Build 14 Beta 1

[Black Bart]

likewise i have installed that LAI_event.c file Pieter, but am currently testing it on the plain 'boarding axe'(as i've never yet got a quest sword - never got that far!). Two of my shore-side 'toughs' that accompany me both have the boarding axe and will let you know if they ever break or not. :ixi

 

[Pieter Boelen]

The fix should affect any weapon that doesn't have a quality, so that includes the boarding axes. Let me know how it goes.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

I'm now using Jack Sparrow's sword again. The boarding axe? Intriguing. How is it working out?



I am getting a lot of ctds now during boarding battles. Specifically when looting corpses. The game hangs and starts flickering between the deck scene and the looting menu for a while, then crashes. This error.log is all that I have that mentions it so far.

 

[tommy61157]

Wait, there's a new storyline?

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Uurr, the Nathaniel Hawk storyline was recently renamed to the Sea Hawk storyline. It is officially "Tales of a Sea Hawk". Pretend to start a new game and check it out.

 

[tommy61157]

oh, my bad, lol

 

[Baste]

Re 'proffesional fencer' and other type perks, did anything change in your code that would make those perks more likely for the enemy npc's maybe?

Nope, I didn't change anything regarding how NPC:s get abilities. However, with my changes everyone has a 5% chance of scoring a critical hit without an ability (which otherwise would be granted by the Critical Hit ability), and a 10% chance with the Critical Hit ability (which I have thus renamed to "Improved Critical Hit"). Regardless of how high the chance is with the Critical Hit ability, though, the chance is 25% with the Professional Fencer ability (both in stock and with my changes).

Since critical hits do not seem to be the problem, it seems to me that the too high damage is caused by changed weapon properties. Some weapons simply seem to have too high base damage. However, since everything seems to work again when the LAi_fightparams file is changed back it would seem that something else regarding damage was changed in that file. The changelog Pieter posted doesn't mention anything about it, but maybe I should download the Patch 7 WIP and look at its LAi_fightparams file to see if I can find a change to the way damage works.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

The change does make a difference. As for the swords, overall they seem to be less powerful than before. I just got the Solingen rapier which used to have offense and defense numbers in the 80-90% range, and now it is in the 40-50% range. There is some random damage thing that causes massive damage. I have 456hp now so rarely die, but now and then a single stroke can cause me to lose 1/3rd to 1/2 of my hp. If something like that happened with a 200hp player...........

 

[Baste]

I couldn't find anything between the LAi_fightparams file in Patch 6 and Patch 7 WIP concerning damage apart from my changes to the critical hit code and the Professional Fencer damage decrease code. If you and your opponent have similar swords, Melee Combat skill, and melee combat abilities you should deal approximately the same damage to each other.

If the Professional Fencer damage decrease change isn't the problem either, I can't think of anything else that causes the problem.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

I have recently noticed that if I time it just right I can deal heavy damage to my opponent, in the 100+hp range with an excellent Knights Templar sword. Usually the damage I do is in the 20-50hp range. My opponents usually start with around 400hp+-.

 

[Black Bart]

@ Pieter, i've had some work stuff come up so only have the odd hour to spare currently on play-testing, but so far those boarding axes haven't 'broke', but i'd need some more testing to be sure that code you did is sure to have the desired effects, so far so good

@ Baste, i can't say exactly why there is such a difference between the changes you made in that LAi_fightparams file from patch 7 wip 2. But for sure either using the old original patch 6 version of that file or the one i made that used some of the new stuff but not most of the big changes, you notice the difference in death rates for you and your officers. And Hylie and yourself are both right re the weapon stat changes, in general 'normal'(non quest) weapons are less powerfull, but also many middle to top tier weapons have higher minimum damage.

Having said that simply changing that LAI_fightparams file from that last one you did to the older type means 90% less death for you and your officers, and that is using exactly the same stats for weapons, so no i'm pretty sure this isnt a stat change problem, the code is doing something 'odd' in the last patch 7 wip 2 version of that code! I've no idea what, but it just makes combat about 70% more lethal for some reason(i'd even tried lowering all weapon min damage to 1 and reducing max damage by 10 across all weapons and still you and your officers would die very often!). That's an 'evil' bit of code that loves death it seems

 

[Baste]

Hylie Pistoff: That's interesting. Are you certain that you can constantly produce that result? As far as I know there is no function like that. If there is, stock or modded, at least it's not in the LAi_fightparams file.

Black Bart: Yes, if you no longer take too much damage if you change the file it can't be the weapon properties either. From what you both have said it seems to most likely be the changed Professional Fencer damage decrease code, but since Hylie said that most of his problems happened before he got that ability I'm not sure.

The pieces of the puzzle are falling into place, though. It works in my game, so I thought some more about the differences between my game and the build and how they work and came up with an idea. Could both of you, or somebody else, please try an experiment for me? Use my changed critical hit code and change the Professional Fencer damage decrease code to "0.6" and see if you still take too much damage. If you don't then this was the cause of the problem.
If so, one way to fix it could be to set the Professional Fencer damage decrease code to "0.7" and lower the stats for the weapons and change the way HP works back to how it works in the stock game, but if that wouldn't be a very good solution another way could be to simply leave the Professional Fencer damage decrease code at "0.6".

