[Discussion] What exactly are we trying to fix?

[The_Baffled_King]

On the basis of the discussion in DavidW's thread about the replacement of duplicate unique items with their generic counterparts, it seems that there is substantial divergence of opinion about the aims, standards, options, and terminology to consider in relation to the EEFP. That's surely gonna lead to endless rehashing of arguments and people talking past each other in the threads wherein specific changes are proposed. Sure, it's inevitable anyway, but perhaps the extent of it would be reduced with more discussion here?

(1) Does a "Fix" Occur Only if Something is Broken?

No. The term has a wider meaning than that. The following definition of a fix that jastey uses is from DavidW's thread that I mentioned above:

21 hours ago, jastey said:

I see this more as a tweak, too. I do see the motivation of "devs intention was to assign a generic item and grabbed the wrong one" but the aim of a fix pack is to fix things that are broken. Having several instances of unique items doesn't break anything, not in the sense of "can't play on properly".

As a matter of terminology, this definition artificially limits the meaning of the word "fix". Sure, "fix" is used most commonly in relation to things that are "broken". However, it is also not in the least bit uncommon to say that mistakes should be fixed, or that if something is wrong then it should be fixed. Applying jastey's definition as written would mean that errors that prevent banters from firing would not be fixed. It would also mean that errors in triggers that remove reply options would not be fixed, provided that the unavailable dialogue was for roleplaying purposes only (ie the missing options provide no alternative actions or journal entries). Is that your intent, jastey?

To be clear, I think that jastey describes a perfectly sensible standard to adopt for a fixpack (although it is not the only sensible standard). It's just that the way in which "fix" was defined is, in my view, objectively wrong - and this contributes to people talking past each other.

(2) A "Fix" Occurs When a Change Gives Effect to Developer Intent

I don't see how any issue can be deemed a fix unless there is evidence that the status quo is contrary to developer intent. Equally, once an issue is judged to be contrary to developer intent, addressing that issue to match developer intent is by definition a fix. This, as Camdawg and DavidW have pointed out, was the standard used in BG2FP.

(3) How Do You Determine Developer Intent?

Some stuff is obvious. Otherwise, I think it's totally acceptable to apply logical thinking to draw inferences of fact about what the developers intended. Others might want to apply more strict standards before deciding that the status quo does not meet developer intent.

(4) Are Beamdog's Actions Relevant In Determining Developer Intent?

I think that Beamdog's actions are relevant. First, I think that Beamdog were privy to information that we are not privy to. Obviously some people who post on this forum are in a position to shed some light on that! Second, I think it's undoubtedly relevant that we're discussing an EE fixpack. Others will differ, and maybe that discussion should be had.

(5) What Constitutes a "Tweak"?

In the context of Infinity Engine mods, it seems to me (from the G3 Tweaks anthology, for example) that a change is considered a tweak if it is purely a matter of preference, in that there is either no evidence of designer intent, or the tweak changes what was clearly the unambiguous intent of the designer. I agree that nothing that constitutes a "tweak" should be in a fixpack. However, the fact that some players like the situation created by a developer error does not convert something that is by definition a fix into a tweak.

(6) What About the Restoration of Content?

I would consider the restoration of missing content capable in principle of being a fix, provided that unambiguous Word of Dev exists to clarify that an encounter was omitted only due to time pressures or unintentional error. In practice, given the existence of UB-style mods, it is probably better for such fixes to be omitted. There is one exception I can think of: naming NPCs who (a) are generically-named; (b) are unique characters; and (c) were named within vanilla game resources currently in use.

(7) Should the Standards In Existing Fixpacks be Applied to EEFP?

Not by default. I mean, Camdawg explicitly invited "re-examination of past decisions". Only, there wasn't much discussion of whether the principles and examples laid out were desirable for the EEFP. One month later, we have DavidW's thread on replacement of duplicate unique items with their generic counterparts, which begins on the basis that BG2FP offers a precedent and framework to follow. Some of the discussion is a respectable difference of opinion on DavidW's interpretation of developer intent. However, some of the discussion was less about the specific proposal, and more about the principles that should be applied to EEFP.

