Kahrk is nonsense.

[Guest Morgoth]

I watch routinely Davaeorn play SCS no reload on insane difficulty streaming on twitch.tv. He will skip every time Karkh because he is too dangerous, while I can't remember the last time he died against Sarevok.

For sure, I can say you that the first thing he does is just dispel his haste, then sarevok is useless. All you need is a couple of archers, use dispel on sarevok, then you can just walk and he will never reach you, while you use arrow on detonation on everyone. "hard" fight. Yes.

If you think that's not true, all you have to do is just check Davaeorn's countless fights against Sarevok either on youtube or on twitch.tv. The fight is cool the first time, but as soon as you dispel sarevok it's a cakewalk. Really. 

Karkh is never a cakewalk.

[DavidW]

If a very experienced no-reload player has found a reliable way to beat a fight, that does not constitute a good reason in itself to make that fight harder. (If this forum was full of people complaining that Sarevok is too easy, even the first time they met him, that would be a different matter, but it's clearly not.)

And giving a humanoid opponent an undispellable magic ability just to make things harder is contrary to SCS's design principles.

[Guest Morgoth]

1 hour ago, DavidW said:

And giving a humanoid opponent an undispellable magic ability just to make things harder is contrary to SCS's design principles.

Demigod* opponent 

[DavidW]

Nonetheless.

[subtledoctor]

7 hours ago, Guest Morgoth said:

I watch routinely Davaeorn play SCS no reload on insane difficulty streaming on twitch.tv. He will skip every time Karkh because he is too dangerous, while I can't remember the last time he died against Sarevok

If I understand correctly, the argument is "a no-reload player skips a challenging optional encounter but always completes a challenging mandatory encounter?" Do you see the problem with that argument?

Plus, Sarevok is the last fight in the game, when the player is at max level. If you fight Kahrk at max level he wouldn't be so challenging; one of the main reasons he is so challenging is because players commonly encounter him at 5th-6th level. (Why I say keep Carsa around, so players have the chance to enjoy this fight at 8th or 9th level.)

Finally, where does it say Sarevok must be the most powerful enemy in the game? There are plenty of more powerful individuals in Amn, some just wandering around. Why wouldn't there be some quite powerful individuals up on the Sword Coast as well? (Especially ones with a backstory of having been sealed away because they were so dangerous.)

Edited September 16, 2021 by subtledoctor

[DavidW]

v34 (just released) has the following new component:

Improved Carsa/Kahrk interaction

At Firewine Bridge, you meet a crazed mage (Carsa) with a bottle that contains a powerful Ogre Mage (Kahrk). If you insist on taking the bottle from her, she releases Kahrk and dies; otherwise, she runs off.

SCS's 'Improved Mages' component makes Kahrk rather dramatically more powerful than he is in unmodded BG, giving rise to an accidental boss fight. But awkwardly, you can't delay this fight until you're ready for it, because Carsa initiates contact and will run away permanently if you don't - you have to metagame by not entering her area until you want the encounter.

This component modifies Carsa's dialog so that she will just hang around at Firewine Bridge if you don't take her bottle from her. It also (as an exception to usual SCS policy) adds a new treasure (a magical katana) to Kahrk, in keeping with his optional-boss status. (You can disable this at the ini if you want to.) Kahrk uses this new weapon in combat but otherwise he is not further improved by this component (but by all accounts he's pretty nasty just from Smarter Mages).

As a consequence of Carsa's modified behavior, there is also now a (somewhat narrow) way to defeat Kahrk without killing her.

[Bartimaeus]

@DavidW Great thanks, . What katana did you throw on him, out of curiosity - just a Katana +1?

Actually, I decided to go check github myself - looks to be the case. Good call there as well.

Edited September 16, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[DavidW]

He has a unique katana+2 which gives some minor advantages to a mage wielding it. 

I'm on the fence as to whether it should have been a katana+1; there's actually a variable that controls its plus, so I can change it easily if I have second thoughts.

[morpheus562]

I am working on a item mod which adds over 100 items to the game throughout the EET. For reference, I gave Kahrk a +2 katana as part of this mod, and it seems to play well. I'll now look at where a new place to put it can be!

Edited September 16, 2021 by morpheus562

[Bartimaeus]

51 minutes ago, DavidW said:

He has a unique katana+2 which gives some minor advantages to a mage wielding it. 

I'm on the fence as to whether it should have been a katana+1; there's actually a variable that controls its plus, so I can change it easily if I have second thoughts.

I assumed ogrema03.cre was Kahrk (not remembering his creature code off the top of my head), but that assumption turned out to be very wrong, . From what I can tell, his unique weapon is undroppable, right? (Unless there's somewhere else in your massive commit that would suggest otherwise that I'm not seeing...) So basically, to the player, it will appear that he was using a regular katana (since that's what drops). Fine by me, though I'd be perfectly okay with a Katana +1 (or even Katana +2) dropping as well.

