LoneWanderer

Hope the answers from this thread will help you: https://deadlystream.com/topic/8009-revan-the-flasher/

You raised important questions about the problems of game mechanics. Some time ago I got interested in 2 particular problems and what was done to solve them: level ups after a while became a routine and boring fights. Both problems get worse by the end of the game. Below I will express my thoughts on this matter. I think it is not such a big issue by itself, rather it reveals shortcomings in Feats and Force Powers Systems. New feats, force powers should add new opportunities, new tactics, new ways of interacting with the game world, the player should look forward to them. The level cap has been raised to 50; by the end of the game, the player can be over level 30. But there are not enough unique, interesting, useful feats and force powers that can change the game flow or be effectively used in new combat tactics. The Feats: There is not enough useful/interesting feats for player to acquire. Feats should add new opportunities, game experiences for the player. Instead, player can easily get all important feats by level 20 or so, and then just waste points on random, mostly useless stuff. Some of the new feats in TSL are okay, but most of them player acquire automatically. At the same time, the developers removed Heavy Weapons Feat and Implant Feat. Making implants dependent on Constitution attribute is a cool decision as it gives importance to this attribute that it lacked before, and Heavy Weapons Feat was redundant, but those feats had a significant impact on the gameplay in K1, so at least Heavy Weapons Feat deserve restoration. I think that in an ideal situation, new feats should allow the player to receive new gameplay experience or at least be meaningful for player while not overpowered. There should be no situations when player acquired all good feats long before the end of the game. As an example of “New gameplay experience”, the grenades aren’t that useful after beginning of the game. However, there is a mod called “Fumble! Grenades” that allow anyone who ever uses a grenade to have a chance at fumbling the throw. In addition, it restores Weapon Proficiency feat chain for grenades (makes them more powerful) and modifies it for fumbling. There was also a mod “xc_grenades” by Xcom (if anyone have it, please, post a link or PM me edit: found it) that made the Demolition skill to increase the damage of rockets and grenades. Together, these mods can change the way players view grenades, create new tactics based on grenades, be used in new builds. The solution could be: adding a new feat chain to Feats which give 1 additional skill point to the player every second level and then every level after the feat is upgraded. In addition, TSL already has feats that make cross-class skills cost 1 skill point. The Jedi Guardian has more than enough feat points, so trading a few of them for skills can be an interesting alternative option. This idea may be contrary to D&D rules. The Force Powers: Some force powers are fundamentally broken. Heal, Speed, Force Storm – A player with any two of these force powers can become nearly unstoppable. And every player can use them without drawbacks: LS or DS, class, lightsaber/force form are not important, the cost of power is usually acceptable. Others are weak or rarely can be used effectively. It makes no sense to use most of the force powers, when it is easier and faster to spam Force Storm. Again, by level 20, the player has all good/interesting powers and is not motivated to try new ones. There is also lack of high-level force powers (even if they unnecessarily they can at least provide SOME motivation to level up in the late game). Almost all force powers become accessible by level 18. Boring fights: All new feats, force powers, new tactics, improvements in mechanics won’t find usage in the game if every battle can be won by spamming Master Flurry or, even worse, a standard attack. There are several high difficulty mods that make enemies tougher and more dangerous, but I think that this is not enough to make the fights interesting. Aside from the AI issues you mentioned, most fights are too similar to each other. There are not enough force users in the game and even they rarely use force powers (and again, most of the time they only use Life Drain), so some force powers/tactics are almost useless. The tactics of the enemies in the middle and the end of the game are the same. The most noticeable change between mid-level battles and level 50 battles is that enemies have more hp and can survive 1-2 Master Flurry. The bosses are indistinguishable from each other, the sith are bland and uninspired (most of them even don't have lightsabers), the various factions and groups of enemies differ only slightly from each other. There are not enough memorable situations (I can remember many more interesting fights in K1). There are many types of damage in TSL, enemies could use different weapons types in various regions, parts of the game, then the player will be motivated to try certain armor and upgrades. But fire-based weapons mostly restricted to droids and cold and electrical damage is clearly underused. I thought about mitigating these problems by using existing mods: 1) Feats: Heavy Weapons Feat Restoration JC's Feat Fixes for K2 Fumble! Grenades + xc_grenades Content Pack: Feats And Powers BY TamerBill 2) Force Powers High-Level Force Powers Force Zeal Force Power Lightsaber Floating by Darth333 3) Boring fights Thematic Sith Lords - interesting mod that adds much-needed differentiation to fights against Sith Lords. I would like something similar to be done with other bosses and entire factions, sections of the game. These mods are good at what they do (improve certain aspects), but I feel that a more complex solution focused on addressing all aspects of the problem, could potentially achieve more. Is the problem that serious? As I recall high-tier upgrades cost several hundred components, and merchants can have crappy droid items in their inventory, so which upgrade T3 can do and when is partly a matter of luck. The point is, if T3 loses his status as a ‘skill master’ in the party, he‘ll become something like G0-T0, a character who has no gameplay purpose. As for the merchants: the stocks of the merchants are random (from their lists of possible available items) and are generated only once when the player visits them, right? As a result, merchants often have poor inventory. Moreover, it makes no sense to buy equipment: standard items can be easily found in loot, and high-level items are in any case not available from merchants. So, the obvious choice is to allow merchants to sell non-unique high-tier items and update their inventory in similar manner to Suvam in K1 OR to add new end-game merchant with high-tier items to the game. I can continue with other issues, but think that is big enough text for now. Thanks for reading!

