Suggestions for the coming release Options

[critto]

I've just wanted to report that the fist of nature of the auramaster is inefective against base rakshasa in the game (whereas the improved call lightning explode them in million of pieces).

Fist of Nature has been there in the mod for a long time and I don't think that it is bugged. We increased its damage in v7 though.
Can someone test and confirm that the spell is not bugged?

I ran the test, looks OK to me.

 test.jpg ( 173.13k ) Number of downloads: 9

[SparrowJacek]

I'm currently in the Underdark in my "playthrough". There will be quite a few surprises for players there

The work on my new version of IATweaks is going well. It's a bit slow, but that's mostly because many enemies and even whole enemy types get some (sometimes very slight) changes to their stats, abilities and AI. Some enemies even get various kits assigned and try to use the abilities of those kits to their advantage.

[kilorew]

I'm currently in the Underdark in my "playthrough". There will be quite a few surprises for players there

The work on my new version of IATweaks is going well. It's a bit slow, but that's mostly because many enemies and even whole enemy types get some (sometimes very slight) changes to their stats, abilities and AI. Some enemies even get various kits assigned and try to use the abilities of those kits to their advantage.

Looking forward to the new changes !

[SparrowJacek]

Okay, Underdark finished in 90%, the only part left is Mind Flayers' Dungeon, I'd like to test it thoroughly, but I feel that my party is a bit too weak.

Anyway, I'm finally around 3,4M exp, so our party members get their first HLAs, which means that it's finally time to start implementing new ones and rebalancing a few of the existing ones!

And by the way, what item categories do you think are underrepresented? Which ones would benefit the most from introducing a few new items?

[pekkae]

Okay, Underdark finished in 90%, the only part left is Mind Flayers' Dungeon, I'd like to test it thoroughly, but I feel that my party is a bit too weak.

Anyway, I'm finally around 3,4M exp, so our party members get their first HLAs, which means that it's finally time to start implementing new ones and rebalancing a few of the existing ones!

And by the way, what item categories do you think are underrepresented? Which ones would benefit the most from introducing a few new items?

Underrepresented categories !!

first and foremost Belts and gauntlets. Assuming you don't get the +10% slashung damage belt, one doesn't even have proper belts for eeryone in the crew. Most likely. Any kind of a small improvements even would be nice. Ditto for gauntlets.

And then an improved amulet or two would be great. And a proper club +5. And if one is a big fan of maces, the game doesn't have a single good mace.

[Berzerkerzz]

Parts of the vanilla Mage Stronghold quests are still not improved. Sergeant Natula ambush for example, that's a good fighter party and could be a great fight especially if you add a mage or turn one of the fighters into a mage. There's a monk in there and a thief too. It's a shame it wasn't improved a long time ago. Same with the last quest (Imprisonment Rune). Also the some of those halfling fights could use some further improvements especially the fight in the furnace room


I improved the Planar Prison locally and I must say there was some pretty intense fights, now it was a challenge. First encounter replaced some foes with Greater Yuan-tis, a Yuan-ti Mage and improved Aawill a little. It wasn't significantly more challenging but I did not use Ruby Rays this run, so all the foes had to be waited out. Have to say this is the way these fights are meant to be played without using Ruby Rays before level 14. Improved all the Thralls, skipped the brazier until afte the Warden was dead, this way the Warden battle is more intense as he has two Mage Thralls and about three Fighter Thralls with him. No Ruby Rays here either, was a close fight. Only had two Improved Hastes, party was around level 12. The fight in the east was also pretty cool now, the Wyvern hits with poison attacks after the party was already wounded from the Thralls and Yuan-tis. It could really be a great sequence of events there in the East if improved properly, it has great potential especially if some timers are added so that foes are drawn towards the party or perhaps the party drawn towards the foes, like the Mage Thrall there seems to be moving around drawing you towards the Wyvern. Rested and did the Demon and the next wave of Yuan-tis before the Warden fight.
Added some pictures with the stats of the foes here. Minimal testing was done but it worked out ok, it's far from being challenging as the foes require some better scripts and only some of them were hasted.


photo banner website







This post has been edited by Berzerkerzz: Mar 6 2025, 06:27 AM

[Berzerkerzz]

There are no +2 Katanas in shops I believe or anywhere else in early game.

