5. Get rid of all abilities with level < 1: they are not supported anymore. If you have units or items with weaker versions of some abilities and you achieved this by setting ability level to zero or a negative number, you should decrease main ability Atk/Dmg enough so Ability I will match the lowest Atk/Dmg you need, and give all units with this ability more levels to compensate that. Don't forget that this is applied to items as well.

This can cause problems with heroes - while heroes that start with these abilities can have them at higher levels like units, learning a new ability when gaining a level will give a weaker version to heroes than before. This also applies to Block, which has the first level weaker than the old version.

I know little about moding but since I do not receive my turns, I'll write something anyway
@PawelS: I think you can compensate that by twicking the upgrade costs of the abilities (and making all the levels available in the options list where possible?)

Unfortunately, there's no another workaround. So we will fix the heroes problem directly: it will be possible to set up initial levels for hero upgrades. Until then, there's not much we can do: the current situation is better than Dominate 254, isn't it?

I'm kind of interested in migrating Strange Lands mod to the MPE patch, but I foresee several problems.. (also I'm hoping you could remove the range penalty from heroes by the next patch )

I could post some of the issues in some detail soon.

HB, I wonder if MPE patch was built on top of UPatch1.4.
If all the extra stuff the UPatch introduced is present, we can play all the existing UPatch 1.4 maps with MPE, and not only 1.3 compatible ones. Can we?

Yes, all uPatch things are there. There's just one important note: nomads' Slaver and Elephant rider had there IDs swapped, so every placed on the map Slaver is Elephant now and vice versa. This may sound weird, but they were misplaced in the first place (probably even in official patches), and the correct order had to be restored to fix a very serious issue this little misplacement was causing in random maps.

So all you have to do is to resave map using MPE editor and swap manually slavers and elephants. (I think one day there will be a converter that does the last thing automatically, but for now my knowledge of the map file format is just not sufficient to create such tool)

Just curious, I created a simple mod with MP 1.5.120 and just changed some building requirements.
Then I upgraded to the latest MP 1.5.141 version.
However, if I start my mod now I don't get the spell theme scenarios if I create a custom wizard at the start and select a spell sphere. The window just stays empty.
I only changed some building requirements village, town, etc. in the mod, so nothing critical.

Are there any compatibility problems if I try to start a mod that was created with an older MP version?

Note: I didn't try this when I had still 1.5.120 installed, so it might be another problem. But I've no idea what could cause the spell theme scenarios to vanish...

That's odd. Send me your mod (contacts are in my profile) so I can determine what exactly the problem is.

Thanks, I'll send it when I'm back from work. :-)

Ah, I got it =) I was confused because I misinterpreted your post.

This is easy: these missing things are in fact parts of a map, and every map has a mod ID associated with it. So when you try to load a map using a different mod (not one it was saved with), the map doesn't load - that's exactly what's happening here. It's not an MPE issue, AoW has been always working this way.

There is a workaround: you can open this map with the editor and resave it (it's located in %aowdir\Resource\Maps\sphrMPE.ahm). After you do it, the sphere map will be displayed correctly in your mod, but it will fail to load under any other mod obviously.

[This message has been edited by HellBrick (edited 09-16-2011 @ 03:00 AM).]

Ah, that makes sense. I also tried Dwiggs 4.0 and it had the same problem.
Somehow never noticed that before...

Thanks for clarifying Hellbrick.

Ok, so the issues..

1) I'd prefer not to swap "build watch tower" with "dig adit". Somehow I feel this digging ability seems too powerful sneaking weapon, especially if UG is entirely diggable.

2) The Crusader ability is already in use in SL mod, and I'd prefer to keep it as it is. It currently gives immunity to drain will in addition to willpower and is important ability for some high tier units in SL mod.

3) I'd prefer keeping the "wizard customizing trick" in SL where you get to choose the "body" and abilities of your wizard in addition to the wizard skills. It seems to me and some players as a feature, not a problem to be fixed..

4) While the increased cost of buying independent units seem like a good change, I think the increase is too much in MPE. Or at least for SL mod, where many recruits are lvl 4 or higher. I'd prefer if the cost was default for lvl 1 & 2 units, +25% for lvl 3, and +50% for lvl 4 and up. That way it would be worthwhile purchasing low level units from recruit sites and less tempting to buy high levels.

