Sacred 2 Enhanced Edition

[Roderick 53]

1 hour ago, Flix said:

Should be easy enough to remedy.  Knockback and the damaging "Hurl" are two different properties.  Knockback just pushes enemies away a little bit, causing no damage.  The hurl property only takes effect when an enemy is killed, and their ragdoll corpse collides with an enemy.  This property can actually be devastating. The problem is that it can cause friendly fire, so I keep the value extremely low in EE and just use to provoke the ragdoll corpse mechanics.

I'll replace the inherent knockback with area splash damage instead. This should mimic the "collateral damage" effect nicely enough.   If the player desires knockback they can take the bronze mod "Knockback."

Didn't dare to ask to... but if Sweep really looses that Knockback, I'll go full Berserk with the 2H weapons.

How does friendly fire matter? I play Singleplayer, so, not afraid of that.

And... am I the only one bothered by that all the years? xD

Edited November 4, 2020 by Roderick

[Flix 5,116]

4 minutes ago, Roderick said:

How does friendly fire matter? I play Singleplayer, so, not afraid of that.

You can kill your mount.  And quest escorts, and other friendly NPC's.  Even the wildlife lol.

[gogoblender 3,070]

12 minutes ago, Roderick said:

Didn't dare to ask to... but if Sweep really looses that Knockback, I'll go full Berserk with the 2H weapons.

How does friendly fire matter? I play Singleplayer, so, not afraid of that.

And... am I the only one bothered by that all the years? xD

 

5 minutes ago, Flix said:

You can kill your mount.  And quest escorts, and other friendly NPC's.  Even the wildlife lol.

I can just see his berzerking taking out a whole plane of life existence... 

 

gogo

[Roderick 53]

39 minutes ago, Flix said:

You can kill your mount.  And quest escorts, and other friendly NPC's.  Even the wildlife lol.

[Flix 5,116]

Energy Weapons in 3.0

This was a chance not just to revamp models but also to overhaul the base materials used on the unique energy weapons.  Ascaron made 5 "tech" materials, each one emphasizing one of the 5 damage types, but in vanilla they only seemed to use the same magic/fire materials over and over again.

I also replaced the pointless fire damage conversion on Death's Chirr with Fire Damage +%.  Conversion as a base property is wasted modifier slot on weapons, since 1) the developer can set the proportion of each damage type in the blueprint and 2) the player can convert to whatever they want with the damage converter slot.

Some of the vanilla normal/magic/rare weapons also got a pass to make sure they had the T-Energy effect active.

Djalek's Annihilator, Jhavoler's Energizer, Death's Chirr

      

Pulsar, Parabellum, Noisy Cricket - Parabellum's is the same design (a Luger P08) but with a much better quality model.  The new Noisy Cricket model made my day.  I never imagined we'd have the actual Noisy Cricket model from Men in Black.  

      

Unireth's Lightning, Thunder Staff, Testa's Annihilator

      

Zardonn's Pulverizer, Kaleidoscopic Evangelist, Electric Executioner

      

The Evangelist's design seems understated at first glance compared to the others, but it has a lot going on when you examine it.  All five elements are represented visually, and every time I look I see some new color blinking, flashing, or pulsing.

   

The Executioner model was originally meant to be a BFG replacement, but the more I looked at it, I just couldn't see it as anything other than the steampunk murder device that Lovecraft wrote about.

       

[jwiz 68]

I'm getting 'Men In Black' vibes here. 

Anyone else?

Edited November 5, 2020 by jwiz

[Androdion 884]

47 minutes ago, jwiz said:

I'm getting 'Men In Black' vibes here.

That's the actual Easter Egg about that weapon, but Flix totally lost it this time and gave it its "real life" design. 

These weapon design overhauls are top, and they're making me want to dispatch my toon in 2.4 very quickly.

[gogoblender 3,070]

2 hours ago, jwiz said:

I'm getting 'Men In Black' vibes here. 

Anyone else?

 

1 hour ago, Androdion said:

That's the actual Easter Egg about that weapon, but Flix totally lost it this time and gave it its "real life" design. 

These weapon design overhauls are top, and they're making me want to dispatch my toon in 2.4 very quickly.

zomgod yah... the midget cricket!!

 

 

[jwiz 68]

3 hours ago, Androdion said:

That's the actual Easter Egg about that weapon, but Flix totally lost it this time and gave it its "real life" design. 

These weapon design overhauls are top, and they're making me want to dispatch my toon in 2.4 very quickly.

Yep, and I always hoped that some able modder would care to design a black suit with a tie, so that I could go all in. 

[Androdion 884]

Uhm, there's already a Matrix themed set for the High Elf so I can see a MIB set being a possibility perhaps.

How about this for a Mod idea? Replacing all the Christmas sets with MIB sets with actual decent bonuses, changing the theme of the chain quest as well. Rewards could be MIB themed weapons too. Ha, that'd be rich!

