Hotfix Mod / Aranna Legacy Mod

KillerGremal,

I have been trying your Hotfix Mod since version 4i.
Then the 4j, the 4k, and now the 4l.

Apparently they do not like my DS2 -- they all crash after some minutes of play, even if I simply walk around town (Act II -- Veteran diff).

So far version 4i lasted the most. Last crash with it was past 30 minutes into the game.

I use only one other mod, the "Ring Removal".
My vanilla DS2 is patched to version 2.2
It does never crash without your mod.

I am not sure what kind of extra info I can give you to help pin down the problem.
I exceed by far the recommended system requirements for DS2.
Maybe my CPU is of interest, being a dual core (Intel Core 2 Duo 3.0 GHz).
The operating system is Windows XP pro (I use it for games).

Would you look into it, please?
I can send you my crashy savegame if you need -- PM me an e-mail address to send to.

Thanks.

--------------------[ edit ]--------------------

I forgot:
I can not find any "banter" button or other device anywhere around Telinu in Eirulan.
Where is it, precisely?
But I see the training dummies you added (in otehr towns too), proof that your changes to the map are being applied.
Just where is the button?

Had one drop a long time ago and could not sell it so I deleted the "can_sell = false;" from template. Wanted to test it when I got back to the original quest item, and forgot I had it running in the background. Now my characters are level 130 and the ring drops quite often. Put the "can_sell = false;" back in and had 30 rings from one run that could not be sold.

@the.gray.fox: I'm sorry to hear that. On one hand mod has been debugged with the toolkit. On the other hand after 8 weeks and hundreds of downloads (Beta 4i/j has been released last December) i would expect more complaints if something really is broken.
Like this I just don't know where to start looking for eventual errors.
Well, maybe it's really savegame related, a closer look would be interesting...

@PhoeniX: It's a bit strange, in the Hotfix and Aranna Legacy mod this quest ring is enchantable (and can_sell shouldn't have an impact on enchantable items).

Usually it can't be magical/rare because it won't drop from monster (at least, as long as they are below level 150), also shops should not offer this ring.

@the.gray.fox: Thanks for your savegame. I've played 4x 10-20 minutes, with DS2Mod and with the retail version v2.2, and no other mods were active.
In all these sessions I had no crashes with your party. Loading, playing, and saving seems to work well.
Only after one session a memory warning appeared after exiting with Alt+F4 (it was bit irritating indeed, but I tend to ascribe this to my old Windows installation since my PC was on >24h).

 
However I've used this opportunity to make a screen shot to show where this party conversation button behind the blacksmith at Eirulan exactly is.
You also can see there the sole strange thing i've noticed while playing with your savegame: the main hero and Taar both have an item equipped (boots resp. helmet) where the requirements were higher than the character stats.

Usually it's not posible to equip items if an actor doesn't meet the requirements...
So if you eventually have other mods installed or made any modifications yourself then ensure they are ok. Not only skrit files, also simple typo errors in *.gas files can cause serious problems.

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Hello KillerGremal.

I have some interesting things to tell.
so please read everything carefully.

But before that: thank you for having looked into the matter.

To be honest I do not use DS2Mod (is it not for debug purpose only?)
I use Elys All Saves to load my savegame with your hotfix.

Anyway I sort of expected you would not find anything out of ordinary.
These kind of problems are never easy to track down.
And it may well be that your mod is fine, but just happens to contribute into sparking whatever thing is leading to my crashes.

All I can say is that without your mod I do not crash.
Does not help any, I know :-/

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Let us change subject: My items.

For sake of clarity, anybody here can be entitled to his own opinion about what I will say.
I will respect that.

And just for the record: I do not smoke. I do not drink. I do not eat fungi. I do not see ghosts. I am no crazy man. I am no kid (though I will not reveal my age).

And I do not make use of mods.
Except the innocent Ring Removal (got from your website, by the way).
I do not make _my_ mods either, because I have given up modding this game.
I _would_ only use your hotfix mod... if my DS2 would not crash with it.

With all this said:

So you have noticed my main character boots and the helmet on Taar.
I did notice them too, kind of recently.
Whatever happened to them items, it did outside of your hotfix mod -- rest assured.
The savegame I gave you was a backup made _before_ loading your hotfix for the first time.

