IA v6 Final

[geh4th]

I rarely understood Sikrets motivations to change something. He would go out of his way to post a poll or posed a question on the BWL forum of a suggested change and after all of the results were in he would do the exact opposite of the popular outcome.

 

This is an extremely accurate assessment. Sikret did the same thing to the testing team as well: he'd routinely ignore the advice he was given from multiple testers. He'd also often tell us that he didn't WANT any input...particularly right after times that several of us would go to him with an idea to consider. He'd constantly insist that "there is no time for things like that", saying that v6 was past due for release and he couldn't get distracted by new ideas.

 

Then, after flatly rejecting us, he'd suddenly develop an interest in a tangential pet project that he'd want to work on to the exclusion of all else. First it was making Auramasters better, then the whole sub-quest to make Swashbucklers useful, then back to Auramasters...

 

 

I think it has something to do with the difficulty that IA is supposed to be in his eyes.

 

Or the fact that he believes that he's smarter than everyone else.

 

If you tone down all classes and kits except for a few kits that were modded into IA, decrease the amount of gear they could get, make extremely expensive upgrades to gear with highly necessary immunities, ability bonuses, save bonuses and weapons with an actual chance of damaging foes, and make certain that the party cannot amass a decent amount of XP to level up, then sure... he accomplished the part where his encounters with heavily modded (plainly or on the brink of overpowered) foes are difficult to overcome and require the right tactics (read 'very limited choice in spell order and spell combinations', 'autopauses on spell cast/foe killed/weapon ineffective' and 'exhaustively reloading every time you make a change in your spell selection and the foes come up with a new difficulty to overcome a la Chain Contingency 3x Abi-Dalzim or such').

 

IA is just not a mod for a casual player. In my opinion you would have to be really sick to keep up with it, but when you progress through all the insane battles it can feel very rewarding to finalise the game.

 

I agree for the most part. The first thing a fan of SoA/ToB that wants to play Improved Anvil has to do is come to terms with the fact that this isn't SoA/ToB any longer. Heck, it's hardly AD&D any more. Roleplaying: gone. NPC Interactions: gone. Romance: gone. Story Line: gone. Going by the rules: gone (at least for the enemies.) Improved Anvil (v6) is almost purely a melee hack 'n' slash combat game now. In a way it reminds me of Doom or any of the gazillion similar games that have come about since. You just line up the target and blast away. The real challenge to IA is to figure out just how to do that with increasingly nerfed player capabilities against increasingly cheesed-up enemy encounters.

 

Everyone has their own motivations. Even a game like Doom can be fun to play, and so can IA v6. You just have to be in the mood for it, or have the motivation. Saros, for example, feels motivated to play it solo. Sikret has no right to question why.

[isleepwithfucking goats]

Wats up geh4th. I see you reading this thread.

 

[Saros]

Started a new game, so far it's no-reload insane, PC is Berserker 17 -> Mage. When battling with Suna Seni mage lvl was 10. Did some minor quests, assembled xp up to lvl 12, joined Cernd (killed Faldorn before joining him), did his subquest, joined Jaheira, and am now using the xp + item exploit mentioned earlier, which is going to take a couple of days (I can play only a few hours each day) to lvl up PC to mage lvl 18 with the help of Cernd (Jaheira was unnecessary and was ditched).

[JMason79]

Psychology is an interesting thing. WoT coming.

 

I've read the thread again and one thing has become obvious: geh4th acts like a hurt child, searching for recompense and consolation.

Recompense (he's writing WoT to the public because he can't in IA developer forum because he was fired).

Consolation, after he was fired by Sikret, so now he needs the supporting words of public like a little hurt child from mommy.

Hey poor kid, little apprentice, were you fired by the master?

