175 replies to this topic

[Qwinn]

Well kids, just thought I'd let ya know... there's actually a good possibility that I'll be adding yet -another- UB component in time for this release. I don't want to give a lot of details yet, because I'm not sure how much I'll actually be able to restore, but at least one existing dialogue file for a character that doesn't yet exist in game will be restored, and the name of the component will be......

Restored Drowned Nations

Qwinn

[Qwinn]

Here's another one I'm adding tonight.

Several NPC's that allow you to rest via dialogue have at least one "wake up" dialogue line which is supposed to kick off immediately after the rest. Mebbeth has quite a few lines and even a journal entry that sort-of ties into an existing quest, and I restored that in the new UB Restored Mebbeth component. After some research, I discovered that Emoric and Phineas T. Lort also have such wake-up lines. They're a pretty minor restoration, and not worth a UB component unto themselves, so I'm just going to restore them in the Fixpack.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 23 November 2008 - 02:38 AM.

[the vanished one]

Restored Drowned Nations

You know how to create suspense, don't you? Sounds great

[Qwinn]

Some other small changes, partly to do with Restoration Pack:

1) Added "Gained an Ability" sounds when obtaining Stories Bones Tell and Sensory Touch. Restoration Pack added it only when gaining Raise Dead, but changed a string in the dialogue file to do it. Upon review, I see no need for that string change, as there is an existing string in the dialogue file that plays that sound. So, upshot - it's now used for all 3 abilities in game, and it's done consistently and without mucking about with the dialogue file.

2) Rolled back the Restoration Pack change to Adahn's creature file. The only visible effect in game is to change his name from "Adahn the Imagined" to simply "Adahn". I can find no reason for why this was done other than an aesthetic preference which I don't really agree with.

Working on the Restored Drowned Nations component now... though it should be noted that, if the only thing I wind up being able to restore is the one character, it probably won't be a UB component, I'll probably just put her in in the Fixpack under the "minor restoration" rule.

Qwinn

[Qwinn]

Apologies for getting hopes up on the Restored Drowned Nations bit Turns out, to my great surprise, everything I -thought- wasn't in game actually already is. Kinda scary that I find stuff in Near Infinity before I notice it in the game, but...

The dialogue file that I thought wasn't in game but is belongs to the leader of the ghouls in the Drowned Nations. I never noticed there -was- a leader before. You find out in dialogue that her name is Alaina, but she wasn't given a distinct .CRE so the name floating over her head is simply "Ghoul". Probably why I never clicked on her.

Also didn't remember the bit with the two ghouls that ask you to kill a troco for them, with the scripted bit of one approaching and running away and getting called coward, but yep, that's there, and really not far at all from Alaina either. I'm thinking I never noticed -that- bit before because in low resolution it would be tough to see both ghouls and the troco at the same time. This is my first time playing in high resolution (and man, it really is a -very- different experience, great stuff.)

Anyways, I went through pretty much every file connected to the Drowned Nations to see if there was anything I -could- restore, to *ahem* save face here, but nope, there's not a damn thing to restore, I'm afraid.

Oh well. The good news there is, I don't have to devote time to creating that mod, which puts release that much sooner, heh...

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 24 November 2008 - 02:51 AM.

[ghostdog]

Don't worry, this game is full of surprises even if you've played it many times In my current playthrough I'm also experiencing many moments of astonishment about things I hadn't seen before.

But don't you mean Acaste? Acaste was the leader of the ghouls.

[Qwinn]

No... I mean, Acaste -is- the overall leader of the ghouls, but there's a secondary leader of just the ghouls that are in the Drowned Nations, as opposed to the Dead Nations. Best way to spot her is to enter the Drowned Nations from the Dead Nations and then look for a female ghoul with different floating text from the others.

Qwinn

[ghostdog]

As yes, now I've found her, I may have never taken notice of her either. Maybe at one point they meant to give the drowned nations some story and quests but eventually they dropped it.

[Qwinn]

Found and fixed another minor bug. When you report to Emoric that you found Soego, the dialogue file checks to see if he's dead. Unfortunately, it was checking for the Soego from the Mortuary, not the Soego from Dead Nations (he has two different creature files). The resulting incorrect behavior is pretty predictable from there (nothing of consequence, but just doesn't read right). The same was true and fixed for a similar dialogue check by male Dead Nation zombies.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 24 November 2008 - 01:42 PM.

[Qwinn]

It's possible, but it's not as easy as it sounds (modifying the area to point to the new creature I'd be creating with the right name would be non-trivial).

If it was a very easy change, or if her dialogue were more significant, or if there wasn't -anything- distinguishing her from the others (there is - her floating text), I would bother... but it would be a pain to do, her dialogue isn't really important, and she -is- distinguished from the others, so meh. Bigger fish to fry, and all that. Besides, leaving some unimportant things not so obvious so that they can be found on second or third playthroughs isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 25 November 2008 - 03:00 AM.

