MM7 Refilled for the Merge

[lightbringer23]

I'll have to embrace boosting one day... My problem with it is I always absolutely hated worlds scaling with your character level - vide Oblivion, Skyrim. First thing I did was install a mod that delevels the world. I want the final enemies to absolutely wipe the floor with my weak character, and I want some noobass bandits to be ultimate pushovers once I get stronger. Nothing killed my fun in Bethesda games more than getting stronger and stronger only for bridge-dwelling bandits to also become masters of the universe wearing the best armor, best weapons, and being basically capable of killing the big baddie themselves. Or the big baddie being killable by level 1 character wielding a stick. The worst.

But in the case of Merge, it might be completely impossible to create a de-leveled experience, which requires you to travel across 3 continents "back and forth" to reach content you are capable of doing, after you hit the wall on your chosen starting continent. Would be cool as heck, but it's either straight up impossible, or would need some maestro of balance to accomplish

Especially given the fact the items/spells/skills don't have additional ranks and scaling, they are meant to be maxed out in 1 continent gameplay. But imagine if they did!

Anyhow, delusions aside, right now my small wish is to have bolstering option which gives all enemies their new abilities and which kicks in at full force from day 1. You know, for more early game hardcore challenge

Ah yes, the most eternal of all eternal problems -- how to properly balance a large, sprawling game. It's made even worse when you take multiple full games and smash them together -- then we add our little power-trip additions. Personally, I tend to lose interest if enemies are too easy. I don't want to tear through them like tissue paper -- balsa wood, absolutely, but not tissue paper. I know folks who are the opposite, losing interest if every random goblin isn't a life or death struggle. Best we can manage, I think, is to use tools to craft our own, custom balance.

I think I will ditch the Angel in EI. Experienced parties won't need it, and starting parties are presumably going for hardmode and won't want it. You're right about the Day of the Gods pedestal, but my mod makes it quite a bit tougher to reach I think I'll keep the Emeralds, though. I remember BDJ's Rev4 doing something similar (not to mention some ridiculously awesome placed treasures).

Also, you ditch ALL the starting gear? No spells or mages, or healing for Body magic users? Do you just punch things, but for that one bow in the crate near the docks?

[lightbringer23]

I know my knight had 2 very strong swords very early on. But I absolutely can't remember where from

I also played MM7 Refilled from the start (up to about 15 level), and IIRC they were on that island in Tatalia where you get golem part and where is Tidewater caverns entrance (actually, there were 3 swords, and I chose 2 strongest to equip (in the future, didn't have master sword yet)). BTW, IIRC there are some sellable crates on the ship, and actually the ones that give 2-3k when sold, so it might be worth to jump (spell) up there.

Oh, and my impressions on the mod from my limited playtime: Emerald Island was easy due to that Day of the Gods pedestal (its effects on low-level party are much more intense than effects on high-level party), after arriving to harmondale it was a struggle (those goblins completely surprised me and were difficult to dispose of). Later, in Hall under the Hill, I had to simply outrun the enemies to complete quest, and arriving at tidewater island in Tatalia was very difficult, had to utilize hit-and-run tactics. Overall, very early game was easy, then it became really hard, but I liked it!

Glad to hear it worked well for you! I figured the pirate ships should have some booty on them, and what better than crates of valuable goods? If I recall, I placed one each of the top tier pirate cutlass type weapons from each of the games. Since I placed a bunch of more powerful enemies all over, I figure some more powerful treasures weren't out of the question. I mean, right nearby I surrounded the Tatalia obelisk with Corbies from MM8 endgame areas.

[lightbringer23]

after arriving to harmondale it was a struggle (those goblins completely surprised me and were difficult to dispose of).

Heh. Yeah, arrival in Harmondale can be a little rough. We're so used to a gentle transition. I just thought, "Y'know, that's a fort occupied by enemies. Harmondale is under siege. Why would it be so peaceful outside?" Many of the surprises in the mod are forecast by the descriptions in the readme and on the mod top post

[lightbringer23]

Did either of you try to gain entry into the Elven Treasury? It looked like I successfully got the door to stay open, regardless of quest or faction, but I haven't tested it in a natural game progression.

