Version 18 released

[ScuD]

David, I'd like to ask about the issue I've reported awhile ago - SPELL_FI in the spell and memorization lists of some CREs. I've checked my latest megainstall and it seems only some druids, fighter-druids and a one ranger are affected. I can provide any information to fix this issue.

[DavidW]

David, I'd like to ask about the issue I've reported awhile ago - SPELL_FI in the spell and memorization lists of some CREs. I've checked my latest megainstall and it seems only some druids, fighter-druids and a one ranger are affected. I can provide any information to fix this issue.

 

Drat, I thought I'd caught that. You're on version 18, yes? SR, or not?

[ScuD]

18 and SR, correct.

[Guest Thailog]

Hi again.

 

Since I enjoyed SCS so much, I've added SCSII to my BG2 run too, and I thought you might like some feedback. My experiences with this mod are highly positive and I was pleasantly surprised at how much fun it brings to the game. Just a heads up, I'm using v18 and I've installed most of the "Smarter AI" components but skipped over nearly all of the the "Tactical Challenge" stuff, so my feedback will probably reflect that.

 

 

Things I liked:

 

- A large variety of enemy strategies and a very diverse spell selection for enemy mages. Honestly, I don't think any two mage battles were exactly the same, which is a huge improvement over the original game where nearly every mage would use the same spells.

- Brilliant use of magical defenses by enemies. A high level PC mage can make himself nearly invulnerable with the right spell combination, and I loved seeing powerful enemies finally being able to do the same thing. It really adds a lot more realism to the game and makes high level mages into extremely dangerous opponents that they are supposed to be.

- It's neat how enemy thieves sometimes run away to hide and then return to deliver a backstab. Again, a highly reasonable strategy which mirrors the behavior of player characters.

- As its predecessor, SCSII is highly customizable which, again, is something that I really liked. As every player's tactical skills are a bit different, it's very nice that the mod allows you to mix and match components until you find the right balance which suits your tastes. The DMWW console commands and the scs.ini stuff complement this even further, making this mod really unique in that aspect.

- Lastly, I also appreciated how thoroughly everything is documented in the readme. It's fairly rare that a modder explains his work in so much detail to the players. Specifically, I found the detailed component descriptions very useful when deciding what I wanted to install and what I wanted to skip over.

 

 

 

Some suggestions:

 

- Although it was mentioned in the readme, I was still surprised at how often enemy mages seem to bend the rules when using their contingencies. For example, I would dispel a mage's Protection from Magic Weapons and then a contingency would instantly pop up and refresh it. Personally, I found this a bit unfair since the party can't use its own contingencies in the same way. With all the other aspects of the SCSII AI playing fair and adhering to the same rules which apply to the player, it feels odd to have this one little thing stand out so strongly. Perhaps an option could be added via scs.ini to have mages only use player-style contingencies?

- The battle with Irenicus in Spellhold is now really, really hard. He buffs with a lot of defensive spells and it's extremely difficult for a low-level party that has rushed to Imoen's rescue to defeat him. However, I'm not suggesting to tone him down. Rather, what I would like to see is that the asylum mages who fight alongside the party use their anti-magic spells against him more efficiently. For example, instead of focusing their offense on the mindless clones of the party which Irenicus makes, they could instead use their spells to debuff him and thus allow the party's fighters to take him down. All the in-game material suggests that the player really needs some help from the asylum inmates at this point, and I think this might be a good way to handle it.

 

 

Possible bugs

 

- Adalon, the Silver Dragon becomes hostile if you cast buffing spells in her lair, e.g. to prepare for the fight with the drow gate guards before the teleports the party to the exit. In my game, she freaked out after Nalia cast Improved Haste on my main char.

- The "No perma-death for party members" component doesn't seem to work against Adalon's icy breath. She chunked Imoen in my game by using that.

 

 

 

Overall, I'm very happy with SCSII, some minor issues aside and I personally find it amazing that a single person managed to create such a comprehensive overhaul of the AI system. Once again, congratulations on a job well done.

[Shaitan]

I think to remember that the perma death is reduced not removed.

 

David or others may correct me.

[Stworca]

As far as i know its only reduced. Ice is one of those damage types that always had the highest chance of causing permanent death.

Rightfully so, you're frozen after all, anyone can walk by and shatter you.

To actually resurrect one who dies that way, the priest would have to assemble his body like a giant puzzle.

