Its time for a Developers Choice install

[Chronis]

Hello, I finally got around to going through the massive readme for this file and figured out what I wanted to install.

 

I just wanted to pop in and say great work. Your team's effort is very visible and you have a really great mod here.

 

I just have one small suggestion. The install process is way too time consuming. Its basically a choice of install everything or spend at least an hour reading through the massive documentation.

 

This mod would be greatly improved by adding the option of a "developers choice" install. I want an option that basically lets me be lazy and install the tweaks you think I will enjoy as opposed to spending 1+ hours reading through the documentation.

 

I suspect such an install would include most/all of the cosmetic changes and content changes, some of the rule changes, and few if any of the cheats, but that’s up to you. My only recommendation would be to include all of the fun changes that don't make much of a difference in the game, but shy away from the things that can totally unbalance the game like the experience cap remover.

 

Keep of the great work

Chronis

[berelinde]

<joking> But all I use is the cheats!</joking>

 

Not a bad idea, but might be a bit time consuming to implement, perhaps. Maybe if you gave a list of the components you like.

 

As for myself, I install just about everything, except the multi-romance cheats, avatar morphing script, gradual drow item disintegration, and changing Viconia's skin color to dark blue.

[Chronis]

I suspect a Developers Choice install would include most of the tweaks.

 

There are only a couple really that I do not feel should be included in such an install. The ones I would advise the development team not to include are.

 

Delay high level abilities - Why? Not very fun. Delay and fun just don't go together

Change experience point cap - Why? balance issues

Removing Summoning Cap -Why? again balance again

Most of the Cheats- Why? because they are cheats

 

No one is going to agree on everything. I would hope to see a selection that was as broad as possible, but tried to avoid tweaks that unbalanced the game or slowed older systems down.

 

-Chronis

[CamDawg]

Try the "Cam's House Rules" group.

[Chronis]

Try the "Cam's House Rules" group.

 

Interesting I just looked these up

 

Cam's House Rules

 

Nalia Avatar Change

Weapon Animation Tweaks

Icewind Dale Casting Graphics (Andyr)

Restore SoA Load Screen Logo

Icon Improvements

Force All Dialogue to Pause

More Interjections

Alter HP Triggers for NPC Wounded Dialogues

Breakable Nonmagical Armor, Helms, and Shields

Add Bags of Holding

Exotic Items Pack

Add Map Notes

Stores Sell Larger Stacks of Items

Reputation Resets at Beginning of BG2

Gems and Potions Require Identification

Multiple Strongholds (Sabre, Baldurdash, Weimer)

Bonus Merchants (Baldurdash, Weimer)

Female Edwina (Davide Carte, Wendy Yung, Weimer)

Allow Cromwell to Upgrade Watcher's Keep Items

Change Experience Point Cap

Allow Stealth and Thieving Abilities in Heavy Armor per P&P

Allow Arcane Spellcasting in Armor

Expanded Dual-Class Options

Wear Multiple Protection Items

Alter Weapon Proficiency System

Multi-Class Grand Mastery (Weimer)

Triple-Class HLA Tables

Trap Cap Removal (Ardanis/GeN1e)

Higher HP on Level Up

Easy Spell Learning

Bottomless Bags of Holding

Unlimited Ammo Stacks

Unlimited Jewelry and Gem Stacks

Unlimited Potion Stacks

Unlimited Scroll Stacks

Neutral Characters Make Happy Comments at Mid-Range Reputation (Luiz)

Sellable Items (Icelus)

Minimum Stats Cheat

Improved Fate Spirit Summoning

Change Jaheira to Neutral Good Alignment

Give Kagain A Legal Constitution Score of 19

 

This is actually a very good list. I would be happy if you renamed this list Developers Choice. Ideally what I would like to see when installing the mod would be a choice.

1) Install developer recommended tweaks (auto installs above list)

2) Ask me about each tweak

 

I have some experience coding but nothing on this scale so I don't know how hard that would be.

 

Since you have a list already to start from I'll go ahead and post my some feedback.

 

I wonder why you did not include Improved Athkatlan City Guard or

Change Korgan to Neutral Evil Alignment. These seem like minor changes that make the game more realistic. That said I've never played with Improved Athkatlan City Guard so I don't know how balanced it is.

 

You did include the following which I don't care much one way or the other about, but would recommend against including as they kind of are cheating.

