Support the mod's development with BuyMeACoffee :D
26 October 2024 Version 5.0 is finally done, and truly puts the flare in Manaflare! I completely overhauled the VFX, and nearly everything from base aura VFX to spell VFX are custom made. Now, each variant has a signature aura, and uniques have auras that are indeed unique and reflect their greater power. If updating from a version prior to 5.0, you must respawn the Manaflares, including the uniques, to see the new VFX! 5.0 also includes a new unique and balance adjustments. This update took over 100 hours to finish, but it was well worth it, and establishes Manaflare as one of the most unique and polished mods on the BG3 Nexus. Please leave comments, I'd love to read how everyone is enjoying the new VFX. And please spread awareness of this mod!
Also, v5.0 finally makes Manaflare what I always imagined it to be, and thus will (hopefully) be the final major update for the mod. It's taken me hundreds of hours developing it to get it to this state, and I want to dedicate that time to other pursuits. As always, I'll be watching for bug reports and suggestions, and will continue to make adjustments and add new uniques when inspired. But I have no plans for further major updates. Thank you to everyone who's ever played with the mod and extra special thanks to those who have left and leave comments, it's really validating to read them! Enjoy the new flare!!
______________________________________
Manaflare was featured by GameRant, check it out! If you ever feature this mod in a video or article, please tell me, because I think that would be super cool!
I have been using this in my new playthrough for a while now and just wanted to drop by to say thanks so much for sharing! Really adds a new level of immersion for spellcasters :) Genuinely don't think I can have a spellcaster run without your mod now, it's just become so integral to my immersion lol
Wow, thank you so much for sharing the kind words! It was so cool to see this comment that I took a screenshot and shared it with my friends :D
This is the vision I had for the mod, so I'm really happy it turned out how I hoped it would and people are enjoying it this much. It really means a lot to me that all the time and thought I put into Manaflare was worth it. Thank you again for taking the time to leave me a comment!
First of all this is one of the greatest item mods in BG3 to date easily and I truly appreciate your hard work! Secondly I wanted to ask, are the 4 unique Manaflares the only ones in the game currently, or are their more littered through Act 2 and 3?
Hello! I've been enjoying your mod so far but I think I've run into an issue with console/controller, I'm just not able to equip the spellblade manaflares in my off hand since you can't "drag and drop" switch them. Not sure if I'm doing something wrong but I've tried equipping the manaflare in my main hand, the weapon I want in my off hand, and then trying to equip the manaflare into the off hand but it just unequips it instead.
Either way tho love the mod and you seem to have many more cool ideas! :)
Edit: now it is working properly but I have no idea what I did to get it to work
Is there any way to make any of these count as a weapon? I was thinking of making a Manaflare and Shield warrior, but towards the class features, it says I need to equip a melee weapon. The visuals of this mod look so cool, I'm just wondering if I'd need to choose a different class...
Loving the mod and all the effects looks great. Only concern is some of the boss manaflares, especially since you get them in act 1. An at will Misty Step is very strong. The same for the Commanding Strike effect. They should probably be limited in some way.
Apologies for the delay. I was using all my free time to improve the mod for the last few months and decided to take a needed break over the holidays. But now I'm back!
Thanks, I'm happy you like the mod! I haven't encountered any issues with uniques not dropping in any of my playthroughs. I'm not sure what could be causing the issue. Can you provide some more specifics? My initial thought is that if not looted from a corpse, uniques spawn in the inventory of the character that landed the killing blow, so it's not always your main character. Check the inventory of all the characters you've ever had in your party.
yes it's rather odd. So was going down to fight the phase spiders and manage to win but no one in the party was given her glove. It wasn't until the session afterwards did I suddenly have them appear in my inventory.
From what I found is if you make a new game kill the bosses that have the gloves or manage to make them allies like Kauga in your first run of the game without reloading the gloves don't drop only after a reloading or starting up the next session does it fix itself.
