What is the general opinion of Improved Anvil?

[Guest!]

No need to "defend" it, because there aren't "attacks", unless some lies and stupid babbling can be called an "attack". Also no need to *convince* everyone: those who want to play it will play it, others don't have to. The comments such as "after reading these, I'm sure now that I won't play it" do make me laugh. It's like answering "I didn't" to the question of "Which of you won the lottery?".

 

So at which point does criticism become "babbling"? Debates on categorizing aside, the people here who've given their opinion on IA actually played the thing, made their points and gave their reasons, and I don't seem to recall having read any lies or imprecisions.

[Baronius]

I get $7000 / month for it.

 

If it is not possible to split IA into parts, it just means it wasn't thought out well enough right from the start. You can spin it however you want, but that's just the way it is.

OK.

 

Edit: someone just drawn my attention to this post. Due to topic moderation, the "question" I replied here is now in another thread. It was something like "do you get payed for this". Just for the sake of update.

[Guest Mr. X]

OK, so everybody – who do you think has more testosterone – Baronius or temujin? Or maybe Gabrielle?

 

Anyway, on topic. I’m in the process of playing IA 4.2 . And I can confirm the analyses of several posters – the need for a melee-heavy party, the uselessness of non-utility thieves, the uselessness of offensive (in the sense of being able to actually do damage) mages, the need to carefully analyze battles, etc. Basically, if you’re a powergamer (and I fit that description), then you should give IA a shot (unless you hate multiple reloads). Otherwise, the mod might not be for you.

[Cashews]

And I can confirm the analyses of several posters – the need for a melee-heavy party, the uselessness of non-utility thieves, the uselessness of offensive (in the sense of being able to actually do damage) mages, the need to carefully analyze battles, etc.

 

Which was my problem when I tried it. IA isn't a bad mod and Sikret isn't a bad modder. An enormous amount of work went in that mod and one can only respect that. However, if I may be so bold, I think that the reason why some people just can't stand this thing, is that it goes against what Baldur's Gate is all about: options. Options through different races, classes, alignments, quests, NPCs... even mods.

 

IA puts you in a little box, limiting your options on the basis of a better gaming experience. Oh, you can certainly play and think outside of it, but you'll have one heck of a terrible time if you want to use your melee-less, invoker and thief heavy party. You can certainly get a good time out of IA, but the only way you can truly enjoy it, is by knowingly limiting your options. If you're a rollplayer, that's not a problem. But if you're any kind of roleplayer, you'll simply hate it.

 

I know I did.

[Baronius]

While it closes usual possibilities, it also opens new ones. Some players like it particularly because their "cheese" (or even non-cheesy well-working tactics) are taken from them, and they have no other choice than finding new ones. Because there is more than one solution to most (if not all) IA situations, some players already found one or more of these solutions in the practice too (those who're interested can search the IA forum for it).

[SimDing0]

Have you played IA?

[Guest Guest]

But the problem is that, realistically, if you're not melee-heavy, you don't stand a chance. Which really limits your options, and more importantly, limits the replayability of the mod.

 

I'm enjoying (more or less) my first run-through, but I don't know that I'd want to do another. Yes, I know Sikret will say that if I try different protagonists or NPC's, I'll get new content. Big whoop - I'll spend 50+ hours on a new game, just to get a new 1/2 hour quest; otherwise, I'll have to take essentially the same approach with the rest of the game. No thanks.

 

As has been said by other posters in this thread, this mod has a lot of potential. But it still has a ways to go if it wants to be considered truly excellent.

[Guest Mr. X]

Just for clarification, the previous post by "guest" was mine, and I was reponding to Baronious.

[Guest temujin]

Well, my theory that a major chunck of the BG2 modding community, while technically inclined, has the diplomacy skills of pissed off 4th graders, isn't losing any ground in this thread.

 

There are way more productive ways to express differing opinions. I won't waste my time talking about them, I just want to point out to you folks that there is a better way, and you are consistently missing those opportunities.

 

Marceror (<-- not a real person)

 

Marceror, sometimes you just have to get down and dirty.

 

 

 

 

Which was my problem when I tried it. IA isn't a bad mod and Sikret isn't a bad modder. An enormous amount of work went in that mod and one can only respect that. However, if I may be so bold, I think that the reason why some people just can't stand this thing, is that it goes against what Baldur's Gate is all about: options. Options through different races, classes, alignments, quests, NPCs... even mods.

 

I agree.

 

I should've also said ranged weapons are completely useless as most of the enemies are immune or nearly immune to missile damage (if you look at the item upgrade list, you will see only ONE ranged weapon upgrade - the flasher launcher).

 

Sikret feels things like ranged weapons (in addition to thieves being unable to steal from stores anymore) may be exploited, so he makes them unusable pretty much. Ok, his intentions are clear. He wants to have players play the game in a fair way but unfortunately, his methods to prevent players from cheating just isn't practical. What good is having an extremely powerful bow or a crossbow if you can't use it well? He should've left it up to the players and let them decide for themselves whether they want to make use of such exploits.

