Roxanne

Judging by the travel time the party must have passed another area before arriving in AR2601. Travel time from City Gates to the Wild Forest is 20 hours. Travel time from AR2601 to Wild Forest is only 6 hours.

 

Now I have encountered another issue. The entrance point of the Wild Forest is not right either. I'm arriving at the top right corner of the map which allows me to travel directly to the Hidden Camp without picking up Neera. The only mod in my installation that modifies the worldmap are the components "Restored Random Encounters" and "Minor Restorations" of Almateria's Restoration Project.

 

Just a guess - since Drizzt and company are spawned in ar 2601 by script, this may be an indication that this area was originally intended as a random encounter area with Drizzt appearing in the one special case. The mod may have restored this situation.

Your arguments about getting money too quickly are based on the assumption that mods have been added on top of EET. In vanilla EET you are in the same situation as when you start a vanilla BG2 game (unless you metagame and prepare beforehand). You have to do at least Nalia's quest or some odd jobs to earn some money.

 

If you install mods that allow you to gain money much faster then it's also no problem to install a tweak that increases the amount of money needed for the Shadow Thieves. I still believe that EET should not change the vanilla storyline without very good reasons, especially if it involves personal opinions about how to improve gameplay. There will always be at least one player having a different view.

 

You are absolutely right.

My view on EET is that it will be the new platform for modded games. But of course, this is just a single view.

I have brought up the discussion mainly to avoid the situation where various mods now will introduce their own solution to the issue.

However, if common approach remains that EET leaves this open to mods, so be it.

I think the solution I will apply within my own mod ( which will only be applied when you have the respective NPC in the party) does not interfer with anything else, so the problem is solved for me.

(And with NI any user can just replace the single value in baldur.bcs quoted further up to the sum he/she likes to have and be happy.)

 

because I thought EET wasn't taking your money away in CI

 

all your items and money are taken from you in Irenicus Dungeon in EET. Optionally you will be able to install EET_Tweaks component that moves items to Illych's chest within the dungeon, but that's a tweak and not something that players will experience by default.

 

Maybe the real issue was not communicated well enough. Money and items are no longer an issue with EET, you get plenty of it in no time even if you have 0gp at CI start. In vanilla, the money for Imoen was a real challenge - it is not in EET.

However, chapter 14 is and was the mayor part in SoA - it is where you meet old and new companions, start friendships/romances, have additional mod-added quests etc. Many relations (including the vanilla romances) must reach some status before you set off for Spellhold. Now, like I tried to illustrate in my example, you can reduce this to an hour of real time gameplay and then Valen turns up.

The problem with it is that from this point on you need to do some meta-gaming to avoid certain encounters or areas (even more if you have Alternatives-like mods installed), e.g the gaveyard area is blocked since you would face Bodhi and you MUST decide for one side or other (i.e. any mod using graveyard area would be blocked)....just some examples, there is much more - this chapter always was modder's paradise and playground and should be explored in days/weeks not just one or two hours.

 

Since the situation is created by the base EET installation, my argument is that EET should be a stand-alone playable mod - not requiring the user to use a handbook/guidance tthat tells him to install some extra tweaks and mods to get a meaningful game in the end.

 

 

I agree with this statement although not sure if I understand the whole problem. You loose all of the money at the start of SoA. So the only way to travel to Spellhold is either doing quests in BG2 areas (which will take exactly the same amount of this as doing it in vanilla BG2:EE) or going back to old BG1/SoD areas to do unfinished quests there and pick up some previously left out valuable items to sell them (in the latter case it's a player's decision to speed up the length of Chapter 14 that could be warranted from the role-playing perspective).

 

Without any item/tweak etc mods by just selling a few items found in the dungeon, first promenade visit and doing slum slaver quests, I already have enough gold to potentially finish chapter 14. (I was only at promenade, slums and docks so far). This is almost vanilla contents and still I could already go to Spellhold.

 

but exactly the same is true for vanilla BG2:EE. Shouldn't it be a feature request to Beamdog than?

 

I have implemented this very simple solution (in Baldur.bcs) that is independent/compatible with any other thing done by mod or bean dogs.

