12 replies to this topic

[Qwinn]

Eh, let me think about that one. It does have the potential to be very unbalancing.

One thing you may find interesting though. *SPOILER WARNING* regarding the upcoming Expanded Deionarra's Truth mod.

In the Expanded Deionarra's Truth mod that I'm working on (about 50% finished at this point, so it'll be in the next version with any luck), you will be able to get one of the rare glabrezu drops - actually the RAREST glabrezu drop - during the course of the quest. I'm referring to the hammer "Heaven and Earth". It won't be easy though But at least you won't have to grind 10,000 glabrezu's for it anymore.


Qwinn

[Ephyon]

I don't mean to be a bother, but have you given any thought to this?

My biggest incentive for this would be to make it possible for all those magical epic lootzorz items to be actually usable for anything other than slaughtering Hive Thugs in a fit of sadism (even though Dak'kon can already just drop them with a single strike). At least for me, it's hard to muster excessive concern for balance impact when the game allows you to kill just about anything with a couple Bladestorm spells and even provides you with an area that serves very little purpose other than gaining experience ludicrously fast. "Making the game more unbalanced" as things are would be like spitting in the middle of the pacific ocean, and the Greater Glabrezu showing up early would actually be something that kinda resembles a powerful dangerous enemy requiring a modicum of strategy and preparation, which is something the game seriously lacks.

[Irbis]

I don't mean to be a bother, but have you given any thought to this?

My biggest incentive for this would be to make it possible for all those magical epic lootzorz items to be actually usable for anything other than slaughtering Hive Thugs in a fit of sadism (even though Dak'kon can already just drop them with a single strike). At least for me, it's hard to muster excessive concern for balance impact when the game allows you to kill just about anything with a couple Bladestorm spells and even provides you with an area that serves very little purpose other than gaining experience ludicrously fast. "Making the game more unbalanced" as things are would be like spitting in the middle of the pacific ocean, and the Greater Glabrezu showing up early would actually be something that kinda resembles a powerful dangerous enemy requiring a modicum of strategy and preparation, which is something the game seriously lacks.

well quite true. at the the last parts with whihc i totaly agree. But guys from bioware were always bi-polar. one time they make something with both action and story and this mix gots crazy (BG1&2). and betwen that they do a story masterpiece (PS:T) with fighting so randomly sucky, and they they server fighting game (IWD) which history - which is great - is totaly wasted and covered by hacking and slashing... =\
i lust for game with PS:T story and PR aspect AND BG2/IWD fighting... but yea i know - me with my daydreaming

[ghostdog]

Well, I don't really think that having the Glabrezu appear earlier would make the game more balanced, on the contrary. I agree that the combat needs a rebalance or even an overhaul but something like that would require a whole lot of changes, with loot being the least of them.

Also, even though BG, PST and IWD all used Bioware's infinity engine, PST was developed by black isle studios , not bioware. It was especially Chris Avellone's brainchild and such games that are made with so much love and brilliance are really hard to make. Avellone himself has not managed to make something equal to PST afterwards. But I'll have to agree that the best combat we've seen in IE games is that of BG2 and IWD.

[Qwinn]

I looked into it. It'd actually be very easy to do. Trivial, really.

I really can appreciate wanting to get a chance to actually use the rare drops. And it's not -their- being imbalancing that worries me... it's the insane amount of xp you get for every kill in the upgraded version. At 70,000 xp per pop, you'd be gaining levels at an insane rate, and it would trivialize xp gains for the rest of the game.

I'd be a lot more inclined to do it if the xp gains could be toned down to sane levels for the time you'd be doing it. Something like 10,000xp per Greater Glazebru before you leave Sigil, instead of 70,000, sounds about right. That way you could try for the rare items without pretty much necessarily making the rest of the game trivially easy. That would make actually making the tweak considerably more involved and time consuming though.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 11 December 2008 - 10:36 PM.

[Qwinn]

Alrighty, it's done. The tweak pack will have a tweak that spawns Greater Glabrezu prior to leaving sigil. But yes, there's a catch - doing so that early means you'll only get 12000 xp per Glabrezu. And no, they aren't any easier to kill. But they will have the same chance of dropping those sweet rare drops.

The same mobs, after returning to Sigil, will yield the full 70000 xp.

Hopefully everyone will agree this is a decent compromise between the valid concern about not being able to get the rare drops till too close to the end of the game, and the similarly valid concern of completely unbalancing everything in Curst and beyond.

Qwinn

[Qwinn]

I'll also be adding another, separate tweak that roughly triples the odds of getting a glazebru at any particular spawn point. They'll still be rare, but not as mind-numbingly as they used to be.

Qwinn

[Qwinn]

Never mind that last post. Upon testing, the "More Glabrezu" tweak actually makes it much too easy to get those rare items. The drop rate really isn't all that bad, it's the rarity of the Glabrezu themselves that is the whole challenge to getting them.

There will still be an Early Glabrezu tweak, meaning you can get the greater glabrezu to spawn before leaving Sigil.

Qwinn

[taplonaplo]

it's nearly impossible to steal from the curiosity shop...nearly and anyone can reload until they get it. Besides the money you gather during your absence from sigil really isn't much compared to what you can gather using the pickpocket skill, and maxing it out takes only several levels, not to mention you can use items to increase it as well. I've done around 30 undersigil rounds after returning to sigil, gathering over 5mill xp and encountered 2 bell's shield and the punch daggers only. It's ok that the encounter is random and the loot is random but 2 bell's? not to mention grace wasn't even in my party...

Edited by taplonaplo, 01 January 2009 - 01:56 PM.

[macabroid]

One small correction: Early Glabrezu tweak wasn't mentioned in version history as a new feature of version 3.50

[Qwinn]

Readme version history corrected for future releases, macabroid, thank ya.

Qwinn