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

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Why not shift to Enhanced? Almost all the best content mods now are EE exclusive.

I wouldn't touch that Beandung vomit even if they'd pay me.

Do you actually have any reason why? What's wrong with the Enhanced Editions?

People take offense to the new NPC additions that are snowflakes. Maybe they also hate that all slings get +STR bonuses instead of just the Sling of Seeking.

 

[roshan]

Why not shift to Enhanced? Almost all the best content mods now are EE exclusive.

I wouldn't touch that Beandung vomit even if they'd pay me.

Do you actually have any reason why? What's wrong with the Enhanced Editions?

People take offense to the new NPC additions that are snowflakes. Maybe they also hate that all slings get +STR bonuses instead of just the Sling of Seeking.

The Beamdog hate seems very childish to me honestly. They added a few silly NPCs to a game that was already full of silly NPCs. Neera isn't any more ridiculous than Minsc, Hexxat isn't any more dull and boring than Cernd or Valygar. As far as I'm concerned they fit right in.

That's why I've always played with a custom party.

On the other hand if they added their NPCs to Planescape Torment, that would have been a travesty, but they had the good sense to leave it as is.

 

[roshan]

Why not shift to Enhanced? Almost all the best content mods now are EE exclusive.

I wouldn't touch that Beandung vomit even if they'd pay me.

Do you actually have any reason why? What's wrong with the Enhanced Editions?

It looks like shite, it plays like shite and every addition they made is pure fucking garbage. The writers especially should have their faces caved in, but whoever programmed this was probably an Indian or outsourced his work there.

No specific reasons here, just blanket irrational hatred.

 

[Average Manatee]

Neera: total cringe, but at least wild mage is a universally interesting and useful party member. Arguably overpowered but w/e its not like BG2 is played without 50 mod components that affect difficulty somehow.
Dorn: Reasonably uniqueish, especially among companions since he'll get spells that Keldorn can't use (weird that they both have dorn in their name). 14 CON tho beamdog why, how do you make a martial with no health bonus? Altogether you'll probably want to ignore him unless making an evil-themed party.
Rasaad: dogshit class that you should never take. Also 14 con again why do this?
Hexxat dogshit class that you should never take. Extra specially bad because she could have either been a dualable human thief or use one of the cool unique thief kits, beamdog chose instead to make her awful. By the way still 14 con lol. Literally every beamdog NPC is constitutionally weaker than Imoen and is on the same level as Aerie mechanically.

See, don't even need to talk about writing to criticize most of these.

 

[Strig]

Why not shift to Enhanced? Almost all the best content mods now are EE exclusive.

I wouldn't touch that Beandung vomit even if they'd pay me.

Do you actually have any reason why? What's wrong with the Enhanced Editions?

People take offense to the new NPC additions that are snowflakes. Maybe they also hate that all slings get +STR bonuses instead of just the Sling of Seeking.

The Beamdog hate seems very childish to me honestly. They added a few silly NPCs to a game that was already full of silly NPCs. Neera isn't any more ridiculous than Minsc, Hexxat isn't any more dull and boring than Cernd or Valygar. As far as I'm concerned they fit right in.

That's why I've always played with a custom party.

On the other hand if they added their NPCs to Planescape Torment, that would have been a travesty, but they had the good sense to leave it as is.

Nobody can stop you from shoveling shite into your gob. Or having inane opinions. Speaking of Minsc, remember him making GamerGate (or similar) references in the original? Because in that abomination he does. Remember pontificating troons in the original, with no options to curb their bullshit (and let's be honest, it'd probably be a joke character in 1998)? Remember how the writer of the "new and improved" version went out of her way to tone down the flirtatious nature of some characters? While there were silly characters in BG they had their personalities reflected in their respective dialogues. Remember how this train wreck barely functioned on launch and kept crashing on start or on load? Or how they botched the scaling and compression of the backgrounds to fit some mobile specs? Or how they demolished the UI? Or how they couldn't even get the aspect ratio right? Or how they gave every character some fucking thick outline because they're blind retards with no sense of aesthetics? I don't care if they patched in toggles and ironed out some of these problems. They still are, in essence, raping the classic games not only with no value added but literally value subracted. But sure, keep on shovelin'. This is from the top of my head and there's probably plenty more but this Beandogshit came out over a decade ago and I'm not going to put any more effort into this diatribe. So it's this AND blanket rational hatred.

