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Rodmar18

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Sep 19, 2018
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Hello,

Currently, any Undead can be affected by the Deteriorated status, that inflict a severe -8 strength on all damage channels.

I wonder if the spirit of law wouldn't be here that only mechanical contraptions such as armours, machines, and bone assemblies (skeletons) that are affected by a Rust Strike can be deteriorated. That would exclude ghoul units, that are like diseased biological units. How can a zombie or a ghost be rusted?

Skeleton units are: Animated Cadavers, any Archon Revenants, Bone Collectors, Bone Wyverns and Dragons for sure. Perhaps Reanimators and Wraiths too? Death Bringers look as fleshy as ghouls. Souls, Banshees, and Dread Reapers should be immune.

Armoured ghoul units would still be affected by the defense penalty (from Rust Strike), though.


[EDIT See below: It looks like the Undead being affected by Deteriorated was introduced by the PBEM and SP Balance mod, when it made a change to the Rot spell. Nonetheless, the thing about the "spirit of the law" is still valid: isn't there any difference between a skeleton-like corporeal Undead, and a fleshy corporeal Undead? [/EDIT]


If I'm not wrong, the new Undead units came after the Archdruid class, by the way.

On the screenshot, there might be a separate bug, because the Deteriorated status is sourced to the Water Sphere's Rot spell ("Décrépitude"), not the AD's Rust Strike. Anyway, Rot should inflict Weakness to non uncorporeal Undead and Machines, and Weakness is not the same as Deteriorated, afaik.
aow3_deteriorated.jpeg
 
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Rust Strike, the AD spell works on machines and ARMORED units only and tries to deteriorate them (which may or may not work), and indeed, when they are deteriorated they lose -8 on all damage channels and -4 Defense.

Rot is a Water spec spell, that works on undead as well, but the spell deals 20 physical damage and applies the WEAKENED state to their targets, which applies (among others) a 60% Blight weakness (which in effect reduces the 100% Blight resistance of machines and undead to a mere 40%, making them vulnerable against Blight damage).

The unlucky gal on the screenshot looks as if she was hit by both Rust Strike (losing HPs, failing the Deterioration check and therefore losing damage and defense) and became deteriorated and got also weakened (which may have been the effect of a Rot spell, but also the work of a Goblin Blight Doctor or some other creatures or heroes).

The "bug" is probably in the French translation/localization text.
 
I can't read the Abilities_DLC3 description file (for what it's worth), but I'm certain that French translation is not faulty here: Water spell's Rot is said to inflicts Deteriorated status in game, and moreover, you can see that the deteriorated unit suffers from the -8 strength on all damage channel (that's the intended Deteriorated effect). Now, the Spec_Water description file's states otherwise.

So, is the Spec_Water file to be corrected to copy the game's behaviour, or is the game behaviour to be modded to copy the description in Spec_Water (and the original dev intent?)?




Whatever, my original intend was to question if all the undead should be considered the same as regard to some few spells (such as Rust Strike, and why not Rot). I got a little confused by the bug. There already are Uncorporeal undead to help discriminating. Shouldn't the skelettic/ghoulish nature of a unit be taken into consideration as well? (As for Rust Strike, an Armoured undead should be affected, even if uncorporeal, if armour is tangible!)

Speaking about corporeal/material units, I can figure how some spells can affect mechanical components such as gears and... bones tied together, by mean of rust, sand, glue..., while other spells can affect biological soft matter, even if dead, by mean of acid, germs, vaporization of water or melting of fat...
You could say that acid can alter bones as well, but then it can alter machines as well.
 
Rot.jpg
Well, I don't know what game you play, but in my version of AoW 3 Rot is said (wrongly) to inflict Weakness (it inflicts the Weakened status), and that is exactly what the Rot spell does when you check the package manager (see the screenshot).
 
The hero in the screen, Frigitte, doesn't seem to be a ghoul or undea, by the way.

I have the strong feeling that this is a French localization issue.

For your question - read my first post: Rust Strike doesn't influence undead (only when they are ARMORED). Rot does influence undead, but doesn't deteriorate them (see above - Frigitte may be a Necromancer, but I don't see any undead or ghoul status: Necromancer heroes are starting as LIVING units and become undead only via Tech or when you ghoul an enemy hero).
 
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Thank you for your time Jolly Joker. I don't have a working copy of Abilities_DLC3.xml at hand (and playing on Steam OS, I can't use the package editor myself), but I will investigate my saved games about the other points.
 
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Actually it doesn't, because it's not the wikia that counts, but what is actually in the files, and in the files is Weakened. Wikia is just wrong.

Ok... So I had checked this in the past and it was indeed Deteriorated, not Weakened. The trouble was that I was using the balance mod, and I thought it was the same in vanilla because the balance mod should NOT modify Rot. It appears it was modified somehow. So going to edit back the Wikia to Weakened, and confirm we correct Rot back to Weakened in the balance mod. Pretty weird it was edited in the first place.
 
Ok, let's look at first at the xml files. Those vanilla I was gently given are time-stamped of 11/2016, and I put them into some active mod folder so that they override the ones still in the archive as game loads, I play with latest official game version, plus the latest update of Balance mod from this summer.

Spec_Water.xml

ROT DESCRIPTION Deals {rotDamage} damage and applies Weakness for {rotWeaknessDuration} to target enemy Machine or Undead unit. The effect jumps a maximum of {rotJumpTargets} times to other enemy Machine and Undead units {rotJumpDistance} or less Hexes away from the previous target. Incorporeal units cannot be affected by this spell.

