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ESP: The beginning and the modmerging system [S2G/CP1.6/EE2.1/SS,C]


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The glorious days of full servers and massive multiplayers are over. And with it gone are the stronger mobs, the better loot and the bigger experience.

With this in mind I would like to get a polished SP experience.

 

ESP stands for Enhanced Single Player. Or ESP for short. ESP will be a mod containing balance changes ontop of the Enhanced Edition by @Flixcurrently at 2.1 . I consider EE2.1 to be a very close vanilla experience as it changes just the right amount of things without altering too many variables. If you have a decent understanding of the vanilla game, you will feel right at home with EE. Additionally EE also has a SuperSpawn (SS) option and a challenge mode (C), both which are more than fertil grounds for a long lasting and eventful experience. Too easy ? Change to the challenge mod. Too hard ? Turn it off again.

But this isnt about advertising EE, as ESP aims to be applicable to ANY version, be it Sacred 2 Gold, CP 1.60, the Enhanced Edition or any other random mod.

The forum has a lot of good ideas, but you are missing a modmerge system. The main problem of any fix, change, or option is that it usually comes in the form of a whole file. If somebody changes 3 lines in the balance.txt and somebody else changes 6 different lines in the balance.txt you will have to manually merge them into one file. Oh yes, and if anything goes wrong with your install you have start from scratch. Every mod has to be manually merged with another one, and every time every file gets fully replaced, leaving no room for partial changes without at least half an hour of fiddling with your build. This is the reason why most mods slowly disappear from useage, and only the big ones remain. Nobody wants to fiddle with 50 manual settings, no matter how good the endproduct is.

As far as my software skills allow me to make an installer that I might be able to make one which overwrites single lines in files. Though that might be hindered depending on how I have to encode the files again. I might even make an installer which everybody can use, where they can just dump all their changes into a single zip, run the installer, and enjoy hundreds of changes in a matter of minutes. But lets see. If you dont want to have certain changes you will literally be able to go into the modmerge files and delete the lines you dont want to have overwritten.

 

ESP will use EE as the base, so the balance will always be in line with EE.

 

Now for the content:

I have proposed a better loot progression system close to the vanilla progression here:
http://darkmatters.org/forums/index.php?/topic/23824-s2gcp16ee21ssc-esp-enhanced-perception-and-loot-progression/
It decreases the importance of Enhanced Perception down to an eqivalent of 5 socketed talisman, and raises the importance of MF by a magnitute of x10. x8 is debatable though.

 

balance.txt. Text in brackets are former values

  • AdjustCriticalDamageFactor = 2000 (1200) --- I always found the crit to be too underwhelming in any case. Never was worth to take crit chances for anything. I suggest this as the new bases, and maybe, but not necessarily, will lock this with decreased crit chances in general.
  • SpeedMax = 4000 (1500) --- Maxspeed makes your game more unstable, but also unlocks all the speed. Find your sweetspot.
  • RangeAggro = 4000 (400) --- How can you farm faster ? More damage, more attack speed and more run speed. Whats faster than running to the mobs ? Having the mobs run to you.
  • IsUsableByHero = 1000 (700) --- One of the more important lines. If I want to raise an Inquisitor I dont want to get HE stuff. If I would want to raise a HE, I would play one. 99% of the loot is for your class.
  • IsRuneForHero = 1000 (400) --- Yes, sorting through 15 x 3 x 7 = 315 different runes is fun in the first 2 hours, but you only really need the runes for your char, and you are not playing for the first 2 hours, your are playing for the 100 hours after that. Saves you a lot of nerves and a little bit of gold.
  • PotionHealCooldown = 1000 (700) --- potion spamming never dies, not even with this.
  • SkillMagicFindFactor = 2000 (200) --- In line with the loot changes outlined above.

 

behaviour.txt.

