Overview

This was a bug present on Ascension only and has been corrected. Thank you!

It was a mix of both. There was established lore regarding the fall of Netheril, and Bhaal's real name and him being spymaster for the Sorcerer's of Rdiuz is lore accurate. This lich was net new created by me, and I developed his personal interactions with Bhaal along with their reason for not being in the floating cities. What caused the cities to fall from the skies is very much based on well established lore. I try to allow established lore to give me my left and right limits so I can play within them with content of my own creation. On another note, I am going to add a simple attack nearest to the end of my attack scripts. This will make enemies attack and should avert the 100DR instances you note.

I need to go through and add these still. Same goes for taking your suggestions for more traps. @Acifer, thoughts on how you think this would look or be doable? The store was copied from Arcana Archives and then I added a couple items to it like the Paws of the Cheetah. The idea around Jambi bounced around a lot from him being attacked by the dragon to being a merchant in an outpost in this level. I figured he can just be passing through and the player stumbles upon him. In regards to the Liquid Mercury, this ties in with my Forgotten Armaments mod which allows the player to craft a Greater Silver Sword +4, so now the player has two instances of it. Per lore, these dragons do not have access to arcane spells like their dragon breathren outside of a few special abilities. I boosted this one to 70%DR and gave him abut 360 or so HP (going off memory). If that works and the player can bypass the warding like that, then kudos to them. I won't even be mad and they get bonus points for creativity. I tried a lot with smoke and that was the best presenting that I could create. Limitations of what I had available. Oversite. I might think about an easter egg for the player here. This is hard as I have no way to account if it is a non-EET game what happens in the first meeting. This leads me having different dialog branches and tracking for EET and non-EET, so I opted to avoid it. This is definitely not expected behavior. I'm curious if it is related to the reinstall as this should not happen. Noted. I will start going through and updating enemies/fights accordingly to reduce this mechanic. Thank you for your feedback and testing the mod!

