8 réponses à ce sujet

[CybAnt1]

 Those of you who are versed in the mojo of the Force, I mean, the Toolset ... I've never gotten further than editing my savegames with it, or creating an item, or looking at stuff ... unfortunately my programming days are way way in the past and looking at scripts makes my eyes glaze ... 

Could somebody take this on as a project? I know there are mods that affect shapeshifting already, but none (AFAIK) that do the following. One of the current mods gives you an ungodly number of new alternative forms, but I'd like to see one that just tackles the mechanics of bear/spider. (I think the flying swarm is fine.) 

1. make it instantaneous (yes I know this already in several others)
2. make the bear/spider STR more dependent on spellpower, not your own human STR (likewise DEX and CON)
3. make the bear/spider base damage more dependent on ... well, something else other than what weapon you were holding before you shifted ... also base it on spellpower and whether you have Master or not ... let the forms critical even if you were holding a staff beforehand. 
4. make the bear/spider armor/dodge more based on spellpower, rather than what you were wearing as armor before the shift. Higher the spellpower, more armor the bear has, the better the spider is able to dodge. 

Yes what I'm asking is to make the shapeshifter less of a mage-warrior, so that shifting has nothing to do with what gear you had before you shift. 

BTW a lower priority, but what I'd love to see:

5. give the bear and spider additional abilities besides the 2 + overwhelm they get at Master ... I'm thinking a self-heal/regenerate for the bear, and a self-speed buff for the spider. They need more abilities since you can't use any of your own, or your own items, in shifted form. 

Is anyone interested in doing this as a project? Alternatively, is there any way I could change this in my own game just by editing some 2DAs? (I doubt it's as easy as that.) 

[tmp7704]

CybAnt1 wrote...

2. make the bear/spider STR more dependent on spellpower, not your own human STR (likewise DEX and CON)
3. make the bear/spider base damage more dependent on ... well, something else other than what weapon you were holding before you shifted ... also base it on spellpower and whether you have Master or not ... let the forms critical even if you were holding a staff beforehand. 
4. make the bear/spider armor/dodge more based on spellpower, rather than what you were wearing as armor before the shift. Higher the spellpower, more armor the bear has, the better the spider is able to dodge. 

All forms already get their shapeshifted attributes entirely from spellpower -- they calculate it from numbers put in shapechange 2DA file. The thing is, if your base armour/strength/etc is higher than what your spellpower armour/strength/etc would be, your shifted character keeps their base attribute rather than receive the new one, so they're not penalized by the shape change.

The Master shapeshifter talent also contributes to your character attributes. Simply put, each 5 points (iirc) of spellpower translates to a "level" of strength, dexterity etc of your shifted character. The Master talent gives 2 additional such levels, i.e. is an equivalent of having 10 more spellpower than your character actually does have.

Modifié par tmp7704, 11 mars 2010 - 04:39 .

[CybAnt1]

OK. Let's not focus on the attributes. There's really one key thing I think I see needing fixed.



Your base damage in spider or bear form seems based on whatever weapon you were holding before your shift. And according to the two shapeshifting guides I've seen, if you're holding a staff before you shift (which most mages are), your base damage in spider/bear is fist damage (and what is that? 1-2 pts?) and you can't critical, although the game oddly takes pity on you and makes you hit automatically.



I'd rather see a different formula. Please note these numbers I'm just throwing off the top of my head, but this is the "kinda way" I'd like to see it work. The key is there should be a base for the forms, improved by spellpower, but totally unaffected by the previous weapon you were holding.



bear: base damage = 9 pts (regular), 12 pts (master), + augmented by shapeshifter level

spider: base damage = 4 pts (regular), 7 pts (master) + lower augment by shapeshifter level



Plus: you always need to roll to hit, and you can critical (always).



I've pored over the mods that specifically address shapeshifting, and others that tweak it (while not focusing on it), and I don't see any fixing this directly. There are people that are working on adding new forms. I think it would be cool just to make the spider and bear work better; I have no problems with flying swarm.



Please note some think it doesn't need to be fixed, and others (like me) do, ergo it seems to be perfect fodder for a mod. Those who want it improved can make use of it ... those who don't, don't have to.



If there were some mod that fixed this and only this, I would be happy. To me it seems like what's "wrong" with shapeshifting. It would also be cool to give the bear and spider more creature abilities to augment those lost from shifting. But that would be just gravy.



Question: you've almost made me hopeful some of this might be editable by myself. What is the shapechange 2DA file, and could I get the results I want above just by editing it?



I might just make my first mod, myself.

[CybAnt1]

OK. Let me ask this simply & directly as a question.



Is it in one of the .ncs files that the base damage for the spider & bear form is being determined for shapeshifters?



How would one change that base damage; the change I want to make is to make that damage determined solely by mage spellpower & not what weapon the mage was holding before shifting.

[tmp7704]

CybAnt1 wrote...

Is it in one of the .ncs files that the base damage for the spider & bear form is being determined for shapeshifters?

How would one change that base damage; the change I want to make is to make that damage determined solely by mage spellpower & not what weapon the mage was holding before shifting.

The answer is a bit complicated  trying to put it simply:

* the shapeshift process is handled by one of the *.ncs files (which is a compiled script)

* the script calculates attributes of shifted character based on numbers defined in one of *.2da files.

* additionally the script also calculates (from the same source) so-called "damage added" which is additional damage inflicted with each hit.

* without checking the script to make sure and going by vague recollection of it from the last time i played with it, the damage in shifted form being --in part-- a result of equipped weapon is either unintended or simply there because there's some issues with un-equipping the weapon as part of the script. I have the impression what the script was actually supposed to do is to de-equip weapon while shape-shifted which would mean essentially whole damage dealt would be the "damage added" part, calculated from the mentioned *.2da file.

* i'm not sure why the weapon isn't currently getting unequipped when you shift. But in any case as this part of the process is handled by the *.ncs script, it's this script that'd need a change to remove the weapon damage from the equation. Without it you can tweak the numbers in the *.2da file to influence overall amount of damage dealt, but as long as the script remains unchanged the weapon-based part of damage is going to still be there.

[CybAnt1]

Next question: what are the files that define the attribute formula, and "damage added". I'm thinking I can almost do what I want to do just by editing the 2DA, and leaving the NCS compiled script alone.



Is it called "shapeshifter.2DA"?

[tmp7704]

The base file is named "shapechange.2DA" but you can make just an "override" file with name starting with "shapechange_" to modify the values you want rather than tweak the base file. This way things are less likely to break with game updates, or to conflict with other mods.



You can see this process described in detail in tutorial here: http://dragonagemodd...ding-2da-files/

[CybAnt1]

BTW, I might tinker a bit myself, tmp7704, but I found your Shapeshifter Plus! under Projects and it seems it works for me just fine.



I like the extra dragon form you made. You did something to affect bear/spider form mechanic, because I was definitely doing better damage with them, even while holding a staff beforehand.



I think this was the fix I was looking for. Too bad you didn't have yours on DA Nexus, where I found most of the others. Anyway, thanks for it, and I still will look over the file, see what I might do with it myself.

[CybAnt1]

Tmp7704, I was going to ask you some questions about the mechanics of your Shapeshifter Plus mod, but it seems to me it might be better to ask them at the "home" of your mod under Projects.



I've started a new discussion there, where I asked you some questions about mechanics.