Trap Cap Removal (Ardanis/GeN1e)

Higher HP on Level Up

Easy Spell Learning

Bottomless Bags of Holding

Unlimited Ammo Stacks

Unlimited Jewelry and Gem Stacks

Unlimited Potion Stacks

Unlimited Scroll Stacks

Minimum Stats Cheat

 

However, the only serious concern I have with the above list is the following two components

Change Experience Point Cap and Wear Multiple Protection Items

 

I have never played with these components but I worry about balance issues with these. Don’t they make BGI very easy as you level higher then you should before the end? What about SOA? Also doesn't stacking all those protection items make the group tank overpowered?

[CamDawg]

This is actually a very good list. I would be happy if you renamed this list Developers Choice. Ideally what I would like to see when installing the mod would be a choice.

1) Install developer recommended tweaks (auto installs above list)

2) Ask me about each tweak

Auto-install isn't possible unless I go poke bigg, and it's not something I'd want to do regardless. The old EoU forum was always stuffed with random complaints and bug reports from folks simply installing everything and not bothering with the readme ("why is Irenicus saying silly things to my PC?").

 

I wonder why you did not include Improved Athkatlan City Guard or

Change Korgan to Neutral Evil Alignment. These seem like minor changes that make the game more realistic. That said I've never played with Improved Athkatlan City Guard so I don't know how balanced it is.

I'm content with Korgan's CE alignment. For the Athkatlan guard, it's two things--I'm better served getting a more comprehensive tactical treatment like SCS II, and since I usually play a good party the quality of the Athkatlan guard has little bearing.

 

You did include the following which I don't care much one way or the other about, but would recommend against including as they kind of are cheating.

Trap Cap Removal (Ardanis/GeN1e)

Higher HP on Level Up

Easy Spell Learning

Bottomless Bags of Holding

Unlimited Ammo Stacks

Unlimited Jewelry and Gem Stacks

Unlimited Potion Stacks

Unlimited Scroll Stacks

Minimum Stats Cheat

Definitely cheats, sure. Most are to minimize inventory management, though I go with Easy Spell Learning to remove the memorized spells cap and Higher HP (NWN-style when i don't have a barbarian in the party) to give a boost to the rolls. Minimum Stats Cheat is used at a fairly low level (usually 10 or so) to speed up rerolling at character creation. I generally try to remove all artificial caps (also use Ding0's summons cap removal, for instance).

 

However, the only serious concern I have with the above list is the following two components

Change Experience Point Cap and Wear Multiple Protection Items

 

I have never played with these components but I worry about balance issues with these. Don’t they make BGI very easy as you level higher then you should before the end? What about SOA? Also doesn't stacking all those protection items make the group tank overpowered?

The XP Cap removal really only causes power issues towards the end of SoA, as the party can get HLAs whereas your opponents are still slogging along. It's typically used in tandem with SimDing0's DEF JAM.

 

As for multiple protection items, I use the P&P option where the save bonuses stack but not the AC bonuses. Low saves are definitely more important in ToB/late SoA than low AC, so it's still an unfair advantage. This is here mainly because I hate failed saves leading to a protagonist insta-death so it doesn't bother me too much.

[Chronis]

Auto-install isn't possible unless I go poke bigg, and it's not something I'd want to do regardless. The old EoU forum was always stuffed with random complaints and bug reports from folks simply installing everything and not bothering with the readme ("why is Irenicus saying silly things to my PC?").

 

Fair enough, just keep it in the back of your mind. My opinion is that the only flaw in this very fine mod is the lack of a "developers choice" autoinstaller. The longer that readme gets the more helpful this feature will be. You may get more random bug complaints, but you will also get a mod that is more accessable to a larger audience.

 

Keep up the great work!

-Chronis

[Kulyok]

Not exactly what you're looking for, perhaps, but in this thread you can check out some of these installs by modders and players(well, many modders are players, strange though it may seem).

 

Mine is very simple:

- Restore SoA Load Screen Logo (ToB Only)

- Force All Dialogue to Pause Game

- More Interjections

- Bonus Merchants (Baldurdash)

- Cast Spells from Scrolls (and Other Items) at Character Level

- True Grand Mastery (Baldurdash)

- Neutral Characters Make Happy Comments at Mid-Range Reputation

- Turn Off The Hideous Cloak-of-Mirroring and Spell-Trap Animation

[Mike1072]

I think the WeiDU command-line argument "--force-install-list X Y..." [installs component number X Y..., skips the others (cumulative)] might be able auto-install stuff if you put it in a batch file. I hope to get around to testing/using this to save me some time in the future.