 

Dragons attacking when you buff up is an AI script. Working fine it seems.

[Guest Thailog]

Some more stuff:

 

- Haer'Dalis kept attacking the party during the ritual where Realis Shai tries to open the portal to Sigil under the Five Flagons inn.

- Sometimes when mages cast both Fire Shield Red and Blue on themselves (e.g. with a sequencer) there is no visible animation for either, but the party still takes damage. Not sure if this is due to SCSII or Spell Revisions.

- The P&D Beholder Anti-Magic ray takes away the characters ability to use quickslot items (potions and such) but doesn't prevent them from using equipped item abilities (backpack icon). Perhaps this should be reversed?

- Sometimes when enemy mages cast both Fire Shield Red and Blue on themselves (e.g. with a sequencer) there is no visible animation for either, but the party member attacking them still takes damage. Not sure if this is due to SCSII or Spell Revisions. It's confusing either way.

[DavidW]

Hi again.

 

Since I enjoyed SCS so much, I've added SCSII to my BG2 run too, and I thought you might like some feedback. My experiences with this mod are highly positive and I was pleasantly surprised at how much fun it brings to the game.

Thanks! - glad you liked it.

 

Although it was mentioned in the readme, I was still surprised at how often enemy mages seem to bend the rules when using their contingencies. For example, I would dispel a mage's Protection from Magic Weapons and then a contingency would instantly pop up and refresh it. Personally, I found this a bit unfair since the party can't use its own contingencies in the same way. With all the other aspects of the SCSII AI playing fair and adhering to the same rules which apply to the player, it feels odd to have this one little thing stand out so strongly. Perhaps an option could be added via scs.ini to have mages only use player-style contingencies?

 

It isn't something I could do via options, because it would require fairly radical restructuring of mage strategies.

 

I can see the case on both sides here, but here's the case for the status quo:

 

i) I tend to assume that the actual spell description for Contingency is that you can define any trigger you like, and that the limited number offered to the player just reflect the limitations of the interface. (If you want an *in-game* justification for it, enemy mages have much more experience than you do.)

ii) More importantly, the set of options made available in the contingency interface are very strongly tied to things that are useful to the PC, and of course that's deliberate, because even in vanilla, NPC mages never cast contingency via the interface - they used their own criteria. So actually, restricting to PC triggers isn't the neutral option relative to vanilla.

iii) Players can take advantage of very small gaps in magical defences - it really matters, say, if you dispel an enemy PMW five seconds before the caster has a chance to renew it. The enemy AI can't be that sensitive.

 

... like I say, not conclusive.

 

- The battle with Irenicus in Spellhold is now really, really hard. He buffs with a lot of defensive spells and it's extremely difficult for a low-level party that has rushed to Imoen's rescue to defeat him. However, I'm not suggesting to tone him down. Rather, what I would like to see is that the asylum mages who fight alongside the party use their anti-magic spells against him more efficiently. For example, instead of focusing their offense on the mindless clones of the party which Irenicus makes, they could instead use their spells to debuff him and thus allow the party's fighters to take him down. All the in-game material suggests that the player really needs some help from the asylum inmates at this point, and I think this might be a good way to handle it.

In principle I like this; in practice it's quite hard to do without rather disproportionate time cost. I'll look into it, though.

 

- Adalon, the Silver Dragon becomes hostile if you cast buffing spells in her lair, e.g. to prepare for the fight with the drow gate guards before the teleports the party to the exit. In my game, she freaked out after Nalia cast Improved Haste on my main char.

In general, this is intentional, but I probably ought to make an exception for that specific buffing scenario.

 

- The "No perma-death for party members" component doesn't seem to work against Adalon's icy breath. She chunked Imoen in my game by using that.

Stworca's right - this is the best I can manage, but it's not perfect. (The game opcode I use doesn't seem to block elemental-damage permadeath.)

 

Overall, I'm very happy with SCSII, some minor issues aside and I personally find it amazing that a single person managed to create such a comprehensive overhaul of the AI system. Once again, congratulations on a job well done.

Thank you!

 

- Haer'Dalis kept attacking the party during the ritual where Realis Shai tries to open the portal to Sigil under the Five Flagons inn.

This is a perennially reported bug that I've never managed to track down and reproduce. Can you give me a detailed account of exactly what happens?