 

Nonetheless, the funniest thing is, seems that everyone wants a little piece of IA here

saros trying to prove flaws of IA and showing tactics that Sikret doesn't support;

geh4th trying to prove how he knows better than Sikret how IA should've been made, how Sikret ignored his and "others" advice and how IA could be much better now if Sikret listened to advice, but he didn't so now IA has this flaw, that flaw, and so on;

others who felt they have "right" to get IA for free but they didn't, so now they can find recompense by playing the version for free.

 

Yeah, everyone wants a piece of IA

 

Hey poor kids, you all want IA to be a bit yours too, eh?

I've bad news for you: it's not. It's Sikret's. Geh4th can write WoTs to prove how Sikret is an ass in this and that, how Sikret shouldn't have ignored his precious advice etc. Saros can write WoT to prove IA is playable and winnable in 152 unsupported ways. It's not credible, really. Saros could have just modify the mod content the way he needs it. Oh, he doesn't? No matter. What matters is that he could.

 

Oh, and feel free to think I'm Sikret or a BWL mod (it doesn't really matter, really), nonetheless for those who wonder why I'm here telling you stuff let me tell that I'm here because I think you're miserable with your war of liberty against a BG2 mod. Truly miserable, let alone your shameless vigilantism.

 

Hey poor kids, did I say already that you all want IA to be a bit yours too, eh? Hint: IA will always be Sikret's, and thanks to you guys and your controversy here, the paying version will always get adequate publicity (negative or positive, doesn't matter, really), that is, you completely eliminate the risk of IA's death hey do you realize that?

 

If IA and his author has so many issues, why don't you make your own IA? Oh, you can't? No imagination, no ability, no patience, no technical skill? What a pity.

 

Hey poor kids, you all want IA to be a bit yours too, eh?

Everyone wants to feel a little bit that IA is also his, even if only a bit

Good luck kids!

[lynx]

Oh come on, don't feed them.

 

Join my "In my book, the IA mod stands for Infinity Animations mod" club or create your own for Improved Asylum.

[Saros]

Glad to hear that Sikret hasn't given up on further improving IA Oh, and I am also aware of the 'free commercial' which IA 6.0 receives thanx to this thread, but I don't care about that Frankly, I couldn't care less if BWL forums would close or stay active, but it would be a shame if Sikret admits defeat and stops improving IA any further. I play the mod only because of the further improved tactical challenge. As for tactics which are 'unsupported' by someone - as I said before, let this someone mind his own business (in this case modding) and leave the players to play how they want. Look at DavidW and his SCS for example - he leaves numerous exploits open and lets players to decide how to play a SCS modded game - with or without exploits. He's also open to any suggestions which would improve his SCS further, takes them into consideration and even implements some in his newer SCS versions, never making absolute statements like 'my SCS mod is flawless'.

Now THAT's an excellent example set by him, which especially Sikret should follow as well.

 

I am a player. My profession is far different from programming, so I cannot mod. So, it is ridiculous for JMason79 to state that I would claim, although even partially, someone else's work. However, when admiring someone else's work, one like me cannot help but point out the flaws

 

As a side note, does anyone know what happened to Raven from BWL forums? IMO, he was the only one 'good-aligned', so to speak, guy from the trio which is modding the IA forum on BWL, and also the guy who suggested to me to try IA for the first time.

[InKal]

Psychology is an interesting thing. WoT coming.

 

I've read the thread again and one thing has become obvious: geh4th acts like a hurt child, searching for recompense and consolation.

Recompense (he's writing WoT to the public because he can't in IA developer forum because he was fired).

Consolation, after he was fired by Sikret, so now he needs the supporting words of public like a little hurt child from mommy.

Hey poor kid, little apprentice, were you fired by the master?

 

Nonetheless, the funniest thing is, seems that everyone wants a little piece of IA here

saros trying to prove flaws of IA and showing tactics that Sikret doesn't support;

geh4th trying to prove how he knows better than Sikret how IA should've been made, how Sikret ignored his and "others" advice and how IA could be much better now if Sikret listened to advice, but he didn't so now IA has this flaw, that flaw, and so on;

others who felt they have "right" to get IA for free but they didn't, so now they can find recompense by playing the version for free.

