DS1 Legendary Mod for DS2 Beta Thread

Utraean Peninsula 33A / Logic 33C

Monster Level Adjust Beta 5S ALL Mode

Broken World AllSaves See Far Hack set to off
I did not convert this computer to the version 1 of AllSaves

Save Location

Meren

Quest Log

ACT 1

Primary Quests – Elddim Town Stone, Crystwind Town Stone, Fallraen Town Stone

Secondary Quests – A Farmer's Scythe, A New Way to Travel, Orchard Cellar, Hovart's Folly, Travel to Crystwind, Travel to Fallraen, Dwarven Secrets, Fallraen Barracks Travel to Meren.

ACT 2

Primary Quests –

Secondary Quests – Pirates of Meren, Dornek's Quarry,

Comment Log

1. Quests Completing correctly.
2. Monsters are leveling correctly.
3. Radar looks good so far.
4. Quest arrows to this point working correctly.
5. No problems hiring people.
6. Both the Glacial and Crystal Caverns appeared to be easier, I think monsters do not need any additional changes.
7. Sent Stone Picker to the inn and hired Briahra.

Party Members

Paljas Tonttu Level 27 Sharpshooter

Tiahna Level 27 Sharpshooter

Xavier Level 26 Sharpshooter

Arisu Level 27 Sorceress

Ivlisar Level 27 Sorcerer

Briahra Level 26 Sorceress

Utraean Peninsula 33A / Logic 33C

Monster Level Adjust Beta 5S ALL Mode

Broken World AllSaves See Far Hack set to off
I did not convert this computer to the version 1 of AllSaves

Save Location

Meren

Quest Log

ACT 1

Primary Quests – Elddim Town Stone, Crystwind Town Stone, Fallraen Town Stone

Secondary Quests – A Farmer's Scythe, A New Way to Travel, Orchard Cellar, Hovart's Folly, Travel to Crystwind, Travel to Fallraen, Dwarven Secrets, Fallraen Barracks Travel to Meren.

ACT 2

Primary Quests – Meren Town Stone

Secondary Quests – Pirates of Meren, Dornek's Quarry, Travel to Lang, Confront Bandit Boss

Comment Log

1. Quests Completing correctly.
2. Monsters are leveling correctly.
3. Radar looks good so far.
4. Quest arrows to this point working correctly.
5. No problems hiring people.
6. The Lang Mire is still a tough slog. However please do not change the number or powers of the monsters. As now it takes guile and skill to get to Lang from any direction (Elddim, Meren or the Sulfur Tunnels).
7. Sent Ivlisar to the inn and hired Sheba.

Party Members

Paljas Tonttu Level 30 Sharpshooter

Tiahna Level 30 Sharpshooter

Xavier Level 30 Sharpshooter

Arisu Level 30 Sorceress

Briahra Level 30 Sorceress

Sheba Level 29 Magus

Thank you for the testing map, that will most certainly come in handy!

I've already gone ahead and extracted the conversations myself with inkeepers, shopkeepers and the like. I edited all of the dialogue that I felt needed it in Arhok and the surrounding area, up until the Lost Queen. That does of course mean I'm starting with L.O.A since that is the one I'm playing right now. I'll then move on to Ehb, and Yesterhaven, then Utraean Peninsula.
In fact, to this day, Utrawan Peninsula is the only Dungeon Siege Map I haven't ever quite 'finished'.
Huh.

You will find that my edits will often have quite a bit of a sarcastic tone to them.
For example, when being asked to take down Yellow Eye in Arhok, your response for declining will be changed from
"That is unfortunate, best of luck to you."
to
"Monsters and Bears, Monsters and Bears, it never ends..."

When meeting Lyssa for the first time, she will tell you of how she tracked the Shadowjumper before being 'be set upon by spiders and undead creatures'.
Here, you can choose to continue the conversation with her - "That's very interesting, for we have been tasked to find a creature of your description by the Mayor of Arhok."
Or end it - "Yes, Undead creatures are a pesky lot. I'll be on my way now."

I do not believe Legends of Aranna's dialogue will take long to complete. In fact, the only one I think will really take some time is the latter stages of KOE, but that still won't be a problem.

