NEW Project: Sacred 2 Purist Fixpack

[idbeholdME 394]

12 minutes ago, Flix said:

Specific examples like the screenshots above will expedite the process.

OK, I will keep my eye out for any that I encounter.

And about the TG items, this is what a typical inventory will look like once I fill it up:

It seems to be mostly weapons, where a ton of those that that TG can't use will drop anyway (way more than 30%). I've set the filter to pick up everything and kept picking stuff up until full. The result is above. Are weapons not affected by the usagebits?

Edited March 21, 2022 by idbeholdME

[Flix 5,116]

29 minutes ago, idbeholdME said:

Are weapons not affected by the usagebits?

No that only affects bonus spawning on items.  Drops are handled by "IsUsableByHero" in balance.txt and as far as I know, that's it.  I assume this function is looking at the "weargroup" on the itemtype.txt entry to determine if the item is usable by the hero.

[idbeholdME 394]

13 hours ago, Flix said:

No that only affects bonus spawning on items.  Drops are handled by "IsUsableByHero" in balance.txt and as far as I know, that's it.  I assume this function is looking at the "weargroup" on the itemtype.txt entry to determine if the item is usable by the hero.

Well, then it definitely seems like it's not 70% for the Temple Guardian.

I'll try running around for a bit with isUsableByHero at 1000 and see what happens.

 

EDIT:

Armor pieces seem to drop almost exclusively TG only. However, I did get one piece of armor for a Shadow Warrior for some reason.

Runes for other classes still drop.

Weapon type seems to be unaffected by the usable chance. Even at 1000, still getting a ton of polearms, shields, bows, staves etc. Didn't realize TG had it this bad when it comes to drops. Never played him seriously before so didn't realize how hard he'd have it when it comes to finding good weapons.

 

Also, the easiest way to check the effect of the isUsable chance is merchants.

Edited March 22, 2022 by idbeholdME

[idbeholdME 394]

First batch of items with affixes they should not have. Modded the merchants to offer a ton of items and went to town for a couple hours:

Spoiler

Enhanced Perception on Inquisitor gear:

 

Blacksmith bonuses on Dragon Mage gear:

 

Alchemy mod on TG gear:

Also I have not found a single Shadow Warrior item with Bargaining bonuses on it, besides relics. Was farming the merchants with Shadow Warrior so checked a ton of items.

Have not found any Seraphim, Dryad or High Elf items with Blacksmith yet. Could be just RNG, or it currently only affects Inquistor, TG and Dragon Mage.

 

One more scenario that COULD also be a thing:

Ancient Magic bonuses on Temple Guardian gear. The CM patch allowed the TG to pick this skill so it might be possible for it to spawn on his items. Haven't found any yet though.

Edited March 22, 2022 by idbeholdME

[Flix 5,116]

I preserved all the vanilla usagebits except for fixing a few bugs (Combat Trance showing for non-DM characters, Energy Shield bonuses showing for those who couldn't use energy shields, Spell Resistance skill bonus not available for all characters).  So must be a vanilla problem.  Will review all your examples.  

[idbeholdME 394]

1 hour ago, Flix said:

I preserved all the vanilla usagebits

Great. At least this means that the Ancient Magic on TG gear should not be a thing.

For now, just checking Inquisitor, TG and DM should be enough. At least until/if somebody encounters an item that offers an unattainable bonus for the other classes too.

[idbeholdME 394]

This just dropped for me:

The wiki says that on the consoles, it is possible to find this item without any modifiers. Well, now it's on PC too  

http://www.sacredwiki.org/index.php/Sacred_2:Denvera's_Talisman

Should have Bargaining and Enhanced Perception bonuses on it. Found on a Shadow Warrior who doesn't have access to Bargaining. Wonder if it could be caused by that?

 

EDIT:

Also, Ellen's Commitment just dropped for me from Platinum Guardians. Is it supposed to drop outside of the Epic Office Quest?

Edited March 25, 2022 by idbeholdME

[idbeholdME 394]

On 3/18/2022 at 2:49 AM, Flix said:

I see it. The template for elite boars has 200% XP vs. the normal boar template. So far so good.

However, I see normal terror boars (black) are assigned 660 XP per kill vs elite which only have 360. Seems the values got swapped.  Will fix in next release.

The brown ones give 200 XP (normal) vs. 360 (elite).  This is more in keeping with the standard XP difference seen in other boars so they should be ok to stay the same.

I've been farming the pig fields intensely so a question about this.

