Funny Lavok incident

[kreso]

You may want to try entering this in CLUA:

CLUAConsole:SetGlobal("DMWWReduceDemonSummoning","GLOBAL",1).

[scorpio]

Thanks! That's a good option for sure.

 

I feel sure i'm onto something with the files though. Let's see.

 

EDIT: Just some more info that might be relevant:

 

Here's dw#cacof, with spell name "Summon Death Knight" and mage14a's .BCS which calls for WIZARD_CACOFIEND at one point.

 

Would it be correct to say it is looking for the Spell name and therefore reverting to the default SPWI707.spl one and not dw#cacof.spl?

 

 

[polytope]

The crash is likely due to another bug in aTweaks, which resulted in Gate attempting to summon non-existent creatures. I suppose I should post a hotfix for that issue so it can be resolved without upgrading aTweaks (though that is another way).

 

I noticed this happening in v21 + aTweaks, but didn't report it since it was an old version. I never noticed demons attacking enemy summoners though.

[scorpio]

Fixed it! Somewhat anyways!

 

My theory was right, and I think it's all to do with SR renaming cacofiend as death knight etc etc as noted above.

 

I changed the SPWI707's EFFs from things like RR#SCORN to DW#SUMBF, FL#SARCA to DW#SUMYA, and SPCACO to DW#CACOF as per DW#CACOF.SPL, and mage14a now has a co-operative Cornugon.

 

I think my own spwi707 (cacofiend) should be safe, since as I say, I think Spell revisions removes cacofiend scrolls and replaces them with summon death knight so I shouldn't even run into SPWI707.

 

Likely my version of this cacofiend/death knight will not have atweaks stuff on it though I guess?

 

Heck, I don't know what it would have, my mind is a mess as it is, I need a break. Figure this out later. It's fixed as for the AI which is what I really wanted, I can avoid the spell myself if need be.

 

Thanks for all the help though once again!

[Wisp]

Well, some enemies are indeed casting WIZARD_CACOFIEND rather than dw#cacof, but I still can't reproduce the problem of fiends attacking their summoner. The aTweaks fiends summoned by WIZARD_CACOFIEND don't attack their summoner when the summoner is hostile to the party.

[Wisp]

I'm curious why it's not like this to begin with? Why does DW use standard spells and dememorize them via script like that?

Typically it's because it is either practical or necessary for AI-controlled actors to cast spells that behave slightly differently than the player-accessible spells.

 

Also, again out of curiosity and wanting to learn more than anything else, what does biffing do exactly, and what actions are therefore safe and not safe after applying it?

Biffing condenses multiple game files into a single file (the biff archive). For large files, or many thousands of small files, this can improve performance. Pretty much everything that can be safely done on a vanilla game can safely be done on a biffed game.

 

I think my own spwi707 (cacofiend) should be safe, since as I say, I think Spell revisions removes cacofiend scrolls and replaces them with summon death knight so I shouldn't even run into SPWI707.

 

Likely my version of this cacofiend/death knight will not have atweaks stuff on it though I guess?

You will. aTweaks changes Cacofiend back into Cacofiend. SR doesn't remove the spell or the scrolls, it mutates them into "Summon Death Knight" and aTweaks mutates them back into aTweaks' version of Cacofiend. However, with your edit, Cacofiend cast by yourself will behave as Cacofiend cast by enemies (i.e., the fiends will be irreconcilably hostile). If we take it as a given that WIZARD_CACOFIEND misbehaves when cast by enemies (which it shouldn't and I can't reproduce), the proper fix for this would be to change the casting of WIZARD_CACOFIEND by enemies into dw#cacof.spl. However, this is perhaps not something done by the layman.

[scorpio]

I just wanted to provide some feedback on fiends in general, seeing as I've seen my fair share through testing, and now actually getting a demon's heart legitametely with my party.

 

My party levels are 10-12, Jaheira the only 12.

 

I'm a pretty decent player, and am playing a minimal reload challenge (cannot avoid all game deaths unless you rest after each encounter and know them judiciously/metagame imo) but fiends seem pretty ridiculous. I've had one death to the fiends already.

