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Making Ancaria great again


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It's been on my to-do list for a long time, to make a CM-lite version of the patch, that was very strict with only introducing bug-fixes and performance enhancements, and nothing else.

I have a pretty clear vision of how to do this; it's just a matter of finding the time and more importantly mustering the energy.

I don't see the point in making it modular though.  Fixes + fan content would just be the full CM Patch.  Extracting just the fixes though seems like a worthy endeavor.

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It would be interesting to launch a "patch vanilla cm".
Particularly I would continue using CM 1.6. The impression I have is that Sacred 2 has been hurriedly launched. So, come up with the pach that not only bug fixes but finalizes the project. I see CM 1.6 and EE.2.1 as updates ... However, considering that we should respect and value the "different ways of thinking and experiencing Ancaria" .... lololol A "patch vanilla cm" would make the community richer yet. ..

:D:thumpsup:

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2 hours ago, Flix said:

It's been on my to-do list for a long time, to make a CM-lite version of the patch, that was very strict with only introducing bug-fixes and performance enhancements, and nothing else.

I have a pretty clear vision of how to do this; it's just a matter of finding the time and more importantly mustering the energy.

I don't see the point in making it modular though.  Fixes + fan content would just be the full CM Patch.  Extracting just the fixes though seems like a worthy endeavor.

I remember you mentioning such a thing, maybe this is a good way for recruiting troops for that endeavour?! ;)

Anyway the idea of being modular was as simple as not removing the added content which took so much work from everyone who did it. It'd be more like optional community made content, a sort of walk into the history of the CM Patch since it always introduced new content. I was reading the page on the Wiki and adding new stuff was always part of the spirit. Thus making "bug fixes alone + optional added content" was more in line with keeping the best of both worlds. Granted, I realize that if there are no new fixes introduced splitting the atom only to use its two parts seems like a waste of energy, but if there is space to press new fixes into the "lite" version then it would make sense to have the extra content as an optional module, since the main module (bug fixes, optimisations) could be changed furthermore without having to alter the rest of the pool of items made over the years.

I don't know if that makes that much sense, or if there are still that many things to debug/optimise, but it's an interesting way to keep the work of so many people over nearly a decade still available while keeping the patch up-to-date. I'd very much prefer a CM 1.61/1.62 progression with the extra content on the side than a complete overhaul into 1.70/1.80.

Vagner mentioned translating the game into Portuguese some time ago, and I admitted that it would be a daunting task to do so. But don't mind me asking, is there any work yet to be done in localisations? Just to be sure, just how much text is there to be translated? I'd probably be able to translate it and put into syntax, but then there's the question of PT-PT vs PT-BR. I know Vagner gets me. ;)

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3 hours ago, Androdion said:

Vagner mentioned translating the game into Portuguese some time ago, and I admitted that it would be a daunting task to do so. But don't mind me asking, is there any work yet to be done in localisations? Just to be sure, just how much text is there to be translated? I'd probably be able to translate it and put into syntax, but then there's the question of PT-PT vs PT-BR. I know Vagner gets me. ;)

Indeed, Portuguese as spoken in Portugal differs from the way it is in Brazil. Some compromise would have to be made, but in the end it would be a vast improvement over the only closest alternative, Spanish.

I also concur that many of the skins of creatures, banners/flags of regions, and other visual fixes from the original game files that were never introduced properly in the vanilla Sacred 2 should stay as a part of a "lite version." Also, so should the trimmed enhanced textures. After that, I believe that the opinions of the community would begin to diverge much. Some topics of contention would likely be the vast array of additional armor sets and weapons, nerfed skills, and such. The removal of "Block Chance" as a block all modifier was removed from the original game. So now, where does this sort of palliating all end? Who decides and about which things? In the end how many players would be using a same exact given version combined with the same modifications after an advent of so many possible combinations and variables? Would what might possibly bring us together also possibly serve to separate us to some degree? Perhaps a less is more approach combined with an eye focused on what was originally envisioned by the original developers would be best. Although I have an idea, I am still a wee bit uncertain as to what precisely my preferences are and would be in the end.

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I'm already banging my head on the wall with "S2rw.v1.7" lololol

Portuguese and Spanish are similar and easy to translate. My difficulty is not so much the size of the text but rather find and know how to open the files in the game.
There are some differences between pt / br and pt / pt ... They are mostly found in oral communication ... Already in writing are almost identical. The last orthographic reform in Brazil brought the two languages even closer ...