 

 

The things here are there to be discussed, to be added to and to be criticised. I will also go through the forum and collect all ideas, mods and changes which enhance the Single Player experience. Yes, I will test them personally first. It will be a personal mod, but the modmerge system might enable everybody to run 5 different mods ontop of their build in less than 2 minutes.

Edit: Post content reminder: http://darkmatters.org/forums/index.php?/topic/21916-sacred-2-enhanced-edition/&do=findComment&comment=7015906
http://darkmatters.org/forums/index.php?/topic/21916-sacred-2-enhanced-edition/&do=findComment&comment=7015930

Edited by Charon117
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I love the idea of a mod merging system.  I use one for The Witcher 3 and it is a must-have.  It also has a manual resolve feature when two mods conflict.

20 minutes ago, Charon117 said:

Overwrite the Hireling_distance AI with the Hireling_brave_ex AI for a better mage staff users doppelganger. The ranged (non-magic) weapons doppelganger is still as it was before.

Be careful with this one, it could potentially break some quest NPC behavior.  One example that comes to mind is the hireling tutorial quest where you choose if you want Private Rinarn to support you with bow or sword. 

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2 minutes ago, Flix said:

Be careful with this one, it could potentially break some quest NPC behavior.  One example that comes to mind is the hireling tutorial quest where you choose if you want Private Rinarn to support you with bow or sword. 

Well, I dont have any actual experience with this, but I still fail to understand how it could break the AI. All the AI does is consider different states for its attacks. Nevertheless anything can break everything in the game. Like adjusting SpeedMax breaks the game for my 264% Attack Speed seraphim. Anybody who mods risks breaking something.

The Rinarn quest is less than 0.01% of Sacred 2 content. But fixing the doppelganger makes a whole playstyle even viable. The payoff is immense, and the deprivation minimal.

Concerning those kind of things I will have to rely on testers, which means I need some exporsure. After stuff is working ofcourse.

Thx for the heads up.

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@Flix @dimitrius154 Can someone of the more experienced modders tell me what kind of files a mod may contain, except for .txt.

Or to put it into other words, can I safely insert/overwrite files which are not .txt files AKA excluding non-.txt from the modmerge system ? Or is there any special case where some file really needs a modmerge ?

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Any file within the game's folder may be overwritten to accomplish a goal.  There are dozens of different file types.  Crack open and examine the contents of some mods to see. 

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There is no magic modmerge command which generally applies to all files. Every file has its own identifiers, and I need to write a special ruleset for every single file. Since my time is limited and there are only a handful of popular modular changeable files all other files will need to be treated differently. I can make them to be overwritten if they exist, or I can make them to be skippable, if they exist. I think to make the modmerge installer to be as usefull as possible is to insert non existing files, and to overwrite existing ones.

Yes, there will be a wishlist for people who rank their files after which one they would like to have a modmerge ruleset for the most. But we will definitely end up with a finite number of modmergeable files. Which is why I am asking people who have been here longer than I am to tell me what they think are the most important files beside .txt ones which they want to be modmergeable. Cracking open files doesnt tell me anything about their importance ;).

If I can write rulesets for files in 5 minutes there will be a lot of modmergeable files. If not there will be fewer. But I am definitely depending on the knowledge of experienced modders to tell me files with similar structure and/or things they want to have as I won´t be able to dive through all files. If I dont get any input I will just do the ones I want, and thats that.

Cheers.

Edited by Charon117
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First thing I'd do when building a modmerger is comment the game files... For example blueprints.txt with weapon and bonus names, ditto for creatures.txt and the others, which is already an enormous task.

That's why most people just build their own mods from already existing ones like you're trying to do. I also did the same by picking stuff from EE and iirc Flix included a few of my suggestions into the newer versions of EE itself.

Probably... what we need the most is just an update to the community patch. Isn't that the reason for its name after all? A bunch of changes the modding "community" agrees on.

