What is the general opinion of Improved Anvil?

[monster]

Pretty awful mod, the physical resistance of enemies is just beyond dumblike. It pretty much forces you to play his "vagrant" kit (lmao), then follow a certain route which involves leaving Athaktla immediatly. (going for an early lilarcor is not going to happen because Qualo's crawler has been replaced with a greater crawler which has such low AC, that you have the impression your fighting the Ravager or any other physical resistant demon, when in fact its a nice little creature, and if you do kill the crawler with some Potions of Heroism and a lvl 11-12 party, then you have the nasty surprise while pushing the pipes to be attacked by rats which have also a pretty neat AC).

 

This "mod" pretty much takes the roleplaying part out of the game. I wouldn't mind having having Dragons, Irenicus, Ravager etc. buffed/more physically resistent, but improving the difficulty to that degree that IA does, before the Underdark is just utterly retarded. I was deeply traumatized by IA, and i terribly regret and feel ashamed for ever installing such mod in my BG2 directory.

 

I do hope each and everybody in search of tactical improving mod will at least avoid installing IA just because of the fact that is not compatible with most mods. But If you do install IA, well then GODSPEED. Have fun hack'n slash'in ubber low AC creatures and physical resistent monsters.

[Garza]

going for an early lilarcor is not going to happen because Qualo's crawler has been replaced with a greater crawler which has such low AC, that you have the impression your fighting the Ravager or any other physical resistant demon, when in fact its a nice little creature, and if you do kill the crawler with some Potions of Heroism and a lvl 11-12 party, then you have the nasty surprise while pushing the pipes to be attacked by rats which have also a pretty neat AC).

C'mon, isn't it cool? Such a powerful weapon must be guarded properly

As some guy at BWL said, you just "do not accept what this mod tries, and does not try, to do"

[WizWom]

C'mon, isn't it cool? Such a powerful weapon must be guarded properly

As some guy at BWL said, you just "do not accept what this mod tries, and does not try, to do"

Nerf the players and ultra-buff the monsters, to make up for the lack of actual intelligence?

 

If I wanted to play against 10000 hit point bosses which require a special combo to take down, I'd be playing Final Fantasy, now wouldn't I?

 

Part of the beauty of Baldur's Gate is that you are playing almost completely level against the other demi-humans in the game, and humans are the most dangerous beings in the Realms.

[temujin]

Nerf the players and ultra-buff the monsters, to make up for the lack of actual intelligence?

 

If I wanted to play against 10000 hit point bosses which require a special combo to take down, I'd be playing Final Fantasy, now wouldn't I?

Careful there, WizWom. With that line of thinking, you'll soon be labeled by IA's #1 fanboy as a newbie that simply doesn't know how to play the game.

 

What you said is not the worst part, though. The thing that does get me is seeing the author's nerve to act as the judge, jury, and the executioner in deciding what constitutes a cheater. Even in your hypothetical case, if you somehow manage to defeat that 10000 hit point creature, you still may not have won it fair unless you beat him exactly in the way Sikret envisioned it. Such is life for an IA player.

[the bigg]

Nerf the players

If what I hear is correct, this is not entirely true. While you're gimped for most of the game, you'll get stupidly powerful abilities late into ToB (E.G. a +5 ring of Gaxx, or the Riskbreaker special skill). Anybody who's ever been a Dungeon Master knows what happens when you give too powerful abilities/items to your players.

 

And of course, stupid immunities aren't cheats, they're anti cheat devices.

[Proteus_za]

http://forums.blackwyrmlair.net/index.php?...amp;st=20

 

Whatever anyone else says about fixpack, baronius, sikret, the long running feud, or IA, I think its digusting that a new player who cheated a little got dragged up front of everyone and ridiculed. Remind me never to download that mod, if thats how the authors treat their fans its definitely not for me.

 

I dont think any of the authors of the tactical mods I use would haul me up for playing on normal and using some aspects of bg2 tweaks. their words might be something along the lines of "Well you are sacrificing your own long term enjoyment of the game." but I dont think they would be offended enough to write a long post about how much I suck.

[DavidW]

I dont think any of the authors of the tactical mods I use would haul me up for playing on normal and using some aspects of bg2 tweaks. their words might be something along the lines of "Well you are sacrificing your own long term enjoyment of the game."

 

I wouldn't even go that far, actually. I'm an academic with a computer programming hobby, not a specialist in the psychology of computer game enjoyment. I know at least one person who CTRL-Ys and CTRL-Rs past difficult SCS2 battles when they get bored; that's fine by me. (In fact, it's mildly useful data: if lots of people were doing that, it might be a sign that the battles were too difficult or too tedious.)

[Proteus_za]

I wouldn't even go that far, actually. I'm an academic with a computer programming hobby, not a specialist in the psychology of computer game enjoyment. I know at least one person who CTRL-Ys and CTRL-Rs past difficult SCS2 battles when they get bored; that's fine by me. (In fact, it's mildly useful data: if lots of people were doing that, it might be a sign that the battles were too difficult or too tedious.)

 

Yeah, kind of what I thought. I made a mod for Diablo 2 (a minor mod, the non beta version of which has yet to be released) and to be honest I couldnt care less whether people cheat. Its totally up to them. I can define the in game rules, but I'd be so arrogant as to give my players rules to abide by.