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8 hours ago, Hooyaah said:

Some topics of contention would likely be the vast array of additional armor sets and weapons, nerfed skills, and such. The removal of "Block Chance" as a block all modifier was removed from the original game. So now, where does this sort of palliating all end? Who decides and about which things? In the end how many players would be using a same exact given version combined with the same modifications after an advent of so many possible combinations and variables? Would what might possibly bring us together also possibly serve to separate us to some degree? Perhaps a less is more approach combined with an eye focused on what was originally envisioned by the original developers would be best. Although I have an idea, I am still a wee bit uncertain as to what precisely my preferences are and would be in the end.

I think you need to take into account the fact that this "lite" version would have to be made with I&B in mind and not FA, so it'd only work on top of the last game version released by the original devs. It wouldn't make sense to do it in any other way. Most of these changes and radical nerfs were made when I&B was introduced so that's not an issue I reckon, otherwise we'd have to rebalance the game again and that's hardly the point. I think we can all agree that they did good in sticking rph to weapon-based attacks and CAs, as an example. GT+rph was total overkill!

I have to say that part of me wishes to play the game without any added content as it was originally, with "only" the stability introduced by CM Patch 1.60 and all the work done prior to it. But I also feel that another part of me would feel sad for the lack of added sets and equipment, which I don't feel like should be a separate mod since they were originally designed with the CM spirit in mind. Hence why I mentioned the possibility of making it a base of fixes that could be updated "on-the-go" without having to change the additional community made content. It would be sad to see so many extra quests, bosses and equipment just fly out of the window, or have them negate new bug fix corrections without a complete overhaul of the entire patch. In my mind, and I'm not afraid of putting it out since it's only my own vision of it and not the community's, I see the CM Patch "lite" as the bug fix on top on I&B 2.65, and then a "CM Quests & Bosses", "CM Sets, Uniques & Legendaries" optional modules on top of that, for instance. I believe only quest.txt and drop.txt would "need" to be changed in each of those two modules as for them not to clash with each other, since the creatures.txt and blueprint.txt with all the additional information regarding all content could be kept intact on the bugfix base. Without the quest spawning and being outside of the drop lists I think they's just be sitting ducks in those two files and not cause any inconvenience, but the resident modders should know how to answer that question better than myself. It's just my personal idea of it though, so it's worth what it's worth. ;)

 

8 hours ago, Hooyaah said:

Indeed, Portuguese as spoken in Portugal differs from the way it is in Brazil. Some compromise would have to be made, but in the end it would be a vast improvement over the only closest alternative, Spanish.

 

6 hours ago, vagnerhammer said:

I'm already banging my head on the wall with "S2rw.v1.7" lololol

Portuguese and Spanish are similar and easy to translate. My difficulty is not so much the size of the text but rather find and know how to open the files in the game.
There are some differences between pt / br and pt / pt ... They are mostly found in oral communication ... Already in writing are almost identical. The last orthographic reform in Brazil brought the two languages even closer ...

Oh yeah, that orthographic agreement is quite the thing. Without going into much detail let's just say that you're accurate in that it brings writing closer. I also agree that you notice it a lot in terms of spoken language, though I think that some syntax would suffer in adaptation between both variants of the language. I don't think that Ancaria has specific terms like freezer (geladeira - frigorífico) so we'd be in the clear for those specificities. But still I bet an arm and a leg that most ranting conversations in quests would have slightly different translations, if not for the syntax alone.

A compromise is bound to be achieved though, since it's mostly a matter of keeping the content and working around the approach on the syntax. The naming scheme on the localisation should be fun to read though! :D

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One thing you guys might want to keep in mind is that there is likely to be a much greater interaction between these files than you think and by creating many modules (bug fixes / CM items / CM quests / CM whatever / etc) you create even more combinations which, wherever they overlap on a specific file, would need a version of that file to be created for that specific combination of modules. If they overlap on multiple files, then multiple files need a version for each combination.

Furthermore, decoupling the bug fixes from the additional content is likely to be an extensive endeavor in and of itself given the magnitude of changes made by the CM patch. To split all the changes into separate modules would have to be an order of magnitude more extensive (especially considering the point above).

Given this is something Flix does in his spare time around work / personal life / etc. I think it's amazing that he generates as much content for this game as he does, but to find the time and muster the energy to do all this is asking quite a lot. I think it would be great for those purists who just want to play the base game with bug fixes if a CM lite version is created, but definitely don't expect it and would sure as hell be extremely appreciative if one is created. We wouldn't want to burn the poor fellow out when he has done so much for the game and potentially could do so much more if he still enjoys his time spent doing so!

