GrayFace MM8 Patch v2.5.7 [Mar 4, 2022]

[GrayFace]

Version 2.4.1
[-] My bug: Random items weren't appearing in chests with quest items.

[SpectralDragon]

I've updated the crystal monsters archive: https://www.dropbox.com/s/p9naxoaeg0iys ... s.rar?dl=1
I though I'd make a preview of all monsters, but a simple grid collage program is much easier to write than to find on the Internet!

Thanks! That was basically my purpose when it comes to editing Crystal enemies anyways, enhancing them and, in case of Dragons, making them visually matching their names, since I definitely don't think emeralds, sapphires and rubies are rose-colored. ^^;

These edited ones are all yours now when it comes to their game implementation and appearances. I'd personally like to see them with their proper function in vanilla MM8 itself if possible (or at least in the Merge if not. Optimal miniboss Diamond Dragon can be just a Merge thing, your choice), but that's just me. ^^;

It's been a great great honor working with you and I hope that in the future we can do the same thing again.

[GrayFace]

These edited ones are all yours now when it comes to their game implementation and appearances. I'd personally like to see them with their proper function in vanilla MM8 itself if possible

This package is for vanilla and I'm going to include it with my patches. In the past few days I've actually gone through all monsters that don't have 3 look variations in MM8 and MM7. Fire elementals turned out especially cool: https://www.dropbox.com/s/yctjj1m3m0re5 ... 2.png?dl=0

It's been a great great honor working with you and I hope that in the future we can do the same thing again.

Take it easy Don't overestimate my greatness, magnificence and omnipotence

[SpectralDragon]

This package is for vanilla and I'm going to include it with my patches. In the past few days I've actually gone through all monsters that don't have 3 look variations in MM8 and MM7. Fire elementals turned out especially cool: https://www.dropbox.com/s/yctjj1m3m0re5 ... 2.png?dl=0

Take it easy Don't overestimate my greatness, magnificence and omnipotence

Excellent! Just awesome! Can't wait to see how will that look like next time I get your patch down, especially when combined with MMMerge, which might yield some hidden bonuses of their own, he he he he he.

I for sure cannot overestimate your abilities for converting PCs (playable characters) into game-portable versions of themselves as well, can I? ^^; I'm already having Zombie Troll source files up, tried to do Zombie Dwarf (both genders) paperdolls as well (would use regular Zombie expressions), but I still have no idea how to properly warp transform them. These 2 are the only "hole-fillers" left that the Merge needs. ^^;

[Xfing]

Guess I need to get a separate install folder of MM8 to play it on its own without the Merge for a little while, just to separately appreciate all these wonderful innovations and fixes!

[SpectralDragon]

Guess I need to get a separate install folder of MM8 to play it on its own without the Merge for a little while, just to separately appreciate all these wonderful innovations and fixes!

Ditto, I can imagine the look on my brother's face when he sees all these fixes and innovations once the version of the patch that includes these comes out both for base (let's not forget removing the "monster limit" for base MMExt) and for Merge. Suddenly these and CCR playing would become much more interesting!

[Xfing]

Weird. I installed the newest patch just now and I don't think it's working. I'm not getting the hi-res mode, mouselook toggle with Caps Lock nor anything else really. Wonder what I did wrong - it's been a while since I last installed a fresh instance. Also, when going into MM8Setup, the option for hardware graphics acceleration is grayed out, wonder why that would be.

[Xfing]

Ok never mind - you just need to run MM8Setup in compatibility mode

As for the mouselook - I copied the .ini file from my Merge folder after applying the newest patch, and it works too.

[Xfing]

BTW - as we know, one-target, instant-action spells don't work on monsters. Mass distortion, Implosion, Paralyze etc.

What do you think about giving the MM8 plane/chaos behemoths Paralyze as a Melee effect instead? Without the spell they're not very hard. Removing the spell at least fixed the problem of them wasting their turns, but giving it as a melee effect would win back some of the difficulty for these monsters (sorry if this has already been done and I haven't noticed)

[SpectralDragon]

BTW - as we know, one-target, instant-action spells don't work on monsters. Mass distortion, Implosion, Paralyze etc.

What do you think about giving the MM8 plane/chaos behemoths Paralyze as a Melee effect instead? Without the spell they're not very hard. Removing the spell at least fixed the problem of them wasting their turns, but giving it as a melee effect would win back some of the difficulty for these monsters (sorry if this has already been done and I haven't noticed)

Funny you mentioned Plane Protectors and such: I was planning to recolor them into more "chaos-like" colors so that they don´t look like Behemoths at all, but rather like some monstrous Behemoth-like demons. I can only hope GrayFace did such thing.