First and foremost, I want to thank you folks for letting me provide input on your works. In terms of added, story content modification, I think this is one of the most impressive modifications that I've ever played. Now to nitpick it: I'll try to generally follow the modification as it's sequentially presented to the player, but at times will address forward trends repeated throughout it. For purpose of testing, I ran this modification on insane with double damage enabled and utilized the party detailed in my prior remarks about the mod and with the same additional game modifications (Barb, Svok, Vicci, Korgan, Edwin, Nalia--SCS, Ascension, RR--for purposes of added gearing). Introductory Screen and Monologue--Not in Bhaal's kingdom--see a symbol of Bhaal on the floor, reassuring you. The first sentence of the introduction tells you you're not in Bhaal's Kingdom, but it goes on to portray hallmarks that would portend that you are--or at least an area heavily influenced by his sway. Maybe a slightly different way it could be said is: You have not arrived at the Throne of Bhaal as expected, etc. It's not a big deal it just reads a bit oddly to me--I'm not there, but I'm seeing signs of being there--bit conflicted as it is stated. As to immersion, if possible add in new journal entries--I haven't read these in a long time playing BG, but when I get to new content, for whatever reason I open up the journal to see if something new was added (really miss the old journal template with what are portrayed as personal notes, instead of the modern one which gives a BLUF of quest specifics to streamline focus--be cool to get journal entries and notes though just as a nice touch to the mod) Ambient sounds are excellent in this new starter area--wind over the moaning, crying of the damned makes it feel imposing--jumping ahead, I think, if possible, then it'd be nice to have this ambient sound carried over to the next outdoor map (original starting map for earlier releases of the mod), which just has silence right now. As another note on ambience--I noticed you used the blowing dust, dirt cloud effects on the second outdoor map--but only use it in the gulfs in between trafficable terrain. I don't know how it'd look, but is it viable to have those rolling dust devils appear on the trafficable parts of the map as well--and have it do that on the new starter map and the second map, and maybe the final fight map. I don't know exactly how well it'd come out, but I feel like it would complement the ambient blowing wind sound really well to have dust clouds billowing around on the area the player traverses to increase its feeling of being a lifeless void, despair and dread abound (I'll show you fear in a handful of dust). Putting a merchant in, Jambi, is a nice touch--might be a place holder but I'd modify his STO so it is unique--think he's on Arcana Archives STO right now (although I'm not complaining about another fire res ring--much appreciated with this mod). Small touch, I'm actually interested in why this dude is here, doesn't seem to be a fortune to be made out here for a trader, and what exactly he is beyond a "Mercane"--he's quite an alien creature to anything else I've met on the Sword Coast or the hellscapes I've ventured to in-game, so I kind of wanted to know more of what he was about. As to starting area--found three ways to solve it (find amulet of passage)--the simplest likely being just killing the two Phiuhl's, near the due south terminus of the map, and using mass invisibility to move through the map area exit in the north...only the dragon and the entropic reapers see invisibility on this map (to my knowledge), and you needn't approach any of these to exit (unless you bounce off the invisible barrier without an amulet). Not that it's an issue, but it does allow a pretty significant bypass of the content in the area--I'm fine with having elegant, simple solutions though--just a thought in case you wanted to require the player to do more of it. The central engagement against 3xNecromancers and infinitely spawning skeletal warriors: These casters have significantly better buffs (most all casters have preventatives against AoE dispel, which is good, forces the PC's mages to work harder, or stresses rod of reversal use). It would seem, throughout this modification, you have enemies who use infinite gating/summoning on a set (for insane quite short cooldown) periodicity. I think it might be for the best to set an upward limit on the total capacity for these summons (maybe 10 times--and force it to use a round action to do) not just an infinite loop on a short cool down--and that goes for all of the threats that do this throughout the mod--glabrezu, skeletal warriors, celestials, demon knights, etc. It does make it more difficult--and I'm all for that--but, given the periodicity of respawn, the player can very easily get caught in a loop where they're effectively pinned and cannot move due to being blocked in by summons. So, I think you likely want to look to either increase that cool down by a significant margin--or put a cap on it...either way, I think it'd be for the best if whatever entity allows the summoning to continue took a round action to allow this and gave a log notice to the player that they were responsible for the gate action. This later change would help players identify the cause of their woes and do better target selection to overcome the obstacle. I didn't have a huge issue dealing with this in game--because after 1-2 gate in incidents, I pondered it was likely contingent upon the continued existence of the biggest bad guys in the area and was able to focus them down before they overwhelmed me with high level summons. Anyway, this is more a point to overall design and threat templating--I think I'd moderate down the gated enemies a bit--not solely for difficulty, but because I can see it being very tedious for certain approaches to resolution. I'll only briefly refer back to this design choice in commentary on later engagements that follow the same behavior. As for the Necromantic summoners, I used Vicci to turn both the casters and their infinitely spawning army--I just had her go invisible or into sanctuary and she basically had a limitless supply of DPS that hit at +1 enhancement--I used this army to kill most of the starter map and then with creative spacing had her only turn half of the skeletal army while it fought with the other half of itself until it got small enough that I just used my toons to kill