Steam Workshop Woes

Discussion in 'Modding' started by r_b_bergstrom, Jun 6, 2012.

  1. DragonDai

    DragonDai Member

    Yeah, they aren't my current skill set either, and I am also American. So yeah, I feel your pain.

    And yeah, I am pretty sure they aren't a bad skill set no matter where you happen to be.
     
  2. LionsDen

    LionsDen Member

    Probably not a bad skill set, but when Americans tend to choose their political leaders based mainly on that you have the American government as it stands today. Very few "real" leaders and a "lot" of political a$$hats that are only interested in power and in helping their friends. Those friends just happen to be rich as well and so bad laws are passed and we have the crap fest that is America today. Don't get me wrong, it could be a "lot" worse. But as far as I can tell, we are quickly heading toward that "lot worse" scenario.
     
  3. r_b_bergstrom

    r_b_bergstrom Will Mod for Digglebucks

    Rich and Attractive are never a waste of skill points, and they have lots of synergy. As you explore the dungeon, you'll find most builds perform better or worse on some floors than others. With some skills this is more pronounced than with others. Not unlike :dmg_righteous:/:resist_righteous: , there's really no floor where the average diggle has the proper resists to shrug off the main attack spells of Rich and Attractive. On the America floor, in particular, a large percentage of the dungeon denizens have a weakness to the damage types those two skills provide.
     
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  4. FaxCelestis

    FaxCelestis Will Mod for Digglebucks

    Okay, so update: I literally changed maybe ten lines in spellDB.xml, and it broke saves. So at this point, if you change anything on a workshop mod, it breaks saves. The only solution I can really see at this point is one of two options: caching mods with the save (possibly not caching images to save space; this would require the implementation of placeholder icons however) or not updating mods automatically. Well, or the third option: get workshop mods to install as directories or zips instead of .dats. But I doubt Steam will let you do that.
     
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  5. zaratustra

    zaratustra Member

    regular mods are cached with the saves, as far as I can remember. It's possible this hasn't been extended to mods in the steam_workshop directory.
     
  6. Kazeto

    Kazeto Member

    Or just, you know, add "Updated on Mondays. Updates break saves ." to the description and only update it on Mondays.
    That way people won't be able to complain because you warned them (I know some will complain, but they'll quickly be singled out as idiots and forgotten).
     
  7. DragonDai

    DragonDai Member

    DID YOU BREAK MY GAME?!?!? lol...it was working like 30 mins ago, now, won't load without crashing...I am guessing that's what happened...YOU KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS?!?!? I have to go make my sight range based character now! SEE WHAT YOU DID?!? It's all you're fault (even if it isn't).
     
  8. DragonDai

    DragonDai Member

    OH! I just had an idea! Since I found out earlier that issues with mods being auto-updated and causing save games to be unplayable can (at least sometimes) be fixed by unloading the Workshop version and installing an older, manual version. So maybe we could have a section of the mods forum (or it could just be incorporated into the completed mods section) where authors can post the last 1-3 versions of their mod (depending on how often they update it).

    Mod creators could post a link to their forum post with the older versions of their mod in the details of their mods on the Workshop. This way, if you wake up one morning and a mod author has updated something, breaking your save, you just come here, download the second most recent version, finish you game, and then remove the manual version and start using the Workshop version again.

    While this isn't a perfect solution, and does require a bit more knowledge than just clicking the subscribe button, the manual modding process is easy enough that most people should be able to get it done if they need/want to. And it does create a bit more work for the modders (especially since they have to host multiple versions of their mods), but it does offer a solution that should make most users happy, and get more exposure to the forums as a whole as well.
     
  9. r_b_bergstrom

    r_b_bergstrom Will Mod for Digglebucks

    I did two small room-based changes to ID on Steam Workshop on Wednesday, and have not gotten any "it broke my save" complaints since going live with those updates. So either some changes aren't causing save-game incompatibility, or people just haven't figured out who to complain too.
     
  10. FaxCelestis

    FaxCelestis Will Mod for Digglebucks

    You mean the tall level 2 room (with the rats scurrying in the walls loculus breakable wall) with the teleport lever that you took out? That broke my save.
     
  11. r_b_bergstrom

    r_b_bergstrom Will Mod for Digglebucks

    That sucks.
     
  12. DragonDai

    DragonDai Member

    More Workshop oddities. So I went to start up the game because Mr. Fax kindly got me a prior version of his mod and I wanted to test out if that would fix my issue with the save I had. Well, Steam is "stuck" trying to re-download my mods...some of the them re-downloaded fine, but about 5 of them just won't come thru. Very strange...
     
  13. r_b_bergstrom

    r_b_bergstrom Will Mod for Digglebucks

    I'm probably going to unsubscribe from all workshop mods, then. I hadn't sub'd to many of them yet, because I wanted to give each it's own spotlight run. Hopefully people will keep posting their mods to the forums. I know I will.
     
  14. DragonDai

    DragonDai Member

    Yeah, it seems like it is just having too many problems to justify the tiny time saving over manual installation at the moment. Hopefully it will get all ironed out soon and lots of people can enjoy all that Dredmor modding has to offer.
     
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  15. DragonDai

    DragonDai Member

    Okay, so after having the save I was playing with break 3 different times (and become unrepairable, it seems, after the third break) I decided to do some investigating. Here are my findings (it's kinda long, but I wanted to be as clear as possible).

