Would a proper difficulty mod ever be possible?

[Watercrown]

Hi everyone,

 

I initially really enjoyed the difficulty curve in this game. Up until level 15 or so the encounters felt challenging and venturing into the unknown would always lead to some pretty close encounters. However, soon after hitting the main city the difficulty just disappears completely. Suddenly those large creatures in the wild are just annoying instead of exciting and those large groups of bandits never get out of the bed rolls and chairs before getting killed instantly. It's really disappointing since the mechanics in this game are so much fun. I tried hard mode and it's gotta be one of the most poorly implemented options I've ever seen. There are some good ideas, but the gold/exp/dp point gains just trump everything. Who thought that was a good idea?

 

Some ideas that would help the overall difficulty curve.

 

1. EXP required to level needs to be much higher. Level ups should happen about as often as vocation ranks.

 

2. Healing items should not be usable in battle. It really sucks out the tension of any encounter knowing you can instantly heal all your health in any given battle.

 

3. Basic attacks need to be nerfed. The basic attacks are just so incredibly useful for everything I often find myself not even touching the special moves. This has the added benefit of making stamina moves more appealing and heavy attacks (which feel completely pointless btw) more appealing.

 

4. Enemies need a buff across the board.

 

5. Reduce hold gains by 2-3 times. It's just so plentiful why even have it?

 

6. DIsable DLC items. Infinite ferrystone, OP gear right at the start... come on.

 

7. No more respawning chest.

 

These are the ones that come to mind. Is any of this possible without modding tools? I

 

 

[Darkgod2012]

you can just restrict yourself, only use weak equipment, dont use healing item,do BBI at the beginning

 

skill alway better than basic attack except you are a warrior

[davppd]

yeah its possible

 

use flufflyquack depacker on teh stage files and you can edit the monsters, add more spawns etc.

 

i made giant sized rats and bats in the casssardis sewers to test.

 

hint: the .LOT files are what you want. if you follow the fluffyquack guide you will get an xml version of the .lot file and its super easy to read and edit.

[Watercrown]

Thanks for the reply. Any idea what the best place to start is for editing level up values and that kind of stuff? I want to increase the EXP requirements by a ton. That should fix a lot of the issues I personally have.

[Beriallord]

I found a lot BBI mobs to have defenses/resists that are just way too high. Mobs in the normal game, I'd sorta agree are a little on the weak side, but some of the BBI mobs are just straight up OP. Try BBI at level 40-50, and I'd say the area would pose a considerable challenge. Just run past the mobs you can't damage, which will be the majority of the new ones. Although I'd argue simply running past mobs you can't damage isn't a legitimate challenge. *hint* you'll find a ton of throwblasts & dragon's spit in BBI, and for some reasons those appear to do a flat amount of damage, that appears to ignore defense values. You'll need them for a low level run through BBI. A lot of the rest areas in BBI are stocked with a box full of them. You can also use some of the counter moves or any move that does a strong knockback to send some of those OP mobs flying off the edge to kill them.

 

I think playing as a Warrior Arisen is the hardest class to use properly. That might add some extra difficulty forcing yourself to use Warrior class exclusively as soon as you get to Gran Soren.

Edited February 9, 2016 by Beriallord

[Signette]

On difficulty, that's funny, I agree on BBI. Main game feels really easy compared to it. I play as Sorc, I had few hard situation in main game but in BBI I amost constantly had to resort to AI exploiting like using high ground and being unreachable by mobs just to stay alive. I honestly have NO idea how any fighter/warrior class can deal with 2 Condemned Gorecyclops in spiky armor accompanied by 2 more Cyclops...

[Beriallord]

I just finished BBI, and its hard as balls, even on normal difficulty. Some of the mob combinations the game throws at you in BBI are simply insane. There was 1 situation where i had to deal with 7 living armors + other mobs in the mix. Most classes/setups have 0 possibility of winning against odds like that. The BBI content appears to be geared toward Magic Archer and Mystic Knight being the best classes to use, due to the game throwing in mobs with incredibly high defenses in physical or magic, which means you need a way to exploit a variety of elemental weaknesses, both physical and magical, or you simply can win a lot of fights.

