0 of 0
About this mod
This mod is an extention to Steel is all you need(and No Levels). It makes specters immune to steel swords, and increase the durability cost of using the silver sword, in addition to fixing the oil applying so you now can apply steel oil to silver sword and vice versa.
- Permissions and credits
- Changelogs
- Donations
Requirements:
Any mod that lets you use your steel sword to attack other monsters. Such as Steel is all you need, or No Levels. Default modifier for steel(1.75), gives it close to a 1:1 with the damage displayed in the inventory in both mods.
About
This mod was made to be an extention to Steel is all you need or No Levels The issue with those mods is that there is very little reason, or insentive to use the steel sword, so while you can, you won't.
So to fix this, I wanted to give an incentive to use the steel sword, but I also didn't want to render the silver sword useless, but instead being a boon, something you'd pull out to use when the situation call for it(more akeen to the books). So what I settled on was to increase the durability cost of using the silver sword(accross the board) by a factor of 75(7.5% durability loss on each hit). This way, you will have to be a bit more carefull as to when and where to use the silver sword. Figthing a golem might not be the best of ideas with the silver sword, as it'll easily break mid fight.
However, a new issue arrises with this, in that you are less likely to want to use the silver sword(it breaking quickly), and instead maintain to use the steel sword, as such I've also boosted up the silver sword a bit to increase the damage it does against monsters(default a factor of 1.3). Specters are also made immune to steel, so you have to use a silver sword to fight them(however as in vanilla, they barely reduce durability of the silver sword).
I do however not touch resistance, so creatures such as golems etc are very resistant against steel swords. Steel sword also do less damage than silver swords, so I have given steel swords a damage modifier(only applied against monsters \ silver-health).
Installation
Place the modSilverSwrdSpct folder into your mods folder, then move the bin folder to your base folder(Witcher3 install directory).
Complete Edition Installation:
Same as above, except for the mod-menu to appear, you need to edit the dx11filelist.txt or dx12filelist.txt - alternatively you can use this
I want to translate the mod-menu texts:
I've provided the source .csv which you can edit (only edit the entries under the text column), then you just run it through w3strings, as detailed here.
Configuration Settings(option_ is added infront as I haven't made localisation files, and I am too lazy to do, or learn how to make them). FYI: Can get default values pressing the 'default' at the top of the mod menu.
swords don't hit enemies if broken | On - Contrary to it's name, it only affects the silver sword, this ensures the silver sword can't be used(cause no damage) when broken.
silver sword blocks health regen | Off - This stops regen on monsters like ghouls when hit by the silver sword(visual effect might still apply).
Specters and magical targetable with oil | Off - This allow you to hit specters\magicals with the steelsword if you apply specter\magical oil.
No modifier for specters | On - This means the silversword is not a power sword against specters, it's unbalancing to have a sword required to kill something, while also doing insane damage(and not reducing durability by much).
Cursed Ones immune without oil | on - Just as it sounds like, monsters in the cursed ones category will be immune to steel sword unless it's coated in oil.
Vampires immune without oil | on - Same as above, but vampires.
Durability modifier | 75 - how much more durability damage the silver sword recieves when used. If you feel it gets broken too quickly, reduce this. If not broken quick enough, increase it. 75 felt like the best balance in the prologue to me. It's not as brittle to be broken after a few swings, but it's enough you don't want to run around killing common monsters with it.
Silver damage modifier | 2.50 - This is how much extra damage the silver sword does. 2.5 essentially makes it into a 'slight' power weapon, not a godlike thing, but enough that it'll shorten the majority of fights with monsters down. The cost of it's high damage lies in it's lower durability. If you rise this, I highly suggest rising the durability modifier as well. at 3 you should use 100 - 125 durability modifier.
Steel Damage Modifier | 1.75 - This increases base damage of all steel weapons against monsters(silver health bars, red health bars are untouched in this mod, always). Reasonsing for this is simply that monsters have 3 times the health of red healtbar enemies, so default sword damage is just too low. But at a modifier higher than 3, the silver sword feels more and more unecessary. 1.75 I found to be the best balance of it not being TOO strong(to diminish the silver sword), but also not frustratingly annoying. The balancing was primarily chosen in the first ghoul fight(as this is the best representation of game against the player, you have no helpfull tools at all).
