Author Topic: Some stuff for the tweak pack...  (Read 3695 times)

the man with the plan

  • Guest
Some stuff for the tweak pack...
« on: February 16, 2005, 05:12:42 PM »
Everybody always moans about the mage spell infravision, and numerous others too (reflected image comes to mind). Sure, these are level one spells, but so is magic missile and everbody LOVES that. So would it be possible to make some alterations to some truly awful spells? Infravision could work as dispelling invisibility, but with a very short, targetted, radius. So it would only be useful if you knew where the dude was anyway.  It would become useful, but definitely not overpowered. More along these lines for other spells. Could this happen?

Offline SimDing0™

  • Back In Black
  • Global Moderator
  • Planewalker
  • *****
  • Posts: 3496
  • Gender: Male
  • Word Enhancer
Re: Some stuff for the tweak pack...
« Reply #1 on: April 23, 2005, 06:07:28 PM »
Okay, I seem to have actually managed to completely overlook a couple of posts somehow. Sorry! I agree that rebalancing some spells probably would kinda come under my domain, what with Improved Goodberries and all. I'm not sure I really have the time to spend deciding exactly how Infravision should work, unfortunately. I think Galactygon has done a fair bit of work rebalancing spells over at http://www.blackwyrmlair.com/, so that might be of interest.

Offline Nerik

  • Planewalker
  • *****
  • Posts: 30
Re: Some stuff for the tweak pack...
« Reply #2 on: April 24, 2005, 04:47:15 PM »
IIRC the DragonLance TC was planning to (or had implimented) a method where dark areas (either at night or underground) reduced visual range, and infravision negated this - which would make infravision useful, as well as the whole 'cool' factor :)

This would be a major mod though, perhaps beyond the perview of the tweak pack. (In fact it would fit into an idea I posted in the Mod Ideas section of FW some while ago - making weather effects have game effects & be detectable).

Charles

Offline SimDing0™

  • Back In Black
  • Global Moderator
  • Planewalker
  • *****
  • Posts: 3496
  • Gender: Male
  • Word Enhancer
Re: Some stuff for the tweak pack...
« Reply #3 on: April 25, 2005, 01:48:22 AM »
IIRC the DragonLance TC was planning to (or had implimented) a method where dark areas (either at night or underground) reduced visual range, and infravision negated this - which would make infravision useful, as well as the whole 'cool' factor :)
Yeh, we implemented it for DLTC, and at one stage I was working on an enhancement to add more of a gradient to the view distance change. I'm not sure how exiciting it'd be in BG2, though.

Quote
This would be a major mod though, perhaps beyond the perview of the tweak pack. (In fact it would fit into an idea I posted in the Mod Ideas section of FW some while ago - making weather effects have game effects & be detectable).
I don't think it'd be that major to implement.
« Last Edit: April 25, 2005, 02:10:38 AM by SimDing0™ »

Offline Nerik

  • Planewalker
  • *****
  • Posts: 30
Re: Some stuff for the tweak pack...
« Reply #4 on: April 25, 2005, 05:44:58 AM »
Quote
This would be a major mod though, perhaps beyond the perview of the tweak pack. (In fact it would fit into an idea I posted in the Mod Ideas section of FW some while ago - making weather effects have game effects & be detectable).
I don't think it'd be that major to implement.

Well, I'm still very much a beginner as far as scripting goes, so I'm not sure :) At the moment the plan was to replace the game-engine controlled weather effects with a wholey scripted system. One idea I had was to include timers and variables for the future state of the weather, to allow weather predictions spells/skills - probably of limited utility in the game - but it does open up some options for banters/interjections involving nature oriented and/or outdoorsy NPCs :)

Another idea was to have weather having actual game effects, unfortunately, although we can turn rain on and off with scripts, I'm not sure there is any way to control how heavy the rain is.

My ideas for weather game effects were as follows:
Rain: reduces visual range, maybe gives global low-level fire resistance?
Snow: same as rain - maybe cause exposure damage (1 hp cold per hour)?
Wind: causes global missile penalties depending on severity, high winds could have a chance of causing global wing buffet effects - but that could get a bit silly :)
Mist/Fog: reduces visual range.
Hot sun: I'm not sure how to visually represent this, but it would cause fatigue.

One reason for doing this would be to make a Weather Control spell useful.

Anyway, enough rambling about this :)

Charles

Offline SimDing0™

  • Back In Black
  • Global Moderator
  • Planewalker
  • *****
  • Posts: 3496
  • Gender: Male
  • Word Enhancer
Re: Some stuff for the tweak pack...
« Reply #5 on: April 25, 2005, 07:24:49 AM »
I meant the darkness, not weather, sorry. Weather can't be done.

Offline Nerik

  • Planewalker
  • *****
  • Posts: 30
Re: Some stuff for the tweak pack...
« Reply #6 on: April 25, 2005, 10:23:47 AM »
I thought you could turn weather effects on (ok. rain, snow at least) by script, my idea was to was to forget about the buit in weather handling and have it controlled by scripts - or is there something that I'm not considering/does not work the way I think it does (or something) - quite possible, I'm new to this  :-\

Anyway, I have a much easier idea I am working on ATM (when I get time).

Charles

Offline SimDing0™

  • Back In Black
  • Global Moderator
  • Planewalker
  • *****
  • Posts: 3496
  • Gender: Male
  • Word Enhancer
Re: Some stuff for the tweak pack...
« Reply #7 on: April 25, 2005, 10:27:35 AM »
You can, in theory, activate weather by script. However, it works with an indeterminable delay (and occasionally not at all). You can't control the duration, and it also can't be made to loop properly, so you'll get rain just suddenly vanishing in the middle of a huge storm.

Offline Nerik

  • Planewalker
  • *****
  • Posts: 30
Re: Some stuff for the tweak pack...
« Reply #8 on: April 25, 2005, 02:07:10 PM »
Oh well, so much for that idea  >:( Thanks for the info anyway.

Charles

 

With Quick-Reply you can write a post when viewing a topic without loading a new page. You can still use bulletin board code and smileys as you would in a normal post.

Warning: this topic has not been posted in for at least 120 days.
Unless you're sure you want to reply, please consider starting a new topic.

Name: Email:
Verification:
Type the letters shown in the picture
Listen to the letters / Request another image
Type the letters shown in the picture:
What color is grass?:
What is the seventh word in this sentence?:
What is five minus two (use the full word)?: