Hotfix Mod / Aranna Legacy Mod

I obtained a new system_detail.gas from the link you posted. Seems to have fixed my problems.

I realize I had lost memory of how things were supposed to look in-game, because I was playing with plain textured water (old Fixed Function Pipeline style) and I did not notice it.

With the new system_detail.gas in place, the water is rendered with shaders, and the Orthrac monster is invisible no more.
This is the graphics I had in my last playthrough years ago, I am sure.

[edit]
Sometimes I forget the good manners: THANK YOU!
[/edit]

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I also realize that my glitched setup was affecting the rendering of the Ice Elemental.
Now that all is "okay" its body is rendered opaque and colored in light-blue.
It is indeed as I remember it from years ago, but in hindsight I say that it looked better before, when it appeared like a true mass of clean ice thick no more than a foot: it was translucent.

(You can see for yourself easily: use an old system_detail.gas that does not recognize your card, then look at the Ice Elemental preview in your Pet page inside the Journal)

Could you concoct a little mod just to make the Ice Elemental translucent as it should be?

very cool mod!

I had an earlier question about tremor but I figured it out

I finally had the patience to finish this game, all up to Zaramoth Reborn on Elite.

Sharing my final party, just for lulz:)
http://i.imgur.com/Q6kMTEF.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/YuQCCmy.png
http://i.imgur.com/WqzpHca.png

Took me 90 hours and 40k killed monsters.

http://i.imgur.com/gVRMJWZ.png

This is also a goodbye, since I finally completed the game with what I perceive as perfect party, I won't be playing DS2 anymore.

Final thoughts:

1. Rending aura: Wasting did 10k damage (and most elite mobs on late game have 20-30k hp at best) which was ridiculously strong. I pretty much kept this char as a wasting/warcry bot and provoke user.
2. Elite Celeb'hel, the big Familiar boss in Solanum and Zaramoth Reborn all have ridiculous damage output which pretty much oneshots everything that isn't my Finala. Actually, Celeb'Hel's "teleport pulse" oneshots even my Finala to death, and you can see her resists here: http://i.imgur.com/yyZhM8s.png. With 1000 armor and 3500 HP... could use some tweaking. I guess it's a bug.
3. Elite Zaramoth Reborn glitches and gets stuck trying to attack but not attacking.
4. Archers are useless
5. Throwers are super strong for like 60% of the game, then become surpassed by mages and pretty much NEED flurry+rapid strike to match the dps of plasma globes + dehydrate, lel. Still funny, but objectively weaker than mages.
6. All melee damage dealing is useless compared to ranged, could use further tweaking (low damage, wastes time to run up to the monster). Melee chars are just good for War cry, provoke and of course wasting. Everything else - just get a thrower or combat mage.
7. There is zero need for nature magic, just get the rending aura: magician for your combat mage and he'll buff and heal if you need.
8. Mod is great fun anyway, and DS2 is quite a good game, I probably spend something around 300-400 hours total on this game, which is amazing. Well done, GPG! Shame DS3 sucks.

Cheers and thanks for all the good time, KG!

@cracki: Thanks for your feedback with the screen-shots!

 
==>1) Related to the custom Rending Auras generally there is a significant flaw concerning the skill influences in the formulas as used in v2.3/BW.
It may be that in this context I already added a balance fix for Wasting during the work on the next mod release.

==>2) About Celeb'hel in elite mode I can't say anything right now, but I can check it and provide a balance fix if needed.

==>3) I had to check this first too...

==>4) It's a known subject actually. Indeed it may happen that on a higher level they can't compete with the damage output of mages. There are different reasons for this, but archers are still a quite attractive choice specially for normal and veteran mode.

==>5) See answer 4) too partially. Basically a melee hero is safer (specially at lower level), but not automaically faster.

==>6) As pointed, magic damage is probably too high on higher level, specially when comparing it number by number with ranged or melee. However it's an interesting fact that throwers have no own skill in their typical skill branch to proportionally boost their damage (like 'incrasing damage by xy%').

