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fluent

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  1. I had this issue quite a few times, seemingly at random. Sometimes I'll load my game and play a bit. When I check my world map it will be all blacked out, and you can only see the locations you can travel to and their names. Everything else is black. I'm using the world map mod that comes with BWS, too. Not sure the exact name but it's a huge world map that includes the entirety of the planet, I think. And sometimes the map is fine but only if I exit the game and try it again. Sometimes it's still black. Just thought I'd report this bug. Cheerio.
  2. Damn. Roxanne, you're a genius! Look what I found: "Increase difficulty of level-dependent groupings - almost maximum difficulty" - lol. Damn. Looks like those 2 tweaks right there are what's frustrating me. I'm still claiming innocence, as I didn't think that turning those on would make the groupings IMPOSSIBLE, only very difficult. But seriously, those settings along with having too little XP for the early parts of the game (too little for those settings, anyway) + Hard difficulty meant those encounters were impossible, not just difficult, which is no bueno. At least we figured it out, but setting those settings in the way I did could hurt other first-time EET players experience who wanted a challenging playthrough. Thing is, even after researching all that stuff for literally several days before installing, it was still tricky and almost impossible to know how the game will play the first time through. Thank Garl Glittergold for this forum and peeps like you, though! What should I do for now? Would uninstalling or tweaking those for my current playthrough mess anything up? And I haven't played in a week or so. I ended up finishing the Planar Sphere quest (legit, too! Managed to kill Lavok before he could activate every protection he had) and the D'Arnise Keep (the troll boss encounter was rough), along with a few other smaller things like Hexxat's quest, etc.. Completed the Druid Grove as well, even though I had to postpone the Rakshasas for now. Overall it's been a great run for my first time playing BG mods, with a few snags along the way. What's your expert advice for what I should do now?
  3. Ah, so it's the base encounter itself. Weird. Then that's really the main thing I have an issue with - that particular encounter. It gets weirder from a roleplaying standpoint because the child was kidnapped and we ended up having to just give up on the rescue and maybe come back much later. So yeah, strange one there. Still have to get back into it and play more, but the random wildnerness encounter with 6 mages was flipping impossible, too. And the one encounter with shapeshifters in the wildnerness as well. The 3 Rakshasas at multiple times (on the streets of BG after the Flail of Ages and in the Druid Grove) - all super impossible for my current party. Again, my problem isn't necessarily that Rakshasas are difficult, they should be. It's just strange when the game is designed to trigger these encounters early on, especially the random ones where you can't control when you do them. I don't mind avoiding Druid Grove Rakshasas for now but the random encounters can be more frustrating because you *want* to complete them and can't. And tough mages are still super tough for us, but I repeated myself enough on that, lol. Maybe certain encounters can be tuned down or modded to be easier? Not "easier" per say, but actually doable and not impossible for your current level party. I know it gets into level scaling territory and all that, but it would just be cool to delay some of those random encounters until later so you don't feel like you have to run and are missing out on possibly cool content or items. Just my 2.
  4. For me, it's not necessarily that the Tough Vampires setting is turned ON, it's more about that specific encounter. Do all vampire encounters spawn that amount of Elder + Ancient Vampires? Because if so, that is going to be really hard for my party to deal with. If it's just that one encounter, I think it should be toned down a bit, that's all. Reduce the overall number of vamps in that one by a few to make it tactical, yet not overly hard. What I did when installing all these mods with BWS was turn ON all tactical/tough SCS options. So far, so good, but that does mean that there is room for error in other settings. Since I also turned XP to 50% gain + an SoD XP cap of 250k (it was a bad choice in hindsight) when I was facing these Rakshasas and Vampires in BG2 I wasn't able to cast the higher level spells (level 6 at the time) to even deal with them. So it was sort of like a beginner's trap I fell into. I ended up boosting XP gain to 200% until I'm back to "normal levels" I should be at. All the other aspects of the game have been fine, sans the occasional "super tough/have to cheese" mage encounters (again because I couldn't cast higher level spells.) So I'm not sure how BWS would be improved there. Maybe a pop-up that warns against messing with EET Tweaks XP settings or something? I love all the mods and BWS does a great job of letting beginner's like myself get into the game more, but it was still a bit tricky. And frankly, I'm still not 100% sure how the game is supposed to operate, and if I'm just doing something wrong. A few of the mages I fought were just really brutal (again, only could cast up to level 5 spells at the time, so maybe that changes things.) Took a bit of overly cheesy tactics and a bunch of re-loading to deal with. On a good note, I ended up killing Lavok in a kind of slick way. Invisible'd a few strong characters and then hit him at once with the kitchen sink, lmao. Took 20 minutes of re-loads but it worked. Got to play more now that I'm out of that damned sphere!
