My first DS2 mod!

Wow, im impressed how many downloads there were in only 11 hours.

Any comments or suggestions? I am thinking about making some more creatures, but I need to know if they are liked. :P

I downloaded it just now, I will get back to you in a few days with comments.

Some screens. :P

well i can say i was one of the 1st 10 to download it.
heres a screenshot i took, i wasnt fast enuff to catch the bone golem doing his spells in the screenie but the bone golem does some wicked damage. only suggestion i would have is to increase the summon duration, he had lots of life but he has to resummon alot cause of the summon duration. i like this bone golem it works great. hope ya make more ds2 mods.

I downloaded but didn't try it out. I'd suggest making it not tank protected but that's up to you. I usually open mods to see what they will conflict with. I could open a tank with tank protection if I wanted. It looks nice. Mods that are over powered don't interest me so was gonna take a look at what the mod did by opening it.

Thank you for your comments .
I used such a short summon duration bacause of his extreme power, to balence him, but I do agree, he needs more time, maybe 180 seconds.

Regarding me making more mods, I am way ahead of you, i am already making more summons that already in their beta level. Creatures like Giant Fire and Frost Beetles, Juggernaut beasts, etc.

When I do releace them when they are done, everything that i have done so far will be in a single ds2res file, to avoid them conflicting with each other. (I already had this problem with the bone golem and the frost beetle).

Note: I have not tested him in veteran or elite mode yet, but I assume his scaling damage and health works and scales with the difficulty.

edit : Opening the tank is a breach of Copyright.
Good idea, I should probly mention what it conflicts with, so I dont have more people trying to hack into my mods. All i can say is that it would conflict with anything that modifies the contents of the stores, however my mod would win, sense I used an outlandishly large number for the priority, as I always do.

Well, I wouldn't have to hack or break any copyright protection laws to open your mod bud and neither would others. I think it's nice to leave mods open so players can combine with other mods they run to avoid conflict if they are capable. That is why I mentioned it. I also think tank protection is silly and gives a false sense of protection. Anyways, I'm glad you're balancing it. I was not sure if it was a cheat mod or not. May want to mention it is a mod that atempts to be balanced.

Whatever.

Anyways, It turns out that the scaling damage and health DOES work. YAY!

He now does about double what he did in regular, I saw him do up to 1200 Damage with a well placed spike field.

I added some more to my post above Tas. Well some of my tools ignore that tank protection stuff like <snipped>.

Er....Right

When i am all done, the creatures will still have high health, but ill have to think of some drawback for casting the spell so it is balensed. How does completely purging the caster of his/her armor until the spell is done sound? :P :P

Edit - If you REALLY want to see inside the mod, then go ahead and use a tool that bypasses it, I dont care, just give me credit where its due if you use some of the content, and ask first.

A negative thing for caster's I have thought of as well(it's a good idea). I have no idea what would be fair for your spells though. I'm not after your stuff bro, I know how to do all of that . I am too lazy to extract it and view content to see what it'd conflict with. I assume it will conflict with my custom pets mod :(, since that alters shopkeeprs templates.

Edit: Any credible mod author won't steal your work. I'd also yell at em if I caught them. For combining I meant for users not releases. Unfortuanly, mods are not so modular in ds2 land ;( .

hehe,i guess everyone knows how to untank it now, but anyways...

like i said, the high health is nice, but in most cases in act1 or other acts, i imagine the 60 seconds will go by faster than its chance of dying to enemies cause of the high health, the nature and combat summons that came with the game use effect_duration = 600; and their health isnt nearly as great and they die most of time before they cast again.

the xzeihoranth_summon (3 Dark Mages Creature Summon) whos merc life = 35000 and the undead_soldier_melee_02_summon (the dark mage's giant undead soldier) whose merc life = 5000 both dont use an effect_duration, so makes me wonder if there was no effect_duration, if it wouldnt cast again until he dies, which would be better idea yet, i think but thats my opinion of summons in general.

as for some drawback for casting the spell so it is balanced, (mana_cost = 30;
mana_cost_modifier = 0;) maybe increase the mana cost so it takes lots of mana to cast the spell or increase the mana_cost_modifier to something like this
mana_cost_modifier = ((#clamped_intel * 4.1) - * ((100 - #Decreased_Mana_Cost) * .01); so again it takes alot of mana.... however for just a spell for anyone to use, what ya have is ideal

now dont take my opinions as an attack on ya, i dont mean it as such, i just want to throw out my ideas of what i would improve if i was editting the mod.

I guess I should just unprotect the work, since you put it that way.

Guest : You have some good ideas, and I will try to make the summon duration infinate, while trying to balence it.

I think I will also set the mana cost to be every last drop of mana the caster has, so the caster must have a full bar of mana to cast, etc etc.

At first i was worried about how it would be unbalenced, but if i think of it as a boss summon, it may be logical.

Right now, I am working on a giant frost beetle summon. I may be able to make it not conflict at all if I were to set the item pc_content level to very low, so it just has a high chance of dropping.

Oh, and about it conflicting with a custom pet mod, i think that this is untrue, as I was using AllPets&Spells mod when I tested the mod, only the spell shop was effected, I could still buy all pets.

edit - I have seen the bone golem die, look in the pictures above as he falls to the dragon. In regular, he takes 57 times normal fire damage, so even a fireshot spell seems like a flame nexus or detonation power.

