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Scripting and modding GF5


alhoon

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That is interesting. I don't know of a way, but I believe you when you say you have a work-around. One of the reasons Guardians "miss out" IMO is that they can't craft an artifact weapon.

Gamerman, you have quite many good ideas man. Making a mod doesn't necessarily have to be 10+ quests and 500+ lines of new dialogue. A fast quest that allows one to make an artifact-level weapon from a variety including an artifact-level baton since many go missile, would make an excellent mod.

 

When I say quest, I don't mean a multi-tiered thing. Just a couple of options to give the puresteel workers puresteel, elixirs and components and get your artifact weapon.

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I found a much easier way to buff melee characters. Go into the scripts (gf5itemschars) and buff the actual existing weapons. You can even go into the objmisc file and create new abilities to assign to the weapons. I replaced many of the existing weapons that were inferior by the time you got them with new cooler ones that actually had neat effects. I mostly took advantage of the existing "effect-touch" abilities and gave them out to various weapons to make them useful. For the burning blade I made a new ability that actually did fire damage that was a melee ability and put the energy dot effect from lightning aura on foes. Each of the elemental blades I made actually do their corresponding damage type. I think the puresteel soul blade got something that did magic damage and put the energy dot on foes. Guardian claymore got stunning, the original stun blade sword got buffed to be like a steel longsword. some melee weapons I replaced with ones that did ranged attacks so they were like an infinite wand sort of. I made one that did the daze ray I remember, called it the "confounding rod"

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What Triumph has left unsaid, and I agree with Gameman, is that NOT fighting makes the game far more difficult and for most people, less fun.

Citation please? On the "less fun" part. While not fighting obviously isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea, I don't think I've ever seen a discussion of it where "this is simply less fun" was the dominant opinion.

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Really? That's a surprise for me. I kinda assumed that since there are so many hostiles in the game, and it's a squad-tactics game, most people would take the fighting road.

Do you mean that most people prefer the "not-fighting" paths? I haven't seen anyone that did it except as an experiment to be sincere.

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I know it's a surprise to you. You consistently assume that whatever opinion you have, is the obvious opinion and that most people will agree with you. What you have is your own sensible opinion, but you have somehow morphed that into what "most people" think, while skipping the step of actually finding out what most people think. Maybe stop doing that. Or at least stop stating your assumptions as if they are actual facts.

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Sheesh, everyone calm down please. No need to get so worked up over it. He was stating his opinion, nothing more. :) Anyways, back on topic...

 

I found a much easier way to buff melee characters. Go into the scripts (gf5itemschars) and buff the actual existing weapons.

 

I think I already did something like that, though less extensive than what you've done. I basically made it so that melee weapons scale better over time as you get more levels of melee weapon stats. ("Shortsword" class weapon scaling went from 4 to 6 (ab_effect_per_level = 4 -> 6;), while "Broadsword" class weapon scaling went from 5 to 12 (ab_effect_per_level = 5 -> 12;). Basically, melee weapons got a significant buff to how much they scale. I have no idea if this makes them overpowered or not; they're a heck of a lot stronger, but you're still going to have to get into melee range, which means that you'll be wasting action points moving in, and you're running the risk of charging into an enemy that brought in a ton of their friends to kill you. XD

I haven't really touched missile weapons too much aside from the regular Thorn Baton, which I increased the level of the item itself instead of changing the thorn attack in the scripts, which would've buffed the enemy attacks as well. Enemy attacks IMO are already strong enough as it is, so instead I increased the it_level in the gf5itemschars, which increases the damage of missile weapons the PC uses, but doesn't do anything to NPC missile attacks. My reasoning for doing this: Enemies have infinite ammo, high level, and generally come in large groups, meaning that their missile attacks are stronger and are in larger numbers compared to you. You don't have infinite ammo, and missile weapons didn't really cut it IMO in their base form.

 

A lot of your changes sounds pretty cool though. Might actually consider trying them in my experiments. I did find out early on that giving a "melee" based weapon a ranged attack meant that it had infinite ammo. Basically, put a powerful ranged spell on a blade and it will never run out of ammo. Doesn't consume any essence or energy using it either, and it doesn't have any requirements to use it, which meant that characters with terrible magic (Shock Troopers, Warriors, Guardians) could use ridiculously powerful spells for no cost. I was actually considering at one point giving weapon oriented classes unique, infinite ammo wands (using the technique you described) no other character in the game can get that give buffs such as war blessing, protection, etc. when the character uses them, but I found it easier to simply make it so that these characters start out with extra blessing magic stats at the start of the game. Only blessing magic; no mental magic or battle magic. It's magic to boost your character and your creations, nothing else. I seriously think that should've been the case from the start; would've made playing weapon oriented classes a little easier, and it doesn't make sense that weapon oriented characters don't have at least some blessing magic to boost their combat abilities.

 

alhoon, the workaround I had in mind was simple, but somewhat time consuming. Using some of the techniques that your Shaper mod used (the lab and how it called for materials to build stuff), what I could do if I wanted to make an artifact blade is make it so that if you have the materials needed for an artifact blade and you go to certain NPC smithies, in the dialogue box, you can select an option where they can, for a small fee (maybe 100 coins or something like that), make the blade with the materials you gathered. Basically, script wise, you lose the materials and a little bit of money, and then you're given the artifact blade. Why did I make the cost so low? Well, the smithy isn't paying for any of the materials; you got them on your own. I don't really want to work my a** off and run the risk of death to get these materials and worry about a high cost on top of it all. These swords would be incredibly powerful; their attacks come with a status effect, they give a bunch of combat related stats, and they do as much (if not more) raw damage as a puresteel blade. They can be enchanted, of course, on top of everything.

