Dungeon Siege Adepts 2 for Broken World

I suspected as much as otherwise my attempts to make them all level 1 would be in vain as the level adjustment mod would have scaled them anyhow. So a bug? Would be great if they could be made to scale with the party.

The support is basically there (and working on several custom maps depending on the door properties), but it seems it doesn't activate with the localized door templates as used on the official maps. However I'm working on a revision anyway.

I'm nearly to the end of Act 2 in testing and the first dark mage was as easy of his three brethren in Act 3 but the Knotted Shambler was a little unbalanced in my opinion. I had to adjust his stats by about -20% heath and -30% attack power as he had 30,883 Hp at level 25 (suppose to be 25,000 at level 26) and can easily wipe out all non melee characters instantly with his big attack if it hits.

The 25000 life points in the template are intended for a party with 2 members, increased by ~15% per every additional party member (standard procedure in DS2).
So a lot depends on how many party members you had. Assumed there were 5 members, then the life points rather should be ~35'000.
However I can recheck the Knotted Shamler once, unfortunately he has many extra skrit/flick components to perform his fight.

It is normally set at damage_min/damage_max = 1 in his Broken World template but the actualized template has it set at damage_max = (1 * #monster_level + 4) * (0.04 * #monster_level + 1.0) * 0.06;

This equals 3.672 and maybe the level adjust mod requires this? However he has no damage_min value just two damage_max settings. A typo? Maybe this causes his attacks to be so powerful as to totally wipe out my party if he hits? I also realise now that if you run around his back when he starts his big attack you can cause it to miss entirely or at least only kill one or two party members. So no bug then?

@iryan: There is indeed a typo error in the [attack] block, however the damage_min/_max can be ignored generally,
the damage is caused by his weapon via the [tree_attack] component - one of the two things has to care for adjusted stats.

A new alpha version of DS2 Adepts is now available for general testing and comments
http://www.siegetheday.org/~iryan/files/DS2BW_Adepts_Logic_Alpha_2a.ds2res
http://www.siegetheday.org/~iryan/files/DS2BW_Adepts_Alpha_2a.txt
Requires either the full resource pack above or the lite resource packs and cat mansion mods.

This version unlocks the Acts after the player gets cured of the plague (also the point they can recruit Taar) so that they can be completed in whatever order the player desires before the Agallan Trials. So you can finish off Act 3 up to the Agallan Trials, then do Act 2 and leave the rest of Act 1 to last if you wish and what I did in testing, or go back and forwards between them or just complete them in order like the developers designed them to be completed. It's up to you provided you have the Level Adjustment Mod installed http://siegetheday.org/?q=node/1330 so that monsters and loot will scale with you. Otherwise you will find Acts 2 and 3 rather difficult if not impossible to complete.

Sanctuary Doors and Environmental Damage aren't completely covered by the current level adjustment mod version in DS2 Adepts so Sanctuary Doors have been altered to level 1 throughout all Acts and environmental damage avoided as best you can.

Most recruitable characters now auto-equip appropriate gear for their level when hired except for Vix and Eva.

The tutorial can be skipped by using a portal on the Beach to instantly warp into Warden Celia's jail, ring of submission and all. The tutorial itself has been changed to the original tutorial whose map files still exist in the game (was this tutorial in the demo?). It's layout is mostly the same with some differences in actors and events. May be of interest to some. Quests are different in this tutorial so aren't saved with the journal, also your gear isn't stripped from you in Jail and Drevin hangs around until you load a saved game in Eirulan.

As requested by some shop lists and loot drops (open containers now always drop something with a higher chance of an item or spell) have been revised a bit. Some weapons, especially theresnothinglft's extra large weapons, have been adjusted to try to simulate them hitting multiple targets as befits such long weapons. Players have bemoaned the lack of AOE damage for melee characters and there was support for this feature in DS1 but not in the same way in DS2.

Preliminary support is there for opening up the first two parts of the Broken World campaign in the mod but is untested (next on my list to do). However the campaign in DS2 should be complete-able no matter what way you choose to approach it now. Comments, feedback and bug reports welcomed.

Bare_elf and I have also looked into making a separate folder for DS2 Adepts as suggested by Lady_Femme. Since we're dealing with Broken World and not DS2 it appears the only way to make it work is to clone the Broken World folder and all files therein and run DS2 Adepts from that. This works well and I have been using this setup since suggested by Bare_elf but it will mean that a Beta version of Adepts and above will have to have an installation program to make the necessary folders and shortcut to run DS2 Adepts.

