Topic category: Mod design feedback
Hello people i am Gus, i used to work with another person on a very old eb-wizardry add on called Rpgcraft but life and other matters (like our workspace getting corrupted) came in to the equation and we never ended up finishing. I was still working on it on and off but i never took the time to make a consistent design or art direction and i was still improving my procedure and modeling skills. Around 2024 i felt confident enough to try making a different mod on a similar manner. I always enjoyed how very old games like Daggerfall simulated world and allowed for custom spells, so i fell into that rabbit-hole and the current mod i have been working on was born. I am still working alone - i found 1 more person to help a bit with the models but we are still in the early stages of communicating. What is shown bellow is a solo-dev project which i would love to turn into a team-dev project if i find anyone interested.
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Let's talk about the mod a bit. As i said i loved how Daggerfall simulated a whole world and had spellcrafting. Those two elements scratch a very specific niche for me similarly to how minecraft and its infinite (practically infinite) terrain generation does. So the main two pillars i wanted for this project were Spellcrafting and a reactive world to the player with Events and radiant NPCs. In my journey through gaming and playing minecraft i also found out about Ars Nouveau. A good mod, very technically impressive but i disliked the spell Element agnosticism and the lack of visual customization. So i knew that in my project i would like to have Visual Customization that is consistent with the spell effects and also Spell Elements. Another thing i did not really like with magic mods in mc is the Catalyst based spellcasting (meaning having a wand or staff, or book to be able to cast) thus my system should have Keybound Skills and Casting. I really liked how Frieren - the anime- rationalized magic and i am also a pretty big fan of how magic is handled in the Toaru (anime) series. Magic should be imagination, so i decided that in my mod i will have Arbitrary guidelines for what effects can combine with each other, and also have a Big Variety of Particle, Impact and Projectile VFX.
Lastly as i had mention and in RPGcraft's (the older mod i developed with my friends before covid) mod page, i was and still am a big fan of Overlord's World. So i wanted to add a Class system with different Tiers of Classes and hundreds of unique abilities. At first i decided to make it into a more restrictive class system but then i played a lot of Elden Ring and i decided Classes should be Guidelines not boxes. Yes you should unlock new skills via investing on classes, being the easy way, but that shouldn't be the only way. The soul-borne series also made me decide i want to add Movesets on different Weapon Types that work similarly to Epic Fight.
Lastly after taking some game-design classes i found out that a lot of the tropes in games are very repetitive, not bad just repetitive. This clicked for me and made me want to try my hand into a World Event, Faction and Main Quest Randomly generated system, a simplified (i mean really simplified) story generator like in Dwarf Fortress. On that front i decided i wanted an equivalent of Super Tier Magic from Overlord (aka magic that breaks the game) in the mod.
All of these influences and the limited time i had for grind in the recent years made me appreciate roguelikes -more gamedesign classes – and this roguelike progression solved all issues with the game balance i would normally experience due to the fact that if you reach end game you'd be OP but only until you die and having everything reset. I would normally have found resets to be an issue due to players losing the time they grinded for gear, so i decided i should add Rituals that allow them to break the cycle, a Karma (metaprogression) system for reincarnations and lastly make progression condensed enough that in 3 hours of gameplay you can reach max level – not necessarily end game.
The end game i decided to pivot towards achieving godhood, building your civilization or creating custom dungeons. And this lifted another issue with the game design: Super Tier Spells can only become accessible to God-tier entities.
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The above are very nice and all but how would I even begin to code such a massive project? The answer may surprise you: it’s very anticlimactic. I opened multiple Trello boards pivoted around specific aspects of the mod and picked the ones I liked best to start developing. I wrote as much as possible of the Spellcrafting, Spellcasting, Progression (including classes and skills) and Stat systems in pseudo-code, and designed the layouts for the most important GUI (the spellcrafting UI first). After that I documented what visuals I’d need, what spell effects magic should produce, and ways to categorize effects without turning the system into a slop of OP junk , all while keeping visual clarity.
For the last three months I’ve been chipping away slowly (I don’t have a lot of free time): I finished most of the particles (108 particles) and ~50% of the projectile models I want. Next up are the impact visuals (custom explosion effects, etc.). I decided all spells should be handled as spell_bullet projectiles (just like Elden Ring) so I can call the same procedure for every spell instead of duplicating logic for self-casts vs projectile-casts. Finally, I’m storing spell data in custom NBTs that tell the spell_bullet which effects to apply and which visuals to spawn, a system that works both on server and client, despite pushback from folks who don’t understand NBTs.
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A bit of feedback for the following systems
WIP -> Not in game
IG -> Fully functional
RW -> Rework needed
TWK -> Needs minor tweaks
How Skills Work– You have 3 buttons for skills. Only 3 can be bound at once, but skills are multi-asseted: they function like swiss knives, not limited to a single effect. (IG)
Spellcasting – A toggle skill bound to a button. When active, you can save up to 5 spells, scroll through them using arrow keys, and view a dedicated overlay hub on the right side of the screen. Casting requires the Cast/Invoke button, which executes the currently selected spell. The system reconstructs spells dynamically from player_lifetime variables. (TWK)
Spellcrafting – Opens a GUI for creating spells that can be slotted into your 1–5 Spellcasting slots. (TWK)
- Primary Element: Defines visuals, damage type, cantrips, and compatible secondaries.
- Secondary Elements: Up to 2, adding their cantrips to your list.
- Focus: Choose self, projectile, or gaze.
