Feedback: IR v4 Beta

[Bartimaeus]

On 7/9/2019 at 10:26 AM, Guest Jc2486 said:

Do slings need some buff? Without any apr and str dmg bonus, the damage seems subpar to me.

I think we had a discussion about it in the IR Revised thread a while back. I think I liked giving it either the strength bonus or like +1/2 APR, but nobody seemed to care that much probably because slings, after all, are supposed to be a weak category of weapons, so I didn't end up bothering.

[subtledoctor]

My personal answer is to set them to do crushing damage, making them unique among missile weapons. But that's not for everyone.  

Edited July 11, 2019 by subtledoctor

[Guest Jc2486]

Thanks for answers!

[Merlin]

I installed IR to BG1EE recently. Basically it looks good but now Bassilus drops the Rift Hammer instead of the Ashideena. On average the Rift hammer does 0.5 dmg more than Ashideena against 1 enemy. And for 4 enemies the Rift Hammer is on average 5 dmg better than the Ashideena. Do you think that the Ashideena, one of the best weapons in BG1, really needs buff? Or is this a bug?

[subtledoctor]

On 8/22/2019 at 3:57 AM, Merlin said:

I installed IR to BG1EE recently. Basically it looks good but now Bassilus drops the Rift Hammer instead of the Ashideena. On average the Rift hammer does 0.5 dmg more than Ashideena against 1 enemy. And for 4 enemies the Rift Hammer is on average 5 dmg better than the Ashideena. Do you think that the Ashideena, one of the best weapons in BG1, really needs buff? Or is this a bug?

I imagine it's because the mod was designed for BG2 and Ashideena in BG1EE has the same filename as what becomes the Rift Hammer in BG2. That's my best guess. 

Anyway I think the Rift Hammer is a much more interesting concept, so I never conplained about this. 

[NdranC]

Has it been considered before to change the armor's dexterity penalty from percentage to flat negatives? Right now I'm finding a little annoying to basically hot swap armors between the characters to see who gets the lesser penalty between the different percentages and levels of dexterity plus having to cross reference that with the dexterity table in the wiki so I can make sure this ranger with heavy armor is not loosing much thac0. I'm not saying it's horrible but seems unnecessarily cumbersome.

My suggestion would be subtle -1 to -3 flat bonuses if at all. After watching enough videos of people running and demonstrating flexibility in heavy plate armor I'm not convinced by the fantasy "armor makes you slower and clumsy" stereotype.

[Mike1072]

6 hours ago, NdranC said:

Has it been considered before to change the armor's dexterity penalty from percentage to flat negatives?

...

My suggestion would be subtle -1 to -3 flat bonuses if at all.

That's exactly how it was originally implemented.

I tried to find the rationale for the change to a percentage-based system, but the best I could find was the following exchange from the Revised Armors thread.

On 10/21/2013 at 8:03 PM, yarpen said:

Also, I do have an idea about Dexterity penalties, but I am not sure if that's applicable. "Dexterity Penalty from armor can reduce character's Dexterity to minimum of 9." That would actually solve the biggest issue I have with Dexterity penalties. I just really hate to see my character with 4 Dexterity just because he tried to get into that sweet platemail.

On 10/22/2013 at 2:02 AM, Demivrgvs said:

Your are grossly exaggerating this. I've used % values instead of fixed -x penalties exactly to counter what you says. A character with DEX 9 would get to DEX 7 when wearing full plate (no difference at all in terms of gameplay - and with a plate mail he would have suffered only 1 point of penalty!). A character with DEX 6 gets to 5, while to get DEX 4 in full plate your character need to have DEX 5 as base value, which means you are trying to give a full plate to an old man who cannot even raise himself from bed.

I have a recollection that the percentage values chosen were designed to mimic the original penalties (-1 to -3) for a character at 18 DEX.  Essentially, the percentage-based system should behave similar to the flat value system regarding bonuses for high dexterity without penalizing low dexterity characters as much.

[Endarire]

Item Revisions: Do items properly work with Shaman and its kits?

@Bartimaeus Item Revisions: What about incorporating changes from Item Revisions Revised into Item Revisions as official options not requiring a separate mod?

Edited January 3, 2020 by Endarire

[subtledoctor]

Install this after IR for shamans:

 

[Cahir]

Hello guys,

I've been trying to wrap my head around it whole day without success, so I would be grateful for help.