Hi
As Iryan noted in the post for the latest version of Adepts – DS2BW_Adepts_Logic_Alpha_2a.ds2res, we have been working on a way to get the Adepts Siegelet Operating out of its own Folder with its own start icon and so on. This works fine because Ely's All Saves changes the target line based on what folder it is in. I want to take it a step farther so that the Saved Games and the Screen Shots are not stored in the standard MyGames\Broken World folder but in a folder specific to Adepts. Therefore within the directory where I have the adepts files I added a Screenshots and Save folder with all the necessary subfolders (all blank). I changed the target line of the All Saves Desktop start icon as follows: "C:\Program Files\DS2BW Adepts\DS2BWAllSaves.exe" save_path = "C:\Program Files\DS2BW Adepts\Save" shots_path ="C:\Program Files\DS2BW Adepts\Screenshots". That worked like trying to teach a pig to fly. So I made the same modifications to the DS2 Start Icon. This however does not work either. It could be that I have left out some punctuation like commas or somesuch. It could be that I used DS1 command line parameters. Or it could just be the fact that my hair is blond and my head is filled with air.

and the Start in line;
"C:\Games\Dungeon Siege 2 Broken World\adepts"

The Adepts folder is basically a clone of the Broken World folder with no mods other than DS2 Adepts in the resources folder.
The location of the saved games is C:\Users\Public\Adepts as I wanted an universal location (thinking about the future) but I don't know how to use universal queries to find the current user's document folder.

Paths used by the shortcut must be enclosed in quotation marks but target-line parameters must be outside of the them.
So if you try the following it should work;
"C:\Program Files\DS2BW Adepts\DS2BWAllSaves.exe" save_path=C:\Program Files\DS2BW Adepts\Save shots_path=C:\Program Files\DS2BW Adepts\Screenshots
The Start in line should be;
"C:\Program Files\DS2BW Adepts

You can leave the main ALLSaves executable (DS2BWALLSaves.exe) where you originally installed it but ElysDS2BWALLSaves.dll and shfolder.msdll must be in the Adepts folder or ALLSaves won't work. There must also be a Dungeonsiege2.exe in the Adepts folder or ALLSaves can't find it. There doesn't seem to be a problem wherever you have the Adepts folder as Dungeonsiege2.exe reads the location of the original Dungeon Siege 2 installation from the Registry and looks in it's own location for resource and map files.

So I'll modify my own setup to match Bare_elf's so everything is in the same spot.

For reference the known target-line parameters for Dungeon Siege 2 is here;
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/903677

The original Dungeon Siege supported a few more like map_paths and res_paths, etc.
http://ds.gemsite.org/web/index.php/game-settings

I successfully transplanted the DS2BW Adepts to the same location as yours.
Played, saved and made a screenshot. All reported by the game as successful.

However looking at the folder structure, those files are located in a new folder called simply Program on the C:\ drive.

So obviously the target-line parameter can't decipher spaces in the path outside of the quotation marks? Will keep tinkering and looking up references and maybe someone here may have an idea.

Everything now goes where it should screen shots in the screenshots folder and saves in the save game folder.

Crazy Spaces!! or is it Silly DS2 so picky over punctuation.

God knows what would happen with Windows 8 (I happen to use 64bit Windows 7).

So simple is definitely the best, especially if we want this setup used for all players who would have a wide variety of machines and operating systems (Win 8, Win 7, Vista, XP, 32 and 64 bit). Oh my.

try the following examples for the shots path and save path:

save_path="%homepath%\My Documents\My Games\DS2BW Adepts\Save"

shots_path="%homepath%\My Documents\My Games\DS2BW Adepts\Screenshots"

these examples are for windows xp. u'll have to figure out roughly how to change them for use on vista, win7/8 and that is if it even still works at all considering the quirk u just mentioned...

btw didnt know gpg removed the use of res paths and map paths in the ds2 binaries. seems like several steps back from ds1loa. now i really think they didnt want ds2 to be moddable... grrr...

also since ds2 does not support or has bugs handling long filenames and/or spaces in its paths commandline. the only solution is to use the short names suffixed with a ~1. this can get very tricky if u have similarly named folders or files tho and ntfs may not like it and can also get very fussy on u saying it cant find the path or file specified. neither does it help that the dir command in command prompt does NOT display the short file/path name.