[SparrowJacek]

first and foremost Belts and gauntlets. Assuming you don't get the +10% slashung damage belt, one doesn't even have proper belts for eeryone in the crew. Most likely. Any kind of a small improvements even would be nice. Ditto for gauntlets.

And then an improved amulet or two would be great. And a proper club +5. And if one is a big fan of maces, the game doesn't have a single good mace.

Noted.

And a proper club +5.

There will be a club +5, though the one I've recently implemented is mainly designed for Thieves, however everyone will be able to use it.

There are no +2 Katanas in shops I believe or anywhere else in early game.

Noted

Parts of the vanilla Mage Stronghold quests are still not improved. Sergeant Natula ambush for example, that's a good fighter party and could be a great fight especially if you add a mage or turn one of the fighters into a mage. There's a monk in there and a thief too. It's a shame it wasn't improved a long time ago. Same with the last quest (Imprisonment Rune).

Hmm right, there are many smaller encounters that were (almost?) untouched by IA. Sergeant Natula definitely won't have any Mage allies, as they're the group that despises magic in general, but who says they can't get +5 levels and some HLAs/gear. If I'll find some time to improve those fights, I'll try to balance them around a party of +-1,5M.

I improved the Planar Prison locally...

Thanks, I'll note that. To me the first (EBH) and the last (Warden) fights are pretty tough already, but maybe some changes to the enemies in between those fights could be made.

This post has been edited by SparrowJacek: Mar 6 2025, 04:59 PM

[pekkae]

first and foremost Belts and gauntlets. Assuming you don't get the +10% slashung damage belt, one doesn't even have proper belts for eeryone in the crew. Most likely. Any kind of a small improvements even would be nice. Ditto for gauntlets.

And then an improved amulet or two would be great. And a proper club +5. And if one is a big fan of maces, the game doesn't have a single good mace.

Noted.

perfect!

Hmm right, there are many smaller encounters that were (almost?) untouched by IA. Sergeant Natula definitely won't have any Mage allies, as they're the group that despises magic in general, but who says they can't get +5 levels and some HLAs/gear. If I'll find some time to improve those fights, I'll try to balance them around a party of +-1,5M.

That crew looks like it should be made with wizard slayers

This post has been edited by pekkae: Mar 6 2025, 06:20 PM

[Berzerkerzz]

Thanks, I'll note that. To me the first (EBH) and the last (Warden) fights are pretty tough already, but maybe some changes to the enemies in between those fights could be made.

The EBH is improved obviously but the helpers are not, and none of the Thralls are improved I believe. The Warden fight is significantly more interesting with the Thralls, about five in total of which two are mages. I managed the fight with only two improved hastes at level 12 and no Ruby Rays, a level later and four improved hastes and the odds are stacked against the foes.

Hmm right, there are many smaller encounters that were (almost?) untouched by IA. Sergeant Natula definitely won't have any Mage allies, as they're the group that despises magic in general, but who says they can't get +5 levels and some HLAs/gear. If I'll find some time to improve those fights, I'll try to balance them around a party of +-1,5M.

Perhaps some PC kits, like a Barbarian, a Riskbreaker or Wizard Slayer.

[SparrowJacek]

and none of the Thralls are improved I believe

Yeah, that's true. Fun fact, Aawill is coded extremely badly in vanilla BG (and is not touched by IA). He's a Bard, but despite wearing Melodic Chain he casts 0 spells, has 0 prebuffs and doesn't even use Bard songs. I won't touch him till I add Bard Rebalancing subcomponent to IATweaks IA_Rebalance component. And since I already have dozens of changes implemented, I will provide some tweaks in later updates and Bard Rebalance will be one of those.

That crew looks like it should be made with wizard slayers biggrin.gif

Perhaps some PC kits, like a Barbarian, a Riskbreaker or Wizard Slayer.

Good ideas

[SparrowJacek]

During my playthroughs I always had problems with how small the area with status effects is in EE games. For now I decided to just move it to the right. It moves the whole menu to the left and leaves the original area with status effects empty, but it's at least more readable. What do you think? Got any suggestions? IA_Rebalanced will introduce quite a few new status effects, so I really want to improve the readability in that regard.


