Lindor's Mod for Sacred 2 EE development Thread

[Lindor 536]

On 2/18/2024 at 4:23 PM, Flix said:

I'm sorry to hear that. I hope you recover swiftly and completely.

 

On 2/18/2024 at 5:40 PM, Dax said:

Wünsche dir gute Besserung! Komm bald wieder auf die Beine!

 

On 2/21/2024 at 10:50 AM, gogoblender said:

oh nooooo Lindor, broken?  I was lucky to get through early years with no breaks, and everytime I see my Ammamma fall and get bruises or her knee hip incident which I had to get her to hospital for operation for , it always makes makes me nervous and worried for their return.  SEnding you some quality, home - made healing vibes with a touch of heart of Tamil, and some flakes of gogoblender power powder all conjured and cobbled together with a generous dollop of healing sauce... (limited edition, this ones white chocolate flavored  )

Heal good mah fwend!

gogo

I'm probably getting rid of the plaster splint next thursday. So far everything has grown back together pretty nicely, no operation needed. It's just annoying and the plaster splint is bad for the skin. Funny story: I have written part 1 of my final exam yesterday while having a broken arm  I was EXTREMELY nervous. The exam counts 20% towards my final grades, part 2 will count 30% and part 3 50%. So glad it wasn't my writing arm which broke or otherwise this could have become way worse for me 

[Dax 504]

Good to hear. Was you able to convince the nurses to add a bottle opener to the splint?
Speaking of your mod, well, we shall play it together one day. Until then, make sure your exams go well. Everything else does not matter so much. Whish you luck!

[Lindor 536]

I'm planning on doing an alpha version release somewhere in the next four weeks.

It probably won't be a major overhaul yet, just containing the essentials like alternate spells, blueprint.txt rebalance and all the shaders. The questscripts.txt fixes will be included as well. But probably no new quests and no new items yet.

If I find the time, and with your permission @Flix, I'll include the Flix Pumpkin Boss Monster Enemy. Slowly immortalizing the people I met here at the forums in my mod as an expression of me being grateful. I probably won't include @dimitrius154 though without his permission. Hmm. @gogoblender do you want to become a boss enemy as well? Maybe some sort of sun?

Generally, if someone wants to become a boss enemy, you can write me in this thread, I can't promise anything but if I find the time I'll get to it.

[SLD 335]

16 hours ago, Lindor said:

Generally, if someone wants to become a boss enemy, you can write me in this thread

Who wouldn't want to be a boss monster? If the mod ends up being crap or your boss monster horribly misrepresents you, at least you could beat yourself up about it

[Flix 5,167]

On 8/4/2024 at 3:57 AM, Lindor said:

Flix Pumpkin Boss Monster Enemy

By all means

[gogoblender 3,206]

On 8/4/2024 at 4:57 AM, Lindor said:

@gogoblender do you want to become a boss enemy as well? Maybe some sort of sun?

 

Oowah.. bossify me please... with some OP on the side!!

gogo

[Androdion 898]

14 hours ago, gogoblender said:

Oowah.. bossify me please... with some OP on the side!!

gogo

As long as some pants drops as a reward, right?! 

[gogoblender 3,206]

1 hour ago, Androdion said:

As long as some pants drops as a reward, right?! 

lol...i feel like theres some sort of no-pants goblin that goes around keeping there horrible rumor alive...  I mean..i. was barely pantless...and it was a rave... noone remembers anything from those

gogo

[Lindor 536]

I'm not so sure about something.
I'm altering the high elf spells significantly, their new aspects are

Elemental Magic - Apocalypse / Apocalyptic Magic - Elven Magic

For the first aspect, she can keep the fireball as the fire spell.

The dragon mage gets many of the fire spells she originally had, and also some of those which I have given a preview of in an earlier post.
However for one thing I'm unsure:
The fire skin.

It's a classical Sacred Mage spell, not only in Sacred 2, but in Sacred Underworld too. I can give it the dragon mage instead, and the HE would get the invisibility spell as buff as replacement. Or keep it on the HE.

The thing is, not only are the new visuals pretty amazing, but they also fit the HE Elite Mount, the dragons, very well.
On the other hand, for a long time now I have thought about giving the Dragons to the Dragon Mage too, the high elf can keep things like the Hippocampus and the silver Draconicon. Would kinda make sense to me.

But that would probably increase my planned development time again, I only planned on finetuning some spells and integrating the new boss enemies I've created for the release.