 

[Yosharian]

Why not shift to Enhanced? Almost all the best content mods now are EE exclusive.

Can you list the mods you would recommend? Thinking of doing another BG2 run soon

I saw Dark Tidings so I'll include that

 

[Melcar]

The EEs looks fine if you disable the dynamic zoom, thought it locks the resolution to a setting that may be too zoomed out for some. The new GUI is serviceable and I appreciate the new fonts. All the new graphical features Beamdog added (sprite outlines and health bars for example) can be disabled with in-game settings. The new NPCs and their content can be ignored or disabled with a mod. Some minor quests were added by Beamdog, but those can be avoided and you probably won't run into them on your first run. Did not notice any changes to original NPCs.

 

[Fictive Cunt]

The EE is fine and mouse-wheel zoom is worth price of admission on gog sale. In fact it's probably $2.99 right now on winter sale. When you see beamdog NPCs just kill them. And you can disable their shitty graphics filters too. Dual wielding Khalid with long swords is great. With BGtweaks you can change it back to original weapon system if you want.

 

[roshan]

Why not shift to Enhanced? Almost all the best content mods now are EE exclusive.

Can you list the mods you would recommend? Thinking of doing another BG2 run soon

I saw Dark Tidings so I'll include that

Right now I'm playing a very lightly modded run of BG2, want to keep somewhat close to the original game and try and get as far as I can in the main plot without running out of steam.

For improving the interface, I recommend EEX, LeFreut's UI and Bubb's Spell Menu. This gets you a lot of QOL tweaks such as better portrait selection, checking the spells that are affecting an enemy, visual timers for spellcasting and modal actions, a spell menu for easily selecting what spell you want to cast, etc. These are impossible to live without after you've experienced them.

I've only installed 4 content/area mods:
- Dark Tidings
- Call of the Lost Goddess
- Crucible
- Trials of the Luremaster for BG2 (a port of the IWD expansion)

Right now I highly recommend the first two. The third mod I don't know yet since it doesn't take place until the end of TOB. Trials of the Luremaster of course is possibly the best dungeon ever created in an IE game, so if you don't care for IWD you might want to try it out in BG2 instead.

Aside from this I have Unfinished Business, Almateria's Restoration Project, Ascension - these add small quests, tactical challenges and restorations to the game.

Sword Coast Stratagems is of course essential for boosting difficulty, can't play without it, and Tweaks Anthology for some of the QOL options.

I plan to do a much more heavily modded run in the future and try out more content/area mods if I manage to finish this run. I just made it to the Abyssal city of Samora:

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

Trials of the Luremaster of course is possibly the best dungeon ever created in an IE game

I think you misspelled Durlag's tower.

 

[d1r]

Why not shift to Enhanced? Almost all the best content mods now are EE exclusive.

I wouldn't touch that Beandung vomit even if they'd pay me.

Do you actually have any reason why? What's wrong with the Enhanced Editions?

Way too many personal edits to warrant a shift to the new edition (I started modding this setup like eight years ago). I also hate the black border in each outdoor map, though people say that it has been fixed(?).

 

[Azdul]

Why not shift to Enhanced? Almost all the best content mods now are EE exclusive.

When EE came out, some content mods were updated to work with both classic and EE, but in many, many cases authors could not be reached, or flat out said 'no'.

Some classic-exclusive mods are still being developed, like BGT-Weidu or World of Baldur's Gate.

I gave EE mega-mod a chance, but it was a miserable experience:

• in World of Baldur's Gate 99.9% of mega-mod content is translated and dubbed, while in EE none of new NPC voices are,
• many mods were never tested with EET,
• amateurish NPCs from mods are cute, while Beamdog ones are cringy,
• best-looking EE exclusive mods are really not as good as old mods that were tuned, balanced and improved over 2 decades.

So I stick with classic versions.

TobEx, GemBR and Enhanced Editions are mostly compatible, so many relatively new mods give you a choice between installation for classic or EE.