[ghostdog]

Now that you mention Soego, I remember experiencing a bug with him in the dead nations. If I decided to betray him to Hargrimm when he confronted Soego the the game would lock. IIRC the lock happened during the "cutscene" where he appeared with some other skeletons in Soego's chamber. So the only viable solution was to kill Soego.

Another minor issue I've come across is that sometimes I can't talk to certain party members (it has happed with Morte and Nordom), I just click on them and nothing happens. If I reload or restart the game, everything goes back to normal.

[Qwinn]

Now that you mention Soego, I remember experiencing a bug with him in the dead nations. If I decided to betray him to Hargrimm when he confronted Soego the the game would lock. IIRC the lock happened during the "cutscene" where he appeared with some other skeletons in Soego's chamber. So the only viable solution was to kill Soego.

Someone else mentioned this - maybe it was you? I've never been able to duplicate it. If you have a save game from just before this happening that you could zip up and send to me, I can try to fix it.

Another minor issue I've come across is that sometimes I can't talk to certain party members (it has happed with Morte and Nordom), I just click on them and nothing happens. If I reload or restart the game, everything goes back to normal.

Yeah. I'm -hoping- that this is a result of the way banters used to work. In this version we're disabling banters in the engine, so possibly that may fix the problem. I haven't encountered it in my current test run yet, anyway. By the way, simply transitioning to another area also usually solves the problem when it does happen.

Qwinn

[Qwinn]

Okay. Here's one that deserves special note.

I'm at the Tenement of Thugs. And you know what? There's something here that's always bugged the living crap out of me, but I wasn't sure what. Now I am.

That stupid secret door. It's ridiculous. It makes the entire area completely trivial. NO challenge whatsoever. Any party, no matter how sucky, can go through the whole Tenement having to kill exactly two weak thugs, with no thought, in about 20 seconds. Okay, you miss out on Sybil's exceptionally crappy quest reward - not exactly a loss.

What I really really wanted to do was to make it so that you could only find that secret door with like a Find Traps skill of 60-70 or so - basically something only a heavily pumped Annah or a dedicated thief TNO could find... that way it'd serve mainly as what I expect it was supposed to be, a stealthy method of getting through primarily for thief TNO's.

Well, that didn't work. I put the "door detection" value to 60, and saw the door immediately pretty much the instant I walked in. Did some research, and apparently in the Infinity Engine, thieves -instantly- detect all secret doors. Wow. That makes secret doors pretty much utterly useless and trivial as far as I'm concerned.

So, as part of my Locks fix, I'm giving that secret door a lock difficulty of 92. That's perfectly achievable even with just Annah this early in the game, believe it or not, though it takes some serious dedication and tattoos and at least some of one level's worth of Annah thief points pumped into that skill (Remember, you get a random +2-9% bonus to your skill % each attempt, so a skill of 83 can crack it with luck... my Annah in this test run has an 88 skill, and another +1 dex tat could get her to 93).

I totally don't mind that getting through that door is itself a challenge. You can still get through without a fight, but that's not going to have all the challenge of hitting stealth and walking from one end of a building to the other. You guys -have- been asking for the game to be more challenging, right? Right? Okay, here's a start.

Like I said, I'd much rather have the secret door remain secret unless the character was actively attempting to detect traps with a high (roughly 60-70ish) Find Traps skill. I think that'd be much cooler, but in the meantime, this will have to serve by proxy.

BTW, far as I know, this is the only secret door in all of PS:T... if someone can remember another, please let me know.

Also, any opinions, be it agreement or disagreement, would be welcome.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 25 November 2008 - 09:36 AM.

[Qwinn]

Okay, sorta got it halfway between what I was resigned to do and what I wanted to do.

Low spoiler version: The secret door in the Tenement of Thugs will now be hard to get through.

Full spoiler version:

Spoiler

The secret door is both trapped and locked. You don't have to click on Find Traps mode - the trap is automatically detected (though the door does not highlight, it's black). Using thieving skill on the door will bring up the Disarm Trap cursor, not the Pick Lock cursor, until the trap is disarmed.

I wasted all morning trying to get the trap to actually deal a small 3-5 hp damage to anyone attempting to open the door. Doesn't seem to be doable - about the only thing a door seems to be able to be trapped with is a dialogue. So, the trap doesn't do damage, it's just a barrier to getting through that door, basically just a secondary lock relying on a different skill.

The trap has a difficulty of 70 and the lock has a difficulty of 85.

Again, any comments, even if just Yaaay or Boooo or Mehhh, on this change would be appreciated.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 25 November 2008 - 09:26 AM.