On one side, sith troopers will probably have a better chance of defeating and capturing Bastila if they attack her on sight. On the other side, a single patrol won’t have much chances against a skilled Jedi Knight and her escort anyway. So, it’ll make sense for Sith Superiors to give orders to patrols such as: a) report about finding Bastila b) Attempt to persuade her to surrender. For example, to say something like “The planet is occupied. You cannot hide. We will execute civilians in the area if you escape; etc”. Then if the patrol is wiped, Sith Superiors can dispatch dark Jedi to the location where Bastila was spotted. From a technical point of view, there are many enemies in the game who first start a conversation when they have clear order to kill player (dark Jedi trio on Tatooine/Kashyyyk, Calo Nord, Darth Bandon, Malak’s apprentices on Star Forge). Therefore, it wouldn’t be out of place if at least one/first patrol that recognize Bastila will start conversation before the attack. Then the player can have a chance to trick patrol in style of ep. 4. Well, this may be beyond your plans, but it may be an interesting idea for the future. Why not just assume that there are Sith Masters on Korriban who can recognize (feel, see, smell, idk how it works) Bastila’s unique signature through the Force no matter what clothes she wears? And on Taris the patrols consist of simple soldiers.

I prefer Style 1. You can view both skyboxes at the same time and compare them. Style 3 is cool, but the constant change (flickering) of the image prevents me from looking closely at small details. The flickering of bright colors on the towers quickly tires the eyes. And when I imagine a Download page with a bunch of these flickering images ... ugh… Style 2 would be the best, but only if you could manually move the slider left and right. So, that leaves Style 1. Anyways, awesome skyboxes!

The sound is clearer after @ebmar edit. In your cut, @Salk, the sibilance on the mic can be heard in the first half of the line, for example, in "whatever", "Sith". I agree that the tone of the voice changes slightly after editing, but I think this is a reasonable price for a cleaner sound. Maybe some tweaking in sound editing software will achieve an intermediate option, but it is alright as it is now for me.

I don't have KoToR installed at the moment, so can't tell how these VO will work ingame with ambient music. It isn't simple choice as both lines have their own flavor. I would choose Actor's VO purely because of 'cleaner' audio quality.

Good. What are you going to do with camera positions? I saw the CameraList inside 950COR.git. You can probably add new camera positions there via K-GFF and then pack it back to .mod file? I'm just not sure how to work with .mod files.

I modified script and Kexikus dialog to mention Vima's fate. But I suppose new camera positions are needed for every new Council Member. Dropped a_holorec.ncs and holorec.dlg in Override and they worked (didn't check if other modules have files with the same names). a_holorec.nss holorec.dlg a_holorec.ncs

I suppose you can use DLGEditor to add lines to holorec.dlg in 950COR.mod. You also need to add new Jedi Masters to a_holorec.ncs script. I would add that it would be better if some of the masters could be listed as "Location unknown (presumably dead)" for authenticity, because while Atris could probably sense the death of the masters through the Force, I'm not so sure about her ability to determine the exact planet of death of each Council Member (is this even possible for a Jedi Master?) The problem is that we don't know all the members of the High Council in 3960-3951 BBY, so listing the masters added by this mod will require creating fictitional names and places of death for them. Updated: something like that (camera position need fixing)

I've seen comments that "Restored equipment-TSL" is causing the HK-50 units to become non-hostile. That is, if by "Restored equipment-TSL" you meant "Restored equipment for HK-47 / GO-TO - TSL 1.1.0" by todevuch. And please, if you don't have links, at least post the full names and authors of the mods you installed (the name and author are in the readme file, which is usually found inside the mod archive). How are people supposed to know what 650jedi, Merchant or The Sith Mask-999-1-0 is?

