Recommendations on mods for first time playing?

[WillieSea]

I have had this game and all 3 dlc for many years but never played it. But it came up in my list of 'the next game to play' so I am installing it now.

Do any of the long time players have any recommendations on mods I should get for this play through?

I am looking for Quality of life, bug fixes, and graphics upgrades types of mods.

I would also be interested in equipment mods that make armor or weapons usable since most developers add so many negatives that nobody ever uses the equipment.

Also, in reading a few threads in the forum it appears there is a store front launcher for the game, is there any way to disable that?

And perhaps a better mod loader to use if such a thing exists?

[chris.ferrantegerard]

TQ can be a bit stingy so if you want to speed up farming you can try one of the loot+ mods. There's also some mods to increase exp. Not required through and can make things a bit dull if there's too much loot but up to you.

Otherwise for your first run Vanilla is perfectly fine. Later on, xMax is a good mod (increases number of enemies spawns + bosses) for making the game a bit more interesting.

Also you probably want to avoid the curses in temple in the starting town. These let you earn a special currency which you can spend on orbs from random drops at the temple but they penalize your resistances and stats. If you're not experienced with the game the extra debuffs can make things a lot harder, TQ has plenty of dangerous fights which will kill you even without the curses lol.

[Psixi]

What you play with, entirely depends on your standards

Are you a oldschool hardcore player who enjoys the archaic but "grindy" nature , or are you a more casual player who wants the path of least resistance?

I do not recommend playing with any mods, first playthrough, get a feel of the game for you to know whether or not you enjoy the game, or dislike certain aspects you want to change. If you're an oldschool player who absolutely adheres to the developers vision and restrictions, then there are "vanilla" mods that don't ruin the grueling experience of time commitment and "reward".

They would be things that don't change drop rates, but increase monster spawns, since this game respawns monsters on a new session of loading the game, this really only saves times since you increase the sources of loot, but the rarity stays the same so it would be the same as doing multiple sessions but in a condensed manner of time. These would be XMAX, but I'm going to just plug my own mod since I believe it to be the exact same but updated.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3005409897

Kronos is my other mod, it has some "QoL", but its not for purist players, because it increases the stock of jewellery merchants. But it's pretty vanilla. It has things like Loot beams, drop sounds, affixes shown, starts max zoom, pets on aggressive etc.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2763522947

These are ofc, x3 mob mods so you don't really want to start from lvl 1 with these, they are just to be loaded when you are "farming".

If you absolutely don't care, and feel like trying to learn the game is either too steep of a learning curve or time investment, then you can completely remove all agency of rarity for loot and just get the items to "play" the game, which is what a lot of casual players do because they want to focus on playing the story, and not worrying about skills, builds or items. A mod that falls into this category would be:

Loot Plus+ makes every boss container in the game drops epic/legendary items
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1742876226&searchtext=loot+plus

XP/Skill mods - these either increase experience so you level faster, or more skill points per level that the game usually gives. The XP one is much safer, because it doesn't make you any more powerful than you would be at the level you would be
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2735560785&searchtext=xp

You have to be careful with these mods, and playing with them before you've even constructed an opinion on whether or not they are whats suited to you. I say this because they can trivialise the game and make it too easy, which can lead to boredom. But that's up to the user to decide.

I would also be interested in equipment mods that make armor or weapons usable since most developers add so many negatives that nobody ever uses the equipment.

All equipment is "useful", it's very rare for an item to have "so many negatives", so I'm not sure where you are seeing that? There are some items with negative stats, but they're almost always offset by a benefit, there's only like 2 or 3 items that are just unusable equipped and that would be Sacrificial Prefix. I would avoid using mods that change gear, because it runs into the same problem as the ones I listed above, but if you must, you can look for them on workshop. Here's one, I can't really recommend it but I'm going to present it since it doesn't look terribly imbalanced (it's not indicative of the regular experience though)

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2359770187&searchtext=item

Also, in reading a few threads in the forum it appears there is a store front launcher for the game, is there any way to disable that?

There's no launcher, but when you run the game for the first time the game will ask you which version you want to run by default, you can change that in the game's Steam properties, to not ask which version you want to run every time or specify.

