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Buggy and Unbalanced


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#1 -Jorge-

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Posted 20 September 2012 - 11:28 AM

Okay, I have played DSotSC and NTotSC through a few times now, and I've given them a fair shake. Unfortunately I can say that these mods are really not very good as is. They are buggy, (especially dialogue), I have to constantly go into NI and see what triggers a certain dialogue because some people will "have nothing to say to you" until you drop a certain item or even change a global or two. The dialogue itself is really really bad, I can't even understand it half the time because it looks like someone just put the original polish or whatever into google translate, and so I have to use a walkthrough to even get through simple quests because the quest-giver has been speaking some really fucked up "engrish" and I can't even discern wtf he wants. The items are RIDICULOUS, for instance a +4 ring of protection with 100% immunity to fire and immunity to normal weapons?! AT THE BANDIT CAMP!?! A +2 longsword with +5 thaco, extra spell memorization and an AC bonus? IN THE SHIPWRECK BY THE SIRINE CAVE!?! This isn't even close to endgame BG1, and you're passing out loot that you would be hard pressed to beat in Throne of Bhaal! And why, pray tell, am I fighting 1000-XP a pop generic beasties in a campaign with a max level of 9?? Now,all this wouldn't be an issue if this mod was in the "tactics" or "expert" section, (or the unintelligble dialogue, unbalanced items, and overall broken section) but no, this is "recommended" for most BGT installs and I cannot even fathom why. I am too far into my campaigns to want to delete every fucking thing and redo my whole install, but I really don't know why this is recommended. BGT has some great mods in it that do not unbalance the game, have good ENGLISH dialogue, and don't flat out break things. This is not one of them. I really do not think it should be recommended until somebody goes through with a fine-toothed comb and irons out the bugs and problems these mods are rife with.

#2 Miloch

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Posted 20 September 2012 - 01:20 PM

It would be good if you distinguished between DSotSC and NTotSC, Jorge, because they are completely different mods (I don't know why they even have the same forum). NTotSC was written in Polish whereas DSotSC was written in English originally. I am guessing most of what you mention is from NTotSC since I don't recognise it. Also, you might want to use paragraphs and avoid ranting a bit. Just saying... it doesn't offend me but those who can fix it might be able to do so better with more specific details.

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#3 Almateria

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Posted 20 September 2012 - 01:21 PM

No negativity, guy! >:[

#4 -Guest-

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Posted 20 September 2012 - 02:08 PM

No negativity? I am criticizing something which is clearly not working as well as it should. If that is "negativity" then yes, I am guilty of spreading it. As for my complaints, they are laid out pretty well. I am upset because this mod is in the recommended section, even though it introduces some major balance issues into the game and because much of the dialogue (NTotSC IS the source of most of the dialogue problems) is messed up and hard to read if not completely hacked to pieces.

For instance, has anyone actually figured out just what the hell the Northern Citadel quest was all about? Nobody is making any sense, their sentence structure is completely fragmented, and the ending is completely nonsensical because I have no idea what led to it. Eldod insults me in broken english a few times, then he goes off to a tomb. Afterwards, he doesn't attack, and he starts rambling about "The blood" being on his hands, and disappears forever. No dialogue choices, no repercussions, no attacking me, nothing. Just some crazy ogre and his kobold minions, and then the villain runs off never to be heard from again. The Sirine/Paradise Island is another area with completely unintelligble dialogue, and some of the dialogues are broken. For instance, if you happen to pick up the grapes laying about the floor before you talk to a certain sirine who wants them in exchange for... favors... you are unable to talk to her until you first drop the grapes on the ground, talk to her, then pick the grapes back up and talk to her again. Otherwise no dialogue will fire and she will sit there "having nothing to say" as the game puts it.

As for balance, I think I have already given a few examples of what I am talking about. There is no way you can tell me that a +3 scimitar that stuns on hit and has extra attacks is balanced for a level 4-5 party. Especially since the same enemy also drops a +4 ring of protection, a 0AC Studded Leather armor with lightning resistance and other assorted boni, a crown which allows an exorbitant amount of extra spell memorization and an AC bonus, and that's just one guy! The best armor in vanilla BG-TotSC is a +3 plate, and you don't find it until you search Durlags Tower, a significant challenge. That +3 plate has the same AC of this studded leather you find almost at the start of the game.

(Now with paragraphs!)

#5 -Guest-

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Posted 20 September 2012 - 03:01 PM

Just to clarify, I'm not trying to be a dick here, and I'm not saying the mod is awful or that there wasn't a lot of hard work that went into them. I'm just saying that it needs some uh... "polishing" before it really should be used in most games.