 

Opinions?

[SLD 335]

8 hours ago, Lindor said:

But that would probably increase my planned development time again, I only planned on finetuning some spells and integrating the new boss enemies I've created for the release.

 

Opinions?

I can't say anything towards the design decisions. That's something you will have to decide.
But as you mentioned the potential effects on the "release", I guess it would help to think about what the planned purpose of that "release" is.
We already know that it won't be "finished". It won't resemble anything even remotely like what the final version is planned to look like (assuming you do intend to continue working towards your ambitious goals). So as far as I can tell all this release might get you is some more engagement from the community, feedback and inspiration from that and probably more importantly feedback on wether the things you already implemented actually work the way you think they do. Making sure there are no fundamental flaws/mistakes in your modding approach. So from that perspective it doesn't matter wether you implement the potential dragon and fireskin changes etc, before the release or at a later time. If you keep going for a couple more years it's basicallyguaranteed, that changes like that will come up again. So you don't necessarily have to make that decision before the release at all. The only thing you'll lose is feedback towards that specific feature.

Just my rambling thoughts again... you decide wether anything of value was in there

[Androdion 898]

On 8/7/2024 at 12:21 PM, gogoblender said:

I mean..I. was barely pantless...and it was a rave... noone remembers anything from those

gogo

We've all been there my friend. 

[Lindor 536]

On 8/9/2024 at 5:30 AM, SLD said:

I can't say anything towards the design decisions. That's something you will have to decide.

But as you mentioned the potential effects on the "release", I guess it would help to think about what the planned purpose of that "release" is.

We already know that it won't be "finished". It won't resemble anything even remotely like what the final version is planned to look like (assuming you do intend to continue working towards your ambitious goals). So as far as I can tell all this release might get you is some more engagement from the community, feedback and inspiration from that and probably more importantly feedback on wether the things you already implemented actually work the way you think they do. Making sure there are no fundamental flaws/mistakes in your modding approach. So from that perspective it doesn't matter wether you implement the potential dragon and fireskin changes etc, before the release or at a later time. If you keep going for a couple more years it's basicallyguaranteed, that changes like that will come up again. So you don't necessarily have to make that decision before the release at all. The only thing you'll lose is feedback towards that specific feature.



Just my rambling thoughts again... you decide wether anything of value was in there

Yeee, the dev time has already exploded again.

Sometimes I just get caught doing stuff which I never intended, such as the shaders.

Shaders are btw my absolute favourite part of Sacred 2 modding, I was the first modder playing with those and I made some pretty cool stuff with them over the years which before hasn't been thought to be possible to do.

As for the mod being "finished", I don't think there's a ingle piece of software which has that quality, there's only the point where the programmer stops working on it. And I do plan on working on it after the release.

 

I believe the main goal of the planned release I to keep me motivated working on this, I guess. I mean, I myself am waiting for my own mod as I wawnt to experience the playstyle I always imagined Sacred 2 to have.

But a huge chunk of it is also feedback from the community, this not only keeps me motivated as well, but also helps me finding some inspiration.

 

The issue I'm seeing here is that probably people are thinking that the mod, once released, may be very close to the "final version" when in reality there's so much more I want to add. If someone decides to give it a try while it's in alpha/beta, doesn't like it and never comes back, even when the likelihood of keeping the mod in later versions would increase, then that would be worst-case-scenario. But I guess I can't really influence that.

 

 

I haven't even decided yet wether I want to release it as a module for EE or a standalone mod. I guess the latter makes more sense as for a module it wouldn't be compatible with some other modules of EE. Flix has given me permission a long time ago to take what I want from EE as he said his work was too based on another modders work which, you guessed it, was too based on another modders work IIRC.

 

I'd like to have at least the spells somewhat finished. What would be nice too is the removal of items with fixed boni.

[SLD 335]

13 hours ago, Lindor said:

The issue I'm seeing here is that probably people are thinking that the mod, once released, may be very close to the "final version" when in reality there's so much more I want to add. If someone decides to give it a try while it's in alpha/beta, doesn't like it and never comes back, even when the likelihood of keeping the mod in later versions would increase, then that would be worst-case-scenario. But I guess I can't really influence that.

There would be a possibility of a request based early release. Meaning only people that directly contact you get access and those would be more likely to have read more about the state of development etc. That way noone that was disconnected from the mods development would get their hands onto it. With the current size of the community it could however also end up hurting you, when almost no requests come in...

