Soulvizier AERA - General discussion

[nargil66]

You say that Occult darklings are about to be changed... how about combining them with Shadow Grasp? What i mean is - a skill called Nether Gate, Shadow Rift or something - a big magic circle appear on the ground, and Shadow Sprites start springing from it, auto-seeking enemies and exploding in contact with them... it would be pretty cool i think. Only, im not sure if that that old bug is fixed or not, that pets of pets doesnt give experience, as @Bumbleguppy has mentioned before.
Another thing - about some vendors not selling formulas and stuff - check if there are 4 market table entries or just 3. With 3, sometimes it doesnt work, i had the same problem with the pack animals tables in EG.

[soa]

You say that Occult darklings are about to be changed... how about combining them with Shadow Grasp? What i mean is - a skill called Nether Gate, Shadow Rift or something - a big magic circle appear on the ground, and Shadow Sprites start springing from it, auto-seeking enemies and exploding in contact with them... it would be pretty cool i think. Only, im not sure if that that old bug is fixed or not, that pets of pets doesnt give experience, as @Bumbleguppy has mentioned before.
Another thing - about some vendors not selling formulas and stuff - check if there are 4 market table entries or just 3. With 3, sometimes it doesnt work, i had the same problem with the pack animals tables in EG.

Forge merchants have six entries ; they had 3 at the beginning and I noticed problems so I increased the number of tables. However mage merchants that sell arcane/scroll only have 3, I'll had 1 entry at least.

For the Occult Darklings, I just hadn't had time to try it, but I've had a lot of issues with pets of pets when making souls. I was trying to make crystal pets that behaved like mines (explode when an anemy gets close) and spawn a crystal golem after death.
It looks like when the "master" pet dies, its pets (pets of pets) turn against you no matter what you do. Declaring teams didn't work. So you need to be careful about when the pet that can also summon will die. Or make sure his summons dies when he dies. This is especially an issue when a pet has a skill that allows him to summon another pet on death.
The official game doesn't include pets of pets as far as I know, maybe there's a reason for that.
With what you describe, the summoned pets will be suicidal, and when the gate will die, summoned darklings will have to die. Two things that could be problematic is that dying darklings explosion could harm the player too if he's too close (because when the gate is dead, darklings become neutral or in the monsters team), and that XP thing. Darklings explosion with friendly fire could be a feature...

For the crystal idea, I believe the only way to circumvent it would be to create :
- an invisible, hidden, fixed and out of combat "master" pet that can summon a crystal pet where he stands
- the crystal pet would be fixed and explode when enemies are near, radius X (that one would be here only for graphical purpose, no damage).
The master pet (invisible) would need a skill with a very high cooldown (one-use) dealing damage around him with the same radius X, and a summoning skill of a crystal golem that triggers when he deals damage. This would give the illusion that the golem gets out of the exploding crystal, but its master would be an invisible pet, still alive.

Darklings could maybe a have an explosion skill they cast on contact instantly (or very close range), and die when an enemy is at this same range or 0.1 m less.
That way their death wouldn't deal damage, and after the gate death, they would only disappear without harming the player.

[nargil66]

Ok, another option is - a ProjectileSpawnPet skill with invisible projectile and max projectile speed. When it hits the ground, the circle effect appear and 3 to 6 shadow sprites spawn in burst, then auto-seek enemies and explode. This way they'll be normal pets from the players team. If pets of pets does not give XP, then Shadowstalkers's sprites - maybe they doesn't either? If that is the case, I'd say give the skill to the player like above or in some other way.

[Groom]

Minor Question:
During loading screen (when entering game or loading new area), the SV-logo (visible in old SV) doesn't appear on the bottom right of the screen (the standard TQ-logo appears).
Is this intended or did I miss a step installing the mod?

Possible small bug:
This necklace either (the necklace type, both appeared as drop and at shop for me):
Appear too early in the game (also, bad stats for being lvl 42?)
or
has too high lvl requirement.

[soa]

Minor Question:
During loading screen (when entering game or loading new area), the SV-logo (visible in old SV) doesn't appear on the bottom right of the screen (the standard TQ-logo appears).
Is this intended or did I miss a step installing the mod?

Possible small bug:
This necklace either (the necklace type, both appeared as drop and at shop for me):
Appear too early in the game (also, bad stats for being lvl 42?)
or
has too high lvl requirement.

