Advice for Building/Playing an EET Game

[Bartimaeus]

So as a pretty staunch proponent of the original games, I need to build an EET game because I'll be playing it online with a couple of friends and do not want to deal with the original BG2 netcode disaster. I presume that online multiplayer is much better for the EE games - if it's not, please let me know right now, . From the last time I tried playing a BG2 game multiplayer, I remember that it's a pretty terrible every time you want to try to reload on top of being horrifically laggy even for extremely close connections...hopefully that isn't the case with the EE games?

ANYWAYS, as it's not really an area of expertise for me, I really don't know much about building an EET game (pretty much all I know is only what I've learned from testing out my own stuff on BG1/2EE) - it will probably be a relatively simple and minimalist install, but is there anything be aware of or know about as someone that has only played like half of BG1:EE back when it initially released? I know that the installs will need to be synced exactly and that shouldn't be an issue since I'll just build the install, zip it up, and host it online on my Dropbox or something. If it's relatively the same process and I don't need to worry about too much, that's good to know as well.

Edited June 21, 2022 by Bartimaeus

[Guest Morgoth]

I didn't have any luck with playing a modded baldur's gate on multiplayer. Even when I used my usb drive to copy my same folder to other computers,  odd issues would always arise. With that, I don't mean to say that playing a modded baldur's gate is impossible, simply that I could not do it and whenever  I read people reports of successfull multiplayer sessions I'm left a little irked. 

[Guest Jesse]

Quote

I'll just build the install, zip it up, and host it online on my Dropbox or something

That's what I did with an EET install via https://github.com/EE-Mod-Setup/EE-Mod-Setup . Worked perfect in a networked game and with tons of custom mods (your IIR and SRR mods of note :)).

[jastey]

49 minutes ago, Guest Jesse said:

and with tons of custom mods (your IIR and SRR mods of note

It probably wasn't the official mod or an outdated version. See here for more background info on the the "EE Setup Tool".

[Graion Dilach]

EET Mod Messup doesn't even support IRR/SRR.

TBH, I'm not sure how well multiplayer runs myself either. Building an EET run is relatively the same as a BGT run, except that EET_End must come around SCS to merge the dialogs included in consistent NPCs and some of the mods might need to be installed to the BG1 section prior to EET (BG1UB for example), but the Mod compat List lists these ones anyway.

[jastey]

This list: https://k4thos.github.io/EET-Compatibility-List/EET-Compatibility-List.html

[Bartimaeus]

12 hours ago, jastey said:

This list: https://k4thos.github.io/EET-Compatibility-List/EET-Compatibility-List.html

Thanks, I did find that, but I wasn't sure how up to date or "important" it was, since it feels like I've seen a number of other mods that people use in EET games not listed here.

12 hours ago, Graion Dilach said:

EET Mod Messup doesn't even support IRR/SRR.

TBH, I'm not sure how well multiplayer runs myself either. Building an EET run is relatively the same as a BGT run, except that EET_End must come around SCS to merge the dialogs included in consistent NPCs and some of the mods might need to be installed to the BG1 section prior to EET (BG1UB for example), but the Mod compat List lists these ones anyway.

14 hours ago, Guest Jesse said:

That's what I did with an EET install via https://github.com/EE-Mod-Setup/EE-Mod-Setup . Worked perfect in a networked game and with tons of custom mods (your IIR and SRR mods of note :)).

I usually automate installs via the weidu.log+exe themselves, so I don't really need the tools. I'm sure the tools are nice if you want to install a ton of stuff (or like actively experimenting with new stuff), but I don't generally go for content (i.e. new areas/quests/NPCs) mods, which makes things relatively straightforward in terms of install order and compatibility in my case...even if my weidu.log is still 500+ items long.

On 6/21/2022 at 1:42 AM, Guest Morgoth said:

I didn't have any luck with playing a modded baldur's gate on multiplayer. Even when I used my usb drive to copy my same folder to other computers,  odd issues would always arise. With that, I don't mean to say that playing a modded baldur's gate is impossible, simply that I could not do it and whenever  I read people reports of successfull multiplayer sessions I'm left a little irked. 

Hmm, guess I'll find out soon. Perhaps I'll update this thread once I see how well it does or doesn't work. I did poke around and see that at least the reloading part of multiplayer is much improved from oBG2, which should make playing way less of a hassle at least...if it's stable. If it's not relatively stable (i.e. we're capable of playing for a couple of hours at a time without things breaking), then most likely the entire idea of playing multiplayer is going to go straight into the bin.