 

As for the idea of an artifact baton, I'm actually tempted to make one. Though I would have to think of a way to make up for the fact that batons can't be enchanted (I actually at one point made batons able to accept enchantments, mostly because I wanted to see if it would do anything. It did absolutely nothing, the last time I checked. Thorns were still regular thorns). Actually, what I had in mind for an artifact baton is that it would be similar in terms of the artifact blade creation; you go to a baton breeder (or whatever NPC that is appropriate in this scenario; I don't know if GF5 has any baton breeders lying around) and give them materials for an extremely rare, one of a kind baton. The materials would be similar to most artifact items, and you would have to pay a little bit of money to do it, but these batons, not only give stats, but also imbue a status effect that most batons don't use (curse, weaken, fear would be interesting, charm would be ridiculous, etc.), and they also... *drumroll* Come with infinite ammo! That's right, they never need to reload. Saves me the effort of making custom ammo for them, plus, you already had to work your a** off getting very expensive materials that you could be using for other artifacts, may as well make the baton worth your while. There's probably also some other ideas on how to make these artifact weapons strong that I missed.

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Well, I don't see it as an important issue for me at least, in order to open a poll about it. I made an assumption, in regards to something Gameman said.

It was a line I threw in 50+ posts about scripting. I don't know why all the fuss about that hasty assumption to be sincere.

Now, scripting, I do consider an important issue. I think I'm in the minority about taking such an interest in modding, seeing as there are few people in this thread, but Gamerman and Idontexitst seem to share my enthusiasm.

 

 

Back to topic:

Playing as a shaper usually, I travel around with 4-5 creations supported by whatever artifact or item that boosts them I could find. I fight with blessings often. I would say that I rarely am outnumbered.

 

 

alhoon, the workaround I had in mind was simple, but somewhat time consuming. Using some of the techniques that your Shaper mod used (the lab and how it called for materials to build stuff), what I could do if I wanted to make an artifact blade is make it so that if you have the materials needed for an artifact blade and you go to certain NPC smithies, in the dialogue box, you can select an option where they can, for a small fee (maybe 100 coins or something like that), make the blade with the materials you gathered. Basically, script wise, you lose the materials and a little bit of money, and then you're given the artifact blade. Why did I make the cost so low? Well, the smithy isn't paying for any of the materials; you got them on your own. I don't really want to work my a** off and run the risk of death to get these materials and worry about a high cost on top of it all. These swords would be incredibly powerful; their attacks come with a status effect, they give a bunch of combat related stats, and they do as much (if not more) raw damage as a puresteel blade. They can be enchanted, of course, on top of everything.

 

That's a worthwhile quest IMO. As I said, it doesn't have to be 100 lines of dialogue.

I am glad my scripts helped you hammer this out.

 

 

Infinite Ammo Baton:

So, basically, a Baton that can Shape. :)

Spawners can do it. So could batons.

 

Again, I encourage you to put those nifty ideas in a mod.

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Guys, please don't get worked up over which playstyle is more fun/better... save it for another thread if you guys want to continue that discussion. Whether or not you prefer to fight your way through or use diplomacy/mechanics/stealth to win the day, that's up to you. Do whatever you think is the most fun. I just personally think that it would be more difficult (not less fun) to try and be a guile hero, using NPCs and other tricks to win the day. More difficult because from my PoV:

No killing = way less exp = PC is underleveled = Going to have a bad time when you have no choice but to fight.

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It wouldn't be hard to make an infinite ammo baton in terms of scripting. Just take a melee weapon, replace the icon graphics with baton graphics, give it a thorn attack, done. You've got an infinite ammo thorn baton. I'm just trying to think of a way to bypass the in-universe reasoning that the PC is essentially making a handheld spawner if they make it. XD (Though no one seems to complain if you wander around in Shaper towns with creations like Gazers, Drakons, and Drayks, so... yeah. XD Maybe I'll just use the "war is hell" excuse for this one. XD XD XD)

 

It probably wouldn't be hard to mod in an artifact baton, with stat boosts, custom attacks, etc. I'm trying to think of NPCs that would be feasibly do such as task. Baton breeders would fit, but I didn't see any in GF5. Smithies are out; they don't work with batons as far as I know. Who then? Any ideas?

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You don't HAVE to tell people you're carrying an illegal baton, do you? ;)

 

Anyway, I may need your help in the not-so-near future. I would like to put the Shaping Baton in my next mod. While with your instructions I could pull it off, if you've already done it, why do the work twice?

 

 

Another way, if you don't want Shaping Batons (I do), is to say the Baton is Shaped in a way that it can grow thorns itself, rapidly.

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True. XD Plus, Shapers don't seem to give a sh*t if you're wandering around their cities with Barred creations like Drakons, Drayks, and Gazers, so... XD

 

Rapidly growing thorns would work as an in-universe excuse. Batons use the same principle as healing magic to rapidly make thorns inside itself via healing magic principle.. Healing magic is shaping, in a sense. It's shaping new flesh and blood for a person, essentially.

 

I haven't really done anything regarding the infinite ammo baton, but it wouldn't be hard for me to simply whip up something for you to try out. It would take a little bit of time, but it shouldn't be super hard. :)

 

Actually, thinking about it, is it possible to get artifacts relatively early in the game? Some people say you can get mid-level artifact items when you get to the Mera-Tev, though I think those individuals did have to do some pretty dangerous maneuvers to do so (which may or may not include trying to sneak around Unbound. XD)

 

I think, for crafting batons, there should be three stages.

1. Regular thorn baton (the first and weakest one): Same old baton we know.

2. Mid-level artifact baton (Baton + Purifying Elixir = Perfected Baton): Infinite ammo, better overall, gives extra dexterity or missile weapon bonus. Still using regular thorns, though. No status inducing ones yet. Why just the Purifying Elixir and nothing else? Since a baton is essentially a creation, the Purifying Elixir makes the creation much stronger and allows it to rapidly make thorns. Also, consider opportunity cost; one purifying elixir is difficult to come by for most of the game, and making this baton means you're not going to be making another artifact. It should be a little easier to make this compared to others.

3. High-level artifact baton (Perfected Baton + Unmelting Ice/Pure Quicksilver/etc. = ???? Baton): Again, infinite ammo, gets another overall boost in effectiveness, increase in dexterity/missile weapon boost. Also, it gives you armor now, much like regular armor. Now though, depending on what you put on it, it gains an attribute depending on what you put on it. Pure Quicksilver? You get 3-4 extra action points + more dexterity. Unmelting ice? Slowing effect on a single enemy + AoE Ice damage*. Stuff like that.

