Future tweak ideas - post 'em here

[Salk]

Eh I feared that.

 

Too bad then.

[qwm.fur]

Exe mod, I think.

 

 

Please, excuse my ignorance. I never used the Gibberlings Tweaks, so I don't know what's inside.

Does the sentence I quoted mean that the code modding is outside the scope of this project?

 

The problem is: I was always disappointed by the fact that IWD2 does not use HPCONBON.2DA rule table which means there's no easy way to implement CONstitution-based HP-regeneration.

HP-regen is my personal fetish, which lead me to dislike the game without it, 'cause I don't feel like the sleeping without a camp after every couple of battles is the way a group of real adventurers would go.

Some days ago I decided to implement regeneration the hard way, and found a bug during this research.

 

It resides in the function (sub_542a90 in GOG version):

CRuleTables::RollHitPoints(int nSides, int nRolls, int nLevel, int nMinRoll, int nModifier)

This method is called on level-ups to roll for hit points. When the roll result is less then nMinRoll, the nMinRoll value is used.

But when it is greater, then the die is rerolled, and the new value is used indiscriminately, instead of just using the old value.

This means that the HP value rolled on level-ups tend to be lesser than average, and can even be less than nMinRoll.

 

For player characters nMinRoll usually equals 1, which makes HP roll of 1 more probable than all the other values.

Edited December 10, 2017 by qwm.fur

[lynx]

To the first part, yes. To the second: interesting, this is in iwd2? At one point there was an exe mod for it at Sorcerer's place, but it has long been abandoned. It's the only thing of that kind afaik and not sure if it contains sources; however I doubt this bug was tackled.

 

Of course this is not a problem in gemrb, but why don't you just use a script to do the regeneration? A bunch of con checks and timers ...

[qwm.fur]

Yes, the bug is in IWD2.

What about scripting, I guess I'm not a huge fan of both the scripting language and its API. I got too tired of implementing things with an instrument that doesn't seem adequate for such tasks.

So now I'm looking for a way to re-implement some features that pre-IWD2 were a part of the engine. And add some features I previously used scripts for.

 

Actually, at first I hoped those features are still a part of the engine, and all I need is some bit-hacking. But the content was actually removed.

For example, if we talk about HP-regen, all that's left is a rudimentary field m_lastRegenerationTime in CGameSprite objects which gets updated with actual game time every once the effect list of the creature gets processed. Other than that, this field is never used for anything else.

 

Anyway the rudimentary field update was a good injection point for a call to my regeneration subroutine, so I guess I should be thankful to some IWD2 programmer -)

 

Now I'm looking for an easy way to implement XPBONUS.2DA. I like the idea of receiving XP for disarming traps, etc.

But it demands changes in three parts of one nasty big function, so I might as well get bored too soon.

 

Well, thank you for your answer. It's a pity there's noone who fix bugs in original IWD2 though.

I guess gemrb is written from scratch, so it most likely has its own unique bugs, and not the ones inherited from vanilla Infinity Engine -)

[zenblack]

After playing through IWD:EE I think we need an option to use the IWD spell effects. They are just IMO better. Grease, Web, Clouds all look much cleaner.

[Jarno Mikkola]

... I think we need an option to use the IWD spell effects. They are just IMO better. Grease, Web, Clouds all look much cleaner.

They do ?

Show me a real blue spider web from the actual real world, and then come talk about looks.

And you do know that you can enable the 3d animations that look a bit better in BG2 ... than the ones that don't use that feature.

Edited December 11, 2017 by Jarno Mikkola

[subtledoctor]

How about a tweak to revise enemies' immunity to weapons of certain enchantments?

 

A recent post in the other forums laments that Elemental Princes only have +2 weapons, so these near-deity-level HLA-summoned creatures cannot even touch various enemies. I know the number of such enemies is small, but a) AFAIK this idea largely contradicts PnP canon; and b) in-game, from the discussions on forums, the mechanic seems to generate more anxiety than fun.

 

So perhaps a couple alternative options would be nice to have. Something like,

- all enemies can be hit by +4 or higher

- all enemies can be hit by +3 or higher

- all enemies can be hit by +2 or higher

[Luke]

As you know, the equipped appearance attribute of Ninja-tos is S1 - Long sword and the equipped appearance attribute of Wakizashis is SS - Short sword. -> What about creating a new animation for these two exotic weapons? I mean, they certainly don't look like ordinary Long swords or Short swords.......

[CamDawg]

New item animations involve editing a few hundred (thousand?) frames of images--it's pretty specialized and very tedious work.

[Luke]

New item animations involve editing a few hundred (thousand?) frames of images--it's pretty specialized and very tedious work.

Let's keep it simple: what about editing only their animation slot (i.e., the hilt and the blade) so that they can look like more oriental? -> Maybe something similar to the original BG2 katana paperdoll......

Edited February 3, 2018 by Luke

[DragonRider]

Hello - saw this topic, and:

 

Two ideas about things I've come across while playing, not sure to what extent they'd be applicable:

 

1. Time - while the game does seem to keep track of time (e.g., the saves all have "time stamps", indicating days and hours since the beginning of the game), there doesn't seem to be any way to check this in-game - to do so, I need to save, go to the saves and look at the last one I made. (In Pillars of Eternity, for example, hovering the cursor over the pause/unpause "clock" has this functionality). Thus, if some type of in-game clock (perhaps ideally, say, toggleable) can be added, I think it might be convenient.