 

Yoshimo was spotted by Ley'ali or whatever and then died there, then a glabrezu to the left of the sphere was the next I tried to attract, except him, Ley'ali and the third demon (Nabassu?) all converged on me, there was a Marilith too, summoned maybe by one of them. They just dimension doored to the party and all hell broke loose.

 

I had no hope despite backing into the corner near the sphere and almost killing one nabassu whilst taking so much damage/spells.

 

The second attempt, I managed to lure the glabrezu by itself, and no one else converged on me - Maybe because I hadn't "activated" Ley'ali and the others yet by never meeting them?

 

Anyhow, this was still pretty hard - Fiends just go into the ethereal plane too much, I counted at least 4 times for this one:

 

Here's the combat logs showing the regular plane shift:

 

 

 

 

 

He wasn't too bad in the end, but with any other enemies I can see major issues. Etherealness has no counter other than to wait is the problem.

 

The summons that the fiends get as has been acknowledged seems a bit much. I don't know if that's a local issue with my install, so you can check if they act like that yourself.

 

I also tried summoning in a pit demon at one point during testing, and he would open up gates constantly aswell, summoning in 2 abishai, 2 bone fiends, 2 erinyes, a gelugoth (sp?),and even another pit demon iirc (with a different animation strangely)

 

Can the gated in creatures gate others in? Such a chain is a bit much if so - I cannot recall what happened with that gated in demon,

 

All in all, I will likely stick with this for now, but I doubt I shall use atweaks fiends in future knowing this. I think the flavour of such things is so great, hence why I used it in the first place, but the actual results are not too endearing in play. I'll miss the blood war stuff, and general things the fiends say, but gameplay balance is more important.

 

I hope the feedback is useful, and I do love atweaks, RR, and your own item randomiser (speaking of which, I found a Bala's axe somewhere, and then a 2nd copy in the planar sphere, where the demon's heart must be placed/guarded by golems room - I guess the randomiser had something to do with this, along with item revisions).

 

Finally, yes you're right my own cacofiend is ruined, but I wasn't going to use it likely anyway so it's fine.

 

I did notice that the scripts for summon fiend use something like SpellNoDecRES("dw#whatever") whereas the problem ones use Spell(myself, wizard_cacofiend) type stuff, hence yes, it's not an easy thing for me at any rate. If it used spellnodecres, i could've replaced the resource with a correct one.

 

I'm not sure why he does it like that, why not directly use dw#cacof, like he does dw#whatever for summon fiends and for Gate?

 

Edit: Here's a pit fiend in action: He'll spend the first few rounds doing nothing but gating in bone fiends, gelugon, abishai, cornugon, erinyes, other pit fiends. Seems to like having about 4-5 gated worth of things in action, such as where I killed the 4 bone fiends, he immediately gated in 2 sets of 2 erinyes.

 

Last screenshot shows a gated in pit fiend (that can cast wish!) and you can see the different animation (seems to be the atweaks style coloured bg2 standard) which is just interesting.

 

It's hard to say when I might encounter one of these legit, and what kind of power level I'd have, but it seems tough all right!

 

 

 

 

 

[kreso]

My party levels are 10-12, Jaheira the only 12.

These are quite low levels for fighting Pit Fiends

 

Anyhow, this was still pretty hard - Fiends just go into the ethereal plane too much

I agree. There's a CLUA command you can enter to prevent them from shifting, check the bottom of aTweaks readme file.

 

 

Can the gated in creatures gate others in?

No.

 

I doubt I shall use atweaks fiends in future knowing this.

I think, actually I'm fairly confident that SCS makes fiends tougher than aTweaks does.

 

 

pit fiend in action: He'll spend the first few rounds doing nothing but gating in bone fiends, gelugon, abishai, cornugon, erinyes, other pit fiends. Seems to like having about 4-5 gated worth of things in action, such as where I killed the 4 bone fiends, he immediately gated in 2 sets of 2 erinyes.

