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NTotSC for EET (and BGT and BG:EE) - Download


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@Angel Thanks!

Some of the encounters were nerfed further for the current release:

Spoiler

    -nerved fire slamander fight: for level PC lower 4 or game difficulty lower NORMAL, number of fire slamander will be halved.
    -nerved fire slamanders: less HP, no immunity to nonmagical weapons, less damage
    -Lesser Tanar'ri nerved: lower XP, immunity to slashing, crishing, piercing set to 0, nerfed Tanar'ri spell script.
    -fight with Lesser Tanar'ri nerved: number of Lesser Tanar'ri depending in game difficulty
    -removed elven chain mail +1 from Haebal
    -Haebal cre nerfed and corrected: is now mage with legal stats
    -Hasdar cre nerfed: has now legal amount of HP
    -nerved Knights of the Grave: reduced HP, nerved undroppable flame blade
    -monster count in AR02PB reduced depending on game difficulty. For INSANE, all monsters will still be there.

Feedback welcome!

For next release, Will's soundset will be optional install by Roberciiik.

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I plan to do a new run through BG1EE (probably as a bard) with the latest versions of all my favorite mods (which definitely includes NTotSC) as soon as I finish my current SoD game and transfer my paladin to BG2.  I have some stuff of my own that I want to test, too. ^^

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Some of the encounters were nerfed further for the current release


Just curious.  Do you think this is what the original author of the mod had in mind when he made these encounters?  Surely, he would've made the enemies more reasonable and sensible and newbie-friendly himself if that's what the intent was?  Isn't it possible the whole point of the mod was to keep the encounters bizarre and ridiculously difficult just for the heck of it?

But anyway...

Now that the enemy characters have been neutered, gimped, and cuckolded beyond belief into dull, generic enemies, can we please stop with the nerfing at the slightest whimper from unacquainted players and focus strictly on bug fixes, please?  We already had a discussion about this when you nerfed DSotSC over at SHS; sadly it seems not much was learnt from that discussion.



Feedback welcome!


You're a quest/npc/dialogue modder maintaining a tactical, difficulty-enhancing mod meant for experienced players.  Please keep that in mind everytime you make a nerf.  It is difficult for someone who is good at making NPC mods to maintain a tactical mod - simply because they cannot "see" the mod in the eyes of a tactical player or a modder who specializes in making tactical mods.

Now, to address player complaints regarding balance, you did a fantastic job by making certain encounters more easy at the lower difficulty levels, while leaving them untouched at higher difficulties.  This satisfies all players because it is a very good solution, no doubt.  But this type of change is few and far between.  For the most part, the encounters have deviated far from their original vision.

Of course, you may argue you don't have to uphold the original vision of the mod; that you can modify however you see fit.  Fine.  But then don't call it NTotSC anymore.  Call it something else... like Jastey's Reimagined DisneyWorld Edition of NTotSC. 

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The encounters are still the same as before the nerf if you play on insane.

I didn't nerf DSotSC.

28 minutes ago, Guest -me- said:

Jastey's Reimagined DisneyWorld Edition of NTotSC. 

I'm pretty sure I'd get Copyright Issues with Disney if I'd do that.

As I said, feedback welcome. NTotSC is a mod that was abandonded long ago. The community agreed on the encounters needing nerfing - now they are nerfed.

If the community want the mod to be more difficult or how it was originally, then I'm sure there will be someone implementing it.

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To me, "balancing" an established mod is just a different way of saying it is being nerfed.  While I wouldn't have worded things exactly as Guest -me-, I also don't approve of nerfing established mods (especially when it is being done by people other than the original author).

Quoth https://github.com/SpellholdStudios/DSotSC:

Quote

ITM/SPL/CRE balancing revision by Vlar

NPC suggestions for NPC balancing by WithinAmnesia

vanilla items and XP balancing by Manduran

...

2 hours ago, jastey said:

I didn't nerf DSotSC.

Point taken, but apparently it has been nerfed...  I miss the content of the really old versions of DSotSC...  Not so much the many, many bugs, but definitely the content.  Back when Drizzt's companions were with him, several of the dungeons had many dozens of levels, Catti-brie's bow Taulmaril was a weapon of utter devastation, Ettin's Wand could be used to kill even unkillable NPCs... Those were the days... *sigh*.

Edited by Sam.
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The mod was a tricky one for updates as it also contained a lot of let's call it dialogue "holes" which let the player get stuck if they didn't know how to proceed. This version changes - fixes? - that, but for this, new dialogue lines were written. Also, there was no useful journal handling which also meant the player had to know what to do where, so new journal entries were written. Accessibility of areas was broadened so the player could encounter the new content while playing, again without having to know when to go where. There were several reports of the fights still inbalanced with regard to the game level, also traps unusually difficult (or not to be detected or disarmed altogether, which the game has only in very rare spots) - and that was after the changes @Sam. listed, so I adapted those.