 

(*There are impact sfxs that do damage depending on what you put in; refer to post #14 in this thread: http://spiderwebforu...-modding-items/)

 

EDIT: Okay, I made the infinite ammo thorn baton and I'm testing it now. The item graphic itself looks weird, but it is working for the most part. No need for reload, no ammo needed. It's pretty much a beefed up regular thorn baton that has extra stats and gives armor.

 

EDIT 2: I actually found an easier way to make thorn batons have infinite ammo. In gf5itemschars script, set the it_charges to -1 (it_charges = -1). It make the baton have infinite ammo. I think it works for anything that has an "ammo" counter, like wands and stuff like that. Good to know I found something new. :)

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For my infinite ammo ranged weapon I avoided anything that did super high damage, went for those monster only abilities that do mild damage plus a status effect, like a daze ray. that way they scaled with ...melee weapons I guess? damage and power wise but still wouldn't get over the top with the damage and make warriors/guardians better casters than shapers and agents.

 

I believe I also fiddled with how swords scale both in the abilities scripts and the item scripts much the same way you did. Thorns batons too, though they didn't need as much tweaking. I also beefed up the buffs on some of the armor that helped melee warriors to give them an extra boost. I think for Warriors/Guardians their power scales with gear more than with caster classes who scale primarily with skill points and aren't held back by trying to get better swords. Of course the trade off is that they're squishy as hell.

 

I might go in and add innate bonus stats to certain classes like someone had suggested.

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About walking around with barred creations: I completely agree. Going to a meeting with Taygen with a couple drakons in tow?! OK, how about going to Ghaldring with a couple of Drakons in tow?

 

I have decided already that in the Gazerforge mod, if you have Gazers in the party it will be addressed. You may lose your gazer or you'll have to earn permission having one.

 

About the infinite baton: You didn't have to make it for me. As I said, I could have pulled it off. The point was to avoid doing the work twice, not delegate it.

In any case, thanks. I'll probably go with the -1 to charges used one.

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This kind of stuff definitely fascinates me, even if I will almost certainly never be able to do it myself. :p

 

I've definitely brainstormed a lot of potential mods for if I ever wanted to get into coding. Stuff like rebalancing the games in various ways, adding new classes (Perhaps an outsider set of classes for 5? I've always liked the generic Mage and Soldier sprites, those could be made into Sorceress and Warrior alts.) and, albeit a very difficult idea that could very well be impossible, "what if" mods for the sequels that follow up on alternate endings from the previous games (Post Awakened/Barzite G3, anyone?). I hope that these games can attain an active modding community, the potential is definitely there; and as we've seen with your excellent mod, alhoon, enough quality to go around!

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Thank you for the kind words. Never say you're not be able to do it yourself. You wouldn't know unless you try and you would get better with experience.

 

Alternative "what if" mods are possible, but it would take dedication, vision and a lot of time.

Basically you would have to rewrite the script and dialogue for a whole game and design the areas. Look how long it takes me for the warrior mod and I haven't even finished it. For someone that doesn't work on the mods full-time, it would take like a year to make even a small mod, with 10-12 areas. 300-500 hours of work* is my estimation of what would be needed for a good 10-12 area mod. That's 6-10 hours of work per week for a year, without pay.

Yes you could shorten the time by just making mostly grass areas filled with monsters and little-to-no quests and dialogue. But that's not what you asked about.

 

It is a nice hobby though. So if you like grandiose plans, by all means try.

 

 

*After you've a solid grasp on scripting and area editing.

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Thank you too! I've been looking into game design for a long time, perhaps I may try my hands at some smaller mods as a way to get started after I learn how to code.

 

The whole alternate sequel idea is a pipe dream of the highest degree, but one I may at least try.

 

And of course I'll create smaller mods first. Those first two ideas seem very well possible, but I'm wondering; has anyone actually tried to add new classes into the game? Any major limitations, or is it possible to make whatever combination of stats you want?

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Personally, I haven't tried to add new classes. A mage class would basically be like a sorceress without shaping. A fighter class would basically be like a Guardian without Shaping.

It would definitely make the game harder, and IMO you would need to add a couple of support NPCs, at least until the player reaches Perikalia and can buy Battle Betas and artillae.

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The infinite ammo baton was more because I was thinking about testing that idea anyway. I wanted to experiment with artifact weapons at one point anyway. May as well see what can be done in this game, right? After all, this thread is supposed to be seeing what can or can't be done in this game, and showing people that this game can be modded pretty well, if you're willing to put the time and effort into it. (For me though, school is coming up soon, so I probably won't be able to spend too much time with mods. Just to let you guys know. I'll probably still post ideas on here relatively frequently, though.)

 

As for new classes, I'm not exactly sure if its possible to add new classes to the game, and even if you could, I think most of the slots for player classes have been filled out already. Like alhoon said, mages and fighters as classes would essentially be gimped versions of existing player classes. Those two are better served as support NPCs than as player classes IMO. Trying to get to Perikalia, which is by my estimates is around the transition from mid to mid-late game, would be very difficult with a mage/fighter character. You can alter the stats of player character classes though. Go to gf5itemschars and simply put cr_statistic i = z; into one of the player classes. Replace the i with the stat that you want to increase, replace the z with how many points that you want to increase on the stat. Refer to the second post of this thread for information on which stat is which: http://spiderwebforums.ipbhost.com/index.php?/topic/9164-scripting-info/

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And that's how you make new character classes. :)

Put Shaping to 0 for Shaping powers (including healing but also making Fyoras) and put the points elsewhere; to magic for mages, to combat stats for warriors. Add a couple of points just in case. Cannisters should IMO still increase Shaping, as should training.

While technically the player may get away sooner by putting points in shaping before finding a canister\trainer for "the first steps", I don't think it would be a problem in the long run.

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I was thinking more along the lines of a completely new, original class being added alongside what we've got already, but whatever. Honestly, I don't really think these mage/fighter classes would be that good, given that they're overspecializing in one aspect and abandoning the rest, but that's just me. :p

Personally, I prefer using the cr_statistic thing to give additional combat stats (eg. missile weapons) to weapon focused classes (Guardians, Warriors, Shock Troopers), which are considered horribly underpowered and not fun to play. Also helps to sorta differentiate them a tiny bit. At one point, I gave them all a ton of combat stats, with some variations. Guardians get much more Parry than the other two (more focused on soaking up damage and then giving it back), Warriors get somewhat more weapon based stat boosts (missile weapons, melee weapons. More focus on weapon damage).

