Thoughts for future versions

[polytope]

I feel SCS is about as good as can be expected in the infinity engine at improving the AI of individual enemies. However enemies still fail to fight intelligently as groups. I understand that battle plans will be specific to a group depending on their classes, levels, equipment etc. so trying to improve group AI would need to be done on a case by case basis which is the opposite of how SCS usually works and would take more effort... but hear me out.

 

A good example of this problem is the guarded compound: In my most recent run my party was around lvl 11 (Nalia had just reached 13th level I think), the enemies are about 5 levels higher than us (Sion is more than 10 levels higher than us), but it was still fairly easy even with a few mistakes on my part. Precast buffs applied not just on self but to nearby enemies would be really useful:

• Koshi died before Sion even finished casting time stop, he would benefit from precast regeneration and improved haste.
  
• Sion's first move (vs a low level party) shouldn't be timestop, but a spell sequencer loaded with remove magic, greater malison and slow; this will allow the stronger enemy fighters to catch up with your party. It would also allow Koshi to succesfully stun people with Celestial Fury once CC etc. is dispelled - although the fury was randomized in my game anyway.
  
• Sion had a spell trap, this is a good measure against a low level party as it requires ruby ray to remove and he should always have this. He should also have some power word: kill spells memorized to finish off party members who get backstabbed by Ketta or hit a few times by Koshi. PW:kill isn't great for a solo mage but is good for a mage backed up by fighters (and the cleric's summons).
  
• Sion had a meteor swarm spell which of course he couldn't use until his party was dead, mages with allies shouldn't get this kind of spell.
  
• Sion got confused by Nalia's chaos spell, he has a high level cleric by his side so should have chaotic commands etc. in his buffs (maybe make a prebuff version of CC with power level set to zero so it doesn't interfere with a mage's spell protections).
  

 

In battles with more than one mage their timestops are actually detrimental, because one mage's ProMW tends to wear off during the other mage's timestop. The most noteable place is the Twisted Rune, although it probably also happens with Sendai's statues (haven't fought them yet). Now the beholder is the first target in this fight for obvious reasons, so Shangalar should concentrate on summoning fiends to harass the fighters who are attacking the beholder (fiends are quite dangerous when you've been debuffed by a beholder). Layenne still ends up with "party unfriendly" spells like meteor swarm, I think her 9th level slots are better spent on spell strike, PW:Kill, and (if HLA's for mages are installed) Improved Alacrity - Imprisonment is another possibility, but would be very frustrating if you forgot to bring a freedom scroll to the rune hideout, since you need another rogue stone to get back here.

[kreso]

Precast buffs applied not just on self but to nearby enemies would be really useful

I'm quite sure I've witnessed such behaviour - mages buff fighters with haste, clerics' spells (even cast on self like Bless, Chant) often do have an AoE, so fighters get buffed as well, and use remove paralyisis/heal etc.

Potions play a big part here.

• Sion got confused by Nalia's chaos spell

I think this is has a fair ammount of luck involved. If he pre-buffs with imp.invisibility/blur, there's almost no chance he'll fail his save.

 

Anyhow, t-up on more "tactical challenges", yes.

 

The battles in BG2 I found to be on the "hard part" are:

 

Suna Seni (if you don't use invisibility, it involves a very decent probability of dying)

Irenicus in Spellhold (may be for the fact that I go there early, but it's a very hard battle on my install)

Shade Lord (it depends, it can be rather easy but if things go bad and his level-drain starts kicking in it can be hard)

Kuo-Toa battles

Liches

Beholders (improved Beholder Hive)

Demon battles in WK (especially the one right after a no-magic room, that's outright insane in difficulty)

Dragon battle after Abazigal

Ascension finale

 

These are (apart Suna and Kuo-Toa perhaps) battles in which some party members (usually non-mages) will probably die.

