I'm at the end of my rope on this one: BG2.

[Mastermind]

BG2 is a great game. Sure, the engine's shit but that sums up pretty much every RPG I can think of. Other than that though, the combat, the atmosphere (something most modern games truly lack), Aerie love, the non-cliche story, not to mention a decent villain all add up to a pretty good package.

 

[Jaesun]

Does that actually fix all the engine issues, though? I thought that was just a balance mod.

Sorry yes, it is just a balance mod.

 

[Xor]

If you think pre-buffing is boring, SCS won't help at all - in order to survive half the fights with SCS installed, you'll need full pre-buffs, potions, scrolls, and any other advantage you can give yourself.

Also, the party AI is useless. Turn it off and micromanage your party yourself. The auto-pause feature is pretty good at letting you react to the chaos.

 

[FatCat]

Auto-pause is p.fucking annoying most of the time and pre-buffing takes less than a minute if you know what you are doing so i don't see problem in that.

 

[Jaesun]

One could in theory hugely INCLINE (and "fix") the entire Baldur's Gate series by making it a proper turn-based cRPG.

Which you now can do with the FOnline SDK, which can use all the Baldur's Gate assets....

 

[Renegen]

You can already make Baldur's Gate turn-based. Just tell the game to auto-pause at the end of every round.

 

[sgc_meltdown]

You can already make Baldur's Gate turn-based. Just tell the game to auto-pause at the end of every round.

real time is just continuous turn based after all

 

[Mastermind]

One could in theory hugely INCLINE (and "fix") the entire Baldur's Gate series by remaking it with a nonD&D system

Fixed.

 

[Excidium]

You can already make Baldur's Gate turn-based. Just tell the game to auto-pause at the end of every round.

That's not turn-based, the rounds still happen simultaneously every 6 seconds. With that option, it just goes from RTwP to PwRT.

One could in theory hugely INCLINE (and "fix") the entire Baldur's Gate series by making it a proper turn-based cRPG.

Which you now can do with the FOnline SDK, which can use all the Baldur's Gate assets....

I isn't just a matter of making it turn-based and suddenly combat would be good. Some changes would be needed, like giving melee characters at least some maneuvers and attacks of opportunities.

 

[Mastermind]

It's phase based, which is a subset of turn based.

 

[Mastermind]

I isn't just a matter of making it turn-based and suddenly combat would be good. Some changes would be needed, like giving melee characters at least some maneuvers and attacks of opportunities.

Chess is shit and I refuse to play it until DLC that gives charge attacks to knights, grapple options to pawns and sniper rifles to rooks is available.

BG2 combat is fine. Not that more options wouldn't be better, but the combat is already good even without it. Somehow the lack of attacks of opportunity and manoeuvres did not ruin Wiz8's combat.

 

[bussinrounds]

Maybe when i finish BG1, i should just start a fresh BG2 game with a few mods like you mentioned ?

Maybe you shouldn't repost my post on RPGWatch? At least put quotation marks around it.

My bad, was just trying to relay the info. I'll edit it.

 

[Jaesun]

One could in theory hugely INCLINE (and "fix") the entire Baldur's Gate series by making it a proper turn-based cRPG.

Which you now can do with the FOnline SDK, which can use all the Baldur's Gate assets....

I isn't just a matter of making it turn-based and suddenly combat would be good. Some changes would be needed, like giving melee characters at least some maneuvers and attacks of opportunities.

Very good point. I'd have to ask Surf_Solar, as he is our resident FOnline expert (that I know of) with his Fallout mod he is doing. I'm unaware if AOO are in the engine or not (or could be added).

 

[Surf Solar]

Yeah, it's easy to import sprites or tiles in the FOnline engine, you could theoretically do a full 3d game aswell.

http://wipe.temote.tk/pics/index.php?cm ... Y4MjQ2ZGYz

Adding special attacks for melee etc can all be done - though you first have to replace the SPECIAL system with the AD&D ruleset of your choice. Could all be made, since the engine is pretty open and not so hardcoded.

I agree with Excidium though, simply just converting BGI/II IWDI/II or Torment to Turnbased wouldn't work, there's more you to rework.

 

[Jaesun]

Thanks for the info BRO.

I agree with Excidium though, simply just converting BGI/II IWDI/II or Torment to Turnbased wouldn't work, there's more you to rework.