IF

PartyGoldGT(129999)

Global("BodiAppear","GLOBAL",7) //This delays Valen and Brus until you have 130k gold - it is set in last SoD area thus it only applies for games when you did the transition from BG1/SoD

THEN

RESPONSE #100

SetGlobal("BodiAppear","GLOBAL",0) //This restores the original vanilla condition

END

As an extra I will mod Gaelan dialog to say 20k if Global("BodiAppear","GLOBAL",0) and 150k if Global("BodiAppear","GLOBAL",7).

There is already a tweak out there that allows you to set the amount to up to 130k (Tweak anthology I think)

There is, and you may also use EET Tweaks etc.

My main argument was, that (even without item import and such) EET creates the situation where you have a party coming out of Irenicus dungeon and then talking to Gaylan which is almost immediately ready to go on to Spellhold (you need to carefully avoid to get too much money right away and spoil your game). The old value was set for the Bioware BG2 game for a level one party starting in the dungeon (needing XP and gold first to be able to care for Imoen). In EET we have the (fallen) heroes of Baldur's Gate and Dragonspear.

Since the situation is created by the base EET installation, my argument is that EET should be a stand-alone playable mod - not requiring the user to use a handbook/guidance tthat tells him to install some extra tweaks and mods to get a meaningful game in the end.

EET by pure definition and scope is NOT vanilla, so an argument to say *keep it vanilla* makes little sense. The vanilla BG2EE is there, for anyone who wants to play this and it is not EET.

Anyway - I already coded and tested the applicable solution, so it is no issue for me anymore.

Travelling to Spellhold in EET

There is a need for EET to change the trigger in baldur.bcs

into something more feasible for the combined game (maybe even tweak Gaelan diaogue to reflect new value). Without any item/tweak etc mods by just selling a few items found in the dungeon, first promenade visit and doing slum slaver quests, I already have enough gold to potentially finish chapter 14. (I was only at promenade, slums and docks so far). This is almost vanilla contents and still I could already go to Spellhold.

This is not an issue for EET Tweaks or some mod - this is something essential for EET basic features otherwise chapter 14 may easily be considered as bugged.

PS continuously repeating "EET should not change any vanilla content" does not make this already weak argument any better. EET is a new game experience and it should not be *bugged* by Valen (and Brus) alreadyappearing after an hour or so gameplay in Amn, this destroys the whole story and all you can do in chapter 14. (Who needs a stronghold now or even leave the town for quests to gain money??)

 

that belt is the most overpowered item ever though, even considering cheesy mods.

Well, not so much... yeah, it will make Imoen unkillable yeah... but she'll kick herself out of the party right after the fight is over ... via a dialog that you can't refuse to not go through(as far as I know), and escapes with your wealth.

 

The dialog is not attached to the item (pst actually can do that) and I'm sure EET is not (re)assigning CI dialog to Spellhold Imoen.

The item prevents Imoen to die during Irenicus dungeon. When she is too low on HP, she escapes the dungeon with said dialogue to meet you outside (and be captured with Irenicus). This vanilla behaviour is not changed by EET (just played it a couple of days ago). In this aspect there is no change due to EET and none was to be expected.

 

1. Will it be necessary to change anything in ADD_JOURNAL @1 @2 @3 USING bla/bla to get mod's journal entry into the quest part of the journal (where applicable).

 

I think argent77 will be able to answear this. From what I understand his code works exactly the same as ADD_JOURNAL weidu command that works on pre patch 2.x games, so if Wisp will internalize it to use non-function syntax than you won't need to change anything.

2. Are there other changes a mod needs to consider with this update?

 

weidu? Nothing that I'm aware of. EET now merges TLK files but it doesn't affect mods in any way, so nothing has to be changed in your code. EET_functions.tph file that automatically implements EET NPC continuity system to NPC mods has been updated but from what I remember you don't use it, so you don't need to replace the file in your mod folder (although you will need to redownload EET compatibility patches once RC6 is pushed to GitHub since many of them depends on this file).

 

Thanks.

