Icewind Dale 2 Forum Update

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(Originally posted by TBR)

J.E. Sawyer has completed Icewind Dale 2 with his beta party, the "Hands of Fury". Here's the nitty-gritty from J.E. himself, as well as more information on the various bugs still in IWD2 and the high-level spells currently in the game.

J.E. Sawyer, Lead Designer

Victory for the Hands: Well, the Hands of Fury finally did it. I started playing through the game on May 9th, and have played the game almost every day since then (minus 3 days for E3 and 2 Sundays) for an average of five hours each day. I finally won the game today. My six characters were all 15th level. And I won it the tough way. Not the cop-out, Let's Make a Deal way. I stuck by my Talosian principles and destroyed everything in sight.

I'd probably shave some time off of that for time spent hammering things repeatedly. Maybe 80 hours of "real" gameplay.

Characters:

Makados: Chaotic Evil Human Male Stormlord of Talos 15
Dahel Bloody-Four: Chaotic Evil Human Male Barbarian 15
Amraith: Neutral Evil Moon Elf Male Fighter 15
Harbesh Carver: Neutral Shield Dwarf Male Fighter 2 / Rogue 13
Mirai Wainwright: Chaotic Neutral Half-Elf Female Wizard 15
Fissera: Neutral Evil Human Male Druid 15

Notes:

My Stormlord of Talos was the party leader, and quite good at keeping the party moving along. His domain spells were very useful, but they were by no means the defining features of the character. In the final area of the game, I absolutely loved using my Tremor domain spell to knock clerics and fighters on their proverbial asses. I ROELEPLAYEDE him to the fullest. When a priest of a goodly faith offered me a way to make the end of the game easier, I told him to convert to the ways of the Destroyer or suffer the consequences. He wasn't too happy about this, so he attacked me. My Flail of the Elements made short work of him. Makados of Talos doesn't make deals with Ilmaterians, SUCKA.

My barbarian started out strong and finished stronger. During the mid-game, his melee skillz weren't so great that he was more useful than my elf fighter. In the last third of the game, he really started to shine. His damage reduction was quite useful in several areas, and Greater Rage is nice. It sucked when he was the character in front of the party -- whom NPCs talked to. He had an 8 Charisma and low, low, low speech skills.

My elf fighter was my favorite character. He laid waste to everything with his bow. Easily my MVP, he had almost 30% of the total party kills at the end (669, to be exact). His high Dex came at a price, though. He had a junky Strength (10) and Con (10). When forced into melee, he often had to bust out and run for cover. Thankfully, his Hide and Move Silently were very high, so he served as my scout. Towards the end of the game, he became a worthwhile melee combatant thanks to some nice elven chain and a Strength-enhancing girdle. His best bow shot in the game was a critical hit against a cleric of Bane that did 48 points of damage, interrupting a Gate spell with the cleric's untimely death.

The rogue was the character I had the most mixed feelings about. He had a low Dex (10), but a high Int and Str. If I had him Power Attack and Sneak Attack at the same time, I could deal massive damage with a single shot. I took two levels of fighter, and I alternately am glad and sad that I did so. It helped him in some ways, but his thief skills suffered a little because of the neglect. I usually kept him on crossbow, since he could easily get wasted in melee. However, a well-placed Sneak Attack from him became a staple in the late game, offering a reliable 30ish points of damage to some unlucky sap.

The wizard was all-around awesome. She filled the traditional mage role and did it well. Providing buffs and a slew of offensive spells with horribly high DCs, she and the cleric worked well together. In the late game, my favorite tactic with her was the patented "Stoneskin/Mirror Image/Haste" rush, followed up by as many Sunfires as I could muster before hordes of enemies slaughtered her.

My druid was one of the more interesting characters. He stayed at the back of the party as an offensive caster. He was the "combat class" character with the worst melee combat capabilities. However, he was nice as a rear guard. When jerks would come up from behind, he would transform into a Dire Bear and murder everyone. Alternately, if someone needed help in a jiffy, he would turn into a Dire Panther and rush across the screen in seconds. His 4th level Flame Strikes were invaluable, as was his incredibly awesome Aura of Vitality in the late game.

The wizard was probably more useful overall, but... that's a tough call. The druid has a very interesting mix of spells, but it's kind of a grab bag. Spells like Thorn Spray and Smashing Wave are really only useful in very specific combat situations, for instance. However, when you do get to use them, the results can be dramatic, and quite different from the spells available to the wizard.

Amraith had a 16 Intelligence and a 20 Dexterity. I kept him in studded leather armor until the last chapter of the game, when he found magical elven chain.

Improved critical: Improved Critical only increases the threat range by 1, I believe, regardless of the weapon you are using.

The game and its bugs: If the game isn't complete, how have I played the whole game straight through to the last chapter with only three critical bugs encountered along the way? Want a more-or-less complete breakdown of what types of bugs still remain?

* Text bugs -- These are typos or incorrect information that appear in item/class/race/spell descriptions. Most of these get forwarded to me. I edit the string, send it back for verification, and that's the end of it. Considering the massive conversion to 3E, there are a lot of these.

* Roolz bugs -- An error in implementation. For instance, Expertise applying AC bonuses when a missile weapon is equipped. Barbarian Rage's state icon outlasting the actual effects of the rage. Emotion: Hopelessness not being converted to Emotion: Despair and Emotion: Courage not being converted to Emotion: Rage. These are many and minor, but need to be addressed.

* Graphical bugs -- Graphics aren't displaying properly. This could be a flickering interface panel, an animation state that wasn't added to the resources properly, or a clipping error for a spell effect (like wall of fire not appearing when part of it is clipped behind a clipping plane).

* Quest bugs -- These are the most important bugs, because they are the ones that can wreck your game (like Orrick giving a big fat "NO VALID REPLIES OR LINKS" message in IWD1). Quests have their own big fat whiteboard for verification. Every quest in the game has three "x"s that can appear next to them. A blue x means that it cannot be completed. A green x means that it cannot be completed in all ways the designer intended. A red x means that it cannot be completed in multiplayer. There are still green and red "x"s floating around, and 10 blues.

* Scripting bugs -- These usually tie into quest bugs. Scripts that don't work at all/sometimes need to be reviewed and fixed.

* General application bugs -- Just general errors with the IWD2 application. Programming is always optimizing for speed and ironing things out.

* Balance bugs -- This is what I've been spending most of my days working on (since I only get about 4-8 "real" bugs a day). We are playing through the game monitoring the following in each area (using pre-made parties):

- Combat balance/variation
- Phat loot frequency and amounts

- Cheese tactics that we use to get by areas

- Overall fun factor vs. frustration or ease

So, yeah, that's what we've been doing, for reals.

I don't think I've ever absolved the design team of all guilt. The game isn't ready to ship right now because it simply needs a significant amount of bug-fixing. As for why the delay was not announced earlier and why there is no current release date, those are matters that are out of our hands.

High-level spells: Very few high-level spells from BG2 are in IWD2. Here are the new 6th+ Wiz/Sor spells that I can think of:

Carrion Summons
Improved Haste
Protection from Magic Energy
Wyvern Call
Cacofiend
Delayed Blast Fireball
Summon Efreeti
Summon Djinni
Banishment
Vipergout
Summon Fiend
Flensing
Gate
Wail of the Banshee
Black Blade of Disaster
Meteor Swarm
Aegis
Executioner's Eyes
Mass Dominate

As for Finger of Death in IWD... I don't know. In IWD2, it has a saving throw penalty simply by virtue of being a 7th level spell.