Baldur's Gate & Baldur's Gate II Mod Thread

[Average Manatee]

If they are spellcasters they probably start with more buffs up on higher difficulties. Dunno if there's anything else going on but I'm pretty sure mods can't mess with rolls like that.

 

[Melcar]

Tarnesh does open up with some defensive spells. Mirror image and I think Armor on "insane" difficulty. Even after they run out my THACO 15 Berserker can't hit him reliably and sometimes even gets a staff to the face (no critical hit). This fucker can even melee Imoen and Montaron and kill them off with one-two hits. Shank and Carbos are level one unarmored thugs with uninteresting stats and my Berserker misses often (not too much but more than in "tactical") and when they manage to hit with those puny daggers (which they sometimes do no critical hits) they can take up to 40% on my health (which is still within possibility stat wise, but it's still more than what they normally do in "tactical" difficulty). Looking at the message log I can't see any weird shit going on like bonuses or penalties being applied, so I don't know.

 

[cretin]

If DavidW was in the same room as me at the moment, I would rush him and hit him with a tremendous right hand that would leave him convulsing on the floor like an infantile retard. Why the fuck does SCS take so fucking long to install SHIT

 

[Melcar]

A lot of WeiDu based mods take ages to install. It's even worse if you run them with WINE. Forget about reinstalling individual components. Depending on the original install order that shit can take forever. Faster just to reinstall your game (keep a backup of the original unmoded game files to revert to). I doubt it's WeiDu fault entirely, but rather the old ass Infinity Engine.
Just chose what to install from SCS (which really should only be to AI improvements) and take a few minutes to shitpost on The Codex to pass the time.

Anyway, just accepted the fact that on insane enemies have slightly better damage rolls. No biggie. Being able to remove or lower precasting is cool though. Makes the game encounters with mages/clerics less autistic and frustrating.

 

[cretin]

A lot of WeiDu based mods take ages to install. It's even worse if you run them with WINE

I just learned this first hand. Last time I played on linux, I used ciopfs to get around the modding problem. It "works" but I encountered performance issues, minor but enough to be annoying.

So I thought about the actual problem for a bit and it occurred to me theres zero reason you cant just install the win build and then use wine to install the mods. Holy fuck, I'm not exaggerating it took like 4 hours.

 

[Wasteland]

A lot of WeiDu based mods take ages to install. It's even worse if you run them with WINE

I just learned this first hand. Last time I played on linux, I used ciopfs to get around the modding problem. It "works" but I encountered performance issues, minor but enough to be annoying.

So I thought about the actual problem for a bit and it occurred to me theres zero reason you cant just install the win build and then use wine to install the mods. Holy fuck, I'm not exaggerating it took like 4 hours.

I dealt with the same thing recently. When you first search for how to mod the game, you get a lot of detailed advice about installing the Linux-native version of WeiDu, using ciopfs for case insensitivity to ensure mod-installer compatibility. And if you own the game through GoG, before you even start modding, you have to set an environment variable pointing your game's Wine prefix at Steam's runtime libraries--not hard to do, but it is another step. All of this works quite well for most mods, but if you want to run something like the excellent Bubb's Spell Menu Extended, then you have to launch the game through EEex, and that evidently requires a Windows install.

So it turns out that this is another case where the existence of Linux-native options is actually sort of negative. It's easier to proceed from the get-go as if you were on Windows--install the Wine/Proton version of the game, and install mods through Wine, which in most mainstream distros amounts to 'extract the mod to the game folder and double-click the exe'--i.e. exactly what Windows users do. The one caveat, of course, is that you might still want to ensure case-insensitivity; installers run through Wine probably don't care, but best to be safe. But instead of fussing with ciopfs, I recommend setting up a case-insensitive games folder on an Ext4 partition--this is good practice for any game you might like to mod, not just BG.

Anyway, yeah, installing mods through Wine takes an age. Launching the game through EEex, also through Wine/Proton, takes a long time too--maybe 45 seconds versus 5 seconds on the Linux-native install. But I doubt I'd mind these delays so much if I hadn't had to go through the modding process twice. Otherwise, the game runs flawlessly.

As long as I'm rambling on, I'd like to shill this excellent spreadsheet, which shows the proper load order for mods.

Oh, and another note, EEex doesn't work on versions of Proton newer than 8.

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

I'd like to shill this excellent spreadsheet, which shows the proper load order for mods.

I'm confused.

Does he mean this IS an install order, just not necessarily an internally compatible list?