the remainder of it. Assumption--Anomen or a PC cleric could likely just blow the whole group up from invisibility...it might be worth giving the Necromancers the ability to see invisible, like a planetar--that way they can at least try to contest this solution. Or, you could leave it in--I thought it was a funny, elegant solution to the map--it doesn't deal with those enemies that need better than +1 enchantment to hit--but it pretty much mops up everything else. Pyroclastic Dragon--have to power this fellow up--he didn't have buffs trigger and his HP pool and physical DR were pretty low--I used a 25 strength martial on him and had him dead with 2xGWW activations. He also has an oddity in behavior--I basically solo'd him with a martial main--and had the remainder of my party down near where the 3xNecromancers start, but the dragon shot an AoE fire breath effect all the way over to my party. If that's intended behavior, then that's cool--but it felt like some over the horizon fires and effects--dude had a cruise missile and forward observer watching my party. Cool armor--not all that useful though...or I lacked the creativity to find a good use for it--I think, what might be interesting is if instead of doing fire damage, it healed you by 2 every time you took fire-based damage instead. It's just at this point in the game--you're better off with more elemental resistance so you're not really incentivized to use it over Firkraag's hide (40%<50%) and fire damage is both highly resisted or immune on most threats. Entropic Reapers--great threat and very cool sprite--perhaps alter them to have a cooldown ranged wisdom drain similar to their melee drain effect as they're quite sticky in their target selection and can be kited easily. Still present in this iteration of the mod is behavior to not attack physically immune characters, to include the Entropic Reapers...this makes them trivial for a toon at 100DR, but upon iterative playthrough not capped at physical immunity--I was able to use ranged damage to good effect while kiting them with targets they selected as most desirable. As for the amulet blocked passage--I didn't test this, but it might be worth considering--can it be bypassed with dimension door (mod only spell) or teleportation field cast in a tight AoE to the temporary barrier? I didn't get around to testing it, but just some ideas for how a player could bypass the intended stop either with modded spells, effects or base game spells. Kirnhale coming back in was a cool addition--tbh, I didn't even realize that her denial of service for "infinite pleasures" was from the original game content--it's been a while since I bartered with her in Durlag's, she tends to get steel on my playthroughs--honestly thought you all had made a funny at the expense of more modern RPG games to be a bit more steamy in a "get wrecked nerd" (that ain't a princess in this castle bud--move along) retort--anyway, cool call back to Durlag's by having her haunt this realm. Small note on Barghasts--cool threat just to establish ambiance, tone for the setting--don't present much risk. This is fine, as I don't think every denizen of this place is going to be a world ending threat--someone's got to be on the bottom of the food chain. But, if you meant for them to present anything of a challenge, they don't--they just make the place look cooler and more alien. Small thing--but can the Phiuhl use an orange mini-cloud, normalize color of damage (using green now and I think of acid or poison when I see that)--or if viable a smaller scale incendiary cloud effect just so it visually looks like fire? Found Liquid Mercury in the Westernmost crate--was this just an extra in case you missed the first to upgrade the burning longsword (Arvingrel--SP?)--also get an extra copy of the Eye of Tyr later, which makes more sense because there are two weapons that can use it to be upgraded. Could also be that I missed something else you can do with this added Liquid Mercury. Few notes, on the second large map, I'm going to be more brevet on these, as excepting additional content added from the earlier version, most of my comments on the content seemed to be considered and implemented in some way (or have been redressed here--ie PC at 100DR passive behavior from enemies--and that might just be one you've got to accept unless you add in phys DR reducing spells and effects). Added traps are great--I think it's likely you could even use more in the towers--the narrow walkways in there lend themselves to some nasty traps interspersed between enemy positions--and it might help you control pacing without using high frequency gated, summoned enemies (present in both tower fights). The two towers and the ante-chamber to the throne all use high frequency, infinite (I'm not positive on this, but in testing I killed something like 88 demon knights in the ante-chamber, so I just assumed it's infinite) spawns--and as stated before I think this would be more fun if it was moderated down a bit--I'd be fine with stronger enemies, but never-ending enemies becomes fairly tedious, especially when it becomes a mobility nightmare in close quarters. And, maybe it's not a matter of don't do this at all, but maybe don't do this as much--I've offered a few notes above (cap, lower frequency, make it contingent upon a per X round action the spawning entity has to use) for how I think it could be changed a bit to make it more enjoyable. Regardless, the content could be overcome with significant enough DPS and apt target selection, discrimination to remove the enemies whose existence enables the infinite gating. As for the outside map and through acquisition of the demon heart and planetar feather--killing of the high Deathstalker--and opening of the towers--I don't have further notes. Question regarding the interactive Bridge Statue entity that provides instructions for opening the bone bridge to the throne: is there a reason this entity can take damage and has a set amount of hit points (estimated to be around 10k)? Most times when this mechanic is used--talking statue, entity--it is immune to all damage and effects--but this statue can be damaged at least down to 1 HP from which point forward it is invulnerable to death. I don't know what drove me to try this, although I was playing with a barbarian--but once I saw it worked, I beat the crap out of it all the way down to 1 HP to see what would happen if I killed it (although found it could not be killed). Then I got to thinking, huh, maybe