Steel oil damage modifier | 3 - This does NOT add ontop of steel damage modifier, they are seperate calculations! making this 1.75 would make oils do the extra oil damage they do. Want oil to only do the extra oil %? Match this with Steel Damage Modifier.
The reason why Oil Damage modifier is so high, is to make fights a lot less frustrating. If you're using an oil preperation mod, having fights drag out too long would be awful and unbalacing, but at the same time, we don't want it to be too high. 3 was a good balance compromise as to again, not step on the toes of the silver sword.
Anyway, the correct values are the values you feel most happy with, this is why the mod is configurable!
Optional Gampad files:
This optional file changes the oils to ensure each and every oil is of both oil categories(Silver and steel). The issue is it seems to be a hardcoded thing in Witcher 3 when it comes to applying oil using a button press, this circumvents that by ensuring a double category(like beast oil).
That is all this optional download does, the oils apart from that are identical to vanilla.
However! The issue with doing this is it may or may not have a serious compatibility issue with any other mod that alters oil in anyway(on the XML level). Script Merger does allow for XML editing, but I have no idea how well it does this, as such use at your own risk!
NB!
I have not playtested ciri sequenses against monsters, I do not know how this affects that, feedback is welcomed!
Playtested White orchard(Death March Difficulty):
So last time I wrote this it became a rambling mess, so I revisited the prologue using my default values(which I set based upon my experience last time) in hope of making a more coherant piece. I'll outline the initial important fights bellow, and different aproaches to them.
This is using the default mod settings on death march difficulty:
Level 1 with starting gear:
Initial ghoul fight is a bit difficult, and takes a bit more attacking to kill them(especially because of their regen), however only one way to realistically tackle this, either use the silver sword(which will end a lot of it quickly) at the cost of needing to go repair, or use the steelsword. I opted for the latter, which ends up with not using Quen, but instead dodge and well timed igni(igni dealing the best damage at this point) with a few slashes of the steel sword mixed in.
drowner at the beach(lvl 4), I did this 3 times in different styles outlined bellow:
1: with the silver sword it goes very easily, however only get to take out 4-5 drowners before the sword is unusable(as intended).
2: Using the steelsword this is a lot slower, and far more difficult(also, as intended), and makes you rely on igni or coating the necrophage oil(necrophage oil feels like a must for proper damage!). This is of course, all intended. First skill\talent to pick and use, is the Rage Management as the need to pop out igni's is by far more important now than before.
3: with necrophage oil(on the steelsword): It feels very underwelming(especially compared to with the silver sword), however it's still 3 times the damage as before, so with well timed strikes, it at least doesn't take forever to kill them. Because of no rage management, I don't use quen and instead only favor Igni, also perform timed heavy attacks, rather than spam light attacks.
As I was already in the area, I did the ghoul side quest(with the dog etc), this with steelsword(25 - 31dmg, 2% sign intensity rune) + necrophage oil. Feels a bit better than the first encounter with ghouls(on account of doing x3 damage because of the oil), still very tempting to pop the silver sword, but just not worth it. Relying on Igni a lot. Also important to try and focus on one ghoul at a time(their regen is too high in comparison to the amount of damage steelsword does, you just don't dwindle down fast enough when spreading it around).
The next logical fight to test was of course the first monster hunt, the specter. default configuration does not affect specters all that much(so this is essentially a vanilla fight(reasoning for this is, specters work differently on durrability, therefore it made more sense to not have specters recieve the bonuses as it'd unbalance the game).
Lastly Griffing fight, I did twice(with viper swords):
1: silversword - It quickly dwindles down it's health, but only lasted until about 50% of his health, definitly something to wait for in the last part of the fight! So I reloaded and didn't the steelsword only instead.
