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Divinity: Original Sin EE savegame editing

NotAGolfer

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Dec 1, 2013
Messages
2,527
Location
Land of Bier and Bratwurst
Divinity: Original Sin 2
Hi all.

So they released D:OS 2 recently, which made me realize that time is running away faster and faster every year I didn't even play the first game for more than a few hours before, even though I backed it on Kickstarter.
So I did the irrational thing and instead of starting their new game (also backed it) I finally dived into the first D:OS.
And since reading guides on the internet gets less appealing the older I get (that's why I demand extensive tutorials for complex games nowadays, I don't have the patience to first read manuals and shit anymore) and because I couldn't possibly know which skills are useful I just started the game with the standard cleric and some mage class (dunno how it's named in the English version, I play the German one).

long disclaimer that noone wants to read so I put it in spoilers:

And after spending about 20 hours taking my time and exploring every nook and cranny in Cyseal I realize that both are pretty shit and the game screwed me from a powergamer's perspective. For example I wanted to just expand on the cleric's strengths and develop him into a tank that can heal his party members and bind the enemy (provoke skill) while the rest of the party wreaks all sorts of havok with magic, bombs and arrows.
But they gimped the shield's tanking usefulness so radically that there is just no reason to stick to that route since Lone Wolf plus two-handed or dual wield gives you a tank that can kill all these nasty high magic resistant enemies so much easier than anything else.
So it was clear that I have to respec him because honestly, this game's story is too fucking lame to give a damn about and the only thing that's fun (and it is extremely fun, this is one of the most fun games I played in the last decade) is the character building and combat. I love that stuff, even though I'm disappointed that they still didn't manage to properly balance the different classes even after all these balancing reiterations they went through.
I'm not one of the people who plays through linear games like this one multiple times so in this case I don't give a shit about replayability. I still value the build variety though, but for another reason: If the character building choices you make matter gameplay-wise then I don't feel like I'm wasting my time with the roleplaying part of this CRPG. Simple as that.

Anyway, I had to respec asap and Larian being the douchebags they are (lovable douchebags but still douchebags) thought that it would be a good idea to unlock this ability somewhere near the end of the freaking game.
That's not acceptible.
So I googled and found this little tool here.
To edit savegames with it you need to do as follows:
1. Unpack the tool and start the converter.exe
2. Switch to the PAK/LSV Tools tab and in the package path line open the savegame you want to edit (in a profile subfolder inside User\Documents\Larian Studios\and_so_on). Enter a destination folder where the files from the savegame package will be extracted to.
3. Change to the LSX Tools tab and point the input path line towards the global.lsf file inside the folder you just created, enter a filename and destination for the unpacked file. It now will be ten times as big and have the file extension lsx, meaning you can edit it like a html file.
4. Open that lsx file with some editor that works better than basic Wordpad which needs forever to load that file. I used Sublime Text, Notepad ++ should work too I guess.
5. Search for the line <node id="PlayerUpgrade"> and then read this here.
The only thing that's not easy to figure out is talents. But there's a way to circumvent this. Either hire a henchman with exactly the talents you want your edited main char to have or start a new game and give him two of these talents and add the remaining talent points into the <attribute id="TalentPoints" line directly below the <node id="PlayerUpgrade"> one. Identifying your character is simple too, just compare the attributes to the ingame values, they are even in the correct order. Not to the resulting ingame value of course, but the one without equipment bonusses.

Then repack this lsx into lsf format and replace the global.lsf with it and put the files into the same folder (it has to be the exact same savegame!) you took the lsv savegame file from. No need to repack the files into the single lsv one, the game can handle them unpacked. Delete the lsv of course.

I figured this might be useful to some here.
Honestly, Larian, wtf were you thinking adding the respec option this late in the game?
:rpgcodex:
 
Last edited:

Volrath

Arcane
Patron
Joined
May 21, 2007
Messages
4,297
Fuck you for making me think somebody finally updated MooseEdit for working with DOS EE.

Seriously.

FUCK.YOU.
 

caujin

Barely Literate
Joined
Oct 1, 2017
Messages
2
Made an account to say that this works. Thanks for the guide. Game detects that the file's been modified, though. Not sure if that screws with achievement-capability.
 

mognoose

Barely Literate
Joined
Oct 1, 2017
Messages
4
@caujin

How did you get it to work?!
I have been sitting here trying to do it, and your comment popped up, haha!

I am stuck on #2, I put the save file path in "Package path:" and the path for a folder I created in "Destination (when extracting) / source path (when creating a package):"

Then I hit create, and it seems to just edit the source save into an even smaller file of the same type. The destination folder gets no file. What am I doing wrong? :(
 
Last edited:

mognoose

Barely Literate
Joined
Oct 1, 2017
Messages
4
Also, if I hit extract it just gives an error message, saying something like "internal error! no valid signature found in package file", which I failed to mention above. I am fairly certain Extract was the button i was meant to be hitting.

I cannot for the life of me figure out what is going wrong.
 
Last edited:

caujin

Barely Literate
Joined
Oct 1, 2017
Messages
2
You're right: you're supposed to extract the lsv file. I can't really help you with the error message, though. The only think I can really suggest is going into your save, creating a new quicksave, and pointing the package path at that new quicksave to make sure that you're using a clean file. Switching the game type from EE to DOS2 might help, as well (though I didn't need to do it).