Shock troopers were odd for me. I wasn't really sure what to give the Shock Trooper, given that the character is essentially a Shaper that is supposed to be capable of fighting alongside her creations. The name makes me think this character's combat tactic is to stack up as much damage as possible, so I ended up giving Shock Troopers 3-4 extra action points along with the buffs to combat skills. She also gets a larger bonus to her quick action stat. Not sure how it'll go, need to test to see how much stronger she'd be with extra AP + better weapon capabilities (It would probably help, considering that Shock Troopers seem to be considered horribly underpowered by players, at least based on what I've read on the forums). Also have a few other ideas for the shock trooper that I'll try later.

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I managed to get the artifact batons set up and ready to go. The combination of things you need to make them are... unusual, however. I had to change what you needed to make the batons themselves. Initially I thought I would have them require one of the major components needed for other artifacts (unmelting ice for example), but then I realized that it would make them not worth the opportunity cost whatsoever; the other artifacts IMO are very strong, and having the player be locked out of them for a baton is not worth it. That being said, I would need a little bit of feedback on what I currently have for these batons, see what to improve. They currently use a combination of the enchanting crystals. You have to go to the smithy in Mera at the moment to get these, and you need to bring in the materials and some money to make these. First level of baton costs nothing. Second level of baton costs 100 coins. The batons are:

T1 Baton

Perfected Thorn Baton (Regular Thorn Baton + Purifying Elixir):

+6% Armor

+2 Dexterity

This is the starting baton that you will need to make the stronger batons. In terms of strength, it is slightly stronger than an acid thorn (without the status effect), and it has infinite ammo. All upgraded batons also have infinite ammo.

 

T2 Batons

Bastion Baton (Perfected Thorn Baton + Golden Crystal + Steel Spine):

+20% Armor

+3 Dexterity

+30% to hit

+6 levels damage in combat

+50 Damage Shield (Enemies take damage if they use melee attacks on you)

Strongest thorn attack out of all the batons in terms of raw power, but has no status effects to go with it.

 

Hunter Baton (Perfected Thorn Baton + Tiny Orb of Mist + Ivory Skull):

+10% Armor

+4 Dexterity

+5 to Luck (It apparently gives stat boosts, including dodge, so I added this)

+2 Extra AP

Thorns cause the Curse status effect if it lands.

 

Ether Onyx Baton (Perfected Thorn Baton + Runed Onyx + Ethereal Bindings):

+10% Armor

+3 Dexterity

+20% to Stun Resistance

+20% to Energy Resistance

Thorns cause the Slow status effect if it lands.

 

Channeler Baton (Perfected Thorn Baton + Runed Ruby + Charging Stone + Blessing Crystal):

+10% Armor

+3 Dexterity

+4 to Battle Magic

+4 to Mental Magic

+4 to Blessing Magic

Thorns cause the Searing Lightning status effect if it lands.

 

A lot of this stuff is WIP, so don't be surprised if these batons seem either overpowered or really weird in terms of how they're supposed to be used and who gets the most benefits out of them. The second level of batons all have an attack that is stronger than a Reaper Baton, with the Bastion Baton being the strongest in terms of pure damage.

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How fortunate. I was at the time, like 5 minutes ago, considering posting here how it goes with the artifact batons and weapons since I decided I will include a variation in the warrior mod. After all, it's for warriors. :)

 

I'll read your ideas and perhaps adapt some of them. I don't mind "locking out" some artifact choices for warriors\Guardians. It's a matter of balance too and not all components are needed IMO. I'll have to find a way to pass the recipes though to the player so he or she can decide whether to go for it, or not.

 

About items required for your mods: You could always add them as quest rewards. Or drops. For example there's a HUGE rebel force in the fens that you can defeat (including 4 Unbound) and if you do, you don't get ANY reward. Completely anticlimactic.

Killing Litalia? OK, you get a nice text and some goodish loot.

 

Those, and more, could also have artifact materials.

 

 

EDIT: OK checked a few of them. With your permission I will "steal" the idea of Perfected+Crafting material since I like it.

About feedback: They're insanely powerful in my opinion. So powerful that they would make the game a stroll...

Channeler: +4 to magic? For the characters supposedly weaker in magic? O_O

That breaks class balance I think.

 

Bastion: That's a big defense bonus (armor bonus+dex) and the bastion packs a terrible attack to boot.

 

 

My opinion? Tone down the bonuses but I love the "theme" of the crafting materials adding to the perfected baton according to what they can do.

While I will not keep the bonuses you give, I will, with your permission, use the names, recipes and "spirit" for a couple of them.

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I will admit, I was more focused on having fun and messing around with the idea of an artifact baton; balance was sorta secondary to me. It's funny though; when I look at the Ether Onyx Baton, I realize that I took the two probably worst crystals in the game (Ethereal Bindings and Runed Onyx), and despite my efforts to make that baton strong, while still thematically fitting what the crystals do to the baton exactly... the baton itself isn't THAT great, at least relative to the other batons (which I will admit are straight overpowered. XD).

 

The Channeler Baton was sorta something I came up with on the fly. I remember in GF4 that when you're in the section where you have to fight a certain NPC at a certain point in the game, you got these characters called Channelers, which increase your Spellcraft tremendously when in your party (I wish I knew a way to replicate that... probably hardcoded, but it would certainly be useful to know if it is possible to do something like that for companion NPCs.). Also, the baton itself is actually (in my mind, at least) specifically designed for Shock Troopers, who have some of the worst magic I've ever seen. Really broken baton, admittedly, but at the same time, there are artifacts that give you +5 to all magic stats, so... XD (You do need rare materials to get those, admittedly, whereas the Channeler Baton the only serious component is the Purifying Elixir; Runed Ruby, Charging Stone, and Blessing Crystal aren't difficult to make.

