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XP reward adjustments?


Guest PetrusOctavianus

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Guest PetrusOctavianus

This has been discussed before and I now DavidW is sceptical to the idea, but the new and very hard to kill boss type of monsters really should give more XP.

 

To keep things balanced (ie keep the *total* number of XP in the game the same), how about reducing the XP rewards of monsters like Greater Basilisk, Lesser Basilisks, Sirines and Dread (or was it Dire? Whichever gives 650 XP) Wolves.

 

These are all *far* easier than most of the buffed bosses or parties of characters and that should be reflected in greater XP reward.

 

Surely a character learns much more from fighting an intelligent enemy than a single-minded Dread Wolf or Basilisk?

 

To me it feels like cheating getting around 30K XP on the Basilisk map at the expense of some Potions and Scrolls. Usually I give my best fighter Prot vs Petr, Speed Potion and Potion of Giant Str and it's a cakewalk.

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This has been discussed before and I now DavidW is sceptical to the idea, but the new and very hard to kill boss type of monsters really should give more XP.

 

To keep things balanced (ie keep the *total* number of XP in the game the same), how about reducing the XP rewards of monsters like Greater Basilisk, Lesser Basilisks, Sirines and Dread (or was it Dire? Whichever gives 650 XP) Wolves.

 

These are all *far* easier than most of the buffed bosses or parties of characters and that should be reflected in greater XP reward.

 

Surely a character learns much more from fighting an intelligent enemy than a single-minded Dread Wolf or Basilisk?

 

To me it feels like cheating getting around 30K XP on the Basilisk map at the expense of some Potions and Scrolls. Usually I give my best fighter Prot vs Petr, Speed Potion and Potion of Giant Str and it's a cakewalk.

 

In principle I'm sympathetic to this. But I do think it's hugely difficult to make changes to XP without unbalancing the game, and currently I think BG1 is pretty nicely balanced (the basilisk map is a partial exception, and obviously there are places you can mine for XP, but i've never been bothered about blocking that kind of exploit).

 

If someone has detailed, concrete XP change suggestions, and can back them up with some serious maths to show that it's not going to affect the overall balance, I'll consider implementing them.

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Guest PetrusOctavianus
This has been discussed before and I now DavidW is sceptical to the idea, but the new and very hard to kill boss type of monsters really should give more XP.

 

To keep things balanced (ie keep the *total* number of XP in the game the same), how about reducing the XP rewards of monsters like Greater Basilisk, Lesser Basilisks, Sirines and Dread (or was it Dire? Whichever gives 650 XP) Wolves.

 

These are all *far* easier than most of the buffed bosses or parties of characters and that should be reflected in greater XP reward.

 

Surely a character learns much more from fighting an intelligent enemy than a single-minded Dread Wolf or Basilisk?

 

To me it feels like cheating getting around 30K XP on the Basilisk map at the expense of some Potions and Scrolls. Usually I give my best fighter Prot vs Petr, Speed Potion and Potion of Giant Str and it's a cakewalk.

 

In principle I'm sympathetic to this. But I do think it's hugely difficult to make changes to XP without unbalancing the game, and currently I think BG1 is pretty nicely balanced (the basilisk map is a partial exception, and obviously there are places you can mine for XP, but i've never been bothered about blocking that kind of exploit).

 

If someone has detailed, concrete XP change suggestions, and can back them up with some serious maths to show that it's not going to affect the overall balance, I'll consider implementing them.

 

Basic idea:

 

1.Increase the XP of all unique creatures (boss monsters, single NPCs and party NPCs) affected by ScS, by the percentage amount they have been toughened. I guess DavidW would have to decide how much they have been toughened. If that is too much work, just give them double XP.

 

2. Calculate total added XP.

 

3. Calculate total XP from placed, mindless or single-minded monsters like Lesser Basilisks, Greater Basilisks, Vampiric Wolves, Dread Wolves, Dire Wolves, Winter Wolves, Flesh Golems, Cave Bears, Werewolves, Ankheg, Spiders and Wolfweres.

 

Total added XP / Total XP calculate at point 3 = The percentage of XP needed to be shaved off from the monsters mentioned above.

