Baldur's Gate II autopause

[Saxon1974]

I started playing this again, for some reason I never finished it when it came out ten years ago. I like it, but I have alot of irritation with the confusion in combat.

Question;

What's the best use of the autopause feature to make it work the closest to turn based for combat?

I tried selecting everything but it doesn't really make it turn based, it just basically makes you push the space bar alot more.

Im thinking maybe using only these 2 options;

1) On an enemy death
and
2) When a spell is cast?

Not sure im gonna use it, because it doesn't seem to work very well. Thoughts?

 

[Section8]

Isn't there an option to have it pause every six seconds, at the end of each pseudo-turn?

 

[Hory]

1) On an enemy death
and
2) When a spell is cast?

I'm not sure what other options it had, but I definately wouldn't use it for those two things. Just pause yourself when you need to give multiple orders at once...

 

[cardtrick]

Closest to turn-based is definitely the "pause at the end of each round" option. Probably only worth dealing with that if you are playing ironman, though.

When not playing ironman, I usually had it pause on enemy sighted, pause on trap sighted, and pause when weapons are unusable. (I think that's right . . . I may be getting mixed up with NWN.)

 

[Kortalh]

I did the same as cardtrick, but I also had it pause when near death so I could whip out a heal ASAP.

 

[Dhruin]

Forget trying to make it turn-based - it just isn't. If you pause every round, you'll just end up wondering what most characters are doing. If you do a default attack on a mob on the other side of the screen and it takes a couple of rounds to get there, you'll just unpause each round assuming he'll do it and if he doesn't attack at the end, you won't get to find out until after anyway.

 

[Saxon1974]

Sounds like good suggestions, I will try them out.

I have the most trouble keeping track when lots of spell casting is going on, so the pause on spells helps.

For Mellee, it isn't as bad however I like to be able to see how many points my characters hits the enemy for etc....but its way to fast to follow.

I'll never understand while it seems like the mainstream feels real time combat is better.

 

[Volourn]

I nevered really botheeed with auto pause other than to test it out. Pressing the space bar when needed was never that hard! L0L

And, the combat was VERY easy to follow. Some people just lack the mental capacity, I guess. *shrug*

 

[Saxon1974]

Forget trying to make it turn-based - it just isn't. If you pause every round, you'll just end up wondering what most characters are doing. If you do a default attack on a mob on the other side of the screen and it takes a couple of rounds to get there, you'll just unpause each round assuming he'll do it and if he doesn't attack at the end, you won't get to find out until after anyway.

Agreed, it really doesn't work like I want it to no matter what I change.

Really shows how bad of a state RPG's are in now, because I liked these games when they came out, but didn't think they were great, but compared to what is coming out now they are (With maybe the exception of 2007).

 

[Saxon1974]

I nevered really botheeed with auto pause other than to test it out. Pressing the space bar when needed was never that hard! L0L

And, the combat was VERY easy to follow. Some people just lack the mental capacity, I guess. *shrug*

I don't know if I will end of using it or not. I can follow each NPC's health bar and wether they have killed an enemy and keep track of spellcasting for the most part from my mage. What I can't follow easily is the scrolling messages at the bottom of the screen like I want to.

But you must be special Volourn.

 

[Volourn]

Nah.

 

[Xi]

I always paused at the beginning of a fight to size up my opponents. After that you can prep a good strategy if things are to go wrong. Sometimes they will gang rape one of your allies and this usually calls for a specific save your ass strategy. Wait till some of the later boss fights. Some of them seem impossible from what I remember. It depends on your party/main character builds, but the game is brilliant in this regard. Perosnally I think it's the difference between 2E and 3E+ rules. 2E flows better in combat from how I remember it.

In fact I'm about to purchase a copy of BG2+expansion off of amazon.com(7$ used) because I'm tired of thinking about it and not playing it. I never beat it either. I got all the way to the fish people and lost my save. I tried multiple times, but life always got in my way. It's time to beat this SOB.

 

[Morbus]

I always go for pause when enemy's sighted, when trap's sighted, when character's injured, when character's dead, when weapon's unusable, when enemy's dead and when spell's cast. Forget about the pause each round, it's stupid.

 

[Saxon1974]

Anyone suggest any mods for BGII? I see there are some for BGI.

 

[SkeleTony]

Go HERE for all of your BG/BG2 modding needs.

 

[aboyd]

I usually had it pause on enemy sighted, pause on trap sighted, and pause when weapons are unusable. (I think that's right . . . I may be getting mixed up with NWN.)

Yes.

