Junior Spellweaver
- Joined
- Mar 22, 2016
- Messages
- 192
- Reaction score
- 32
This is for [NA - 2011] files. Was not able to change the title after I created the post. I was kind of on a roll.
I know, this is a dead horse. I know there are fixes out there, somewhere. However, I would really like to track this down and fix it myself. So I figured I would post what I know here, and see if any of the experts could maybe illuminate a few things I might be missing, or correct my misunderstanding on how these skills work.
So my test skill for this is God's Benevolence. A nice, robust, multi-function skill. I figured if I could fix this, or get close, then I would be making steps in some direction. Right or wrong.
So what I know is this:
Prefixing - The skill did nothing. There was a casting animation and then nothing. It never even hit any enemies to start the knockback.
Post attempt - It now hits (and kills) enemies, no knock back for obvious reasons, but no skill animation, and no buffs (healing or strength increase).
I used the most recent Gamigo files as of the last update to compare and contrast the various odin files to try and get the settings just right, though I am still coming up short. Here's what I did.
The first place I started was ActiveSkill which brought me to index item 7325, CrossDrop01. I checked this file against Gamigos file and noted a few differences. Mainly Min and Max MA were way low in odin, StaKnockBack was missing from StaNameA, SpecialValueC was set to 120 instead of 240, and SkillClassifierA was missing Dmg30GR. I corrected all of these issues. and moved on to ActiveSkillView.
From what I was seeing when comparing this to Frost Nova, this seems to be where the skill gets it's animations from, and sounds (if any). I checked the entry in ASV and everything lined up with the Gamigo file so I checked the AbState file to try and fix knockback, which lead me to discover in the Gamigo files, there was a StaCrossDrop01 entry, but not in the Odin files. I fixed that, which lead to a SubAbStat called SubStaCrossDrop that was also missing, so I filled in those blanks there. I was finally making some serious progress when I suddenly hit a wall.
The effect still never shows up, even though it's listed in ActiveSkillView properly. I have all of the AB states and SubStates created but it just doesn't seem to come together like a functioning skill should.
Again, I scoured over several AOE spells (Frost Nova/Inferno/Thunderbolt) to learn how the animations and sounds relate to each other and are called up. However, I just can't seem to get the final piece together.
I'm not worried about knockback, I will chase that down later (Farbood dropped a hint about this and I have publicly queried him for reply) but I was really hoping to get these 110 skills as close to functional as I possibly could.
While digging through some older posts and tutorials, I came across a couple of relevant posts. Now, in Spectra51's post here ( http://forum.ragezone.com/f901/info-column-meanings-activeskill-server-1103127/ ) it gives me a pretty good breakdown of what the columns mean for the skill. However, if we go down to the section on Effect types and special indexes, he makes an interesting observation:
"I actually find it very difficult to tamper with these. It seems like you wont be able to create a very unique skill by manipulating these values, they're extremely specific. This also tells the client how the skill will appear in ActiveSkillView. If it does not have the special indexes similar to frost nova it will not show the DoT area affects. For this reason, God's Benevolence, the level 110 cleric skill, will not show any animation because it's index is unknown to the client. If you give it the same effects as Frost Nova, you will see the cross come down from the sky and it's loop animation for 12 seconds."
So what I am gleaning from this, is that the special index is part of the reason why the skill is not fully presenting itself.
Now, another interesting post by MrFarbodD gives me more insight into these indexes. ( http://forum.ragezone.com/f901/info-shn-index-meanings-1106057/ ) It gives us a list of 39 special skill indexes to use. However, the first SpecialSkillIndex is index 49. This is not listed in the list provided by MrFarbodD. IS it possible that, in 2012, the SpecialSkillIndexes only went to 39, and one of the indexes listed may help to fix this skill?
Aside from just putting random crap in, I am at a loss for now as I have been at this for a good while (After completely borking my server, and my client, more than fifteen times combined.)
I'm hoping maybe I can get a tad more help here to get the rest of these missing pieces so I can try and fix this.