 

[roshan]

Why not shift to Enhanced? Almost all the best content mods now are EE exclusive.

I wouldn't touch that Beandung vomit even if they'd pay me.

Do you actually have any reason why? What's wrong with the Enhanced Editions?

Way too many personal edits to warrant a shift to the new edition (I started modding this setup like eight years ago). I also hate the black border in each outdoor map, though people say that it has been fixed(?).

I think it was always that you just had to turn it off in the options. The same think with the sprite outlines that Strig is raging about, you could always just toggle it off. At the same time there are people that actually like it, so it's nice for the player base that the options are available.

 

[Inec0rn]

That Beamdog company fucking sucks. It's the equivalent of dubbing over a classic movie, using AI to replace half the dialog and actors, inject new activist cameo's then calling it an enhanced edition.

You have to be a retard to not understand why people don't like this. Any retconning of original content is generally a travesty and disrespectful to the creators and fans, and in their case it was adding activism to the game.

BTW have you played or heard of Mythforce? yeah me either. This is how successful Beamdog are as a studio when they have to create their own IP.

https://steamdb.info/app/363860/charts/

 

[roshan]

Why not shift to Enhanced? Almost all the best content mods now are EE exclusive.

When EE came out, some content mods were updated to work with both classic and EE, but in many, many cases authors could not be reached, or flat out said 'no'.

Some classic-exclusive mods are still being developed, like BGT-Weidu or World of Baldur's Gate.

I gave EE mega-mod a chance, but it was a miserable experience:

• in World of Baldur's Gate 99.9% of mega-mod content is translated and dubbed, while in EE none of new NPC voices are,
• many mods were never tested with EET,
• amateurish NPCs from mods are cute, while Beamdog ones are cringy,
• best-looking EE exclusive mods are really not as good as old mods that were tuned, balanced and improved over 2 decades.

So I stick with classic versions.

TobEx, GemBR and Enhanced Editions are mostly compatible, so many relatively new mods give you a choice between installation for classic or EE.

I think your experience is different due to the Polish language issue and because you have World of Baldur's Gate which is essentially just a massive megamod compilation for Polish speakers.

BG Trilogy has it's counterpart Enhanced Edition Trilogy, and EET is a much better platform than BGT because as I understand it, EET does not block off old areas when you progress in the story. So from Athkatla you can actually go back to Beregost or BG, that allows the world to feel more open, and you can actually finish content you missed before. It also allows for mods that have content crossing back into previous areas of the saga. As I understand a few mods like Cowled Menace are already doing this.

Regarding WoBG, a lot of the mods included are older ones with mostly horrible balance, cringe content and recycled areas. Now most of these mods are available for the EE also but the question is why would anyone even want to play them? Dark Horizons for example apparently is based on the plot and characters of the movie La Femme Nikita. Darkest Day just clones Beregost and other locations from BG1 and IWD, renames them and adds them to BG2. Why would someone want to play a massive modded game visiting the same locations over and over?

 

[Fictive Cunt]

the black border in each outdoor map

You can turn off scrolling out of bounds

 

[Azdul]

Why not shift to Enhanced? Almost all the best content mods now are EE exclusive.

When EE came out, some content mods were updated to work with both classic and EE, but in many, many cases authors could not be reached, or flat out said 'no'.

Some classic-exclusive mods are still being developed, like BGT-Weidu or World of Baldur's Gate.

I gave EE mega-mod a chance, but it was a miserable experience:

• in World of Baldur's Gate 99.9% of mega-mod content is translated and dubbed, while in EE none of new NPC voices are,
• many mods were never tested with EET,
• amateurish NPCs from mods are cute, while Beamdog ones are cringy,
• best-looking EE exclusive mods are really not as good as old mods that were tuned, balanced and improved over 2 decades.

So I stick with classic versions.

TobEx, GemBR and Enhanced Editions are mostly compatible, so many relatively new mods give you a choice between installation for classic or EE.

I think your experience is different due to the Polish language issue and because you have World of Baldur's Gate which is essentially just a massive megamod compilation for Polish speakers.

