Playable Troglodyte Overhaul

[round dragon]

Want to experience being a Troglodyte? Don't think most of the Troglodytes are even worth using? Then this mod might be for you, all of the Troglodyte variants have been buffed and/or reworked.

I'd appreciate anybody checking it out and giving me their feedback!

Version: 1.0.3
https://thunderstore.io/c/outward/p/sovereigncrab/Playable_Troglodyte_Overhaul/

[Armor Changes]

• Troglodyte Shaman

Resist: %10 Physical, %10 Impact, %40 Ethereal

Bonus: %50 Ethereal, %50 Mana Cost Reduction, .1 MP/s

• Armored Troglodyte

Resist: 10 Protection, %50 Physical, %60 Impact

Bonus: %25 Damage , .1 HP/s

• Troglodyte Grenadier

Resist: %60 Decay

Bonus: %100 Decay, 15 Pouch

• Troglodyte Knight

Resist: %35 Physical, Impact, %25 Status

Bonus: %60 Damage, %25 Impact

• Troglodyte Archmage

Resist: 10 Barrier

Bonus: %50 Lightning, Ice, Fire, %35 Mana Cost Reduction

• Annoying Troglodyte

Resist: 10 Hot/Cold, %25 Corruption Resist

Bonus: 15 Pouch, %25 Movement Speed, %25 Stamina Cost Reduction

[Skill Changes]

• Garg

Description: "Throw a bomb dealing Decay damage.

Inflicts Poisoned."

Requires: Thick Oil.

Damage: 15 Decay, 30 Impact

Cooldown: 6

Stamina Cost: 10

• Gurg

Description:
"Conjure six homing projectiles to fly towards enemies and inflict Ethereal damage."

Damage: 10 Ethereal, 15 Impact

Cooldown: 60 (1/4th of original value)

Mana Cost: 20 (+5 original value)

• Grog

Description:
"Conjure up to six projectiles healing and buffing allies.

Grants Discipline and Rage."

Healing: 30 Health (Unchanged)

Cooldown: 75 (1/4th of original value)

Mana Cost: 25 (Unchanged)

[copper canyon]

Is this mod vanilla-like?
✅ = Yes
🚫 = No

[vocal sleet]

In other words:
Make Trogs stronger
But also make them really bad

Which is entirely paradoxical in nature

[round dragon]

what you're saying is... make them hyper-specialized?

like a bio-engineered creature for one purpose

[vocal sleet]

The thought is, and this goes for any game whatsoever, is that it should be fun for both solo playthroughs and also multiplayer ones
Trog playthroughs in outward specifically have two main appeals (mainly):

1. challenging gameplay the forces the player to adapt to new and unique circumstances
2. getting a bunch of Trogs together and combining your pathetic Trog abilities to make something that barely counts as a strategy
   (I will also note the appeal of just being haha funny Trog)

[round dragon]

or are you saying they should just be... vanilla trogs

[vocal sleet]

Im totally in favor of Trogs being changed

[round dragon]

by vanilla trogs, i mean the NPC trogs you fight

[vocal sleet]

If I was designing an overhaul of the Trog system, I would start by targeting the places that make people mad about it
For example:
changing the skills (very good job on that btw)
And making the existing armors each equal in power level (you also did that very well, although I might have gone about it a little differently)

[round dragon]

i think maybe i could remove the stamina cost reduction on say, the troglodyte knight and make it so that the mage's buff recovers stamina

[round dragon]

skills i was a bit iffy on, the damage-spell is quite... powerful

[vocal sleet]

What I would do is try to examine the purpose of each existing armor and try to make them better at fulfilling that purpose
Whichever one it is that gives 10 protection for example is pretty good as is
Same with grenadier (cuz it’s op)
Archmage and mage however are really lacking
Mage offers zero defensive bonuses, which is its major downfall
Same with archmage, but it’s even worse b/c it has negative resistances

(I’m talking about the vanilla stats of the armors btw)

[round dragon]

mage is kind of simple i feel, just add some defense. %15-25 Physical, %15-30 Ethereal, %15 impact or so.

