Bigger Font

[Hafenguy]

Hi folks, 

 

I really like this game. But unfortunately it has such a small Font in the Dialog Box. POE Was so good because it is one of the game's that has such a big font that I can play it even with my Bad eyes. 

Ist there any way to increase the size of the font? 

[Kvellen]

Hey there, there is the "Font Scale" slider if you haven't already tried that? It's located under the graphics tab of the options menu.

[Hafenguy]

Yes but this slider only changes the font in the UI. The font in Dialogs between two Charakters remains small. 

[Kvellen]

Hmm weird, it should also be increasing the size of that text too?

Are you referring to the dialogue that appears in the conversation window, or the text that appears above NPCs and companions when they converse?

To answer your original question, it is possible to increase the font size of most text (even beyond the 130% limit of the font scale slider). This can be done by wrapping text in each entry of a .stringtable with &lt;size=110%&gt; and &lt;/size&gt; (Literally <size=110%> and </size> without the necessary replacement tokens.) Which will increase the size of each entry it is applied to by an additional "10%".

For example:

Spoiler

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<StringTableFile xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema">
  <Name>conversations\21_prologue\21_si_pallid_knight</Name>
  <Entries>
    <Entry>
      <ID>4</ID>
      <DefaultText>&lt;size=110%&gt;"Your brush with the divine has drained you of your powers, fractured your memories. Look upon these cards. They represent the courses of your life. You alone know best how they flowed. Arrange them to fit what you remember."&lt;/size&gt;</DefaultText>
      <FemaleText />
    </Entry>
    <Entry>
      <ID>77</ID>
      <DefaultText>&lt;size=110%&gt;[Examine the cards to choose your legacy.]&lt;/size&gt;</DefaultText>
      <FemaleText />
    </Entry>
  </Entries>
</StringTableFile>

 

Link to the full size image.

Edited April 2, 2023 by Kvellen

[Hafenguy]

Wow thats sounds very good. Thank you:) 

Im referring to the Dialog that appears in the conversation window. 

Mhh but if i get you right, that sounds like a lot of work. 

Do i have to increase the font of each single Dialog? 

And where can I find the spots where the changes has to be done? 

[Hafenguy]

Am I allowed to post your answer in a steam discussion about the UI scaling mod for POE 2?

[Kvellen]

On 4/3/2023 at 1:24 PM, Hafenguy said:

Am I allowed to post your answer in a steam discussion about the UI scaling mod for POE 2?

Sure!

On 4/3/2023 at 1:11 PM, Hafenguy said:

And where can I find the spots where the changes has to be done? 

You can find conversation .stringtable files under in the localized conversations folder. You can get to this from the installation directory (This will be somewhere like "C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Pillars of Eternity II Deadfire\PillarsOfEternityII_Data") by navigating to:

• "exported" -> "localized" -> "en" -> "text" -> "conversations".

The folders here contain all the .stringtable files, and are organised by the type of conversation and the levels in the game where each conversation takes place.

For example:

\conversations\21_prologue\21_si_pallid_knight.stringtable

contains all of the text strings for the prologue conversation with the Pallid Knight, which the example from my previous came from.

Conversations relating to DLC's and a few updates are located under separate "lax*_exported" folders with the same structure:

Expansions:

• Seeker Slayer Survivor:  lax1_exported
• Beast of Winter:              lax2_exported
• Forgotten Sanctum:        lax3_exported

Free DLC/Updates:

• Mirke:                            laxa_exported
• Deck of Many Things:  laxd_exported
• Final Patch:                   laxi_exported

I don't recommend making edits to the original files though! If something goes wrong with one or more of the strings it can cause issues that are a bit of pain to reverse!

Instead, if you create an override mod that mimics the folder structure, then you can copy over the files and folders from the conversations folder and make safe edits to those.

eg.  "\override\[YOUR MOD FOLDER]\localized\en\text\conversations\"

On 4/3/2023 at 1:11 PM, Hafenguy said:

Mhh but if i get you right, that sounds like a lot of work.

