Progress report for IA v5, New features you will see soon Options

[Sikret]

1- Evil Clerics will control undead and turn paladin.

2- Slightly Improved Faldorn

3- (Heavily) Guarded Lilarcor

4- Clash of powers (a new quest in the 3rd level of WK: There is a conflict between two very poweful creatures based on an incident which has happened 100 years earlier. You need to choose and to kill one of them, if you can!)

5- Fixed and improved Demon wraith in the 3rd level of WK.
(In the vanilla game, the Demon Wraith in the third level of WK has a bug in his script which makes him cast infinite Symbol of Fears and no other spell. He is not only fixed but also improved. His minnions are improved as well.)

6- The elemental golem in the 2nd level of WK can no longer be ignored.

7- A new 4th level, a new 7th level and a new 8th level wizard spells are added.

8- Five new armors, one new pair of boots, one new axe, two new amulets and one new type of potion added to the game. Potions of Mind Focusing are removed.

9- FoD&W is nerfed and is only usable by single class rangers

10- Thetruth and JD sowrds only usable by single class warriors

11- Many more fixes applied to the vanilla game (their complete list is lengthy; you will see them in the mod's documents when v5 is released).

12- Some upgrade recipes have changed; brand new ingredients are added to the game.

13- Vagrant kit is improved.

14- The apprenti's chance of success to forge the robe now varies depending on whether the protagonist is a pure mage, a mult-mage (what kind of multi-mage) or a sorcerer and with which stats. Moreover, if they fail the first time reloading the game will not change the result. If they fail the first time they will keep failing even if you reload forever.

15- More items are added to the randomizer program.

16- Improved Chaos monster (druid stronghold)

17- The "Tracking" HLA is replaced with a new and more useful high level ability.

18- Imoen's class is changed to Sorcerer.

19- Orcus, Dracolich, Elite Doppleganger, Elite Nishruu, Cat O'Nine Lives, Shadow Jailor and Keep Viper are improved further (as per players and testers' requests).

20- New level Progression tables are applied to all classes.

21- If the party delays too long before setting out for Spellhold, they will find Irenicus' control over the Asylum has strengthened and it will be far harder to escape after rescuing Imoen. (Note: The recommended levels to go to spellhold are levels 13 or 14 for single class characters.)

22- The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: A new quest added to the expanded ranger stronghold.

23- - Improved Alchra Diagott

24- Slightly Improved Raevilin Strathi

25- Several new types of monsters are added to the game.

26- Elemental golems, Ultra golems and Supreme golems have more powerful fists.

27- Slightly Improved Tanova (chapter 3)

28- The battle with the Supreme Leader of githyankis is improved Even further.

29- Twisted Rune is improved even further: (1) Vaxall the beholder is improved considerably. (2) Layene will use her wish spell in a new and different way if you hide your protagonist from her line of sight. She will also summon Twisted golems (instead of Coin ones).

30- General: Slightly Improved Githyankis

31- Weapon proficiency stars of Valygar, Keldorn and Anomen are revised and optimized for IA. Anomen (in particular) had a wrong number of proficiency stars in the vanilla game which is fixed now.

32- Faldorn's duel with the protagonist is fixed. The duel is supposed to be a fair one-on-one combat. Now, you won't be able to pass any items (weapons, potions,...) from your NPCs to your protagonist during the battle. You can't actually interfere in any way. Moreover, all of your buffs will be dispelled before starting the duel (Faldorn also starts the duel with no buffs). This is in addition to item no.2 above which refers to Faldorn being slightly improved during the duel.

33- Slightly Improved Dalok and companions

34- Slightly Improved Nevaziah

35- The tips the game displays every time you load a new game are revised. Some unimportant tips are omitted, some new and more helpful ones are added.

36- Improved Mekrath and the Imp

37- Donation to temples is made more expensive (suggested by Ryel ril Ers) and it won't raise your reputation above 16.

38- Slightly Improved Lonk the Sane

39- Improved Irenicus at spellhold (this feature will also be affected by item no.21 above).

40- Fixed and (slightly) improved Demon Knights and Death shade gated by Deck of Many Things.

41- Slightly Improved Unseeing Eye

42- Guarded Compound is improved further.

43- A new (and different) version of Auramaster Druid Kit is added to Improved Anvil. players of IA should not install the (stand-alone) Auramaster mod separately.

44- Now, if you defeat the slavers in the ship buidling in Slums prior to going to the Guarded Compound in Temple district, you will find a document showing the relation between Guarded Compound and slavers. Hence, good-aligned parties will be well-justified to attack the GC and will also have an additional dialogue option while talking to Sion.