You are just going to swap the XP of Terror Boars and Elite Terror boars, but maintain the 2x multiplier for Elite, right? So, now it is:

660 - normal Terror Boar

720 (360x2) - Elite Terror Boar

An obviously wrong scenario, where normal ones are worth 91.6% of the XP of the elite ones.

And it's going to change into:

360 - normal Terror Boar

1320 (660x2) - Elite Terror Boar

Or is the multiplier for the Elite one gonna be removed?

It would make sense for it to remain and make the Elites worth about 3.5 times more XP than normal ones, because the Elite ones are quite rare compared to the normal ones (like 2 per run at best, compared to dozens of normal ones). This change is probably going to make the pig fields not as appealing to XP farm, but there are other places for that too

 

Edited March 25, 2022 by idbeholdME

[Flix 5,116]

21 minutes ago, idbeholdME said:

I've been farming the pig fields intensely so a question about this.

You are just going to swap the XP of Terror Boars and Elite Terror boars, but maintain the 2x multiplier for Elite, right? So, now it is:

660 - normal Terror Boar

720 (360x2) - Elite Terror Boar

An obviously wrong scenario, where normal ones are worth 91.6% of the XP of the elite ones.

And it's going to change into:

360 - normal Terror Boar

1320 (660x2) - Elite Terror Boar

Or is the multiplier for the Elite one gonna be removed?

It would make sense for it to remain and make the Elites worth about 3.5 times more XP than normal ones, because the Elite ones are quite rare compared to the normal ones (like 2 per run at best, compared to dozens of normal ones). This change is probably going to make the pig fields not as appealing to XP farm, but there are other places for that too

 

It's not a multiplier, it's just that the template for elite boars has double the value of the normal boar template. I'm not going to edit the template xp, just the value assigned directly to that boar. Values from template creature IDs are simply added to those assigned directly to the creature.

[idbeholdME 394]

One more TG item with an Alchemy mod:

There is also another version of the same affix (duration of potions), that is not bound to Alchemy. That one is fine, it's only the one that is unlocked and governed by Alchemy that should not spawn on TG items.

Same for the Inquisitor gear. The XP per kill and chance to find valuables affixes also have 2 versions. One bound to EP, the other not. Only the one bound to EP should be removed.

Edited March 25, 2022 by idbeholdME

[idbeholdME 394]

A question about one item mod wording:

Was "Detrimental Magic Effects -X%" changed into "Debuff duration -X%"? Take the Wall of Flames shield for example:

On wiki:

http://www.sacredwiki.org/index.php/Sacred_2:Wall_of_Flames

In PFP:

I was wondering for a while what this affix was (was seeing it on rare items), so checked a unique item to compare with the wiki and the wording is different. And I do remember seeing Detrimental Magic Effects rather than "Debuff Duration".

Made it kind of hard to look this mod up on the wiki.

http://www.sacredwiki.org/index.php/Sacred_2:Detrimental_magic_effects

Could it be reverted back to the original so it's easily lookupable? Debuffs are also not the only thing this mod reduces. It also affects root duration and the duration of the secondary damage effects, so DME fits better IMO.

Edited March 26, 2022 by idbeholdME

[Flix 5,116]

It was changed to be more accurate.  Detrimental Magic Effects is appallingly vague.  It has nothing to do with either magic as a damage type nor spells as a combat art type.  People assumed for years (in fact Wiki still has old info) that this modifier also reduced the impact/intensity/damage of debuffs, when in fact all it does is decrease duration.  I'll accept a better tooltip title if I hear one.  Maybe Detrimental Effect Duration?

[idbeholdME 394]

11 hours ago, Flix said:

I'll accept a better tooltip title if I hear one.  Maybe Detrimental Effect Duration?

Sounds good. And upon putting that in a search engine, the wiki page is the top result:

http://www.sacredwiki.org/index.php/Sacred_2:Detrimental_magic_effects

It's just that the current wording would lead you to believe that it only affects debuffs, when it also affects root duration and duration of all secondary magic effects.

[Hooyaah 2,821]

13 hours ago, Flix said:

It was changed to be more accurate.  Detrimental Magic Effects is appallingly vague.  It has nothing to do with either magic as a damage type nor spells as a combat art type.  People assumed for years (in fact Wiki still has old info) that this modifier also reduced the impact/intensity/damage of debuffs, when in fact all it does is decrease duration.  I'll accept a better tooltip title if I hear one.  Maybe Detrimental Effect Duration?

Perhaps "Magical Effects Duration" is more self-explanatory.

