Sacred 2 Downloads - DIMITRIUS'S CM PATCH ADDENDUM - 2023

[Flix 5,116]

1. A note about Mark of the Dragon.  I remembered why I had not made the set droppable:  I was unable to invent item and set bonuses for it.  Currently it has placeholder bonuses identical to those on Kha-Beleth's Sovereignty.  The difficulty arose due to my previously creating 4 new Dragon Mage sets in a row.  Though I had the ideas for the set piece names, I couldn't think of a good theme for the modifiers.
2. Now that Apprentice Abdullah is mutating properly, I see the T-Mutant desert warrior (creature id = 442,) was not scaled up with the rest of the Bengaresh denizens in CM 1.60.  He should have his modelscale increased to 1.150000, otherwise he will shrink comically when mutating.

[dimitrius154 612]

10 hours ago, BRSamael said:

I just noticed that Seraphima does not have the Combat Discipline skill, unlike all other characters. This cannot be a balanced edit, since this is a limitation of the mechanics for one character, and the rest of the characters balance with offensive-defensive skills, but not combat skills. I ask you to return the missing Seraphim.

There's a typo. I'll correct this one in the upcoming update.

[dimitrius154 612]

2 hours ago, Flix said:

He should have his modelscale increased to 1.150000, otherwise he will shrink comically when mutating.

I immmediately recall a certain Tom&Jerry episode, the one where Tom tried making an extra potent poison.

2 hours ago, Flix said:

Though I had the ideas for the set piece names, I couldn't think of a good theme for the modifiers.

I think, this set modifiers should be focused on close-combat, since the set's name is an obvious reference to the first Bruce Lee movie. 

[Flix 5,116]

13 minutes ago, dimitrius154 said:

I think, this set modifiers should be focused on close-combat, since the set's name is an obvious reference to the first Bruce Lee movie. 

Well, whatever you want to assign to the set, those can just be the official modifiers that I'll adopt.

12 minutes ago, dimitrius154 said:

I immmediately recall a certain Tom&Jerry episode, the one where Tom tried making an extra potent poison.

I thought of Alice in Wonderland.   There's a lot of potential with playing around with the modelscale parameter, not to mention transformations in questscripts.txt.

A few other thoughts about Thunder Gurgler, on our quest for perfection:

• Abdullah's pre-mutated appearance should probably match his mutant self.  Creature = 467, "Desert_fight_warrior" is a match in terms of skin tone and attire.  Otherwise he gets a notable wardrobe change upon transformation.
• The Thunder Gurgler itself has no icon in the logbook.  This is because itemtype = 7129, has no icon.  I get a sinking suspicion that maybe Marcus changed so many task items, because icons were lacking.  However I have not checked other logbook items yet for missing icons.

[dimitrius154 612]

1 hour ago, Flix said:

The Thunder Gurgler itself has no icon in the logbook.  This is because itemtype = 7129, has no icon.  I get a sinking suspicion that maybe Marcus changed so many task items, because icons were lacking.  However I have not checked other logbook items yet for missing icons.

.

The icon is present, at least in the Addendum.

[dimitrius154 612]

Mod archive has been updated:

• Combat Discipline skill is again available to the Seraphim.
• Bosses should now be more durable.
• Mark of the Dragon set item modifiers have been revised.

[gogoblender 3,070]

3 hours ago, Flix said:

 

I thought of Alice in Wonderland.   There's a lot of potential with playing around with the modelscale parameter, not to mention transformations in questscripts.txt.

 

@dimitrius154

yes! as long as the scale is correct, the "feel" would be right.. dimension travel down the rabbit hole!

gogo

[Flix 5,116]

6 hours ago, dimitrius154 said:

The icon is present, at least in the Addendum.

Ah, of course. It looks like you've added dozens of missing icons.

[Flix 5,116]

Some other assorted thoughts:

• Reorganizing the books and also cleaning up the text formatting deserves a round of applause.  I'm adopting most of the changes, though I moved the Dwarves book under Lore and Legends.
• You removed the loading screen tooltip that said: "The chance to be rewarded with an armor set piece in addition to the quest reward increases with every completed quest."  Is there no such mechanic in play?  There were always rumors of such a thing, and also talk about mechanics similar to Sacred 1's putting a region "at peace," which would improve Merchant prices after enough quests were completed.  I take it all such things are mere folklore?
• How was Raving Thrust enabled to affect all enemies?  Through code or script?
• Same question for reducing the brightness of the metal shader.  Done through one of the files in shader.zip?  I also notice a massive amount of replaced sg textures in Addendum.

