"Improved NPC Customisation and Management" Component Bug

[gtusrnm]

This happened to me with SCS v33 (33.0, fairly sure) installed while dual-classing Anomen and Sarevok where they receive excessive XP. The party normally transitioned from SoA, but it would occur earlier with Anomen as well. I've noticed some fixes related to this component in the last few months being mentioned in the changelogs, but seemed unrelated.

Not a game-breaking bug per se, but still very distressing because the companions essentially reach the level cap, and made me feel like all the hard worked for questing was done for nothing. The other party members were around 4.5 million XP, and because the component does not correctly detect the overall XP pool for dual-classes, I suppose it gets awarded in excess. All I know is Sarevok would reach the XP cap easily if you dual-classed, but his pure classes would also receive way too much XP for whatever reason.

Here's even an old reddit thread related to the same problem that I found when I was googling the issue: https://old.reddit.com/r/baldursgate/comments/d2trsi/a_mod_question_for_a_compulsive_restarter/

Now let me just say that I do acknowledge the massive balance shift this component introduces in general, and that it incentivizes enormous changes in strategy as well as solo play. Nonetheless I found it to be an excellent addition. There's nothing more refreshing than being able to spec your favorite characters the way their stats allow instead of experiencing yet another repetitive run of classes you are sick of.

I just hope that this finally gets some attention and is fixed so it doesn't make you feel like you just cheated your dual-classed party members with no ability to turn off the component. And to make matters worse, uninstalling it seemed to have caused the entire installation to redo itself because apparently all the components are interconnected, and as you well know SCS can take a long time to install, especially on older machines (around an hour for me). Not a pleasant experience if you're excited to continue your playthrough, I assure you.

[DavidW]

Let's see if I understand this correctly: 

• your main character has around 4million XP.
• Sarevok is in the party
• You dual-class him
• He immediately jumps to 4 million XP, without having to work for it.

Is that correct? If so, I think I can see how that could happen. (It's not terribly straightforward to fix but I can think about it.)

I'm less clear how this could happen with Anomen, given that he starts dual-classed. Did you change his original class and dual-class him later?

The time taken to uninstall is unavoidable: that's how all BG2 mods work. The components are installed in order; to uninstall one, all the ones installed later have to be uninstalled and then reinstalled.

[gtusrnm]

Not quite correct as I would be content if Sarevok received the same XP as my main char. Let me describe how my entire experience went with this component.

So, the first companion I re-spec'd was Imoen whom I made into a Swashbuckler right after recruiting her in spellhold, and that was around 1.5 mil XP - that's how much each of the 5 party members had, Imoen being the sixth. One notable feature I noticed within the component is that some of the classes chosen as the first class would only level up until level 7. Then I waited until Imoen gained the desired level - Swashbuckler 10th - also, if I did so without activating the AI, and then activating it, the component would give me a free level up to Swashbuckler, as well as kick up her mage class a notch higher that I was about to dual-class (still in the buffer at that point - but I would already know I was getting one more level of mage as well). All that resulted in Imoen being a level 10 Swashbuckler with 160k XP + level 14 mage with 1500k XP. All the other party members have around 1800k XP from what I'm seeing in the save file, so the XP she was given is around even despite dual-classing, which started bugging out later.

So now comes the later with Anomen, him starting unchanged as Fighter at around also - if my recollection isn't failing me - level 7. That's how he is from the start, and - strangely - his character specific shield couldn't be worn. I grind him up to level 12, and then activate the AI just as I did with Imoen, intending to dual-class at 13 as most people would. Other party members are at around 4800k XP at this point. This is where the problem seems obvious: the component boosted his Cleric class to level 29 and 4800k XP. However, this is not the end of the problems that arised once I transitioned to ToB - without exporting.

And finally ToB: I am in the pocket plane, chars other than Anomen at 5200k XP. Each time I remove him from the party and recruit again, he gets a free level up. He stopped levelling up at like 7100k XP, barely not hitting the XP cap.
As for Sarevok: as a pure Fighter, and I think it stopped at level 29, which the table says is 5200k XP, so that corresponds. I advanced him as Kensai to 24, then to Mage, and that hit the XP cap at 8000k. Other combinations would behave similarly I believe, but I have no way of testing anymore with the component uninstalled.

So the bottom line is it used to kind of oddly buffer the XP in SoA, but the numbers didn't go too high. In ToB it went utterly bonkers for the two dual-classes that I tried. I'm also pretty sure I tried multiclasses once in ToB and the numbers corresponded to the other party members.

[DavidW]

So, with Anomen: did you keep levelling him as a fighter once you joined the party? There's supposed to be text instructing you to dual-class him once he's finished levelling after being initially recruited (I can't enforce that you do so).