45- Draconis (human form) is improved even further. Now he casts as many spells as his level permits and will use HLAs as well. In previous versions he had no HLAs and would cast fewer spells than his level.

46- The Globe Machine in the 5th level of WK is improved even further.

47- The location of the bag of holding in spellhold is changed. It's still in spellhold, but it takes a bit of work to find it.

48- Improved Rakshasa Ambush in Suldanesselar (this is something different than the Noble Rakshasa who guards House of the Talisman).

49- Nalia will give you 4 more days before starting to complain about your delay to go to save the keep (suggested and tested by Shaitan).

50- Improved Drow Ambush in underdark (before the Deep Gnomes' village)

51- Improved Drow Ambush at the bridge in underdark

52- A new (and different) version of Riskbreaker Kit is added to Improved Anvil. players of IA should not install the (stand-alone) Riskbreaker mod separately.

53- Don't panic! Take a deep breath and read the next item. For those who may have heart disease, I'll put it into spoiler tags :

SPOILER!

- EDE is improved further!

54- The Elder Orb in underdark is improved even further.

55- It's recommended to fight with Conster and firkraag together in firkraag's lair. If you choose to fight with Conster alone in the other area, you won't find him alone. He is also generally improved (regardless of where you fight him).

56- Kruin is (considerably) improved further. Perhaps it's better to give him the blasted silver blade now!

57- The guild's contact (Gracen) is improved further. First, The cheats which were still available to the players in this battle are all blocked (i.e. you can no longer kill him before he turns hostile; you can't pickpocket his equipments before he turns hostile; you can no longer close the doors or exit the area waiting for the duration of his magic shielding potion to expire). Furthermore, he will have some backup during the battle; every 10 rounds, a vampire bride will enter the area through the stairs and will join the battle as long as he is alive.

58- Most of the higher level (and smarter) enemy mages will reserve their "Ruby Ray of Reversal" spells only for when you are protecetd by SI:abjuration and will use other protection removal spells (mostly spellstrike) instead in cases you don't have SI:abjuration to block them (provided that they have the spellstrike spell or its scroll, of course).

59- Slightly Improved Spider Ambush at the entrance to Pai'Na's hideout

60- Minotaurs are fixed and improved further. Now they have all of their pnp abilities and more. (They now have their pnp abilities of grappling and charging targets. The missed immunity to maze is also implemented and enhanced with immunity to charm and confusion. Moreover, they have better THAC0s and equip better weapons; they are fearless and their pnp bonus vs. surpirse is interpreted as immunity to backstab.)

61- Mithril Golem is improved further.

62- Improved Azamantes:

(He is changed to a Grave Lich. In the vanilla game, he was a non-standard lich with a stupid combat script but with good resistances and a decent THAC0. Now, he is a Grave Lich in its full calibre and has some backup and reinforcement to prove himself as a worthy opponent in the 5th level of WK. Even a Grave Lich (alone) could not be counted as a challenge in that stage of the game.)

63- First level of WK: Guarded Bell and Candle

64- Prince Villynaty is improved further.

65- Bone Golems now have their pnp ability of issuing Hideous Laugh; they are also fearless as per their pnp description. Their number of attacks per round was also incorrect in the vanilla game which is now fixed (reduced to 1).

66- Umar Witch and the Wondrous Imp are improved even further. The difficulty of this battle varies depending on the protagonist's total xp (and class).

67- All dragons are improved even further.

68- Improved guardians of pieces of Burial Mask

69- General: Smarter summons: Summoned creatures (enemies and allies) will behave more intelligently. (Examples: They will shift target if they see that their weapons are ineffective; they will no longer stand idle if no enemy is in their line of sight (for example, after being wing buffeted by a dragon to a remote location in the area), they will move/approach to see what's going on in the battlefield.)

Revisit this topic frequently on these days; I will write more.

This post has been edited by Sikret: Nov 13 2007, 08:46 AM

[Sikret]

I trust you are checking this thread frequently, as I'm constantly updating it. I don't send a new post or a reminder each time I update the initial post.

[Shadan]

10- Thetruth and JD sowrds only usable by single class warriors

Imho it would be good if single class thiefs and thief/warrior dual and multiclasses could use them. Basically all, who can't cast any spell. I think they desperately need those procs from JD sword.

[Shaitan]

Due to #31 you probably have to state in the readme, that components of the "Ashes of Embers" mod, particular those who alters Anomens & Keldorns profs is not recommended/incompatible.