I've tried looking through the posts here and looking at YouTube videos for some general information, but I think either there's user error on my part or I'm bugged in some way? I've never used or installed this mod before, so after I did and logged in for the first time, Minthara's item dropped automatically into my inventory; I'm currently in Act II and she's a party member. I found the "Manifest Manaflare Vessel" in my spell book (it wasn't automatically loaded into my taskbar), but even after I unlocked the taskbar, I can't drag the icon there or interact with it in any way via the spell book. I'm a newcomer to the game, so maybe I'm just not understanding how this interface should work?
Welcome to BG3 and thanks for choosing Manaflare as one of your first mods!
For the unique Manaflares, I wrote scripts that check if the reward conditions are already met upon loading into the game in case someone installs the mod mid-playthrough. So Minthara's spawning into your inventory means it's working as intended.
For the Vessel, it not being in the taskbar happens when installing mid-playthrough. I think it's just a bug with the game, so it's not something I can fix, unfortunately. To drag it (and other spells) into the task bar, you have to select the Custom bar and drag it into that. Custom is the only one you can drag spells into.
Since you installed mid-playthrough and are in Act 2, you should have been awarded the other uniques as well, assuming you killed the applicable bosses.
I knew it had to be my error, lol. I was trying to drag the passive Manaflare icon into the "Passive" tab of the taskbar. I had no idea what the "Custom" tab was even for until you replied to my comment here. I'm a noob! So, thank you for this info!
I don't know why one the previous Manaflares (prior to Minthara) didn't drop for me (I killed one of the bosses, but spared the other one), but maybe it's because I was mid-playthrough. Hers was the only notification and item I received.
However, all this said, the Vessel is working perfectly and these items are all beautiful. Thanks for your quick reply and all your hard work on this!
You're welcome! I did the same thing the first time I tried to customize the spell bar. I'm sure a lot of players did.
It's concerning for me that the other manaflare didn't drop. It's supposed to even if you install mid-playthrough. Something I'm going to have to test for the next patch.
Hello! I wanted to get back to you about this. As soon as I teleported back into an Act 1 zone, the two other manaflares automatically dropped into my inventory. I have all three for the amount of story I've completed so far. Had I installed this mod at the start of my playthrough (instead of during Act 2), I'm sure they would have dropped as intended.
Hello. None yet. But I do have a couple more ideas for Striker uniques in mind. Uniques take a very long time to develop though, so be sure to keep checking for updates over the next few months. Thanks for playing with the mod!
I seem to be getting some odd animation behavior with a Spellblade Manaflare equipped in my offhand, the character using what appears to be an Unarmed stance. I'm using the Blackguard class with the starting stage of the sword from Deathsong in my main hand and, instead of playing Blackguard closer to the style of a Paladin (It's basically a darker Oathbreaker class), I wanted to use your mod to dual wield.
I did notice you made the spellblade with the intention of having it in the main hand, so I thought I'd let you know about this. In my instance, I could see it being of more use in my offhand, instead.
Edit: It also causes Smite spell animations to bug out. I would consider using the Spellblade Manaflare in my main hand, as was originally intended, but by doing so, I lose access to the sword's Weapon Actions. I've also noticed the animations seem to function fine with the Mage Manaflare in the offhand, or at least the Smite spell animations work properly.
Edit 2: Mage's Manaflare is confirmed to work properly in the offhand. Unfortunately, being a melee-centric class, the knockback can be inconvenient.
Thanks for the testing and detailed report with screenshots and mod links. Super helpful!
I've never encountered this animation issue, nor was I able to reproduce in testing using the same mods and weapon setup. The only similar animation peculiarity I've seen are when you have any variant other than Spellblade equipped in the main hand and a weapon in the off hand. The main hand determines which animation set is used. All variants but Spellblade are coded as unarmed, which causes the game to use the unarmed animation set and the issue you described here.