2: Steelsword - Definitly a far more difficult fight(or more dragged out, at least). The damage done is pretty low(as we don't have any oil), but it just means we need to use igni to soften him up. Essentially feels more lore friendly and immersive, as monsters are supposed to be thought and difficult! Anyway, took me about 2 minutes to dwindle his health down(got a bit lucky with the damage numbers on top of a few good igni shots) and have him fly away, after that I'd normally have started with the silver sword(which would end the fight more or less immediatly), but kept with the steelsword, making the fight drag out a bit(Vesimir is an absolute beast, and helps extremely well with the fight! NPCs are no longer useless static things).
In summary:
You definitly want to emphazie on timed heavy attacks, spamming light attacks is just not viable, the damage output is noticably low so fights last longer, making enemies more dangerous when they hit back(on death march). Because of the low damage you'll be using signs more, meaning your defence suffers(less upping quen).
Against bigger stronger monsters, you'll want to dwindle them down and weaken them with your steelsword, to finally finish them off with the silver sword(when fights tend to get more difficult and\or more stressfull). Starting off with the silver sword just means you get to the climaxe and phase changes quicker, rather than getting past that.
Compatibility
You'll need to use scriptmerger for any mod that edits either InventoryComponent, r4Game, InventoryContext or DamageManagerProcessor.
If you are using a mod that make changes to any of these functions, a manual merge might be required(as in, you opening up the file(s) yourself and make the correct code changes, not just a manual script merge fix):
r4Game:
OnGameLoadInitFinisherSuccess > Unlikely to cause issues, if it does it's just a matter of copy\pasting my code anywhere before\after whatever other code
damageManagerprocessor:
InitializeActionVars > Same as with r4Game, just copy code in if any issues
ProcessActionDamage > Logic changes, manual merging required in almost every case!
ProcessActionDamage_ReduceDurability > (Only an issue if playerAttacker.inv.ReduceItemDurability is changed as I introduce 2 new arguments to it).
InventoryComponent:
ReduceItemDurability > I introduce 2 new passed arguments and some logic change, manual merge might be required!
InventoryContext > Unlikely to cause any issues, it only ensures the ability to apply oil.
Completely compatible with damageSliders, as it doesn't touch any of these functions(or even the files for that matter, it's all done in the actual creature\player scripts on a global modifier level instead, rather than on-hit-damage calculations).
Also not compatible with any mod that is not compatible with Steel is all you need, or something that changes creatures on a core basis(like removing golem_base from golems, or making monsters have red health bar instead of silver).
Any mod that lets you use your steel sword to attack other monsters. Such as Steel is all you need, or No Levels. Default modifier for steel(1.75), gives it close to a 1:1 with the damage displayed in the inventory in both mods.
About
This mod was made to be an extention to Steel is all you need or No Levels The issue with those mods is that there is very little reason, or insentive to use the steel sword, so while you can, you won't.
So to fix this, I wanted to give an incentive to use the steel sword, but I also didn't want to render the silver sword useless, but instead being a boon, something you'd pull out to use when the situation call for it(more akeen to the books). So what I settled on was to increase the durability cost of using the silver sword(accross the board) by a factor of 75(7.5% durability loss on each hit). This way, you will have to be a bit more carefull as to when and where to use the silver sword. Figthing a golem might not be the best of ideas with the silver sword, as it'll easily break mid fight.
However, a new issue arrises with this, in that you are less likely to want to use the silver sword(it breaking quickly), and instead maintain to use the steel sword, as such I've also boosted up the silver sword a bit to increase the damage it does against monsters(default a factor of 1.3). Specters are also made immune to steel, so you have to use a silver sword to fight them(however as in vanilla, they barely reduce durability of the silver sword).
I do however not touch resistance, so creatures such as golems etc are very resistant against steel swords. Steel sword also do less damage than silver swords, so I have given steel swords a damage modifier(only applied against monsters \ silver-health).
Installation
Place the modSilverSwrdSpct folder into your mods folder, then move the bin folder to your base folder(Witcher3 install directory).
Complete Edition Installation:
Same as above, except for the mod-menu to appear, you need to edit the dx11filelist.txt or dx12filelist.txt - alternatively you can use this
I want to translate the mod-menu texts:
I've provided the source .csv which you can edit (only edit the entries under the text column), then you just run it through w3strings, as detailed here.
