28 replies to this topic

[Bill Bisco]

Got a Few things to Say. Mostly DSOTSC but 1 for SOBH, so I'll say that one first

Once I realized that it was all of those Gem, Ammo, and Potion Bags from Lazarus that were slowing me down, the game got a lot faster and so I was able to complete it Very nice touch of putting Lazarus there by the way. I liked it.

You know, how much gold was stolen? 250? 350? What was that Black Pearl Worth? 300 or so? And, Peltar and Welcar won't let me leave because I'm somehow to blame for their troubles? By the Time I was there, I had 80,000 GP. I could have bought that darn town! I could have reimbursed everyone, and hire a mercenary group to guard the area for a year, I could have bought my own Battleship to Sail me the Heck out of that Place.

Seriously, I hate being forced anywhere especially with that huge amount of money! Why wasn't reimbursing them even an option! I don't care if the king will tan Welcar's hide, I can pay the king off sheesh! B)

Anywho, I think that there should be more than one way of escaping that place Similarly, the special areas north of the Temple Area and South of Restenford have no special map notes to tell me that going south will lead to an area within Restenford itself rather than to the world map. Those would be helpful. Fun so far, look forward to part 2.

DSOTSC: Oh yes, and none of these are intended as attacks on you in anyway. Just frustration of the silliness of it all. You have and are doing wonderful things Sir BillyBob

Alright, The ArchDruid in The CloakWood Mines. Like I said, battle can happen when you talk to him. Funny though, if I summon skeletons to attack him while I'm trying to talk to him, he'll just try to walk off into the distance and dissappear.

Balance-wise: Okay, this guy is messed up. I can only hit him on 20s I believe. His Armor gives him AC0 then the ring should give him AC-4. And my Thac0 is 4 so with a negative 4 I should hit him on an 8 which should be more than half of the time. Even if he's got some hidden modifiers, I just can't hit this guy enough! It's ridiculous, he's not even that powerful! Something is messed up here.

Also, those items that he has are silly. AC0 Armor? Why? And that ring is +4 AC but Druid's only? Why not have a +4 ring of protection. Those actually exist. Still though, that ring is just silly.

Guards: The Guards around the Cloakwood mines are messed up. They have way more AC than they should. I assume that they should have AC2 or so and yet they act like they have AC18. They're weak and are hard to hit for an 8th level fighter with a Thac0 of 4. Silly.

Compare them to the Guards inside the Cloakwood mines and you'll definitely see that something is amiss.

Tytus: One of the Guards just before decending into the mines is also messed up. Yeah he has a large shield and *Special* Plate mail that gives AC1 but that means only AC0 even with an 18 Dex that's AC-4 and I have a Thac0 of 4, which means that even against mace I shouldn't miss 6 attacks in a row. Something is messed up about him. Also, I do not believe that he needs a Belt of Frost Giant Strength (even though I like using it).

Also, I have a nagging feeling that my Thac0 may not be what it says that it is. Is there any way for me to know if that is so?

Oh yes, Izefia in Cloakwood, one of the Druids who tells you to die, has no weapon, and makes no attempt to attack or cast spells on you. Just stands there. Also, Some of the Black Talons outside of Cloakwood mines give no scalps.

[Sir BillyBob]

I hope you do realize that most of the items and new creatures you are talking about come from DSotSC and NTotSC. NTotSC is a BG1 mod from a team in Poland. If you have issues with their stuff, send them a message. I just asked, and was given permission, to port it to BGT-BP (now BGT-Weidu). As far as I know they are still active with this mod so perhaps your suggestions will be looked into by them. I promised them that I would not change anything unless it simply didn't work on the BG2 engine.

Missing a scalp is good to note for me, that is something I can fix (the scalps are probably on the original CRE files anyway).

DSotSC items and creatures are a slightly different issue. That mod is dead, no one supports it anymore. I have tried to leave most of the items as originally created. I did modify their +4 and +5 weapons (not needed in BG1 anyway). So the ArchDruid has a +4 Ring of Protection that only druids can use. So what? Is your issue that you don't have a druid on your team and so can't use this? The whole idea of some powerful items is that they are powerful only to a select few, not to any farmer/peasant that picks it up.