[Figo]

So for party without ID monster on proper lvl, will we have some kind of confirmation when halving occurs (other than dialog box)?

Same as with Mace, in status bar.

I'm going to test it in MM8 (I've recently finished MM9 ).

I've got questions about current status of the artifacts:
1) Is there still the limit of how many we can acquire with one party (~13)? I've read that in the Merge there is none, so how about a vanilla game?
2) Is there any possibility to prevent artifacts from disappearing (forever) from chests when the map reset occurs (before we could get it)? As far as I remember there was always a pressure to get asap an artifact chest on open maps (Ravenshore, Alvar, Ironsand) and one dragon dungeon with fast respawn rate (Garrote Gorge).

[Figo]

Why FixChests=0 is default? It is a fix for a very annoying bug. Are there any downsides of FixChests=1?

Mostly because it breaks the Barrow Downs chest, making it multi-screen. Also, reopening chests to see if there's anything left every time isn't fun. That's why I decided to try other strategies. After implementing code that places more valuable item bunches first, I thought it would be good enough and disabled FixChests by default. Next patch version will use more compact non-random chest population (same as is used in inventory) when there is space shortage.

Version 2.4 / 2.4.1
<< MM6 - MM8 >>
[+] Chests are populated with compact non-random stacking if more items fit this way. This can be disabled by adding FixChestsByCompacting=0 line to INI.
[+] Items are stacked vertically when you place them into chests. This can be disabled by adding PlaceChestItemsVertically=0 line to INI.

For me it looks like the chest item stacking doesn't work all the time:
1st try - halberd is missing and all items are scattered across the board...
2nd try - halberd appeared, but items still didn't arrange in stacks.

I think that "FixChests=1" is still needed for assurance.

[GrayFace]

1) Is there still the limit of how many we can acquire with one party (~13)? I've read that in the Merge there is none, so how about a vanilla game?

Nice idea.

2) Is there any possibility to prevent artifacts from disappearing (forever) from chests when the map reset occurs (before we could get it)? As far as I remember there was always a pressure to get asap an artifact chest on open maps (Ravenshore, Alvar, Ironsand) and one dragon dungeon with fast respawn rate (Garrote Gorge).

Also a good one, but no, that's complicated. It would stay as you described. I can however make a script for MMExt that would do this.

For me it looks like the chest item stacking doesn't work all the time:
1st try - halberd is missing and all items are scattered across the board...
2nd try - halberd appeared, but items still didn't arrange in stacks.

I think that "FixChests=1" is still needed for assurance.

Send me a save file where such a thing happens.

[GrayFace]

What do you think about giving the MM8 plane/chaos behemoths Paralyze as a Melee effect instead? Without the spell they're not very hard. Removing the spell at least fixed the problem of them wasting their turns, but giving it as a melee effect would win back some of the difficulty for these monsters (sorry if this has already been done and I haven't noticed)

No, I haven't done that. I'm not a fan of paralyzing monsters, so I didn't bother.

Funny you mentioned Plane Protectors and such: I was planning to recolor them into more "chaos-like" colors so that they don´t look like Behemoths at all, but rather like some monstrous Behemoth-like demons. I can only hope GrayFace did such thing.

Nope, only did monsters that don't have 3 variations. I did think of recoloring all plane creatures so that they don't look like they're in carnival costumes.

[SpectralDragon]

1) Is there still the limit of how many we can acquire with one party (~13)? I've read that in the Merge there is none, so how about a vanilla game?

Nice idea.

I support it too, seeing how in vanilla, we always need to be quite luck when it comes to rolling dice in regards of artifacts and relics.

Funny you mentioned Plane Protectors and such: I was planning to recolor them into more "chaos-like" colors so that they don´t look like Behemoths at all, but rather like some monstrous Behemoth-like demons. I can only hope GrayFace did such thing.

Nope, only did monsters that don't have 3 variations. I did think of recoloring all plane creatures so that they don't look like they're in carnival costumes.

My thoughts exactly and when it comes to Plane Protectors, I was thinking they´d look something like this:

only molded in style of Plane Protectors (which are Behemoth-like) and more black (it˙s your choice entirely how would you make these).

Just for insight, when do you think would the next version of MM8 patch with these differences come out? Since these would need to be sort of implemented in MMMerge as well in order to avoid crashes and other buggy/glitchy annoyances unless MMMerge uses its own version of your patch. ^^;

[Figo]

1) Is there still the limit of how many we can acquire with one party (~13)? I've read that in the Merge there is none, so how about a vanilla game?

Nice idea.

