Skeletons behaviour and creatures modding

[Erikud]

Hi guys, old DK2 player here but new on the forum. I recently bought the game on GoG (my physical backup died after many years of service) and downloaded the GIM and it's going great. Some minor bugs, a pretty major problem (lvl 11) but what really bothers me are the skeletons. I don't like the fact that they get paid and that they can go to the casino but I can live with that, what I really hate is the fact that sometimes they run away from combat when low on HP. I still can't figure out if it is a bug or a change in their behaviour but I'd like to change that. I went into the game files and found out that I have no idea how to open and mod those .kwd files ( I guess the file to edit is creatures.kwd ). So my questions are: 1 is this behaviour intended? Is there a page that reports every change done to the game? (I'm sure there is but I can't find it) 2 how can I edit those files to tweak the creatures as I wish?
Thank you in advance and forgive me if that has already been explained.

[Quuz]

You can open the creature.kwd file with a Hex editor. But only the animations can be corrected there... As far as I know.
In general, the behavior of creatures are saved in the global values of each individual map such as AlcatrazGlobals.kld or CavernsGlobals.kld. So to change their behavior you need to re-save each levels or return all the original maps, if they were changed in the patch.

[Quuz]

Or you can open each level in the editor go to the configuration. -> creatures types. find a skeleton and change its parameters: pay = 0, fear = 32999

[Erikud]

You can open the creature.kwd file with a Hex editor. But only the animations can be corrected there... As far as I know.
In general, the behavior of creatures are saved in the global values of each individual map such as AlcatrazGlobals.kld or CavernsGlobals.kld. So to change their behavior you need to re-save each levels or return all the original maps, if they were changed in the patch.

Thank you so much, I found both the pay parameter and the fear one, I'm gonna spend a bit of time editing the skeletons but it will be worth.

[Metal Gear Rex]

what I really hate is the fact that sometimes they run away from combat when low on HP. I still can't figure out if it is a bug or a change in their behaviour but I'd like to change that. I went into the game files and found out that I have no idea how to open and mod those .kwd files ( I guess the file to edit is creatures.kwd ). So my questions are: 1 is this behaviour intended? Is there a page that reports every change done to the game? (I'm sure there is but I can't find it) 2 how can I edit those files to tweak the creatures as I wish?
Thank you in advance and forgive me if that has already been explained.

It's "intended" (probably) in the sense that it was a change made in the editor, so the game is working as "intended". The exact change in this case, Quuz already highlighted, but it's worth noting the difference between the Fear and Fearless stat. Fearless is what makes it so creatures will not flee from combat, ever, whereas the Fear value itself deals more with Fear Traps and creatures being scared of enemies and all that. Fearless stat also has the significant side effect of making it so a creature will never become unhappy, which may be why it was changed? I'm not really sure, GIM has a lot of weird "balance" changes.
Also side note, but there's Max Gold Held, which should be below the Pay attribute in the list, which was also 0 in the original game and that was evidently changed in GIM, so Skeletons can pick up loose gold on the ground and gamble in the casino.

You could also go to the Level tab at the top of the editor, scroll down and hit the "Reset All Creature Properties" to get rid of all of the extra GIM changes if desired.
If I recall though, there were some modifications done to maps themselves that won't be covered in resetting creature properties, but they should be harmless. I remember Wyrmcast mentioning something about changing Gem Rocks into Impenetrable Rock or Gold if a player has obscene amounts of gold because he was really worried about super fringe crash scenarios of having massive Treasuries filled and it spawning lots of objects, or spawning *lots* of minions through aggressive Skeleton / Vampire making.