Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity Original Sin - Mods Warning to Future Modders About SkillData.txt

It seems altering the SkillData.txt may sometimes cause big problems for a player's game. Maybe it was a fluke. If someone reads this sometime in the future it might alread be fixed for you.

First I will cover what I did to SkillData.txt

****Here are the changes I did to the SkillData.txt****
I altered the SkillData.txt (using the XLSM and the All.xlsm) on my Source Difficulty Mod for version 1.03 and 1.04

I altered it so Staff of Magus would take 3 AP instead of 4 and I altered Enemy Heals to work for only one turn, take a 20 turn cool down, and altered its power from I think 30 to 100.

I have no other mods installed.

**************************************************

So the Staff changes work, but the value when you hover over it changes only when a person equips the staff.

The enemy heal worked perfectly it appeared like.

****Now here is the Important Part****

So I had a save file for over 3 hours and there hasn't been any new game update or mod update in that time.

1) First Bug
Then the next day when I loaded a saved game suddenly all Skill descriptions were removed including those of SkillBooks. I didn't find any other problems though.

2) Second Bug
A user that tried my mod said that when starting a new game certain Scoundrel Skills now required strength (razor's edge required 7 to be exact). The fact that it altered more than 1 skill means there might have been some value jump somewhere?

I tried to repeat this bug various times and for me it occured 2 times in 20 New Game attempts.

**

My conclusion is either this was somehow a fluke caused by the 1.03 and 1.04 version of my mod, one of the changes I did (Maybe I screwed up somewhere) to SkillsData.txt, or maybe it has a chance of breaking the game randomly when loading the file in game.

Because of this I removed the SkillsData and its changes from my mod to be sure.

If someone plans on modding SkillsData.txt and you might be worried about this you can download version 1.04 of my mod and check through both its XLSM and TXT files I left there. Maybe it was just a mistake I made somewhere.

Hopefully anyone planning on messing with SkillsData.txt will see this and plan their mods out better.

Thnx for the info!

I'm just like you was trying to improve difficulty via changing parameters and variables, not just make some graphical improvement (does anyone really need them?) or make an easy game even more easier (it's a silly trend now. Backstabber with a shield + Leech is nearly invincible after ~12 lvl, pure mage (Int + Const + Glass Cannon) is universal and also overpowered whereas pure melee is pretty useless. Are these people playing melee builds only???)

First frustration was inability to change the values of the main Attributes and Talents.
Then, constant patches (which is certainly great but not for modders during the process).
So I've stopped for the time being.
The Game with such huge potential is stumbling upon some minor imbalances which cannot be changed by us at the moment. Pitty(((
Well, there is still time. Maybe after developers' holiday we'll get more instruction on "how to".
Or it'll be a cruel joke giving people the powerful editor and open the game for modding without the ability to change the main mechanics of the game.

Good luck with your modding!

Brazuca, seems to go along with other random things we are seeing since the last patch.

Question: How are you unpacking the latest version of Main.pak so we can get to the files to edit?

I have been using an older version of Main.pak files to edit, because when I try to unpack the current Main.pak with LSTools (latest version) I get an error "Unknown Pak file version, expected 7 got 9".

What I've found is there is an issue with Potions.txt from an older version using with the new one. So I'd like to unpack the latest Main and modify/test Potions.txt.

What you are stating is something like I am seeing with Potions.txt. Currently if I use it, one thing I can tell right off the bat is the Leadership Icon is still the old version, but some skills on my Henchman then don't work right. Take out Potions.txt, the icon is correct and all skills work.

Question: What does "Disable Main Module Protection" do in LStools?

You have to download the latest version of LSTools to be able to unpak the latest pak.

I don't know about SkillData.txt, but I know one of my attempts to change the companions stats via Character.txt led to Skill names and Skill effects becoming mismatched. Staff of Magus for example suddenly had the effects of a Fireball.

Removes checks from the editor that prevents you from creating/modifying/opening anything from the Main module (the "needs developer rights" message).

Latest version is 1.12d right? I've saved the link for LSTools a while back now.

I cannot unpack main, but it seems others can, that alone helps, even though I've never tweaked the original Main.pak in any way.

Norbyte, then that feature is the same idea as being presented with the other Mod that recently showed up, correct? Unlock Main Campaign for editing.

Rhidian - I've made changes like that within Characters.txt without side affects, just to note.

If someone doesn't mind, if you can upload a copy of the latest Potions.xlsm to download, I'd appreciate that. As I figure out why I cannot unpack Main.pak.

Thanks.

It is.


What error are you getting?


Nope, this unrestricts editor features related to resource and map management.
The .txt files are not changeable in the editor itself, so this patch doesnt affect .txt modding.

