Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity Original Sin - Mods SamaritanMod - Healing AI

Hallo everybody!

I've just uploaded a small new mod on Nexus: the SamaritanMod. It's part of my upcoming LivingWorld mod but since there were some new posts about healing after combat I decided to offer it as a separate mod - and as a little appetizer. It implements an immersive, non-cheating healing AI for companions (out of combat only), so you don't have to pause your journey to heal your party.

Here's the description:

This mod implements an AI for companions to facilitate healing after hard fights. From now on companions take care that you are on full health and best prepared for your next encounters. Every partymember (Bairdotr, Madoc, Jahan, Wolgraff, Players from Char Creation and Henchmen from the Hall Of Heroes) you don't control directly (following) will have the following behaviour (out of combat only):

- checking health and Zombie talent of companions
- choosing proper healing spell: usual healing spells (CureWounds, Regenerate, MassHeal) for normal Players, poison spells for Zombies (PoisonDart, DeadlySpores, Poison Attack from Scoundrel)
- casting on target if spell is available (cooldown check*) and taking care of Zombies or NonZombies near the target (to prevent damaging Zombies with usual healing spells and damaging any NonZombie with poison)

Skills that consume an item (e. g. HolyGrenade) aren't used, so companions don't waste your stuff.

For portable healing options check out Baardvarks mod Fast Healing and Enemy Movement.
Both mods are compatible.

There are Compatibility Patches for Baardvark's mod Scales 1.9.32 and my QuietDayOnTheMarket mod as well, so you can use SamaritanMod with one or both of these mods.

I hope you enjoy!

* CureWounds is the only spell whose cooldown is not checked by 'CharacterCanCast'. I have implemented a Timer that prevents characters from using this spell with high frequency. 40 seconds delay.

The obligatory thanks in advance for starters

And a question..will this be an 'optional' feature of the Living Word or, as your words imply, a built-in type of thing?

Originally it was planned as my words implied. But anticipating this question and thinking about the dark sides of non-optional features (and this is more a feature than a core thing) and my own preferences I will make it optional. You will be able to activate and deactivate the Healing AI for each character, probably by using a special item.

Bless you for that
While i can see the appeal, i personally take any micro-management/direct input option i can get. Having one removed from me and left on an auto-pilot would be a negative. Again, just me!

(and thanks for the swift reply!)

It's not just you. I think many players of this genre appreciate optionality at the right place, too. Pillars of Eternity offers quite much in this regard.

Yeah.. if only it wasn't RtwP.. i hate hate hate RtwP. Never "got" it, never will. Keep it as it was, TB, or go real time. This in between crap.. i don't like it, lol

(oh, that's another dream, lol.. PoE modded into TB combat /fap)

So Dragon Age Origins couldn't catch you? - Would be an interesting project and help me to enjoy PoE as much as D:OS. But for the moment impossible (beside, maybe, the copyright trouble).

No.. I waved goodbye to Bioware a very, very but very long time ago. 4chan maturity level existential dilemmas and fuck-your-companion C&C leave me rather uninterested to put it mildly

I love RPGs. Sadly, this is the millennial era. The two do not combine, lol. Barring D:OS and Age of Decadence, i cannot think of a single, not one, modern RPG i actually applauded+enjoyed since 2002*. If that tells you something. Had really given up on this genre ^^

(* Arx Fatalis, GII, Larian's DD, Morrowind, etc. And in the case of Morrowind, after years and years of modding material available)

There's so much to say about that. But we can shorten it to a neverending, almost pathologically chronified nodding. I often suspected me to be incompatible with games, due to a fatal progress of aging and diverging interest, but that's not the truth. The truth is that there's an extreme lack of creativity and/or will or courage or time, technology and money or just no interest in creating games that make a difference (with their approach, their individual idea of a game that leads the process of production; many games even don't have an idea, just blank or sheer gameplay with rudiments of story or a feeble fragment of an idea that rises from the ruins of their never existence; many games seem to have their origin in ideas of profit, more or less simple gameplay - which doesn't mean much more than: something to do - or the need to produce). Divinity Original Sin captured my tired and desolate mind and refreshed the desire for games that don't fit the well-known patterns of average. As long as this - not to be misunderstood: my personal - desert contains some spots of water I won't complain too much; diversity is fine, since there are different types of players, lifes, interests. But, well... there is no water...?

Addition: There are, of course, many little games of different genres that are very creative and very unique and show that there is a lot of potential about games; but too short, too small to be 'great' yet.

