Pocket Plane Group
BG2 Completed Mods => House Of Sim => Topic started by: SimDing0™ on January 07, 2005, 05:19:12 PM
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Ding0 Experience Fixer, aka "DEF JAM", has been released!
- The mod that always needed making!
- A unique exercise in WeiDU coding!
- A lovingly crafted readme!
- Who says minimalism isn't good for making the game harder?
BG2 allows you to attain ridiculously high levels. While I frequently see suggestions for removal of the XP cap to allow people to reach levels higher than 50, rarely do I see anyone mention the idea of LOWER levels. That's what this mod's all about. Some of the BG2 XP rewards are, frankly, ridiculous. Tens of thousands of XP each for simple Fed-Ex quests? Not so, I say.
Ding0 Experience Fixer (or DEF JAM, as it's otherwise known; feel free to imagine what the JAM part stands for) allows the XP rewards to be reduced. Split into 3 separate sections (creature XP, skill XP and quest XP), you can choose the new XP rate for each component irrespective of the others. Choices vary from 10% to 75% of the original XP.
Who knows. Maybe 10% XP rewards would provide a challenging alternative to Tactics-type mods.
DEF JAM is available from the House of Sim, on the PPG main site:
http://www.pocketplane.net/sim/
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Yay Sim!
This'll be nice not only for those looking for a different challenge, but for making JC feel like positive things can actually happen while he's away.
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Cool. :D
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So we can, say, choose to have Creatures give us 50% of their former XP when killed, skills give 75%, and quests give 25%, for instance?
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Sweet! :) I am looking forward to reduce those insane amounts of quest XP.
Do you think you could be bothered to include a component that removes the ridiculous XP gained for learning spells?
-Echon
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So we can, say, choose to have Creatures give us 50% of their former XP when killed, skills give 75%, and quests give 25%, for instance?
Yup.
Sweet! :) I am looking forward to reduce those insane amounts of quest XP.
"Skills XP" includes XP gained for learning spells. I can probably split it up into separate skills (locks, traps, spells) if you're interested, and/or put a 0% option in there.
For the next version, I'll also make some coding changes which should mean it works with any IE game.
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EXCELLENT!!!!
I have to say I have been waiting for a mod like this, thanks alot.
One question I have is how is it done, have you changed all the creature files, dlg files etc. manually or have you used some other method, I ask this because I would like to know if it is also compatible with mods.
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Ok I took a look at the files and answered my own question, but a couple more things;
Are there any plans for tutu versions or does it already work with tutu?
Is starting XP changed at all either for NPCs or the player?
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It'll work with Tutu I think, although it currently needs ToB. Next version should probably work with pretty much any IE game when I make some coding changes.
If someone (Ghrey, Cam?) can recall the code, I can probably also add starting XP patching as an extra component.
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I think that there should be an option to remove XP from learning spells, yeh. :)
I think that thief skill usage should gain you XP, though, so I'd like it to be separate from any spell-XP-removing stuff.
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Okay, v2 is out, adding all the options requested.
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OMG! yes this is great.
One thing though, if you're gonna reduce CHARNAME's xp it might be an idea also to reduce NPC starting xp with this option.
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Hmm. Easier said than done, unfortunately. You'll get lower versions of NPCs later on in the game, since you won't have such high XP, but Minsc and Jaheira won't go below level 7 (or whatever), I don't think.
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That's a shame, I like the SoA starting levels but of course ToB NPC's will be too high. Well all should be ok playing from a SoA start anyway. I look forward to not having planetars in the underdark. :)
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Good job Sim, it's a much needed mallet to the expansion-that-is-TOB's ridiculous awards.
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Brilliant! :) Though I'm not a fan of reducing the rewards, because I'm no fabulous gamer.
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Will this work with BGT and BP?
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Probably.
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Any chance of IWD 1/2 support?
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IWD support, yeh. I don't have IWD2 though.
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I am totally *ENTHUSIAST* about this,SimDing0!! I am gonna apply this Mod of yours to be used for Bg1 TuTu when I start my new campaign! Absolutely brilliant! Now we don't have to fear to have too powerful characters in the party if we "adventure too long"! :P
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@ Echon
Actually gaining XP for using your skills successfully is NOT silly. Everytime you disarm a trap and don't botch it (fail critically) you should get XP. Like in IWD2 it should get less the higher your level already is, but with a higher spell and a higher failure rate of actually mastering that spell you should get XP. Killing your 1000st Xvart does not give you any insight into how to maim them more effictively. How often do you get XP for learning a spell? Once. Compared to XP gain through combat that is nothing. A fighter should not gain any XP for slaughtering someone who is half their level as it is just too easy. XP should come from challenges.
XP gains for the whole group do not make a lot of sense to me most of the time. Learning and thus XP gain should also be tied to WIS.