- Intent: Heal, harm, no damage, or unique effects for special elements.
- Cantrips: Select from lists (some choices unlock visuals or lock out others) up to 5.
- Projectile Visual: e.g. fireball, lightning stream, ice arrow.
- Particles: Up to 3. Primary = 100% efficiency, secondary = 50% efficiency w/ 90% spread, tertiary = 25% speed efficiency.
- Modifiers: Up to 4. Speed, range, homing, unique pathing damage, duration, etc. (all raise spell cost)
Grand Casting – Skill – Saves 3 Grand Spells, works similarly to Spellcasting but with World altering pregenerated spells that can only be accessed by very few. Hold up to 3 Grand Spells. Once per day usage (20 min cooldown). Huge channel times (30–60s).
60 for Mortals/Undead/Demons
30 for Demigods
almost instant for Deities and lower CD
Consumes Divinity → mortals/demons/undead don’t have any, demi-gods can’t regenerate it naturally, deities regen naturally. Going into negative Divinity risks Balance Keeper spawns with karmic punishments (ends playthrough and punishes you by for example locking you in the nether for a certain amount of time). Unlocked by some Ultimate Classes (without the spells) or by achieving demigod or Deity status
Other Skills (Trello) – Smaller abilities like potion effects, crafting boosts, or utility actions. Nothing mechanically complex. (WIP)
Passives
Invoking – Governs whether players can use magic items or items with magical effects. Success is based on % chance. (WIP)
Weapon Moveset Passives – Some weapons have their move-sets altered if specific passives are in play. For example if Heavy blows is active, Bludgeoning Weapons gain a jumping attack trigger performing a jumping horizontal attack. (WIP)
Resources
Fatigue – The only resource in the mod. Drains when using spells or skills. Regenerates only after interacting with a bed for an extended period of time. There are other ways but have drawbacks. This balances casters since they would delete everyone if not limited by the amount of spells they can use per day.
(IG)
Stats
Mobs spawn with base stats.
- Vitality – Max HP, healing regen, % resist to instadeath, and mitigation vs necrotic damage. (IG)
- Nullification – Magic armor, blocks spell damage. Some skills scale with this. (IG)
- Acrobatic – Speed & jump height, capped to manageable player limits. (IG)
- Mastery – Governs spell cost, skill cost, and magical interactions. Core magic stat. (IG)
- Invoking (with k) – % chance of successful magic item usage. Some skills scale with this. (IG)
- Strength – Governs minecraft generic.attack.damage & some skills scale with this stat. (IG)
- Attack Speed – Governs number of attacks per second, mining speed and some rogue related skills. Default dexterity stat. (IG)
- Charisma – Governs NPC interactions and some skills scale with it. (IG)
- Karma – Metaprogression stat. Determines unlocks for new classes/races in future lives, scales certain late-game skills. Gained/lost via quests & items. (IG)
Factions (WIP)
There are 5 faction slots that can be filled at world gen by different procedurally generated factions. Factions are not static may change after resolving their Quests, creating new factions to take their place, after World Events and just by killing their Leaders. There is a doc that goes into huge detail about this system if you are interested, basically works as a random story generator. Factions of different types and alignments have different goals, Quests, Main Quests and provide different services.
World Events (WIP, some are in game)
World Events similarly to how rain works, as a global world boolean variable trigger effects like undead horde raids linked to player quests and the world’s factions. For example a faction might be an Evil Cult that wants to summon a Demonic Entity. This faction may be able to trigger the World Event “Pandemonium” spawning gates linked to the nether that summon invading demons in villages and settlements. Grand Casting may trigger World Events
Player Events (WIP, some are in game)
Localized events like the spawning of ambushers near the player. If world events affect every player these events affect a localized area around the player. If a player experiences such events they save them in their memory, this has interactions with the Factions and NPC systems – the doc of such interactions is in early stages since I am currently working on spellcrafting.
Mobs (WIP, some are in game already)
I have made multiple mobs of different flavors – I have all of their models made, I will link some in the end. Such mobs may belong to factions, spawn through NPC quests, be summoned by rituals, be summoned by world events or be found in unique structures. The mobs shown bellow are a small percentage of all the mobs made so far and are subject to change.
Class System
Player Level vs Class Level
- Player Level (PL)
- Determines overall progression, access to trainers, exploration rewards, potions, etc.
- Starts at a base of 40 for humanoids; non-humanoids may start higher or lower depending on racial bonuses.
- Player Levels are spent on:
- Buying stats (1 level → 1 point in a stat)
- Unlocking class packages (basic, rare, advanced, ultimate).
- Class Level (CL)
- Independent from Player Level.
- Determines proficiency, access to cantrips, modifiers, and class-specific abilities.
- Each class must be leveled separately with class XP.
Magic vs Melee Progression
Melee & Non-Magic:
- Start with a basic or rare class.
- Unlock additional classes via:
- Trainers found through world exploration
- Grimoires for your class type
Magic (Weavers / Invokers):
- Start with a basic or rare class.
- Unlock new basic or rare classes via:
- Grimoires
- Brewing potions to unlock them
- Advanced & Ultimate classes are only unlocked via Grimoires.
The only system I don’t know how to create is Dungeons and Modular settlements everything else is well within my ability. That said it would be cool if you had any suggestions or ideas for generating the features that are WIP. Also, I would like to know your opinion on this project not in terms of physibility – since I will be working on this as much as I can finishing as many of the goals I am able to finish- but in terms of concept appeal.
