Really HATE this mod. Possible to remove it in the middle of the game?

[suy]

+1.

If you got really gimped in scrolls because you have 3 casters, it's easy to workaround by making some more with the console, IMHO. Some other bugs with mods can be more challenging, like, getting deadlocked in a cutscene, and not knowing how to progress at all.

[CrevsDaak]

13 hours ago, Morgoth said:

I've been playing for 20 years, and I've never seen readme-scs.html. I always opened only readme-stratagems. It's the first time I read about two different readmes for one mod

 

Well it actually has three since there's also one for BG2 for the pre-merge versions.

[ktchong]

 

On 2/23/2024 at 10:09 AM, suy said:

If you got really gimped in scrolls because you have 3 casters, it's easy to workaround by making some more with the console, IMHO. Some other bugs with mods can be more challenging, like, getting deadlocked in a cutscene, and not knowing how to progress at all.

 

Did not need to use the console.   I removed the the SCS component "wider selection of random scrolls," (along with other components that were causing problems.)  Since then, my game has been getting LOTS of random scroll drops from monsters.  Previously with that SCS component installed, my game was NOT getting any random scroll drops, AT ALL.  Now, with that component removed, my party is getting at least one random scroll per encounter, sometimes up to three scrolls in a bigger encounter. The before-vs.-after difference in random scroll drops is YUGE.    That component seriously broke my game balance and pacing.

After removing the SCS compoent, my party went back to some previously-cleared areas for random encounters to farm scrolls.  My mages have been able to (mostly) fill up all three spell books with levels 1, 2 and 3 spells from random monsters and scroll drops — including the important ones like Dispel Magic, Fireball, Haste, Invisibility 10' Radius, Protection from Normal Missiles, Web, etc.  Previously, most of my mages and bard did not have those spells because High Hedge did not sell them and SCS completely eliminated random scrolls — and therefore eliminating any chance of my mages getting those spells before Chapter 5. (Except Neera who already had Dispel Magic and Fireball in her spell book, but she did not come with Haste or Web.)

The " "wider selection of random scrolls" component was a very big nerf to the party mages and a drastic change to the game balance, which SCS did NOT tell users or let user opt out.  SCS just installed the component  without telling people what it actually did, (or rather, misinformed people what it did.)  Anyway, I browsed through the various conditions of the component,  I got a feeling that there could be some logic errors in the conditions, coding and/or implementation that is causing random scroll to not drop.   There is something wrong in there.  Most important, that component should NOT have just put caps on the drop rates and levels of random scrolls without telling users or giving users the choice to opt out.

BTW, that component actually makes most arcane spells — including low-level spells, i.e., levels 2 and 3 spells like Web and Haste — inaccessible until late game, (until Sorcerous Sundries because High Hedge does not sell them.)  Imaging unable to cast Haste or Web  until Chapter 5.  That is what the "random scrolls" component in SCS did: screwing up my game balance and pacing.  

I believe some spells might have even become unavailable in the game — because the only way to get them is from random scrolls, and that SCS component completely killed random scroll drops.  But oh yes, there is nothing wrong there, SCS is not the problem here, why doesn't everyone just console in those scrolls... what's the problem?

 

 

 

Edited February 25 by ktchong

[jmerry]

3 hours ago, ktchong said:

After removing the SCS compoent, my party went back to some previously-cleared areas for random encounters to farm scrolls.  My mages have been able to (mostly) fill up all three spell books with levels 1, 2 and 3 spells from random monsters and scroll drops — including the important ones like Dispel Magic, Fireball, Haste, Invisibility 10' Radius, Protection from Normal Missiles, Web, etc.

