Very exciting. I have some ideas while you are still in the planning stages please consider them.
Flavours
You could do various flavours like an aetherial flavour where you are going from area to area within the aetherial plane. do one for the cthonians as well.
Mechanics
What would be cool is if you had to start over each time.
But every 50 levels you’d get a waypoint type of item that lets you start (teleport directly to) at map 50*x and progress from there.
just make sure no TPs can be made in those infinite challenge dungeons
additionally. you should consider that these maps are going to be bland if you dont flavour them up.
have a radiant quest line where as you start each map. there is a specific objective in order to unlock the next level. stuff like or a combination of:
kill soandso purple boss
kill x # of monsters, y# of monsters
collect xyz items
visit xyz locations ( shrines / crystals etc)
survive x amount of time
once each of these completes a portal might appear in the centre of the map
if you die the quest fails with your death
special stuff
I have some ideas that can make the game experience… different. i did some of this on my eqemu server.
in the aetherial areas. if a player dies - have them turn into a really powerful aetherial enemy that is their level - will only apply to multiplayer games but should make things interesting - additionally you could “stock up” your database with player names and fashions so you can have fake player-therials. i did this on my eqemu server. i mined my own player database and spawned npcs that looked like the players and messed with them (scripted) it was great. also everyime a player dies on my eqemu server, an undead version of them spawns and wanders forever until it is killed. and man it can get nasty when a bunch of players die in a raid area.
cthonian areas - i consider these to be kind of like a mixture of the slaadi and daemons from D&D so when in the chtonian areas, make certain types of monsters able to have a % chance to summon more of themselves. and those should have the same % to summon more of themselves. IE if you cant burst kill a horde that has summoners mixed in, you will get overhwelmed.
take some version of the legendary uncapper mod and include it
a. increase player level cap
b. increase devotion cap (maybe even reward devotion points for every waypoint cleared?)
c. increase the potential quality of legendary drops within your challenge areas only. maybe have one random zero (common) single (uncommon) or double (rare) affix epic (common) or legendary (rare) drop everytime a level is cleared - giving the players an interesting way to tweak their builds even further as well as meaningful rewards other than the pleasure of grinding.
Im no expert on this forum, but there is a menu at the top of each thread “Thread Tools” and in there is an option to subscribe. I believe thats what you are looking for.
I personally wont combine it with anything except my own full mod and a standalone version, but I will make it easy for other modders to include everything map related into their mod. Its up to them if they want to add it then.
An update on my progress:
I have spent the day cleaning up files and rewriting some of the script code to give it a more dynamic use, this will open up multiple possibilites of adding different map styles, an endless dungeon type, raids and whatever other ideas we can come up with.
If I dont run into any issues I should have something ready by tomorrow (no promises here).
Hehe, dont worry Im a single player… and right now there is no multiplayer support since I make the portal disappear the moment someone is using it, I know a way to fix it, but its not my highest priority.
I changed the way monsters are being spawned, making new maps is so simple now and I dont have to change/add a bunch of files whenever I add a new map or tier. Although that stole a few hours, it’ll save a lot more in the future and give us even more possibilites. An endless dungeon could spawn more heroes the deeper you get and now its truly endless, before it was caped at how many tiers I had prepared
The first version available will include sets I made for myself, they will be great to use with the new chars created. I am also adding quests to make leveling faster, at least during Beta.
More about all of that later, I just woke up
Is there a minimum level requirement you would recommend for your mod? Is it being staged as end game content for players who’s characters are in/have cleared Ultimate?
AWESOME !
Keep going WareBare, I don’t know how you did this but this is a big improvement to Grim Dawn replayability and end-game content.
But how can it be endless ?I believe you can re-do maps but this need reseting and cleaning the proxies, and cleaning the loot on the floor, right ?
Also can it reset locked doors / levers /locked chests inside a map ?
Monsters are working great right now, despawn, respawn and increasing monsterlevels or even add more heroes… loot would involve alot of additional work, Ill leave it for now, I think the filter is enough to remove most of the unwanted loot and between each respawn point I could just place a merchant for selling. If its causing lag, Ill have to do something about it, but until then… .
Since its 100% scripted… yes it could do any number of things add new objects, remove or lock old ones and unlock others. Even port the player to set location (cross region caused some crashes but it should be fine as long as its within the same region).
I didnt look into scripting GD before, because I looked at modding as a break from work and not add even more to it, but its amazing. Before this I was working on a new world with higher focus on grinding, but I spent so much time on creating areas/dungeons that I figured I could just start working on “Mapping” right away and finish the world when “Mapping” is done, this way I can take a break from level design and work on mastery/items, too.
Hey WareBare, simple question. Do you think that scripting could be used to mod existing proxies too, ie. for Grimmest should I have started looking at scripting rather than dbr editing? I have not managed to get my head around how scripting works yet. Just last night found out how to remove the level cap from Cronely through the existing script, but from what you are writing here, I wonder if it would not have been a better strategy to start in scripts rather than the massive pain of dbr-edits I am undergoing atm.
You can use it for existing proxies, but should you?
Its possible to “log” all heroes/bosses and let another one spawn(different or the same). Even move a boss to a different location when you kill monsters in a specific proxy. Give killed monsters a chance to respawn with the same level or higher or even upgrade them… make a common monster into a hero after you kill him, a hero into a boss. Writing down all the ideas I got while working on this would take a few hours
But for your mod I believe you made the right choice. Adjusting the numbers inside the proxies/pools is the better baseline, its still open for more crazy stuff later. If you on the other hand want more randomization from a larger pool, than scripts are the only way to achieve that imo. While the .dbr are great they are limited, scripts take away alot of those limitations.
Definitely agree and consequent to this I would like to issue, not a warning as such, although I hope WareBare heeds my words as strongly as if it were a warning, but rather a passionate request…
Please, WareBare, take your time with this mod… You sound like you not only possess the skills to develop and provide the GD community with one helluva incredible end-game experience in the form of your Maps/Raids mod, but I also get the impression that you have the passion and desire to make GD an even more incredible game than it already is.
To this end, I implore you - please take all the time that you need to create the shining jewel that you are developing. This could quite honestly be the end game pinnacle that players will look to test their characters with once they reach the end of Ultimate. I sincerely hope that the mod that you provide this community will be polished, bug free, user friendly, interactive, well presented and most of all enjoyable.
Take the time you need to ensure all of these things and to make it something that you will be proud to provide all us eager followers.
I, for one, will be so very appreciative to see a GD end-game worthy of the incredible game that GD is and, right now, you appear to be the man with the golden ticket.
I thank you for all the efforts you have put in thus far and all the work yet to come.
