462 replies to this topic

[kthxbye]

While I've found BGSpawns really hard, I always managed to escape when needed (for example vs the kobold scribe) or defeat the spawns with some tactic.
Regarding the Gnoll's fortress I managed to clear it in two ways: with a huge use of sleep spells, or with Minsc with dexterity gauntlets and ankheg plate mail (both items available before the gnoll spawns). What are the exact difficulties your players have?
Also, I don't think there are more spawns than in vanilla BGT, but the spawns have a lot more creatures. I also didn't have the same spawn activate twice while in the area, so I think the timers are regular ones (or, if modified, not modified to spawn that often).

That said, I think BGSpawn is a difficulty enhancing mod, suggested for who's ready to retreat and rethink their strategies - since I've started using it, I had to revise my whole strategy method.

Just some thoughts to try and lend a hand. I'm sure mm75 will provide you more detailed infos.

EDIT: as expected, mm75 answered even before me! Mmhh spawns every 8 hours? I didn't notice that - with BGspawns and SCS1 I don't even dare to rest in wild areas.

Edited by kthxbye, 20 May 2009 - 12:01 AM.

[Chevalier]

I noticed that when I had 1 high level NPC (from DSotSC) in my party the encounters got harder. Keep the party balanced.

[kthxbye]

Yup, the spawns are level-based. That reminds me of a thing I wanted to ask mm75: would it be possible to make spawns xp-based instead of level-based? A group with a single class bard or thief will encounter uber spawns early because of the fast level progression thieving classes have, but their level progression doesn't match their power progression (for instance, with the same xp value, a fighter will be lower level but more powerful or at least equal, in BG1). Opposite thing is for a party of multiclassed characters only, if the system detects only the higher of the two classes, or same thing as bards if the system sums the two classes levels.
Making spawns xp-based prevents this, since a 10k xp character would have the same spawns regardless of his base class.

[melkor_morgoth75]

Yup, the spawns are level-based. That reminds me of a thing I wanted to ask mm75: would it be possible to make spawns xp-based instead of level-based? A group with a single class bard or thief will encounter uber spawns early because of the fast level progression thieving classes have, but their level progression doesn't match their power progression (for instance, with the same xp value, a fighter will be lower level but more powerful or at least equal, in BG1). Opposite thing is for a party of multiclassed characters only, if the system detects only the higher of the two classes, or same thing as bards if the system sums the two classes levels.
Making spawns xp-based prevents this, since a 10k xp character would have the same spawns regardless of his base class.

Well,

there was a thread more than 1 year ago when i asked community about the chance of "spawn per level". That was what everyone loved to have.
Personally i also prefer level-based spawns, it simply doesn't make sense to me to have a XP check for spawns ... ??? Why? I know different classes have different xp table progression, but it's something that is related to RPG. If u go around with just thief and/or bards u should be able to be invisibile or hide, so it's up to players play a kind of real rpg game

Unfortunately it's really not easy to adjust the "level" check or do it in different ways ... technically i mean. I used "StrongestOf" which really gives me the closest thing i need for the mod.

mm75

[kthxbye]

That's cool as it is for me. The suggestion aimed to lower a bit the difficulty for non standard parties using a lot of "weak" classes. These parties are anyway really rare in my experience.

BTW, I'm running one of those and had no problems so far, I post my progresses in the no-reload thread in the Bioware BG1 forums if someone's interested (BGSpawn + SCS1&2).

Edited by kthxbye, 20 May 2009 - 02:09 AM.

[Leomar]

German gamers reported, that BGSpawns is quite hard. There are areas, which has lots of more enemies as it is without your mod. The main reports are about the gnoll fortress. Each 40m spawns around 10 gnolls (with wild dogs) and make it impossible to go further without the whole party is defeated. They say the spawns happens to much and to often.

Have you changed the timer of the spawn points and/or added more spawn point with your mod?

Greetings Leomar

No, i didn't add any new spawn points. But now u face the number of gnoll a fortress should have
Is that player resting after any fight with Gnolls? Please keep in mind that spawns ... re-spawn any 8 hours so that's why he could face them again and again.