[Flix 5,116]

On 11/4/2020 at 6:43 AM, Androdion said:

Or maybe drop slightly the base damage for one-handed weapons at the same time that you raise the one for two-handed ones? That and applying base elemental damage to two-handed weapons in a similar way to lightsabers?! This would most likely require a whole rebalance of the melee weapons though, daunting task I'd say for what could be a not so great result in the end. 

Fortunately the base damage adjustment can be done at the weapon class-level in typification.txt, sparing the beleaguered modder from having to touch every single item individually.

Let's compare 1h axes vs. 2h axes:

newTypification = {
  id = 11,
  name = "CLF_AXE",
  stat = "STAT_STR",
  modreal = 1000,
  modfocus = 0,
  modbasepoints = 1000,
  bonusgroupID = 104,
  weapondamagespread = 135,
  fightdistance = 40.000000,
}
mgr.createTypification(11, newTypification);

newTypification = {
  id = 6,
  name = "CLF_2H_AXE",
  stat = "STAT_STR",
  modreal = 1000,
  modfocus = 0,
  modbasepoints = 1600,
  bonusgroupID = 109,
  weapondamagespread = 170,
  fightdistance = 40.000000,
}
mgr.createTypification(6, newTypification);

All other factors being roughly even, based on the "modbasepoints" line we can see that 2h axes do 60% greater damage than 1h axes.  This actually seems like a decent margin. It could maybe be bumped up to 70%.

Conversely, weapons with "CLF_POLE" (dex-based Polearms) only do 34% greater damage than dex-based shortswords, and 2h Mage Staves offer only a measly 19% greater damage than 1h Staves.

So I think there's definitely room for adjustment here.

[Androdion 884]

Ah, very nice to be able to "batch-change" the values like that. 

I do believe those values could/should be adjusted slightly. When you account for execution speed with 1H vs 2H, plus the fact that you can run with two 1H at the same time, maybe that adjustment can make a real life difference. I'm thinking that an extra scaling "+% chance for critical damage" on 2H would also help to cover the gap, since bigger damage equals bigger criticals. Just a thought, it's way past my bedtime already so I'm probably not thinking straight.

[Flix 5,116]

53 minutes ago, Androdion said:

Just a thought, it's way past my bedtime already so I'm probably not thinking straight.

Same here, my friend.  7 hours before I have to rise for work.  I'm editing textures while listening to the Pumpkins and trying not to nod off.  

 

[jwiz 68]

While casually browsing through blueprints.txt for the CMP0160 I came upon this entry:

 

newBlueprint = {
  id = 2484,
  name = "uniuqe_boot_he_berghutzen",    <<<------
  palettebits = "1111111111111111",
  dmgvariation = 0,
  minconstraints = {20,13,0},
  lvljump = 10,
  usability = 0,
  allotment_pmfpi = {900,100,0,0,0},
  uniquename = "unqiue",
  specialuseonly = 0,
  bonusgroup0 = {863,1100,10,9,0}, -- Stamina %
  bonusgroup1 = {761,1350,10,9,0}, -- Block CC
  bonusgroup2 = {1106,1400,10,9,0}, -- Chance to Stun
  bonusgroup3 = {749,1000,10,9,0}, -- Bronze Slot
  bonusgroup4 = {751,1000,10,9,0}, -- Gold Slot
  itemtypes = {10103,},
  wearergroups = {'WEARGROUP_DRYADIN',},   <<<------
}
mgr.createBlueprint(2484, newBlueprint);

 

There is obviously a typo in the name "uniuqe_boot_he_berghutzen" and also if these are for a high elf (he_berghutzen?) then wearergroups should be altered.

Has this been corrected already?

 

P.S.:

there is another typo for this blowgun:

 

newBlueprint = {
  id = 2473,
  name = "unique_blowgun_blowmaster",
  palettebits = "1111111111111111",
  dmgvariation = 90,
  minconstraints = {25,15,0},
  lvljump = 12,
  usability = 0,
  allotment_pmfpi = {500,0,0,500,0},
  uniquename = "uninque",                     <<<------
  specialuseonly = 0,
  bonusgroup0 = {886,1600,1,9,0},
  bonusgroup1 = {137,1430,1,9,0},
  bonusgroup2 = {140,1450,1,9,0},
  bonusgroup3 = {880,1500,1,9,0},
  bonusgroup4 = {860,1000,10,9,0},
  itemtypes = {4989,},
  wearergroups = {'WEARGROUP_DRYADIN',},
}
mgr.createBlueprint(2473, newBlueprint);

 

P.P.S.:

there seems to be a whole lot of unique items in CMP 0160 blueprints.txt with the wrong entry

uniquename = "unqiue",   

instead of 

uniquename = "unique",      

Edited November 6, 2020 by jwiz

[Flix 5,116]

1 hour ago, jwiz said:

Has this been corrected already?