If a summoned jade gargoyle is destroyed (I reported before), the mage (e.g. Ulora) still shows as "Controlling Summoned" and cannot summon again until the timer expires. This is still the case in Logic 33c, similarly the summoned skeleton and, I've now found, the mucosa and giant moth too.

Merik cast the Summon Bear spell. The bear was killed, leaving a corpse (large and obvious!) He still showed as "Controlling Summoned". After a few seconds the corpse vanished, and then he was free to Summon again.

Hence the problem affects any summoned creature that bursts, disintegrates, or otherwise fails to leave a corpse that can subsequently vanish.

Other issues:

• the mana cost of summoning a killer gremal has been corrected in 33c, confirmed
  
• summoned mucosa is way too good: its actual stats are much better than the spell's display advertises, e.g. life 1222 when supposed to be only 264; armor 141 and damage 113-188 at an intelligence level when skeleton, supposed to have a couple more armor but do a couple less damage per seccnd, comes out at 63 and 20-33 (it was not Ulora I had summoning these, but Phaedriel).

The conversations are a good way to help flesh out the party recruits and give them some substance, especially all the new ones in Yesterhaven and the Utraean Peninsula. You have free reign in moulding these characters as you see fit.

Another thing that could easily be added is additional lore books obtainable only if you recruit the character, which can be used to give them some history - so to speak. I did this for the 3 recruits in Yesterhaven.

The bear shouldn't die and leave a corpse in the first place, so again something I need to check.

Maybe that's why in DS2 there's really only a few monsters you can summon compared to DS1 where there were many.

I notice that on a lot of lines in the scripts, they're preceded with [row=#] where # is a seemingly random number.
For example, screen_text = "Hail, friend! Come to meet a friend? ";

EDIT: Weird. The number didn't actually post. row=11989 is right behind "Hail, friend!"

What do these numbers mean?
Do they matter, are they needed?
Do I need to figure out how to use them if I'm going to be adding new dialogue options?!

Question: what does e.g. <row=11989> mean?
(How did I get that to display: I didn't type a less-than sign, I typed an ampersand, a hash, digits 60 and a semicolon. For the greater-than, same but digits 62. Why? Because it's HTML - that is, an instruction how to format text. See "Allowed HTML tags" under where we enter Comment:. row= between those two signs looks like a formatting instruction but not one our browsers understand.)

Answer:

I know I read that post, and so I should've remembered this before posting, but for some reason it didn't click. Don't I feel silly now, ehehh..

Exactly the same happens with summoned DS2 monsters, e.g. rhinock and trasak.

By the way, I've just been testing this in the white mothers' cloister. When I played properly I didn't have a single monster summoned against me by any witch, neither these ones nor the ice ones in the Alpine Caverns earlier. This is because I'd always made my party rush them on sight. Holding back and leaving the initiative to them (to make sure of getting my own summoned creatures killed), they did summon.

	[0x0048]
	{
		from = "<row=9434>Forgive me, Eva. I am astonished to see you before me.";
		to = "<row=9434>Excusez-moi, Eva. Je suis étonné de vous voir ici.";
	}

I've finally got through the goblin warrens and it was a blinking nightmare, that warren was not enjoyable at all and truth be told it hasn't been an enjoyable game since the latter part of the Glitterdelve mines.
Thoughts and Criticism so far.

I must say that up to this point most of my time has been spent reviving party members or re-spawning the whole lot of them, I'm supposed to be dispatching monsters to the afterlife and not training to be a blinking doctor......

The difficulty for mercenary level is set too high as this has turned from an enjoyable DS1 romp into a game full of revive the unconscious or re-spawn the whole lot of them game, the weapons and armour you get to deal with these creatures is blinking pitiful compared to the health and power of some of these beasts, either the monsters need toning down or the weapons and armour need increasing......

A typical monster encounter is (oh no not again) activate party members powers kick some butt for 15 or 20 seconds and then you're either all dead or what ever members are left are running away to try and stop another re-spawn from happening.

Some monster re-design is seriously needed in this game as a lot of them are either resistant to melee or ranged which makes most of the battles a blinking slog fest which is getting old fast, I expect a decent challenge in any game but this one has gone over the top quite a bit.
If I knew how to tone the monsters down I would have un-packed the logic res and given some of the monsters a big slap in the kisser. :bat:
Today is pirate day, and I'm thinking it's going to be the same thing all over again, I'm not sure how much longer I can give this game as I'm almost at the end of my tether with it.
Rant over, peace to the world and all that.

