Bioshock Difficulty and Balance Mod Download!

[Brazuca]

*This is a difficulty and balance mod for Bioshock to make the game more fun for players*

*Contains over 30 changes to make the game more balanced, and difficult*

1) Wrench does 1/5 the amount of damage it used to do!

2) Rosie's have 2x more health!

3) Bouncers have 3x more health!

4) Ammo and money are alot more scarce!

5) Plasmids and Tonics now cost quadruple what they used to cost!

6) Most Gatherers Garden have 9 supplies of Health, Eve and Genetic Slots Upgrade!

7) Harvesting Little Sisters now gives 400 ADAM while saving them gives 200 ADAM!

8) Most Circus of Values Vending Machines no longer sell ammo or AutoHacks!

9) Most Bandito Vending Machines sell AutoHacks!

10) Everything is alot harder to hack, especially Medical Stations and Vending Machines!

11) All Health Stations yield at least one first aid kit if you break them. The wrench works also!

12) Many Splicers have more health, or may be more inmune to certain plasmids!

13) Vending machines now only sell 3 films per roll!

14) Slight tone down to the crossbow's power!

15) Chemical Thrower is now extremely effective, but the chemicals are also extremely scarce!

16) The wrench does 20x more damage to an enemy stuned by Electrobolt!

17) Items from Circus of Values and Bandito now cost more!

18) Damage done by things thrown by the Telekenisis plasmid is alot lower!

19) Explosive barrels, and tanks do more area damage!

20) The game will no longer help you if your low on supplies!

21) Paying the machine to hack itself costs a lot more, you also suffer a lot more if you fail!

22) You will now feel as much damage from being electrocuted on water as the splicers do!

23) You will now feel alot more pain if you accidentially burn your self with incinerate!

24) The machinegun now does slightly more damage then before!

25) Cyclone trap is now more powerful!

26) Breaking stuff like Debri and Locks may take more hits with the wrench!

27) The wrench is more useful against thugs, but less useful versus other splicers!

28) Anti-Personal Ammo and Anti-Armor Ammo are less powerful!

29) Falling does more damage to the player, and enemies he may fall on!

30) Dying will actually slightly increases difficulty.

31) The wrench now repairs security stuff like turrets. Just dont strike neutral machines.

32) On easy mode so you have 4x health, 6x eve and do 6x more damage then hard mode.

33) On normal mode so you have 2x health, 3x eve and do 3x more damage then hard mode.

34) Bosses now have more health or do more damage!

35) The mod is most likely compatible with future versions of Bioshock.

I changed this "difficulty mod" into a "difficulty and balance mod" for those that like the changes in balance, but still wanted the game to be be easy if they chose to play the game on easy.

*Links*

http://files.filefront.com/Bioshock+.../fileinfo.html

http://rapidshare.com/files/55813749...B_Mod.rar.html

http://www.megaupload.com/?d=3W1CXJT2

*The main reason I made this mod is to make this amazing game even better*

Any one may put these files on any site and don't need my permission to edit them .

[daddy-o]

good work brazuca! much love!

questions for you,

-instructions please
-as to 16, 20x seems high? i hope i'll need it
-as to 22, does this mean instant death unless equipped with electric flesh
-as to 30, nice touch (not a question, im just impressed)
-as to 31, i don't grok. can you explain more?

[Y|yukichigai]

Question: What did you use to extract the various and sundry files from ConfigINI.IBF?

[SliderFury]

Wow, in this form of the mod, I'm seriously considering getting it, the 1/5th wrench damage shook me (a.k.a seemed TOO nerfed) but then I got myself wrench jokey two (on my second play through, like an ☺☺☺☺☺☺☺ I researched pretty much nothing my first time lol) equipped both wrench jokey plasmids, sport boost 2, and static discharge to, and I was killing thugs in one hot, leadheads in a really quick 2 or 3, and giving Bouncers a run for their money, all on hard, with my wrench, so I can where this massive decrease comes from.

Also, you have wrench do 20x more damage to stunned enemies (you said specifically electro bolt, but I'm gonna assume it includes electric bucks and electro-gel) which means it could very well one shot kill even late game enemies if you have wrench jockey 2. This is genius. On TOP of that, the real punishment of this mod won't even set in unless you play on hard, and it seems like normal is actually right about where I would like my pain delivered. I'm gonna wait and see if you update this, but if and when you put out a final version, I'm definitely grabbing this.