BG Trilogy has it's counterpart Enhanced Edition Trilogy, and EET is a much better platform than BGT because as I understand it, EET does not block off old areas when you progress in the story. So from Athkatla you can actually go back to Beregost or BG, that allows the world to feel more open, and you can actually finish content you missed before. It also allows for mods that have content crossing back into previous areas of the saga. As I understand a few mods like Cowled Menace are already doing this.

Regarding WoBG, a lot of the mods included are older ones with mostly horrible balance, cringe content and recycled areas. Now most of these mods are available for the EE also but the question is why would anyone even want to play them? Dark Horizons for example apparently is based on the plot and characters of the movie La Femme Nikita. Darkest Day just clones Beregost and other locations from BG1 and IWD, renames them and adds them to BG2. Why would someone want to play a massive modded game visiting the same locations over and over?

WoBG modifies Dark Horizons and Darkest Day specifically to correct the balance and not have Beregost clones. So it is not a mega-mod, but it's own thing.

Here is Soubar from original mod:

and here is how it looks in WoBG:

If you prepare your own mega-mod, no matter if it is Polish or English version, based on EET or BGT, you'll run into the issue of not having tons of amazing mods for BG1 part of the campaign.

I'm not sure if going back to BG1 areas is strictly impossible in BGT. I had not tried it in either BGT or EET.

Also I'd like to see someone preparing 1000 hours campaign based on EE / EET, actually testing it, and making sure that it does not fall apart due to bugs, balance issues and 'mandatory' NPCs in your team.

 

[Krivol]

I started another mod by Acifer, the creator of Dark Tidings. It's called Call of the Lost Goddess.

One of the best mods for BG2EE. Writing is fine, battles are challenging (a bit...), locations are fine-to-gorgeous.

 

[Fictive Cunt]

most of these mods are available for the EE

The Northern Tales of the Sword Coast, and Dark Side of the the Sword Coast mods both have different versions for bg1ee and EET. The bg1ee versions are a lot like the originals with some crazily powerful loot and a lot of (too many) enemies in the dungeons. The EETs are 'balanced ' but all maintain the same no-sense quests that will require a guide at least once or twice.

I don't remember Dark Horizons' plot but there was a ton of wayyy too powerful stuff and a (presumably bugged) dwarf in Beregost who sells it; he buys higher and sells lower than any other merchant. There is also dwarf crafter at Friendly Arm who adds Fire Giant strength to Girdle of Piercing from sex-change ogre, and makes wyvern heads into ac +2 helms with +2 strength and 25% magic resistance... Yeah of course half my party will be wearing them

 

[cretin]

Why not shift to Enhanced? Almost all the best content mods now are EE exclusive.

When EE came out, some content mods were updated to work with both classic and EE, but in many, many cases authors could not be reached, or flat out said 'no'.

Some classic-exclusive mods are still being developed, like BGT-Weidu or World of Baldur's Gate.

I gave EE mega-mod a chance, but it was a miserable experience:

• in World of Baldur's Gate 99.9% of mega-mod content is translated and dubbed, while in EE none of new NPC voices are,
• many mods were never tested with EET,
• amateurish NPCs from mods are cute, while Beamdog ones are cringy,
• best-looking EE exclusive mods are really not as good as old mods that were tuned, balanced and improved over 2 decades.

So I stick with classic versions.

TobEx, GemBR and Enhanced Editions are mostly compatible, so many relatively new mods give you a choice between installation for classic or EE.

I think your experience is different due to the Polish language issue and because you have World of Baldur's Gate which is essentially just a massive megamod compilation for Polish speakers.

BG Trilogy has it's counterpart Enhanced Edition Trilogy, and EET is a much better platform than BGT because as I understand it, EET does not block off old areas when you progress in the story. So from Athkatla you can actually go back to Beregost or BG, that allows the world to feel more open, and you can actually finish content you missed before. It also allows for mods that have content crossing back into previous areas of the saga. As I understand a few mods like Cowled Menace are already doing this.

Regarding WoBG, a lot of the mods included are older ones with mostly horrible balance, cringe content and recycled areas. Now most of these mods are available for the EE also but the question is why would anyone even want to play them? Dark Horizons for example apparently is based on the plot and characters of the movie La Femme Nikita. Darkest Day just clones Beregost and other locations from BG1 and IWD, renames them and adds them to BG2. Why would someone want to play a massive modded game visiting the same locations over and over?

