Too easy to cheese

[Guest cog]

I just cheesed the encounter with a level 7 thief. Because they don't attack until spoken to, I just had my mage haste me the me, hid the party out of sight, use a protection from undead scroll I had lying around and killed them one by one.

The other thief was the hardest of the encounter because he could actually fight back and saw through my stealth, but my weapon had a faster attack speed than his so I could weave in some attacks and run without getting attacked back. The lich would always start casting after a backstab but thx to the haste I was very quickly out of range and back in stealth before it could finish its cast. The mummy didn't even go hostile so I had to keep telling my thief to attack it again and the only benefit of the stealth here was the +4 TACO. Finally the vampire went invisible after the first backstab but just used Kagain with 105hp as bait to force it out of stealth. An extra 2 quick backstabs killed it before it could even hit Kagain (I was very lucky there I admit).

So one small request, just chain the enemies together so that when you attack one they all go hostile else it will be too easy to cheese. 

[Daxtreme]

Thanks for the feedback, indeed in the original Twisted Rune encounter they made them all appear after the dialogue specifically to prevent this cheese. It seems like I failed to see this possibility (attacking without the dialogue happening)

 

[Endarire]

Where can I get a +4 Taco?

Also, SCS likely makes this fight much more difficult.

Edited September 15, 2022 by Endarire

[Daxtreme]

Yes SCS makes this fight much harder, not sure how you'd go about cheesing it. Knowing players though, surely they'd find a way

[ahungry]

Mmm tacos

 

Baldur's Gate is conceptually prone to cheese (whether its pre-laying a ton of traps/summons/buffing).

 

Initially I disliked how Pillars of Eternity kept battles a clean slate (no pre-buff etc.), but from an anti-cheese POV, it makes a lot of sense.

 

Baldur's Gate allows player thieves to disarm traps without consuming an action - it'd be a nice boost for enemies to be able to do the same (if an enemy thief is present with disarm traps, they just auto-cancel all your traps instantly).  Likewise, every mage (of appropriate level) possible should have the AoE death spell memorized to instantly destroy any pre-summoned summons in their various contingencies.

 

Ultimately, not-cheesing is always going to be up to the player and honor system - where do you draw the line?  Ctrl+y enemy?  CLUA Console some gold?  Stay "in the rules" and exploit steal/resell glitch?  Spam chat an npc so they stand still and die?

 

 

[Endarire]

Let players have their victory.

[Daxtreme]

I will simply make them hostile as they should be, nothing else. There's a difference between cheese and some enemies acting way dumber than they should. In this case, they should behave like the rest of the Twisted Rune and it's the behavior I will give them.

The rest though... if you manage to cheese it some other way, congratulations

[Daxtreme]

So this has been fixed on my side already (now they will properly go hostile when shit happens around them), so next update this will be rolled into it. By the way if you're not dodging the initial dialog trigger in any way this bug won't happen even in the current version.

Edited September 16, 2022 by Daxtreme

[Guest Morgoth]

Hey,
are you still planning for changes for the evil path after the feedback I've offered, or will it stay the way it is?

Cheers

[Guest cog]

Actually, this was with SCS installed in insane difficulty. The biggest issue here is that they weren't chained together so when one went hostile the others didn't, that allowed me to take them out one by one. I agree that they should not go hostile until they're talked to (to allow buffing etc for what will inevitable be a very hard fight) *but* if you attack any of them before conversation took place, they should all go hostile.

Whether they should initiate conversation as soon as they see anyone from the party, I will leave up to the mod creator

[Daxtreme]

6 hours ago, Guest cog said:

Actually, this was with SCS installed in insane difficulty. The biggest issue here is that they weren't chained together so when one went hostile the others didn't, that allowed me to take them out one by one. I agree that they should not go hostile until they're talked to (to allow buffing etc for what will inevitable be a very hard fight) *but* if you attack any of them before conversation took place, they should all go hostile.

Whether they should initiate conversation as soon as they see anyone from the party, I will leave up to the mod creator

 

They were already initiating conversation as soon as you enter, you must have been invisible and some SCS script probably overwrote  their "see PC, dialogue with them" script. I'll need to look into that. Thanks for testing that by the way, I was in need of SCS testers as specified in the readme to see if bugs would arise.

In any case, in the new version, as soon as one of them is attacked, they all enter combat.

By the way, how did you manage to finish this quest in Shadows of Amm, I might ask? That is not supposed to happen.

9 hours ago, Guest Morgoth said:

Hey,
are you still planning for changes for the evil path after the feedback I've offered, or will it stay the way it is?

Cheers

Yes I am still brainstorming this, even considering a brief fight with

Spoiler

Laeral, but she'd flee of course. She's too smart to get killed like this.

In any case, something will be added, regardless of what it is. A journal entry and a few lines of dialog, at the very absolute least.

Edited September 16, 2022 by Daxtreme

[Guest cog]

Quote

By the way, how did you manage to finish this quest in Shadows of Amm, I might ask? That is not supposed to happen.

I haven't made it to SoA yet, still in BG1. Does this mean I've effectively broken the quest? I'd be hugely disappointed by that. If so, how can I fix it (by manipulating variables I mean)?

[Daxtreme]

8 hours ago, Guest cog said:

I haven't made it to SoA yet, still in BG1. Does this mean I've effectively broken the quest? I'd be hugely disappointed by that. If so, how can I fix it (by manipulating variables I mean)?

 

Oops wrong person, it was somebody else who managed to finish the quest in SoA instead of ToB, which I haven't been able to replicate.

Also,  I installed SCS yesterday (my computer is slow, it took well over 3 hours haha), and I confirmed what I suspected:

SCS replaces a vampire script for my custom character in the BG Enclave, and this new script prevents the dialog from firing. So when you enter, nothing happens unless you go talk to her directly, which is a bug.

Working on a fix. I haven't seen any other problem with SCS so for the rest of the run you should be fine. Most of the content is in SoA, with the quest ending happening in ToB. If you could provide feedback on how challenging the fights were with SCS that'd be much appreciated! Normally the other ones should be much harder to cheese (but still possible).

edit: Alright it's fixed on my side. If you enter invisible with SCS you can run around and do stuff, but as soon as anything happens dialog begins, and if the vampire goes hostile they all go hostile. If she somehow dies before the dialog they all go hostile. Basically there's no way around it. Without SCS it's even harder to not trigger anything as the vampire casts True Sight if you enter invisible so you have a few seconds at most to do anything. But without SCS the fight is much easier, that's for sure.

I have a few more stuff to test but once that's done I will push the update.

I honestly have no clue how anyone can succeed the Twisted Rune (Athkatla) encounter with SCS on insane difficulty without laying traps in advance where they all spawn. Maybe I'm just bad at this game though It's so fucking hard, especially since my mod makes it even harder by increasing Layene's HP and level. The one in Baldur's Gate should also be epicly difficult if you do it after buying the license in Athkatla, as a level 30 wizard joins the fray (in addition to the Lich, the mummy that's also an epic-level cleric spamming Gate, the rune assassin, and a nasty vampire wizard). And with the update you won't be able to cheese that one the way you did as they're already spawned in and will go hostile asap.

But Shangalar in Athkatla is something else. With SCS he spams those Planetars and stuff, casts Time Stop like 3 times... a nightmare to deal with.

And the mod's final fight in ToB is probably even worse LOL

Edited September 17, 2022 by Daxtreme