LOCALBALANCE.xml

ROT DESCRIPTION Deals 20 [physic/] damage and applies Deteriorated for 5 [turn/] to target enemy Machine or Undead unit. The effect jumps a maximum of 3 times to other enemy Machine and Undead units 3 or less Hexes away from the previous target. Incorporeal units cannot be affected by this spell.

Skills_ArchDruid.xml

RUST_STRIKE DESCRIPTION Causes target enemy Armored unit to suffer {ruststrikeDefenseArmoredDefensePenalty} or deals {ruststrikeDamage} damage to target enemy Machine unit and attempts to Deteriorate ({ruststrikeDeteriorateStrength}) it until end of combat. Deteriorated units suffer {ruststrikeStrengthPenalty} strength and {ruststrikeDefensePenalty}.

Abilities.xml

STATUS_EFFECT WEAKENED_DESCRIPTION This unit suffers {weakenedDefensePenalty}, {weakenedResistancePenalty}, {weakenedMoralePenalty} and {weakenedBlightWeakness} Weakness.

STATUS_EFFECT DETERIORATED_DESCRIPTION This unit suffers a {deterioratedStrengthPenalty} strength and {deterioratedDefensePenatly} penalty. This effect cannot be removed with Dispel Magic.


I'm not a native English-speaker and I don't read that Rust Strike could inflict Deteriorated on any non-Machine, Armored unit. Armored units get the {ruststrikeDefenseArmoredDefensePenalty} penalty only, while Machine units may get the {ruststrikeDefensePenalty} and the noticeable -8 strength penalty, if they fail their check. If vanilla English files were correct, Frigitte shouldn't have been affected by Deteriorated because she's not a machine (Rust) and Rot doesn't inflict Deteriorated (as we read). Or does Rot inflict Deteriorated?


The screenshot you provides informs us that a weaken effect associated to Rot truly exists in the database. Does it prove that it is really linked to the Rot spell? Are you positive that the Weakened effect was ever inflicted on one units in your game, due to a Rot spell? I don't remember if Frigitte was an Undead at the time of the screenshot (the picture doesn't show clearly a ghoulish skin texture). If she was no Undead, she shouldn't have been affected by a Rot spell first hand (and that's your point).

Between us, inflicting an Undead (or an Armored unit) the status Deteriorated is way overpowered (-8 strength on every damage channel), because it's close to totally disabling most of them, whereas a Deteriorated machine, though weakened, can still be harmful, given its original attack strength. This smells the bug. Balance Mod chose to acknowledge this and changed the Rot spell's description. But as you found the original Rot weakened, perhaps it's functional and could be used to mod this the other way.

In short, I'd avise to peer at the mechanics files before doing any change to the description files, because, it's not obvious why a non-machine unit should ever become Deteriorated!
 
I think, you don't play the vanilla game. :)

The local balance XML is probably part Hili's (and Co.) PBEM and SP mod (Look at his comments). The vanilla game effect is indeed, that Rust Strike does:
a) -4 def to all Armored units OR
b) 20 damage to machines with the chance to "Deteriorate" them. (So Armored units cannot become Deteriorated - my fault to assume something that is wrong and makes no sense.)

The vanilla game Rot spell does, what the SpecWater.xml says.

So the effect you observed come from a mod that is active in your game.
 
More on this. I could reload the save game before the fight and took a screenshot of the combat log. Frigitte is a ghoul at this time, by the way. On my last screenshot, she's now mounted, while on the screenshot above, she stands up alone like a leader ?! Whatever, back to the spells.

Enemy leader casts Rot twice on my units. Rot correctly affects several units each time: Ballista (from Gloweye's mod), Ghoul Elven Swordsman, Ghoul Hero, Ghoul Elven Longbowman, Ghoul Hell Hound. Each one suffers circa 20 physical damage and get Deteriorated. Both Elven units are armored, not the Hell Hound.
I join a final screenshot to show that I'm not confusing Rot with Rust Strike.

aow3_rotSpell1.jpeg aow3_rustStrikeADSpell.jpeg
 
In the other thread you wrote:

With all the mods I run

When you run a mode - not to mention lots of them - it doesn't make any sense to point to "bugs", without knowing whether the "bug" is in the vanilla game or the rseult of a mod you run. In the detriorated undead case it's the result of one of ethe mods you run, because in the vanilla game you won't see deteriorated undead.
 
You are right but most of the mods I run are visual, or very limited in their changes. I mean, no Empire, Race or Conversion mods. That doesn't exclude the fact that out of chance, a mod deemed to change only the mana pickup appearance could grant an ability to a Fire Dragon, but that's very unlikely. Moreover, I read the changelogs and all xml files. Hence, I believe that I can point the right mod or the right couple of mods most of the time. For example, if there's a concern with a Wooden Fort, I can exclude 3/4 of the mods and point toward vanilla files, Racial Watchtowers or rather Balance mod that includes it.
When I can't, I'm sure that able modders can guide me towards the faulty mod. Better a false positive than risking to not reporting a real bug. Let's work together... while anyone has patience.

But again, while the original title of this topic is now outdated, isn't the case of discriminating between bony Undead and fleshy Undead worthwhile, considering both the lore and the many spells that can affect Undead?