here are some examples:

save_path=C:\progra~1\DS2BWA~1\Save

shots_path=C:\progra~1\DS2BWA~1\Screen~1

save_path=%homepath%\mydocu~1\mygame~1\DS2BWA~1\Save

shots_path=%homepath%\mydocu~1\mygame~1\DS2BWA~1\Screen~1

thats just going around blindly in the dark. if the ~1 suffix causes it to end up in the wrong place or its not found, try ~2, ~3 etc. this happens if u try to del a folder and recreate/del it again multiple times. it causes the ~2, ~3 etc. suffix to be required.

another trick to get around the limitation is to specify "C:\Program Files\DS2BW Adepts" in the Start in field of the shortcut box and just put save_path=Save shots_path=Screenshots in the commandline.

the Start in box just tells windows and the application what is its working folder. so without having to specify long winded path names for the paths commandline which ds does not support or like.

another idea is to use ms-dos batch files aka .bat files to point to the ds2 executable u want and use the cd command to change the working folder. i leave it to your imagination to figure out the rest...

It's not definite about the res or maps paths as that's just what Microsoft has on it's support site. Maybe the only way to be sure is to just try and see what happens?

i just tried res paths and it doesnt work. gives a dungeon siege ii critical error and keeps complaining about missing resource files that werent copied over to the hard drive and suggests reinstalling.

i think map paths wont work either. i think they werent included in the ms site cuz ms cudnt get both of it to work. ah well~ nice try... and booos to gpg for several steps back... it worked fine in dsloa for yesterhaven and return to arhok!

The following, written into command line field of the Shortcut to All*Saves works with me on Windows 2000/XP (concerning Windows Vista/7 I can't say anything).
"D:\Programs\Games\Dungeon Siege 2\DS2AllSaves.exe" nointro=true save_path="G:\Private Data\Games\Dungeon Siege 2\Saves"

However my own experiences with shortcuts are ambivalent. Sometimes they really work a bit strange/painful.
Most probably DS2 doesn't resolve %variables% at all. The shortcut itself (or All*Saves) had to do it when/while forwarding the parameters via All*Saves to the game.

But also the following, written into the DungeonSiege2.ini file, works with me:

save_path = G:\Private Data\Games\Dungeon Siege 2\Saves
shots_path = G:\Private Data\Games\Dungeon Siege 2\Screen Shots

There's a new stable alpha of DS2 Adepts. As always requires either the full or lite resources from above.
http://www.siegetheday.org/~iryan/files/DS2BW_Adepts_Logic_Alpha_2b.ds2res
http://www.siegetheday.org/~iryan/files/DS2BW_Adepts_Alpha_2b.txt
The Level Adjustment Mod is also highly recommended for maximum enjoyment of the mod.

The stable reference is that it's been tested to the end of both DS2 and Broken World and it's stable with no broken quest-lines.
This is with the new feature of unlocking the campaigns in both DS2 and Broken World so they can be completed mostly in any order you wish before two key events in both games. These are entering the Agallan Trials in DS2 and gaining entry to Solanum in Broken World. This is only possible through the magic of the level adjustment mod which dynamically changes the levels of monsters and loot to match your party levels. If you don't want to use the level adjustment mod then DS2 Adepts can be played in normal linear fashion. The unlocking of the campaigns is just an optional feature.

A couple of lacks still exist in the level adjustment mod. The 3 rogue mages don't change their levels (so will appear Blue if you complete Part 2 first or are at a level greater than 43 upwards) and Sanctuary Doors don't scale up yet so are all level 1.

So from here it's a matter of balancing/fixing/polishing the mod on the road to Beta.

Hello Iryan,
I noted on the path to Calennor Stronghold, my party got stuck just running in place while in rampage mode, only my primary character could move around and fight. Just like the cat mansion summoned characters do at times. I was able to wiggle them out of the mess they where in by putting them in the follow the leader mode whatever the heck that is called. Looks as if what they where getting stuck behind where blocking objects. As far as I can remember this is the first version 2b that has shown this kind of problem. Tomorrow I will go back to version 2a and see if I can reproduce the problem.