 

Yeah, everyone wants a piece of IA

 

Hey poor kids, you all want IA to be a bit yours too, eh?

I've bad news for you: it's not. It's Sikret's. Geh4th can write WoTs to prove how Sikret is an ass in this and that, how Sikret shouldn't have ignored his precious advice etc. Saros can write WoT to prove IA is playable and winnable in 152 unsupported ways. It's not credible, really. Saros could have just modify the mod content the way he needs it. Oh, he doesn't? No matter. What matters is that he could.

 

Oh, and feel free to think I'm Sikret or a BWL mod (it doesn't really matter, really), nonetheless for those who wonder why I'm here telling you stuff let me tell that I'm here because I think you're miserable with your war of liberty against a BG2 mod. Truly miserable, let alone your shameless vigilantism.

 

Hey poor kids, did I say already that you all want IA to be a bit yours too, eh? Hint: IA will always be Sikret's, and thanks to you guys and your controversy here, the paying version will always get adequate publicity (negative or positive, doesn't matter, really), that is, you completely eliminate the risk of IA's death hey do you realize that?

 

If IA and his author has so many issues, why don't you make your own IA? Oh, you can't? No imagination, no ability, no patience, no technical skill? What a pity.

 

Hey poor kids, you all want IA to be a bit yours too, eh?

Everyone wants to feel a little bit that IA is also his, even if only a bit

Good luck kids!

 

what a tool

 

everybody who wants, everybody can play your shitty mod, thx to isleepwithfuckingoats, you clueless moron. everybody can exploit your shitty mod thx to saros. shut your mouth and open your eyes. and who wants? count on fingers instead of typig. One hand is enough.

 

Go back to your BWL forum. Oh, you have no forum anymore....

[JMason79]

Hey DeszoKovacs an annoying troll he was, but he's right about one thing, my friend InKal.

 

The truth. It hurts, doesn't it?

 

everybody who wants, everybody can play your shitty mod

Yes, I noticed you kids like to play with shit. Just make sure your hand doesn't get too shitty from choco choco

[Mohina]

No idea what happened to Raven. He used to post on the Bioware forums, but i haven't seen him there for ages. I no longer have access to the BWL forums, so i have no idea whether he's still involved with them. And yeah, he seemed like a nice guy.

 

I will start a IA6 run with a full party and posting about it in this thread this weekend. I had originally planned on posting over at the Bioware forums (where i am known as Flamedance), but JMorgan79 allready succeeded in closing down one thread about IA over there due to his trolling.

 

Since every thread about IA deteriorates into a flame war and the moderators over there are a lot less forgiving than those at G3, i'll post it here instead. Might still post it on the Bioware forums too, but a IA thread over there will probably get locked at the first sign of trouble.

 

I would recommend everyone to not respond at all to people like JMorgan79 and his ilk. Even Saros' 'non-violent' replies will feed them. I'll certainly completely ignore them if they ever respond to my posts and i seriously urge everyone to do the same.

[Nominar]

Hey mods, how about checking this douche's ip to see where he's from and telling us? That might shut him up. Cause he's just trollin.

[DezsoKovacs]

everybody who wants, everybody can play your shitty mod, thx to isleepwithfuckingoats, you clueless moron. everybody can exploit your shitty mod thx to saros. shut your mouth and open your eyes. and who wants? count on fingers instead of typig. One hand is enough to clean your ass.

 

oh yeah but what´s if that hand´s already too shitty eh InKal

[Guest!]

Psychology is an interesting thing. WoT coming.

 

I've read the thread again and one thing has become obvious: geh4th acts like a hurt child, searching for recompense and consolation.

Recompense (he's writing WoT to the public because he can't in IA developer forum because he was fired).

Consolation, after he was fired by Sikret, so now he needs the supporting words of public like a little hurt child from mommy.

Hey poor kid, little apprentice, were you fired by the master?