I see you've asked the package creator. He's probably your best bet if the problem persists.

If you're really desperate then I can probably do the conversion for you if you upload the LSV file to somewhere.
 

mognoose

Barely Literate
Joined
Oct 1, 2017
Messages
4
Hahaha. The save had vanished in game! I must have tampered with that save without realising. I was fairly certain I copied the original before using it, but I guess I screwed up somewhere. I did multiple in game saves so just created another, and I am able to edit that one. Thanks!

Thankfully I am paranoid that I will do this sort of thing and create multiple backups, which i have never needed, but sure was useful now! :D
 

Luzur

Good Sir
Joined
Feb 12, 2009
Messages
41,392
Location
Swedish Empire
Hi all.

So they released D:OS 2 recently, which made me realize that time is running away faster and faster every year I didn't even play the first game for more than a few hours before, even though I backed it on Kickstarter.
So I did the irrational thing and instead of starting their new game (also backed it) I finally dived into the first D:OS.
And since reading guides on the internet gets less appealing the older I get (that's why I demand extensive tutorials for complex games nowadays, I don't have the patience to first read manuals and shit anymore) and because I couldn't possibly know which skills are useful I just started the game with the standard cleric and some mage class (dunno how it's named in the English version, I play the German one).

long disclaimer that noone wants to read so I put it in spoilers:

And after spending about 20 hours taking my time and exploring every nook and cranny in Cyseal I realize that both are pretty shit and the game screwed me from a powergamer's perspective. For example I wanted to just expand on the cleric's strengths and develop him into a tank that can heal his party members and bind the enemy (provoke skill) while the rest of the party wreaks all sorts of havok with magic, bombs and arrows.
But they gimped the shield's tanking usefulness so radically that there is just no reason to stick to that route since Lone Wolf plus two-handed or dual wield gives you a tank that can kill all these nasty high magic resistant enemies so much easier than anything else.
So it was clear that I have to respec him because honestly, this game's story is too fucking lame to give a damn about and the only thing that's fun (and it is extremely fun, this is one of the most fun games I played in the last decade) is the character building and combat. I love that stuff, even though I'm disappointed that they still didn't manage to properly balance the different classes even after all these balancing reiterations they went through.
I'm not one of the people who plays through linear games like this one multiple times so in this case I don't give a shit about replayability. I still value the build variety though, but for another reason: If the character building choices you make matter gameplay-wise then I don't feel like I'm wasting my time with the roleplaying part of this CRPG. Simple as that.

Anyway, I had to respec asap and Larian being the douchebags they are (lovable douchebags but still douchebags) thought that it would be a good idea to unlock this ability somewhere near the end of the freaking game.
That's not acceptible.
So I googled and found this little tool here.
To edit savegames with it you need to do as follows:
1. Unpack the tool and start the converter.exe
2. Switch to the PAK/LSV Tools tab and in the package path line open the savegame you want to edit (in a profile subfolder inside User\Documents\Larian Studios\and_so_on). Enter a destination folder where the files from the savegame package will be extracted to.
3. Change to the LSX Tools tab and point the input path line towards the global.lsf file inside the folder you just created, enter a filename and destination for the unpacked file. It now will be ten times as big and have the file extension lsx, meaning you can edit it like a html file.
4. Open that lsx file with some editor that works better than basic Wordpad which needs forever to load that file. I used Sublime Text, Notepad ++ should work too I guess.
5. Search for the line <node id="PlayerUpgrade"> and then read this here.
The only thing that's not easy to figure out is talents. But there's a way to circumvent this. Either hire a henchman with exactly the talents you want your edited main char to have or start a new game and give him two of these talents and add the remaining talent points into the <attribute id="TalentPoints" line directly below the <node id="PlayerUpgrade"> one. Identifying your character is simple too, just compare the attributes to the ingame values, they are even in the correct order. Not to the resulting ingame value of course, but the one without equipment bonusses.

Then repack this lsx into lsf format and replace the global.lsf with it and put the files into the same folder (it has to be the exact same savegame!) you took the lsv savegame file from. No need to repack the files into the single lsv one, the game can handle them unpacked. Delete the lsv of course.

I figured this might be useful to some here.
Honestly, Larian, wtf were you thinking adding the respec option this late in the game?
:rpgcodex:

Well, i dunno, ive tried and retried this guide and all i get is Error Code # 117 when loading a edited savegame file, guess im not finishing D:OS EE :(
 

Luzur

Good Sir
Joined
Feb 12, 2009
Messages
41,392
Location
Swedish Empire
Uninstall the EE and play the original.

Would that help with editing? im not gonna sit and replay normally all the way back to where i quit last time (some dragon boss IIRC), i wanna finish it so i can move on with DOS2.
 

anvi

Prophet
Village Idiot
Joined
Oct 12, 2016
Messages
7,530
Location
Kelethin
I don't think it would help with editing, I was thinking more of just starting again and using what you learned the first time to make a better party in a better game. Maybe play other stuff for a few months so you can start again feeling fresh? You could use Cheat Engine to edit stuff, it is a lot easier than hex editing. There is a video that shows you what to do, only takes about 10 minutes to learn.

Not sure what you want to edit but if you just want to respec you can do that. There's a Demon in one of the Portals of your Homestead. Forget what he's called but I believe the Portal is on the right side of the Homestead after you first tele in. He lets you respec for a price.
 

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