Agreed, lol, but.. major but (with one 't'). That is only half the share of the blame and i am being kind. The other half (more in reality, because the new developer 'blood' comes from today's audience) is that fucking audience.
You cannot intellectually challenge retards. It is just not feasible.
You cannot expect said same retards to therefore enjoy anything escaping their mental confines.

- you are as such 'forced' to dumb things down or you will perish financially. Even Larian does it and i have flamed them for it non end on rpgcodex.net. Quest markers adding? Check. Quest gating mechanics added? Check. Locked doors? (BD mine? remember? people complained it was too hard, couldn't even think maybe it wasn't meant for their level?) Check. That's what you get when a retard's money is as good as yours. Call me a nazi, don't mind
[remember this guy here? He could not even understand how D:OS profiles work, lol.. and yet the moron went on to post how "fail" D:OS is]

- you cannot expect a collective pool of retards to grow up and become "good" developers. Those of the past will not be around forever. So excluding the odd exception, you are basically talking about a neverending spiral. Today they play CoD, Hello Kitty Online and Witcher3, tomorrow they make games themselves..

Your words are quite harsh but I understand and share your disappointment; there is an uncountable number of games for an uncountable number of people, which is not bad per se. But there are just a few or almost or absolutely no games for a more countable but - I think - quite unknown or ignored number of people (statistics only regard people who already play, and not all of those who would play if there were certain types of games; so there is despite or because of all these statistics an irrational - and sometimes ideological - construct of 'the player', 'the market' etc. which covers another 'crowd' that could be addressed; crowdfunding shows that there are more types of players than companies often claim, for certain interests or for a lack of knowledge, ability or courage - that's what I wanted to say, therefore the focus in my post above). It's not profitable 'enough' for bigger companies in relation to their principle of expanding and maximizing profit, and those who might be willing and able (yes, not so many, but maybe more in the future when games got an equal value to films or literature) don't have the money to create greater games, or aren't independent; and if they grow due to some success they have to decide wether to adapt further to grow and to be 'save' (understandable in some way) or taking some risks – and less 'success' (the definition of success – quantitatively! – shows the perverted logic of valuing 'we' have). That's where Larian Studios probably stand right now or will stand after D:OS 2. I have great hopes for D:OS 2 but if they continue what they did in EE (the changes – you named a few – are, maybe 'subtile' or 'indifferent' for many players, in fact really significant and indicate certain intentions and a temporary or future direction; some players, but as always: a minority, recognize that*) they will still create good games but tendencially lose or 'soften' what made D:OS unique. D:OS 2 has high approaches and tries to do really new things, new systems - but - we will see.

I cutted out the rest. Leading to far...

* so the proof that this type of game has a public on consoles is both evidence for the thesis that there are more but quite unknown 'players', and gaps in the official statistics publishers rely on (or certain publishers strategically use to legitimate their simple products, they say: look, there are no players for that, the players don't want it, we would if the players... blablabla), and on the other side: for the need or will of some adaption to find a greater public.

I wish we agreed in this too my friend
You see, where i am standing?
i) Take D:OS's multiplayer, graphics and voice-overs out. You'd still be left with the ---exact same--- amazing, awesome, best in a decade RPG. For us. They? They would not even touch it. They'd refure to even get near it.
-What does that say?

ii) For all its systems and mechanics, did it dare push them too far? Did it introduce some punishing gameplay the likes of which i have yet to see repeated since the late 80s? Did it perhaps feature controversial lore and questing as we used to get before liberals became legion? Was it.. hard? In any a way?
-What does that say? Because even if the above helped you reach a conclusion, you still need to acknowledge the 'how' it finally managed to come to life yes?

Let us broaden our horizons..
Pillars of Eternity. Nothing new, less of everything, simplified skills, fewer abilities, voice-overed hints ffs..
Wasteland 2. Nothing new, less of everything, NO stealth, NO tertiary activities, no complex progression so as not to confuse said same legion of fools calling themselves RPG players.
Want me to go on?

