172 replies to this topic

[aigleborgne]

In my opinion the wyvern is fine, it's a flying creature so it's related to the air environment, the same way polar bears and winter wolves represent the ice environment, they could as well be ice trolls/frost salamanders or whatever lives in cold places.

Why did they choose a baby wyvern animation instead of a normal one, considering it is far more powerful than a classic wyvern ? It makes no sense.
To me, it clearly indicates it wasn't intend to be a wyvern and a flying creature doesn't mean it comes from air elemental plane.
We will never know anyway, but a creature from air elemental plane would better fit.

[Beleg33]

Well, I don't think these areas are supposed to be elemental planes, just some protection for lower level of Durlag's Tower made by dwarves. Do oozes come from acid elemental plane, if such thing even exists? Or polar wolves/bear from an hypothetic ice elemental plane? They don't have to be creatures from the associated plane. How about phoenix guards, are they just made up by Bioware, where do they come from?

I agree the baby wyvern animation could be replaced, but I don't see it necessary to completely replace the creature.

In the end it's aVENGER's call wether or not to change it but I don't think it should be part of the PnP elementals component.

Edited by Beleg33, 27 February 2012 - 08:15 AM.

[aigleborgne]

Well, I don't think these areas are supposed to be elemental planes, just some protection for lower level of Durlag's Tower made by dwarves. Do oozes come from acid elemental plane, if such thing even exists? Or polar wolves/bear from an hypothetic ice elemental plane? They don't have to be creatures from the associated plane. How about phoenix guards, are they just made up by Bioware, where do they come from?

I agree the baby wyvern animation could be replaced, but I don't see it necessary to completely replace the creature.

In the end it's aVENGER's call wether or not to change it but I don't think it should be part of the PnP elementals component.

You got a point here but there is still 3 ancient wyverns to fight before these rooms. It isn't good to fight again a wyvern (despite its name, it is clearly a wyvern).
Now, it might be an optional component but it should definitly exist, or I will make myself a tweak on aTweaks

[aVENGER]

In the end it's aVENGER's call wether or not to change it but I don't think it should be part of the PnP elementals component.

It wouldn't be that unusual since aTweaks' PnP Fiends already does something similar by replacing Bioware's made up fiends (Velithuu) with PnP Gelugons in Watcher's Keep.

It isn't good to fight again a wyvern (despite its name, it is clearly a wyvern).
Now, it might be an optional component but it should definitly exist, or I will make myself a tweak on aTweaks

I've decided to go with the unique Air Elemental treatment, as described earlier, which seems like a fair compromise.

[aVENGER]

The Air Elementals are now complete, except for princes.

Air Elementals vs. party

Besides taking care of the Air Aspect in Durlag's Tower, the "More Sensible Elemental Encounters" component now also makes the the Elemental Portals in the Underdark spawn one Greater Elemental (16 HD) and two regular Elementals (12 HD). Also, the final guardians in Vithal's quest are now Elder Elementals (20 HD) as are the guardians of the parasites at Suldanesselar's Tree of Life.

[Shaitan]

Thanks.

Does that mean, that the protal spawns these three elementals only once and at the same time? If so, that would be a welcome change.

Cheers

[aVENGER]

In the unmodded game, each portal spawns a single 12 HD elemental at the start. Every time it's killed, another one takes its place until ten elementals in total are dead. You always fight only one elemental at the same time.

With aTweaks, the portal initially spawns one 16 HD Greater Elemental and two 12 HD elementals. Each time a Greater Elemental is killed, another Greater Elemental and two regular elementals spawn until 10 Greater Elementals in total are killed. You always fight at least one Greater Elemental and two regular elementals at the same time.

[Andrea C.]

Sounds a lot more challenging, as well as a lot more rewarding in terms of granted XP

[aVENGER]

Sounds a lot more challenging, as well as a lot more rewarding in terms of granted XP

That was the general idea. In my view, fighting 12 HD elementals one at a time simply isn't an adequate challenge for a post-Spellhold party. And since Greater Elementals are encountered so rarely in BG2, the portals seemed like a fitting place for them to show up.

On an interesting sidenote, the CRE file names (i.e. UDELDE.CRE) seem to imply that Bioware developers may have originally intended to use Elder Elementals as the final portal guardians which is why I felt justified to make that change in aTweaks.

[Shaitan]

Always good to see you work aVENGER, thanks.

[Salk]

With aTweaks, the portal initially spawns one 16 HD Greater Elemental and two 12 HD elementals. Each time a Greater Elemental is killed, another Greater Elemental and two regular elementals spawn until 10 Greater Elementals in total are killed. You always fight at least one Greater Elemental and two regular elementals at the same time.

I think I'd have rather had you change it so that the party had to get rid of all the Elementals before the new ones are spawned.

[aVENGER]

I think I'd have rather had you change it so that the party had to get rid of all the Elementals before the new ones are spawned.

Theoretically, that could be accomplished but it would require a lot more scripting and a probably few custom CREs.