[dimitrius154 612]

6 minutes ago, Flix said:

You removed the loading screen tooltip that said: "The chance to be rewarded with an armor set piece in addition to the quest reward increases with every completed quest."  Is there no such mechanic in play?  There were always rumors of such a thing, and also talk about mechanics similar to Sacred 1's putting a region "at peace," which would improve Merchant prices after enough quests were completed.  I take it all such things are mere folklore?

Unfortunately, yes. I found no checks against a region, or rather 'chapter',  anywhere.  It's a folk legend, just like the mythical graverobbing progression quest in S1.

9 minutes ago, Flix said:

How was Raving Thrust enabled to affect all enemies?  Through code or script?

The spellclass function check against 'CLF_GHOST' has been disabled in s2logic.dll.

11 minutes ago, Flix said:

Done through one of the files in shader.zip?  I also notice a massive amount of replaced sg textures in Addendum.

It has been determined, that metal shader brightness is dependent on the _sg alpha channel, as well as light effect multiplier in the shader file. Both parts had to be adjusted in order to achieve acceptable visuals. 

[Flix 5,116]

Mounting / dismounting animations: very cool.

Animation blending is back, Hallelujah! How much did we fight about that being reduced so much in CM 1.60?

Inquisitor now being skeletal animated instead of vertex - I don't know if it will ever be fully appreciated how much work must have gone into this.  He looks amazing with this change.

Do you know why PrintScreen stops functioning when I install Addendum?  It fails to take screenshots, but only with this mod installed. On uninstallation functionality returns.

Interesting debuff effect here.  I've seen it with both Eternal Fire and Clustering Maelstrom, but only when groups of enemies are clumped together.  What does it signify?

[dimitrius154 612]

2 hours ago, Flix said:

Animation blending is back, Hallelujah! How much did we fight about that being reduced so much in CM 1.60?

It was the only available solution for the vertex-animated clothing back then. Anything over 0.02 sec. was causing visible body/clothes clipping.

2 hours ago, Flix said:

Inquisitor now being skeletal animated instead of vertex - I don't know if it will ever be fully appreciated how much work must have gone into this.  He looks amazing with this change.

Once I determined, that there's very little meaninful 'flowing' in the original animated models, that the console version is not vertex-animated and there was no other way to get rid of a number of irritating visual bugs, the work began. Took me about 15 days total, shoulders and helmets included.

Fun fact: original Inquisitor robe animations account for ~40% of space taken by the game's model files and ~50% of animation.txt

2 hours ago, Flix said:

Do you know why PrintScreen stops functioning when I install Addendum?  It fails to take screenshots, but only with this mod installed. On uninstallation functionality returns.

Hmm, no idea, PrintScreen works for me. The way 'Pause' functions was modified, so as to prevent vertex-animated models from ignoring it.

2 hours ago, Flix said:

Interesting debuff effect here.  I've seen it with both Eternal Fire and Clustering Maelstrom, but only when groups of enemies are clumped together.  What does it signify?

It's the restored visual effect for the Area Damage property, discovered by chance while browsing the visual effect ID table.   

Edited September 28, 2020 by dimitrius154

[Flix 5,116]

16 hours ago, dimitrius154 said:

Once I determined, that there's very little meaninful 'flowing' in the original animated models, that the console version is not vertex-animated and there was no other way to get rid of a number of irritating visual bugs, the work began.

Is this why the seraphim's hair and skirt animations were removed as well?  Were they disabled code-wise or just through the gr2 files?  I should like to keep the hair blowing in the wind.

16 hours ago, dimitrius154 said:

Hmm, no idea, PrintScreen works for me. The way 'Pause' functions was modified, so as to prevent vertex-animated models from ignoring it.

Oh ok. It's probably because I tried to use PrintScreen while paused.

[dimitrius154 612]

1 hour ago, Flix said:

Is this why the seraphim's hair and skirt animations were removed as well?  Were they disabled code-wise or just through the gr2 files?  I should like to keep the hair blowing in the wind.

