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Let's put the Black Pits 1 into BGEE!


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1 hour ago, Endarire said:

What else remains before BP in EET is ready for a full release?

Depends on what people think makes something worthy of a "full release." Some things may want polishing - I mentioned the work left to do in an earlier post:

On 7/27/2022 at 1:11 PM, subtledoctor said:

Not really that much left to do!

  1. rebalance some fights (swap tasloi for gnolls, gibberlings for orcs, etc.)
  2. fine-tune gold rewards and item prices if necessary
  3. deal with any consequences of party members not having the BPPLOT override script
  4. improve/add to Baeloth's dialogue...?
  5. change install method to patch dialogues rather than overwriting them

None of that is, like, critical to the mod working. Right now the first few fights are kind of easy so #1 could make them harder - but it's not really a big deal to breeze through some fights at the very beginning. #2 needs people like you to play the mod and give feedback. #4 is purely stylistic and similarly would benefit from people giving feedback/suggestions. #5 is completely beyond my ability and only impacts install order, anyway - if you install the mod as is, and install it immediately after EET, there shouldn't be any problem.

So #3 is the only thing that might cause hiccups. I've looked at the referenced script, and I don't really understand what it does. But as I mentioned somewhere, I had a bug happen once when one of my party members was dead at the end of the fight. The BPPLOT override script may be designed to handle such situations...? So, at any rate, just don't let anyone die! :cool: Or, you know, do let someone die and then report back here what you experience, and maybe we can figure out any issues.

But if the question is "what remains to be done before we can play this?" then the answer is, more or less, nothing. Go ahead and install it.

Edited by subtledoctor
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32 minutes ago, Oloriniel said:

By the way, when you meet Baeloth in SoD, he asks if he knows you, and one of your dialogue options includes, "You should.  I'm pretty sure I killed you once."  So, that would seem to cover any particulars if you've played BP in BG1, so no need for any additional dialogue.

I have to check, but I think my solution is that, if you’ve been through the Pits then the BG-in-BP global variable is set to 1, and then the line quoted above becomes your only valid dialogue choice with him (since you must have indeed killed him). And any dialogue choices after that one which could let him join your party are foreclosed. 

Edited by subtledoctor
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I don't have the time or expertise to implement something like that, currently. Right now the player has a stark choice: you can play through the Black Pits, or you can have Baeloth in your party. Not both. It's simple, it makes sense, it's good enough for a mod that was only conceived a few weeks ago.

But as I said, I don't have any kind of possessive feelings about this. If anyone else has ideas for it and the means to implement them, by all means take the helm and feel free to add complexities like that.

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I haven't read up to much on this mod or tried it as of yet (never even played the Black Pits), I just wanted to throw this link out there for your interest:

https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/82484/mod-in-progress-black-hearts/p1

Similar undertakings and although the author of that mod seems to be on a hiatus, I sort of wish you could have combined forces since you both had the same basic idea.

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I'm about halfway through the fights in BP in BG, and I noticed that upon death, my "knocked out" characters are still fighting (and being hit by monsters).

I'm not sure if that's a result of the mod, or something else in my mega-mod setup (in the past, I've hit snags where a character gets a permanent effect where they can't drop below 1 hp, which I've had to manually remove in EEKeeper). 

If you try to lose on a more vanilla BP in BG setup, are you able to?  I believe plain Black Pits behavior would be to add the knocked out effect and make the enemies ignore the knocked out character.

Post BP completion, I'll see if I can once again have characters die and maybe finish it up via the honor system for this go (just reload if any character gets to 1 hp).

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2 hours ago, Quester said:

just wanted to throw this link out there for your interest:

https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/82484/mod-in-progress-black-hearts/p1

Similar undertakings and although the author of that mod seems to be on a hiatus, I sort of wish you could have combined forces since you both had the same basic idea.

