Icewind Dale Beamdog's Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition

[agris]

Ideally, higher difficulty represents an increased barrier to normal rewards, i.e. exp and loot. To reward players with more exp and loot further exacerbates their elevated playing. if you seek increased difficulty, you don't want the staff of the magi and scroll of 'fuck you you're dead', you want the same, balanced rewards gated behind more difficult encounters.

I've always thought it was backwards that the best items are given after the completion of the hardest, optional encounters. Those players don't need it! They just defeated the best you coded into the game! Make the gatekeeper encounters more difficult and OP equipment more scarce, that would result in a more difficult game.

edit: in a bizarre relation, this is related to mixing of music. You don't mix other music aspects *up* to heighten their attention on a track, you mix other elements of a track *down* so that what you want to emphasize is heightened in comparison. I think difficulty-enhancing mods would benefit from this style of enhancement, and gets around the HP / DMG bloat that is so tiredly promoted by 'difficulty' mods.

 

[SwiftCrack]

Gay nerd choke on your dice

As they say on the less civilized parts of the internet:

"ayy lmao"

 

[Infinitron]

They're still not done!

PART NINE:



PART TEN:

 

[thesheeep]

He certainly is right that this is not a D&D 3.5 experience, which would have improved the game. Probably anything in 3.5 is better than any D&D before that. I'll never get how anyone could disagree with that, other than because of nostalgia glasses.

What I don't get in his "review" is how he managed not to know that before playing. Isn't it written in the description that IWD is not based on 3.5, 4, 5, ...?

 

[LaBesteeeea]

Hey there!

Recently I started my journey with Icewind Dale Enhanced Edition, because I thought that the Enhanced Edition is ACTUALLY Enhanced and is a step up from the original edition + mods. The whole journey took me 30 minutes (exactly it was 29 minutes 37 seconds).
Because I played both original and Enfuck... Enhanced editions of BG and BG 2 and the original Icewind Dale I knew what to expect and how to spot any additions. After being horribly mauled by the Enfuck... Enhancement of IwD I decided to -youwontbelieveit - post my impressions on Beamdog's official forum. Just after clicking the "create discussion" button I realised what fucking mistake have I made and that I won't be able to call anyone a retard or moron without getting a mod's attention. My next thought was that I am seriously not interested in reading responses posted by Trent Oster groupies or those hideous creatures commiting the inhuman act of playing Icewind Dale on funkin ipods (seriously).
Naturally I remembered that there is a place for those deranged souls with an RPG twist so here I am. This is the link to my original post, I will copy it here as well and together let's answer the most obvious question. Is Icewind Dale Enhanced Edition by Beamdog the next best thing after the discovery of sex or is it just another Enfucked Cashgrab?

So ladies, gents and shemales. Let's get ready to rrrrruuuuuuummmmbleeeeee!

Orig post:

Hey guys and girls. This is my first post so be gentle.
So I played the original Icewind Dale and now (being tempted by all this Enhanced Stuff) I started with Icewind Dale EE. Here are a couple of my gripes with it. I hope that besides the infinityengineveteranflame it will catch the attention of devs or anyone working on the game.

- resolution switching and options. Is the in-game zoom function really the only way to "change resolution"? BG 2 and Icewind Dale had a config app where you could change plenty of things including the res. Now all we have is a silly "Baldur.ini". And even there some options are not available (I'm not even talking about explanation of some strings). Take a look at the config files of some Fallout/Fallout 2 mods like High-res patch or Sfall. All options neatly explained, all states of options explained (meaning "set to 1 to get...", "set to 2 to get..."). No offense guys, but it's been like this since BG EE and it was a couple of years ago.
- GUI. I think that the old obscure-the-whole screen style for equipment/mage book/char screen/journal was way better. The current option just looks too small. Not everyone is playing this on a 40 inch TV. Maybe someone wants to actually look at those beautiful item icons that are right now JUST TOO SMALL. Why else would you play a 10y+ old 2D game than to experience this kind of stuff?
- classes flavour text. Some classes/kits descriptions contain plenty of nice flavour text and explanation but some look uninteresting or contain plain errors. If you really want to delve into the rules be so kind as to explain how they work properly. Wizard slayer gains 1% magic res per level but on level 30 his/hers m res is 54%. Wait... has this text error been in BG EE? Beamdog guys, you expanded the race descriptions, why not error check/expand the classes/kits?
- class balancing. Why has Beamdog limited the character level to 30? No HLAs? Seriously? If you're concerned about game balance it has been utterly destroyed already by including new spells and kits. Unless it's one of those licence agreement things again. Pardon me then.

That's all after 30 minutes of play. I will not bother with EE, will play the original.
And if anyone's trying to use the argument of BUT IT'S NOW WORKING UNDER MY WINDOWS 7 2164 bit 400 GB RAM AND THE ORIGINAL DIDN'T I say -> stow it. The original still works on all Windows oses available, on both newest AMD and NVidia cards. It doesn't have problems with SSD nor multi-core processors, just like BG 1 and BG 2. Even if it doesn't work on your particular configuration (because you have a problem with it you won't acknowledge) install Win XP on virtual box and it will play like a fairytale. Oh yeah, installing "all those mods that are so NOT included in EE edition" doesn't take a week, it takes 15 minutes (including downloading). Seriously people don't believe any crap people say.
I don't have anything against rehashing old games but do it properly. Beamdog, please stop actually misleading people into thinking that you FIXED BG 1, BG 2 and IwD. You just sticked the old game with FREE mods.
Hell, I'm disappointed for the third time with Beamdog. Good thing IwD and Torment use a different engine version so we won't see a Planescape:Torment EE in 6 months.