What's the highest levelled character in his party and how many party members he/she has?

mm75

I've started a discussion (and added your questions) about BGSpawns in the German forum. I'll let you know, if I've the answers and perhaps more opinions about your mod. Thanks kthxbye for your feedback.

Greetings Leomar

[kthxbye]

I'm not sure if it's intended behavior, so I'll report this. It seems that there are some creatures that doesn't disappear when the area gets cleared by scripts (for example, when the character escapes and the creature stays in the area, then the character go back to the same area after, for example, a game week) while spawns reset as always. That makes it possible to create really large groups of enemies, and every time the character encounter them the new spawns add to the already large group.

Since I usually try to defeat the spawns I had this problem only in the Ulcaster area so far, but I think this happens with BG2 creatures only. I went to Ulcaster (night) a first time, and fled from a group of 2 shadows and 2 skeletal warriors. Went back to Ulcaster (day) a few levels after, and I had to flee from a group of 2x orc archers and 2x mages. Went back while invisible a few game days after (day), I met another spawn of 2x archers and 2x mages but had to flee because the mages dispelled the group's invisibility. While fleeing I came across the orcs I left before and also the 2x shadows and 2x skeletal warriors.
That more or less prevents me from going to Ulcaster, since with the spawns stacking next time I'd have 2x shadows, 2x skeletal warriors, 4x archers, 4x mages plus the new spawns.

If it's not intended, I think it could be a problem with BG2 creatures' AI not recognizing (or not being recognized) by the scripts that clear areas after a certain amount of days.

EDIT: I'll post my weidu.log as soon as I switch to the laptop if the issue may be caused by some other mods, just let me know if I have to.

Edited by kthxbye, 26 May 2009 - 02:58 AM.

[melkor_morgoth75]

Intended behaviour. It makes sense to me (why should they disappear "magically" if u encountered them?) ... of course after 8 hours u also have a "respawn" eventually So be careful to leave huge groups of wondering monsters in some areas

mm75

[Leomar]

Intended behaviour. It makes sense to me (why should they disappear "magically" if u encountered them?) ... of course after 8 hours u also have a "respawn" eventually So be careful to leave huge groups of wondering monsters in some areas

mm75

Is this BG behaviour or BGSpawn behaviour?

Greetings Leomar

[melkor_morgoth75]

Is this BG behaviour or BGSpawn behaviour?

Greetings Leomar

I really don't remember valilla BG and I don't have the chance to look at it, anyway it's BGspawn's behaviour to have a respawn each 8 hours.

mm75

[kthxbye]

Wow, that makes the game really HARD.. I think I screwed up the Ulcaster quest then.

[melkor_morgoth75]

Wow, that makes the game really HARD.. I think I screwed up the Ulcaster quest then.

Well, it depends on how u see things ... i managed to do the mod looking at areas. I think that, for example, the Ulcaster Area is a very wild one and should be quite hard to face. Both Wild area and dungeon. Of course it won't be the same for example in u just go down of Beregos, but another example would be the Firewine Bridge which is not a civilized area and should be quite full of monster or at least it could hide very hard and rare creatures.

Basically ... farer u go from civilized areas, harder encounters u will face, i think it makes sense. Spawning each 8 hours it's RPG-wise and it's against the cheese option to continue fighting and resting forever.

I hope this makes sense, but let me know if u really find the encounters impossible (please i'd need number of party and level) ...

mm75

PS: anyway u should have not screwed the Ulcaster quest .... unless u simply forget to take the book or avoid to face the ones who "defend" it

Edited by melkor_morgoth75, 29 May 2009 - 04:54 AM.

[kthxbye]

Not screwed in that way - but I'm not able to fight the current spawns so I can't enter the area ever again.

Right now I have a blade lvl 7, bard lvl 7, cleric 7/mage 6, thief 7/mage 6 party and I have 2x shadows, 2x skeleton warriors, 4x archers, 4x orc mages and the new spawn. I tried to go back invisible but I had the mages use Detect Invisibility and the party had to flee. The orc mages uses spells of too high level to be able to battle them now, and four of them is really too much.
The main problem is that I didn't know in advance it was intended of working this way, and left some spawns behind instead of fighting.

