Wuxing Matters More Than Weapons

Basically, makes Wuxing stats (Instinct, Resolve and Expertise) gives flat attack stats bonuses and reduced all weapon stats in half to compensate

NOTE: this only works properly in Romance mode

To understand why I made this mod, please read ahead

In the current game, weapons trump all in terms of determining a general’s combat prowess (with certain exceptions, but 90% of the time, this is the case)

A legendary level 10 general with a common weapon can be beaten easily by a generic level 1 nobody with a gold weapon, because of the way attack stats are calculated in the game.

Did you ever wonder why Cao Cao was so good in duels that he can sometimes beat Zhang Fei in a 1v1 fight? Or when Liu Biao can defeat Xiahou Yuan despite the fact that none of that makes any sense?

That’s because of the gold weapons. The weapons make the man (or woman) not the innate battle abilities of the characters themselves

I feel like an example would best illustrate this, so let’s do that. Keep in mind I am excluding battle abilities for the sake of comparison.

In the game, weapons give a flat stat bonus to a character and the Wuxing stats provide an additional modifier to said stats. So for example, let’s say a gold weapon gives 1000 base attack and 2000 ap attack

When you give this weapon to someone like Lu Bu with 200 Instinct, Lu Bu’s final battle stats will be:

1500 base damage (50% bonus from 200 instinct)
2000 ap damage

However, if you were to give Lu Bu a common or bronze weapon because he lost his unique halberd in a fight, so let’s say a common spear has the stats of 100 base and 600 ap. Lu Bu’s battle stats will be:

150 base
600 ap

Now, let’s say you leave Lu Bu with that common weapon and have him duel against a generic level 1 who somehow managed to have Sky Piercer. What would be the outcome of said battle?

Without taking his Smouldering Fury skill into account, Lu Bu would get defeated in mere seconds by the random level 1 generic, why? Because the weapon is the main determining factor for battle damage. A Legendary warrior is only legendary when he has the right weapon equipped. With the wrong weapon, Lu Bu’s high stats are meaningless

This is such a strange backward way to do this. What the game is essentially saying is that legendary heroes like Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, Sun Jian, Zhao Yun and Lu Bu, etc are only that powerful because they have their magical unique weapons equipped and not due to their innate martial arts and combat prowess. Give a random peasant Sky Piercer and he can become close to Lu Bu was at his peak.

In Koei’s Romance of the Three Kingdoms games, characters have an innate "WAR" stat that determine their base battle prowess and unique weapons apply a modifier to that instead or the other way around.

So Lu Bu in ROTK has 100 WAR (max) and Sky Piercer in that game gives an additional 10 WAR to get him to 110. So when a powerful hero equip Sky Piercer, he becomes even better than before, but if not, Lu Bu is still Lu Bu with that high 100 WAR stats. On the other hand, give Sky Piercer to a random general with 60 WAR, and it’ll help a bit by bringing it up to 70, but that general won’t be hanging around the likes of Lu Bu anytime soon.

The main goal of this mod is to fix this system by making Wuxing gives a flat damage stats and the weapon as an "extra bonus." So now in a campaign, even if Lu Bu lost his halberd and has to settle for a bronze or silver spear, he is still a force to be reckoned with because of his innate high stats

Right now, three Wuxing stats (Instinct, Resolve, Expertise) will give different attack damage depending on their values

Expertise at 200 will give 1000 flat ap damage
Resolve at 200 will also give 1000 flat ap damage
Instinct at 200 will give 2000 flat base damage
Wu Kingdaissance’s concubine attributes give small army-wide bonus for flat base/ap damages

To compensate for the damage buff, all weapon stats have been cut in half (or more, depending on their rarity, common weapons have the least reduced stats, unique weapons’ stats are reduced by a little bit more).

This does not mean that high rarity weapons are useless, there is still a difference between a common spear and a refined/exceptional/unique spear, but the weapons will only see their full potential realized when equipped to an appropriate hero.

So, now let’s revisit that example above again

Sky Piercer now has 500 base and 1000 ap
Common spear has 50 base and 300 ap

Let’s assume the generic in question is a level 1 character with instinct of 80 and resolve/expertise of 40. Lu Bu at level 9 (AWB start) has 200 instinct, 80 resolve and 100 expertise

So, the base stat of Lu Bu is:

2000 base damage
400 ap from resolve and 500 ap from expertise = 900 ap

Give him the common spear and his stats will be:

2075 base (Wuxing’s attack bonus only applies to weapon stats, this is a limitation of the engine)
1200 ap

The level 1 generic base stat is:

800 base
200 ap + 200 ap = 400 ap

Give him Sky Piercer and his stats will be:

~1400 base (~20% boost from 80 instinct)
1400 ap

So, at the most extreme examples with Lu Bu giving as much handicap to the level 1 generic as possible, their battle stats are:

2075 base vs 1400 base
1200 ap vs 1400 ap

Don’t forget that Lu Bu also has an irremovable armor of 80 as well

As you can see, even at his worst, Lu Bu can still destroy said generic at his best. When you take battle abilities into account, Lu Bu doesn’t need his fancy spear to be deadly. He can wipe the floor against most heroes even when he’s equipped with a broom.

THIS IS IMPORTANT IF YOU ARE PLAYING WITH MTU OR WU KINGDAISSANCE. GET THE LOAD ORDER WRONG AND THE MODDED WEAPONS WILL NOT HAVE THE CORRECT STATS:

1. Wu/MTU sub mods
2. Wu/MTU main mod
3. THIS MOD

Q: What about MTU or Wu Kingdaissance’s new weapons
A: The edited stats of those two mods’ weapons are already implemented in the pack file, see the Load order section above to get them working correctly

Q: What about other overhaul like Radious and SFO?
A: I don’t play with those two so compatibility patches might be needed. Feels free to make patches for whatever mod you want. No need to ask for my permission or anything

Q: What about bows and range weapons?
A: Not possible right now, trust me, I tried.

Q: Would this work with other mods that also modify Wuxing?
A: Yes

Q: Won’t this affect game balance?
A: Yes, and this is an important note:

DEPENDING ON THE UNIT SIZE SETTING THAT YOU’RE PLAYING WITH, HEROES’ ATTACK STATS WILL BE STRONGER OR WEAKER THAN VANILLA. THIS MOD WAS MADE AND TESTED WITH "ULTRA" AND "EXTREME" SETTINGS IN MIND. IF YOU ARE PLAYING WITH A LOWER SETTING, THE BALANCE MIGHT NOT BE AS INTENDED.

This is because unlike the weapon stats which scale with the unit size settings, these flat stat buffs cannot be scaled correctly, so they have one value. at 200 instinct, your heroes will always get 2000 base damage, regardless of unit size. So at the lowest unit size setting, heroes can be very overpowered but at Ultra or Extreme, I found that heroes are actually slightly weaker than vanilla, so keep that in mind as you play the game

Any advice/feedback is welcomed. As I collect more data, I might go back and change the values even more. Right now, weapon damage are 50% less than vanilla but I might decide to lower them even more depend on how things go.

Other mods I’ve made:

Improved/Expanded Skill Tree for Wu Kingdaissance
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1901409545

Character Biographies
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2035722492