  5. Hah, nice! You are already thinking ahead of the game. Wish I could restart and try your mod, it sounds awesome, but I'm already deeper into BG2. And this is actually the furthest I've ever gotten in BG2, so I'd like to at least beat the game once. ON a future EET run, though, I'll use the Sandrah mod for sure. You'll have to let me know of some others I should try, too, since I was a bit unclear on which ones *should* be enabled with BWS (a few were yellow/orange, and at the time I wasn't sure if they would mess up the XP gains and stuff like that. Which is why I hope BWS functionality is improved even more for first-time players...)
  6. Good stuff, thanks Roxanne. What I meant by EET Team is that I always thought modders should team up and work as a group on adding more great content to the game in that style. I understand why modders don't want to do that, but hopefully the EET becomes more popular so more players use it as the standard way to play the game. Then modders wouldn't have to worry about missing their audience. But yeah, I get that. Nobody seems to like BG1 much anymore compared to BG2 (I do, but whatever.) Power in numbers and all that. More modders should combine forces and focus their efforts + combine talents. But that's just been a thought of mine for awhile now, for any RPG mod scene, really. 2. More SCS feedback. I like stronger vampires in theory, same with Rakshasas... I just think that that specific vampire encounter could be toned down with less overall vampires in one battle. 4. All that sounds awesome. More mods that tie you back into BG1/SoD areas in some way (reasons to head back to the Nashkel Carnival, or even the werewolf cabin in High Hedge. Tons of possibilities.) would start to make the EET it's "own thing", almost like a mod expansion in some ways. Not sure if I'm being clear. But yeah, you guys rock. Keep doing what you do, you're all really improving this series over time.
  7. Your Sandrah mod is exactly what I'm talking about. I meant to ask if the EET team had any plans to expand into actual content. Others could do like your Sandrah mod, offering EET content that ties together things in BG1-SoD-BG2, offering official new story bits and "EET exclusive" type of content. Sort of like Beamdog does but this content would be for the EET. That would be cool, IMO. I also wish the whole thing would be easier to get into. I like how BWS makes it easier to install things, but as a first time player I messed up by adding all these extra SCS options, even though I knew they'd be challenging, I didn't realize they'd be impossible with the "wrong" settings (like turning XP gain down lower.) Improvements in the install process would be great, IMO, and just lowering the bar for entry a bit more for other players to get a more balanced experience. And more balancing in general would be cool for SCS (although that's a separate topic, I know.) I didn't realize the Harder Firkraag dungeon for example, would have a super hard, nearly (and maybe) impossible encounter with vampires. I took "Tactical" to mean really challenging but not impossible. It'd be cool for you guys (modders) to combine forces. All the various companion quests could be worked on simultaneously and really polished and taken to new heights. "Official EET content." You guys could all give Beamdog a run for their money. We need more Sandrah type mods. I still have to play that one, but it sounds like exactly the next evolution for EET (even though it's not EET content so to speak, but you know what I mean.)
  8. Hey Roxanne, you can check mine as well as I'm pretty far into EET. Probably 200+ hours now, and completed several quests in BG2. Taking a slight break but hope to return to it soon (just a bit bored by gaming in general right now.) A few balance-related things I noticed: 1. Vampires in Firkraag's dungeon are so very, very tough, especially compared to the rest of the dungeon. I had to turn back twice from them. The Rakshasa outside is no joke, either, but that's okay since A) it's a Rakshasa, and B) it is a good indicator to NOT go into the dungeon until you're stronger. 2. Mages are of course very tough at times, but doable. At least now that I have further advanced knowledge of the game in general. But still some very tough spots where you either have to run or semi-cheese through, like wait for their protections to run out. At least, this is in my experience, and I'm not a super knowledgeable BG player yet. 3. The Druid Grove Rakshasa's - also impossible for my party. Just avoiding it for a good while now. 4. XP related. 50% seems to be a decent spot, but on SCS with all Tactical options turned on + Hard difficulty, 50% is too low. I had to then boost to 200% for a quest or two so I would "catch up" and be where I was supposed to be. Because I was lacking the XP to have the spells necessary to compete against the tougher magical enemies. Maybe 75% or even the full 100% on those settings would be ideal? That's all that come to mind right now. I have super enjoyed the EET all the way to a few dozen hours into BG2. The game is really fun. Question - Is further content ever being considered for EET? Maybe revisiting Thalantyr in BG2 or something, so he can forge new items for you? Just a thought. Oh, and keep in mind I didn't do Ulgoth's Beard yet, so I missed that XP the first time through (I know I can return later, but there isn't a good roleplaying reason just yet to do that.) Everything else is awesome. Only getting a few items left after the thieves pick through your BG/SoD gear was awesome. Other than that I've had just several minor bugs, like dialog triggering when getting a new companion and them talking about quests they weren't involved with. Sometimes getting a "flood" of dialogue from certain characters about old quests, etc.. But that's it. If you have any questions feel free to ask me. I might fire up the game tonight and play a bit more.