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When I created this topic I never intended it to be a chore on Flix's back, mind you. I'd be more than happy to do some/most/all of the work on my spare time if I had any idea on how to read and write code, as "simple" as this game's is. But unless we're talking about copy-pasting IDs and replacing specific parts and values of txt files on Notepad++ I can't be of much help. And even then I'd need some tutoring to be able to do it. I can't program quests, but I can be of help. Or at least try to be. And I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one in this situation of having the will to do more but not being able to do so.

I think we can all agree that Flix has done more than his part over the years, the guy basically keeps making more and more and tries to keep the modding spirit alive. I reckon that it's hard to have a vision of something and then find that there are too many conflicts regarding that particular idea of how things should be. Finding the energy to press on in those situations is much harder than coding endlessly. With that being said I don't know for sure what Flix's intentions regarding such a project are specifically, but like good old inspector Finch I can guess. My guess is that he wants to pick up all the fixes and slap them against the original code without any of the compromises made over the years, making the game as vanilla as it can be but with the added fixes. Not cutting back on some things in order to have others, not removing things originally coded in favour of newly created ones, and making the game run as stable as it can be. I'd also guess that by trying to revert many added things more space would be freed at s2logic in order to put extra fixes that have been identified. But all of this is speculation, call it an educated guess if you will. Still, only the man himself can tell us what his intentions are, if he wants to. I think that the community also has a word in this so you boys and girls should start talking more. :D

As for the technical aspect of extra modules I fully agree with you. That's why I cautiously grouped community-made quests and bosses on one hand (because many bosses have proper quest flags) and community-made gear on the other. As far as I can tell and from what I could understand over the years the basis for a piece of equipment is in blueprint.txt, which creates an ID and properties for that item which then can be "summoned" in-game via a drop list or as a quest reward. Assuming that none of the newly created gear would be a fixed drop, and that the CM 1.60 blueprint.txt is kept on the lite version, then all you should need on the gear module is an amended version of drop.txt for the gear to drop. You'd also need the 1.60 version of creatures.txt for the bosses IDs I believe, and then an amended quest.txt on the optional module for spawning them. So unless I'm reading this incredibly wrong wouldn't having those two separate modules be as easy as keeping the 1.60 version of blueprint.txt and creatures.txt on the lite version and then activating just quest.txt and drop.txt separately for each of those two modules? If it is and they don't overlap then there shouldn't be any issues with it right?

Separating the fixes from the content would be more a matter of analysis than coding I believe. We have changelogs for the several iterations of the CM Patch, we have the vanilla files and the 1.60 files and we know how to identify the changes made (well, some of us do), so all that's left is to do comparison checks and chop up code? Granted I'm making it sound too easy, but I don't think that it should be overly complex either. But again, noob here when it comes to coding, so this topic may be a good place to understand just how feasible things are. At the very least it should be a testimony of the "ifs and buts" if this matter resurfaces somewhere in the future. ;)

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I think that your assessment is likely correct, Androdion and I agree that members should voice their opinions in this matter. For me the resolution should be straightforward and simple. The added quests and cosmetic changes as well as the fixes that address the appearance of bosses (like those on Christmas Island) to what had been originally intended should remain as it is now with CM 160. The only real issue that I would like to see "fixed" is the overabundance of armor, weapons, and jewelry (perhaps a few shields as well). In the vanilla game it was not a problem to find a complete set of original armor sets and some sturdy unique weapons, jewelry, and shields to aid ones character as it leveled up. Although I like so much of the additional new items they seem to drop so randomly (and rarely) that it is difficult to accumulate a complete set of anything, especially at the same levels. The mutation sets are especially coveted and it would be good to keep them and allow them to drop more consistently or piecemeal as a reward for the completion of specific quests. Perhaps some of the other sets of armor, shields, weapons, jewelry, and relics could drop in this manner as some few do now. Another option would be to add them on as a modification but also allow them to appear in the game without a modification if they were placed in a downloaded chest file. For now, that's my two cents and I may later have a bit more "change to throw in" as it were. ;)

