SCS II and BG:EE

[Lemernis]

Hi David, hope the years have kept you well. It's been a long time since I played but I'm eager to re-immerse myself with this wonderful game now that BG:EE is being released.

 

I've read in the BG:EE forums that you expect to release SCS for BG:EE quite soon after release, which is now scheduled for Nov. 30, 2012. Delighted to see that. After an initial vanilla run of the Enhanced Edition I can't imagine playing the Baldur's Gate series without SCS now.

 

My main question for you is about whether SCS II scales to party level. And I ask this particularly because I'm anticipating that the Enhanced Edition's stand-alone module, the Black Pits, will eventually be modified by the modding community such that XP earned from it will be kept and carried forward into BG2:EE.

 

Because the Black Pits is a stand-alone adventure in the game's official campaign, XP earned from it will not be applied to the official campaign. The Black Pits appears to be a 15 level dungeon crawl a la Durlag's Tower and Watcher's Keep providing approximately 6 hours of gameplay. One screenshot features a Beholder. The player will be able create a custom party of 6, or use his or her adventuring party of NPCs from the official campaign.

 

An "Adventure Y" will also eventually be added to BG:EE that will presumably stand-alone as well.

 

There will probably more stand-alone adventure modules of this sort regularly released by Beamdog in the future.

 

it is clear that XP from BG:EE's stand-alone modules would unbalance BG2:EE with the game's standard mechanics. But if encounters throughout the BG saga are scaled to party level, then those modules really would not be unbalancing as far as I can see.

 

In other words, let's say you earn XP from the Black Pits and and "Adventure Y" and start BG2:EE at party level 12. If SCS for BG2:EE scales the enemy AI for BG2's early encounters accordingly, then what is the problem, really?

 

Undoubtedly players are going to want to earn and keep XP for these stand-alone quest modules. I'll be shocked if the modding community doesn't figure out a way to do that and make it available. If this comes to pass, the only solution I can see to preserve balance throughout the saga is scalability of the enemy AI.

[Jarno Mikkola]

My main question for you is about whether SCS II scales to party level.

Well, the SCS and SCSII will be combined to one mod... so no worries there... well at least DavidW promised the combination... it's more of a worry on what the BG:EE does with the game files and it's mod-ability, but that's hopefully small problem, again as it's promised to try to include the mod community.

 

it is clear that XP from BG:EE's stand-alone modules would unbalance BG2:EE with the game's standard mechanics. But if encounters throughout the BG saga are scaled to party level, then those modules really would not be unbalancing as far as I can see.

I am sorry, but did you miss the fact that the "Stand-alone module" could be another start from level 1 to the same XP limit as the BG1 within the EE ?

[Lemernis]

Hmm... I read that the XP from the Black Pits won't be earned toward the rest of the game. But I assumed that the invitation scroll to the Black Pits was something that would be offered in-game in the official campaign. I made that assumption because I read that you can import your party of NPCs. But are you saying that this adventure module (for lack of a better term... which I see as what was formerly called an expansion)... is completely independent of the official campaign? And you start at level 1 with an entirely newly rolled character?

[Lemernis]

Okay, Tanthalas at the BG:EE forum clarified that his impression is that the adventure is in no way accessible in-game within the story of BG:EE. It seems that you simply open the Black Pits 'game' and either create your new characters or you import the .char files from a saved BG:EE game.

 

Makes me wonder about whether the Black Pits starts out at a particular level (eg, same notion as starting SoA at level 7). I noticed a Beholder in one of the Black Pits screenshots.

In any event, I do expect the modding community to eventually integrate the Black Pits and other Enhanced Edition stand-alone adventures into the game, and acrue XP from them.

[Jarno Mikkola]

I noticed a Beholder in one of the Black Pits screenshots.

Well, it's a single one, and if you notice, it's not even hostile one, just like the Djinn in the same shot, and the red Myconid.