 

Nonetheless, the funniest thing is, seems that everyone wants a little piece of IA here

saros trying to prove flaws of IA and showing tactics that Sikret doesn't support;

geh4th trying to prove how he knows better than Sikret how IA should've been made, how Sikret ignored his and "others" advice and how IA could be much better now if Sikret listened to advice, but he didn't so now IA has this flaw, that flaw, and so on;

others who felt they have "right" to get IA for free but they didn't, so now they can find recompense by playing the version for free.

 

Yeah, everyone wants a piece of IA

 

Hey poor kids, you all want IA to be a bit yours too, eh?

I've bad news for you: it's not. It's Sikret's. Geh4th can write WoTs to prove how Sikret is an ass in this and that, how Sikret shouldn't have ignored his precious advice etc. Saros can write WoT to prove IA is playable and winnable in 152 unsupported ways. It's not credible, really. Saros could have just modify the mod content the way he needs it. Oh, he doesn't? No matter. What matters is that he could.

 

Oh, and feel free to think I'm Sikret or a BWL mod (it doesn't really matter, really), nonetheless for those who wonder why I'm here telling you stuff let me tell that I'm here because I think you're miserable with your war of liberty against a BG2 mod. Truly miserable, let alone your shameless vigilantism.

 

Hey poor kids, did I say already that you all want IA to be a bit yours too, eh? Hint: IA will always be Sikret's, and thanks to you guys and your controversy here, the paying version will always get adequate publicity (negative or positive, doesn't matter, really), that is, you completely eliminate the risk of IA's death hey do you realize that?

 

If IA and his author has so many issues, why don't you make your own IA? Oh, you can't? No imagination, no ability, no patience, no technical skill? What a pity.

 

Hey poor kids, you all want IA to be a bit yours too, eh?

Everyone wants to feel a little bit that IA is also his, even if only a bit

Good luck kids!

 

I can count precisely 3 (three) people who wanted to play IA. Nobody else gives a flying fuck, apparently.

[InKal]

Hey DeszoKovacs an annoying troll he was, but he's right about one thing, my friend InKal.

 

(40-somethnig profesor at uni stuff)

 

 

 

I'm not your friend - I DID NOT PAY YOU.

 

I can count precisely 3 (three) people who wanted to play IA. Nobody else gives a flying fuck, apparently.

 

Exactly.

[lynx]

Saros, Mohina: Raven posted a few times in the revived teambg forum.

[Saros]

Not quite exact. Already 4 different people has asked me to send them the IA 6.0. Besides, there are people, who rarely visit this forum, but still would want to try the mod. And last but not least, there are several former BWL members, and some of them might wanna try the mod. Kerkes, for example, but not only him. And there is always the possibility that someone would at least give the mod a try in the future (for example, if someone's already bored with Ascension + SCS II, might wanna try a new challenge). Had several such experiences in the past with people asking my advice about an IA 5.0 game after reading my reports in the no-reload challenge topic on Bioware forums.

 

Edit: lynx, thanx for the info.

 

Edit:

 

Battle with Lavok in the Planar Sphere: differences from IA 5.0.

In addition to the 2 Gem Golems, he's now also aided by 4 Skeleton Lords (maybe this part is party level-dependent).

The Gem Golems, with the previously-mentioned 'dispel illusions on hit' ability make it almost impossible to challenge Lavok under the convenient cover of high-level illusion buffs + SI: Divination.

It seemed to me like Lavok cannot be killed (brought to incapacitated condition, that is) without defeating his Gem Golems first.

And finally, after Lavok's three initial spell protections (Spell Turning, GoI and SI:Abjuration) are dispelled and he's left with some time to act, he starts refreshing first GoI, and second Spell Immunity. No monster in IA 5.0 ever refreshed spell immunity. Maybe this is another precaution vs soloers, because a party can easily corner an enemy mage after his spell &combat protections are breached for the first time, and a party has more RRR spells compared to a soloer.