6 replies to this topic

[Lancroft]

Hello epic people working on the Classic Adventures TC..

 

I've been playing through your mod with great enthusiasm. The possibility of playing through an entirely new series of adventures as a normal person who isn't gifted with divine blood is really refreshing. You've effectively given us an entirely new Infinity Engine game for free.

 

What's more, the mod is challenging enough to give even a veteran Baldur's Gate player plenty of nasty surprises. Especially the Silver Princess quest is downright brutal. The traps here are instant party killers, the dungeon gives you hardly any chance to rest (more on this later) and it manages very well to make one realize again why even low-level enemies, such as Ogres, slimes and bandits, can feel so dangerous in a low-level PnP AD&D game. (Since I have only made it to Saltmarsh so far, I expect that later parts of the mod may be much harder than this dungeon, but by that point I expect my party to be more well-rounded and more able to deal with such challenges.)

 

By comparison, I found the Sunless Citadel to be a more forgiving place, and the possibility of bargaining with the kobolds really added to the immersion in this storyline.

 

Nevertheless I want to stress that I find it an incredible idea to have these recurring forks in the story, where you can choose which path you wish to follow to reach the next plot point. I'm currently at the pirate ship part of the Saltmarsh story and am already looking forward to my next playthrough, where I will follow a different path. This narrative structure allows for immense replayability, and that is exactly what most of the fans of the Infinity games will be looking for.

 

Needless to say, I would really like to help with playtesting this mod in order to help improve it. I always love doing multiple playthroughs of games, so I'd love to go through the mod with different characters, different storylines and different party compositions in order to hunt down bugs, report issues and give feedback on NPCs. I am currently only part of the way through my first complete playthrough, but here is a list of the issues and minor bugs I have found so far:

 

Asking Rurik to return to his shop before completing the Silver Princess or the Sunless Citadel does not make him reappear at his shop in Oakhurst as one would expect.

Instead, he goes to his shop in Saltmarsh. This makes it impossible to buy any equipment from him while trying to complete either dungeon.

 

Resting in the Silver Princess dungeon is impossible with the near-100% chance of monsters appearing.

This renders arcane spellcasters practically useless for the duration of this quest. Although I noticed this especially in the Silver Princess, I think it applies to many dungeons in the game.  Not so much a bug as a balancing issue; I feel it makes arcane spellcaster PCs and NPCs very unattractive in the early part of the game, when they still have very few spells and need to rest often. Perhaps it's true to the PnP mods, but I would rethink it for gameplay balance and fun.

 

Chaarna's voice set does not appear to work.

I guess this has been commented on before, and I understand that it is hard to find a good voice actress for her. It would help, however, if she just had some generic NPC soundset from IWD, for example.

 

Candella's voice set is far too loud.

I understand she is meant to be a bit of an airheaded loudmouth, but after she practically broke my headphones on a number of occasions I had to resort to turning all the voice sounds down, unfortunately rendering the other characters very difficult to hear.

 

Paraway's Wolf Charm can be used by Dirbert.

 

Map note on level 2 of the Sunless Citadel displays an enigmatic text.

The map note at the top of the tree that you can climb down in Sunless Citadel (Goblin leader's room) reads "To accomplish great things one must not only..."

 

Wall issues level 2 of Sunless Citadel.

This map was difficult to navigate. I was able to walk through walls in various places. The bridge(?) leading into southern caves is completely black.

 

Candella dialog launches repeatedly.

Candella dialog launches repeatedly during the Silver Princess dungeon, but does not proceed beyond the first talk. It mentions the death of your parents, an event which has gone unmentioned in your biography.

 

Paraway rushes ahead of the party and dies easily.

Paraway does not exactly make a good first impression. He is equipped in a hide armor, yet constantly rushes ahead of the party, usually arriving first at any melee fight. I suspect his kit grants him some kind of speed boost. Since his proficiencies and equipment make him a perfect character to keep behind your tanks (a safe position from which he could still be dealing damage with his spear), it would really help if he lost the speed boost. Either that, or he needs some better starting armor. Especially because you cannot equip him with gear from Rurik after you've accepted Rurik in your team.

 

What would be best, in my opinion, is if he lost his speed boost, gained a specialism in long bows and came equipped with a long bow and some arrows right from the start. This way he could at least contribute as an archer and occasional melee support damager, rather than being the frontline rusher and obvious cannon fodder that he currently is.

 

Haunted Mansion lvl. 2. Staircase to basement is barely visible, not recognizable as a staircase.

I understand that finding it is part of the challenge, but having to scan this entire map with your mouse-pointer to look for this exit is not really fun. The main problem is that it does not at all look like a staircase.

 

That is all the feedback I have, so far. I hope it is useful to you. I feel really excited to get to play this amazing total conversion, and would like to thank all contributing modders again for putting so much hard work into it. In spite of some of the many minor bugs and issues I reported, I want to stress that I feel that this is already one of the most mature and complete total conversion projects that is currently in development.

 

I will update this topic regularly as I run into new issues or bugs that I feel could benefit from my feedback. I hope this long post does not annoy you, and if it does, please tell me and I will shut up

 

EDIT: My apologies for starting a new thread instead of simply submitting these to the latest bug thread. I should learn to read more carefully.

