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

[LadyHonor]

I got a save that I might can get to it soon. Are there any special dialog selections I need to make or just go the usual path?

[LadyHonor]

Ah well, I guess I was too slow. lol Incidently, that particular codex entry does appear in my game. :)

[Qwinn]

Oh I didn't see your posts last night. Thank you for checking! I have no doubt I'll be asking for a similar favor again before I'm done.

 

And yes, in the unmodded game, you'll always get the codex entry when he gives you his personal quest (as you should), but for all the wrong reasons, lol.

[Qwinn]

Pretty proud of this one, makes talking with Sten a lot less annoying:

 

32. (v3.0) You will no longer annoyingly get the option to tell Sten "I wanted to discuss something you mentioned" (which leads you to his 4 location-triggered dialogues) if none of the substantive options have been triggered or remain and the only option it will present you with is "That's enough for now.". In the unmodded game you can *always* ask for discussion and 98% of the time it leads to nothing. You will now only get the option to say that if you CAN discuss something with him. There's a fair bit of code there attempting to accomplish this, but it didn't work.

Edited January 22, 2017 by Qwinn

[Qwinn]

By the way, for all the other modders out there: As I am reimplementing each of my old fixes and developing new ones, I am taking careful notes explaining exactly how I am accomplishing each fix, including what files I'm touching and every detail of every change. I currently intend to make those descriptions available publically as a separate readme file, so that any modder who wants to implement my fixes in their own version for full compatibility - and also evaluate the work I've done and hopefully alert me to any mistakes I might make - can do so easily. The scope of this project is simply too large, and the possible incompatibilities with other mods too likely - that full transparency is, I think, the only sensible way to go. Basically, I'm going to allow anyone and everyone to steal the fruits of my literal thousands of hours of labor so far. Hopefully that will make the other modders (many of whom have seemed to resent my project) happier and the end results will be better.

 

EDIT: Obviously, if someone does use this transparency to reimplement my work in their own mods, my requesting credit for doing so is I think entirely reasonable, and as is standard, I only extend permission to use my work if it is not for profit.

Edited January 22, 2017 by Qwinn

[Qwinn]

Now working on Morrigan's dialogue. Dear Lord, finding bugs everywhere.

 

33. (v3.0) You will no longer get the option to ask "Can you teach others to become shapechangers?" after Morrigan has already agreed to do so.

 

34. (v3.0) There were several incorrect flag checks and settings in Morrigan's dialogue when she refuses to sleep with you because she's in love. Hostile responses that were clearly meant to end the romance actually (re)activated it instead, and a response meant to be available to you if you hadn't slept with her previously was inaccessible.

 

35. (v3.0) In talking with Flemeth about the treaties in the Korkari Wilds, a response you could inexplicably give only if you were a human male is now available to everyone.

 

36. (v3.0) A considerable number of flag fixes applied to Morrigan's romance:
1) When Morrigan confronts you about Zevran, the flag for Leliana confronting you about him was being set instead.
2) If Morrigan confronted you about *both* Leliana and Zevran, the flag that you had the conversation about Zevran with her was not being set.
3) If she forced you to choose, and you dumped Morrigan for someone else, scripting comments in the dialogue file make it clear that any romance restart was supposed to be permanently cut off, but none of the necessary flags for this were being set, which could easily lead to her speaking later as if you had never had a romance with her among other various buggy effects.
4) If you do her personal quest and she then asks if there could ever be anything more with her, some conversation paths check to make sure you're not dating Leliana and Zevran, but other very similar paths only check Leliana. All paths now check both.

 

There will probably be more subfixes added to 36 as I go along.

Edited January 23, 2017 by Qwinn

[Qwinn]

Wow, the romance code is so fubared. This is going to take a complete overhaul. I'm going to stop posting updates until it's done, as I've already had to retract a couple of intended changes due to unintended consequences.