 

[octavius]

I can't believe they blew three fireballs on exploding unseen mobs even for a silly demo video. One. Maybe two if stuff is seriously going to wreck you. But three? I can't wrap my mind around it. So many wasted resources...

Pro tip #27: lolRest

 

[octavius]

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/vid...-Dale-Enhanced-Edition-Tips-Part-1-Get-Buffed



O_o

Sorry, I can't help it, but I actually though that was funny.

 

[octavius]

PART FOUR:

I like the way he says "The needs of the many outweights the needs of the few". It's like he's taking a piss at Matt Barton.

 

[octavius]

A new "Story Mode" difficulty setting to allow players to experience all of the story with none of the Game Over screens

Shit game detected.

I guess they couldn't pass on the opportunity to make some extra bucks on shit gamers that just want to see the end by skipping all the content.

 

[Archibald]

As far as story mode goes I'll give them the point for honesty, at least they say openly what kinda shit it is. Because frankly there isn't much difference between this and what lots of games call easy difficulty setting since you'd have to be mentally challenged to lose on it anyway.

 

[Carceri]

A new "Story Mode" difficulty setting to allow players to experience all of the story with none of the Game Over screens

Shit game detected.

I guess they couldn't pass on the opportunity to make some extra bucks on shit gamers that just want to see the end by skipping all the content.

Isn't youtubing faster? I mean, you don't even need to install the game in order to skip the content. They should add this feature as the lowest difficulty option: you select it and then an endgame cinematic starts playing.

 

[DragoFireheart]

 

[Azalin]

 

[pippin]

 

[Dr Skeleton]

Why do you need 100% more XP if your characters are invulnerable. Why is this even a thing. Why play IWD if you don't want to actually play it.

Is the EE better than the original in any meaningful way? There's no way I'm paying full price for it, but I was thinking maybe on steam sale if they added/restored some nice content (quests/encounters, I don't really care about new kits and classes).

 

[catfood]

Is that 4 real?

 

[Azalin]

Why do you need 100% more XP if your characters are invulnerable. Why is this even a thing. Why play IWD if you don't want to actually play it.

Because Trent gonna Trent

Up next
Planescape Torment:EE with Xtreme Combat mode where you automatically skip all the boring dialogue and cutscenes and just play the awesome battles of P:T
:kwanzania:

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

Why do you need 100% more XP if your characters are invulnerable.

Exactly what I thought, can't think of anything to add, except a question mark maybe.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Why do you need 100% more XP if your characters are invulnerable.

Exactly what I thought, can't think of anything to add, except a question mark maybe.

It's because when you're fighting... erm... uh... no, that doesn't work. Hmmm. Ah! I've got it, it's so that when you face the Axe Throwing Mechanical What-Nots you will be in the position to... no, that isn't it either. It's for when Malavon... no, that still doesn't make sense... Nah, you got me, I give up. Dev response please!

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

I guess leveling-up is serious story business.

 

[pippin]

I guess pay to win has acquired a new meaning then.

 

[aVENGER]

Nah, you got me, I give up. Dev response please!

XP bonuses on lower difficulty levels were in the original Icewind Dale. You got 100% XP on the lowest difficulty setting in the original game as well.

This is not something that was changed for IWD:EE.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

XP bonuses on lower difficulty levels were in the original Icewind Dale. You got 100% XP on the lowest difficulty setting in the original game as well.

This is not something that was changed for IWD:EE.

You just turned my memory into molten jelly. I just spent 10 minutes re-installing IWD to find out how much of a dunce I was. But I was confronted by this message when clicking on the difficulty slider:

"This slider controls the difficulty level to be used in combat. The middle setting is true AD&D. IF YOU WANT TO PLAY THE GAME USING THE TRUE AD&D RULES, THEN DON'T TOUCH THIS SLIDER [caps in-game]. If you move the slider to an easier setting, then you will receive proportionally less experience points. The reverse does not apply when you use a harder setting."

So I'm not entirely sure what you're talking about?

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

I'll give you this, I thought I'd deleted all my old savegames in my last disk-clearance drive, but it's managed to find one, just one mind you, at 11 days in weirdly enough, but tanks fer de memories, this was a fun ride:

Honeysuckle - Paladin, Human, Lawful Good, Male
SaLad fiNgers - Ranger, Elf, Chaotic Good, Male
Nurse Gladys - Cleric, Half-Elf, Chaotic Good, Female
baldrick - Thief, Halfling, Lawful evil, Male
Fluffy - Druid, Human, True Neutral, Female
number 8 - Illusionist, Gnome, Chaotic Neutral, Male

So thanks fer de memreees

 

[aVENGER]

HoW added the XP award bonuses on lower difficulty levels.

You can test this pretty easily by doing the first quest in the game i.e. clearing Grisella's cellar of the beetles. On Core you get 1200 XP for that quest. On Easy you get 1800 and on Easiest you get 2400.