Modding? Can we have it?

[Aleonymous]

New Banner Saga player here. I am wondering how the game determines the item drop rate (and which item drops) when you fight the optional second wave in a War. I know nothing about coding myself, so I was wondering if someone here could shed some light since you're poking around in the game files. Thanks.

Hey there. I am not sure about the exact mechanics, but there is an RNG roll sometime in the game (when you enter the chapter? when you start the first battle? when you pick the second wave?) that determines IF you're gonna get an item on Victory. I don't know the percentage, but from my experience it should be something like 25%. Now, if you do get a "go" for item drop, then there's another RNG roll that picks one item from the valid ones, from a list... You might get duplicated items with that.

[number8]

Hey there. I am not sure about the exact mechanics, but there is an RNG roll sometime in the game (when you enter the chapter? when you start the first battle? when you pick the second wave?) that determines IF you're gonna get an item on Victory. I don't know the percentage, but from my experience it should be something like 25%. Now, if you do get a "go" for item drop, then there's another RNG roll that picks one item from the valid ones, from a list... You might get duplicated items with that.

Awesome, thanks.

One more question. I am trying to do a renown optimizing playthrough. I am trying to figure out how renown is rewarded for battles across difficulty levels. I know that increasing the difficulty increases the stats and danger, and danger increases the number and rank of enemies. But I've noticed that renown rewards are different even on battles with set numbers of enemies between easy and hard. For example, the first battle with Rook and Alette vs the starving dredge awards 5 renown on easy mode, but only 3 renown on hard mode. Do the different difficulty modes use different formulas to calculate renown rewards from battle?

[Aleonymous]

I think that Easy battles get a fixed +bonus to Renown earned (e.g. +2 or +3), to balance the lower number of spawned enemies (compared to Normal & Hard). On Normal and Hard, I think you get +2 for a Victory and then +1 for each enemy felled. Hard typically spawns more enemies than Normal (that "Danger" hidden parameter/variable is increased), and that is why you can earn more Renown there...

[number8]

I think that Easy battles get a fixed +bonus to Renown earned (e.g. +2 or +3), to balance the lower number of spawned enemies (compared to Normal & Hard). On Normal and Hard, I think you get +2 for a Victory and then +1 for each enemy felled. Hard typically spawns more enemies than Normal (that "Danger" hidden parameter/variable is increased), and that is why you can earn more Renown there...

I figured it was something like that, I'm just wondering if it's more complicated or if you had the exact formula on hand pulled from the game files.

I ask because it appears that renown isn't calculated until you actually finish a battle, so you can actually boost your renown by having the game set to HARD difficulty, starting a battle, switching the difficulty to EASY mid-battle, which (assuming you win the battle against HARD enemies) gives you an extra renown boost as calculated through the EASY formula.

If I knew the exact calculations for renown rewards, I could tell if this would be true under all circumstances (that swapping a hard battle to easy would give a higher amount of renown at the end).

Of course, the other challenge is trying to win a bunch of HARD encounters with just level 1 characters, since I'm trying not to level anyone so they get the maximum boost once I finish and import to BS2.

Thanks again for your help, Aleo. I realize I'm a little late to the party on the BS1 theorycrafting.

I think that Easy battles get a fixed +bonus to Renown earned (e.g. +2 or +3), to balance the lower number of spawned enemies (compared to Normal & Hard). On Normal and Hard, I think you get +2 for a Victory and then +1 for each enemy felled. Hard typically spawns more enemies than Normal (that "Danger" hidden parameter/variable is increased), and that is why you can earn more Renown there...

I figured this was the case. I was just wondering if anyone had the exact formulas used to calculate battle renown from the game files. Because right now it looks like you can actually maximize renown by having the game set to HARD, getting into a battle, then changing the difficulty to EASY mid-battle. Assuming you win, you get a boosted renown calculation.

If I had the formulas, I would know whether or not this was true for every battle, or if it's more complicated based on the types/ranks of units you face, for example.

[Aleonymous]

Hey there. Sorry for the late response; I was offline for a few days! I merged your two posts (first two posts by new members must be "approved" by mods/admins to publicly show-up on the boards), so feel free to edit out the duplication.

To your main question: I think this "exploit" might actually work: starting a battle on Hard to get more enemies (so +Renown from Kills) and then switch to Easy mid-battle to get the +2 Renown at the Battle Resolution screen Do test it and report back if you find the definite answer.

Fighting lots of Enemies on Hard (w buffed stats and all) using Rank 1 Heroes can be... challenging, but not impossible. Several people have done that; do a search for "Lerajie" (or Leraje) power-save in Steam forums.

[number8]

Hey there. Sorry for the late response; I was offline for a few days! I merged your two posts (first two posts by new members must be "approved" by mods/admins to publicly show-up on the boards), so feel free to edit out the duplication.

To your main question: I think this "exploit" might actually work: starting a battle on Hard to get more enemies (so +Renown from Kills) and then switch to Easy mid-battle to get the +2 Renown at the Battle Resolution screen Do test it and report back if you find the definite answer.

