Two bugs with ward spells: how to identify them and a possible way to fix them

[tinylampe]

Hello,

Ward spells currently have two problems:
1) Their description is wrong
2) They do not benefit from the 'Deep Concentration' memories, even if they should.

The following topic discusses how to identify these bugs and how to fix them. An .esp file containing the fixes is included at the end of the post. Since this discussion will get technical, the intended audience are Enderal devs and not Enderal players.

1. Identifying the bugs:

In order to increase the strength of ward spells, Enderal devs used a 'mod spell magnitude' perk entry. While this works for most spells, it doesn't work for wards. Why not? Because wards use an effect archetype that is unique to them: 'Accum. Magnitude'. Unfortunately, 'Accum Magnitude' cannot be altered by 'mod spell magnitude'. The insidious thing is that using 'mod spell magnitude' on wards updates their description as if they had indeed become stronger, even if in reality they didn't. That's what makes identifying this bug tricky: you basically don't realize there is a bug at all because the description suggests that wards are stronger now (even if, again, they aren't).

To check the real strength of a ward spell you need to open the console and type 'player.getav wardpower'. If the result does not match the number in the description, then the description is wrong. Case in point: https://imgur.com/a/Z6DxR1t

Elaborating on the screenshot above, the base strength of a rank 2 ward is 53 points as seen here: https://en.wiki.sureai.net/Enderal:Spell_Ward_(Spell). The description of my rank 2 ward suggests that the ward is capable of negating 81 points of magic damage. This is because I have unlocked Deep Concentration rank 1 among other memories. Yet, the actual strength of the rank 2 ward as per the console command is still 53 points i.e. its base strength. This is proof that wards don't benefit from relevant memories (Deep Concentration) regardless of what the description may say.

2. Fixing the bugs

Ward spells are supposed to become stronger when the player unlocks the memories 'Deep concentration rank 1' and 'Deep concentration rank 2'. The strength increase depends on each ward's base strength. You can see the relevant numbers here: https://imgur.com/a/6Rhc2Do

In order to make that happen and thus fix the bugs wards suffer from, we need to create perk-conditioned, new magic effects and add them to the existing ward spells in order to boost their strength when appropriate.

The step-by-step approach would be as follows:

Step 1: in the creation kit, find the magic effect WardConcSelf and create two duplicates with unique IDs. I named mine 'WardConcSelf_bonus1' and 'WardConcSelf_bonus1and2'. See screenshot: https://imgur.com/a/ftDeA0S

Step 2: edit 'WardConcSelf_bonus1' and 'WardConcSelf_bonus1and2' so that they are perk-conditioned on the player unlocking 'Deep Concentration rank 1' and 'Deep Concentration rank 2' respectively. See screenshots for details: https://imgur.com/a/HI5Kvvd , https://imgur.com/a/vVBj7Hc (Note: it is important to delete everything in the magic item description textbox in order not to mess up the description of the actual ward spells).

Step 3: Now find and edit the ward spells themselves. There are six in total as seen in the screenshot: https://imgur.com/a/fpl0HMa
To edit the spells, you need to double click them and, for each one, you need to add the two magic effects we created earlier: 'WardConcSelf_bonus1' and 'WardConcSelf_bonus1and2'. The edited rank 1 ward spell would look like this: https://imgur.com/a/dIjqNG1 .Notice the magnitudes (39 for WardConcSelf_bonus1 and 44 for WardConcSelf_bonus1and2). The other five ward spells need to be edited in the same way but with different magnitudes for the bonus effects. The appropriate magnitudes can be seen here: https://imgur.com/a/6Rhc2Do

If you've been paying a lot of attention you may have a question now: how come the magnitudes for the bonuses are not the actual bonuses but the bonuses plus the base values? Wouldn't that make wards stronger than they should? The answer is no. Due to the way the ward archetype was coded, even if a ward spell includes several magic effects inside it, only one will be used at any given time: the largest one. That's why the bonuses need to include the base values.

Step 4: At this point, the ward spells are already benefiting from the two Deep Concentration memories. However, the information in the wards' description may still be wrong if you have chosen the 'Magical Repulsion' memory. This is because this memory modifies the magnitude of divine shield spells, and wards include a divine shield magic effect as part of the ward spell. There doesn't seem to be a way to let that memory affect wards and still get accurate spell descriptions for those wards. Since I care about accurate spell descriptions, I decided to modify the 'Magical Repulsion' memory so that it doesn't effect the divine shield component of the ward spells. If you want to do that too, proceed as follows: first, find the 'Magical Repulsion' memory. See screenshot: https://imgur.com/a/Fey4R0q . Then, edit the memory as indicated here: https://imgur.com/a/0EgLgFS

And... you are done! Here you can see the rank 2 ward spell properly being affected by Deep Concentration rank 1: https://imgur.com/a/MklbWaA

And finally for those interested, here is the .esp file with the fixes I described above. I tested all six ward spells with no, one, or two 'Deep Concentration' memories. Everything is fine, including the divine shield component of the wards. Happy gaming! https://filebin.net/uobtypb9nsd6mjky

[stuemper]

Oh, interesting.
Thanks for the explanation, this will be adjusted in the next patch.