Sacred 2 Enhanced Edition

[Flix 5,116]

2 hours ago, dimitrius154 said:

What is the specific CA in question?

Any of the enemy combat arts with eiStateName = "cSMZealhit",

In the case of the robber, it's "enemy_whit_harterschlag".  There are a half-dozen similar attacks.

EDIT: The problem goes beyond the combat arts, though.  Even if you were to give the enemy a ranged attack like "enemy_mmissile_fire" he would still switch to his melee weapon to cast it before switching back to his bow.

[jwiz 68]

11 hours ago, Flix said:

That's right. If enemies have a Hard Hit attack, they like to switch to their melee weapon to use it.  Then, since they're already in melee range, they'll just keep using it, making the bow almost pointless.

I can't see a way to tweak the behavior to make it any better, except for removing either the Hard Hit or the melee weapon. I tried making them bow-only in PFP but that got only negative feedback.

...

Yeah, I read about that in the PFP forums and was guessing that switching combat AI to ranged would turn these enemies into 'rapid-fire machine guns' by using melee combat behaviour.

I can see that the devs tried to mix the melee/ranged combat but seemingly failed to include a proper compounded combat behaviour to match this.

Well, it is what it is, I guess.

Edited April 2, 2023 by jwiz

[Roderick 53]

Good evening! A bit late to notice version 3.2 of EE, sorry. ^^
First and foremost: Awesome work with the buffs of the enemies. I don't know what it does, but the sparkles on the goblin champions bows looks nice.  Definetly an eye candy.

Edited April 4, 2023 by Roderick

[Roderick 53]

Has there been a soundeffect newly added to the SW Miasma? 

[Flix 5,116]

6 hours ago, Roderick said:

Has there been a soundeffect newly added to the SW Miasma? 

Yes! Turns out there were sound events available for the combat art in the base game but they just weren't used.

[Roderick 53]

6 hours ago, Flix said:

Yes! Turns out there were sound events available for the combat art in the base game but they just weren't used.

Uhhhhhh... have to get used to that. 
Honestly? I activated Miasma and needed too long to admit it to find out where this sound came from.... thought about wind at my windows or something... xD

[Flix 5,116]

19 hours ago, Roderick said:

Uhhhhhh... have to get used to that. 
Honestly? I activated Miasma and needed too long to admit it to find out where this sound came from.... thought about wind at my windows or something... xD

Oh is it too loud? Now that it can have its own soundset we can make it sound like anything.

[Roderick 53]

7 hours ago, Flix said:

Oh is it too loud? Now that it can have its own soundset we can make it sound like anything.

I've thought about this for some time and I can't give you an answer. I don't think it is too loud, for me it is just too... present? I hardly use Rallied Souls for the reason that their sound effect is always present over the music and over the other sound effects. I would like to have it less frequent, but that is probably a me thing since I wear hearing aids and am a bit sensitive to noises.
Edit: (I like the wind sound for the Miasma, though. It is fitting... ice cold wind!)

But I am pretty happy that there is something new again in Ancaria. You are really keeping the game alive for me!

On a sidenote.... might one of the masters of the sourcecode tell me whether the level of the skeletons of Nether Allegiance is capped at some point?

Edited April 7, 2023 by Roderick

[jwiz 68]

Just noticed on the special mount island that after completion of the 2nd wave the gates of the pen did not open automatically, so I wasn't sure if I had missed any enenmies.

I don't remember though, if it has always been buggy this way.

 

[Flix 5,116]

16 hours ago, Roderick said:

On a sidenote.... might one of the masters of the sourcecode tell me whether the level of the skeletons of Nether Allegiance is capped at some point?

I believe 201 is the level cap.

Summoned creature levels should be the same as the CA level, but there is a "hidden" property in spell entries ("et_summon_level") that can make them gain levels faster or slower.

In the case of Nether Allegiance, the skeletons gain exactly 1 level per CA level.

3 hours ago, jwiz said:

Just noticed on the special mount island that after completion of the 2nd wave the gates of the pen did not open automatically, so I wasn't sure if I had missed any enenmies.

I don't remember though, if it has always been buggy this way.

Sometimes all task creatures of a group don't spawn until reload.  It happens randomly since vanilla but they should be there on reload.