This? This is unbelievable. I don't believe you. Random scroll drops in the normal game don't work that way. Sure, you can pretty reliably get the level 1 scrolls from random drops by respawning monsters (except for the few that aren't on the table). Just kill a few hundred gnolls and xvarts and kobolds and hobgoblins and the like. And you'll get some level 2 scrolls, though you'll have to supplement those with fixed drops (i.e, Web from Narcillicus and Borda) and store purchases if you want to fill out spellbooks properly - there aren't nearly as many monsters like ghouls and ogres that drop those. But level 3 scrolls? The only respawning monsters that ever drop level 3 scrolls at all are the travel encounter ogre mage in the southwest, the travel encounter greater basilisk in the east, and the doppelgangers outside Durlag's Tower. You'll get about one level 3 scroll for every ten treasures those monsters drop - three from an ogre mage, one from a basilisk or doppelganger.

While you'll typically find a few random level 3 scrolls over the course of a run, you will absolutely not be able to fill up even one mage's spellbook with them. And they're really not amenable to farming. If you have your heart set on Invisibility 10' Radius ... no guarantees, that scroll might just not ever drop for you. In fact, checking ... my last full run, clearing everything in a largely unmodded game, had party mage Xzar without that spell when I reached the end. Because its scroll just plain never dropped. [Edit: oh, right, he's a necromancer that can't learn that spell. Well, I looked at the scroll case - no Invisibility 10' there either. And I would have kept it, because I had Baeloth in the party as well who could use it.]

Edited February 25 by jmerry

[DavidW]

In the absence of a weidu.log with the SCS components in, I can't tell which version you are playing. The initial release of v35 had some problems with the logic of scroll drops, that led to them being too stingy. That got addressed in 35.10 but I can't tell if that's the version you have installed. I have the sense that if anything 35.10 is a little overgenerous with scrolls, so I suspect you're on 35.9 or earlier.

On 2/22/2024 at 2:23 PM, ktchong said:

It just dishonestly and sneakily installed too many undocumented and unwanted components that have nothing to do with improving the enemy AI

I'm puzzled by this. If we're talking about the scroll component again, then (leaving aside the value of distinguishing "it's sneaky and dishonest, the mod author must take malevolent delight in ruining my game" from "it's bugged, the mod author ought to improve their QA"), then SCS's documentation is pretty explicit about what the components do, and lots of them, including that one, make no claim to have anything (directly) to do with improving AI.

I'll reply to the winter wolf pelt on the other thread (once I've reminded myself what's actually happening there).

[ktchong]

13 hours ago, jmerry said:

This? This is unbelievable. I don't believe you. Random scroll drops in the normal game don't work that way...

Ghouls and ghasts are fast and easy kills that reliably drop levels 2 and 3 scrolls, and there are plenty of spawn points for ghouls and ghasts.

Also, I quick-saved before my party moves into those points to triggers another spawn.  If I did not get  see any random scrolls that I wanted in the Quick Loot menu, I quick-loaded, re-rolled and tried again until I got the scrolls I wanted.

 

Edited February 26 by ktchong

[ktchong]

8 hours ago, DavidW said:

In the absence of a weidu.log with the SCS components in, I can't tell which version you are playing. The initial release of v35 had some problems with the logic of scroll drops, that led to them being too stingy. That got addressed in 35.10 but I can't tell if that's the version you have installed. I have the sense that if anything 35.10 is a little overgenerous with scrolls, so I suspect you're on 35.9 or earlier.

I'm puzzled by this. If we're talking about the scroll component again, then (leaving aside the value of distinguishing "it's sneaky and dishonest, the mod author must take malevolent delight in ruining my game" from "it's bugged, the mod author ought to improve their QA"), then SCS's documentation is pretty explicit about what the components do, and lots of them, including that one, make no claim to have anything (directly) to do with improving AI.

I'll reply to the winter wolf pelt on the other thread (once I've reminded myself what's actually happening there).

I had version 35.9.    I have never installed the "wider selection of random scrolls" component from version 35.10.  I have reinstalled the game and mods, and I have removed that component completely.  So I do not know if it works in 35.10 and  I do not want to find out.