Edited by Lancroft, 24 October 2013 - 01:19 PM.

[Meeijn]

Asking Rurik to return to his shop before completing the Silver Princess or the Sunless Citadel does not make him reappear at his shop in Oakhurst as one would expect.

Instead, he goes to his shop in Saltmarsh. This makes it impossible to buy any equipment from him while trying to complete either dungeon.

 

 - Kind of necessary, since he can't be in Oakhurst when The Inevitable Bad Thing happens to your hometown.

 

Paraway's Wolf Charm can be used by Dirbert.

 

 - Or by any other ranger. There are some other items that work that way, despite description.

 

Resting in the Silver Princess dungeon is impossible with the near-100% chance of monsters appearing.

 

 - This mod is notorious of it. :-) On the other hand, in the case of the Palace, monsters (especially outside) have great loot (relative to their power).

In the slavers' fortress, enemies spawning is even more brutal: I walk my group, they don't walk in a tight formation (different movement speeds) and hostile groups pop up in those tiny strips of unobserved floor. Probably some quantum effects. :-)

 

 

And a couple of bugs I have encountered recently:

 

In the Westgate dock map (the first one you 'visit'), a boy approches the party and offers to take them out of there. Sometimes, he tries to approach from the inaccesible area up the (broken) stairs, which sucessfully stops him.

 

Related bug: when you decline is offer, Ilhara (the Frost Maiden) is angry and shouts a line or two. And again. And she does not stop as long, as you are on this map. When you return there, she continue her madness.

 

Also, on this very map but later: there are no sailors in the inn, when you ask the innkeeper about it (the part where the PC is recruiting crew to sail out). The only group that looked like sailors attacked my party along with Girana and died.

It might have been related to the fact, that my team, right after being unloaded in Westgate, went to this inn and decimated Girana's group (easy with mage-heavy team).

Edited by Meeijn, 06 February 2014 - 09:05 AM.

[The Imp]

 - Kind of necessary, since he can't be in Oakhurst when The Inevitable Bad Thing happens to your hometown.

Well, the dialog could be a little clearer of where he goes to... or we could just make the bad thing also move him to Saltmarsh... but that again needs an explanation in the dialog.
 

Paraway's Wolf Charm can be used by Dirbert.
 - Or by any other ranger. There are some other items that work that way, despite description.

Well, the item and Paraway's kit had a few problems... one being that to forcing it to not being able to be used by ranger made even Paraway unable to use it. There's a way to fix it, but it would need a fix patch from me. And it was already fixed.... as Paraway was supposed to be a Barbarian Ranger(a unique kit, which allows unique usability flag usage)... 

And a couple of bugs I have encountered recently:
 ...
Also, on this very map but later: there are no sailors in the inn, when you ask the innkeeper about it (the part where the PC is recruiting crew to sail out). The only group that looked like sailors attacked my party along with Girana and died.
It might have been related to the fact, that my team, right after being unloaded in Westgate, went to this inn and decimated Girana's group (easy with mage-heavy team).

I would remember that the required amount of pirates appear to the inn after the quest starts ... so you can't actually have killed them. Of course it has been looong while since I played the CA.

[Meeijn]

Lancroft, I fully agree with you.

 

 

Imp, thank you for the answer.

 

I would remember that the required amount of pirates appear to the inn after the quest starts ... so you can't actually have killed them. Of course it has been looong while since I played the CA.

 

Duh. Restarted the game, revisited the area, tried talking again to the NPCs and a group of sailors actually spawned near the exit. On the other hand, the captain is now stuck in his line about him needing to sleep. Waiting different amounts of time didn't seem to do the job. I'll try to figure out which global variables are responsible for this quest; update will be posted if something changes.

 

 

 

Other weird things happened:

 

Westgate, same area as above. Minor inconsistency. You need to gather the whole group to enter the inn (Black Boot), but you can exit it with a single person.

 

Chaarna resumed her behaviour described there: http://www.shsforums...na/#entry566725

 

Myth Drannor area. When your party approaches Hotzkettle, one of your party members (works with Aleigha and Rivian) interrupts the ensuing dialogue, expressing dissatisfaction about dealing with demon. When the PC decide (in-dialogue) to attack the demon, the same party member turns hostile (red circle) and attacks your group. Opposite of what a player may expect.

[The Imp]

I think, looking back, months after posting this, it is the near 100% spawn rate of monsters while resting in most dungeons that is keeping me from coming back to this TC. Pretty much every other issue I mentioned was far less disruptive. I understand if it accurately represents what is supposed to happen in a given mod, but it would certainly make the TC more attractive to spellcasters and to a wider public that is used to regular BG spawnrates if the spawnrates of this TC were slightly decreased.

Well, you know, there are other ways to go around that... like say install my very own iiSpellSystemAdjustment mod... that allows you to pick a timer and your spells get rememorized without the need to sleep once that amount of time has expired from their casting. Evil, I am, or did I just learn to live.

Edited by The Imp, 07 February 2014 - 04:58 AM.