B!tweaks and polytweaks mods:Does anybody have them?

[mesogirippa]

Sorry guys,but I have to make an offtopic question yet again.

 

What about it is like "final fantasy",what do you mean with double standarts and just how overpowered are the classes added in?

and on a side note,what,in your opinion,are the most op classes of a regular big world installation?

 

Edit:Also,how can the mod be a total conversion?it is just around 10 mb big or so....

[subtledoctor]

I think the double standard is in making a "challenge" mod that is "so tactically challenging" that it's near-impossible with the tools available to the player in the base game... and then handing the player some special tools to meet that challenge. So what has been achieved? The mod content ends up being a wash, and the rest of the game content is ruined. Improved Anvil is the most infamous example of this, but tons of other mods fall into the same trap (DSotSC, Dark Horizons, basically almost all of the old TeamBG adventure mods).

 

I don't play with those mods, so I don't know how OP any specific kits are. I play with kits from Divine Remix, Song & Silence, and my own mod (linked below); this gives me a ton of variety and it's balanced with the base game content.

 

My gut-check power level for comparison is the vanilla Berserker, Inquisitor, and Sorcerer. These are so OP in their vanilla state that I never use them. (In fact my mod has optional components to tone them down a bit.) So any kit mod that comes along and presents comparisons with one of those three kits (and they always do, read the dev threads), immediately goes into my "never install" list.

[kreso]

Sorry guys,but I have to make an offtopic question yet again.

 

a)What about it is like "final fantasy",

b)what do you mean with double standarts and

c)just how overpowered are the classes added in?

d)and on a side note,what,in your opinion,are the most op classes of a regular big world installation?

a) the overall feeling of the mod is similar to FF combo moves, especially late game

b) enemies (even humanesque ones) have cheesy immunites like invulnerability to specific form of damage or backstab (i.e. mages immune to slashing and similar nonsense), regeneration rates are insane and sometimes require Critical Strike HLA to be overcome. Fwiw, your PCs can also have invulnerabilty to physical damage, but only for a limited time, and only via very limited potions.

c) new kits aren't OP for Anvil. They are otoh way too powerful for a "normal" game.

d) Wild Mage, Sorcerer, Blade, other mage kits apart Diviner. And that Druidic Sorcerer kit thingie. But even it is nothing compared to Wild Mage.

[subtledoctor]

Oh yeah, I forgot Wild Mage. The kit itself is actually fine, if it could only cast normal spells. But NRD breaks the game right in half. I mean why not just turn on God Mode, or just ctrl-Y every enemy? I don't even understand how the game is fun when playing with that stuff.

 

Strip out NRD and Wild Mages are cool. Or, convert it into a "Wild Sorcerer" which I keep meaning to do. In fact you could probably solve the Wild Mage problems AND the Sorcerer problems by simply merging them - just make it a normal sorcerer, but give it the Wild Mage usability flag so that all spellcasting can cause wild surges. (And here too, remove NRD.) It would work great in both concept and execution!

[Jarno Mikkola]

Edit:Also,how can the mod be a total conversion?it is just around 10 mb big or so....

It's the way the mod was made... it doesn't need to add big things, like new areas with new tilesets, or other big medias. Truthfully it's converts totally the existing material... well the quest encounters you'll run into after entering the slums of Ath... whatever the city name was.

It changes the particular battles scripts and a lot of creatures and some spells, and of course items and how those items are distributed and made.

 

Strip out NRD and Wild Mages are cool. Or, convert it into a "Wild Sorcerer" which I keep meaning to do. In fact you could probably solve the Wild Mage problems AND the Sorcerer problems by simply merging them - just make it a normal sorcerer, but give it the Wild Mage usability flag so that all spellcasting can cause wild surges. (And here too, remove NRD.) It would work great in both concept and execution!

It won't be this simple...

The wild chance is too small with just the kit flag.

But you could use the opcode #280, if you make it into a continuously affecting the "wild sorcerer". Demi can help with that(assuming here a bit).

[mesogirippa]

Hello!

 

Thanks for answering my questions,you guys! :-)

 

And,my current lvl 1 char is actually a wild mage now.I choose it because I thought it'd be random and balanced.Its spoiled now -_-!!!

But,I have to say,I am doing the tactical big world setting,and I may choose weaker companions....

Infact,first I wanted to do a bard,but the way the AI and the bardsong are handled is downright messy~

 

Also,stripping out nahals reckless dweomer would make the whole class kinda pointless.