PS: BIG PROPS for the profile pic, @Charon117

Edited by Caledor
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2 hours ago, Charon117 said:

There is no magic modmerge command which generally applies to all files. Every file has its own identifiers, and I need to write a special ruleset for every single file. Since my time is limited and there are only a handful of popular modular changeable files all other files will need to be treated differently. I can make them to be overwritten if they exist, or I can make them to be skippable, if they exist. I think to make the modmerge installer to be as usefull as possible is to insert non existing files, and to overwrite existing ones.

Yes, there will be a wishlist for people who rank their files after which one they would like to have a modmerge ruleset for the most. But we will definitely end up with a finite number of modmergeable files. Which is why I am asking people who have been here longer than I am to tell me what they think are the most important files beside .txt ones which they want to be modmergeable. Cracking open files doesnt tell me anything about their importance ;).

If I can write rulesets for files in 5 minutes there will be a lot of modmergeable files. If not there will be fewer. But I am definitely depending on the knowledge of experienced modders to tell me files with similar structure and/or things they want to have as I won´t be able to dive through all files. If I dont get any input I will just do the ones I want, and thats that.

Cheers.

I see what you're asking now.  What files within a mod might be merged.  Beyond the scripts you won't be able to merge many files that two different mods affect.  This is because the game texts use a single encoded global.res, and most other files altered would be in the form of textures, models, icons, or dll's.

There is the slight possibility that two mods might alter the .csv files with in the locale folder.  It's also not uncommon for values within .xml files in the pak folder to be changed in mods.

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On 10/6/2019 at 10:03 PM, Caledor said:

First thing I'd do when building a modmerger is comment the game files... For example blueprints.txt with weapon and bonus names, ditto for creatures.txt and the others, which is already an enormous task.

I beg your pardon ? I think I have to pull a dimitry here and say thats not my job. Writing a modmerge tool and explaining what each code line does are 2 completely seperate things. I agree that explaining what each code line does would be useful, but it would best situated in a wiki, for everybody to read, or in a stickied post here, for everybody to read, comment and discuss on. Dont take it the wrong way but the internet hasnt managed to come up with a complete explanation of each line the balance.txt, and most information is wrong, or misleadingly formulated. If you are changeing a code line you already need to know what it does in the first place, if you want to publish it.

Great idea ! I will leave it up to you :).

On 10/6/2019 at 10:03 PM, Caledor said:

That's why most people just build their own mods from already existing ones like you're trying to do. I also did the same by picking stuff from EE and iirc Flix included a few of my suggestions into the newer versions of EE itself.

And you ended up with a lot of manual work. And even if you back up your files they will only be viable with exactly that build. Once you want to change your setup you will have to do all the work again.

The modmerge system provides people with a way to add/overwrite their own content in 30 seconds, without breaking everything else in the process.

Lets say you prefer to play with 10 changed lines in balance.txt. Every time you make another build, you will have to go into the balance.txt and change this yourself. Or you could put all preferences into the modmerge installer and it will do the rest for you.

Lets say a mod adds a new weapon to the game. Normally you would need to go into that file, and extract all new coding lines into the relevant files. With the modmerge system you could just write the new weapon, and the system will append all relevant information to all relevant files. And we are talking just small here. The reason why no medium sized mods are here is because you cant merge them with other things without doing manual work. If the modmerge system works, you could have mods that just have 10 added weapons, and you could apply it ontop of any build, EE, Addendum, or any other random build that you have on your machine in 30 seconds.

It will fall onto the mod author to provide all relevant information so that the build doesnt crash. Downwards compability, eg. a higher mod overwriting a needed line in lower mod is a risk that we have to live with. It usually shouldnt happen, and even if, the mod author would just need to inform of the risk.

 

Speaking of risks, I think it will be more efficient to write modmerge rules based on what a mod is doing. Anyway, thats for later.

On 10/6/2019 at 10:03 PM, Caledor said:

PS: BIG PROPS for the profile pic, @Charon117

Thx.

