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Here you can find mods that allow nearly unlimited customization of Torchlight II. Use the GUTS Editor to change almost any aspect of the game and share your creations with the community. Click here to learn more.

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Aherin

31 May, 2017 @ 3:22am

Warning Indicator Mod

Hi all,
I've been playing LAOIII a lot recently, and it drew my attention to an issue with some big damage monster spells. It seems to me that quite a few massive damage (sometimes even one-shot) spells aren't that well signposted in the game, or they look so similar to other spells that it's hard to differentiate them.

The Grand Regent boss is a really good example of this. One of his attacks, a big earthquake attack (called BIGHIT in GUTS) can very often one-shot you because the warmup for it is so similar to everything else he does. You can run away, but you feel like you have to run away from everything just in case it turns out to be the BIGHIT one.

Just as a bit of a test, I made a "!" warning particle that I attached to the warmup of this spell which will flash when he's about to cast BIGHIT. Looks like this:
{LINK REMOVED}

It gives you enough time to get clear then come back and keep smashing him. It seems to be quite effective. Some might say it's cheating, but I feel like unavoidable damage (especially when you're killed by it) is really not fun.

My questions are:

*Do you think people would be interested in a mod which warns you about high damage or "one-shot" attacks in game?

*If so, which monsters/attacks should I include?

I'd love anyone's feedback on this!

Cheers :)

Last edited by Aherin; 31 May, 2017 @ 3:28am

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Showing 1-15 of 30 comments

doudley

31 May, 2017 @ 7:46am

Amazing idea Aherin! You are like the king of indicators! I would like to ask permission for this mod to be included in my UI mods, as soon as you publish it.

steffire3

31 May, 2017 @ 11:32am

I'm interested! ^_^

I would say that Big Trolls from Act 3 could use that for their Leap Attack.

Most "Story Bosses" and "Champs" could use this for their "Big Hit" attacks in general.

Aherin

31 May, 2017 @ 2:14pm

Haha thanks man, you may of course add this to your mods :)
@Steffire3, thanks for taking an interest. I was hoping you'd think it was worthwhile, you have an excellent grasp of what other tl2 players might like as well.

I'll start with bosses and then look at normal mobs, starting with those trolls ;)

doudley

31 May, 2017 @ 8:47pm

Note that you can copy and paste the "!" Particle in the editor into other particle layouts, I think the adjustment of y-axis position are the only tricky parts.

Aherin

31 May, 2017 @ 10:51pm

Yeah cool that was the plan. The only thing will be hunting for the correct particle layout. It'll be more effective if they have a "warmup" effect before the main spell, but not all of them have that I don't think. I was thinking of placing one above the green and purple fire spells that chew through your health as well.

Last edited by Aherin; 31 May, 2017 @ 11:23pm

Aherin

1 Jun, 2017 @ 3:40am

Hm ok as usual it's harder than I expected. :) It's fine if there is a warmup particle (as in magical spells) but if it's a melee attack (like the trolls do) they use their own special animation as the warmup instead. Anything I've tried makes the particle appear when it's too late and that animation is already finished.

I mucked around with the timeline of the skill and tried adding the particle in there, but it ended up just making the animation play then the damage shape and everything else came after and out of sync.

I tired making a unit theme for it, but I can't work out how to make the unit theme appear at the same time as the inital attack animation. Is that possilbe do you know?
I tried my luck and added this to the top part of the troll skills:
<STRING>TYPE:UNIT THEME
<STRING>UNITTHEME:warning
but it didn't work :P

Last edited by Aherin; 1 Jun, 2017 @ 3:41am

doudley

1 Jun, 2017 @ 3:49am

How does the bighit particle takes effect? Maybe you should start figuring how that works and then recreate it for the melee attacks...

Last edited by doudley; 1 Jun, 2017 @ 3:52am

Aherin

1 Jun, 2017 @ 4:14am

well with grand regent it has a separate warmup particle that plays first, then the main spell plays. So it was pretty easy- I just attached the ! particle to the warmup.

It worked for the seige guardian's big drill attack because he has a warmup particle too.

On the POGG troll (in act1 goblin mines) I could sort of get it to work by attaching to the warmup particle that is added to his weapon. But not many other skills seem to do this and it appears in a funny place.

But quite a lot of the attacks just use a slowed down or unique animation to start off the skill. The animation is defined in the skill in these cases, and the layout file just shows the damage shape and which particles to use - nothing about the animation.

*I just tried adding it to the skill as an extra effect like this:
[EFFECT]
<STRING>TARGET:SELF
<STRING>ACTIVATION:DYNAMIC
<STRING>DURATION:2
<STRING>TYPE:UNIT THEME
<STRING>UNITTHEME:warning
[/effect]
but it still happens as the damage is being done. Heh it's too late! :D

I need to find a way to make it happen when the attack animation begins. That way I can place it above the monsters head regardless of what other particles there are.

Last edited by Aherin; 1 Jun, 2017 @ 4:23am

doudley

1 Jun, 2017 @ 4:26am

On animation based melee skills, try adding a warm up particle event_start on the skills themselves

[EVENT_START]
<STRING>FILE:media/particles/bighitwarmup.layout
<BOOL>ATTACHES:true
[/event_start]

Last edited by doudley; 1 Jun, 2017 @ 4:30am