14 protection definitely puts it into wacky tier, on top of its already high negation

[vocal sleet]

Ye
Pretty easy to fix mana Trog
Archmage is one that could have like 10 barrier instead of the negative resistances, and then it would be kinda viable at that point

That’s just an idea though

Not saying it’s balanced at all

[round dragon]

not the first to share that sentiment

what about the damage bonuses on the archmage? i personally couldn't see how to use them effectively

[vocal sleet]

I do really like the premise of archmage, that it could be using fire, frost, or lightning
So things like thrice-wrought and werlig are fantastic weapons to use

And the fact that archmage players would ideally cover three damage types is very convenient

The problem in my mind is a combination between pretty poor damage in all reality, and defense being literally thrown into a garbage disposal

If each damage bonus was closer to what mana Trog or grenadier did, as well as having some defense, it would actually be viable

[round dragon]

10 Barrier, %10 Physical/Impact.
%40 Lightning, Ice, Fire, %35 MCR

every %5 gives the thrice-wrought 2 damage per element

it would do 50 with these stats

[vocal sleet]

i would change it to 50% damage bonuses and then remove the 10% phys/impact
but thats my take
someone else might have a different opinion
either way is WAY better than the dumpster fire that is vanilla archmage

[round dragon]

the %10 phys/impact would make him better able to hold their own, considering arch/shaman both have acccess to the damage spell which does 60 Ethereal split between all available enemies in the area

would it be better to give the phys/impact to the... mage?

[vocal sleet]

i would say the mana trog yea

i see archmage as leaning into the elemental side of everything

whereas the mana trog imo is obviously ethereal, but you could more easily justify physical/impact resistances

[round dragon]

he's got literal STONES on his body

[vocal sleet]

thats just what i think
idk tho
ultimately its your mod, so however you wanna do it is your choice

[round dragon]

i'm thinking...
%10 Physical, %15 Impact, %30 Ethereal
%50 MCR, %50 Ethereal, .1 MP/s

[round dragon]

my goal is to just... overhaul troglodytes, i appreciate your feedback.

[vocal sleet]

i do think it is difficult to overhaul trogs when theres a lot of things that could go in a lot of different directions
it definitely needs overhauling (grenadier superiority is not good)
but theres a lot of ways to do it

[remote walrus]

What about rogue elemental plate traps mage trogs though? Of course grenadier is still good to carry all that and for decay traps specifically, but archmage can do those other elements.
And then you still can have decay traps set up in the back so that by the time an enemy gets there you are able to switch to grenadier.
Also I wonder how well having gogo on a quickslot for running away can work

[vocal sleet]

Sadly you can’t put armor in Quickslots

[remote walrus]

Oh riiight, I forgot...

[vocal sleet]

That’s another thing that would greatly improve Trog gameplay

Although maybe there’s already a mod for that

Or maybe there isn’t and it’s really hard to code that

Who knows

[round dragon]

i've made the trog armors heavier.

[remote walrus]

Why 🤔

[round dragon]

i really dislike the notion of carrying multiple armors around.

[remote walrus]

I really like how having access to multiple armors with different strengths on the go makes trog into this versatile but also "know what you need when" kind of experience.

[round dragon]

is that... fun to you?

i loathed having to carry around the master travelers set just to make the base game's travel bearable

[remote walrus]

I like to be able to have archmage for traps and then switch to phys damage bonus to poke in melee or to decay to throw, ye

It's cool that you are making a piece of the game you like better in the ways you like, but maybe it's also a part of it to try and not make the parts other people might like worse

[round dragon]

i like specialization. considering how i've no current plans to make skilltrees to further the specializations the armors give you, there's not much a point to make the armor heavier.

[remote walrus]

I'm okay with armors that would logical be heavier to be heavier, like knight and maybe armored, decay one would make sense too, as it's basically a lil bag with stuff for decay grenades, so that powerful armor can be like 3 or 4 weight, so that having it with you is a commitment, for a trog pocket size, in the same time imo manatrog one, with manaregen, can be reasonably said to be light

[round dragon]

i personally dislike this kind of playstyle. i like specialization, it makes my character feel more unique than they actually are.

[remote walrus]

I have enough of that in my normal playthroughs, I was trying to think up a character that can be versatile by switching gear for the occasions, keeping stuff in stash but having that option of allow to some extent different playstyles based on what you use, so trog is scratching that itch for me, even if it can't be quiet as versatile.

I think that to some extent being able to have the armors with you and change on the go is a part of the trog playstyle, you can do more of different stuff that way, and if you are able to switch armors in combat that can lead to a pretty cool flow, didn't mess with that much yet though.