As for THAC0 issues, I am not sure what to tell you. I would assume that either the game is doing as it should, or you are interpreting something wrong, or the game engine has bugs (wouldn't surprise me). There is nothing special about some CREs vs others. Some have better weapons and lower "normal" AC to toughen them up otherwise, it should all be the same. I am not sure how to test any of this though. What are you using to base the assumption that some CRE files aren't working correctly? I know you posted elsewhere that you noticed a mace doesn't always work as well as other weapons. Is this the same issue here?

Edited by Sir BillyBob, 05 February 2006 - 11:04 AM.

[Bill Bisco]

Alright. You will have to forgive me for my ignorance. I installed a bunch of mods at the same time because I wanted to try a bunch at the same time. Kind of to see what the effect on all of them have on the BG World as a whole. Thus, Except for the quests, I am not sure whether it's Dark Side or North Side that's affecting something.

I would be very happy to contact the North Side of the Coast Modders. Do they have a forum, email?

Maybe I do not entirely know the purpose of this forum. Is it a desire of yours to fix the bugs involved in these to versions? Should I not Post Bugs or Should I post them but not worry about them getting fixed? I do not know. I apologize for my ignorance. Believe me that my intention has always been good when posting.

Anywho, it's not that I terribly mind a +4 AC ring for druids, but are they going to make a Ring that gives Fighters +4 AC? Eh, Never. But that's okay.

Setting aside my own personal distaste (just my opinion) for these items, take a look at this ArchDruid Yourself if you don't believe me. Go up to him with an 8th or 10th level fighter with a +2 Weapon. You won't hit him hardly ever.

Try attacking Tytus. You'll hardly ever hit him, although perhaps a little more. He may or may not be bugged. I may need to test again.

But for sure, compare the Guards inside and outside, the ones outside have way higher AC and HP than the ones inside, that is not good. But, aak, perhaps that's not a bug, but a I think a highly worthy change.

Ek, maybe it's hard to separate those from the bugs. My apologies. Now, are the ArchDruid, Tytus, and the Guards adjust by Dark Side or North Side? I do not know.

Oh yes, Izefia in Cloakwood is most definitely bugged. Summon him for yourself and see.

Hmm, this is kind of unfortunate too, because I have a a few other Suggestions for DSOTSC. For instance The Dark One and the Forest Dragon Cheat. Also the Bag of Holding there has infinite items, you take one of them out and another one is back in the Bag of Holding. And other ones just to make the quests more accessible.

But perhaps Tweaking and improving is not to be suggested?

Edit: As far as Thac0s go, where here is where I see that something is not right. I am a Fighter/Cleric/Mage. Imoen is a Thief. I have a Thac0 of 3 and hers is listed at 8 and yet it seems that she hits twice as much. Now when I'm using a Sling, I generally hit, but with a mace, it's different.

Edited by Bill Bisco, 05 February 2006 - 04:11 PM.

[Sir BillyBob]

The problem with making a garbage pail game (throwing mods together with the hope that something great comes out of it) is that unless you know what comes from each mod, you don't know what is actually wrong, different, didn't work as it should, or simply broken.

As for something like an item for druids, the original mod was geared for the classes that BioWare seemed to ignore, i.e. wizards, druids, and bards. There are items in the mod for every BG1 class but the druids do seem to have some cool but overpowered items. I am not going to apologies for what they created. I have seen worse, hell I have a revised mod that is super-uber-overpowered. So who am I to say that DSotSC has overpowered items?

Izefia should have some sort of weapon. If you say there isn't one, fine, I will check into it. This is a "real" bug and worth verifying and fixing.

Creatures that seem to be too hard to kill (and yes Tytus has wiped the floor with me several times) should probably be looked at to see why they are so hard. That doesn't mean that I will make them another low level bandit for you to fight. If you add Tactics to your games, do you complain that the fights are now too hard? Some mods have tough enemies. As for the ArchDruid, come on he is an archdruid. Level 14 at least and you expect your party of level 6-9 band to take him down in a few seconds? If anything, he should kick your ass and take names. I never understood why BioWare makes the one in the treehouse so incredibly easy to kill. Perhaps one should be toughened and the other weakened to balance them out?