it'd be cool if a godly wisdom/intellect, maybe charisma too, (idk 23 plus) could talk to get hidden dialogue to trick this AI gate to open without blood--or someone with near limitless brutality could force it open through strength of arms and endurance...food for thought--I think it was likely just an oversight in coding that lets the statue get beat up--but I also saw comments about folks wanting creative, interesting solutions--and it'd be both creative and funny if you could either trick the guardian statue with god-like intelligence, foresight, cunning or display such savagery that it saw your capacity for murder (not even stone is saved from such perfected malice) as being greater, more worthy, than its creator's (although if you were to allow this I'd give it a massive regen rate so it required a massive DPS capacity to overcome--ie wasn't just a click and get a coffee task). Just a funny thought regarding what was likely a coding oversight--but resonated with comments I saw in here and struck me as something funny, interesting you could add--that could both be hidden (dialogues don't show up unless you have the stats--most folks don't bump int, wisdom, cha to 23 because int and cha aren't incentivized in meaningful ways and unless you're a cleric main you likely don't need 23 plus wisdom)--and likely more folks don't try to command attack statues) and feel special for characters who really reached god-like potential in their given focus. Tower of the Primoridal--First level works great--only refinements: rework spawning/gating rate/cap, more traps on the walkways. Second level, love the rework of the Spider Demons--they're a lot tougher and their web isn't a triviality to save against--they've got one big weakness though: Death Blow and Greater Death Blow--throw on a FoA+5 and pop a death blow and you've got the whole level cleared in speed run time. This might have been intentional, idk, sometimes it is cool to have little tricks a player can find--but it makes them pretty trivial once the player knows they can do that (I tested this on a lot of the other new threats you put in--only these folded to it--few of the others fold to power attack, but that's a bit more fair than an auto-slay on hit). Sweet new sprite on Belchaad--also like the teleport upon entry you added here and in the Armory Tower to force you to face the respective bosses immediately, especially here as you'll just have left a wild magic zone and have to react on your feet to the threats. There's some latency in his script firing for his death dialogue (and subsequent death)--it seems to proc easier if all of his demon allies have been mulched, and when he's not in hit frames, but I think that might just be a limitation of the game engine (same thing can happen with Irenicus in hell and/or Kangaxx changing forms--when the game tries to keep something at 1 hp to trigger a dialogue). As for his promise of support--I'm assuming he helps you out in the final battle vs Melly, or is he sort of supporting from afar with the added DR and HP--reason I ask this is because "Dolph Lundgren" the blood-drenched (from the Armory Tower) can support you immediately in the final battle of the mod before transition to the assault on Melly at the throne (he ultimately betrays you to seize power himself, but he gives you a big hand in this fight before his betrayal--dude is a beast), but Belchaad doesn't show up to help in the mod's final battle. Also, appreciate the added overhead text informing the player of added boons (a la the hell trial method of notification) upon victory over Belchaad. Tower of the Armory: Great first level--again spawn rates, bit too much--not hard, just tedious in tight quarters. The "Dolph", Blood-soaked fight is a fun one--although it too has a spawn rate associated, but this dude has great fighting scripts (heck with pretty minimal support he can give the final fight a run for its money if you just immobilize the high DPS toons with power attack)--I fought him in here and did another run with him on my side for the final fight of the mod--very cool toon, and cool voice--I'll never be able to enunciate that name, not going to try--you'll just have to settle with me calling him "Dolph". Same as the Primordial Tower--put traps on the first level--make me turn my AI off to chase threats and actually do floor sweeps...force more interactivity with the environment. Second level: Research and Development Lich is great--enjoyed his dialogue and the secrets of Bhaal's mortal past he shares with you (is this actual lore from the story world, or did you invent it? Either way it was a cool story.). As for the second level pit fights--all of them were great--they do however have an issue with 100DR--they'll just remain stationary if approached with a 100DR toon and allow you to pound on them. For most of these threats specifically they should attack even 100DR PCs as they mostly all do elemental damage in addition to physical and some of them, the later Hellhounds (I'm bad with names but the dogmen who have Rasaad fists) actually have parasitic effects on the PC's pertinent elemental resistance. Only one that I'd tone down a bit is the Neo-Oorg Shaman--and actually, he's fine, could even make him tougher, but, again, spawn rate on the Demon Knights is really high--it's a small space and it becomes a cluttered mess really fast. Cool reward in the form of the necklace--this, in my opinion is how high-level items should be--really powerful effect--really high cost (and it's really not that high of a cost, but it just feels that way with the commitment folks get to their characters--mages are pretty much invincible or dying in two seconds anyway in this game). Getting an amulet that gives you a re-up on all spells for a toon, at the cost of maximum HPs permanently, is a huge boon on insane settings for the Ascension final fight (where with insane you don't get rejuvenated by completing fountains--and are dependent upon wish spam to re-up spells, abilities or careful usage of spells and abilities to maintain endurance through the whole battle). Top level fight was pretty straight forward--lot of celestials--again used a spawn rate to support the level boss, likely a bit too rapid in respawn--I think I'd rather see more difficult singular enemies or groups--then just supporting, respawning hordes regularly. But, plan was just focus down the big bad and then mop up the spawns--worked out fine. I don't feel strongly one way or the other about Viekang being