[polytope]

I'm quite sure I've witnessed such behaviour - mages buff fighters with haste, clerics' spells (even cast on self like Bless, Chant) often do have an AoE, so fighters get buffed as well, and use remove paralyisis/heal etc.

 

I've never seen a single target buff like CC or free action on an enemy fighter (it's still easy to tie up even high level enemy fighters with web, unless they have potions of magic shielding...).

 

I think this is has a fair ammount of luck involved. If he pre-buffs with imp.invisibility/blur, there's almost no chance he'll fail his save.

 

I currently use v21 (v24 fixes all creatures saving throws though it has a few bugs) and he has a save vs spell of 8, his saving throw should be 4, but illusionary buffs are quickly removed by ST and true sight and that leaves him with a good chance to fail his save.

 

The battles in BG2 I found to be on the "hard part" are:

 

Suna Seni (if you don't use invisibility, it involves a very decent probability of dying)

 

I don't find this hard if you have Keldorn. Actually I think SCS makes the early game harder for evil parties (Rayic gethras and Nevaziah come to mind...).

 

Shade Lord (it depends, it can be rather easy but if things go bad and his level-drain starts kicking in it can be hard)

 

I usually do the Umar hills at fairly low level (second after either De'Arnise or grove); My cleric casts NPP on anyone who needs it then I run him south of the altar (maybe accompanied by a range fighter) to stay out of aura range and if NPP wears off on the frontliners you can run them back to the undrained cleric. SI:Necromancy on mages is good too. I've yet to lose doing it this way.

 

Kuo-Toa battles

Liches

Beholders (improved Beholder Hive)

Demon battles in WK (especially the one right after a no-magic room, that's outright insane in difficulty)

Dragon battle after Abazigal

Ascension finale

 

These are (apart Suna and Kuo-Toa perhaps) battles in which some party members (usually non-mages) will probably die.

 

I also find the first pocket plane challenge pretty hard: Irenicus and improved Bodhi in close quarters, and you haven't yet got several ToB items that grant permanent NPP (spectral brand, Angurvadal and runehammer).

[kreso]

I've never seen a single target buff like CC or free action on an enemy fighter (it's still easy to tie up even high level enemy fighters with web, unless they have potions of magic shielding...).

True, but Web isn't party-friendly so I avoid using it. Clerics don't pre-buff fighters, yes, the only afaik use Heal, and cure conditions like Hold/Fear.

 

I don't find this hard if you have Keldorn. Actually I think SCS makes the early game harder for evil parties (Rayic gethras and Nevaziah come to mind...).

Inquisitor does make quite a few battles much easier, but w/o invisibility it's still a hard battle (considering the levels/equipment).

Agree about Rayic, I don't know how he slipped my mind. Last time I fought him, he killed 4 out of 5 party members.

Neveziah could probably be nerfed a bit (vannila version was nothing like liches)

 

 

I usually do the Umar hills at fairly low level (second after either De'Arnise or grove); My cleric casts NPP on anyone who needs it then I run him south of the altar (maybe accompanied by a range fighter) to stay out of aura range and if NPP wears off on the frontliners you can run them back to the undrained cleric. SI:Necromancy on mages is good too. I've yet to lose doing it this way.

I don't know if this would work for me. NPP last 5 rounds without SR. If you want to buff several people with it, you won't have much time left on it for the fight. In addition, I find it hard to keep cleric away from shadows spawning. His BBoD is not to be underestimated at these levels also, and since Death Ward shares a slot with NPP.

 

 

I also find the first pocket plane challenge pretty hard: Irenicus and improved Bodhi in close quarters, and you haven't yet got several ToB items that grant permanent NPP (spectral brand, Angurvadal and runehammer).

I usually have HLAs here, so Bodhi gets demolished before she swings at anyone. When alone, Irenicus there isn't that hard for me.

[isla monje]

I haven't finished ToB yet, still in Abazigal's Lair and haven't gone through the Eye room or Fil'Yessetat.