[Roderick 53]

7 hours ago, Flix said:

I believe 201 is the level cap.

Summoned creature levels should be the same as the CA level, but there is a "hidden" property in spell entries ("et_summon_level") that can make them gain levels faster or slower.

In the case of Nether Allegiance, the skeletons gain exactly 1 level per CA level.

We might have a situation here...  
More background to the question: Started a SW and wanted to maximize Nether Allegiance. As the skeletons reached level 201 I thought "Wait, wasn't level 200 the maximum?", but I didn't care much since as long as the level is rising, everything is fine. The bonus from survival pushes enemy levels, too, and if a player can reach level 200, enemies should be above 200, so that sounds fine all in all.
Then it hit me, if the cap is let's say 220 or 230, then I would run into a problem. My skeletons are right now 64 levels above the enemies, giving them a good chunk of power. But when the skeletons would hit the cap, and the enemies starting closing the gap in level, the skeletons would become "weaker" with each level the enemies catch up. 
That's why I was asking. If the levels rise without limit, there is no problem. If it is capped too low, skeletons will become very weak.

And right now they are at level 203... so your EE does alter it a bit?

 

[jwiz 68]

IIRC then summoned creatures could go up to 10 levels beyond cap in the vanilla (or CM patched) game already.

Not totally sure about that, though.

 

[Flix 5,116]

9 hours ago, Roderick said:

And right now they are at level 203... so your EE does alter it a bit?

Hmm, nope, nothing changed in EE. Maybe the level cap is the same as for enemies then, 250. I thought it might be like mounts which cap out at 201.

And, if they're level 203 now with a CA level 104, they must gain 2 levels per rune read.  I think the spell token I mentioned earlier must be an additional level on top of a base one.

[Roderick 53]

1 hour ago, Flix said:

Hmm, nope, nothing changed in EE. Maybe the level cap is the same as for enemies then, 250. I thought it might be like mounts which cap out at 201.

And, if they're level 203 now with a CA level 104, they must gain 2 levels per rune read.  I think the spell token I mentioned earlier must be an additional level on top of a base one.

Actually, no matter how I calculate, nothing makes sense. When I start a new game, the skeletons are at the same level as the character and levelup with it, too. Say, the character is level 4, then the skeletons are level 4, too (on level 1 CA). With every level of the CA, they get +1 level _more_ then the character. Character level 8 and CA level 4 provides skeletons level 11. But at some point this has to decline, since in the picture the character has level 123, the CA is at level 104, but the skeletons are "just" level 203. 

I have literally no idea... but level 250 is enough to motivate me to play this character further.

[Roderick 53]

For comparison... since the next levelup also gave enough for a CA levelup, with char level 124 and CA level 105, the skeletons are now level 205

[Roderick 53]

Another note from Steam forum:

"Full disclosure: I used character editing, along with the Enhanced Edition patch. My results might be different from that of a vanilla character.

Anyhow: my skeletons have LV297. Note that this character 200 runes memorized, along with LV255 in the focus/lore. Their resistance bonus is 19,565."

Might that be true or a side effect from using character editing?

[Lindor 438]

Don't know wether it's intentional or not, but the Lithos (crystals in facetteleon cave e.g.) lack a proper death animation / BLOODFX and simply disappear on defeat. Looks kinda wierd.

[Lindor 438]

The last of the nameless uardians dropped a dryad rune. I think it was sinister predator or ancient bark. The rune wouldn't let itself be cllected via autocollect, so I left-cicked it instead. As soon as my character reached it, the game crashed. Windows event log:

Name der fehlerhaften Anwendung: s2gs.exe, Version: 2.65.1.0, Zeitstempel: 0x4adf82d7
Name des fehlerhaften Moduls: s2core.dll, Version: 2.65.2.0, Zeitstempel: 0x4b27a297
Ausnahmecode: 0xc0000005
Fehleroffset: 0x000a11b3
ID des fehlerhaften Prozesses: 0x29b8
Startzeit der fehlerhaften Anwendung: 0x01d96abcd29e6dae
Pfad der fehlerhaften Anwendung: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Sacred 2 Gold\system\s2gs.exe
Pfad des fehlerhaften Moduls: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Sacred 2 Gold\system\s2core.dll
Berichtskennung: e8a290dc-e1e4-46bc-85bc-0e032eadeeb8
Vollständiger Name des fehlerhaften Pakets: 
Anwendungs-ID, die relativ zum fehlerhaften Paket ist: 

