HiddenWings

Hey, I'm back. It's interesting looking at druid shapeshift forms, as they are not all defined identically in the code. In particular, Spiritshift Wolf (Shifter) uses a completely unique "transform" status effect. The other 4 shifter versions use the status effect shared with the normal version, but have a durationOverride set to extend it out to 22 seconds base. (Wolf also has this set, but it still functions normally if you remove it. The others break in some small ways.) Going forward, are these going to be separate? Should I plan for 1.0 being like wolf, or being like the other 4? I guess I can find out for myself in a week or so, but I am fairly curious. Edit: For anyone else who was curious, they're all like beta Wolf in 1.0.

Cypher abilities are all considered "spells", including Soul Annihilation. Chanter invocations are likewise locked out, although you will still chant and accrue phrases. Ranger ghost heart pet summon is okay. It turns out Trickster spells are considered rogue abilities (they cost Guile) and are usable while shifted. I didn't find anything else that was locked out on other classes. All paladin abilities and ranger abilities I tried worked.

I'm curious about the Corpse-eater Barbarian, especially in a multiclass. +1 Rage cost seems like a very large drawback when a lot of powers are 1 rage baseline, and it would seem to fall flat in a big way vs. non-living enemies.

If you want to be "traditional" and use a pair of your favorite one-handed weapons, this also works well for Ranger because Wounding Shot is a full attack that does not require a ranged weapon. Hopefully this is still true when the game launches; we have yet to see what higher-level abilities bring for Rangers.

Making other druid forms available on level up (via modding) is the easy part: their visibility is currently conditional on you already having the ability, so you can only see the one you picked at character creation. Tweaking this lets them be selected like any other ability. As for restructuring shifter (or druid in general) to add more form abilities, I think that would be a worthwhile endeavor, but that would probably have to come a bit later. My personal tastes on shifter are a bit divergent. I'd prefer it as the complete master of a form, rather than the ability to use all forms. Since spells aren't any weaker and you get some automatically in the current version, I would also like to find some way to work that in. As-is, single class shifter doesn't have a lot to do other than auto-attack, which I think should probably be addressed.

Thank you for the response. Work on a single-form shifter mod continues.

As far as Shifter restrictions go: What counts as a "spell" when multiclassing? I'd expect priest and wizard spells, as they use the exact same casting system as druid. Are cipher powers spells? Are Chanter invocations spells? What about the paladin actives (I don't know what they're called)? Edit: All cipher powers are considered spells and are locked out. This even includes soul annihilation for the Soulblade, sadly. Chants work while shifted, but Invocations to not.

While I like the idea that Druids got a shapeshifting-focused class, the actual implementation leaves something to be desired for me. As such, I've been poking around the files somewhat (Dear Obsidian: Thanks for making these JSON!) but I'm still learning things. First question: How are Parameter Hash values calculated? In a block such as the following: "VisibilityConditional": { "Operator": 0, "Components": [{ "$type": "OEIFormats.FlowCharts.ConditionalCall, OEIFormats", "Data": { "FullName": "Boolean ProgressionTableHasAbility(Guid)", "Parameters": ["60086dac-cfd6-4441-9e29-f63bfc8772d3"], "UnrealCall": "", "FunctionHash": -1793712019, "ParameterHash": 1248234653 }, "Not": false, "Operator": 0 } ] } I don't know if ParameterHash is required, but it's the same wherever "60086dac-cfd6-4441-9e29-f63bfc8772d3" happens to occur. (This is the ID for Spiritshift: Stag.) Fortunately, Spiritshift Stag (Shifter) is defined as a distinct ability so it can be tweaked without affecting the base class. Unfortunately, It's not referred to in a block like this anywhere in the files so I don't know the hash value for "9271e6bb-5ba7-461c-9ca1-8faa58852052". The function still seems to work when given a dummy value, but it would be nice to know how it's intended to be found. Second question: How do you remove things? When just editing a file I can just actually remove them, but how would one go about overwriting some component of an ability entirely, without providing an alternative? I know that the heal at the end of spiritshift stag is applied with an instantaneous status effect with ID "191d2701-43c8-43ef-a49e-d26169bacc05". The easiest solution would be to redefine it to do nothing, but is there some other way to functionally remove it?