here as a captive--not sure if it narratively adds anything new, except as a call back to the character, but it's cool to see him again--I killed him immediately after the fight. As to the blood gate--I really like that it fills with blood as you use it--would it be possible to add more to the texture--like have it animated, roiling--either like the liquid goop, slime in WK level 2 (slime room) or like the lava in SoD--maybe bubbling or heavily glowing and moving...idk know exactly how to put it--but it looks a bit flat right now, feels like it could "pop" a bit more--even though I think it's very cool that it fills up as you use it with the assorted divine and infernal bloods you collect. Throne Anteroom fight: Excellent Lich scripting--it's a nuclear apocalypse within 2 rounds of entering this room--they drop so many incendiary clouds--that they kill their door greeters (the human fighter types) within 10-12 seconds of having entered the room--not to mention the supporting cast of skulls that launch AoE fireball-like effects. I think it's possible you may just want to replace the human fighters with demon knights instead, could even make them named and special--so, that they're immune to the hell storm the liches unleash in the room, inline with the fire immune supporting floating skulls. Again, with this fight, there's a respawn rate--think it's every three rounds, there's two more demon knights gated in--I'd tailor it down a bit--and just make what's in the room fight better. Part of that is sealing off the entry point--make the entry point a non-exit until both liches are killed--you can nullify all of their AoE effects by door pulling them outside with how the fight is built right now. Anyway, as it stands, you obviously need to be fire immune in this room or running for edges of the map--and it's a fairly standard get them out of invis, setup a time stop, get them naked with anti-magic and kill the Liches as fast as possible and mop up the other threats afterward. Really like the upgrades to the fight--but, would change out the supporting human fighters to something innately fire immune (they provide no help to the liches and frankly just get killed by them incidentally), seal all exit points off (crafty player may try to just race into the throne room to evade already cast incendiary clouds or backward from the way they came), and rework the respawning rate. Noober, Neeber, Nuber, etc were all Ao using an unassuming viewing platform--you know it's absurd and kind of works in an Odyssean way--however, I feel like, if it's possible you have to add in a variable to check against if the player has ever killed any of the Noobers and add in a hidden dialogue where he addresses such treatment in a funny, creative way. Final fight is well scripted--it's not as streamlined yet as something like Chosen of Cyric or the Final Ascension fight--and that might not be what you want out of it--but, the opposition does make use out of their high level capabilities and are lethal--they, as a group, are very vulnerable to power attack, stun--I was able to piece meal them by using sunder HLA to separate their party composition over the map and then mass on individual toons with 2 or so party members and using power attack to stun lock and killed them. "Dolph Lundgren" is a big add in this fight as he draws a lot of aggro and pushes significant damage--tends to get occupied with the casters, which is great because it allows the player character to draw the DPS elements of this party away from the casters while they ineffectually pound on "Dolph" with spells and waste their PfMW casts. This fight is significantly more challenging if you do not acquire help from "Dolph" but, notably, is very vulnerable to Vecna, Time Stop, Alacrity spell dump from a high level mage (Had Edwin solo this one--could limit this tactic if you used a similar teleport trick from the door to immediately pull the party into dialogue--again though, it's not bad that the player can do this per se, but it is a vulnerability of the opposition present in this fight--also keep in mind I was on CoC itemization, Geminus Ring, so Edwin had something like 20 lvl 1 and 20 lvl 2 spells: he did a lot of damage). Exit to Melly takes me back to the start point for Map 2 (original start point on first alpha)--this might just be unfinished or it might be that I jacked my mod by removing a prior instance of this modification to re-install it with updates--didn't do a complete reinstall of the game and all mods. I've been a broken record on this one, but it was a design choice pretty consistently iterated in the mod (at least for insane difficulty level)--I would limit the use of infinite spawning, gating--it does make the game harder, but I don't think it leads to more fun when it's heavily iterated...so, it's good to pull out every once in a while, but when it becomes the norm, it kind of takes away from the fun--if anything I'd error on the side of making ridiculously OP independent threats over swamping the player with legions of more trivial threats. I tend to think anytime you can make less do more, smarter the more fun it is for the player--there is something too, to beating back legions of the damned and divine, but I think I'd just tone that down a bit and leave some breathing room in between doing it--or, at least cap it, decrease the frequency of occurrence, and/or make it a round action for the party responsible for doing it. In terms of gameplay, for me at least, this is the biggest detraction in current threat, engagement design--but, regardless of harping on it, I had a great time playing through the modification you've built and think with polishing this is likely among the best content mods I've played for BG. Also want to iterate, that although, I may label somethings as vulnerabilities, exploitable--I think leaving some of that in is not a bad thing, because that stuff can be really fun to both find and do, like Death Blowing demon spiders, etc (although stuff like door pulls to waste spell books and dispel AoE spells likely requires some revision--ie just seal the room with divine magic and may the best win). Thanks again for the opportunity to provide input on this work of yours--apologies if this is scattered, was hoping to post this weekend but got busy and kind of rushed this out. I'll jam through it again, with a more magically inclined party (was pretty DPS reliant on this party load out) and offer feedback on that hopefully within a week. Amazing work!