 

- Sometimes when mages cast both Fire Shield Red and Blue on themselves (e.g. with a sequencer) there is no visible animation for either, but the party still takes damage. Not sure if this is due to SCSII or Spell Revisions.

Pass. It's not intentional, to be sure.

 

- The P&D Beholder Anti-Magic ray takes away the characters ability to use quickslot items (potions and such) but doesn't prevent them from using equipped item abilities (backpack icon). Perhaps this should be reversed?

I block quickslots so as to disable scrolls. I didn't deliberately set out to block potions but I don't mind doing so (if you're bathed in anti-magic, a potion becomes coloured water), though I guess that doesn't prevent drinking them from the inventory screen. You're right that I should block the backpack icon; that's an omission.

[Thailog]

Haer'Dalis going hostile

This is a perennially reported bug that I've never managed to track down and reproduce. Can you give me a detailed account of exactly what happens?

 

Sure, it goes down like this.

 

Realis starts the summoning ritual and when the mephits and fire elementals pop out of the portal, Haer'Dalis starts attacking the party. As a point of interest, Haer's circle is still blue, so he's not technically hostile, but he keeps attacking the party instead of going after the enemies. When the bounty hunters interrupt the summoning ritual, he gets taken to the planar prison as usual and everything works out fine.

[Ardanis]

- Sometimes when mages cast both Fire Shield Red and Blue on themselves (e.g. with a sequencer) there is no visible animation for either, but the party still takes damage. Not sure if this is due to SCSII or Spell Revisions.

Pass. It's not intentional, to be sure.

I guess you don't make a frequent use of "Graphics: Protection from Specific Animation [296]", do you? Efreeti can hide thier FS under II, but that doesn't appear to be the case with normal wizards.

[ilot]

Hi

 

I've installed SCSII (v.18) and the version of ToBEx that ships with SCS but not ToBEX!!

I noticed a Crash to Desktop in AR1202 (cursor at about x2823/y1546) some seconds after that I killed the group of vampires in that area!!

 

This is a message error:

"An assertion failed in ChvidImage.cpp at Line number 1910"

[DavidW]

Hi

 

I've installed SCSII (v.18) and the version of ToBEx that ships with SCS but not ToBEX!!

Do you mean (i) you've deliberately told SCSII not to install ToBEx (via the scsii.ini file or similar), or (ii) you've already installed SCS, so SCSII skipped ToBEx? (If (i), bad things are likely to happen.)

[Stworca]

DavidW.

 

Why is Shade Lord now immune to Mace of Disruption +2 anyway?

I don't mind the undead destroying bit, but "weapon ineffective" one.

 

Regards

[ilot]

Hi

 

I've installed SCSII (v.18) and the version of ToBEx that ships with SCS but not ToBEX!!

Do you mean (i) you've deliberately told SCSII not to install ToBEx (via the scsii.ini file or similar), or (ii) you've already installed SCS, so SCSII skipped ToBEx? (If (i), bad things are likely to happen.)

 

 

Pardon me, I'm "half awake" this morning

 

I've the following installation:

 

BGT

SCS (ver. 18)

SCSII (ver. 18)

 

1. I go in "AR1202"

2. I kill any vampire in the area

3. After fews moments Crash to Desktop!!!

This is a message error:

"An assertion failed in ChvidImage.cpp at Line number 1910"

 

 

Can my problem (perhaps) concern "Improved vampires" option?

 

Thanks

[ilot]

I've installed SCSII (v.18) and the version of ToBEx that ships with SCS but not ToBEX!!

Do you mean (i) you've deliberately told SCSII not to install ToBEx (via the scsii.ini file or similar), or (ii) you've already installed SCS, so SCSII skipped ToBEx? (If (i), bad things are likely to happen.)

 

Post edited:

 

Pardon me, I'm "half awake" this morning

 

I've the following installation:

 

BGT

SCS (ver. 18)

SCSII (ver. 18)

Vampire Tales

 

1. I go in "AR1202"

2. I kill any vampire in the area

3. After fews moments Crash to Desktop!!!

This is a message error:

"An assertion failed in ChvidImage.cpp at Line number 1910"

 

I'm not is that is important but in the "Vampire Tales" Mod there is an encounter with three vampires, and when I kill them the game spawn some Vampires that summon wolves, bats, or rats...(because is installed SCSII I think) and after fews moments the game Crash to Desktop

 

 

Can my problem (perhaps) concern "Improved vampires" option?

 

Thanks