Request: An in-game reason to go to IWD

[smeagolheart]

How about putting the boat guy on the ice island?

 

The guy could be there fishing or whatever and be like, whoah I didn't expect to find anyone here, want a ride to town? "

 

" ok but what about the other people inside this cave? "

 

" No way those guys freak me out"

 

Or maybe there's some other reason to go from the ice island. Basically the ice island is as close as you get physically in BGEE to Icewind Dale

Edited August 18, 2016 by smeagolheart

[subtledoctor]

Love that idea. But like I say if there's a "boat guy" it would be better to put him somewhere very early so you could go whenever you want. And then we could make a very small, easy mod called "Move the Boat Guy to Ice Island."

[Ser Elryk]

Is it still planned to be able to go to IWD with BG2 characters in your party? I was wondering since K4thos mentioned the plot integration might be connected to SoD. I'd love to hear banter and interjections from as many NPC's as possible!

 

And thank you for the README, Roxanne =)

[Roxanne]

Is it still planned to be able to go to IWD with BG2 characters in your party? I was wondering since K4thos mentioned the plot integration might be connected to SoD. I'd love to hear banter and interjections from as many NPC's as possible!

 

And thank you for the README, Roxanne =)

Maybe at this point it is worth mentioning that IWD itself is not just one mod but has distinct parts (original IWD1 - Heart of Winter - IWD2 - Tales of the Luremaster). As such each may require a different treatment and assessment.

 

On top of that IWD1 and 2 create a problem for a *simple* make it available as it is in EET approach. There is an overlay of game areas and IWD2 partly revises IWD1 areas and characters (e.g. you have elder versions of those who were young in IWD1), assuming that its plot takes place a long time after IWD1.

 

As such, HoW and TotL can be easily added to EET as just another mod which you can visit at your discretion - while IWD1 and 2 require additional modifications, especially if you want to have both of them in the same game (and alongside SoD).

 

And - with adding IWD areas to the worldmap you open the possibility to travel between different IWD *campaigns* and the main plot which again may create consistency problems.

 

One solution to all of that could be (and this is what many propose) that EET does not care for this at all but leave it all up to the choice of the user...(this approach is based on the assumption that EET players are familiar with the original IWD - otherwise you will loose yourself completely in a mess of different plots that initially were independent games.)

Edited August 18, 2016 by Roxanne

[AWizardDidIt]

Is it still planned to be able to go to IWD with BG2 characters in your party? I was wondering since K4thos mentioned the plot integration might be connected to SoD. I'd love to hear banter and interjections from as many NPC's as possible!

 

And thank you for the README, Roxanne =)

 

It'll be available from both BG1 and BG2

 

Like Kathos said, I'm working with him on a plot centric reason to go to the original IWD campaign that fits into the saga comfortably. I don't think we're ready to reveal that quite yet but as we get closer we'll probably say more. It's not going to be a huge rewrite or mega-quest or anything but it'll be a little hook that's simple but (imo) pretty interesting.

 

For now, all my work on writing party reactions/interjections into IWD remain fairly agnostic to how the party got there, mostly just bantering with each other or remarking on the events of the campaign itself. And there's banters/remarks for all BG1 AND BG2 companion characters and kind of a lot of them, I probably remarked I had written over 1500 lines in the other thread... it's getting substantially longer than that even... I'm actually revisiting and cutting stuff because I'm worried the party might be *too* chatty haha

 

I'm super excited to share that all with you eventually

Edited August 18, 2016 by AWizardDidIt

[Jarno Mikkola]

I don't think we're ready to reveal that quite yet but ...

Why the but ? See just write, "Yeah, there's one. And if you and everyone else hates it, well, we will consider rewriting it after the IWDinEET is beyond the first few releases. That fix bugs."

Revealing the whole plot... the BG1's plot is not a one line of a text, so going to that detail is absurd, but you can say "Shepard is a tough human." Yes, that's Mass Effect'ses plots, in a nutshell. "And Chewbacca dies in Episode 7."

Edited August 18, 2016 by Jarno Mikkola

[AWizardDidIt]

Mostly I just like to have a better idea of the specifics before talking about stuff. I don't wanna be the monkey that says one thing and we decide later on the scrap it and do something else :X

Edited August 18, 2016 by AWizardDidIt

[smeagolheart]

I agree with what Roxanne was saying above especially about Trials of the Luremaster. To me, I see Trials as very similar to the Firkang quest except a bit higher level.

 

At one point I wanted to mod Hobbart or Hrothgar into the Copper Coronet but I never got around to it and it was beyond my modding skill at the time.

[Ser Elryk]

 

Is it still planned to be able to go to IWD with BG2 characters in your party? I was wondering since K4thos mentioned the plot integration might be connected to SoD. I'd love to hear banter and interjections from as many NPC's as possible!

