Hi there, I'm trying to get into modding Torchlight 2. I'm making a new class mod in GUTS, which I want to balance as well as possible. However, there's a wall I'm walking into right now. The situation is that I want to make three buff skills for my new class that I'm working on. I want the skills to be mutually exclusive with each other. If one buff is active, you can't have the other two active.

I had the feeling Group Name would help with this, as this is the description: "Skills with matching group names are not allowed to cast while another skill matching the group name is active. Case sensitive.". I tried using this with "buff skill 1", but what happens that not only can I not use "buff skill 2" and "buff skill 3", I can't use "buff skill 1" either after using it once, even after the buff wears off. The only way to reset it so I can use "buff skill 1" again is by using the console and resetting my skilltree completely with the command "reset skills", so I can respec into it again.

Is there a better way of doing this, some kind of "if" function that would act as follows;

Best case scenario for the class I want to make would apply this logic:

Use "buff skill 1"
"buff skill 1" activates and applies buff
Use "buff skill 2"
"buff skill 1" buff immediately wears off and gets replaced by "buff skill 2"

However, I would also be happy with this:

Use "buff skill 1"
"buff skill 1" activates and applies buff
"buff skill 2" and "buff skill 3" both get grayed out until the buff wears off, making them periodically unusable

Thanks in advance for helping, you'll get back a cool class once it's done!

P.S.
Felt like I shouldn't make a whole new thread for this, does anyone know how to fix the enters in the tier description of a skill?
https://imgur.com/a/ea9Zm
I absolutely hate that the tier descriptions have one enter too much inbetween them, I didn't do anything weird in the skill description (no enters, not too much text, no reading signs). Thanks!

Hi Rainemard, welcome to the modding community. 
I've answered your post in your Reddit thread but I'll post it here again.

GUTS game mode sometimes displayed certain things incorrectly. 
The skill description should appear correctly (without the extra spaces) when you try your mod in-game.

Thanks for all the help everyone, I'll definitely try out the suggestions later today!

OK, still figuring out working with skills myself but let me try!
First of all I have to ask how you want to switch between these buff skills! as passive skills normally apply their bonuses "always" I cant imagine the mechanic used to switch between buffs...

This is however important since I can think of many ways working around...
using stats and stat requirements might be the way.
Give your skills some stat requirements, each skill has its own stat. Now when skill 1 gets activated it removes the stats of skill 2 and 3. When the skill ends it adds the stats again so you can choose freely between alll of them.
the required stats have to be attached to the player.dat using an affix with "add stat" effects and the stat names in the "EffectName" gap.

For your Tier description problem I checked up the UI file (skills_rollover.layout) but it is all set up with "scale to fit" so it has to be your code...

Code: [Select]

[SKILL]
<STRING>NAME:IcePrison
<TRANSLATE>DISPLAYNAME:Ice Prison
<TRANSLATE>BASE_DESCRIPTION:You summon pillars of ice around a target, trapping it within. You, however, can pass through the barrier. Pillars reflect damage back at foes attacking them.
<TRANSLATE>TIER1_DESCRIPTION:Ice pillars inflict damage when shattering
<TRANSLATE>TIER2_DESCRIPTION:Foes within the prison are damaged over time
<TRANSLATE>TIER3_DESCRIPTION:Cooldown reduced to 2 seconds.
does yours looks equal?

keep me updated on how this works out
lolesch

As for the the tier description, I've copied mine from a vanilla skill and it looks exactly the same as the line of code you posted, so it should work the same way. However, as Viz said in this thread, it may just be fixed from packaging the mod and actually using it in-game.

As for the buffs, I've thought of using Stat Requirement in the Skills. I know how to make a skill only activate when the requirement is met, but I do not know how to make a skill NOT be able to activate when a stat requirement is met. It's probably an easy difference, I'll try it out later tonight, but I'll let you know if I can't find out. Thanks for your input!

