Baldur's Gate The Baldur's Gate Series Thread

[Lilura]

Chippy , that's a carry-over when shoving BG into BG2 engine. Tutu and BGT do it, too.

BG uses hard-coded spawns whereas BG2 is scripted. AFAIK, no one has cracked BG's spawn system for modding purposes (SCS guy said something like "too hard"). Beamdog could have if they wanted to, but they wanted BG in BG2 engine.

 

[Curratum]

Lilura do you have an actual article explaining why BG1 should remain in the BG1 engine and placing it in 2's is bad?

I'm not trying to flame or troll you, I just want to see an actual long-form opinion on this because I don't understand why this is bad.

 

[Lilura]

I have to rewrite the write-up for flow-improvement, but it's here.

 

[Curratum]

Oh, god, I wasn't prepared for that much of a long-form. Bookmarking for later.

 

[octavius]

With vanilla BG1 you gain the more unpredictable spawns, but OTOH you also suffer rage inducing respawns literally out of thin air. I remember it was so bad that on some maps I parked less useful party members on the hottest spawn points to prevent the worst respawning.

With SCS you get more intelligent enemies, but the maps are static with no respawns.

I prefer the latter, especially since in vanilla BG1 you could meet a squad of Bandits at lvl 1 when traveling, which no amount of scouting could prevent.

 

[Lilura]

It's nowhere near as bad as you make it out to be. Certainly, improvements could have been made, but it's no reason to forego the original BG experience in favor of playing BG in the BG2 engine, and modding SCS on top of that (the changes of which are manifold).

The hard-coded auto-respawns I quite like. It keeps the tension up when, after an interval, ghouls and spiders keep coming at the party in Durlag's Tower. BG2 engine feels stale and static.

Moreover, SCS/BG:EE don't remove the waylays. But yes, they do make them easier vs. 24 ApR hail (maximum of 12 archers @ 2 ApR ea) due to faster movement rate. In the original, 9 times out of 10 you're going to make it from the map south of FAI to FAI, and that's good enough. It's low level D&D, it's supposed to be dangerous.

 

[Daidre]

With SCS you get more intelligent enemies, but the maps are static with no respawns.

I've clocked several hundred of hours in BG1EE + SCS (+ other mods) this year and can guarantee that random spawns are still there. They are even scaling to:
1) Party level.
2) Difficulty slider - there some fixed number of spawns on spawn-points "per rest", like 3-6 depending on difficulty, so its roundabout way of punishing rest-spammers.

Can't say about original version though - EE engine is necessary to support some cooler features of SCS, so it could work differently there.

 

[Twizman]

BG1 with: Tutu, Sword Coast Stratagems and NPC Project is my play preference. Maybe Tweakpack also. Last run I got a surprise with a Sea Elf quest near the Lighthouse.

 

[octavius]

Daidre, I was not entirely correct. It depends on which mods you use together with BG1+SCS. With TuTu there's no respawns. There's also some spawn mods which introduce respawns, which name I can't remember; one I used when testing BGT.
And then EE again does things differently.

BG1 with: Tutu, Sword Coast Stratagems and NPC Project is my play preference. Maybe Tweakpack also. Last run I got a surprise with a Sea Elf quest near the Lighthouse.

That happens if you have Kivan in party and NPC Project installed. It turns Kivan into an insufferable EMO, but at least you can tell him to shut off, and it introduces some interesting encounters, so all in all one of the better characters of that mod IMO.

 

[GarfunkeL]

The spawn issue is caused by the BG2 engine as Lilura said. There have been 3 different spawn mods before Beamdog arrived to the scene which tried to emulate BG1 spawns in BGT or TuTu. None of the got it 100% correct but they do a good enough job for people who want to play through everything in one huge modded thing. I think it's Jasede who can explain the details the best. SCS also works with them, so you do get respawns on the map and yes, on some specific maps they follow the original BG philosophy of respawning kobolds (or whatever, depends on the map) the moment the fog of war hides a spot. Firewine ruins is a good example.

No idea how EE does things because why the fuck would I waste money on that shit.

 

[Jasede]

Not me, probably you meant Jaesun or someone else, Jaedar?

 

[Chippy]

With SCS you get more intelligent enemies, but the maps are static with no respawns.

I've clocked several hundred of hours in BG1EE + SCS (+ other mods) this year and can guarantee that random spawns are still there. They are even scaling to:
1) Party level.
2) Difficulty slider - there some fixed number of spawns on spawn-points "per rest", like 3-6 depending on difficulty, so its roundabout way of punishing rest-spammers.