I haven't added back the SV logo. I don't know exactly how to do that, I would find how eventually if I spent time looking for it, but it's not my priority to add it.
Anyways it's normal if nothing shows (same thing with the main menu ; some people would like it like classic SV, I'm not opposed to that, but I think other things are more important so I spend my time working on those instead).

For the annulling prefix, it's a bug. Should be lvl 18, it will be fixed in next version.

[soa]

I'd like to remake the topic to give the mod a better presentation (if possible it would replace this one and be sticky)
With some screens, a summary of the main features, etc.
If someone wants to help (not necessarily now, that's not urgent), please contact me.

[mvlad954]

I just want to say that I highly appreciate what you are doing.After all this time you haven't given up.Looks Soulvizier could be a thing again.
Keep up the good work guys!I wish you great success!

[Groom]

1.
Melalos - Athens Catacombs: Too easy (low hp/resistances?)   /can't say too much regarding damage, as he fell too fast (I died in the process as well).
My char was lvl 16 (Conqueror)

2.Ignore this one.

3.
Maybe general (main game) issue:
Items sometimes bounce too many times (takes time to see the item on the ground).
Example: Family sword of Anherro
When dropped just outside city of Rhakotis (the spot where monster holding the item). The item, for a moment, suspends in a stuttering animation until a "fixed" duriation passes.

Is it possible to lower the item drop animation (timer?), in order to see the items a bit faster? (so we don't run pass them by mistake?)

4.
"Will of Horus" (Throw weapon) drops too frequently?

[sauruz]

4.
"Will of Horus" (Throw weapon) drops too frequently?

Both n 3 and n 4 are vanilla game issues, throwing weapons ( blues and purples) indeed drops way to often, wait until you got 5x Neith Will in one gameplay.

[soa]

4.
"Will of Horus" (Throw weapon) drops too frequently?

Both n 3 and n 4 are vanilla game issues, throwing weapons ( blues and purples) indeed drops way to often, wait until you got 5x Neith Will in one gameplay.

Yes, both vanilla issues
For 3, I don't know what to do and if I can do anything.
For 4, I definitely need to do something, but it may not be so easy to fix as there are many files. This fix has been on my list for a long time.
The devs never did anything afaik regarding this issue, despite tons of requests.

[BuZaGi]

Bone Fiend wrong name

[soa]

Ok, another option is - a ProjectileSpawnPet skill with invisible projectile and max projectile speed. When it hits the ground, the circle effect appear and 3 to 6 shadow sprites spawn in burst, then auto-seek enemies and explode. This way they'll be normal pets from the players team. If pets of pets does not give XP, then Shadowstalkers's sprites - maybe they doesn't either? If that is the case, I'd say give the skill to the player like above or in some other way.

So I tried making a rift summoning shadow sprites. They don't give any XP despite forcing givexp to 1 on both the rift and the sprites.
The Shadowstalker's sprites were actually with givexp = 0, so in classic SV they should have really no chance of giving you anything. I'm gonna delete this skill, I don't know if I'll replace it.

A similar problem occurs with Mayhem in Spirit tree. It summons an invisible pet that has a skill with a % chance of converting around him. I made a fixed pet instead of giving the skill directly to the player because otherwise converted monsters would teleport in a group to the player when they are too far. It seems the converted monsters do give XP to the player, even if the conversion is made by a pet (I suppose the game considers the player directly owns a pet converted by another pet, but he doesn't own pets of pets).
However, and the problem should occur with every conversion skill, if the converted monster is killed by an enemy, the XP is lost. Or given to the enemy and not the player.
So, either I dump this skill, but I liked the idea, or I make it a very short duration of conversion only around the player. So that monsters start to fight each other (50/50 in each side). But I would need to find a way to make converted monsters invincible or the player would lose XP. Hitting yet another modding limitation here...

[nargil66]

The rift can be made just a temporary effect with prop mesh (like the nymph's summoning pod). Then it won't be a pet, and the shadow sprites will be the only real pets.

[soa]

A new official version (2.9) is out. So make sure you reinstall SV after it otherwise you may lose your char files.

[Antifringe]

Holy moly!  I was a huge fan of Munderbunny's mod back in the day.  I did a quick search to see if Underlord/Soulvizier ever made it to AE, and here I am, looking a port that is current up to the most recent patch.  This is way beyond my expectations.

Only problem though, is I can't find the download link.  Where are you guys hosting this?