And perhaps a better mod loader to use if such a thing exists?

This is not Minecraft or Terraria, there are no mod loaders. You can only load one mod at a time, and that's on the Custom Quest menu ingame. After loading the mod there, it will be active. You can't just add mods in a modular way, the game does not support it. If you want a mod to always be active, without having to initialise it every session, then you need to check if the mod on workshop has a "hard mod" version which you can download.

I'm going to plug one more mod that i'm the author of, if you are a casual player and won't ever see yourself reaching Legendary difficulty to play Eternal Embers, since the campaign only exists on the last difficulty.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3081658540

[WillieSea]

I am more of a 'casual' player, who has enough difficulty with life, job, and family, and just want some entertainment in my games.

I find it unusual that the game was coded in such a way that only one mod can be loaded. Sounds like modding was poorly implemented. Oh well.

I went with this one, but I was also hoping for 'more monsters' too.
And more loot I am not sure is working either. But skills and ability points appears to be working fine.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2654908691

I went with marksman because I like bows. And then picked defender for the second.

[Psixi]

Originally posted by WillieSea:

I went with this one, but I was also hoping for 'more monsters' too.
And more loot I am not sure is working either. But skills and ability points appears to be working fine.

The mod you linked already adds more monsters, it states so in the description. It probably have several versions, and you can pick which one to load in Custom Quest, I don't know since I don't use it.

Since you stated you're casual, then that mod is pretty much perfect for you. Just pick whatever you want and have fun

[WillieSea]

Thanks!

The screenshot on the mod showed like 40 dead monsters on the screen, I only see around 4 to 6 monsters at a time. So that is why I thought perhaps it was not working.

There were comments on the mod saying about the same thing. But I did not understand this comment on how to get it to work as it makes no sense to me:

I actually got the modding to work. but i had to do one step that the Guide doesnt mention.
I had to move the mods folder into the working/custommap folder int TQ/IT area..
Then it worked like a charm.. More summons and more mobs/EXP this is fantastic.

[Psixi]

I loaded up the mod, just for you. I can confirm it works.

I would not compare screenshots of density to a location you have not even gone to yet, you're going to confuse yourself.

Make sure you load a version with x3 or x10, he uses a naming scheme on each version of the mod. I loaded x3, with a new character and at the starting horse, there were like 6+ satyr, when there's only meant to be 3. Works as intended.

Do not look at comments for help, people that have issues with the mod don't understand how to use mods and generally 99% of the time it's user error. That comment they left makes no sense either, unless they're using an illegitimate copy of the game or its a problem with their OS stopping read/write to the game like One Drive.

[WillieSea]

Thanks @Psixi for the confirmation, it is greatly appreciated.

Since I have not played the game before I was perhaps a bit confused from what I saw and what I read.


Quick questions:
About how much coin should I aspire to get? Is it really needed for anything?

And I don't suppose there is any way to find a 'full set' of armor/weapons that go together, other than getting lucky?

[Psixi]

Originally posted by WillieSea:

Thanks @Psixi for the confirmation, it is greatly appreciated.

Since I have not played the game before I was perhaps a bit confused from what I saw and what I read.


Quick questions:
About how much coin should I aspire to get? Is it really needed for anything?

And I don't suppose there is any way to find a 'full set' of armor/weapons that go together, other than getting lucky?

Gold is to buy items from merchants, and spend at the gamber in Atlantis for items. So for the casual player, who doesn't know which items to look for or are good, I would say no, you'll only be using it for potions.

The game only respawns monsters, bosses, containers when you reload the game. So if you want to "farm" these sources, you have to keep save quitting to main menu. Since you are playing with Loot Plus, you will always drop Epic items from boss chests.

[WillieSea]

Thanks again @Psixi.

So far the only use I found for money is to increase my merchant storage space. And that is expensive. With the mod, there really is not much need to buy anything I have found at merchants.

Also I am still trying to figure out the 'mystic charms' I find in the game. Like the Boar hide is 1/5. I have several of them but only 1 of them stacked for a quantity of 2/5. The others are single stacks of 1.

[chris.ferrantegerard]

Originally posted by WillieSea:

About how much coin should I aspire to get? Is it really needed for anything?

