I found a bug with the Anchorite mastery. The passive Fitness says it gives +Poison and +Elemental resistances, but my character only receives the elemental resists. The poison seems to be bugged.
It definitely does work, just checked. Maybe your Poison resistance maxed already.
My poison resist was 36% with +30% from Fitness, but my armor was giving me +24% from my belt and +12% from my shoulders. If it was working, I shouldāve been at 66%.
EDIT: Took screenshots. With my current build, Iām at 56% BEFORE the 30% from Fitness.
The skill requires a mace, scepter, dagger or sword. You are using an axe. Will update the descriptionā¦ why doesnāt GD show the requirements based on how the skill is defined, clearly it knows what weapon types it requiresā¦
So are ALL of Anchoriteās skills supposed to require those items? Cause only half of them say they do.
Thatās one of the biggest problems with the NCFF masteries. The descriptions and requirements are not always clear.
Another big problem is balance. The masteries seem all over the place in terms of balance. Cenobite, for example is ridiculously powerful if you spec into block, whereas Fangshi has a skill that, as far as I can tell, is absolutely worthless (at least at early levels) (The sword rain ability. It looks awesome but there doesnāt seem to be any guaranteed hits with it and the damage is very low if you only hit once or twice).
Something that Iāve noticed is that is that both Grimarillion and DoM seem to prefer quantity over quality and that doesnt make much sense.
We donāt need 80 masteries when most of them are overpowered or just aināt interesting to play. Some are tottaly unbalanced, others have bugs, some donāt have the proper descriptions, others miss proper gearā¦ .
Please, fix the existing ones and make them interesting to play, than add more.
It depends on classes.Some are really good some or not.I think tq and d3 are really good.If a class seems op or not balanced I donāt really play them cept for fun.The only thing i would like are better item support for some classes.
But thatās not Mambaās fault he added the classes he didnāt make them.Itās usually up to the OP of the class to fix them but most donāt get new updates so canāt play them.So im happy they got added even if they seem unbalanced or op as it gives more class combinations.
no idea, I am not going to check all skills against their descriptions to figure that out.
If you report it, I will fix it.
it gives you options you would otherwise not have, take them or leave them. If I were to only add what I tested and considered balanced, there would not be a mod.
yeah, if I had unlimited time, then maybe this would happen. You seem to have no idea how much effort that would be.
I also have no idea what is broken or unbalanced as that would require a lot of playtesting and my free time goes into the mod, not into playing it (for now).
So if I get no feedback on that, it will stay broken or unbalanced. If I do get specific feedback on a skill (and ideally an idea what would balance it), there is a chance (but no guarantee) it will be fixed or adjusted (good chance of adjustment, fix depends on whether I can find the issue).
Just saying e.g. āCenobite is OPā is not something I can act upon, so nothing at all will be done.
1 Like
Mamba, thank you for your anwser, I really have no idea of how much time it takes to change existing masteries, and btw ty for your hard work.
Perssonaly I would start by reviewing mastery by mastery and playing with different chars to understand the balance of my mod and what should be changed, for example, Diablo seems to be the most complete of all new masteries I would start there and for example try playing with barbarian and than see how differente it really is from soldier. You will undertand that itās basically a soldier class with small changes, in the first chapters itās an ok mastery in the end it looses by miles to the soldier, so, why play with it?
But, if, you would work on improoving Barbarian and making it different with new abilites that would make it a lot better to play with. For example, chnage some skills to make the Barbarian a class especialized in 2H physical damage, or something like it.
Still on Diablo 3, I would defenetely change some skills on Crusader, add some and remove others I can point them all to you but, if you have no time than I understand, Iām not requesting Iām just sugesting,
Most of the classses are basically copys of the original ones with some changes here and there, why not invest some time in making them actually different and better?
All of this just to say, that, your working hard and spending much time on giving us more and more which I really thank you but, my aproach woulld be on improoving what we have already instead of just adding more wich later on will be a lot harder to balance and in pratical terms isnāt really making the game better, itās just making it bigger in possibilites.