Fighting lots of Enemies on Hard (w buffed stats and all) using Rank 1 Heroes can be... challenging, but not impossible. Several people have done that; do a search for "Lerajie" (or Leraje) power-save in Steam forums.

So, I tested it on the meadhall fight, then again in the battle vs the solo "starving dredge." You can start with the difficulty on hard, switch to easy difficulty mid fight, and you get boosted renown at the end. The meadhall fight starting on easy normally gets you 5-6 enemies, while hard gets you 9-12 enemies. I got 9 enemies and completed the battle on hard, reloaded and swapped to easy during the battle and got more renown at the end (forgot the exact numbers).

For the starving dredge fight, on easy it awards 5 renown, on hard it awards 3 renown. You can start it on hard, change to easy during the battle, and you get 5 renown.

My question is this: are you able to find the formula for the renown calculation in the source code? I am really curious if the rank/tier of the enemy unit, or big vs. small units, makes any difference at all to how renown is calculated. That is the only other thing that would potentially make it possible to earn more renown from a true hard-hard playthrough, rather than a hard-switch-to-easy "exploit."

[Aleonymous]

My question is this: are you able to find the formula for the renown calculation in the source code? I am really curious if the rank/tier of the enemy unit, or big vs. small units, makes any difference at all to how renown is calculated. That is the only other thing that would potentially make it possible to earn more renown from a true hard-hard playthrough, rather than a hard-switch-to-easy "exploit."

We don't have access to that part of the code, so we got only "black-box experiments" there. I think that it's +1 for all enemies except the highest tier of each class (e.g. Stoneguard Colossus [purple], Scourge Destroyer [blue]) that gives +2. Or at least that's the intended design, even though the Renown-banners that pop-up on-kill all say +1. There was actually a bug here, corrected in Saga2. In any case, once the enemy units are spawned, their "Renown value" is fixed, and is not affected by difficulty. So, all taken into account, I believe the hard-switch-to-easy "exploit" is the optimal way to go.

[sawsearcey61]

I don't know if anyone mentioned this before but one thing that always bothered me about Saga1 was that Ludin's bodyguards and the human mercenaries from Strand just dropped out of the game after Chapter 3.

When Ludin joins the caravan in Chapter 1, he has 85 fighters with him and latter in Chapter 3, 100 fighters from Strand show up. But in Chapter 5 no mention of any humans other than Rooks caravan is given. I think that it's very unlikely that 185 fighters with hundreds of varl would all die between Chapter 3 and 5. Ludin's bodyguards would have stayed with him and since you have the chance to keep Eirik then the fighters from Strand would also stay with the caravan too.

From a story perspective this has always bugged me. I don't know if there is a way to change this, but Id like to hear other people's opinion on this.

[Aleonymous]

Our forum members working on Saga1 patches (YaK, Drake713) would be interested in this little detail. It seems that caravan arithmetics don't work very well between chapters, with suspicious fluctuations in population, supplies, renown.

The 'story reason' is most likely that Hakon's caravan goes off-radar after Ridgehorn, so anything could happen to them on their way to Grofheim (up to the Two Spears) and then back south to Einartoft; maybe they suffered heavy casualties? Moreover, the caravan is kinda disbanded in Einartoft, with the majority of those varl staying to defend the city, and a new caravan (under Hakon, again) is dispatched by Jorundr before the fortress falls. Then, that new caravan has to march all the way to Boersgard (meeting Juno midway) and that's another place where all the numbers can be screwed up. In any case, you are right: It's highly unlikely that all 185 of Arberrang and Strand human fighters died between Ridgehorn and Boersgard...

[YaK]

I don't know if anyone mentioned this before but one thing that always bothered me about Saga1 was that Ludin's bodyguards and the human mercenaries from Strand just dropped out of the game after Chapter 3.

When Ludin joins the caravan in Chapter 1, he has 85 fighters with him and latter in Chapter 3, 100 fighters from Strand show up. But in Chapter 5 no mention of any humans other than Rooks caravan is given. I think that it's very unlikely that 185 fighters with hundreds of varl would all die between Chapter 3 and 5. Ludin's bodyguards would have stayed with him and since you have the chance to keep Eirik then the fighters from Strand would also stay with the caravan too.

From a story perspective this has always bugged me. I don't know if there is a way to change this, but Id like to hear other people's opinion on this.

Yeah, i know and it pisses me off too.

I have an idea hidden in a corner of my mind, that i explained in a thread of my other mod, the fixpack SSLTBS1, in which after restoring an event in the abandoned village, i also take care of thi inconsistency, giving Hakon's caravan in Boersgard a little different composition based on the choices done in the other chapters (if you send Ludin to Grofheim, if you let him depart alone from Ridgehorn or if you keep it with you and he'll come with Hakon in Boersgard).

Unfortunately, i have not the time nor the desire to do something like this at the moment, since there is not a such interest by players in Banner Saga mods.

[YaK]

@John
@Aleo
@whoknows



How does the localization files actually work?

Strings.json and voiceovers are standalone files, no problem there.