For testing, I temporarily gave the classes plus 500hp, and powered my way through EI with a new party. On arrival in Harmondale, I consoled in a bunch of fly and invisibility scrolls. I then used the console to teleport to various maps, flying and invisible, so I could scout them out and see how everyone was behaving.

[lightbringer23]

Not all of them, though, some were clearly meant to be very powerful and I didn't feel they were deserved since those were not end-game areas

I should also mention, my philosophy was to balance more based on challenges presented than location. I've always been a fan of situations where some low level area has a super-beasty guarding a super-treasure. Most of the time, you make a mental note to come back later, but if you can figure out a victory, you get a big power boost.

MM7 is already prone to massive sequence breaks. My vanilla MM7 routine upon arriving in Harmondale was to go run through Tatalia and grab the top tier plate armor amongst the trolls, grab all the erudine ore I could find, and get the quill for the historian. Then I'd go hit up Tularea and Avlee, get one or two top level bows from the Avlee shop, that chest in the mountains of Tularea (top tier axe, black str potion, resplendent chain), and do the Hall Under the Hill.

I'd complete several side quests, a promotion quest, get top and near top plate and chain, a top axe, and an air magic ring. All for the price of fighting a cluster of dragonflies and a few food rations. Oh, and I'd now have a half dozen or so ores to save scum into whatever top weapons or armor I want back in Erathia. And that's before I ever even entered Castle Harmondale. Of course, the Hall under the Hill is now not quite such an easy push/rush

[Echo]

Also, you ditch ALL the starting gear? No spells or mages, or healing for Body magic users? Do you just punch things, but for that one bow in the crate near the docks?

I do, indeed, punch things Or try to steal stuff to hack things with instead and get money for the basic healing spell and such. And increased monster density in our mods makes cheesing like that much more tricky - and hence fun!

I also don't buy anything but spellbooks and empty bottles from stores. I can sell things, identify, repair, but not buy. It makes finding loot SO much more fun and rewarding, I 100% recommend it for any M&M playthrough! Imagine feeling good when you find a +0 crossbow, you can't get that if you buy stuff in the stores

I liked arriving to Harmondale and getting decked and near-instantly deathscreened very much lol. Funny surprise!

"I should also mention, my philosophy was to balance more based on challenges presented than location. I've always been a fan of situations where some low level area has a super-beasty guarding a super-treasure. Most of the time, you make a mental note to come back later, but if you can figure out a victory, you get a big power boost."

For sure! Like I said, it *is* a possibility some stuff I got was stronger than intended due to my item shuffles.


"MM7 is already prone to massive sequence breaks. My vanilla MM7 routine upon arriving in Harmondale was to go run through Tatalia and grab the top tier plate armor amongst the trolls, grab all the erudine ore I could find, and get the quill for the historian. Then I'd go hit up Tularea and Avlee, get one or two top level bows from the Avlee shop, that chest in the mountains of Tularea (top tier axe, black str potion, resplendent chain), and do the Hall Under the Hill.

I'd complete several side quests, a promotion quest, get top and near top plate and chain, a top axe, and an air magic ring. All for the price of fighting a cluster of dragonflies and a few food rations. Oh, and I'd now have a half dozen or so ores to save scum into whatever top weapons or armor I want back in Erathia. And that's before I ever even entered Castle Harmondale. Of course, the Hall under the Hill is now not quite such an easy push/rush "

Yeee, vanilla MM is also guilty of giving some way-too-strong items that are way-too-easy to get. Tatalia troll fields are a big offender. When it comes to strong stuff early, I'm a much bigger fan of trickery like the Barrows Down chest that teleports you to the gog field. First time it happened to me yeeeeears ago I remember first being amazed, then being confused, and then panicked. It was the best chest

[lightbringer23]

I'll have to embrace boosting one day... My problem with it is I always absolutely hated worlds scaling with your character level - vide Oblivion, Skyrim. First thing I did was install a mod that delevels the world. I want the final enemies to absolutely wipe the floor with my weak character, and I want some noobass bandits to be ultimate pushovers once I get stronger. Nothing killed my fun in Bethesda games more than getting stronger and stronger only for bridge-dwelling bandits to also become masters of the universe wearing the best armor, best weapons, and being basically capable of killing the big baddie themselves. Or the big baddie being killable by level 1 character wielding a stick. The worst.

