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stranger
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OP
stranger
Joined: Feb 2018
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They're quite terrible. When I think of trying to 4-man Honor, or even Tactician, this is what irks me most.
Basically I want to change the skills/abilities/talents of recruited origin characters in single player by changing the coded parameters of the classes we're forced to give them on recruitment. Any tips?
I'm aware that this would be considered cheating by some people. Let's not ***** about it in this thread.
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member
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member
Joined: Nov 2017
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Respec at mirror in ship?
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stranger
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OP
stranger
Joined: Feb 2018
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Respec at mirror in ship? You'll notice I used the term "recruitment" in my post. Recruitment usually happens in act 1, before you get on the ship. Plz don't reply. So does anyone who knows the guts of the game know if this is possible? I know you can make 4 characters in separate clients and play them all in single-player, but that breaks the game, I think. And is tedious.
Last edited by Elke; 24/02/18 08:53 PM.
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old hand
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old hand
Joined: Oct 2017
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From my experience with modding the old Baldur's Gate games and a few other games, I imagine that if you can edit the dialog in which you assign class to the character, you will probably find a piece of code associated with each dialog option, somewhere, with a bunch of commands that assign abilities to the character. Then all you need to do would be to replace those abilities with new ones - something along the lines of replacing "xyz_BatteringRam_xyz" with "xyz_BlitzAttack_xyz", and so on.
If you make major changes, you probably want to edit the text as well, so that it better reflects the new abilities you put in.
That being said, I've never actually tried doing any modding with this game, so can't really help you there, sorry. I think I'm too old for this stuff now.
Last edited by Try2Handing; 24/02/18 10:21 PM.
"We make our choices and take what comes and the rest is void."
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member
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member
Joined: Oct 2017
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I recall there is a mod for DOS:2 that enables the mirror at the start. I might be wrong though.
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addict
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addict
Joined: Dec 2017
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I fully agree. Having tons of civil ability points wasted by redundance is bad. My list of grievances with companion recruitment 1. Getting to level 2 on the Merryweather is punished by losing even more civil ability points on companions (which leads to a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive - namely to leave the ship without doing everything that is possible there) 2. Pet Pal talent is redundant if you want a summoner and a wayfarer 3. Two loremasters if you decide to take a wizard and an enchanter (which is a really useful combination, btw...) 4. Seriously... what do I need more than one barterer for? --- Right now I use the "FortJoyRespec" mod to solve this, but I really believe that, after recruiting a companion the character respec screen should pop up and allow for finishing touches. My current playthrough, which I will start in the next 30 minutes, will be 4 custom characters anyway (did all the companion quests now, this time it's about "lets see what the maximum possible ability setup gives you"), but I can't even count how often I wished to just be able to tell Ifan that "yes, I want you as wayfarer, but since my main is the Pet Pal, I want you to take "Far Out Man" instead". This would make act 1, which I have seen soooo many times already, a lot less jolty.
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stranger
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stranger
Joined: Feb 2018
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Why do those presets even need to exist? Can't you just open a character creation menu for every companion after they say their famous "I am skilled at everything jajaja"? And at that screen you will not only be able to build them the way you want but also listen for their background story a bit and learn about their tags, specials and so on...
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addict
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addict
Joined: Dec 2017
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It makes sense to get a starting point, but the effect on, especially, civil abilities and talent points of those presets makes the first act much more jolty than necessary.
But yes, the best solution would be to simply open the character creation screen with all the options after you say "ok, join me".
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stranger
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OP
stranger
Joined: Feb 2018
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Why do those presets even need to exist? Can't you just open a character creation menu for every companion after they say their famous "I am skilled at everything jajaja"? And at that screen you will not only be able to build them the way you want but also listen for their background story a bit and learn about their tags, specials and so on... That would be perfect. I've played through a lot of the game lone-wolfing with a friend, so trying to start a playthrough of without the double-skilling of lone wolf and the horrible stat distribution of the recruitable origins, especially after gaining levels, has been pretty painful. I guess I'll just get the respec mod. I don't see why a person can have custom stats by opening the client over and over, or by playing only with other people, but I can't lol. This whole thing is also a small nitpicky issue so I don't mean to throw shade at Larian over it, though I don't see any advantage in locking the classes for act 1.