Thank You, but I've completed the game yesterday and there wasn't any artifact/relic limit. Without save scumming (only real time loot from chests/mobs) I've acquired all of the artifacts 23/23, nearly all relics 14/15 (I'm not sure If I accidently sold one or whatever xD) and all special items 5/5 (with some strange double drops). After that I hit the wall, so "artifact drops" were just normal items.
>list<

2) Is there any possibility to prevent artifacts from disappearing (forever) from chests when the map reset occurs (before we could get it)? As far as I remember there was always a pressure to get asap an artifact chest on open maps (Ravenshore, Alvar, Ironsand) and one dragon dungeon with fast respawn rate (Garrote Gorge).

Also a good one, but no, that's complicated. It would stay as you described. I can however make a script for MMExt that would do this.

That's great, it would save a couple of artifacts for many new players (especially for Merge)

For me it looks like the chest item stacking doesn't work all the time:
1st try - halberd is missing and all items are scattered across the board...
2nd try - halberd appeared, but items still didn't arrange in stacks.

I think that "FixChests=1" is still needed for assurance.

Send me a save file where such a thing happens.

Sadly I don't have it anymore because it was at the beginning of the game. However, after beating the game, I have to admit that "FixChestsByCompacting=1" is working quite well.
Nevertheless, the main problem are big items (2h weapons etc.) - most of the time with "big fat loot" they are on the second screen (2nd opening).
Quest items and artifacts were always present in the first attempt/opening.
Maybe the game creates just too many items in some chests?

Some examples from my playthrough:
Chest 01:1st screen & 2nd screen
Chest 02:1st screen & 2nd screen
Chest 03:1st screen & 2nd screen
Chest 04:1st screen & 2nd screen
Chest 05:1st screen (good positioning: quest item + artifact)

[Figo]

I had to split this into two posts

Version 2.4
<< MM6 - MM8 >>
[-] GrandMaster of Axe didn't halve armor class. Now the chance to halve armor class is 1.66 per point of skill, so the skill of 60 will make it 100%. This is to compensate for overall weakness of axe wielding. Hidden AxeGMFullProbabilityAt option controls this (60 by default).

I can confirm that GM Axe is working (status bar+monster info "Effects"). But I couldn't find if it really helps with hit chance because with Id monster skill, monster info is fixed to default values ("Hit Points" and "Armor Class") only "Effects" are changing.
Tortoise 01 & Tortoise 02
Wyrm 01 & Wyrm 02

I also found a couple of minor text bugs (GOG version):
01.Talion's quest from Ironsand for Potion of Pure Endurance is called "Potion of Pure Luck" on the final screen.
Potion 01 & Potion 02
02.Master Light Magic trainer (Lunius Dawnbringer) - there is a difference in the left and right text (5000 vs 4000 gold)
M light magic
03.Master Dark Magic trainer (Carla Umberpool) - there is a difference in the left and right text (5000 vs 4000 gold)
M dark magic
04.Expert Regeneration trainer (Kethric Tarent) - there is a difference in the left and right text (2000 vs 500 gold)
E regeneration

Minor old visual bug
Minimap with wizard eye: Barbarian Fortress, -1 level: there is the blue (magic) niche without anything hidden in it (maybe I've never found a clue?). niche
Of course there are many minimap-wizard eye blue objects without anything special in this game

Also I don't know if it's worth to mention (old bug) but it's possible to duplicate quest items in the Oracle. But there's no harm in it (especially with the army of Sarcophagi of Korbu )

[SpectralDragon]

Hello again, long time no hear from ya. Just out of curiosity, how is the next version of this absolutely great mod of yours fare?

[GrayFace]

Hello again, long time no hear from ya. Just out of curiosity, how is the next version of this absolutely great mod of yours fare?

I've been playing and doing stuff for Knytt Stories these past months. Didn't work on patches.

Minimap with wizard eye: Barbarian Fortress, -1 level: there is the blue (magic) niche without anything hidden in it (maybe I've never found a clue?). niche

Image not available anymore.

[SpectralDragon]

Hello again, long time no hear from ya. Just out of curiosity, how is the next version of this absolutely great mod of yours fare?

I've been playing and doing stuff for Knytt Stories these past months. Didn't work on patches.

No worries, I kind of gotten out of MM stuff as well, thus I completely understand. Still super glad you´re around.

Speaking of stuff, I kind of tried to work with MMExtension in order to bring Undead Dragons into the main MM8 as they are in MMMerge (only difference being that they˙re basically Dragons with Lich stats overall ... and changed projectile weapon in Ghost Dragon´s case), voice and all, but I˙m absolutely stumped on that. If you know anything about this sort of thing, can you give me some pointers, like where to start?