Just a little update - RC6 is ready but not pushed to GitHub yet. I think it may be a good idea to wait for weidu 239.03 release, so we can test both feature complete EET (last RC release before 1.0 unless there will be enough problems to warrant additional RC) and probably the last weidu version before stable release that supports patch 2.x features at the same time. If I interpret this post correctly next weidu release candidate is right around the corner.

Maybe you understand more than I do and can clarify this

1. Will it be necessary to change anything in ADD_JOURNAL @1 @2 @3 USING bla/bla to get mod's journal entry into the quest part of the journal (where applicable).

2. Are there other changes a mod needs to consider with this update?

(Otherwise I have a ready and tested megamod for EET, just waiting for NTotSC to become available)

Short question to the upcoming NTotSC for EET - are there any changes to the mod's internal resources (Global-names, cre, itm are)?

 

374

Yes Roxanne, I followed the installation procedure exactly as you said, but for some reason the patched mods fail to install, including BP BGT worldmap, but they install without the patches.

 

Worldmap will install without the patch but in game you will be missing the additional map icons for the SoD areas (and later IWD) and some other support for EET. All SoD areas will look the same on your map and partly overlap each other.

Maybe you should download the patches file once more, looks like something may be wrong with your download.

Me and many others did successful playable installs with that method before.

I managed to make an install on RC5 with the patches though?

Same here.

 

264

Hello, I am trying to install some mods on EET from the list, but none of the ones that require patching work after they're patched, at least not the ones I tried. All the BGee and compatible BG2ee mods I tried seemed to work, except for Thrown Hammers. I have GOG versions 2.3.67 of all three games, modmerged, installed in their own dedicated SSD partition (saves a lot of time), and am running Windows 7. Here are a handful of the debug files. The unpatched versions from the third list seem to install properly. It does not matter whether I install any of the mods from the first or second list, the result is the same when I try to apply patched mods. Am I missing something really simple?

 

http://www75.zippyshare.com/v/6TalXPyV/file.html

 

Are you sure you follow the right install procedure? (it is slightly different from what BGT once did)

1) Have a clean BGEE install >> run modmerge

>> install the selected mods from list 1 in the BGEE game (test the game to make sure)

2) Have a clean BG2EE install >> install EET in the BG2EE game

>> install what you want from list 2 in the BG2EE game- (if you want a mod from list 3 unpack it to BG2EE, replace the necessary files with the one from the patch packet and then install it) >> run Worldmap after all mods are installed >> run EET_end

About half the 4K+ speakers are specifically assigned and about half can be randomly (or sequentially) assigned. It runs through all the possibilities first before reusing portraits. (thanks argent77 and others here).

 

It's pretty cool.

Looks like a great addition to the game.

I have installed it already.

(I found a small issue I am unable to test this time as I already did the quest - when you do chicken Melicamp, you give the rescued mage a face. It is something my mod does as well since Melicamp becomes a joinable NPC later in the game and I wanted consistency. I think there is no problem - your mod changes portrait via Thalantyr dialog and a round later mine does it from Melicamp's script - at least I hope this is how it works...)

I've taken a closer look at the keldda.dlg and don't see a major issue with it. The additional dialog state in the BG1EE version should be considered by the mods that add to his dialog. There are several dialogs in BG(2)EE which have been overhauled or slightly expanded in one way or another. I don't see a need to "fix" it in EET.

Is there somewhere an overview of those dialogues?

There are some central ponts in the game that are used quite frequently by modders (Thalantyr, Adventurer's Mart, Officials in Council of Six etc), where such an overhaul may affect a large number of interjects or appends.

Agree with Argent. If they fix it later at Beamdog then your custom fix might Bork things up.

 

Suggest reporting it as a bug on bd forums ...

Sorry, I used the wrong words - the bug is not a bug and the fix is not a fix.

The situation is that the vanilla dialog in itself is okay as Kelddar at the temple has nothing more to deliver once you have been through cloakwood and fought Bassilius. Only modders have frequently used him because of the central position of his temple on the Sword Coast. All you need to know is that you must assure that your appends to his dialogue need to go to the part before the block I mentioned (which you do by using weight - and when using it you must be careful to code your conditions without blocking later stuff...but that should be obvious).