When I started to realize that monsters in my game had not been dropping random scrolls at all, I knew some mod must have messed up the scroll drops.  I had played BG1 and BGEE (vanilla and without SCS) many times in the past since the late 1990s/early 2000s, (never really finished the game though.) I have installed other mods in the past, but this is the first time I have installed SCS.    It took me a while to remember  that monsters used to dropped a lot more random scrolls in my previous runs.   So I googled around and read some forums. I found out that SCS had been the culprit. Upon further reading, I found out that problematic component was the "wider selection of random scrolls".  

So I looked into the Github page of SCS and and saw it had been recently updated to version 35.10, which supposedly "fix" the problem with random scroll drop rates.   However, then I read the jmerry's post that the SCS component actually lowered the drop rate and capped the level of random scrolls; i.e., the scroll drop rate in version 35.10 was still lower than the drop rate in vanilla, and the component also put level caps on random scrolls.  Those nerfs were NOT what I wanted from a component that was stated to add a "wider selection of random scrolls" and mentioned nothing else.  I wanted to add a "wider selection of random scrolls" in my game, NOT to lower drop rates of random scrolls, NOT to put a level cap on random scrolls.

I decided not to take any more risk with that component, AND I did not want to install a component was hugely detrimental and offered very little benefits (even if the "wider selection" part had worked properly, which it had not.)   Even if the component added a "wider selection of random scrolls", I would NOT trade it for a lower drop rate of and a level cap on random scrolls; (and it did NOT add a "wider selection of random scrolls"; there was not gonna be any "wider selection" when monsters were not even dropping random scrolls at all.)

Anyway, I have no idea if version 35.10 has fixed the "random scrolls" components; and, based on what I have read, the component still limits drop rates and level caps.  Those two undocumented nerfs were NOT I wanted from a component that is supposed to only add "a wider selection of random scrolls".

Anyhow, I am happy with my game now with the vanilla drop rate for random scrolls.

 

Edited February 26 by ktchong

[ktchong]

Just add a "wider selection of random scrolls".  Do not lower the drop rate.  Do not cap the scroll levels.

This is what is stated in the readme:

Quote

Wider selection of random scrolls (BGEE,BG2EE,EET)

Scrolls in random drops in BG:EE are selected from the same range as in vanilla BG, and so do not include any of the newer spells introduced in BG2. And random drops in BG2:EE include a rather small subset of all available spells. This component changes random drops so that every 1st-8th level wizard spell for which a scroll exists will have some chance of dropping. (The probability that a given creature or treasure chest contains a scroll of a given level is more-or-less unchanged, but the range is wider.) This component will also add mod-added spells (such as the Icewind Dale spells from IWDification) to the random drops.

 

On 2/22/2024 at 7:45 AM, jmerry said:

It's specifically the component that extends random scrolls to all scrolls of their level, and specifically a particular version of it from earlier versions of v35. Vanilla, the v34 random scroll component, and the v35.10 random scroll component all allow the lowest-level random treasure in common use (dropped by the likes of gibberlings, hobgoblins, kobolds, gnolls, and many others) to become level 1 scrolls. The v35.7 random scroll component, however, did not allow that random treasure to become a scroll.

As for level 3 scrolls ... in vanilla or the v35.7 random scroll component, you'll only get random level 3 scrolls from the highest-level random treasures in BGEE. Which means killing stuff like basilisks, doppelgangers, or ogre magi. There aren't very many of those out there. You just can't rely on random scrolls to fill up your spellbook at level 3, and the guaranteed scrolls at that level from drops and stores are very rare until you progress in the story.

Now, the v34 and v35.10 versions of the random scroll component are noticeably more generous there, allowing level 3 random scrolls on the next treasure down - you can get them from ghouls and the like, if you're lucky. So random drops will get you something in those versions.

The newest version of the random scroll component is still less generous than the v34 version in one way: v34 capped scrolls at level 4 in BG1 and level 8 in BG2, while v35.10 caps them at level 3 in BG1 and level 7 in BG2.

