Daxtreme

On 10/8/2021 at 2:21 PM, Isewein said:

Dear all,

'Tis the season and I have failed my Will Save miserably, so I am now in the process of setting up another hibernal Baldur's Gate playthrough. Once more this brings up the question of whether the advantages of EET outweigh the negatives. In the old days of BGT, the decision was basically a no-brainer, but with the EEs the most obvious benefits of using a Trilogy mod have been made redundant. Since I am terrible at making decisions without overly lengthy deliberation, I figured I might as well share my thought process for the benefit of others sitting on the fence. Please feel free to amend your own thoughts to this list, it might become a nice community resource to have after all.

Pros

-Continous Journal

-stat boni on NPCs carry over

-ToB Fate Spirit summons continous NPCs

-EET-Exclusive mods: The Cowled Menace, DSotSC v4 (why?), EET Tweaks

Cons

-most of the promise of a continous world remains theoretical in nature, there is basically no reason to revisit any BG1 areas in the later portion of the game (yet)

-separate game installs offer more flexibility in addressing bugs

-continous NPCs fall far behind in levels between games if you do not include them in the party at all times

-EET-incompatible mods: Eve of War (looks exciting!), Jan's Extended Quest, Homeward Bound

I know it's basically 1 year late but I wanted to chime in on the bolded point, which is exactly why my mod (cowled menace) is an EET-exclusive.

To give a reason to bring people back to BG1 when you're in BG2. Hopefully more mods follow suit!

I checked the Unofficial Item Pack and it is indeed overwriting the whole .CRE file relevant to my mod just to add an item.

This is a BIG NO, shouldn't be done ever, a mod like this would never get approved on G3

It is not compatible with my own mod that's for sure, not sure if deleting the line would be enough, but it should fix the biggest issues.

13 hours ago, Oloriniel said:

The Twisted Rune?  It was too hard the first time I tried it, right after killing Sarevok. 

So I came back and tried again after Durlag's Tower and the Driz'zt Saga, it might have been the very last thing I didbefore moving on to SoD; by that time my main was 11/11/11, so the rest of the party was probably in the L 11-13 range.

Drake had an item or two that increased his Turning level, so the mummy went kaboom at the start of the fight.  Enough Breach scrolls had dropped from random loot that Brandock and Xan and I all had it.  And I put "protection from magic" scrolls on everyone before going in.
 

Thanks for the report, the mummy shouldn't have gone kaboom, that was an oversight I will fix  (it should be a level 15+ cleric)

Not making this quest EET dependent would require reworking the mod quite a bit. Dialogue, triggers, areas, they would all need to be changed. For now version 1.0.0 aimed at fixing the critical bugs and coming out of beta.

Also, from a lore point of view I like how the mod ties things together, implicating Baldur's Gate in Athkatla's business and vice-versa.

Basically, it wasn't the goal of this update, which was mainly a stability update and fixing missing pieces.

Heads up, v1.0.0 released. Out of Beta!

Changelog:

- Fixed Baldur's Gate Twisted Rune encounter not switching to enemy status in certain cheese situations where dialog couldn't happen. Fixed the same encounter not having any dialog in the beginning with SCS installed.
- Fixed a bug where you could endlessly repeat the last part of the quest to get massive amounts of experience when certain conditions were met.
- Evil players should have a proper (although still only partially satisfying) conclusion to the quest now.
- Improved Twisted Rune AI slightly compared to vanilla (they won't wait around in corner)
- Fixed a bug with the Twisted Rune ambush in the Guarded Compound not happening all the time. (If you have cleared the Twisted Rune enclave, they're still not gonna show though, that's intended)
- Fixed various weird behaviors with map region triggers.

Current plans for 1.0.1 are only to include Russian translation

Amazing thread Oloriniel, documenting everything!

I have to ask, how did the Twisted Rune enclave fight in BG go, as far as difficulty goes? Really curious as you also had SCS installed. Technically it's designed to be too hard for a typical BG1 party, and you come back to it once you're in BG2 (somebody opens the bridge for you). But you were quite high level for BG1 that's for sure.

I am eagerly anticipating more progression Looking especially at the skinner murder quest

8 hours ago, Guest cog said:

I haven't made it to SoA yet, still in BG1. Does this mean I've effectively broken the quest? I'd be hugely disappointed by that. If so, how can I fix it (by manipulating variables I mean)?

