Quirky Quornhole: An opinionated solo/small party mod for MS:C NOV2015a

[Jonzay]

Would you happen to know if, during your exploration of the files, lockpicks have a chance to drop at all on non-FN servers? I haven't come across any so far in undercliffs.

Might also be good to know if there are any other items that only drop on FN servers (I have started the Felewyn Shard quest, but the symbols aren't dropping from repeated attempts at places where I've definitely seen them drop on FN before)

 

[spark]

Hey gang

I've been playing a bit now and then lately, and making changes as I go.

I've mostly made it to the endgame now, and capped most of my skills at 45 (I didn't realize there was a cap, and sadly it can't be changed from the scripts. If someone has a NOV2015a version with no changes except removal of the level cap, give me a shout!). As I've been playing the endgame bosses I've realized that pretty much all of them are balanced around the player using all the various potions. This means the player is meant to grind easier maps to get potions before attempting the harder bosses. Since this goes against my philosophy of getting through all the content without grinding, I've made it possible to buy all the potions from Melhar the Pure in Deralia.

On a related note, I added a new potion, "Chromatic Potion", which is just cold/lightning/fire/poison immunity potions in one. Costs 25k, also sold by Melhar the Pure. This is just a small QoL change so I can drink 3 fewer potions per boss.

Buffed some spells. Rebuke Undead was such a disappointing spell, being the only offensive divination spell, limited to only be usable against undead and evil, and it was still a terrible choice against them. So it now does 5 times more damage (and costs slightly more mana). This means it's actually a decent choice against undead.

Also buffed Circle of Healing. This previously ticked for half your divination skill, so maxing out at about 22,5 hp every few seconds. I added 4% of max hp scaling to this as well, which about triples its healing for maxed characters. It's now a very strong defensive combat option, cast it and stand your ground against enemies!

Removed another type of permanent CC I missed ("cocooned"), and nerfed the duration of some other CC. Too often you get completely stuck being repeatedly CC:d by enemies. Really, CC should have some sort of cooldown against players (e.g. if you've been stunned, you're immune to stun for 10 seconds), but I can't be bothered to implement this.

Some elementals had, imo, counterintuitive immunities. Greater ice elementals immune to fire? "Greater Maldora Minion of Fire" immune to everything EXCEPT fire? I dislike this, so I've changed it. Now they behave like I'd expect them to (they're only immune to their own element).

Had a frustrating time trying to solo old_helena and lodagond-4, and as a result all critical NPCs (or at least most of them?) are now completely immune to damage. It's incredibly hard to "protect" anything solo, since enemies will ignore you and go straight for the thing you're trying to protect. Not fun!

Speaking of not fun, I had some encounters against the mana sucking enemies that deal 99999 damage to you when you're mana runs out. So, now those don't deal any damage anymore, they just drain your mana.

For similar reasons to the potion change I discussed at the beginning, the master fletcher in Helena now sells all types of arrows and bolts. Also, bows now all fire as far/fast as the wooden long bow. Seriously, some of the bows previously fired arrows like they were toys.

Would you happen to know if, during your exploration of the files, lockpicks have a chance to drop at all on non-FN servers? I haven't come across any so far in undercliffs.

Might also be good to know if there are any other items that only drop on FN servers (I have started the Felewyn Shard quest, but the symbols aren't dropping from repeated attempts at places where I've definitely seen them drop on FN before)

I checked this out and I saw nothing that actually allowed lockpicks to spawn, so I removed a few conditionals. Now many, many chests can spawn them.

I had a few felewyn shard drops before, but I made the code even more lenient since the last update (see changelist below).



Some other random changes below, and maybe some I've missed as well. Oh well, enjoy!

