PerfectlyModdedPACK

This is meant to be a multiplayer-friendly plug-n-play modpack with as little set-up as possible for the end user. That being said, please read this first section carefully to avoid any issues.

1. Using R2ModManager (https://thunderstore.io/package/ebkr/r2modman/) go to Settings > Profile > Change Profile
2. Create a new profile. Name it whatever you like, I recommend 'Perfectly Modded'
3. Select and load the new profile. It should be empty with no mods installed.
4. Install this mod and only this mod. It will automatically download and install everything else you need. The download may appear to freeze for a minute, but just wait for it to complete.
5. When all mods have finished downloading and you see PerfectlyModdedPACK at the bottom of your installed mods list, you're good to go! Press 'Launch Modded' and have fun.

RECOMMENDED: Always ENABLE Artifact of Newt. Always ENABLE Artifact of Sacrifice. Always DISABLE Artifact of Command.

All config files have been generated and set-up for you, so there's no need to launch the game, restart, and launch again like you often need to do when installing mods. You should be able to just download the mod and start playing.

All players must have the modpack installed for multiplayer to work properly.

RECOMMENDED TO LOWER YOUR GRAPHICS SETTINGS! This modpack will likely decrease performance. The game still looks great on very low settings, and the performance gains can be nice to have if the game starts running poorly. Alternatively, try not to stack Artifacts like Greed and Swarm together. More enemies = less frames.

If you encounter any bugs, issues, have a question, or just want people to play this modpack with, join the Discord server! https://discord.gg/T3B8ccPJ

KNOWN BUGS:

1. Bug severity: CRITICAL - with workaround: If you wish to play singleplayer, you must do it in a private multiplayer game. Singleplayer has not been tested with this modpack and bugs have been reported when attempting it. This isn't really an issue as long as you remember to do private multiplater, as it is functionally identical to playing a singleplayer game, minus the bugs.

2. Bug severity: CRITICAL - with workaround: There are two Artifacts of Order. One of them does not work (the one that orders your inventory whenever you pick up an item). The other one does work (the one that orders your inventory when you die). Activating the first one will break your lobby and you won't be able to start a game until you disable the Artifact, go back to the main menu, and create a new lobby. I am working on removing the broken Artifact entirely.

3. Bug severity: Low-Impact - no fix yet: In the Bazaar Shop, the host cannot see the item names and descriptions of the Item Chest "display items", while clients are able to see these elements. Hosts will either need their teammates to read them the item descriptions, or be able to recall item information from look and memory.

4. Bug Severity: Low-Impact - no fix yet: In some instances when a player leaves a multiplayer match in progress, they will still show up on the scoreboard (TAB). This is just a visual bug and doesn't seem to impact gameplay. It's been theorized that when this visual bug occurs, the game continues to scale monsters and loot as if there were still an extra player in the game, but these theories are as yet unfounded.

5. AutoSprint mod may cancel certain Survivor abilities when enabled. I've only seen this happen with Artificer and I fixed it, but if it happens for any other Survivors or specific Survivor abilities, let me know and I can try to fix it, or disable auto-sprint for that character entirely.

Comments about the PURPOSE of this modpack, the GAMEPLAY CHANGES, the ADDED CONTENT it provides, and the BALANCE of the modified game:

PURPOSE: Over the last few days I've gone through all 35+ pages of RoR2 mods available on this site, testing them for bugs, quality, and multiplayer compatibility. All mods containing major bugs, low quality animations or textures, or mods that break during multiplayer, have been excluded from this modpack. The goal is to almost make Risk of Rain 2.5; the base game + all the viable and worthwhile user-made content currently available. Basically THE Risk of Rain 2: Modded Edition. Obviously there are many players who will still maintain their own seperate modlists that differ from this one, but this modpack is intended to appeal to the widest audience, allowing every player to, with extremely minimal work, experience (almost) everything that modding has to offer in Risk of Rain 2. With this modpack, users only need to install a single mod (this one) and all other required mods will be downloaded for them, as well as all the configuration files for those mods, pre-configured. This also enables me to push out updates to configuration files, and new mod additions, via an update to the modpack. This is superior to using "Import Code", not only because it is easier and more streamlined for the end-user, but also because using "Import Code" causes a major issue with the StartingItemsGUI mod, forcing it to reset all players credit progress. In fact, that's the entire reason I even started making this Modpack; to get around the reset bug that "Import Code" created. In the end, I hope that this Modpack becomes ubiquitous enough that it becomes trivially easy to find people to play this Modpack with. As it stands right now, it's a little difficult getting people to play this with me, which sucks because it's actually pretty fun.

