How to modify a little the game?

[danath]

Hello all

I love this game and I think it has awesome features and potential to become better than TOME. However, I don't like the "enemy inmune to weapons/spells" and "reflects damage" part. ;D

So I wanted to know if this can be modified, since I have programming knowledge. I would like to give it a try, if someone can tell me if it's possible and tell me how to decompress and recompile and all that or direct me to a tutorial of that, I would thank you very much.

Cheers and keep up the great work, Variaz

[Variaz]

Well, you could always modify the sources, but the abilities of monsters are hard-coded right now. In the next release, it will be possible to make them ineffective through elements.lua modification(elements are now customizeable), but they will still appear on monsters. It may eventually change though.

Of course, why remove them in the first place? They're the reason multiclassing is important!

[Lipa]

Indeed, elites and bosses are one of the strongest Portralis features and the whole multi-class approach to the game basically relies on them... Not sure how the removal of this vital element would affect the experience as a whole, but I'm sure half the fun would be lost...

But, as I said a couple of times before, we each have a special taste. And if you think the removal of elites and bosses is a vital thing to keep you interested in playing this game, well, I won't stop you.

Have fun!

[Variaz]

The thing is that I'm evil, and there WILL be quest bosses that will require physical or magic attacls. So, better get used to my evilness.

[argyle2001]

Danath never said he wanted to remove them. He said he wanted to modify them. Honestly, that's not a bad idea.

While the Immunity/Reflection abilities make multi-classing a must, certain combinations really can be unfair anyway. If something is immune to Weapons/Physical, the obvious only recourse is magic. After a point, though, only a seriously badass amount of magic is going to take a monster down. A multiclassed character really needs to have most or all of his skill/ability points in magical fields to take down a Mature dragon with 500,000 hit points.

Now, I'd be content to whittle away at a monster doing a few thousand points of damage per hit with a magic-branded weapon. 11,000 points of damage per hit @ 35 blows/turn can add up! But then there are the monsters that are IMMUNE to Physical *and* REFLECT 50% of it.

I find that combination to be utterly unfair. I've never been able to kill anything with that combination beyond about level 10.

[danath]

argyle2001 said:

Danath never said he wanted to remove them. He said he wanted to modify them. Honestly, that's not a bad idea.

While the Immunity/Reflection abilities make multi-classing a must, certain combinations really can be unfair anyway. If something is immune to Weapons/Physical, the obvious only recourse is magic. After a point, though, only a seriously badass amount of magic is going to take a monster down. A multiclassed character really needs to have most or all of his skill/ability points in magical fields to take down a Mature dragon with 500,000 hit points.

Now, I'd be content to whittle away at a monster doing a few thousand points of damage per hit with a magic-branded weapon. 11,000 points of damage per hit @ 35 blows/turn can add up! But then there are the monsters that are IMMUNE to Physical *and* REFLECT 50% of it.

I find that combination to be utterly unfair. I've never been able to kill anything with that combination beyond about level 10.

Yes friend you are right I don't want to remove elites/bosses, I just want to modify them. I love bosses in all RPG's, but they can be very unfair as you well said before.

So Variaz you say in the next release it will be possible to "turn off" inmune/reflect for elites/bosses? Then I will gladly wait for the new version.

Maybe a suggestion could be to add an option in the game to "disable" inmune/reflect ?

[menkaure]

For a mage, try playing a demon or a celestial, and use dark or light magic to kill bosses. Demons are immune to dark and start with dark elemental already learned at start, so if you use dark magic on a magic returning boss you will be immune to the returned damage, it is the same for celestials only with light magic. For bosses immune to physical or magic, use magic missile as it has magical and physical components. For magic immune and returning bosses you can later get a physical elemental spellbook on the black market. The bosses of this type that piss me off are the magic immune and returning ghosts. Just how am I supposed to kill something immune to magic and physical?

[challtdow]

In that case you need to be an elemental lord and put lots of points into Piercing Spells. With enough there, you can completely forget about returning/immunes as long as you use your chosen element.

Chall T. Dow

[argyle2001]

... and so much for multi-classing.

You see? There's no BALANCED way to fight off some of these creatures with certain ability combinations.

[Variaz]

Well, elites/bosses aren't supposed to be easy to kill in the first place. If a boss is too tough, you can always run away.

But remember a few things. A monster immune to physical can be hurt by magic damages, but not necessarely from spells. Element Strike, for example, is a melee based ability that does magical damages. And also, returning is not as cruel as it was in NewAngband 1.7.1, as it's now of the same element that you used. So, if a zulgor use a chaos spell and it gets returned, the zulgor will not take any damages because of his 100% resistance to chaos.

Are you sure about magic IMMUNE ghosts? I did put a condition to never give magic immunity if the monster has 100% natural resistance to physical. Magic returning is possible though. In this case, use an element you're immune to. If you don't have any, you can use damaging fields spells, or summon a monster. And if all else fails...you can always run away. You do have scrolls of Teleportation, don't you?

[menkaure]

I'm pretty sure I saw a magic immune ghost in the ruins, but it was a while ago when I first started playing, so it might have been a returning boss, since I hadn't figured out the elemental immunity thing then. Pretty much I remember being pissed that I couldn't kill a ghost either with magic or the old fashioned way. Since you have banned ghosts from getting magic immune, it must have been just me being a n00b.

[argyle2001]

If I'm 100% immune to Physical, should Physical-returning monsters be able to hurt me that way? It seems like they shouldn't... but they can.

[Variaz]

The physical returning does work in a different way right now, but you're right, I'll fix it. Quite easy to do actually.

[danath]

Hello again! ;D

Now that Portralis 0.3 is out for testing (thanks Variaz!), I would like to know how to do the idea that I explained in the first post: how to "disable" returning/inmunity ability in monsters.

You said it can be made modifying elements.lua, I would like to know how can this be made, thanks.

[Variaz]

YOU EVIL CHEATER!!

You may have to play with both combat.lua and elements.lua to change both. Look for abilities called "BOSS_" something(I'm at work, I don't have the source code at the moment, so I give you this based on what I remember). Or, you can look for "Boogie Man" in elements.lua(because I added a comment that he'll come to eat you if you modify that part. ). You can disable them there. I think both files have some.

Note that the code that gives the abilities to the monsters is still hard-coded at the moment. So monsters will still gain the ability. It just won't have any effects if you disable it.