What's the general state of 2.6?

[Shin]

With any bigger update usually being followed by a period of mod adaptation and, somewhat simultaneously, a period of uncertainty regarding what works and what doesn't: what's the rough status of 2.6 plus mods today? Can you expect a stable trilogy multi-mod install (eg EET, SCS, EEex, Ascension, Spell- and Item Revisions and various quest, NPC, kit and tweak mods) or is it still too early? Sorry for asking without doing any research myself; just want a general idea before deciding whether to plan a playthrough (in 2.6, at least).

Edited March 22, 2022 by Shin

[jastey]

The most obvious incompatibilities of mods with 2.6 are fixed by now, but that was the bugs that jumped at the players after starting a normal modded game. The thing is - noone has the time (nor dedication in my case) to go through the whole game to see what the 2.6 patches changed that was not in the changelog documents (and there are such changes, bad devs!), so we (modders) are kind of reliant on players reporting bugs, which will only happen if masochists good souls go and play the 2.6 with the current mods.

[Shin]

Thanks. So still a pretty risky endeavour then it seems, especially for a trilogy install.

[Graion Dilach]

It's as risky as running an install on 2.5 at this point though, with all the mod updates rolled out these last 10 months so there's that.

Edited March 23, 2022 by Graion Dilach

[Shin]

1 minute ago, Graion Dilach said:

It's as risky as running an install on 2.5 at this point though.

You think? It doesn't seem that way as long as there's still access to 2.5-compatible versions of the mods - those multi-mod installs were pretty stable.

[mickabouille]

I wouldn't be sure modders still tested their most recent version with 2.5 in fact. Some will have, some won't bother. If you stay with mod releases of last year, I guess most mods would have been tested on 2.5?

[Graion Dilach]

Sure, I haven't finished a trilogy run yet on 2.6 but that's because my megamod runs usually include mods which end up having an issue I have to report back (which would break on both EE versions anyway) or I just realize I don't like the result and want to revert some mods, but I still would go for 2.6 atleast for the integrity testing and whatnot.

I mean, the EET issue which was reported last month with the SoD green dragon breath using BG2 stats would also happen on both versions (I really should sit down and fix that on Sunday).

Also, personally - I can't accept going back to 2.5 when 2.6 polished so many stuff on the voice responses side (even if that was halfly done with IWDEE sets still being skeletons forced to conform the BG2 standard).

Edited March 23, 2022 by Graion Dilach

[subtledoctor]

How many mods have been updated so as to lose compatibility with 2.5? 

- EET

- SCS, maybe... but then the 2,5-compatible v33 is in better shape than v34 anyway

- ...

The differences between 2.5 and 2.6 are pretty small, for modders. (I’m in the opposite camp: BD still hasn’t released 2.6 for my platform yet, so I’m wondering if the older EET on 2.5 is stable and bug-free enough to be worth playing, versus just modding and playing all three games separately.)

Edited March 23, 2022 by subtledoctor

[Shin]

19 minutes ago, Graion Dilach said:

Also, personally - I can't accept going back to 2.5 when 2.6 polished so many stuff on the voice responses side (even if that was halfly done with IWDEE sets still being skeletons forced to conform the BG2 standard).

I'm leaning toward the opposite camp here. For me, the main upgrade with 2.6 (that you can't do anything about through modding/editing) is the pathfinding -- but I'm not sure that's worth the risk of having your playthrough diminished by malfunctioning mods/compatibilities.
 

10 minutes ago, subtledoctor said:

The differences between 2.5 and 2.6 are pretty small, for modders. (I’m in the opposite camp: BD still hasn’t released 2.6 for my platform yet, so I’m wondering if the older EET on 2.5 is stable and bug-free enough to be worth playing, versus just modding and playing all three games separately.)

EET on 2.5 has been stable for a long time afaik -- even during my last playthrough more than a year ago, the relatively few issues I had were caused by other things.

[Gwaihir]

45 minutes ago, Shin said:

For me, the main upgrade with 2.6 (that you can't do anything about through modding/editing) is the pathfinding

If that's your main concern, rest assured that in an EET 2.6 install characters are still getting stuck on top of each other. Sure, doesn't happen very often, but it's there. At least, that's what I'm experiencing in my current playthrough.

[lefreut]

4 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

How many mods have been updated so as to lose compatibility with 2.5?

UI mods. Beamdog is infamous for breaking UI stuff in almost all new patches. Old UI mods may have issues with 2.6 and updated UI mods will have issues with 2.5.

[jmerry]

If version compatibility is an issue, mods can (sometimes) test for it. 2.6 versus 2.5 is easy; I use the presence of #rdremov.SPL as a marker for 2.6 in my own stuff. Whether other mods do this when they would need to do different things to work in different patches is, of course, up to the modder.

[Shin]

13 hours ago, Gwaihir said:

If that's your main concern, rest assured that in an EET 2.6 install characters are still getting stuck on top of each other. Sure, doesn't happen very often, but it's there. At least, that's what I'm experiencing in my current playthrough.

That's colossally disappointing if so, after all this time and the issue by all accounts having been introduced by an update to begin with. I don't recall noticing it back in the beta, but maybe wasn't thorough enough.

[Gwaihir]

On 3/24/2022 at 10:28 AM, Shin said:

I don't recall noticing it back in the beta

Well, it doesn't happen all the time and always in cramped places. I got the impression that it was most severe in some mod-added areas. I recall this dungeon from Secret of Bonehill (a recycled section of Athkatla's temple district sewers) where 2 pairs of party members got stuck in place for several seconds, and I could do nothing about it. That was the longest, so far.

[jmerry]

The worst areas for characters stacking up are narrow corridors - like a lot of BG1 dungeons, but also places like the entrance to the Planar Sphere. And you can reliably get out of it if you tell all characters involved to stop, then issue move commands to one at a time. They only get really stuck when more than one of them are trying to move at the same time.

Still, that's the pathfinding problem people care about. And it wasn't addressed in 2.6.