[idbeholdME 394]

As for the Denvera's Talisman without any bonuses I posted above, I just got another one and this time, it has the bonuses.

So probably not connected to being found on a Shadow Warrior. No idea what could cause that.

[Hooyaah 2,821]

24 minutes ago, idbeholdME said:

As for the Denvera's Talisman without any bonuses I posted above, I just got another one and this time, it has the bonuses.

So probably not connected to being found on a Shadow Warrior. No idea what could cause that.

What level is your Shadow Warrior? If an item drops before a certain level that is too low, it would not have any bonuses. However, items should not drop before such a low level.

[idbeholdME 394]

1 hour ago, Hooyaah said:

What level is your Shadow Warrior? If an item drops before a certain level that is too low, it would not have any bonuses. However, items should not drop before such a low level.

Definitely not the case. The first blank one was at level 110 or so. The second one that had the bonuses dropped when I was about level 120.

 

Another thing that might be worth looking into for fixing:

Character voice lines when getting near bosses. From my Shadow Warrior, I can safely say that he has voice lines for at least Gar'Colossus and Swirling Mist of Miasma. However, triggering them seems extremely unreliable and pretty much random. In my Silver-Niob runs through the campaign, I had them trigger exactly once.

The Collosus one started with "Hey, granite block... (interrupted it after that unfortunately)" and I only had it trigger on Silver. The Swirling Mist started with "Show yourself creature..... (interrupted it after that)" and only had it trigger on Niobium. Could it be that the characters have voice lines for all the bosses but they just barely ever play?

Once I heard the line start now in my Niob playthrough when I got near the Mist and after interrupting the line, I ran away from it, saved and quit and tried to trigger it again. No success however. The conditions for it seem completely random or it is set to only play once per campaign.

Edited March 26, 2022 by idbeholdME

[Flix 5,116]

17 hours ago, idbeholdME said:

So probably not connected to being found on a Shadow Warrior. No idea what could cause that.

It's just one of those bugs from vanilla that no one has been able to fix. Nothing to do with usagebits.

15 hours ago, idbeholdME said:

Could it be that the characters have voice lines for all the bosses but they just barely ever play?

Correct. Each character has "approach" events scripted in soundprofile.txt for each campaign boss. They will trigger once.  In vanilla they never played, ever. Probably you're not hearing them because the combat grunts are cancelling them out.  There could also be some other error, but I remember testing them all way back when we first released CM 1.60 and they all worked.

[idbeholdME 394]

5 hours ago, Flix said:

Correct. Each character has "approach" events scripted in soundprofile.txt for each campaign boss. They will trigger once.  In vanilla they never played, ever. Probably you're not hearing them because the combat grunts are cancelling them out.  There could also be some other error, but I remember testing them all way back when we first released CM 1.60 and they all worked.

Ahh, only once, so no sense in trying to trigger it again.

They can get cancelled by any sound the character makes. So yes, CA grunts, getting hit and the character commenting on that, you hitting the boss and the character commenting on that. There is also that "Near objective" voice line that plays when getting near an active objective (as the main quest is always active), which might interfere. Sucks big time and is the reason I could not hear the lines in their entirety. I interrupted the Colossus one with an attack and the Mist hit me and the character commented on that.

And as I said, in the PFP, I only ever heard the lines start at 2 of the bosses, once for each in 4 total playthroughs. Ever since hearing the start of the line on Silver Gar'Colossus, I've been trying to replicate the event and always without success on Gold, Plat and Niob. Simply just running and not doing anything else, making sure not to get hit or attack him in any way. But Colossus might not be the best test subject, as the fight "triggers" when you are walking on the bridge above him.

I'll try my best to trigger them now on the rest of Niob, so Garganthropod, Kral, Facetelleon and Guardians.

I might also make use of my Bronze campaign with the specific intent of trying to hear all the boss voice lines, backing up the save before every boss and trying until it triggers.

Should these approach voice lines be guaranteed to play 100% of the time, or are they also governed by the Character Comments frequency in the options? Do you have to enter a specific area or is it just the distance from the boss?

 

EDIT:

Also, about the Debuff Duration item mod wording, the bronze mod for Shadow Veil - Avoidance, has the same thing. Currently says that I reduces duration of debuffs. I assume that it has the same effect as the item mod.

I'd suggest "Reduces the duration of incoming detrimental effects".

Edited March 27, 2022 by idbeholdME

[Flix 5,116]

Debuff was meant to be the larger umbrella term, inclusive of all negative status effects such as root and secondary damage effects. It was meant to be friendly to newcomers and veterans alike, since noobs would recognize a familiar concept and veterans should not get the term confused with any other existing Sacred 2 concept since "Debuff" isn't used in-game while "Magic" is used willy-nilly in vanilla to mean 5 different things.

