Hotfix Mod / Aranna Legacy Mod

Oh and ranger's "Silence" power definitively doesn't work against certain minibosses like Morden-Durvla Flawless Purifier. Actually, it doesn't work against creatures it would be best against.

I do not see a point in this since most caster bosses can be insta-killed by a take aim/brutal attack power.

So instakill = good and allowed but silence = imba and disallowed?

I would totally prefer to see silence working on all (maybe with half duration on the tougher bosses to promote skilling that power past level 1?)

I see no reason why it works on Arinth the mad (which is a lot harder/powerful) but doesn't work on a Morden/Durvla boss.

I still got nothing, is there a verdict on a possible way. I've been trying to get some editors to work, but I've gotten nowhere.

It's certainly possible and if I get time in the next couple of days I'll post a test map with two variations of how it's done plus a third way if you also install the Custom Pets Reloaded mod. There's another possible way also as DS2 has a hiring system that wasn't implemented in the actual game. All the templates are there but not used.

The characters created would be exactly like generated in the character creation at the start of the singleplayer game. Is that what you were after?

EDIT:

Here's a bit of a mod I threw together to demonstrate these principles; http://min.us/ms0gkCDUD

@czacki: About Silence and Take Aim / Brutal Attack, some monsters are just designed to be (very) resistant to silencing. So you are allowed to damage them but you can not stop them from damaging you - not really 'civilized' indeed.
However easiest work-around would be to move a ratio of their native power resistances from silence to physical.

There are several ways to balance multiple summons, reducing the skill/damage bonuses of 'Summon Might' probably would be a good approach (since this is the skill itself that will allow more summons).
The problem with ghost-possessed monster bosses can be solved by revising the life calculations, this seems to be required, also the native party-scaled monster health in DS2 needs to be reverted partially too.

Thanks too for reporting the buff visibility bug in Multiplayer, hopefully I can find a fix for this. :o

Actually summon damage is pretty insignificant compared to party members, even when you have 4 summons around. Nerfing it isn't necessary I think

The only problem with summons right now is the overpowered damage of Aether blast power when your spirit summon manages to possess a mini-boss with a big amount of HP.

Also, Aether blast does a little too much damage when you have 3-4 summons and manage to hit the target with all 3-4 explosions. It SHOULD be high - seeing that it takes so much points in that power to make it work (and that it's not a fire&forget type of power - you cant really control where the blasts will occur), but it's a bit too good with 3-4 summons. A slight reduction of damage when you have more than 2 summons would be good, but nothing too drastic. After all, Corrosive eruption usually tops in in "Quickly kill all monsters on the screen" department anyway and CE was never really considered too good by anyone.

Also, a bug: additional summons get lost when teleporting to town instead of teleporting with the mage (only the 1st summon stays with its master).

Also with this mod this (sad) habitude exists - a monster still may die because of this native intolerance, or it will be removed intentionally when it fails the post-teleportation check.
There isn't actually a specific 'number to survive' specified, it's pure (time-critical?) arbitrariness.

Possibly this check is too restrictive - however exp redirection and damage absorption should still work, buff-casting and summon related powers need to find all your summons (although there's only 1 hard-coded summon slot) and the power button is usually locked anyway with custom summons. Timers in the background not to mention...

I get it - too much fuss to make it work

Another bug report: In multiplayer, if you save before taking a quest reward, then press save&exit without saving the session, you can get the quest reward again at new game - however it's usually garbage if you have completed the quest already to prevent people from repeating the "get reward" step endlessly.

However the quest "Servant's Haunt part II" seems bugged here because you always get the "quest drop" (and for this quest it's usually 1-2 unique/set items so it's pretty big). I think it's the only quest that you can cheat on like that when playing multiplayer.

A good idea would be to make this quest behave like every other: you get good drop 1st time, but subsequent attempts without starting a new game equal lame rewards.

I also noticed Giant Thrusks have ridiculous staying power for Veteran and presumably Elite difficulty. . They are harder to kill than those Barbarian guys from act II (I wouldn't be surprised to see them tougher than Korvens from IIIrd act - Giant Thrusks have over 30000 HP on veteran paired with massive armor). It's strange for a non-boss creature to be THAT tough - especially for a creature that can also murder your team if you're unlucky enough not to have a "Silence" power available ;). Yes, I mean regular "Giant Thrusk" and not the "Giant Thrusk Channeler" miniboss.

@czacki: Amazing things you're finding...
Multiplayer was always a bit vulerable on re-re-...-replaying old session saves for exp or loot, and many quests/chests are not 'protected' by a quest bit. I can check the Servants Haunt quest, well possible however that you will find more of these quests.

