Could we possibly add some kind of combat window message that tells us when a buff runs out? If I'm using One With the Land and Camoflouge, when one runs out there is no visual indication. It would be really neat if we could see when our spells run out, because I think our PC's would notice. Right now the only way to know if one wears out is to keep my character sheet open, which kind of hinders gameplay :(
I was about to say "look at the stats icons in top right", but then I realised that if two spells both add say "skill increase" or "spell immunity" it's impossible to see when just one goes. All for it, if it's possible.
You can use a clock, 1 round = 6 seconds 1 turn = 1 minute 1 hour = 5 minutes (Normally 2 minutes changed for Efu)
I can think of no easy way to implement your suggestion. It involves changing the script for every buff that we add this to (which could lead to some buffs not having this message until it's pointed out). Also, the message will play regardless of whether or not the spell was dispelled; I'm a little groggy ATM so I'm not sure if there's an easy way to fix that or not.
As an alternative, it may be possible to have an additional VFX for those two specific spells, which you can try to watch for them to wear out. (I'd try to make them subtle, though. You'd have to be paying close attention!)
Back when I was a real geek I kept an egg-timer by my desk to aid in keeping invisibility up when spying on people.
Similar to Howland, I have a clock next to my monitor. I watch that.
Quote from: Howland;104437Back when I was a real geek I kept an egg-timer by my desk to aid in keeping invisibility up when spying on people.
:cool:
Also I've seen an increased amount of status icon disappearance. I am not sure if this is tied to EFU changes, official patching, or a combination of both. Very often I will transition from one area to another and all of my spell effect icons on the top right will be gone, even though I am still enchanted.
Occasionally the icons will appear for that 2 seconds it takes from them to expire. When you get that tic tic tic flashing of the icon right before the spell expires. I've had a few tight spots because of this, particularly with spells like invis and polymorph which can more or less be life and death matters if they fade when you aren't exactly ready for them to.
I highly support the use of an outside timer for such spells just to be on the safer side XD
The icon disappearing on the top right of the screen is just a bug.
I use the timer on my cellphone.
Howland that is one of the geekiest things I've ever heard about.
Big Mitch, e-jock.
Caddies is just saying that to hide his own enthusiasm for the idea.
Caddies does not use invisibility.
He strangles men with his pinky.
Quote from: ExileStrife;104469I use the timer on my cellphone.
Yep. Timer. Baltazar Ironeater was probably the only dwarf in the history of Sanctuary to own a kitchen timer constantly set to remind him with enough time to re-animal empathy those pesky deep lizards before they got all medeival on him and his party :)
Geek-4-Ever
far as i know there is a method to change all spells in the main spells include using the spellhooking functions. This might be pretty easy to add? I'll probably look more into it later to see if it can be done.
my 2 cents
Not all spells have the same duration formula.
This is possible. However, it is complicated by precisely what ScottyB stated: Due to the way in which Bioware spells work, we cannot trivially determine spell duration given the domain of all spells.
Before any clever cookie suggests it, if we tried to watch for spell effects and extract durations from those with our most excellent NWNX utilities, perhaps we would have better success with a simple implementation. However, I imagine this being inefficient: you would need to loop through the player's effects before AND after the casting of the spell to check for anything new. This would need to happen every time a spell is targeted on a PC.
This method would not allow us to catch mass-effect buffs (such as mass invisibility, mass haste etc).
You would also need to determine a system for distinguishing hostile and friendly effects, as we probably do not want people to know when the hostile ones end! This is another complication which would cost a lot of time spent in dull, repetitive labor.
A cool idea, but impractical in terms of its execution, and I do not believe that this will be implemented in the foreseeable future.
Simple solution seems to be Howlands: 99 cents spent on an egg timer, and a little spell research to figure out how long what lasts.
Most watches have simple stopwatches on them these days as well. Mine does.