GAMEPLAY CHANGES: This is going to be controversial, but hear me out until the end. This modpack changes the gameplay loop somewhat, in an attempt to address what I see as hinderances to enjoyment of the game. What I'm about to describe is my prescribed method for how you should play the game when using this modpack; the "vanilla" experience of this modpack, if you will. It's basically like a new mode, so for future reference, I'll be refering to this ruleset as "Shoebox Mode". The ruleset and the reasoning behind it are as follows:

See, people really like the Artifact of Command. Like, a lot. And I get it, it's nice to min-max your builds, and that's hard to do effectively without Command. My issue (besides how braindead-easy Command makes the game) is that all of this item meta-gaming takes place DURING the fighting, forcing players to enter a menu every 30 seconds during a stage. And if you didn't do it fast, some gamer would swoop in to take your item, which just made people assmad. Nothing like hearing a grown man mald over getting his Red item stolen in a co-op PvE. There was also the problem of less experienced players falling behind in power-level, as the more seasoned gamers gobbled up all the items.

To address these perceived issues, two main changes have been made:

1. Items are automatically distributed amongst all players in the match, sequentially. This means that in a game of 3 people, the first item to appear will go to player 1, item 2 to player 2, item 3 to player 3, item 4 to player 1, item 5 to player 2, and so on. Dead players are excluded from the rotation until revived, as a penalty for death.

2. The Bazaar Shop now houses a Scrapper, 6 random Item Chests, and 4 random 3d Printers. There is also a new Artifact (of Newt) that forces the Shop portal to open after every teleporter event, and it is recommended that you always play with this Artifact enabled.

The new intended gameplay loop is as follows:

Artifacts: Newt ON, Sacrifice ON, Command OFF. You fight your way through the stage, with hardly a care in the world for items. All players naturally acquire items over the course of the stage. After the teleporter event, players proceed through the blue portal and enter the shop. Here, they scrap any unwanted items they've received, spend any gold left over from the previous stage, and check the 3d printers and couldrons for any items they may want. They can also take a quick break here if one player needs to leave their computer for a spell, or if the run has been going on for a long time and all the players need to stretch their legs. When finished, players leave the shop. During the next stage, players should keep a keen eye out for any 3d printers scattered about, as they may contain items that the player is looking for. At the end of the stage, players again proceed through the blue portal to enter the shop. Rinse and repeat.

I really enjoy the pace and balance that these changes provide. The Artifact of Command gives you absolute control over what items you receive, which can be overpowered and boring if you're a min-maxer, or anxiety-inducing and panicked if you are indecisive. But in the vanilla game without Command you're completely at the mercy of RNG when it comes to items, without much of a chance to reroll that RNG. Scrappers are tiny and hard to find, so they almost never get used, which means nobody wants to use a 3d printer because they don't have scrap, meaning the printer might steal some of their good items if they use it. By giving the shop 3d printers, more purchasables, a scrapper, and by making the shop accessible after every stage, the focus is now shifted towards completing as many stages as possible, as this will maximize the number of times you can roll for good items at the 3d printers. This also has the benefit of giving players a relible way to take a break after every stage, and keeps the item management meta-game off of the stage, where the fighting should be happening (except in the case of 3d printers scattered around the stage, which is, in my opinion, an acceptable level of item meta-gaming that doesn't overly interfere with the flow of combat).

ADDED CONTENT: Item mods were only added if the majority of items in the mod were of high-quality design. Mods that add a lot of boring items, overpowered items, or items too similar to vanilla were not included.

Survivor mods were only added if they used lore-friendly assets and had fleshed out mechanics. The exceptions to this are the Survivors 'Ms. Isle' and 'Wisp'. I've allowed these Survivors to remain in the modpack, despite them not being very fleshed-out, because my girlfriend really likes them. Soz.

BALANCE: Playing in "Shoebox Mode"(detailed above) provides a fun, progressive, balanced experience, even on easy. In short, it feels pretty good to play, no real balance issues to be concerned with (at least, not any that aren't already present in the vanilla game). However, there are a lot of new mod-added Artifacts, and I can't speak to how balanced things will feel if you start turning on a whole bunch of them. I'm not providing support to anyone doing crazy shit like turning on all Artifacts at the same time, as that will absolutely break something and there's nothing I can do about it. Use some common sense when selecting Artifacts. You can also turn on the Artifact Randomizer mod and actively try to break the game, I won't stop you. Oh, and Beetle Guard items should be impossible to pick up now. You're welcome.

TO-DO:

1. Dig into the guts of some of these mods to remove certain low-tier items from otherwise high-quality item mod packs

2. Create a mod that allows me to adjust the Lunar and Couldron spawns in the Bazaar Shop. Since players are going to be heading to the Shop after every teleporter event, and with all the new chests/printers in that location, the default lunar pods/cauldrons could use some rebalancing

3. Add more than 1 scrapper to the Bazaar Shop

4. Create a gui for the MidRunArtifacts mod, allowing players to easily enable and disable artifacts during a run, without having to use console commands.

5. Create a mod allowing players to toggle AutoItemPickup on and off via an Artifact in the lobby, allowing users to further customize their games away from the prescribed "Shoebox Mode" while still keeping them in compliance with the modpack. Currently, the only way for players to disable these mods is to manually change the configuration files, which will make their version of the modpack incompatible with anyone who hasn't made the exact same changes. In addition, those config changes will be replaced by my own whenever a new update for the modpack gets pushed out. To resolve this, a new mod as I described above will need to be created.