The Bag of Holding in the Dark One's house is working as far as I know. No one has ever said they had a problem before with it. So this is the first time I have ever heard of a problem. Again, something valid and something for me to review.

Could you explain the Forest Dragon Cheat? Same for the Dark One. What cheat? Something you do or something you feel that they do?

[Bill Bisco]

Yes, Both the Forest Dragon and The Dark One can see you when you're invisible or hidden in Shadows. In Fact the Dark One Talks to you while you're hidden in shadows.

The Dragon could potentially have an excuse for detecting you being hidden, but the Dark one should not be able to see you hidden in Shadows. (Yes I know that he's the dark one But still).

Similarly they do not respect Sanctuary; they cast spells and attack you while you have it up. I do not like this.

I played through the Dark One Quest and I have a Suggestion for it.

1. Allow the Protagonist to access it anytime. This is just more logical I believe, doesn't impact the story, and makes it more likely to completed. Secondly, a person who didn't look up the Walkthrough is unlikely to come back to that location and expect something different to happen.

2. As soon as the Dark One appears, open up his house. A couple of times I played through and that One Particular Ghost was nowhere near and thus I would have been continually been fighting for nothing. Not to mention that I watched my 3 skeletons walk through the entrance that I was denied access to. This would probably make it a little better in my opinion.

BTW, I enjoyed seeing the Dark Side of The Sword Coast Chapter thingy. But man, that voice was messed up, heard lots of buzzes during it. Hmm, probably could use a redo in the far future.

Garbage Pail Game, that's not a very nice term

Perhaps one should be toughened and the other weakened to balance them out?

Perhaps so, as it is now, the ArchDruid is Just a Wall of AC and nothing else. Casts a couple of spells and then proceeds with his attacks.

As for the ArchDruid, come on he is an archdruid. Level 14 at least and you expect your party of level 6-9 band to take him down in a few seconds? If anything, he should kick your ass and take names.

Lol

[Sir BillyBob]

Izefia should have a Spear of Fire. I guess it is possible that you don't see one in his hands based on the graphics. However, did he drop one? If not, there is a real problem here. I am not worried about animations since I can't control them anyway but he should have that spear in his hands and when you get hit, there should be a small fire animation on your character (same as being hit by a Flame Tongue sword, I guess).

Now, the ArchDruid is a completely different issue. Just for fun, I decided to make him as my PC and bump up the levels to a level 14 druid (Arch Druid correct?). With his stats of 18 S, 18 D, 16 C, 10 I, 17 W, and 16 Ch, he automatically has a AC of 6.

Now, put on the armor which is AC0. This gives him an AC of -6 (base of 0 plus his dexterity bonuses). Add the ring for +4 giving him -10. Add the sword which gives +3 total (+1 for sword, +2 for AC bonus). So he now has an AC of -13.

By the way, the base THAC0 is 12. With sword and other benefits, he has a THACO of 8. So he is going to be a real challenge for you. Oh by the way, none of this even mentions the spells that he should have but TeamBG didn't include in his CRE file. My version includes 2 Insect Plagues. So do you really want me to "fix" him or leave him alone? Don't answer, I think I just started my next tweak mod. Hehe.

[Bill Bisco]

Look Forward to it. I love a Challenge. I don't mind high Abilities, just as long as they are justified and not simply given (like Drizzt's Damage and AC).

Oh yes, and for a Dex of 18 it should be a -4 not- 6 AC unless you're going to be giving him some high dex items.

Yes, Izefia does have a Spear of Fire, but it certainly appears that he's not weilding it. What's more he doesn't DO anything. He just stands there like an idiot while you impale him to death for XP. Yep, just stands there, doesn't run, attack, walk in circles, anything, just stands.

Edited by Bill Bisco, 05 February 2006 - 06:44 PM.

[Sir BillyBob]

Well I can't explain why BioWare gives this dexterity bonus. It is now what you would get, so I consider that as fair. If I gave him an impossible Dex bonus, that would be cheesy.

