Changes for future versions? Options

[rbeverjr]

I really like Improved Anvil (IA), and am very appreciative to Sikret and also the play testers for this mod. I dabbled in it as of IA3. I played apx. 1.5 games in IA4-IA4.2, and have started a game of IA5. I have killed the shadow dragon, red dragon, Conster, Samia, and even the first drow ambush (geesh) among other things. So, while I am not nearly as accomplished as some players, I’m not exactly a novice either. I hope that Sikret will consider the following changes for future versions of IA. These changes would make IA more enjoyable to me, and I am confident that there are many people who will agree (to one degree or another) with one or more points that I make below.

(1) I have noticed that each version of Improved Anvil becomes more difficult than the next. However, I truly hope that a route remains open to allow me (and particularly newcomers to IA) to level-up without facing too much frustration. This is allowed in IA5, as long as you follow Raven’s advice on quest order (or a very similar quest order). I hope that this avenue remains open in future versions (i.e. no or no further improvements on the first few initial quests/battles).

(2) I still think that there should be mook battles. These battles don’t necessarily have to be unimproved, just improved only slightly. For instance, I have always thought that the sewer toll keepers should not be that difficult. Why would such skillful and rich folk seek employment as toll keepers in a sewer?! I think this group should be easily handled in Chapter 3. More groups that are only slightly improved (great for Chapter 3 or before) would seem to be part of a more realistic world and grant a more immersive role playing experience. (After all, not everyone you meet should be 20+ level, particularly in SoA.) I would expect dragon, demon, and quest battles to be tough, but does every group you meet have to be tough? The people who only want a tactical battle game would definitely say “yes.” However, some people may agree with me that this is not the best answer for an immersive role playing experience.

For another example, I faced the first drow party in the underdark. Even after taking care of one group of nasties (divide and conquer), the other group spanked me. I managed after a few reloads. I’m glad this battle will be weakened in the future. This is a “random” encounter of a group of drow right? It seems like it was the cream of the crop, elite assassination party – just waiting for the off-chance that gnomes may wander past? LOL. They didn’t even drop any chain armor.

Of course, once on Pirate Isle and for the remainder of the game, I don’t mind if all encounters are improved to one degree or another over the unmodded game. “To one degree or another” means that there should be clear differences in difficulty that remain when comparing mook battles with the plot’s major battles.

(3) The ability of the player to use backstab effectively has largely been done away with. I suppose that is reasonable to enhance difficulty, even though it pretty much crushes the class. (Personally, I favor allowing backstab, but allow backstab to do progressive additional damage rather than multiplicative damage.)

Well, ambushes are like backstab. When two parties are played intelligently, but one of them is buffed (the ambushers) and the other is not (the ambushed), who will win? When you greatly increase the difficultly of those type encounters, I think most players must rely on metagaming (knowledge of the upcoming ambush and knowledge of the scripted attacks) to succeed. At least, I would find it extremely hard or impossible to beat Samia’s group without pre-battle buffing. The duration of some spell buffs have been shortened to make it even more important to be able to put up buffs just prior to battle.

I personally *hate* relying on metagaming as my only recourse to win. Once again, it ruins the roleplaying experience to me. I would suggest that hints be provided that we need to prepare for a dangerous battle – or that the ambushers not be so dangerous. After all, there are numerous battles in IA which are not ambushes, but are very difficult. You don’t need to be ambushed to find yourself in a very dangerous battle.

(4) Added content is what really adds to the role playing value. I look forward to the fighter stronghold. Relatively few people play druids; so, I hope the fighter stronghold is next. Additionally, quests that are open to all parties regardless of protagonist class would be awesome!

(5) A double length time stop and improved alacrity on an enemy who intends to unload their spell book on the hero is *not fun* in my book. Depending on how many ruby rays the mage has and the memorized spells, she should be able to kill anyone. I think it will be a huge effort to learn the mage’s spellbook and determine what *equipment* is needed to keep you alive during this period – much metagaming. Everyone knows that equipment is expensive and hard to get (ingredients). You certainly don’t want to buy equipment for a single encounter. I know that this encounter is optional, but I have *always* done this encounter. I don’t want to stop now. I also expect that I will be able to complete this fight, but won’t be surprised if I require tactical advice. My point is that there are some tactics that make the enemy dangerous, but don’t make the game fun. I don’t like to kill monsters in time stop, and I don’t like to be killed by them in time stop.

(6) I was surprised at the price of the freedom scrolls in the underdark. In IA 4.2, I noticed that money limited forging early in the game. Matters may be worse in IA5 in this regard. However, before the final conflict in ToB in IA4.2, I had money to forge whatever item for which I had the ingredients. I think this is appropriate. Components, rather than money, should be the limiting factor in what you can forge. After all, characters are practically demigods before they even face the epic divine encounter. I think they should be filthy rich. This may also be true in IA5, but I don’t know as I have just made it to the underdark.

In future versions in regards to the money issue, I would like to see more extra-healing potions dropped, and perhaps their price decreased. I would also like to see the price for upgrading (by Cromwell) to +3 weapons decreased. After all, +3 weapons are needed to hit many monsters, and a +3 weapon without any special ability is not an overpowered weapon.

(7) I would like each of the traditional DnD classes (including bard and thief) to be able to make a significant contribution to the team in IA. A pure class thief (other than a swashbuckler) would be chosen for a team in order to enhance difficulty more than anything else. *I love choices and avenues for differing play styles.* I hope that some accommodations can be made for each class. For example, magical and elemental resistances have primarily nerfed the ability of mages as an offensive power compared to the unmodded game. (By the way, I agree that some nerfing was appropriate for a challenging game.) Now, Sikret is introducing some spells which allow the mages to contribute more to the team’s offense. Similarly, I think changes could be made to bring the thief up to par and to make the bard a viable option in IA6 (when the bard will be nerfed in some other ways).