 

Bastion Baton... that was certainly fun to do, to put it lightly. XD Steel Spines = Defensive Mindset, Golden Crystal = Massive Damage Boost. Pretty much a super strong baton that would make the Reaper look like its very little brother. XD As I said, balance wasn't super important as it was seeing what can be done.

 

Permission for the names, recipes, and "spirit" for the batons? I'll give you something better. I'll send you the modified Gf5itemschars.txt, Gf5objsmisc.txt, and the z11Tmeradlg.txt files shortly (You have to go to the Mera Smithy to get the batons. I haven't seen a way to add new recipes, so this is the workaround I had to use. Only the Mera Smithy at the moment has this; none of the other smithies will be able to create these batons). Save you some of the work of making them. Besides, I had a lot of fun making these, and while I'm not ready to release mods quite yet, I'd be more than happy to lend my work to other modders (as long as they ask nicely. :)). Especially in this case; Warriors/Guardians are the biggest underdog ever since Geneforge 3, and I would be more than happy to do anything to make them stronger as a class (Same goes for the Shock Trooper, but you aren't making a Shock Trooper mod, you're making a warrior mod, so... yeah. XD)

 

EDIT: Btw, the reason why all of the batons have a dexterity boost is because, I was thinking that, if you're modifying the creature in the baton to be better, one of those modifications might be that, alongside the infinite ammo, perhaps the creature in the baton has better depth perception, allowing it to aim at enemy targets better. To reflect that, I gave them a dexterity boost, since that makes the baton more accurate (Though in hindsight, maybe I should've just given the batons a missile weapons boost, since it does the same thing without making the character overall better at dodging and acting sooner in combat).

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which increase your Spellcraft tremendously when in your party... probably hardcoded

Probably not. Can be done with Script.

 

 

Using a similar script like in Perikalia when you buy Alphas etc (I could copy-paste it here) you could have a flag like

sf(95,1,0) [Friend absent] \ sf(95,1,1) [Friend with you] \ sf(95,1,2) [Friend with you and stronger]

 

and go on he\she\it joins

alter_stat(XX,gf(95,1)*2);

 

and once he\she\it leaves:

alter_stat(XX,-gf(95,1)*2);

 

With XX being the stat you want to raise. From Spellcraft, stregth, unlock spell or other abilities.

 

 

 

there are artifacts that give you +5 to all magic stats

And you can still make them on top of the Baton. Also, those don't deal a lot of ranged damage and status effects.

If that baton was available when playing a Shaper, I would go for that artifact perhaps, despite not using batons.

 

 

I had a lot of fun making these, and while I'm not ready to release mods quite yet, I'd be more than happy to lend my work to other modders

Very much appreciated!

Still, I think you should release them. I'll be happy to take a look and offer feedback if you want and send them back to you so you can make any last-minute changes and release friend.

Since you are willing to share (and rightfully! The artifact batons as an idea is very cool) why not bless the rest of the community with it, making the Fighting people's work a little easier?

Mera Tev is quite early. Early enough to generate attention.

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This just added to my warrior mod.

 

spawn_creature(47);

set_level(47+8, 25);

set_boss_level(47+8,1);

set_attack_bonus(47+8, 2);

set_name(47+8,"Clunky");

set_attitude(47+8,0);

set_walk_speed(47+8,42);

set_new_abil(47+8,12); // Thanks Gamerman112358!

 

 

Haven't reached Batons yet...

In case you wonder, Clunky is an augmented (as you can see) stinging Clawbug that aside of else causes fear with his stinger. Through things I won't spoil, Clunky is a temporary ally of the player. Not added to the party, but under the player's control. Clunky may help the player in combat or be thrown to delay enemies and die bravely while the player opts for... less call it self-preservation over glory and makes a tactical retreat.

 

 

And yes, the thank you will be in the script.

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A Stinging Clawbug that can poison + fear enemies, alongside having a very high movement speed? That's pretty strong. Something to point out: increasing the walk speed of a creature does affect how much distance it can cover in combat. What that means is that a creature with a higher walk speed can cover much more ground in 8 turns compared to a creature that has standard/slower walk speed. Something to keep in mind. :)

 

I'm kinda curious where this thing shows up and how much health it will have, since the phrase "thorn to delay enemies and die bravely" for a tactical retreat makes it sound like it can take a lot of hits before going down.

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Nah, he was less powerful than my creations apparently. All those +4 to creations stats added up and Clunky was the odd one. Missing 55% of the time. Had to bless and shield him before sending him to delay ~6-7 powerful creations. He didn't hold a single round poor shod. Clunky had about 1000 hp.

 

I knew about the advanced combat speed in battle, but frankly 50% speed increase was not that much.

After doing a few things, the player can opt for Shaping himself (well, allowing an NPC to do it actually) to give him 50% speed increase the same way or some other modification.

 

I wanted to make poor Clunky a memorable creation without making him 35 level or something. If I make a Clawbug with my character, it would be worse. But simply put Clunky doesn't come close to Tralls or Gazers.

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On the subject of Clawbugs, in Gf5 the plated Clawbug that the player makes and the rogue one are separate creatures in the scripts (unlike some of the upgrade creations) and I buffed the players version immensely, called it an "Assault Clawbug" Balance wise, despite the significant buffs it doesn't feel OP and it gets outclassed by the time you make it into the storm plains. It can hold its own ok against glaaks and Alphas/betas but past that they start to get squishy despite being tough little bugs. I gave them back the poison sting, one extra AP on top of the existing bonus (for a total of 3), gave them natural armor, buffed resistances, especially physical, parry, quick action, dexterity and strength bonus stats. recolored them grey. That sounds like a lot but weirdly it doesn't play crazy. what they do make is a very solid creation for the Mera chapter and the beginning of the storm plains. It won't trivialize the enemies but it makes them easier than they would be with regular t2 creations or upgraded t1.

 

I can post my modded scripts with the balance tweaks I've done if anyone wants them. I didn't add content to the game but I like to think I improved upon the existing stuff that I modified. They're not quite finished but the meat and potatoes are in there. Once I finish my current playthrough of the game and make the changes I want as I go it'll be mostly finished but probably I'll tweak the numbers further after I do another play through the game starting with all my mods already in place to see how it feels and refine the balance.