39. "Melhar the Pure" in Deralia now sells all potions
40. Added a new potion, "Chromatic Potion", which is just cold/lightning/fire/poison immunity potions in one. Costs 25k, also sold by Melhar the Pure
41. Potions of protection, greater protection, spider protection, regen and speed now last 24 hours instead of the (somewhat shorter) lengths they had before
42. When a chest has a chance to offer a felewyn symbol, always give it, and make sure it's one the chest user doesn't have
43. Buffed rebuke undead to deal 5 times more damage than it previously did, and cost 5 mana instead of 2 (it's actually usable now, and not crap)
44. Players can no longer get "cocooned" (again with the permanent CC...)
45. Players can no longer get more than 5 "webbed" stacks, and the "webbed" stacks disappear once per 2 seconds instead of once per 10 seconds
46. Capped a bunch more CC effects to last no longer than 1 or 2 seconds against players (freeze_solid/frost/frostbite/hold_person/blind)
47. Greater ice elementals are now no longer immune to fire (they're weak to fire, like regular ice elementals). Same for greater air and fire elementals and their respective weak elements.
48. Buffed the unbreakable golden axe to deal 600 base damage rather than 300 (why was it weaker than the breakable one?). Removed it's "power attack" (the jumpy thing).
49. Greater air elementals now have 1000 hp instead of 4000 (they're super annoying to hit, they don't need 4k hp)
50. There were some mechanics that drained your mana and dealt 99999 damage when it was gone. These no longer deal damage but still drain your mana (instadeath, ugh)
51. Removed egg spawning logic from lightning_worm (in cleicert). This crashed my server everytime it tried to spawn eggs, so it doesn't try any more.
52. Removed a bunch of push effects from various enemy lightning attacks (don't you just love being almost permanently pushed into a corner?)
53. Back dodge now costs 5 stamina instead of 60, and can be done every 0.25 seconds rather than every 3 seconds (tried to buff it to usability, it's still not great though)
54. Capped mummy high priest heal at 100
55. Buffed circle of healing, now also heals for 4% of max health
56. critical NPCs (or at least those that inherit from others/lure) are now entirely invincible. Thanks crystals in lodagond-4
57. All bows now have the same "ranged force" as the wooden long bow (which determines how fast/far the arrows fire). Some of the bows previously seriously fired like toy bows.
58. The master fletcher in helena now sells all types of arrows and bolts (he also shows up in gate city as a traveling merchant, and perhaps elsewhere under a different name)
59. Inverted Greater Maldora Minion immunities. Now they're only immune to their own element, like everything else is, rather than being immune to everything except their own element.
60. Lockpicks can now drop from many chests, 10% chance (specifically those that are based on base_treasurechest_array, about 90 different chests)

 

[Jonzay]

48. Buffed the unbreakable golden axe to deal 600 base damage rather than 300 (why was it weaker than the breakable one?). Removed it's "power attack" (the jumpy thing).

Just a heads up with this one, the jumping attack actually trains divination and that made it quite good for skillgain.
That having been said, you've buffed rebuke undead and there are general XP boosts all around, so that offsets it.

56. critical NPCs (or at least those that inherit from others/lure) are now entirely invincible. Thanks crystals in lodagond-4

Thank you for making Lodagond-4 playable solo without requiring items that you get from lodagond-4 itself to make it soloable.

I think part of the fun of old_helena is that you actually have to protect the NPCs to get the rewards, but then again, once you've done it once, you never do it again, and it was designed around having multiple players, so I understand.

 

[spark]

48. Buffed the unbreakable golden axe to deal 600 base damage rather than 300 (why was it weaker than the breakable one?). Removed it's "power attack" (the jumpy thing).

Just a heads up with this one, the jumping attack actually trains divination and that made it quite good for skillgain.
That having been said, you've buffed rebuke undead and there are general XP boosts all around, so that offsets it.

Yeah, this is sad. I tried to "fix" the power attack on the golden axe first, by removing the movement inhibiting jump animation. Didn't manage to get this working properly, so I just skipped it instead. Like you said, rebuke undead is actually usable now so it fills the niche somewhat.

56. critical NPCs (or at least those that inherit from others/lure) are now entirely invincible. Thanks crystals in lodagond-4

Thank you for making Lodagond-4 playable solo without requiring items that you get from lodagond-4 itself to make it soloable.