This doesn't happen with Spellblades because they're coded as daggers, so proper weapon animations work with them, which is also why spells, like Smites, that require a weapon only work properly with Spellblades. Spellblades being coded as daggers and having those animations made sense to me given the playstyle they're for and that they must be used with weapons. The other variants felt odd with dagger animations since they're typically either used without weapons or in the offhand, avoiding the animation issue.
But what's very odd about your report is that it's with Spellblades in the off hand. It's the exact opposite of what should be happening. Animation issues are only with non-Spellblades and only when wielded on the main hand. So I honestly have no idea what is causing the problem. My guess is something in another mod that is possibly messing with animations or equipment types. Or maybe you're not using the most recent version of the mod?
Sorry there isn't more I can do to help, but hopefully this explanation of how the mod works helps narrow down the cause of the issue for you. I had one other player report this same issue, so maybe you're both using the same mod? My testing confirmed that Manaflare alone isn't the cause of the problem. If you can narrow down which mod in combination with Manaflare causes the issue, I can possibly find the root of the problem and either fix it in Manaflare or work with the other mod author if the cause is their mod.
I'm going to try loading your mod lower in my list. If it's something seemingly unrelated that affecting it, and loading your mod later in the list doesn't work, I wouldn't even know where to start in regards to fixing the issue. I'm currently running 285 mods. lol
I'll keep testing and see what I might be able to come up with. Heck, it could even be something like Weapons on Hip - Revised, for all I know. I don't really have any mods that modify default animations aside from that. Most of the mods I use which have custom animations and effects all rely on their own libraries.
Whoa 285 is a pretty long list, haha. I run 130, which is what I tested your report with and didn't have any issues. If you figure out which mod is conflicting, please tell me. I'll post here if the other player figures out what's causing it with their game, too (they reported it on mod.io).
I am not so sure it's your mod that's the problem... The same happens when wielding a normal dagger in the off-hand. This is likely on my end, and it looks like I'm going to have to do some digging.
The animations that are messed up are the in-combat idle animation and the Smite animations for Blackguard. ------------------------- After testing, normal Paladin smites are fully functional, however, the idle stance is still showing "unarmed".
The incredibly odd thing about it all is the fact the Spellblade is the only one that gives me these issues, regardless of what type of weapon is in the main hand. I even tried swapping the Spellblade to the main hand and using another type of weapon in the offhand, but no dice. This isn't something I've encountered before.
Very interesting. I'm perplexed. It's difficult for me to help test since I'm not having any animation issues. However, because Spellblades are coded as daggers, it makes sense that the Spellblades are the only manaflares that are affected when seemingly every dagger is also affected. My bet is that you have a mod that messes with daggers and their animations or equipment type settings somehow.
You think you were perplexed before... In this screenshot, Tav, Gale, and Astarion are all holding Spellblade Manaflares in their offhands.
Tav is using the wrong animations, the manaflare is invisible for Astarion, and Gale seems to be having a good ole time with no issues. What the actual heck is going on....
This issue is still confirmed to be ONLY affecting the Spellblade. I'm going to reload the game and uninstall your mod to test the animations for Tav where daggers are concerned. Just trying to narrow down what might be causing this. If the animations for Tav are still broken afterward, then I can safely say it isn't your mod causing the animation troubles.
Update: After removing your mod and testing the animations, I can confirm that it is NOT your mod causing the issue, merely being affected by it. Aside from the odd Astarion invisibility thing, anyway... The animation bugs are not caused by this mod.
The real question is, what's actually going on? Considering it only seems to affect my Tav, I can't help but wonder. Still, it doesn't seem to be your problem, so that's awesome. lol I always hate heaping problems onto mod authors and I am relieved that it's not your mod causing it.
I'm going to reinstall your mod and continue to use it because let's face it... It's freaking cool. Besides... I can work around the issues and ignore them by not having my Tav use a dagger of any type.