Mods that have been coded and testet for BG1 or BGT (e.g. Gavin) are now blocked away unless you carry wyvern heads with you across the Sword coast.

The rest is inherited from original BG1 even prior BGEE, this dialogue was always pretty basic and poor.

Each fix has the potential to cause undesired side effects. I agree that this issue should be dealt with, but preferably in a more universal way. Affected mods still have to work around this issue in vanilla BG1EE.

Modders can fix it (if they recognise the issue) by using weight in appending to the file - in my current installation Gavin and Sirene were effected, Gavin's quests from the temple would not be accessible (unless you return to the Cloakwood for the trophy or Clua ahead.).

Not sure where this bug comes from, vanilla or EET

Reference Keldda.dlg (The priest at Morninglord Temple near Beregost, central figure for many quests)

 

This trigger

Dead("CORWYVRN")

!PartyHasItem("MISC52")

!Global("wyvernp","GLOBAL",1) blocks everything when you have killed some specific wyvern (connected with Coran) and you do not have his head with you - it happens even when you do not have Coran in party (or ever had him at all).

So, once you have been through Cloakwood and killed Bassilius, Keddar is bugged.

 

(Solved locally by setting SetGlobal("wyvernp","GLOBAL",1)

 

Further investigation

BG1UB/SETUP-BG1UB.TP2~ 0 5 // Coran and the Wyverns: v14.0_beta_151127 (the very first mod ever to touch the file) already inherits the bug, so it seems to be vanilla.

 

The whole idea behind this is erroneous - Kelddar should give you a reward if you killed the beast and brought his head - there is no issue for him to complain (and block all further options) if you do not claim the reward? i.e.

Dead("CORWYVRN")

PartyHasItem("MISC52")

!Global("wyvernp","GLOBAL",1) >>>> then give a reward and SetGlobal("wyvernp","GLOBAL",1)

 

In BG4501 (wyvern cave in cloakwood) now both creatures exist, the unique one for UB repair and the vanilla one checked by this dialogue. The bug exists despite UB attempt to fix it.

Actually - this is not even a bug in vanilla game, since it has no negative effect there. It only becomes an issue when mods (Sirene, Gavin, BG1NPCs, Sandrah etc) add to the dialogue and this is no longer the last trigger in the file. In vanilla it is just badly written, as nobody without knowledge about the game and Coran's quest will be able to interpret the line Kelddar has.

Not sure where this bug comes from, vanilla or EET

Reference Keldda.dlg (The priest at Morninglord Temple near Beregost, central figure for many quests)

This trigger

Dead("CORWYVRN")
!PartyHasItem("MISC52")
!Global("wyvernp","GLOBAL",1) blocks everything when you have killed some specific wyvern (connected with Coran) and you do not have his head with you - it happens even when you do not have Coran in party (or ever had him at all).

So, once you have been through Cloakwood and killed Bassilius, Keddar is bugged.

(Solved locally by setting SetGlobal("wyvernp","GLOBAL",1)

Further investigation

BG1UB/SETUP-BG1UB.TP2~ 0 5 // Coran and the Wyverns: v14.0_beta_151127 (the very first mod ever to touch the file) already inherits the bug, so it seems to be vanilla.

The whole idea behind this is erroneous - Kelddar should give you a reward if you killed the beast and brought his head - there is no issue for him to complain (and block all further options) if you do not claim the reward? i.e.

Dead("CORWYVRN")
PartyHasItem("MISC52")
!Global("wyvernp","GLOBAL",1) >>>> then give a reward and SetGlobal("wyvernp","GLOBAL",1)

In BG4501 (wyvern cave in cloakwood) now both creatures exist, the unique one for UB repair and the vanilla one checked by this dialogue. The bug exists despite UB attempt to fix it.

 

 

I'm sorta fine with leaving it up to players to regulate their own experience, with scaling as an optional feature. Scaling is never going to be a "perfect" solution but it is a solution of a kind. Another idea is just lowering the total XP gained in game by a percentage which I think probably works better but still will result in issues since it means you will need to switch between IWD and BG campaigns to not be underleveled.