I really love some of the boosts you gave to both counteract some of the punishment, and just make certain things cooler (Cyclone Trap does more damage!?!?!? SWEEEET!!! And I love the wrench healing turrets/bots thing, that's just sexy). Awesome mod bro, how did you do all this?

[SliderFury]

One question though, when you say "dying..." a.k.a getting sent to a vita-chamber "...slightly increases difficulty" what do you mean? Is it permanent and does it stack every time you die? Contrary to most, I like the vita-chambers, I feel it keeps you in the world, keeps you playing without a loading screen, and with this killer mod you've got here, I think hard mode will murder you basically instantly if you either don't plan very carefully, or you just ☺☺☺☺ up lol which is fine, great even, BUT!...does this mean that using the vita-chambers is pointless now because every time I die, ☺☺☺☺ will only get harder? I'm not trying to be a wuss, I'm just saying

[neural]

i kind of dig the idea of ammo being more scarce, but for the prudent collector, i wish more than anything that i could carry more of the "special" ammos... since i tend to go through some trouble to amass as much of them as possible, and use them only when i won't be wasting them :/

[vrap]

Why do you keep making a new thread for your mod? Can't you keep your updates in one thread?

[SliderFury]

i kind of dig the idea of ammo being more scarce, but for the prudent collector, i wish more than anything that i could carry more of the "special" ammos... since i tend to go through some trouble to amass as much of them as possible, and use them only when i won't be wasting them :/

This made me realize one other thing. Would you possibly consider making Winter Blast considerably cheaper on EVE? I mean like Enrage, or maybe Target Dummy at the most. What I realized is that because of the significantly reduced loot (which I like very much) and the overall increased difficulty of the game, it would be very tempting to freeze/smash lost of splicers, but their loot is extremely precious now, rendering Winter Blast (already inferior to electro bolt) completely useless Just putting that out there.

On the other hand, I guess I could do some homework and change the files myself, but I know nothing of modding and am afraid I'll just crash the game

[SliderFury]

Why do you keep making a new thread for your mod? Can't you keep your updates in one thread?

I think it's cause few people are paying attention to it even though it's really really good

[aelf]

If I've been playing with the previous version and now I install this one, will the changes affect my saved game? I'd like to know if I can proceed or if I have to play it all over again (which is a hassle).

[aelf]

When I said previous version I meant the previous version of this mod.

[NecroViolator]

Well, I try this MOD because I wanted more from the game, not to mention wanted to carry more Ammo...

But nothing works... ...

I follow the instructions and such, even start a new game over 12 times, put the files in Content + System and nothing happens...

Why cant I carry more Ammo ??? Ive changed what I needed to carry more Ammo but still doesnt work...

Help would be appreciated... ...

Thanks for a great MOD ...

[Brazuca]

Why do you keep making a new thread for your mod? Can't you keep your updates in one thread?

I forgot to say it on the first post. This is my final version of the mod, there isn't much left I could do since there is no actual modding device for Bioshock.

Hope you guys enjoy the mod, maybe someone might come up with a better one later. I will try to answer most of the questions you guys posted.

One question though, when you say "dying..." a.k.a getting sent to a vita-chamber "...slightly increases difficulty" what do you mean?

What I mean is, everytime you die, the game will become 2% more difficult for 30 minutes. You might do less damage, or take more damage and such.

If you die once and it increases it by 2% and you die 29 minutes later then the increase is by 4%, but after one minute it goes back to 2% because the effect of the first death is gone, but the second death still remains for 29 more minutes.

good work brazuca! much love!

questions for you,

-instructions please
1) as to 16, 20x seems high? i hope i'll need it
2) as to 22, does this mean instant death unless equipped with electric flesh
3) as to 31, i don't grok. can you explain more?

1) I made it like that for people that have been having a hard time on the beggining of the game, and to make the wrench more useful.

2) Electric flesh will slightly reduce the chance of an instant death and if your lucky and have high enough health you might not get hurt as much.

3) Instead of the wrench causing damage to mechanical stuff it now repairs them. The bad thing is that you can't see how much health a friendly has though.

This made me realize one other thing. Would you possibly consider making Winter Blast considerably cheaper on EVE?

I wanted to do that, but its not possible to edit the amount of EVE used up by plasmids. Instead I made it so when you freeze someone they take 3x more damage while frozen, making them easier to shatter. This could greatly reduce the amount of ammo you use up on an enemy, and since it is so rare to find items on enemies, it kind of evens out.

