Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 - The Modding Dungeon Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Modding General - D:OS2 ModdingTool - Discussions/Suggestions

I know I'm a bit late to the party, but I would LOVE to be able to mod my own custom origins for people to download and play. That's the one thing I would want the modding tools to be able to accomplish.

My *fervent* hope is that skins will be very easily extractable and moddable (in addition to having plenty to choose from the start). I know that you've struggled to attract as full of a female audience, so let me tell you, it makes a big difference! Maybe some people think its silly, but I spend a *lot* of time in character creation mode - the look of my character really helps me set the tone for my story/adventure. I often rush to unlock the bedroom from the Homestead so that I can update my heroes looks again in-game.

Another skin comment is just that the faces from D:OS1 didn't work well on dark skintones. There also weren't really any fantasy skintones to choose from. Having the skins be more 'diversity-friendly' would be great (and progressive)!

I also agree with other posters about ease of 3d model replacements/additions for things like bodies, costumes/armor and hairstyles. It really helps with storytelling to have your super-buff warrior vs. a lithe assassin, or some tied up braids vs. long, flowing locks. Plus, you'll make everyone who wants bigger boobs in game happy. #smh

I helped work on this (non-official) mod tool for the Sims 4 - it might be a good reference for ease of use, 3d previewing, texture extraction, etc: http://www.sims4studio.com/board/31/downloading-sims-4-studio

Thanks very much for listening - I can't wait to play!

To add to my previous post: I would like better programming capabilities. Thanks to that people can make a Diablo 2 game, a turn based total conversion, Starcraft Universe (a 3rd person RPG) etc. with the Starcraft 2 Editor.

What I also would love to see is the possibility for the modder to create his/her own GUI's, ideally with a small GUI builder that uses the same style as the main game, so the GUI's integrate well with the overall look of the game (ideally with the ability to use custom png/dds/whatever files to customize this in case someone makes a total conversion).

The possibility to change how characters gain AP during combat would also be nice - for example gaining AP only while dealing or receiving damage etc.

If we could expose functions from our mods to the GM mode that would also be great (the first post in the GM mode thread already mentioned this, but I really like the idea).

I guess I want a "larian rpg maker".

While I agree with this, I'd just like to point out that race is more than just black and white.

There are Asians (of various ethnicities), for example. There's even different kinds of black people. It would be insulting to have an African black actor portraying an Aboriginal Australian black person, for example, as they have distinctly different facial features.

I'd love for them to improve diversity in character creation, but I'd like to ask for caution. A lot of Americans expect that diversity should be portrayed from a very American perspective, without understanding that internationally, the topic is actually a lot more complex. You don't get diversity just from consuming American media.

modding tools not in alpha for the time being: https://twitter.com/larianstudios/status/770901246366679040

That makes complete sense. There is no good reason to put modding tools into a game which is feature incomplete and changing on a very regular basis.

... as long as it does not take 5 months after release of the game for the editor to be released, which makes nobody interested in mods any longer because of the the great hype for the following game ...

At least in theory something like this could happen ... oh wait ...

Yeah imo they need to get them out asap, this news I'll just lower my expectations, there really has been little talk on what is in and what is out. Surely most of what they hope to have has had to been decided. Timing is a big part of building a modding community.

To note several survival games that are in EA and always changing have mod tools.

I think it is because even Larian doesn't know... or are so unsure as to the final result they don't reveal their current plans.

I wish developers could be more open and transparent... but then again I know that their audience isn't EXACTLY understanding either when it comes to development changing.

I'll chime in and add my opinion that the mod tools should not only be released during early access, but should be a PART of early access and they game shouldn't have full release until it's polished.

There is always a point in time when they simply MUST release a game if fully polished or not or they go bancrupt.

Releasing the modding tools early also somehow puts them into a situation where they'd have to provide at least a little bit of support.
They do not even have time to support the current one that IS already released.

Be patient.
As long as the tools are released around the time of the game's release, everything should be fine. Was fine in Classic. EE had the problem of D:OS2 already way too visible on the horizon from the beginning, releasing the editor 5 months too late added to that.

The difference being that D:OS2 has (or should/will have) dedicated mod tools support. I remember a line like "a team will be hired to exclusivly work on the mod tools" or something like that.



Yeah, better get the mod tools out in a polished state. [0] Otherwise it might turn away the more casual modders, which are required in order to spread the word about the modding capabilities of DOS2, which might attract more modders who didn't know about DOS2 in general, or the modding tools in specific.