 

Or just do it the easy way - just shave the XP off from Lesser and Greater Basilisk, since Basilisks IMO are the real problem and AFAIK there is a finite amount of them; they never appear in random encounters.

 

It just feels a bit silly getting a few hundred measly XP from some buffed NPC that you must use all your spells, items and skills to defeat and then get 4000 XP from killing a harmless (as long as you are Petr. Protected) oversized lizard...

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Guest Guest
Basic idea:

 

1.Increase the XP of all unique creatures (boss monsters, single NPCs and party NPCs) affected by ScS, by the percentage amount they have been toughened. I guess DavidW would have to decide how much they have been toughened. If that is too much work, just give them double XP.

 

2. Calculate total added XP.

 

3. Calculate total XP from placed, mindless or single-minded monsters like Lesser Basilisks, Greater Basilisks, Vampiric Wolves, Dread Wolves, Dire Wolves, Winter Wolves, Flesh Golems, Cave Bears, Werewolves, Ankheg, Spiders and Wolfweres.

 

Total added XP / Total XP calculate at point 3 = The percentage of XP needed to be shaved off from the monsters mentioned above.

 

Or just do it the easy way - just shave the XP off from Lesser and Greater Basilisk, since Basilisks IMO are the real problem and AFAIK there is a finite amount of them; they never appear in random encounters.

 

It just feels a bit silly getting a few hundred measly XP from some buffed NPC that you must use all your spells, items and skills to defeat and then get 4000 XP from killing a harmless (as long as you are Petr. Protected) oversized lizard...

You could've done it yourself and make your own mod, don't you?

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Basic idea:

 

1.Increase the XP of all unique creatures (boss monsters, single NPCs and party NPCs) affected by ScS, by the percentage amount they have been toughened. I guess DavidW would have to decide how much they have been toughened. If that is too much work, just give them double XP.

 

2. Calculate total added XP.

 

3. Calculate total XP from placed, mindless or single-minded monsters like Lesser Basilisks, Greater Basilisks, Vampiric Wolves, Dread Wolves, Dire Wolves, Winter Wolves, Flesh Golems, Cave Bears, Werewolves, Ankheg, Spiders and Wolfweres.

 

Total added XP / Total XP calculate at point 3 = The percentage of XP needed to be shaved off from the monsters mentioned above.

 

Or just do it the easy way - just shave the XP off from Lesser and Greater Basilisk, since Basilisks IMO are the real problem and AFAIK there is a finite amount of them; they never appear in random encounters.

 

It just feels a bit silly getting a few hundred measly XP from some buffed NPC that you must use all your spells, items and skills to defeat and then get 4000 XP from killing a harmless (as long as you are Petr. Protected) oversized lizard...

 

This is exactly the kind of thing I had in mind, yes. But two observations:

 

(i) This only guarantees that the XP level at the end of the game is unchanged. It doesn't guarantee that you don't (e.g.) end up much higher level by mid chapter 4.

(ii) Apologies for laziness, but I wasn't offering to do the calculations myself, so I'd need the end product, not just the blueprint, before I'd be willing to implement it.

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Not sure if it any help but I get something like 1.8 million XP by the end of Tutu - this is based on killing just about everything in the game once (I have respawning disabled and usually clear every map). Don't know how this splits between monster & quest XP though.

 

Apart from adjusting the XP, another option would be to beef up some of the high XP creatures further. I think sirenes give the right amount of XP for how difficult they are (they are damn hard work, what with the arrows & charms).

 

The flesh golems (in the cave near Sil) are quite easy so long as you have magical weapons & your AC is low enough - could their strength be boosted? Or could they have a mage as their keeper? [NB I also think Thalantyr should go hostile if you attack his flesh golems - at present you can just kill them with no consequences].

 

Finally, the basilisks. A few things might work here:

 

-a ranged poison attack which the basilisk uses if it's flesh to stone gaze fails (it already has a poisonous bite - I guess you could envisage it spitting venom?)

-a stinking cloud effect to immobilise/knock out enemies (basically some sort of "poisonous breath" concept)

-make them faster (like the faster bears)

 

Just a few suggestions.

 

Cheers

 

coaster

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With respect,

 

I personally don't like any of the suggested changes (Sirines, Basilisks and Flesh Golems).