 

2. The journal - you can sort the entries "by name" or "by date", however: if you make a save, quit the game and then start it again, the journal always reverts to "Quests, sorted by name". I personally prefer to have things listed by date, for example, so if it could instead stay "as left last time" between sessions, it might save a few clicks.

 

In case there already exists a way to make these changes, I am unaware of it.

 

Regards.

[James M]

Well met! I am not sure of the scope of the future tweak ideas, but here goes...These are based on recent play throughs of BG2.

 

Some wishes:
1. A re-loaded Autosave should always have the same party members selected as when the Autosave was made. Or: select all in party as default upon re-loading an Autosave.

2. When voiced dialog from an NPC initiates, please reduce the volume of the battle music if it is playing. Example: the Avatar of Rillifane, after placing the three quest items while there are hostiles in the area, begins to speak but the battle music is playing (at the same volume level as the NPC's voice) which distracts from the Avatar's voiced dialog.

3. Rest for 2 hours as an option (in addition to existing Rest options).

4. Scale up more fights/dungeons, perhaps for party averages of level 14 and 18.

5. Have some music in the Five Flagons main floor - perhaps some jolly tavern music like there was in BG1


Some small "bugs":
1. Romance music can get cut-off, e.g. when you leave the De'Arnise Keep to the outside area, the romance music (tested with Jaheira's romance) starts but is cut-off after 2 seconds or so.

2. Trademeet, Crypt quest: the Skeleton Warrior animation is glitched (he is kind of stuttering while he summons a skeleton; the casting animation doesn't look right). It is the Skeleton Warrior that posses the Mantle of Waukeen quest item.

3. Inside Harper's Hold: confrontation with Galvarey and four Harpers: defeating Nadinal is worth 0 xp (BG2 and BGT).

4. Encounter with Reviane and four Harpers (outdoors): defeating the mage is worth 0 xp (BG2 and BGT).

5. Encounter with Dermin and four others (outdoors; 3rd time meeting Dermin): defeating the mage (Chrost?) is worth 0 xp, again (BG2 and BGT).

6. Graveyard, Chapter 6, night time: defeating Stein is worth 0 xp (his goons are worth 1k xp each).

7. Umar Hills, Fael: once he walks inside the tavern you can no longer talk to him. To fight him you have to force-fight/F2, or fail an attempted pick pocket.

8. Delon's first encounter: if this encounter occurs while in Umar Hills, Delon reverts to his initial dialog (when the party met him in the Government District, i.e. he talks to Minsc, and is looking for a fighter-type). When you then speak to Minister Lloyd for the actual stronghold quest Lloyd says you are not worthy of your ranger status and you lose the stronghold even though you are a ranger (or cleric/ranger).


Thank-you very much for the fixes, patches and mods!

Edited April 10, 2018 by James M

[Jarno Mikkola]

1. Time - while the game does seem to keep track of time (e.g., the saves all have "time stamps", indicating days and hours since the beginning of the game), there doesn't seem to be any way to check this in-game - to do so, I need to save, go to the saves and look at the last one I made. (In Pillars of Eternity, for example, hovering the cursor over the pause/unpause "clock" has this functionality). Thus, if some type of in-game clock (perhaps ideally, say, toggleable) can be added, I think it might be convenient.

Heh, where do you think the PoE got the idea from ? BG's, yes, the ingameclock is from BGs, it's in the left lower corner. The pendulum that is the pause button, has a tool tip, aka you need to keep your mouse hovered above it, exactly like in PoE. )

 

3. Rest for 2 hours as an option (in addition to existing Rest options).

Is this a newer D&D thing ? Cause there's no reason a player would ever do that ... as it has no functionality within these games. In the 5edition, it might, but not in here, you either get a full sleep and regain 1 HP+all spent spells or you get ambushed and don't, be it 5 minutes(~1 hour rest time) or 7 hours.

 

4. Scale up more fights/dungeons, perhaps for party averages of level 14 and 18.

Erhm, sorry, but monsters don't do that in these games. A dragon doesn't usually get 200 hitpoints just cause you leveled up from the 1'st level to 20th, as it already has those hitpoints. You know, scaling monsters is the very idea of lunacy in a role playing game. Edited April 10, 2018 by Jarno Mikkola

[James M]

Hi Mr Mikkola. You have a misunderstanding regarding the point 4 you quoted from my suggestions: "scale up more fights/dungeons". Not monsters, but rather the fights, such as having a few extra enemies, or having a different creature be present if the party level was higher. Some areas do this already in BG2, such as fighting Vellin Dahn in the Bridge District/Tanner's: the Bone Fiend is present only if the party is above a certain level. And, thank-you for your mods.

[Jarno Mikkola]

...

And there is a few Lich'es to encounter in one of the areas. There's also the SCS mod component that removes the level requirements for those encounters. Which should tell you that maybe not do such a change, as also the characters level is very much dependent on the xplevel.2da at use, and the particular chars class. See the difference between the clerics and druids xp progression. As for example when a druid gains the level 14, a cleric is at level 13, but when the druid next time gets a level, the cleric is at level 21.

Edited April 12, 2018 by Jarno Mikkola