 

[cretin]

But instead of fussing with ciopfs, I recommend setting up a case-insensitive games folder on an Ext4 partition--this is good practice for any game you might like to mod, not just BG.

Anyway, yeah, installing mods through Wine takes an age. Launching the game through EEex, also through Wine/Proton, takes a long time too--maybe 45 seconds versus 5 seconds on the Linux-native install. But I doubt I'd mind these delays so much if I hadn't had to go through the modding process twice. Otherwise, the game runs flawlessly.

Yeah I was thinking thats what I'd do next time if I had any trouble with the windows version. But I haven't - aside from the aforementioned protracted install.

Oh, and another note, EEex doesn't work on versions of Proton newer than 8.

I've generally had a better experience across games with wine staging or wine-ge than any of the proton versions.

 

[Wasteland]

I'd like to shill this excellent spreadsheet, which shows the proper load order for mods.

I'm confused.

Does he mean this IS an install order, just not necessarily an internally compatible list?

Yeah, I think the warning is just saying that not all mods on the list should be used together. But if you're looking to install a handful of mods that are compatible with each other, the list can tell you in which order to install them.

I've generally had a better experience across games with wine staging or wine-ge than any of the proton versions.

This is a good tip. I don't remember exactly which versions I tried before stumbling over the linked bug report. Probably missed one or both of those.

 

[Wasteland]

Oh, and I forgot to mention something important. You do need a little tweaking to get EEex working on Linux. I'll paste the relevant bit:

• Install EEex like you would any other Weidu mod by copying its files into the root of the BG or BG2 install and running setup-EEex.exe. (You can run it using wine if you like, with "wine setup-EEex.exe".)
• Edit the InfinityLoader.ini file and change the ExeNames, ExeSwitchAlias and ProtonCompatibility entries in the General section so they look like the below. Leave all the other entries and comments as they are, change only these entries.
• Changes to InfinityLoader.ini
  • [General]
    ExeNames=BaldurReal.exe,icewind.exe,SiegeOfDragonspear.exe
    ExeSwitchAlias=BaldurReal.exe:Baldur.exe
    ProtonCompatibility=1
• Rename the Baldur.exe file to BaldurReal.exe
• Rename the InfinityLoader.exe file to Baldur.exe
• Try launching the game through steam [or your launcher of choice]. You should see a console window pop up with Infinity Loader's output but it will then launch the game proper.

So I overstated the case when I said that installing mods is just like Windows. It's mostly just like Windows, lol.

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

Did anyone play the Classic Adventures total conversion mod?

I downloaded it a while back but didn't install it and deleted it and now, it seems the download is down and there's a kind of copyright page...
Maybe it's going to be used with the BG 3 engine or a new standalone D&D cRPG?

Any other way to download it if it's worth the effort?

Just quoting this to note that, to my great surprise, the Classic Adventures Homesite actually gives access to functioning downloads. I'll be playing it soon and if anyone else is interested in trying this BG2 total conversion, that's how.

 

[cretin]

Fucking hell man, D'arnise keep has shown me just how fucking awful the pathfinding in the EE version is. Its genuinely unbearable, trying to get guys positioned in a room for a tough fight and almost ALWAYS at least one retard will decide that akshully, I wanted him to go through some long back path that doesn't lead to anywhere near where I actually clicked. If this isn't happening, they are getting literally stuck inside of one another, and this latter one I'm certain is a bug introduced by beamdog because I aint never seen this shit in classic IE, ever.

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

Fucking hell man, D'arnise keep has shown me just how fucking awful the pathfinding in the EE version is. Its genuinely unbearable, trying to get guys positioned in a room for a tough fight and almost ALWAYS at least one retard will decide that akshully, I wanted him to go through some long back path

Always has been *shoots in the back*

Literally, it's the same in vanilla.

 

[cretin]

Fucking hell man, D'arnise keep has shown me just how fucking awful the pathfinding in the EE version is. Its genuinely unbearable, trying to get guys positioned in a room for a tough fight and almost ALWAYS at least one retard will decide that akshully, I wanted him to go through some long back path

Always has been *shoots in the back*

Literally, it's the same in vanilla.

I'm thinking about maxing out the path search nodes but some people say it doesn't seem to do anything

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

Fucking hell man, D'arnise keep has shown me just how fucking awful the pathfinding in the EE version is. Its genuinely unbearable, trying to get guys positioned in a room for a tough fight and almost ALWAYS at least one retard will decide that akshully, I wanted him to go through some long back path

Always has been *shoots in the back*

Literally, it's the same in vanilla.

