Magic Duels tests and results

[Tejahn]

how can I progress past the Story Mode in order to unlock the Deck Box and access the Cards Collection.

I asked the exact same question when I wanted to start modding Magic Duels.

Well... you don't. Go directly to Battle Mode, the game will suggest that you should complete the campaign first, but you can choose to go on anyway.

And I received this same reply.

[lilqi]

Hi,

i followed the instructions of the first post and got almost everything running, but not all unlocked cards are available 4 times. mystic cards for example are only available 1x, some other cards are only 3x...

is that intended or did i screw up somewhere along the way?

also, is there ANY way to do multiplayer games with the unlocked cards (maybe over tunngle or some other way)?

thanks,

lilqi

[thefiremind]

mystic cards for example are only available 1x, some other cards are only 3x...

is that intended or did i screw up somewhere along the way?

That's how Magic Duels works: 1 mythic, 2 rares, 3 uncommon, 4 common. In order to prevent that, you have 2 ways:

1. Make the cards all common, then clean your profile. I remember someone saying that marking them as common in the card pool XML (and not in each card XML) was enough, but when I tried myself, it wasn't. Anyway it's a boring task and I don't mind the rarity restriction so I didn't do it.
2. Use spirolone's profile editor: by editing your profile you can set the quantity of any card to 4. I'm not up-to-date with that so I don't know how much user-friendly he managed to make it.

[Xander9009]

mystic cards for example are only available 1x, some other cards are only 3x...

is that intended or did i screw up somewhere along the way?

That's how Magic Duels works: 1 mythic, 2 rares, 3 uncommon, 4 common. In order to prevent that, you have 2 ways:

1. Make the cards all common, then clean your profile. I remember someone saying that marking them as common in the card pool XML (and not in each card XML) was enough, but when I tried myself, it wasn't. Anyway it's a boring task and I don't mind the rarity restriction so I didn't do it.
2. Use spirolone's profile editor: by editing your profile you can set the quantity of any card to 4. I'm not up-to-date with that so I don't know how much user-friendly he managed to make it.

If you mean editing each XML is the boring bit, I could actually already have a program that can do that for any number of cards... Actually, Notepad++ can do that. It's Find in Files feature can search all files of a given type for a given string and replace it with another one of your choice. It'd take three passes to catch them all (barring regex, which it can do, but I avoid out of caution), but it'd only take a few moments.

[MasterXploder7]

mystic cards for example are only available 1x, some other cards are only 3x...

is that intended or did i screw up somewhere along the way?

That's how Magic Duels works: 1 mythic, 2 rares, 3 uncommon, 4 common. In order to prevent that, you have 2 ways:

1. Make the cards all common, then clean your profile. I remember someone saying that marking them as common in the card pool XML (and not in each card XML) was enough, but when I tried myself, it wasn't. Anyway it's a boring task and I don't mind the rarity restriction so I didn't do it.
2. Use spirolone's profile editor: by editing your profile you can set the quantity of any card to 4. I'm not up-to-date with that so I don't know how much user-friendly he managed to make it.

If you mean editing each XML is the boring bit, I could actually already have a program that can do that for any number of cards... Actually, Notepad++ can do that. It's Find in Files feature can search all files of a given type for a given string and replace it with another one of your choice. It'd take three passes to catch them all (barring regex, which it can do, but I avoid out of caution), but it'd only take a few moments.

You have gotten me so interested in Magic Duels that I have installed Notepad++...

[thefiremind]

Important news: with the Kaladesh expansion, card pool files are now LOL files rather than XML. If you want to see what's inside you'll need this tool (Xander9009's version and the one I edited myself should be equally fine).