But in the case of Merge, it might be completely impossible to create a de-leveled experience, which requires you to travel across 3 continents "back and forth" to reach content you are capable of doing, after you hit the wall on your chosen starting continent. Would be cool as heck, but it's either straight up impossible, or would need some maestro of balance to accomplish

Especially given the fact the items/spells/skills don't have additional ranks and scaling, they are meant to be maxed out in 1 continent gameplay. But imagine if they did!

Anyhow, delusions aside, right now my small wish is to have bolstering option which gives all enemies their new abilities and which kicks in at full force from day 1. You know, for more early game hardcore challenge

I am very well versed in the ol' TES scaling debate. It was rather pronounced in Oblivion, though it didn't bother me as much as it did others. FCOM mod solved that right quick. It was much less of an issue for Skyrim, but a heavily modded setup creates its own problems. I'm guessing you use Morrowloot or Requiem? I use so many power-boosting things that I ended up creating my own methods for challenge and interest.

I have a bunch of weapon and armor mods, and I'm likely to keep the same gear for about 90% of my playthrough. I guess item progression, for me, is more about making my own top enchants. Thing is, treasure is a huge part of what keeps me interested, that and increased abilities. I ended up relying on Ordinator to give me a sense of ability progression that would last until level 90ish.

The real change, though, was in treasure. Legacy of the Dragonborn became the core of my modlist, and the desire to fill up the Dragonborn Gallery has become the core motivation to go do all the things. It has worked incredibly well.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Regarding total balance across all three MM games in the merge.
(Completely hypothetical. I have no plans to do this to MM7 Refilled)
It's a tricky puzzle. The openness of the Merge is a large obstacle. Traditionally, one would simply decide what locations are going to be at what level. Enrothian goblins start at level 80. Erathian Goblins start at level 40. Jadamean ... pirates (?) start at level 1.

But what if someone wants to start in Enroth? Or do what I did, and start in Enroth until level 20 (get promoted, and air/water mastery) then move to Jadame? Maybe partway through Jadame, I take a break and go to Antagarich because my Monk needs Unarmed training. Need to go through EI, Harmondale, Erathia, Tatalia, and Evenmorn. Everybody is going to have their own path through the continents. Heck, the vanilla one is to start at Jadame, then go to Erathia after Escaton, then Enroth after Lincoln.

It would be really cool to have to criss cross between continents. However, that would require someone to dictate the path. Even if you were to create clusters of content .. say ... You hit level 15 in Jadame. You've cleared out Daggerwound and Ravenshore, but everything else is level 30+ content. Say you get to choose from New Sorpigal/Castle Ironfist or EI/Harmondale. Maybe it's balanced to where you have to do the first two zones in all three continents before you are leveled enough to handle anything else in the continents.

My vanilla strategy in MM8 was to, upon arrival in Ravenshore, immediately head to Alvar, Garrote Gorge, and Murmurwoods. I got quests in Alvar (including the Personality potion for my Dark Elf), picked up a dragon follower in Garrote Gorge, delivered two flowers to the opposite sides, leveled my dragon to Master Dragon for flight, turned in the book in Murmurwoods for Priest of Light promo, flew the dragon around snatching up every high level chest, and dipped down to free Cauri and secure my Dark Elf promo. The level of the inhabitants was irrelevant. There was a "wall", and I flew over and around it.

I think, since there is such a diversity of both playstyles and paths through the Merge, the best option is to allow you to tailor the difficulty of the foes to whatever order you want to take things. That's what's so great about the on-the-fly boost setting. If I want those goblins in New Sorpigal to be just as weak as when I first fought them at level 1 so I can revel in my new power, I can turn off the boost when I return to my home zone. If I want 100hp goblins and apprentice mages with 40AC, I can leave it on.

Now, extending item and skill powers from the level 60 range of normal endgame to the 150ish of Merge endgame, THAT would be quite the feat. You'd have to either create new tiers of items (probably hard-coded into the engine) or further stratify the existing tiers (technically doable). A lot of treasure drops would have to be hand-adjusted. A T4 drop as a boost for a level 15 party would now be intended for a level 80 party, and woefully out of place.