I am aware of how one could go about it if one had unlimited time. This is not a question of me not knowing how to theoretically improve the masteries through iterative testing and refinement.
Given the number of masteries and time for this, that is not a one person job however, so without feedback this will not happen.
Even with feedback I will at most change the āabandonedā masteries, not ones for mods that are still in active development. So if you think there is something wrong in D3 or GQ masteries, that should go to the authors of those mods. For Cataclysm and NCFF it will have to be me because they are no longer maintained. Zenith kinda falls in between, which means I might fix some things but I wonāt change the balance as eventually there should still come a new release.
Now to the question of reworking them, this would require me to come up with a new theme for the mastery, come up with new and innovative skills, figure out how to implement them within the constraints of GD modding and finally adding some new graphics effects for them.
And after all that is done either rework the existing items and/or add new and interesting items, which require ideally new meshes, definitely new textures.
That is a long and involved process that far exceeds the time I have and the skills I have (the latter could be fixed by time), so cudos to anyone who does this, but it is far beyond what I have any intention of doing (due to time constraints).
Crate as a team and over years came up with 9 masteries when that is their job, ie they spend 8 or more hours a day on it.
I am not going to come up with 40 new and interesting ones with similar levels of gear support in my lifetime in my spare time, and wonāt try.
D3 and GQ masteries should be about the most balanced and with best gear support out there. Initially I would have suggested that maybe you should stick to those then, but it sounds like even these are not good enough for you. At that point Iād say there probably is no mod out there that achieves what you look for at all.
You are more than welcome to give modding a shot and create one new mastery that is unique, well balanced and has gear support that equals what Crate does.
In 2 years or so when you are done with that (and no, that is not an exaggeration but what I consider a realistic amount of time when you are new to this and work on it in much of your spare time), I am more than willing to add it 
Itās not that I (or the other modders) do not see why having more gear, better balance and more varied / interesting skills / masteries would be beneficial, itās the effort involved in even getting to where we are now that prevents it. If it were so simple, we would have been flooded with masteries / mods that do that.
I respect your work, and agan I thank you, I like this mod and I take what you give me with no complains thatās why Iām just suggesting, not requesting. Actually most of the mod features are amazing like hairstyles, no level caps, grimmest, corrupted shirines, expanded stash and so onā¦ but I find myself most of the times just playing with the original masteries because most off all others are just unbalanced copies.
Zenith is a disaster, the idea of having new classes is amazing but it lacks proper gear and itās tottaly unbalanced, it lacks descriptions like if skills are wps and so onā¦ .
D3 is actually good in most classes, of course a plain copy of the orginals, letās take for example Nercromancer, which even the name is the same as the orignial, try playing with it and you will feel what Iām defending here.
You donāt need to make a new theme you just need to change the existing ones, pick for example D3 and stick with it. Think about (again) the barbarian, why having a poor copy of a soldier when we can for example have a 2H Physical char which besides Terror Knight (which is really bad) there is no other. Just changing a slight bit the wps skill and some other skills here and there would make it a lot more usefull, original and interesting,
From what I undrstand your now working hard on giving us another mastery, itās just more and more copies of the originals which again will lack, or proper gear or will be unbalanced or is just another copy of the orginal masteries with different names and some new skills.
Why not, just make what you have better instead, instead of working, think, how can I make Barbarian differente from soldier without working too hard, how can I make Necromancer actually different so it makes sense in using instead of the orignal Necro?
Itās not that hard and it would sure make your mod a lot more appealing butā¦ .
I take what you give me, and btw, and again, ty.
Because the GD engine force us to do it?
You want a Necromancer with what? Corpse Explosion? Golem made with weapons? A curse that kills enemies with less than 15% health? Revive enemy monsters? A simulacrum that replicates your skill? Ah, I know. DRAIN ESSENCE! Which Crate probably copied from D3 back then. Iād love all that too. But guess what? NOT POSSIBLE.
A Crusader riding a horse? So cool, right? A Monk with Seven-Sided Strike? Wizard with Archon changing all abilities? Oh that would be greatā¦ ops, NOT POSSIBLE.