[jmerry]

With the vanilla treasure tables, a ghoul or ghast will drop a level 2 scroll about one in every ten times. That's quite reasonable.

With those same vanilla treasure tables, a ghoul or ghast will drop a level 3 scroll about one in every four hundred times. That's not. I tracked my kills one time, in a completionist run - everything cleared, areas generally not revisited. In all of BGEE, that came to 59 ghasts and 46 ghouls. Or, about one quarter of a level 3 scroll if I hadn't done this run with SCS. Yes, it's theoretically possible to get level 3 scrolls that way, but it's not practical by any means. This is not the sort of game that rewards extended, dull grinding.

(Where do those numbers come from? The table for RNDTRE04 (ghouls, ghasts, etc.) has twenty entries. Two of those are RNDSCR02 (level 2 scroll). None of them are RNDSCR03 (level 3 scroll). But one of the RNDTRE04 entries is RNDMAG02, directing you to a "random magic junk" table. Most of the entries there are stuff like potions or magic ammo, but one of them is RNDSCR03. So if you hit that one in twenty chance, twice, you get the level 3 scroll.)

Also: no, I didn't say anything about the overall scroll drop rates.

[ktchong]

Well, I am certainly getting level 3 scrolls from ghasts, which are very common monsters.  There are a lot of ghast spawn points, in Southern Beregost Road, in Nashkel Mines (surface level),  in Valleys of the Tombs, (which is also a good place to farm ankheg shells, and ankheg also drops scrolls as well.)

The most important point is: I do not have to find and kill basilisks, doppelgangers, or ogre magi for level-3 random scrolls.  Level-3 random scrolls are supposed to be relatively common; they certainly are without the SCS "wider selection of random scroll" component.  That change is ridiculous and unreasonable, AND (my biggest issue with that change) users were not told nor given the choice to opt out of that drastic change. 

I only wanted a "wider selection of random scrolls"... no way I (or most players) would want to gimp my game and miss out all the level 3 scrolls by limited them to rare high-level monsters. 

Edited February 26 by ktchong

[Mera]

Can't you just realize that maybe, maybe, this is just a bug? And that maybe, maybe, if you were not such a giant condescending ass, people might be willing to help you?

[ktchong]

A clarification: it is way more common for ghasts to drop level-2 scrolls than level-3 ones.  I went back and tried to duplicate a level-3 drop from ghasts, and finally got one after a long time.  Three screenshots are attached below.

• 1st screenshot: Reloaded to a much earlier save game in Nashkel Mines with a spawn spot for ghasts and ghouls. Kept reloading the save game and re-rolling until I got ghasts and not ghouls. (Got all the fancy equipment from importing a fully-loaded character from The Black Pit into the main campaign.)

• 2nd screenshot: Kept reloading and re-rolling until a ghast dropped a level-2 scroll.  Only took 2-3 minutes for one to drop a Web scroll.

• 3rd screenshot: Kept reloading and re-rolling until finally got a level-3 scroll, Monster Summoning I.  That took much longer, probably close to 30 minutes.

After having removed the "wider selection of random scrolls" of SCS a few days ago,  I wanted to farm scrolls to catch up.  So I checked the wikis on Random Treasures, which indicated that ghasts drop "wealthy treasures", which could only roll level-2 scrolls.  So I was aware that ghasts were not supposed to drop level-3 scrolls, (although I vaguely remembered that I had gotten level-3 scrolls from ghasts in my previous runs.)  I was expecting to farm level-2 scrolls from ghasts in Nashkel Mines... and was then surprised when a ghast drop a Haste scroll.  Then I also got a few more other level-3 scrolls from other ghasts in other places.  It was relatively quite rare for ghast to drop level-3 scrolls, but they do drop level-3 scrolls.   (Which was still way better than zero chance of dropping level-3 scroll with the SCS component.)   

I was not the only one who got level-3 scrolls from ghasts. Here is an old discussion from Reddit:  "Best place to grind for spell scrolls in BG:EE?" So, at least 3 or 4 other players had also gotten level-3 scrolls from ghasts and upvoted the comment. 