==>7) It may be that focusing on nature magic alone is not that attractive on longer term, and possibly not that wise neither.
Practially ... ice-resitant monsters may be one reason why a mage want to master some other magic classes too.
In theory, there is some interesting exp-curve related behaviour: if someone is practising nature and combat magic equally (and 'Magician' helps here) then at hero level 68 for example, both nature and combat magic level are at/over level 60 already. This difference of 7-8 levels are quite steady above hero level 30 actually (with a 70:30 share it 4 and 11 levels), and while this difference is quite significant in normal mode, in elite mode this difference will matter much less.

==>8) Nice to hear you still have fun playing DS2.
If 'Chris Taylor' ever will write his memoirs I guess I will try to get an issue just to learn what were the reasons why they dropped DS2. :o

Thanks for the great mod.
I have a question about spells translation. Example on screenshot
"experium in parium..." "sapientiae..." this rows confuse me. Is this works as intended?
http://imagizer.imageshack.us/a/img911/3153/9pYfzn.png

@Ryhtme: Thanks for your interest, and indeed these pseudo-latin
terms are not translated (like some of the official latin phrases too).

However you can find a more detail explanation on the web:
http://ds2.bplaced.net/mods/a-z.php#rending_aura

Many thanks for quick answer.
I was once before on that linked page, but kinda lasy for reading all that texts.
But now i see what i'am looking for. Thanks again!

Most probably there will be a new release in about 2-3 weeks.

Besides of some fundamental tests, I'm stuck a bit with a technical matter I couldn't solve yet, unfortunastely torpedoing several aspects of new improvement... :o

Hi and thanks for the great aranna legacy mod! I've been replaying dungeon siege 2 yearly for many years because of this amazingly fun mod, and it's great to see you might release more updates!

Just one thing i'd like to ask if you ever work on this again, would it be possible to increase the number of (de)buffs on friends/enemies to be unlimited (except weapon effects of course)? That's basically my only frustration at the game now, that i can't use all positive buffs on my guys and that i have to carefully select what abilities i use or they will get removed by the next power/spell.

Thanks again for all your great work, it's much appreciated!

ps: i'm also thinking of finding a copy of dungeon siege 1 somewhere so i could try the legendary mod you're also working on. However i just cant see myself playing dungeon siege without aranna legacy mod, it's just so much better, soooooooooo, if i bought dungeon siege 1 and installed it in dungeon siege 2 with the legendary mod, could i also install the aranna legacy mod that i need to have a good time?

Umm weird, do comments need to be accepted before being displayed on this site? I guess when I get home this week-end I'll make a proper account if so.

Anyway, in case these 2 comments make it through, now i remember the other annoying thing, it is the randomness of crafting components availability. It would be very nice if enchanting shops always had a couple of each level appropriate component so no need to reload a couple times each time i wanna try enchanting something.

@Grod: Thanks fpr your ibterest, however isn't specialization (vs. Can-Do-Everything), the 'Need to choose' and also item randomness (incl. reagents) an essential part of DS2?

The same way as you can't buy a good weapon diectly in the shop, the same way you can't buy a good reagent (instantly) - actually tunings in the new/planned mod release go even further since the really good reagent usually drop only in the wilderness (similar to rare or unique items) as reward to thos who have the luck to find it.
But if you want to reload the game/session over and over again for a faster shop refresh or simply accept the (bad/good) luck you have had so far, that's of course your decision. Remind maybe that some items you never can find anywhere (as drop or in shops) if your hero level is too low.

 
Concering the idea of having all buffs...
...technicall it would be easier to give the correspoinging buff bonus automatically to the player (in visual manner or internally accounted, level depending perhaps) and remove the buffs generally from the game then.
This also would be a 'good' way to avoid complaints that the spellbook is too small or that mages would now buff-casting all the time resp. that the buff duration is too short ('solvable' though via an almost infinite buff duration which however is once again some kind of permanent race/hero bonus).

Like many other RPG games with hero races, skill classes, etc. or generally specific and versatile game content (vs. unified/reduced) this game too wants you to make desicions - so you can enjoy the benefits in exchance of 'suffering' the drawbacks other races/classes/.../desicions probably didn't have with lower/other benefits however.
Besides of this, already now you can have one extra buff - which is probaly not rebalanced as it should be.

There is finally a new mod release of the Hotfix mod resp. Aranna Legacy mod (links on top).

 
Updates:

• As long as a party member is dead (with a tombstone, so without equipment and pleasant weapon/spell selection) this actor can't gain exp temporarily (in particular when you respawn and try to run back to your body/tombstone).