 

My own personal method of solving this is going to be to just swap in and out companion characters frequently throughout my adventure, trying to get at least a little bit of time with everyone which should even out the XP gains (and regularly just deducting XP from my PC to keep them at around the same curve). I was even thinking about making a mod around the idea of swapping characters in and out of your party frequently which I might look into after this releases.

I have used a similar idea for my mod's extension after ToB - while the two protagonists of the sequel get a reduction of their XP (while keeping all their abilities), the new NPCs you can get come in at varius levels according to their story-line experience when you meet them. Thus, PC hardly gains another level in the first 3/4 of the sequel while lower level NPCs learn from travelling with you. This makes challenges and encounters of various levels still interesting even when you have a PC at ToB level in the party.

 

Hmm... I like this idea regarding forced XP reduction without removing actual levels. Something like this can be added as an optional tweak for EET_Tweaks - Cut Protagonist's XP at the beginning of SoA to a range chosen during component installation. Let's say:

1. 89,000 (vanilla BG1 XP Cap)

2. 161,000 (TotSC XP Cap)

3. 500,000 (SoD XP Cap)

4. Custom Value

 

1. It is not actually a cap but rather substract an amount of XP from the Player1 (just used AddExperience with negative value at some transition)

2. Another thing for areas that I use is some random effect scripts for higher level parties to impact their fighting abilities. E.g. in some caves I simulate stale/poisonous air or vapours that lets a random party member get unconcious for some rounds. Similar things can be done for icy outside areas (freeze random party member for sme rounds) or overheated lizard caves (swoon from the heat)...

In a way the situation is similar to my after-ToB contents and revisit of former areas, i.e. keep it interesting and challenging without putting a bunch of liches and a dragon in every other area.

Witch the scaling I was thinking more about something to make let's say level 7 or 14 Cleric not automatically destroy every single undead in Vale of Shadows by just turning on 'Turn Undead' skill. Not necessary making the monsters a hardcore challenge or constantly improve them like in Skyrim. More details regarding this idea:

- Average Party Level could be checked when you enter the area and compared to the level that is expected in vanilla game. By subtracting expected level from average level the script would know overall how much overlevelled the party is.

- Script that improves monsters would than use one of let’s say 4 possible improvement steps for a monster - 1 improvement step gained for each 5 levels of the party above the expected level.

 

The problem here is to come up with a fair system for these monster power incensements to not make them too hard compared to vanilla game by modestly altering the stats. Simple things like few additional levels to prevent undeads from exploding but running in fear instead when Turn Undead is used, additional Hit Dices, so creature don’t die on a single hit, improved saving throws to not always be affected by most devastating spell effects, better THACO to somewhat take into account that overlevelled party is likely wearing better armors compared to vanilla game etc. Nothing hardcore like Legacy of Bhaal mode.

 

Of course if something like this will be implemented than it would require feedback from players if it still feel fair or makes the game frustrating. I don’t see a problem with adding a feature for disabling the system alltogether if player don’t care about monster power at all - in fact such thing could be added to in-game options menu, so that player could disable it mid-game if it becomes too frustrating (yep, patch 2.x GUI system is that awesome)

 

Notice that with components installed that reduce XP in whole game (see: EET Tweaks) the system would most likely not even trigger in later parts since the party wouldn't be so much overpowered compared to expected levels and the content already have reduced XP gains by default compared to vanilla games - in case of IWD:EE 1/4 XP for quests to make them more in line with BG1 rewards, also existing monster XP reward is compared with re-calculated value using 2nd edition D&D rules for default Hit Dice based XP (Ravenloft Compendium) - lower value of the 2 is chosen for creature.

 

-----------

 

If anyone have idea how to design monster scaling in a fair way than we are very interested in such help. Modding skills are not needed (I can code everything), what’s important here is a grand vision how exactly it should work.

Not a solution but one additional idea I have used for higher level parties - adding new challenges to existing maps when the party is average at higher level than vanilla. Like if you mix some unexpected type of enemy among a group of existing enemies, some goblin spellcasters among a group of normal goblins, a troll or two. The idea is to require more than one strategy against a (mixed) group of monsters instead of just increasing level of the existing ones.