    When I first started playing after YHtNtEP came out, I played 1 game with no mods. Had no issues, died on floor 6 cause brax got angry at me...

    So I made a new character (the one I had been playing mostly). I also downloaded a bunch of mods to play with, among the were Roguish Renovations, FaxPack, and The Compleat Essential Skills.

    When CES was updated on the Workshop, I was not in DoD at the time, so a short while later, when I started DoD up again, my save wouldn't work. I asked nicely and Omni was able to get me the version of the mod prior to the update. I installed that version of the mod manually and unchecked the box on the mod screen for the new version of CES, thereby just loading the older version and BAM, my save worked again.

    However, while I was trying to figure out what to do about my save being broken, I did what any good roguelike liker would do, I made a new character. This character had the original Workshop versions of RR and FP, but not CES, it was using the new CES. So when I changed CES back to the old version, this character's saves stopped working. I expected this and didn't really mind much, as the previous character was the one I really wanted to play anyway.

    Well, a little while after getting the save fixed, FP got updated. Again, I didn't have DoD running at the time, so when I reloaded DoD, the new version of FP was installed and my save was once again broken. I asked nicely and Fax got me the older version of his mod. Doing what I did before, BAM, save works again. I go on playing.

    A little while after that, RR got updated. I had a crash while playing, reloaded, found out the RR had been updated and my save was once again broken. So I went back to the forums where Omni once again helped me out by getting me a copy of the older version of RR. This did not, however, fix the issue. Unlike the last two times, my game stayed broke.

    So I got the idea to try out the character who had never been played or even loaded/attempted to be loaded while the new RR or FP was installed. I reverted back to the newest version of CES from the Workshop, and used the manual install, older versions of RR and FP. But she wouldn't load either.

    So this leads me to believe that the changes made to RR or the type of thing the changes were made on was different than the changes made in FP or CES. Also, it seems that for some reason, the saves were associated with a certain version of CES and FP, in such a way that if you had the wrong version you could not access them, but as soon as you got the right version reinstalled, you were good to go. However, with RR, by changing versions (even if you didn't try to load a character) something broke the saves permanently.

    Now, I have no real programming or specialty software troubleshoot knowledge. I am a pretty average PC gamer with a decent level of computing smarts, but nothing special. So maybe I am totally wrong, but it seems that there is something that either sets RR apart from CES and FP in the way they interact with DoD thru the Workshop (seems less likely) or that the changes made to RR were somehow different than the changes made to FP and CES and caused some sort of issue with actual saves, where as the changes to CES and FP only caused version issues (this seems more likely).

    And no, I am not trying to say that Iccorp2 didn't do a good job with the changes or messed something up, I am just saying that it seems like whatever types of changes were made had a different overall result on save game compatibilty than the changes made to CES and FP.

    So yeah, that was my little experiment of the morning. Hopefully someone can make some sense of this info or share similar experiences. Now I am off to go work on a top secret project that definitely isn't a DoD mod you all convinced me would be super fun to make.
     
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  16. OmniaNigrum

    OmniaNigrum Member

    Lccorp, correct me if I am mistaken, but I think there are times that you may accidentally put out a version and then realize you had left something in that should not be there and you repack it. It may contain the same data, but not the mod validator for instance. I am unsure if this would break saves, but I have seen this before with several good mods like yours. Usually in any of these cases, the mod is corrected and reposted with the same version number. So it is possible that my .50 is not the one he needed.

    I am not trying to blame you, nor anyone else. I am just trying to explain what I suspect as the most likely problem. You mega modders are insane. That is a fact. You are pushing out so much new content that an occasional slip-up is expected. No. Not just expected. Demanded. I demand more mistakes! :)

    Would you modders happen to have old versions of your mods? Right now with Steam being an *Expletive Deleted*, there is a certain need for them if you have them. Thank you in advance. And certainly thank you Fax for the wonderful job of posting a half-dozen or more versions of FAXPAX for us. :) :) :)
     
  17. lccorp2

    lccorp2 Member

    Hmm. The only changes I made from 0.5 to 0.51 are the following:

    *Gave Blood Price a -99 health regen debuff.
    *Added two recipes.
    *Added a couple of rooms, namely a test inception room and a blackbirds in a pie room.
    *Removed some entries from text.xml.

    And yes, I do think there were two forum versions of 0.50, but they were very close (literally minutes apart). If you grabbed it almost instantly when it was up, then yeah, I can see your problem (there were literally less than 5 downloads on the thing, I believe)
     
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  18. DragonDai

    DragonDai Member

    Either way, it's not a big deal for my save. I am just as happy making a new character. I am just trying to help figure out some of the strange things that the Workshop is doing to try to help make it better for everyone. :)
     
  19. OmniaNigrum

    OmniaNigrum Member

    Sadly I think either myself or DragonDai grabbed it in those few minutes. So the version I had archived was not the version he needed.

    Well thank you for clearing up what happened. Does the version of .50 I posted in your RR thread match your archived copy? (Presuming you maintain one?)

    *Edit* By the way, I am happy in a sick sort of way that you said it was possible. Otherwise I would look like a total dick. :)
     
  20. LionsDen

    LionsDen Member

    I'm willing to bet that it was the removals from the text.xml file that are probably causing the problems. Adding stuff doesn't seem to affect anything when I do it and then load a saved game.
     
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