Sorry this is not a mod idea, but rather a question/challenge.

I always read about how TL2 online MP is lackluster or very easy to get tired of. I do believe more people play it off-line than on (I am guilty of this).

Yet, online cooperative play was THE big-draw of TL2 coming from TL1; it seems a shame to me that it should slip into oblivion (like it seems to be doing now). Plus, I'm a hopeless romantic about all things "community" - actually playing more TL together seems a really good thing to me 

So I'm thinking maybe one project we could set for ourselves is to make a few mods specifically to get people excited to play online

Can we toss around ideas first about what kind of mods these might be? Actually making it can be a "cross that bridge when we get there" kind of thing

I suppose a decent sample of the TL2 online community (who use mods) could be found with the mod I released last year. Corpselight has had a total of 1,197 subs over 368 days (apd 3.25) and 5,797 unique visitors (apd 15.75). However, since March I have only been getting 2-5 visitors per day, and even fewer subs.

I think we should promote TLA a great deal, and try to get people who wouldn't otherwise be interested in multiplayer mods to try it.

I like the potential of this idea and agree with all that has been said.

There is also a loot problem.  The loot kind of sucks.  After awhile you realize it's all kind of the same. The loot feels generic. 

Also Uniques are too easy to get, Legendary items are too hard to find, and when you find one it sucks. I think a loot overhaul needs to happen as well as what others have suggested.

With LAO, it was created to help in this department (adding Legendary items).  But my mod is simply a band-aid to the root of the problem.  There is very little awesome loot (stat wise). This leads to not needing to go online to trade for awesome loot that is hard to get.  Being online needs to have an advantage over playing single player, that advantage should always be loot.


Suggestion on fixes.

Redo affixes.

Make Unique items become like yellow items in D2, with random affixes.

Use Unique models for Legendary items with custom affixes as well being able to spawn random affixes.

All normal and magic models should have a normal, magic and unique version that all generate random affixes.  Each unittype should have their own pool of affixes.

2 handed items should be more powerful than 1 handed weapons, this is done by having their own affix pool.

Typing this out... I am realizing I did my mods mostly wrong lol.  But what I have learned from those mods has given me a better idea on how to fix this.

I think TLA would be the obvious next project to build the TL2 community.  I, for one, will put what minimal amount of time I have into it after the TL1 class pack.

There also needs to be a much bigger focus on cooperation. There needs to be events, or dungeons (instances) which requires more than one player to tackle. I also think there needs to be more dependency on other classes to complete a task/quest. You need a group of several meta classes like Healers, Tanks, CC and DPS, who supports each other in order to complete a dungeon.

The vanilla classes in TL2 are not designed or balanced to work like this, while the Engineer and Berserker are Tank like classes, they can not control monster aggro (as far as I know) and there's no healer class. I think this is one of the reasons why online play is not all that popular. There's no real need for cooperation to do the quest line and there are no competitive elements.

I know!  Wolven, this is one of the things that I think could be improved upon best by creating standalone mods like TLA.  Vanilla TL2 doesn't hold anything back.  Every class can be everything to some extent (melee, ranged, tank, summoner) and they have so many overlapping abilities.  This overabundance kills the feeling of uniqueness that you usually get from a class.

Same with items, like RnF pointed out.  There's too much for any one item to feel truly unique.

Personally, I feel that skills get watered down when there are 15 levels to each of them and 24 active skills per class.  You can't create a class with 24 skills and NOT have it overlap a lot with all the other classes that are drawing from the same pool of skill possibilities.

From a development standpoint, if, for a future standalone project, each skill for each class were given just 1 level, it would be much much easier and faster to produce skills and balance them.

The way player stats (strength, dex, focus, defense) work needs to be fixed, too.

We could fix all of these things we're pointing out in a mod like TLA.  The scope is small enough (minimal dungeon creation, minimal monster creation) to be feasible.

Hi RnF! just came from the forums.runicgames site and saw your post there. I think you've got an itch that needs scratching

Seriously, the number of great ideas coming up make it seem to me that we might need to go modular (no pun intended ), meaning making mods to address specific issues, but which are designed to all work together in the end, producing something really great!

Pls keep the ideas flowing - I will do a summarization for us 

My idea for affixes changing names on items wont work.  Unique/Legendary items can't inherit names from affixes... bummer.  I forgot about that.

That's alright, there is another way, I was just hoping to not have to do it.

Going Modular seems like a good idea ha.

Another issue is game+ modes locking a player out of going back and playing with their friends.  This feature fractures the community.  We need to find a workaround for this in game.  Maybe a map can do this?

That would be awesome.  If you could do it, you would be hailed as a god by the masses. 



Going modular sounds great.  After the TL1 class pack is done my vote is that we work on modular fixes to TL2 that would benefit the TLA and would also be beneficial to future mods.

My personal dream is to see almost an entirely new game built from the foundation of TL2.  The highlights I would love to see would be the following:

[Begin Rant]

Chunkiness and Scarcity
-Items and their upgrades should feel meaningful.  Potions should be less a common necessity and more a potent luxury item.  Like RnF said, a berserker with a 2-hander should be scary because his greatsword does more damage than my dagger.  Also, when I pick up a new, higher level greatsword, I want it to be better than the last one I found.  In Vanilla TL2, item upgrades are difficult to distinguish and very often the affixes vacillate so much that lower level items are better than higher level ones.

-Affixes should be more scarce and they should scale correctly.  Just like with everything else here, scarcity builds

-Treasure finds should be meaningful.  No more mountains of vendor trash.  Chests should be rare and hold meaningful loot. 

-Skill upgrades should feel meaningful.  No more 15 levels of active skills that change things only minimally.

-Classes should be more rigidly defined and have UNIQUE talents that make them special.  No more ranged Berserkers with a ranged missile spam (Wolfpack).  No more teleportation for everyone.  When all the classes have access to all the different types of skills, there's no variation and no need for party diversity.  Slimmed-down skillsets would give different classes different roles in multiplayer.  Multiplayer's a lot more fun when party roles are differentiated.

Cohesiveness, Simplification and Intuitiveness
-Stats need to be reworked.  You shouldn't have to pump Strength to increase your Pistol damage.  ANY stat setup should be functional, if not optimal.  So, if you DO decide to boost Dex exclusively it shouldn't gimp your pistolier and even your dex berserker shouldn't be a total junker.

Challenge, Risk and Reward
-The game and its content should be challenging but not be overly punishing (just a little frustration is fine).  At times, TL2 can seem either too easy or impossible. 

-Risk v Reward:  About 10 years ago I played an online PW mod for NWN that modified the ruleset for the game to involve fairly severe penalties for death.  Each death would cost the character 1 entire experience level, which could represent more than a week's worth of careful play at the higher, more difficult to reach levels.  This made deaths emotionally crushing but levelups a glorious accomplishment.  I wouldn't suggest such stringent penalties for an ARPG like this, but meaningful hits to experience rather than gold (as xp is more meaningful) with each death would make players more invested in mastering strategies and reward them for smart play.

Mystery
-Take the focus off stats and numbers and put it back on gameplay.  Minimal information about the technical functioning of skills, stats and items will free players to focus on the ambiance of the world and the thrill of the gameplay.

More Steampunk
I like the Steampunk theme especially when juxtaposed against magical fantasy.  I've liked it since Arcanum and Final Fantasy 3 (VI).  Let's do it up more.  I'd love to see classes like 'Demolitionists' or 'Botanists' go up against Wizards and Warriors.

Characters
Reduce runspeed and just overall combat speed.