Oh so this is not applicable to BG2. Well nevermind. Carry on. ;)
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I do not recall mentioning anything about thieving skills. Yes, like you, I think characters should gain XP from using skills such as lock picking or finding and removing traps. I also think a mage should gain XP for researching a new spell or scribing a scroll if those features were in the game and if they did not automatically succeed, but in my opinion scribing a spell from a scroll into a spellbook should not yield any XP.
-Echon
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I always considered the act of scribing a scroll a placeholder for the tedious process of learning that spell. Which gestures, words and ingredients are to be used. You could just copy a Chinese poetry book verbatim (read copy the signs and I assume that you do not know any Chines atm), but you would not learn anything from it. So the writing process is the actual research. It looks easy, because of game mechanics, but so is clicking on a trap and unlike in Fallout I never set off a trap by lack of trap skills while trying to disarm it.
The spell system should actually be revised in a way that reflects that way of learning the art. If you copy a very high spell in your book does your percentage to fail increase? You should be able to attempt to cast any spell in your book, but spells which are a lot about your current level should get a very high rate of failure. This is somewhat inconsistent with my argument above. So it might be better to disallow for a flrdgling mage to scribe level 8 or 9 scrolls until they reach that level to understand them.
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"It looks easy, because of game mechanics, but so is clicking on a trap and unlike in Fallout I never set off a trap by lack of trap skills while trying to disarm it."
Actually I think there are a couple of places in BG2 where that does happen. One I can think of off the top of my head is a painting on the wall in Neb the Child Killer's house in the Bridge district. Not even Jan could disarm that trap in my game (I'm not sure what disarm level would be sufficient to disarm it, if any), and just trying almost always got him killed.
Not saying that this radically changes your point, just saying it does happen.
Qwinn
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You should be able to attempt to cast any spell in your book, but spells which are a lot about your current level should get a very high rate of failure.
Doesn't Nahal's Reckless Dweomer do that?
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I must say I agree with Jester. I'd love though to have an alghoritm that rewards the party components after battle according to how useful they've been in the fight. Why not reward a Bard for inspiring his comrades ? Why not reward clerics for punctually calling the Gods for protection ? I know it'd be a difficult task but just like thieves are recompensated for disarming traps perhaps each class should be individually rewarded after a fight according to different parameters. But perhaps it's just not possible... :pirate
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NRD is only available to the wearers of certain amulets and wild mages.
Thanks Qwinn I did not remember this one, but it just proves that there aren't that many traps to worry about. Elmonster (a soloing mage) did not even need a thief to master the (granted) unmodded game.
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Why not reward a Bard for inspiring his comrades ? Why not reward clerics for punctually calling the Gods for protection ? I know it'd be a difficult task but just like thieves are recompensated for disarming traps perhaps each class should be individually rewarded after a fight according to different parameters.
not only that, but rogues already have the fastest level progression. aren't they the only ones who can actually reach 40th level before 8million xp?
Killing your 1000st Xvart does not give you any insight into how to maim them more effictively.
agreed, it'd be nice to see just that bit of iwd2-mechanics transferred over - the diminishing returns of challenge rating ratio, or whatever...
How often do you get XP for learning a spell? Once.
without the Erase feature... :P
A fighter should not gain any XP for slaughtering someone who is half their level as it is just too easy.
a tad overstated. one third or one fourth, *maybe*. but a fig who's just gained their first HLA isn't guaranteed to mow down a 10th level Anything, imo. very much likewise with 12vs6, 8vs4, 2vs1(!)...
XP should come from challenges.
can be said that XP should come from spectacular failures as well. learning what NOT to do counts too! ;)
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I never really understood the philosophy of gaining less xp if your a much higher level than the creature your fighting (or an equivlent situation for non-combat skills) Yes it shouldn't improve your skills as much, but isn't this already represented by the fact that you need more xp to reach a new level?
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not with the 2e xp/lvl ceiling, imo.
perhaps facing 100 gibberlings at once should be worth something even to a 40th-level-er, but 20 sets of five? not so much.
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Would it be possible to set the XP awards to a specific value instead of a percentage of the original? If so, I would love to see the option of gaining 200 xp per trap disarmed/lock opened regardless of level.
-Echon
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Great mod! just a quick question about other IE games - has it been tested or you think in theory that it should work?
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I back up Echon's proposal here although I think the experience points should be fixed but not the same for every kind of trap. Some are more difficult to disarm than others in fact and far more lethal...
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@Echon: Fixed XP for traps and locks is easy to do.
@Salk: More XP for harder traps and locks ain't so easy.
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It seems every time I come up with an idea is always very hard/impossible to do... :'(
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The good ones generally are.
