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Mages not quite so smart?...


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Hey,

 

I'm trying this mod out, and at the moment, mages seem a little unrealistic, and also fairly dumb to be honest...

 

I've only run into the mage that is with illyich, and he either "chases" people in my party that are around the corner, and have remained that way - i.e. he has not seen them, in fact none of the enemies have...he'll just make a bee-line for the 'weakest' party member it seems...which is actually not clever, i can block the poor guy off and finish him.

 

Another issue is that he might cast a couple of spells and then will just walk around; he doesn't even use that sling to fight back, is not trying to run to get away from melee first or anything either since i can leave him well alone and watch him run around whilst i kill the other duergar...and he just keeps walking around afterwards, oblivious to the enemies just watching him...

 

Now, i understand he may have run out of spells, and something may well be wrong with only this particular mage, not to mention could simply be a local issue!

 

But, i have come across such behaviour in tactics too - which was even worse admitedlly (i could block those proletariat guys in doorways since they would ALWAYS go for imoen, but that is an aside...) and am just wondering if this will keep cropping up?

 

I understand the tone of this post may well be very pessimistic, but i really really want to use this mod actually! It sounds great, and there are definetly features i would use regardless...but AI is one of the main features...so, if you could help me out, maybe even just a reassurance that things will be fine/get better in terms of AI?

 

Thanks very much!

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Hey,

 

I'm trying this mod out, and at the moment, mages seem a little unrealistic, and also fairly dumb to be honest...

 

I've only run into the mage that is with illyich, and he either "chases" people in my party that are around the corner, and have remained that way - i.e. he has not seen them, in fact none of the enemies have...he'll just make a bee-line for the 'weakest' party member it seems...which is actually not clever, i can block the poor guy off and finish him.

 

Another issue is that he might cast a couple of spells and then will just walk around; he doesn't even use that sling to fight back, is not trying to run to get away from melee first or anything either since i can leave him well alone and watch him run around whilst i kill the other duergar...and he just keeps walking around afterwards, oblivious to the enemies just watching him...

 

Now, i understand he may have run out of spells, and something may well be wrong with only this particular mage, not to mention could simply be a local issue!

 

But, i have come across such behaviour in tactics too - which was even worse admitedlly (i could block those proletariat guys in doorways since they would ALWAYS go for imoen, but that is an aside...) and am just wondering if this will keep cropping up?

 

I understand the tone of this post may well be very pessimistic, but i really really want to use this mod actually! It sounds great, and there are definetly features i would use regardless...but AI is one of the main features...so, if you could help me out, maybe even just a reassurance that things will be fine/get better in terms of AI?

 

Thanks very much!

 

That sounds like some kind of local issue.I played with improved ilyich and SCS II v5 and the mages where quite tactical(Immediately Buff,hit party/character with spell,throw melf minute meteors,hit party with spell,throw melf minute meteors.....................................

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Local issue I think (either with that particular mage, or with your install).

 

If you want to troubleshoot, try this: find a vaguely empty area, open the cheat console, and type

 

CLUAConsole:CreateCreature("mage14a")

 

That should beam in a hostile 14th level wizard, who ought to give your starting party a run for their money. See whether she fights acceptably. Let me know the outcome.

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Local issue I think (either with that particular mage, or with your install).

 

If you want to troubleshoot, try this: find a vaguely empty area, open the cheat console, and type

 

CLUAConsole:CreateCreature("mage14a")

 

That should beam in a hostile 14th level wizard, who ought to give your starting party a run for their money. See whether she fights acceptably. Let me know the outcome.

 

Tried it, and she was much better. She used stoneskins and such, contingencies and spell sequencers as well.

 

I think the illyich mage may just be running out of spells and then is confused as to what to do, i'm sure you have set it so that mages without spells engage? it's just frustrating otherwise...no matter that in 'reality' they wouldn't do that. I dunno, opinions differ i guess.

 

One other thing popped up with the level 14 mage, she cast power word: stun on imoen, it worked and even showed up as her getting stunned in the combat log, yet she was not stunned...I'm going to go off and try the illyich mage and this new one a few times more to make sure though.

 

But, just to let you know and in case you know what's going on.

 

Thanks very much once again for replying though :laugh:

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One other thing popped up with the level 14 mage, she cast power word: stun on imoen, it worked and even showed up as her getting stunned in the combat log, yet she was not stunned...

Because of her belt, I'll wager.

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I think the illyich mage may just be running out of spells and then is confused as to what to do,

That sounds quite likely.

 

 

i'm sure you have set it so that mages without spells engage? it's just frustrating otherwise...no matter that in 'reality' they wouldn't do that. I dunno, opinions differ i guess.

 

Indeed.

 

Actually I was unsure myself on this one. Originally they didn't engage, partly because I was struggling to find a good way of checking whether they'd run out of spells; but on balance I've found that them not engaging creates more weird situations than it resolves, and also I've found a way of coding it. So they do engage as of v6.

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Indeed.

 

Actually I was unsure myself on this one. Originally they didn't engage, partly because I was struggling to find a good way of checking whether they'd run out of spells; but on balance I've found that them not engaging creates more weird situations than it resolves, and also I've found a way of coding it. So they do engage as of v6.

 

Oh, so they don't in v5? (what i have currently obviously). That might explain it.

 

But actually, i managed to "break" the level 14 mage too...

 

I used summons to engage her, and she will occasionally fight with her melf's meteors but more often than not, she eventually stops and will get cut down. She too begins to wander around, doing absolutely nothing.