That is very interesting. Not exactly the same basic idea - I just wanted to put the BP and BG campaigns together, as they are already coexist in the app. AWizardDidIt was inspired by the content in the BP campaign to make something different and entirely new. Which is a wonderful idea, and much better than just "put BP in BG." But also, pretty clearly, a classic case of biting off more than he could chew. I had the benefit of reading these forums for 15 years before ever trying to make something, so I've seen aaaall the cautionary tales. AWizardDidIt, apparently, did not.

So at any rate my far inferior idea has the singular benefit of being much simpler, and so went from "poking around" to playable in a matter of days. If Black Hearts ever gets off the ground that will be great too - and there's no reason they can't coexist. Players can even install both if they don't mind seeing the same areas in different contexts. As far as joining forces, I doubt I could contribute much to Black Hearts, it seems way more advanced and involved than what I generally make.

32 minutes ago, ahungry said:

I'm about halfway through the fights in BP in BG, and I noticed that upon death, my "knocked out" characters are still fighting (and being hit by monsters).

I'm not sure if that's a result of the mod, or something else in my mega-mod setup (in the past, I've hit snags where a character gets a permanent effect where they can't drop below 1 hp, which I've had to manually remove in EEKeeper).

I didn't even realize there was a min1hp effect...? In fact in my current game I'm pretty sure had a couple characters die in a pit fight. It led to a cut-scene where Baeloth raised them and then it hung, and I had to reload an earlier save. I think I mentioned in a post somewhere above, but it's worth saying again: in this version of the Black Pits, for now, don't let anyone in your party die in any of the fights. You have to win cleanly and completely, the whole way through.

I haven't totally wrapped my head around how this works, because there seem several scripts that interact with it. Near as I can tell, when you start a BP-only game, override scripts are applied to the six party members, and those scripts are what handle what happens when you get to 0 (1?) hit points. I have disabled those override scripts so as not to interfere with other mods, so right now the BP fights are not good at handling party member death. There are ways to fix this. For instance, DavidW suggested:

On 7/22/2022 at 5:13 PM, DavidW said:

I would ... just kill NPCs who get to 0 hp, and put a (duergar?) cleric in the store area. (Give Magda clerical abilities, maybe?) BP’s framework is clunky at the best of times and not really needed if killing player1 ends the game.

edit: you’d have to do a CopyGroundPilesTo to recover lost characters’ loot.

That's certainly an option but not one I know how to implement right now.

My other idea is to short-circuit the usual BP death handling and scripting, to "jump the line" and apply my own homebrew death handling first. Basically, something like:

  • Have those special rings apply a contingency to wearers.
  • The contingency disables the wearer and applies an "I'm dead!" spellstate if they get to 1 hp.
  • A repeating effect casts a spell that removes the spellstate and restores the character...
  • ...but that spell only works outside of combat, i.e. after the fight is won.
  • Add a block to the arena area scripts: if at any time all six party members have the "I'm dead!" spellstate and the BP-in-BG global variable is set, then game over.

Something like that. For now, just don't let anyone die.

As far as after you get back to the BG campaign, you can certainly die normally after that. (EDIT - ah, you have already found that out.)

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1 hour ago, Endarire said:

Doc, if I wrote some dialogs for Baeloth to try to persuade him to join the party in his normal SoD joining spot, would you seriously consider adding them to this mod?

Thankee!

I mean, in the abstract, sure, I'm not terribly opposed to it. But, I'm not sure I have the technical ability to actually insert something into his .DLG file. Might need to recruit a more experienced modder for that. (On the assumption that you cannot do it yourself, and hey, maybe that's a bad assumption!)

My suggestion, grab the mod itself, monkey around with it all you want, get help if necessary.  And if you end up with a version of the mod that 1) allows Baeloth to join in SoD, and 2) works, then I would be happy to make that part of the mod. As long as him not joining is the default state.

I will say this, purely editorially from a creative perspective: if the party gets all the way through the Black Pits, 15 fights of Baeloth trying to have them die horribly in front of hundreds of spectators, and then Baeloth himself attempts to murder them... the rationale to get him in your party would have to be pretty. damn. convincing. Like, it would need a put-Viconia-under-a-geas level of trust that he wouldn't end up turning on the party, after what he did.

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