• Several active powers slightly revised. In particuar, the 'Gravity Stone' power will do now some arbitrary (gravity) damage depending on the monster size (not described). Also the 'Taunt' power will be a bit more effective on a monster in a small group than on a monsters in larger group.


• Addon only: Skill 'Stone Affinity' will profit now from the 'Fortitude' skill.


• Several reagents revised and partially original values restored. Additionally size-variants of one and the same reagent type may drop now.


• Very hasty user inputs won't be interrupted anymore by a delay, so you can maintain the pace/movement, but it will be considered bow as extra-ordinary stress with a corresponding reduction of life points. However you will see a notification in these generally (rare) situations.


• Attack animation tuned for crossbows when an intial turn towards the target is needed (to sync aiming direction and launch direction of the projectile), also crossbow using female actors won't aim downwards anymore when attacking a target above them (and vice-versa).


• Ranged resistance bonuses partially reduced by 0-3% to accord some better with the existing melee resistance bonuses.


• Several mainly unique items partially revised and rebalanced. In this context also a unique Bone Spear (for character level ~50) can be found now.


• Some parts of the Areaboral armor won't sticking into hero's body anymore.


• Soul Lance spell effect tuned to look some better.


• Snowbrook Castle region enhanced a bit (may depend on quest progress), also access onto the walls is partially possible now.


• Rebels participating the Kalrathia rebellion revised to look more individual and to have a better chance to survive the battle. Palms may grow too now if the water supply has been restored, and supposed your detail slider (see game options) is on 100% the real-time rendered video of the rebelllion start will be launched (however this takes 2-3 seconds to load the entire scenary).


• Safety check of the mod can be shrinked now by adding 'mod_check_short = true' (without quotes) in your DungeonSiege2.ini file (addon: DungeonSiege2BrokenWorld.ini).


• 'book_font_height' option added to define how many pixels to reduce the line height in several text areas of the GUI (mainly in the lorebook/handbook). For example add 'book_font_height = 2' in your DungeonSiege2.ini file to move text rows closer together to each other in order to lower the risk that text doesn't fit into the intended area.


• 'book_text_unbreak' option added for your DungeonSiege2.ini file (addon: DungeonSiege2BrokenWorld.ini) to remove double line breaks in text areas. The default of this option is false, if needed set it true to have more space left to show text.


• Flick support improved and several other minor technical tunings.

Backwards-compatibility should be given though, nonetheless please make manual backups of your savegames before installing/using this release.
 

Thank you for the update to the mods. I will give them a look for sure

Thank you for continuing your work on this mod. I enjoyed playing it a lot back in the time. Did you consider making most or all properties of unique items to scale with character levels? I can't remember if such feature is in the mod or not, but it's something I wish more hack'n'slash games had.

I'm glad to see work on this continue, I started to think you'd never get around to this mod again. While I don't understand all the changes, they all look to be generally good.
One change in particular that I like is the diversity/survivability added to the Snowbrook Haven soldiers. I always thought it to be kind of lame that they all die the moment you see them in the base game. Surely they can't be that incompetent..
I like when the nobodies survive! Although it also makes recruiting Soldier Kiernan even more special after all the soldiers, who were still alive, turn into rampaging munsters. Always thought it strange that he just kinda... chills there in the base game, after that whole event. xD
You should add a late-game recruit-able NPC of your favorite character (of yours) eventually in one of these updates so we can run around and he'll be like "You see all these sweet features? Yep. All me."

I'm not sure where to post this, but I've never encountered this before and it only happened after I updated to the newest version of Aranna Legacy that you released recently, and that update is the only thing I've changed in my resources.
I should also make a note that I was, at the time, playing the Legendary Mod in Legends of Aranna (Not the newest update)

So me, Jondar and Lyssa were busting through the crypt of the lost, not terribly far from the lost queen, when we had an unfortunate encounter with dust spiders, Mucosa's and the like.. Fairly quickly, Raymus and Jondar were knocked out, at almost the same time. Yet something... strange happened. Their portraits were completely covered in the red overlay (as in, you could even see the box around their portrait) and Raymus was almost immediately conscious, and fighting again. After the duel was over I noticed that Jondar was still unconscious, but his health was not recovering in the slightest, and the red overlay was still over both of their portraits, Lyssa was fine however.

