Slariton

If you spend essence on unnecessary upgrades, that'll happen. If you don't, and you pump shaping skill instead, you can have a large group of high quality creations. That's my recommendation anyway. G5 I sometimes used Battle Shaping for, in part because it was the only game where it was reasonable to do so, and in part because the Tralls were *that* good.

He hasn't explicitly said it's OK, but he's said positive things about one or two mods over the years, so it seems like it's safely condoned -- so long as it doesn't cause headaches for him. That's why we go to such great lengths to put warnings on things, and why we don't encourage everyone to just script edit all over the place. It's fairly easy to screw up something else in the game that you don't realize your edit will even impact.

No, it shows that the Sholai were nice while trying to obtain someone else's knowledge. We don't know whether the niceness was just an act (though I think we can reasonably say that some individual Sholai, like Yu-La, probably would not be capable of acting). And they weren't trying to take the knowledge away from the Shapers. This is a relevant distinction given that every single non-Sholai sect in the area (even the Awakened!) asks you to steal and sabotage the research of at least one other sect.

"more expensive to upgrade" is just because they are more expensive, period. The upgrades are only an issue if you are going bananas on upgrades, and Magic Creations are mostly not the ones with amazing upgrades. Vlish really don't want any, Glaahks could take 1 or 2 but don't need them, Ur-Glaahks are happy enough with just Dominate. I know some people like the Gazer/Eyebeast AoE; I still thinks it's a waste and wouldn't go past 1 upgrade for Nullity/Dominate, but either way their passives are trash. Whereas Fyoras and Drayks absolutely want 3. Searing Artila could also take 3, but they are twice as expensive as a Fyora whether you upgrade them or not, and they aren't twice as good whether you upgrade them or not. And yeah, Cryoas and Vlish were certainly usable in G4/G5 -- as stopgaps like you said. Staple idk about. Wingbolts were staples. Vlish in particular were just worse than Artila due to their inflated cost.

Hahahaha. Nah, it was more just wanting to slow down progression a bit in the first half of the game, so that level ups make a meaningful difference for a bit longer. With the scaling XP system, this was the only reasonable way to do so. It also pushes you to think a little harder about where you invest your skill points -- especially in combination with the lower starting stats on Torment, which make some skills you would summarily ignore in the base game be worth considering a point or two into.

This is only when your battle betas hit something? And it's when they hit anything? That doesn't sound like something that should happen. I know you were poking into scripting, did you edit any game files?

No, it shows that the leader of the entire expedition was willing to try them when they didn't know what they did. And we know they are addictive. End of story on what that shows. Someone who met friendly folks like Zakary or Ellhrah on Sucia, or worked with someone (Yu-La) who did, and thought they'd have a better chance of a friendly reception in the place they all went. Or it's just historical, isolationist Japan, given access to a bit of magic. Civilizations that are in a guarded, self-protective mode are not generally the ones that are expanding, building empires and subjugating other people. This is an utterly imbalanced evaluation that does not follow from the games. You're declaring the Sholai that act benevolently count as "no actual indication" but the Sholai who are into trading and learning (you call it "coveting", I call it Star Trek) count as "some indications." That's not even-handed, I'm sorry. Reality is, we have no clear indication either way. We have seen evidence of individual Sholai going both ways. Just like we have seen from every other sentient culture in the game series.

It would if walking speed were the only change. Because of the new potted plant effect, it doesn't. I would encourage you to actually play the mod, alhoon 🙂 (The thinking behind the potted plants were that, while it's a fun kind of frustrating to get through those zones safely the first time, it quickly becomes a chore on replays (at least for me). Not actually difficult or something you have to build around, just something that's annoying to keep doing.)

All the Sholai who attack you in G1, including the ones who shoot down your craft, are either heavily canistered, or obeying orders from those who are. You can't take the aggressive behavior of a canistered-up person as representative of their culture. Masha and company are the main non-canister Sholai in G1, and they are openly suspicious of canisters and do not suggest anyone consume any of them. (Yu-La is off doing her own thing.)