-ME- is right that I am not a tactical modder but a quest/npc/dialogue modder , I always said so. So, I see this mod as a quest mod, maybe that is the problem. Nerfing - "balancing" - the encounters adds in this list of changes to make the mod blend into the game and playable without cheats (knowing the walkthrough or for fighting help). The current version - as @Sam. quoted from the readme/tp2 is the result of work from a lot of people, @K4thos thankfully started the new version and I finished it to what it is today.

Maybe I went over the top with the last update, maybe it was wrong to nerf the mod in general, maybe it was also wrong to close the dialogue and plot holes and make it fluently playable, and we should have left it at the buggy and overpowered state it was in. It is true that it is a different playing experience than it was before.

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I don't think anyone would have a problem with fixing dialogue/plot holes, adding journal entries, area accessibility or such enhancements.  All I'm saying is we cannot get carried away with this whole nerfing business.  If you absolutely must nerf some encounter because of too many player complaints, then it must be done in a delicate way that the original experience of that encounter is still accessible for the sake of preserving mod integrity.  Mod integrity should always be prioritized over addressing game balance, since game balance is subjective and would always change from one maintainer to another.

I'm not singling you out for this, Jastey.  Many other classic (non-weidu) mods have this problem where a lot of their content were changed or disabled or nerfed after their conversion to Weidu.  Ascension classic (non-weidu) is another example.  But that's because back then, those maintainers were new or inexperienced modders who didn't understand the importance of preserving the original experience.

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The original experience includes plot holes and missing journal entries. You cannot accept the one and insist on the other.

Again, if consensus is that the last nerfes were over the top they can be reversed. But right now, all I hear is cherry picking, and opinions about what defines the original experience of a mod.

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To add to this as it might be misunderstood. The critique is valid and has a point. But talking about the original experience of the mod and then only pick the overpowered items and fights is just an opinion. My view on the matter where I say overpowered items and fights are plotholes like missing dialogues and journals is another. From my point of view, I was fixing plot holes.

Yes, this is a matter of opinion and will change with whoever maintains the mod. But adding dialogues and journal entries is the same kind of changes, as it changed the original mod experience in a severe manner (i.e. not being stuck because not playing by a walkthrough vs. being able to play freely). If you want to presever the original mod (experience), the updates need to be reversed to what it was before v2.0.

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If you meet an encounter in game where all the enemies have extremely high stats, with specific overpowered weapons assigned to them, it clearly shows the author's intent - that he deliberately wanted this particular encounter to be this way.

Whereas things like dialogue holes, lack of journal entries, etc can be easily explained due to the author's negligence.

Are you seriously telling me you don't see the difference between the two?

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guest "you", you are totally. Luckily, there is an easy way out that will satisfy you: download the original version and play that one. You'll have the original experience and none of the preserving issues you are claiming to exist.

 

 

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56 minutes ago, Guest -me- said:

If you meet an encounter in game where all the enemies have extremely high stats, with specific overpowered weapons assigned to them, it clearly shows the author's intent - that he deliberately wanted this particular encounter to be this way.

Whereas things like dialogue holes, lack of journal entries, etc can be easily explained due to the author's negligence.

Are you seriously telling me you don't see the difference between the two?

I see what you mean, but here is my view: plot holes and missing journal entries are one kind of author's negligence. Putting in enemies with extreme resitances, xp, and magic weapons and armor +x in a BG1 mod is another author's negligence in designing a mod which is supposed to work in BG1. In the one case, the author did not create the mod in a way it can be played seamingless in BG1. In the other, he did not create a mod that fits itself into BG1. Is NTotSC supposed to be a partial conversion with challenging fighting encounters, somewhere in its own BG1 related world, or is it meant to be a quest mod - yes, quest mod - inside of BG1?

Call it arrogance and ignorance towards the mod's author's original intentions. Or call it bringing the mod to current modding standards. In my view - where I am not alone as I did not start with this - nerfing completely overpowered enemies and weapons is part of bringing the mod to current modding standards.

As you already pointed out, I am not a tactical modder so I will not spent time making the fights harder, the result would satisfy noone. What I can offer is to reverse nerfes I did with the last update if this is general opinion on how this should be dealt with.

Anyone feel free to step up and take over maintenance of the mod, with focus on preserving/restoring the hard fights of it, btw - I'm not nailed to this position.

On the contrary: I took on the job and I spent quite an amount of my free time working on a mod that is not mine and was completely buggy before, and I surely did not do so to create "Jastey's Reimagined DisneyWorld Edition of NTotSC". The time I spent on this mod was meant as a contribution to an old mod as well as the community. I'm not whining about my lost life time, as I said it was meant as a gift. What I mean is that I did not do this so people would complain about it afterwards, so if the result is not accepted, it's easy to reverse the overhaul, all we need to do is take down the current version and reverse to v1.x+patch.

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