[Sikret]

Due to #31 you probably have to state in the readme, that components of the "Ashes of Embers" mod, particular those who alters Anomens & Keldorns profs is not recommended/incompatible.

Well, since you install Improved Anvil after all other mods, IA's weapon proficiencies will take precedence and you will correctly have IA's profciency stars for Keldorn and Anomen (though the new equipment added to them by some other mod may look weird or unsuitable for their proficiencies).

Nonetheless, I checked AoE's readme and found almost all of its changes to the game quite inappropriate (specially the one which alters the duration of Stone Skin spell which can even potentially cause problems during some of the improved battles). So, in general, while the mod may be technically compatible with IA, it is definitely conceptually incompatible and it's strongly recommended that you do not install any of its components with IA.

[Marceror]

Sikret, based on all the changes I keep reading about (updating level progressions, etc) I'm not sure it makes a lot of sense to continue calling this IA 4.3. Just my opinion, but I think you've gone further in terms of magnitude and quantity of changes then what an increase from 4.2 to 4.3 would seem to indicate. Just semantics, I suppose, but is this possibly IA 4.5, or even 5.0 at this point?

[Raven]

Sikret, based on all the changes I keep reading about (updating level progressions, etc) I'm not sure it makes a lot of sense to continue calling this IA 4.3. Just my opinion, but I think you've gone further in terms of magnitude and quantity of changes then what an increase from 4.2 to 4.3 would seem to indicate. Just semantics, I suppose, but is this possibly IA 4.5, or even 5.0 at this point?

Sikret, I agree with this. IMO it should really be 5.0.

[lroumen]

A name, what's in a name? A rose by any other name....

[luan]

I'll go ahead and chime in that I disagree that it would be IA 5.0. I'd say IA 4.35!

It will be IA 5.0 when the changes discussed in the IA 5.0 thread are implemented!
Especially the grand finale and bhaalspawn powers!

[Baronius]

Although the number of novelties & changes greatly justify a change in the major version number, I suggest not changing on it -- IA's upcoming version has been announced as 4.3 everywhere. A version change may also cause confusion*. The content is the important. This isn't a commercial project anyway which has to follow certain rules.

* Of course, v4.3 is also confusing, because it implies that only minor changes were implemented. But it's no problem, because those who are looking forward to it have been continously paying attention to the forums and news.

[Marceror]

* Of course, v4.3 is also confusing, because it implies that only minor changes were implemented. But it's no problem, because those who are looking forward to it have been continously paying attention to the forums and news.

Well, that's really a big part of why I'm making this recomendation. Those who played 4.2 may not be likely to revisit the game if they see that the latest version is 4.3. If they see a more dramatic change in the numbers, I think people (the ones who aren't following these boards as regularly) may be more apt to check out what's new with the mod. I can't imagine that the "confusion" this would cause would be a big deal. People looking for 4.3, will probably be excited to see that 4.5 is already out! And a note in the readme of the new version explaining the version change (e.g. 4.3 grew into something much larger than originally intended, and due to the large number of changes implemented, we felt that a more dramatic version increase was warranted...).

[Shaitan]

So I'm almost afraid of asking, but is there perhaps a slightly chance this week?

Regards

[Sikret]

So I'm almost afraid of asking, but is there perhaps a slightly chance this week?

Since after the release of the forthcoming vesion of IA I won't have time for modding for at least 6 months (my RL agenda will change and I'll have more occupations), I'm trying to make the mod as perfect as possible before releasing it.

[Baronius]

I've changed my preference. I would also favour v5.0.

[Sikret]

Sikret, based on all the changes I keep reading about (updating level progressions, etc) I'm not sure it makes a lot of sense to continue calling this IA 4.3. Just my opinion, but I think you've gone further in terms of magnitude and quantity of changes then what an increase from 4.2 to 4.3 would seem to indicate. Just semantics, I suppose, but is this possibly IA 4.5, or even 5.0 at this point?

Sikret, I agree with this. IMO it should really be 5.0.

I've changed my preference. I would also favour v5.0.

Version number is changed to 5.

[luan]

Sikret, you've had so much momentum recently! Keep up the good work!

[Sikret]

Sikret, you've had so much momentum recently! Keep up the good work!

I enjoyed reading a physicist's compliment.

Thank you very much.

[Sikret]

Some one had suggested No.51 but I can't recall who to add the name to the mod's readme. If (s)he reads this post, I'll appreciate if (s)he sends me a reminder (either here or in a PM) with a link to the post in which the suggestion was made. Thanks!

[Baronius]

Vardaman brought it up here.

[Sikret]

Thanks, Baronius!