Hi Rainemard, welcome to the modding community. 
I've answered your post in your Reddit thread but I'll post it here again.

GUTS game mode sometimes displayed certain things incorrectly. 
The skill description should appear correctly (without the extra spaces) when you try your mod in-game.

I've seen, I'll try that when I package it and act like it's fixed for now. If it doesn't work I can always come back to the forums. Thanks for helping out!

Hi @Rainemard , welcome to Torchmodders!

First can i ask if you do your skill editing in a text editor or in GUTS?  Because i find it easier to explain if it's making edit s in a text editor so here goes...

You can also set it up so the "start" and "stop" instructions are all contained in the skill .DAT file itself.  Following is an example from a TL1 skill, the "Aura of Thorns" skill of the Destroyer class.

Spoiler (hover to show)

[LEVEL1]
   <INTEGER>LEVEL_REQUIRED:20
   [EVENT_TRIGGER]
      <STRING>FILE:media/skills/warrior/thornsaura/launch.layout
      <BOOL>STATSHIDDEN:1
      [EFFECTS]
         <STRING>TARGET:SELF
         [EFFECT]
            <STRING>TARGET:SELF
            <STRING>TYPE:STOP SKILL
            <STRING>NAME:Entropic Aura
            <STRING>DURATION:INSTANT
            <FLOAT>VALUE:100
         [/EFFECT]
      [/EFFECTS]
   [/EVENT_TRIGGER]
   [EVENT_TRIGGER]
      <STRING>FILE:media/skills/warrior/thornsaura/thornsaura.layout
      <BOOL>ATTACHES:1
      <INTEGER>DURATIONOVERRIDEMS:120000
      [AFFIXES]
         <INTEGER>AFFIXLEVEL:20
         <STRING>TARGET:ENEMY
         <STRING>AFFIX:AURA_OF_THORNS
      [/AFFIXES]
   [/EVENT_TRIGGER]
   [EVENT_END]
      [AFFIXESREMOVE]
         <STRING>TARGET:ENEMY
         <INTEGER>AFFIXLEVEL:20
         <STRING>AFFIX:AURA_OF_THORNS
      [/AFFIXESREMOVE]
   [/EVENT_END]
[/LEVEL1][/font]

The first [EVENT_START] block (in red) has the STOP_SKILL effect and it's targeting the other Destroyer aura skill "Entropic Aura".  So when you activate Thorns, it will stop Entropic.

The Entropic Aura skill is coded the same way, but points to the Thorns Aura, to stop it when you activate Entropic.

Hope i made sense and hope that was helpful!

BTW, am glad you chose to ask for help over here; tells me we're doing something right lol!

Yes, I do use the text editor, as it allows me to work much faster. That said, I do use the menus to see what options I can change, as I can't see that in the text editor itself (the options only show up if you actually changed something about it, like turning Hide Stats = false into Hide Stats = true). I'll try it this way, sounds like it'll cover the first option I have, since it overwrites current buff.

Another question I ran into, since it seems no vanilla skill seems to behave this way; I want to create a buff skill that lasts 60 seconds, which will add Convey Silence/Poison 30%/60%/90% to your weapon. Do I need to make two skills out of this like how Coupe de Grace works, or is it possible merge them into one skill?

Also, is there an IRC chat for these forums so I can ask small questions like these? Or is that what the Shoutbox is for?

Again, thanks everyone for your input, it helps a lot. Glad to become a part of this community!

I want the skills to be mutually exclusive with each other. If one buff is active, you can't have the other two active.

You can also set it up so the "start" and "stop" instructions are all contained in the skill .DAT file itself.  Following is an example from a TL1 skill, the "Aura of Thorns" skill of the Destroyer class.

I stumbled over the effects SKILL ENABLE and SKILL DISABLE that could be placed inside the Skills affix...
This way you could gray out the other skills as long as your buff is active. make sure to enable the skills again in the [EVENT_END]
this way you cannot change the buff until its over... not sure which variation you prefer