Cool!

I have cleaned up the scripts so Blade Barrier and Globe of Blades will only be used on insane difficulty. This should reduce the difficulty you encountered from the three fights you mentioned.

I also want to say, if I don't adjust Kirinhale's dialog it is because I literally ran out of paid time to voice her last night. I had just enough to get her dialog completed and I would rather not throw more money down unless there is much needed voice work in other areas.

I still think this needs to be looked at, and I have a theory as to why it was caused for you. I'm going to make some tweaks and it should resolve this from occurring in the future as I think it could be timing related. Regarding the fight difficulty, I may tone it down to either a single support Planetar or two Devas. Insane for this section ports in 4 Fallen Planetar, a magical sword with 90% DR (carrying the anti-paladin sword from WK), and will bring in more Fallen Planetar every couple rounds or so. Very much a night and day difference between non-insane and insane difficulty. I'm happy the changes I've made are resonating with you in a positive light, and I was really looking forward to your feedback to ensure the difficulty is set right. Looks like there is still some fine tuning required, but at least I know I'm closer to where I need to be. I would need to think more on this, as I really do like how it came out for the player. The first line the character uses in the mod is verbatim the same first line he greets the player with in BGEE. I was really how happy how it worked so well in the mod. Thank you! This is my first time to be a storyteller, and I respect and value your feedback. Thank you so much for your help and support on this.

