Qwinn´s Ultimate DAO Fixpack v3 (no longer beta!)

[dmg22]

Hi,

 

I looked at the link Tinimaus posted above and...

Yeah, that might be it. Here's the theory.....

This is what shows in vanilla morrigan_main.fev

231161_m = #music:flemmeth_conv
231193_m = #music:morrigan_conv
235382_m = #music:morrigan

...and looking at those events in your morrigan_main.fev I don't see that.

Since they are already defined in music.fev you should be able to just add them back in. The original morrigan_main.fdp should have any parameters needed.

.....and that's the theory.

(231161_m and 231193_m both seem to be working, but I think that's because the pre200[cs]_morrigan_intro files also use #music:morrigan_conv. The flemmeth scene is right after that and is either still using #music:morrigan_conv which seems to be identical to #music:flemmeth_conv, or it's defaulting to the wilds music which also seems identical.)

 

Cheers

[Qwinn]

firepanda:

 

"Every equipped item in the game has a small chance of dropping (unless a specific override flag is set). Some items, notably Chevalier's Armor, can only be obtained this way. But because of this, there are several places where players can get items they shouldn't. Most unique items that people think of as 'rare' have had this oversight and should be made 100% or unobtainable, including:"

 

Can you be more specific as to what override flag is needed to prevent the ones that should never drop?

 

Note that Sophia Dryden's shield would be DLC, so out of scope of this mod.

 

Fade Wall (why would Gaxkang even have a shield equipped? Should guaranteed drop)

Possibly precisely to make it a rare drop rather than guaranteed? There's no other way to make something a rare drop that I know of. Well, no way nearly as simple anyway.

 

Female Human Cocky Voice

 

GL007: The inexplicably missing female human "Cocky" soundset has been restored in the character selection screen. Thanks to Maeassel and firepanda of the Nexus forums for making me aware of this one.

 

Fade Shapeshifting in Redcliffe

Eh - can't call this a bug. Seems like if there were any intent to make the ability persistent across fade visits, there'd be some sign of it in the scripting, and I'm not seeing any. Easily explainable from a game lore perspective - you were gifted the abilities by various spirits in the Broken Circle visit to the Fade, and those spirits are not available to continue granting the ability after having left the Fade and entered it somewhere different.

 

Blood Mage Confrontation

 

I was aware of this one from the beginning, and I kept an eye out while developing the fixpack for what restoring this could screw up, and I found it would take a LOT more than just fixing Eamon's dialogue to handle this properly. Plenty of dialogues and cutscenes firmly assume that one army or the other will join you (who would replace them during their marching scene in the Final Battle cutscene, for example? There isn't much cut content in the game with more explicit evidence that it was cut deliberately than this one.

 

• Shale's Remarkable Diamond (Sold by Garin on consoles, but not on PC.)
• Shale's Remarkable Garnet

I agree that the Remarkable Diamond not being in the store is a bug. I also agree with your argument for replacing a duplicate Ruby with a Garnet. But. DLC.

• Magic Greatsword and Ornamental Sword in Korcari Wilds

I based this decision on a few things. 1) If these are restored, you'd have THREE magic two handed swords in the Korkari Wilds, versus none or just one of any other kind of weapon. That's pretty unbalanced in favor of 2h warriors. I think the Chasind Flatblade was chosen in the end as the 2h sword you can get here. 2) Gazarath was explicitly scripted to drop the Enchanted Footing, which is already a very nice drop for that stage in the game - that it's not "unique" because a merchant later in the game also sells it doesn't mean much to me. Note that the Enchanted Footing is not even in his inventory - it is actually created by a script and placed there upon its death in a separate lootbag than the sword would drop from, quite deliberately.

 

And besides, it always struck me as odd that any creature of the Fade would have any kind of martial loot on them. Why would a spirit be carrying a big ornamental 2h sword? A magical object, like the boots or an amulet that it could draw power from, sure, plausible, but a non-magical physical weapon? Just don't see it.

 

Finally, I'd argue that IR007 should be redacted. Gateway Amulet is mentioned in the rewards gda file as a reward from the Lothering Chanter's Board -- it has nothing to do with the Gangue Shade. (If anything, Dead Metal Bucket is the most appropriate drop for the Gangue Shade, with Nugbane being the obvious reward for the Lost Nug, and Dwarven Defender being carried by the Mines Commander. I never understood why the Mines Commander had Nugbane.)

RE: The Gateway Amulet, thank you for solving the mystery of why the wiki page says anything about Lothering in its description of this item. The "RUMOR_MAN_ROBBED" reference in rewards.2da could be referring to the tavern owner in Dane's Refuge, or Bodahn. Unfortunately, the dialogue file they share (main_rumour_man.dlg) is encrypted and I can't really see what, if anything, was ever supposed to create that reward. There's no other hints in anything actually readable in game.