Edited June 25, 2022 by Bartimaeus

[Bartimaeus]

Why does Gorion have the Belt of Antipode on him? Honestly, I don't get the decision-making process that lead to some of these new items - either their design or being placed where they are. ...Okay, besides that EE-specific silliness, multiplayer on BG2EE is a little sketchy but mostly works. Nobody but the host should ever try to initiate area transitions - other players trying is a pretty sure way of breaking the server in such a fashion that the entire server has to be restarted. Ran into various other issues:

1. Host had to restart the game because they couldn't get their characters to leave the inside of a cave as the transition zone disappeared (and no, reloading wasn't enough to fix it).
2. A couple of instances where the game was paused for clients but was unpaused for the host, so the host's characters were just teleporting around...solved by the host pausing and unpausing again.
3. Stuttering whenever e.g. picking up items.
4. Pausing and auto-pausing madness (only one player should have auto-pause enabled, otherwise the game will auto-pause for each individual player who has it enabled).
5. Inventory screen freezing and not allowing even the host to manage their own inventory

...and probably some other issues I'm forgetting now. It's pretty messy and you have to work with it, but I guess it's tolerable. It's been such a long time since I played MP on BG2, I'm not sure if this is better or worse - at least reloading is much improved. I keep saying that because reloading in BG2 MP was horrible. Little surprised that some of these issues weren't worked out for how long this game's been released, though.

Edited June 26, 2022 by Bartimaeus

[Bartimaeus]

Update:

1. Pausing in multiplayer sucks, and it plays a huge part in ramping up difficulty. Seriously, if you play multiplayer, don't expect to be able to play it anywhere the same level as you could singleplayer - issuing commands in a timely manner is really hard. I normally play on Hardcore SCS with all of its additional components installed while never using wands/potions, and I've had to drop down to just Improved while also making pretty liberal use of potions and wands just in order to survive. It's kind of a similar handicap to what I imagine playing on a tablet must be like (and so I am not surprised that e.g. subtledoctor who does this cares little for the creature/encounter-changing components of SCS - your controls and how deftly you can use them with little to no input delay is key to how much you can stretch your abilities in a RTwP game like this).
2. atweaks' P&P Fey is inappropriate for BG1 games - which I already knew from incredibly frustrating experiences of BGT games, but playing with in multiplayer has revealed that they are so out of line with the rest of the game that I can't in good conscience continue to use this component in the future. Between the endless charming, blindness, instant slaying, summons, kiting, magic resistance, and enchanted missile spam they all do and have, there seems to borderline be no fair way to approach fighting these creatures short of waiting until you're like a level 6 or 7 party significantly later in the game. No, I don't consider using exploity tactics like casting AoE spells from off-screen to be "fair" (boy, it sure is fun to cast Web and Fireball endlessly...).
3. I still hate the city of Baldur's Gate, and it's why I seem to always complete my BG1 runs when I clear the Iron Throne mines. This time, the majority of the city will end up just getting ignored because who has time to go through a million houses full of low-effort quests more appropriate for the beginning of the game than end-game content? Not this guy, that's for sure: will probably complete the main quest and Durlag's Tower and that's about it. This will also have the additional positive of limiting how high level the party is before moving on to BG2, which is also usually a problem with BG1.

[subtledoctor]

17 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

Between the endless charming, blindness, instant slaying, summons, kiting, magic resistance, and enchanted missile spam they all do and have, there seems to borderline be no fair way to approach fighting these creatures

To be fair, and immaterial to their role in this game: this is actually kind of reminiscent of how fey creatures are portrayed in old fairy tales. Just completely beyond the abilities of mundane mortals to counter.

17 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

This time, the majority of the city will end up just getting ignored because who has time to go through a million houses full of low-effort quests more appropriate for the beginning of the game than end-game content? Not this guy, that's for sure: will probably complete the main quest and Durlag's Tower and that's about it. This will also have the additional positive of limiting how high level the party is before moving on to BG2, which is also usually a problem with BG1.

Yup. I usually end up ignoring a bunch of late-BG1 content, since I get BG fatigue by then; but it's okay, because inevitably my installed mods have given me plenty of XP already and it doesn't hurt to move straight to the endgame and then transition to the next campaign.

Edited July 18, 2022 by subtledoctor

[Bartimaeus]

13 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

To be fair, and immaterial to their role in this game: this is actually kind of reminiscent of how fey creatures are portrayed in old fairy tales. Just completely beyond the abilities of mundane mortals to counter.

Just their abilities probably wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for their scripting - they're so over-tuned with the apparent intent of being as annoying as possible to the player. I think if SCS implemented similar tactics on a wide scale, hardly anyone would use SCS because the game would become unreasonably torturous. I'm also not necessarily against waiting until later to deal with specific encounters, but this isn't a Kahrk situation where the encounter is more or less player-initiated and easily skippable...if you come across Safana and she joins your party, you have to complete the quest or she'll leave forever, and that means getting through like ten of them at level 4-5.

13 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

Yup. I usually end up ignoring a bunch of late-BG1 content, since I get BG fatigue by then; but it's okay, because inevitably my installed mods have given me plenty of XP already and it doesn't hurt to move straight to the endgame and then transition to the next campaign.

I'm in chapter 7 now, I haven't done practically any Baldur's Gate city stuff, no TotSC, I have practically zero mod-added content, I have quest XP reduced to half (mostly aimed at BG2 rather than BG1), and the party is at only slightly less than what you would start with if you start a new SoA game, so I'm not much concerned either.

Edited July 19, 2022 by Bartimaeus