Could this be a possible workaround for the unlock problem?

[Shadowcran]

First of all, I'm not very technical so bear with me.

When you go to desk manager, change decks around, see unlocks,etc. It saves it until you leave the game, right?

Well, Is it possible to keep the saved/altered decks data in a separate folder and whenever you fire up the game, you can input this data to change the decks back to their altered forms?

If so, you would have to make the alterations while the game is playing. However, if you fixed them all at once, then had them saved and then reimported them back to the right folder, it would save a lot of time.

If I'm an idiot for thinking this would work, tell me so. I'm just searching for ideas around the 21 deck limit.

[RiiakShiNal]

So in other words your idea is something along the lines of whenever the game is opened have some kind of script automatically go through the deck manager changing the configuration of each deck to what ever you had when you closed the game?

If that is your suggestion then it might work if and only if the game has some kind of external api that can report certain pieces of information to an external program. If not then the external script/program will have no clue which deck it is working on or which card it is hovering over or even whether any specific card is actually in the deck or not.

[Xander9009]

I got an email for this thread (probably a spam message that was deleted), but it made me think. It seems possible to me that the game doesn't save information about changed decks past a certain limit, but it still might read the information for those decks. I wouldn't expect it to work, but it might be possible to make an external tool to modify the decks as they appear in the profile (which, unless I'm mistaken, is where deck changes are saved) so they are accurate when opened by the game.

Of course, you can already sort of do that just by making your own version in the deck builder, but that wouldn't be usable against other people unless everyone shares their specific version of the decks with one another in advance. Another tool to modify the profile could be kept much simpler than the deck builder needs to be (it wouldn't need to access the full list of available cards, just the decks themselves, and the specifically relevant files).

I'm mostly posting this in case someone already knows this won't work, and as a reminder to myself to look into it more later.

[RiiakShiNal]

It seems possible to me that the game doesn't save information about changed decks past a certain limit, but it still might read the information for those decks. I wouldn't expect it to work, but it might be possible to make an external tool to modify the decks as they appear in the profile (which, unless I'm mistaken, is where deck changes are saved) so they are accurate when opened by the game.

The game does read all the deck configuration information stored in the profile (since this thread was originally for DotP 2013, the limit was 21 deck configurations that could be stored). Unfortunately, we never could figure out how to control which decks got stored by the game with any kind of reliability. In DotP 2014 the game always stores the decks that came with the game (they used sequential IDs, so if you replaced one of those decks it would save the new deck, but there is now no way to save decks with higher ID numbers).

Of course, you can already sort of do that just by making your own version in the deck builder, but that wouldn't be usable against other people unless everyone shares their specific version of the decks with one another in advance. Another tool to modify the profile could be kept much simpler than the deck builder needs to be (it wouldn't need to access the full list of available cards, just the decks themselves, and the specifically relevant files).

I'm mostly posting this in case someone already knows this won't work, and as a reminder to myself to look into it more later.

A new tool to just modify the profile is possible, but there are some issues with it.
For Both Versions:

• While it would not need to store all available cards it would still need to at least load all available WADs (like the deck builder) to figure out what decks are there, their IDs, cards, unlocks, etc..., and then selectively load the individual cards used by each of the player available decks for display. So it would need to do most of the same loading done by the Deck Builder.
• It would need to manage the configurations separately from the profile so that when the profile is re-saved by the game (see issues below) the tool will know what configurations should be in the file and what those configurations should have (or if actually saved by the game allow for a configuration to be updated). Though this might sporadically allow for the in-game manager to be used in DotP 2013, it would only allow for the decks using the base IDs in 2014 to be managed in-game which would mostly defeat the purpose in the first place.

For DotP 2013:

• Still no way to control which decks get saved, which would mean you would likely need to run the program either every time you close the game (to restore your settings for the next run) or every time before you run the game (to set things up prior to each run).
• If by chance one of the saved deck configurations matches what should have been saved then the tool could read that information and update the externally managed deck configurations, but it still doesn't fix the problem of not being able to manage most decks using the in-game manager.

For DotP 2014:

• The game still only saves the default deck configurations (those with IDs that fit within those originally given to us by the developers) so any configurations saved outside of those would get wiped every time you close the game (meaning you would have to save and manage them outside the game, which goes back to the original problem).
• Since the game only stores the deck configurations for decks using the original IDs you would have to replace one of the original decks to be able to use the in-game deck manager and have it save configurations. Though this can be done without creating a new extra tool.

I'm open to other suggestions, but creating another tool to manage the configurations outside of the game is pretty far from the original goal of trying to find a way to use the in-game manager.

[Xander9009]

It seems possible to me that the game doesn't save information about changed decks past a certain limit, but it still might read the information for those decks. I wouldn't expect it to work, but it might be possible to make an external tool to modify the decks as they appear in the profile (which, unless I'm mistaken, is where deck changes are saved) so they are accurate when opened by the game.

The game does read all the deck configuration information stored in the profile (since this thread was originally for DotP 2013, the limit was 21 deck configurations that could be stored). Unfortunately, we never could figure out how to control which decks got stored by the game with any kind of reliability. In DotP 2014 the game always stores the decks that came with the game (they used sequential IDs, so if you replaced one of those decks it would save the new deck, but there is now no way to save decks with higher ID numbers).[

I didn't realize this was originally for 2013 (I really wish these forums were at least all marked...). I just saw it was related to a limited number of decks being saved and thought that was a problem new to 2014.