[Shadan]

I have some suggestion for next version of IA also. My suggestions are based on classbalance, gamebalance, consistency and roleplaying. Some of them should be written in some other posts (like bug reports for example), but easier to write them in single post, so I write them to here. Well, I won’t be short.

1. Mass healing and mass buffs: I have noticed that while Mass Heal spell heals all summoned helpers and other allies, Greater Restoration and different party heals from Wish doesn’t. Also some mass buffs works on summoned helpers, some don’t. So I think there all should work similarly. All mass healing (Mass Heal, Greater Restoration, Wish) should heal all summoned monster and other allies in fight. Similarly all mass buff (Pr. from Evil 10’, Haste, Defensive Harmony, Strength of One, Bless, Chant, Wish and Limited Wish buffs) should affect all allies and summoned monsters. And I would suggest to change Strength of One, it shouldn’t lower the Str scorew if it is higher than 18/75. Was very annoying when at Irenicus fight in Spellhold, those crazy casters lowered my Str score with this spell.

2. Experience: I think levels are still too high at end of the SoA. I don’t know exact number, but my blade is above lvl 30, may mages are appr. lvl 24-25 now. My installed XP-giving mod beside IA was only ToD, which doesn’t give too much XP. So almost all XP came from IA. I did all quests and WK 1st and 2nd level. Only Twisted Rune, Tree of Life and Hell left.
I have 2 suggestions:
a. Cut the experience value of all monsters to half when they are gated after the 1st or initial wave. I mean the new gating monsters like Orcus with undeads, Sahuagin Prince with sea snakes, some golems with other other type golems (this is the main priority, since this is the most frequent, and golems can be kept in bay easily with Stoneskins, Ironskins, Mirror Images etc.), various type of rune assasins in last fight with them etc. The main problem when player can prepare for the fight, they can kill so many waves of these summoning mobs, which gives a very good XP boost. And this is cumulative: if you are higher level, you can endure more weaves in next fight > you will be more higher level, so more weaves in next fight etc.
b. Beside the former suggestion, I would like to recommend to lower the experience reward for high level monsters, especially for new monsters (like golems, skeletons, vampires etc.) OR slower the level progression even further above lvl 16-17.

3. Weapons which give +1 attack: These are mostly the most useful offhand weapons, since your main hand weapons usually better than your offhand. Even if you can’t hurt the enemy with an offhand weapon (because it has not enough high enchanment) you trade and offhand weapon attack for a main hand one, which is usually better since your 2nd best weapon for that character is always worst than main hand weapon. And this doesn’t change with Impr. Haste, since that doubles the bonus attack also, not only the left hand attack. As far I see you since you nerfed Cutthroat, only Belm and Scarlet Ninja-to left in the game with this ability. I would like to suggest to add back some of these weapons with a limitation: Put +4 and +5 type weapons with this ablity, but only usable by characters without any warrior (ranger, fighter, paladin) level. As far as I see in IA there are plenty of hard melee oriented fights. And bards, thieves are weak not only cause of bad THACO, but because of 1 attack per round. If they could use a good offhand weapon, with a bonus attack, they can attack 3 per round, 6 with Improved Haste, which would make them a bit more useful. I think single class warriors has enough attack per round, and multi/dual ones are strong enough, so they don’t need this power boost. I would suggest similar weapons for druids and clerics as well, but they cannot use dual wielding if they are not multi or dual, so it would be pointless to give this type of weapon. I would suggest the Grandfather of Assasins for thieves, since +1 attack per round is most useful imho than permanent Impr. Haste. For bards I would suggest the Cuthroat nerfed back as bard (or bard/thief) only weapon.

4. Well, and we arrived to bards. I disagree to remove lvl 6 spells from bard, but we discussed this, so instead of future discuss about this, I would like to make some constructive suggestions to balance out this (and bard bard armor) nerf. Bard HLAs are very bad. Avoid Death, Gr. Evasion are mediocre, warriors HLAs much better. UAI is good. Enh. bard song was good also with Mislead, without that not so good. Magic Flute is not so good. All in all these are ok, but those trap HLAs are useless for bards, since they don’t have Set Trap skill. So my suggestions are two-folded:
a. Bards should be able to song while they are fighting, similarly how thieves can fight while Detect Illlusions with Detect Traps. If they start to cast, song should be stopped.
b. You should replace those 3 trap HLA’s at bards. Now Enh. bard song gives 4 AC, THACO, damage immunity to fear, stun, confusion, and 5 % MR. Maybe there could be 2 types of song:
Song 1: 4 THACO, damage, AC, 10 % damage resistance
Song 2: 4 to saves, 10 % MR, immunity to fear, confusion, stun, paralysis, charm (maybe imprisonment).
And 1 other trap HLAs should be replaced by one item summon, like Magic Flute. This new item could cast 2-3 useful spells, for example 1-2 spells of 6 or higher level spells, the new Remove Enchantment spell etc. We could find a good HLA to replace last trap HLA also.

5. New quests, encounters: I think players could feel the new quests and encounters as part of the game and the world, if you should give a bit more world specific things to the quests. So the far land shouldn’t be only a “far land” but it should be named, there are a plenty lands and countries in Fearun. Similarly with those (demi)gods, godesses. They shouldn’t be named only as god of XY, but you should chose a god from the very wide palette of the gods of Faerun. Of course you should mention the god’s portfolio also, not only his name, since not all player knows Fearun very well.

I really appreciate your work, Sikret. You and testers did and are doing great work, and I hope my constructive recommendations just help to make the game even more better.