 

Vampiric Regeneration seems weak because none of the items that have it have very much of it and the blessing crystal effect doesn't add much of it either. Try giving an item more of the stat and see how much more of an effect it has than it did before. I think you get back in health the same amount as the stat on the item is, it's not a percentage of the damage you deal. I buffed the existing "thirsting items" and especially the "Thirsting Knife" and it's not super useful where I am in the game now because I'm not taking that much damage and so I haven't had a chance to see whether it could save my ass in a tight spot or not but it's less trivial feeling.

 

The stats for the batons need tweaking but it's a cool concept and great that you've gotten as far as you have in implementing it already. giving them status effects otherwise unobtainable to the PC's attack is a good idea to make them special though. I actually gave reapers the searing lightning status effect anyway though because it seemed appropriate.

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I just added a bunch of the vampiric regeneration onto an item... I can say now that it is probably the most useless stat I've ever seen. I put +80 of that stat on a dagger, and not only does it not trigger all of the time (sometimes it does, mostly it doesn't), it only heals 1 HP regardless how much you put into it. 1 FREAKING HP.

 

I wish we could mod what each stat does exactly, because I would buff the hell out of Vampiric Regeneration.

 

Also, yeah, it is possible to change the creations that the PC creates, while also ensuring that none of the creations in game are affected. I think most of the creations that the PC makes are separate from the creations that are seen in-game, so you can alter the majority of them, I think. I'll try exploring that further at some point. Only caveat is that changing the "decaying" creations (Charged Vlish, Corrupted Thahds) won't prevent the decaying effect from being put onto the creature, I think (Translation: the altered creature will still die once you leave the zone or it's been left alone for too long. I don't know if there's a way around this; if there is, I'd like to know about it, simply so I can replace the Charged Vlish with a different Vlish variant).

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I had the idea for an artifact melee weapon mod, because even though Ranged definitely needed the most love, Melee deserves some help too. So far I've tweaked a lot of "special" melee weapons and made them actually special and buffed them to be viable to incentivize players to collect and keep multiple swords, but I had this thought that there could be a crafting quest to gather these special weapons and enhance and/or combine them further.

 

One of the problems I have with spicing up melee is that because of when the player gets certain items in the game, that item has to be sorta balanced around the part of the game they're playing in. Currently a lot of things are already underpowered by the time you get them, or become obsolete quickly, but if you balance around how you want weapons to perform at endgame and buff them enough to do that, the earlier game weapons become hilariously OP for the part of the game you find them and you wind up with the opposite problem as you started with. By having upgradeable weapons gated by quests and items you need to acquire that can be timed around specific parts of the game, you eliminate that balance issue since you can just have the items scale in power to your enemies and achievements instead of just being stuck at the level they were discovered.

 

I was thinking that a couple designated artifact weapons could be the main focus of the mod and then the other lesser weapons you collect can be fused into your primary greater weapon. You don't compete with the regular artifacts for ingredients because the ingredients for the artifact weapons are existing weapons and it incentives you to go kill bosses and loot stuff and gives you something to do with those unique drops besides selling them like common vendor trash the way you usually would.

 

The main scripting obstacles I see are actually with scripting the new upgraded weapons because there's properties I'd like to give to them that I don't know are actually possible. Like an attack doing multiple status effects and multiple damage types.

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Gamerman: There has been a lot of work on changing creations already. More or less it's... in a Thread I don't remember. Someone changed the PC roamers to something else and I think that's the most interesting change since Roamers are the weakest IMO. There has been a couple of people talking about them.

 

I have been thinking for example to change wingbolts with podlings for the PC. But that seemed strange.

 

Clawbugs were quite powerful IMO as they were but each to its own.

 

Idonotexist: I think it's possible to give multiple status effect and attack types. Not on the weapon itself but on a new attack type.

However, I'm not an expert. Gamerman has pulled some nice effects on the artifact baton and I think he could tell us if there could be multiple attack types and effects.

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Actually, the Artifact Sword mod was something that I was planning to do myself, as something that would go alongside my Artifact Baton mod. The Artifact Swords would use components that you would find relatively commonly (talking like weapon enchantment crystals, swords, maybe attack crystals like the Icy Crystal), which you would then give to a smithy, who, with a fee, gives you a powerful weapon to use. Pretty much my artifact baton work, but with swords. :)

 

Podlings in place of Wingbolts? That wouldn't be a good switch, since Podlings are annoying because of the fact that they come in numbers + they have AoE status effect attacks. Their attacks don't really do a lot of damage individually, and enemies get aggroed to whatever hit them last, meaning that PC made podlings are going to be going down fast unless they've got a lot of support. If treatable, they're more of less support creations, used to spread debuffs to numerous enemies. That would be more fitting at t2-t3, where you can take out one of the weaker creations (*Cough* Glaahks *Cough*) and put podlings in. Not t4, and taking Wingbolt's position. Also, keep in mind that changing what creation won't change the essence cost (I think), meaning that podlings are going to be very expensive to make if they take the Wingbolt's slot.

 

I can tell you guys right now that you can't have attacks with multiple damage types and multiple status effects. At least not with the gf5objsmisc script. I've tried; you can only have one status effect at a time for an attack ability. Same with the damage type; there doesn't seem to be a way to implement multiple damage types. Only thing that seems to have multiple status effects is the blessing spells like Battle Roar, which seem to be tied with the ab_effect_type line, not the ab_status_effect line. You can buff blessing spells to have multiple effects if you know what you're doing (I made Battle Roar give everyone Essence Blade alongside its other buffs, for example), but I don't think it's possible to have attacks with multiple damage types and status effects (Believe me, if there was a way to make it possible to have multiple status effects and damage types on attacks, I would've utilized that in all my modifications, experimental and released, like the Artifact Baton mod).

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Sad to hear about the lack of a way to add more damage types or status effects.

Yet, there was a misunderstanding: Poison, acid, that electric aura thing...different forms of damage IMO even if they are just status effects. Like Rotgroth's attacks.

 

Wingbolts: By the time I got them, I already had Gazers. Never built a wingbolt in the game (not that I built Glaahks) but I could have used a mass-curse creation.

