Do you consider changes on trader inventory generation? That's another change from Classic to EE that forces the problem, if I understood that right. Restock after one hour (real time) on trade request and after (at least one) level up on trade request.
I changed that for my mod now (after 1,5 hours and after 2 level ups) but I'm unsure how that will affect crafting for those who use to craft a lot. Would it feel too much like a restriction to available crafting resources?
As passionate craftswoman, FrauBlake: Did you run out of resources sometimes and would you even more under the new conditions?
PS: Good question to localisation. I'd like to know too.
In spite of the name, it's not crafts'woman' ;-). I only like that name because my kinsmen and -woman in LOTRO call me that, since all my characters there are female and have the last name 'Blake' ;-)
To answer your question, I bought all available ingredients whenever possible. Only the 'useful ones' of course, there are others that aren't interesting.
I don't intend to change any generation intervals. I don't intend to change treasure tables except in what traders carry. That I need to 'disable' certain crafting recipes because as far as I know there is no way to disable one. I can only take away the ingredients those recipes use. For example I want 'Scroll_Skill_Air_Blank_A' to no longer appear in the game, and I will replace all existing scrolls and skillbooks, which requires changes to treasure tables (or links in some case). Minor additions maybe, like teeth in bone piles, and I think I should remove stuff I provide better replacements for like lockpicks or disarm kits.
And if I do not forget I shall add very importand stuff that Larian forgot like for Cyseal's fish seller:
new subtable "3,1;11,1"
object category "I_LOOT_Claw_Crab_A",100,100,0,0,0,0,0,0
;-)
Why did you change trader generation frequencies ? Cannot be because of limited handles. (Because I am the only one paranoid about them ;-)
Changing that will mostly hit crafters because they depend on trader's ingredients, traders are the only reliable source for a lot of ingredients. (Think about the special arrows, where else would you get antlers or teeth ? Most people don't care about that, but crafters do.)
Most people played through the game without problems even before they changed the handle limit from 32k to 64k. Personally I have become paranoid after my first two play attempts resulted in that crash. Other people had that crash too.
Gen. Raze said that the problem even occured in classic ... after some 550 hours of gameplay. (Okay, only reported once, there might have been more cases.)
I was very far away from those 550 hours when I had my crashes, don't know, could have been 80 to 100 hours.
So put together: the problem was non existant in classic and occured in EE with more than one person reporting it (myself and others NOT reporting it).
The only thing I can think of that could have a big influence on this is the changed treasure generation, because, what else ?
So ... treasure must be pre-generated. Otherwise it would change after loading.
Although it's probably pre-generated, traders receive the items they sell when they need them, I had ItemHandleAddedToCharacter() events for all their 'generated' treasure, so the treasure was added when I started trading. I haven't tested if 'save scumming' works with traders, if it does, it is a real generation on demand for traders. If not, pre-generated treasure sits somewhere in the background waiting to be 'claimed'.
I think treasure is pre-generated every time you level up in the current area, every time you enter a zone and for traders every time after new trader treasure has been generated. (To have something sitting in the back for the next generation and prevent the end of the world: save scumming. It's probably a normal treasure but the Osiris call GenerateTradeTreasure() triggers the immediate creation of a new one.)
Treasure MUST actually be created on every levelup, because no one would like to open chests, barrels or crates with loot of the level it had when you first entered an area. You can easily get to Hiberheim at very low level if you visit Wally ... or Willy ?. But you would not want level 5 loot in all Hiberheim. You also enter Luculla Forest a long time before you actually really do something there, because you need to enter it to go to Hiberheim. If you open a container in Hiberheim or Luculla though, it's around your level and not much higher I think. And finally, you stay in Cyseal for a while without ever leaving it, you could open ANY container any time, loot should be at an appropriate level and not level 3, the last time you left Cyseal and came back after the second star stone.
The only exceptions to this migth be containers with a fixed level because that treasure would not need to be recreated, and containers with 'UsePartyLevelForTreasure' might use on-demand creation. (The latter is doubtful because it would allow for the single worst thing that could ever happen anywhere on this planet: save scumming to get better loot. If it were the case though, I'd know exactly, what I'd do in a mod ;-)
Mob drops seem to use the old on-demand creation from what I've heard. (And maybe the 'custom treasure thing' somewhere in _Trade.txt in Osiris too.)
Since it could be quite an effort to differentiate between 'categories of treasure generation', maybe all treasure (except mob drops and 'custom') is even always generated at the above mentioned occasions.
Could be that treasure in an undiscovered area within a zone is first created when the area is discovered to 'soften the problem'.
If I am right and with treasure pre-generation also comes handle acqusition, it means that the change from 'on demand' to 'pre-generated' treasure in a system without any 'handle handling' might have been the single most stupid change from classic to EE ;-)
I never understood the motivation behind it either. If someone wants to save scum, why not, does not hurt others. After you load the game for the tenth time, it gets old and you go with what you have.
I could speculate a lot about how things work, but in the end, only General Raze can give us answers.
(... or confuse us even more of course ;-)