Further Update:
Okay, I'm SERIOUSLY perplexed. I decided to test on a separate Tav. I thought it might be either universal or might possibly have something to do with the WotD Aasimar mod... but that doesn't seem to be the case. Both Tavs are Aasimars, one Scourge and the other Fallen. While the first Tav was a Blackguard, this one is a Paladin. The animations are working fine on my Paladin.
The only differences I can imagine between them is the difference in Origin (the first is is a Durge, and considering that difference, I can't help but wonder if it would be possible that Interesting Origins might have a part to play...) and I'm using Path of Undeath on the Durge Tav. Considering I actually respecced the character into a Paladin and it didn't fix the stance animation, though the Paladin Smite spells worked fine, there's got to be something happening with my Durge to cause the issues.
On this second Tav, the Spellblade works fine. I tested the Radiant and Minthara's Spellblades both.
Update 3: It seems that ALL custom Smite spells are affected. While wielding a dagger (or dagger-classed weapon) in the offhand, any Smite spell added by a mod has its striking animation removed while vanilla smites work fine. The character simply runs up and stands still while the strike happens. I noticed it when I tried to use the special Smite spells tied to Clemency - Legendary Longsword on my paladin.
God, I wish I knew why this is happening. It's GOT to be something to do with daggers...
Thank you for the continued updates. My heart started racing a bit as I was reading up to the verdict of my mod being the cause or not, haha!
I'm actually extremely interested in what the cause is. It's like a mystery novel! I really wish I could help you investigate. But I'll keep pondering the data points you explained, maybe I can think of something. Please update me if you have the time when you find out.
Oh, and Minthara's looks awesome with that character!
Unfortunately, I've had to put my investigation on hold for now as I've returned to work (a very demanding career, I was enjoying a few days off work when I posted initially), but I will continue to mull the problem about in my mind to see what I might be able to come up with. I have a few mods in mind which might be the culprits, but I believe it's quite likely a multi-layered problem that will take time to troubleshoot.
Also, thank you. I love my Paladin of Lathander Tav. So shiny!
Edit: Oh, before I forget to mention it again... I did notice that, when using Minthara's Spellblade, I was able to perform shield bashes as reactions. My Paladin Tav was specced for shield usage and has both the Sentinel and Shield Master feats. I don't know if that is of any significance to you, but it seemed odd considering a Spellblade Manaflare is tagged as a dagger, by your description.
That does seem odd. In the game code, shields are categorized under Armor, not weapons, which means the configurations that are possible for each are completely different. So it's not even possible for me to accidentally code Minthara's as a shield somehow. So this is pretty baffling, haha.
236 comments
26 October 2024
Version 5.0 is finally done, and truly puts the flare in Manaflare! I completely overhauled the VFX, and nearly everything from base aura VFX to spell VFX are custom made. Now, each variant has a signature aura, and uniques have auras that are indeed unique and reflect their greater power. If updating from a version prior to 5.0, you must respawn the Manaflares, including the uniques, to see the new VFX! 5.0 also includes a new unique and balance adjustments. This update took over 100 hours to finish, but it was well worth it, and establishes Manaflare as one of the most unique and polished mods on the BG3 Nexus. Please leave comments, I'd love to read how everyone is enjoying the new VFX. And please spread awareness of this mod!
Also, v5.0 finally makes Manaflare what I always imagined it to be, and thus will (hopefully) be the final major update for the mod. It's taken me hundreds of hours developing it to get it to this state, and I want to dedicate that time to other pursuits. As always, I'll be watching for bug reports and suggestions, and will continue to make adjustments and add new uniques when inspired. But I have no plans for further major updates. Thank you to everyone who's ever played with the mod and extra special thanks to those who have left and leave comments, it's really validating to read them! Enjoy the new flare!!
______________________________________
Manaflare was featured by GameRant, check it out!
If you ever feature this mod in a video or article, please tell me, because I think that would be super cool!