WoBG modifies Dark Horizons and Darkest Day specifically to correct the balance and not have Beregost clones. So it is not a mega-mod, but it's own thing.

Here is Soubar from original mod:

and here is how it looks in WoBG:

If you prepare your own mega-mod, no matter if it is Polish or English version, based on EET or BGT, you'll run into the issue of not having tons of amazing mods for BG1 part of the campaign.

I'm not sure if going back to BG1 areas is strictly impossible in BGT. I had not tried it in either BGT or EET.

Also I'd like to see someone preparing 1000 hours campaign based on EE / EET, actually testing it, and making sure that it does not fall apart due to bugs, balance issues and 'mandatory' NPCs in your team.

hey this looks interesting, can you give me some more information. Google was unhelpful.

edit: found your earlier post. Is WoBG only in polack?

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

Any retconning of original content is generally a travesty

What was retconned?

 

[roshan]

Why not shift to Enhanced? Almost all the best content mods now are EE exclusive.

When EE came out, some content mods were updated to work with both classic and EE, but in many, many cases authors could not be reached, or flat out said 'no'.

Some classic-exclusive mods are still being developed, like BGT-Weidu or World of Baldur's Gate.

I gave EE mega-mod a chance, but it was a miserable experience:

• in World of Baldur's Gate 99.9% of mega-mod content is translated and dubbed, while in EE none of new NPC voices are,
• many mods were never tested with EET,
• amateurish NPCs from mods are cute, while Beamdog ones are cringy,
• best-looking EE exclusive mods are really not as good as old mods that were tuned, balanced and improved over 2 decades.

So I stick with classic versions.

TobEx, GemBR and Enhanced Editions are mostly compatible, so many relatively new mods give you a choice between installation for classic or EE.

I think your experience is different due to the Polish language issue and because you have World of Baldur's Gate which is essentially just a massive megamod compilation for Polish speakers.

BG Trilogy has it's counterpart Enhanced Edition Trilogy, and EET is a much better platform than BGT because as I understand it, EET does not block off old areas when you progress in the story. So from Athkatla you can actually go back to Beregost or BG, that allows the world to feel more open, and you can actually finish content you missed before. It also allows for mods that have content crossing back into previous areas of the saga. As I understand a few mods like Cowled Menace are already doing this.

Regarding WoBG, a lot of the mods included are older ones with mostly horrible balance, cringe content and recycled areas. Now most of these mods are available for the EE also but the question is why would anyone even want to play them? Dark Horizons for example apparently is based on the plot and characters of the movie La Femme Nikita. Darkest Day just clones Beregost and other locations from BG1 and IWD, renames them and adds them to BG2. Why would someone want to play a massive modded game visiting the same locations over and over?

WoBG modifies Dark Horizons and Darkest Day specifically to correct the balance and not have Beregost clones. So it is not a mega-mod, but it's own thing.

Here is Soubar from original mod:

and here is how it looks in WoBG:

If you prepare your own mega-mod, no matter if it is Polish or English version, based on EET or BGT, you'll run into the issue of not having tons of amazing mods for BG1 part of the campaign.

I'm not sure if going back to BG1 areas is strictly impossible in BGT. I had not tried it in either BGT or EET.

Also I'd like to see someone preparing 1000 hours campaign based on EE / EET, actually testing it, and making sure that it does not fall apart due to bugs, balance issues and 'mandatory' NPCs in your team.

Is World of Baldur's Gate available in English?

Actually from what I gather it's pretty much a "Golden Age" for great BG1 mods for the EE version. Loretakers, Shades of the Sword Coast, Gorgon's Eye, Balduran's Seatower and Black Hearts are the ones getting quite a lot of praise. For BG2 there's a heck of a lot more mods, and it seems IWD and IWD2 in EE are basically complete and stable. There's also NWN in EE.

 

[Azdul]

I think your experience is different due to the Polish language issue and because you have World of Baldur's Gate which is essentially just a massive megamod compilation for Polish speakers.

