DS1 Legendary Mod for DS2 Beta Thread

I didn't know about the limited number of custom maps the game could have.Thanks for bringing that up.

Concerning the difficulty, if you don't want the difficulty to stay on the same level, should the gameplay become easier at higher level or harder?
Of course I also miss some flexibility, for example without level adjustment the gameplay would become harder if you run through monsters/areas to face later in the gameplay higher levelled monsters with lower own level - I just don't know how to reproduce such a behaviour with a mod.

About backtracking, I had to to rethink first how far it's possible that monsters maintain their initially adjusted level, so you can go back to fight monsters with lower levels just for fun (or lower loot).

Note maybe, specially related to DS1=>DS2 ported maps the Level Adjustment mod is no 'Map Balance Adjustment' mod or so - it basically focuses stats and how these stats change according to GPG's formulas, but it doesn't care (can't care) if a concrete monster type is pleasant for that region, if there is an ambush, if the monster comes in hordes or as lonesome estray.
It may easily happen that the monster you will get in DS2 doesn't really match the monster/difficulty type it had in DS1. I don't think there is a table which DS1 monsters are harder and which ones weaker, although such a table or any corresponding rule to estimate it would help a lot.

Absolutely, leveling itself is least of my concerns in an rpg, it just breaks the flow or feel to me. Makes the world seem artificial because there's no sense of weaker or stronger foes. The best example of this in this case would be the rats that spawn sometimes when you break barrels. with MLA active those little buggers are vicious. I've had high level characters die before I knew what was attacking me from those.

You hit the nail on the head, It's not that I think it should get harder or easier. But there should be a sense of pacing. Pacing adds tension. You can rush forward, perhaps handling most things but you're cautious when you see a large nasty towering above the treeline for example. If everything is an equal level then you get Oblivion syndrome where you fear nothing because you KNOW that dragon is going to fall in 5 hits.

When I played through without any mods Skitters were of no concern, I had to watch the larger mobs in that area. With MLA it was reversed The skitters would wipe my whole party if I didn't lure them in one by one, whereas the larger creatures were no threat at all because they appeared in smaller numbers. The rats in the barrels thing again. It becomes a question of how many creatures there are vs how strong they are. The characteristics of a monster still play in to its difficulty but not near so much as how many of them there are. Especially if they're ranged.

I may have something like that on one of my hard drives; I'll take a look.

Agreed. Is there a way to perhaps invert the monster_adjust_world flag to insure the mod ignores certain maps? (ex: monster_adjust_world = -world.ds2map)

All that said, make no mistake I am highly impressed with both yours and and iryan's work. I've done my fair share of modding for diablo 1 & 2, tes games, freelancer and many others over the years. I know how insanely obnoxious it is trying to remold an engine to do something that would be dead simple if you had the source code or if the developer hadn't chose to hard code something. Making simple mods can be a pain, making things that globally affect the game is a serious undertaking and you both should be extremely proud of it.

31n notes. I've run 2 groups, a Ranger and a fighter that I turned the MLA off for.

Got to Stonebridge with the first. The Ruby Gargoyle went down easy since I stood out of its range and used a bow. I see the Hearseeker still wont drop . could not hire the 2 other then gyorn but was short of funds when talking to Naidi. Noticed the different hiring Icon which fades away after talking to them regardless of whether you recruit them or not.

The fighter with the MLA turned off had a MUCH harder Time. hit blue levels in Edgar's basement and beyond, Krug scouts and some royal turkeys. A few monsters never attacked, The Mimic was level 34. The caged Phracks and one rat where level 15. In the Crypts grgoyles and skeletons where mainly level on except for the Mini-bosses(lvl18) and Ruby Gargoyle(lvl15)
Scouts,and dogs where lvl2 and Phracks lvl 1 while Grunts where lvl17. I have not yet tried by removing the MLA mod.

now either on to Quillrab or to Destroy the Shadow Gate :mrgreen:

In some of the converted custom maps the monster level adjuster actually disables itself is there any particular reason as to why it does this.

Yesterday I took my 31m party from Kroth to the Droog village. Today I repeated that but on the 31n version.

Trivia first (same in 31m and 31n): going through the side cave into the side dungeon where that Drake is (DC_R1A), nowhere do you get the "found a secret area" music and message.

Before that, the last DC so close to the village (DC_R1 0.272/0.000/-1.207/ 0x97C2A3B5; new since 31c the only time I'd been here before) is a completely different design to the others (a flagpole). Still works though. Porting back does land the party up to its eyeballs in attacking soul stingers.

My earlier queries E51c#056: ambush still not triggering; E31c#057: still get that peculiar message of just "message".