Iirc, Pit Fiend can open gate every round, to any of baatezu.

[scorpio]

The 10-12 party legit faced only the glabrezu etc, no pit fiends, that was me just clua'ing them in to check them out.

 

I dunno about SCS only fiends, I thought these were some combination of SCS and atweaks? Either way, I think non-ethereal shifting, and non constant-gating fiends can only be easier.

 

I mean you can manoeuvre around a single fiend and generally do something, but things get too hectic too quick with these gatings of fiends that are powerful in their own right!

[Wisp]

My party levels are 10-12, Jaheira the only 12.

While I sympathise with your difficulties, you probably are a bit lower levelled than intended. You do face casters of levels 18+ and Elder Orbs in the Planar Sphere. Certainly with aTweaks (which adds the Marilith and Glabrezu), the Planar Sphere is probably intended for parties of a slightly higher average level. But perhaps the Glabrezu should be scaled. Say, it only appears if average party level is greater than 14 or difficulty is insane? Otherwise, you encounter a second Nabussu (like in vanilla).

 

Yoshimo was spotted by Ley'ali or whatever and then died there, then a glabrezu to the left of the sphere was the next I tried to attract, except him, Ley'ali and the third demon (Nabassu?) all converged on me, there was a Marilith too, summoned maybe by one of them. They just dimension doored to the party and all hell broke loose.

 

I had no hope despite backing into the corner near the sphere and almost killing one nabassu whilst taking so much damage/spells.

 

The second attempt, I managed to lure the glabrezu by itself, and no one else converged on me - Maybe because I hadn't "activated" Ley'ali and the others yet by never meeting them?

Those would be the shouts (calls for help). In the second case, the other fiends likely did not hear the Glabrezu because they were out of range.

 

The summons that the fiends get as has been acknowledged seems a bit much. I don't know if that's a local issue with my install, so you can check if they act like that yourself.

 

I also tried summoning in a pit demon at one point during testing, and he would open up gates constantly aswell, summoning in 2 abishai, 2 bone fiends, 2 erinyes, a gelugoth (sp?),and even another pit demon iirc (with a different animation strangely)

Pit Fiends may gate in another baatezu once per round. What was the resref of the pit fiend you summoned yourself? Pit Fiends should use the winged-demon animation (also used by Nabassus, Balors and Nycaloths). Was it the first or second fiend that used the incorrect animation? Which animation was used (I can't make it out from the screenshots)?

 

Fiendish Gating is an optional component, because it can increase difficulty quite significantly. You can turn Gating off permanently or temporarily by use of the console. Refer to the readme for additional information.

 

However, bearing in mind that Pit Fiends are allowed to gate in fiends quite freely, have you encountered some other instance of fiends gating/summoning too many critters (beyond Nycaloths)?

 

(speaking of which, I found a Bala's axe somewhere, and then a 2nd copy in the planar sphere, where the demon's heart must be placed/guarded by golems room - I guess the randomiser had something to do with this, along with item revisions).

Item Randomiser does not touch Bala's Axe in BG2.

 

It's hard to say when I might encounter one of these legit, and what kind of power level I'd have, but it seems tough all right!

Well, Pit Fiends are the rulers of Baator.

 

I doubt I shall use atweaks fiends in future knowing this.

I think, actually I'm fairly confident that SCS makes fiends tougher than aTweaks does.

aTweaks gives fiends some special abilities and such over SCS, but decreases their stats (HP, etc.) quite significantly.

[scorpio]

I think I tried DEMPIT and DEMPIT01 from the console, the original fiend is the large one, and the one he gated in is the standard bg2 fiend animation but colored dark red - in the last screenshot the one that was gated in is at the bottom of the pile of demons demolishing Yasraena.

 

The animation for the original fiend is from something else, maybe IWD? I cannot tell - I use infinity animations and it's randomly changed some fiend animation I think. It looks nothing like the normal bg2 animation.

 

The original pit fiend was actually never really attacking, spent most of his time invis or something, just gating stuff when I ctrl+yed something.

