Hero Abilities

I am making a map in which heros can reach a higher level than 10.

Changing the cap is no problem. I've also been able to change the exp required and gained and such through a text file in the MPQ.

However, if a hero can get to say, level 50(I'm making an RPG with multiple maps, then either the hero needs either more abilities, higher levels for abilities, or to be given skill points less often than every level up. Otherwise, your hero would have every skill at level 10.

So... I looked around the MPQ, and I found the AbilityData.slk file which contains everything I need, or so I thought... Apparantly there is a column in here which has the level cap of the ability. Most are at 3, the ultimates at 1. So, I changed some of the abilities so that they would cap at 4 instead of 3. Also, there are columns required for every level of the ability. These tell the game how powerful the ability is, how much mana is needed, etc at that level. I copied these cells from level 3(including all of the formula info and stuff) and changed the 3's in the label to 4's. It looked exactly like it should. I then filled in new values for my level 4 abilities. Unfortunately, the game will still remove the ability from the hero's ability list once it reaches level 3. Therefore, it's not there for the person to later click on it and get level 4. I can't believe they would put a hard-coded cap on it. Doesn't that kind of defeat the purpose of this column?

Anyway, since this wouldn't work, I thought of adding in other abilities which took on the same names as other abilities, but were more powerful. Therefore, once you learn a certain ability, it would be replaced by a new more powerful one.

Now, can someone explain this to me? There is an action you can use for triggers called "Remove Ability." Now, if this action exists, why wouldn't there be an action called "Add Ability?" It seems perfectly logical. *sigh*

Another way of doing things would be to only allow a skill point every 4 or 5 levels. I have looked everywhere, but I can't figure out how to do this. I don't even know if it's possible.

A last resort would be to require a certain level to get a certain ability upgraded. While requiring a certain level to learn a skill for the first time is possible, I have yet to see any way of setting a level requirement for upgrading the skill to the next level.

Can anyone help me find a solution here? Obviously, allowing the higher levels for skills would be my preferred way of doing it. Also, I do not want to prevent heros from getting more than one level up per map.

If you'd like, you can e-mail me at [email protected]

I'd appreciate any help. Thanks.

^bump^

Anyone have any ideas?

Just so you know, editing the slk's and miscdata.txt will stop your map from being multiplayer ;)

To get heroes above level 10 I recommend a system with triggers instead, just give the hero a tome of knowledge once they've gained a level and the order to read it (it'll just look like all their stats went up by 1).

Not sure about the abilities :/

This is meant to be a single player RPG. I plan to put the modified files within the W3M itself, so nobody will have to use a different war3patch.mpq.

SLKs and TXTs get loaded BEFORE the map. Even if you add them to w3m, it won't read. You would need a custom MPQ.

You're kidding, right? That sucks! So, what files will be loaded after? To me, it would make sense to have that functionality for the slks and txts mainly. Blizzard really makes me wonder sometimes. Their meaning of "mod friendly" sure is warped.

Dude the only files that get loaded before the map from what I

see is the abilitydata.slk and miscdata.txt. Everything else will

work normally if you place them inside the map. How do I know

this well to say the least I have been spending the past week

trying to figure out how to add custom files to maps. With your

war3patch.mpq put into another directory and the units folder

empty you can add all the other unit files besides abilitydata.slk

and miscdata.txt to the map file and they will all work except the

map wont load abilitydata.txt. Btw if anyone figures out how to

get the map to use a custom abilitydata.slk please post in the

forum ive tried everything from putting it into an imported

directory to making a trigger to load certain files etc...