Looking for a great BGII challenge.

Remove all ads!

Tal: Thanks for your post. Hopefully many things have become much clearer for some people.

Proteus_za: I'm sure Sikret will reply your questions very soon. Just a few words in advance about the Total Conversion: it highly depends on how we define TC, so Sikret will most likely not consider his mod as a TC. But I know what you meant, i.e. that it changes so many aspects and adds so much content, so don't get me wrong, I'm not criticizing you , just saying that many (most) things in IE modding (too) depend on how we define certain terms.

 

Isn't this the basic definition of good and evil? Evil knows no restraint. Any path is possible as long as it suits the needs of the pc in some way. Whereas good is a narrow path to follow -- there should be limits.

I believe it would be far better to allow your actions to determine your alignment (as it does in Planescape: Torment). However, it is easier to force players to live with the decision they made when creating their character. If you don't want to play a good character (with all the limitations), then don't create a good player.

 

This is slightly awkward, yes... Sword Coast Stratagems is a mod for BG1 (in the TUTU / BG2 form) and SCS II is a kind of sequel. I couldn't think of a better name.

It's pretty compatibility-friendly if you install it last or close-to-last; see the readme for more details.

 

Well I'll risk joining the fray here

And I'll go back to the start. I've played all 3 mods, Tactics/IB, IA, SCS so this will all be IMHO. Like Decados I too keep two BG2 installs, one with IA and another one with SCS. Both mods have their pros and cons, both are top notch and neither is better than the other. It all comes down to what you're looking for.

IA offers - new monsters, new items, new quests and really tough battles. It doesn't go that well with other mods but it offers enough to make it worth installing solo. You will sometimes spend hours trying to solve a certain battle which can (and will) get frustrating (especially if you had a hard day at work). However the feeling when you finally nail that battle is very rewarding. Not much roleplaying here, it's mostly a powergamer's ride.

Pick it up if you want to pass the biggest challenge in Forgotten Realm and if you have the nerves of mithril.

SCS offers - smarter enemies, more roleplaying options, better compatibility with other modes. Not as hard as IA. It's still much harder than vanilla game but the battles might not feed your ego as well as the anvil does. No fancy new spiders and golems, no new weapons (it is compatible with other mods that add weapons though). Fantastic roleplaying potential, it gives you an entertaining game while forcing you to add some brain power to your playing.

Pick it up if you want a more easy going game.

Tactics/Improved battles/Ascension - not really a modern mod, tough battles, cheesy battles, leaves room to use cheese to pass the cheese battles. Some parts were really great like Improved Ilyich, Toughest monster spawn, Improved Sahuagin city (which was the most entertaining run of that place in all my BG games). Probably not as attractive as the other two mods but you certainly won't regret if you decided to go with it.

So there you go... *puts on the Helm of Balduran and hopes for a good saving through against the incoming attacks*

 

*Aegor is the primary target! TO ARMS!*

 

Thanks, it looks very good, I'm going to try it out.

I think forcing good players to not be able to use the Black Razor at all completely defeats the point of the test. It has almost no value to a good aligned party other than resale value.

So you are forcing good players to stay good, and not make the usual role playing choices.

It doesnt matter, its not my mod, but while I could see the reason behind the difficulty changes, I dont see the reason for this. It nerfs some characters but not others.

 

Keeping Blackrazor is the evil path, so you'll be able to use it soon enough.

 

True!

Slight spoiler:

Dont you have to kill the genie with it to get said evil path?

 

Killing the genie by any means is considered the evil path.

 

With all due respect to the hard work and great materials found by building a BP/Tactics/etc. "old-skool" modded install, speaking in terms of working through an install with more comprehensive approaches to AI, I think there are only two choices from an ease-of-troubleshooting standpoint: IA with a careful install following the documents, or SCSII with a careful install following the documents.

For a person well versed in forum-diving for information, the Tactics/etc. mods can be built into a working install, but your chances of getting things in the right order and not accidentally having glitches really relies on forum searches and care. For a person who is looking for straightforward and comprehensive changes in a single package, choose your poison based on what you want to install with it, and buckle down. For most of us mere mortals, either mod is going to kick the pants off of us, Golden Pantaloons or not.