 

However, I haven't found any part of ToB particularly difficult impossible yet with ToB, I think the Improved Sendai's Enclave gave me the most difficulty so far (went through as much of it as I could before resting and got to the Lich area with minimal spells, the two Glabrezu and drow war party in front were a little painful).

 

In SoA however these are the ones I found particularly difficult:

Improved De'Arnise w/Tactics Spirit Trolls...oh so nasty vs. a completely good-aligned party. Especially with Full Plate's Everyone can backstab. Having multiple Unholy Blight's dropped on me while trying to hit things that went invisible after every strike nearly wiped me out.

 

Improved Shade Lord - for the reasons mentioned above, the level drain aura + BBoD is a fairly powerful combo, especially when your highest character is level 10, and not a cleric.

 

Improved Cult of Unseeing Eye - having the Unseeing Eye summon up two Death Tyrants on top of it's already beefy spellcasting was rather difficult.

 

Improved Beholder Hive - only the fact that there was a Hive Mother in the second room you explore and has an annoying Heal+Stoneskin combo when you're trying to avoid Imprisonment + Disintegration. I'm also frustrated that the Generic Beholders, Elder Orbs, and another spellcasting Beholder type all are worth the same xp. Despite the Elder and other spellcaster being significantly more difficult than the Generics.

 

Improved Bodhi especially combined with UB's Cat and Mouse - I had to re-install at Spellhold because Cat and Mouse broke the game, Bodhi was spawning with a horde of vampires non-stop as soon as I was in the gauntlet. She also gave me a lot of trouble when I faced her at the end of Chapter 3. Her Blood Drink combined with rapid attacks shredded my party, despite being loaded out with everything I could think of (Bless, Chant, Barkskin, Death Ward, NPP, Haste, CC or potions of Mind Shield) and firing off a False Dawn while hitting her with a Berserked Minsc and Haer'Dalis in offensive spin. I dunno, maybe I was approaching her the wrong way, but I couldn't find a way to keep my party alive long enough to activate her speech.

 

The only difficult part I found about Irenicus in Spellhold was when the old warden summoned a Glabrezu to the fight that focused more on attacking me than anything else.

 

I would agree that it would be nice to see clerics actually using their CC and Death Ward spells. For the longest time I had three arcane casters with Chaos memorized and I would dump 2-3 of those on the enemy at the beginning of every big battle. When 2/3 or more of the enemy fails a save and is completely useless, battles are ridiculously simple.

[minutus]

Single target precast buffs by enemy casters on their team members sounds like a no-brainer to me. I mean from the viewpoint of logical/reasonable behavior. Technically it's probably way more feasible than using single target buffs/removals in reasonable fashion mid-combat. Though since the AI doesn't do this kind of stuff (buff other characters except when AoE buffs cast on themselves happen to hit others) anywhere in the base game (?) I wonder if there's something preventing from modding it in. Would be neat to face teams where enemy fighters where ihasted etc like yours.

[DavidW]

The main technical problems (for SCS, at any rate) are:

(i) it makes optimum spell choice very much a function of whether a caster is in a group or not, which is very hard to detect at install time. I don't want my solo casters' spell books full of useless buffing.

(ii) most of these spells are touch range, which makes them a bit fiddly to use in combat. That needn't matter for prebuffing but I use a single spell allocation routine across all prebuffing option choices.

[Jarno Mikkola]

(i) it makes optimum spell choice very much a function of whether a caster is in a group or not, which is very hard to detect at install time. I don't want my solo casters' spell books full of useless buffing.

Have you considered giving a few of the mages a (support)Sorcerer kit ? It would allow you to make a new repertoire strictly for them(alike the other mage kits), and still make them effective in most solo fights.

[DavidW]

(i) it makes optimum spell choice very much a function of whether a caster is in a group or not, which is very hard to detect at install time. I don't want my solo casters' spell books full of useless buffing.