Do i have to increase the font of each single Dialog?

Yes, though there are ways of cutting down the busy work. Since all that you'd be doing is making one change many times to a bunch of files (Turns out the end tag "</size>" doesn't actually seem to be necessary for this). So using Notepad++ or any editor with the ability to do mass find and replace on a whole batch of files will make this pretty trivial. As it is just a matter of pointing it towards the mod folder and setting the find all instances of "<DefaultText>" (which is what marks the start of a text entry in .stringtable) and then replace it with "<DefaultText>&lt;size=110%&gt;".

Additionally some entries will have alternate text for if the player character is Female, so doing the same with "<FemaleText>" to "<FemaleText>&lt;size=110%&gt;" should cover those.

Though the side effect of doing this broad an approach will mean that Scripted Interactions and some Banter (the text that appears over characters when they talk to each other outside of the Dialogue Window) will also have their font increased.

[lamwel]

On 4/6/2023 at 5:11 AM, Kvellen said:

Yes, though there are ways of cutting down the busy work. Since all that you'd be doing is making one change many times to a bunch of files (Turns out the end tag "</size>" doesn't actually seem to be necessary for this). So using Notepad++ or any editor with the ability to do mass find and replace on a whole batch of files will make this pretty trivial. As it is just a matter of pointing it towards the mod folder and setting the find all instances of "<DefaultText>" (which is what marks the start of a text entry in .stringtable) and then replace it with "<DefaultText>&lt;size=110%&gt;".

I tried this out and it was a huge improvement.  I played this last year on the steam deck and as you can imagine the text is quite small there.  Wish I had knew about this then.  I was thinking of uploading this as a mod to help out others.  I hope you're okay with that?  I'll be sure to leave credit of course.  

There is one problem though and it is the one you mentioned.  I only wanted to increase the font size in dialogue but end up increasing the font size in banters and scripted interactions too.  Do you know if there is an easy way to differentiate them in the files?

It seemed as if the file names gave some indication of the type.  File names with "bs_" seem to be banters, "si_" scripted interactions and "cv_" for conversations but there can be lines of banter inside of conversation files(from what I can tell this happens with named npcs) and in the example you used with the Pallid Knight, that file is named "si_" despite being a conversation in a dialogue box.  The usher you meet in the prologue also has the file name "21_bs_usher" despite also being a conversation in a dialogue box.  I'm hoping the prologue is just some kind of weird exception, but even disregarding those two, the issue is with banters inside of cv_ files as those are harder to narrow down.  I guess it isn't that big of a deal but I would have preferred to have left the banters unmodified if possible. 

 

On 4/3/2023 at 5:24 AM, Hafenguy said:

Am I allowed to post your answer in a steam discussion about the UI scaling mod for POE 2?

I couldn't find the thread you were referring to.  Is someone already working on larger font mod?  If not, I can try to upload mine later.

[Aurelio]

15 hours ago, lamwel said:

I couldn't find the thread you were referring to.  Is someone already working on larger font mod?  If not, I can try to upload mine later.

The question was not asked on a font mod but on steam for my german version of the "Enchanced User Interface" mod, which does not do scaling.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1765771483

[lamwel]

I think I found a way to identify which lines are banters by looking at the corresponding conversation bundle files. For example, for this stringtable: 

exported\localized\en\text\conversations\03_neketaka_vailian_district\03_cv_abocco.stringtable

you would look at this conversation bundle:

exported\design\conversations\03_neketaka_vailian_district\03_cv_abocco.conversationbundle

In the conversation bundles, the NodeIDs correspond to the IDs in the stringtables and will have either a "DisplayType": 1 or "DisplayType": 2.  Based on what I've seen, I'm pretty sure "Displaytype": 2 means it's dialogue that appears above the head. 