 

Anyway - the main reasons my restorations fell where they did are these: 1) I don't think it's obvious at all that the Nug Catcher would award Nugbane - his career is capturing Nugs, not killing them in the wild. Giving the player a weapon that would help him wipe out his potential future inventory makes no sense at all to me. Hence, Nugbane stayed on the Mines Commander where it is originally found, and Rogek has the Dwarven Defender where *it* is originally found. This left the dead metal bucket and the gateway amulet to restore, and as I mentioned, all other things being equal, I see a +spirit resistance amulet being something a spirit from the fade would be more likely to carry around than a helm, and a nug catcher more likely to award something bucket-like than such an amulet.

 

Thanks tons for the research, dgm22. I'm greatly relieved that the two scenes from the Wilds are working fine. I'll devote some time to working the DR conversation tomorrow.

Edited July 4, 2017 by Qwinn

[firepanda]

firepanda:

 

"Every equipped item in the game has a small chance of dropping (unless a specific override flag is set). Some items, notably Chevalier's Armor, can only be obtained this way. But because of this, there are several places where players can get items they shouldn't.ÃÂ Most unique items that people think of as 'rare' have had this oversight and should be made 100% or unobtainable, including:"

Can you be more specific as to what override flag is needed to prevent the ones that should never drop?

 

 

Fade Wall (why would Gaxkang even have a shield equipped? Should guaranteed drop)

Possibly precisely to make it a rare drop rather than guaranteed?ÃÂ There's no other way to make something a rare drop that I know of.ÃÂ Well, no way nearly as simple anyway.

 

Thanks for the prompt response.

 

https://social.bioware.com/wiki/datoolset/index.php/Treasure_system

 

If you set TS_OVERRIDE_EQUIPMENT to a negative number, equipped items will never drop. (If they are equipped and marked droppable, they'll still always drop.)

 

 

Regarding fade wall, I strongly disagree. Gaxkang is the most powerful boss in the base game, and something of a 'bonus boss' as well. Why would he drop one item 100% of the time and another item (arguably the worse of the two) 5% of the time? That makes no sense. More fundamentally, it goes against the idea of 'grind-free' Bioware RPGs. In DA:O, encounters are fixed, mobs don't respawn and you get most items etc in a single playthrough without resetting. There's no way to make something a rare drop, because developers didn't want items to be 'rare' (outside of genetic treasure, which is handled separately).

 

To my knowledge there are only two unique items in the base game that require constant resetting: Fade Wall and the Robes of the Gifted. It's clear to me that both are bugs, similar to how Nugbane and Greagoir's Shield were mistakenly marked equipped.

Edited July 4, 2017 by firepanda

[MaciejSiemienski]

Hello again, Qwinn. Any ETA on the release? As far as I can see, you are basically just disseminating very minor, inconsequential stuff, so perhaps releasing 3.1 now and eventually adding those very small fixes later on would be acceptable? Pretty please.

Edited July 4, 2017 by MaciejSiemienski

[theskymoves]

 

firepanda:).

 

<snipped for brevity>

 

To my knowledge there are only two unique items in the base game that require resetting: fade wall and robes of the gifted. I think both are bugs, like how greagoir's shield was marked equipped.

 

 

There are existing mods which remove the random chance from those two rare drops (Errandx77's Robes of the gifted DAO and my own No RNG Fadewall+... the latter also addresses Sophia Dryden's shield). And in Awakening, Utha may-or-may-not drop the Winter Blade.

 

As annoying as I find the random rare loot to be (so annoying that I've modded it out of my own game rather than punch walls and fight Gaxkang over and over), I don't believe it is a bug. If Bioware had wanted loot to be guaranteed, they could easily have made it so by removing any RNG or setting the appropriate flags in inventory. Instead, they built that randomness into the system, and it occurs at all levels of loot drops, not for just a few isolated bosses.

 

tl, dr; I think it is clear that rare random loot (just like the random encounter system, where the 'best' encounters - i.e., Star Metal, Axameter - are also the most unlikely) is intentional, and an annoyance rather than a bug.

 

(edited for spelling)

Edited July 4, 2017 by theskymoves

[Qwinn]

dgm22:

 

Since they are already defined in music.fev you should be able to just add them back in. The original morrigan_main.fdp should have any parameters needed.

Are you saying there that I don't need to add any music files to my morrigan_main.fsb? That the music would actually come from music.fsb?

 

EDIT: Got it!! Woohoo! Just adding a #music:morrigan parameter to the *existing* 235382_m line in my new .fsb/.fev made it work perfectly, nothing else was necessary. I was trying to add it as a separate event because that's how it looks in the original .fdp, but adding it to the original line worked great in the end. Thanks huge for delivering the answer, dgm22! Changed the fix note:

 

DR003: Dark Ritual: If Alistair is not to be king, Morrigan will no longer refer to him as such in this dialogue. Thanks to Nexus forum poster Totalbalance for noticing during the 3.0 beta that this had the effect of disabling the music that should play during this scene, and to posters sialivi, Pinjanna, Tinimaus and most especially to dgm22 for helping me to work out a solution for this difficult problem.

Edited July 4, 2017 by Qwinn

[Qwinn]

RE: the rare loot drop thing, theskymoves described my view on the matter perfectly, nothing I can productively add to that.