5) The wizard skill changes aren't very compatible with SL mod. At least Pacifist and Conqueror would be better the way they were, because there are powerful morphing abilities in play. Also I'd prefer Bureaucrat the way it was.


But there is so many plus sides in migrating to MPE patch, it might be worth it even without solving any of these issues. Things like diggable UG, unit / hero ability level system, various bug fixes etc are all very nice. Still, it would be nicer if at least some of these things could be addressed. I suppose only way would be to reverse engineer some of your changes? I would probably need to make bit altered version of the MPE-executable anyways, for the altered racial structure abilities, correct names on stuff, increased wall hitpoints etc..

Griff

[This message has been edited by Griffith (edited 09-23-2011 @ 04:58 PM).]

1) I'd prefer not to swap "build watch tower" with "dig adit". Somehow I feel this digging ability seems too powerful sneaking weapon, especially if UG is entirely diggable.

That's easy - just don't give Dig adit to anyone =) Creating this ability was one of the most difficult things we did, and it's just as difficult to reverse this (not to mention that I don't remember how it was done in the first place =))

2) The Crusader ability is already in use in SL mod, and I'd prefer to keep it as it is. It currently gives immunity to drain will in addition to willpower and is important ability for some high tier units in SL mod.

Hmm... As a workaround, you can try to use another lame ability for this masking and combine it with Willpower. Charmed, for example - I'm not sure that it hasn't any effect though. Or Shadow walking - that's a bit odd, but if only really powerful creatures are gonna have the undrainable Willpower, it probably won't really hurt them to be immune to the shadow sickness.

3) I'd prefer keeping the "wizard customizing trick" in SL where you get to choose the "body" and abilities of your wizard in addition to the wizard skills. It seems to me and some players as a feature, not a problem to be fixed..

4) While the increased cost of buying independent units seem like a good change, I think the increase is too much in MPE. Or at least for SL mod, where many recruits are lvl 4 or higher. I'd prefer if the cost was default for lvl 1 & 2 units, +25% for lvl 3, and +50% for lvl 4 and up. That way it would be worthwhile purchasing low level units from recruit sites and less tempting to buy high levels.

5) The wizard skill changes aren't very compatible with SL mod. At least Pacifist and Conqueror would be better the way they were, because there are powerful morphing abilities in play.

These all are about modifying the constants (starting skillpicks amount for wizards / price modifiers / etc.) - it's fairly easy to tweak them. If you email me or contact me in any other way, I can tell you where these things are located.

Also I'd prefer Bureaucrat the way it was.

No way back here, sorry.

[This message has been edited by HellBrick (edited 09-23-2011 @ 01:16 PM).]

Hiya,

I know this probably won't happen, but I think it would be great if a version of MP patch was released which didn't include all the various mod-type changes, but just the new features and fixes. I think it's great what you guys have accomplished and while I would dearly like to access all the cool stuff in MP patch, some of the changes that were made I don't want. The previous poster mentioned some of these and I would add things like some enchantments now giving weakness (I really can't see spending mana and upkeep to give your own units weaknesses!), the reduced mana income of races etc. After all, one of the big reasons people make mods is to be able to make the changes they want and not have to accept changes other mod-makers have made.

Don't get me wrong though, I greatly admire the work you guys are doing and look forward to future releases.

Cheers!

Kirky

The next version will be focused on extending the modding capabilities, so almost everything we did will be moved to the resources so these things can be tweaked or disabled. New stuff will be still introduced in default resources though

[This message has been edited by HellBrick (edited 09-23-2011 @ 06:06 PM).]

That sounds great!

Thanks.

Kirky

I think the same as Kirky.

For me some things in MPE are a true "no-go" but the bugfixes and many other cool things are great.

This is indeed very nice to read HellBrick.
The number of downloaded patches will raise if you let the modder or player decide what they like and what not.

OK, there is one more issue with migrating - a Druids Circle recruitment site in UPatch map disappeared when saved under MPE. Click on the hex in MPE Editor produces error message, something like "Resource not found TDruidsCircle 1286". There is a Druids Circle in MPE which looks exactly the same, but the conversion fails.

Can you tell the details: name of the map and coordinates of the buggy structure?

http://aow2.heavengames.com/downloads/showfile.php?fileid=895
83, 59, 0

I got it. It's a bug: in the long chain of mods that lead to MPE default resources someone cut the druid circle and then pasted it back into the same slot. Have no idea why would someone do this...

Anyway, nice catch! We'll fix it.