bob_veng

the non-final status is only formal and the project is already complete it seems. there's been a protraction with IWD-in-EET (because a certain patch isn't happening). i was under the impression that 1.0 will be out when IWD-in-EET gets released (just a personal impression). i can't imagine that 1.0 will bring any real changes to the core EET for example, take the bug argent77 detailed above: it's really an underlying vanilla issue...it's like that with other little things people report.

ah sure yeah in that sense i get how i appear traditional, but i don't come from a tabletop gaming background

between 3 & 4. mostly minimalist, somewhat libertarian (change of already existing content is acceptable only as a last resort and self moderation is often preferable). i think for you it's almost always better to add something new than to change what already exists. this is my criticism (not directed at you personally): if the question is "what is the best change" (and balance issues entail that), than change-averse perspectives, on average, don't offer answers of equal value as pro-change perspectives, because the answer can't always be "best change is minimal change, just to keep the flow going" or "best change is no change at all". it just can't always be that. sometimes more extensive, more revisionist thinking is required. sometimes you need a massive overhaul to "just" keep the flow going. it's better to think radically at fist in order to maybe turn around, look back and say "no, that too much, it's an overreach; more can be done with less" than to always stick to a conservative perspective and not even know or want to know what can be done with "more". i hope you don't mind anything i've said, i take it all back if i've misrepresented you i'm sure everyone will be satisfied in the end, i don't want to "politicize" this topic. it's really not a big deal. after all, we already have all types at least partially represented in existing solutions 1. there is the already existing percentage based xp tweak (not ideal but still great) 2. LoB added high-tier enemies in SoD is a good approach that in theory can be extended 3. there is already a possibility to separate IWD expansions from the main campaign 4. there's the option to have totally vanilla everything

yeah but i wouldn't consider myself traditional because i advocate changing stuff this is how i'd put it 1. revisionist and restrictive mindset (my position) - restrict the availability of resources, make any change that is needed 2. revisionist and permissive mindset - don't restrict the availability of resources, let us *have it all* - i want to feel the powah...but revamp ecounters to make them higher level! even more power! (a respectable position, i don't mean to parody it) 3. conservative and restrictive - don't make any change unless it's absolutely mandatory in order to keep the game functioning at a basic level (so - just "stagger" iwd, but no alterations on the inside, etc.); this is the minimalist perspective and i sympathise with it in substance but it's not a constructive perspective for modding because we're talking about an optional tweak here 4. conservative and permissive - this is the libertarian position: "it's not for you to touch anything, to impose any restrictions on the player when he is so wise, he will self moderate, use the console and NI, create his own mods etc". this is the anti-modding position in essence. it's completely absurd imo. no one is doing that here (but elsewhere on the internet, in different contexts - a lot of people...it's a virus) it's always like this in all discussions of this type

@k4thos here's my manual rebalancing of IWD quest xp http://www89.zippyshare.com/v/TTG5IEui/file.html it turns out to be little, but IWD is about killing monsters anyway prologue - 340 (yep, that little after all...and i stand behind this) chapter 1 - 3000 chapter 2 - 6000 chapter 3 - 7500 chapter 4 - 10000 chapter 5 - 15000 chapter 6 - 50000 HoW - 132000 ToTL - 82500

going good so far... 90 Because you bashed the bottle-bogarting basement beetles 90 For whuppin' the wild Wolf in the workshop 90 For lying to Jhonen or For telling Jhonen the truth 90 For telling Elisia you delivered the blade of Aihonen to Johnen 90 For helping Old Jeb stay off the wagon 150 For giving Damien the remains of his fish 150 For showing Gaspar evidence of the caravan's demise 900 For telling Hrothgar about the caravan 90 For giving the shopping list to Pomab 300 For rescuing Jermsy 150 For giving Ghereg Arundel's headache cure 150 For pushing Ilmater to the peasants 300 For forcing Aldwin to confess or For blackmailing Aldwin 900 For returning Mirek's heirloom 900 For trying to reason with Mytos 6,000 For telling Kresselack that you dealt with Lysan 3,000 For reporting Arundel about the Vale of Shadows 3,000 For... err... well, failing to recover the Heartstone Gem 6,000 For killing the Lizard King and saving the villagers and merchants 3,000 For rescuing Conlan's son, Sheemish 6,000 For saving Egenia and numerous villagers from the Talonites 3,000 For exposing Albion and his cohorts 12,000 For slaying Yxunomei and recovering the Heartstone Gem 3,000 For bringing Denaini some Holy Water or 24000 For killing the crazed occupants of Solonor Tower 6,000 For putting Kaylessa's soldiers to rest 3,000 For giving Gelarith the piece you found on an undead shadow 3,000 For giving Gelarith the piece you found in in Solonor Tower 3,000 For giving Gelarith the piece you found in the war room 3,000 For giving Gelarith the picee you obtained from Kaylessa 24,000 For giving Larrel the Heartstone Gem BUT arent there more IWD quests in chap 3 @subtledoctor i'm not skipping your comment, just can't read now but just by looking i can tell i agree to the extreme