Let me go straight to the point:
When I first acquired those items, I _could_ equip them.
In fact they are still equipped, mind you.
How could I have done it without using mods, otherwise?

It so happens that I remember very well where those items are from.
After beating Valdis, I was rich and annoyed, with pets to feed, money to burn, and people to equip with better gear anyway.
As the Magic Find reagents were quick to find in the stores, I crafted the rings you can see inside the stash by the teleporter.
I equipped those rings on my main char, being she ever the strongest, then I have made (literally) _dozens_ of "runs" high atop zaramoth horn.
Those high level monsters would vomit rare and set items at a rate that made me feel like I was cheating.
Add to it the Thief, often showing up and getting beaten for more rare items...
And of course I would not miss to find the godly 2 or 3 items of the Run Of The Day.
Those duke boots are example.

I really made many runs. They were addictive, with all the goodness dropping
And that is when I noticed that my main character was racking up levels.
All other characters, except Taar, were being left behind. And I did not like this very much.
You see, while "running" I would switch party members frequently, so I could bring them all roughly at the same level.
Until I got annoyed with it, for my main char and Taar would inevitably keep growing, leaving everyone else but pets behind.

So yes, I am saying that the items are fine.
Saying that no mod has ever changed them.
Rather my _characters_ are the ones who have changed.

At some point they have lost skill levels. And that is how they have "dropped" below the stats required to wear those items.
You do not believe me, I bet

I invite you to count up the allocated skill points on my main character.
She has been in the active party for the whole game (obviously), and so she has earned every bonus skill point from the quests completed.
Please, do a careful check. You will conclude that I possess _more_ skill points than I should (given my current skill level).
And the same goes for Taar.

It could not possibly be unless my characters really got de-leveled at some point.
You will agree.

Unfortunately I can not tell _when_ that happened.
I have not paid close attention at their stats for some time, because they were geared up so good (from the Magic Find runs).
Eventually I noticed it... but it was too late to recover an old savegame to go back to Act III Regular -- where I was higher level than now.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
An old post from some DS2 related forum comes to my mind.
There was a person complaining that his characters got ruined by the game. He was asking for a patch.
A bit more precisely he was saying that "this game ruins your party when you reach level 50". Or similar words.

He would not add more details.
There were no followup posts.
There was no proof to support his claim.
There was no counter argument to demonstrate he was wrong.
The thing just died there.

So I did not give it much credit.
Would you imagine he was not completely wrong? Of course not.

But now I think he was (partially) right.
He must have witnessed something weird happening to his characters.
But he failed to explain the details of it.

Now I got my savegame. And indeed something weird has happened to _my_ characters.
It is no lone post on the internet, claiming something vague.
And of all the coincidences, the 2 ruined characters are not far beyond level 50.
And the 2 ruined characters are the 2 most "played out" characters in the party (another coincidence?)

I ignore what may have happened. But something has happened.
And no mod is at fault (unless Ring Removal does more than its name implies).

Are you interested in investigating?
This could be a prized addition to your hotfix.

My regards.

Best summon spell in the game = Summon Ghostly Spirit.

@PhoeniX: ...some nice 'fishes' you have caught, inclusive a Ganth! :catch:
And you even get the real/swimming fishes to move on land (like this little Shrack fish, 2nd last picture).

Hm, maybe the scope of this spell is too extended... :oops:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uKrv4MS9SM

@the.gray.fox: Some questions for you since I have no problems with Aranna Legacy. Do you play with v2.2 or 2.3 with the Hotfix mod? Were your characters created with version 2.0, 2.1, 2.2 or 2.3? Know there were problems addressed in other forums with characters created with the earlier patches.

Cool to see KillerGremal's mods still alive and kicking. Was looking to install DS2 and perhaps DS1 onto my new machine shortly.

@KillerGremal,
I see in your mod you have "fixed" the Text-Display for DualWield damage to better reflect the actual damage that the game engine generates... have you considered actually FIXING the damage that the game engine generates?