 

And thank you for the README, Roxanne =)

 

It'll be available from both BG1 and BG2

 

Like Kathos said, I'm working with him on a plot centric reason to go to the original IWD campaign that fits into the saga comfortably. I don't think we're ready to reveal that quite yet but as we get closer we'll probably say more. It's not going to be a huge rewrite or mega-quest or anything but it'll be a little hook that's simple but (imo) pretty interesting.

 

For now, all my work on writing party reactions/interjections into IWD remain fairly agnostic to how the party got there, mostly just bantering with each other or remarking on the events of the campaign itself. And there's banters/remarks for all BG1 AND BG2 companion characters and kind of a lot of them, I probably remarked I had written over 1500 lines in the other thread... it's getting substantially longer than that even... I'm actually revisiting and cutting stuff because I'm worried the party might be *too* chatty haha

 

I'm super excited to share that all with you eventually

 

 

Noooo! XD

[Bill Bisco]

IWD starts out at level one. I would really hate for players to be forced to be likely be level 2 or higher to go there. People who install the IWD in EET mod want to be able to easily experience this new section of the game. The beauty of BG1 was being able to explore such large swaths of locations. Please strongly consider IWD in EET to be easily accessible in Chapter 1.

 

(Not to mention the enhanced roleplaying opportunity of having Erevain save his cousin in Nashkel).

[Fiann of the Silver Hand]

It's pretty obvious there's going to need to be some kind of mini-mod for this. It may not be in the purview of EET, but if there's an EETweaks, this ought to be Component #1.

[K4thos]

IWD starts out at level one. I would really hate for players to be forced to be likely be level 2 or higher to go there. People who install the IWD in EET mod want to be able to easily experience this new section of the game. The beauty of BG1 was being able to explore such large swaths of locations. Please strongly consider IWD in EET to be easily accessible in Chapter 1.

 

(Not to mention the enhanced roleplaying opportunity of having Erevain save his cousin in Nashkel).

 

I'm actually experimenting with automatic monster scaling feature for IWD-in-EET content (disabled if you start new game in IWD from level 1). The proof of concept turned out successful, now it's a matter of designing actual system around it (if someone is interested in helping with it that would be great - I don't have experience with designing such gameplay systems). Here is how it works (not sure if this is optimal way to apply one-time effect although seems better than patching all scripts attached to CRE files)

1. All IWD creatures are patched during installation with 'Cast Spell on Condition' effect that spawns invisible creature when party is in range < 50

2. The spawned creature uses:

LastSummonerOf(Myself)

to target the caster and apply stats changes via:

ChangeStat(O:Object*,I:Stat*Stats,I:Value*,I:Modifier*StatMod)

depending on avarage level of the party and level of creature (which represents monster Hit Dice in BG games)

 

The script running on that spawned creature also applies ''Protection from spell" effect, so that stats adjustment monster summoning is only done once for that particular creature.

 

---------

 

Let's say the creature is 8 Hit Dice monster and we want to convert it to 9 Hit Dice monster. At the same time we are increasing other stats to replicate 'monster size' change (just an example). The script on invisible creature would look something like this (real code would also need additional triggers that recognize the power of the party and choose the appropriate scaling of course).

IF
  OnCreation()
  Level(LastSummonerOf(Myself),8)
THEN
  RESPONSE #100
    ReallyForceSpellRES("K#HDDIS",LastSummonerOf(Myself)) // this will disable further stat increasement
    ChangeStat(LastSummonerOf(Myself),LEVEL,1,ADD)
    ChangeStat(LastSummonerOf(Myself),THAC0,-2,ADD) //that's the THAC0 difference for monsters between HD8 and HD9 according to D&D 2e rules
    ChangeStat(LastSummonerOf(Myself),SAVEVSDEATH,1,ADD)
    ChangeStat(LastSummonerOf(Myself),SAVEVSWANDS,1,ADD)
    ChangeStat(LastSummonerOf(Myself),SAVEVSPOLY,1,ADD)
    ChangeStat(LastSummonerOf(Myself),SAVEVSBREATH,1,ADD)
    ChangeStat(LastSummonerOf(Myself),SAVEVSSPELL,1,ADD)
    SetGlobalRandom("K#DICE","LOCALS",1,8) //1d8 dice thrown
    SetGlobal("SmallToMedium","LOCALS",1)
END

