Corona quarantine BG2 Options

[chaser]

Hi, everybody. I'm glad to see that IA v 6.5 has released.

However, I felt that this version was not intended for experienced players, but for novices, because the newly added items are TOO OP, and I think they are even more powerful than the items in the Four Mod.

In the previous versions, for example, the amount of weapons with additional crushing damage or magical damage were rare, and the gears which could increase APR were difficult to obtain. However, IA V6.5 adds many items with these properties. One of the most outrageous pieces of equipment I think is Treefolk's Fury +5, which has the damage of "1D6 +5, +10 vs. unnaturalcreatures, +5 crushing damage". In other words, the weapon deals a total of 21-26 damage to unnatural creatures such as golems, undead, etc, almost twice as much as any other weapons (In previous versions, the most damaging weapons averaged only 13-14 damage, such as the hammer of Thor (9-18, 13.5 average) and the Judgment Day (7-21, 14 average)).

In addition, I used to be very interested in the robe of Eloquence, because it required an evil protagonist and could bring an experience that no other gear could. Unfortunately it was cancelled.

[critto]

Hi chaser.

However, I felt that this version was not intended for experienced players, but for novices, because the newly added items are TOO OP, and I think they are even more powerful than the items in the Four Mod.

There wasn't really a conscious intention to target novice audience. The concept of treefolk items was around for some time in the workroom, it was Bulian's effort to bring it into the mod. It wasn't based on extensive testing so it is quite possible the balance might be off. We can tweak that easily. The same goes for other items, especially those designed for the NPCs. The intention was to open more possibilities, not to balance everything perfectly. Hopefully, this can be achieved with some feedback.

In addition, I used to be very interested in the robe of Eloquence, because it required an evil protagonist and could bring an experience that no other gear could. Unfortunately it was cancelled.

Thanks for the feedback. I will consider how these items could be brought back for those interested in playing with them.

[chaser]

Thank you critto, and also thanks to bulian. The tweaks to NPCs (especially for Hexxat )and the addition of exclusive gears are great design, and hopefully future updates will keep the mod challenging.

[bulian]

Chaser,

Thanks for the feedback! Without that, it can be difficult to gauge what is good, OP, or bad. There is a bit of each in the game.

Regarding the treefolk club item, you're right it may be possible that item is OP - if you have a chance to forge it and test it in a game, I'd love to hear how it does. There are some significant costs with getting there though - the all-in price is 175k gold along with several crafting ingredients, including ones used in the Royal Elemental Staff item line and the Rimed Club +4 which isn't available until Watcher's Keep level 3 is cleared. It's also only usable by rangers and druids who suffer from APR and lack of GM compared to fighters unless other sacrifices are made. Still, you might be right - it might be OP.

Please keep giving this type of feedback.

[chaser]

@bulian

Here are some other thoughts:

In order to prevent the enemy mage's stoneskin from being consumed too quickly and casting spells to be easily interrupted, in the past version, the additional damage effects of weapons were often triggered with a certain probability, but for some of the new weapons, the damage effects are triggered per hit. In addition, these additional damages (especially the most adaptable crushing damage) works independently, which will make these weapons more effective than other weapons in fighting against highly resistant enemies. Therefore, I think such kind of new weapons should be slightly nerfed.
I think that increasing the conditions required to obtain new gears is a way to balance the difficulty. I also have an idea that once some more powerful equipment is acquired, the enemies encountered later will be strengthened as a whole. In this way, players will carefully consider the cost of forging them, which will also bring new challenges to those who are willing to try. Considering this change may be more complicated to carry out, and new gears also requires system design, I think that if possible, this mechanism can be added to the future version as a long-term plan.

[tongtian]

@bulian

Here are some other thoughts:

In order to prevent the enemy mage's stoneskin from being consumed too quickly and casting spells to be easily interrupted, in the past version, the additional damage effects of weapons were often triggered with a certain probability, but for some of the new weapons, the damage effects are triggered per hit. In addition, these additional damages (especially the most adaptable crushing damage) works independently, which will make these weapons more effective than other weapons in fighting against highly resistant enemies. Therefore, I think such kind of new weapons should be slightly nerfed.
I think that increasing the conditions required to obtain new gears is a way to balance the difficulty. I also have an idea that once some more powerful equipment is acquired, the enemies encountered later will be strengthened as a whole. In this way, players will carefully consider the cost of forging them, which will also bring new challenges to those who are willing to try. Considering this change may be more complicated to carry out, and new gears also requires system design, I think that if possible, this mechanism can be added to the future version as a long-term plan.

Challenging high difficulty enemies first and use the rewarded items to slaughter lower level enemies is one way to enjoy the game, so maybe it's not a good idea to change difficulty based on what items you have.

[SparrowJacek]

In order to prevent the enemy mage's stoneskin from being consumed too quickly and casting spells to be easily interrupted, in the past version, the additional damage effects of weapons were often triggered with a certain probability, but for some of the new weapons, the damage effects are triggered per hit. In addition, these additional damages (especially the most adaptable crushing damage) works independently, which will make these weapons more effective than other weapons in fighting against highly resistant enemies. Therefore, I think such kind of new weapons should be slightly nerfed.

I just tested that. Additional damage does not pierce additional layers of stone skin. Both Corrosive lance and standard staff +3 need exactly 7 strikes to remove SS. % chance for bonus damage applies mostly to elemental damage, as it hits even though a character is protected by SS, thus enabling you to interrupt casting.