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enthusiast
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enthusiast
Joined: Sep 2016
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You can edit the \CharacterCreation\ClassPresets\Whatever.lsx file and add/change starting stats if you want (and edit skillset.txt, Equipment.txt and Requirements.txt if you want to add Phoenix Dive as starting skill for example).
It is a bit of a palaver though extracting everything and probably easier to use the respec mirror mod.
I tend to not bother any more but recruit companions based solely on what civil or talent they have - for example pick a Witch to be an Archer just because they have Persuasion (and then just live with the pointless leech talent).
It is a bit silly and requires checking every class - it would be far preferable if you could just assign all points - as everyone else has already said I know.
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addict
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addict
Joined: Dec 2017
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I thought about this in terms of balance. One could argue that act 1 was balanced around NOT having optimal civil abilities, but this mostly applies for the first playthrough of this act (and I guess many players restart multiple times, just to try things out until a certain point), so I think such considerations can be dismissed with relative ease, because when you're at the point, as a player, to be able to optimize your civil ability distribution (and I, for example, do this using Excel, and I'm not joking here), you're not in the target group for act 1-balancing anymore anyway.
I can only speak for myself, but the joy in doing act 1 now, after multiple fun playthroughs, is to see "how much can I squeeze out of the game", "how fast can I do it" and "what other tactics and builds can I use successfully". Gold was never a fun-factor for me, it was mostly something to work around. The true strategic decisions in act 1 in gameplay are, for example, the teleporter quest (because when you do it to early you lose the only Aerothurge dealer and the really good Aero skills only come with level 4) and the slaverer-junkie-lizard (who happens to be the only Pyro-vendor). And this is something I like. You're forced to THINK about such things when you start to min / max your playthrougs, you can even go as far as I did and jot down a plan in Notepad++ on your second screen where you lay out "when to buy which skill and when to do which quest, because it leads to this and that".
Just saying this to disarm a possible "balancing" argument against full custom parties.
When it comes to talents... you always get 2 talent points for free spending, even if you only recruit at level 1 so I don't think that balancing is a factor here, because the level 3-talent point could go into such crazy combinations that it is impossible to predict balance around them anyway (killer combo: give a melee fighter who already has "opportunist" that "executioner" talent - or vice versa... there goes any balancing, because in this very moment a virtually +100% physical damage dealer is born).
No, all in all I consider the fact that you have to wait until you get to the ship to, basically, correct the misplaced talent and civil ability points nothing but an inconveniance, something which doesn't add anything to the game but, quite the opposite, actually reduces the freedom you have.
An example is the decision to have both wizard and enchanter companions put points into "loremaster". It eludes me how this could be of any - ANY - use to the party at all. Same for "pet pal" and conjurer / wayfarer.
One can argue for this with "lore", but this factor can be left there by simply keeping such selections as "default" (like it is in the character generation screen) - and people who want to experience the game from a very lore-centric perspective, which is something I highly respect and also envy a little bit, can still keep it as it is.
It would be really amazing to have an official way to min / max right from the start, without having to resort to a semi-hack (mod). As I wrote somewhere else (maybe as "deepunderscore" on reddit?) I consider min / maxing a totally valid and, at least for me, totally fun way to play, one of the reasons I come back to D:OS2 so often, because the non-strict skill system offers so much here. I mean, I even found a way to make "scoundrel" useful for a caster. Sounds easy in D:OS2?
Yes. Here it is. No other game offers THAT. And this strength is something that could be built upon by offering full party customization. If you ask me it should even be possible to recruit companions on the Merryweather already (because those people are just... cool... I love all of them, even though I have a few favorites personality wise and a few favorites gameplay-wise [looking at you, stinky {stench talent 4tw} shadowblade Sebille]).
Oh, and yes, I used the "FortJoyRespec" mod for each of my complete playthroughs so far. Temporarily, just to get the party right.
Last edited by Firesong; 27/02/18 08:34 PM.
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veteran
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veteran
Joined: Oct 2016
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You could argue, that a wizard/enchanter tends to be knowledgable, therefore loremaster makes in Roleplay perspective sense, though in gameplay perspective it is annoying.
Chosing the class should only affect equipment and skill, not talents, attributes or social skills in my eyes.
Also the fact, that this is 4 player coop game, counters any possible balancing arguement.
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addict
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addict
Joined: Dec 2017
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Absolutely true, I'm 100% with you here. Thank you for the additional good "4 player coop" argument, I totally forgot about this.
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