(8) Should Mods Adapt to EEFP, or Vice-Versa?

I don't know. However, as a matter of principle, I think one has to consider the downsides of allowing mods to dictate fixpacks, rather than vice-versa. I am particularly concerned if a fix is rejected because mod authors are no longer around to adapt their work to a fixpack - sooner or later, one-way compatibility with unchanging mods stifles progress. Obviously I'm not an experienced modder, so I am in no position to identify the point at which the balance tips one way or another. No doubt it depends to a large extent on the amount of work required of modders.

(9) So What Am I Saying?

Developer intent, and the framework of the BG2FP, provide a good starting point to identify potential fixes. If a different starting point is desirable, it seems productive to try to agree on a (rough) framework early on in the process. I've already posted about how, in my view, the length of time a designer error remains uncorrected is a point in favour of allowing (some) designer errors to remain uncorrected, and I won't repeat myself on that front.

Most importantly, when people are making plausible suggestions consistent with a pre-existing framework that has not been subject to any challenge, can we please refrain from accusing them of trying to arbitrarily enforce their personal preferences on a specific issue (we reached that point on page 3 of DavidW's thread, in my view)? It's already been suggested that said pre-existing framework is up for debate - if that's what people want, how about we have that debate?

At the end of the day, something that was considered a fix according to BG2FP is very likely to still technically be a fix here and now. What may change in the interim is not the terms by which a fix is to be defined, but the desire of the community to see fixes of a particular nature implemented. If we aren't going to suggest a different framework to the one laid down by the BG2FP then, when faced with fixes one might not like, can we just move straight to saying "I do not like this fix and I hope it will not be implemented"?

(10) In Conclusion

In my opinion, the BG2FP is a good starting point from which to propose and exclude specific changes. But the framework should work for the community, not the other way around, so we can on occasion depart from it, if we're honest about when that is what we're doing.

If we're departing from it often, we arguably need a new framework. However, it tends to be human nature to keep quiet about the things we like, and pipe up only when we disagree with something - which means that a framework made on the basis of complaints about specific proposals is likely to be a little skewed.

Edited April 30, 2022 by The_Baffled_King

[The_Baffled_King]

14 hours ago, jmerry said:

Actually, what about min-HP items for the various BG1 noncombatants that have that "virtually immune to everything" package? That's a legacy of the original game, from before the better standard was developed.

This is the kind of thing I think that Beamdog could conceivably have dealt with a few years ago, but which becomes a harder sell the more that time passes. My position is not uniform, though: (1) if the survival of a "virtually immune to everything" creature is necessary for the plot, or to advance a quest, then I'm all for it; (2) if a "virtually immune to everything" creature offers no experience or items when it dies, I reckon there's no harm adding a min-HP item; but (3) if a "virtually immune to everything" creature offers decent XP or loot when it dies, and consideration (1) does not apply, then there are people who will strongly dislike having that taken away (I am not one of them, mind). The problem is all the more pronounced given that there are resources out there on t'internet which say "do this thing, which takes X amount of time, and you will get Y reward".

4 hours ago, Sam. said:

See also SLTSTEAL.2DA and mods like Epic Thieving.  Not that I'm suggesting any of this equipment be made undroppable or removed.  It's a cool feature not a flaw that there are ways to tease out powerful items or XP from unexpected sources for the non-roleplaying power users.  I enjoy getting the Helm of Opposite Alignment from the demonknight (before BD ducked that up) and the third ring of wizardry from Winski Perorate every playthrough, to name a couple.