The Giant Thrusk most probably got a manual tuning - with a typo error or so!? Can be fixed I guess.

That's cause I played this game for years

There's also another bug, Talon is active the second you get up on Snowbrook Fortress, before the little cutscene showing him. The durvlas are being catapulted there too before the scene.

You're probably busy IRL but is any release date of the new version planned? If I were to call crucial fixes I'd say:
1. Summon ghost/aether blast interaction fixed
2. Talon bug fixed
3. 80% dodge limit (block limit seems unnecessary since there's no way to reach that much block) - can we also have some way to display character's total block/dodge? I have 4 sources of dodge (items, dodge skill, rending aura:dragoon, wind embrace) on my Tank and calculating whether he still has the correct amount to survive is annoying;)
4. Reagent damage bugfix
5. Silence buffed by lowering some casters' chance of resisting it

The rest can wait imho The attack duration exploit would be awesome if fixed but it's probably not that easy to do.

As for Servant's Haunt, it's especially vulnerable because of the massive reward for this quest (a massive chance for 2 unique/set items). There are only 4 or 5 of quests that give that kind of quest drop and this is the only one that can be abused.

By the way, have you thought about improving mimics? currently there are two cheesy ways to kill them:

1. Shoot through wall or obstacle with lightning/death magic - mimic will not retaliate
2. Shoot him outside his activation range with a bow (2 levels in far shot are enough iirc) - he will just sit there and die

The first could be fixed by allowing mimics to retaliate with impale through walls
The second - improving their activation range perhaps? So that they at least try to bombard the target with skull spray. Rending Aura:Sharpshooter which can add over 20 meters of range will probably cheese through it anyway

Because it's WAY to cheesy right now. They are positioned in a way that makes it easy to shoot them through a wall too.

To compensate, their chance to drop unique/set items could be improved, or even made 100% for one set/unique (because for all that fuss you usually get some garbage).

Hi, I found out about DS2 mods only few days ago and am impressed how many changes your mod adds. It seems odd that custom gear (like javelins and morden's swords and shields) has no skill requirements. It is confusing when you think weapon is one-handed while actually it is two-handed. Also different colors for rending aura spells would be helpful to distinguish one from another.
At last on your site (http://www.dungeonsiege2.net/ds2fun/mods) there is inactive link to RingRemoval Mod. I would be grateful if you attached a working link.

Thanks for the other notes as well, all legitimate remarks, but not sure if these things can be fixes in a fast and satisfying way.
Remind maybe, unfortunately you can clean Darthrul (the Morden town that GPG designed) just with a lightning spell without suffering (a lot of) damage... :o

Well, fair enough I just hope it will be released before Diablo III (15 may 2012)

Could you add option to turn off visual effect for rending aura spells? Something like volkan's NoBuff DS2x http://siegetheday.org/?q=node/879

I always wanted my recipes to not get deleted from my lorebook, and now I can. Thank you for this option KillerGremal.

The 3 things I use now are:
buff_effect_duration = 30
recipe_transfer = true
run_speed_by_dex = -1

The buff_effect_duration helps a lot as I have a 1.8ghz processor that creates some lag at times.

I play DS2 through steam but for some reason your mod doesn't work with it. I love your mod and have used it forever and am really bummed that it wont work with steam. It would be cool if you could somehow get it to work with steam or give me an idea as to how to fix it. But whatever just a thought.

Hiya, I\'ve been trying a summoner mage with rending aura: magician and it\'s a lot of fun.

But I\'ve got some bugs for ya

1. Seems like Summon Provoke I isn\'t working correctly. Enemies affected by it show the red \"hate\" icons above their heads but often still ignore my summoned minions and then walk up to my guy to smack him in the face instead. I will also test Summon Provoke II & III if I ever get it.

2. There\'s a reagents & enchantable goods vendor in the Azunite Desert. He shows as having a quest (exclamation mark above his head) but it disappears as soon as you talk to him.
Sometimes, when you talk to him he just go \"*coughs*\" instead of letting you open his shop. (Also he has a weird voice, like the Manu Ostar/Vai\'kesh. It is a bit freaky.)

3. (Not really a bug, I guess) There can sometimes be a delay of several seconds between when you stop moving and when auto casting happens. Standing still for so long while also trying to dodge projectiles can be problematic. Maybe a key that makes your currently controlled character stop moving and force auto casting? Or shift+right-click to auto cast curses or something, I don\'t know.