I've snipped part of Wyvante's message because I don't feel that telling users which programs will override tank protection, is in the best taste.

Tank protection while easily by-passable if you know how, still serves as a warning that the mod author does not want you to look inside the tank, whether you agree or disagree with the idea of closed tanks, morally the correct choice would be to not even open the tank, and to just use it in game.

By telling users how to bypass this is just giving them extra temptation.

Just because you can break the window on a locked door and reach in and unlock the door is not a sufficient argument against locking the door in the first place. A locked door transmits the message that you are not allowed in. A locked tank sends the same message.

Let’s respect that.

Thanks,

Strider978

YES! Why am i agreeing with wyvante? Thank you strider, that is what i wanted to say.

going a little off topic here...I am not a modder, so folks can take or leave my opinion as they choose. I can see both points of view here. Obviously if someone puts a lot of time and effort into their mod, they do not want to see unscrupulous people steal their work. As Wyvante mentions, any reputable mod author would not do such a thing and I think if it was done and released to the DS community, people would shun the product of theft. Word does have a way of getting around. It is also cool to share tips and show how things work simply to encourage other authors in the modding community. Ultimately, I think it is a matter of choice, and of course we should respect each individual's decision to share their work or not.

Did you register your work with the US Copyright office? Not trying to bust on you here, but simply saying something is copyrighted does not make it official.

@ Strider, they do not bypass the tank protection. They do not recognize tank protection. There is bit of a difference. Dan wrote his tank viewer to reconize the tank protection he implemented. I was informing Tas Strider for his own good. I do not appreciate being snipped. I will never respect tank protection.

Edit: Perhaps you should remove <snipped> from STD's database Strider if you want to enforce tank protection, since it does not take tank protection into account. It is too bad you cannot respect my view and have to silence me.

@ Kathyk, there are some ip protection laws in the states that are automatic. By default things are copyrighted. You don't even have to say it.

The best way to go I think is to respect a persons right to protect his IP, and thereby respect tank protection. But at the same time advocate a different modell if another one is prefered.

I too, like Wyvante, think the community benefits more from open source. Knowledge simply spreads faster with such a modell, which logically would lead to more mods.

But let's get back on topic. An interesting topic though so feel free to start a new thread about this if anyone wants to expound further on what has been said already.

I think file distribution may be something you want to add to your readme TAS. I had a submission of your mod at my site, but I have not been adding mod author's that are still around to my database in hopes they add them. Don't forget the standard readme template found in this thread http://std.seijsing.se/forums/viewtopic.php?t=23 . I respect mod authors' wishes. I however feel tank protection is an infringement and will view and alter things if I need to for personal use. By allowing your mod to be viewed/altered for personal use is more attractive to users in this community to use your mod. Like I said before, ds2 is not a modular game for mods. There are so many conflicts . I'm not pushing open-source philosophy here. In your readme you can state you do not want your content used and mod authors/site owners will respect that.

Right.......

To get back on topic here, here are some screens for a new creature that is almost done. I call him the "Giant Fire Beetle".

looks good.

wow impressive screenies!!! i think i will like the fire beetle better than the bone golem, that is wicked good! I like the firespray, ignite and flamethrower spells at least that what they look like but i have been wrong before... now i know it isnt released yet, but i got yet another suggestion in [actor] i would think that since a fire beetle uses fire spells it would be totally immune to fire, so ya may want to add

[resistances]
		{
			dmt_fire = 1.5;
		}

to the actor block

cause if a monster uses fire, against the fire beetle, it shouldnt effect him and it would actually heal him spell wise.

just a suggestion.

wicked awesome... bring on the fire beetle...

I already did before you even mentioned it. :P :P :P

[resistances]
		{
			dmt_ice = (-0.5 * #is_normal) + (-1.5 * #is_veteran) + (-4.5 * #is_elite);
			dmt_fire = (1.0 * #is_normal) + (3.0 * #is_veteran) + (9 * #is_elite);
		}

edit - His spells are basically an edited firespray, so it launches 15 projeciles in a 90 degree angle, rather than 3 in a 60 degree angle. For his enrage aura attack, I made it from scratch, having a 10 meter radius centered on him, and playing the fireball hit ffx on anyone caught inside it and damaging them accordingly. The breath attack is just a blastwing breath weapon that lasts longer.

edit2 - how does attempting to have the required level to summon him scale with difficulty as well? :P I already do this with everything else about him, as you can see in the code about his resistance.

New releace! :P
Now includes 2 new creatures, both have new skins.
Giant Fire Beetle
Armored Shockram
As before, they can be found in the dryad town spell shop.

Since this is really a work in progress, and a good one, I will hold off putting it among the downloads till it is closer to being finished.
Keep up the good work.

just thought i would post 3 screenies of your new summons, i took for a test run today.

very nice summons, i just autocast and stand back and let them do the work, they are so powerful, i didnt even break a sweat doing the water quest in veteran.
- Darkelf

Hmm, it looks like the custom texture only worked for the fire beetle, but not for the Shockram. The shockram was supposed to have an electric blue rhinock skin, to match his spells.

edit -- Just wait until they are in elite, then their health scales to :

Greater Bone Golem Magus = 280000
Armored Shockram = 650000
Giant Fire Beetle = 420000

Their damage also scales, as does their armor.