This is the vision I had for the mod, so I'm really happy it turned out how I hoped it would and people are enjoying it this much. It really means a lot to me that all the time and thought I put into Manaflare was worth it. Thank you again for taking the time to leave me a comment!
Edit: It's determined by location. I was near the Creche when I installed. Going back to the first area granted me the ones I was missing.
Either way tho love the mod and you seem to have many more cool ideas! :)
Edit: now it is working properly but I have no idea what I did to get it to work
An at will Misty Step is very strong. The same for the Commanding Strike effect. They should probably be limited in some way.
holidays. But now I'm back!
Thanks, I'm happy you like the mod! I haven't encountered any issues with uniques not dropping in any of my playthroughs. I'm not sure what could be causing the issue. Can you provide some more specifics? My initial thought is that if not looted from a corpse, uniques spawn in the inventory of the character that landed the killing blow, so it's not always your main character. Check the inventory of all the characters you've ever had in your party.
From what I found is if you make a new game kill the bosses that have the gloves or manage to make them allies like Kauga in your first run of the game without reloading the gloves don't drop only after a reloading or starting up the next session does it fix itself.
Honestly I am rather confused.
For the unique Manaflares, I wrote scripts that check if the reward conditions are already met upon loading into the game in case someone installs the mod mid-playthrough. So Minthara's spawning into your inventory means it's working as intended.
For the Vessel, it not being in the taskbar happens when installing mid-playthrough. I think it's just a bug with the game, so it's not something I can fix, unfortunately. To drag it (and other spells) into the task bar, you have to select the Custom bar and drag it into that. Custom is the only one you can drag spells into.
I don't know why one the previous Manaflares (prior to Minthara) didn't drop for me (I killed one of the bosses, but spared the other one), but maybe it's because I was mid-playthrough. Hers was the only notification and item I received.
However, all this said, the Vessel is working perfectly and these items are all beautiful. Thanks for your quick reply and all your hard work on this!
It's concerning for me that the other manaflare didn't drop. It's supposed to even if you install mid-playthrough. Something I'm going to have to test for the next patch.
Thank you and I'm happy you like the mod!
Thanks again!
I did notice you made the spellblade with the intention of having it in the main hand, so I thought I'd let you know about this. In my instance, I could see it being of more use in my offhand, instead.
Edit: It also causes Smite spell animations to bug out. I would consider using the Spellblade Manaflare in my main hand, as was originally intended, but by doing so, I lose access to the sword's Weapon Actions. I've also noticed the animations seem to function fine with the Mage Manaflare in the offhand, or at least the Smite spell animations work properly.
Edit 2: Mage's Manaflare is confirmed to work properly in the offhand. Unfortunately, being a melee-centric class, the knockback can be inconvenient.
I've never encountered this animation issue, nor was I able to reproduce in testing using the same mods and weapon setup. The only similar animation peculiarity I've seen are when you have any variant other than Spellblade equipped in the main hand and a weapon in the off hand. The main hand determines which animation set is used. All variants but Spellblade are coded as unarmed, which causes the game to use the unarmed animation set and the issue you described here.
This doesn't happen with Spellblades because they're coded as daggers, so proper weapon animations work with them, which is also why spells, like Smites, that require a weapon only work properly with Spellblades. Spellblades being coded as daggers and having those animations made sense to me given the playstyle they're for and that they must be used with weapons. The other variants felt odd with dagger animations since they're typically either used without weapons or in the offhand, avoiding the animation issue.
But what's very odd about your report is that it's with Spellblades in the off hand. It's the exact opposite of what should be happening. Animation issues are only with non-Spellblades and only when wielded on the main hand. So I honestly have no idea what is causing the problem. My guess is something in another mod that is possibly messing with animations or equipment types. Or maybe you're not using the most recent version of the mod?