It's a lot of work, but this is actually fairly feasible. The tiers are already somewhat overloaded, bearing three games worth of items in each. You'd have a tough time getting past the stair-step problem, of the power jump between those tiers. In particular, T1 vs T2. Let's say you make T2 the equivalent of vanilla T3 or 4. Does that mean you're stuck with T1 Crude Swords and Rusty Chainmails for an outsized amount of time? If that first Trollish Warsword, or Steel Chainmail (T2) is much more powerful than vanilla, it creates an even larger power disparity should you acquire one ahead of time. The same 6 tiers would be expected to cover around double the levels -- 150ish vs 60-70ish. Of course, at some point, the item tiers become replaced by artifacts.

It would have to be done with an assumption that the player is criss-crossing continents constantly (heh fun phrase), almost striping across the content. Artifacts would be relegated to endgame areas, and wouldn't appear until probably over level 100, may be 120. You'd probably want to remove the "free" artifact locations in Jadame (willow tree, rock, fort wall, etc), but hand place some (still random) in places like the Memory Crystal dungeons, the elemental planes, Nighon area. You'd have to hand-craft all the monster stats to adjust to the new design schema. Liches are now level 100-120 critters, stuff like that.

Skills ... hoo boy. I don't even know what to do about those. Except maybe make Expert take rank 7, master rank 15, and GM rank 25, or something, with commensurate cost increases. Would that be enough to extend it out? Can that easily be done?

Most importantly, how many players would find all this constraining and heavy handed? Well, I guess those players would play a different mod.

[lightbringer23]

Hey! So I'm finally getting a chance to actually play my own mod

I started out by going through Echo's MM8 mod -- which is how I intended MM7 Refilled to be played. I am thus starting MM7 Refilled at level 149.

I made a bunch of edits to items and classes for my own game that make my characters super-powered, so I tune up the Bolstering to match. Goblins have over 600hp, and Goblin Lords have over 1700. Even for a normal party, I highly recommend bolstering -- even as little as 5% -- just because it gives foes neat new abilities as you level. Thieves can shoot elemental spells at you, elven lancers buff themselves with self magic, and more. Back in MM8, the Dark Dwarves even fired arrows from their crossbows, instead of just charging up and clubbing with them! :O

I have cleared Emerald Island and Harmondale -- completing Castle Harmondale and the White Cliff Caves. It has been long enough since I made the mod that I have forgotten much of what I placed.

I am very pleased with what I'm seeing so far. I am using the modifications to mapstats.txt that Echo includes in her Merge Convergence. I HIGHLY recommend doing so. Vanilla monster spawns in MM7 are 1-3 per spawn point. Echo changed that to 4-6. There are now literal swarms of dragonflies around Emerald Island, and taking them out in mass clusters was very cathartic.

I greatly enjoyed fighting off all the warring factions surrounding Harmondale. It definitely felt like a town under siege, and I was charging in like a superhero squad, saving the town from certain doom.

When I went through MM7 in the Merge for the very first time, it was quick and boring. Now, it is decidedly more interesting and challenging. Between my placed spawns, bolstering, and the mapstats.txt changes, this is turning out exactly how I imagined.

There were at least a couple times where I laughed and said "oh you clever jerk" to my past self

[lightbringer23]

Wish I could remember where they were/what they were... I know my knight had 2 very strong swords very early on. But I absolutely can't remember where from I would have had more, but when I saw the items were clearly meant to be weaker, and were strong due to my own item changes (cutlasses in Harmondale, for instance), I just left them on the ground, lol. I think those fiery cutlasses look cool so I swapped them around to be much higher on the food chain

I bet I know what you experienced. I hand-placed 2 Goblin Scimitars near the Harmondale Obelisk. If you bumped up their stats due to the "fiery" look, that would explain the discrepancy. In vanilla/merge, I think they're basic +4 items -- similar tier as the Erathian Broadsword.

[lightbringer23]

Okay, this may sound weird, but I am seriously impressed with my own work. There was about a year of gap between making this mod and actually playing through it, so I forgot most of what I did. Between bolstering and Echo's suggested mapstat.txt changes (increasing spawn pops from 1-3 to 4-6), this has met and blown away my expectations.