Over two decades later and we have yet to even (re)reach what once was. Not equal it. Forget topping it. We've yet to even reach it again. Why do you think that is?
(before you say 'but here you are, here i am'.. it takes more than the exception for that ^^ See my post above. Harsh is ok for me, sometimes even righteous. Life itself is harsh. Some allowed a culture imported through Hollywood to convince them otherwise. Me, i call things as i see them. And way i see them? Everyone's money been equal has been a bane. In all scales, from the macro level, down to the micro one; RPG gaming notwithstanding)

There have been indeed games that were creative. It is not coincidental however that none of these was an RPG. Do never neglect that. Lack of focus, insufficient attention span lengths, autism-resembling personal traits, plump behinds from having everything available and i-want-to-do-everything spoiled mentalities is why. And it is these very reasons that give me every damn entitlement i could ask for and then some to think of these generations as i currently am. Just being honest here

Oh, I would not disagree to your diagnosis of an enormous regress or, actually, a complete timeout of certain types of games - we nowadays call 'old school' (the term is quite concerning, isn't it?, even if it's used as 'renaissance of old school', at least expression of what we talk about) - for a time span of 10-15 years (if your agreement wishes refered to that). And related to these 'old school' games D:OS 2 and D:OS are a better form of, well, what we call 'modern rpg' (technically improved products orientated on real or claimed attributes of players who game industry primarily focusses on, tendencially even Studios like Larian). Pillars of Eternity approximates more (speaking of the whole desgin); Torment: Tides of Numenera will probably be a step further. And there's a lot of interest in this game, supported by more than 5,000,000 dollars.
And Planescape Torment, Neverwinter Nights and Neverwinter Nights 2 belong to the best sold games on GOG; they must have been sold several million times since 2008 (when GOG started, as far as I know); so maybe the greatest success of these games was after the 'death' of old school games, and it is more than the nostalgy of the 'old generation' of players. The prices are different of course, so we don't know how many would buy such games on full price. But I suppose the number of players who are interested in these games has increased in absolute numbers or can be activated (there are just more players with interest in games like Division, Counterstrike, Battlefield, Diablo 3,...). Of course it is an uninteresting number for greedy publishers but I would not neglect this existing public for 'old school'-like games. And crowdfunding is a fantastic and very new possibility for developers to get enough ressources to produce and improve such games without too much risk and, of course, without being (too much) dependent from investors, publishers and such. There has been a frustrating emptyness but the current process is good. If some skilled developers manage to create really good games of this genre (or these genres) and show that they can have economic success with it and don't risk to ruin themselves there will be more to expect.

And in general: there has been much innovation in the first stadium of the medium. 'Naturally' the market grew and got explored. New agents joined the 'game', interested in making big profit, the system got restructered, certain consuments and types of games got more visible than others (due to statistics, marketing strategies, games media that get more and more commercialized as well etc.). Different degrees of visibility produce biases; sometimes I also think there is and there will be nothing more than those games I named above, and Hollywood, and GNTM and TheVoice and these GotTalent-Shows, and McDonalds, and Apple and google and amazon and facebook and so on. But there is much more than that and more variety we think and certain companies try to make us believe.

And back to games: there are new forms of financing and distributing games (also of visibility) that give some developers back their independence and creative freedom and their public and allow to address a public that has been neglected for certain and different reasons, and this public will probably grow - despite of some dominant cultural influences on people. Games are even going to become an equivalent subject of sciences, their status changes (films, or novels, had the same problem). And there will be new generations of developers with different approaches, knowledge and skills. It's not as bad as it seems when hearing all these voices complaining about things they don't know or understand, don't want to know, try to know or what else, reading all these statistics and medial reports, seeing this flood of uniformed games from certain companies that try to control the market, to direct people's taste, to integrate their systems into social structures, to direct their behaviour, to form their reality and to milk players as much as possible, abusing their emotional and sometimes even existential relation to games. Not for the players, but for the money.

That all exists. But it's just part of our reality. Unfortunately (speaking of those companies who lie at players, gather their data, abuse their interests and their needs just to maximize their profit, raising prices, selling highly overpriced DLCs, implementing microtransactions and still claiming it to be for the players or 'necessary', obscuring their real interests and the unnecessarity of DLCs, microtransactions etc. under the condition of player friendly and less max profit orientated principles - the market is huge, you can still earn more than enough money without doing all that, but they have the will to expand, to get as much as they can) - unfortunately it's a very dominant and loud and visible part, but it's still part, not totality.

I'm not sure how game industry will develop and if there will be ways for certain games to get produced (not just smaller indie projects) and for certain developers to 'survive'. But I'm not so pessimistic that there are and will be market segments that allow both to create unique games and to have enough success to be happy.

I was about to write that you cannot project optimism when you got nothing but negative data to work with, but am sure many many people wearing ties and talking yup jargon would disagree with me

I accept your optimism regardless. Prior to sharing it however, i need to see something coming out that will validate it.
The examples you mention still fall within the category i mention above: the "can not even get to where we were 20 years ago" one. Worse, what little they have to show, they take advantage of (by employing the very same industry tactics that got us here in the first place) in an effort to paint a rosy picture. Itself to be further manipulated so as for an extra boosting in capital.