- <Event xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/win/2004/08/events/event">
  - <System>
      <Provider Name="Application Error" /> 
      <EventID Qualifiers="0">1000</EventID> 
      <Version>0</Version> 
      <Level>2</Level> 
      <Task>100</Task> 
      <Opcode>0</Opcode> 
      <Keywords>0x80000000000000</Keywords> 
      <TimeCreated SystemTime="2023-04-09T09:20:55.0557095Z" /> 
      <EventRecordID>1853</EventRecordID> 
      <Correlation /> 
      <Execution ProcessID="0" ThreadID="0" /> 
      <Channel>Application</Channel> 
      <Computer>CENSORED BY ME</Computer> 
      <Security /> 
    </System>
  - <EventData>
      <Data>s2gs.exe</Data> 
      <Data>2.65.1.0</Data> 
      <Data>4adf82d7</Data> 
      <Data>s2core.dll</Data> 
      <Data>2.65.2.0</Data> 
      <Data>4b27a297</Data> 
      <Data>c0000005</Data> 
      <Data>000a11b3</Data> 
      <Data>29b8</Data> 
      <Data>01d96abcd29e6dae</Data> 
      <Data>C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Sacred 2 Gold\system\s2gs.exe</Data> 
      <Data>C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Sacred 2 Gold\system\s2core.dll</Data> 
      <Data>e8a290dc-e1e4-46bc-85bc-0e032eadeeb8</Data> 
      <Data /> 
      <Data /> 
    </EventData>
  </Event>

 

[RetsReds 64]

2 hours ago, Lindor said:

Don't know wether it's intentional or not, but the Lithos (crystals in facetteleon cave e.g.) lack a proper death animation / BLOODFX and simply disappear on defeat. Looks kinda wierd.

I assumed it's intentional when I first saw it. I kinda dig it.  

[Flix 5,116]

4 hours ago, Lindor said:

lack a proper death animation / BLOODFX and simply disappear on defeat

That's an odd way to describe "explodes into pure T-energy" on death. 

They have "BLOODFX_TENERGY" now, same as the Facetelleon. And they never had a death animation, that's the whole reason you get to see an explosion instead of it just falling to the ground.

I guess you miss that frosty skull emanation that just about every enemy in the Crystal Planes has, so yeah, I suppose something might be considered lacking.  The "Guidebook of the Huntress" describes them as frozen T-Energy. I think, when you break the casing, the energy is released and dissipates.

[Flix 5,116]

4 hours ago, Lindor said:

The last of the nameless uardians dropped a dryad rune. I think it was sinister predator or ancient bark. The rune wouldn't let itself be cllected via autocollect, so I left-cicked it instead. As soon as my character reached it, the game crashed. Windows event log:

Are you using the stock-standard blueprint.txt and drop.txt that I distributed with the latest EE? No changes?

[Lindor 438]

1 hour ago, Flix said:

That's an odd way to describe "explodes into pure T-energy" on death. 

They have "BLOODFX_TENERGY" now, same as the Facetelleon. And they never had a death animation, that's the whole reason you get to see an explosion instead of it just falling to the ground.

I guess you miss that frosty skull emanation that just about every enemy in the Crystal Planes has, so yeah, I suppose something might be considered lacking.  The "Guidebook of the Huntress" describes them as frozen T-Energy. I think, when you break the casing, the energy is released and dissipates.

But - it doesn't do that for me. One frame they're there, the next they're not. Maybe a thing with PhysX? I'll check if it's enabled for me.

EDIT: Even with PhysX enabled and cleared temp files, they simply vanish.

1 hour ago, Flix said:

Are you using the stock-standard blueprint.txt and drop.txt that I distributed with the latest EE? No changes?

Yesn't. At the occurence, I used a modified blueprint.txt, but the very only thing where it differs from EE's blueprint.txt is at id = 2952, name = "admin_only_ring", an item which isn't droppable anyway except for a force-drop via quest.txt. I use it to test ingame feeling of certain boni strengths, like casting speed. That and the fur and tree shader. And Elite Textures Trimmed. Other than that, I used completely standard EE files.