I actually felt really challenged at some points of mid-game MM7, with a very high level, fully kitted out party. Tidewater Caverns, Tularean Caves, Watchtower 6, and the Titan's Stronghold were very tough and satisfying challenges. Even the Vampire Wine Cellar in Tatalia almost made me briefly retreat. By the way, at 105% Bolster, and at level 160, Blood Titans have over 10,000hp. :O

I've cleared all the outdoor maps, save Nighon and Eofol, and completed their dungeons (except Clanker's Lab ... need to check that out.) I'm about to enter the Pit and do its events. After that, it's off to Nighon through the tunnels.

[Eksekk]

You should be proud, it's really amazing work! I really enjoyed playing with your mod. It has actually inspired me to put extra monster spawns in my Rev4 port, alongside difficulty levels, and I think it is turning out well! (it's fully optional, and also some spawns are inspired by your mod.) One question though, how did you reach 160 level? Did you do other continents besides MM7? Or is monster experience that important? I always considered it subpar to quests unless you armageddon whole land of the giants with learning skill and learning NPCs.

[lightbringer23]

You should be proud, it's really amazing work! I really enjoyed playing with your mod. It has actually inspired me to put extra monster spawns in my Rev4 port, alongside difficulty levels, and I think it is turning out well! (it's fully optional, and also some spawns are inspired by your mod.) One question though, how did you reach 160 level? Did you do other continents besides MM7? Or is monster experience that important? I always considered it subpar to quests unless you armageddon whole land of the giants with learning skill and learning NPCs.

Thanks for the kind words. Tell me more about this Rev4 port you're working on! I absolutely adore BDJ's Rev4 mod -- it's some of the best work in MM modding. My dream would be a way to graft Rev4 into the Merge, but I seriously have no idea how that could work. It would probably require some Rodril-level wizardry.

As for finishing MM8 at level 149, it was definitely the monsters. I was surprised to discover this.

I played a party of all druids. I modded the druid class to have the HP of Knights and GM access to all skills. I actually find that pretty essential to extending the progression of the characters through three whole games worth of content. You have any idea how long it takes to GM all magic skills, armor, weapons, and misc? The early game is actually quite a challenge, as every character has a half-dozen critical skills to "focus" on, instead of just 1 or 2 -- not to mention the cost of all those spell books.

I started in MM6 so that I could quickly finish 1st and 2nd promos for everyone, and have access to M Air, M Water, and spell guilds in Freehaven that would sell me Flight, Town Portal, and Lloyd's Beacon. As soon as I met those requirements, I immediately moved to MM8 for the duration. I moved to MM8 at level 17.

Early on, I pushed the Learning skill. I was already at Master Learning for everyone starting in MM8, and I very quickly made GM -- probably during Ravenshore. From MM6, I acquired an Instructor and a Scholar hireling -- netting another +20% and auto-IDing all items. I kept that the whole game. Between GM Learning and the hirelings, I recieve +69% to all XP gain from Monsters, and have done so for about 90% of MM8.

Echo's mod and the mapstat changes dramatically increase monster density. It's all very playable, but it can get pretty intense. With bolstering set to 105%, I have never felt like I was just mopping the floor with the monsters. Also, I think the late game monsters in MM8 might give more XP than similar monsters in MM7. I was receiving 4-5k xp per foe in the Plane Between Planes. In MM7, similar foes only granted about 1-2k. We'll see if that holds out as I get to the real endgame stuff in Nighon and Eofol.

[Eksekk]

Tell me more about this Rev4 port you're working on! I absolutely adore BDJ's Rev4 mod -- it's some of the best work in MM modding. My dream would be a way to graft Rev4 into the Merge, but I seriously have no idea how that could work. It would probably require some Rodril-level wizardry.