Configuration Settings(option_ is added infront as I haven't made localisation files, and I am too lazy to do, or learn how to make them). FYI: Can get default values pressing the 'default' at the top of the mod menu.
swords don't hit enemies if broken | On - Contrary to it's name, it only affects the silver sword, this ensures the silver sword can't be used(cause no damage) when broken.
silver sword blocks health regen | Off - This stops regen on monsters like ghouls when hit by the silver sword(visual effect might still apply).
Specters and magical targetable with oil | Off - This allow you to hit specters\magicals with the steelsword if you apply specter\magical oil.
No modifier for specters | On - This means the silversword is not a power sword against specters, it's unbalancing to have a sword required to kill something, while also doing insane damage(and not reducing durability by much).
Cursed Ones immune without oil | on - Just as it sounds like, monsters in the cursed ones category will be immune to steel sword unless it's coated in oil.
Vampires immune without oil | on - Same as above, but vampires.
Durability modifier | 75 - how much more durability damage the silver sword recieves when used. If you feel it gets broken too quickly, reduce this. If not broken quick enough, increase it. 75 felt like the best balance in the prologue to me. It's not as brittle to be broken after a few swings, but it's enough you don't want to run around killing common monsters with it.
Silver damage modifier | 2.50 - This is how much extra damage the silver sword does. 2.5 essentially makes it into a 'slight' power weapon, not a godlike thing, but enough that it'll shorten the majority of fights with monsters down. The cost of it's high damage lies in it's lower durability. If you rise this, I highly suggest rising the durability modifier as well. at 3 you should use 100 - 125 durability modifier.
Steel Damage Modifier | 1.75 - This increases base damage of all steel weapons against monsters(silver health bars, red health bars are untouched in this mod, always). Reasonsing for this is simply that monsters have 3 times the health of red healtbar enemies, so default sword damage is just too low. But at a modifier higher than 3, the silver sword feels more and more unecessary. 1.75 I found to be the best balance of it not being TOO strong(to diminish the silver sword), but also not frustratingly annoying. The balancing was primarily chosen in the first ghoul fight(as this is the best representation of game against the player, you have no helpfull tools at all).
Steel oil damage modifier | 3 - This does NOT add ontop of steel damage modifier, they are seperate calculations! making this 1.75 would make oils do the extra oil damage they do. Want oil to only do the extra oil %? Match this with Steel Damage Modifier.
The reason why Oil Damage modifier is so high, is to make fights a lot less frustrating. If you're using an oil preperation mod, having fights drag out too long would be awful and unbalacing, but at the same time, we don't want it to be too high. 3 was a good balance compromise as to again, not step on the toes of the silver sword.
Anyway, the correct values are the values you feel most happy with, this is why the mod is configurable!
Optional Gampad files:
This optional file changes the oils to ensure each and every oil is of both oil categories(Silver and steel). The issue is it seems to be a hardcoded thing in Witcher 3 when it comes to applying oil using a button press, this circumvents that by ensuring a double category(like beast oil).
That is all this optional download does, the oils apart from that are identical to vanilla.
However! The issue with doing this is it may or may not have a serious compatibility issue with any other mod that alters oil in anyway(on the XML level). Script Merger does allow for XML editing, but I have no idea how well it does this, as such use at your own risk!
NB!
I have not playtested ciri sequenses against monsters, I do not know how this affects that, feedback is welcomed!
Playtested White orchard(Death March Difficulty):
So last time I wrote this it became a rambling mess, so I revisited the prologue using my default values(which I set based upon my experience last time) in hope of making a more coherant piece. I'll outline the initial important fights bellow, and different aproaches to them.
This is using the default mod settings on death march difficulty:
Level 1 with starting gear:
Initial ghoul fight is a bit difficult, and takes a bit more attacking to kill them(especially because of their regen), however only one way to realistically tackle this, either use the silver sword(which will end a lot of it quickly) at the cost of needing to go repair, or use the steelsword. I opted for the latter, which ends up with not using Quen, but instead dodge and well timed igni(igni dealing the best damage at this point) with a few slashes of the steel sword mixed in.
drowner at the beach(lvl 4), I did this 3 times in different styles outlined bellow:
1: with the silver sword it goes very easily, however only get to take out 4-5 drowners before the sword is unusable(as intended).