[Daulmakan]

That seems more as tweak material rather than a fix. Not that I really mind it, I always slaughter the entire house for the extra XP, but beefing up that door doesn't really make the game harder IMO, it makes it more annoying.

[ghostdog]

About the Soego bug , I couldn't reproduce it. I did not have a save near that time so I loaded a much earlier save and rushed to the dead nations. Anyway, since it didn't happen again, there's nothing more to go on.

As for the hidden door, I'm not sure if making it that hard to open is the best option. Using stealth with Annah and reaching the exit must isn't that difficult either. The one thing that really needs fixing is the fact that when one of your party memebers goes through an area exit the rest of the party magically follows. It would be more logical if only the said party member walked through the exit or if you had to "gather your party before venturing forth" , without the famous annoying voice of course... And also enemies should follow you if you leave the area.

I'm not saying it's a bad idea, but maybe the lock should be a bit more easy for people wanting to go through the game with as less battles as possible.

[Qwinn]

It strikes me as "fix" rather than "tweak" material because a great deal of effort is gone to to create different paths through the tenement. The fighter type can just barrel their way through the main room, the mage type can climb up the stairs and duke it out with the mage on the 3rd floor to take his key, or the thief type can just sneak through that secret door.

O wait. Except that "secret" isn't even remotely a secret, as it becomes instantly visible to absolutely positively everybody within seconds of walking in, and which just lets you walk right out. And it's not locked. Or trapped. So basically, everybody can just casually skip the locked doors requiring keys, the big gang of mobs, and just walk right out with zero effort. It doesn't even take metagaming knowledge.

That says "broken" to me.

As for my making the lock "that hard", well...

Spoiler

Honestly it's really not even. Here, let me show u it.

Annah comes with 40 Remove Traps and 50 Pick Locks. She needs 61 RT and 76 PL to have a small chance of getting through on each attempt, and 68/83 to be assured of getting through on the first try (less if she has any +Luck at all).

+2 Dex Tattoo gives 10% to each. Tattoo of the Thief gives another +5% to RT and +10% to PL. With those two alone, she's up to 55/75. Now you can:

1) Get her a measly 1000xp from where you get her at to level her thief class, giving you 20 points to distribute.
2) Talk to her, have her teach you what she knows, then (and this is -very- easy) get your own skills up to 50% so you can teach her right back, giving her another 5 to each... and oh yeah, that alone gives you enough XP to level her, giving you those 20 points to distribute from step 1)
3) Take a third, cheap +1 DEX tattoo for another 5% to both.

Do all of the above, split her level points between the two skills, and she's at 75/95 skill. Remember, the difficulties are at 70/85, and you get a random 2-9% bonus whenever you try, so she doesn't even really need more than just the +2 Dex tattoo. And none of this is counting the various temporary buffs you can get to thief skills, like Cranium Rat Charms, a whole bunch of ways to raise Luck, etc.

So, it's not mega difficult, it just takes someone who takes the party's thieving skills at least slightly seriously. I think this is appropriate for the "stealth" method of getting through the tenement, as opposed to simply literally killing two weak mobs and walking out of the place with no challenge whatsoever. It is still easier than the other two methods of getting through the place.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 25 November 2008 - 10:13 AM.

[Daulmakan]

It strikes me as "fix" rather than "tweak" material because a great deal of effort is gone to to create different paths through the tenement. The fighter type can just barrel their way through the main room, the mage type can climb up the stairs and duke it out with the mage on the 3rd floor to take his key, or the thief type can just sneak through that secret door.

I see a great deal of effort in the floating lines of the most meaningless creature in the game, it's THAT awesome. So this in particular doesn't sway me.

O wait. Except that "secret" isn't even remotely a secret, as it becomes instantly visible to absolutely positively everybody within seconds of walking in, and which just lets you walk right out. And it's not locked. Or trapped. So basically, everybody can just casually skip the locked doors requiring keys, the big gang of mobs, and just walk right out with zero effort. It doesn't even take metagaming knowledge. That says "broken" to me.

Doesn't Annah tell you about that secret door (meaning she knows about it)? Also, IIRC, didn't she pass that way when she felt something that called her towards finding your body? That could also mean she was the last person to use it (do the thugs even know about it for sure?). In that case, it's perfectly understandable that the door shows up immediately and is neither trapped nor locked.

Edited by Daulmakan, 25 November 2008 - 09:58 AM.

[Qwinn]

Okay, then....

What is the point of the entire building. You tell me.

Did a big edit to my last post, by the way.

And no, I don't think that secret door is ever mentioned - the door that gets mentioned is the one that lets you -into- the Tenement of Thugs.

Qwinn

Edited by Qwinn, 25 November 2008 - 10:08 AM.