Have you considered giving a few of the mages a (support)Sorcerer kit ? It would allow you to make a new repertoire strictly for them(alike the other mage kits), and still make them effective in most solo fights.

Cute thought. In general I haven't tended to use sorcerors because I don't think they're visibly distinct enough from other classes - but it's worth thinking more about.

[isla monje]

Ok, just finished ToB today. Here are my thoughts post-Abazigal:

 

Minor annoyance - the yellow dragon that was added by Improved Abazigal popped up after I was teleported back from the solar conversation, which because I had to replace that room (it was broken when I tried to enter) with the backup means I never met him, so I had the first convo with him + fight, without the chance to rest from Abazigal (fortunately he's not hard). Although I suppose there's nothing wrong with this since with the working room you would be forced to meet him anyways.

 

Major annoyance - As stated in my thread in the SCSII forum, weird things happening in the return ambush to Abazigal once I had the rope. Endless Carnifex spawning and motionless shadow dragons. Although I must be alone in this so I don't know what to make of it. As an addendum to that one, when Carnifex's script kicked in it would give the descriptor text for Ice Arrows +1.

 

Balthazar was stupid easy. I took Saemon's entrance, so I had the battle out front (which was easy too, I just had Imoen drop a level 20 ADHW on the mages and nuked them before they had a chance to cast anything. When I got to Balthazar and had the battle started all his monks stood around with blue circles, and a few even started attack him when he activated his Solar Stance. It would be kinda nice to see his lackey's go zealot-insane on you and attack with him.

 

Some possible weird scripting issues with Frost Salamanders and the Ice Paraelementals? In my first fight against Abazigal I had Minsc and Jaheira get nuked when a Salamander came up and all of a sudden hit me with a crazy amount of 1-4 damage hits that caused both of them to die. I had the same thing happen with the Ice Paraelementals while fighting Cryonax in the throne, only that time there was a short lag in the game and then explosion of minor damage hits.

 

Finally, with Melissan's final stand (after you've cut off the three Bhaal essence feeders) I feel like she should really try and summon stuff. She did every other time, but not in the last part for me. Maybe drop waves of Slayer Shadows or have her summon groups of four demons (to represent her near total power absorption)?

[kreso]

Some possible weird scripting issues with Frost Salamanders and the Ice Paraelementals? In my first fight against Abazigal I had Minsc and Jaheira get nuked when a Salamander came up and all of a sudden hit me with a crazy amount of 1-4 damage hits that caused both of them to die. I had the same thing happen with the Ice Paraelementals while fighting Cryonax in the throne, only that time there was a short lag in the game and then explosion of minor damage hits.

This, I believe, is actually ToBEx' fault. Try editing TobexCore.ini file and change the

line Repeating Effect Fix=1 into Repeating Effect Fix=0.

Afaik you can mimic the same behaviour by casting Blade Barrier or similar spells, pausing the game and observe what happens in feedback screen. The only known fix to me is disabling the tweak within TobEx.

Anyway, these are both aTweaks creatures, so SCS has nothing to do here.

I can't comment on others since unfortunately haven't got the time to meet them yet.

 

EDIT:

It's probably ToBEx, but a different fix : Cast spell on condition, not Repeating EFF.

[isla monje]

Ah, I will have to play with TobEx then to see if that's the issue.

 

Another thought I had was to revise the Contingency choices that AI casters use. It seems like most of them end up with Spell Shield + II + ADHW or Spell Shield + SI: Abj + ADHW.

 

Not a bad combo, and devastating when faced in SoA. But I was finding that towards the end of ToB as they continued to use "enemy sighted" as their reaction they would be halfway across the screen from me and firing a useless ADHW off. I think the only caster that actually nailed me with that combo in ToB was Vangoethe.

 

Oh, and a weird issue where Melissan charmed my Minsc Simulacrum (using an IR helmet) and it fired off a Chain Contingency and then cast PfMW on itself. She may not have charmed it either (I didn't see the message with everything flying by in the final battle) but it had definitely gone hostile.

