Request for content feedback

[DavidW]

As with SCS, enemies above a certain minimum intelligence will usually prioritise opponents who are not stunned, held or otherwise helpless. From their point of view, they're fighting to win, and if they kill all non-helpless opponents they can finish off the helpless ones at their leisure.

while it's true for mages, beacause saving throws don't seem to depend on creature's state, fighters do better killing helpless. Usually it takes at least several rounds to kill a conscious creature, and less then one to kill a stunned one, beacause of substantional AC penalties they get. Otherwise, they wake up and chance to kill them swiftly slips away. In general, I always target helpless (doesn't include misled or such) with melee/arrows and concsious ones with spells. This strategy works much better for me. Not that your implementation is bad, it's just some info for you to consider if you want.

 

It's a balance (and you have a point). It depends how long they're asleep for, but a lot of stunning-type attacks actually last so long that the battle will be over one way or another before the paralysed creatures are restored. (Mind flayers, and some demons, do kill helpless foes, though.)

[dizzyorange]

Don't have much specific feedback here, but just want to comment generally that I'm quite happy that SCS II has gotten a little harder with each release. It's now at the point where, if you pick the hardest options during install and avoid using exploits like project image, SCS's difficulty rivals that of any other mod, even IA. I reloaded a ton more with IA initially, but once you find the strategies that work well in IA, it becomes easier. Strategems has kept up its difficulty level on my second run-through with V5/V6 a little more; the enemies (spellcasters especially) adapt their behavior pretty well to the kind of party you are using. I used a stealth party last time and a druid/mage heavy party this time, and the experience is quite different.

 

DW, if you have plans to keep working on strategems, keep making it harder! (as long as those components are optional I think everybody will be happy).

[Suluku]

I would just like to add to that playing with SCSII is the first time computer D&D has reminded me of the times when I used to play PnP with a smart, ruthless, flesh and blood DM. Well done for that!

 

I didn't run into any bugs in V5 that have not already been mentioned except for the Dark Planetars summonded by the liches in the shadow temple and the spellhold maze. All of these cast heal spells on party members in between blows from their vorpal swords, which was nice but clearly not what they were supposed to be doing.

 

On the highest SCSII diffulty setting these 'incidental' liches were more of a challenge than the Shade Lord and his Dragon, especially for a 12-13th level party.

It might be more of challenge if there was a chance the shadow altar could level drain party members who are dealing damage to it.

 

I took on Kangaxx at the end of SOA with a 19th-20th level party and also found him a little on the tame side. A couple of summoned earth elementals and Devas to keep him occupied, a freedom spell kept handy to rescue the trapped souls and it was simply a matter of waiting out his final spell protections. It might be more fun if he could employ a steady stream of high level counter-summons instead of the regulation Abi Dalzims, etc.

 

I took on the more difficult, Tactics-style improved Bodhi and this was by far the toughest fight so far. She's a little cheesy in this form, but her strong offensive abilities and relative lack of spell protections (apart from magic resistance) make her a refreshingly different kind of enemy from the usual high-level mages. She's beatable if party spell casters can avoid her cloud of bats.

 

Thanks for making this old game such fun to play.....

[Sen]

SCSII is one of best mods that I have used for BG2 - Keep up the good work!

 

I really like V6 mainly due to earlier freedom scrolls (lich hunting ) and the "DMWWNoNeutralPrebuff".

 

Regd. bugs (in V5) I didn't encounter a lot - probably the standing-still summoned Genies, vampire AI and stuff - nothing new.

 

The Underdark Beholder battle was really tough - I remember breezing through that in the vannila game.

Had a lot of deaths - even after using the shield/cloak of cheese

 

Nice job!!

[aVENGER_(RR)]

I just noticed a small issue with the Improved Sahuagin component.

 

In the Sahuagin city, several of the Priestesses which cast Teleport Field are located near bodies of water which count as inaccessible areas (i.e. they can't be traversed to normally). However, Teleport Field can place a party member even on such inaccessible areas which, in term, prevents them from walking back to regular terrain. The only way to get a stuck party member back is to use CTRL+J.

[DavidW]

I just noticed a small issue with the Improved Sahuagin component.

 

In the Sahuagin city, several of the Priestesses which cast Teleport Field are located near bodies of water which count as inaccessible areas (i.e. they can't be traversed to normally). However, Teleport Field can place a party member even on such inaccessible areas which, in term, prevents them from walking back to regular terrain. The only way to get a stuck party member back is to use CTRL+J.