  9. It was hell on Earth indeed but I got past it. Turned up XP gain to 150% for a few to catch up and will set it back to 50 probably once it's balanced out. I guess the 250k cap for SoD was a bad idea after all. Guess I gotta learn the hard way, lol.
  10. Right right, thanks for the tips. Yeah, I was going to try a Protection From Magic scroll + a few other possible tricks (3 Improved Invisible characters, Valygar backstabbing + Wand of Heavens from the shadows and a strong attack from my Cavalier to start the battle, then spam Monster Summoning/Breach/Dispel if necessary.) So yeah, hopefully that works. My main question now is - what should I do about future XP? The game is not "hard" in that it's too hard or too tricky, it's "impossible" because I'm too low level. So I was thinking of running 150% XP for a few hours, doing a quest or two with that setting and trying to catch up to where I should be. Roxanne, you start BG2 usually at level 11, correct? So I should try to catch up to that I think. That's my main concern right now (I can get past the Lavok battle I think, had him Badly Injured last time.)
  11. Huh. I guess I missed all that before installing. Oh well. Guess I'll try again some other time. Didn't realize those options would render the game impossible.
  12. So the massive time traveling (would take 5 days to travel to Ulgoth's Beard, etc.) would be alright to do then? No real time limit or anything in BG2? And for future XP, you think setting it to 50% would be good from here on out then? I don't want to get to a point where the game is impossible to progress, and it's my first time through the game with EET so I'm not sure if that would/could happen.
  13. Ah, thank you for that information. Would be awesome to have it be an actual useful item in BG2. Okay, so I just double checked, and my party is mostly level 9, even some 8. Our highest casting level is 5. We're stuck in the Planar Sphere and I'm not sure what to do. I've raised the XP gain back to 50% but now I'm wondering if I need to set it higher to "catch up" to where I should be. I ended up missing out on Ulgoth's Beard thinking I would come back later in BG2, so might have missed some XP there, but I did Durlag's Tower. Will thoroughly examine the rest of Athkatla and do all the quests, etc., there, but will there be enough XP to get me to where I need to be? My main char is a level 9/10 Mage/Thief. A few characters are level 8 and the rest are 9. Any advice here?
  14. Awesome, thanks Fouinto! I save often already so it's all good. I never ragequit games, but the fight with the halfling mage in the Planar Sphere where he was Near Dead and then killed CHARNAME nearly made me do it, lol. We were fighting that battle for almost an hour trying to win and had to keep re-loading. One of the things I notice about the AI improvements in SCS and what not is that they tend to target the main character at times, even if he/she isn't the most dangerous. My little Gnome Mage/Thief was away from combat minding his business and the mage felt the need to ignore the Cavalier with the Flail of Ages +3 to throw a spell at the little gnome and instakill him. Turning this feature on should protect against that at least. Also some slightly weird balance issues in the game when your MAINCHAR is a mage/low HP character. Kind of interesting to see how that impacts the base game since that character can't die without it being a game over. A 32 HP character vs. a 100 HP character is obviously a bit different there.