Can't say about original version though - EE engine is necessary to support some cooler features of SCS, so it could work differently there.

Or its a roundabout way of accidently introducing a system that advanced players have to purposefully ignore so that it doesn't make the game easier. It's just shy of Oblivions level scaling for me. Except it could be argued that it's worse. If a skilled new player plays the game at face-value, rests, and levels higher than they should - then all of the preset enemies in the game are now a cakewalk.

From the roleplaying perspective, it totally destroys the low-level experience.

 

[Lacrymas]

Not that I'm defending Beamdog about this, but I usually choose to solo up to level 6 because I know where to go and what to do, and it's faster than doing it with a party. Which means as an experienced player, the early game isn't changed that much.

 

[Daidre]

With SCS you get more intelligent enemies, but the maps are static with no respawns.

I've clocked several hundred of hours in BG1EE + SCS (+ other mods) this year and can guarantee that random spawns are still there. They are even scaling to:
1) Party level.
2) Difficulty slider - there some fixed number of spawns on spawn-points "per rest", like 3-6 depending on difficulty, so its roundabout way of punishing rest-spammers.

Can't say about original version though - EE engine is necessary to support some cooler features of SCS, so it could work differently there.

Or its a roundabout way of accidently introducing a system that advanced players have to purposefully ignore so that it doesn't make the game easier. It's just shy of Oblivions level scaling for me. Except it could be argued that it's worse. If a skilled new player plays the game at face-value, rests, and levels higher than they should - then all of the preset enemies in the game are now a cakewalk.

From the roleplaying perspective, it totally destroys the low-level experience.

I really doubt that some hypothetical "new" player could install SCS and then cakewalk over preset SCS enemies on the difficulties that get harder/numerous spawns.
And I doubt it even more that anyone highly concerned with authentic low-level experience will try to play with SCS.

 

[Fenix]

I have to rewrite the write-up for flow-improvement, but it's here.

That's a qualitative stuff, for real. Read with great pleasure, that's you for existing.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Not me, probably you meant Jaesun or someone else, Jaedar?

Ah you're right, I meant Jaesun - I recall him talking in-depth about the spawn issue between BG1 and BG2.

 

[Lilura]

It was funny watching that idiot, Lyric Suite , trying to mod BG a few weeks ago.

 

[Lyric Suite]

Hurr durr

And shit still didn't work right. Fucking EE.

 

[Chippy]

When I get around to BG2 vanilla, I'll try to get that mod working from SHS that modded in the ability to map keys to quick item slots with autohotkey. https://www.autohotkey.com/

If anyone else wants to try it in the mean-time, that would be nice.

I get the impression it might be crap though, as nobody seems to has mentioned it. Ever.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Infinity Engine games have their own fully functional keybinds which you can customize from the configuration program. This includes either quick spells and quick items or even giving specific items or spells their own keys.

 

[Chippy]

Infinity Engine games have their own fully functional keybinds which you can customize from the configuration program. This includes either quick spells and quick items or even giving specific items or spells their own keys.

Yes, I've known that since it came out in 1998 its a pet peeve of mine that games like Kingmaker didn't provide a keybind (though a mod did) for stealth. What this mod/application does is sequence the keys you would press in BG2 to open the inventory, remove weapons and drag and drop all of your other weapon(s) into the appropriate slots...into one keybind.

So to be clear: Press I, remove bow, drop bow into inventory slot 1. Click on slot 15 and put longsword into weapon slot 1 and inventory slot 16 for shield/off hand slot. Shut inventory.

All of this is handled by autohotkey; it sequences the keys you would press, and sets them to the resolution & x, y coordinates on the screen for your mouse clicks.

Assuming I've still got the mod (that already had it set up in autohotkey) I'll give it a go when I get around to BG2. Otherwise, the mod was on SHS for anyone interested.

 

[DraQ]

What I really like about this thread is how it will eventually be filled with posts about BG3.

Feels good man.

 

[Lilura]

That means my blog will become the ONLY venue on the internet that bans EE/BG3 fans from expressing their retarded opinions.

 

[DraQ]

That means my blog will become the ONLY venue on the internet that bans EE/BG3 fans from expressing their retarded opinions.

So only BG1/BG2 retarded opinions will be expressed there, I guess.

 

[Lilura]

Only INFORMED veteran opinions and FACTS may be expressed. Liars, frauds and Elder Scrolls 'tards such as yourself are banned.