[Palanthis]

I also spotted a really small bug with this component, while i was playing with a lot of NPC in my last run with The BG1NPC Project. (SCS v33)

When you kick a thief, and then let the thief rejoin your party later while your main character has gained XP, if this thief gains a level thanks to this component, the "one-off innate abilities that allow you to increase your thief skills by the missing amount" (that every thief gains at level 1 with this component) pop up again when he levels up this way.

Sure you don't have to use them, but still, this isn't intended. It means you could add up these little increases for each level, if you kick the thief then let him rejoin. I didn't check the total skill points a thief gains this way, but i'm pretty sure this was on top of the increase he gets at level 1.

Aside from The BG1NPC Project, I only have SCS and The Tweaks anthology installed.

Edited September 5, 2020 by Palanthis

[DavidW]

OK - no, that's definitely not intended. I'll have a look at how that's happening.

[gtusrnm]

11 hours ago, DavidW said:

So, with Anomen: did you keep levelling him as a fighter once you joined the party? There's supposed to be text instructing you to dual-class him once he's finished levelling after being initially recruited (I can't enforce that you do so).

That's correct. Both Anomen and Imoen. I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Sure, the dual-classes are always superior, but the entire component is more for the min-maxing type than a beginner who would feel overwhelmed by having to advance a character up from level 1 every single time. Because if you can't compensate for a poorly dual-classed companion, the only other alternative a multi-class or a self-made companion in multiplayer mode. So, if possible, I would urge you to somehow rebalance the XP gain for the dual-classes. It would surely add notable prestige to this mod.

But yeah, I can live with the way Anomen was in SoA. What is the real problem is his bugginess in ToB at 5200k XP and him advancing every time he's removed from the party and recruited again. As I described in my second post here, this was not happening at 4800k XP in SoA - only in ToB. And I cannot imagine why it would behave like that with such a minuscule XP difference.

[DavidW]

12 minutes ago, gtusrnm said:

That's correct. Both Anomen and Imoen. I don't think there's anything wrong with that.

There's nothing wrong with it as a playstyle, but it won't work technically. Anomen and Imoen are set up as dual-classed characters: the autoleveller is just giving you the chance to choose their original-class abilities before dual-classing them. (It auto-levels their original class up to the level at which the original-game character dual-classes.) If you ignore the in-game instruction to dual-class them and just keep advancing them, you're going to see exactly the problem you describe, because the auto-leveller wants the class that's active at the start of the game to be adjusted to match your own level.

If you actually want to customize them so that they adventure with you for a while as their original class before dual-classing, use the customizer option to delete their dual class and respec them as a single-class character. 

In any case: the issue with Anomen and Imoen isn't a bug, then, though I'll see if I can make the 'you must dual-class' instruction a bit more clear and/or compulsory. The issue with Sarevok is a bug, though.

 

[gtusrnm]

45 minutes ago, DavidW said:

In any case: the issue with Anomen and Imoen isn't a bug, then, though I'll see if I can make the 'you must dual-class' instruction a bit more clear and/or compulsory. The issue with Sarevok is a bug, though.

 

To be clear: dual-classed Anomen in SoA at 4800k XP when removed and recruited has no issues. In ToB the same already dual-classed Anomen gets boosted from 5100k to 7100k XP when removed and recruited again. Advancing every time it's done. This should be a bug. 13 level Fighter / 30+ level Cleric. 

The same did not apply to Imoen at level 10 Swashbuckler dual-classed to Mage. Chars were transferred from SoA without exporting.

Edit: Ah, I think I understand, it just didn't hit me yet when I was reading your post. So because I picked Swashbuckler for Imoen she was considered a single-class character that I then dual-classed without causing the auto-leveller to go nuts. And as you were saying I was supposed to remove Anomen's dual-class in the menu instead of keeping his original setting - which I didn't do because I was afraid I wouldn't be able to dual-class him anymore. Got it.

Edited September 5, 2020 by gtusrnm

[DavidW]

If you recruited Anomen, did not change his class using the customize option, but also did not dual-class him to cleric as you're told to on-screen, you will break the levelling system. (I'm still not quite certain if that's what you did, but it sounds like it.) Likewise Imoen (whether or not you apply a kit to her before levelling her.) That's not an intended use of the system: it's there to let you choose the features of the character that they had before dual-classing. If you ignore the instructions, it's on you, though I accept that the instructions could be more insistent and that it would be nice to actually enforce the requirement that you dual-class them in-game

[gtusrnm]

I think the problem is clear in form of an annoying limitation: it doesn't let me distribute the amount of XP I am given into any two classes as I see fit, which would be the most reasonable option when looking to re-spec companions that used to be boring with their old restrictions. It stops at level 7, so I'm forced to level up the guy adventuring. Why is it like that? Am I just doing something wrong?