E31n#105 With Rhut conditionally recruitable and back in his original spot as in an earlier version of Kroth, a different dwarf is enchanter - he works - but in the reagents trader's spot is not the recent legionnaire but a Boryev-clone without icon, with trader convo but won't trade. (This was when restarting under 31n a save made under 31m; I haven't tested if it is the same under 31n alone.)

E31n#106 +++UPDATED HERE+++ I could recruit the Boryev outside the Fury's tunnel exit but when I did so he put on a Mechanized Suit which came out all black-and-yellow. (A rare one with "Blue" modifier.) Was this due to trying to wear it over what looks to me like an Adept Robe? I restarted again; this time he put on a rare exceptional Apprentice Robe with no such problem. +++UPDATE I thought he didn't update the Sikra quest but I'd restarted from a 31m save taken when the quest had already been updated.

The Dungeon Siege series plus thousands of other games are now on sale at Steam. So I've bit the bullet and bought the complete series (I, II, II & Treasures) for $4.99US. DS1 & DS2 can be bought for $1.74US each. This is so I can test the Mod with the Steam versions which seems to be the only way I can make a compatible version of the mod for Steam Users. So that 3 times I've bought DS1 (including LOA), 3 times DS2 (lost the first set of disks for a long time before rediscovering them) and 1 time for DS3.

Going on the reports of beta31n, I suspect there's save game incompatibilities as most of those things haven't manifested in my test game apart from Fortress Kroth and Boryev which I've tidied up since. There was an inadvertent Boryev clone left in the Fortress but the real Boryev should both update the Sikra quest and be available for recruiting unless you're a combat mage.

Yes there's a new hiring icon for conditional recruitable characters and if it disappears with the character not offering to join the party, it means that your hero doesn't have the necessary requirements to recruit the character. If you can recruit the character but choose not to, then the new hiring icon changes to a standard hireable icon.

I haven't also seen monsters with the same level of difficulty, certainly a single drake or rock beast can kill outright weak party members while it would take a single krug or phrak ages to do so. With the levelling with the MLA turned off, I forgot about the mimic as that inherits from KillerGremal's content pack. There will be a few of these unadjusted monsters. Also I said I haven't gone past adjusting the monsters up to the start of the crypts so the Rubu Gargoyle hasn't been adjusted yet. If I've time later I'll look at the individual comments for further detail but I think the priority is to finish KOE off as fast as I can so players can play it start to finish with a new party.

You see RSimpkinuk57 was right and my suggestion worked! Just using good old reliable Tank Creator to create a new Mod-DS1Content-Alpha.ds2res was all that was needed. First I tried all the current beta31n files and started the Utraean Peninsula in darkness and the starting class selector wasn't working nor the NIS as its launched from the same command gizmo. Trying to recruit Arisa or Magentus failed just as reported by others. I didn't bother continuing on to look for missing items, etc, as I had a firm suspicion of the cause of all of this.

So I retanked Mod-DS1Content-Alpha.ds2res with almost the same name (added Steam just before the Alpha) using Tank Creator as that's what I use for the rest of the files used in the Mod so I know it works in the Steam version of DS2. Sure enough everything worked as intended. However I haven't tested it past Elddim but I'm confident that the suggestion by RSimpkunik57 that the Steam version of DS2 (or rather the exe) is designed, either deliberately or by accident, not to read Patch priority files which so happens to be what Mod-DS1Content-Alpha is tanked with as its tanked through Siege Editor and not Tank Creator (confirmed in an earlier post by KillerGremal).

Coincidentally this is why using a suggestion by Bare_ELf in an earlier post to use an alternative DS2 exe also works. That still remains the easiest solution unless KillerGremal decides to tank Mod-DS1Content-Alpha.ds2res with a different priority setting (assuming this can be done in Siege Editor?).

Interestingly the Steam DS2 exe has no copy protection whatsoever. You can run it even without going through steam.

At least Square Enix didn't profit from me too much to learn all of this information and I do have digital download copies of the game that don't need a disk or any sort of DRM to play.

I guess it's probably the 'user' priority assigned by default with the Tank Creator, at least this seems more probable to me than the different file name (would be really strange if the priority changes because the ~15th letter is different now - unless 'Steam' must be inside the file name to accepted by Steam's exe). However both reasons look quite odd and unreasonably handicapping to me...

I also tested running the game through the desktop shortcut which activates steam and it works as well.

You aren't alone as many modders use Siege Editor to generate the tanks for their mods. I just use Tank Creator for convenience to quickly tank up test versions. Typically I could have a dozen or more test versions created in a day and its annoying waiting for Siege Editor to load. If I used the numerical version numbering system that many developers and modders use in other games, I would probably be in the thousands by now.