Anyway, could you please try this and see what happens? It would be helpful in determining if this is the cause of the problem.

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Can I constantly do that? No. I'm not very good, so it's more a matter of luck. Also, most of my fights are melee affairs and I really don't know who is doing what to whom. I'm over the hump and am the one delivering most of the damage now, but will look into your thingy.


I THINK I found your change. I changed one number from 7 to 6.

 

[Baste]

It might require a new game, but I don't think so.

This is the line you need to change:

if(IsCharacterPerkOn(enemy, "SwordplayProfessional")) kDmg = 0.7;

Simply change "0.7" to "0.6".

 

[Black Bart]

........................
If so, one way to fix it could be to set the Professional Fencer damage decrease code to "0.7" and lower the stats for the weapons and change the way HP works back to how it works in the stock game, but if that wouldn't be a very good solution another way could be to simply leave the Professional Fencer damage decrease code at "0.6".

hmmm that sounds like the worst option by a long way!! It effectively means no modding of weapon stats(now or in the future), and what has changed with the way HP works from the stock game(you still get 10HP per level up and start with 40)?

I'll try to find time to test out you idea, but currently i'm carying on playtesting(and working on my tweaks and balance stuff) with that modified version i posted above. One thing i must ask is why did you make the change to the LAi_fightparams file in the first place? I'm just curious as i never found a problem with the combat in the game, well within the parameters of it being a pretty simple and not perfect system. In general a better swordsman will beat a worse one, and a better weapon helps even the odds, add in a dash of random 'bad luck' and it appears to work about as well as it needs to.

Not that i'm trying to be a jerk here, but knowing what you were aiming for and why will certainly help us understand why that change made combat so lethal to the detriment of the gameplay if i'm being honest, but all things need testing and adjusting

It MIGHT be easier to simply keep that code much as it was pre patch 7 wip 2, as in the earlier version the 'insta-death' didn't happen and you could still mod weapons stats etc. Sometimes the easy option is the best one :

But yeah i'll test out your suggestion and report back on how it goes.

 

[Baste]

hmmm that sounds like the worst option by a long way!! It effectively means no modding of weapon stats(now or in the future), and what has changed with the way HP works from the stock game(you still get 10HP per level up and start with 40)?

That's why I mentioned that it probably wouldn't be a very good solution and that the other probably would be better.
In the build characters get 10 more HP per level, in the stock game characters get 5 more HP per level. This means that everyone has a lot more HP than they otherwise would.

As I've said before, I think that there is a too large and too sudden difference in the damage between normal hits and critical hits. You may be dealing 21 points of damage to an opponent on your first strike, then 19 on the second, 20 on the third, and then suddenly you score a critical hit on your fourth strike and deal 200 points of damage. The same if your opponent does damage to you. The damage is suddenly much higher than normal.

I also wanted to prevent this from happening any more: You are at full health and block, but an enemy pierces your block and scores a critical hit on you and takes away all or almost all of your hit points. If you are fighting several enemies at the same time this can be really important. Even if they pierce your block and score a critical hit on you the damage won't suddenly be too high with my changes.

I think critical hits should be dangerous because they are critical hits, but I think they are too dangerous in the stock game.

Also, I've always thought that the possibility to score a critical hit should be a basic quality of every character without the need of a special ability. So, I made the 5% chance of scoring a critical hit granted by the Critical Hit ability into something everyone has without the ability, and made the ability instead give a 10% chance and thus renamed it to "Improved Critical Hit". I don't think this unbalances anything since the Professional Fencer ability gives a 25% chance.

In the descriptions and the code the abilities "Basic Defense" and "Advanced Defense" decrease damage done to the character by 10% and 20% respectively. The description for Professional Fencer says it decreases damage done to the character by 10% and the code says 40%. As I understand it, it's supposed to be 30% in both places. It would be consistent with both the descriptions and the code. So, I changed it to 30% in both places.

I also think it should be possible to score critical hits with pistols, so I added it. This is not included in the Patch 7 WIP file, though. I first wrote about these changes in this post: http://forum.piratesahoy.net/index.php/topic/15312-some-questions/page__view__findpost__p__398663

I hope this answers why I made changes to the LAi_fightparams file. :blah:

It was of course never the intention to make the gameplay experience worse. These changes work just fine in my own "build", which is based on the English-language European version of the stock game and not any particular Build Mod version. My game does contain code from the Build Mod, and the Build Mod contains code from my game, but there might be certain incompatibilities between them. In the build there are weapons with higher stats than the best weapons in the stock game, so this might be part of the reason why characters also have more HP in the build. Because of higher weapon stats it might also be necessary to have defense abilities decrease more damage, and thus Professional Fencer might need to decrease damage by 40% instead of 30% in the build.

Since I made critical hits less dangerous, the solution for the build might be to keep the Professional Fencer damage decrease at 40%. So, it will be interesting to see what results you get when trying this.

 

[Black Bart]

Thank you Baste And thanks for not freaking out due to what you might have taken as a critisism

The big point that stand out for here is that you are not running the Build Mod 14 beta full. You points all seem valid in terms of the way criticals should work and the damage ability when having the professional fencer perk etc.