 

 

@Flix I looked through EE and found Attributes.xml and Inventory_Templeguard.xml. head scratch .. first of all I dont know even know what they do, and how they are modded, but my question is this. Are they better overwritten, or merged ? Eg. do you think its likely that anybody wants to ADD anything to attributes.xml, or is the data mostly taken as a whole, and changed as a whole ? Edit: Basically how likely is it that somebody wants to make his own Attributes.xml ontop of EE ? And would that need a merge.

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13 minutes ago, Charon117 said:

If I would want to add another ring slot, or talisman slot. What files would that concern ?

The xml files you mentioned above.  Also creatureinfo.txt.  The former adds the graphic to the interface.  The latter adds it as an available equipslot for the character.

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Just now, Charon117 said:

@Flix I made another post above. Which got merged into the Now post above. Pretty sloppily at that. Only an moderator could have done that. Is that a sign that I should not double posts @moderatorsaround ?

Yes please edit your posts rather than double post.

The xml files are mostly extracted from skin.zip (something like that) and then edited to change the layout of the interface.  Typically they would be repacked into a zip file but they can remain loose so long as the file structure is maintained (as is the case with most all files in the pak folder).

It's pretty unlikely they need to be merged.  Many xml files are so specific that if two mods both altered them they'd almost certainly be mutually exclusive.

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Double post, and you can merge it if you want, but I made extensive changes to the now merged posts, with extensive information, which is now lost, because a moderator deleted the original post.

Just an info, I will append the information next time. Edit: but the posted information is lost.

Edit2: I would ask moderators to ask me to merge content first, before they take any drastic measures, like deleting content, because it can just so happen im working on them while they delete it. Edit4: I dont like that. Just as a headsup.

Edit3: So how do I push an edit than ? @Update ? #refresh ?

Edited by Charon117
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7 minutes ago, Charon117 said:

Double post, and you can merge it if you want, but I made extensive changes to the now merged posts, with extensive information, which is now lost, because a moderator deleted the original post.

Just an info, I will append the information next time. Edit: but the posted information is lost.

Edit2: I would ask moderators to ask me to merge content first, before they take any drastic measures, like deleting content, because it can just so happen im working on them while they delete it. Edit4: I dont like that. Just as a headsup.

Edit3: So how do I push an edit than ? @Update ? #refresh ?

Sorry boss. Haven't messed with anything as of yet.  From what I understand deleted content was due to tone.  It could of course be the case as you said that you were in process of editing when a merge was made.  That's an unhappy accident, if so.  Typically double posts aren't jumped on so quickly.

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5 minutes ago, Flix said:

From what I understand deleted content was due to tone.

No, thats a complete different matter and concerns @gogoblender. Already resolved.

This is about

On 10/7/2019 at 1:11 PM, Charon117 said:

@Flix I looked through EE and found Attributes.xml and Inventory_Templeguard.xml. head scratch .. first of all I dont know even know what they do, and how they are modded, but my question is this. Are they better overwritten, or merged ? Eg. do you think its likely that anybody wants to ADD anything to attributes.xml, or is the data mostly taken as a whole, and changed as a whole ? Edit: Basically how likely is it that somebody wants to make his own Attributes.xml ontop of EE ? And would that need a merge.

which I appended information to, in form of edits, which propably didnt get taken, because the post was deleted while I edited it. Edit2: Was completely technical information so couldnt have been deleted due to rudeness.

 

Also, no way to refresh edits ? The point of making another post is to inform people of new content, or a new question. I know I am not going to check threads which dont have unread content. Hard to push new content, or a question, without informing users of new, unread content. Any solution for that ?

Edit1: Or was that an auto-merge ? Is an auto-merge-bot here ?

Edited by Charon117
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It was done by a moderator.  There's no auto-merging software.

If you do edit a post, and want people to know it's fine, for example, if the lead post in a big thread is updated, I will often make a new post informing people of the change.  Should be no problem with that.