  15. I played with no XP cap at all, ~EET_TWEAKS/EET_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2002 // Total XP CAP -> Disabled: 1.7 ~EET_TWEAKS/EET_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2040 // XP for Traps, Spells and Lockpicking -> BG1 values (default): 1.7 ~EET_TWEAKS/EET_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2052 // XP for killing creatures -> Decrease to 50%: 1.7 ~EET_TWEAKS/EET_TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2062 // XP for quests -> Decrease to 50%: 1.7 I did all the big mods in BG1 part (including Sandrah) and the side quests in SoD. My single class fighter (swashbuckler) was level 11 at BG2 start and the continuous NPCs I re-recruited were between level 9-11 depending on their classes and when/how they joined in earlier days. Some of them have meanwhile gained a level during initial SoA quests. I did the slavers including those in the temple district. Did Unseeing Eye and Umar. Also the Mae'Var quest and now owning the thieves guild (thanks to Amber, my thief) and the cleric stronghold (thanks to Chloe, not a cleric but devotee of Lathander). Based on this, the game's quests and challenges are still pretty hard but I am not as desperate as you are, PS - I also defeated the first of the Liches with Kangaxx parts and the Lich in the Crocked Crane, so I have daystar now. And I did one of the TDDz quests to test how it fits into the game now - it was rather easy. Also some Region of Terror episodes (without Drizzt, which I can do as I have Sandrah in party) - those were not too hard. I found that lich in the secret door in the City Gates area inn, but that thing was impossible (even using the SoD "keeper of secrets" or whatever that item is that is supposed to weaken liches.) I imagine liches are just super high level and powerful so I'll come back later. Cool to find that there, though. Does that item still work in BG2 by the way? I also switched my settings to yours exactly, with the 50% XP stuff. I did set the trap/lockpicking XP to vanilla friendly progressive for some reason, dunno why. Might switch it back. But otherwise I'm using what you posted. Will post back later after I try Lavok a few more times. Still might have to cheat to get out of this area. But once out I can reevaluate some things after hopefully leveling up.
  16. Thank you again Roxanne. Sounds good I'll try it.
  17. Hey, quick question. If I turn this ON would it cause any issues? I mean, I wouldn't finish a battle with CHARNAME dead, and I wouldn't try to initiate cutscenes with him dead. This is more because I end up almost winning a battle but then a targeted spell takes him out and I end up losing when I could just resurrect him. Any long-term nasty stuff I need to know before turning this on?
  18. Not sure what happened then. I did set the following caps while playing through EET. BG:EE - 89,000 SoD - 250,000 BG2 - no cap. I'm wondering if that was a bad move or not recommended or something? It was an option in EET Tweaks so I figured it was alright. What level should the start of BG2 be? My party is level 9 I think, but again, we have no level 6 or higher spells. Ah well. I guess I'll give it another shot soon. Haven't played in a couple days.
  19. So I guess I just don't have the proper XP levels then. Maybe I'll turn it back to 50% XP gain and get all that retroactive XP to possibly level up once or so, rather than keeping it at 40% XP. Because I don't have level 6+ spells like Pierce Magic, etc. to deal with these mages. I'm picking up level 7 scrolls from loot but my highest caster can only cast level 5 I think (Nalia might have been able to do 6, or maybe Aerie, not sure. But I think we're still at level 5 spells.)
  20. Thanks again for the tips. I do use those scrolls, potions and buffs, but I admit that I did forget in this case to use stuff like Protection From Undead, since that would help against a lich obviously. I usually go into these battles fully buffed when they require multiple re-loads. Edit - Protection From Magic, d'oh. I forget this stuff, there's so much in the game! lol I did manage to disrupt their casting once in a blue moon, even slowed Lavok the first time I fought him. Guess I just gotta keep holding out until his protections start to waver, and hopefully get a little lucky in the meantime (I could also use more evasive tactics, which I have been doing, although it seems a finer line between evasion and exploiting the game.) I don't think Spell Thrust dispels Spell Shield but I'll definitely look. Haven't even found Secret Word yet (it seems a lot of my problem is not knowing the "correct path" to tackle the content. I end up in higher level areas than I should be, it seems. But I'm just playing the game naturally, it's only my second run through BG2.) Just for comparison, these are the Just to clarify, since you always mention EET - EET only is the platform to make all the parts into one game. It does not change challenge level by itself. Thanks for the info, I didn't realize that. Good to know. Yeah, it's only my 2nd run through BG2 ever (never finished it the first time, but I did finish BG:EE once before) but I did play 50+ hours of BG2 before being distracted and dropping it for awhile. I think my main problem is not knowing the "correct path" through the content, which leaves me seemingly taking on quests and challenges that are just too high level for me. Will have to consider that more. Unfortunately it looks like the poor child kidnapped by vampires will be eaten because of it.
  21. Thanks for taking the time to help, I appreciate it. Here's my thing. I'm fine with it being hard, I'm fine with rakshasas being super powerful (I like that actually, it fits the lore), but it seems every turn I face impossible challenges. Not just hard, impossible. The Planar Sphere, okay, I realize it should be tough. But the Cowled Wizards put me on a time limit to find Valygar. So my RPG Intuition told me I should complete that ASAP, find him and then help him with the sphere. Otherwise, why would Tolgerias tell me to hurry or there would be bad consequences for me? If Breach worked I'd be fine. Not sure about Spell Shield, I get confused by the different protections and it doesn't matter much which ones they are because I throw the same Breach/Remove Magic/Dispel/Spell Thrust at them anyway, to no avail. I'm fairly sure I turned on all the hardest options in SCS, so I probably have the lich/rakshasa immunity on. Which is fine, because they are supposed to be dominantly hard enemies. But the spell doesn't work on any other mage much, either. Human, halfling, whatever. Spamming Dispel seems like something to try. So memorize a bunch of Dispel/Remove Magic spells and just fire em off ASAP? I guess it's my only hope.