 

Okay, looks like they'd better stop using that spell. Shame. (I suppose you could kill and resurrect them, but it's hardly optimal )

[aVENGER_(RR)]

Another note: the Sahuagin Priestesses don't adhere to the precasting options that were set for Smarter Mages and Smarter Priests i.e. they will precast short duration spells (Bless, Chant...) even if the "No precast" option was selected. The don't seem to be influenced by DMWWDisableBuffing either.

[DavidW]

Another note: the Sahuagin Priestesses don't adhere to the precasting options that were set for Smarter Mages and Smarter Priests i.e. they will precast short duration spells (Bless, Chant...) even if the "No precast" option was selected. The don't seem to be influenced by DMWWDisableBuffing either.

 

That's careless... I was obviously in a hurry. Thanks.

[Raj]

Just started a new game ( I grew tired of a 6 men party, way funnier with a smaller one expecially if I have to micro whole time during the improved mage battles ^^ ) and noticed a couple odd things that might be related to scs2, so asking:

 

1) Is Suna Seni ( the holder of the Arbane+2 short sword ) been removed from the game? I feared it was related to the ''remove unrealistical helpful items'' component, but then I have no idea where to find that sword ( I removed long time ago the UB Valygar-Suna Seni subplot fyi ).

 

2) Is the improved AI messing with the Lathander Priest who's guarding the golden statue in the Athkatla temple disctrict? Because I was used to go there at night, when there're less guards and it was possible to unlock the safe when the priest moved outside line of sight; now, he stands still at any time of the day and I have to trigger the alarm.

 

3) Rescuing Viconia, looks like the fanatic priest has a un-interruptable hold person spell ( ok very minor bug, but it irked me to reload once )

[erik]

In the Sahuagin city, several of the Priestesses which cast Teleport Field are located near bodies of water which count as inaccessible areas (i.e. they can't be traversed to normally). However, Teleport Field can place a party member even on such inaccessible areas which, in term, prevents them from walking back to regular terrain. The only way to get a stuck party member back is to use CTRL+J.

 

Okay, looks like they'd better stop using that spell. Shame. (I suppose you could kill and resurrect them, but it's hardly optimal )

 

Killing the "SPWI421 1 3" line in scsii/sahu/sahu_low.2da will take care of that, right?

[aVENGER_(RR)]

2) Is the improved AI messing with the Lathander Priest who's guarding the golden statue in the Athkatla temple disctrict? Because I was used to go there at night, when there're less guards and it was possible to unlock the safe when the priest moved outside line of sight; now, he stands still at any time of the day and I have to trigger the alarm.

 

Cast Improved Invisibility on the party member who is going to steal the statue and you will not trigger the alarm.

[DavidW]

Just started a new game ( I grew tired of a 6 men party, way funnier with a smaller one expecially if I have to micro whole time during the improved mage battles ^^ ) and noticed a couple odd things that might be related to scs2, so asking:

 

1) Is Suna Seni ( the holder of the Arbane+2 short sword ) been removed from the game? I feared it was related to the ''remove unrealistical helpful items'' component, but then I have no idea where to find that sword ( I removed long time ago the UB Valygar-Suna Seni subplot fyi ).

 

Guilty. It's the "improved random encounters" component, actually: I think I had UB installed when I wrote it, so I used the modified version of the first random encounter.) Will fix.

 

2) Is the improved AI messing with the Lathander Priest who's guarding the golden statue in the Athkatla temple disctrict? Because I was used to go there at night, when there're less guards and it was possible to unlock the safe when the priest moved outside line of sight; now, he stands still at any time of the day and I have to trigger the alarm.

Guilty. I always play goody-two-shoes characters, so I don't tend to notice that kind of thing. I'll restore his randomness.

 

3) Rescuing Viconia, looks like the fanatic priest has a un-interruptable hold person spell ( ok very minor bug, but it irked me to reload once )

Innocent. He casts hold person the normal way. Hitting someone (especially an NPC) in BG2 doesn't always disrupt their spells, though; that's an engine bug (or feature), not something any mod does.

[DavidW]

I'm going to lock this thread on forum-management grounds: I started it to try to get some content feedback going but it's morphed into a general discuss-SCSII thread, and I think it would be more manageable if people reverted to starting new threads for new topics or bug reports.

 

That doesn't mean I don't still want content feedback, though - I welcome it, positive or otherwise.