(and a direct link if someone had problems viewing the image:
https://i.imgur.com/hSVrG3e.jpeg

[Berzerkerzz]

During my playthroughs I always had problems with how small the area with status effects is in EE games. For now I decided to just move it to the right. It moves the whole menu to the left and leaves the original area with status effects empty, but it's at least more readable. What do you think? Got any suggestions? IA_Rebalanced will introduce quite a few new status effects, so I really want to improve the readability in that regard.

Looks good but try posting a fully buffed character though, we could get a better idea if everything fits neatly within the window.

[SparrowJacek]

Here are 2 versions, one with the character screen centered (1) and one with character screen + stats area centered (just like in the screen from my previous post).

(1)


(2)

[pekkae]

This looks great!

Would there be a possibility to get a counter for skins?

how many left ( How many total )

Stoneskin 5(15)

this would be of tremendous use at least with my stile.

[SparrowJacek]

This looks great!

Which version looks better to you?

Would there be a possibility to get a counter for skins?

how many left ( How many total )

Stoneskin 5(15)

this would be of tremendous use at least with my stile.

There's no stat that would tell us the starting (total) number of skins. As for the current value, it is available, but there are no real ways of reading this value in real time. Scripts can read it, but they're fired periodically with some period of time between each script evaluation. Another way would be to somehow read it in GUI, just like we read the current status icons and their names, but GUI has very limited access to character data, only the necessary minimum that Beamdog decided to externalize and stats like the number of Stoneskins doesn't lie in this category. I totally agree, that having such info would be great, but sadly I see no real way to implement that.

[pekkae]

Which version looks better to you?

I'm not sure what's the difference - but are improvements!

.

There's no stat that would tell us the starting (total) number of skins. As for the current value, it is available, but there are no real ways of reading this value in real time. Scripts can read it, but they're fired periodically with some period of time between each script evaluation. Another way would be to somehow read it in GUI, just like we read the current status icons and their names, but GUI has very limited access to character data, only the necessary minimum that Beamdog decided to externalize and stats like the number of Stoneskins doesn't lie in this category. I totally agree, that having such info would be great, but sadly I see no real way to implement that.

Alright. That's a shame as that would be have been tremendously useful.

[SparrowJacek]

I'm not sure what's the difference - but are improvements!

The position of the character screen is different, in screen (1) it is perfectly in the center of the screen, in screen (2) it's a bit to the left


Okay, I managed to find a workaround that should allow you to see how many skins your characters have. The only problem is that I have to assign that to some GUI button, or create a new one. Here's the screen, where clicking the "Reveal Details" button (marked in red on the right) shows the number of Stoneskins all characters have, if they have more than 0. It works by forcing a real spell on every character and I checked that this doesn't break current character actions, so it should be OK. What do you think pekkae? Is that helpful? If it is, then I think I'll add this as a completely separate component to IATweaks and create a new button for that right above that "Reveal Details" button.

[pekkae]

I'm not sure what's the difference - but are improvements!

The position of the character screen is different, in screen (1) it is perfectly in the center of the screen, in screen (2) it's a bit to the left


Okay, I managed to find a workaround that should allow you to see how many skins your characters have. The only problem is that I have to assign that to some GUI button, or create a new one. Here's the screen, where clicking the "Reveal Details" button (marked in red on the right) shows the number of Stoneskins all characters have, if they have more than 0. It works by forcing a real spell on every character and I checked that this doesn't break current character actions, so it should be OK. What do you think pekkae? Is that helpful? If it is, then I think I'll add this as a completely separate component to IATweaks and create a new button for that right above that "Reveal Details" button.

Both are fine I think!

I think that's tremendously helpful. I often find myself in a situation where I'm not entirely sure if I have the chance to cast a spell or do I need to prep for my skins mght be running out. So even if it's hidden somewhere, should work perfectly well for my use case!

[Berzerkerzz]

During my playthroughs I always had problems with how small the area with status effects is in EE games. For now I decided to just move it to the right. It moves the whole menu to the left and leaves the original area with status effects empty, but it's at least more readable. What do you think? Got any suggestions? IA_Rebalanced will introduce quite a few new status effects, so I really want to improve the readability in that regard.

Looks good, either is fine.