 

This sums up my sentiments quite nicely. IA was more difficult than I thought I was looking for, to the point of being frustrating. This is not a knock of IA (and I must stress IA is not targeted at players such as myself - I don't fully meet the requirements set out in my earlier post). I think what I wanted was something that was akin to my first BG2 run-throughs - challenging because I wasn't sure what to expect, but not requiring more than a couple of reloads for any particular battle. I'm hoping that SCSII will give me something closer to that experience on my next BG2 session.

And cmorgan, I wish you'd stop being so controversial.

 

Ooop aaak. Ftttpt! (I have been trying to help a dude troubleshoot his Mega install, and my head is spinning off my shoulders )

We now return you to your regular discussion of Tactical Mods as applied to Infinity Engine Games.

 

I wondered why your post seemed odd!

Yeah, I must say, SCSII is looking like the mod for me. I was surprised when I fought the ogre mage in Chateau Irenicus. he cast horror and half my party went AWOL. First time in all my playthroughs that the ogre mage has lived past 2 rounds.

I especially like the sentiment that David W expresses in the readme of the mod - he wants players to have a choice in what to use, and no part of the mod is made difficult by cheese - eg crazy immunities and arbitrary restrictions. Sounds like exactly what I want.

I think its a better way of solving the escalation problem - if the player character now requires a Timestop chain and +5 weapons to kill normal enemies, well it gets harder to suspend belief. Its like using nuclear weapons in conventional warfare.

 

It might be worth flagging that Ascension is fully compatible with SCS II and (I think) at least partially compatible with IA. Install it first. Some bits of Tactics are compatible with SCSII (see the readme; install Tactics components first). I don't know about Improved Battles.

Well, of course "cheese" is one of these difficult words to define - it's very much in the eye of the beholder. I certainly wouldn't want to make some sort of general principled objection to a mod adding lots of immunities and restrictions, it just doesn't suit my way of playing BG2, so SCS(2) doesn't do it. My working definition of what to avoid was (basically) anything that humanoid opponents are allowed to do but players aren't. If the unmodded game allows something, generally I tried to write AI that let enemies do it too, rather than block it.

 

I'm sure Sikret will be able to explain why far better han I, but I believe that both Tactics and Ascension are now regarded as fully incompatible with IA. Can't imagine Improved Battles will fare any better.

Edit: I checked and Ascension is still partially compatible. My bad.

Edit II: Appears that readme was out of date. Ascension is incompatible.

 

Although I'm by no means an experienced modder (only a beta version of a Diablo 2 mod to my name), I prefer not to limit the player too much. So I dont like the idea of removing items and disabling powers that the player normally has access to. If they are too powerful, I prefer to raise the intelligence, and possibly abilities, of the enemies to match (not that Diablo 2 has much in the way of AI).

I havent got far enough in SCSII to tell whether I find it too hard or not. When I switched off last night, I was about to face Ilyich.

 

Ascension is fully incompatible with IA, as mentioned in the 'Installation' readme.

Yes, in theory this is the best solution. But in my experience this can only go so far. The reason IA has, for instance, resistances and immunities added to humanoid creatures in addition to AI improvements is that these alone are not enough to make the game sufficiently challenging, no matter how well they are written.

 

Do continue to update us with your impressions of SCS II. I'm going through IA5 atm, but I'm planning to play a less challenging mod that allows more roleplaying variety in the near future

 

Will do. Will only be able to play again tomorrow night, so you'll be waiting almost 48 hours.

I plan to tackle the game in my usual order: Escape from Dungeon, Rescue Aerie, Mencar PebbleCrusher, Slavers Quest, Get Lilarcor, Unseeing Eye Quest.

Not too much magical danger in those quests, my thief should be able to backstab most of them. I'm guess my first real taste will be the sewers party.

I suppose its a very difficult game to balance. On the one hand, the player party has access to increbly powerful magic and magic items.

Theoretically, if you had the player party face another similar party, it should be tactics that makes the difference. So the question is, can you ever make AI so good that it really does give pause to a human player?