BUGS,

The mysterious relic quest in the Subterranean river, the sparkle effect is still displaying after you've opened the chest in that underground Trog building. I must say that these Trog monsters don't need changing and I wouldn't even consider giving them a slap. :thumbup:

The legionnaire guard outside the goblin warren, (the one with the sword needs his template looking at) he's either got his arms stretched out in a jesus type pose or he's sat down with his sword across his knees. :?

2.2, Map 33b, Logic 33c (over 33a from Installer), MLA Local Monster-adjust-declared. All*Saves v1

Party of 5 then 6: half-giant shield fighter, Ulora, Rusk (dual-wield fighter), Zed, Merik and Phaedriel. Level_adjustment_regional is good (max is staying one ahead of hero level).

Kb22. Trog dungeon (the one with Fury's eye at the bottom) lacks fade-out, when party has just entered the first level down, for the nature magic sanctuary on that level; and may lack fade-out for the level below. (I cannot remember how soon I saw into the second level and the screen shot I took is when out in the middle of the first room, near the head of the stairs down.)

(Yes the sanctuary door cannot be walked through without opening it, the only doors I've had that problem with have been combat magic ones, but the room beyond should not be visible. And yes the stairs to the second level down are already open, thanks to piles of gold on the pressure plates, but even so party should have to start descending stairs before seeing how many monsters are waiting in the next room.)

Kb23. "Traveler's Camp" (singular) in big banner: should be "Traveler Camp" (adjective) as in world_locations file, or "Travelers' Camp" (plural possessive). (I'd also prefer double l but maybe that's just being a Brit.)

Kb24. NPC called "Traveler Pet Trader", and another - the enchanter - simply "Traveler" (both were anonymous in DS1).

Kb25. Shop-for-pets screen and review-inn-guests screens in the Camp both have wrong mini-portraits (wildly different from the convo portraits they ought to match).

Kb26. If talking to Nong after receiving Sikra quest then [conversation_nong] words ("Fate has been kind", etc ) and voice (sample = s_v_df_nong2) do not match. s_v_df_nong3 is the voice for those words; nong2 is "May the road you travel", etc, good character-showing words that GPG do not seem to have written down.

Kb27 (point of interest). Like Krug scavengers, melee bandits are 5% destructive using GPG's job_fidget.skrit as revised for DS2: I saw one start attacking a gorack (which would not have retaliated if I'd left them to it). (As for attacking breakables, I didn't see that happen, but should they be allowed to start plundering their own camps?)

Kb28. UNIQUE ITEMS LIST "Sickle Staff, Splitter Axe or Stellar Leather (Bandit's Mansion in Dark Forest )" - this drop is not working. (Nor is "Web Scepter, Union Sword or Radiant Gown ( Witches Coven in Eastern Swamp )" if meant to be in the White Mothers' garden before entering the swamp, but not yet tested if meant to be further in.)

Kb29. (would-be level anomaly) still one of Killer Gremal's level 45 bandit_melee_ds1 in region df_r1, the meadow on the edge of the swamp, when those in region df_bandit have all been changed to bandit_ut_melee_dual.

Rushing the monsters in these maps will get you killed very quickly and regularly. Making them too easy to kill will also raise complaints so there's need to be a happy balance between the two.

Unfortunately in their wisdom (or lack thereof) GPG remove difficulty settings from DS2, unlike DS1 where you could set a difficulty setting. This makes balancing the maps harder as you have to take in consideration everyone's playing styles.

I welcome feedback about the difficulty of each region and will try to balance it to suit as many players as possible.

One thing I would have liked to see is more differentiation between melee styles. Like weakness against blunt or piercing weapons. For examples skeletons would be strong against regular melee weapons but weak against blunt melee weapons, same for gargoyles, etc. This could have help make melee fighters more varied than what they are at the moment.

Finally the MLA mod make differences with resistances, above and beyond what is defined in the templates. This was made apparent to me in a recent feedback report which noticed that certain monsters in Veteran mode had such high resistances that they actually absorbed the damage despite the base rate in their templates being below 100%.