 

Edited February 26 by ktchong

[CrevsDaak]

9 hours ago, ktchong said:

However, then I read the jmerry's post that the SCS component actually lowered the drop rate and capped the level of random scrolls; i.e., the scroll drop rate in version 35.10 was still lower than the drop rate in vanilla, and the component also put level caps on random scrolls.

I hope that you can actually understand that vanilla will never drop level 4 scrolls, so the component does not change the level limit of scrolls, and that the things you complained about were on a previous version of the mod, which was already fixed and drops level 3 scrolls much more often than vanilla ever has or will drop. I'm not sure what you're trying to get at by twisting other people's words other than demonstrating your ignorance on all matters related to the topic.

9 hours ago, ktchong said:

The most important point is: I do not have to find and kill basilisks, doppelgangers, or ogre magi for level-3 random scrolls.  Level-3 random scrolls are supposed to be relatively common; they certainly are without the SCS "wider selection of random scroll" component.  That change is ridiculous and unreasonable, AND (my biggest issue with that change) users were not told nor given the choice to opt out of that drastic change. 

Again, do you posses the sufficient reading comprehension to grasp the fact that under v35.10, level three scrolls will drop from creatures that drop level two scrolls as well, and not because of a minimal chance but because they are added to that particular table as well. Sure, go spend hours reloading in vanilla and posting reddit (of all places one could get knowledge from lmfao) screencaps, definitely will help you convince people that you any sort of idea or clue as to what might be happening.

You understand there's a reason why the component in v35.9 was referred to as bugged and its behaviour was changed as quickly as it was right? Hmm?

[Dakk]

13 hours ago, ktchong said:

Also, I quick-saved before my party moves into those points to triggers another spawn.  If I did not get  see any random scrolls that I wanted in the Quick Loot menu, I quick-loaded, re-rolled and tried again until I got the scrolls I wanted.

How you play really doesn't strike me as a person that should install components that make the game harder, bugs or no bugs...

[subtledoctor]

I am playing EET right now, in the BG1 campaign, and I have not installed SCS "Wider Variety of random Scrolls" - to my dismay. But I am using SCS v33 (!) and I think the component was bugged so I am denying myself the variety. Here is what I am seeing: I get a metric crap-ton of scrolls for Identify, Chill Touch, Color Spray, occasionally Ghoul Touch... just absolute garbage. What possible use could I have for 29 scrolls of Chill Touch? I have Skie take the UMD feat so she can use scrolls, and I still am not using this junk. Just selling them.

Admittedly, I am not save-scumming fights with trash mobs...

On 2/26/2024 at 2:20 AM, ktchong said:

I quick-saved before my party moves into those points to triggers another spawn.  If I did not get  see any random scrolls that I wanted in the Quick Loot menu, I quick-loaded, re-rolled and tried again until I got the scrolls I wanted.

This is such an insanely singular way to play the game. It is fine, don't get me wrong, but you have to understand.... nobody else does this. No modder is going to cater to this style of play. Further, there is no need to do this since by your own statements you want to have three casters with All The Spells, so you should only need to find one scroll beyond the two available in stores, no need to save-scum every fight. And still even if you really just enjoy getting those good scrolls... it just means that there is one component of one mod that is not well-suited for your particular and unusual playstyle. That is... not a big deal? I'm a bit confused as to why you are making such a big deal about it.

Furthermore, DavidW has been very responsive to players in fixing and adjusting his mod. People mentioned some issues with the Wider Variety component being too stingy, and he updated the mod and now it is less stingy. The dude is going out of his way to accommodate people who feel like you feel. Neverthless,

On 2/26/2024 at 2:54 AM, ktchong said:

I do not know if it works in 35.10 and  I do not want to find out

You would rather stick your fingers in your ears and scream about something that has already been addressed? Grow up, man.

Edited February 27 by subtledoctor