On the other hand I agree that feedback from the community as early as possible is also very important. Maybe make a private beta of the mod tools for the most dedicated [1] modders of DOS1, and when their feedback is incorporated, make it a public beta (in the hope that by now the tools are stable/easy enough so the more casual modders don't get turned away).

btw: anecdotally Skyrim, probably one of the poster childs when it comes to a large modding community, released in november 2011, and the mod tools in february 2012, which seems like a good time window between base game and editor release to the overall public (I believe modders from their previous games participated in a beta).

[0] and hopefully not dumbed down - stability over usability any day for me :o
[1] yeah, subjective, and there might be many modders who were really dedicated/active but didn't post in the mods section.

And I remember something like "console development will not change anything for the pc version"
(I have a skill icon stuck to my mouse cursor for sale, if anyone wants ... and a broken initiative bar ... ;-)

Plans can and will change as do timelines. If that was not the case, D:OS2 would be out this fall. And we do not necessarily get all info about changed plans.


I don't know.

Although the EE editor loves to crash - only on exit which is weird -, it never corrupted any of my data so far, I don't know if a close/open beta is required. But then, I only know about scripting stuff, of all modeling and graphics stuff I have no clue.
(If they don't change anything about the scripting languages, and I don't see why they should, because they are good enough, I could theoretically start right away ... only if D:OS2 is still as good as D:OS1 was of course, I have to be interested in the game itself to become interested in modding it. And only if they keep the amazing flexibility that the D:OS1 engine has of course.)

The last 'time window' between game release and editor release hurt the modding community a lot. Because it pushed the release of the editor so close to the next hype, that it never really took off.
After D:OS2 is released, the hype for the next game will start, so better release game and editor at the same time without any 'time window'.

After all, they use the editor to make the game and there has been nothing indicating that Larian has time travel capability to produce the game with the editor from the future ...
They released the classic editor around the time when classic was released, and classic must have been released under a lot of time pressure.

If they have such a big time span between game and editor release again as was the case with EE, other games - including the next one from Larian - will have diverted player interest and few modders only will be interested to work for an almost empty audience.

Guess it has already been said (didn't read everything sorry) but the possibility to create our own Abilities/Skills/Talents/Status seems important.

What can be interesting (but I think too complicated) is the ability for DM to create custom "rulesets" with full customization of attributes and combat mechanisms.

Reading a little on Masters of Orion and someone dropped this and is how I feel with mod tools:

Not shipping with mod support was a mistake, and a large one. Stellaris had mod support in EA and as of now, 3,021 mods are available through the Steam Workshop.

I understand DOS2 will ship with mod tools, but having them in EA fosters success. I hear we'll have them later in EA, good, hope it is a major step forward.

If not the tool, at least documentation: that way, people can begin with simple replacers/txt edits (for gameplay), and then we move on to different things.

@Raze, @norD, any opinion?

I'd be happy with "Adventure Creation/Realtime-GM Tools" allowing non-developers/programmers/scripters to create adventures and publish them ASAP followed by more advanced Mod/script/developer tools.

I really think we need "push-button" publishing simplicity (ala Neverwinter Online Foundry and Sword Coast Legends). I think "storytellers and GMs" are probably a far more massive target audience than scripters and 3-d artists and terraforming world builders.

I also want to suggest that, like XCOM, most (all) resources from the previous game should be available in the toolset.

If all of them is unfeasible, please consider at least Skeletons/animations/VFX.

It goes without saying that if this material is already used by the second game, there is no need.

I'm all for releasing early, but they also need to write better/more documentation (this should idealy happen while developing the game, but often times there is no time for that if I look at software projects in general) etc. What I wanted to say was that the time window that Skyrim had was alright without killing the interest, and should Larian require the time to make the editor better, they should take it. I don't think anyone want's such a large gap between game and editor like the Enhanced Edition ;o)

Yes.

Classic Original Sin had two major advantages when modding was concerned: the editor came out almost the same time when the game was released and it could grow up without the next child in the queue already. It also received some support from Larian.
When EE came out, the kickstarter campaign for D:OS2 was already over and the loud majority was already only talking about D:OS2 and nothing else since then. The delay with the editor did the rest to bury modding. It seems that the only mods that somehow took off were those made without the editor, long before it was released.

And yes, documentation. That is huge.
(It's not exactly easy to have to find out what every single Osiris call really does, especially when quite a lot of it is pretty unexpected or does not work under certain circumstances ;-)