I'm pasting the results from decompiling EMN_F2_SHOEBOX_POOL here:

| Open

Code: Select all

local l_0_0 = module
local l_0_1, l_0_2 = ..., ...
l_0_2 = package
l_0_2 = l_0_2.seeall
l_0_0(l_0_1, l_0_2)
l_0_2 = {name = "DROWNYARD_BEHEMOTH_400146", id = "849", rarity = "U"}
local l_0_3 = {}
l_0_3.name = "ENLIGHTENED_MANIAC_400147"
l_0_3.id = "850"
l_0_3.rarity = "C"
local l_0_4 = {}
l_0_4.name = "FOUL_EMISSARY_400148"
l_0_4.id = "851"
l_0_4.rarity = "U"
local l_0_5 = {}
l_0_5.name = "WRETCHED_GRYFF_400149"
l_0_5.id = "852"
l_0_5.rarity = "C"
local l_0_6 = {}
l_0_6.name = "IT_OF_THE_HORRID_SWARM_400150"
l_0_6.id = "853"
l_0_6.rarity = "C"
l_0_1 = {l_0_2, l_0_3, l_0_4, l_0_5, l_0_6}
l_0_0 = {id = "10", content_id = "8", plane_id = "10", collection_logo_location = "Art_Assets\\Frontend\\Collection\\moon_filter_button", cards = l_0_1}
card_pool = l_0_0

which you can compare to its previous XML version:

Code: Select all

<card_pool id="10" plane_id="10" collection_logo_location="Art_Assets\\Frontend\\Collection\\moon_filter_button" content_id="8">
  <card name="DROWNYARD_BEHEMOTH_400146" id="849" rarity="U" />
  <card name="ENLIGHTENED_MANIAC_400147" id="850" rarity="C" />
  <card name="FOUL_EMISSARY_400148" id="851" rarity="U" />
  <card name="WRETCHED_GRYFF_400149" id="852" rarity="C" />
  <card name="IT_OF_THE_HORRID_SWARM_400150" id="853" rarity="C" />
</card_pool>

Even if the decompiler puts in a lot of useless local variables, you can see that the card pools are now Lua tables. Could it be the first step they take towards expanding the limit? The highest index now is 1020, so the next expansion will need more ID space!
I hope that plain Lua files (with LOL extension anyway) will still work for card pools as they work for constants and functions, I haven't tried yet. The first thing to do is to find the cleanest way to define those Lua tables by ourselves.

EDIT: I confirm that plain Lua files still work for card pools. The following is my own implementation of EMN_F2_SHOEBOX_POOL.LOL, tested and working:

| Open

Code: Select all

module(..., package.seeall)

local tCards = {
   {name = "DROWNYARD_BEHEMOTH_400146", id = "849", rarity = "U"},
   {name = "ENLIGHTENED_MANIAC_400147", id = "850", rarity = "C"},
   {name = "FOUL_EMISSARY_400148", id = "851", rarity = "U"},
   {name = "WRETCHED_GRYFF_400149", id = "852", rarity = "C"},
   {name = "IT_OF_THE_HORRID_SWARM_400150", id = "853", rarity = "C"}
}

card_pool = {
   id = "10",
   content_id = "8",
   plane_id = "10",
   collection_logo_location = "Art_Assets\\Frontend\\Collection\\moon_filter_button",
   cards = tCards
}

What does the first line mean? I have no idea, but the decompiled version uses that function, and if I comment it out, the card pool doesn't work. Aside from that, the other sections are absolutely clear. The only downside is that copying and pasting from existing card pools is no longer feasible.

[petercal]

Did the five (six) basic lands ever have ID numbers? I assume no since the Card Collection shows 1021 cards and doesn't include the basic land.

Maybe the card pool file change also has something to do with that deck builder fix people keep asking for.

[thefiremind]

Nevermind the card pool changes for now: there's a greater problem which might even result in a dead end for us.

At the moment it's impossible to access Battle Mode offline without having completed Gideon's campaign first: the game will complain that it can't access the store and will return to the main menu.

Any ideas are welcome.

[Xander9009]

I'm unfamiliar with the process of modding Magic Duels, but why can't you complete Gideon's campaign with vanilla files before adding in your modded files?