Personally I think that the spawns every 8 hours are, RPG-wise, already enough to ensure areas are high populated and difficult to explore (for example, in the Firewine Bridge area I had to fight a group of five ogre berserker and a greater basilisk), while the persistent creatures might mean an area becomes off-limit because of the high number of spawns left there time after time. After all, if you meet some creatures and you flee, the creatures are supposed to move around and do their business, you'll eventually meet them again (same spawn) or meet some other creatures (different spawns) while the first ones just wandered away.
Anyway, keeping the persistent spawns isn't an issue - just point it out clearly in the readme, since fleeing and going back when ready is the usual way to go with the BGT/Tutu/vanilla spawns, and if the player doesn't know with BGSpawns it works in a different way it could lead to some troubles.

EDIT: forgot to mention, I really like the philosophy behind the mod. The spawns themselves aren't impossible, but are very though alone already. Having them stacking if someone flees and comes back later increases the difficulty a lot anyway (if 1x spawn is really hard, 2x are REALLY hard and 3x are.. Well.. You know. )

Edited by kthxbye, 29 May 2009 - 10:04 AM.

[melkor_morgoth75]

Anyway, keeping the persistent spawns isn't an issue - just point it out clearly in the readme, since fleeing and going back when ready is the usual way to go with the BGT/Tutu/vanilla spawns, and if the player doesn't know with BGSpawns it works in a different way it could lead to some troubles.

I will update the readme, fair enough. Without spoiling too much i think u're right, just describe how the spawns work could help the player how to play it without having the possible/impossible groups as u mentioned above

Again, thanks for your feedback mate!

mm75

[Miloch]

Just wondering - would this be suitable for a Tutu conversion, or is it based off Tutu in the first place?

[melkor_morgoth75]

Just wondering - would this be suitable for a Tutu conversion, or is it based off Tutu in the first place?

Well, i'm honest here ... i don't quite have a clue about Tutu Really, i just never played neither had a look at it. Anyway, the mod is based on BGT-tweak feature who itself is based on the tutu-levelled style system ... so at the end i guess that would be not that diffucult to convert it.
If u're interested of course just let me know ... u have far better knowledge of modding than me

mm75

[kthxbye]

Always happy to help when I can.

About the tutu porting: I've never used tutu myself, but from what I know it uses two separate folders for BG1 and BG2, so I'm not sure the BG1 Tutu folder has the required BG2 creatures BGSpawn uses. Other than that, I think it should only require renaming areas and put an underscore in front of names.
Anyway, I repeat, I've never used tutu. I'm sure others will know better.

[Miloch]

I'm not sure the BG1 Tutu folder has the required BG2 creatures BGSpawn uses. Other than that, I think it should only require renaming areas and put an underscore in front of names.

Tutu will have all the BG2 resources since it's built on the BG2 engine. But it's not always as easy as adding underscores and changing names. For example, any BG2 CREs you use will probably not have sounds, since in BG2 they exist in .2da files tied to their animations (mkob.2da for example, for kobolds). Well in Tutu these were wiped and the BG1/Tutu resources have the sounds on their CRE files instead. So you'd have to patch the proper sounds into the CREs if you wanted to hear them. That's how it appears in EasyTutu anyway, though I don't think regular Tutu operates that much differently (if anyone still uses that). A lot of the BG2 CREs have equivalent Tutu (BG1) resources anyway.

But technicality aside, I was asking more if this was conceptually compatible, because if it was intended to simulate the Tutu spawns in the first place, it wouldn't make much sense to convert it. But it probably goes beyond that, so someone should look at converting it (I'd like to but I'm a bit busy right now).

[kthxbye]

Whops, seems I was quite wrong then. At least I've learned something now.

[Ascension64]

The conversion process shouldn't be difficult, even if this spawn system uses the Tutu v6 beta template. The steps involved would be:
1. Disable all "Trap #" trigger points in EasyTutu areas (easy)
2. Add info points and vertices to each area (needs only modification of the file names to their EasyTutu equivalents - PCU, although derelict, still has its uses here)
3. Modify scripts so that either they contain the EasyTutu ResRefs for CRE references, or implement CPM © cmorgan naming conversions for real-time variable substitution
4. You are laughing!