I see now that the Wiki has muddied the waters by separating out debuffs as a partial set of status effects that excludes certain other effects, but really there is no such distinction behind the scenes.  The bonus is literally named "et_reduce_debuffs" in spells.txt and coded as "BONUS_REDUCE_DEBUFFS" in blueprint.

But rather than trying to overhaul the wiki or erase people's minds I think I'll just edit the tooltip. 

3 hours ago, idbeholdME said:

Should these approach voice lines be guaranteed to play 100% of the time, or are they also governed by the Character Comments frequency in the options? Do you have to enter a specific area or is it just the distance from the boss?

The approach event is triggered by the physical proximity to the boss for the first time.  Character Commentary must be set to "Always" in order to hear them 100% of the time.  I remember this distinctly because for a time I was sure they were still broken when in reality I just had Character Commentary set to "Never" (personally I can't stand how much the character never shuts up and I wish Sacred 1 had the same option).

[Hooyaah 2,821]

Flix, you may want to check Narmul. That boss fight is not functioning "narmully." My High Elf uses Expulse Magic for protection, so I took no incoming damage. But, after his first crystal was destroyed, none of the other crystals would take any damage whatsoever.

[idbeholdME 394]

My fight with Narmul went without issues. Could be some strange interaction with Expulse Magic?

On 3/27/2022 at 8:37 PM, Flix said:

Character Commentary must be set to "Always" in order to hear them 100% of the time. 

That might very well be the cause. I am playing with the setting on Frequent. Will switch to Always before bosses from now on.

EDIT:
Seems to work fine. However, the "near objective" voice line CAN interfere. The safest way is to very slowly approach the boss until the "near objective" line plays, backup up immediately and wait until it finishes and only then approach the boss.

Edited April 1, 2022 by idbeholdME

[Lindor 438]

Oh ye Narmul, the one boss which scares me! My top 3 scary difficult bosses are Narmul, Abishai and Bloodclaw, though I have to say Bloodclaw only became scary with EE  Which is cool bcs he's also my favoutite boss to fight, with Octagolamus coming in close second. He and his FX look so good

[idbeholdME 394]

1 hour ago, Lindor said:

Oh ye Narmul, the one boss which scares me! My top 3 scary difficult bosses are Narmul, Abishai and Bloodclaw, though I have to say Bloodclaw only became scary with EE  Which is cool bcs he's also my favoutite boss to fight, with Octagolamus coming in close second. He and his FX look so good

I only fought Narmul in silver so far, but even there, his damage seemed quite nuts. I fear that there will be a severe one-shot potential in Niob... Didn't really seem like there was a way to avoid the damage either (from the air strikes) as it happened too fast.

As for danger, I honestly still fear Dragons the most. Their meteor shower will instagib you if you stand in a bad spot/get unlucky with how the meteors drop and eating more than 2-3 of them means guaranteed death. Absolutely have to avoid that one and I usually just run around waiting for them to use it before attacking them . Even the little red dragon Elites have a meteor shower that is easily capable of one-shotting you if you eat too many of the meteors.

And of course, any boss that has a DoT is deadly if you don't have any mitigation for that channel. Nimonuil gets a special mention as he is simply a mitigation check with his unavoidable, ludicrously powerful ice DoT, on top of a massive stat debuff. Made me bind recovery potions to F and spam them whenever a DoT is melting me.

Makes me all the more grateful for Nether Allegiance. These guys are great magnets for some of the most dangerous stuff in the game.

Unless of course, you just cheese through every boss with % life leech  

Edited March 28, 2022 by idbeholdME

[Lindor 438]

Oh yee Narmul definitely oneshots every char in higher difficulties, it's mandatory to not get hit even once if you want to survive. I think some characters can get incredibly high damage mitigation, but even 80% mitigation isn't enough to not get oneshot. It's the one boss making me backup my char before fighting

I never found the Dragon Meteors to be the problem, for me it is always the fire breath, pretty much impossible to dodge. Nimonuil I never have any problems fighting with.

What makes Octagolamus unique is not only his good looks, but his?/her?/its? life leech attack. He uses it more often the more tentacles he has lost because he has abilities which require his tentacles, so it might look like in the beginning as if you're able to kill him but then he suddenly starts healing so much, it's an interesting twist. Kinda like the Forest Guardian, you have to have enough DPS in order to kill him.