Sorry for late reply. Yes this Rev4 port is probably exactly what you want. It's basically playable Rev4 in the MM7 part of the Merge. I have most of important work completed, it's already playable (but with a few hiccups here and there). I also don't have implemented all features I plan to. I keep having new ideas, which is unusual for me. Recently I added spell resistance penetration item bonus and am working on new quest involving one of duplicated dungeons (several ones which were locked on the map they were normally because they were used in Rev4 for different purpose, in my project they're obviously still there but you can also enter their vanilla version normally. There are 4 of them in total: Clanker's Lab, Tularean Caves, Dragon Caves (Eofol) and Wromthrax's Cave). I want to add at least one quest to each of them (so 4 in total), so they don't feel that useless.

I also plan to make Breeding Zone relevant again, like I've already done with fort Riverstride (there's quest taking place there, it involves only plain old monster killing, but I added many different enemies for variance). And every feature/change of Rev4 content is optional, except those which are clear improvements of the engine (like revised harmondale teleportal hub, you don't have to juggle keys anymore, and can simply select the destination in NPC dialog, if you have the right key), that is probably the best feature overall. It was hard to make them all optional, but I've learned much by doing this and I'm very content with that.

I've actually seriously considered restoring most of the cut content (dark path (promotions and quests), paladin promotion, king quests, trumpet quest and maybe some more), but it would be hard because some dungeons are already used in Rev4 and they have an entrance on map so no easy way out of having to explain why there are two same maps, and I can handwave only one or two with "magical portal to parallel world" type of thing. Also NPCs are changed, moved etc. There's also the plain factor of amount of work it would require to recreate them, ideally in Lua. These all factors made me decide to instead add more custom content to liven up the game. I've not made any storyline changes, only added new quests as of now. Even if you enable them, they're fully optional. And trumpet quest will probably be easy to reintroduce, so I will try to do that. Also just in case you've wondered, BDJ didn't remove them because he didn't like them, but mainly because MM games have limits on basically all text files in lods and tables in the executable. He had to do it to have space to introduce new content. Luckily, I think all of these limits are removed in the Merge.

If you're curious about other continents, I didn't edit them almost at all. Only some changes like boosted cauldron resists/barrels/my own changes like spell penetration are in effect. There's actually a pretty drastic change and it's removing of dark GM from continents other than MM7 (I've added late game quest to become lich and learn GM dark, even for clerics), but I 99% will remove it to allow to focus on other continents first. Also BDJ's code can be "abused" (idk if you can call it that) to give master dark to basically every spellcaster. The code checks for fire magic and body magic, and if your char knows at least one of these (even on basic 1!) he gets master dark. I've left that behavior in, because I didn't feel like restricting such an opportunity. I will have to inform players in the readme though, I can't stand the thought they might lose out on this. The same happens with fire magic quest BTW.

But back on topic, I've often thought about implementing The Chaos Conspiracy in Merge, but it'll have to wait because I remember almost nothing about it compared to Rev4. Not because it's bad, but because I didn't like MM6 as much as MM7, it is too rough for the player in my opinion. So I can safely say that Rev4 is the greatest feat of modding currently completed for MM7, except of maybe Elemental Mod. My absolute top dream (except of Echo of Destruction releasing, I've read that it's on hold right now, this wasn't said explicitly but I think it's not far from the truth that mainly because no people with needed skills wanted to help It's sad for me that they need modellers and artists, because that are the exact skills I don't have, and would love to (I tried to learn modelling, didn't go too well). It's really annoying I can't help them in any way, except of maybe financial help.) would be to make Rev4 and Chaos Conspiracy-scale mod for MM8 (it didn't really have any ambitious mod except of Merge obviously, but it didn't add much content on its own. The fans tried, but projects couldn't be finished.), but it will have to wait because I want to finally finish Rev4 part first, and then either Chaos Conspiracy or MM8 mod. But if I get a brilliant idea for a new quest or something, I will obviously store it for later. If you have any ideas, no matter if it's for MM6, MM7 or MM8 world, I would be delighted if you shared them here . I've improved in reverse engineering lately, and might actually implement some of harder ones.

As for finishing MM8 at level 149, it was definitely the monsters. I was surprised to discover this.

I played a party of all druids. I modded the druid class to have the HP of Knights and GM access to all skills. I actually find that pretty essential to extending the progression of the characters through three whole games worth of content. You have any idea how long it takes to GM all magic skills, armor, weapons, and misc? The early game is actually quite a challenge, as every character has a half-dozen critical skills to "focus" on, instead of just 1 or 2 -- not to mention the cost of all those spell books.