There's no need to make any changes just to please me iryan, if the other players like it as it is I will go along with it too. ^^
I must say that I've been playing DS1 and DS2 on and off for years and I've never come across monsters as tough as these before, so I've been researching how these mods are made and work and I've managed to make one after a few cock ups that will give me an even chance against them. :woot: Its been a steep learning curve this last 2 weeks but I've managed to complete it and I will be testing it out in DS2 using the BW.exe over the next couple of days, and then its going to be payback time for these monsters of yours. :bat:

The Heirloom sword quest in DS2 does now work properly :thumbup: :dance1:

In KoE these 3 Krug do not always attack, it looks like sometimes they get into too tight a patrol loop

Here is a shot of the "Phantom" Crystals

:jawdrop:

These rock? formations block movement but not arrows in LoA in the caves with the Shadow Gate.

The MLA has started the monsters in Eldim at lvl 53 vs the Dwarven Brigade at lvl 50

Though LOA in general seems a bit more difficult to a higher level party than a lower level party, It can be a little unforgiving at times.
That said.
I rather love the challenge to be had in the cave to the Shadow Gate is very welcome, and I believe we should remove weakness to Death magic entirely, being monsters from the shadow realm and all.
Also I've found that, while some might be bothered by it, the constant repetitive looping of that distant scream sound effect is literally a bit maddening when using headphones. However, I think that's a good thing in this particular case. I believe I'm going to take a look at the banters in the cave to the Shadow Gate and have characters make note of the screaming.

An update on the editing of dialogue.
I've reached the trader camp where Najj's people reside with the banters, and I've decided to have the characters evolve as such...
Keep in mind, I am tailoring each character's dialogue so they act as if they've been with you since the first chance you had to pick them up. So even if you disband Lyssa before dealing with the Lost Queen, and then hire her again afterward, later she will act as if she were there. Give me your thoughts on this, because I like editing them in this way but I want to make sure everyone's on board.

Jondar is calm and wise, always attempting to look at things from an objective view. He doesn't fret about challenge, driven just as much as the Hero is (and sometimes more) to retrieve the Staff of Stars. After a while he does begin to show concern regarding the Hero, often times checking up on you to ensure you're doing well and not driving yourself too hard. This might add a strange feeling of not being the main Hero, that he is just as dedicated as you and will stick with it to the end. Whether you appreciate this or start feeling a little competitive is up to you.

At first, Lyssa comes off as cocky and very capable with her skills. However, this changes radically after the encounter with with the Lost Queen Ashish. She often fluctuates the most out of the entire party, having trouble deciding whether she wants to dislike Utraeans or forgive them for Ashish's fall. She seems to be the only one exposing her fears to the Hero, who can then choose to either comfort her or shun her for being afraid. (Those branching dialogue options need to be fleshed out. Is there a way to, perhaps, make her act differently toward you later on depending on what you say to her?) Overall, she never loses her confidence in herself but she becomes the most emotionally invested in the quest. I thought this would be an interesting take on her, since she's usually regarded as the 'Tough Chick' type. I think making her a Dryad influenced my making her a bit more sensitive. Dryad's being known for being a bit more compassionate... Except for Deru, Celia, the craftmistress and armorsmith... really, quite a lot of them, haha.

Najj, like many half giants, is quite simple. He is rather blank emotionally, often approaching things with a cold cynicism. Shorter sentences and much less patience. He is quite like Lothar, actually. If Lothar was a bit more of a jerk. However after you bring him to his people, he starts to lean toward the idea of finishing your quest with you, now that he knows what is at stake and (more importantly to him) now that he respects you for upholding your end of the bargain. He is not very open with his inner thoughts but he will make his basic opinions on things clear to you if necessary, usually in a rather blunt fashion.

Of course there are more followers who have more personalities, but I've decided not to explain every character as that might take some of the fun from talking with them.

@Iryan, Let's say there are multiple members in your party, each having their own banter for a particular location...
How does DS2 decide which one speaks?
Does it activate a random one when the Hero steps into the area?
Does it choose based on the first person who walks into the area that has a banter, then cancels the others?