I saved and quit, then reloaded. Still there, Jondar still unconscious.
I saved and quit and rebooted the game and reloaded. Still there, Jondar still unconscious.

The only way I fixed it was by disbanding Lyssa and leaving Jondar unattended and unconscious in Arhok (Poor boy, lmao) and teleporting into the caves of the lost and getting killed. This forced our characters to reset as dead, and when I respawned at Arhok everything was fine, but I did have to stampede through to retrieve our corpses. Lyssa was not amused by this.

So I'm not sure if it's the fault of Aranna Legacy that this glitch happened, and I haven't had it happen since, but I figure it's major enough to make note of since I've never encountered this in the base game.
The only other notable mod I'm running besides the Legendary Mod/MLA is Ancient Gifts-beta-1C

Love, Love, LOVE, "LOVE" the shoulder plates added on Leather Armor, by the way!!

Raymus are you using the version of Ancient Gifts that is compatible with Aranna Legacy? Also what version of DS1_Map_Legends_of_Aranna_Beta and DS1_Mod_Logic_Beta are you running?

I'm using the right version of Ancient Gifts for Aranna Legacy.
As for Legends of Aranna and Mod Logic, I'm still using v30 (I haven't updated since using the installer the first time, hah) but I'm going to update to v32 before I play next.
That said, I noticed I never encountered this in Ehb. Of course, I realize that LOA and KOE probably are not always on the same level in terms of how bug free they are. And it's possible that it's a very specific glitch that I unknowingly made happen in that particular fight.
Still, I figured since I encountered the bug only after updating Aranna Legacy, that it would be linked to that. I haven't encountered it since, even though I attempted to recreate the scenario a few times.

@KillerGremal
Also is the random "Raymus got smacked in the face -1billion health at the worst possible time (Reason: Increased attack speed)" a new feature of Aranna Legacy? I think something like that should be linked to a skill like Alacrity rather than randomly shocking 'all' melee combatants. That, or the frequency at which it happens is just a bit high. Still, I like it. Forces me to be extra cautious.

Also what on earth are those pots that the Blacksmith sells? I still cannot figure out what they do.

Raymus, The Pots are place markers best for use in the Pit of Despair. You just drop them and they leave a mark on the map for a period of time.

@Raymus: The increased attack speed feature will be removed again (soon).
The current release took quite long (20 months!?) and I don't even know when exactly I have added - I actually thought it would be more elaborated without rechecking it. Right now however it's too tricky to handle and seems to have some flaws too.

Hi KillerGremal,

I've been playing DS2BW with Aranna Legacy and Adepts for almost 90 hours for now.
Great mod indeed.
First thing I read and like about your mod, is how you modify Brilliance into Mana Regeneration instead of
Max Mana. Those Mages at early level really need Mana a lot.

However, I do have some questions regarding your mod, and if you don't mind, can you please elaborate? Some of these questions may not related directly, but perhaps you can give some insights.

1. I've been using Rending Aura Magician and Sharpshooter. With 65-ish Class Level in their respective classes, Magician gives 7% Death Resistance and around 25% Magic Damage, and Sharpshooter gives 35% Far Shot, 8% Critical Chance and 8% Ranged Damage.
I've read czacki's post about Magician gives 180% Magic Damage and Sharpshooter allows thrower to attack 40m away and 80% Critical Chance in page 20 of this thread, and I must say I wonder if these are possible?
Perhaps you can tell what are the max stats given by Magician and Sharpshooter calculated by Class Level only?

2. Is Skill of Omniscience only valid for char level 7-70?

3. Difficulty parameter in .ini file, can you please elaborate if I filled in 500 as the value, what does this '500' mean against the monsters? Multiplier in health or damage?

4. I went to find Drovan in Veteran as Combat and Nature Mage, not Melee and Combat Mage. But when he's buffed, he got Wrath of Ice, which I remembered that this buff is for Melee/Ranged only.
Is Drovan should be Melee/Combat class instead of Nature/Combat class?

5. How does Aether Blast work now against multiple summons? For example, if I had 6 Mages with 2 summoned creatures each that currently have 3500 health out of 4000 health. If these summoned creatures were grouped together against a boss, so how much damage will be given? 3500 health x 12 creatures x multiplier power of Aether Blast?