2: Using the steelsword this is a lot slower, and far more difficult(also, as intended), and makes you rely on igni or coating the necrophage oil(necrophage oil feels like a must for proper damage!). This is of course, all intended. First skill\talent to pick and use, is the Rage Management as the need to pop out igni's is by far more important now than before.
3: with necrophage oil(on the steelsword): It feels very underwelming(especially compared to with the silver sword), however it's still 3 times the damage as before, so with well timed strikes, it at least doesn't take forever to kill them. Because of no rage management, I don't use quen and instead only favor Igni, also perform timed heavy attacks, rather than spam light attacks.
As I was already in the area, I did the ghoul side quest(with the dog etc), this with steelsword(25 - 31dmg, 2% sign intensity rune) + necrophage oil. Feels a bit better than the first encounter with ghouls(on account of doing x3 damage because of the oil), still very tempting to pop the silver sword, but just not worth it. Relying on Igni a lot. Also important to try and focus on one ghoul at a time(their regen is too high in comparison to the amount of damage steelsword does, you just don't dwindle down fast enough when spreading it around).
The next logical fight to test was of course the first monster hunt, the specter. default configuration does not affect specters all that much(so this is essentially a vanilla fight(reasoning for this is, specters work differently on durrability, therefore it made more sense to not have specters recieve the bonuses as it'd unbalance the game).
Lastly Griffing fight, I did twice(with viper swords):
1: silversword - It quickly dwindles down it's health, but only lasted until about 50% of his health, definitly something to wait for in the last part of the fight! So I reloaded and didn't the steelsword only instead.
2: Steelsword - Definitly a far more difficult fight(or more dragged out, at least). The damage done is pretty low(as we don't have any oil), but it just means we need to use igni to soften him up. Essentially feels more lore friendly and immersive, as monsters are supposed to be thought and difficult! Anyway, took me about 2 minutes to dwindle his health down(got a bit lucky with the damage numbers on top of a few good igni shots) and have him fly away, after that I'd normally have started with the silver sword(which would end the fight more or less immediatly), but kept with the steelsword, making the fight drag out a bit(Vesimir is an absolute beast, and helps extremely well with the fight! NPCs are no longer useless static things).
In summary:
You definitly want to emphazie on timed heavy attacks, spamming light attacks is just not viable, the damage output is noticably low so fights last longer, making enemies more dangerous when they hit back(on death march). Because of the low damage you'll be using signs more, meaning your defence suffers(less upping quen).
Against bigger stronger monsters, you'll want to dwindle them down and weaken them with your steelsword, to finally finish them off with the silver sword(when fights tend to get more difficult and\or more stressfull). Starting off with the silver sword just means you get to the climaxe and phase changes quicker, rather than getting past that.
Compatibility
You'll need to use scriptmerger for any mod that edits either InventoryComponent, r4Game, InventoryContext or DamageManagerProcessor.
If you are using a mod that make changes to any of these functions, a manual merge might be required(as in, you opening up the file(s) yourself and make the correct code changes, not just a manual script merge fix):
r4Game:
OnGameLoadInitFinisherSuccess > Unlikely to cause issues, if it does it's just a matter of copy\pasting my code anywhere before\after whatever other code
damageManagerprocessor:
InitializeActionVars > Same as with r4Game, just copy code in if any issues
ProcessActionDamage > Logic changes, manual merging required in almost every case!
ProcessActionDamage_ReduceDurability > (Only an issue if playerAttacker.inv.ReduceItemDurability is changed as I introduce 2 new arguments to it).
InventoryComponent:
ReduceItemDurability > I introduce 2 new passed arguments and some logic change, manual merge might be required!
InventoryContext > Unlikely to cause any issues, it only ensures the ability to apply oil.
Completely compatible with damageSliders, as it doesn't touch any of these functions(or even the files for that matter, it's all done in the actual creature\player scripts on a global modifier level instead, rather than on-hit-damage calculations).
Also not compatible with any mod that is not compatible with Steel is all you need, or something that changes creatures on a core basis(like removing golem_base from golems, or making monsters have red health bar instead of silver).