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Torchlight II >  Workshop > RnF's Workshop > LAO III Part 2 > Discussions
LAO III Part 2
Description Discussions1 Comments26 Change Notes
steffire3 31 Mar, 2017 @ 7:41am
Is "LAO III" being "Bloated" with "Parts"?
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@ RnF (author): I enjoy all of your excellent work and I yearn to see more of LAO III systems.

However, won't a User's load order get cluttered in theory with Parts: 3, 4, 5, etc?

And the new Faster (bigger?) NG+ mod Add Ons also reveal a curious problem of having higher NG Pluses that are stuck at level 999 until further development on solutions are implemented.

Eventually... the "Endlessness" will end because of restrictions both to mod download sizes requiring more parts and load order hard cap at 10 mods.

In contrast: Lepo's "Torchfun Part 1" raised the dungeon foe levels without providing items above 100 which meant only the strongest mod classes with the strongest mod sets had a chance to survive at levels 250 to 300.

No wrong answer here because I like how LAO III is unique... however every system has it's ups and downs, this system needs something that will help it's goal of "Endlessness".

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@ RnF (author): What I'm trying to say is that LAO III's current direction and systemic plan is in danger of getting "bloated", "too many added mods required for alternate styles vs the original style", or "hungry for precious mod space".

Multiplayer is the prime example of this... if the group decided they wanted to play LAO III with both Parts with Faster leveling and let's throw in a future alternate mod requirement, it means:

Their load orders require 4 slots just for this style version of LAO III:

That only leaves 6 slots left for Class mods, Pack mods, Utility mods...

The above example is reasonable to use with those 6 extra slots (After all, "Synergies" had several "Ultimate Add On Mod Packs" just to save space) but what happens if players desire more Parts?

Nothing has to be done about this and I am fine with any direction this mod system goes but I have to voice this concern for other players who will surely question possible limitations with the system presented here.

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https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=136950341&searchtext=torchfun

"Torchfun P1" creates a sense of being challenged by foes who will outlevel and outdamage the player which has it's own ups and downs.

"LAO III" gives items that will protect the player and allow the ability to outperform foes with the proper equipment,

Curiously, if User's choose not to use the items of "LAO III P2" then a "Torchfun P1" circumstance happens with "LAO III P1" above level 499.

"LAO III" as a systemic package should not be changed drastically and I absolutely enjoy what it offers yet I must consider every angle on how this "mod set" currently affects TL2 as a game and what it can and cannot give to players under possible limitations of alternate or extended "LAO III" styled circumstances.

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Last edited by steffire3; 10 Dec, 2017 @ 4:11pm
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Showing 1-3 of 3 comments
RnF  [developer] 31 Mar, 2017 @ 12:11pm 
@steffire3

Your concerns are very valid. LAO III with just 2 parts it is already "bloated" as you say. Adding a Part 3 will most likely prevent it from being able to even be loaded. It was my number 1 concern when I first imagined this mod.

There is an item option for items to scale with the NG+ mode, meaning a level 1 item can span at level 51 later in the game. HOWEVER, this scaling is capped at level 100.... ahhhh. There are no graphs that can be added or edited to over ride this as far as I can tell. If that mechanic could be manipulated, the game could truly be endless and I would only need to have the items in the system 1 time. But that is not an option unfortunately. So I had to re-create all the items beyond level 100. Hence the "Bloat"

There is a way for me to make each "Part" be able to stand on it's own. But I would have to remove items from each part to prevent it from being bloated. This will cause players to lose items once they deactivate Part 1 and activate Part 2.

Part 1 contains items 1-499

Part 2 would have to contain items 1-99 and 399-999 to limit the losses players would experience by deactivating Part 1, this leaves each part somewhat bloated still, but not as bad as including all items.

Part 3 would contain in theory 1-99 and 899-1499

The other option is more Parts with less items (instead of 500 different leveled items, break it down to 250 levels per part)

Players will have to be more careful with more parts and parts that can stand on it's own without requiring any other parts to run. But it would allow me to add as many parts as we want.

More parts also means a lot more hassle for me. If I make one change, I have to make the same change in all parts. Not too big of a deal, but slows development down somewhat.




#1
steffire3 31 Mar, 2017 @ 1:53pm 
@ RnF (author): Guts and TL2 are creatively limited and you have my respect for being able to construct LAO III to this extent.

Your explanation above gives me the view that the "Parts" would be used like the old disks from the 1990's where a player would replace disks when their adventures were ready to advance to the next segment.

When a player finishes Part 2, they replace Part 1 with Part 3.

The loss of items cannot be helped in such a scenario and some characters would have to not be activated if they are in a currently missing "Part" until the player wants to load their item progress again with the proper "Part".

Such a system may be a little cumbersome but it may work extremely well for an endless game especially with 500 sized Parts over the 250 sized option.

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Although I may personally feel more inclined to only load Part 1 and then just see how far I could go without level 500+ items but that's besides the point.

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My original (bloat) point is whether a player may wish to load all the parts and not sub them out of the load order to save themselves the trouble of the "1990's Disks System" and just keep as many parts available as possible.

Although your equally valid concern of whether the game will prevent a load for all those parts may indeed prevent the players from such an option.

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Ultimately I am impressed that you have offered all these options to us all and I look forward to all of your additions in these future months.

Even in spite of some limitations and restrictions, this is breaking new ground and none of us would know how to solve or work around these things until an "endless parts" mod like LAO III exists and travels to these new frontiers of how much content TL2 can load, run, and maintain.
Last edited by steffire3; 31 Mar, 2017 @ 2:20pm
#2
RnF  [developer] 4 Apr, 2017 @ 9:40am 
@steffire3 I LOVE your disk description of the mod functionality, it is the perfect analogy and one I may implement into function as well as name. I do believe it is the best solution for this scenario to keep the mod from getting bloated as well as respecting mod slots for players. I don't want to take up every mod slot with parts and addons. I do believe most players are savvy enough to make this work.

I still may make a Part1/Part2 combo mod for those who don't want to hassle with "disks", but adding another part to that would be death to the mod, I do not think it will load with a part 3 and if it does, it will take at least 20 minutes to do so. So Disks is a great solution to allow me to make this mod endless by being able to add as many parts as the game can handle.

I really appreciate the feedback, thank you.
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