I think part of the fun of old_helena is that you actually have to protect the NPCs to get the rewards, but then again, once you've done it once, you never do it again, and it was designed around having multiple players, so I understand.

I have good memories of old_helena, as this map was one of the ones that existed way back 20+ years ago when I played initially. Like you say though, it really needed multiple players. If anyone managed to *actually* solo this map in its previous state I'd be deeply impressed. I couldn't even manage to keep the one guy in the shop with the window alive on my own, while being grossly overleveled for the map.

 

[Jonzay]

I have good memories of old_helena, as this map was one of the ones that existed way back 20+ years ago when I played initially. Like you say though, it really needed multiple players. If anyone managed to *actually* solo this map in its previous state I'd be deeply impressed. I couldn't even manage to keep the one guy in the shop with the window alive on my own, while being grossly overleveled for the map.

I definitely couldn't keep everyone alive simultaneously while playing solo, but if you singled one person out, Summon Undead Guardian, Summon Bear and a Winter Wolf did incredible work distracting and stalling enemies.

 

[spark]

Hello again

Someone PM:ed me about the drop chance of the Steam Crossbow. Looked it up and it had some player count checks that I had missed. Now the orc_for chests are guaranteed to drop all the good stuff (though you need to open at least 4 of them to get it all).

In other words, tiny changelist this time:

61. The orc_for chests are now guaranteed to spawn their "best stuff" (just one per chest though, so to get all of them you need to open 4)

 

[HumanSteak]

Having a blast, though the exp is a bit much, what I'd like to see to promote the solo player experience is to make better use of ms_fake_players and ms_fake_hp , instead of a super high exp multiplier. I'd like to play scaled versions of most maps but the exp just becomes ridiculous. Since we hit the hard cap of 45 I would consider wiser find ways to extend the lifetime of the experience within these parameters.
For example, instead of buffing rebuke undead to the point of making all undeads exp bags (tanking a petrified paladin with 159 hp and 10 divination, I won), how about a new spell sold from the potion seller in Deralia, Dispel undead which does the same thing as the current rebuke undead spell for 300k gold.
I adore how useful gold is in this mode, I would still lower that multiplier ^^
I'm going to give this code a shot, in hopes I might be able to make a great magic shop system without needing any new art or assets, sadly I have nothing but ideas and basic knowledge. There is something so unique in this game, feels like unlimited potential surrounded by stiff code limits, I am still amazed all that could be done with HL1, to make it something entirely different and special!

 

[Himself]

There is something so unique in this game, feels like unlimited potential surrounded by stiff code limits, I am still amazed all that could be done with HL1, to make it something entirely different and special!

I agree completely with this, I have always really enjoyed the game, and done my best to fight through the annoying or buggy parts, and had such a blast. I'm so glad that there are still people interested in improving and adding onto the game.

 

[HumanSteak]

Please tell me good sir Spark, where and how do you find such values to edit like an XML file? I have been playing and dreaming of ways to tailor this unique thing that MSC is to my cruel tastes for so many years... I have installed MVS2003 and have been swimming in anything but numerical values I can edit to my liking and end nonsenses such as; "You single-handedly defeated the_keep and his master? Too bad there was not more of you, enjoy trash loot, scrub!" So many things are gated behind intents of keeping players together that are making the solo experience impossible to fully enjoy... You want to dual-wield torkalath blades as a low level swordsman just for fun? Well too bad, these won't spawn unless there's at least 2 of you.
If there is any way to do away with player count requirements or to make ms_fake_hp/players actually simulate real players, I don't mind the scaling and carrying imaginary dead weight, I just want a greater chance than 0% of actually fully enjoying the content that was made. I would be very happy to do so myself but I am either looking at the wrong place or have the wrong tools. The artifact chest was right... I am a scrub! Unless I learn a thing or two to edit actual values instead of staring endlessly at the code foundations.

 

[Jonzay]

Just a heads up, looks like you may have to be a little more selective with which Lure-based mobs you make invulnerable. Phlames doesn't progress properly - the bludgeon who spawns here seems to need to kill this 1hp invisible npc to progress this area, which can't happen now because it can't die.