I'm sorta fine with leaving it up to players to regulate their own experience, with scaling as an optional feature. Scaling is never going to be a "perfect" solution but it is a solution of a kind. Another idea is just lowering the total XP gained in game by a percentage which I think probably works better but still will result in issues since it means you will need to switch between IWD and BG campaigns to not be underleveled.

 

My own personal method of solving this is going to be to just swap in and out companion characters frequently throughout my adventure, trying to get at least a little bit of time with everyone which should even out the XP gains (and regularly just deducting XP from my PC to keep them at around the same curve). I was even thinking about making a mod around the idea of swapping characters in and out of your party frequently which I might look into after this releases.

I have used a similar idea for my mod's extension after ToB - while the two protagonists of the sequel get a reduction of their XP (while keeping all their abilities), the new NPCs you can get come in at varius levels according to their story-line experience when you meet them. Thus, PC hardly gains another level in the first 3/4 of the sequel while lower level NPCs learn from travelling with you. This makes challenges and encounters of various levels still interesting even when you have a PC at ToB level in the party.

 

I'm not a huge fan of the scaling idea, suggest making it optional in IWDinEETTweaks.

 

Same, here.

 

When discussing this in the IWDinEET context, it would mean that any party at any time should be able to do any campaign. This makes little sense. It is far more realistic gameplay that you meet challenges you are not (yet) up to and it is part of role playing to find another solution in such a case (where a solution may be just to run away - come back later when you are fit). All over the game there are situations where a specific item/skill/weapon/abilty is required before you can solve it. Would be quite boring if all of IWD is just full of goblins because you took your level 1 party up there.

I'm just encountering a strange issue. I'm currently in SoD, Ducal Palace, after picking up some of my former companions which includes Minsc and Dynaheir. Now, whenever I try to enter the bedrooms on the upper floor (BD0103) Dynaheir is removed from the party and the map. Afterwards Minsc is experiencing the dreaded stutter bug and can't walk more than two steps in a row. Even Safana's animation is always in her busy state on that map, although she can still move normally. I'm running a number of mods, so I don't really know whether it's EET-related.

 

I've attached a save and the area script from the bedrooms area if you want to take a closer look.

 

000000101-Dynaheir issue.zip

bd0103.baf.zip

It is odd

GlobalLT("BD_PLOT","GLOBAL",51) would cause the NPCs to leave while in BD0103 -- however it is set to 54 i your save. The nightly visit of Skie should trigger when you get up to the room to rest.

I ran your save through my installation and everything works fine - nobody leaves, nobody stutters. You talk to imoen - you rest - Skie visits - you wake up. Game goes on.

Is there anything in the scropts of those A7 creatures that may reset this Global when you walk into BD0103?

Is it still planned to be able to go to IWD with BG2 characters in your party? I was wondering since K4thos mentioned the plot integration might be connected to SoD. I'd love to hear banter and interjections from as many NPC's as possible!

 

And thank you for the README, Roxanne =)

Maybe at this point it is worth mentioning that IWD itself is not just one mod but has distinct parts (original IWD1 - Heart of Winter - IWD2 - Tales of the Luremaster). As such each may require a different treatment and assessment.

On top of that IWD1 and 2 create a problem for a *simple* make it available as it is in EET approach. There is an overlay of game areas and IWD2 partly revises IWD1 areas and characters (e.g. you have elder versions of those who were young in IWD1), assuming that its plot takes place a long time after IWD1.

As such, HoW and TotL can be easily added to EET as just another mod which you can visit at your discretion - while IWD1 and 2 require additional modifications, especially if you want to have both of them in the same game (and alongside SoD).

And - with adding IWD areas to the worldmap you open the possibility to travel between different IWD *campaigns* and the main plot which again may create consistency problems.

One solution to all of that could be (and this is what many propose) that EET does not care for this at all but leave it all up to the choice of the user...(this approach is based on the assumption that EET players are familiar with the original IWD - otherwise you will loose yourself completely in a mess of different plots that initially were independent games.)