Edited April 9, 2023 by Lindor

[Flix 5,116]

Hmm, it should look like this:

I can't find any reason it wouldn't work, nor do I see anything that might cause your other issues.

You could try it with the original shader.zip and see what happens.

[Lindor 438]

2 hours ago, Flix said:

Hmm, it should look like this:

I can't find any reason it wouldn't work, nor do I see anything that might cause your other issues.

You could try it with the original shader.zip and see what happens.

Maxed out all graphic settings, cleared all temp file including shader cache, used only EE shaders. No difference, still no FX.

 

I used S2rw to decode global.res, I searched for "lithos", the first result was "4205936562    Lithos". I used my Loka-ID reverse engineering tool to get the following result: "4205936562    CREATURE_2060". I searched for "id = 2060," in EEs creatures.txt and voila:

mgr.createCreature {
	id = 2060,
	itemtype_id = 12707,
	name = "tenergy_crystal_crystalstone",
	behaviour = "Enemy_mage",
	dangerclass = 4,
	groupmaxcount = 1,
	elite_creature_id = 2060,
	probabilityforelite = 0.000000,
	rank = 20,
	tenergy_creature_id = 2060,
	template_creature_id = 1755,
	livesremaining = 0,
	unconscioustime = 20,
	palettebits = "1111111111111111",
	monstertype = 0,
	faction_id = 27,
	equipset_id = 413,
	modelscale = 0.200000,
	rise_from_ground = 0,
	has_corpse = 0,
	has_soul = 1,
	can_strafe = 0,
	spells = {
		entry0 = { "enemy_electricity_shock" },
	},
}

newCreatureInfo = {
  type         = 12707,
  walkSpeed    = 50,
  runSpeed     = 130,
  fightDistMin = 12,
  fightDistMax = 16,
  gender       = 1,
  agegroup     = 1,
	validEquipSlots = "EID_HELMET + EID_SHOULDER + EID_CHEST + EID_ARM + EID_HAND + EID_BOOT",
	defaultSMType = SMT_DEFAULT,
	behaviour     = "BoulderDash",
  hair1Itemtype = 0,
  hair2Itemtype = 0,
  hair3Itemtype = 0,
  hair4Itemtype = 0,
  hair5Itemtype = 0,
  hair6Itemtype = 0,
  tailItemtype  = 0,
	dangerClass   = 4,
  weight        = 450,
	eBloodEffect  = "BLOODFX_TENERGY",
}
mgr.creatureInfoCreate(newCreatureInfo);

They have the BLOODFX_TENERGY. But that's not important. What is important is that I have now a way to reverse engineer the creature IDs just from the creature name. There are more entries in global.res with "lithos". Will grant a list next.

[Lindor 438]

There's just 2069 left, which has the same itemtype and template as 2060.

@FlixPossible that template creature ID, which is actally the fen fire, is overwriting the lithos BLOODFX?

mgr.createCreature {
	id = 1755,
	itemtype_id = 4831,
	name = "Template_energy_willowisp",
	behaviour = "defaultBehaviour",
	dangerclass = 0,
	groupmaxcount = 0,
	probabilityforelite = 0.000000,
	rank = 0,
	livesremaining = 0,
	unconscioustime = 20,
	palettebits = "1111111111111111",
	monstertype = 0,
	faction_id = 26,
	modelscale = 1.000000,
	rise_from_ground = 0,
	has_corpse = 1,
	has_soul = 1,
	can_strafe = 0,
}

newCreatureInfo = {
  type         = 4831,
  walkSpeed    = 50,
  runSpeed     = 150,
  fightDistMin = 50,
  fightDistMax = 75,
  gender       = 1,
  agegroup     = 1,
	validEquipSlots = "0",
	defaultSMType = SMT_DEFAULT,
	behaviour     = "WildAnimal",
  hair1Itemtype = 0,
  hair2Itemtype = 0,
  hair3Itemtype = 0,
  hair4Itemtype = 0,
  hair5Itemtype = 0,
  hair6Itemtype = 0,
  tailItemtype  = 0,
	dangerClass   = 0,
	eBloodEffect  = "BLOODFX_RED",
}
mgr.creatureInfoCreate(newCreatureInfo);