4. Rending aura: magician should benefit from points in Debilitation according to http://www.dungeonsiege2.net/ds2fun/mods/a-z.php. I\'m seeing no difference in the tooltip after adding 5 points all at once. Either something\'s broken, or this feature was removed, or the bonus is really tiny. Enveloping Embrace seems to improve the buff just fine. Haven\'t checked Feral Wrath yet.
Also it doesn\'t seem to split exp down the middle. If I use a combat magic spell to attack for a while, I get more experience in that. Not sure if that\'s intended.

Question: What does the \"inhibitions\" percentage on the tooltip for Summon Ghost mean?

Again, great job on this mod, I love it. Just wondering... Do you still ever play the game, aside from testing?

Edit: These forums seem really intent on escaping my apostrophes and quotes o_O

>> 1
The recent tunings for provoke also should include Summons... - I will look at it.

>> 2
This is a strange guy indeed - maybe a consequence of his injury!?
If he ignores you while coughing - I don\'t know if this was intended actually, the Question mark can be fixed, it rather should be a exclamation mark.
And you\'re right, audio and conversations are lend from the Vai\'kesh. I don\'t think this will change (it\'s a work-around, if you use existing term it will be auto-translated into your distribution language).

>> 3
Adding a key could be tricky, I have to rethink about it.
Note maybe it\'s possible by default to assign a key to switch the weapon configuration of your party (may be that you have to set up this each session though).
So you could set up one configuration with your main weapon and another configuration with the spell in slot 2-4.

>> 4
I have to check this. Perhaps the description is obsolete partially.

>> Question
Ghosts with higher inhibitions have a higher chance to fail (a matter of auto-translation too).
Higher/later spells have stronger ghost with lower inhibition chances.

>> Wondering
Hm, I think meanwhile it\'s (because of) testing only. Sometimes however I play on a little more than actually is needed for testing itself.

...there is an update of the Hotfix mod resp. the Aranna Legacy mod (see on top) improving many things recently mentioned here. Thanks again for all the feedbacks!

 
Updates/Fixes:

• Maximum resistance value now also used for dodging and blocking. Note that higher percentages loss some of their efficiency for balancing reasons, also blocking is some more effective if the enemy is in front of you compared to an enemy in your back.
• Incantation shrines improved to apply enchantments to all loyal actors if they generally comply with the given class requirements.
• Several quest rewards revised for Multiplayer mode.
• Bug fixed in life formula of 'Giant Thrusk' monster.
• Mimic chests got some vulnerabilities/resistances.
• Ether Blast power will depend now on the average of maximum health and current health the summoned monster has. The skill description however won't indicate this detail.
• Repulse power tuned/rebalanced. Monsters always will be stunned now for a moment when trying to enter the shield (fixed), also they will suffer some damage (added, about 1-2x your hero's level).
• If not successful to silence an enemy the Silence power will try to slow down the enemy at least. Some monsters however are even resistant to this.
• Several 'Rending Aura' buffs slightly rebalaced. 'Rending Aura: Magician' profits now from Debilitation skill as well, the skill impact however is 50% only (as for all Rending Aura buffs).
• Bug in Summoned Ghost fixed, now the DS2-native health scaling depending on party size will be correctly taken into account.
• Some bonus values of reagent moved towards original values again.
• Custom shields will require now 'Barricade' skill as well.
• The chances to find a 'Rune of Might' are partially independent now on the 'magic find' bonus.
• *.ini option called 'autocast_hurry_key' added to expedite auto-casting a bit if the focused hero is standing still. Possible keys are 'shift', 'ctrl', 'alt' or combinations of it like 'ctrl+shift' for example.
• V2.3/Addon only: Bonus values for skills 'Tremor' and 'Chant of Stone' partially depend now on Strength, and bonus values of 'Shred Blood' on dexterity too, also the corresponding classes get some influence now. However the main influence of intelligence as the description says still exists.

Awesome that should fix most of the game's balance issues. On Talon bug, I'll try to send you a savegame when I get to it next time. So, in the next version, a bugfix to weapon/spell cooldowns is all that remains

In Aranna Legacy the Bloodsoaked Armor set item for ranged/combat hybrid is missing it's quiver ornament.
http://img809.imageshack.us/img809/1725/quivermode.jpg

And this particular javelin is not being held correctly. All other spears and javelins are held correctly though.
http://img832.imageshack.us/img832/6871/javelinequip.jpg

Excellent update, much appreciated.

As for the Rending Aura: Magician experience sharing:

It feels like combat magic spells put about 60% of their experience into combat magic and 40% into nature magic, and nature magic spells seem to put 60% in nature magic and 40% in combat magic.