You know the game Skul: The Hero Slayer? There the skull your lil skeleton wears gives you different playstyle, basically every skull is a different character and each of them have one or two skills from a pool of like 4 skills that are available to that character, and skulls can be upgraded to get some passives unique to them. Also each skull has some special effect or move that they do when you swap into that skull, and the swap action has a cool down.
Just thinking what if there were trog skills similar to ritualist's "put down an instrument", but instead it equipped a certain armor if you have it and maybe granted some short buff or did some player active skill. Like gogo can get a probe poke that instead of alertness puts on you a buff that lasts for maybe 30 seconds and for each level gives you 5% movement speed and 10% stamina reduction, so you can be in some mage armor, avoid some attack, switch to gogo to poke and get the buff, run around the enemy or away, switch to different armor, maybe armored trog, that'll give you maybe a short duration wind imbue, letting you poke more in melee with whatever your weapon, let's say shriek, and then you can do a gogo swap thing again to get away and pull out grenadier armor so that you're both decay immune and can throw stuff and kite while plague does things

Just a lil what if from me 🙃

[round dragon]

i have no idea how i could implement that. currently my sights aren't so high. wanting to look into making pholotia a playable trog

[remote walrus]

Would be cool. I wonder how she is able to have a backpack on

Also I think there was a mounts mod somewhere, maybe can have a cart model follow you around with that mod' mounts-have-storage approach, idk though

[vocal sleet]

I feel like having multiple armor pieces as a Trog is too encouraged
Obviously it’s something that can help you out a lot, but it also feels a little cheap to just switch to the Go’go and run across the map after doing something as an archmage for example
And then when you’re overweight, switch to the grenadier
Etc
Honestly that kind of playstyle I think should still be something that is doable, since it’s something that normal playthroughs can also do, but definitely discouraged. On a standard character, you likely won’t lug around full master trader armor AND kintsugi since kintsugi weighs so much, but if you’re okay with having to relinquish a ton of backpack space, then you should totally be able to have two armor sets

It’s another part of the game and the intricacies of builds that make me like outward so much

That you can choose between having one armor set or multiple, and it’s up to you to weigh the pros and cons

With Trogs there are no cons to carrying multiple sets

So the choice of the player is obsolete, and they’re effectively forced into that meta playstyle

[remote walrus]

That's the whole thing about trog, they have no skills but they have different strengths, and I don't think that using that should be discouraged. Creating incentives to use it in a creative way can be cool imo

[remote walrus]

Like, you can always choose to only always use one armor and that's it, or none of them and be the most goated vanilla trog of Aurai.

So why is the choice suddenly obsolete?

[round dragon]

because it’s optimal to carry several armors for different tasks

[vocal sleet]

The choice is less about creativity and more about:
will I do the optimal thing, or will I willingly nerf myself just because

Either that or you’re too stupid to realize that you can be using multiple armors

[round dragon]

imagine if your entire squad of trogs switched to the optimal outfits for the combat at hand

going to fight the lich? oops, all grenadiers

granted he does more than just decay, but you get the point

[vocal sleet]

That’s what we did for plague doctor

Everybody went grenadier

And we annihilated him

[round dragon]

which is why i don’t want the low weight

[remote walrus]

You still just can go there as a crowd of decay trogs and dunk on him, and even run there and back as a gogo trog, no matter if armors weight 1 or 10

[round dragon]

yes, but you have to dedicate your trip to all decay trogs, and prepare for it

[round dragon]

then why does it matter?

[vocal sleet]

I think the armors shouldn’t weigh 10, but definitely not 1 either

5 is a happy middle ground

[round dragon]

it's not implemented yet (the weights) but i agree with 5

[round dragon]

also regardless of whether i have differing ideas or not, i appreciate the feedback

[remote walrus]

You just don't have the choice to try some funky mid-combat swaps with armors being heavier. I guess at 5 you still have one or two extra with you if you really want.
It's that I already am building my every human to use specific gear, and now in this mod trogs are going to be under pressure in the same direction.
I'll probably get back to you about how I can edit mod files to put armor back at 1 weight if I ever get to playing with this mod

[remote walrus]

👍 🫂

[round dragon]

it's very easy it'd take all of 5 minutes to make such a change for yourself.

[round dragon]

🤝 🫂

[vocal sleet]

i will say though, every time i end up making a build that uses multiple weapons or multiple armors, it ends up being pretty fun
for example, one of my first builds (which was really bad, but still fun) used the manticore greatmace, worldedge greataxe, starchild claymore, and dreamer's halberd, switching between them as i saw fit
all while wearing white kintsugi and a mefino backpack

i also still have yet to go through with my full lantern build....
hmmmmmm
ill get bored enough to do it eventually