 

But taking out Wingbolts? For ugly things like podlings? Nah, couldn't get myself to do it. That's like changing Alphas (boring and kinda weak for their cost) with patchworks (equally boring and uglier).

Couldn't even get myself to have Podlings join the party like I do with NPCs.

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Well, you can have multiple damage types, since it's the weapon ability + status effects, but that's pretty limited, all things considered.

 

Ohhhh. I see. So the problem is that Wingbolts come too late to be useful, since you already have Gazers. Not sure how you do it, but I won't ask (I usually have Wingbolts come waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay before I come close to getting Gazers, so... YMMV, I guess.) Don't know why they have the same attack; that's just asking for redundancy to happen. XD

 

Here's the problem: Wingbolts cost 140 essence; replacing them with podlings means that you're going to be coughing up 140 essence + essence for 2 intelligence to get podlings (Can't change essence costs, don't forget), which don't have a very good attack in terms of damage (great status effects though), and not so hot survivability. Dunno about you, but Podlings are better off replacing freaking Glaahks than Wingbolts. At least Wingbolts have a strong attack... Though I was considering giving Wingbolts a different attack to use. Or something else to differentiate them from Gazers... Diamond Spray Wingbolts, anyone? XD (NPC Wingbolts keep the regular attack, just the ones the PC creates will have that attack)

 

So basically you couldn't replace Wingbolts with Podlings because they're too ugly in terms of graphics? Not even as a joinable NPC? Wow. XD XD XD Yeah, the new creations (Patchworks and Podlings) were given some pretty hideous graphics. It's even noted in-universe; the game via pop up text or NPC conversations will occasionally comment on how ugly those things are. Can't argue that they're powerful and annoying as hell though.

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I turned the Charged Vilish into a Podling type creation essentially. It's still a Vlish (A purple, glowing Vlish), I didn't literally turn it into a Podling, but I gave it one of the Podling attacks (Slow Rain) and buffed the hell out of it overall. It's not OP but definitely more worth the essence than it was before and gives you some AOE damage and de-buff ability, and earlier in the game. I like Wingbolts, I think they're good creations for the essence and I wouldn't want to replace them with Podlings. I think I gave Diamond Spray to the Charged Upgrade Wingbolt and changed the name from Unstable Firebolt to "Unstable Thunderbolt" or something. I think the regular Wingbolt is fine as is, and it serves the niche of a mid-late game ranged single-target creation very nicely. Sure, they share an attack with Gazers but their energy bolt is way weaker than the Gazers and several of the fire creations also share attacks that are just stronger version of the earlier tier's breath weapon.

 

 

The only way I know to give an attack multiple damage types or status effects is through blessing crystals because those are applied to the item as stats not as part of the base ability. The problem is that the damage from them is trivial, most of the debuff status effects aren't guaranteed to be applied on every hit, and I think giving them to an item via the scripts blocks you from using another crystal on it in game (I could be wrong though). I had one possible thing to try: blessing crystals only give 1 point of their assigned stat to an item, I'm not sure how those stats behave, but maybe you could take a sword and give it several points of "fire/cold essence" to make it do more extra elemental damage than you'd get from just the regular blessing crystal. I suppose that if nothing else that could let you give a point each of more than one enhancement to let an attack do multiple status effects.

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I actually tried what you suggested just now; giving it several points of fire/cold essence. I gave it +80, just to see if the large number will do anything. Did absolutely nothing. You can't just add the stat to the weapon; you need to use the crystal. I tried to buff the crystal itself, but it didn't give any extra damage or anything.

 

I never bother with the charged creations all that much; the problem I have with them is that they decay away once you leave the zone or you don't heal them for a period of time. They're literally expendable, and that makes them unreliable. The worst part is that kills they make are leeching exp away from my character, since while the charged creations can gain exp, it doesn't matter for them since they can't level up if they're just going to die the moment I leave the map. Though I did find out that Pyroroamers don't have the decaying effect present on charged creations, surprisingly. That means I can buff them to my heart's content, without worrying about them essentially decaying away (Too bad it isn't possible to change the essence cost of a creation. Pyroroamers are pretty damn cheap in terms of essence cost, both for their creation and the amount of essence you need to put extra skill points into them. Doesn't help that you can get the upgraded roamer variant very early on because you get +1 to Shape Roamer from Rawal, and you can easily get +2 Shape Roamer skill from Haria-Kel).

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:( that is a shame :(

 

See the problem with the charged creations was that the intent was to have situationally useful disposable but extra powerful creatures to be like shock troops for hard boss fights and masses of enemies, they're temporary but wreck face while they're up and it's supposed to be a worthwhile tradeoff but they're not the way the current creatures are implemented. I tried to make the charged creations all worth the essence and viable by buffing them and giving them unique qualities. The charged Thadh I made so it's like a miniature Rot, not as powerful as a real Rot by any means but they could come in handy and their acid attack was useful especially in the beginning. Charged Vlish becomes AOE Debuff Podling with a weaker version of the gazers melee attack I think I gave it, damage shield. it's good for when you have packs even in the late game it's just fragile and you have to be careful with it. The charged Wingbolt I've alternately given either diamond spray or purifying rain, and upping their stats even further than they are. Figured Diamond Spray gave it uniqueness but fit with the creation because it was the multi target version of it's regular attack basically, and stronger so it had situational usefulness to burn down packs of foes with burst damage. For Purifying Rain, I figured it was already named the Unstable Firebolt so I'd work with that and not have to rename it and I wanted that multi target damage and I figured since a Wingbolt is already a Knockoff Gazer, why not have the upgraded Wingbolt be a knockoff Eyebeast? I can't remember which version I have presently in my scripts. The Burning Kyshakk mostly just got flat buffs because it was already good and had a niche. The Shock Trall was already good but I made it stronger by buffing the stunning rock ability itself and making the stun more stunny so it can really lock down enemies and not just be a Trall with extra AP.