I've been trying to tweak Item Descriptions a bit to more match vanilla EE description style, but the regexp lines from description_updates.tra file are giving me a headache.

For instance, I want to change following line

Quote

 

Armor Class Bonus: x

to

– Armor Class: +x

 

and also I would like to change following line(s) that are added via description_updates.tra (this is from Revised Shields section)
 

Quote

 

THAC0: -1 Penalty

THAC0: -2 Penalty

to

 –THAC0: -1 Penalty

– THAC0: -2 Penalty

 

I have modified relevant lines from description_updates.tra to the following:

Quote

// replace @100315
@100316 = ~– Armor Class: +%new_ac%~

// replace @100315
@100317 = ~– Armor Class: +2~

// replace @100315
@100318 = ~– Armor Class: +3~

// add thaco line to @100319
@100320 = ~\1
– THAC0: -2 Penalty~

// add thaco line to @100319
@100324 = ~\1
– THAC0: -1 Penalty~

But the result I've got the following:

Also, I would like to adjust the code so the THACO: -x Penalty would go under Special: +x vs. missile weapons.

Appreciate your help guys!

[Mike1072]

It likely has to do with the encoding of the file and the attempted conversion to Unicode performed by HANDLE_CHARSETS.  Because the description-updating code is supposed to work on both the original and enhanced editions, it might be better to leave it as is and add the dash in a separate step, executed only for enhanced edition games.  Then, you could ensure the en dash was in a file that was encoded in UTF-8 already and that file could be added to the list of files ignored by HANDLE_CHARSETS.

Adjusting the position of the THAC0 line is a little tricky but not too bad.  Swap the position of this code that cleans up the Special line with this code that adds the THAC0 line (to make it easier to match the line), then adjust the regexp that finds the Armor Class line @100319 so it includes an optional grouping for the Special line at the end:

@100319 = ~\(Armor Class\([ %tab%]*Bonus[ %tab%]*\)?:.*\(%MNL%?%LNL%Special: \+[0-9]+ vs\. Missile Weapons\)?\)~

While doing some testing, I noticed the enhanced editions changed the way that the special line is formatted.  If you were to install the revised shields component on vanilla EE (without IR's main component), the special line would get wiped out unintentionally.  Something I should consider fixing at some point.

[Cahir]

3 hours ago, Mike1072 said:

It likely has to do with the encoding of the file and the attempted conversion to Unicode performed by HANDLE_CHARSETS.  Because the description-updating code is supposed to work on both the original and enhanced editions, it might be better to leave it as is and add the dash in a separate step, executed only for enhanced edition games.  Then, you could ensure the en dash was in a file that was encoded in UTF-8 already and that file could be added to the list of files ignored by HANDLE_CHARSETS.

Adjusting the position of the THAC0 line is a little tricky but not too bad.  Swap the position of this code that cleans up the Special line with this code that adds the THAC0 line (to make it easier to match the line), then adjust the regexp that finds the Armor Class line @100319 so it includes an optional grouping for the Special line at the end:

@100319 = ~\(Armor Class\([ %tab%]*Bonus[ %tab%]*\)?:.*\(%MNL%?%LNL%Special: \+[0-9]+ vs\. Missile Weapons\)?\)~

While doing some testing, I noticed the enhanced editions changed the way that the special line is formatted.  If you were to install the revised shields component on vanilla EE (without IR's main component), the special line would get wiped out unintentionally.  Something I should consider fixing at some point.

Oh, thank you @Mike1072 for chiming in! I have been able to fix formatting issue by typing the dash and the space by hand instead of pasting it from another file. Weird, but it seems that did the trick. 

I'll play with swapping those line and putting a modified code for the second issue. That's eqactly what I needed. You may consider putting this change in original package too. IMO, it looks better to have it like this:

Armor Class Bonus: 2

Special: +2 vs. Missile Weapons

THAC0: - 2 Penalty

 

than like this:

Armor Class Bonus: 2

THAC0: - 2 Penalty

Special: +2 vs. Missile Weapons

 

Also did you consider to prepare  Item_descriptions_EE.tra version too, tailored for EE games as it is often done by other mods (current Weimar's Item Upgrade version comes to mind)? I know it's probably a bit time consuming, but it would help to maintain consistency with other item packs installed along IR, that follow EE description formatting. I would just leave special abilities names, though (like "bane Weapon", "Acidic" etc.), since it's something that distinguishes IR from other item packs, and frankly adds more favor to item descriptions. I can PM you my edited version if you interested in getting this done. 

