I Need Ideas for Overworked's Sequel

This is the place for people to research themes and ideas for their mods as well as for others to post their suggestions for mod makers to make use of.

Moderator: Nefarius

Post Reply
User avatar
Cypress
Moderator
Champion of the Light
Posts: 446
Joined: Fri Dec 01, 2017 2:08 am

I Need Ideas for Overworked's Sequel

Post by Cypress » Wed Apr 28, 2021 8:33 pm

After creating Overworked, I tried making a mod with it and got annoyed from all the bugs/issues due to its intentional vanilla-ish limitations. The plan for this next generation of Overworked is to remove all those hassles, which will make it incompatible with vanilla saves, but will allow for many more changes. It'll have things like:

(1) All monsters will be given A1/A2/WL/RN/S1 animations so that you don't have to clone animations yourself to utilize different AIs
(2) Almost all non-boss-only monsters will be given resurrection animation skills (applied in Skill8, which is unused by almost all AIs), so that they un-die when resurrected instead of sliding around
(3) Rows added for every single monster from Ogodei's Diablo Monster Pack and Infinitum in monstats/monstats2/animdata/monsounds, so you don't have to mess around with adding those manually (also would include fixes to broken animations/missing sounds as I find them)
(4) Taking bug fixing to its limits, the goal is to fix as many bugs as possible with softcoding, far more than is possible with the limited ruleset I apply to Overworked
(5) A variety of optional skills/systems that emulate behavior that would may otherwise appear to require hardcoded changes (e.g. a kind of softcoded open wounds with controllable damage that would work almost like vanilla)
(6) New element mastery stats which apply to everything instead of just pretending so that missiles can benefit from +skill damage% too
(7) All synergies are moved to passivestats so that they can be referenced by calculations
(8) A melee splash system that does not rely on nextdelay so that it won't interfere with other missiles (this will be disabled by default, but changing a single property will enable it on all items since I will add the new property to every single weapon in the game, including white/magic/rare/crafted items via automagic as well as vanilla uniques and sets)
(9) A handful of new hybridized skills, with a document describing their behaviors, which I think are underutilized and should have variants based upon them more often
(10) A shrine system, which will allow you to add in controlled or randomized new buffs/effects to Fire/Exploding/Poison shrines
(11) Hidden stats on all boots/weapons, so that the game can reference the kind of weapon or boot you are using (necessary for completely accurate damage displays, and also handy for making skills scale based on specific weapon types or boots)
(12) Adding all unused but functional stats to properties.txt
(13) Full compatibility between versions 1.10f and 1.14 (and should work with D2R as well)

What I want to ask is if anyone has any ideas for other systems or fixes that could be generally useful for modding, which you would like to see in this mod utility pack.

User avatar
erevos
Hosted Forum Moderator
Paladin
Posts: 145
Joined: Sat Mar 05, 2005 7:41 am
Location: Crete
Greece

Re: I Need Ideas for Overworked's Sequel

Post by erevos » Thu Apr 29, 2021 9:57 am

Hi Cypress, your overworked files are a great work honestly and i have implemented on my mod. Im also leaning towards softcoding. About your sequel overworked I think the splash addition will unbalance the game for melee characters. A useful thing will be to somehow group states in such way that a modder can have as much space is possible to add new ones. Also, all this skillstring nightmare in skilldesc... what if StrSkill20 for example, was actually named lengthstr (or is it range?) anyway, you know what i mean, most of the modding time on skills is spended trying to figure/remember skilldesc string names. Speaking of skilldesc, one thing that i did not find useful in overworked was that adding active stats that increased with each level on BG column section, in game it displays the value of the next level, not of the current one which is misleading, this is happening in 1.14d at least.

Thanks for your awesome work.

User avatar
Cypress
Moderator
Champion of the Light
Posts: 446
Joined: Fri Dec 01, 2017 2:08 am

Re: I Need Ideas for Overworked's Sequel

Post by Cypress » Thu Apr 29, 2021 7:08 pm

Hi Erevos, thanks for your reply!

As to splash: I think if no one particularly cares for it, then I won't bother adding it to any items even as a by-default disabled property, I could just keep it as a pre-made skill in skills.txt and leave it as that. But do note that this system does not work like Melee Splash in other mods, it make use of an exploding missile that is underutilized. The missile does not apply Crushing Blow, it does not trigger ctc-effects, it only applies weapon damage over a radius including: physical damage, elemental damage (fire, cold, magic, leech, etc) and deadly strike/critical strike. As such, it won't necessarily be overpowered, its power entirely depends on how much it is set to scale with base weapon damage. Even +dmg% modifiers, like from Might, won't apply to it unless the modder wants it to.

Unfortunately, there isn't much I can do about states, that's something which would need to be managed individually for each mod. To get the most out of your states, you'd have to condense them into auras or Blaze, which allow for a state to use all available stats. These are some changes you could apply to get the most out of your states:
(1) Combine as many passives as possible into single states, like for example you could fit all of the Sorceress passives onto a single aura which is given by a charm, this would reduce the number of states used from 4 to 1.
(2) Merge states when possible, for example you can make it so Battle Order and Battle Command are stateless passives that feed their stats to Shout via synergies, thus using only one state instead of three.
(3) Salvage some unnecessary states, I think summonresist can be replaced with synergies to summons and it will behave essentially the same.
I don't want to do (1) or (2) for this mod, since it's too specialized and would make it awkward to work with. As for (3), I might be able to salvage a few states, but don't expect much. States.txt is in desperate need of hardcoded expansion, but I think the only easy way to get that is from Dreamlands, which is 1.10f only.

