Great mod. I was very disappointed after finding Permanently Perished wasn't working, so this was great to find working.
Is there a way to add an existing character to the config list? How can I find out the string needed, or is that something that this mod itself generates at new game and so is only possible with a new character?
Edit: Just checked code. OS time stamp. So I guess not possible to add an existing character. Oh well!
I can't seem to get the actual permadeath feature of the mod to properly function. I'm getting the proper MCM entries,I get the permadeath message on start,and my lives display properly in my character sheet,but when dying the mod doesn't actually subtract a life (Or rather,add a death) and never shows the final death message. I can just reload forever.
At first I thought it might've been a simple mod incompatibility from any of my exactly "too many" mods changing a game setting without mentioning it,but after gutting every mod and MWSE plugin except this one the problem still occurs. I made sure the files weren't read-only,I made sure my MWSE was up-to-date,I made new characters with differing numbers of lives,and I even turned permadeath on and off from the title screen in case it just wasn't actually flagged as "on" despite saying it was. No matter how many knobs I fiddle,or new characters I make,even the dead cannot find peace on Vvardenfell.
I did notice while looking at the three text files in the actual mod folder for clues that the config file has a line for listing registered characters,but this section was always empty even after all my testing. I tried copy/pasting my non-test-character's name into the brackets thinking maybe character registration just wasn't firing,but even then I still had infinite lives. I am fresh out of ideas on how to address this myself,thus,we have arrived here.
That's weird. The mod clearly recognizes your character as being affected by permadeath (because otherwise you wouldn't see the lives display in the stat menu). But what's happening is, you die, reload a save for the same character, and the lives display is the same as it was before?
The table in config.lua is blank becaue it's a default for when the mod can't find the actual config file, which is at Data FIles\MWSE\config\OneLifeToLive.json. In that file you should see a table with all the characters you've created (represented by long numbers which are the unique IDs for each character) and listing their number of lives and number of deaths.
Do you see any errors in mwse.log?
Also, try deleting this config file (the json file in MWSE\config, NOT config.lua in MWSE\mods) and starting a new game again. Check the MCM from the main menu before starting the game to make sure everything is the way you want it, start a new game, save as soon as possible, then check the json config file and make sure your character is in there and the number of lives is correct (number of deaths at first should be 0). Then die with that character, then check the config file again and see if number of deaths is incremented.
Yeah,all of the mod's other functions are working,it just isn't incrementing deaths. I'll load a character and be told they have only one life to live,but upon dying I'm given the standard reload prompt and being told on reload that my character once again has only one life to live from both the on-screen message and my character sheet displaying 1 life. Characters given 2 lives were properly told they had 2 lives,but upon reload continued to have 2 lives in both cases. This screenshot is from my newest test character after removing the config file from the config folder,but all of my old characters had the same results: https://prnt.sc/t3yi8w It's cropped heavily due to Lightshot's size limits,but we all know what Seyda Neen looks like by now.
I looked up the config file and my characters were indeed registered on it,but were shown to have zero deaths despite all but one of them having died repeatedly for testing. I also checked to make sure files in the config folder weren't being marked read-only and made sure to tweak every option back and forth once to make sure the settings were being saved. Even with a fresh config file it's still acting up. My new character was registered in the new config file with the correct number of lives,but still showed no deaths after 3 or 4 of them for testing. I took a screenshot of the old file before removing it in case something in it looked off to you,but from what you've told me it looks correct. aside from the missing deaths. The screenshot is uploaded here: https://prnt.sc/t3yewy I'm actually only noticing now as I type this that one character on this list has a death registered,but I never noticed it during testing as none of my characters were ever denied a reload or displayed a different number of lives after death.
As for the MWSE log,OneLifeToLive lists as registering and initializing properly and the only errors were from Lucky Strike missing it's config file. I pulled the log to make sure it started fresh after I removed your mod's config file and wasn't getting any errors afterwards since I was also able to locate and move the Lucky Strike config where it belongs. If nothing else,you helped me fix a mod I never knew was broken.
Yeah the config file looks correct. There might be a weird conflict with some other mod. What other MWSE mods are you using? (I took a look at Lucky Strike and it doesn't look like it should be causing a conflict). You could try disabling some of your other MWSE mods to see if you can narrow down a conflict.
This mod works when you take damage (so if you're killing yourself with sethealth 0 or something it won't work - best way to check is to get yourself killed by guards). When you take damage, it checks to see what your new health is, and if it's <= 0 it increments deaths. So if any mod does something weird when you take damage there might be a conflict.
I'll make a version with a debug mode that logs info to mwse.log. That might help to troubleshoot.
It feels incredibly stupid to admit,but I'd just had that idea that sethealth 0 might've been why my testing wasn't panning out up until now,I'd just assumed it was the fastest way and had been doing that instead of dying in combat. I should've realized that sooner.,it just never occurred to me until I got to thinking about why one of my characters had a proper death registered and I remembered only one of them had actually died in combat.
I created a new character,let them bop a guard,and the mod worked fine. Even loaded up the test character from my screenshot and let a guard take him out,and it worked for him as well. I'm still not sure why my original permadeath character was able to load back in considering she died legitimately in combat,and unfortunately I don't have that save around anymore so I can't test if she dies properly when I die in combat again,but everything does appear to be working aside from that instance. I thought maybe it was because I'd closed the game during the death animation before the death prompt appeared,but I tested that out and it still worked as intended,so that may forever be a mystery.
Apologies for wasting your time with what turned out to be almost entirely user error on my end. I look forward to not looking forward to dying and losing a strong randomizer build.
Great mod and works like a charm for me (unlike Permanently Perished). Great effort, however after moving/deleting the mod folder and reloading the save my character lived again (of course you'd say!). That's the major "flaw" of these mods, if anyone wants to desperately recover their char after starting a permadeath game it can be done easily.