Remember also that the Steam version of DS2 has nothing to do with GPG as the rights are now held by Square-Enix, who sadly have a history of not being bothered to support modding in their games. In fact they may possibly instruct the developers working for them not to provide modding support in their games as Obsidian, the developer who created Dungeon Siege III for them, did at least provide the same level of modding support in KOTOR 2 as the original game, even if they never released any modding tools for it. In contrast modding support for Dungeon Siege III is almost non existent.

At least this now explains the general observations by Steam Users that mods don't work in DS2, all the ones tried were probably tanked with Siege Editor.

@Iryan: Hm, what about 'Return to Arkok'?

With regard to possible patches or user tunings this and most other map files are SE2-tanked (just) as 'expansion'.

So I used Siege Editor to first tank both maps and Mod-DS1Content-Alpha10x.ds2res with User priority as selected in the side options menu for tank settings. I tested them in retail Broken World to confirm that the tanks were compiled correctly and everything is working as intended. Then I copied them to the resources folder of the steam version of DS2. Failure as the maps weren't showing and the start of the Utraean Peninsula indicated that Mod-DS1Content-Alpha10x.ds2res wasn't working either.

So I then tried the exact procedure with Factory settings with the same results.

For comparison I then used Tank Creator to tank both maps and Mod-DS1Content-Alpha10x.ds2res again and this time they worked in steam DS2. Both maps are working correctly both in the menu and in-game.

So it appears that the Steam version of DS2 simply won't work with any mods or maps tanked in Siege Editor, no matter what priority setting you assign them.

One thing I noticed is that the Siege Editor tank is 100-600 kilobytes bigger than the one Tank Creator makes so perhaps SE2 packs some extra information that is incompatible with the steam version of DS2.

So here is the new DS1 Content Pack, Alpha 10y (18.4mb, ReadMe), (re)tanked with the RTC now.

I hope this will work, and also that I find time and mood to retank some of my other mods.

31n Notes, up to Gliterdelve. Like the combat additions to the Bear and spells added to some of the monsters as well as the conversation addition. Could not yet recruit Naidi or the other guy.

Will now add the Alpha10y update and continue

The other Guy I assume is Rusk? He will only offer to join if your primary hero is a human. Zed will only offer to join if your primary hero isn't a nature mage.

So I assume your primary hero is a non-human ranger? If so then everything is working as expected. If not then something is wrong. No matter what class or race your primary hero has, you should be able to flesh out your party with one of each class in Stonebridge.

Note that the flick controlling this checks the primary class of your hero. The whole purpose of the conditional recruiting of party members is to limit the overall number of party members on the map since 7 more recruitable characters have been added to the map (all the ones you could recruit in the original DS1 version). This is necessary due to the limited number of party members you can store in the Inn and I have also added FreakCandy's disband DS2 mod which allows you to permanently disband party members from the Inn otherwise once you reach this limit you wouldn't be able to recruit more party members.

I understand your mood and its a pity so much time and effort has been wasted chasing ghosts when the problem was an un-announced alteration to the game exe by Square-Enix developers. Not a good way to engender support for your brand name amongst the people you are trying to sell to.

But given the recent controversies surrounding another well known Japanese company that also starts with S, its apparent the utter contempt some of these big companies hold out for their workers, agents, users, etc. So its probably not surprising.

I find it offensive that Steam changed the executive for the game such that it does not support Maps and Mods made with the Siege Editor. I do not think we should spend a great deal of time re-tanking files using Tank Creator 2 when just replacing the DS2 Steam Executive with any of the DS2 No Cd Executives that can be found on the Internet provides the same cure and has the added benefits of allowing you to use Ely's DS2 AllSaves and later installing the Broken World Add On.

Iryan did you try the following things after "fixing the steam problem"?
Installing Ely's DS2 All Saves in the steam folder and starting the game that way -- it should give you the message "wrong version installed" since All Saves is looking for version 2.2 DS2 and the steam version of DS2 is 2.3
This would also prevent Steam users adding Broken World as you will find that in attempting to do so gives error messages telling you that you already have Broken World installed or would you like to repair the version of Broken World already on your computer. What happens if you answer yes is that Broken World finds the DS2 Steam Version on your hard drive (if you have the registry fix installed)and removes the steam version of DS2 (I assume it thinks the DS2 version 2.3 exe and the associated maps and resources are bad copies of Broken World) Then attempts to install Broken World but it gets stuck and tells you that woops you first need to install DS2 before installing Broken World.