 

Pyroamers I totally replaced the PC's Shaped ones with Cryoroamers. Figure ice version of the base creation is the theme for Fire creations, the Cryoroamer is a souped up Cryoa with better melee basically. They're not OP as creations but they're a little too good for their essence cost probably, they become largely obsolete by middle of the storm plains but before that you can have a horde of them because they're so cheap and they slaughter everything. Having two in your party? plays totally balanced. Have six and you've got leftover essence still for spells? a little much.

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I haven't read the whole conversation yet, but I'll reply to a couple things:

Gazers: I may remember wrong. Perhaps it was Tralls I got before Wingbolts and between Tralls and Kyshaaks Wingbolts while powerful were a waste of essence.

 

Expensive podlings: It would be easy to increase their damage. I was talking about a character specific podling, not messing with the rest. Also Weak attack against 3 enemies = 3 weak attacks, don't forget that. A podling is an always-hit mass Vlish attack.

Vlish: It's not that those flying sacks of tentacles would win any beauty pageants...

Glaahks: At least they have a specific function: being close combat magic creations.

On the ugliness of Podlings: That Drakon fellow made them. Obviously drakons have different views on form. But the patchworks? Those were made by Shapers! They are in the foundry. No wonder they're in the foundry and in just a few other places.

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A character specific podling? Which one? Is it a new one you had in mind, or is it one of the existing ones? Existing ones are regular Podlings (Weakening Rain), Armored Podlings (Curse Rain, not really armored though), and Assault Podlings (Slow Rain). Unless you're making a new Podling type that only the PC can summon, in which case I'm curious what you have in mind.

 

Vlish are pretty ugly too, I will admit. Powerful though, which is funny given that even though they were hit pretty hard with the nerf bat, they're still good. XD Still kinda wish it was possible to replace the Charged Vlish with a different Vlish type (You can replace the Charged Vlish, but the Decaying effect still applies, meaning that the new summon will die the moment it either doesn't get healed or you leave the zone).

 

Glaahks IMO don't do their job well enough. How I see it is that they're meant to charge in and essentially stun lock an enemy, using the fact that their melee attack supposedly causes the enemy to be stun locked in place. However, that only works for the enemy, simply because they have numbers on their side, while for the player, that Glaahk is taking up a creation slot. Which can be used for any other powerful creation. Even worse for the Ur-Glaahk; more essence spent, and it's not that much better relative to essence spent. I would not hesitate to replace Glaahks and Ur-Glaahks with Podlings and Armored Podlings (with some heavy buffs) respectively simply because Podlings fit the whole 'magic debuff attacker' schtick better (Though I'd probably be more likely to massively buff Glaahks and Ur-Glaahks if that was the case, since it is possible to buff those two creations while ensuring that enemy creations don't become ridiculous as well).

 

Podlings are made exclusively by the rebels, I think. I have never seen Podlings as part of a Shaper attack force, nor have I seen them in Shaper fortifications. Only rebel attack forces and defenders have Podlings mixed in with them, and I think some NPCs note that Podlings are a rebel-exclusive thing. Patchworks I've only seen in the Foundry, which is Shaper controlled, yes. But I've seen them waaaaaay more with the rebels, not the Shapers. So who made the Patchworks first is up for debate.

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Never put too much thought on which podling I would custom-copy-paste for the player, since I never put too much thought in putting them in.

Podlings are Rebel only and made by that Drakon that makes the Shredbugs IIRC.

 

Patchworks outside the foundry are rogue IIRC.

 

Charged creation... I used the Kyshaaks extensively as suicide bombers in the late game.

 

 

ALSO: You were right that I got Wingbolts before Gazer. I loaded a fairly old game. Tralls was the ones I got early on. Still kept the Kyshaak I had in that save and I don't regret it. Leveled up Kyshaak suit my game better.

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I actually don't like Charged Creations simply because they:

1. Leech EXP off of you, since they will die the moment you leave a zone, meaning any level ups they get are pointless.

2. Aren't exactly much stronger than their regular variant for the most part (Charged Vlish is the worst offender, though I think there are other examples)

3. (Personal Playstyle problem) I like to keep creations alive. Unit preservation is sorta my way of playing the game. I won't try keep a fyora for the whole game, but I am going to try and keep my creations alive if I can. (My experiments on the script are actually to encourage this play style; make it easier to hold on to creations. Too bad there is no way to alter essence costs for creations, otherwise I would cut the essence costs for adding additional skill points to creations by 50%-75%. You wouldn't want to keep a t1 creation alive all game, but you would have more incentive to try and level up existing units. Adds more options to the game.) Charged Creations go completely against that play style, simply because they're designed to die, and I can't do anything about it.

 

Those reasons are why I wish it was possible to swap these charged creations with something else. I wish I knew how to get rid of the decaying effect, because if I did, I would swap out these charged creations with something else instantly. (I miss terror vlish, for example.)

 

Charged Kyshakks are definitely good suicide bombers, I will admit. Extra AP is never bad either. Pretty expensive for a suicide unit though.

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Cryoas are one of the few creations that you can viably keep with you for most of the game. Same thing can't really be said about all of the other creations, though. And Cryoas still lack some of the aspects of a Cryodrayk (Resistances, for example). So they're not that much better than Cryodrayks, but have a very similar essence cost. You also have to keep the Cryoa alive for a really long time. Not worth the investment IMO. There isn't really anything in the game to give players reasons to keep their older creations alive once you get stronger creations. That being said, it probably wouldn't be hard to simply buff lower level creations so they are able to scale better in the later parts of the game.

 

It is possible to change what creations the PC can make though. The majority of creations the PC can create can be separated from the NPC versions, with a little bit of work. Not all of them, but the majority of them. I remember making it so that the PC can create Battle Gammas instead of Battle Betas as the upgraded variant for the Battle Alpha, for example (I think Battle Gammas were a much better choice for the upgraded variant, since it has +4 AP and is substantially stronger than Alphas or Betas).

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While you're right there's not enough to the game to make player want to keep their old creations, I would panic a lot more if my 12-to-40+ (ending lvl 44) level Cryora was close to die than any of my creations. I liked her.

 

Not reason enough to keep her? Perhaps. But not reason enough to ditch her either as the game was at such difficulty that I could spare the slot without trouble. And at level 40+ with all my artifacts and boosted dex? She didn't need resistances. She was almost never hit.

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