[Shaitan]

ashews' post='97863' date='Sep 13 2007, 05:32 PM']

I should've also said ranged weapons are completely useless as most of the enemies are immune or nearly immune to missile damage (if you look at the item upgrade list, you will see only ONE ranged weapon upgrade - the flasher launcher).

 

Sikret feels things like ranged weapons (in addition to thieves being unable to steal from stores anymore) may be exploited, so he makes them unusable pretty much. Ok, his intentions are clear. He wants to have players play the game in a fair way but unfortunately, his methods to prevent players from cheating just isn't practical. What good is having an extremely powerful bow or a crossbow if you can't use it well? He should've left it up to the players and let them decide for themselves whether they want to make use of such exploits.

 

AFAIK there's more to be gained by pickpocketing in this game than usual. People are carrying stuff wich actually has to be stolen. Nice. Also concerning ranged weapons; it will be more powerfull in the next version, if the board at BWL is right.

[Baronius]

If it is not possible to split IA into parts, it just means it wasn't thought out well enough right from the start.

For those who may be confused due to the fact I said OK to the above statement yesterday -- obviously, it's not OK, not true. (I said OK just to stop that pointless sequence of posts so the jerk could feel he "won" it or something like that.) Obviously, there are very many things that disprove that. Those who are interested can find examples on their own, or can contact the right person for more information -- I won't detail them here. For one example, anyway, just consider that very many IA items can be found in the gear of enemies during the new and/or improved encounters (=> separating Items and Tactical Content would require all items to be collected into a store, which would be horrible -- the items have different background-story, features etc.) Similarly, the improved encounters rely on the Fixes and Tweaks of IA, so separating them would mean broken Tactical Content. And so on, and so on. As I've said, it's very easy to find more for everyone who is actually interested and has a few minutes to examine the question.

[Guest Mr. X]

Well, I for one have enjoyed this thread immensely, and I speak as a well-known regular poster at SP (although under a different name. And no, I’m not going to say who (for now, at least) – I want to keep everyone in suspense. Because my ego likes to think that anyone actually cares. )

 

IA's author (Skiret, sp?) speaks in a very literal way, i.e. saying other's comments are "false" when he could use gentler terms.

 

I think part of the problem is that English is not Sikret’s native language, so he may be unaware of how he comes across. (But in that vein, I must say I loved reading SinDing0’s Site of Mod. Although sometimes it sounded like Mr. S, and sometimes like Mr. B. Maybe it’s a hybrid of the two, which would make it Mr. BS )

 

One thing that I seem to recall reading is that Sikret wants IA to revolutionize the BG2 experience. If that’s true (and I admit I might be wrong as to my interpretation), then in order for that to happen, IA would need a fairly broad fan base. And yet, by its design (and it’s own admission), IA is a niche mod which will appeal only to a relatively small group of players. Yes, it does what is does very well in many respects, but if it’s going to attract a wider audience, Sikret needs to loosen the reigns a bit to give players more freedom to play the game in a manner they want to. Of course, all this is irrelevant if I’m wrong about Sikret’s ambitions for IA.

[Drew]

I believe by the many answers and replies found here, the makority of the opinions is its controversial.

Yes, but it needn't be. Some people like Improved Anvil and some people do not. Some people think the mod is well designed, and others think that there has got to be a more elegant way to improve game difficulty than making all the enemies immune to missile fire/elemental damage/etc or giving them HLA's well before the PC's get access to them. Weimer's Tactics/Item Upgrade combo, a rather popular mod pairing, is also loved by many and considered "cheesy" by others, yet there is no "controversy" surrounding it despite the fact that just as many (if not more) people have just as many negative things to say about it. I am convinced that the "controversy" surrounding IA is derived nearly entirely from the vehemence with which IA is defended.

[Drew]

With your fast reply, you somewhat proofed Drew's statement, at least it can be seen this way.

That's actually exactly what's been done. Short of the compatibility/component-parsing complaints, there's not a single critique of IA that I've not heard thrown at Item Upgrade, Tactics, or Underrepresented Items (EDIT: you know, now that I think about it, Wes did get requests to split components up further from time to time, and usually accommodated them). The difference lies not in the complaints, but in the differences between the way Wes handled them and the way such complaints about IA are handled. When someone stated that the items were over-powered, that the game now forced a specific party composition onto them, that the enemies used cheesy tactics, or that the AI "cheats", Wes's response was to either "fix" it (rarely, unless it was a suggestion to make things harder) or (more often) to say "Yeah, well, it's not for everybody." There was no anger, no vitriol (even when the critiques were, to put it mildly, less than flattering*), and no protracted arguments were made. I can't say the same for the handling of complaints about IA.

 

* Anyone else remember the whole Xyx's beholders debacle? That could have been ugly, but Wes's handling caused the whole thing to blow over with (almost) no hard feelings.

[CamDawg]

The thread's very disjointed now, as I've tried to split out the off-topic stuff. If anyone thinks I've split something off that should be here, let me know. Otherwise please use the other thread for all of your grandstanding, condescension, insults, conspiracy theories, and attacks on random mods. Cheers.