Because as it stands it seems like I'm going to HAVE to take a look at DS2 banters and learn how to get multiple characters talking if I want to be able to show off ALL of their character development in one playthrough.
Need some thoughts on this. I think I'll start getting work done a little faster as well once I'm sure what to do with that.

Could a flick be written to choose randomly? Or a trigger that randomly chooses from several flicks? I don't know. Have fun.

I like your take on the personalities of the various characters Jondar, Lyssa and so on. Lyssa has always appeared to be somewhat like Finala hard on the outside but soft on the inside. Actually it would be the other way around since Lyssa came before Finala but you know what I mean. Great ideas so far and super questions.

Generally speaking in Kingdom of Ehb, Yesterhaven and Legends of Aranna, the first flick you activate after obtaining a party member, will activate a flick unique to that party member. Examples are Ulora's, Naidi's and Gyorn's flick in KOE. For say Naidi's flick, it will/should always play Naidi's banter (if she's within 15 units of the hero) and if she's not in the party (or further than 15 units from the player) will play another banter in order from Gyorn, Ulora, etc. They normally will say something like "maybe you should have recruited Naidi".

All other flicks are random and will choose a banter to play from the available party members.

These flicks can be quite complicated and include more than 1 party member, with conditional responses to play in order if the party members aren't in the party.

So you can have a banter that will play if say Gyorn and Naidi are both in the party, which includes both of them in the banter and another one that will play if only Gyorn is in the party, or Naidi is the only one in the party or it can play one including say Gyorn and Rusk, if the first choice doesn't play.

Here's an example of a more complex multi character banter from DS2. It will trigger prior to attacking the Morden Chief if any of three conditions are met.
1) Both Amren and Sartan are in the party
2) Or Finala and Lothar are in the party
3) Or only Sartan is in the party

If none of those 3 conditions are met, the banter won't play.
http://www.siegetheday.org/~iryan/files/morden_city_conversations.gas

The flick code use to make this banter work;

[a3_mordenCity_banter]
{ 
    // set the roles for this sequence
    role (actor) speaker, listener;
    external role (actor) pm_sartan, pm_amren, pm_finala, pm_lothar;
    role trigger;
    
    entry main; 
    thread main
	{
	speaker:
		Capture;
		
		if WhenWithinDistance ( speaker, pm_amren, 15) AND WhenWithinDistance ( speaker, pm_sartan, 15)
		{
			StartConversation Amren_Sartan_approach_banter, wait;
			PostMessage trigger WE_REQ_DELETE; 
		}
		else if WhenWithinDistance ( speaker, pm_finala, 15) AND WhenWithinDistance ( speaker, pm_lothar, 15)
		{
			StartConversation Finala_Lothar_approach_banter, wait;
			PostMessage trigger WE_REQ_DELETE; 
		}
		else if WhenWithinDistance ( speaker, pm_sartan, 15)
		{
			//Report "pm_deru sartan";
			StartConversation Sartan_approach_banter, wait;
			PostMessage trigger WE_REQ_DELETE; 
		}					
	}
}

Personally I believe this is a waste and I would add a couple more single character checks in each flick to ensure that the banter will get played. But then again GPG put a lot of banters in the middle of monsters so that they would invariably get interrupted.

On Banters: is it possible to make a variable banter based on the players race? Fot instance, change Najj's if the player is a Half-giant or some of the Dwarven banters if you play a Dwarf.

EDIT: I never knew this was a thing. I've collected so many Followers (as well as one pet for storing old uniques) through Ehb and LOA on this same character that the inn is actually 'full' of people? I cannot disband anyone in my party because there is no more room in there, and I know that permanently disbanning NPC followers really isn't of that much consequence, but I'd honestly rather not do that. I actually really like having all these followers in storage. It's similar to how I NEVER get rid of uniques or set items (Unless they're duplicates) on any of my playthroughs. Just another thing that's fun to collect. Has there been a mod to up the limit of followers at the inn? I imagine that isn't impossible.

Played a particularly long session of LOA today, and I have a few things to share.

1.) Utraean followers have issues with some Aranna Legacy armors. I'm guessing this is because these armors show an ounce of skin, but don't have any skins saved for Utraeans?

2.) Jharmaya has issues with any headwear that shows her face.