I think it's technically correct to categorize things as flaws, in the sense that they are dev errors, if they arose because the devs forgot to account for the player behaving in a way that they did not expect (particularly when there has been some duplication of a resource). However, dev errors can also be cool features, so one should tread carefully when considering applying a fix to an error that might be somebody's cool feature - and with the passage of time, a dev error is increasingly likely to beome somebody's cool feature. I don't play the game in the same way you do, but I'm very much aware of that mode of playing, and it should be borne in mind.

2 hours ago, CamDawg said:

Thank you @The_Baffled_King, this is a very thoughtful post. I'll try and approach it from a couple of different angles.

The question about whether an exploit should be 'fixed' came up a fair bit in BG2FP and IWDFP, and I'm sure you can find any number of (now archived) discussions about it. We generally used a loose standard of whether a player could 'stumble' into it. If it's something that requires a 14-step process: don't care. If it's something that can be experienced by pickpocketing or clicking on a character: that's being fixed.

Thanks for the shout-out and for the explanation. I'm operating on the principle of speaking up now and then holding my peace, so I've come out with another long post, but I think I'm done advancing my perspective. Hopefully it provides some food for thought.

2 hours ago, CamDawg said:

Unfortunately it's not so straightforward. There are multiple filters before a bug gets to the attention of the devs and, even if it does, it can be set aside in favor of higher priority issues. IOW we can't work under the assumption that because an issue has not been addressed through X patches that it must be intended. Granted, that may actually be the case, but we'll still need to examine each proposed fix on its merits. This is also why feedback from players is vital.

I agree with your logic here; it seems that the phrasing in my paragraph that you quoted was a little loose, so I've edited it to better reflect my original intent (paragraph 4).

2 hours ago, CamDawg said:

Beamdog has a broader mandate for change and, while I'd be fine suggesting a solution like this in a bug report to BD, it's not something I'd be comfortable with in an unofficial fixpack.

Ah. I agree with the bit before the comma, but there's been some confusion on my part, because I was under the impression that there was talk of putting all of this together and sending it off to Beamdog in the hope that it would be incorporated into the official game? Just to clarify, I personally would be fine if Tazok.cre lost his Legacy of the Masters, but I would not advocate for it in an unofficial fixpack, and it's the kind of thing I think Beamdog shouldn't do at this late stage cos it'll cheese people off. Different matter if someone had reported it to Beamdog soon after the Legacy of the Masters was added to Tazok's Tent, mind.

[Awachi]

Would it be too much trouble to have two categories at install time:  Incontrovertible (which is probably 90% at the end of this discussion) and is installed by default, and -- I dunno -- an Opinions Differ category that the player can go through individually?  Mods are about options, not dogma.

[polytope]

On 4/25/2022 at 6:32 PM, Luke said:

Does this mean that BG cure / cause wounds spells / abilities should match their IWD counterparts (i.e., they should not affect unnatural creatures)...?

Spell description specifically states that "This healing cannot affect creatures without corporeal bodies, nor can it cure wounds of creatures not living or of extraplanar origin."

The most noticeable in-game effect would be that the player will no longer be able to heal NPCs such as Haer'Dalis or Caelar... Not much of an issue, right...?

 

On 4/25/2022 at 11:45 PM, Luke said:

On top of that, everything that applies op224 (Restoration) and op216 (Level Drain) should receive the same treatment (for consistency reasons – the fact that Haer'Dalis is vulnerable to Level Drain is kinda weird / bad), so in the end this would be a nerf and a buff at the same time...

I have to disagree about giving tieflings immunity to curative magic and its reverse, or energy drain. Tieflings are not considered, per the sourcebooks, to be true extraplanar creatures in AD&D.

For one thing, they can be hit with normal weapons. Per Gary Gygax:

"creatures which can be harmed only by weapons of a special metal (silver, cold iron, etc.) gain this relative invulnerability from having a portion of their existence in either the positive or negative material plane at the same time they exist partially in the prime. Therefore, those creatures which can be struck only with + 1 or greater magical weapons exist wholly and simultaneously in two planes (one of which is, of course, the Prime Material). So creatures which require attack of a + 2 or better magic weapon then exist in three planes simultaneously, and so on."