I started in MM6 so that I could quickly finish 1st and 2nd promos for everyone, and have access to M Air, M Water, and spell guilds in Freehaven that would sell me Flight, Town Portal, and Lloyd's Beacon. As soon as I met those requirements, I immediately moved to MM8 for the duration. I moved to MM8 at level 17.

Early on, I pushed the Learning skill. I was already at Master Learning for everyone starting in MM8, and I very quickly made GM -- probably during Ravenshore. From MM6, I acquired an Instructor and a Scholar hireling -- netting another +20% and auto-IDing all items. I kept that the whole game. Between GM Learning and the hirelings, I recieve +69% to all XP gain from Monsters, and have done so for about 90% of MM8.

Echo's mod and the mapstat changes dramatically increase monster density. It's all very playable, but it can get pretty intense. With bolstering set to 105%, I have never felt like I was just mopping the floor with the monsters. Also, I think the late game monsters in MM8 might give more XP than similar monsters in MM7. I was receiving 4-5k xp per foe in the Plane Between Planes. In MM7, similar foes only granted about 1-2k. We'll see if that holds out as I get to the real endgame stuff in Nighon and Eofol.

Wow, that's impressive! I always thought monster experience is inferior to quests, but if you push learning and have tons of monsters to kill, it probably becomes the better way to level (I've kinda experienced this when playing fully magic party and just starbursting/meteor showering strong enemies like hydras in Nighon and Paradise Valley. It's so fun! I think even more enjoyable than armageddoning everything). Also if your hypothesis is true, MM7 monster exp will need to get buffed. There shouldn't be only one third of experience you gain in other games.

[lightbringer23]

Sorry for late reply. Yes this Rev4 port is probably exactly what you want. It's basically playable Rev4 in the MM7 part of the Merge.

Oh, DUUUUUDE. That sounds fantastic! Any elements of my Refilled mod that you feel like adding in to yours, feel free. Even if you don't, I may well go in and fill up your Rev4 Port maps for my own use. I can't wait to check out your work.

But back on topic, I've often thought about implementing The Chaos Conspiracy in Merge, but it'll have to wait because I remember almost nothing about it compared to Rev4. Not because it's bad, but because I didn't like MM6 as much as MM7, it is too rough for the player in my opinion. So I can safely say that Rev4 is the greatest feat of modding currently completed for MM7, except of maybe Elemental Mod. My absolute top dream (except of Echo of Destruction releasing, I've read that it's on hold right now, this wasn't said explicitly but I think it's not far from the truth that mainly because no people with needed skills wanted to help It's sad for me that they need modellers and artists, because that are the exact skills I don't have, and would love to (I tried to learn modelling, didn't go too well). It's really annoying I can't help them in any way, except of maybe financial help.) would be to make Rev4 and Chaos Conspiracy-scale mod for MM8 (it didn't really have any ambitious mod except of Merge obviously, but it didn't add much content on its own. The fans tried, but projects couldn't be finished.), but it will have to wait because I want to finally finish Rev4 part first, and then either Chaos Conspiracy or MM8 mod. But if I get a brilliant idea for a new quest or something, I will obviously store it for later. If you have any ideas, no matter if it's for MM6, MM7 or MM8 world, I would be delighted if you shared them here . I've improved in reverse engineering lately, and might actually implement some of harder ones.

Hot damn. I loved the Chaos Conspiracy. I'd love to see it as an option for the merge. The only thing I regretted about it was that it skipped the Tomb of Varn. That really is one of the most incredible dungeons in all of Might and Magic.

You are doing the Ancients' work, my brother!

[boutrousman]

Is this supposed to be played with a party of four or party of five?

[lightbringer23]

Is this supposed to be played with a party of four or party of five?

Sorry it took a while to reply. You can play it with whatever size party you'd like. I play with the full party of five that the Merge allows, thanks to the MM8 engine. This mod does require the MM 6 7 8 Merge, though, not just MM7 alone.

I have to say, if you bolster and use the mapstat.txt changes, you'll need all the firepower you can get. The maps get quite filled up with tough foes!