 

I'm sure SCS fiends are tougher, but it's arguable which is tougher - one strong thing that you can move around and distract, or a few less strong things that keep you on the back foot constantly. I cannot answer it myself as I cannot remember what it was like facing just SCS fiends, that was many versions ago anyway and I'm sure things have changed.

 

I actually had a save before fighting Lavok, and with a working arcanaloth I beat him! I was happy about that - the elder orb I left to the guardian golem - not touching beholders of any kind if I can help it.

 

I try not to cheese the game (that too is in the eye of the beholder tbh as to what is cheese and what is not) and so I run away from what I cannot fight. The Lavok fight, I waited invis for the Arcanaloth to go away and then fought Lavok. I don't leave the area (to me, that's cheese, as it breaks AI in terms of some follow you through transitions and some don't) but no doubt for some it's cheesy that I even moved around that little area avoiding the fight till the fiend went away. It's not so easy in that tight space to avoid the true seeing and detect invis etc, so I find it fair game to invis against SCS AI.

 

I did fight Lavok with a timestop etc which was bad enough.

 

So, what I'm saying is, don't change things on my account, I think i'll read the readme and turn off fiendish gating - the novelty has worn off a little.

 

If you do want my opinion though, I think it would be good if fiends had a limit to how many times they can gate stuff in, just for the sake of balance - the thought of an infinite amount of enemies unless I kill the main one isn't great for me, especially when the fiends have so much invis and etherealness at their disposal - you get worn down eventually. As it is, if you focus on killing his gated stuff he just replaces them.

 

I hope i wasn't too disparaging though, it's a minor quibble in an otherwise great mod, credit to you and avenger both.

 

Edit: Added a couple things.

 

Also, the Glabrezu I fought by himself was just fine, easy even - you can see my party is not even scathed for the most part. Yoshi was stunned and almost killed but I saved him and healed him up mid-fight.

 

It's if he had called in the nabassu, ley'ali, the marilith, maurezhi (whatever they're called) etc that things would've gone to pot, like they did the first time. SCS is probably the issue here, it sometimes likes to call the whole map in on you and rather defeats taking bite-sized chunks like you should IMO - otherwise you get an empty map and too difficult a fight usually. It's frustrating when this happens, whatever the reason, SCS or otherwise.

[Wisp]

If you do want my opinion though, I think it would be good if fiends had a limit to how many times they can gate stuff in, just for the sake of balance

They do have limits. The next baddest gaters—balors—can only gate once per turn hour, and lower fiends are much more limited (both in frequency and in probability of success). Additionally, most Pit Fiends will forego gating in additional fiends if there already is a sufficient number of baatezu present. Edit: the specifics are detailed in the readme.

[scorpio]

Good to know, will just have to watch out for pit fiends then I guess.

 

I edited my previous post with some more info.

 

Also, the Glabrezu I fought did not gate in anything, at all. That made it easier for sure.

 

Edit: By limit I mean more that there is a finite amount, and not a pit fiend that likes to hide and summon away waves upon waves. Like a total of 5 rounds worth of gating or something (having 4 bone fiends, 1 gelugon, 2 abishai, and a corungon seems enough work!).

 

That's just my opinion, and I understand anyone can easily say, well, focus down the pit fiend, adjust your tactics etc.

 

That's fine. Just what would be my preference; I'm looking over the readme right now, and it all seems fine at first glance other than these crazy awesome pit fiends. Their ability to pump these out would, IMO, be good if it were tempered by a total limit of how many gatings the damn thing has done (5-10 enough surely?). No one else comes close to that power, with the next best being one gating every 5 minutes of real time as you say.

 

The Glabrezu btw, now that I recall, just failed at opening the gate actually I think, so yeah he did try.

 

The power levels that you can end up facing can be quite disparate depending on whether fiends manage to pull in another fiend or not - with the type of fiend adding to that randomness, and a pit fiend pulling in another pit fiend is an insanely unlucky turn for the worse for the party I'd imagine.