Even then your still going to need to nerf the hell out of bleed. Right now i am hitting 197k bleeds on dummies. Dots in general when stacked properly are way overpowered.
Not entirely disagreeing with you, but I think that’s more an issue with blade arc than bleeds in general. +100% crit and whatever ridiculous damage multiplier on one skill is just stupid.
It’d be nice if elemental DOTS and freeze resistance was tied to their corresponding elements (i.e. have high cold resistance = high freeze resistance).
For OFF, enemies that are resistant to freeze could have slower movement speed instead for the duration.
Life reduction needs to be applicable to heroes and bosses too for normal bloody pox and war cry to be useful.
Ulzuin’s Chosen % chance of cdr should be applicable to all skills, not just 3 demo skills.
Stormcaller’s Pact: the more points invested in it, greater % of physical damage is converted to lightning damage.
Adoomgod’s Canister bomb wave idea: probably make the skill too strong.
Canister bomb: limit damage to just pierce and fire, just increase the damage. The bouncing off walls sounds interesting.
Blackwater Cocktail: I was thinking a fuse timer system. The more one throws BWC together, the greater the damage becomes after a set amount of time.
Well I’ve read all 7 pages of this thread so far. First page was excellent, and then I feel like the direction was derailed.
Build Diversity: yes, but please not the wish list for pet summon on kill to favored skill.
More critical to me: Altering the behavior of resists calculations. Making Armor viable by including a bit of armor in elemental damage resist (say a 20%-30% armor cap that could be increased), editing the numbers on Affix and Suffix slightly to make build diversity through magic item diversity (roll a good rare instead of require XYZ Legendary Farm for a build),
A pet peeve, since we’ve had the mod tools for a few hours over 2 days: we don’t know the upper limit of what can be achieved. If someone had told me what the mod community would do via hex edits in Diablo 2 just two years after the initial mods came out I wouldn’t have believed them. Since Crate has generously declined to add in horrible anti-cheat spyware (they all spy!) then we have the ability to modify the core game by violating the mod architecture.
For example, a mod should be limited to editing the DBR files, map files, etc but a DLL hook can make it so you gain exp or get restored to full health just by moving your mouse cursor over a particular x,y coordinate in the screen. Once I got pissed off at an online shooter game that seemed to be a form of gambling, so I decompiled it and found their damage equations. Yup, gambling - confirmed in 30 minutes with my decompiler and hex editor and a lot of luck. I also found out they included their database debugging libraries packed into the client, which is a Cardinal Sin Of Eternal Hell for a competitive earn to play MMO. I stopped there, but we don’t have the same moral obligations in Grim Dawn.
“What’s possible” is not known at this point, but we seriously need to focus on low hanging fruit, obey the mod architecture, and start talking damage formulas instead of “make one skill kill everything!” which is sort of silly. I can make a quest for you - you walk outside town, loot the first corpse, and you win. (I may do so as a “hello world” example and just reference the mod whenever people ask for something silly, including having the world saved from destruction.) There is no programming or design challenges there. What these wonderful people is offering is trying to make the game more fun and more diverse but that is a hard design question, not an easy one.
Honestly, I’m not interested in theorycrafting how wonderful life could be with the mod. I’m much more interested in how quickly people can release quality mods. Ceno: have you found the resist damage calculations yet?
I have no idea what you’re referring to.
Comedy gold. Best part is you are actually serious right?
How about you make the mod first before you open up any thread about it?
But rest assured: Every competent modder is already working on their project while you build walls of text.
Thank you for the kind words.