Yeah, just adding turn-based combat is fine and all, also implementing all the spells correctly would be challenging as well (but not impossible). Would be interesting to try a proof-of concept with it though, for 1 area of BG.

 

[Morkar Left]

Thanks for the info BRO.

I agree with Excidium though, simply just converting BGI/II IWDI/II or Torment to Turnbased wouldn't work, there's more you to rework.

Yeah, just adding turn-based combat is fine and all, also implementing all the spells correctly would be challenging as well (but not impossible). Would be interesting to try a proof-of concept with it though, for 1 area of BG.

If you have to script/program the gamerules from scratch anyway better use d20 instead of AD&D?

 

[Jaesun]

Thanks for the info BRO.

I agree with Excidium though, simply just converting BGI/II IWDI/II or Torment to Turnbased wouldn't work, there's more you to rework.

Yeah, just adding turn-based combat is fine and all, also implementing all the spells correctly would be challenging as well (but not impossible). Would be interesting to try a proof-of concept with it though, for 1 area of BG.

If you have to script/program the gamerules from scratch anyway better use d20 instead of AD&D?

In theory you could even mod it to use 3.5 Ed D&D rules.

 

[SCO]

The worst is the AI.

The AI in bg works with scripts that depend on "nearest" triggers. It abstracts away things like cover into just pathfinding. So it can't take into account cover or create cover with the tanks.

It's pretty much useless for any kind of tactics beyond change to bow and shoot & move away, or dispel rock-paper-scissors.

 

[sgc_meltdown]

It's pretty much useless for any kind of tactics beyond change to bow and shoot & move away, or dispel rock-paper-scissors.

there were nice custom made mage scripts that fireballed with cheesy precision

 

[octavius]

Maybe when i finish BG1, i should just start a fresh BG2 game with a few mods like you mentioned ?

Maybe you shouldn't repost my post on RPGWatch? At least put quotation marks around it.

My bad, was just trying to relay the info. I'll edit it.

Thanks.
I am flattered, though. :D

The worst is the AI.

The AI in bg works with scripts that depend on "nearest" triggers. It abstracts away things like cover into just pathfinding. So it can't take into account cover or create cover with the tanks.

It's pretty much useless for any kind of tactics beyond change to bow and shoot & move away, or dispel rock-paper-scissors.

I think the individual AI for enemies was good in BG 2, but the group AI was mostly non-existant. And pathfinding was crappy. How hard would it have been to calculate that in order to get a line of sight on an enemy it's easier to take one step to the side than to move straight to point blank?
That the AI in the IE games is scriptable is also a plus in my book.

 

[halflingbarbarian]

I mostly used the scripts as a sort of default behavior each of my party members should perform, and was very thankful for the simplest one: Fighter Aggressive. I used that for my entire party except the mage (Edwin/a), which I left scriptless because I liked to concentrate on using him for CC, which meant proper positioning and stuff. And when situations call for something other than BASH-THE-SHIT-OUT-OF-EVERYTHING (which is pretty rare in BG2, tbh, unlike in IWD1/2), I pause and give specific commands to my zerglings (most of my party can survive in close range - Korgan, Viconia, Mainguy who is a Swashbuckler) and with that script, even Mazzy (whom I spec with shortbow - she's a freakin' turret with the right equipment setup) just stands at max range and pincushions everything.

If you realistically want to have intelligent scripts I would say the DA1 system in principle has the right idea. But the simplistic ones in BG2 were far from useless and took much of the tedium out of long fights against primitive AI.

A fully turn-based conversion of the system in BG2 would be awesome though. Imagine a hex-grid 'fading' unto that fantastic background art (perspective corrected, of course) whenever you go 'into-combat' (with a swwwiiiish sound like how Fallout does it), and what ensues is like a complicated version of HoMM style battle complete with proper initiative rolls, aoe impact definition, and related goodness.

I really, really hope AoD comes close to that fantasy.

 

[Roguey]

Aerie love,

One could in theory hugely INCLINE (and "fix") the entire Baldur's Gate series by remaking it with a nonD&D system

Fixed.

But that would be Dragon Age: Origins.

 

[sgc_meltdown]

Aerie love,

perhaps our bro mastermind has a protective streak in him and subscribes to older more romantic notions of idealised chivalry or likes anorexics, the point is I ain't gonna judge

 

[octavius]

Aerie had the cutest critical hit and critical miss sounds.

 

[Sceptic]

Aerie love,

And 18 months of Mastermind suddenly all make sense.