Pause on enemy sighted
Pause on trap found
Pause if weapon unusable
Pause if charcter near death
Pause if target gone (enemy dead)
Pause on spell cast

I usually love a set of pause options like that. With the AI off, it gives me control of each task for each character, but causes them to keep doing the task if everything is cool (a fighter will keep hitting the enemy without needing me to babysit him -- if he does poorly, I'll get a pause when he's at 30% health).

For me, the equivalent of this in the true turn-based world would be to have queued actions -- fill the tank's action slots with standard attacks, and leave the special/magical characters unfilled. Then the turns auto-execute for the fighter so I don't need to babysit him, while the special characters get attention each round. I was kind of bummed to see queued actions show up in KotOR before they showed up in real turn-based games. Turn-based games need queues for speed, but KotOR was already fast combat where characters would keep hitting without a queue. KotOR hardly needed it.

Anyway, those kind of systems are nice when done well. I get attention to detail only where I want it, and it runs quickly otherwise. It has many of the benefits of traditional turn-based combat, but fights takes 5 minutes instead of 20.

 

[aboyd]

Anyone suggest any mods for BGII? I see there are some for BGI.

I can tell you that the Kelsey NPC mod sucks. I tried it and it wasn't as awesome as expected. He's basically a nerd, and he kept referring to my male character as a "she" and being overprotective. Some here might like that, but I didn't.

I love the BG1 NPC project. It adds new quests that are so well done that it's difficult to tell which are official quests and which are not. But that's not BG2.

There is one thing for BG2 that is close to mandatory. I think it used to be the Baldurdash FixPack v1.12. But development on that stopped, and another project took the FixPack, added in extra goodies, and released it under another name... I think. Anyone else know what the correct, up-to-date, super-stable FixPack is?

 

[dolio]

There is one thing for BG2 that is close to mandatory. I think it used to be the Baldurdash FixPack v1.12. But development on that stopped, and another project took the FixPack, added in extra goodies, and released it under another name... I think. Anyone else know what the correct, up-to-date, super-stable FixPack is?

It's the BG2 Fixpack by Gibberlings3.

And queued actions were necessary even for straight fighters in Knights of the Old Republic because things like flury, power attack and improved critical were special attacks, instead of being modes that could be toggled for their effects. The AI might use them occasionally, but, in my experience, not with enough regularity when a certain such action is easily the best attack they can make.

 

[elander_]

If you think you get enough attention to detail with the BG2 system that's because you never played a good TB game. BG2 combat is very simple tactically. Just protect your foes from any domination spells with potions or scrolls. Wizards are good but +5 weapons are even better. Make a team of fighters and fighter/mages to cast haste and conjure monsters and just watch them wipe out your enemies. Don't even have to use pause.

 

[aboyd]

If you think you get enough attention to detail with the BG2 system that's because you never played a good TB game.

I get enough attention to detail to make the game enjoyable for me. I thought that would be obvious from the post. Or are you suggesting that if I played a good turn-based game that suddenly my brain chemistry would re-wire itself and I'd begin liking to play at the same level of detail as you do? I have experience with Fallout 1 & 2, Arcanum, ToEE, Dark Sun 1, Eschalon: Book 1, and a handful of JRPGs. I also played some war RPG -- Nazis, I think? -- from a couple of years ago. None of them have made me prefer the level of detail that you like.

ToEE was a good engine, though.

 

[Volourn]

"you think you get enough attention to detail with the BG2 system that's because you never played a good TB game. BG2 combat is very simple tactically. Just protect your foes from any domination spells with potions or scrolls. Wizards are good but +5 weapons are even better. Make a team of fighters and fighter/mages to cast haste and conjure monsters and just watch them wipe out your enemies. Don't even have to use pause."

Sound sbasiclaly like any TB game - even good ones - i've played. Do x, y, and z and don't ahve to worry about r. R00fles!

 

[Jasede]

Pausing distracts me from the game, so I never set any pauses, I just hit space when I want to queue spells, which is often because I always insist on playing some solo faggot wizard.

 

[Lesifoere]

He's basically a nerd, and he kept referring to my male character as a "she" and being overprotective.

Errm, did you use some mod to make every NPC romanceable regardless of race/gender?

 

[aboyd]

Nope. But I did install the banter pack, and I have a guess that maybe I installed things in an order which caused a corrupted .tlk file or something. Or maybe it was just a bug.

Either way, even without that bug, I didn't like him. Effeminate geek boys are not my thing.

 

[cardtrick]

Yeah . . . Kelsey is worrisome. I like a lot of what Jason Compton says about The Broken Hourglass, but the fact that his calling card is a whiny emo nerd romance with a crappy voiceover is a little disheartening.