 

Thalantyr in particular shouldn't be allowed to turn hostile if the party kills his hostile golems. The conjurer do not like visitors but the party comes there to talk and banter and, if you don't get the hints about him halting his minions when you get to talk to him a first time, then there is no choice for the party but defend themselves. Making Thalantyr hostile because of that is an unnecesary punishment. Rather, it would be good to tweak a bit the dialogue so that Thalantyr will acknowledge the death of his golems and will maybe raise his price (elegant touch).

 

I find the BG 1/TotSC XP distribution rather fair (I also use deactivated spawns) with my major complaints coming from the TotSC part (where there is a difficulty balance problem, according to me).

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Guest PetrusOctavianus

OK, I went through all the CRE files starting with _ (EasyTutu) and dw# (ScS) and used Shadwokeeper and Near Infinity to edit thoses that needed it.

 

I gave all Priests, Mages and Ogre Magi with a ScS buffing script 1.5 more XP and twice for "nut cases" (Andris and NPCs with both boosted levels/stats and a script).

 

I reduced the XP of most monster class creatures by dividing by 5 and then multiplying by 3, to get even numbers. ScS boosted critters like Giant Spiders and Ettercaps retain their old XP. I further reduced the XP from Xwarts and Gibberlings (not nearly as dangerous as Kobolds).

 

Most NPC fighters and Thieves keep their old XP.

 

Seems to work out well so far. The game is challenging, without being frustrating and I feel I get rewarded for defeating the assassin groups.

 

I haven't done any detailed calculation of the total XP (respawn is also a factor) so it should be interesting to see what the total XP will be at the end. I play with an XP cap remover, so I'll play the whole game. Without the XP cap remover it's too tempting to just start BG2 once the cap is reached.

 

How difficult is it to make an actual mod out of these changes?

BG modding seems like rocket science compared to Morrowind and Oblivion. :)

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Another problem I can foresee with removing XP from the trash you find out in the woods is that it might keep you from having enough levels to take out the more major encounters and get the extended XP for them. This is something that will probably have to be tested to see if it doesn't railroad you into taking on things in a very specific order.

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Another problem I can foresee with removing XP from the trash you find out in the woods is that it might keep you from having enough levels to take out the more major encounters and get the extended XP for them. This is something that will probably have to be tested to see if it doesn't railroad you into taking on things in a very specific order.

 

With quest mods and the BG1 NPC project mod adding XP for quests, there *should* be some XP reductions somewhere and that should come from the mindless monsters that are very straightforward to kill. Why should you get 8000 XP from killing an oversized bouncer (Sarevok's girl friend's Stone Golems) and only 2000 from a mage that uses every trick in the book and takes all you have to kill?

Surely your *learn* much more from taking out the mage, than just pounding on a big lump of stone untill it's HP goes from 60 to zero.

 

These are my PC's XP at the beginning of each chapter:

 

2. Did Kagain's quest, then straight to Nashkel: 2091

 

3. From Nashkel to mines: 3889

 

4. Only explored the western part of map: 27404

 

5. Done all, except DT and the map with the FF deserter, south of BG bridge: 64592

 

6. Not done quest that require breaking into houses or "evil" quests: 88579

 

7. 99813

 

Currently at Ulgoth's Beard, not having chased after Sarevok: 113575

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You can learn a fair bit from a stone golem. You can learn abut the kinds of immunities that can be expected from certain elemental creatures, the battle tactics they use (simple, I know, but it's still information) their powers, intelligence, some aspects of how they are created and so on. Likewise, a level 15 warrior doesn't take much gamewise to defeat, simply nail them with huge damage until they fall over, perhaps involving no greater tactic (as far as the game's concerned) than occasionally resting the NPC taking the greatest pounding from them. In the abstract though, you would learn huge amounts of info about their style of fighting, how they avoid damage, how to find the weak points in their defences, etc. The mage may take more specific spells to knock over, but that's a function of the way that the game interface works and how abstract physical combat is, not what you could be expected to learn from the encounter.

 

On the other hand, I do agree that encounters which represent more difficult fights should have better XP than the repeated hack and slash out in the wilderness, I just worry that moving too much of the excess XP into the hard fights might make it difficult to actually complete the hard fights and get that XP.

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