-Dragon Magazine Volume.1 #8

Neither the designers of the Planescape setting nor Bioware gave most tieflings (i.e. Raelis or the ones encountered with Aesgareth) immunity to normal weapons (or poison, which actual demons are all immune to), in contrast to elementals, fiends and level-draining types of undead... all of which should indeed be immune to healing magic.

[jastey]

21 hours ago, The_Baffled_King said:

Applying jastey's definition as written would mean that errors that prevent banters from firing would not be fixed. It would also mean that errors in triggers that remove reply options would not be fixed, provided that the unavailable dialogue was for roleplaying purposes only (ie the missing options provide no alternative actions or journal entries). Is that your intent, jastey?

I knew when writing the example down that someone would start using it for nitpicking and nailing me to it. Well, sigh.

[The_Baffled_King]

13 hours ago, Awachi said:

Would it be too much trouble to have two categories at install time:  Incontrovertible (which is probably 90% at the end of this discussion) and is installed by default, and -- I dunno -- an Opinions Differ category that the player can go through individually?  Mods are about options, not dogma.

I'll link you to a discussion on that topic from the BG2FP days, but please understand that I express no opinion on it. I suspect that it's much easer to make some types of fix optional than others. If so, and there's a will to accommodate optional fixes, perhaps the feasibility of making any given fix optional could be indicated as fixes are proposed?

https://www.gibberlings3.net/forums/topic/29719-the-new-fixpack-thread-for-compatibility-bug-reporting-changingremoving-fixes/#comments

The above post was Camdawg, post edited in 2019, which linked to the below post, cira 2006:

https://www.gibberlings3.net/forums/topic/7890-i-hate-this-fix/

Edited May 1, 2022 by The_Baffled_King

[CamDawg]

I've split out the discussion on Cause/Cure Wounds spells into its own topic.

[Jarno Mikkola]

On 3/17/2022 at 2:56 PM, DavidW said:

These aren't syntax errors. Assigning 'ASSASIN' rather than 'ASSASSIN' as the ids name for kit 0x400a is a dumb choice and presumably happened because someone at Bioware couldn't spell 'assassin', but it's perfectly legal syntax and doesn't need changing. (And doing so would break dozens of mods.)

Would they now ? Cause the only place they would malfunction is when the mod script is in a human readable format, cause the .bcs files are already bit information... and we can fix that by extending the kit.ids file with the other spelling, and there we assign the same value to the different spelling, it -from then on- will never cause any errors. Yes, you can have multiple signatures for one value, but things won't work at all if it's the other way around.
Aka we can have these in kit.ids:

0x400A ASSASIN
0x400A ASSASSIN
0x400A SSSSSSAS

... the only problem this could cause is a mod that reads the kit.ids, that then takes the info and does things to each row of that info separately. And that doesn't validate the rows info byt checking it with an existing kit that is worked on for example.

Edited May 8, 2022 by Jarno Mikkola

[CamDawg]

2 hours ago, Jarno Mikkola said:

Cause the only place they would malfunction is when the mod script

...which makes it the concern of the mod in question.

[DavidW]

An example of something not fixed by this method: looking up a kit in kit list.ids by its rowname entry.

[Bartimaeus]

On 4/30/2022 at 1:22 PM, The_Baffled_King said:

(2) A "Fix" Occurs When a Change Gives Effect to Developer Intent

The author is dead, and has been for close to twenty years. Don't go making the game worse to many players for the sake of the dead (or the undead, in Beamdog's case), particularly for something that would ideally be a gold standard staple in every mod install.

[The_Baffled_King]

3 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

The author is dead, and has been for close to twenty years. Don't go making the game worse to many players for the sake of the dead (or the undead, in Beamdog's case), particularly for something that would ideally be a gold standard staple in every mod install.