[Azoth]

Reinstalled IA 6.5.2/IATweaks 1.02 and playing slowly. Some observations:
Valygar as Vagrant has Charisma 10, but Vagrant requires Char 12.
Remove fear spell is not removing the fear symbol over avatar's head of Cloak of fear.
Simplified Economy: I was clearing the 2nd city area, collecting more than 15k gold and the plot was progressing. It felt a bit fast. But so far i like it a lot!
Enable the hardest versions of XP-based encounters in Chapters 2&3: Somehow i was expecting to get also the hardest Vanilla encounters. But no Bone Golem/2nd rune assassin in Skinner quest on 3rd floor.

[critto]

Thanks for the feedback, Azoth!

Valygar as Vagrant has Charisma 10, but Vagrant requires Char 12.

Yeah, it's kinda illegal, I'll probably fix it, but it does not affect anything.

Remove fear spell is not removing the fear symbol over avatar's head of Cloak of fear.

I'll check it out.

Enable the hardest versions of XP-based encounters in Chapters 2&3: Somehow i was expecting to get also the hardest Vanilla encounters. But no Bone Golem/2nd rune assassin in Skinner quest on 3rd floor.

We didn't target vanilla encounters specifically. I'll check this one in particular, if it could be tweaked.

[Azoth]

Thanks critto!

Another one:
~IATWEAKS/SETUP-IATWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #104 // Remove traps & locks: v1.02
Plot related doors in graveyard can be opened too early. Access to Bodhi's hideout.
AR0801 x=1403 y=963
AR0800 x=594 y=972

[critto]

Thanks, I'll see why they were affected by the patch.

[Azoth]

Same for the door to the Harper building in the docks. I can force it to open before doing the small task for the Harpers and kill Prebek.

[lroumen]

That's very nice progress. I will play this after my current run.

[Azoth]

Well, I have found the reason. It was a mistake during patching the original Aerie's creature file. The slow spell was removed from her spell book, but not from a list of memorized spells. This causes the bug: the spell is sitting in the slot, but can't be seen because the game has nothing to reference it against. I've pushed the patch to the master on github. You can grab it from there and replay the sequence starting from the point prior to entering the room where you meet Aerie in the ogre form for the first time.

Or you can edit the save directly in Near Infinity. Game -> Open File -> Open External File, find the baldur.gam in the appropriate save's folder. Once it's opened, in the right upper corner (the "player characters" list) double click on "*ERIE6", go to the Edit tab, scroll down until you see "CRE resource" and double click it. In the newly opened window, scroll down the long list until you see "Memorization info 9". When you click it, you should see "Spell level: 2" and two third level wizard spells listed, one of them is Slow (SPWI312). If it is, double click the "Memorization info 9" line, select the Slow spell in the newly opened list and press the Remove button below. Now, you can close all windows (three in total) until you see the first one, with the "Player characters" in the upper right corner. Here, go to the Edit tab, press Save and confirm the overwrite. You should see the message the the file was saved and then a correct path to the baldur.gam

The issue should be resolved.

Same issue with Edwin and lvl3 spell Remove Magic.

[critto]

Thanks, I'll fix this.

[Azoth]

Awesome! Please share feedback and let us know if you come across any bugs. I'm excited to see you are giving the "hard mode" version a try.

Hard mode could be made a bit harder in d'Arnise Keep lvl1. My party is at 1.2M XP and i almost didn't feel that the troll wave was IA content.

SPOILER!

The wave i was fighting: 1xTroll, 2xGiant Troll, 1xSpirit Troll, 2xSpectral Troll
This encounter feels to easy, when i compare to the 2xYuan-Ti + 3xGreater Yuan-Ti + 1xMinotaur in Mekrath lab or to the 1xShade lich + 2xSL + 2x Greater Mummy in Temple Ruins.
Maybe set hard mode to: 2xNoble Troll, 3xSpirit Troll, 1xSpectral Troll

[critto]

Yes, it could be adjusted. In its current state the hard mode only activates the toughest level/xp-based versions of encounters that have already existed. This requires adding stuff that wasn't there in the first place which wasn't within the scope of that particular feature initially. Not that this particular change is hard, of course, and therefore could be implemented.

[Azoth]

In its current state the hard mode only activates the toughest level/xp-based versions of encounters that have already existed.

Yes, i noticed that you were following the approach of taking toughest encounters below 2.35M XP for chapter 3.

Another one:
Simplified Economy: I was struggling a bit to find gems for certain vanilla upgrades (Silver Horn of Valhalla: Diamond) and EE quests (Neera Talisman of Hearthfire: 2xDiamond+Silver Necklace).
Is there a merchant selling that stuff?

[critto]

No, no merchant, only some monsters drop them. Diamonds, certainly are. I think I left some gem golems with unmodified drops. Can't tell which ones, though, at the moment. Neera's necklace is a vanilla item? I might have missed the fact that some plot-related items for her require components.

Maybe I'll add the gems to some merchant for simplicity in the future update. Feel free to add missing stuff with the console if you need it.

[Azoth]

Some questions:
Is NPP or Combat Trance or the Harpers Ward protecting against Vampire: Domination? Im trying to find out what's causing the "Unaffected by effects from Domination" message on Jaheira. I dont see atm what is protecting her.

Normal Haste spell. Spell Description says: It negates Slow. But is it really cancelling the effect of slow? At least the slow icon on char portrait stays after hit by haste...

This post has been edited by Azoth: Aug 23 2020, 07:57 AM