Yes I did purchase the Steam Version of DS2 so that I could test my theory.
So Still the simplest solution is to use this exe -- http://siegetheday.org/~bare_elf/execs/DungeonSiege2.exe

This gives the benefits of not having to convert things made with siege editor, allows the upgrade to Broken World and Allows you to use DS2 Allsaves.

@bare_elf: You're probably right, although the invitation to download a 'foreign' exe may not look that confidential to some people, but actually it seems to be a work-around for several matters at the same time.
However I think I will switch over to the RTC from one mod release to the next. It's better to have resouces tanks that basically work with all official exe files, so people can try out a mod/map first before looking for another exe possibly.

 
@Iryan: Thanks for your confirmation that the Content Pack 10y is working as intendend.
By the way there are still the dir.lqd* files inside the SE2 produced, also the mod pretends to be a 'patch' (hex-edited, probably work-safer concerning the priority issues we have seen already), so STEAM's exe must bother about something else added by the SE2.
In this context, assumed STEAM's release/exe ignores mods completetly, is the CRC resource check for savegames still there? Respectively, if someone is going to use the STEAM exe, and a RTC-tanked mod will be updated, will his existing savegames still be listed in the game menu?

Sadly it is still present so as soon as new mods or updated versions of current mods are introduced to the Steam DS2 resources folder, saved games become invalidated.

Bare_elf is correct as well in that there's no way of getting DS2AllSaves working with the Steam version. I even tried copying the necessary files directly to the Steam DS2 folder (since that method works with the custom folder version of DS2BW Adepts) without success as the wrong version of DS2 is reported even if DS2BWAllSaves is used (as that's version 2.3).

Since Elys, the creator of AllSaves, is no longer modding there is no way of remedying this sad situation. Steam owners of DS2 have been cruelly dealt a dud deal by a heartless developer/publisher who have even disabled multiplayer to add even more insult to injury.

Any comments?

I have checked the exec. file I posted for viruses and could not find any.

So I think I would give the Steam user the following options.

1. Use the Steam version of DungeonSiege2.exe
2. Use the No CD version available on the Internet of DungeonSiege2.exe.

What they have in common:
They allow you to play the game without Dungeon Siege 2 Disk 1 being in the CD/DVD Drive.

What the Steam Version Gives you:
1. Does not allow you to play multi-player
2. Does not allow you to install Broken World
3. Does not allow you to use AllSaves so any time there is an update to Mod it may prevent saved games from functioning.
4. Does not allow you to use mods created with Siege Editor
5. Does allow you to play the game with no CD (a good thing as you are not given one).

What the No CD Version Gives you
1. The ability to play multi-player
2. Allows the installation of Broken World
3. Allows you to install and use Ely's DS2 AllSaves
4. Protects most saved games if there is an update (unless the author of the update tells you otherwise).
5. Allows the use of mod be they created with Siege Editor or Tank Creator
6. Allows you to play either the steam version or retail version of Dungeon Siege 2 without CD.

I would suggest that you give them the choice of using the Steam Exe limiting many things and causing various failures and odd problems. After they play that way for a while you could include in the install package the NO CD Version of the Exec like you do with Ely's AllSaves. The only things they would have to do is replace the exe in the DS2 Root Folder and install AllSaves again.

One thing though about option 2 with the No CD version. I'm pretty certain that Broken World needs to find the installation folder of DS2 though the registry. At least that was what one happy steam user reported when they used the registry hack as Broken World would then install. The DS2 exe is irrelevant as Broken World uses its own exe (still called DungeonSiege2.exe but an updated version). What is relevant is that Broken World needs to find the resources from DS2 to run.

Otherwise very good. One positive is that since we both have the steam version, we can test the next installer version of the Mod with the steam version to see if everything works. I'm sure at that stage we'll have some sort of solution for the problem.

So it now seems that what matters to Steam DS2 is not the difference between User and Patch, or any other tank priorities, but the difference between tanks from Siege Editor and tanks from RTC. Purely as an academic question, this makes me wonder, would Steam DS2 (with its own .exe) accept mods created by a copy of Siege Editor installed on a Steam "2.3" system? (I'm assuming one would need the registry fix to install Siege Editor under Steam DS2.)

And would non-Steam users, especially those with BW, be able to use Steam-edited mods?

31n speedrun logs plus a Krug who stood outside the tower exiting Wesrin trying to hit the party on the second level :silly:

Only had to talk to the commander at Kiroth and the king, also avoided Gresh

Everything has gone very well up to the exiting of Stonebridge. On exiting Gyorn speaks telling me that I should have hired the Archer (Naidi) which is very very strange. After talking to Gyorn I did not add him to my party. I was not able to hire Naidi for one of the following reasons, my primary character is human, my primary character is a ranger. I did add Zed and the Drunk Swordsman. So I would have expected one of the three members of my party to comment on Naidi not being a member. Ulora is running about looking for something for the swordsman to drink, the swordsman is pretending to be a mute and Zed as usual has nothing to say. I wish I could have hired Naidi instead of the drunk but oh well moving on.