I think the pictures from Artbreeder might work for portraits. They resemble in-game characters and that’s what’s important. Remember Neverwinter Nights and similar RPGs? They had beautiful portraits and simple blocky in-game models. Then players used imaginations to ‘enhance’ the models in their minds. The same thing here.

It’s good to have new heads, especially if it’s of famous character and well made. Great job! Unfortunately, there is a bug: her head tail is clipping through some standard robes. It happens with Jedi robe models, JS armor (but not with Jedi Master robe models). The very first costume on the left also looks interesting. Reminds Rey’s costume a little. It will probably suit a martial art character focused on hand-to-hand combat or a Jedi with single blade.

I highly doubt the author is still waiting for an answer, you know. But, for history's sake, Dak's Big Skin Pack 2.0 has "an armored undershirt" skin for Mira (a new head is optional).

Very ambitious project and impressive results so far, @Thor110! I’m curious how K2 Expanded Galaxy are going to handle the planets from K1? Will visiting these planets be mandatory or optional? About quests/side quests for K1 planets: Are you planning on creating entirely new side quests or reusing the majority of the side quests from K1?

Damn, so I barely missed all discussion? I should, probably, register there. Although I generally agree with you about Carth, there is only 5 years of difference between K1 and TSL, and middle-aged people (Carth 43 years in TSL) often have fewer face changes than after 50. Therefore, I can somewhat accept the K1 model for Carth in TSL. As for the Jedi Masters, they must be older than Kart (because they had already held positions in the High Council by 3964 BBY), and 10 years is a long enough period for some aging. Yes, I know that force-sensetive can live longer than other people, but, for example, Jolie and Obi-Wan Kenobi looked their age. Or so I was about to write, but I see that you have already dismissed this argument in Discord, BEFORE I started this topic. It feels weird when you look at 2 different resources on the same topic with the same members at the same time. Anyways, I think I can find other examples of Jedi who have aged properly. And at least there may be differences in hairstyles (people often follow the fashion or Zes-Kai Ell can still have forehead hair). So I got such serious idea because of tiny misunderstanding? LOL!

Huh, I knew about that scene, but never thought about it too deeply. Cool theory. I look forward to it ☺️ . Btw, I read your blog posts about unused/unrestored Bao-Dur content - interesting stuff. Hope, you return to Bao-Dur's restorations someday. That's my point. It is just there without any real purpose, its completion doesn’t change anything, the game doesn't care, if you win or lose as far as I remember. After other minigames we get cutscenes, responses from opponents, or teammates, but here the game world completely ignores the fact that you destroyed entire enemy squadron over the Palace. The game QUIETLY gives 850 exp to the player, but again without any visual reaction. I am thinking about learning kotor modding tools and creating a tiny mod that will add some sort of proper ending to the mini-game if there is no unused content for it.

That recent animated aging avatar by Sith Holocron made me think about the external signs of the age of the Jedi Masters in TSL. The Council holorecord was from 10 years prior the game, but the members of the Council did not visually change (do they use the same models?). And obviously they could not be too young to begin with. Especially Vrook, he was same old man in the TSL (3951 BBY), in K1 (3956 BBY), in the holorecord (around 3960 BBY), in the comics "KOTOR" set shortly before the Mandalorian Wars (3964 BBY). He was even in the Council in the comics about Duron Qel-Droma (3993 BBY) and looked like he was already over 40 (this might just be an oversight, but funny in the context of this post). In less than 10 years, Malak received tattoos, unique armor, skin changes due to the influence of DS, lost his jaw, replaced it with a metal plate, as a result received a new voice and, in the end, was killed. Revan shaved / grew facial hair all the time. But the members of the High Council didn't even change their hairstyles (let's assume that Atris had closet full of same white librarian' s robes). This may be a reasonable idea for a mod or, perhaps, some kind of expansion to Full Jedi Council mod to visually reflect passing years on masters, for example, to make Atris and Lonna Vash younger in Holorecord and to age Vrook in the present time. Kavar and Zes-Kai Ell can be changed in any direction, I'm not sure about them (they appeared only in the background of one comic book). What do you think about this subject? And is anyone willing to create such a mod if it fits the lore?