Still why are you not running the Build Mod!!? Maybe even consider a dual install system(i beleive Hylie did something like this) so you have your install of PotC and also a seperate Build Mod install, then you can test changes in both situations and better understand the results. As it is your reasonable, logical and working fine in your install changes to LAI_fightparams.c just didn't work with the Build Mod, so that is going to be an issue unless you run an install of it to test against.

Also we see lots of strange ways that percentages work in this game, so we need to be careful. I've never known a game where 50%(for example) might not really work as 50% going from one new game to the next. I think this was always a PotC thing(long time since i played the original(on xbox) but i played it alot!), but the Build Mod with it's many additions has exasperated that weirdness to some extent!

Anyway thanks for taking the time to explain things, very decent of you I will have a go at tweaking your file with your suggestions and see how that goes, but for the mean time i'd recomend we keep the patch 6/patch 7 wip 1 version of LAI_fightparams.c in the build going forward untill we get your newest version to 'play nice' and see if it improves things

 

[Hylie Pistof]

Ok, you guys keep working on the code and I'll keep playing. Trying to read the code stuff just makes my vision go blurry. :urgh

I played a bunch last night and in general terms the opponents have much higher HP than before and I never noticed any critical hits. :ixi

What do I mean by higher HP? Before, the highest HP I had seen was in the Maltese Abbey when I fought the Grand Master. He was over 1,100HP. Last night when sailing into Cayman, at the "sail ho" call I spawned right in front of the pirate ship Sirius1. It's a class 1 balanced ship armed with 24 pounders and a big crew. I was in the Boussole. We were facing head on and only had time to fire the bow chasers before the boarding battle commenced. :ixi The crew had 1,100-1,200HP and with no critical hits individual battles lasted a long time. I carry the 2 large pistol set. At one point I was cut off and unable to fight, so I shot my pistols, reloaded and shot them again. That is how long sword fights last now. There is a lot more room for error so overall it is harder. I have lost 2 officers so far, and one of them was Mr. Gibbs! :j3 Oh yeah, when I finally made it to the cabin the Captain had over 2,400HP! I was at level 39 and 456HP.

Fighting on land is much the same. It was a little too easy before and now it might be too hard. I haven't died yet, but have come very close several times.

 

[Baste]

Black Bart: No worries, mate. I didn't get offended or anything.

I actually have separate installs of build 11, build 12.1, build 13, and build 14. There are several reasons why I'm not using a build as my primary version, but one is that my computer sadly isn't so modern anymore and I don't have enough money to build a new one. Build 13 and 14 have higher system requirements and they run quite slow on my computer, and this of course makes them quite unplayable. However, I did test my changes in build 14 as well and I now tested them again, and they seem to work fine. I fought in the Oxbay/Speightstown dungeon because I don't get any lag there, and I tested at several levels and difficulty levels but I didn't have much trouble. Sure, it was harder on the higher difficulty levels because enemies are at higher levels and have more HP, but I still won.

I can't think of any specific time when percentages work oddly in the game, but maybe there are some times.

You're welcome. I hope the change to "0.6" works better for you.

Hylie Pistoff: Hehe, the code can be complicated sometimes.

There should have been some critical hits. I didn't touch the way HP works, but enemies are at higher levels and have more HP on higher difficulty levels, but 2400 HP?! That means he was quite a bit above level 200! Seems like a too large difference.

Did you try it with the Professional Fencer damage decrease code set to "0.6"? If so, did it make any difference?



I thought of another thing that affects damage in the Build Mod: The Luck skill - The higher Luck you have the more damage you do, in addition to the Melee Combat skill.

This was the settings I used when I tested my changes:

Area: Oxbay/Speightstown dungeon
Difficulty level: Apprentice and Swashbuckler
Level: 8 and 20
HP: 121 and 253
Melee Combat: 10
Luck: 10
Abilities: Basic Defense, Advanced Defense, Toughness, (Improved) Critical Hit, Professional Fencer, Rush, Gunman, Professional Gunman
Melee weapon: Asiatic Broadsword ("Asiatic"? Seems like a strange alternate word. Why not "Asian"? It also doesn't look very broad to me.) - Named "Squall" in the stock game, and I think it's the best sword in the stock game.
Range weapon: Scrapper pistol - I think this is the best pistol in the stock game, and I used grenades sometimes after I took them from killed enemies in the dungeon.
Armor: Golden Armor - I first went through the dungeon with armor and then went through it again without armor.
Party: Just me alone
Miscellaneous: 10 Small healing potion and 10 Healing elixir - I also found some bandages and potions in the dungeon.

With these settings it went fine. It was easier with the armor, and on Swashbuckler it was harder and I had to be more careful and tactical, but still managed to win. I tried to use realistic settings but I don't know if these settings are realistic in the Build Mod. With realistic I mean what an average player would have on these levels. So, which settings are you both using - difficulty, level, weapons, and so on? If I try it again with your settings I might get different results, so it would be interesting to know.

 

[morgan terror]

golden armor? you're not using patch 7 wip then?