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Actually Flix and I discussed that issue on the EE topic. I asked him if there was a chance to make those extra sets/uniques/legendaries be absent from the drop lists as to make the pool smaller, and thus increase the chance to have full set drops, and then have them become fixed drops as quest rewards. And as it turns out all one has to do is eliminate the new gear from drop.txt and add their IDs to quest.txt as for them to drop as quest rewards. So what you're saying goes pretty much in line with that explanation he gave me. He mentioned that there's only the possibility to make a specific item drop as a quest reward, it's not possible to add a pool to randomise from. So you need to have that particular item as a reward for that particular quest, you can't make the quest reward a random legendary or set piece from a specific pool of items. Incidentally he already has made some items available through quest rewards in EE 2.1 like you say. Legendary relics in particular drop from all four elemental lords. ;)

As for your last line, to make them available via shared chests, it should also be an easy feat. If you keep the blueprint.txt with all the added gear but remove those items' IDs from the droplists then they won't drop, but when you place them in a shared chest their IDs will be present and trigger so they become usable. They just won't drop in-game. Think of them like the unlockable items on the Wiki. Somebody do correct me if I'm wrong here.

So the community must speak up on the matter of the community-made content, I guess that's a given. To keep it or not to keep it, and how to keep it. I have my personal preference but I don't mind any of the alternatives, as long as it's (mostly) consensual.

 

PS: On a side-note, I know there's a line in balance.txt that regulates the chance for runes to drop for the class you're currently playing with, and that you can change that line in order for them to drop only for your current toon (runeisforhero = 100 if memory serves). So my question is if there's any way to regulate the chance for set items to drop in the same way, less random between classes and more specifically to the class that's being played? That would probably be an interesting solution for the issue Hooyaah describes, unless mini-sets are accounted as being for all classes, which in turn would make such a change impractical anyway.

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3 hours ago, Androdion said:

PS: On a side-note, I know there's a line in balance.txt that regulates the chance for runes to drop for the class you're currently playing with, and that you can change that line in order for them to drop only for your current toon (runeisforhero = 100 if memory serves). So my question is if there's any way to regulate the chance for set items to drop in the same way, less random between classes and more specifically to the class that's being played? That would probably be an interesting solution for the issue Hooyaah describes, unless mini-sets are accounted as being for all classes, which in turn would make such a change impractical anyway.

IsUsableByHero = 700,

Change that value to 1000 and you should only get items for your current hero.

3 hours ago, Hooyaah said:

The mutation sets are especially coveted and it would be good to keep them and allow them to drop more consistently or piecemeal as a reward for the completion of specific quests.

I don't see those staying in the game.  The bonuses are total fan inventions, not to mention ridiculously overpowered.  The models would probably just stay in the game as part of the pool of random rares.

17 hours ago, Androdion said:

My guess is that he wants to pick up all the fixes and slap them against the original code without any of the compromises made over the years, making the game as vanilla as it can be but with the added fixes.

Correct.  The ideal would be to rebuild from the last official game version.  This would be more time consuming but much more thorough and error-proof than walking back from the latest CM and trying to only strike off the offending material.

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Hooyaah, would you be so kind as to test that "isusablebyhero" value at 1000? Since you have an edited balance.txt that already provides better drops and a fierce HE with a load of points in Enhanced Perception, maybe you could do some boss runs and see if the drops change in the way that we'd like it to? If you start getting a lot of all class set drops you'll know it's not getting the desired effect.

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Ok people, two things.

1. I was testing one potential bug on CM 1.60/EE 2.1 with my Niob SW , so afterwards I took it for a spin around the Guardians. Since I had the Platinum monolith active it was a short run, which I repeated more than half a dozen times. I also took a stroll at the Orc Cave. The set drops that I got weren't all that different from the usual even with "IsUsableByHero = 1000", I got one to two pieces of five different SW sets and three or four all class set drops. I then, for kicks, picked up DARK's lv.200 SW and gave it 200 in EP to do another Guardian run. I got three set items, two for the SW class and one all class piece. Now I know I didn't make 100 runs so this isn't as specific as it should be, but if this is a tendency then even though the drop pool is reduced it's not as much as to have just specific-class set drops. All class sets are still very much present and in the way. Still I'd prefer if there was more testing, so Hooyaah if you'd be so kind. ;)

I guess that this could be tried and tested with the all class sets removed from the drop lists since there's still a lot of them. Between the Sigils, the jewellery sets and the weapon sets there are dozens of them.

2. Regarding the translation into Portuguese and adding support for another language as has been talked about, I randomly came across a file Flix posted with the entire English game texts of CM 1.50, which translates to around 56k lines of text in one txt file. So I spent some time researching enterprise grade translation software and I came across PROMT, which despite being (well) paid provides for a trial-run with the program running at its full capacity. So not only could I fully translate the 1.50 file but I did so with only a couple of clicks since the program basically gets pointed to the original file and creates a translated copy on the same directory, automatically. The Portuguese version of the dictionary is the Brazilian variant, and from what I could gather there's still a lot of work left to be done since, you know, syntax and all. But it's as good of a start as one can get. So if this translation is to be made all I need, for starters, is the equivalent for 1.60 of that text file. And probably a couple of months, ha ha...