 

One thing is clear from reading the code: Morrigan says she doesn't share, and the clear intent of the code is that she means it. But due to bugs there's half a dozen ways to reinstate a romance with her even after she's been dumped and even if you're still in a heavy romance with someone else, and even when flags like "ROMANCE_CAN_NOT_RESTART" are set in a dozen places. Giving her the mirror is a big one - it performs no checks against any such flags. This is going to all be fixed in my fixpack. I realize some people like to take advantage of the bugs in order to maintain multiple romances, it's not just possible but pretty easy to do, but my position is that it was definitely not intended (at least in Morrigan's case, I'll keep an open mind for hardened Leliana and Zevran when I get to their files) and doing so is a bug exploit. And it can also cause serious logic problems resulting in nonsensical dialogue and other bugs. The code allows it but really doesn't handle it well at all, because it was never intended to be that way.

 

By the way, I'm aware that saving the mirror until the end of the game to reactivate the romance after the Ritual so as to get a more correct ending slide in Awakenings/Witch Hunt is a workaround for what is generally considered a bug in those slides. If my fixes disable that workaround (and it may not - even in my Fixpack the mirror should still be able to reactivate a romance that has been ended/cut off as long as the "CAN_NOT_RESTART" flag hasn't been set), I will make sure that the workaround is no longer required for the slides to work properly. This is contingent upon me seeing what slides you actually get - I haven't finished either Awakenings or Witch Hunt yet.

Edited January 23, 2017 by Qwinn

[Thandal]

Wow!!!

"... haven't finished either Awakenings or Witch Hunt yet..." ?!?

I'm not sure if I'm shocked, or just disappointed/impressed. I can't imagine putting in as much time as you have into DAO and not wanting to see "how it all ends."

The bugs in the final scene of WH, which are probably due to flags set at the start, (I know a very clear dialogue indicator in the first scene) definitely need fixing!


And, as previously mentioned, Terra_Ex has spent an enormous amount of time creating his "Morrigan Restoration Patch" (MRP) specifically to deal with all the mistakes you're now finding. You really should read his mod's Description, even if you don't even peek at his code. :thumbsup:

[Qwinn]

Hiya Thandal,

 

Hehe yeah. The last time I played DA:O was around the last time I updated the Fixpack about 6 years ago. At the time, Awakenings had just been released and Witch Hunt wasn't even out yet. I did get about halfway through Awakenings but I encountered so many issues and bugs with no ability to fix them that I kinda just stopped in frustration.

 

But yeah, I have to do Awakenings, the two DLC, Dragon Age II *and* Inquisition, lol. Here's hoping the last 2 get released on Steam before I get to them.

 

And yeah, I'll take a look at the Morrigan Restoration Patch description once I'm done fixing everything I can find for myself (I usually prefer to initially look at it with fresh unguided eyes, otherwise I might miss something that others did as well), and see if I missed anything that way, Actually, other than some small code snippets sent to me on the Bioware forums by other modders back in the day (almost all from Nukenin of Dog Fetch/Stealing/Healing Received mod fame), the only code I've ever looked at has been Bioware's. Never loaded a B2B the entire time. Did do a lot of consulting with Lady Olivia and weebeady of Alistair mod fame though, and Lady Olivia helped me put together the sound clips that made getting rid of the zillion incorrect references to Alistair As King (when he wasn't) possible. That was tremendously helpful.

Edited January 23, 2017 by Qwinn

[Qwinn]

^{There were some seriously well hidden gems in Leliana's dialogue that were hidden by bugs. A few of these I had never seen or heard mention of before.}

 

^{Leliana Non-Romance Fixes:}

^{1. (v3.0) With a very small number of deliberate exceptions, you will no longer lose any conversation options with Leliana due to improving her approval of you or initiating a romance. (This reimplements the fix from official Bioware patch 1.02a that prevented you from losing access to her personal quest due to achieving Adore status with her).}

 

^{2. (v3.0) When not in a romance with Leliana at the Arl Eamon estate during the Landsmeet, and anytime after asking Leliana what you knew about your current location, Leliana would treat you as if your approval were Warm even if she was really at Friendly.}

^{3. (v3.0) Leliana had no distinct hostile dialogue unless she was in a romance with the player. Her friend-track neutral and hostile dialogue were mostly identical. Copied the romance hostile track to the friend track. This actually restores a previously inaccessible dialogue following a harsh breakup with Leliana - see the first romance fix below for details.}

 