The result however speaks for itself. The only thing proven thus far is that you can escape taxation, ROI and publisher interest so as to milk randoms off their buck. Safely. For your benefit. I cannot cherry pick the one or two exceptions and re-define the rule. Am sincerely glad however if you can. I wish i could too!

I haven't redefined any rule. I just don't concede the right to the rule to be claimed as universal and without any (possible or already existing) alternative. Don't put yourself off the cherries life offers

young and optimistic.. pff

Anyway, back to topic! How's work on the big mod going, lol?

Hehe, you were tempted to say 'young and naive' but you are very friendly today. Thank you

The mod has grown over the last 2 months. 67 scripts (including most NPCs of Cyseal, Player and Companions, and some general reactions for NPCs) and some items are added (i. a. for Healing AI). There are about 10 new scripts left for testing and the very uncomfortable question if there's any way to add new char scripts to NPCs without requiring an own module. From all I can see: no. Now the problem is: either I mix two forms of installation (module + files in regular game folders) or I'll have to add all scripts (even if they're already used by the game) to the game's ressources and copy the IDs into the relevant roottemplates and character files. Just copying char scripts into the Script folder of the mod does not work.
I hope I can finish it until next week.

haha! I wouldn't have said naive anyway, meant what i typed
Am not as unfriendly as most think in any case. Just extremely impatient with idiocy. If anything i should be accused of, that would be immaturity. It is immature of me to expect anything but idiocy in gaming forums of all places, that i am aware of. But i am like that everywhere, regardless of venue; again you see? It's the exceptions to the rule that keep things going, lol.. and to people showcasing a capacity for even average thinking potential, i dare say my responses are respectful and often of friendly a nature.
To everyone else..? Doing their fair bit by spreading the plague of the 21st century into yet more people? Not my concern how they view me ^^
Always remember: There are only two things that are infinite; and he wasn't so sure about the universe.

Anyway. I don't see why the need for concern. If what you type implies that you cannot fit them all within a packaged module, fit as many as you can, leave the rest to be manually placed. The less people have to more manually/overwirte, the 'friendlier' the mod is
Looking forward to trying it out!

UPDATE:

Version 1.02 of SamaritanMod did not have the right installation folders. I have replaced the folder with the right one! If you downloaded and installed SamaritanMod 1.02 before this update remove the SamaritanMod 1.02 folder from the main directory of your game (it does just nothing).

Sorry for that!

Thanks to Eliian on Nexus for pointing that out!

Came back for an Update:

A completely re-written and re-organized version of Samaritan is available now, declared as test version until player-approved: https://www.nexusmods.com/divinityoriginalsin/mods/89?tab=description.

Version 2.0 comes with the following changes and additions:

- Better protection from healing accidents: Non-Zombie characters should be safer from poison spells now, Zombie characters won't be treated with poison as long as they're standing in fire or have the burning status.

- More performance-friendly due to better scripting, I suppose.

- The complete AI code is in one new script now und just #included in player scripts. This makes certain tasks easier (updates and manual combination with other, non-compatible or packed mods).

- An extended version of the AI script that features 6 new AI functions:

Resurrection: Dead players will be resurrected by their party members using a resurrection scroll or the witchcraft master spell if available.

Status Removal (burning and knocked down): Burning and knocked-down statuses will be removed from party members (burning statuses also from Self) if an appropriate skill is available.

Locked Item Destruction: Connected party members will help to destroy locked items (doors and chests) with spells (preferably) and weapons when the character-to-follow attacks a locked item.

Clearing Fire Surfaces: All fire surfaces within 12 in-game meters will be cleared with appropriate spells if available.

Acceleration (Haste): Connected party members will check the travel distance of the character-to-follow every 7 seconds and cast the pyro haste spell (if available) when the travel distance exceeds 14 in-game meters (to avoid spamming haste spells all the time).


The new version still maintains its modding-friendly nature:

- can be installed and removed without having to start a new game or breaking a save game
- can be installed along with other mods that don't use the same scripts
- combatibility patches for Baardvark's Scales 1.9.32 and my QuietDayOnTheMarket mod
- an extensive installation guide for combining the mod with non-compatible/-patchable mods (installed as pak files or in the game directory)

I don't have time for anything except fixing issues at the moment. I'll gather feedback nevertheless, though.

Regards,

Abraxas