IF
  GlobalGT("K#DICE","LOCALS",0)
  Switch("K#DICE","LOCALS")
THEN
  RESPONSE #1
    ChangeStat(LastSummonerOf(Myself),MAXHITPOINTS,1,ADD)
    SetGlobal("K#DICE","LOCALS",0)
  RESPONSE #2
    ChangeStat(LastSummonerOf(Myself),MAXHITPOINTS,2,ADD)
    SetGlobal("K#DICE","LOCALS",0)
  RESPONSE #3
    ChangeStat(LastSummonerOf(Myself),MAXHITPOINTS,3,ADD)
    SetGlobal("K#DICE","LOCALS",0)
  RESPONSE #4
    ChangeStat(LastSummonerOf(Myself),MAXHITPOINTS,4,ADD)
    SetGlobal("K#DICE","LOCALS",0)
  RESPONSE #5
    ChangeStat(LastSummonerOf(Myself),MAXHITPOINTS,5,ADD)
    SetGlobal("K#DICE","LOCALS",0)
  RESPONSE #6
    ChangeStat(LastSummonerOf(Myself),MAXHITPOINTS,6,ADD)
    SetGlobal("K#DICE","LOCALS",0)
  RESPONSE #7
    ChangeStat(LastSummonerOf(Myself),MAXHITPOINTS,7,ADD)
    SetGlobal("K#DICE","LOCALS",0)
  RESPONSE #8
    ChangeStat(LastSummonerOf(Myself),MAXHITPOINTS,8,ADD)
    SetGlobal("K#DICE","LOCALS",0)
END

IF
  Global("SmallToMedium","LOCALS",1)
THEN
  RESPONSE #100
    ChangeStat(LastSummonerOf(Myself),STR,4,ADD)
    ChangeStat(LastSummonerOf(Myself),DEX,-2,ADD)
    ChangeStat(LastSummonerOf(Myself),CON,2,ADD)
    ChangeStat(LastSummonerOf(Myself),ARMORCLASS,-1,ADD)
    ChangeStat(LastSummonerOf(Myself),MORALEBREAK,1,ADD)
    ChangeStat(LastSummonerOf(Myself),MORALERECOVERYTIME,-5,ADD)
    ReallyForceSpellRES("K#DMG1d8",LastSummonerOf(Myself)) //additional spell effect applied that grants 1d8 damage per hit
    SetGlobal("SmallToMedium","LOCALS",0)
    Continue()
END

IF
  True()
THEN
  RESPONSE #100
    DestroySelf()
END

The problem is balancing such system, but at least it's possible With good enough system the same script could be used for every creature in game.

 

----------

 

btw. Bill Bisco, if you want, you can simply start new game in IWD1 from level 1 using 'Change Campaign' EET feature.

Edited August 21, 2016 by K4thos

[Bill Bisco]

K4thos, when people install the iwd in eet mod, they want to play iwd in eet. They want to play with friends and travel there and be able to go back and forth at will at their leisure. If playing alone, they want to take Khalid, Jaheira, Branwen, Viconia, Xzar, Montaron, etc. Over there quickly and see what new banters and interjections you've written.

 

When they play iwd in eet for a second time, they want to take a new set of BG1 NPCs to IWD and see the new banters and interjections for thise NPCs that they didn't see the first time. Don't force people to beat 1/3 of BG1 before getting to play IWD in EET. Anticipate people wanting to go to IWD immediately and pre-empt requests for tweak options to go to iwd immediately by simply making IWD available immediately.

Edited August 20, 2016 by Bill Bisco

[Jarno Mikkola]

I'm actually experimenting with automatic monster scaling feature for IWD-in-EET content...

My advice is to not try to make thins too much priority, as most people can adjust the XP system so they get the experience they want to out of the creatures, and (if you) make the IWD charters skip-able, aka the chapter quests can be skipped entirely and the player can proceed to the areas they want to, it will allow even the ToB starters to enjoy the end content of the IwD without need to kill 10 000 goblinoids first.

I have never played a game that had automatic monster scaling that adjusted it properly to the players power scaling... so, ... they have done so in a different manner, where the orc was first green and then later blue, but that's a different thing, cause the later was called "blue orc", instead of "green orc v2", cause the area they could hang out was not the same one.

[GrimLefourbe]

[...]

It sounds pretty cool but it's also a dangerous path imo.

 

There's a number of games with scaling and they can end up feeling bland quickly if all areas always have the same difficulty (Skyrim is imo an example of player scaling gone wrong)

On the other hand, we definitely need some sort of scaling because we're merging a number of campaigns together designed for the same levels and while adjusting the xp system can work to an extent, there will be issues when the monsters of a specific subcampaign scale faster than the player doing the campaign (this would happen with too steep exp penalties).

I don't have a good solution because I haven't experienced any game that got it right but it's definitely something that could be meant for a bigger discussion, IWD-in-EET if IWD-in-EET brings IWD to the rest, it needs to be made with the other stories in mind content wise as well.

This is imo, a big challenge design wise, a solution that could work for some open worldish content wouldn't work as well for campaign like content.

 

I don't think it's possible to make everyone happy on this subject without a huge number of options so, imo, tread carefully.