Oops wrong person, it was somebody else who managed to finish the quest in SoA instead of ToB, which I haven't been able to replicate.

Also,  I installed SCS yesterday (my computer is slow, it took well over 3 hours haha), and I confirmed what I suspected:

SCS replaces a vampire script for my custom character in the BG Enclave, and this new script prevents the dialog from firing. So when you enter, nothing happens unless you go talk to her directly, which is a bug.

Working on a fix. I haven't seen any other problem with SCS so for the rest of the run you should be fine. Most of the content is in SoA, with the quest ending happening in ToB. If you could provide feedback on how challenging the fights were with SCS that'd be much appreciated! Normally the other ones should be much harder to cheese (but still possible).

edit: Alright it's fixed on my side. If you enter invisible with SCS you can run around and do stuff, but as soon as anything happens dialog begins, and if the vampire goes hostile they all go hostile. If she somehow dies before the dialog they all go hostile. Basically there's no way around it. Without SCS it's even harder to not trigger anything as the vampire casts True Sight if you enter invisible so you have a few seconds at most to do anything. But without SCS the fight is much easier, that's for sure.

I have a few more stuff to test but once that's done I will push the update.

I honestly have no clue how anyone can succeed the Twisted Rune (Athkatla) encounter with SCS on insane difficulty without laying traps in advance where they all spawn. Maybe I'm just bad at this game though It's so fucking hard, especially since my mod makes it even harder by increasing Layene's HP and level. The one in Baldur's Gate should also be epicly difficult if you do it after buying the license in Athkatla, as a level 30 wizard joins the fray (in addition to the Lich, the mummy that's also an epic-level cleric spamming Gate, the rune assassin, and a nasty vampire wizard). And with the update you won't be able to cheese that one the way you did as they're already spawned in and will go hostile asap.

But Shangalar in Athkatla is something else. With SCS he spams those Planetars and stuff, casts Time Stop like 3 times... a nightmare to deal with.

And the mod's final fight in ToB is probably even worse LOL

6 hours ago, Guest cog said:

Actually, this was with SCS installed in insane difficulty. The biggest issue here is that they weren't chained together so when one went hostile the others didn't, that allowed me to take them out one by one. I agree that they should not go hostile until they're talked to (to allow buffing etc for what will inevitable be a very hard fight) *but* if you attack any of them before conversation took place, they should all go hostile.

Whether they should initiate conversation as soon as they see anyone from the party, I will leave up to the mod creator

They were already initiating conversation as soon as you enter, you must have been invisible and some SCS script probably overwrote  their "see PC, dialogue with them" script. I'll need to look into that. Thanks for testing that by the way, I was in need of SCS testers as specified in the readme to see if bugs would arise.

In any case, in the new version, as soon as one of them is attacked, they all enter combat.

By the way, how did you manage to finish this quest in Shadows of Amm, I might ask? That is not supposed to happen.

9 hours ago, Guest Morgoth said:

Hey,
are you still planning for changes for the evil path after the feedback I've offered, or will it stay the way it is?

Cheers

Yes I am still brainstorming this, even considering a brief fight with

In any case, something will be added, regardless of what it is. A journal entry and a few lines of dialog, at the very absolute least.

So this has been fixed on my side already (now they will properly go hostile when shit happens around them), so next update this will be rolled into it. By the way if you're not dodging the initial dialog trigger in any way this bug won't happen even in the current version.

I will simply make them hostile as they should be, nothing else. There's a difference between cheese and some enemies acting way dumber than they should. In this case, they should behave like the rest of the Twisted Rune and it's the behavior I will give them.

The rest though... if you manage to cheese it some other way, congratulations

Yes SCS makes this fight much harder, not sure how you'd go about cheesing it. Knowing players though, surely they'd find a way

Thanks for the feedback, indeed in the original Twisted Rune encounter they made them all appear after the dialogue specifically to prevent this cheese. It seems like I failed to see this possibility (attacking without the dialogue happening)

Indeed, I always use COPY_EXISTING so there is no way my mod replaces the whole file like this

I would say yes since I believe Spell Revisions doesn't change AI behavior with the casting of gate.

If you run SCS though, safely ignore that optional component.

On 12/5/2021 at 6:15 PM, Mordekaie said:

Hi,

I am in the process of preparing my EET install order.

A question about installation order.