The strings idea is interesting, I could try that. Thinking about it, there are also a few Unique and Set items with string names that are different from their actual name, so I could correct those too.
erevos wrote:
Thu Apr 29, 2021 9:57 am
Speaking of skilldesc, one thing that i did not find useful in overworked was that adding active stats that increased with each level on BG column section, in game it displays the value of the next level, not of the current one which is misleading, this is happening in 1.14d at least.
I see what you're saying, thanks! It seems Raise Skeleton and the other golems have the same issue, so I'll correct each of them for Overworked v4.

Thanks for your feedback, if you have any other ideas please let me know!

User avatar
erevos
Hosted Forum Moderator
Paladin
Posts: 145
Joined: Sat Mar 05, 2005 7:41 am
Location: Crete
Greece

Re: I Need Ideas for Overworked's Sequel

Post by erevos » Thu Apr 29, 2021 8:15 pm

Thanks for the reply and suggestions!

A nice addition would be to fix/correct the dmg/att vs a certain monster family, its softcoded, i have done this. I think something about Antidote potion has an issue in vanilla, something with the state, unfortunately i don't remember it right now. Also a description to Thawing pot would be nice, a small detail but i think would be nice to have. This is all i can think about right now. About BG section, also adding mana cost there has the same "problem".

P.S.: Your advise about using clcX, len, rng etc in skilldesc was a life savior!

User avatar
Cypress
Moderator
Champion of the Light
Posts: 446
Joined: Fri Dec 01, 2017 2:08 am

Re: I Need Ideas for Overworked's Sequel

Post by Cypress » Sat May 01, 2021 5:19 pm

Good ideas! Those changes will also mostly work for Overworked without causing save compatibility issues, so I'll add them into the next version.

As for Blood Golem mana cost, I'm not noticing anything off about it, the issue should only occur if the descline is placed onto the top row. Could you explain exactly what is happening incorrectly?

User avatar
erevos
Hosted Forum Moderator
Paladin
Posts: 145
Joined: Sat Mar 05, 2005 7:41 am
Location: Crete
Greece

Re: I Need Ideas for Overworked's Sequel

Post by erevos » Sat May 01, 2021 6:46 pm

Hey, im glad you found useful my info.

Is not about golem specifically, i did not had that in mind. Whatever you put in BG columns section that has an increase per skill level, in game it does not display the current level value, it displays the sum of current value + next level.

User avatar
kain_abel_666
Posts: 68
Joined: Fri Apr 03, 2020 12:13 pm
Location: Canada
Canada

Re: I Need Ideas for Overworked's Sequel

Post by kain_abel_666 » Sun May 02, 2021 1:56 pm

Maybe fix power strike - it shows increase in attack rating but the skill function doesn't actually use tohit, tohitclac and lvltohit columns. Instead maybe apply a state and add theses as aurastat?
I've stayed quite a while and heard what you have to say. Now it is time for the real Kain to emerge.

User avatar
Cypress
Moderator
Champion of the Light
Posts: 446
Joined: Fri Dec 01, 2017 2:08 am

Re: I Need Ideas for Overworked's Sequel

Post by Cypress » Tue May 04, 2021 9:51 pm

erevos wrote:
Sat May 01, 2021 6:46 pm
Is not about golem specifically, i did not had that in mind. Whatever you put in BG columns section that has an increase per skill level, in game it does not display the current level value, it displays the sum of current value + next level.
Oh, I misunderstood. I thought by BG you meant Blood Golem, since by coincidence it and the other necro summons were the only skills I noticed with the erroneous display. In Overworked v4, I've hopefully found and fixed all of the scaling stats on the wrong display row (aside from Skeleton Mage's missile damage since there isn't enough space, but it is already set up to display the current level so I can't think of any better way to display it). Let me know if you find any other display errors, I'll be sure to fix them!
kain_abel_666 wrote:
Sun May 02, 2021 1:56 pm
Maybe fix power strike - it shows increase in attack rating but the skill function doesn't actually use tohit, tohitclac and lvltohit columns. Instead maybe apply a state and add theses as aurastat?
That is actually already fixed in Overworked. Fortunately it doesn't need states either, changing the srvdofunc from 6 to 32 will carry out all the behaviors of Power Strike and more. Although relatedly, some of the other Javelin skills and all of the bow/crossbow skills are incapable of applying +AR%, so I could fix those. Thanks for the idea!

User avatar
kain_abel_666
Posts: 68
Joined: Fri Apr 03, 2020 12:13 pm
Location: Canada
Canada

Re: I Need Ideas for Overworked's Sequel

Post by kain_abel_666 » Tue May 04, 2021 10:36 pm

Ya the AR missile bug is a hardcoded fix - unless you add large amounts of flat AR and not a bonus to all missile related skills/ items but that would take away from the vanilla experience since you wouldn't need to invest as heavily in dex to get good bonuses
I've stayed quite a while and heard what you have to say. Now it is time for the real Kain to emerge.

Post Reply

Return to “Mod Concepts & Research”