Vendors can sometimes sell an item with useful fixes very rarely I guess but generally not too much you'll be buying from them overall. I don't usually buy items from them outside of rings or necklaces, costs can jump as you go further into the game but I find 'vendor farming' really boring so don't really do that.

There's a gambler in Atlantis DLC which sells orbs which drop random loot for gold. So this serves as a gold sink for your excess gold. Otherwise you're largely just spending gold on buying bulk potions. This should not be a huge expense outside of extreme energy guzzling builds who drain energy potions like crazy. So generally just collect gold and if you see something worth spending, buy it and you can gamble later.

And I don't suppose there is any way to find a 'full set' of armor/weapons that go together, other than getting lucky?

Yes, just RNG if you find a full set or not. Don't worry too much about sets through. Many of the original sets are kind of meh actually. DLC sets tend to be better, many of the original sets just don't have enough defensive stats..

Some sets have a few good items, so instead of using a full set you'd use a few useful pieces (or just one-off by themselves, Archmage gloves for example can be worth using for some builds just for the casting + recharge speed bonuses on them).

[chris.ferrantegerard]

Originally posted by WillieSea:

Also I am still trying to figure out the 'mystic charms' I find in the game. Like the Boar hide is 1/5. I have several of them but only 1 of them stacked for a quantity of 2/5. The others are single stacks of 1.

There's two types - charms and relics.

Charms like the Boar Hide drop from a particular type of monster (in this case, boars). These stack 5 times, getting stronger as you stack more and get a completion bonus when reaching 5/5.

Relics are random drops from acts. Each act has their own relics but later acts can also drop previous act relics at a lesser rate. These stack three times instead for the completion bonus. These are harder to target farm as they're random drops while charms can be target farmed by just grinding enemies that drop that charm over and over.

Generally you want to stack up charms/relics until you get the completion bonus and then apply them to yellow/green/monster infrequent gear you own. They cannot be added to blue(rare)/purple(legendary) gear. They're also used as crafting reagents in arcane formulas for artifacts, so it's worth keep a stockpile of them.

FYI, there's an auto-sort button in your inventory, this will automatically stack your charms in your inventory for you.

[WillieSea]

Originally posted by chris.ferrantegerard:

FYI, there's an auto-sort button in your inventory, this will automatically stack your charms in your inventory for you.

Thanks, that is what I was missing. It was starting to annoy me that I could not stack them.

[Drinkcup]

I only play with overhaul mods, as the "bounce' system alwasy weirded me out and idk if i ever did it right xD

PATHS is supreme!! best mod in the history of TQ if you ask me. Instead of 40 point builds, the builds now go to 100, and you get 5 skill pts per level to make up for it. This is beneficial both in long term mid game progression, and early on, as you get your build rolling much faster. All the masteries are new, and each one is very powerful but has an elemental affinity and weakness. So, berzerkers have massive hp regen, but have -60 resistance to fire (something like taht). You can mix masteries to try to even it out, or go all in on some other min-max tyope thing.

It's also a very cool mod in that it changes the UI and some things.


I also recommend
Masteries (might be the most outdated de facto but sitll cool masteries)
Cataclysm
theres another one i always forget the name of will add it later


Mastery overhaul mods are the most fun thing in the game imo, and I'm always always trying new builds!! (yeah, ive done a LOT of act 1 lol)

[WillieSea]

I will probably only play the game once, it is not that engaging and even with the 'cheaty' mod to make less grind, it still have a LOT more grind than I have time for. Not sure I want to grind even more for mastery levels. LOL - That and only 1 mod can be loaded...

Heck I can't get my skills above 32, the "+" button is grayed out.

[Psixi]

Originally posted by WillieSea:

I will probably only play the game once, it is not that engaging and even with the 'cheaty' mod to make less grind, it still have a LOT more grind than I have time for. Not sure I want to grind even more for mastery levels. LOL - That and only 1 mod can be loaded...

Heck I can't get my skills above 32, the "+" button is grayed out.

32 is the max where you're allowed to go into the masteries. It was the cap. Atlantis DLC added +40 so that's why you can't' go further