Okay so I can't let this alone, I feel like i'm getting close. Going to mess with the SpecialSkillIndexes and see if it does anything
So setting the SpecialSKillIndex to 13 for A and 14 for B gets the AOE to appear. Tweaking the numbers has allowed me to increase it's duration on the field. Now I just need to figure out why the secondary effects are not triggering (Healing and Strength Increase)
I know, this is a dead horse. I know there are fixes out there, somewhere. However, I would really like to track this down and fix it myself. So I figured I would post what I know here, and see if any of the experts could maybe illuminate a few things I might be missing, or correct my misunderstanding on how these skills work.
So my test skill for this is God's Benevolence. A nice, robust, multi-function skill. I figured if I could fix this, or get close, then I would be making steps in some direction. Right or wrong.
So what I know is this:
Prefixing - The skill did nothing. There was a casting animation and then nothing. It never even hit any enemies to start the knockback.
Post attempt - It now hits (and kills) enemies, no knock back for obvious reasons, but no skill animation, and no buffs (healing or strength increase).
I used the most recent Gamigo files as of the last update to compare and contrast the various odin files to try and get the settings just right, though I am still coming up short. Here's what I did.
The first place I started was ActiveSkill which brought me to index item 7325, CrossDrop01. I checked this file against Gamigos file and noted a few differences. Mainly Min and Max MA were way low in odin, StaKnockBack was missing from StaNameA, SpecialValueC was set to 120 instead of 240, and SkillClassifierA was missing Dmg30GR. I corrected all of these issues. and moved on to ActiveSkillView.
From what I was seeing when comparing this to Frost Nova, this seems to be where the skill gets it's animations from, and sounds (if any). I checked the entry in ASV and everything lined up with the Gamigo file so I checked the AbState file to try and fix knockback, which lead me to discover in the Gamigo files, there was a StaCrossDrop01 entry, but not in the Odin files. I fixed that, which lead to a SubAbStat called SubStaCrossDrop that was also missing, so I filled in those blanks there. I was finally making some serious progress when I suddenly hit a wall.
The effect still never shows up, even though it's listed in ActiveSkillView properly. I have all of the AB states and SubStates created but it just doesn't seem to come together like a functioning skill should.
Again, I scoured over several AOE spells (Frost Nova/Inferno/Thunderbolt) to learn how the animations and sounds relate to each other and are called up. However, I just can't seem to get the final piece together.
I'm not worried about knockback, I will chase that down later (Farbood dropped a hint about this and I have publicly queried him for reply) but I was really hoping to get these 110 skills as close to functional as I possibly could.
While digging through some older posts and tutorials, I came across a couple of relevant posts. Now, in Spectra51's post here ( http://forum.ragezone.com/f901/info-column-meanings-activeskill-server-1103127/ ) it gives me a pretty good breakdown of what the columns mean for the skill. However, if we go down to the section on Effect types and special indexes, he makes an interesting observation:
"I actually find it very difficult to tamper with these. It seems like you wont be able to create a very unique skill by manipulating these values, they're extremely specific. This also tells the client how the skill will appear in ActiveSkillView. If it does not have the special indexes similar to frost nova it will not show the DoT area affects. For this reason, God's Benevolence, the level 110 cleric skill, will not show any animation because it's index is unknown to the client. If you give it the same effects as Frost Nova, you will see the cross come down from the sky and it's loop animation for 12 seconds."
So what I am gleaning from this, is that the special index is part of the reason why the skill is not fully presenting itself.
Now, another interesting post by MrFarbodD gives me more insight into these indexes. ( http://forum.ragezone.com/f901/info-shn-index-meanings-1106057/ ) It gives us a list of 39 special skill indexes to use. However, the first SpecialSkillIndex is index 49. This is not listed in the list provided by MrFarbodD. IS it possible that, in 2012, the SpecialSkillIndexes only went to 39, and one of the indexes listed may help to fix this skill?
Aside from just putting random crap in, I am at a loss for now as I have been at this for a good while (After completely borking my server, and my client, more than fifteen times combined.)
I'm hoping maybe I can get a tad more help here to get the rest of these missing pieces so I can try and fix this.
Okay so I can't let this alone, I feel like i'm getting close. Going to mess with the SpecialSkillIndexes and see if it does anything
So setting the SpecialSKillIndex to 13 for A and 14 for B gets the AOE to appear. Tweaking the numbers has allowed me to increase it's duration on the field. Now I just need to figure out why the secondary effects are not triggering (Healing and Strength Increase)
Last edited: