Made another biggish BG2 install

[Awachi]

1 hour ago, Guest Morgoth said:

do not touch fights but only dialogues from ascension.

Now that would be nice.  All the plot improvements but none of the battle changes.  I wonder if that'd be as simple to do as commenting out relevant lines in the tp2.

[jastey]

6 minutes ago, Awachi said:

All the plot improvements but none of the battle changes.

I'd second such an install option as well.

[Magus]

5 hours ago, Guest Morgoth said:

@CamDawgI remember you planned or thought (?) to change the dialogue style of cromwell

I think @Magushad the same idea. Are you still considering it or...?

It's still on to-do list, like last year, and year before...

Anthology occasionally re-implements and expands this or that component that's was in TnT (like unique icons for quest items),  so taking the lazy approach for now :D.

[subtledoctor]

8 hours ago, Guest Morgoth said:

Thats some tactics mod stuff, not intended to be remotely fair.

Yeah. And it assumes a particular style of powergamer who is going to use various vanilla systems to their advantage. Like casting Wish in the middle of a battle, casting Chain Contingency with condition: "enemy seen" in the middle of a battle because even though the casting animation takes a full round, the spell itself is cast instantly, so you can fire off multiple high-level spells like a super-spell trigger. Et cetera. I mod that stuff out of my game, which makes the game more enjoyable for 99.9% of the fights. But this sort of Tactics-derived fight is built around the assumption that I use those techniques. Like, it seems like players must have rofl-stomped their way through 80 hours of gameplay in their sleep, just to get to three interesting fights. Whereas, I have set my game up to be jam-packed with interesting fights - but not these last three.

Eh, different strokes for different folks.

8 hours ago, Guest Morgoth said:

In my games i use wheels of prophecy and the component that do not touch fights but only dialogues from ascension. All the rest is a no.

Yeah, I might try this next time. I'm just so afraid of WoP, I see so many people post about being stuck. I guess, even though the whole point of it is to do different parts in different order, maybe if I stick to the vanilla order of events it will guarantee not getting stuck? Maybe?

As far as Ascension... no disrespect, but I'm less enthused with it. When I think about what a grand ToB mod should look like, I envision something with greater scope... like, a mod that keeps the bones of the expansion in place but completely changes who the end villain is, and what the final fight at the Throne looks like.

Spoiler

Something like, Irenicus resurrected to be Cyric's Proxy... that dude is just too damn good at being the bad guy to be the lesser bad guy in this whole series.

Maybe open up the end to be more of a chaotic, "Battle of Five Armies" kind of thing where multiple groups of power players have converged on the Throne to take control of or prevent the ascension. With some tweaking, these factions could tie back to the various armies of The Five that you faced on Faerun.

 

Edited March 30, 2022 by subtledoctor

[jmerry]

Having played SCS/Ascension myself, that final area is definitely a difficulty spike. The boss fights before that are a bit harder than what's around them. but it's well within what a bit more preparation can handle. The Throne itself is at least one to two difficulty levels tougher than anything that came before; if you're handling things on Insane, you might want to drop down to Tactical for it. This is an area where demons that gate in more demons are the breather fight between boss fights.

On some of those specific abusive tactics ... with SCS (at least the settings I was using), Chain Contingency is non-combat only. Sure, you can open the battle with a triple Incendiary Cloud or whatever, but you can't make a new chain contingency until there's an actual break between battles. And using Wish outside of battle is probably more abusive than using Wish in-battle. Sure, I had fun with the party led by a Dragon Disciple using PI and Wish to keep the turn/level buffs on everybody all the time, but that was also seeking feats of strength. (Can I kill a Balor with fire? Yes! The one in Suldanesselar inexplicably lacks immunity. Can I kill Yaga-Shura with fire ... no, he still has 110% resistance even after he lowers it with Aura of Flaming Death, because he's wearing that +FR armor. Can I kill an enemy in the fire temple with fire? Yes - the clay golem. Can I kill a hundred enemies with fire in a single battle? Yes - the forces of Ust Natha. And counting that took way too long. Do SCS mages ever re-up their elemental protections after you dispel/breach them once? No, so they burn. Is magic resistance any obstacle at all? Not really, especially once I got the Chain Contingency/self-targeted Incendiary Cloud combo going. Though that one wouldn't work in 2.6.)

[Guest Morgoth]

I would like to ask to @DavidW the following > would it be possibile for you to actually remove the tactics-cheating stuff (like irenicus equipment) in the final fight via an optional setting on Ascension (when installing) or a mod component on SCS?

[subtledoctor]

Isn’t there already a component called “Ascension Irenicus uses SCS AI?” Or something like that. 

[Guest Morgoth]

There is, but I think it improves their AI, it doesn't remove their "illegal" equipment.