 

[Jonzay]

I've been poking through the code as well with regards to the above lure issue, comparing your code to the official 2015 code.
Looks like it might be a straightforward fix.

Within game_takedamageand game_damaged, we should be able to wrap if ( NPC_CRITICAL ) around the setdmg dmg 0.0 and setdmg hit 0. That should ensure only critical lures are invulnerable.

I'll test it when I get a bit more time this weekend.

Edit: Actually, it might be even simpler than that. within critical_npc, there is invincible 0. We could probably just set that to 1.

 

[Jonzay]

The frostbow bug is fixed by adding an extra "remove the resistance that the frostbow grants" at the start of the bow windup function.

 

[AJD09]

glad to play master sword again

 

[AJD09]

Unfortunately, The public server is not available anymore/missing on server list except for the private server of Quirky's private server. I'm guessing it crashed? sadly we can't play on the public server anymore and hoping that it can be relaunched soon

 

[Himself]

Unfortunately, The public server is not available anymore/missing on server list except for the private server of Quirky's private server. I'm guessing it crashed? sadly we can't play on the public server anymore and hoping that it can be relaunched soon

I noticed that too.. I've looked over the forum and haven't found any specific news about it, but I assume that the FN servers are gone/not being run anymore.. so I am glad that there are some who make the game worthwhile to play off-of-FN, while retaining the bonuses.

 

[Gridalien]

THANK YOU. I come back to MSC once in a long while, and have been wishing for some way to boost the singleplayer experience. Now I can casually grind through the game on my own without being on an FN server, or spending nearly as long grinding non-stop

 

[AJD09]

Someone opened a new public server hmmm

 

[Himself]

I dunno if anyone else has had the issue, but Deraliasewers appears to be inaccessible and just crashes for both myself and my girlfriend.

Edit: orc_for also appears to just crash.

 

[AJD09]

I dunno if anyone else has had the issue, but Deraliasewers appears to be inaccessible and just crashes for both myself and my girlfriend.

Edit: orc_for also appears to just crash.

unfortunately most are having this issue if you use listen servers instead of half life dedicated server (hlds) to host a server

 

[Gridalien]

Can confirm. Just do the HLDS setup, and pretty much all the problems with loading in go away

Anyone remember how to get Roland to repair the golden axe in Gate City? I know hitting F on NPCs normally makes a menu pop up for dialogue on vendors, but it doesn't work for him

 

[furion001]

Somethin is glitchy with him, one way I got to him was summoning a rat in front of him and standing on the rat.

 

[Gridalien]

Worked like a charm, used my winter wolf

 

[Himself]

unfortunately most are having this issue if you use listen servers instead of half life dedicated server (hlds) to host a server

Yeahh, I ended up figuring out that the difference was between having a listen server vs. dedicated, took a bunch of time and figured out how to get a dedicated server working and the maps work now. Cheers!

 

[Jonzay]

Since spark seems to have disappeared for now, I've been making tweaks to their last release (I fixed the frost bow issue, adjusted lure based NPCs to only be invulnerable if they are also marked as critical (fixes phlames), fixed the ice staff drop chance in tundra since it essentially won't drop if there is only a single player, and tweaked the Edana mayor because a few things about him have always bothered me) but I am worried that if I fork their release and begin my own set of releases then it will cause confusion between what is in each release if they return.

Does anyone have any thoughts?

 

[Himself]

Does anyone have any thoughts?

Hard to say - Spark was making a lot of great changes and I hope they are all right and might come back and continue - I don't want to see this stagnate, but I also don't want anyone's toes to get stepped on. Best case is everyone being okay with it and co-operating, putting stuff together, fixing things as a group. I'd like to see more stability in the game and have things continue to grow. If all else fails, can always redact/revert to a previous .dll or offer notes on what might be fixed and how, something like that.

As a sidenote, I dunno if anyone else noticed that the site here went down for.. a couple days or so? It did for me, anyway, and I was really bumming over the idea of not being able to see any new releases or stuff happening.