Modifying Instance Difficulty

[shiroken]

First off, my goals: I'd like to modify the difficulty of dungeons and raids to make them soloable around their usual levels. Ideally, I'd like to make this an additional option like Normal vs. Heroic (vs. Solo). Also, I'd like to be able to queue for the Dungeon Finder by myself, but that's optional. Is this possible, and if so what would I need to edit? I'm fairly inexperienced in programming, but I do have a certain level of familiarity and tend to be a quick learner when I have a concrete project.

I'm currently running Vanilla (using MaNGOS), WotLK, Cata, and MoP (all Trinity) servers for myself, but eventually plan to set things up so I can play locally with a couple friends (which is why I'd like to make solo an additional option rather than completely replacing the normal versions).

So to recap, the three I want to learn:
1) How to nerf dungeons
2) Add additional instance options (like Heroic is)
3) How to reduce LFG queue requirements
for each of my servers (for which the corresponding feature is even available - I know 2 and 3 won't be available for the Vanilla server).

If you can only point me in the direction of one of these things, that's fine. I'd rather learn at least some of this stuff than none of it.

[stoneharry]

Nerfing dungeons will not be easy without programming experience. The entire dungeon system is mostly hardcoded into the emulator because it doesn't change.

You will need to go through all the spells (spell.dbc) and nerf their values appropriately for each dungeon. There is no easy way to do this. I would not want to start the task.

As far as health/mana goes, this is all controlled from within the database and can be nerfed with a few MySQL queries.

LFG may be as simple as changing the number of players required server side, but it is also possible the client is too dependant on the 5 man requirement. You could probably hack around a solution but it is not something that can be done without, as I said before, prior programming experience.

I can't really provide guides for this as it does get quite complicated in places and I've likely missed something in what I described. This isn't a project I would undertake.

[shiroken]

Yeah... The experience requirement doesn't intimidate me quite as much as the time that would be required to handle all of that. Even if I knew exactly what needed to change, changing every single creature in every single instance across four versions of WoW would eat up a significant chunk of my time.

Alternate solution: What about a buff that increases your stats 5/10/25-fold inside corresponding instances? Perhaps a 1-hour version on 24-hour cooldown for world bosses... I imagine that this would still not make it quite as easy as a regular run with the appropriate number of people simply because there's only one person to do all the things that a full party/raid would normally do, and that some bosses would still be impossible simply due to their mechanics, but at least it would be a start.

[stoneharry]

Yeah... The experience requirement doesn't intimidate me quite as much as the time that would be required to handle all of that. Even if I knew exactly what needed to change, changing every single creature in every single instance across four versions of WoW would eat up a significant chunk of my time.

Alternate solution: What about a buff that increases your stats 5/10/25-fold inside corresponding instances? Perhaps a 1-hour version on 24-hour cooldown for world bosses... I imagine that this would still not make it quite as easy as a regular run with the appropriate number of people simply because there's only one person to do all the things that a full party/raid would normally do, and that some bosses would still be impossible simply due to their mechanics, but at least it would be a start.

Buffing the players heavily while in the instance is a easier solution and the route Blizzard took. If you try to do old content in WoD you will suddenly find yourself taking barely any damage and dealing huge amounts.

However, how much to buff the player and what specific parts to buff is difficult to adjust and one Blizzard has struggled to tune.

[shiroken]

All right. I imagine this is something I could do by simply editing a few .dbc's to create something like the Essence of Wintergrasp (only example I can think of) that will automatically grant players in instances an aura that increases various stats by x%. I've been searching for tutorials and the like since my last post, but all I've found are very simple guides for cloning or upgrading damage-dealing spells.

[stoneharry]

All right. I imagine this is something I could do by simply editing a few .dbc's to create something like the Essence of Wintergrasp (only example I can think of) that will automatically grant players in instances an aura that increases various stats by x%. I've been searching for tutorials and the like since my last post, but all I've found are very simple guides for cloning or upgrading damage-dealing spells.

Well I made a GUI for editing spells in 3.3.5a that supports most of the features: http://www.ownedcore.com/forums/worl...or-gui-v2.html

I am unsure how well a custom spell will work. It might be better to repurpose an existing spell (perhaps a dummy one?) as then the client will know about it as well. You can get the server to overwrite some client data, such as making the spell undispellable. Have a try by cloning the spell you suggest and increasing the values. See what the result is.

[shiroken]

All right, I'll try that. Thanks.