[QUOTE=SliderFury;210234] Also, you have wrench do 20x more damage to stunned enemies (you said specifically electro bolt, but I'm gonna assume it includes electric bucks and electro-gel)

Yes it works on anything being electrified. I wanted the wrench to be more useful, the thing is everytime you want to use the wrench to electrify someone to death you will need to use an electric buck, or electrobolt.

If I've been playing with the previous version and now I install this one, will the changes affect my saved game? I'd like to know if I can proceed or if I have to play it all over again (which is a hassle).

You can still continue the game if you put this mod, or update it from my old one. The only reason I say to start a new game is if you want to experience the mod from the beggining.

Well, I try this MOD because I wanted more from the game, not to mention wanted to carry more Ammo...

But nothing works... ...

Why cant I carry more Ammo ??? Ive changed what I needed to carry more Ammo but still doesnt work...

Thanks for a great MOD ...

It's not possible... That was one of the things I tried to do before I released the final version of this mod. As you can see even if you change the integers to a higher or lower number it won't have any effect on how much ammo you carry or how much your gun can load up. There are many things that can't be edited without an official modding tool.


*Thanks to everyone that used my mod, hopefully someone else might make an even better one sometime in the future, or even update this one. Anyways if your using this mod then have fun.

[SliderFury]

[QUOTE=Brazuca;210553]I forgot to say it on the first post. This is my final version of the mod, there isn't much left I could do since there is no actual modding device for Bioshock.

Hope you guys enjoy the mod, maybe someone might come up with a better one later. I will try to answer most of the questions you guys posted.



What I mean is, everytime you die, the game will become 2% more difficult for 30 minutes. You might do less damage, or take more damage and such.

If you die once and it increases it by 2% and you die 29 minutes later then the increase is by 4%, but after one minute it goes back to 2% because the effect of the first death is gone, but the second death still remains for 29 more minutes.



1) I made it like that for people that have been having a hard time on the beggining of the game, and to make the wrench more useful.

2) Electric flesh will slightly reduce the chance of an instant death and if your lucky and have high enough health you might not get hurt as much.

3) Instead of the wrench causing damage to mechanical stuff it now repairs them. The bad thing is that you can't see how much health a friendly has though.



I wanted to do that, but its not possible to edit the amount of EVE used up by plasmids. Instead I made it so when you freeze someone they take 3x more damage while frozen, making them easier to shatter. This could greatly reduce the amount of ammo you use up on an enemy, and since it is so rare to find items on enemies, it kind of evens out.

Also, you have wrench do 20x more damage to stunned enemies (you said specifically electro bolt, but I'm gonna assume it includes electric bucks and electro-gel)

Yes it works on anything being electrified. I wanted the wrench to be more useful, the thing is everytime you want to use the wrench to electrify someone to death you will need to use an electric buck, or electrobolt.



You can still continue the game if you put this mod, or update it from my old one. The only reason I say to start a new game is if you want to experience the mod from the beggining.



It's not possible... That was one of the things I tried to do before I released the final version of this mod. As you can see even if you change the integers to a higher or lower number it won't have any effect on how much ammo you carry or how much your gun can load up. There are many things that can't be edited without an official modding tool.


*Thanks to everyone that used my mod, hopefully someone else might make an even better one sometime in the future, or even update this one. Anyways if your using this mod then have fun.

Wow, thanks for all the responses, and you said this is the final version? DLing right now! Incidentally, I'm assuming I have to start a new game for these changes to take effect, or at least, either way I would want to. Thank you for the work you put into this

[SliderFury]

oh wait, nevermind, you addressed that as well, but I think I'm gonna finish my current playthrouhg, I'm afraid my current skills will not be enough Cheers, and long live modders

[Corpsegrinder]

Brazuca... Are you from Brazil?
Ps: I have 360, than, no mods. But I'll upgrade my pc soon.

[daddy-o]

3) Instead of the wrench causing damage to mechanical stuff it now repairs them. The bad thing is that you can't see how much health a friendly has though.

i thought thats what you meant. thats halarious! smacking it around will make it work better... lol

i bet that can be exploited by crouching behind your hacked turret with the wrench

im going to play through because right now im at prometheus heights, and i still havent seen the good ending, and then im going to load up the mod

[daddy-o]

are tennenbaum's gifts to you adjusted as well? if every third rescue i only recieved 1 rescue worth, it would be a little off, no?