It's mainly just the rapid fire strings of posts in a row that are discouraged.

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5 minutes ago, Flix said:

If you do edit a post, and want people to know it's fine, for example, if the lead post in a big thread is updated, I will often make a new post informing people of the change.  Should be no problem with that.

If I address a certain person I can ping them in an edit like @Flix, no problem.

But if I ask a general question, which more people should read about, or post information, which I want people to read about ASAP than it is kinda detrimental to put it in an edit, because people dont go into threads without new content. Am I allowed to make multi posts for the general public, boss ?

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  • 2 weeks later...
1 hour ago, Charon117 said:

RPH is seriously op. Does anybody plan on doing something about it ?

I've made it only spawn on rare + tier items in EE and D2F.  It could be made even more rare, perhaps transformed into a gold mod that only spawns on unique, legendaries, or as set bonuses.

I always thought about this modifier, "can this be real?" It lets you bypass the entire system of managing regeneration times that the game is built around.  But I've never heard anyone say it needed to be nerfed.  Maybe we were all too spoiled by it?

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29 minutes ago, Flix said:

I've made it only spawn on rare + tier items in EE and D2F.  It could be made even more rare, perhaps transformed into a gold mod that only spawns on unique, legendaries, or as set bonuses.

I always thought about this modifier, "can this be real?" It lets you bypass the entire system of managing regeneration times that the game is built around.  But I've never heard anyone say it needed to be nerfed.  Maybe we were all too spoiled by it?

That is exactly my oppinion as well. It bypasses a complete system, the system of balancing rune levels with cooldown times. While having better items and mods is nice as rare loot items, I feel like RPH makes too much of an interesting system obsolete.

Here is an example: My Inquisitor focuses mainly on the Inquisition aspect, with the other aspects being support structures. Since I dont main Aspect:Supremacy I eat runes into maelstrom until I have an around a 17 second maelstrom. Strong enough to obliterate groups of enemies, but not being able to spam it makes it a fun and strategic choice for WHEN I cast maelstrom. I recently got Ilgard's Judgment with 1.1s RPH, and it completely destroys the system. Where I once had a 17 cd, I now cast Maelstrom and then RM. RM animation speed is around 0.85s so lets say once every second. 3 hits * 1.1 = 3.3 + 0.85 ~ 4 seconds regeneration for every second. Which means I can cast maelstrom after 4 uses of RM, or 4.25 seconds. Its ... nice, but it feels way too "Just use every spell whenever you like". And RPH is stackable without diminishing returns.
The problem is that since I dont main Lore Supremancy Focus, I cant really effectively get my level up, even though I could eat runes "just" to increase my cd. And that is the problem. RPH makes you do things simply so you get the cd up, just so you feel like you take advantage of RHP. I kinda have that picture in my head when a comic figure gets punched through the roof, and the head sticks out. RPH overshoots way too hard and simplifies the meta too much by  eliminating the rune system.

I honestly didnt have a problem with RPH being on normal rings and amulets, but I propose a nerf to 30% of each originals value. As with the above example this would mean that the 1.1 RPH would be a 0.33 one. With RM casting 3 projectiles this means that for every passing second, an additional second of cd gets deducted, making me able to cast my 17s cd maelstrom in 50% less time, so 8.5s cd, which is still an incredible increase for "just" one mod. If rings and amulets get their PRH back ( I think they should ), we can talk about maybe 20% - 30% of its original value. Maybe 30% for uniques, sets and legendaries and 20% for talisman, rings and other normal items. 30% of its original value is still incredibly good, given that melee chars can calculate the cd a lot better due to their attack hits being instant, than my ranged inquisitor.

I just hope this doesnt require somebody to change every single item.

Edited by Charon117
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  • The title was changed to ESP: The beginning and the modmerging system [S2G/CP1.6/EE2.1/SS,C]

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