So, I think it's fine if we want to keep a companion as he originally was in the dual-class (in the case of Anomen 7 / Fighter, 8 / Cleric), but only change the "features" he had like weapon proficiencies.

What I'm not getting is why we can't also dual-class the way it would make him an optimal Fighter, and immediately dump say 13 levels into Fighter, and then however much XP is left into Cleric. (There's obviously a lot of potential to make companions like that quite overpowered depending on how late you recruit them, so an XP cap to how much can be awarded could be introduced.) I mean, multi-classes can already be boosted in levels for free, but if we attempt a similar thing with min-maxing a dual-class character, then you consider that unintended use of the component? Not sure if because of a coding limitation or some other reason, but I think the way it is right now could be improved in better ways than just clearer instructions.

The component does certainly break balance already, so if that's the reasoning behind not wanting to give dual-classing more freedom, assuming the honor system is upheld, then I am confused.

Edited September 5, 2020 by gtusrnm

[DavidW]

The restrictions are entirely about technical limitations, not balance. This is a horribly complicated component under the surface (there are more than 400 spells being silently applied in various places to make it work) and it's already the case that most of that complexity is there because of the complications caused by dual-class characters. I'm not sure what you're after is even technically possible but at the least it would require another huge increase in technical complexity, and I'm not interested in the amount of work it would entail and the inevitable bugs that would arise.

40 minutes ago, gtusrnm said:

I mean, multi-classes can already be boosted in levels for free, but if we attempt a similar thing with min-maxing a dual-class character, then you consider that unintended use of the component?

I'm not sure what you mean by 'multi-classes can already be boosted in levels for free' - they should be being boosted to about the total same XP level as the PC. If that's not happening, it's a bug. 

But as for 'unintended use', it's not 'unintended' on moral grounds, it's 'unintended' because it will break the levelling system. Dual-classed characters like Anomen carry specific flags telling the system that they're really dual-classed; those flags will get badly confused if you don't follow the dual-classing instructions. (Though the Sarevok example shows that this isn't the whole of the issue, and there may be no really satisfactory solution here.)

Incidentally, I'm interested why - putting aside dual-classing issues - you think the component breaks balance? (You might be right, but it doesn't do it intentionally.) I suppose it permits illegal race/class combinations, but those are there as an idiosyncracy of 2nd edition AD&D, not for more systematic balance reasons.

[gtusrnm]

Oh, I just think equalizing the XP difference between the charname and any companion you're about to recruit is way generous, but admittedly I do not remember anymore how companions used to get boosted in levels in the original games. No, nothing like you described was happening to me with multi-classes. If I'm not mistaken, with this component they do get free levels - usually not in excess, but just to match your [charname] - if you remove them from the party, solo boost yourself and recruit again, which I'm positive wouldn't have happened in unmodded games. You are probably fine with that, I believe.

Not an argument I would pursue further now that you've explained it's all about the technical complexity, though.

Overall, I'm curious if turning off the levelling part of the component could be implemented - perhaps in the difficulty tweaking dialog menu? I feel it'd be much less stressful to just use cheats for your blank slate companions, then deal with the excessive XP in case something unexpected happens.

Edited September 5, 2020 by gtusrnm

[DavidW]

There's quite a lot of auto-levelling in the unmodded game (especially in EE) - but it's a bit ad hoc, and I'm not sure how it works systematically.

On your suggestion, do you have in mind that NPCs level to your own level when originally recruited, then just gain XP normally? That's probably achievable. I'll think about it, it's a good idea. (In the development of the component, I did the auto-levelling first and then added the customization quite late after I realised it would be quite an easy addition, so I haven't really thought much about getting the customization without the auto-levelling.)

[gtusrnm]

Well, after I noticed Sarevok was bugged, I uninstalled the component, so now in the savefile Sarevok can advance to level 1 after recruiting and that is it. If I could change his starting class, cheat the XP, and then dual-class however I wish - goal achieved, problem solved - just with a few more hoops to jump through.

The way you interpreted my suggestion also sounds fine. So long as you don't mean dumping the same XP as [charname] into the companion instead of advancing it level by level - because doing it like that sometimes eats up proficiency points from my experience. Though I'm not sure if it would really work without problems if let's say I received 15 levels, and wanted to dual-class at 13.

Like I said earlier, just to get to where I am now, I had to uninstall the component and wait an hour for the mod to reassemble itself. So, any option to avoid such a grim scenario would be delightful, haha.