Not exactly a fast method searching through every conversation bundle then removing edits to the stringtables when needed but at least I have a way of identifying them now.  

On 6/6/2023 at 8:57 AM, Aurelio said:

The question was not asked on a font mod but on steam for my german version of the "Enchanced User Interface" mod, which does not do scaling.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1765771483

 

Thanks for letting me know.  It looks like OP wanted this done for German language but I'm only focusing on English for now.  I wouldn't mind doing them for all the available languages eventually though.

[Kvellen]

On 6/6/2023 at 1:44 AM, lamwel said:

I tried this out and it was a huge improvement.  I played this last year on the steam deck and as you can imagine the text is quite small there.  Wish I had knew about this then.  I was thinking of uploading this as a mod to help out others.  I hope you're okay with that?  I'll be sure to leave credit of course. 

By all means. I started work on this as a mod. But I didn't get very far into it, and it wasn't something I was going to get back to anytime soon.

5 hours ago, lamwel said:

I think I found a way to identify which lines are banters by looking at the corresponding conversation bundle files. For example, for this stringtable: 

exported\localized\en\text\conversations\03_neketaka_vailian_district\03_cv_abocco.stringtable

you would look at this conversation bundle:

exported\design\conversations\03_neketaka_vailian_district\03_cv_abocco.conversationbundle

In the conversation bundles, the NodeIDs correspond to the IDs in the stringtables and will have either a "DisplayType": 1 or "DisplayType": 2.  Based on what I've seen, I'm pretty sure "Displaytype": 2 means it's dialogue that appears above the head. 

Not exactly a fast method searching through every conversation bundle then removing edits to the stringtables when needed but at least I have a way of identifying them now.  

Yeah that was the only way I could think of doing it when I tried working on this a few months ago. Searching through all the .conversationbundle files with a fine tooth comb, there was only so much I could do each day before it became hard to form coherent thoughts or sentences. Such that I only got through 4 folders (00_prototype, 02_pokohara, 03_neketaka_vailian_district, 04_neketaka_palace_district) of conversations before I had to put it to one side for my own sanity.

I did manage to isolated all the "si_" and "bs_" that were actually conversations. From what I remember I did this for "si_" by running a search using Notepad++ to find all files with that prefix that had the line "DisplayType,Conversation". Which seems to come at the end of a .conversationbundle to mark it as conversation/banter style of conversation. Since Scripted Interactions and Super Interactions (when you are pulled into a conference call with the gods) have "DisplayType,Interaction" and "DisplayType,SuperInteraction" at the end respectively it gave me a list of what need to be included.

As for "bs_" I think what I did was ran 2 searches on the files wit that prefix. First searching for "DisplayType": 1, and then searching for "DisplayType": 2,. From that whittled down a list and figure out which .stringtable entries needed to be include.

I'll attach what I managed to get done, which you are free to use in your mod!

bigger_font.zip

[lamwel]

So I finished the mod. It is up on nexusmods and the steam workshop.  There were a few stringtables that I could not find the conversation bundles for but I was kind of tired of looking at this stuff so I just uploaded as is for now.  The five files were:

03_cv_mill_guard_frontdoor.stringtable 
05_cv_bathhouse_boiler.stringtable
05_cv_naga_intro.stringtable
19_bs_usher.stringtable
19_si_pallid_knight.stringtable

I'm not sure if their conversation bundles are named something different of if they are unused stringtables or I just missed them somehow. There was another one that I thought I couldn't find but actually did miss.  Think I was just getting tired of doing it.  

On 6/10/2023 at 6:10 AM, Kvellen said:

Yeah that was the only way I could think of doing it when I tried working on this a few months ago. Searching through all the .conversationbundle files with a fine tooth comb, there was only so much I could do each day before it became hard to form coherent thoughts or sentences. Such that I only got through 4 folders (00_prototype, 02_pokohara, 03_neketaka_vailian_district, 04_neketaka_palace_district) of conversations before I had to put it to one side for my own sanity.