Edited September 16, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[Guest Morgoth]

45 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

If I understand correctly, the argument is "a no-reload player skips a challenging optional encounter but always completes a challenging mandatory encounter?" Do you see the problem with that argument?

Plus, Sarevok is the last fight in the game, when the player is at max level. If you fight Kahrk at max level he wouldn't be so challenging; one of the main reasons he is so challenging is because players commonly encounter him at 5th-6th level. (Why I say keep Carsa around, so players have the chance to enjoy this fight at 8th or 9th level.)

Finally, where does it say Sarevok must be the most powerful enemy in the game? There are plenty of more powerful individuals in Amn, some just wandering around. Why wouldn't there be some quite powerful individuals up on the Sword Coast as well? (Especially ones with a backstory of having been sealed away because they were so dangerous.)

No, the argument is that even if improved, the Sarevok encounter is completely trivialized by the fact that the player has boots of speed, while Sarevok seems to have only a dispellable haste applied on him. Is the haste timed? Does it come from a spell? In the original game Sarevok had haste come out from a ring*. Was there dispellable as well? If charname has a ring that applies haste, can it get dispelled? 

*Not 100% sure


For the last argument,  what matters is not a tier of being strongest. What I'm talking about is the way the player experiences the encounter. Even if improved, Sarevok can be totally trivialized, while Karkh, well,  it's way harder.

 

[morpheus562]

28 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

I assumed ogrema03.cre was Kahrk (not remembering his creature code off the top of my head), but that assumption turned out to be very wrong, . From what I can tell, his unique weapon is undroppable, right? (Unless there's somewhere else in your massive commit that would suggest otherwise that I'm not seeing...) So basically, to the player, it will appear that he was using a regular katana (since that's what drops). Fine by me, though I'd be perfectly okay with a Katana +1 (or even Katana +2) dropping as well.

I'm seeing dw#kakat.itm being created as the +2 version that drops for players and a copy of dw#kakat.itm is created called dw#udkak.itm which is undropable. dw#udkak.itm is the one equipped on Kahrk and has a thaco bonus of 0 to it.

[Bartimaeus]

1 minute ago, morpheus562 said:

I'm seeing dw#kakat.itm being created as the +2 version that drops for players and a copy of dw#kakat.itm is created called dw#udkak.itm which is undropable. dw#udkak.itm is the one equipped on Kahrk and has a thaco bonus of 0 to it.

Okay, so I guess I am looking at the wrong place, since I didn't see that at all. Guess that's what happens when you try to look through a single commit with "1,223 changed files with 54,366 additions and 9,650 deletions".

16 minutes ago, Guest Morgoth said:

No, the argument is that even if improved, the Sarevok encounter is completely trivialized by the fact that the player has boots of speed, while Sarevok seems to have only a dispellable haste applied on him. Is the haste timed?

How do Boots of Speed completely trivialize Sarevok...outside of the obvious exploit of kiting, which is indeed an obvious exploit that works against literally any non-caster and is not specific to Sarevok (and which would be incredibly, game-breakingly annoying if the AI ever decided to do the same against you, which it mercifully doesn't)?

[DavidW]

4 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

Okay, so I guess I am looking at the wrong place, since I didn't see that at all. Guess that's what happens when you try to look through a single commit with "1,223 changed files with 54,366 additions and 9,650 deletions".

I just don't use github to organize my changes - it's just a repository for the completed files. (This change looks especially big because the whole iwspells directory is replaced, though.) The relevant changes here are in tactical_bg1/carsa.tpa.

[Guest Morgoth]

6 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

How do Boots of Speed completely trivialize Sarevok...outside of the obvious exploit of kiting, which is indeed an obvious exploit that works against literally any non-caster and is not specific to Sarevok (and which would be incredibly, game-breakingly annoying if the AI ever decided to do the same against you, which it mercifully doesn't)?

I already explained how it goes. All you have to do is just dispel sarevok and nuke him right after with arrows of detonation. He will never be able even to inflict one hit, because you have to show just your npc with boots of speed to do that. And gulp a few potions to avoid the annoyance Angelo and Semaj are.

 Angelo or Semaj are way more fearsome then Sarevok himself. The immortality status is useless, if he can't catch you.

I don't understand the points from all of you.

Are you telling me that trying to use the best tactic (dispel him and then nuke him with arrow of detonation while kiting with the boots of speed) is an exploit now because I'm not supposed to kite??

Why? Maybe I should go a step further -  avoid dispelling sarevok so he can hit me and avoid using boots of speed so I'm sure he can catch me? 

I would like to know which other things are exploit, so I can avoid using them on my game.

Didn't think that trivializing the encounter is considered an exploit.