BG Trilogy has it's counterpart Enhanced Edition Trilogy, and EET is a much better platform than BGT because as I understand it, EET does not block off old areas when you progress in the story. So from Athkatla you can actually go back to Beregost or BG, that allows the world to feel more open, and you can actually finish content you missed before. It also allows for mods that have content crossing back into previous areas of the saga. As I understand a few mods like Cowled Menace are already doing this.

Regarding WoBG, a lot of the mods included are older ones with mostly horrible balance, cringe content and recycled areas. Now most of these mods are available for the EE also but the question is why would anyone even want to play them? Dark Horizons for example apparently is based on the plot and characters of the movie La Femme Nikita. Darkest Day just clones Beregost and other locations from BG1 and IWD, renames them and adds them to BG2. Why would someone want to play a massive modded game visiting the same locations over and over?

WoBG modifies Dark Horizons and Darkest Day specifically to correct the balance and not have Beregost clones. So it is not a mega-mod, but it's own thing.

Here is Soubar from original mod:

and here is how it looks in WoBG:

If you prepare your own mega-mod, no matter if it is Polish or English version, based on EET or BGT, you'll run into the issue of not having tons of amazing mods for BG1 part of the campaign.

I'm not sure if going back to BG1 areas is strictly impossible in BGT. I had not tried it in either BGT or EET.

Also I'd like to see someone preparing 1000 hours campaign based on EE / EET, actually testing it, and making sure that it does not fall apart due to bugs, balance issues and 'mandatory' NPCs in your team.

hey this looks interesting, can you give me some more information. Google was unhelpful.

edit: found your earlier post. Is WoBG only in polack?

Yes.

You could try to recreate it using Big World Project, as list of components and weidu.log is available, however you'll miss stuff like 'integrating whole Icewind Dale 2' or non-Weidu mods or balancing of equipment and XP.

I can confirm that TobEx, BGT, BG1NPC, Ascension, Unfinished Business 1 and 2, Mini Quest and Encounters, Tweaks Anthology, Graphics Overhaul, NPC Portraits, Stratagems I and II and BG2 Fixpack play nice with each other, no matter if I choose classic English or classic Polish version.

If you want to go beyond that with classic, Big World Project 500+ pages guide can help with that.

For EE you need to read every readme of every mod, to not get stuck 50 hours in the campaign, because some EE modders do not like each other .

 

[roshan]

most of these mods are available for the EE

The Northern Tales of the Sword Coast, and Dark Side of the the Sword Coast mods both have different versions for bg1ee and EET. The bg1ee versions are a lot like the originals with some crazily powerful loot and a lot of (too many) enemies in the dungeons. The EETs are 'balanced ' but all maintain the same no-sense quests that will require a guide at least once or twice.

I don't remember Dark Horizons' plot but there was a ton of wayyy too powerful stuff and a (presumably bugged) dwarf in Beregost who sells it; he buys higher and sells lower than any other merchant. There is also dwarf crafter at Friendly Arm who adds Fire Giant strength to Girdle of Piercing from sex-change ogre, and makes wyvern heads into ac +2 helms with +2 strength and 25% magic resistance... Yeah of course half my party will be wearing them

Exactly my point! Yes these old megamods have EE versions, but why would anyone want to play them in the first place? Why would anyone want La Femme Nikita content in their Baldur's Gate game whether it's translated into Polish or not? Makes no sense. I remember trying Secret of Bonehill years ago, supposedly an adaptation of a P&P module. As soon as I got to the first super ugly mod area I found every single chest was packed with hoards of Beljurils, Rogue Stones, Diamonds, etc. I just quit playing. I don't know what World of Baldur's Gate does to these trash tier old megamods but I assume there's a limit to how much they can be improved.

On the other hand there's a lot more smaller, but deeper and well written, lore friendly content mods released and upcoming for the EE games, to the point that it seems a lot of EE players can afford to be way more picky w/ the content mods they add to their game. I don't think anyone would want to play DSOTSC, NTOTSC, TDD, SOBH, CTB, TOA, TDS, SOS, TS, NEJ, TSOA, TGC, DH anymore.

 

[d1r]

Just don't play mega quest mods. 95% of them are fucking terrible.