e: tl;don't read anyway the point of the rant in the spoiler is how to subtract IWDEE quest xp from BGEE+BG2EE quest xp so that the total amount is the same and you finish the saga with ~5.5m obviously a simpler method would just be to subtract ~300k from 5.5m and get the corresponding global reduction percentage that is needed for BGEE+BG2EE but this wouldn't produce ~600k at the start of SoA and that's the main goal that should be strived for...i hope i'm being clearer now (i'm completely ignoring monster xp btw)

no, i'm not thinking chapter cap, but quest reward value cap, so no SoD quest has a reward greater than 16k etc so in sod chapters if reward>16k than make it 16k that prevents certain quests from having too small a reward which might feel a bit sad the real offenders are bloated quests and plot milestones that hand you over xp

is it possible to consider setting cut-off values (according to chapter) for southern quests instead of percentile reductions in order not to disincentivize players from solving petty quests? something like (just made up numbers, probably very very off): bg1 - 10k SoD - 16k (IWD maybe even - 16k) BG2 - 64k HoW - 24k TOB - 100k something like that, dunno

i agree about the prologue severed hand and dorn's deep are very epic places, and in severed hand in particular there's (for a change) some actual roleplaying-kinda dramatic development, you learn a lot about the history of the place, you talk with the interesting elven ghosts etc going away from there with just ~12k exp feels inappropriate you get that kind of exp for the circus tent quest

wow great! just what is needed in my opinion do you think you can reduce xp by just 50% in chapters 1-4?

yeah IWD has blatant force-levelling. an argument to remove it in EET is that since ToTL has been released "in the meantime" this artificial experience has been effectively supplanted with real, earned experience, and remaining irrational rewards are ugly leftovers that need to be amended. a similar case can be made for BG2, compared to it's current shape in eet.

it's best to lower total game experience by 40% or 50%. remember that iwd isn't rhe only unbalancing addition. there's SoD and SoA+ToB new EE content which is fairly rewarding. Also more items make it easier. The existence of all the new kits and combined spells also make it easier. but don't increase difficulty with mods too much in that case (not the hardest scs options).

how about this then: "break apart" the random iwd chests and put the random iwd items in a shared pool so that bg items make their way to iwd, and these pseudo-random iwd items can be found in bg. iwd loot table containers are thus abolished. since this creates an overabundance of items because where you could find one of several now you can obtain all from the tables (randomly scattered), a lot of them should be omitted (there are repeating ones) or hand placed to be carried by various characters who otherwise have generic items i just don't want there to be two systems of randomization and want iwd to be fully integrated in every respect. but maybe i'm just pushing it, maybe IR is just fine as it is for EET but i see a lot of advantages in the iwd pseudorandom system and i don't care if a handful of players will abuse it like apes. nobody complained about it in the context of iwd because it's completely impractical to reload and replay whole big dungeons for hours upon hours to get the desired combination of items (they are created upon entering, not upon opening a container)

the items that are randomized in iwd range from mediocre to great, but none are essential. what you describe doesn't happen in reality because you would have to reload, reenter the area for the first time, fight to get to the chest and then see that you may have got something even worse. colossal waste of time. people don't do that.

i don't have a definitive answer to that (many people surely do) but here's what i believe as a long time player: - it would not be able to drop from a number of different chests, just one (so if you don't get it in that container you miss it for the whole game; btw this is excellent for me, personally) - the game does not keep track of anything regarding this (no need to, logically), what you get is what you get and that's it - some items repeat, but they're not unique (even though they're semi-unique, so they might be enchanted weapons with a special ability and not just a generic +2 weapon, but they're not described as being unique in the lore)...this means you can get duplicates of those (in iwd, personally, i haven't considered this to be a problem. this repetition is quite rare and doesn't create imbalances; also in bg there are already duplicate items with special abilities)

this loot table system is just so good...it creates a lot of unpredictability but doesn't create nonsensical placements and keeps everything under control. i think it should be extended to bg1&2. i'd just divide most iwd random containers across bg areas and move context-independent bg items to the tables as well (for example stupefier and a ton of sod items...sod is so loot heavy). this would make for a coherent system. then on top of this item randomizer could work too of course, as an additional layer of randomness. but it would be unnecessary, basically.

There are some big picture considerations with item randomization and EET i think because there's IWD-in-EET and IWD already has it's own form of this mechanic (it has loot tables where containers are like a lottery, so the possibilities are restricted to a fixed pool which is different for each container), even if it's not true randomization, since item locations are not switched around randomly...

i'd just like to interject: - general quality of sod is fine (the reception is uniformly positive in the media if you look for reviews and not various polemical texts) - moddability problem has already been fixed (modmerge tool)

Remember to dissociate TotL from the context of IWD for now because maybe there will be a component that moves it out of IWD to (probably) Athkatla And 1200 lines wow! You seem like a pretty focused guy, I'm sure you did an amazing job. Have you remembered to include comments about the environment? That's easy to write i think and always sounds relevant. I mean reactions to new areas such as: Dragon's eye - it stinks! (Lizards stink) Severed hand, burial isle - creepy place! Most outdoor places - it's cold! Barbarian village - stupid barbarians i hate/despise/pity them! (Snobbish city-dwelling characters)

Hi! I'm not getting the acc validation e-mail for days. Pls halp!