[Brazuca]

i thought thats what you meant. thats halarious! smacking it around will make it work better... lol

i bet that can be exploited by crouching behind your hacked turret with the wrench

Yes, thats what I did a few times while playing. The bad thing is, you don't know how much health something already has especially since they won't stop smoking. So I usually hit something ten times after a battle.

Brazuca... Are you from Brazil?

Sim, sou Brasileiro eu nasci no brasil mais mudei para os Estates.

are tennenbaum's gifts to you adjusted as well? if every third rescue i only recieved 1 rescue worth, it would be a little off, no?

Tennenbaum's gifts are exactly the same, because the main thing that was originally emphasized about the little sisters was rather you would sacrifice power for their sake. The good thing though is that the ammo she gives you will be of great use.

The main reason I didn't edit the gifts is because I couldn't. I was going to add a little more ammo for the player, but it's not possible.

[AgentSmith]

Good lord! why would I want to change the game that much? too many things change for the worse. I like some of the stuff, but I sure as hell don't need it any more difficult! I have had the game since the day after it came out, I am still on the first run through, max difficulty, and have over 26 hours into it! I love a challenging game, but whew!

[Brazuca]

I had to release a new version to fix somethings on the other version, go to this link to find the real Final Version!

http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12185

[NecroViolator]

Well, I figured out how to carry as much as you want...
You could say Infinite carrying stuff...he he...

Thanks for the Mod...
Although the Bigdaddy shoots you once and your dead no matter how much health you have, even with upgrades...Must be a terminator...
Anyway, you have to shoot and run... Makes it alot harder to survive and a bit more fun...

[nago10]

Question: What did you use to extract the various and sundry files from ConfigINI.IBF?

IBF packer (or unpacker) is here.
http://rapidshare.com/files/56372651...70917.zip.html

[Olgerth Heidern]

OK, this mod appears to include a LOT more files than necessary (why does he include DefUser.ini, Bindings.ini and such?)

Secondly I think it should be installable piecemeal? I.e. just the loot tables change (so that you have more upgrades available from the Gatherer's Garden machines).

[Kedjane]

Reading the first post I think this is really inbalanced.
All plasmids cost a quadruple more, but you get alot more ADAM aswell? And you get almost equal ADAM for rescuing and harvesting counting Tenenbaums gifts?
Increasing the splicers health doesn't make it fun, you'll just have to shoot them over and over again. Lower the players health, or greatly lower ammunition found instead of rising their health.
Suffering more from hack fail? On medium you went down to one lifepoint after a failed hack, in most cases. Instant death now?
And then those ridiculous health, eve, damage increases? This isn't balance, it's simply doubling everything?

[StClair]

Reducing the wrench damage, but then greatly increasing it if they've been stunned with Electrobolt, doesn't make much difference in the end... I mean, doesn't everyone do that? Ever since Atlas suggested it, it was zap, club, zap, club for everything except Daddies and bots or cameras (the latter are zap, hack).

[daddy-o]

i think the operative word is difficulty, this mod is for pro FPS gamers

[rek075]

Can the OP who created the mod please go through every change you've made and fix the many bugs present? I've gone through weapons.ini and noticed a comma missing in one particular line. I've gone through loottables.ini and noticed that in many tables the percent chances exceed 100%. The mod doesn't seem particular safe for general use as of yet, as who knows what kind of effect these kind of errors will have on the gameplay. I've only gone through two of the files - who knows what other kind of errors exist in the ones I haven't looked at.

[Bioshock_FTW!]

since installing this mod, I had to switch the difficulty of the game from hard to normal. It's just too hard on hard!

[SliderFury]

since installing this mod, I had to switch the difficulty of the game from hard to normal. It's just too hard on hard!

Hey, you've played with it, is the wrench totally useless? Cause it seems like it might be?

[rek075]

Hey, you've played with it, is the wrench totally useless? Cause it seems like it might be?

I found it useless (at the beginning anyway), so I ended up changing it closer to its original value. Its one of the only things I changed when I got the mod.

[Bioshock_FTW!]

Hey, you've played with it, is the wrench totally useless? Cause it seems like it might be?

Yep. I'm a fan of the one-two punch and it's next to impossible with this mod. On hard, anyway

[Joeyd999]

This is a fantastic mod. Unreal. It makes the game A) the game world makes a lot more sense, and B) scare the crap out of me.

Even the first wrench battle was harrowing, with the string rising to a climax and me barely making it out alive. I think it took me like 3 minutes to kill him.