From the readme,  Cowled Menace should be installed after NPC mods and SCS, but before Tweaks and EET-End. It is quite confusing as SCS comes usually very late and after EET-end.

Can you check about install order?

 

 

Sorry for delay. Yeah since then the SCS and EET installations have changed, it's a bit confusing since even the authors of SCS and EET don't seem to see eye-to-eye on this one (might have changed recently)

I would say, install Cowled Menace after NPC mods. Then install the rest (SCS, EET-end, etc)

Cześć!

That component in my mod uses only Vanilla item codes so if a mod changes those items, it will use the new ones.

Also worthy of note is that this component also modifies some random loot tables, namely rndtres.tda, RNDSCR04, RNDSCR05

The random scrolls that will drop from these 2 tables (rare, high level scrolls) will cover more spells in the game because of that modification. The rndtres.tda file is basically just adding the modified RNDSCR tables to it, and adding new tables for random cloaks+rings, and another one for miscellaneous magical items (amulet, bracers...)

Hope that helps

On 7/26/2021 at 4:25 AM, Guest Morgoth said:

Last thing:
 

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I think that you could also open a path for the players that has payed the license in BG2 by making it so that you get ambushed by Zallanora after you entered the house in bridge district.

 

That's a great idea, I hadn't thought of that. Will consider Thanks

On 7/26/2021 at 4:12 AM, Guest Morgoth said:

No, I didn't go into the Baldur's gate 1 Area. Simply because you gave another (welcome) chance to roleplay that was simply "forbidden" in the game: you had no real reward by trying to cleanse Aktlaktha from the cowled wizards. 

I would be willing to bet hat every player, in every playthrough at least once has a cowled wizard appear to warn him not to use the spells on plain air. And that players have been killing them only once, because when you've finished with them, you notice you don't get any meaningful reward or money by doing so. 
 

In fact, I was into using Klatu fixes that buffs the xp points they drop.

Given what this mod does, I would bet that players will now be more keen into just go full berserk against the mages (I'm one of them, especially considering that the xp have been buffed and the "chaotic" route is not as punished as before).

Anyway, what I would probably suggest:
 

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1) Make it possible to play this mod even without EET. I think there would also be a possibility to add the baldur's gate 1 enclave without having EET. All you have to do in that note dropped (if I remember well there is a note dropped when you fight the cowled wizards) where you are said where to go - just add a button on the note "go to the location" and make it happen. Also, do you think the usage of a BG1 location is justified? What I mean is: is the "BG1" location essential to play the mod? 

2) Make your mod an alternative to Klatu's fixes. There may be people not willing to install the main component, but the "appropriate items for enemy mages" is surely a welcome addition. Make it so that the players not interested into the main component of the mod can still download your mod to have appropriate fights with cowled wizards. Zallanora should be probably drop some good loot. Don't know what, but I would bet someone in Beamdog or G3 knows what would be appropriate. 

3) Add some meaningful roleplay options to the encounter. I would make it so that the evil player can get his payment from shoon and betray him. Not only that, I think that the evil player could be interested into looting the mystra follower for the stuff she has. So after killing Shoon, let the encounter go through as you currently have - make both be teleported into the pocket plane, and then kill the Mystra follower here. Mystra cannot intervene, you used your wits, you probably deserve some good loot from the body. Add some more evil options where you resurrect the mystra follower and ask her for some good loot that she may have hidden somewhere from the hands of an evil user. You are in your pocket plane, so I'm sure an evil charname can actually be pretty annoying. Your fantasy here is the limit. Then, after getting your sweet loot, let her go knowing that she failed her goddess. 
 

 

I could add it as an optional component, definitely. I just figured people would want the main quest because it's unintrusive. Zallanora definitely drops stuff right now, not sure what you mean by giving her loot. I'm already giving her loot.

I will think about it concerning the EET requirement stuff!

Thanks for your comments, much appreciated!

On 7/22/2021 at 4:02 PM, Guest Morgoth said:

Yes, the other "path" works. Let me say that I liked the mod, but the evil path is not that great.

What I mean is:

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Ok, Shoon promises you riches and items etc, and he asks you to deal with the Mystra servant. Fine, but pay first, get my help later. Currently to me it seems way too punishing for an evil player, especially after you are talked about what Shoon has done in the past, and what he represent.