 

For example, i spawn her in and she does a few spells, kills minsc and jaheira.

 

Then i run my PC and imoen to that initial room with the +1 dagger/golem/jaheira's jail cell key. Now, i'll close the door and keep my PC safe, and imoen goes outside to her death...at least i thought she would. But, whilst being pummelled by the meteors she manages to get off a monster summoning I, then she gets nailed and runs off (imoen i mean, either by a continuing melf's acid arrow, or just magic missile or something...).

 

Then my creatures surround the mage, once i've seen that the mage is 'engaged' with the monsters during that brief glimpse while imoen runs away, i then open the door so my PC can take away the fog of war and watch what happens.

 

Sure enough, she just stands there taking the hits from my monsters. I even call them off and then leave my PC standing right next to her, but she wanders around like that other illyich mob's mage.

 

Poor thing never recovers after that, the monsters must have been a nightmare come to life or something because she seems completely out of it!

 

Anyways, joking aside i can reproduce this...although i should mention that the monster summoning/other summoning spells i have are BG1 style, i.e. about 7 monsters per summon (from dingo's tweak pack) - if that makes any difference.

 

As for imoen not getting stunned - i think it may well be the belt, i guess i never knew the full protections of the belt since in vanilla BG2 no one tries to stun in chateau iren.

 

Anyways, that's what i've found so far. Sorry for the trouble i guess, since it may well all be local...though i have taken careful care in regards to a clean install and mod order of installation (SCSII is last).

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Indeed.

 

Actually I was unsure myself on this one. Originally they didn't engage, partly because I was struggling to find a good way of checking whether they'd run out of spells; but on balance I've found that them not engaging creates more weird situations than it resolves, and also I've found a way of coding it. So they do engage as of v6.

 

Oh, so they don't in v5? (what i have currently obviously). That might explain it.

 

But actually, i managed to "break" the level 14 mage too...

 

I used summons to engage her, and she will occasionally fight with her melf's meteors but more often than not, she eventually stops and will get cut down. She too begins to wander around, doing absolutely nothing.

 

For example, i spawn her in and she does a few spells, kills minsc and jaheira.

 

Then i run my PC and imoen to that initial room with the +1 dagger/golem/jaheira's jail cell key. Now, i'll close the door and keep my PC safe, and imoen goes outside to her death...at least i thought she would. But, whilst being pummelled by the meteors she manages to get off a monster summoning I, then she gets nailed and runs off (imoen i mean, either by a continuing melf's acid arrow, or just magic missile or something...).

 

Then my creatures surround the mage, once i've seen that the mage is 'engaged' with the monsters during that brief glimpse while imoen runs away, i then open the door so my PC can take away the fog of war and watch what happens.

 

Sure enough, she just stands there taking the hits from my monsters. I even call them off and then leave my PC standing right next to her, but she wanders around like that other illyich mob's mage.

 

Poor thing never recovers after that, the monsters must have been a nightmare come to life or something because she seems completely out of it!

 

Anyways, joking aside i can reproduce this...although i should mention that the monster summoning/other summoning spells i have are BG1 style, i.e. about 7 monsters per summon (from dingo's tweak pack) - if that makes any difference.

 

As for imoen not getting stunned - i think it may well be the belt, i guess i never knew the full protections of the belt since in vanilla BG2 no one tries to stun in chateau iren.

 

Anyways, that's what i've found so far. Sorry for the trouble i guess, since it may well all be local...though i have taken careful care in regards to a clean install and mod order of installation (SCSII is last).

 

Quick comment: there's not much I can do about tricks like closing the door on monsters. Feel free to take advantage of it if you like.

 

Other than that, it looks as if again she's run out of spells. And yes, in this situation she'd probably do better going to melee (not that that'll do her much good either...)

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Quick comment: there's not much I can do about tricks like closing the door on monsters. Feel free to take advantage of it if you like.

 

It's possible to script enemy to open closed door with action OpenDoor(O:Object*), where an object will be NearestDoor, but it works just with ToB. I'm using it in Slightly Improved Ilyich mod, and it works just fine.

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Quick comment: there's not much I can do about tricks like closing the door on monsters. Feel free to take advantage of it if you like.

 

It's possible to script enemy to open closed door with action OpenDoor(O:Object*), where an object will be NearestDoor, but it works just with ToB. I'm using it in Slightly Improved Ilyich mod, and it works just fine.

 

 

I wasn't actually trying to exploit the game to beat the mage of course, just testing stuff. The point is she should have attacked the talsoi and xvarts attacking her, with something, bullets/spells/dagger, even hands.

 

If not then if she ran away to a safe distance, fine aswell. But it was general wandering within about 30', the radius of a fireball or so.

 

Also, upon further attempts with the mage in illyich's gang, i again left him to last and then attacked him - he just disappeared, no xp, no invis spell, no nothing!

 

It's like when the game removes an npc when they say something and walk away from you.

 

Things just get more and more odd.

 

Though, no one else seems to be having these issues so, i think it may well not be a SCSII problem at all...maybe i should just stop making the poor mages waste their spells on my summons :/

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Quick comment: there's not much I can do about tricks like closing the door on monsters. Feel free to take advantage of it if you like.

 

It's possible to script enemy to open closed door with action OpenDoor(O:Object*), where an object will be NearestDoor, but it works just with ToB. I'm using it in Slightly Improved Ilyich mod, and it works just fine.

 

I didn't know that. Thanks.

 

But ultimately: life's too short. SCS II has a deliberate don't-block-exploits policy!

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