Lost Fyora? Aha, in zone 0. I don't see anything I've done that could be affecting this. Are you sure this is different behavior from in the base game? EDIT: I do see scripting in the base game to make it not respawn either if it reaches a certain location, or is killed. The mod doesn't touch the file with that scripting, though. I don't think what you're seeing is mod-related. EDIT 2: If you are leaving the zone before the fyora actually exits the zone, it will respawn. Maybe that's what's happening? The faster walking speed might make that more likely, but (1) it is technically possible to do in the base game, and (2) it's not something that would normally happen even with the mod -- you'd need to take an extremely circuitous route through the first zone and then immediately leave upon triggering the fyora dialogue. Between these two points I think I'm content to ignore it.

Alternate possibility: the Sholai are, in fact, relatively benevolent, as they present themselves. You meet Trajkov after he'd used piles of canisters, and at that point he was not clearly not representative of the Sholai culture in general. (And even at that point, he doesn't seem particularly terrible for this game world. He's shown be to quite loyal and open-minded in the ending, despite being power-hungry.) The non-canister Sholai you meet in OG are rather different, both in G1 and then late in the series when they show up again in G5.

Upgrade costs are a fixed proportion of base creation cost, varying only by rounding, so expensive upgrades aren't really specific to improved magic creations. Cryoas and Vlish were both pretty bad in Mutagen - I'm guessing you mean original G2? Vlish were nerfed in OG4, and fire shaping in general was less exciting in OG3-5.

Obligatory comment that this is not a Taker ending. You can get this ending being aligned with any of the sects, or none of them.

honestly "Buuuuuuurn theeeeeem!!!" is more tone and personality than any of Litalia's existing lines in OG3 have

It doesn't, though. Ellhrah canonically makes it to Drypeak. And Rydell appears to have as well, given that he has a grave marker in Ellhrah's tomb. Gnorrel, meanwhile, was "killed when you Shapers came," and these shapers who killed her "take Kazg. Gnorrel. Food. Everything" -- which sounds more like a dedicated cleansing team and less like the PC.

I hope they are nothing like the Shaper trio, which just destroys all continuity and sense of immersion.

Not every PC needs to have an excellent version of every skill you could want. If not having access to magic means being worse at crowd control, great! Not having access to a skill set should actually be meaningful. Otherwise you erode the differences between classes, which I know isn't your goal.

My money still says the Sholai will be a tiny third faction in G3C, like the Trakovites were in G4.

For shapers and agents with access to stuff like Airshock - most of the time, absolutely! For guardians who are avoiding investment in magic, and aren't using magic shaping, what exactly is their alternative? (And given the weapon skill required to use it, this is mainly gonna be a guardian thing anyway.) And for any PC, the fact that it's a radius ability and therefore won't hit friendly targets does give it potential utility in crowded locations.

Just to be really clear, because somehow it's still not: Zora is in your party in zones BEYOND the Secret Tunnel and it's not triggering the hardcoded goodbye pop-up anymore? Even if you leave and re-enter a zone beyond the Secret Tunnel? Yes or no? None of the script files you mentioned control that happening. The first 4 aren't even loaded in subsequent zones, and the text4 file only contains text -- no actual game logic. Her leaving is hardcoded. (Also, are you on Windows or Mac? Asking since we did find another edge case difference between platforms.)

I get how that can be annoying. But you're still canceling at least one of their attacks, which buys your team an extra round to kill other things, reposition, and/or use other support abilities. Does the random chance (not that high) that random movement might take the enemy to a more advantageous position really outweigh that? Or to put it another way: when an enemy creation uses an AoE terror ability on your party and your creations get terrified, isn't that kind of a big deal? I mean, that's potentially reload territory.

Have you actually gone into post-Tunnel zones with her in the party? The Secret Tunnel itself does not count. If not, you haven't encountered the hardcoded removal yet.

For the fourth time in this thread: yes, it is hardcoded, separately from the scripted stuff in the Secret Tunnel.

I'm still confused by the "enemy minions charging into the Guardian or his squad" issue. As Mechalibur noted above, most enemies don't hugely care where they are because they'll just used a ranged attack regardless. And enemies that use melee attacks are guaranteed to charge into your squad if they aren't afflicted with a mental effect. And, no enemy is attacking you at all while it's terrified. So worst case scenario, you have 1 turn where the enemy charges you instead of attacking. I don't understand how this hurts your survivability.