13 hours ago, Lindor said:

I haven't even decided yet wether I want to release it as a module for EE or a standalone mod. I guess the latter makes more sense as for a module it wouldn't be compatible with some other modules of EE.

Absolutely standalone. That way you have the option for adding your own "modules" and no questions of compatibility.

[Lindor 536]

I'm working on spells.xt again. From my To-Do-List:
 

Spoiler

    enemies cannot stun anymore as that's just annoying, not a challenge
    enemies cannot root anymore as that's just annoying, not a challenge
    enemies cannot slow anymore as that's just annoying, not a challenge
    enemies cannot debuff anymore as that's completeley broken and overpowered
    enemies cannot slowdown/stop your CA/spell regen anymore as that's completeley broken and overpowered

There's something about ice shards.
There's not  really a place for them with my planned HE spells setup. Ice shards was also completely overpowered.
However it's such a signature Sacred spell, and now that Sacred has ice damage, it would be a shame to not include it.

My planned DPS spell for Elemental Magic is the Fireball. It can become quite potent. However if I want to include ice shards, those would become the new DPS source which I don't really like.
It would need to replace either the water knockback, the earth or the gust of wind spell.

Gust of wind is a little bit underwhelming compared to the original Sacred Battlemage spell. It doesn't have a lot of Area of Effect, it's more like the Inquisitors force push, really.

The water spell is the only liquid water spell of the game, I don't really want to replace it. But I also don't like that with ice shards and the water explosion, we would have two water spells. Four elements, four attack spells.

For the Earth spell, it would make sense to replace it, as it's a little bit too obvious that the spell is the same as the Scorpion Boss's spell. Since I'm currently looking for a good buff for the elemental magic aspect, it would kinda make sense to create a stoneskin shader and have the earth spell be the buff. However then there's no earth attack spell, which I kinda don't like.

Also there's the element of void thing from the Sacred Lore. It would kinda make sense to have an element of void spell. Five elements, five spells. While in my head I can easily imagine some cool FX for that, there is a limit on what can be done using shaders. And I don't want to rip the force pull off of the inquisitor, that's kinda his signature spell for this Aspect. And it fits his Star Wars-y feeling. So in the end, it makes sense to keep the element of void spell with the inquisitor. Forbidden knowledge only he uses.

It would also be possible to put ice shards into the Apocalypse Aspect, replacing the lightning. I did not succeed with the original idea of giving her a lightning storm spell and the high elf already has a lightning spell in the Elven Magic Aspect, so it would make sense. But what do ice shards have to do with Apocalypse thematically? Snow Storm, Meteors, Tornado and then ice shards? I don't know if that fits. Well, it does a little bit. Apocalyptic Weather Catastrophe Ice shards. But I also don't know how the crystal skin buff fits in there. Someone has a good idea for a protecting Apocalypse buff?

 

It's kinda hard to come up with a good concept.

[Lindor 536]

On 8/18/2024 at 6:40 PM, Lindor said:

it would kinda make sense to create a stoneskin shader and have the earth spell be the buff

On 8/18/2024 at 6:40 PM, Lindor said:

But I also don't know how the crystal skin buff fits in there. Someone has a good idea for a protecting Apocalypse buff?

I have found two options which would qualify as a high elf buff imo: FX_SKELETON_FROSTSHIELD and dryad dust devil.
Apocalypse already has two wind spells: tornado and snow storm. Dust Devil and Frostshield are both air-y in nature, so on the one hand it would make sense to give one of those (or both) to the Elemental Magic Aspect and giving stoneskin to Apocalypse instead. On the other hand, stoneskin is not very Apocalypse-y while the other two options are. Apocalypse might just have three wind spells, it's fine.

I think I'm gonna give Stoneskin to Elemental Magic, Dust Devil (Now called Whirlwind) to Apocalypse and replace the Apocalypse Lightning Storm with Ice Shards.

The High Elf has Crowd Control, but when going for Elemental Magic, she has no option to pull enemies together. During gameplay testing I noticed how annoying it can get to chase archers with fireball and gust of wind. But maybe this is just what she'll have to live with. I don't want to make her too overpowered from the beginning. The idea of my mod is that all characters can become really really strong no matter the playstyle, but it should be a long and hard way to get there. I can maybe make one of the spells pull enemies in as the final spell modification. But I don't want it to be as strong as the Inquisitor spell. He should really stick out with the amount of crowd control he has.