Yes, that's correct. The vertex-animated model solution in Sacred 2, IMHO, has no redeeming qualities whasoever:

• Every animation file weights more then the original model, bloating RAM consumption.
• Every vertex-animated model suffers from the "rack effect" - animations do not get immediately applied during certain states, resulting in clipping, parts detachment, etc.
• Animations are completely uncontrollable, blending is non-existant.

  I think Ascaron folks have realized, that vertex animation was folly, somewhere during the development cycle. That's why very few hair models are animated. But, for reasons unknown, they decided to keep those they've already done.

Hair styles and belt skirts have been converted to skeletal animation via GR2 files. Also hair and belt skirt entries have been removed from animation.txt.  

Edited September 28, 2020 by dimitrius154

[dimitrius154 612]

1 hour ago, Flix said:

It's probably because I tried to use PrintScreen while paused

Works while paused for me as well.

[Insomnia 3]

Good evening dear developer! Please tell me something has changed in your fashion with the trade skill? Does it make sense to download it or not? will there be any bonuses from leveling up to the master?

[dimitrius154 612]

1 hour ago, Insomnia said:

Please tell me something has changed in your fashion with the trade skill? Does it make sense to download it or not? will there be any bonuses from leveling up to the master?

Greetings! You get a reasonable chance to encounter uniques, sets and legendaries among the wares, if your 'Bargaining' skill is sufficiently high versus your current character level.

Edited September 30, 2020 by dimitrius154

[liu3404 2]

Hi,

This is my very first post in this Forum and I want to thank you, first of all, for this amazing mod.

I have been playing for a while now and I have found something that I don't understand. I'm finding very often Legendary items but no Sets at all. I'm playing in single player, high elf, silver  and currently at level 50. I have tried to equip all the relics of awareness and also half and non. I still do not find any Set. Actually, only the Cript ones: the axe and the shield and several times . Maybe my skill level is still too low to find them but I currently have around 200 skill points between relics and assigned points. 

Any help will be welcome.

Thanks in advance.

 

 

 

[dimitrius154 612]

1 minute ago, liu3404 said:

I have been playing for a while now and I have found something that I don't understand. I'm finding very often Legendary items but no Sets at all.

Greetings!

I'd like to know, if anyone else is encountering the same issue. If not, then either the drop tables are broken somehow, or extra changes have been done to balance.txt. 

Are you certain you haven't tried installing the S2EE 2.4 on top of the Addendum?

[liu3404 2]

Thanks for the quick reply.

I'm using the mod enabler and only with your mod plus the textures. But now that you said it, I was playing long time ago with the EE directly installed on top of the main game so maybe there are some files still old/corrupted there... I will try to reinstall the game from zero to test it. 

 

[gogoblender 3,070]

4 hours ago, liu3404 said:

Hi,

This is my very first post in this Forum and I want to thank you, first of all, for this amazing mod.

I have been playing for a while now and I have found something that I don't understand. I'm finding very often Legendary items but no Sets at all. I'm playing in single player, high elf, silver  and currently at level 50. I have tried to equip all the relics of awareness and also half and non. I still do not find any Set. Actually, only the Cript ones: the axe and the shield and several times . Maybe my skill level is still too low to find them but I currently have around 200 skill points between relics and assigned points. 

Any help will be welcome.

Thanks in advance.

 

 

 

Also just here for quick hello and welcome to the forums... enjoy Dmitriy's mod for the most marvelous game in the world!

gogo

[liu3404 2]

Thanks gogo for the warm welcome,

I have another question that maybe is not related directly to this pack but who knows.. I placed all the zip files of the trimmed textures in the main folder and does not appear the button in the graphic option for Elite. Is there anything else I have to do? maybe installing also all the other elite textures?

 

[liu3404 2]

Ok, solved. One of the zip files was not correct. Now everything works

[liu3404 2]

Hi Dimitrius, 

I reinstalled the game and the problem of the drop items is not solved. Still getting several unique items but not sets. I also tried to modify the balance.txt increasing the ZRareExpectation14 that I suppose is the Set drop ratio and it makes more drop of rare items but not sets. I restarted a new character and same result. I don't know if someone is having the same issue...
 

 

[dimitrius154 612]

9 hours ago, liu3404 said:

Still getting several unique items but not sets.

Would you, please, post a link to the character file in question, so that I might check the reported issue?