^{4. (v3.0) Fixed reversed check of the Warden's race when discussing the Chantry's teachings after the Brecilian Forest.}

 

 

 

^{Leliana Romance Fixes:}

 

^{1) Restored interesting and previously inaccessible exchange between you and Leliana after (in certain dialogue paths following "About us...") you break up with her very harshly, with fairly serious consequences. SPOILER AHEAD, SKIP TO THE NEXT BUG IF YOU DON'T WANT DETAILS: This restored exchange was already designed to set Leliana's approval to 0 the next time you talked to her about the breakup (even if you sincerely apologize), but in order to prevent what could be some glaring inconsistensies (she could still have very high approval after the harsh breakup and that could trigger very friendly dialogues between the breakup and the new restored angry exchange, in particular a high likelihood of a non-sarcastic heartfelt congratulations on your other romances, talk about *awkward*), I've moved that set to 0 ahead so it happens immediately upon the harsh breakup, which frankly makes much more logical sense anyway.}

^{2) When Leliana forces you to break up with Alistair, it did not trigger the breakup with him in his dialogue. Fixed, restoring some previously inaccessible dialogue.}

^{3) If your romantic relationship with Leliana ends, it can no longer be restarted (as was intended).}

^{4) In your final conversation with Leliana about Marjolaine, a romantic conversation path that was supposed to be exclusive to female wardens was instead given to everyone.}

^{5) When breaking up with Leliana via "About us...", you had the option to say "I think I prefer Morrigan" and "Morrigan was better in bed" (yeah, these would be some of those harsh breakups referred to earlier), but there were no equivalent responses about Zevran. Fixed.}

^{6) Minor typo correction: When denying you've slept with Zevran, your response is "That a lie!". Corrected to "That's".}

^{7) Once Leliana decides she's in love, she's meant to tell you how she feels the next time you talk to her in camp. Due to a bug, though, if you spoke to her at all anywhere outside of the camp before that conversation happened, the conversation would almost certainly never happen.}

^{8 ) Unlike any of the other romance triangle dialogues, Leliana's is supposed to come in two stages, the first at CARE and the second at ADORE (there's also a non-romance FRIENDLY reaction to the other romances - see next fix). The two romance ones are supposed to be sequential - the second makes references to the first. However, if you did not trigger the dialogue while at CARE and quickly raised your approval to ADORE, then talked to her, it would skip the CARE one and you'd get the ADORE that makes references to things you never got the chance to say in the CARE one. You will now always get the two romance dialogues in the correct order regardless of how quickly you increase your approval.}

^{9) If you are romancing Leliana, have completed her personal quest and are at high ADORE or IN_LOVE with her and also have a relationship with someone else, you would in the middle of those ADORE and CARE triangle dialogues also get her non-romance FRIENDLY dialogue where she non-sarcastically congratulates you for sleeping with someone else. Very, very awkward. Also, due to the exact same bug, you could also get the late game second discussion about spies in Orlais with a romanced Leliana, which doesn't fit at all and was clearly meant to be FRIENDLY only. Only wardens not romancing Leliana will see these dialogues now. (Also, in the spies dialogue, a couple of flirtly lines are now disabled if you already had a relationship with her that ended.)}

^{10) In the CARE romantic triangle dialogue mentioned above, where she confronts you for the first time about sleeping with Morrigan or Zevran, and you do not persuade (lie) to her that nothing happened, some dialogue paths will end the relationship but other paths just make her angry (without breaking it off) and you were supposed to get an option to later say "Are you still upset with me?" and, depending on how you handled the previous conversation, she would break up with you or actually apologize and tolerate the other relationship (until the eventual ultimatum at ADORE, anyway). However, a script bug prevented the "Are you still upset with me?" dialogue from becoming available unless she was angry at you about BOTH Morrigan AND Zevran simultaneously, which is extremely unlikely to happen. Corrected the script to be OR instead.}

^{11) Per the developer scripting comments (and common sense), some approval changes in her dialogue were set incorrectly.}

^{12) If a female warden responds to Leliana's romantic advances uncomfortably and suggests that she is not interested in other women, Leliana will now take the hint.}

Edited January 25, 2017 by Qwinn