From the latin (is it latin?) on the rending aura's tooltip it says it should be equally distributed. Would love to see that happen. It's not easy trying to keep them balanced when your combat magic summons rake in more experience than the nature magic spell you're casting to try to keep your magic stats balanced.

Oh, and can the hurry_auto_cast key also cast buffs in auto cast slots on summons? Perhaps have embrace/wrath spells on the lowest priority, regardless of whether they're in the first or the last autocast slots. (If it's not much work.)

The 'hovering' spear is strange, i wasn't able to reproduce it. Does this happen always with you? And was it a female elf or a dryad?
Some spear stats would help, the requirements for example.

However the description of the spell here should be updated indeed. Maybe you like to know that the description is in (pseudo)-latin just to give you a small hint (and not to need to translate them, using latin terms people probably know and picking up the fact that other terms in DS2 are already in latin too).

 
About the autocast_hurry_key, this is no key to execute a spell (better check the hotkeys for 'party weapon configuration' instead), it's just a key to expedite the auto-casting, checking the spellbook slots 4 and above in ascending order.

However if a buff is in spellbook slot 1-4 you always can cast yourself a buff on a summon. The auto-casting AI currently ignores summons (or loyal NPCs) as reason to start casting, but they get the buff too if the buff needs be casted for a real party member.
This behaviour makes the AI some faster and prevents your mages to cast buffs all time for any new summons (and doing nothing else). I have to check code once, since there is the autocast_deny_key perhaps another *.ini option could be added to respect summons directly...

Concerning the casting priority note maybe too that the AI tries to analyze the target meanwhile, so 'Wrath of the Bear' won't be casted on an a summon/actor if there is no chance for a critical hit, and 'Wrath of Magic' doesn't make any sense on a summoned Rhinock for example.
Also AI is unsure what to do and will skip several buff spells when you select your staff although your best class is magical. You should keep this in mind, it's more or less logical but the transparency may be missing at first sight.
 

The javelin in question appears to be the "th_ax_skath_boss" javelin. You can see from picture the equip requirements are uber:28 and dexterity:70.

I found the "base" uber:8 version in shop and tried equipping it with all party members. Had the same problems for all.

By the way, could you do something to the game's memory leaks and horrible performance on high-end PCs? I have a relatively decent one (playing it on laptop, intel i5, 6770M, 4gb ram) and I have 20 fps on average. The game uses only a single core and does it extremely clumsily... my friend on 3x weaker PC and winXP gets 70fps

Also, performance degenerates in time. It may start with 25 fps but an hour later it's 16-17 fps already...

I tried adding my radeon 6770M to the game's config via creating a custom system_detail.gas but it doesn't work. I set everything to minimum and still 20 fps...

Can you do anything to fix it up?

I had this problem too. It happens when you have to much buffers on your characters.

However for some people the performance amazingly increased when they forced DS2 to use one CPU core only (in the TaskManager via properties/affinity of the process).
Also (re)try to make a new system_detail.gas file for your graphic card.
Hopefully this will increase the performance (a bit).

Sadly, my performance decreased rather than increased when forcing single core via task manager. The single core of intel i5 mobile processor can't really handle the game without going to 100%, which by itself makes the game stutter.

On the other hand, using two (or four, depending on how you treat the two "virtual" cores of i5) cores ends up with 15-20% on two, and the game runs with 20fps anyway.

I'm trying to install virtualbox now and run it on a emulated win XP using forced single core mode. Hopefully it will work.

Hi KillerGremal, thanks for the great mod! I'm not sure if this is still the right place to post as the last post was about a month ago but I'm gonna go ahead.

Recently I've started DS2 with the broken world expansion with my girlfriend on multiplayer LAN. We use two computers side by side directly connected with a LAN cable with no internet access. Initially without the Aranna Legacy mod the game worked fine. However, we decided to install the mod for the balances and the addition content.

With the Aranna Legacy mod installed and using DS2 All saves to launch the game, we can still play as per normal and we created new characters. However, there is a problem where one of us will encounter a Data exception error when playing halfway. We are still in act 1 and the first crash occurred outside the first mission of delivering the sharpening stones. The problem always occurs with the guest and not on the host computer. The error can occur anytime randomly when we are doing random stuff like walking or picking items or casting a spell. We are using some of the new mod items like the shield and the rending auras.

I was wondering if this is a new problem as I could not find any solutions on google or any similiar problems like it. I've tried many things like enabling DEP exception etc but all to no avail. It would be great if you have a solution to this or this could help to further improve the mod as we really enjoy the mod.

Thanks!