Anyone found a way to extract the .pak files?

[galneon]

I'm enjoying the game as it's full of nostalgia for someone who played the second trilogy as a kid as the games were released (and the first trilogy a little later). What's killing it for me is the abominable audio levels. Music in town, which is nice, is so quiet as to almost be silent, and the default battle music is not only terrible and unfit for the series, but extraordinarily loud. There's simply no way to properly balance the music, banter, and sfx levels in options. Either the music in town will be inaudible, or the battle music will be so loud that you can't hear the sound effects.

Has anyone managed to get inside the .pak files? Is it possible with the Unity editor? They're not the kind of .pak files that one can open with a WinRAR or 7-Zip. I have to get rid of that awful battle music or I can't continue. I'd like to re-balance ALL of the music, but double-compression is a big quality hit and I'm afraid after all that work I'd have no will to actually play the game. I've already tried removing lines from the corresponding info.xml files but as I suspected they're only manifests.

[Martha Pepper]

I know this is a three year necro, and I'm extremely sorry for that (I'm not because no-one will care, just being polite to be honest), but did you or anyone ever resolve this? Or can anyone just passing by shed any light on it?

After realising that some of the audio levels for certain effects were insanely loud when using headphones (for example, sh1tting myself every time the delayed "coinloot" sound plays after opening a chest and clicking "Loot All", because I think it has triggered a monster spawn behind me), I tried poking around with WinRAR and 7-Zip... then I came across this post wanting to do exactly what I wanted :)

It's impossible to level the sound properly as the normalisation of the different effects is all over the place.

I absolutely LOVE the game to bits, but this is annoying me a little bit :(

[galneon]

I did not resolve it, I'm afraid. Unity assets in general are locked up tight, or they still were the last time I tried to mod them. One of many reasons to dislike Unity... Classes are easy to modify, at least (with skill potential configurable in plain text). I used someone's modded class list to make some of the less fun classes more specialized, less all-rounder.

Despite threatening not to, I still finished the game. I did skip half the DLC, though... It just felt tacked on, and from my understanding of the development/publisher situation, it was just that in spirit as well. I'm really sympathetic to the devs' situation, though, and it's a miracle the base game itself was made.

But about the 'thread necro' thing... Never apologize for that. It wasn't very long ago that that arbitrarily came to be considered a cardinal sin. I never would have seen your post and we never would have been able to whine about the sort of audio quirks that many people never even notice till it's pointed out to them if you had been orthodox about it and started a new thread, right? :P It's the way discussions on niche topics carry on after one person's interests wane and another's waxes or plateaus, and old information is built upon with new. Unfortunately, in this case, we have only camaraderie in complaint.

[Martha Pepper]

That's unfortunate :( I'm definitely going to finish it as I am getting quite attached to my stoic band of blundering adventurers, and despite the audio inconsistencies I'm having a lovely time!

As you mentioned, I did notice that a lot of variables in the game are easily configured, which is great. I've made the days take longer to transition and it makes it feel much more like an adventure now, instead of "...dawn chasing dusk chasing dawn chasing dusk..." every few movements :)

Anyway, thanks for the prompt reply. You are absolutely right about the necroing of threads, it absolutely IS a pertinent way of keeping information about a subject in one location instead of starting a plethora of new threads and scattering it all to the winds. It's just unfortunate that some people don't see it that way, and may be vocal about it in a reply...which when you think about it, doesn't make sense!

Right, time for a glass of wine and to crack on with the adventure. Thanks again :)

[Syger]

That's the nice part about games and threads that aren't new anymore, mostly the only attention they recieve are from people who genuinely want to make a positive contribution. All the trolls have moved on to places they can garner more attention.

Since the two of you are kind of "here" at the moment and have interest in modding...Do either of you know a way to adjust the scaling of crit damage in the game? I haven't quite figured out a way to tame it for my own purposes. I'm playing with elevated hp/mp/dmg/armor values but unfortunately the developers decided to make crits scale damage before reduction so I'm getting highly escalated values. I might be able to figure this out myself but I haven't had much luck so far.

[Martha Pepper]

@Syger I haven't had a look that deep to be honest. I'm still getting a feel for how the games mechanics feel for me, and I'm planning on tweaking a few values when I notice something is bothering me a bit too much (like the short day/night cycle... that drove me nuts!).

Sorry I can't help at the moment, but if I come across anything when I inevitably mess around with the files a bit more I'll be sure to necro this thread again and let you know ;)

[Syger]

I appreciate it, however on closer inspection i realized I was not completely correct. Armor values affect percent of damage taken, so even when crits are calculated first, the armor reduces the amount of damage taken by more than it would for a normal hit.

The crit damage modifiers are just really high lol. I'm having bosses instantly kill my poor elf druid (straight to death status, not just unconscious) when he gets crit but they only take about half his health pool with a non crit attack. I put some point into vitality on him too. Poor sod

[Traul]

Syger a écrit :

The crit damage modifiers are just really high lol. I'm having bosses instantly kill my poor elf druid (straight to death status, not just unconscious) when he gets crit but they only take about half his health pool with a non crit attack. I put some point into vitality on him too. Poor sod

Are you sure that crits are to blame? There are other sneaky effects that increase damage. Some enemies gain strikes when you hit them, some get a damage boost as their life goes down.