  22. This sounds like something else is involved here, not just SCS. I cannot remember rakshasas appearing before Suldanessalar except in mod added areas. The one in Druid Grove is some lesser version, I guess. (But this is just memory and I may be wrong...) Not sure, it's my first time modding the game and I used BWS "Recommended" but also enabled all of the SCS extra options. So far it seems every battle is too hard. I was jumped by 3 rakshasas in Athkatla who wanted the Flail of Ages +3 and I had to run (just barely escaping, it was a random encounter.) Then got ambushed by 6 mages in the wilderness that was entirely a joke as it was completely unwinnable. The troll leader in De'Arnise Keep was a very hard battle but I somehow won (with slight cheating, let the protections run out for the Yuan-Ti Mages, etc..) Fought another random encounter with slavers and the slaver mage was wrecking us. The vampires in Firkraag's lair are impossible for my level 9/10 party, and the rakshasa guarding that area (Ruhk Transmuter) is impossible as well (unless I cheat, which I don't want to have to do that.) So I left those areas and went to the Planar Sphere, same deal. The halfling mage there was impossible without cheating, and then of course Lavok is the same way. The 3 rakshasas in Druid Grove are not lesser in my game, they are also impossible (hilariously so. She buffs with every spell known to man and insta-kills us, much like every other mage, really.) I don't mind a challenge (I want one, a strong one), but these encounters are literally impossible as I have nothing to affect these mages spell-wise. Wand of Heavens, any kind of spell, nothing works. My strongest spell is Breach and it never works and the mages don't even roll Saving Throws when I cast it. I try Remove Magic/Dispel and it never works, which is to be expected based on the small % chance it has. It just gets frustrating because it's impossible to progress without cheating. The weird thing is the rest of the game is nice and balanced. The Juggernaut Golem in Firkraag's lair was tough, but it was doable with proper strategy. But the next room has a bunch of Elder/Ancient Vampires and even with Negative Plane Protection cast I get wrekt so bad it isn't even funny. Come to think of it I *could* sneak past them perhaps, but I'm wondering if I'll just end up running into some other high level mage who will make me have to retreat and leave the area anyway. Not sure what I'm doing wrong here. Here's my weidu.log if you'd like to take a peek at it. I'd appreciate any help because I'm loving the EET so far (played through BG -> SoD -> early areas of BG2 so far) but it's getting really frustrating. Maybe there's bugs or something? Every time I cast Breach I get no Saving Throw message of any kind. It just doesn't do anything. Usually the same thing happens with Remove Magic/Dispel, too. It's as if I didn't even cast them at the mage. ONE time I got a message about it being absorbed by Spell Turning or whatever that one is called (the one that absorbs spells), but that only happened one time. And I'm using some +3 weapons and still can't hit these mages. Also, they do take damage, weirdly enough, from the magical effects on the weapons (Flail of Ages +3 will occasionally do 1 point of fire, acid + frost damage to a mage, but rarely.) I also tried "weird" tactics like going invisible and shooting a mage with a paralytic bolt from the shadows. Doesn't work. Also tried buffing strength incredibly and backstabbing, never works. So I dunno what else to do, haha.
  23. So I'm having a rough go of BG2 w/ EET right now. It seems every quest I do, I basically run into enemies that are much too strong, almost entirely the mages or mage-like creatures (rakshasas, which I understand are high level and powerful, vampires, too.) The humanoid mages are the worst. I can only cast level 5 mage spells at max and have no way at all of even damaging most of these mages. They cast all these protections and all I really have is Breach and Spell Thrust, neither of which seem to ever work (and barely ever even make the mage roll a Saving Throw.) My only option is to run away, wait for their protections to run out and charge back in. I feel that's very cheap and a cheat, basically, but I see no other way of handling these enemies. Am I doing something wrong? Are the Planar Sphere quest and the Firkraag quest meant to be done at much higher levels and I tried them too early? It's a bit confusing really.
  24. Is this mostly safe to use if you keep in mind that you shouldn't "finish" a battle with CHARNAME dead? I mean, if they die and are resurrected before a cutscene happens, things will be okay? You can just reload a save either way, but I'd like to get rid of those annoying "about to win and then oops, charname dies accidentally and it's game over" type of defeats.
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