It might be necessary to redo the file for the "CM Patch Lite", but I'm not really aware of how that part works. I don't know if the game can use the existing locale file, even if there's more text in it than what the game uses.

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8 hours ago, Androdion said:

Hooyaah, would you be so kind as to test that "isusablebyhero" value at 1000? Since you have an edited balance.txt that already provides better drops and a fierce HE with a load of points in Enhanced Perception, maybe you could do some boss runs and see if the drops change in the way that we'd like it to? If you start getting a lot of all class set drops you'll know it's not getting the desired effect.

I can do another set of runs, although I will need to do a fresh reinstall and add the CM Patch 160 (latest version) just to make sure that my version matches. I was waiting for the latest update which was to be released this month. With my schedule lately I have much less free time. Nonetheless, I haven't noticed any "all class" armor drops as I have been playing with the value set to: IsUsableByHero = 1000. I do, however, find armor for the Seraphim vended at about one in fifty items when shopping at a merchant.

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Minisets are in their own droplists; the only sets they should be crowding out would be vanilla minisets (those little 4-5 piece armor sets that aren't focused on any specific aspect).  I don't see how they would be making the aspect sets become more rare.

The full sets (Children of Asha, Doom Guard) DO share the same lists with the other full aspect sets, so I could see how those might crowd out full sets - especially for High Elf who got a like 5 new full sets in CM.

One other thing that Silver Fox uncovered is that bosses tend to love the minisets drop list.  If you're just doing boss runs over and over it's unsurprising you'd get an inordinate amount of minisets, whether vanilla or CM.

The aspect full sets tend to drop more from regular/elite mobs and chests.

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I think that the point is not that the armor sets become more rare, but they drop less often. Here's why: For example the High Elf had eight Armor sets in Vanilla Sacred 2 (excluding the Merry Christmas set). That's a total of 37 pieces. With the additional Community Patch Sets, there were an additional seven sets and an additional fifty pieces. Now, at the same drop rate the chance to receive a specific set piece decreases to well under half. Add to that the fact that there are now other competing items that may drop, what with the additional shields, weapons, and jewelry. Now it has become quite difficult to remain patient and wait to collect a complete set of armor or get that certain other "vanilla" weapon or shield that one desires.

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Wait, so minisets are on different droplists? Noob learning.

So taking the HE as an example, the vanilla full sets and the CM full sets are on the same droplist right? So these are all on the same pool (CM full sets are actually 7)? No wonder Hooyaah has trouble finding a complete set.

  • Adornments of the Ancestors
    Celdrahil's Pandemonium
    Faladal's Blizzard
     
  • Armaments of the Nine Hells
    Glimborin's Garments of Mutation
    Children of Asha
    Frozen Gems
    Lara's Glad Rags
    Mage of the Spectrum
    Range Array

Ok, and these HE minisets are on a separate pool.

  • Ashes of Perdition
    Garments of the Storms
    Velaria's Heirloom
    Vestments of Innocence
    Virgo's Revenge

In comparison where are all class sets like the following, and with which do they clash? These are all vanilla.

  • Black Death
    Bratgrimace's Legacy
    Kayser's Luck (Epic Office Quest)
    Kira's Protection
    Slagelamber's Relics

And what about these? They are all CM all class sets:

  • Crypt Raider's Artifacts
    Disciples of the Architect
    Equilibrium
    Eternal Return
    Flesh-Eaters' Implements
    Insignia Regis
    Remnants of Drizzt
    Smoke Without Fire
    Undead Legionaire's Armaments
    Tooth and Nail
    The Night and The Silent Water
     
  • BerDaiPayn
    DisTrukXion
    ImMorTel
    KilthEmAl
    KlaAtuVerAtaNikTuh
    SinIthTer
    TomMarWolOryDel
    YerLuvVun

I guess my point here is just how many drop lists are there and where do all of these fit in, and how?! I know these lists may seem a bit confusing but all of these can drop as set items for a HE, and I'm not even accounting for that 30% chance that it's for another class.

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Quick note to say that I was able to decode/reencode global.res successfully and already had PROMT do its dirty work in translating the source text. The translation is obviously botched and needs a ton of work, so my question is very simple.