I looked at this a year or 2 ago now. And what I found after putting in a lot of debugging messages was bothersome.
When you wield a second weapon (dual wield), the game already recalculates your MIN/MAX damage and adds in all the bonuses for BOTH weapons... then the combat.skrit code (rules.skrit) increases it AGAIN.

// Balderstrom
//					if ( bForAttack$ )
//					{
//						outRange$.min = (outRange$.min + Hand2$.Go.GetAttack().GetDamageMin()) / 2;
//						outRange$.max = (outRange$.max + Hand2$.Go.GetAttack().GetDamageMax()) / 2;
//						outRange$.max = Math.MaxFloat( outRange$.min, outRange$.max );
//					}

So effectively it is giving you: ( WEAPON1+WEAPON2+(WEAPON2+All Bonuses Again) / 2
And then it adds in your DualWield skill percentage bonus...

What I did above, was just comment that code right out. And at the end of the DualWield if/check.

					outRange$.min = adjusted_damage_min$ * 0.5;
					outRange$.max = adjusted_damage_max$ * 0.5;
					outRange$.max = Math.MaxFloat( outRange$.min, outRange$.max );

This came about, when I noticed very odd damage values depending on what weapon was wielded in the second hand... as if you wield something there with a nice big +Damage bonus.

If I recall correctly, the way GPG coded this in the backend, STR bonus was counted 3 times. Damage Bonus from MainHand counted once, and Damage Bonus from SecondHand counted twice, all other equipment that increased damage was counted three times --- which made for some very odd numbers. You would actually do even more damage if you wielded the most powerful weapon in your offhand :P

 
A general problem is that DS2 doesn't relay/evaluate if you hit an enemy with your left or with your right weapon (and generally ignoring the location of weapon bonuses) - which actually performs a bit strange if you combine a weak (tutorial) dagger a with powerful melee weapon, or when it comes to account a single weapon bonus like '+20% Damage'.

Despite of the quest design, it seems possible (specially in the addon/v2.3) that members of the Lost Squadron are able to die instead of being knocked out only.
Thus it's strongly recommended to make a manual backup of your savegame when the quest is active resp. as soon as you meet the first member of the squadron.

There will be a new version of the Hotfix and the Aranna Legacy mod, maybe next weekend or so, that hopefully will contain a work-around for this matter.

They come back to life on game restart, just have to run back to the last two quickly after you reboot game.

Updates/Fixes:

• Vulnerability fixed in revised quest 'The Missing Squadron'.
• Minor updates, mainly due to file/content conflicts with other mods.
• Addon/v2.3 only: Several weapon features like 'berserk' or 'rapid attack' did not work in previous mod versions (in particular Alpha 2v and 2w). This has been fixed.

I have a problem with the arrows randomly flying from the bow without flying straight.
They miss a lot?
What should i do to solve this?

@cosmin: Well, assumed we mean the same thing...

The probability of aiming errors will continuously decrease with growing ranged level.
It should be quite improbable that you miss a small immobile target with 20 ranged levels, even if the target is far away.

Hello KillerGremal
Sory if I'm bothering you but I really need this.
When I use your Aranna Legacy Mod alpha2x with Grail Quest's mod: GQ spell v1.3, the damage of thePlasma Globes skill become 9 to 11.
Can you help me, please ?

 
Generally however, both mods don't seem to be fully compatible.

Partially they do/affect the same things (the changes in the Aranna Legacy mod are perhaps a bit more decent though) so you have to expect problems. That some stats change by 20% may bother you, but there may be more serious conflicts. Unfortunately, there is no (easy) way to solve this.

Well, I guess I just keep playing with Aranna Legacy Mod ^^
And I have other problem. When I use a bow with "rapid attack" and buff spell "arrow bane", the game crashes.
Can you do any thing with it ?

Can you tell me the differences between: chance to dodge (in Restless Gaze - helmet), chance to dodge attacks (in Evasion Aura and the bonous of Plainswalker's Journey set), chance to dodge attacks (in Rending Aura: Dragoon) and chance to dodge melee/ranged attacks ?
I have searched all the day but Mr. Google let me down.

- 'chance to dodge'
- 'chance to dodge attacks'
- 'chance to dodge melee and ranged attacks'
This means all the same. It refers to physical attacks, so melee and ranged are affected the same way.

