Improved Integration of tipun’s IWD mods

[jmerry]

The specific story conflict between BP2 and Neera's quest: the end of Black Pits 2 has the arena being shut down. Neera's ToB quest has you visit while the arena is active. In order for both of them to make sense, you have to either cut off the ending or set the BP2 trip at the very end of things. Actually, you'd have to tweak the ending anyway, as "Stannel Eibor" gets the last word and the BP2 party doesn't actually go free.

The other time marker is that Voghiln is present, and gets high levels. Black Pits 2 definitely starts after SoD ends..

[Endarire]

How does SCS affect creatures from TotLM in EET and IWD 1 & 2 in EET?

Thankee!

[subtledoctor]

1 hour ago, Endarire said:

How does SCS affect creatures from TotLM in EET and IWD 1 & 2 in EET?

It doesn’t AFAIK. IWD encounters play out as they do in IWD. And SCS has no effect on IWD. 

In the long run it might be interesting to try to beef up some IWD enemies. E.g. with SCS, the lone yuan-ti mage on the 2nd floor if D’Arnise Keep can tear up my whole party. (I generally don’t have mage-duel spells like Secret Word or Breach by that point.) By contrast, the yuan-ti casters in Dragon’s Eye are pathetic. 

But that sort of thing is a ways off, if I ever get to it. 

Edited April 14, 2023 by subtledoctor

[Endarire]

I am totally for IWD 1 & 2 in EET being properly integrated/made fully compatible with SCS, IWDification, TotLM, and other pertinent mods!

[argent77]

11 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

It doesn’t AFAIK. IWD encounters play out as they do in IWD. And SCS has no effect on IWD. 

In the long run it might be interesting to try to beef up some IWD enemies. E.g. with SCS, the lone yuan-ti mage on the 2nd floor if D’Arnise Keep can tear up my whole party. (I generally don’t have mage-duel spells like Secret Word or Breach by that point.) By contrast, the yuan-ti casters in Dragon’s Eye are pathetic. 

But that sort of thing is a ways off, if I ever get to it. 

That will certainly be a challenge. IWD-style creature scripting differs greatly from BG-style scripting. It'll probaby require a rewrite of the SCS core implementation to support IWD (and mods using IWD-style scripting.)

[subtledoctor]

Well, in a case like this you could possibly just drop a BG2 yuan-ti mage into Dragon’s Eye and… that’s it. No change of scripting necessary. 

[Endarire]

I thought adapting SCS for IWD in EET would be simpler since it's based on EET and many creatures overlap.

[subtledoctor]

No creatures overlap. 

Honestly I don’t think anyone really thinks much about this request. Just “SCS good, so SCS on IWD good!” 

I just played through Dragon’s Eye and Severed Hand in an EET game. You open a door and get mobbed by yuan-ti elites and archers. You pass an invusible trap and a horde of shadowed goblins and orcs appear in the midst of your party.  What is SCS really going to do there? IWD lacks complex combat scripts… but it has elaborate encounter set-ups that BG and BG2 largely lack. Honestly, it seems fine to me. 

IWD spellcasters are fairly garbage; in some cases this can be addressed by brute force. Like I say, if you remove yuan-ti casters from Dragon’s Eye and drop in some BG2 yuan-ti mage .CRE files - voilà, you have SCS yuan-ti in Dragon’s Eye. You could swap out Yxunomei’s marilith form for a ToB marilith if you want a serious challenge there. (Note to self!  )

I suppose casters become more prevalent later in the game, there could be more of a difference there. 

Edited April 15, 2023 by subtledoctor

[Endarire]

SCS makes casters shine.  For other creatures, it may help but it's much less noticeable.

[subtledoctor]

Updated to version 0.9.1 to address how Gaelan's dialogue handles WEIGHTs.

[Guest]

If you don't mind.

I would like to propose some very minor modifications and an update for the french translation.

- First of all using PATCH_DEFINE_ASSOCIATIVE_ARRAY instead of REPLACE_TEXTUALLY for the "Welcome to Icewind Dale" part, in order to allow translation in different languages.

- As well as a potential compatibility with the Tipun_Gui mod, this mod is not fully functional and my workaround is far from perfect.

It doesn't matter if it doesn't fit and cannot be integrated in IWD_EET_Integration, I just share if other people really want to use Tipun_Gui and I know very well that the changes are not exceptional.

Also to work they will have to use my Tipun_Gui fork which adds the possibility to keep access to the IWD campaigns through the start menu.