 

The thread in question seems to have moved to here: http://forums.blackwyrmlair.net/index.php?...=4060&st=20

[Shaitan]

Yeah, kind of what I thought. I made a mod for Diablo 2 (a minor mod, the non beta version of which has yet to be released) and to be honest I couldnt care less whether people cheat. Its totally up to them. I can define the in game rules, but I'd be so arrogant as to give my players rules to abide by.

Still Sikret coded into his mod that if you cheated you would miss out important items. Isn't that cute? I just guess people besides the filthy few just can't take that decision themselves.

[Proteus_za]

Yeah, kind of what I thought. I made a mod for Diablo 2 (a minor mod, the non beta version of which has yet to be released) and to be honest I couldnt care less whether people cheat. Its totally up to them. I can define the in game rules, but I'd be so arrogant as to give my players rules to abide by.

Still Sikret coded into his mod that if you cheated you would miss out important items. Isn't that cute? I just guess people besides the filthy few just can't take that decision themselves.

 

Yeah, some people seem to love IA, power to them, I dont like any mod which makes decisions for me. I decide how to play, what class to play, which quests to do, in what order, what tactics to use, what mods to use, what components of mods to use, whether to cheat, how much to cheat, whether to make a custom kit for a playthrough.... I wont have those decisions made for me, so IA is not for me.

 

I'm going to stay out of this from now on, its not my fight, and unlike Baronius and Sikret, I dont lose sleep over it. I'll let BWL do the censoring and the trash talking about G3, I'll just play Baldurs Gate II thanks very much.

[Shaitan]

Yeah, kind of what I thought. I made a mod for Diablo 2 (a minor mod, the non beta version of which has yet to be released) and to be honest I couldnt care less whether people cheat. Its totally up to them. I can define the in game rules, but I'd be so arrogant as to give my players rules to abide by.

Still Sikret coded into his mod that if you cheated you would miss out important items. Isn't that cute? I just guess people besides the filthy few just can't take that decision themselves.

 

Yeah, some people seem to love IA, power to them, I dont like any mod which makes decisions for me. I decide how to play, what class to play, which quests to do, in what order, what tactics to use, what mods to use, what components of mods to use, whether to cheat, how much to cheat, whether to make a custom kit for a playthrough.... I wont have those decisions made for me, so IA is not for me.

 

I'm going to stay out of this from now on, its not my fight, and unlike Baronius and Sikret, I dont lose sleep over it. I'll let BWL do the censoring and the trash talking about G3, I'll just play Baldurs Gate II thanks very much.

Yes, well... my very own problem is, that initially I liked IA, but as you suggest the number of other mod compatible with it, the ever increasing difficulty, the at times harsh tones of Sikret/the Baron towards ordinary players and their general feeling of paranoia was indeed annoying me. The worst actually is, that they live in their own world meaning they wouldn't help the rest of the community ie with improving the now-a-day-fixpack-which-even-Gaider-did Fixpack, nay rather they'd with their past pretending that's best. Well shouldn't we just let them?

[Guest Shagar]

Well, BG and BG2 are role playing games. This means that when playing them, you are not yourself but CHARNAME. The main problem with IA is that BG2 stops being an RPG and turns into a tactical game. Sikret and Baronius talk about learning curves and rules you have to observe when playing the mod. It's simple. In an RPG, you are CHARNAME. If CHARNAME dies, you die and it's game over. Period. There's no such thing as learning curves because next time you play the game, you are a different character, no matter the name you choose. Similarly, in an RPG you should do what CHARNAME would do in every given situation if allowed by the game. So there's no way you can cheat under the rules of the game (that is different than using the CLUA console where you are doing something that CHARNAME is not allowed to do).

So, as I've said, with IA installed, BG2 is not an RGP anymore but a tactical game. Of course, this isn't necesarily wrong. Everything depends on what you are looking for. If you want a tactical challenge, IA is probably the way to go. However, if you are looking for a tactical challenge while still keeping the flavour of the game, I'd recommend you to play SCS and SCSII instead.

Just my two cents.

[DavidW]

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.

 

I've had a second go at this (delegating for Cam). Hopefully all the comments (pro and anti, constructive and otherwise) about Improved Anvil are still on this thread, but the off-topic stuff has moved here. If people could keep it that way, it would be helpful (for visitors as well as regulars, I imagine!)

[Guest Fantozzi]

Well most of The BWL forums just became privileged today, Improved Anvil section included. Seems like Baronious has some big ($$$) plans for Improved Anvil and BWL

 

Seems like those 2 characters Baronius and Sikret have a nice little scheme going, after reading the Off Topic Thread. With Improved Anvil v6 around the corner unless it gets mirrored, it will be pretty much the first BG2 mod you'd have to "purchase".

 

There was also a thread in the Improved Anvil section, where Sikret was asking for donations for future releases of the mod.

[cmorgan]

Player choice rules. There are lots of free mods, lots of free sites, and (to be blunt) paying for a mod makes it not a minor technicality in terms of violations of EULA, it makes it piracy, pure and simple. The BioWare folks eventually will get around to fixing that kind of stuff. With any luck, they won't shut the rest of the communities down when they do.

 

But the good news is that folks still have SHS, PPG, CoM, Tolkien Across the Water, TeamBG, G3, Sorceror's Place, and then the International sites like ClanDLAN, Rosenkavalier, etc. So really, nothing to discuss on this one.