- 'chance to dodge melee attacks'
Only helps to evade melee attacks, so for/against ranged attacks this doesn't help you.

- 'chance to dodge ranged attacks'
Only helps to evade ranged attacks, so for/against melee attacks this doesn't help you.

I have to check again how 'chance on hit' is balanced with multiple arrows. The whole balancing of that spell is rather complex, however the outer arrows in the fan should have a much lower chance/power (as it happens for shockwaves).

Besides of this, in the non-modded game there is the bug that 'rapid attacks' may re-trigger itself. In the Aranna Legacy mod there is a simple work-around to prevent this chain reaction, maybe this work-around doesn't work as it should...

But, how many arrow have you currently?
And did this bug happen with or without the GQ spell mod (just to be sure it's no mod conflict) ?
 

Now I having 20 arrow and I didn't use gq spell mod any more.
The game doesn't crash all the time, but it can crash any time.

There is currently a problem with a partially invisible spear in the Hotfix resp. Aranna Legacy mod.
It will be fixed in the next mod release. In meantime if you suffer this problem now, you may download the Utrea Postfix 0.09e as temporary work-around. Amazingly it will fix it, just don't forget to remove this postfix later again.

To mention a more annoying problem - the 'version confusion' about DS2 v2.3 becomes worse...

Perhaps people have seen that versions sometimes are indicated with `v2.3/Addon´ or `v2.3/BW´ or (in rare cases) with `v2.3/Mod´.
This is based on the controversy situation that the DS2 Addon and the DS2 Toolkit (`DS2Mod´) both use v2.3 as version number.

Now, also Steam offers a DS2 release, evidentially with version number 2.3 too: :o
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?p=21682607&highlight=2.30
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?p=21688199&highlight=2.3
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?p=21693795&highlight=2.3

But the Steam release is no toolkit and it doesn't feature the addon content, so why 2.3 as version number? :o
I just don't know. It's rather stupid and confusing...
However since the addon content isn't part of it, i would recommend to try out the first the Hotfix Mod with the Steam release despite of any version numbers indicated.

Actually this doesn't sould that good...
It's possible that rapid attack plus multiple arrows are a critcal combination generally - on one hand every additional arrow impacts the FpS rate a bit, on the other hand rapid attacks want the game to run the attacks 4x faster. This may stress CPU and code pretty much...

However when i'm able to spend some more time with/in the addon i will take a closer look on it.

Getting a weird bug playing multiplayer with the Aranna Legacy mod on 2.3/BW - companions of players other than the host are completely inert/immobile apart from auto-cast buffs when in rampage mode. They work more or less ok in mirror mode however. Weirdly, it's only the joining players, the host's companions behave themselves (and we've tried switching who hosts - it's always the client with the problem). Companions work fine without the Aranna mod.

Not a game-breaking problem just a bit odd, any ideas?

One of my characters is using petrifying weapon, and instead of giving him a 5% armor boost, it's giving him more than 50%. His armor without the buff is 228; with it, his armor jumps to 353!

Also, would it be possible to add actual percentages to "on-hit" and "when hit" items, as well as actual stats to chant buffs?

Thanks!

[Edit:] 2.3 BW with Aranna Legacy.

However if we just look at the code, for blue/cyan bonuses these chances are often about 6% +/-3%. For the more dangerous/harmful effects it's 3% only (eg. Grasping Vine, or effects with AoE) while for weaker effects it's 9% (eg. Shockwave, Fire Burst). Supposed an effect causes any damage then it usually doesn't matter if it is a 'minor', normal and 'major' effect. On set/unique items it's very probable that chances are ~2% higher.

Sadly there is a balancing issue that 'Chance on hit' sometimes are considered as 'chance per second' and sometimes really as per hit. In particular because weapons speeds are different both approaches have their pros and cons. Eventually these chances will be adjusted internally in real-time anyhow/anywhere, but haven't found any prove for this, nor have i made empirical tests to substantiate this.

Thanks - but which version you refer to? Alpha 2f or Alpha 2x?