Ah you were more interested in the knockdowns. Here’s a brief list of what I found:
database\records\fx\skillclass02\knockdown1_flight_fx01.dbr
database\records\fx\skillclass02\knockdown1_impact_fx01.dbr
database\records\fx\skillclass02\knockdown1_impact_fxpak01.dbr
database\records\fx\skillclass02\knockdown1_projectile_fx01.dbr
database\records\skills\itemskills\item_defenseknockdownnova_01.dbr
database\records\skills\itemskills\granted\item_knockout.dbr
Two records that I grabbed the non-zero records for:
database\records\skills\playerclass02\knockdown1.dbr
According to the sound, this is related to the mortarshot
Offensive Parameters\
Offensive Influence\Knockdown\offensiveKnockdownMin = 1.0
Offensive Duration\Offensive Slow Duration\offensiveSlowDefensiveReductionMin = (a long vector for each level of the skill)
Offensive Duration\Offensive Slow Duration\offensiveSlowDefensiveReductionDurationMin = 8.0
database\records\skills\playerclass02\grenado1.dbr
Offensive Parameters\
Offensive Absolute\Offensive Physical\offensivePhysicalMin = (a long vector for each level of the skill)
Offensive Absolute\Offensive Physical\offensivePhysicalMax = (a long vector for each level of the skill)
Offensive Absolute\Offensive Pierce\offensivePierceMin = (a long vector for each level of the skill)
Offensive Influence\Knockdown\offensiveKnockdownMin = (a long vector for each level of the skill)
Offensive Influence\Knockdown\offensiveKnockdownMax = (a long vector for each level of the skill)
Offensive Influence\Knockdown\offensiveKnockdownChance = (a long vector for each level of the skill)
Offensive Duration\Offensive Slow Poison\offensiveSlowPoisonDurationMin = 6.0
Projectile Config\projectileExplosionRadius = 2.5
It appears that the basic grenado skill includes a 6 second reduction to the poison skill of the attacker (but I could have that reversed since I don’t understand the variables involved very well, and I’d need to look at the matching monster records too.)
What were you wanting to document or edit regarding knockdown abilities?
I went looking through armor in general. Instead of trying to modify the equations for damage calculations, I should try to follow my advice and look for low hanging fruit. Instead of editing how armor works, I could (and maybe should) edit the abilities of all the armor to include a bonus to defense. With high defense, a global percentage decrease to damage would start to apply and the character would become more crit immune. I could also start adding defenseAbsorptionChance if that affects all damage instead of just physical. Not sure what “defenseBonusProtection” is either. It looks like the engine can already support a large number of damage mitigation methods, and most gear either has armor or resist, which makes both of them critical. By making the other parameters more common, we can balance the tankiness of characters and reduce the overall dependence (and ultimate requirement) of 80% resists and 2000 DR. If people are actually forced to choose between a good green roll and an epic because the green has much better ancillary damage mitigation, that’s a good design choice imho.
My pet peeves with vanilla game:
CT is too annoying to use for no good reason. Although it’s more of a general skill behaviour bound to RMB. Can it be changed so attacking with RMB skill behaves the same as shift+clicking LMB skill and also ignores auto-aiming, only taking in account the general direction of mouse pointer?
So in ideal situation, if I have “Move To” on LMB and CT on RMB, I could move whenever I want regardless of auto-aiming and pushing RMB would cast CT regardless where the mouse pointer is at. Hotbar skills prolly should follow the same behaviour.
Projectile shots should be launched at full range regardless of how close the mouse pointer to the character. Right now clicking closer to the character also cuts down the range the projectiles are launched.
I could not find even how to change amount of hp given by strength. Some things can be changed but looks like that a lot of things are just hardcoded.
There’s a lot I can do to make my version of Canister bomb work. I understand that adding waves is basically multiplying the dmg, but I did mention we can also scale back the fragments or damage if need be. I could also just make it START with 2 waves and have it stay that way, which would just double it’s damage… but while double damage looks intimidating it also relies on you being able to hit most of the fragments which is unlikely at best.
Ulzuin’s is annoyingly narrow and I agree it should be designed to be a general skill.
Quality Post. You make the world a better place.
There are a lot of DBR files to look through, and it is a hierarchy.
Edit: what about playerlevels.dbr? I suggest playing around with Level Up Parameters -> lifeincrement because that might be the amount of life from strength.
