Honestly I'd like a mod like this, but I'm turned off by half of what you've put there...making me want to just do something myself. I agree with the poster who said to separate what you're changing.

I think the 'mage nerfs' are an easy out, by the way, and likely to be more annoying to people who prefer to play mages, than an actual positive increase to difficulty. You should add physical and mental resistance, and possibly a chance to ignore stuns and other CC. Spells aren't the problem.

If you're talking about manipulating the ai by throwing AOE spells while keeping the enemy essentially standing there, i'm not sure. But I'm sure there's a way to tell the AI to run and attack if the player is trying to pull that crap. The NPC's have a habit of just sitting there, which may be fixed in a bioware patch though maybe.. so *shrug*

Check out the current version (0.9) and see what you think. Right now we are working more on AI changes to improve the intelligence of the NPCs.

[DrUcross]

Arkenor Oakshadow wrote...
My question would be, is the game completable on Nightmare difficulty with this mod? If it is, then OK, but if it isn't, then you've gone too far. There's not much point having a hardcore mod that you have to reduce the difficulty on for it to not be impossible.

So far I've gotten to the tower of isha (or whatever) on nightmare as both a mage and a rogue. I have not tried warrior yet but suspect it will be the same.

Nightmare is extremely difficult though. Each battle seems like it is impossible at first until doing it 10 times. =P I would recommend playing on hard (and probably will personally do so). This mod's version of hard is far more difficult to bioware's 'nightmare' and is a refreshing boost of challenge. Plus, the game getting easier and easier as it progresses should be removed or at least diminished with this mod.

Arkenor Oakshadow wrote...
With no healing potions, halved healing spell power, and beefed up opponents, I would be very interested to hear the experiences of anyone trying this out on nightmare difficulty. My suspicion is that you'll have trouble getting out of the Tower of Ishar. Unless you're playing a mage, you'll be trying to kill that beefed up nightmare ogre with no healing at all.

Haven't tried the tower yet, but I'm almost sure the ogre isn't impossible. Good kitting and set up and I can do the ogre almost flawlessly, so difficulty shouldn't be that much of an issue. However, like I said, nightmare is now more for those who want an insane challenge. I'll personally play on hard.

Arkenor Oakshadow wrote...
Not to mention that without injury kits, and with injuries made more harmful, you'll probably be the barely-walking wounded by the time you get to him. Do injuries wear off over time, or will the removal of injury kits make them essentially permanant? If permanant, unless you reload if anyone gets knocked unconcious (which is kind of the opposite of being hardcore), you're going to be a serious mess pretty quickly.

Any time you switch levels or travel or goto camp injuries are cured. So they are not THAT permanent. =P Bascially injuries make it so that if you are in a dungeon and a party member dies, you stand a good chance to have that party member seriously hurt for the rest of that dungeon.

Thanks for the question, i'm happy to answer. Also, there are a few threads like this. It would be easier if you could direct the questions within the mod under the comments or discussions there. Here is fine though, but I'll take longer to check these threads.

Cheers,
Ucross

[SyntheticC]

A party of Rogue/Warriors wouldn't be viable because of this:



Lyrium, health poutices, and injury kits are not useable



if I'm looking at that right. Still, you'll make -any- game harder if you remove the means of healing.. which it seems you've done as you've also nerfed the effects of healing spells by 50%. Not only does that ramp up the difficulty by itself.. but then the rest of the changes just makes this mod at first glance not seem like a 'hardcore mod' but a satirically frustrating mod.

[DrUcross]

I've taken a party of rogue/warriors up till the tower of isha on nightmare difficulty. It was challenging but definitely viable.

To do so on normal would be significantly easier

Key tactics in use are:
- drawing enemies to you
- focus fire
- pulling away allies who are being focused
- low life allies should be at range using the bow
- powerful enemies tend to have larger increase of helath instead of damage, so kill them last
- disables should be used consistantly and immediately throughout the battle to prevent damage

The biggest strategy there listed is the drawing enemies to you. If you drop the enemies quickly enough and have good focus fire and good positioning you can turn a 5v5 into five 1v5s, remembering that certain abilities (e.g. shield bash) may slow you down some.


Also, I should note, that if you EVER feel like this is too hard, remember that you don't have to play this one on nightmare. The major reason for creating a nightmare difficulty in this mod is there are people who just love to get owned. =P Like I said before, I recommend playing on hard. If that's too difficult normal is still more challenging (probably more so that bioware's nightmare). Choose whichever challenge level you would like.

Modifié par DrUcross, 12 novembre 2009 - 04:55 .

[Mordern]

Making healing effects weaker won't make using mages worse, it'll just mean you need to bring even more of them to compensate. Healing's an integral part of the game.



My suggestion would be making the standard 'healing' spells and whatnot only usable via the Spirit Healer specialization, or by activating a mode that decreases damage from spells by 'x' percent. That way a mage can still heal, but they have to sacrifice damage or CC potential in order to do so. Make it a tradeoff so that being a healer actually means being a healer and not a healer/damager/ccer.

[DrUcross]

I should also add, that if you find bioware's nightmare too hard, then this mod is probably not for you. =P



Myself (and many others) have found that their nightmare was easy, even with many personal nerfs.



I have played through with no potions, no injury kits, max 1 mage per party on bioware's nightmare difficulty without this mod and it got really easy about half way through. Most battles I stopped pausing at all.

[Mordern]

Well my only gripe is that I don't want to get halfway through; I want to be able to beat it. It should be hard, but not absolutely impossible.

[DrUcross]

You will always be able to pass it IMO. If a fight really is too hard you can put it on normal difficulty instead of hard. Or even more you could reduce it to casual difficulty. I think that on normal the game is just slightly harder than bioware's 'nightmare' difficulty and VERY passable.



If you're worried about the lack of potions that is fine. I've play tested that through the entire game.



With this mod on hard I'm pretty sure I can pass the game. I don't know about nightmare - not sure if I could pass it on nightmare. =P

[Valtauran]

I do not know how you can do a well balanced mod that accually makes it challenging for those players that do like challenging, but you are severely gimping the game this way, its a good thing i don't intend on destroying the game cause i find it too easy.

If you find it too easy, then just modify the enemies you fight to have more resistances, i would prefer that over them doing stupidly more damage and our own stats being severely gimped.

[The Angry One]

I don't object to the idea of a hardcore mod, but removing the use of poultices, potions and kits entirely is a bit much.

[DrUcross]

Valtauran wrote...

I do not know how you can do a well balanced mod that accually makes it challenging for those players that do like challenging, but you are severely gimping the game this way, its a good thing i don't intend on destroying the game cause i find it too easy.

If you find it too easy, then just modify the enemies you fight to have more resistances, i would prefer that over them doing stupidly more damage and our own stats being severely gimped.

Your own stats should not be severely gimped. When you start the game with this mod you should be as strong as without this mod. The only major difference is the enemies are tougher.