I did manage to isolated all the "si_" and "bs_" that were actually conversations. From what I remember I did this for "si_" by running a search using Notepad++ to find all files with that prefix that had the line "DisplayType,Conversation". Which seems to come at the end of a .conversationbundle to mark it as conversation/banter style of conversation. Since Scripted Interactions and Super Interactions (when you are pulled into a conference call with the gods) have "DisplayType,Interaction" and "DisplayType,SuperInteraction" at the end respectively it gave me a list of what need to be included.

Good call on Super Interactions.  I completely forgot about them.  So I ended up doing 40% for dialogue and decided to leave in scripted interactions at 40% too.  Space for text in scripted interactions take up nearly half the screen so the bigger font size doesn't look too bad there.  Banters get really big with the dialogue increase though which is why I went out of the way to exclude them.  I increased super interactions as well but only by 25%.  They have a smaller box for text in comparison to scripted interactions so it didn't feel right when I made it too big.  Surprisingly even at 40% increase, the dialogue font still looks a bit smaller than the first game's at max font scale.  PoE 1 had a much larger conversation box so I couldn't match its size exactly.  I tried 50% but it started to feel cramped so ended up with 40% which I feel is a good size though may look a little big because of the smaller box.

I had actually gotten through 00_prototype to 13_fort_deadlight by the time I made that second post.  Was trying to power through them but it gets very tedious and I slowed down  after that. 

Anyway, thanks for all the help Kvellen! I've never made a mod before or even used the steam workshop for that matter.  Thinking of looking into modding other games after this but at the same time really just want to take a break from it too.  

[Kvellen]

Congrats on the mod launch!

There is a bit of an issue with putting the "localized" folder for the DLCs into "lax*exported" folders inside your mod folder. These need to be in the localized folder just like you've done with the base game for the strings to be overridden correctly.

Eg. "lax1_exported\localized\en\text\conversations\lax01_00_arena_island" should be like "Bigger Dialogue Font For Steam Deck\localized\en\text\conversations\lax01_00_arena_island". 

The unfortunate thing (Really sorry I am only just remembering this now!) the DLCs have a couple of instances of additions made to other .stringtables (either in the base game or other DLCs) so you'll need to add those entries into the relevant .stringtable file. Once again, really sorry that I forgot about this!

12 hours ago, lamwel said:

03_cv_mill_guard_frontdoor.stringtable 
05_cv_bathhouse_boiler.stringtable
05_cv_naga_intro.stringtable
19_bs_usher.stringtable
19_si_pallid_knight.stringtable

I'm not sure if their conversation bundles are named something different of if they are unused stringtables or I just missed them somehow. There was another one that I thought I couldn't find but actually did miss.  Think I was just getting tired of doing it. 

Not a problem, if you can't find a corresponding .conversationbunble that matches the exact name it isn't used in game!

Edited June 15, 2023 by Kvellen

[lamwel]

14 hours ago, Kvellen said:

There is a bit of an issue with putting the "localized" folder for the DLCs into "lax*exported" folders inside your mod folder. These need to be in the localized folder just like you've done with the base game for the strings to be overridden correctly.

Eg. "lax1_exported\localized\en\text\conversations\lax01_00_arena_island" should be like "Bigger Dialogue Font For Steam Deck\localized\en\text\conversations\lax01_00_arena_island". 

The unfortunate thing (Really sorry I am only just remembering this now!) the DLCs have a couple of instances of additions made to other .stringtables (either in the base game or other DLCs) so you'll need to add those entries into the relevant .stringtable file. Once again, really sorry that I forgot about this!

No need to apologize, you've been extremely helpful!  I really should have tested the DLC myself but didn't bother.  
I wouldn't have known what to do with those string additions though so thank you for telling me.  At least there weren't too many of them.  I'm wondering why does overriding the exported folders not work?  I saw some localization mods put the lax folders in them so I just assumed I could too.  Oh well, I think I've fixed them all now.  Hopefully.  