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I tried to install in IWD1 (with both exp) in the quest exp component I got a lot of errors like this one:
ERROR locating resource for 'get_ids_map'
Resource [DIFFMODE.IDS] not found in KEY file:
[./chitin.key]
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I really don't have any idea what that means. It sounds like an error in IWD itself is causing WeiDU to choke. Try creating a blank file called diffmode.ids in the override and re-running.
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Do you mean my IWD installation (I have tweak pack install) or IWD in general in other words has this been tested with IWD?
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IWD in general. No, I haven't tested it.
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Version 3 is out and I found no news about it!! Am I just blind or did I miss something ? :pirate
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It seems that it only adds Polish translation, so that's probably why the release was quiet.
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It's the one of greatest mods which I every seen... but can you create something whith NPC's? They're haven't got XP decreasing!! When my hero is on 2lvl. they're got 7!
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Hi at all :)
I've translated Ding0 Experience Fixer in italian version and I have send an e-mail to SimDing0™ with my translation!
PS: SimDing0™ let me know if you have received my e-mail
Thanks :)
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Upstream report from BiG World Fixpack:
Make sure no ugly messages are printed if a script uses ActionOverride(xxx,AddXPObject(jj,123)):
--- setup-xpmod.tp2 Mon Dec 24 23:26:48 2007
+++ C:\BWP Patchstudio\patched files\setup-xpmod.tp2 Thu Apr 15 18:50:21 2010
@@ -273,7 +273,7 @@
COPY_EXISTING_REGEXP GLOB ~.*\.bcs~ ~override~
DECOMPILE_BCS_TO_BAF
-REPLACE_EVALUATE ~AddexperienceParty(\(.*\))~
+REPLACE_EVALUATE ~AddexperienceParty(\([0-9]*\))~
BEGIN
SET "RESULT" = (("%MATCH1%" * "%percentage_modifier%") / 100)
SET "patched" = 0
@@ -299,7 +299,7 @@
COPY_EXISTING_REGEXP GLOB ~.*\.dlg~ ~override~
DECOMPILE_DLG_TO_D
-REPLACE_EVALUATE ~xperienceParty(\(.*\))~
+REPLACE_EVALUATE ~xperienceParty(\([0-9]*\))~
BEGIN
SET "RESULT" = (("%MATCH1%" * "%percentage_modifier%") / 100)
SET "patched" = 0
--- xpmod/functions/quest_xp.tph 2010-12-07 14:54:25.163166100 +0100
+++ C:\BWP Patchstudio\patched files\xpmod/functions/quest_xp.tph 2010-12-07 14:34:01.928201100 +0100
@@ -32,7 +32,7 @@
COPY_EXISTING_REGEXP GLOB ~.*\.bcs~ ~override~
DECOMPILE_BCS_TO_BAF
-REPLACE_EVALUATE ~AddexperienceParty(\(.*\))~
+REPLACE_EVALUATE ~AddexperienceParty(\([0-9]*\))~
BEGIN
SET "RESULT" = "%MATCH1%"
PATCH_IF (("%RESULT%" > 0) && (NOT (("%RESULT%" = 88999) && (("%SOURCE_RES%" STRING_EQUAL_CASE "AR0602") = 1)))) BEGIN
@@ -52,7 +52,7 @@
END
END
~AddexperienceParty(%RESULT%)~
-REPLACE_EVALUATE ~AddXPObject(\(.*\),\(.*\))~
+REPLACE_EVALUATE ~AddXPObject(\(.*\),\([0-9]*\))~
BEGIN
SET "RESULT" = "%MATCH2%"
PATCH_IF (("%RESULT%" > 0) && (NOT (("%RESULT%" = 88999) && (("%SOURCE_RES%" STRING_EQUAL_CASE "AR0602") = 1)))) BEGIN
@@ -78,7 +78,7 @@
COPY_EXISTING_REGEXP GLOB ~.*\.dlg~ ~override~
PATCH_SILENT
DECOMPILE_DLG_TO_D
-REPLACE_EVALUATE ~xperienceParty(\(.*\))~
+REPLACE_EVALUATE ~xperienceParty(\([0-9]*\))~
BEGIN
SET "RESULT" = "%MATCH1%"
PATCH_IF ("%RESULT%" > 0) BEGIN
@@ -98,7 +98,7 @@
END
END
~xperienceParty(%RESULT%)~
-REPLACE_EVALUATE ~AddXPObject(\(.*\),\(.*\))~
+REPLACE_EVALUATE ~AddXPObject(\(.*\),\([0-9]*\))~
BEGIN
SET "RESULT" = "%MATCH2%"
PATCH_IF ("%RESULT%" > 0) BEGIN
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DEFJAM v7 is now available from PPG at http://pocketplane.net/sim/ (http://pocketplane.net/sim/)