Who votes yes for a Portuguese translation of Sacred 2?

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  • 1 month later...

You could go for it Androdion, but do try to use Google Translate at the very least ;)

As for IsUseableByHero = 1000, I can confirm from several hundred hours of usage with this being set in my balance.txt, you will get class specific and "all class" items over 99% of the time, but there very much remains a small chance for whatever reason that sometimes an item from the class above yours in the character definitions list will spawn, so for instance, if the character class type you're playing is Class 7, you may now and then still get a class set (and unique, etc) drop for Class 6. Now, you might wonder about Class 1. What I've found happens there is Class 1 finds stuff for Class 2 and Class 2 for Class 1. I have no idea what causes this or if it is even possible to fix it, even so it probably is not worth the time nor the effort.

As for modularization of the CM Patch, I lean in favor of it only at the time of the full rewrite, and only because stability and bugfixes on the whole should take priority over any non-vanilla (as in, the patch devs or whomever decided to add things in that were not already in the game files) added content or CA re-balancing (and it's arguable even CA re-balances should be in their own module for people who want CAs to remain as close to I&B 2.65.2 release as possible barring actual bug fixes). This will allow for faster fixes overall in the end when bugs are identified if you are patching the main core set of files for the game, and then if anything in the extended modules need to be changed to comply with a bug fix, it can be done in smaller chunks rather than one large "put-out-the-fire" scenario. This would also be better in the long-haul for regression testing of any code changes.

One other thing in favor of modularization - there just might be less heated arguments between any patch devs over what changes to include in the CM Patch if the "extra" stuff was extrapolated out into modules where there is more leeway to experiment and rollback if something is tried and found not to be the best idea in the end.

 

Edit: As for another thing addressing class set drops, you already can change the overall drop chances in your balance.txt file to be quite a bit more lenient, set zRareExpectation15 to 1000, and zRareExpectation14 to a number way less than 1000 if you're hard farming class set pieces, and the reverse to farm Uniques. If you put them anywhere close to each other number wise, the setting for 14 will override the setting for 15 and everything below 14, giving far more uniques than what you actually may want if farming class sets. Personally, I run with 15 set to 700, 14 set to 150, and everything from 13 down to 4 set to various numbers above 300 in a gradual scale, with 3 to 0 set to 250.

Edit 2: Case in point, Dimitrius has many, many things in his Patch Addendum that would be great to have in the CM (fixing being able to ride mounts into caves and fixing NPC spawn and action delay from transitions are two big ones). But for instance, I don't think changes such as what he did with Blacksmithing, CAs (outside of the bugfixes he did from the devs not assigning certain Aspect Skills to the appropriate thing like Tactics Lore), or Mounts is appropriate for the main CM Patch, they are very subjective and more akin to straight up modding than patching per se. Flix also has great things in his mods, from what I've read, specifically regarding fixing the loot generator so prefix/suffix names and their associated attributes are applied properly to items which should be in the CM Patch but currently are not.

Edited by thejynxed
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So I've been giving this thread some thought, and trying to balance my ambition with the practical constraints of time and energy required.  Really, there are only four components of the CM Patch that are unfriendly to purists:

1) Interface change. 

2) Extra quests available.

3) Elite Mounts.

4) Extra items dropping.

 

1 -  is easily remedied.  The original interface can be restored with this mod.

2 -  is probably the least intrusive.  Yes, there are a handful of new quests, but they don't really get in the way of anything.  The quests don't exist at the expense of something else, as with the interface change or new item drops out-competing the vanilla items.  The quests can just be ignored.

3 - like the quests, the elite mounts can easily be ignored.  It's also possible for me to simply remove the trader who sells them without having touch the other 12+ files that add them to the game.

4 -  is really where the complaints are coming from.  But scrubbing all those items from the game and rebuilding the patch would be a lot of work.  A single item will touch at least 8 different scripts, not to mention the icons, models, textures, and text changes.

 

It is, in the end, much easier to just stop the new items from dropping in the form of a "mod patch" that would just be installed on top of stock CM 1.60.  It would only have an altered drop.txt, so if you already the CM items, they wouldn't vanish, they'd just stop dropping.  Downloaded stashes with the items would also continue to work.

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I'll see if I can give it a go tomorrow as I have a day off work. I'm curious though, what about those items that fall into "4." that are fixed drops/quest rewards? What happens to those with this mod? Does it work like we've talked before, fixed drops are unaltered and can be placed here and there, but the items just won't drop regularly from RNG loot?

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