I think Izefia's problem is that he doesn't have a good druid script for attacking you. I don't think he has anything other than Shout and InitDlg. The other druids should be the same way. Personally I think that attacking one druid should trigger the others to come to the rescue. Call it a "bird alert" or something but this area has always been way too easy.

[Bill Bisco]

That's a good idea. And you're right, it's always been too easy and similarly there's not much to do here either. But you know, there is some potential room for expansion. I mean, what if the Protagonist is A Druid and believes as they do? There could be some fun quests to be initiated into the Zealot Druid Domain.

Heh, perhaps you could eventually vie for the Arch-Druid Position, hehe. And when the BGT Component is updated, travel between The BG1 and BG2 areas will be allowed. You could be ArchDruid of two places, hehe.

[dragonian]

http://www.forum.isl...3cc89834edb140e a link to forum of polish modder Aurelius - he is resposible fo NTotSC

[SaKiS]

After reading Billi Biscos posts...
I just finished Dsotsc for the first time and I really enjoyed it. Don't want to start anything but pointing the bugs would have been much better than judge them as "silly". I also see some irony from biscos part with no reason whatsoever. No one said this is a bug free mod. Playtesting it and helping the mod become better is something different than the way you state your opinion bisco. I also installed a large amount of mods and the only thing that affected my dsotsc experience was a cleric spell that instantly killed undead. I am currently posting from my laptop where I dont have the game installed I will go home later to see which spell this was and post it here(I think it was a TDD addition). Dark one quest became too easy and I replayed it without using it. I killed the dragon using a different approach than usual and it was quite fun.
Tytus, Archdruid etc gave some good battles to my party. I really expected the battle with archdruid to be more difficult. Don't want to start a flame in this forum. We have nothing to gain. I think we are all in the same team here. Just my 2 cents.

[Bill Bisco]

Well, I just checked back through my posts and I said the word "silly" 3 times. 2 of them Referred to the Druid's Items and the last one referred to the differences in guards.

Perhaps I went a little too far on the first one. I guess I was probably just annoyed at the fact that the ArchDruid is Bugged and has a Higher AC than he should have and also because the Game Says that I should hit him 1 out of every 4 hits but hits him 1/20 hits. Thac0 problems may not be the mods fault, I know not.

The Guard thing I said was silly was because if you play through, you will notice a definite difference between the guards inside and outside. I don't particuarly like overpowered weaklings, or at the least they should all be just as hard.

But once again that is just my opinion. Perhaps I failed in being tactful with my opinion. Maybe I got too excited about it all that I forgot to choose to express myself more carefully. I apologize for that. I will try to do better in the future.

Like every modder whose game I play, I always tell them that I enjoyed their mod. And, I very much enjoyed DSOTSC. It's fun and good I only posts bugs and suggestions in the hope that it will make the mod better.

But, I'll try taking a little longer next time. My apologies.

[Sir BillyBob]

What is the issue with the guards "inside" and "outside"? There are some Iron Throne Guards outside (basically bandits with better arrows). You find them inside as well. The guards watching over the miners are not powerful at all. But once you go down a level or two, you encounter a room with a mage and about 10-15 Iron Throne Guards (the ones with Ice Arrows). So I think I am missing something here.

By the way, the extra guards outside are from NTotSC. I believe a few of them are also spread out through the 4 levels of the mines. Also, I don't understand why the Iron Throne can't have guards with different skill levels. Are all guards required to be "easy" or "hard"? I can modify this to put some more balance into it but I don't understand the issue you are bringing up.

[Bill Bisco]

Alrighty, Wow. It is definitely a good thing to always be polite. Sometimes you think you're right and then suddenly you start listening to someone else and think about it, and maybe you're dead wrong.

Further to add to my detriment and ignorance, I didn't know about the Ctrl+Q Feature! Shew! He has a -12 AC that is why he is hard to hit. And he has a base AC of 0 rather than 6.

About the Guards: Maybe I'm wrong about this. I may have accidently confused some of the Black Talon as being Guards and that may have added to my reasoning. Now there is another kind of generic Guard around (name starts with K), he has 32 or so hitpoints and 3 better thac0 than the average guard. So looking at the numbers it actually doesn't seem like too big a deal.