Convos (in "locale" folder) have just text data, that i assume is "patched" on the fly in the proper speaker tags in the "real" conversation files, but why is there also a "en" localized convo folder? What is its purpose?

My fear is that if i switch to, let's say, "italian" and then back to "english" without restarting, i am not loading "../tbs/assets/saga1/convos" but just "patching" the loaded version with localized "en" text, so, if i change texts in the saga1/convos i should apply the changes also to the localized one (otherwise i need to restart every time i change language).

Am I right or are my fear unfounded and they're there just a reference?

[Aleonymous]

otherwise i need to restart every time i change language.

That sounds... wrong. Unless you mean that you're editing the locale files while the game is running, and switching back-and-forth between the languages as you move on? I'm not sure how that works, so, in this case, I think that only trial-and-error will avail you.

[YaK]

That sounds... wrong.

I hope you're right. Just don't understand why there is a [EN] localized folder with just convo's text, if convos are already full in english. I could try messing a bit with them, but a plain answer would have been better than trial & error

[Aleonymous]

I can't tell if the [EN] localization is "special", compared to the others, in the sense that it shows the text "as is" in the saga1/convo/xyz.json.z file, without referencing back to the respective localization file in saga1/locale/en/convo/xyz.json.z... Gonna ask John on this.

[YaK]

Done a bit of testing switching between Spanish and English localization. I tested one of the change in my mod: Folka Referring to Gudmundr also if he's dead. The fix consisted in adding a new dialogue triggered when Gudmundr_state=0.

In English it works fine, also if the change i just made in ../saga2/convo/dontremember.json.z and not in ../saga2/locale/en/convo/dontremember.json.z. So i assume that ../locale/en/convo folder is just a much more readable reference for translators, with no effect in game.

On the contrary, in Spanish the mechanic is there, but it point out a console error and a [NO TEXT ERROR fro etc.] in the text box. So, any mod that "adds" new dialogue strings it's not language compatible. It would have been great if when the game can't found a localized entry it would have loaded the base english one, but, hey, life it's not all candies and ice creams, right?

[Aleonymous]

Thanks for testing and clarifying that, YaK. Not _all_ candies and ice creams indeed

[number8]

Have you tried altering "war_continue_item=25" ? It should be the % of getting an item after the second wave in war, but never tried yet!

Short version: Has anyone managed to mod (read: improve) the item drop rate from BS1 war extra battles?


Long version:
So I backed BS3 on kickstarter, and recently played through the new BS3 on steam with the default start (no game imported), and now I am inclined to go back to my optimized replay of BS1 -> BS2 to set up a continuous play through (my old BS 1&2s were on XBOX, so not portable).

I downloaded and now have the classic Lerajie save game from BS1, but I am interested in trying my own playthrough as well based on something I posted a long time ago in this thread wherein you boost renown by starting every battle in hard mode then swap to easy mid battle for a bonus. The thing is I want to do all the war second waves, but I do not want be as patient as Lerajie had to be when it comes to replaying fights over and over to get a 25% item drop that could be a crap item or an unwanted duplicate.

I looked for the above text (quoted earlier in this thread from Yak and Drake) in the saga1.json file thinking I could just change 25 to 100 to make second waves at least guarantee an item drop, to make a BS1 playthrough less of a chore in that aspect. But now I cannot find such a line in the file. Has it been moved or removed with a more recent update?

If any of the thread/forum MVPs could shed some light I would appreciate it.

[YaK]

If i remember correctly, now you're granted an item EVERYTIME you do a second wave battle in S1. At least this was the situation before the last patch, but i don't think it changed this aspect.

[Aleonymous]

If i remember correctly, now you're granted an item EVERYTIME you do a second wave battle in S1. At least this was the situation before the last patch, but i don't think it changed this aspect.

I can confirm that, but, haven't tested it myself either. Actually, there was a "positive bug" that granted you an item every time you picked a second wave, even if you were defeated!

[klimbo123]

I don't know if anyone mentioned this before but one thing that always bothered me about Saga1 was that Ludin's bodyguards and the human mercenaries from Strand just dropped out of the game after Chapter 3.

When Ludin joins the caravan in Chapter 1, he has 85 fighters with him and latter in Chapter 3, 100 fighters from Strand show up. But in Chapter 5 no mention of any humans other than Rooks caravan is given. I think that it's very unlikely that 185 fighters with hundreds of varl would all die between Chapter 3 and 5. Ludin's bodyguards would have stayed with him and since you have the chance to keep Eirik then the fighters from Bluestacks Kodi Lucky Patcher Strand would also stay with the caravan too.

From a story perspective this has always bugged me. I don't know if there is a way to change this, but Id like to hear other people's opinion on this.

I have a thought covered up in an edge of my brain, that I clarified in a string of my other mod, the fixpack SSLTBS1, in which subsequent to reestablishing an occasion in the deserted town, I likewise deal with thi irregularity, giving Hakon's train in Boersgard a little extraordinary creation dependent on the decisions done in alternate sections (on the off chance that you send Ludin to Grofheim, on the off chance that you let him withdraw alone from Ridgehorn or in the event that you keep it with you and he'll accompany Hakon in Boersgard).