[SLD 335]

On 8/18/2024 at 6:40 PM, Lindor said:

Someone has a good idea for a protecting Apocalypse buff?

Apocalypses usually don't protect much. Are you sure that thematically you want a protective buff in that aspect?

But if you're going with the non friendly fire apocalypse things like storms or snowstorms surrounding ou or even meteors automatically impacting and stunning nearby enemies could work thematically. Earthquakes could slow stuff around you and would kinda match your stoneskin by theme. Turning into a living active volcano would match more a flameskin kind of skill. A smoke cloud resulting from some kind of disaster could also be considered apocalyptic.
And though more fitting the void element there might also be potential defensive benefits from being stuck in some kind of black hole ore a gravitational distortion like a "maelstrom" that follows you around.
Oh and in Ancaria there's always T-Energy that can turn into an apocalyptic disaster. Maybe that can be "defensive" debuffing/mutating stuff around you. The ancarian nuclear apocalypse - everything is full of t-energy

Obviously I have no clue about the modding potential, just found the concept of an apocalytic defense so absurd I had to do some brainstorming...
Wait, whats a brainstorm? Zombie tornado?
Yeah, that's the downside of having my kind of brain

[Lindor 536]

53 minutes ago, SLD said:

Apocalypses usually don't protect much. Are you sure that thematically you want a protective buff in that aspect?

Lore Wise? No. Gameplay Wise? Absolutely. It's so hard to survive without % damage mitigation, which I aim at not being available anymore instead on very rare occasions. The four legendary relics should have it, and that's it.

 

53 minutes ago, SLD said:

But if you're going with the non friendly fire apocalypse things like storms or snowstorms surrounding ou or even meteors automatically impacting and stunning nearby enemies could work thematically. Earthquakes could slow stuff around you and would kinda match your stoneskin by theme. Turning into a living active volcano would match more a flameskin kind of skill. A smoke cloud resulting from some kind of disaster could also be considered apocalyptic.
And though more fitting the void element there might also be potential defensive benefits from being stuck in some kind of black hole ore a gravitational distortion like a "maelstrom" that follows you around.
Oh and in Ancaria there's always T-Energy that can turn into an apocalyptic disaster. Maybe that can be "defensive" debuffing/mutating stuff around you. The ancarian nuclear apocalypse - everything is full of t-energy

The issue isn't our imagination, that's for sure, but with the tools we have currently available, there's only so much I can do. For instance, I cannot add new FX, only change existing ones. I can implement stoneskin by changing the invisibility temporary buff shader. But you being an eruptive volcano? That's a bit much. I mean I can use the Temple Guardian spell FX from the T Energy Aspect, but those are amongst the, imho, worst looking and feeling spells of the game.

 

Speaking of which, a little bit of foreshadowing: This Temple Guardian Aspect is gonna get spells which only damage T-Energy-Creatures, so the main goal of that playstyle is gonna be getting to a high mutation rate. And I can tell you this much - this is not the only amazing plan I have for this character, there is some amazing stuff awaiting! Can you guesd what it is? 

Edited August 19 by Lindor

[SLD 335]

18 minutes ago, Lindor said:

there is some amazing stuff awaiting! Can you guesd what it is? 

yeah, more delays

[Lindor 536]

On 8/19/2024 at 8:01 PM, Lindor said:

I think I'm gonna give Stoneskin to Elemental Magic, Dust Devil (Now called Whirlwind) to Apocalypse and replace the Apocalypse Lightning Storm with Ice Shards.

Apart from replacing the lightning storm with ice shards, this doesn't work. The effect of dust devil doesn't travel with the char, no matter what. I can't find the cascading shroud shader, only the crystal skin shader, and creating a good stoneskin shader would exceed the time limit. I'm kinda out of ideas.

Well, not completely out. As the Dragon Mage is gaining fireskin, I can take one of his buff FX for the high elf instead, namely runes of protection. I didn't like that it aren't really runes anyway. But man, there's so much work and so little time left.

[SLD 335]

5 hours ago, Lindor said:

But man, there's so much work and so little time left.

What's wrong? Why is there so little time left?

[Dax 504]

Let me guess...

...after the event has taken place, your nights will be short for the 24 months.
How was I?

[Lindor 536]

5 hours ago, SLD said:

What's wrong? Why is there so little time left?

Well my vacations end

2 hours ago, Dax said:

Let me guess...