When you open the .are file in DLTCEP there is a bookmark "ambients" and there is most likely a global ambient or something (unless there are more of those, not sure which one is the loud one). Each ambient uses 0-100 volume. Just make them a bit lower, by something like 15-20 I would say I kinda assumed that a character with ~25-30 lvl may be already pretty recognized But then again, that is just my suggestion Cool! Yeah, but dialogues has these tones that... just made me picture a really different voice. I think I wouldn't touch this one and keep him quiet Right. Even though, I think I would make it at least a bit easier. I am unsure what happened there, but before I could do anything, my Mazzy lost 70% of her max HP and I was a bit lie... "what was that...?" But since it can be skipped, it's still all up to you. I just thought I would share my thoughts I played through this sequence again and this time it worked fine. It must have been some engine thing. Still, I had to cheat to get through this fight * * * As for new things: I think you wrongly use music. Because I had my own music installed along with my In Love, Undeath, it is my mod's romance track that plays on new location. I think that your mod assumes somewhere that the next new track is your while mine was. It can be easily fixed. To make sure yours is always used make sure the area's music is used, not whatever new track is there on the songlist, use this script: IF Global("mobha2setmusic","mobha2",0) THEN RESPONSE #100 SetMusic(NIGHT,%MODREAM%) SetMusic(DAY,%MODREAM%) SetGlobal("mobha2setmusic","mobha2",0) Continue() END Make it part of mobha2.baf -- HOWEVER, to make it work, make sure that when this area script is compiles, use EVAL. I am unsure why you use COPY for scripts, but to use EVAL you will need: COMPILE ~crucible/baf/mobha2.baf~ EVAL That way, when your area script is compiles, WeiDU will check the value for your new song that is set during the installation of your music, and %MODREAM% will be replaced with the value of your song. * * * Final thoughts: This time it was all way smoother and I like how it is all shaped. Apart from both towers' boss fights and the final boss before you meet Amelyssana, it all feels way better, these three I... I am unsure how would I need to approach them. I think they use some spells like blade barrier, or something like that, right? I may be what kills me the moment he approaches me. Kinda annoying. Apart form that I like how we can walk through the diabolical areas, face these creatures. With the new items, it is also quite interesting and I am glad you added those, I just hope you are happy with them too. The only thing I what I have mixed feelings about is the encountered "with the one that observed you from the very beginning". I don't want to spoil that. I shared my ideas of how I would approach it in the PM I sent you before I just feel it is a bit much, I think I would write the talk the way nothing was exactly clear so players could be left with their interpretation of what it happened, maybe I would make him wear different faces, of different characters. Then again, the fact it's not how I would approach it and my kind of twist is more about me and how I like stories to be told. Anyway, it's cool to see how the mod evolved! Thanks for inviting me here, to this workroom!

Yes, no problem!

Thank you, I'll start looking into these. @Acifer do you know how to reduce ambient audio? I don't think at any point Kirinhale knows you are a Bhaalspawn as that was not addressed during Durlag's tower, but thematically it wouldn't hurt to shorten the lines as you mention. Fixed and will be pushed tonight. Totally optional and can be skipped. This was one I went back and forth on to include voiced lines or not. He did not have any voice acting I could find within the original series, hence I chose to include some for him, but I'm fine taking it out. I was hoping you'd comment on this and gather your thoughts on where it landed. I'll look at reducing the difficulty a little bit further. Something must have occurred between testing and you getting it as he was 100% killable on all of my playthroughs. I'll dig into it and see what is going on. When he talked again, did you get the dialog: "Forgive me Jergal for I have failed!"? That should award each player exp and start a cutscene to kill Malchadiel.

I am checking the pre-release and I have some note and I think I encountered a big bug. Here are my notes for now: 1. The ambient sound of the new location is too loud, louder than character sounds. (should by lowered by 20%) 2. Kirinhale's, Drargumaz's, Osmadiel's voiced lines are a bit too loud (-4 dB) 3. In Kirihale's line "I don't know why, but I suspect..." I would shorten it to "I suspect..." because CHARNAME's presence there is a good enough reason for "why" and that first part reads strange in that context. 4. Spiraling Murder description: STATISTICS should be above Equipped and other abilities 5. Corrupted Orog Shaman feels too powerful? Unless he is truly an optional enemy. 6. I always imagines Viekang's voice TOTALLY differently and I think many people heard a different voice in their head for him. I think I would remove his voice and keep him only with his original soundset, no voiced lines. 7. As a non-optional fight, Malchediel feels too powerful. 8. Mechaldiel does not die, he talked with me, the fight began, then I used godbow on him and he talked again, the fight continued, and... now it does not end.

Majority of the mod is done and pushed onto git for you all to dig your teeth into. There are some anticipated scenic routes to be added in due course near the end of the mod, but that should not interfere with this next phase of testing. I am looking for any and all feedback you all are willing to provide so I can tweak, update, polish, etc. as much as possible before the mod officially goes live. Thank you all for your help and support!