 

The easiest Daimon kill for me is using a sorcerer + 4 periapts with charged holy shot spamming. He dies in a few shots, as does his 2nd form. Daimon's 2nd form's magic attack is so high, that unless you're geared toward extremely high magic defenses, he can oneshot you with a single levin bolt. He oneshotted my level 200 assassin with just 1 levin bolt, and I had BBI level 3 armor equipped, and this was on normal mode. You can't climb on Daimon's 2nd form with a physical damage class, because he can 1hko you with a spell cast while you're stabbing him. I recommend Ranger spamming tenfold blast arrows, because Assassin's climbing game is moot vs Daimon's 2nd form.

 

I tried hardmode, and the mob damage is scaled insanely high. To the point where regular goblins outside of Casardis could 1hko me, and that was even after equipping the OP starting gear. I gave up my hardmode attempt after being oneshotted by the weakest enemy in the game right out of casardis' gate using the "OP armor". So I guess you can't get hit in hard mode, or you farm tons of wakestones from UR dragon. So TC I suggest you try hardmode. If being oneshotted by the weakest enemy in the game right out the gate is still not challenging enough for you then I'd recommend you play another game, honestly. Try Dark Souls 2 @ level 1 no equipment, using bare fists to kill everything including the DLC bosses. I expected hard mode to be challenging, but getting oneshotted by the weakest enemy in the game right out the game is a bit too masochistic for me.

Edited February 13, 2016 by Beriallord

[Kessler40]

1.There are nine vocation ranks for each class, as opposed to 200 levels. Not to mention not all classes rank up vocations at the same speed. Assassin ranks up slower than basic vocations, for example.

 

2. The encounters in the game are thought with this in mind. Damage dealt, spawns, and pretty much everything. You are expected to come prepared to the fights. This isn't dark souls, where you are expected to attain experience from dying a number of times and there fore increase your survivality. Specially not since you can revive your pawns at any time, and have other 3 party members whenever you want to. If you are going to nerf anything, you might aswell nerf wakestones.

 

3. They are supposed to be useful. A good number of skills are already rather powerful. Much more so than basic skills. (see maelstrom, tenfold arrow, Hundred/thousand kisses, etc...)

 

4. Hard mode doubles the damage they inflict. i remember being close to level 69, with lower tier BBI armor and a normal chimera took 3/4ths of my health in one hit. The initial group of bandits in pastona caverns can easily deal with you aswell, and bigger monsters can one shot you easily, specially in bitterblack.

 

5.(i assume you mean money and rift crystals?) Money doesn't quite matter. Once you get to post game, you can farm ur-dragon. in one kill, you'll have more than 1 million gold worth of loot. Rift crystals are somewhat difficult to come by. You need a lot of them, specially in higher levels. you have to go out on your way eventually if you want specific bitterblack armor.

 

6. The only OP gear i can think of is aelinore's outfit. And even so, you can get better gear than that at Barroch's in bitterblack isle at the very beginning of the game. The infinite ferrystone was not in the original dragon's dogma, and it became available in dark arisen (console version) to those who had a save from the original game. There's a reason why it's there. You can simply choose not to use it if it really bothers you that much.

 

7. If chests didn't respawn, you would not be able to get certain items in the game. This is not dark souls, where chests can only have one item. There are more items and armor than in that game.

[iloveyoupurples]

Being this thread is the first in a google search, I thought linking here might be a good idea. http://www.nexusmods.com/dragonsdogma/mods/378/?

[WungHungLo]

Just for the record, the infinite ferrystone makes the game harder. Not easier. I've played the 360 version without the infinite ferrystone. Having to walk all over the place just to get to areas I'd already been to made me ridiculously overpowered.