Play the game on hard without using vita chambers, and quicksave before big battles (BD's, bosses, etc.) without saving during them. It makes them harrowing. You will find yourself depleted of every resource and using tactics you never would have dreamed of before because there was no necessity. It really turns Bioshock into the survival horror game I had hoped for. Every battle is a chalange, and requires some sneaky tactics to get through alive.

I honestly hope that this mod, or an even more refined mod makes it onto the 360. It is pretty fantastic. GOOD WORK .

[SliderFury]

Yep. I'm a fan of the one-two punch and it's next to impossible with this mod. On hard, anyway

Right. Well I had planed to play on normal mainly because enemies would take far too long to kill. I mean, I don't think I'd have a huge problem having a 30-50 minute uber-epic battle with a Daddy, but I'll probably get something similarly epic with the normal setting, and it seems that, on hard, splicers, specifically leadheads, will just take forever to kill and simply be annoying. On top of that, they'll seem stronger than you throughout the game, which makes sense in the first stage or two, but I feel once you get to the farmers market, you're supposed to have the advantage. That's what I'm used to, and that's how I like it. So yeah, I found where the wrench damage is and changed it, besides the fact that I love wrenching people, it seems it will become much more important in this mod with the reduced loot/ammo.

[Joeyd999]

Right. Well I had planed to play on normal mainly because enemies would take far too long to kill. I mean, I don't think I'd have a huge problem having a 30-50 minute uber-epic battle with a Daddy, but I'll probably get something similarly epic with the normal setting, and it seems that, on hard, splicers, specifically leadheads, will just take forever to kill and simply be annoying. On top of that, they'll seem stronger than you throughout the game, which makes sense in the first stage or two, but I feel once you get to the farmers market, you're supposed to have the advantage. That's what I'm used to, and that's how I like it. So yeah, I found where the wrench damage is and changed it, besides the fact that I love wrenching people, it seems it will become much more important in this mod with the reduced loot/ammo.

I can see where you are comming from but I like the wrench where it is, because it forces you to do things differenty. The wrench IS (somewhat) effective with a good zap, but you might find yourself forced to burn the ☺☺☺☺ out of a bunch of splicers because you're low on ammo and you have no other choice. I've even shocked splicers just so I could have enough time to book it and hide somewhere because I had no other choice. Bioshock really is a game where you have LOTS of options open to you, and by making the wrench a (realistically-in the game world at least) less powerful item it forces you to really work at your problem solving skills.

But with all the right upgrades, the wrench is still decent.

[SliderFury]

I can see where you are comming from but I like the wrench where it is, because it forces you to do things differenty. The wrench IS (somewhat) effective with a good zap, but you might find yourself forced to burn the ☺☺☺☺ out of a bunch of splicers because you're low on ammo and you have no other choice. I've even shocked splicers just so I could have enough time to book it and hide somewhere because I had no other choice. Bioshock really is a game where you have LOTS of options open to you, and by making the wrench a (realistically-in the game world at least) less powerful item it forces you to really work at your problem solving skills.

But with all the right upgrades, the wrench is still decent.

I hear you, wrench jockey 2, sport boost 2, and static discharge 2 (all of which you can get relatively early in the game) would likely still go a long way. I'm getting in one more playthrough on hard, rescuing, and trying to use the vita chambers as little as possible. So I'll probably give this a shot next run. Should I back up the whole folder if I want to revert back to the original?

[Joeyd999]

Ya i would back up your bioshock.ini, user.ini (or whatever that other one is) and the system folder. None of them are very big, and you can switch between difficulties at will this way.

[Demitasse]

You PC users have it so good, because you can download the latest mod. So basicly a game that is two years old can still be as fresh as a game that is just one week old. And you modders really get to put your artistic skills to good use. Me, a console gamer, is stuck with Vanilla BioShock because I can't afford a decent high-end PC system. Hope you guys really enjoy yourselves.

[Joeyd999]

if it's any conselation (no pun intended?), my laptop does not present bioshock nearly as nicely as your 360 + tv would. Even with full settings, 800, 480 does not look as pretty as yourse would.

sorr about the writing, i have been drinking (old tom's scotch, i wish).

[LostHisMarbles]

I downloaded the mod the one you said was the new final version and i dont think its working properly. Sometimes when i hit splicers with the wrench while they are shocked it seems to do normal damage, and when i hit my security bot it gets damaged not healed.