Target-to-target special effects

[Sym_Kensaki]

Is there a way to invoke special effects like Shield Boomerang or Blood Drain where the client needs two targets in order to display correctly?  I know this can be accomplished with a clif skill damage call, but this comes with undesirable extra baggage like a character animation and a "hit" display (damage/miss/negative damage).   I need it to just display the effect from target to target and nothing more.

[Akbare-2nd]

On 10/23/2024 at 12:18 PM, Sym_Kensaki said:

Is there a way to invoke special effects like Shield Boomerang or Blood Drain where the client needs two targets in order to display correctly?  I know this can be accomplished with a clif skill damage call, but this comes with undesirable extra baggage like a character animation and a "hit" display (damage/miss/negative damage).   I need it to just display the effect from target to target and nothing more.

maybe by adding a specialeffect in skill.cpp

[Sym_Kensaki]

That's the thing though, specialeffect, specialeffect_single, and specialeffect_value all display an effect on a particular target.  So if you attempt a target-to-target effect like Jupitel Thunder's orb, it will cause the effect to fire from that character toward the center of the map.  I had hoped that specialeffect_value could be used in conjunction with a target ID, but this does not seem to be the case.

[b1rbert]

Not the answer you probably hoped for but have you tried using  skilleffectinfolist.lub from your grf? You can also give different effects IDs to certain skills. it might make it so skills like shield boomerang or drain life look correct. I could be very wrong thought because I haven't tested it yet.

 

EDIT: Tried it out. sadly the same problem. Drain Life just flies to the middle of the map. sorry

Edited November 7, 2024 by b1rbert
tested out my theory and wanted to add the experience

[Sym_Kensaki]

Yeah I had given a few permutations of this a try myself with no luck.  I'm glad you tried it perhaps a bit more extensively.  skilleffectinfolist seems to be a bit broken or outdated in its applicability given that many of the parameters you feed it (like actorstate) do not seem to correctly pass no matter what you do.  Which is a real shame, because this file gives off the appearance that it is the key to anything of this nature you might want to do.  If only it worked correctly (or I knew how to make it work correctly if it does).

Hopefully someone has something to help out there, because so many effects are harshly limited by this ruleset, forced to be called via their skill slot of origin in order to have any chance of displaying correctly.  I think if this could be figured out, it would be a huge boon to every aspiring server owner who wishes to bring a clean experience to their players.