Nerfing the flame breath attack?

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Mechanist
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Nerfing the flame breath attack?

Post by Mechanist »

A question to our resident modders/coders:
Any pointers on how to reduce the damage output of Arokh's fire breath? Not the fireballs, just the alt. attack.

The flame breath's de facto instakill property, while certainly useful, detracts considerably from the potential for amusement.
I'd like to drop the damage into a more sane range, to make it light enemies on fire without gibbing them in a fraction of a second.


EDIT: I messed around with the editor, editing the Resources database.

WTF, the flame breath does only 1 damage? :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock: :shock:
Unfortunately it only accepts integers. :(
Setting it to 0 damage makes the enemies catch fire and burn to death eventually, but it's too slow, and could cause other problems.

Welp, now I'm truly stumped.


EDIT: Faced with the lack of a better solution, I've instead edited all of the databases as a workaround, boosting the HP and damage of all the actors and damage sources (except Arokh's flame breath!) by a factor of 10.

Well, not all of the databases - at least, not yet.
I've already modified System, Resources, NPCs, FX, and Mountain World Common (both of them).
Of the level databases, so far I've done only Ruined Village and Wartok Canyons.

I'll be simultaneously creating and playtesting the remainder of this mod as I go through the levels.
So far I've only done a quick test in Wartok Canyons, and it seems to work OK - but I've only gone through a few % of the level.

BTW, I've also tried a potentially far simpler method - create a custom fire damage effect for Arokh's flame breath; one which lasts a short time (say, 0.2s), has no animation, and does the desired DPS.
And it works... kinda, but not really.

While it did result in accomplishing part of the desired behavior (adjustable, sane DPS), it also caused the usual "medium fire effect" to be lost.
I've messed around with various ideas to have 2 different damage effects active on one enemy at the same time (not sure if that's even allowed by the engine, though!) - including via special effects, object generators etc.
But since I have no idea how most of these things function, I have utterly failed to accomplish anything useful - other than crashing the game several times; but that can hardly be described as "useful".
Last edited by Mechanist on Sun May 06, 2018 5:14 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: New, relevant information.

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mage150
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Re: Nerfing the flame breath attack?

Post by mage150 »

Just a thought, but have you looked at the material properites for the textures used in his flame breath? Material properties can create damage if I remember correctly.
Moderator Of Arokh's Lair.

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