[kungfuhobbit]

Thanks for great work on this amazing mod

 

Tougher Davaeorn please?

(some 5th or even 6th level spells like flesh to stone, cone of cold, death spell imo)

 

Tougher Ilyich please?

Something much less than the Tactics version of course, more like the 'slightly improved ilyich' mod that exists please?

[polytope]

DavidW, would you consider the following to add to the component "Spell Tweaks"?

 

1) Changing improved haste to an AoE (like regular haste) with duration of 5 rounds.

 

This would leave IH useful, but solve its incredible overpoweredness for fighter/mages, kensages and blades for whom it can't be dispelled - thanks to SI:Abjuration. Choosing to refresh IH more frequently would crowd out the other offensive and defensive actions for a F/M type.

 

It would also make dragon battles a bit more strategically interesting, as you likely need a ruby ray or similar + breach to get rid of their protections prior to attacking, and your mage would thus be tied up for an extra round in combat casting the short duration IH on the party.

 

Lastly, it would allow Improved Haste to benefit the melee fighters in enemy parties if activated by spell trigger or contingency from their mage (it'd need to be removed from prebuff lists, but it's only used for fighter/mage prep AFAIK).

 

PS. In the multi dragon fight outside Abazigal's lair both black dragons cast haste, they don't need to as one can haste the other while he uses his spell for the round on insect plague maybe. They could still use the same script and just check for death variable in choosing what to cast.

 

2) A new 8th level spell "Greater Globe of Invulnerability" - it was possibly intended in vanilla, see unused SPWI802 - blocking spells up to level 5.

 

My reasoning is that Cloudkill - even if you don't abuse it by exploiting line-of-sight cheese against the AI - is too powerful for interrupting enemy mages and can only be defended against by SI:Evocation (...which no-one uses). Chaos spam is also an excellent way to disable mages (provided their Improved Invisibility/blur is dispelled). Liches are much more difficult than regular high level mages precisely because of their natural immunity to 5th level spells.

 

Incidentally, in my experience simulacrum in chain contingency is kind of a waste for anyone except a lich or elder orb, it's too easy to disrupt the image's casting and destroy it quickly. At least a lich simulacra can become immune to most attacks by casting ProMW and an elder orb simulacra can wreak havoc with it's uninterruptible eye rays

 

Alternatively, if you don't want to add a new defensive spell, consider changing Cloudkill to deal 2d12 damage on a failed save vs death, none on success - this would be a better conceptual fit with its "save or else" effects vs lower level creatures and would ensure that at least high level and/or buffed mages can cast successfully more than half the time in a cloudkill.

[Demivrgvs]

Improved Haste

Changing improved haste to an AoE (like regular haste) with duration of 5 rounds.

This would make the spell even more overpowered than it already is. While 5 rounds duration might seem little, if a single IH affects multiple warriors the end result is that you get out of it even more damage within less time!

 

Greater Globe of Invulnerability

A new 8th level spell "Greater Globe of Invulnerability" - it was possibly intended in vanilla, see unused SPWI802 - blocking spells up to level 5.

Just in case DavidW is interested, SR already implemented this idea.

 

Cloudkill

Cloudkill - even if you don't abuse it by exploiting line-of-sight cheese against the AI - is too powerful for interrupting enemy mages and can only be defended against by SI:Evocation (...which no-one uses).

SR's Neutralize Poison protects from damage animation, and I think ToBex allows characters with 100% poison damage resistance to avoid being interrupted too, but you have a point (see below).

 

Alternatively, if you don't want to add a new defensive spell, consider changing Cloudkill to deal 2d12 damage on a failed save vs death, none on success - this would be a better conceptual fit with its "save or else" effects vs lower level creatures and would ensure that at least high level and/or buffed mages can cast successfully more than half the time in a cloudkill.

The idea has some merit, and I could be persuaded to implement it within SR.