When I was playing through, it seemed like some guards were harder to kill and had higher AC. This may have been due to me confusing some of them with black talons, me just unluckily missing, circumstance, and perhaps some of them were naturally harder but not as much as it seemed to me at the time. My Bad. I will have to come back to this area at a later date and Re-Test what I have said.

On another note, I was right about something Else

I had no idea about this before, but the game has an innate Bias toward Melee Weapons. Turn on the Feature which makes it so that you see the Game Rolling for you. Attack with any melee weapon against an opponent with an AC that is hard for you to hit. On Average every other attack will automatically not even Register as an attack!

Any kind of ranged weapon on the Other hand will always register as an attack. This is absolutely horrible! Melee weapons are very slow compared to ranged and I never noticed it! That is why Imoen always seemed to hit on every attack and I missed half of my attacks! The Game Engine is messed up!

Even worse, if you drink a potion of Speed and attack with a melee weapon, you'll find that you start missing more than half of your supposed attacks which means that you end up fighting even worse. Ranged weapons under Haste still work fine.

Also of note, I tested the item "Gauntlets of the Faithful Warrior" (I believe Mulahey drops these). These items say they increase your Thac0 and indeed your character sheet shows them dropping by 3, but in actuality, you are hitting no better at all. Sheesh, and I had been carrying them around all this time

I haven't tested it yet, but there's a good chance that one of the items from Rieltar's crew (the Necklace that adds to Dexterity and Thac0 doesn't actually help in attacking either.

I also noticed that the spells Physical Agility, Divine Favour, and Prayer do not actually help your attacks. I'll have to report those in another forum.

Oh yes, one thing I forgot, when the Spirit that tells you that you need to go inside to defeat the Dark One, the game does not pause, thus you are getting whacked a bunch mid-conversation.

[Sir BillyBob]

Great material and testing on the melee info. I don't think I have ever seen anyone else mention this. Is it possible that your chance of THAC0 is based on the difficulty level you are playing? Would Insane make your attacks less likely and Easy make it that most hits work?

Black Talons, I couldn't remember what they were called. Yes, they are a different class of bandit/guard from what is inside the mine. The 4 enemies waiting for you should have slighter higher stats also. I still think they are way too easy except for the guy with the Boots of Speed. He seems to always get out of my Web/Entangle spells. Killed Garrick once in one hit (something I have wanted to do myself).

So autopause is not working on the Phantom's dialog. That "should" be easy to fix. Noted.

[amazinggameguru]

I don't know if it is NTotSC that installs them but there are black talon elite outside of the mines, they are improved versions of the black talon elite with stacks of 20 +1 and ice arrows. When I ran into them they had messed up attack descriptions and looked like they were using a spell description.

[Sir BillyBob]

Those are the ones we mentioned above from NTotSC. Not sure why their descriptions are trashed. Anyone else see this?

[melkor_morgoth75]

Those are the ones we mentioned above from NTotSC. Not sure why their descriptions are trashed. Anyone else see this?

I can confirm the presence of "strong" black talon elite, but honestly i don't know about description (i'm sorry but i don't understand what do you mean description when speaking about a creature)

Eventually i can check into NI within my game, just let me know what i have to check

mm75

[Sir BillyBob]

I was assuming that "description" meant the creature's name.

[amazinggameguru]

I was assuming that "description" meant the creature's name.

okay, I looked up the creature file, it is btelite the problem isn't in the name but in certain sound files. If someone else can look and see if theirs are screwed up. Here are the files that I can see are messed up.
Sound: Initial_Meeting -- Has the item description for Dusty Rod of Ust Terran
Sound: Damaged -- Spell description for melt
Sound: Dying -- Recemon's wonderful rejuvenation
Sound: Select_Common1 -- Item description for Dusty Rod of Ust Terran
Sound: Dialog_Hostile -- Requiem of Elysium spell description

Okay, all of these are from the planar sphere mod which I have installed....I'm not quite sure how things got messed up but at least I know which mod is doing it. SirBillyBob, don't know if you have any idea what caused this.