In other news, we've managed to extend the editor to accept custom plugins (.dlls) so it seems the editor itself will be moddable very soon, which adds some nice possibilites, ie. builtin skilldata.txt editor ui, etc

Here is the file (Verify Date/Size), with the error I am getting...

Just hit me to try a Verify files... running that now. SAME ISSUE.

Thanks.



Cool deal with the dll's.

Hmm... if it doesn't work aftrr verification, can you post the size (in bytes) and the MD5 or SHA hash of Main.pak and Main_1.pak?
Also I've noticed in your screenshot that the timestamps of Main.pak and Main_1.pak differ by a day. Did you change any of them?

1,080,590,336 bytes
MD5: 0fd50a60a0d36faf7f26cb4e4356f221
SHA: 830761ba8a6103147e58e9b77fb4d6bc26e50cc8

Does your Main and Main1 have the same day? I'm fairly certain everything should be in order, since we can't repack these files, not sure how I could have modified them. So it isn't like I unpacked Main, made a change and repacked Main. I simply add any changes I make to Main files to the Mod's Root Templates. Also tried to stay clear of much any modifying in the main game folder.

But I done did something.

Thanks.

Update: Had a DUH moment, I remoted into my dad's system, he has the game, his Main.pak is the same bytes, downloaded lstools, same error. Strange.

What I'm doing, running LStools 1.12d
Copy Main.pak to a temp folder
In LSTools unpacking Main.pak into an Unpack folder.
Same error on two different systems while trying to unpack.

Hmm ... can you check Main_1.pak and Main_2.pak too please?
These are mine (just checked, they unpack OK with 0.1.12d):


Also, does unpacking fail at the very beginning, or does it progress a bit before failing?

Fails immediately.

SHA and Size: Size matched, comparing your SHA to mine, same.
b396b6ba160eddb304894675a53a825c86829ac4
b396b6ba160eddb304894675a53a825c86829ac4

f4e99db776d67044b124eb9e9217fa8ce1bfe1f5
f4e99db776d67044b124eb9e9217fa8ce1bfe1f5

This is two units. One I've done all my work on, the other the only thing I've done was copy over the Mod I use for coop into \Public\. Neither cannot unpack Main, same immediate error.

Norbyte I got it working, this is what I did.

I tested to see if I could unpack Main1, failed like Main.
Then I tested Main2, failed.

Said F this... Copied over Game and Engine pak's.

I started with those two first, never had an issue with them and again they unpacked fine.

Then I tried Main again. NOW IT WORKS.

Not sure what I triggered there, but it works, I can get to potions, fix my price updates and can continue on. Thanks for taking your time though working through this with me, much appreciated.

Very strange bug indeed ... anyway glad to hear that it works

Just a heads up, this might still be an issue and in fact a very weird one. I got a new bug right after trying to edit SkillsData.txt again, except this time it was a different one.

I extracted a fresh SkillsData.xlsm and .txt and altered enemy heal and cure wounds. This time I made sure I did not accidentally change anything else.

I did the same changes that I mentioned in the first post about healing to both skills.

While playing I reached the Orc Ship encounter (Level 2 before entering Cyseal) and the Orc Shaman never did any spells, he either walked around and saved AP or melee attacked enemies near him. He didn't even use Staff of Magus like he always did.

I tried testing it again. I created a new game (didn't disable/re-enable the mod I left it on as is), but this time the Shaman behaved normally. I did a new game again and it didn't cause any problems.

Before trying to mess with SkillsData again, I had started a new game and made it to cyseal at least 20 times (around 5 with the new patch). However right after altering SkillsData.txt this bug occurred. I was trying to once again add skill changes to the Source Difficulty mod. although like I said in over 20 new games this only occurred the one time I altered SkillsData and no one using the mod has ever reported any of the problems once I removed skillsdata.txt.

Also I forgot to mention on the first post. Back then I tried disabling the mod, Deleting all the mod assets and putting them back, and then enabling the mod did not fix the problem.


So it is likely that just having SkillsData.txt in your mod can cause problems. This is just speculation, but it may even be likely that adding in a custom skill may also cause this problem. For now it might be possible that every time a player starts a new game or loads a save they risk the chance of breaking their game if they modded skilldata.txt.


Again it could all just be a fluke, I guess for now this is just a little warning, the only way to know if my assumptons are actually correct is if anyone else reports similar or weird issues only after they started messing with skills.

Well. I havent really had a lot of time to work on skills, But we all know that when you save a game, certain things get saved with it. Because you can mod things and load that game and nothing will change. Perhaps the skilldata is one of those things that gets saved and loaded. Not ever being updated till you run a new game.

Skilldata.txt is live like the rest of the main txt files. I have hundreds of changes and play with it often and whatever I change it to, it is live on the next load, no new game needed.