Of course, you can already sort of do that just by making your own version in the deck builder, but that wouldn't be usable against other people unless everyone shares their specific version of the decks with one another in advance. Another tool to modify the profile could be kept much simpler than the deck builder needs to be (it wouldn't need to access the full list of available cards, just the decks themselves, and the specifically relevant files).

I'm mostly posting this in case someone already knows this won't work, and as a reminder to myself to look into it more later.

A new tool to just modify the profile is possible, but there are some issues with it.
For Both Versions:

• While it would not need to store all available cards it would still need to at least load all available WADs (like the deck builder) to figure out what decks are there, their IDs, cards, unlocks, etc..., and then selectively load the individual cards used by each of the player available decks for display. So it would need to do most of the same loading done by the Deck Builder.
• It would need to manage the configurations separately from the profile so that when the profile is re-saved by the game (see issues below) the tool will know what configurations should be in the file and what those configurations should have (or if actually saved by the game allow for a configuration to be updated). Though this might sporadically allow for the in-game manager to be used in DotP 2013, it would only allow for the decks using the base IDs in 2014 to be managed in-game which would mostly defeat the purpose in the first place.

Yeah, it'll definitely need to load all wads, I just meant it wouldn't need to load up every card. But, also importantly, it wouldn't need to modify the decks themselves at all. It would only need to do the following:

• Load all decks
• Load the cards the chosen deck uses
• Allow user to manipulate decks by swapping cards in or out between the three available lists
• Save the deck configuration to the profile

Without needing to modify the decks themselves, manage a complete list of decks, mess with the decks' art assets, or even check for errors, it could be quite a bit simpler.

For DotP 2014:

• The game still only saves the default deck configurations (those with IDs that fit within those originally given to us by the developers) so any configurations saved outside of those would get wiped every time you close the game (meaning you would have to save and manage them outside the game, which goes back to the original problem).
• Since the game only stores the deck configurations for decks using the original IDs you would have to replace one of the original decks to be able to use the in-game deck manager and have it save configurations. Though this can be done without creating a new extra tool.

I'm open to other suggestions, but creating another tool to manage the configurations outside of the game is pretty far from the original goal of trying to find a way to use the in-game manager.

I meant to ignore the in-game deck manager altogether. It'd be awesome if we could get it to work for all decks, but it's been long enough that I'm confident it won't happen. So, next best thing: an out-of-game manager that still allows the configurations to be used in online matches.

[RiiakShiNal]

I didn't realize this was originally for 2013 (I really wish these forums were at least all marked...). I just saw it was related to a limited number of decks being saved and thought that was a problem new to 2014.

Not a new problem, it started with the introduction of console support in which they created a new player profile file format that limited the number of deck configurations saved. I know for a fact that this problem did not exist in DotP 2010 as I had dozens of custom decks with custom configurations saved that I played and worked with. I don't know about DotP 2012 because I didn't play or mod that game, but from what I remember DotP was the first to really introduce console support and this was a new problem at that time.

As for determining this thread was for DotP 2013, that wasn't too difficult since DotP 2014 didn't come out until about June/July 2013 and this thread started in March 2013, 3-4 months before DotP 2014 came out. Incidentally, it was also a couple of months before I released my first version of the Deck Builder for DotP 2013 (which happened in May).

Yeah, it'll definitely need to load all wads, I just meant it wouldn't need to load up every card. But, also importantly, it wouldn't need to modify the decks themselves at all. It would only need to do the following:

• Load all decks
• Load the cards the chosen deck uses
• Allow user to manipulate decks by swapping cards in or out between the three available lists
• Save the deck configuration to the profile

Without needing to modify the decks themselves, manage a complete list of decks, mess with the decks' art assets, or even check for errors, it could be quite a bit simpler.

Managing art assets and such is simple compared to the rest of the loading/saving. Most of the error checks I've added are a result of catching errors during the regular load and just storing them off with understandable messages. Very few of the error checks resulted with me adding a new check for no other reason than to catch a game error. So you wouldn't be reducing the complexity by much if any, besides you would actually be increasing complexity by then linking the loaded deck with a deck configuration that has to be saved in at least two places (externally to the game where we can manage it, and in the profile which would have a separate load/save with an extra checksum recalculation on save. The Deck Builder doesn't currently handle loading of the player's profile so it doesn't have any of that loading and linking code.

I meant to ignore the in-game deck manager altogether. It'd be awesome if we could get it to work for all decks, but it's been long enough that I'm confident it won't happen. So, next best thing: an out-of-game manager that still allows the configurations to be used in online matches.

You may be able to get it to manage all decks externally, but you'll only be able to tell the game about and have it load a limited number at any given time because there is a limit to how many deck configurations that can be saved in the profile (limited to just the amount of official decks, but you should be able to use their slots by changing the deck IDs on the deck configurations, though they will get overwritten with the base official deck configurations when the game saves the profile again). So you'll have to have a list of what decks will be saved to the profile that can be managed by the user.