3.) Algher Mankur and Nardulo both have the same hair texture issue.

4.) Can it be made to where we have to revive him again upon finding him? And, more importantly, recruit him as a follower? It's always been a bummer leaving him behind like this, especially in such a place. Since he really has no other purpose, making him a follower would be awesome. Let's stitch his face onto a DS2 body and get him in the fight! He should be either Melee-only or Melee-and-Combat-Magic.

@Iryan if those flicks work... and if you could also maybe explain to me how to use them, I wouldn't mind editing certain dialogues along the way to register race.

The problem was looked at about 2 or 3 years ago but it's not obvious whether its hard coded or just requires a lot of gui work to extend the number of slots displayed.

Here's a variation of the test world I posted before that has a gender conversation check, a race conversation check and a combined race and gender conversation check. Gender only applies to the humans and elves of course.
http://www.siegetheday.org/~iryan/files/Banter_Conversations_Test_World_02.ds2res

Since the flick function is only found in Broken World, I had to extract it and pack it up in a different file so that the conversation flick will work in DS2 v2.2. I also tried making it work with the Utraean race and bizarrely it works in DS2 v2.2 but not in Broken World.

You don't really need to know how the flick works, just edit the conversations. What may be a good idea is to add several new banters using the race/gender checks rather than editing existing banters? There would be a few areas where there's no banters nearby, that they could be added. I'll leave it to you.

This DC thing has happened before, I noticed after coming back over the bridge after playing around with that mimic chest that the DC had disappeared, can this fixed bridge or mimic somehow be causing this to happen.?

Saving and reloading the game and the DC is back in place again. :?

Get it? I combined the word Issues with Inn. I'm so very clever.
However, 6 pages of characters would've been enough for me to finish out LOA while recruiting everyone to be found along the way. My capped out at aroun 2.9, that is, there are three pages but oddly the last slot is empty, yet still when I try to disband anyone it claims that the Inn is full.
I'm going to assume it wouldn't be as simple as 'raising the cap' somewhere in the code, and as such I'm not exactly sure how to continue, as the entire point of this playthrough was to recruit, properly equip, assign skills, and get to know every individual party member, and keeping them even if that is sort of a novelty thing to do, while playing across the entire saga. That is, from Dungeon Siege, Legends of Aranna, their expansions, then Dungeon Siege II and Broken World on one character.
Basically resulting in the greatest hero Aranna has ever seen, heheheh...

I hope this issue can be looked into again, because my current playthrough is probably going to be on hold for a while until it is.

Can anyone give me an explanation of why I'm being offered level 82 armour when I'm only a level 6 character, this happens with weapons and jewellery as well. :?

In DS2 and Broken World, everything is linked together by the world difficulties. You can't access veteran mode until you've beaten mercenary mode and can't access elite until you've beaten veteran mode. In addition if you have Broken World, you must beat both DS2 and Broken World in that order before you can access the next difficulty level.

So for the shops there's code called world_specific = mercenary, veteran or elite; which ensures that those items will only be offered in the appropriate difficulty level. This is pcontent level of 3-36 for mercenary, 3-65 for veteran and 3-86 for elite. Though I believe there are some items offered at random pcontent levels as they have no pcontent level specified.

The difficulty using the Legendary Mod is that there's no way of knowing what level the player's party will be when they play a particular map. It could be a brand new party like yours, beginning at level 0 or 3 (depending on what map it is).

However it could quite easily be an experienced party that has played through DS2, Broken World or any of the Legendary Mod Maps. Since they're playing the map for the first time, they still have to play through mercenary mode first, even if its DS2 where the difficulty modes for the maps should work and veteran and elite modes can be unlocked. Imagine the frustration for these players if they could only purchase mercenary level gear from the shops. They wouldn't be very happy.

It would be great if the shops could be tweaked to use the MLA mod like monsters, chests, loot, etc. I don't even know if that's possible, maybe KillerGremal could elaborate.

A note concerning banters, to make them safer against being interrupted by nearby monsters something like this at the beginning may be useful:

	<<delay_banter>>
	if WhenEnemiesWithinDistance( pm_xyz, 18.0 )		// OR: WhenAttackableEnemyWithinDistance
	{
		sleep, duration 3.0;
		goto delay_banter;
	}