[Kvellen]

 Glad to hear there weren't too many! I was really concerned that I was doing a drive by "Oh by the way, here's a ton of work still to do..."

On 6/16/2023 at 5:26 AM, lamwel said:

I'm wondering why does overriding the exported folders not work? 

From what I understand the "exported" folder, the "lax*exported" folders, and the mod folders inside of "override" are sort of viewed by the game in the same way. The contents of each folder override the preceding folders in order of release. So .stringtables have to follow the same folder hierarchy of the file they are overriding, or making additions to, in order for the game to know what to do with them.

On 6/16/2023 at 5:26 AM, lamwel said:

I saw some localization mods put the lax folders in them so I just assumed I could too.  Oh well, I think I've fixed them all now.  Hopefully.  

I think I remember reading somewhere that it wasn't originally possible to add new languages to the game using the override folder. This might still be the case, or there might be some other reason where localization mods require replacing the text instead?

This kind of thing is still a gap in my Deadfire modding knowledge unfortunately.

[Hafenguy]

I have found the mod für bigger font on steam. 

Great the font is now able to read. 

Unfortunately are the dialog Screens now cut off so that I cant See the hole dialog. 

Maybe this is because the mod is for steam Deck. 

Is there a way to scale the dialog Screens for normal steam? 

[Kvellen]

Beyond using the scroll wheel to scroll through the cut-off text, pretty much the only way to get all the text onscreen is the "conversation history" button at the top of the window.

I don't want to say it's impossible to alter the UI with mods, but not by any means I am familiar with sadly.

Really wish they hadn't gone for this more sleek and simplified design in the Deadfire. I can understand some of their reasoning for it as far as meeting their goal of cutting down the amount of text that needs to read. And well to be fair to Obsidian the window wasn't intended to display text at this size and does cope pretty well with it. But I genuinely think that having such a limited text box for a game this heavy on text, that can't be expanded by the player was a mistake. Even the big dialogue box in PoE1 (which wasn't without its flaws as far as keeping all the dialogue text visible) allowed you to increases the height of the window by dragging it.

[Hafenguy]

Thanks for your answer.

Unfortunately the mod didnt work on steam any more. Could you tell me how to install the mod from Nexus? 

[Hafenguy]

Ok I See the problem, my version is german.

Im afraid my english is not good enough to understand everything. 

Is there a way to make this mod available for german version? 

Ps: In english there is no problem with window scaling any more the font is big and nice. It is exactly what I need. 

If this would be available in german it would be fantastic. 

Edited February 7 by Hafenguy

[Aurelio]

To make the mod available in german you need to do the same modifications to the german text files.

[Kvellen]

Yeah unfortunately the method I describe earlier in the thread is easiest I know of, but still takes a lot of time and effort. And will only work for one language. Which makes it far from the best solution.
I'm certain that someone with C# knowhow could come up with a much cleaner solution that would work 100% better and for all languages.

Edited February 8 by Kvellen

[Hafenguy]

Thank you very much for your Response and your efforts in this case. 

May I copy some of your previous post to explain some c# profs what is needed to do? 

[Kvellen]

1 hour ago, Hafenguy said:

Thank you very much for your Response and your efforts in this case. 

May I copy some of your previous post to explain some c# profs what is needed to do? 

Sure!
Might be worth pointing them towards this thread as well that explains the process of modifying the "Assembly-CSharp.dll" of the game.

 

[Hafenguy]

I want to say thank you for your efforts. 

Had no hope anymore that I can play it with bigger font but now i

just edited the files with notepad++.

Now I have german version with bigger font. 

 

I cant wait to finish POE 1 to start with deadfire! 

 

There is just one little caveat: bigger font doesnt work with a mod that improves the german Translation. 

But I can live with that. Thank you very much again!