@Iryan: I would just leave a note in the readme file, that adding new mods - if someone don't want to risk his samegames - is only possible with the retail version v2.2 combined with All*Saves.
Perhaps with a link to this forum if you think.

Or alternatively I can drop the conditional requirements for hiring characters. It can be restrictive for players wishing to have unbalanced parties. The option exists in the Inn to permanently disband party members so the Inn character cap isn't so much an issue.

I'm having an issue where I cannot interact at all with recruitable characters. This is mentioned several times over on moddb. I'm using the Steam version, in case that matters.

My earlier feedback was to Fortress Kroth. PS another monster to add - Perforator Boss.

"Regulation" group - 3 through Wesrin Cross, 4 through Glitterdelve and the Alpine Caverns, 5 onwards to Kroth. My group (31m, so 100% difficulty setting in MLA) 4 throughout Stonebridge to Kroth. My group went everywhere and killed all the monsters (plus an insignificant number of respawns they couldn't avoid).

2.2, Logic 31n (Kroth to Gom), World 31n (Kroth to Gom), Mod-DS1Content-Alpha10x (Kroth to Droog village) then Mod-DS1Content-Alpha10y (Droog village to Gom), MLA 5m. 4 members in my party leaving Kroth, 5 from meeting Sikra, 6 from meeting Bolingar.

DC_R1 - list starts monsters at 36. My hero started at 40. (HS_R1 ditto)
CE_R1 - list starts monsters at 38. My hero started at 42.
CE_R2 - list starts monsters at 39. My hero started at 42.
CD_R1 - list starts monsters at 41. My hero started at 43.
GD_A_R1 - list starts monsters at 42. My hero started at 43.
LC_R1A - list starts monsters at 43. My hero started at 44.
GL_R1 - list starts monsters at 44. My hero started at 44.
GOM2 - list starts monsters at 45. My hero started and finished at 45.

MLA made Gom 46 (my level+1) and "True" Gom 47. "True" Gom regains health so fast he is a challenge: the first time I tried, he won. I did manage to kill him on my second go. (This happened with my 31c group and again with my 31m/n group.) I wonder how a smaller party would cope?

DC_R1: if we mentally divide the monsters up between Droog village (where the DROOG MAGE BOSS is, #212), pre-village and post-village, then IMPALER (#214) and DRAKE GREEN (#215) should be listed pre-village (e.g. IMPALER next to SOUL STINGER #207). Note the so-called Fanatics in the village are just ordinary Droog Grunts, Archers and Mages with fancy title so don't need their own entries; however, the first BRALLs (#213) have less life so could be listed as a distinct sub-type from the rest.

GHOST (#230) is listed in CD_R1 (Castle Ehb dungeon) when there is one earlier in the castle, CE_R2 (a corner of the hall between throne room and chapel: -12.208/-4.000/-13.279 0xCF8307F3. Players could miss it: perhaps it should react at a metre or two greater distance than it does?)

More monsters to add: Possessed Skull Boss, Drake Green Boss, Brall Boss, Giant Skeleton Boss, Lava Runner (mage), Kell Boss, Lava Horror (melee - in the original, a superior type to the Imp), Lava Mage, Synged Boss, Drake Red Boss, Lava Beast Boss, Quadscale Boss, Drake Molten, Drake Black Boss, Drake Molten Boss.

Yes there are problems with steam and the Legendary Mod. Please read this forum for solutions. It would be a good idea to register as well so people other that administrators can see your posts.

Did you run the steam fix supplied in the mod?
Did you look at the first post in this forum and download and replace any files that are newer than the ones you have downloaded from ModDB?
After doing this if you can interact with the characters you are good to go.
if not then replace the Steam DungeonSiege2.exe with this one http://siegetheday.org/~bare_elf/execs/DungeonSiege2.exe

Steam seems to be a problem eh?.. I have one question...Steam is known to update games, how does Steam not update the exe? maybe it is pure luck that putting the original cd version exe in gets past the updater but most games I have seen on steam get automagically updated to the current version... interesting information on the siege editor/rtc saving to work with steam.
as for All*Saves it was wrote b4 steam 2.3 version...Elys always hated Steam in the past but she did update the Succubus Manager to do the no cd...I would promote the use of the Succubus Manager over All*Saves.