It's funny you should say that, because I wonder if you noticed my post on the second page of this very thread:

On 4/29/2022 at 1:33 AM, The_Baffled_King said:

Obviously it's not for me to say what Beamdog should do, but, given that BG1 was released over 20 years ago, and given that BG:EE isn't far from a decade old, shouldn't the cost/benefit analysis of any changes pay due deference to the situation as-is, rather than the situation envisaged by the developers? It's similar in some ways to the concept of the Death of the Author - the starting point for the interpretation of a work is the work itself, rather than the intent of its creator.

I'll spare you from reading it; the point was this: "If following dev intent means fixing obscure mistakes, I don't think that's great, because some will regard the flaw as a feature or exploit, while the rest of us won't even notice the change. The length of time the exploit has been available makes this more important than in the BG2FP or EE release days.".

I had to point out my earlier reference to Death of the Author, but otherwise I'm done replying to posts that are plainly insulting (which yours isn't), which single me out, or which take my words out of context. I stand by my definition of a fix, which you quoted from my earlier post in this page, but it was very far from all that I wrote in that post.

[Bartimaeus]

1 hour ago, The_Baffled_King said:

It's funny you should say that, because I wonder if you noticed my post on the second page of this very thread:

I'll spare you from reading it; the point was this: "If following dev intent means fixing obscure mistakes, I don't think that's great, because some will regard the flaw as a feature or exploit, while the rest of us won't even notice the change. The length of time the exploit has been available makes this more important than in the BG2FP or EE release days.".

I had to point out my earlier reference to Death of the Author, but otherwise I'm done replying to posts that are plainly insulting (which yours isn't), which single me out, or which take my words out of context. I stand by my definition of a fix, which you quoted from my earlier post in this page, but it was very far from all that I wrote in that post.

I did not, or if I did, I did not remember it. It would not have changed what I said though, since my my post was not intended as any kind of rebuttal towards yours, and in fact, it was at least a little bit the opposite. I agreed with the overall message you conveyed via the totality of your post; you, after all, are not going to make the game arguably worse for a number of users via the Fixpack. I hate to say it, but I sometimes wish this forum had a "like" button for times like these - the Invision forum software (what is used for G3) is made with it in mind, and it can be difficult to succinctly convey what I intended when I can't add a like to someone's post to make clear that I wasn't taking issue with what they said even if I responded directly to them. Anyways, I was simply picking up on a specific point in your post - the general idea that authorial intent is somehow any more valuable than any other person's ideas. In the specific context of a general fixpack for the vanilla game, it is certainly a very appealing basis for a change when that change is also desired by the community, but as the sole basis without that...well, it's a lot less convincing. But I'm more or less repeating what you said now but more explicitly...so it seems like a bad bit of communication on my part.

Edited May 8, 2022 by Bartimaeus

[The_Baffled_King]

4 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

I did not, or if I did, I did not remember it. It would not have changed what I said though, since my my post was not intended as any kind of rebuttal towards yours..

[Snip]

But I'm more or less repeating what you said now, so...so it seems like a bad bit of communication on my part.

Thank you, and I'm sorry for taking offence when none was meant. If it was bad communication on your part, it's not important for me to establish that it was (and yes, I agree that a Like button would helpful, especially for long posts like mine) but, as there's been a miscommunication, it seems unfair not to explain the meaning I took from your post.

Because you quoted only my definition of a fix, and then said that implementing fixes for the sake of developer intent was "making the game worse to many players for the sake of the dead", I thought your post was clearly implying that I suggested that all fixes must be implemented - which was sort of the opposite of what I wrote.

If that was a bad interpretation on my part, then I'm sorry. In fairness to you, perhaps my interpretation would have been different if I'd only been contributing to this thread.

[Trouveur80]

Hi, I don.t know if it is in the scope of this mod, but I encountered a bug with an equipped cursed weapon : it prevents using magical weapons from spells like Harm or Melf's Minute Meteors, or even weapons from transformation like Slayer. The original cursed weapon default attack is still used instead.