Now I teleported direct to Aman'lu without doing any of the Act 1 quests. When I talked to Danadel he kept asking about the dryads and if I had killed all the rouge mages. Even after killing the surgeons I could not get him to open the portal. he just went on and on about the rouge mages and not the surgeons. I could not recruit Drinajul as I believe the portal must be opened. So I guess it means going back to the dryad outpost and hunting the rouge mages before I can get Drinajul on my party. In any case the gate in to Aman'lu can only be opened from the outpost side.

errr i believe all the things are working as intended. iryan said that the bw map can be completed in any way/order prior to gaining entry to solanum which means all the part 1 and part 2 quests pertaining to the rogue mages and surgeons must be completed before u can enter solanum and it goes back to linear from there.

i really hope this problem is not systemic as it can become a real hair raiser and party pooper if two of the most popular ds2bw mods currently being played are plagued by similar issues.

You can't skip any of the Acts, only complete them in a different order. On a technical note you need Celeb'hel's soul stone (which you get right at the end of Part 1 when you kill his simiclarum). This will trigger Danadel's convo to go to the next step. Driandul can also then be recruited.

In DS2 I had to make Drevin's medallion an essential part of the trigger to get to the Agallan Trials. Consequently you get the medallion right at the end of Act 1 (specifically when you kill the Trilisk). Drevin still gives you the medallion during the tutorial but it doesn't register in the lorebook (the second time you get it, it does register in the lorebook).

I just have to think of a better way of explaining all of this to players in-game. (Danadel does ask you if you saved the dryads as well in his convo but it's probably not that obvious).

A question - Were you using the auto-engage settings or playing normally? Did saving/reloading fix the problem? Were your character/characters killed beforehand? What buffs were you using? (I know that haste causes dual wielding to act very funny).

DS2 doesn't handle resurrection very well (which is why I eased off on it a bit). It very often fails to requip the character's weapon (it's still there as you can see the visual effects, if any, but invisible) and often forgets to show the tombstone. This is probably why GPG didn't make resurrection autocastable. Still the engine doesn't handle melee/ranged characters using spells very well either, often forgetting to show the weapon re-equipped again so this bug is a global one.

I know KillerGremal is the author of both the level_adjustment_mod and Aranna Legacy but they don't share the same files (the only ai one that's similar is job_hire.skrit).

I will post what I can remember about the details of my party and pm you with the details iryan as soon as I return to the computer.

1. I have five members currently in my party
2. Auto engage is turned on
3. All party members have the autocast resurrect spell
4. four of the party members have autocast healing spell
5. all party members have one type or another of the cat mansion summon in autocast.
6. All characters are using ranged weapons
7. All characters are using either ranged or combat magic powers
Yes I noticed that the last party member tends to lag a bit but since it is always Taar in the last slot I thought it was being caused by her whining and worry about killing things.
The running in place happens only when there is an object between the character and where it is going or where it is going to attack. like a rock a wall or other blocking object.
I will send you a screen shot of a location where this always occurs with the location marked and give you a full list of exactly how each character is set up as soon as I get to the Cat Ranch later today.

Hi Iryan,

Iryan
I did some additional looking at the running in place issue. Here are some comments and screen shots. DS2BW Allsaves has the seefar hack enabled at the minimum level. The game has Selected Hero Attack Automation and Defend Automation Enabled. Only happens in rampage mode.

Hope this helps and if you need more data let me know.

Actually I have observed this phenomenon too. It could be any conflict between the path-finding and a crowed of actors all with the same player id (party members, summoned/converted monsters, following NPCs). However it seems, the more 'followers' a party has, the more probable it is.

Whether or not the Hotfix mod or the Aranna Legacy mod is causing this, I can't say. Probable however that they abet it.

I don't use summons so that's probably why I haven't seen this bug as badly as you. But as KillerGremal noticed the more actors there are the more pathfinding issues there would be and I see from your screenshot that there's a lot of blocking objects around your party. Broken World as you noticed, isn't particularly well constructed or polished. GPG obviously were sick and tired of role playing games at that stage and just wanted to get the game out as fast as possible to meet their obligations to Take 2. Just take all the issues in the Dryad Outpost for example.

I will make a prominent section in the readme highlighting these issues and how to bypass them.

+1 that this is a flaw with the game code. i have seen this issue even in unmodded ds esp with large parties. seems the game has severe problems handling 5 or more party members. this includes summons and pets.