6. What does Golden Chalice do?

7. Is there any limit of Buff limits in .ini file? I've set it to 5 to test it out but my Mages only get 3 buffs each, Health Steal Buff, Max Health Buff and Magic Damage Buff, although I've set Dodge Buff
and Resistance Buff on another Mage.

8. Does Quickened Casting really give you faster casting time of spell?

Also, when I used Aranna Legacy only (the latest version of 3s), I had a stopper when reporting to Lord Kaltharia after getting fourth fragment of the shield. I was supposed to talk to Kynos to get the crystal to open the path in the Kaltharia's fountain, but the Lord still has golden mark question above its head.
So I've turned Aranna Legacy off and I can pass this quest beautifully, only to turn of Aranna Legacy on later.
When I got this issue, I'm using Windows 7 64bit, Aranna Legacy 3s mod, DS2BW All Saves, and in Merc Difficulty.
In Veteran Difficulty, I'm using Aranna and Adept, and I can complete this quest without any issue
(though there is other issue related to Adept).

I also hope the increased attack feature which reduces your health is removed, as it took around 20%-30% of health of the attacker.

Thank you in advance and sorry for my bad English.

Cheers.

@DurenChibi: Thanks for your extended feedback!

 
==>1
May be it was a mod error, probably obsolete meanwhile - page 20 of this thread is from 2009 !(?)

Basically however you will achieve a higher bonus if the difference between the two classes is smaller and the more skill points you invest in the associated skills.

 
==>2
Expect it to be so (as the ReadMe file states it).
In 'worst' case it goes until level 100 since this is the upper limit for most level related calculations.

 
==>3
It's split on damage (much more) and a bit on health too (some more).

 
==>4
Indeed, Drovan's main skill should be melee, secondary skill combat or nature magic.
I have to recheck why this is not the case.

 
==>5
When you browse through the ReadMe, you will see it's not that unbalanced as it may look like.
So if a mage has 2 summons instead of the 1, the total damage this power may do is 50-60% higher, possibly covering an area that is almost 2x bigger (radial around each summon).

With several summons it's a remarkable power when a mage faces numerous enemies within a larger area.
Of course you can use this power against 1 single boss, however the areal benefit this (AoE) power can achieve is widely lost then.
Note perhaps that many bosses have strong power resistances, so there maybe better options to invest skill points if you want a boss-killing-oriented mage.

 
==>6
See: http://ds2.bplaced.net/mods/a-z.php#golden_chalice

 
==>7
Still 3, more would be possible but unbalanced and with some game design bottle-necks with spell-books and the party AI (trying to keep the buff casting 'occupation' low by trend) is not really tuned for it.
Theoretically and balancing-wise many 'general' buffs e.g. for more health or defense (incl. dodging, more resistance) are not much different from reducing the difficulty - as unromantic this may appear.

 
==>8
The influence of attack speed bonuses never will be shown on weapon or spell descriptions, but directly applied when attacking/casting.
I have no indication that his is not the case.

 
==>Crystal to open the path in the Kaltharia's fountain
This quest has been revised in bigger scope. So what is the Lord saying? Or is it just a orange question mark without a response?

Hi KillerGremal,

Thanks for your response!

Regarding Rending Aura Magician and Sharpshooter, I was wondering which one between Mages and Throwers will be stronger in terms of damage dealing and survival ability.
I'm going to stick with Mages for a moment.

Regarding Skill of Omniscience, I was reorganizing my party with all Mages, in which I'd recruited Celeb'Hel, Drovan and Nora, all as Nature/Combat class. Since the hero's level was 75, all of them were leveled up to 73 at least.

Regarding Drovan, I prefer to leave him be as Nature/Combat class

Regarding Aether Blast, I forgot about the fact that bosses too have power resistance.
Aether Blast itself may not be as powerful as its description.

Regarding Golden Chalice, I'm sorry it's my bad, though I've read about the information on that page several times.

Regarding number of buffs, I supposed I had to choose what's best and most useful for most of my party members then.

Regarding casting speed, I see, I don't think I have any choice except to stare at the monitor and see if it's useful or not to invest enough points in Quickened Casting.