[thefiremind]

I'm unfamiliar with the process of modding Magic Duels, but why can't you complete Gideon's campaign with vanilla files before adding in your modded files?

If you complete a campaign while in offline mode, the progress isn't saved.

I tried to overwrite the profile generated through the Steam emulator with my profile from the legit Steam version (hash file included, of course), but it doesn't get recognized. I don't know what's wrong with that.

[Xander9009]

Well, I actually meant complete it online, but I think I already see the issue with that. The profile determines whether or not it's completed, so you'd need to figure out how exactly it stores that "campaign completed" information in order to make those same changes to a modded profile. Does that sound right?

Although, I'm not sure about why the profile wouldn't be recognized, which more or less negates the above...

[spirolone]

I tried to overwrite the profile generated through the Steam emulator with my profile from the legit Steam version (hash file included, of course), but it doesn't get recognized. I don't know what's wrong with that.

You need to use same ID you have on legit Steam version or change first two bytes of your profile...
If you use Ali213 version, you can change "SteamUserID" in ini file putting your Steam ID converted in hex value.

EDIT: It's possible to "delete" DATA_005.ZED, get Starter Box in a new profile, and then add again DATA_005.ZED and use that profile...

[thefiremind]

If you use Ali213 version, you can change "SteamUserID" in ini file putting your Steam ID converted in hex value.

I probably misunderstood what you meant by "Steam ID" initially, but in the end you got me on the right track, so thanks a lot. The "ID" that I needed to write inside ALI213.ini is the hex value of my original profile filename, which incidentally is also the name of the subfolder in Steam\userdata where I can find all my Steam saves. However, if I poll for my Steam ID through a site like steamrep.com, I get a different one.
To be super-clear for anyone reading this: if you have 123456789.profile, you would write SteamUserID=75bcd15 (where 75bcd15 is 123456789 converted to hex).

Anyway, on my original profile I can go to Battle Mode while offline, so that problem is solved.

EDIT: It's possible to "delete" DATA_005.ZED, get Starter Box in a new profile, and then add again DATA_005.ZED and use that profile...

At this point I think that the best course of action is to unlock all possible cards through your tool, since the clean profile is not an option anymore.

---------------

On my previous post about the new card pool format I added the results of my first test.

[Tejahn]

Nevermind the card pool changes for now: there's a greater problem which might even result in a dead end for us.

At the moment it's impossible to access Battle Mode offline without having completed Gideon's campaign first: the game will complain that it can't access the store and will return to the main menu.

Any ideas are welcome.

This is unfortunate considering I have a release date for the tDLC set for October 15th. In my DLC, before the update, I went into the Campaigns folder and deleted the <prereq id="N" /> tag from all the XMLs so all campaigns are unlocked from the start. Have you tried removing that tag since the update? Also, is a new .BIN file for Kaladesh available to download? I wouldn't mind looking under the hood to see what's been changed or added.

EDIT: Well, I see that you've figured it out. But I'm still curious as to what would happen if the
<prereq id="N" /> tags are removed. Please direct me to the latest .BIN file. Perhaps someone should start a topic and post the most recent file there when updates occur.

[thefiremind]

I'm still curious as to what would happen if the
<prereq id="N" /> tags are removed.

Removing those tags allows you to play any mission within a single campaign, but you won't unlock the campaigns themselves.

Please direct me to the latest .BIN file. Perhaps someone should start a topic and post the most recent file there when updates occur.

I'm updating the first post right now. It will take a while because the changes affect the whole procedure I explained.
EDIT: The first post should be detailed enough on all the changes now. I haven't updated my test ZED because the card pools need to be updated, and I haven't decided how: there are only a few free slots for new cards now, so substitutions would be necessary. I'm also a bit reluctant on devoting myself on new methods because I'm expecting big changes with the next expansion when the 1024 limit will be broken.