Sorry there isn't more I can do to help, but hopefully this explanation of how the mod works helps narrow down the cause of the issue for you. I had one other player report this same issue, so maybe you're both using the same mod? My testing confirmed that Manaflare alone isn't the cause of the problem. If you can narrow down which mod in combination with Manaflare causes the issue, I can possibly find the root of the problem and either fix it in Manaflare or work with the other mod author if the cause is their mod.
I'll keep testing and see what I might be able to come up with. Heck, it could even be something like Weapons on Hip - Revised, for all I know. I don't really have any mods that modify default animations aside from that. Most of the mods I use which have custom animations and effects all rely on their own libraries.
The animations that are messed up are the in-combat idle animation and the Smite animations for Blackguard.
-------------------------
After testing, normal Paladin smites are fully functional, however, the idle stance is still showing "unarmed".
The incredibly odd thing about it all is the fact the Spellblade is the only one that gives me these issues, regardless of what type of weapon is in the main hand. I even tried swapping the Spellblade to the main hand and using another type of weapon in the offhand, but no dice. This isn't something I've encountered before.
Tav is using the wrong animations, the manaflare is invisible for Astarion, and Gale seems to be having a good ole time with no issues. What the actual heck is going on....
This issue is still confirmed to be ONLY affecting the Spellblade. I'm going to reload the game and uninstall your mod to test the animations for Tav where daggers are concerned. Just trying to narrow down what might be causing this. If the animations for Tav are still broken afterward, then I can safely say it isn't your mod causing the animation troubles.
Aside from the odd Astarion invisibility thing, anyway... The animation bugs are not caused by this mod.
The real question is, what's actually going on? Considering it only seems to affect my Tav, I can't help but wonder. Still, it doesn't seem to be your problem, so that's awesome. lol I always hate heaping problems onto mod authors and I am relieved that it's not your mod causing it.
I'm going to reinstall your mod and continue to use it because let's face it... It's freaking cool. Besides... I can work around the issues and ignore them by not having my Tav use a dagger of any type.
Further Update:
Okay, I'm SERIOUSLY perplexed. I decided to test on a separate Tav. I thought it might be either universal or might possibly have something to do with the WotD Aasimar mod... but that doesn't seem to be the case. Both Tavs are Aasimars, one Scourge and the other Fallen. While the first Tav was a Blackguard, this one is a Paladin. The animations are working fine on my Paladin.
The only differences I can imagine between them is the difference in Origin (the first is is a Durge, and considering that difference, I can't help but wonder if it would be possible that Interesting Origins might have a part to play...) and I'm using Path of Undeath on the Durge Tav. Considering I actually respecced the character into a Paladin and it didn't fix the stance animation, though the Paladin Smite spells worked fine, there's got to be something happening with my Durge to cause the issues.
On this second Tav, the Spellblade works fine. I tested the Radiant and Minthara's Spellblades both.
Update 3: It seems that ALL custom Smite spells are affected. While wielding a dagger (or dagger-classed weapon) in the offhand, any Smite spell added by a mod has its striking animation removed while vanilla smites work fine. The character simply runs up and stands still while the strike happens. I noticed it when I tried to use the special Smite spells tied to Clemency - Legendary Longsword on my paladin.
God, I wish I knew why this is happening. It's GOT to be something to do with daggers...
I'm actually extremely interested in what the cause is. It's like a mystery novel! I really wish I could help you investigate. But I'll keep pondering the data points you explained, maybe I can think of something. Please update me if you have the time when you find out.
Oh, and Minthara's looks awesome with that character!
Also, thank you. I love my Paladin of Lathander Tav. So shiny!
Edit: Oh, before I forget to mention it again... I did notice that, when using Minthara's Spellblade, I was able to perform shield bashes as reactions. My Paladin Tav was specced for shield usage and has both the Sentinel and Shield Master feats. I don't know if that is of any significance to you, but it seemed odd considering a Spellblade Manaflare is tagged as a dagger, by your description.