I don’t usually bait trolls like you, yet I have to ask: what’s the purpose of your comment? To shit on their ideas? How is that helping YOU? Or are you just really bored?
It’s increment per attribute point in character sheet (first tab). In Titan Quest you could put points in life and energy. So they are left in DBR.
I know I’m in the minority here, but I don’t agree with the anti-stat-wall sentiment. Stat walls and gear checks are a part of every RPG, more or less. Anyone with mmo experience coming into grim dawn will know that.
Honestly, what I find so appealing about ultimate is exactly what most people find frustrating: min maxing gear, stats, and devotions to simply not die in the most challenging mode the game has to offer. It reminds me of playing world of Warcraft (for me a good thing) and trying to get raid ready, back when that was a thing. Only, it’s a single player game and I don’t have to deal with people, or pay a subscription.
I don’t think ultimate should be all inclusive in the sense that any build can clear it. That’s not how rpgs work. Hell, that’s not even how divinity original sin works. Let’s not even go into how the game has only been out for a couple of months; I fully believe players are capable of figuring out this game. If I can do it (literally terrible at these games) then anyone can.
That being said, I think new challenge dungeons are awesome. I would just like to ask that they be in a separate mod from the balance patch, with a caveat that they were tuned to the patch’s changes, etc, to give players like me access to your content without changing the core mechanics.
Thanks.
You have completely misunderstood our intention. We said the game will be easier at first, and perhaps vanilla content will seem a bit easier. In later versions of the mod we will bad adding challenge and difficulty back in, in more interesting ways ideally.
You like min-maxing? So do I. But I find I min-max most characters relatively the same way. A good amount of the skills in the game are just completely unviable to invest in for ultimate. We’re not saying any build can clear the game. Shitty builds that are spread to thin or have no synergy will still fail unless they grind for some crazy itemization that adds conversion or something. Some players like feeling like they’re never OP, some players like feeling like they are. We want to create a diversity of ways to feel like you’ve become very strong. But of course I understand that we can’t please everyone, and that may include you… but:
I flat out stated that a stat-wall is necessary, but I think Ultimate’s is too high and makes the game boring. Once you figure out how to itemize for ultimate once, it’s pretty much straightforward from there. After I beat Ultimate 3 times I’ve ceased to have any difficulty with it. But the cost: I ignore a lot of items and skills that will never find a spot on any of my characters because they just aren’t worthy for Ultimate. 
If the difficulty of ultimate comes at the cost of a sizeable portion of content being left unused, then we argue that difficulty needs to be rebalanced. We don’t want the game to be easier, but we feel we have to make it easier in terms of stat-wall before we can difficult in terms of mechanics. And it’s not like we’re nerfing ultimate to the ground, we’re mostly bringing shitty skills up.
You imply not dying in ultimate is a challenge, but it’s actually quite easy if you build in the narrow way the game seems to push you to. We want to make it so that there are no garbage tier skills, at least. No garbage tier constellations, etc.
But then again maybe this just won’t be the kind of mod that you’ll enjoy… we’re making it anyway for those who will, including ourselves. Oh and your request will be granted. The new content mod and the rebalance mod will be released both individually and merged. So you will be able to get our challenge dungeons and new items and monsters etc without the change to balance, keeping the old stat-wall. You’ll just have to wait longer for that mod :]. Cheers.
So much looking forward to that. Any chance for a list of skills you want to improve, and why? I would have some candidates but I’m sure people with more knowledge of the game than I have would have different ones.
I think a discussion on that would only benefit the project.
Rebalancing suggestions:
projectileBlockEquation,(blockChanceDV + blockChanceModifierDV) * ((strengthDV/1000)+1)
Make that into:
projectileBlockEquation,(blockChanceDV + blockChanceModifierDV) * ((strengthDV+dexterityDV/1000)+1)
Now your dex based characters have a much much better chance to block projectiles than before, and your str based builds get a 20-50% buff. If you’re taking too much damage from projectiles, weapon swap to a shield. It would work.