So chill, man. This is just a mod, youāre not obligated to play any of the new classes. Thatās why thereās a class SELECTION screen, iircā¦
As I said, if you have suggestions for D3, GQ or Zenith, bring it up with the maintainers of those mods.
If I were to make changes now, I would branch off of what their next release will be which will make it a lot harder to integrate their next release. I am not interested in doing that.
As to balance and items. Zenith is OP and has no items so that kinda balances itself out. I hope Ceno eventually addresses both sides of this.
For abandoned mods / masteries I at least keep them up to date (removed life leech and replaced it with vitality drain as vanilla GD has done, updated the base armor values to what they are now, stuff like that), fix some bugs and adjust balance when they are brought to my attention.
The way I see it, the masteries are a choice. I give you the option to choose them, no more, no less.
If you do not like some for whatever reason, pick other ones.
Without DoM you could not play NCFF or Cataclysm masteries at all. Some people like the variety this offers them, including being OP and pushing as far as possible in the Shattered Realms. If you rather play more balanced and better supported (by items) masteries, then stick to those - better yet, take over the maintenance of NCFF or Cataclysm and bring the mod to the level of balance and item support you are looking for (or start your own new and interesting mastery mod that does this).
As I tried to explain, doing that takes a lot of time and effort, so your choice is not between having the DoM mod you have now or one with much improved masteries and item support, it is between the DoM mod you have now and not having it at all.
As I said earlier, if I only included what is balanced and has item support close to what Crate offers, this mod would not exist. I would not spend the time to bring a mastery to that level, because it really takes a year+ to get there for one mastery if you do this in your spare time. So even if I were interested in doing that, this mod would look very different.
Ok Mamba, thatās fair enough, ty very much for your kind anwsers and above all, for your hard work in the community.
I feel like you do not have the slightest idea of the effort involved, to an astounding degree.
I suggest you try your hand at one new mastery for a month to get an impression, and then we talkā¦
By then you should be past the peak on the left
2 Likes
Cataclysm used to have item support, along with lots of little fun goodies, what happened? I recall XP potions, sacks of bonus gold, skill augment components, etc. All its classes had items, weapons, armor, relics. Iāve just started playing again since Iāve discovered Cataclysm has been resurrected in some form, Apocalypseā¦just wasnāt on the same level imo, although I realize it was still in an early stage. Anywayā¦suppose my question isā¦is there still some item support in Cata? Thanks.
The Cataclysm affixes, unique items, relics, components, runes (components with + to Cata skills) and transmuters all are in the mod. Some potions are, others I did not add (+1 skill / devotion point). Crafting items and gold/iron sacks I did not add and instead use the regular crafting items.
His complaint is more that even with all this, it is not on par with what GD offers and I should close that gap rather than add more stuff with such gaps
EDIT: if you start playing with the Cataclysm masteries now, I suggest holding off as the next release will rework them by replacing them with their Redone versions, so you will have to spec out of all skills at that point.
This is āonlyā true for the masteries that are in Redone however, off the top of my head these are Mage, Maleficar, Mercenary, Paragon and Voidcaller. So Druid, Nosferatu and Stalker are safe.
I understand Mamba, ty very much.
I think we all agree that the goal would be a lot of diverse, balanced masteries with good item support, along the support the vanilla masteries offer.
The problem āsimplyā is the effort involved and the available time. The only way this could realistically scale would be to have 50 or 100 volunteers that decide that they work towards that by forming a team of 2 or 3 around a single mastery, one focusing on balance (dbr editing of the mastery and items), the next on skill effects and the third on item meshes and textures (this is not evenly distributed workload at that point, but you get the idea). The next team tackles the next mastery in the list and so forth.
Assuming a large enough number of people, this can be done pretty well in parallel, the effort scales nicely.
To a degree I do this by incorporating masteries from different mods / modders, but it obviously is not as big a group of people by far, so you still have one person doing everything for 5 - 10 masteries.
If you leave it like this, it will take years to get there assuming no one loses interest (but people do, otherwise mods would not get abandoned).
So either you have to be patient and wait for the modders to get to that point, or you join the effort and see where you can help getting there