I appreciate everyone's patience through the development process for this mod. Lots of progress has been made in these last couple months, and I anticipate majority of the scope is going to be wrapped up in a couple days. Outstanding items do not effect the main plot and mostly pertain to livening up the initial area (one minor quest and some other minor things to do). I'll post a follow up when those items are completed, but if you want to get in there early and test, please feel welcome to. I appreciate any and all feedback received to assist in improving that player experience. We are getting close to the final stretch and I'm excited to be able to finally release this.

Just realized you fought an extra balor in that tower than you were intended to. It has been removed and should reduce the difficulty a bit in that area.

Ist's not too easy, the Sucubi and Lilithus are more difficult. When you don ' t know what' s ahead, the own fighter kill your party. I don' t do every protection spell all the time. That' s right, but is it written in stone? Bhaal und Cyric became gods without this kowledge. So why not try? Or the followers was promised something, and the MC can propose something better? Dealing with evil gives opportunities, poisoned of course

Are you referring to the final final boss or are you saying minion fights are more difficult than their respective zone bosses? In regards to the Belchaad fight, I reduced it from three minions to two at less than insane difficulty. I can add this third minion back if you feel it is too easy on normal. Insane sets it at four minions for that fight. In regards to not betraying Amelyssan, the answer was already explained by her: she was the one entrusted with Bhaal's essence and the only one who knows how to use it to resurrect him. Similarly, she'd be the only one who would know how to use it to ascend to godhood.

Today i have found some time to test. I have taken Jan, Aerie an Imoen with me, but they could use some more spells. Some more shopping would have been wise. The first groupe was deadly, first to Arie. second time to Jan. Even on normal difficulty high level thieves are dangerous. After that it was fine. Maybe after playing Solasta i had adjust my palystyle to BG 2 and the second edition. Inside the tower it seems a little bit strange that the minions are more difficult than the boss. The mod add some flavour to the final stage of ToB, I would like to see some more story elements, like a soul to set free, or some extra riddle which tells something about Bhaal or his most trusted priestess. Why are these people loyal to her? Why not try to grab godhood themselve and betray her?

Since Bhaal used some of the Seven Lost Daggers of Rdiuz to slay immortal Primordials to achieve godhood, I could think of a nice use of the dagger icon…

Great! Thanks for letting me know! I don't know if you want anything else, but while I'd skip the dagger, I would still add the amulet, but as a hidden gear. I believe it's always cool to hide some secret. I can imagine that there could be some container hidden in some dark pit or corner, that would become available ONLY if character has infravision, cast infravision spell or has enough detect trap or... what stat hidden door use? But something like that, with a headstring saying that "You can see something glitter in the dark. You may try to reach the object." or other similar text. Such things happened in SoD and I also coded a similar thing for my Below and Below Inn (IWDEE quest mod), but I believe such hidden stuff can be nice and reward some players... and make infravision matter at least a tiny bit... But that's just an idea. It's totally ok if you don't want that.

Took a couple days, but the difficulty is drastically toned down on difficulties less than insane. For those choosing to play insane, it probably got a little tougher. Definitely open to more feedback on how this landed, and happy to go back through to tweak further, but this should be a good starting point for those discussions. @Lava, there is a new flail on the end game boss using your weapon bam. Thank you!

Still lot more work needed in toning it down, but the first few areas should be a noticeable change.

Morpheus562 has already adjusted the difficulty level, which feels very good. The recommendation to set the basic difficulty level to that of the original game is a reasonable approach. About the items: I love your items, Lava! They fit so well into the game. If we want to satisfy all players, some items will be a very welcome addition. If we design some items that are helpful in the final battle and maybe even expand the story with the item’s descriptions would be great.

First sweep completed to reduce difficulty in the starting area and demon tower on difficulties lower than insane (insane probably got slightly more difficult). I have more to do in the demon tower and Bhaal's kingdom, and introduce a new enemy in the starting area to fill the gaps left with some of the enemy removals I did. Either way, this is a start and should be noticeable.

Perhaps ask others like Acifer and Lowman about how they would feel about such items I know how it feels when I'm not sure how to approach something in my own mod Make others wonder about it