Change:
offensiveAbilityEquation,(offensiveAbilityDV + (characterLevelDV * 12) + ((dexterityDV + bonusDV) *0.5)) * (1 + (offensiveAbilityModifierDV / 100))+53
Into:
offensiveAbilityEquation,(offensiveAbilityDV + (characterLevelDV * 16) + ((dexterityDV + bonusDV) *0.5)) * (1 + (offensiveAbilityModifierDV / 100))+53
That’s an extra 340 OA by level 85. HP isn’t in the same file, but I’d give a boost to HP by level as well. I wouldn’t buff the melee block chance since that can just happen. Most skills in game are projectiles, so shields will work better against magic with this change. Resists won’t be as strong as having good block, and an OA Dex character can block much better now. I think this a near complete combat rebalance? I can pack it as a mod if wanted.
I meant no disrespect, of course, and for the record I think the ambitious scope of this project is awesome and I wish you guys luck; as someone who has made content for other games, I fully know Ithe work that goes into something like this. I’m super stoked that I’ll be able to experience the new dungeons too! 
Friendly reminder to starve instead of feeding the trolls.
Skills that could use some rework/balancing:
Olexra’s Flash Freeze - This one had to be on the list. I’ve seen in the last 8 pages it has been discussed, but I’ll just add that decoupling the resist reduction from the freeze is imperative. Reduced duration and/or reduction may be necessary for balance, but it needs to actually work. Also needs devotion support.
Brimstone - Maybe an unpopular opinion here, but Brimstone is just way too strong. It was a lot of fun playing with a Demo until I unlocked Brimstone and stopped using all my other skills because Fire Strike became the go-to murder spell for trash and bosses. It was fun popping Grenado and Canister Bomb on trash.
Vindictive Flame - Doesn’t really scale. Very powerful at level 1, but doesn’t do much of anything after that. Seems designed for a melee build, but with %total speed. Something is just wrong about this skill.
Forcewave - Universally loses out to Blade Arc. Not sure what it needs, but it needs something.
Phantasmal Blades - Just has too many damage types. I’d love to see a viable FT build in this mod. Piercing, Bleed, Vitality, Cold, Chaos, and weapon damage is just too many different things.
Ring of Steel - Needs a radius boost. Sometimes I don’t even hit things in melee range. Maybe scaling 4-6 over its levels.
Blade Trap - Same issues as OFF.
Blade Spirit - Nothing wrong with the ability or the damage, but the constant re-summoning can get a bit tedious. I’d love to see some re-working on that, but I don’t have any ideas of my own to provide.
Devastation - Devastation is just too powerful. I see Star Pact builds recommend picking it up because it is just that good.
Disintegration - I’d love to see the return of weapon damage on this skill. I don’t know if that’s a good idea, though.
Curse of Frailty/Vulnerability - I feel like this skill tries to do too much. Maybe reduce the number of resistances it reduces but pump up its effectiveness.
Solael’s Witchfire/Second Rite - I’ve always felt it’s weird that one provides Chaos and %vit while the other provides vit and %chaos. I know chaos and vit tend to come on the same skills, but that just makes the whole thing mandatory, and the skill is in a weird place because it grants attack speed while buffing damage types that traditionally show up on spells more. Just seems weird to me.
Doom Bolt - Never used it. Seemed to weak. Meh.
Vitality Damage - Vitality just shows up on way too many skills in too many masteries, while Aether only shows up in one. Damage type balancing could be useful to make different types more viable.
Cooldown Reduction - I love the idea of a 100% CDR build. I understand why this is a bad idea and breaks the game. So what about instead having CDR that scales better on low-cooldown skills? This would make it so your big spells still have some cooldown but your less powerful ones can get to zero. Think Aldanar’s Vanity - flat cooldown instead of percent. This would be a huge balancing change that probably wouldn’t make it into the first pass, but it could be good.