Unfortunately tracking multiplayer bugs in v2.3/BW is quite painful. Beside of the low amount of people interested to do multiplayer tests for a game released 5 years ago, there is also the lack of multiplayer modding knowledge, and specially the lack of a toolkit to debug mods for v2.3/BW.

So i haven't much hope to find the reason for this problem but at least i will give it a try.
Since the problem seems to affect the client only...:
- What happens with the client's party in 'Wait' and 'Guard' mode?
- What happens if the client has only 1 party member switches between 'Rampage' and 'Mirror' mode?
- What happens if the client has only 1 party member and casts/uses a summoned monster?

Knowing this would help to a lot, to have at least a small chance to look at the right place.
 

Updates/Fixes:

• Offensive spells and healing spells will display now how long they take to cast (without skills/bonuses). All curses have a cast duration of 1.5s, for buffs and summon spells it's 3 seconds.
• Revised 'Overbear' skill bonuses fixed/re-added. The bonus values are some higher now than the bonuses of 'Dual Wield' skill in order to compensate partially the lack of magical bonuses on a two-handed weapon compared to two one-handed weapons.
• The 'life steal' bonus won't steal more life than the monster actually has left. The same widely applies to 'mana steal' bonuses.
• Sometimes party members suffered 'nervous twitches' after following the selected character. A work-around has been added to prevent this.
• Party AI: 'Wait' mode tuned (no hotkey assigned by default, but you may do this in the game options) so party members can act now more independently, and switching between them won't cancel new commands. Previously in 'Wait' mode non-selected party members also left their positions if your selected character began to talk to an NPC, now they will keep their positions and proceed current actions.
• Pet AI/interaction tuned: The automatic re-selection of the primary spell/attack won't happen if a curse is selected.
  The .ini option 'pet_selection_key' (see Beta 4j resp. Alpha 2u) has been fixed too, however the former option 'pet_focus_latency' is obsolete now.
• Necrolithid pet slightly revised. Instead of 1 now 4 cast animations are used (to look less monotonous), as consequence of it the casting speed resp. pet's spell is some slower now (with appropriate raise of the spell damage). The pet's curse has be rebalanced too, the maximum physical armor reduction is now 50% at pet level 100, 42% for death vulnerability, and 34% for ice vulnerability. The new attack speed reduction for monsters (added, as the curse description referred to) will increase until 26% on maximum.
• Lap Dragon's pet buffs II+III rebalanced, now 50% death/lightning resistances and 70% power recharge bonus on maximum.
• Two Rending Auras rebalanced. For 'Wasting' (melee/combat-magic) the life threshold until monsters explode is some lower now, 'Arrow Bane' (ranged/nature-magic) is now weaker when used in close combat.
• Increased gold revenue form 'Transmute' spell for dual-classed heroes with nature magic as one of their best two classes.
• V2.3/BW only: The former tuning for 'Chance on Hit' bonuses was inadequate and partially faulty too, thus revised again. Practically such a chance has to be considered now as chance per second evaluated after an successful attack. On-hit-chances of damage causing effects usually are 5-10% depending on the dangerousness of the effect, also slower weapons have now higher chances compared to faster weapons.
• V2.3/BW only: The restricted cross-over items (that would need a code from PSP) may regularly drop now in-game, however their rarity is 50% higher than for items of the same type.

 
 
If you have downloaded resources for the Utraean Peninsula DS2 then it's strongly recommended to download its new Postfix 0.09f as well, this will avoid a critical content conflict.

Hello,
I've made some mods recently when I replayed DS2. Some of them might be interesting, so just include them to the Hotfix mod if you wish.

The file can be downloaded here: http://www.sendspace.com/file/v0m6qa

I haven't played DS2 for months, but the last time I played I had Hotfix Mod, beta 4 h. When playing I tend to spend skill points to build my powers, for example I took one point brilliance (CM) to get the floating orb thingy power level 1. Then I changed my mind and visited Erasira, removed my Brilliance, but strangely the power (Orb, which requires Brilliance) didn't disappear. Is this still the case for this new version? If it is, I could get all the powers I want, when I run out of skill point to spend just visit Erasira, reassign the skill while keeping my powers intact, how's that for a cheat?

Btw, this is a nice mod, great work!