 

However, Chronis, you've already illustrated the reason why it wouldn't be a great idea to ship this with the mod - everyone has a different opinion of which tweaks are good, and which ones are horrendous cheats. The only way you'd determine if the selection provided was to your liking would be to delve into that readme, or to start playing and get mad about it halfway through your game. (I have a small suspicion that Cam's house rules are of most use to Cam. )

 

Something I would definitely support is links to reviews of the components being placed in the readme. That way, people looking for a fairly normal gaming experience might have less of a chance to install something like 'Un-Nerfed X Table.'

[CamDawg]

(I have a small suspicion that Cam's house rules are of most use to Cam. )

Yes. It definitely wasn't a set created as any sort of recommendation; it's simply what I typically use in my games. I also can't label it as developer's choice because Idobek loved the delayed HLAs and level 20 experience caps.

[Miloch]

Auto-install isn't possible unless I go poke bigg

Isn't it, with this?

and it's not something I'd want to do regardless.

Oh. Well that certainly limits things then, if you don't want to do it .

You did include the following which I don't care much one way or the other about, but would recommend against including as they kind of are cheating.

Trap Cap Removal (Ardanis/GeN1e)

Higher HP on Level Up

Easy Spell Learning

Bottomless Bags of Holding

Unlimited Ammo Stacks

Unlimited Jewelry and Gem Stacks

Unlimited Potion Stacks

Unlimited Scroll Stacks

Minimum Stats Cheat

I don't really use these either. I'm in favour of larger stacks, but when you're carrying around a few hundred or thousand of these items without encumbrance, it's a bit unrealistic bloody silly.

However, the only serious concern I have with the above list is the following two components

Change Experience Point Cap and Wear Multiple Protection Items

I think these are fine though, at least the first one, since there's enough mods to make the game still challenging at high levels.

 

Of course, I use this on Tutu also, so a lot of the tweaks in Cam's list wouldn't be compatible with that...

[cmorgan]

[OffTopic]

 

... (well, many modders are players, strange though it may seem). ...

 

I have been sitting hard on my hands trying not to make this comment on several boards now for several weeks. I agree. If a person doesn't play and love the game, why would they mod it. It is nice to know I am not alone in noticing the silliness/disconnect that seems to be invading with the whole player =/= modder thing.

 

[/OffTopic]

 

[OnTopic]

The PPG thread is a great way to gather that data, and see what folks like. The difficulty with a "Developer's Install" is that there are so many ways to play the game, it is tough to find a good match for exactly what you like.

 

I tend to use CamDawg's House Rules, minus all the infinite stacking, but I add in cheese like all bonuses stacking and a number of the proficiencies tweaks. I don't mind the silliness, because I tend to go through things at a very slow pace, and my tactics suffer greatly from playthrough to playthrough (plus I roleplay *everything*, so sometimes my NPCs do really stupid things because I envision the byplay. Like Khalid dropping his bow and slamming head first into the Ogre instead of remaining at a tactical advantage, because Jaheira just got pulped.)

[/OnTopic]

[Guest Guest]

Not exactly what you're looking for, perhaps, but in this thread you can check out some of these installs by modders and players(well, many modders are players, strange though it may seem).

 

Thanks Kulyok, that thread was very interesting. As I am somewhat new to the modding scene there are lots of mods in there I know nothing about.

 

~BG1UB/SETUP-BG1UB.TP2~ #0 #2 // Additional Elminster Encounter

~LVL1NPCS/LVL1NPCS.TP2~ #0 #3 // Joinable NPCs more closely match the

like these two. Now I am curious and I'll have to figure out what they are =)

 

However, Chronis, you've already illustrated the reason why it wouldn't be a great idea to ship this with the mod - everyone has a different opinion of which tweaks are good, and which ones are horrendous cheats.

 

I am sure that there would be some items in a standard install that I would disagree with. But thats what the custom install is for.

 

Had I been presented the choice spend 1 hour going through that readme file or just take a recommended install most of which I would probably like I can guarantee you that I would never have looked at that readme. =)

[Chronis]

Above post is me. Im new to the forum too =)