I'm thinking about maxing out the path search nodes but some people say it doesn't seem to do anything

No, it doesn't help. If the agent thinks the path is blocked by another agent, he'll find the closest point through a long ass path and go there. So in certain scenarios, shorter limit would perform better. But it won't always work better, so there's no point in lowering it. In short, it can't be helped.

 

[La vie sexuelle]

There is any mod for Shadowhart companion in Bg1 and Bg2?

 

[Eldrin]

There is any mod for Shadowhart companion in Bg1 and Bg2?

https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/74672/v1-3-emily-a-half-elf-archer-for-bg-ee-sod/p1
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussi...-elven-shadowdancer-mage-npc-for-bg-ee-sod/p1

Here, some knife-ear women mods. Haven't tried them, but these probably aren't worse than Larian's writing.

 

[Melcar]

Pathfinding in the EEs is a bit worse but no that different from the originals. Setting the maximum in the config file does not seem to help and adding the undocumented advanced pathfinding option makes it even worse. FoW will also make characters look for another path, so revealing the maps before always helps. What I did notice back when I was playing is that characters often got stuck together often, which never happened in the originals.

 

[La vie sexuelle]

There is any mod for Shadowhart companion in Bg1 and Bg2?

https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/74672/v1-3-emily-a-half-elf-archer-for-bg-ee-sod/p1
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussi...-elven-shadowdancer-mage-npc-for-bg-ee-sod/p1

Here, some knife-ear women mods. Haven't tried them, but these probably aren't worse than Larian's writing.

Thanks, but I was just curious how many BG3 players are interested in the old games, and since there's no data, mods are a good indicator.

 

[cretin]

So it looks like there may be at least one reason to prefer a modded classic setup over an EE one:

Infinity animations can restore the BG1 sprites with full functionality (besides dual wielding, obviously) with tobex and improved gui mod. The EE versions have the mod "nostalgia pack" which attempts to do the same thing but runs into some problems due to hardcoded behaviors

- Dual-classing a character that has a BG1 sprite will result in the character's getting a BG2 sprite of the wrong class, race, sex or any combination thereof. There's a technical reason why this happens that I won't bore you with; if you dual-class, be ready to use EE Keeper to assign the correct sprite back to your character. (Note: in the classics this is taken care of by ToBEx AfterLife; alas, there's no way around it in the Enhanced Editions unless the engine was fixed at source, which I doubt will ever happen.)

- The game is hardcoded to assign a BG2 sprite to newly created characters. If you want your character to use a BG1 sprite, you'll need to save your game, open it in EE Keeper, and manually assign the sprite. (Note: in the classics this is taken care of by ToBEx AfterLife; alas, there's no way around it in the Enhanced Editions unless the engine was fixed at source, which I doubt will ever happen.)

 

[cretin]

if you search 'bgee' and 'catmull-rom' there is some interesting discussion about the subtle but noticeable visual hit the EEs have over the originals. Apparently pre 2.0, catmull rom was the standard employed for the EE games, which keeps in line with the originals, visually. For 2.0, bilinear filtering was adopted instead to make room for... sprite outlines and highlight - which is easily the ugliest thing about the EEs and what I always turn off - and because it was causing issues on the mobile/tablet versions of the game. Lol.

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

if you search 'bgee' and 'catmull-rom' there is some interesting discussion about the subtle but noticeable visual hit the EEs have over the originals. Apparently pre 2.0, catmull rom was the standard employed for the EE games, which keeps in line with the originals, visually. For 2.0, bilinear filtering was adopted instead to make room for... sprite outlines and highlight - which is easily the ugliest thing about the EEs and what I always turn off - and because it was causing issues on the mobile/tablet versions of the game. Lol.

That only affects the game if you zoom in or out. Why do it? Play at the intended zoom level by the devs + apply a crt filter.

 

[Melcar]

If you lock the zoom level the ugly filter is removed and the game becomes crisp(y). To me it looks the samemish as the originals that way. Unfortunately it locks into a rather high resolution, zooming out of the play area a bit too much (on my 1440p monitor it looks like it locks at 1080p). The GUI does scale properly to your screen (option in graphics settings), so it stays readable (unlike the original fixed GUI).

 

[d1r]

NVIDIA INTEGER SCALING
YOU PLEBS

the OBEJCTIVELY best way to play original BG

 

[ds]

Or cnc-ddraw which can do integer scaling with any driver. Proton also has WINE_FULLSCREEN_INTEGER_SCALING builtin.