Those are the Mountain Man's Slippers, unique Dryad boots made droppable in CM 1.50.

The name and uniquename lines are meaningless.  They're not referenced anywhere else.  I corrected most of them in D2F but didn't bother in EE since there was no point.  It just makes comparing previous versions of the scripts extremely tedious because nearly every entry ends up being changed.  If there's a name I want to remember I just comment it in instead.

[jwiz 68]

Ok, thanks!

[Flix 5,116]

Magic Staves in 3.0

These are my favorite class of weapon in the game.  Most vanilla uniques and even some CM Patch items got new designs.  1h staves in particular needed some love.

Ignis Magica, Keeper of Knowledge, Tensanuil's Legacy, Rancuil's Dark Flame

         

Nlovae's Mystery, Wand of Abaris, Frost-Weaver's Elemental Staff, Wyvern Charmer

         

Random Magic & Rare Designs - these models were ported into 2.0 from D2F, where they mostly exist as D2 unique recreations.  Here they fill out the pool of random items. Some got a texture pass for 3.0.

         

         

Merciless Avenger, Shadow Weaver, Soulstaff of the Wild, Gruma's Breath of Perdition

         

Pirita's Bone Staff, Delior's Holy Staff*, Charge Integrator, To Mega Therion

         

Random Magic & Rare Designs - some of these models were ported into 2.0 from D2F.  The Therion staff's old model has also been retired to rare status.

         

      

 

*Delior's Holy Staff was always meant to be an angelic counterpart to Agh'Ba's Dreadful Staff of Death, with its devil head.  The new Delior model has a winged headstock with an angelic visage radiating holy light.

   

[desm 329]

All these new reworked weapon designs are absolutly delightful Flix. Great job as always This Delior's Holy Staff is awesome and astonishing.

[jedijimi 20]

 

6 hours ago, Flix said:

Magic Staves in 3.0

These are my favorite class of weapon in the game.  Most vanilla uniques and even some CM Patch items got new designs.  1h staves in particular needed some love.

 

  

Is this an up and coming version change, to be released?

[Flix 5,116]

4 hours ago, jedijimi said:

 

Is this an up and coming version change, to be released?

Yes indeed.  3.0 will be released sometime before the end of the year.

[jwiz 68]

Great to hear but pls. take your time.

It's done, when it's done.

[dimitrius154 612]

Ben, there's a certain CA property - "banish_spells". It's application is strictly hardcoded and tied to Expulse Magic. The way it is applied prevents me from fixing issues with the CA. Have you discovered ANY meaningful effect from "banish_spells"? Cause I feel inclined to replace it with "et_closedown_buff" possibly in combination with "et_debuff_CA_regen" .

[EDIT] I see. It does dispel SOME temporary buffs, like Garema invisibility. Does not affect Du'rach, or Garema warcries, though. Looks like some PvP-tending property, though I hardly imagine a dutiful PVP-er going into the enchanted circle for melee, instead of switching to ranged. 

Edited November 8, 2020 by dimitrius154

[Flix 5,116]

1 hour ago, dimitrius154 said:

Ben, there's a certain CA property - "banish_spells". It's application is strictly hardcoded and tied to Expulse Magic. The way it is applied prevents me from fixing issues with the CA. Have you discovered ANY meaningful effect from "banish_spells"? Cause I feel inclined to replace it with "et_closedown_buff" possibly in combination with "et_debuff_CA_regen" .

"banish_spells" affects any spell, temp buff, or permanent buff that I've seen.  I'd assumed it affected any spell entry with causesSpellDamage =1.  It both prevents casting as well as cancels active spells.  For example active enemy traps will fizzle out.

The closest way to mimic it would be "et_closedown_buff" combined with "et_energy_anihilation".  But it would not be much use against enemies since they don't use regeneration time, only cooldown.

I'd say banish spells is the core component and defining characteristic of Expulse Magic.  Without it, the CA is gutted.  What are you trying to fix?

[dimitrius154 612]

6 minutes ago, Flix said:

What are you trying to fix?

The debuff reduction and spell blocking properties are not supposed to work without the circle bounds. They do, because there's no check against the circle bounds withing the CA function set.

9 minutes ago, Flix said:

spell, temp buff, 

Hmm, I can definitely see it not affecting the Du'rach and Garema attack enhancing warcries.

[Flix 5,116]

12 minutes ago, dimitrius154 said:

Hmm, I can definitely see it not affecting the Du'rach and Garema attack enhancing warcries.

Maybe there's a list of spellclasses or spellcontroltypes somewhere that's being referenced and "blacklisted" then?  I've seen it kill custom temp buffs in D2F for sure.  Most of those are based on player spellclasses.