Regarding Lord Kaltharia's quest, every time I report back to him, he always says:
"You have returned."
The conversation continues normally when he told that he had Azunite Blood inside him too, and he gave his will to the hero to continue the legacy (or more like it, I didn't remember the detail of the conversation).
After the conversation ended, the orange question mark still appears on his head.
When I right clicked on him, the conversation begins again from "You have returned".

However, when I reported this quest in Veteran while using Adepts mod and Adepts Aranna Legacy logic, I was able to complete this quest. The orange question mark disappeared, and he died, then I had to confront Kynos regarding the crystal.

Though I had another stopper while using Adepts in Veteran, at the part when we had to kill Mordens in Kaltharia.
The counter of remaining Mordens should had appeared when first Morden was killed. But instead of appearing, a notification appeared and said that I had completed the quest and was asked to report to Tel-guy, the other guy that led the rebellion.
Tel-guy didn't respond, nothing popped up, because the Mordens were still in the city. Even though all the Mordens were killed, Tel-guy still didn't respond.
I had to remove Adepts mod from my DS2BW Resources folder and I was able to continue normally with counter of remaining Mordens appeared and updated as I killed the Mordens.

Also, is there a suitable thread about Monster Level Adjustment? I have a trouble.
Using Windows 7 64 bit, Aranna Legacy Alpha 3s, Adepts 1x and Adepts Aranna Legacy Beta1, along with Erthos MLA 5s, when I first arrived at Utraean in Elddim City, the monsters' level near the city were adjusted to 60.
I have level 75 hero, 75 Finala, 74 Celeb'hel, 74 Drovan, 74 Nora, 75 Taar, but the monsters' level were 60
When I tested this MLA on DS2 Elite, the Haku monster outside of Dryad Outpost were adjusted to level 60.
I thought Drovan and Nora were the problem's source since they're supposed to be NPC, so I replaced them with Amren and Deru, and the monsters' level, both in Utraean and outside of Dryad Outpost were still level 60

I have another save with other party members before I started using Adepts: 51 hero, 51 Finala, 51 Taar, 50 Amren, 50 Deru, 50 Vix, and the monsters' level were adjusted to 47, both in Utraean and Dryad Outpost.

I don't know the cause of this problem, so I start another hero with Adepts and Aranna Legacy installed from beginning and choose CatHuman race to continue.

Thanks in advance!

Hello, first of all thanks for the awesome mod, I'm surprised to see Dungeon Siege being supported by fans for such a long time now.

I've got a question about the issue with attack speed, which removes health for seemingly no reason all of the time, making playing a new melee character almost impossible, because it dies all the time while fighting even low level krugs (on maps from DS1 using Legendary Mod).

If it's going to be fixed on a later date, is there a way to download older version of the mod which doesn't have this attack speed retaliation thing?

I will try to look at the matter this Friday or so, hopefully the release will be ready before Easter.

If somebody has experienced other problems with the Kalrathia Rebellion (or is able to reckeck it), please post it.
On one hand it's an interesting combat quest that partially needs a revision (to cover some rare cases), on the other hand it's hardly possible to test all 'quest entry points' myself, specially not in v2.2 and v2.3/addon as well.

Easter Release, yay!

Yeah, retaliation thingy is annoying very much, I hope it is fixed before easter
Otherwisely - this mod is awesome! Played DS2 so many times, that mod lets me get a great experience again!

On the version Alpha3s of Aranna Legacy many monsters on my PC are colored in permanent colours, like red, blue, green, and doesn't have any textures. On the previous version Alpha3q everithing was fine.

Edit: Just figured out that this issue may, or may not happen when starting new game, like random.

Hi Killergremal,

I was wondering about those nice Harpies Summon you made.
As I know (by using those summons in game):
1. Harpy 1 uses mini Spear and shield as melee attacker
2. Harpy 2 uses mini dagger and shield as ranged attacker
3. Harpy 3 uses spear without shield as melee attacker?
4. Harpy 4, what does it use and what role is it?

Since I can't use Adepts summon anymore while playing Legendary Mod Maps, I've been trying to take a look at summons replacements, in which, Harpy fits (standard summons of DS2 don't suite my taste).

Question:
Is there any way to increase their attack speed?
Is there any way to make them use, say, using two swords or daggers so they can attack faster?
Is there any way to increase their movement speed?

Cheers.