Future tweak ideas - post 'em here

[CamDawg]

I'm not too worried about enemy mages--it interferes with player AI scripting, too.

[mongretops]

9 hours ago, Jarno Mikkola said:

But you see, there's already this option for that. It's not in the Tweaks Anthology though, it's in Item Revision... and there's one in Full Plate and... yes, the Tweaks could use more options for this as sub components. But that would require consistent items, which can be a hard requirement for a mod installed so late in the game, while the Item Rev can have them as it needs to be installed quite near the start and the primary component makes the items consistant up to a decree, and it can be required to be installed first(and thus it is).

Okay, i will take a look at this mod, thanks!

3 hours ago, CamDawg said:

Unfortunately, combat scripting in the IE gets very dumb when casting times start matching or exceeding 10 (one full round). The engine assumes any spell is cast within a round, and can sometimes just go to the next round's action--e.g. the mage sits there casting for six seconds, then throws the spell away to use a sling. This is one of the reasons why Fixpack and the EEs actually use maximum casting times of nine (as in nine-tenths of a round) even for spells which say their casting time is a full round.

While it's easy enough to adjust casting times based on a fixed or percentage-based penalty, there's no way to specify a maximum cap.

Oh... so for programmers this is way more complicated than it seems, because of the BG's round system.

Can't someone adjust the round so that a round is acctualy 12 seconds instead of 6? and then adjust the time of all spells and APR to balance it out? just asking if it is possible, seems like too much work, but im just wondering if the possibility exist.

[Jarno Mikkola]

7 minutes ago, mongretops said:

Can't someone adjust the round so that a round is acctualy 12 seconds instead of 6? and then adjust the time of all spells and APR to balance it out? just asking if it is possible, seems like too much work, but im just wondering if the possibility exist.

It doesn't work that way. See you could slow the game down, just run the game in 15 FPS... but it wouldn't work the way you wanted it to. You would need to shush the casting delay of 1 and 2 into 1, 3 and 4 into 2 and so forth. Half the projectile speeds. And the items&Haste would be OP, as hell as you double their effects. And walking speeds would be a smash, ... you would needs to edit all the creatures animations... not worth the effort, would be my bet.

[4udr4n]

Doesn't Scales of Balance include an option to have casting time penalties on armour?

@subtledoctor is the issue of 10+ casting time spells not being taken into account by the AI something you considered with SoB?

[subtledoctor]

2 minutes ago, 4udr4n said:

Doesn't Scales of Balance include an option to have casting time penalties on armour?

@subtledoctor is the issue of 10+ casting time spells not being taken into account by the AI something you considered with SoB?

Yes, SoB, FPPS, and (I think) IR all have options for armored casting to apply a casting time penalty.

I haven't considered that weakness of Ai scripts, but as Jarno says, the number of enemy mages in the game wearing armor is probably vanishingly small, so I'm not too concerned.  We could change the casting times of all spells to use a range of, say, 1-6 instead of 0-9, and that would build in a buffer just in case.  But TBH I don't think it's necessary.

[4udr4n]

Makes sense, ta.

[Bartimaeus]

9 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

the number of enemy mages in the game wearing armor is probably vanishingly small

Wouldn't it be...literally none? Armor disables spellcasting entirely in the vanilla game, so no enemies expected to use arcane spellcasting should have armor equipped.

Edited April 14, 2020 by Bartimaeus

[Lilaina]

25 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

Wouldn't it be...literally none? Armor disables spellcasting entirely in the vanilla game, so no enemies expected to use arcane spellcasting should have armor equipped.

Demon Knight has a large shield at least, so in some version of item revisions that I tried he had 50% to fail at spellcasting.

[Bartimaeus]

1 hour ago, Lilaina said:

Demon Knight has a large shield at least, so in some version of item revisions that I tried he had 50% to fail at spellcasting.

I didn't consider shields, that's a valid point. There probably should've been an option to apply spellcasting failure/speed penalties only to armor, not shields...

[subtledoctor]

SoB does not apply casting dpeed penalty to shields. Dunno about IR/FPPS. 

[CamDawg]

9 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Wouldn't it be...literally none? Armor disables spellcasting entirely in the vanilla game, so no enemies expected to use arcane spellcasting should have armor equipped.

Maevar is a mage-thief with a full spellbook and scripting to use it, but can't since he's wearing Shadow Armor.

[subtledoctor]

3 hours ago, CamDawg said:

Maevar is a mage-thief with a full spellbook and scripting to use it, but can't since he's wearing Shadow Armor.

So do these various “cast-in-armor” mods automatically enable him to use spells? Sounds like yes. 

[Jarno Mikkola]

3 hours ago, CamDawg said:

Maevar is a mage-thief with a full spellbook and scripting to use it, but can't since he's wearing Shadow Armor.

Then why is he wearing the thing ? And you can't give him immunity to opcode 145 & 189 ? Cause that would be what I would do... in a SCS component if I were to make the encounter a bit harder. And not give him extra mage levels for no reasons. Someone might go and want to check if this is what SCS actually does...

[CamDawg]

1 hour ago, subtledoctor said:

So do these various “cast-in-armor” mods automatically enable him to use spells? Sounds like yes. 

Yep. First time I faced him with this tweak installed, it took me a bit to cotton on that it was Maevar, not just his mage buddy, that was casting spells.

[mongretops]

okay guys, thanks for your attention! seems like the game engine makes it hard to fix that spellcasting/armor thing out.

On another subject, is there a mod that balance out the two-handed weapon vs dual-wielding? it really seems to me  (and i believe most people agree) that dual wielding just does a lot more damage than two handing, on pretty much any stage of the game, wouldnt there be a mod that at a third star to two handed proficiency to maybe add one more APR or something? or something that nerf dual wielding to the same damage as two handing?