As for the issue you've discovered during testing, fortunately I plan to use Revised Shields along with main IR component, but obviously it would be great to have it fixed. 

[Cahir]

@Mike1072also while were at it. What would it take to have mod related items to be included in Shield changes and Armor changes components patching routine? Is adding them to this  file and this file sufficient or this would require other changes of code?

I suppose, to get it work on my end I would also need to manually change shields Armor Bonus entries in those mods to match current IR style, so it could get caught in Shield changes patching routine and be probably updated. It shouldn't be necessary to do it for armors, because from what I see Armor changes is just adding new lines without replacing any.

[Cahir]

@Mike1072 sorry for posting three times in a row, but I have tested the code change you provided for both IR and RR shields and it works! Now it's looking way better. Thank you!

Now to get it absolutely perfect for my tastes I would like to tweak couple more things. If you could tell me what needs to be change, I'd be eternally grateful.

1. I'd like to change:

Quote

Special: No Missile Weapon Protection

to

Quote

– No protection against missile attacks

2. This would probably be more tricky. I would like to have additional line that adds bonus AC vs. missiles for Large shields to be added to general AC bonus line, to looks more like in EE games (examples below) instead of what is looking now at the screen above:

Quote

– Armor Class: +1, an extra +2 vs. missile attacks

Quote

– Armor Class: +1, an extra +2 vs. missile attacks

Thanks in advance

[Mike1072]

2 hours ago, Cahir said:

I'll play with swapping those line and putting a modified code for the second issue. That's eqactly what I needed. You may consider putting this change in original package too. IMO, it looks better to have it like this:

Armor Class Bonus: 2

Special: +2 vs. Missile Weapons

THAC0: - 2 Penalty

 

than like this:

Armor Class Bonus: 2

THAC0: - 2 Penalty

Special: +2 vs. Missile Weapons

Agreed.  It was only done the other way because that was a simpler regexp.  (And I was quite concerned about being able to detect newlines properly.)

2 hours ago, Cahir said:

Also did you consider to prepare  Item_descriptions_EE.tra version too, tailored for EE games as it is often done by other mods (current Weimar's Item Upgrade version comes to mind)? I know it's probably a bit time consuming, but it would help to maintain consistency with other item packs installed along IR, that follow EE description formatting. I would just leave special abilities names, though (like "bane Weapon", "Acidic" etc.), since it's something that distinguishes IR from other item packs, and frankly adds more favor to item descriptions. I can PM you my edited version if you interested in getting this done. 

I'm unlikely to spend significant efforts maintaining a version of the mod that works on both the original games and enhanced editions much longer.  It takes too much time, makes the mod much more complicated, and restricts the mod to only include things that work on both platforms.  If an EE-specific version was created someday, the description formatting would likely be changed to blend in more with the EE style.

1 hour ago, Cahir said:

@Mike1072also while were at it. What would it take to have mod related items to be included in Shield changes and Armor changes components patching routine? Is adding them to this  file and this file sufficient or this would require other changes of code?

If you include them in there with the appropriate value for their shield or armor type, you shouldn't need to do anything else.

12 minutes ago, Cahir said:

Now to get it absolutely perfect for my tastes I would like to tweak couple more things. If you could tell me what needs to be change, I'd be eternally grateful.

1. I'd like to change:

Quote

Special: No Missile Weapon Protection

to

Quote

– No protection against missile attacks

That can probably be done by changing @100313 in description_updates.tra.

12 minutes ago, Cahir said:

2. This would probably be more tricky. I would like to have additional line that adds bonus AC vs. missiles for Large shields to be added to general AC bonus line, to looks more like in EE games (examples below) instead of what is looking now at the screen above:

That's getting more complicated and may be better suited to a new topic in Modding Q&A.  Essentially you'd want to use a REPLACE_TEXTUALLY on the description, finding a line that starts with "– Armor Class:" followed by a line starting with "Special:" and replace the newline in between them.  It would involve a regexp similar to the one in my previous post.