Varathorn's Armor, that you can get as a quest reward for "Rare Ironbark", is made out of Silverite rather than Ironbark. The item description refers to the armor as being metal, yet also mentions that the scales are carved.

Here's the full description: The metal almost looks as if it were wet with rain. The scales have been carved into the shapes of leaves, each different, and detailed even to veins and insect bites.

 

Not seeing it as a bug. It sounds like the armor is made of a silverite base with ironbark scales overlaid over it. As there is no existing "Armor, Ironbark" material type (only "Bow, Ironbark" and "Shield, Ironbark"), and combined with that description, it seems to me it is intended that way.

[Qwinn]

CT029: Lake Calenhad Docks: If the Templar mentioned in fix CT018 is somehow killed, he will no longer rarely drop invisible pieces of Templar armor. Thanks to firepanda of the Nexus forums for making me aware of this one.

 

As for the "DO NOT USE" Noble Clothing, I'd need details of where it can drop before I can do anything about it. The only reference I found in google searching was someone claiming they found it on a dead servant on the main floor of Castle Redcliffe during the Connor situation, and I see no references to any creature in that area by the four pieces of noble clothing I've found with the DO NOT USE on them.

 

I decided to play through the landsmeet again to see the various options and found this: If you fail to convince a hardened Alistair and Anora to marry and then choose Alistair he’ll say his unhardened line (“This is where I wake up, usually. Or everyone points and laughs because I have no clothes on…”) rather than his hardened line (“And I accept that decision.”) It’s also very likely that the same thing will happen if Alistair / Anora refuses to marry the human noble player (haven’t tested).

LA008: Landsmeet: A hardened Alistair will no longer deliver his unhardened line if you choose him after Anora refuses to marry either Alistair or the player. Thanks to Totalbalance of the Nexus forums for making me aware of this one.

 

The unhardened line also plays in the cases where Alistair agrees to marry a human noble female, but I've left it alone there, because "And I accept that decision" doesn't really fit after "Really? You will?", and because the line doesn't seem inappropriate to even a hardened Alistair who's just been publicly proposed to by the player (rather than being about becoming king).

• Also during the landsmeet: When asking Alistair questions before making your decision, the various questions will disappear and reappear willy nilly. With Anora the conversation is a lot less confusing, with the options disappearing after you’ve asked them.

LA009: Landsmeet: Fixed the player's available responses when talking to Alistair during the Landsmeet to be consistent with Anora's dialogue: your possible responses should no longer disappear and reappear depending on the arbitrary dialogue path taken, and once an option is used it will not reappear. Thanks to Totalbalance of the Nexus forums for making me aware of this one.

• Also, this lore error in one of the last epilogue slides was listed on the wiki. Not sure if it’s within the scope of this mod, but it would be incredibly easy to fix:

It would be incredibly easy for the English version, but fixing it would cause it to come up in English for all international players. I am hesitant to make any more changes along those lines than I have. It's either disappointing the very small handful of players who know about this lore issue, or making a line inexplicably come up in English for every international player right at the end of the epilogue. The latter seems worse. If this ever gets multi-language support, I'll revisit this. Thanks for the reports!

Edited July 4, 2017 by Qwinn

[AdenYeshua]

As for the "DO NOT USE" Noble Clothing, I'd need details of where it can drop before I can do anything about it. The only reference I found in google searching was someone claiming they found it on a dead servant on the main floor of Castle Redcliffe during the Connor situation, and I see no references to any creature in that area by the four pieces of noble clothing I've found with the DO NOT USE on them

 

I *remember* getting that way back in the day in Redcliff but it was in the 360 version... I dunno if that helps.

 

EDIT: According to the Wiki notes you can get them looted from Master Ignacio and the Chamberlain.

[Qwinn]

EDIT: According to the Wiki notes you can get them looted from Master Ignacio and the Chamberlain.

Actually this was very helpful, thank you. I was initially only looking at the female noble clothing because those are the only ones that show up as "DO NOT USE" in the toolset. Clearly though, the male noble clothing has the same issue, it just happens to show up correctly in the toolset because it must default to a male model for them.

 

Fixing this by making every creature that has it "TS_OVERRIDE_EQUIPMENT" would be grueling and greatly add to compatibility issues, as there are a whole lot of creatures that use it. But when you pointed out that Ignacio can drop it, and I looked at his inventory, I notice that he has a dagger called "Ignacio's Dagger", and it gets equipped by his script if you start a fight with him via dialogue, but as far as I can tell, this item has *never* dropped. No sign of it on the wiki or by googling. If he can drop the clothing, why wouldn't he drop this as well?

 

The only flag I can find on the dagger that could explain this would be the flag "Unique" being set to true. On every other item I spot checked, it's false. That flag is unfortunately completely undocumented in the toolset wiki. I'm going to try some tests and see if an item stops dropping if I set that to true, and if it does, I'll just deal with this by changing that flag on all the noble clothings in question.

 

EDIT: Never mind, that won't do it, but I think I can do it with a GDA. Will let you know.

Edited July 4, 2017 by Qwinn