7 replies to this topic

[Februarius]

I'm planing to install BWP standard version and play the game on D&D rules difficulty. My aim is to add as much new content as I can without unbalancing the game. My idea is to select standard installation and tick of some mods that ruin the game balance.
I am planing to add all quest related mods (big and small for bg1 and bg2), NPC-s that add content to the game through quests and banters. Problem is that I am not sure about item and tweak mods for standard version. I was thinking of removing all item mods, but I am not sure about standard tweak mods, kit mods and simmilar. Can someone who has more exp with this mods give me some clue wich of these are 'must have', good or 'avoid by all means'. Wich ones are buggy or cause CTD's . Or give me their general idea what mods ruin game balance and experiance. I don't want a game where I will get something without any effort, like finding +2 items in every second container. Or some unreal components like 'rest anywhere' and so on...

Edited by Februarius, 22 November 2010 - 09:52 AM.

[davide]

me too!

My aim is to add as much new content as possible without uber items or strange new rules

I suppose that with a lot of big mod the party gained a huge exp
and it maxmimizes party level

Therefore for balancing the Game some tactical improvments are necessary, I suppose,
without put invulnerable Dragons in Beregost's squares however ...

[dabus]

Maybe you want to look at Arkenor?s Adventure Picks, which are included in the BWS beta.

It?s chosen to add the maximum amount of adventure, while avoiding things like item packs which just make the game easier, or mods which I personally have found to be too buggy or unbalanced. It has been a stable build, when I?ve used it. It?s also worth mentioning that it used the Big Picture AI, rather than SCS.

It?s a fairly hard set-up, especially right at the beginning of BG. That?s a problem with any setup which reduces xp. Xp reduction is necessary to prevent you becoming ridiculously overpowered, but means it takes a while for you to get going at the beginning. Don?t feel bad if you need to bump yourself up a level at some point in chapter 1.

[Februarius]

I'v done my installation a few days ago. I went through selection of every component and I read about every component in mods readme. I even went to forums to find out more about some mods. I must say that it was a painful job and it took all afternoon to make a mods and component selection. Now there is nothing more to do but to play the game and see if there is something that I dont like. @Davide, I will attach my BWS ini so you can load the selection if you want. Maybe some things are subjective but I tried to be as objective as I can. For me heaving item that can teleport you around or posibility of resting everywhere is not balanced and it spoils the fun and feeling of adventuring. Also I removed recommended graphics imported from Icewind Dale. They didnt look and feel like BG to me.

Attached Files

•  BWS-selection.rar   4.69K   177 downloads

[dabus]

If you'd give me the permission, a catchy name and a short description, the BWS could be shipped with your selection. Maybe you could outline the difference to Arkenors approach if possible.

[Februarius]

If you'd give me the permission, a catchy name and a short description, the BWS could be shipped with your selection. Maybe you could outline the difference to Arkenors approach if possible.

No problem, I would be glad to help as much as I can but first I must play more of the game to see how it behaves with this selection of mods. I will give it a try next few days and make some notes. I like to believe that I am a serious and experienced BG and d&d player and I want the game to be as much closer to d&d rules as it can. Of course I will always accept good idea if it is an improvement and has some logic. Everything that I see as unbalancing or a cheat I will point out and probably modify selection by that. I will keep you updated.
ps. I just got an idea of creating some sort of a guide for selection of mods and their components. Because I couldnt find something similar. It would be nice for someone new to have more info before selecting them. There are short descriptions of mods in BWS but not for all their components. I will probably need more time for this because I dont have so much exp with all mods. I will probably start with explanation of my selection for now.

Edited by Februarius, 28 November 2010 - 04:38 PM.

[dabus]

Hm, so what's missing that cannot be gathered by clicking on the homepage-button at the top of the "info-space"?

If you can provide some solid information, I might add that so it's displayed in the "info-space" when you click to the respective components. That's possible since the first public version came out, but I did not include any text since it's a freaking bunch of work and nobody had provided any until now. Well, there is some in the BWP pdf, but most of the stuff is some information concerning the installation and does not describe the component itself. The information will be language specific, so you can have them displayed/translated in your selected (native) language.

[Februarius]

For some mods 'homepage-button' just sends you to the spellholds download center, not to the home page of the mod. So you have to find readme in mod folder to find out about each component. I just tought that it would be nice to have all that info (maybe enhanched with some opinion or advice), for every component in one place. What I did is that I tried to get more info about mods and components on forums. Opinions of exp. gamers and similar. Of course you could use this or modify it for the use of BWS. I will check what components in setup are missing their info and try to gather it. For now I will stick with the standard mods selection.

As for my selection, the main difference from Arkenors picks is that it adds much more content. His selection doesent have big and small quest mods, or new npcs etc. With my selection I tried to stick with most of default standard selection but without most item mods and similar stuff that I think are not balanced. So I have most of the big and small quest mods, new npcs and recommended SCS AI. And no new animations. But again I didnt played through this selection yet so I cant say that it is good. I guess that by adding all big quest mods you will probably unbalance the game but you do get a lot of new content. I read that XP balancer does good job keeping the xp balanced. I dont know what is about the items in big quest mods. So anyway I plan to stick with the big quest mods because they add lot of new content. I could easily remove smaller mods from my selection because you dont lose that much content.

Edited by Februarius, 28 November 2010 - 06:30 PM.