I mentioned it on ArcaneCoast, normally I would have contacted Tipun directly, but he decided to step back from modding for an undefined time

Here is the commit itself if you want to have a look...

Depending on your opinion I will send a pull request or just post the translation update here.

Edited April 16, 2023 by JohnBob

[Endarire]

What would be involved in separating the IWD spells from IWD 1 & 2 in EET into separate, optional components?  I ask since I'd prefer to avoid cluttering my install with junk when IWDification is my preferred implementation.

Thankee!

[subtledoctor]

5 hours ago, JohnBob said:

I would like to propose some very minor modifications and an update for the french translation.

- First of all using PATCH_DEFINE_ASSOCIATIVE_ARRAY instead of REPLACE_TEXTUALLY for the "Welcome to Icewind Dale" part, in order to allow translation in different languages.

Fantastic. Feel free to do a pull request. I also need to traify the few lines of text this mod adds to Gaelan and Yxunomei and Larrel. Then maybe you could help with the translations for that? It is only a small amount. I would like to have it in English, Russian, and French to match the options for installing tipun's mods.

I will look at the commit a bit more when I have a chance in the next few days.

3 hours ago, Endarire said:

What would be involved in separating the IWD spells from IWD 1 & 2 in EET into separate, optional components?

Who knows? Is that even necessary? Do tipun's mods even add spells at all? Someone said they don't. You'll have to ask tipun for more information, but I hear he is not readily available these days. So we have to make do with what we have. (Which is kind of the entire raison d'etre of this mod...)

Speaking of, I've started playing IWD2 with this and the scripted XP awards in the prologue are WAY too big. Need to scale those back in the next update.

[Guest]

 

Finally Tipun answered on Arcanecoast, we'll have to wait to see what he's going to do, he's a bit difficult to follow sometimes...

 

11 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

I will look at the commit a bit more when I have a chance in the next few days.

Maybe I should change :

ACTION_IF (MOD_IS_INSTALLED ~SETUP-TIPUN_GUI.TP2~ ~10~) BEGIN

in

ACTION_IF (MOD_IS_INSTALLED ~SETUP-TIPUN_GUI.TP2~ ~10~ AND MOD_IS_INSTALLED ~SETUP-IWD1_EET.TP2~ ~1~) BEGIN

AND

ACTION_IF (MOD_IS_INSTALLED ~SETUP-TIPUN_GUI.TP2~ ~10~ AND MOD_IS_INSTALLED ~SETUP-IWD2_EET.TP2~ ~0~) BEGIN

Mainly for the case where IWD2_EET is not installed.

11 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

Fantastic. Feel free to do a pull request. I also need to traify the few lines of text this mod adds to Gaelan and Yxunomei and Larrel. Then maybe you could help with the translations for that? It is only a small amount. I would like to have it in English, Russian, and French to match the options for installing tipun's mods.

I'm not sure what you mean.

If it's to traify soa_easter_egg.tpa, no problem, same for the French translation.

If it is something else and I can do it, of course I will !

 

---

 

By the way, I have a question, the components of your mod that adapt IWD_EET for a full campaign also change the stats if we go to IWD from BG1 and BG2 ?

Edited April 17, 2023 by JohnBob

[subtledoctor]

1 hour ago, JohnBob said:

If it's to traify soa_easter_egg.tpa, no problem, same for the French translation.

Yes, exactly that. 

1 hour ago, JohnBob said:

By the way, I have a question, the components of your mod that adapt IWD_EET for a full campaign also change the stats if we go to IWD from BG1 and BG2 ?

Yes, at the moment this is a binary choice: creatures and XP will either be appropriate for a new campaign but too easy for going there in an EET game; or will be appropriate for the middle of an EET game but too difficult for a new campaign. 

So you must decide at the time of installing this mod which way you prefer things. Both options are valid, but you must choose one.

The SoA Easter Egg component is for people who want IWD1/2 playable as separate campaigns, but still want some added content in their EET game. Right now, even if you keep IWD1/2 as separate campaigns, you can still play Dragon’s Eye, Severed Hand, Heart of Winter, and Trial of the Luremaster inside EET. Which is a lot of added content! 

And I’m still looking at adding more to that easter egg component. I think Upper Dorn’s Deep could fit somewhere. (Let’s be honest, Beamdog basically ripped this off in SoD.) And as I play IWD2 for the first time ever, I am eyeing whether some areas there could be reused. 

Edited April 17, 2023 by subtledoctor