[kreso]

the tactical big world setting

[subtledoctor]

Nah, it's not spoiled, the important thing is just having fun. If you start spamming [rest - put 3x Chaos Shield into Sequencer - rest - spam Sequencer + 9x NRD - repeat for each fight] then you absolutely will spoil things. If you delete NRD from your spellbook and play the game without it, then you'll have my respect, sir.

 

EDIT: just saw this

Also,stripping out nahals reckless dweomer would make the whole class kinda pointless.

Sigh. You have disappointed me. Deleting NRD leaves you with a class that is awesome (1 extra spell of every level, no forbidden schools) and fun (wild surges!). You gain many more spells from the extras than you will lose to wild surges, so the class is already OP. NRD just makes things stupid. IMHO.

 

Have fun anyway.

[kreso]

Don't forget that +5/-5 caster level bonus! It's a fun kit, but horrribly broken mid-late game.

[mesogirippa]

Since my start was bugged anyway (No racial selection for my char),and the class seems to be OP,aaaand,i was like 10 minutes ingame I just cancelled it lol :-D.

I went with druid shadow master this time,partly because it sounds cool,and i don't have to put up with npc druid shenanigans!

[InKal]

hehe, here we go again

 

for clarification - Improved Anvil is probably one and only mod in which berserker, inquisitor (oh, you must be brave to play this guy in IA) sorcerer and even or/and especially wild mage are NOT overpowered. guys, do not fall in your own trap. lol

second, mister Sikret knows very well that kits designed for IA are overpowered for vanilla and that is the reason why he refuses (for years) to realese them as a standalone mod and that is the reason why so called Improved Anvil light was ...hmmm..."created". I dont think that there is even one poor soul who actually installed that shit, it was imo a trolling masterpiece with the true goal to make mister Sikret mad. Succesfull I guess. is not that hard to make Sikret mad btw.

 

Also there was a chance for IA6 to be a really good mod. Big chance. but when you combine overwhelming butthurt (a personal crusade against one single player from cheesy and cheap Bulgaria!;ffff hi, Sliven!!!) with ridicoulus demands ... nah... so, I'm in da house back from work and I just log in the Improved Anvil fanclub as a pink member??? no way!!

 

but I was on Imp anvil forum the other day and there's a walkthrough from a player who plays on insane ofcourse and in the fight with Chaos he simply manipulated the enemy AI to cast creeping doom on one char and then he ...........entered the genie tent...well, seems legit.......a typical master tactician playing on insane...pffffffffff BAN!!

 

I played IA5 a LOT and enjoyed it very much. Truth is I like IA and Sikret and all he's team (ohhh, is the baby gonna cry??) and I fear that IA future looks kinda blurred. IA really is outdated now with the new and shiny enhanced edition being finally playable and such great mods like Item and Spell revisions being finally compatible it's really hard to create something new and attractive in IA to counter that.

[subtledoctor]

for clarification - Improved Anvil is probably one and only mod in which berserker, inquisitor (oh, you must be brave to play this guy in IA) sorcerer and even or/and especially wild mage are NOT overpowered. guys, do not fall in your own trap. lol

second, mister Sikret knows very well that kits designed for IA are overpowered for vanilla

No trap here. I don't dislike those kits because they're OP, I dislike them because they are stupidly designed (Rarr, I'm SO angry, that a demilich can't teleport me underground!! (But Irenicus can still teleport me underneath Spellhold. But then if he casts Imprison on me in a non-cutscene battle, it won't work again. ...What?) and players use those stupid design decisions as crutches. But the main point is, if you do things to make the game "harder" but then add in new kits that contain abilities specifically designed to counter that added difficulty... it's pulling both ends of the same rope. All you end up doing is marginalizing most of the kits that are already in the game. 10 kits become unplayable but here are two new ones that you can play instead... great, so the player now 8 has fewer kits that he can have fun with. Players like choice.

 

Whereas, consider someone who plays with SCS to overcome stronger enemy AI, and/or plays on Heart of Fury/Nightmare Mode; you can do that with the normal kits, and then you can add dozens of new kits from the likes of Divine Remix, Song & Silence, Scales of Balance, etc. that are balanced against the vanilla kits. So you end up with much *more* choice and variety, and whatever challenge you added on the AI end will still be the same. (I know SCS /= IA, it's an apples-to-oranges comparison, but you see the larger point about pulling the rope from both ends.)

 

Tons of mods do something like this: "I'll add such hard enemies and encounters! I'll make the player fight *three dragons* at once!" "Oh but I'll also give the player a Giganto Sword +7 that makes its wielder immune to Wing Buffet and does base 3d10 damage and does quad damage against dragons." Why??