...after the event has taken place, your nights will be short for the 24 months.

not yet

[SLD 335]

6 hours ago, Lindor said:

Well my vacations end

Well, as long as your life goes on there's still gonna be time to continue someday.
Your original choice of words just had me worried...

[Lindor 536]

Here's the result from my testings, this is the list of FX which could possibly become new buff FX

Spoiler

• FX_CM_KAELTEAURA - amazing snowstorm, mediocre size
• FX_GEN_MIRROR_ARROW - amazing green shield, like DM runes of protection
• FX_GEN_MIRROR_MAGIC - amazing yellow shield, like DM runes of protection
• FX_GEN_TPRISON - small blue shield
• FX_SKELETON_FROSTSHIELD - amazing snowstorm, mediocre size, good if resizing possible
• FX_SKELETON_FIRESHIELD
• FX_SKELETON_POISONSHIELD
• FX_GEN_WENIGER_HEILUNG - red swirls
• FX_GEN_FROSTAURA - snowstorm, tiny size
• FX_SKELETONHEAL - cool green aura, possible buff for dryad
• FX_HOLOGRAM - extremely cool effect, character becomes white
• FX_QFX_RESPAWNSTONE
• FX_GEN_SPEEDUP - yellow rings around the character
• FX_ENEMY_WHIT_VERLANGSAMEN - very cool swirling transparent effect, but very tiny
• FX_SANDPEOPLE_SCHLACHTSCHREI - red particles
• FX_SANDPEOPLE_SCHLACHTSCHREI_C - amazing red particle storm
• FX_ENEMY_SPIKESHIELD_C
• FX_GEN_SLOWDOWN - snowy, small

 

For my problem, FX for a new High Elf Apocalypse Buff, I'm thinking about those:

Snow Storm FX:
FX_CM_KAELTEAURA
FX_SKELETON_FROSTSHIELD
FX_GEN_FROSTAURA
FX_GEN_SLOWDOWN

Other:
FX_SKELETON_FIRESHIELD
FX_SANDPEOPLE_SCHLACHTSCHREI_C

Generally, except for FX_SANDPEOPLE_SCHLACHTSCHREI_C, all of these FX seem too small for my taste. For a Snow Storm Buff, there's the issue that she already has a Snow Storm Spell.

The Fireshield could be nice, but there already exist Enemy Skeletons which have these GX as buff and I kinda don't want to take it from them. But if it's possible to resize it, it would be an amazing option.

I never liked how the original high elf just focused around two elements, fire and ice, which firstly doesn't seem very magical to me and secondly is not enough variety. FX_SANDPEOPLE_SCHLACHTSCHREI_C seems very magical to me, and it doesn't focus around elemental stuff. There are enemies which already use a spell with these FX called "enemy_scream_speed", but they're using it as casting FX (as probably intended), not spell FX. It would be easy to replace them casting FX with something else.

So FX_SANDPEOPLE_SCHLACHTSCHREI_C it is then I think. a magic red particle storm around the high elf, damaging enemies and absorbing arrows.

 

 

There's also another possibility which I haven't discussed yet. Replacing expulse magic with a spell absorbing buff. I would probably use FX_HOLOGRAM for that. This would eliminate the need of giving a protective buff to the other two aspects.
However Expulse Magic is such an iconic and good looking spell, that I kinda don't want to do it. I'd really really like an FX_HOLOGRAM buff though. But on which aspect? There's no space for it in Elven Magic. Elemental Magic already has Crystal Skin. And it really doesn't fit the Apocalypse Aspect Theme.

 

[Lindor 536]

I just read the first and second pages of this thread.
Oh boy. Oh boy. Oh boy oh boy oh boy.
I did not realize how much I lost when I lost nearly all of my data 2 years ago.
Souls are thematically green... New spider models... New spider sounds by @Dax, My TMutate Token experiments... all data and knowledge I lost, gone forever, into the abyss-ah, like Davy Jones would say.
Souls being thematically green so that it fits the skeleton root color and the shadow warrior colors is a cool move. I want to bring that back.
The spider mount modifications are cool as well, I want to integrate them in my mod again (but I can't recreate the sounds, I have no SFX artist experience, I'm not Dax).
The knowledge about the T-Mutate token I hadand I just re-gained now is devastating. Mutating multiple enemies per cast isn't possible. My plans don't work then. So there isn't going to be a T-Energy Aspect then. I'm gonna stick to my secondary plan. Which I'm not gonna leak until the big temple guardian reveal.