Is modifying spells.txt allowed?

Discussion in 'Player Support' started by feigntrain, Feb 12, 2020.

  1. feigntrain Elder

    I am trying to setup audio triggers to help me keep track of when my buffs fade or when my dots/debuffs drop off of a mob. But some spells have literally the exact same text character for character, making it impossible to tell which spell dropped.

    A couple of examples:
    • Paragon of Spirit I and Spiritual Purity both say "The aura of purity fades." when they wear off.
    • Ro's Fiery Sundering (FR & AC debuff) and Breath of Ro (Fire DoT + FR & AC debuff) can both be stacked on a target but both of them say "{target} is immolated by blazing flames" when cast, and both say "The flames die down" when they wear off.
    This makes it impossible to tell them apart from any log parser, like Audio Triggers or GINA or whatever.

    I don't expect the devs to spend time giving every spell unique text, but am I allowed to modify spells.txt so that I can at least see unique text for spells myself?
  2. strongbus Augur

    easy way to do it with out modifying the spell.txt. in gina setup triggers as follows.

    you begin casting X(where x is the name of the spell), then set gina to count down based on how long the spell is. then have gina give you a wear off messages.

    so with breath of ro.

    so set it so it looks for "you begin casting breath of ro"
    set the timer for 54 sec(base time might change based off aa/etc)
    set gina to give you a message saying breath of ro has worn off.
  3. feigntrain Elder

    I don't want you begin casting to be the trigger because resists are a thing.

    And that doesn't solve the worn off problem because of dispells.
  4. Zanarnar Augur

    I'd imagine it won't cause any problems.

    BUT also every patch is likely to over-write your changes. Officially, I'm sure they'll point to you not being allowed to modify game files. A better idea would be suggesting they put the name of the spell in the fade message.

    So instead of "The flames die down." It would say "The flames die down. (Breath of Ro)"

    Being they've made a bunch of QoL changes to log data, that would likely be a reasonable request (IMO).
  5. Smokezz The Bane Crew

    Change Disconcerting and Brutal to use different messages while you're at it. :)
  6. feigntrain Elder


    Call me cynical, or pessimistic, but I just feel like that kind of change would be very low on their priority list, or take a very long time for them to get around to actually implementing it (16 years to fix an NPC that was under the world?). And what can I do in the meantime while we wait for such a change?
  7. Zanarnar Augur

    (shrug) do whatever you want, it was just a suggestion. Like I said, they just recently made a bunch of changes to log messages to clear things up and make parsing more accurate. This doesn't seem like a big ask and would sort your issue out for good. (in a similar way to seeing (Riposte) or (Dodge) on the end of a combat line from a NPC that you defended against.)

    Or you could keep re-editing your spells_us.txt file every patch.
  8. feigntrain Elder

    You say "or" as if i have some kind of say over what gets done in the game. Even in the very best case scenario I still need a work-around for the next couple of months.

    I'm just trying to not get banned for low-level stuff like changing a text file while the blatantly obvious cheating bot armies run rampant.
  9. Duder Augur

    What about using the worn off message? Your XXX spell has worn off

    Like:
    [IMG]
    Winnowyl and Telepathically like this.