 

The Mystra follower suggestion should probably make you tell Shoon, pay me now or die now. Pay me later, die now and I even clap the mystra follower that kills you. Also if he gave you something, I wouldn't mind betraying him for a taste of his own medicine. Right now I think everything happens a bit too fast, without many options to roleplay, and the mystra servant is a bit too keen into fleeing. I just find the whole thing odd.

By the way, I played it on EET but really, I don't think it's that needed to play. I just began and finished the quest in SoA, I would release it too for SoA players only. But your choice

Speedy recovery

 

 

Thanks a lot for your feedback. More below:

On 7/20/2021 at 2:19 PM, Guest Morgoth said:

Played your mod. I need to understand a few things:
1) I've allied myself with

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Shoon. The silver servant of mystra flees, but nothing else happens. What's supposed to happen?

 

Hi, thanks for trying out the mod! Much appreciated, glad you made it to the end (quite the feat considering not everyone plays through ToB)

answer below:

Thanks for reaching out to the author like  this.

Why does an unofficial item mod completely changes the behavioral scripts of an unrelated character? That would be best reserved for an optional component.

At this point I would say that this mod is incompatible with mine due to writing in new scripts for a character that is vital to my mod (but is not to theirs). A possible solution I see would be to install my mod after theirs, it might work (at least the override scripts will) but this is untested as of now and could create problems. The opposite is absolutely impossible and will certainly break my mod.

This is what the mod author said:

Quote

I have a pretty good reason. I completely changed the scripts and behavior of this character. I was trying to create the ultimate magician. Someone that even Irenicus would not defeat. It's hard to say how successful I was, but a lot of people agree that Zallanora is now really hard to kill (and if you come up with a trick to easily kill her, let me know and I'll make her even stronger  ).

Interesting. It is already the essence of what I'm doing in my mod, so it's safe to say that we are trying to do the same thing. But with a whole new quest attached on my part that extends into Throne of Bhaal Unfortunately, you have to choose one here. I tried for my mod to be as light as possible but this I can't fix I think, I'll have to investigate their mod in detail to see the extent of it though. For now try installing my mod after. Perhaps if the mod author could include this as an optional component like we do here in many mods? Hell, I have some in my mod. That would work very well for everyone involved and is best for compatibility. Sadly, I can't make Zallanora's scripts optional on my end because she is a central character.

They really just overwrite/replace the whole script just to add an item?

That is just coding bad practice. Not much I can do because that's just brute-force coding. Try to install that mod before mine, if that's possible? My mod is fairly light anyway, it patches what it needs to patch in existing files, modded or not, and ignores the rest (good coding practice). For mage18z though I write in a new override script because I didn't want to edit the vanilla GPSHOUT.bcs (which can be found on MANY NPCs), and it's a complete new AI script so I believe it's justified that I included a new script for mage18z. It's even taking into account changes made after by SCS which makes it quite more complicated, but I managed to find a good compromise with that. Besides, very few mods actually change the mage18z cre file, and if they do, hopefully it's just small patch changes (like klatu's tweaks which is 100% compatible with my mod because of good coding practice on both ends) and not overwriting in with new material. I'll be on the lookout for mods modifying that file, particularly the override script, because it is, I think, my mod's multi-compatibility weak point.

I haven't checked their code, but if they're overwriting the whole mage18z.cre file and not just the override script, then it's a whole other order of magnitude worse. If yes then that mod should be installed as early in the load order as possible because it's a disaster waiting to happen if they do this with every file they modify.

Thanks for reporting that by the way, I'll include it in the readme under "compatibility" next update.

I designed this mod for maximum compatibility, I changed the scripts based on how SCS handled it, and included the critical parts of the code in the ones that SCS didn't change.

Now I did account and test with SCS, but it's possible that SCS has changed since then though, especially this creature, I haven't tested with SCS in a while.

Unfortunately I have a forearm injury right now so I can't test extensively, but I'll check it out, thanks for the report!

Also, still trying to figure out whether the 2.6 patch broke something in this mod.

On 5/2/2020 at 11:03 AM, 4udr4n said:

No, I'll do a full run, with SCS and all sorts of goodies.

Just reviving this because I am curious: Did you have time to do this, and how did it go?

Haha cheers mate. Indeed, lots of powerful wizards in this game running around with a nonmagical quarterstaff. Makes 0 sense, especially those who teleport on you with the intention of ambushing you.... wearing nothing. lol