However, it would deviate too heavily from Bioware's original coding approach, and I'd rather not do that for both technical reasons and due to my own personal preference, sorry.

[Andrea C.]

However, it would deviate too heavily from Bioware's original coding approach, and I'd rather not do that for both technical reasons and due to my own personal preference, sorry.

Besides, dealing with those portals is not mandatory so if you want to mess up with the Elemental Planes, it feels just about right for it to be tough

[Salk]

However, it would deviate too heavily from Bioware's original coding approach, and I'd rather not do that for both technical reasons and due to my own personal preference, sorry.

Up to you of course, but I don't understand how making the portal spawn "only" three tougher-than-vanilla Elementals at time instead of your present solution is going to deviate from Bioware's original approach? Doesn't vanilla spawning happen when you kill the Elemental (that is, no other enemies of that kind are left to fight?)

Please correct me if I am wrong.

[Salk]

Besides, dealing with those portals is not mandatory so if you want to mess up with the Elemental Planes, it feels just about right for it to be tough

Sorry but that kind of argument is something I never bought.

In my opinion, if you place an unreasonable challenge in a game you can't just say "you can skip that if you are not up to it" and believe no harm is done. It's bad design.

Edited by Salk, 04 March 2012 - 09:57 PM.

[aVENGER]

Up to you of course, but I don't understand how making the portal spawn "only" three tougher-than-vanilla Elementals at time instead of your present solution is going to deviate from Bioware's original approach?

Technically, the portals don't actually spawn anything, they are just pretty static animations. The re-spawning process is handled by the AI script of the elementals in question (DWAIR.BCS, DWEARTH.BCS and DWFIRE.BCS). In the original game, whenever an elemental dies, the script spawns another one of its kind near the portal's location. aTweaks currently patches the respective scripts to make three elementals (one Greater and two regular) spawn at that point by reusing Bioware's technical approach which is very simple and clean.

Now, in order to limit the spawns to three elementals at any given time, the entire procedure would have to be handled by the area script (AR2100.BCS) which would require a completely different implementation. All elementals would have to get unique CREs in order to track their death variable(s) and the script blocks which handle the spawn count would have to be rebuilt from scratch. In short, it would involve a non-trivial amount of coding and testing to get this done.

Furthermore, I actually prefer the current approach as I feel that it brings a hint of danger into the portal encounters. For example, if the player isn't careful and always kills the Greater Elemental first, he may eventually get swarmed by a bunch of regular elementals. I find this fitting for an optional quest involving portals which lead directly to the Elemental Planes.

[aVENGER]

In my opinion, if you place an unreasonable challenge in a game you can't just say "you can skip that if you are not up to it" and believe no harm is done. It's bad design.

Personally, I'm inclined to disagree. In my opinion, as long as an encounter is optional (i.e. not-critical to the plot) the designer is free to make it as easy or difficult as he likes. For my part, I'd try to keep that difficulty within reason in my mods, but I can sympathize with the aforementioned approach too.

For example, the encounter with Weimer's Eclipse party is an extremely difficult battle. The opponents use certain tactics that are not available to the player and I personally don't find it very enjoyable. However, it's completely optional and has no bearing on the main plot, so I have no problem with it whatsoever.

[Aranthys]

In my opinion, if you place an unreasonable challenge in a game you can't just say "you can skip that if you are not up to it" and believe no harm is done. It's bad design.

Personally, I'm inclined to disagree. In my opinion, as long as an encounter is optional (i.e. not-critical to the plot) the designer is free to make it as easy or difficult as he likes. For my part, I'd try to keep that difficulty within reason in my mods, but I can sympathize with the aforementioned approach too.

For example, the encounter with Weimer's Eclipse party is an extremely difficult battle. The opponents use certain tactics that are not available to the player and I personally don't find it very enjoyable. However, it's completely optional and has no bearing on the main plot, so I have no problem with it whatsoever.

Keywords here are "unreasonable challenge" vs "difficult encounter".
Creating an encounter that is only available in a specific part of the game, and that can't be completed unless you knew about it beforehand and "farmed for XP in order to be prepared" is bad design.

Kangaxx, on the other hand, is good design for an optional quest : He's very difficult to fight (given the right mods OR without deep knowledge about Baldur universe), but you get to choose when you fight him, and he's available anytime in BG2.

[Picollo]

But in Underdark even harder elementals, like aVENGER suggested shouldn't be too difficult. Especially when 99% of players completes all quests before Brynnlaw.

[Wisp]

Not to weigh in on any particular side here, but how optional are the portals, really? The elementals loiter about the portal right from the start and at least the air portal is located pretty much right in your path.

only available in a specific part of the game

You can return to the Underdark at any point until you have entered Suldanessellar.

@aVENGER, it looks like you have forgotten(?) the fire elementals. No fire elementals are added by the inlined script in c190.tpa and dwfire.bcs is not patched.

Edited by Wisp, 05 March 2012 - 03:36 AM.