Something to address that coming to my mind is to tie the new savegames to your mod, so that if I remove it I can't reload those savegames anymore. Or maybe something more drastic like just deleting them. In that case if you start a permadeath game you must live with it and no way to recover your character once you have no lives left. Can anything like that doable with MWSE?
There really isn't a way to prevent a player from cheating if they're determined to do so. The data for each character (how many lives they have and how many times they've died) is saved in the config file, so a player can delete/modify the config file if they want to cheat.
If that didn't work they could just uninstall the mod, and even if I actually deleted savegame files players could always make copies of them. For that matter players could just open up the console and type "tgm" to enable god mode so they'll never die in the first place. No way to stop cheating, but as Null said about Permanently Perished, if you let it it can provide a good permadeath experience.
Absolutely you're right, there are several ways to bypass these mods, and I think the best solution (if you dont use the console or you don't make copies of your current character saves of course) is deleting the savegames altogether, so you can't really do anything about it at that point. Just my opinion!
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Is there a way to add an existing character to the config list? How can I find out the string needed, or is that something that this mod itself generates at new game and so is only possible with a new character?
Edit: Just checked code. OS time stamp. So I guess not possible to add an existing character. Oh well!
At first I thought it might've been a simple mod incompatibility from any of my exactly "too many" mods changing a game setting without mentioning it,but after gutting every mod and MWSE plugin except this one the problem still occurs. I made sure the files weren't read-only,I made sure my MWSE was up-to-date,I made new characters with differing numbers of lives,and I even turned permadeath on and off from the title screen in case it just wasn't actually flagged as "on" despite saying it was. No matter how many knobs I fiddle,or new characters I make,even the dead cannot find peace on Vvardenfell.
I did notice while looking at the three text files in the actual mod folder for clues that the config file has a line for listing registered characters,but this section was always empty even after all my testing. I tried copy/pasting my non-test-character's name into the brackets thinking maybe character registration just wasn't firing,but even then I still had infinite lives. I am fresh out of ideas on how to address this myself,thus,we have arrived here.
The table in config.lua is blank becaue it's a default for when the mod can't find the actual config file, which is at Data FIles\MWSE\config\OneLifeToLive.json. In that file you should see a table with all the characters you've created (represented by long numbers which are the unique IDs for each character) and listing their number of lives and number of deaths.
Do you see any errors in mwse.log?
Also, try deleting this config file (the json file in MWSE\config, NOT config.lua in MWSE\mods) and starting a new game again. Check the MCM from the main menu before starting the game to make sure everything is the way you want it, start a new game, save as soon as possible, then check the json config file and make sure your character is in there and the number of lives is correct (number of deaths at first should be 0). Then die with that character, then check the config file again and see if number of deaths is incremented.
I looked up the config file and my characters were indeed registered on it,but were shown to have zero deaths despite all but one of them having died repeatedly for testing. I also checked to make sure files in the config folder weren't being marked read-only and made sure to tweak every option back and forth once to make sure the settings were being saved. Even with a fresh config file it's still acting up. My new character was registered in the new config file with the correct number of lives,but still showed no deaths after 3 or 4 of them for testing. I took a screenshot of the old file before removing it in case something in it looked off to you,but from what you've told me it looks correct. aside from the missing deaths. The screenshot is uploaded here: https://prnt.sc/t3yewy I'm actually only noticing now as I type this that one character on this list has a death registered,but I never noticed it during testing as none of my characters were ever denied a reload or displayed a different number of lives after death.
As for the MWSE log,OneLifeToLive lists as registering and initializing properly and the only errors were from Lucky Strike missing it's config file. I pulled the log to make sure it started fresh after I removed your mod's config file and wasn't getting any errors afterwards since I was also able to locate and move the Lucky Strike config where it belongs. If nothing else,you helped me fix a mod I never knew was broken.
This mod works when you take damage (so if you're killing yourself with sethealth 0 or something it won't work - best way to check is to get yourself killed by guards). When you take damage, it checks to see what your new health is, and if it's <= 0 it increments deaths. So if any mod does something weird when you take damage there might be a conflict.
I'll make a version with a debug mode that logs info to mwse.log. That might help to troubleshoot.
I created a new character,let them bop a guard,and the mod worked fine. Even loaded up the test character from my screenshot and let a guard take him out,and it worked for him as well. I'm still not sure why my original permadeath character was able to load back in considering she died legitimately in combat,and unfortunately I don't have that save around anymore so I can't test if she dies properly when I die in combat again,but everything does appear to be working aside from that instance. I thought maybe it was because I'd closed the game during the death animation before the death prompt appeared,but I tested that out and it still worked as intended,so that may forever be a mystery.
Apologies for wasting your time with what turned out to be almost entirely user error on my end. I look forward to not looking forward to dying and losing a strong randomizer build.
That's the major "flaw" of these mods, if anyone wants to desperately recover their char after starting a permadeath game it can be done easily.
Something to address that coming to my mind is to tie the new savegames to your mod, so that if I remove it I can't reload those savegames anymore. Or maybe something more drastic like just deleting them. In that case if you start a permadeath game you must live with it and no way to recover your character once you have no lives left. Can anything like that doable with MWSE?
There really isn't a way to prevent a player from cheating if they're determined to do so. The data for each character (how many lives they have and how many times they've died) is saved in the config file, so a player can delete/modify the config file if they want to cheat.
If that didn't work they could just uninstall the mod, and even if I actually deleted savegame files players could always make copies of them. For that matter players could just open up the console and type "tgm" to enable god mode so they'll never die in the first place. No way to stop cheating, but as Null said about Permanently Perished, if you let it it can provide a good permadeath experience.