DSotSC has good dialogue for the most part, and the quests mostly make sense, even if they are a bit awkwardly implemented in some places.
On the other hand, it gives too much XP for killing enemies, the CuConneach (I know I mispelled that i don't care lol) NPC's wolf has some issues (clings to CC like a magnet, standing right in front of him so he can't always walk into doors in a small area etc.) and the items are WAY overpowered and WAY too abundant. I like the idea of extra items and new spells, but I don't like them being so powerful that I can actually CLUA myself to a ToB area and potentially survive as a level 7-8 party (my characters should not have -12 AC, multiple above-18 stats due to items, and/or 4 APR without being hasted at that level either).

NTotSC has some interesting quests, when you can understand the dialogue. That's pretty much all I can say for it, because it also suffers from "uber item syndrome", handing out +3 and +4 weaponry to fledgling adventurers just for kicks. The dialogue is rarely understandable, which makes the quests very confusing and nonsensical. I've also noticed that merchants from both of these mods will occasionally offer diamonds, rogue stones, and star-sapphires for 1GP each.

There are fun parts to these mods, but it is overshadowed by the fact that they are grossly imbalanced for this campaign's level range, and in the case of NTotSC, the dialogue is just plain hard to follow. If someone could clean up the dialogue, rebalance/NERF these items, and otherwise clean/debug it up a bit, I think these mods would be fine additions to any BGT install. As is, I can't really see why they are recommended.

#6 Miloch

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Posted 20 September 2012 - 04:09 PM

DSotSC is a decent mod, though I am not familiar with what all the BGT version did (I have been working on a BG1/Tutu version). I have absolutely no clue about NTotSC except that it likely needs some serious Englishing. Balancing concerns are well known for both mods. Some have perhaps been addressed. Most probably have not. There's a thread or five buried here where there are specific lists of items that are overpowered and the stat changes necessary to bring them in line with the game. It was well-done but I don't know if it was ever implemented in BGT DSotSC. Don't ask me about NTotSC because I have absolutely no clue about it except it was a Polish mod (not a polished one probably :P).

DSotSC's original modder actually showed up here not long ago and offered to help with some things and then promptly disappeared (CuChoinneach or however it's spelled). Pretty sure it was him anyway since he knew some pretty specific things. Would've been good to have him around but oh well. Erebusant was the one primarily maintaining most of these mods, but only because he was a near-demigod who could maintain a shedload of mods at once. Anyway, sadly, he's been gone for some time too. There was also a BP-Balancer mod that nerfed a lot of items you may be talking about (look for it in the megamod downloads section). Supposedly it had some issues and is no longer maintained but I think you can still install it.

Infinity Engine Contributions
Aurora * BG1 NPC * BG1 Fixpack * Haiass * Infinity Animations * Level 1 NPCs * P5Tweaks
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BAM Batcher * Creature Lister * Creature Checker * Creature Fixer * Tutu/BGT Area Map & List * Tutu Mod List
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"Infinity turns out to be the opposite of what people say it is. It is not 'that which has nothing beyond itself' that is infinite, but 'that which always has something beyond itself'." -Aristotle


#7 -Guest-

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Posted 20 September 2012 - 04:25 PM

DSotSC is a decent mod, though I am not familiar with what all the BGT version did (I have been working on a BG1/Tutu version). I have absolutely no clue about NTotSC except that it likely needs some serious Englishing. Balancing concerns are well known for both mods. Some have perhaps been addressed. Most probably have not. There's a thread or five buried here where there are specific lists of items that are overpowered and the stat changes necessary to bring them in line with the game. It was well-done but I don't know if it was ever implemented in BGT DSotSC. Don't ask me about NTotSC because I have absolutely no clue about it except it was a Polish mod (not a polished one probably :P).

DSotSC's original modder actually showed up here not long ago and offered to help with some things and then promptly disappeared (CuChoinneach or however it's spelled). Pretty sure it was him anyway since he knew some pretty specific things. Would've been good to have him around but oh well. Erebusant was the one primarily maintaining most of these mods, but only because he was a near-demigod who could maintain a shedload of mods at once. Anyway, sadly, he's been gone for some time too. There was also a BP-Balancer mod that nerfed a lot of items you may be talking about (look for it in the megamod downloads section). Supposedly it had some issues and is no longer maintained but I think you can still install it.


Since that balance mod is no longer supported I'll probably just change the item stats myself, but the dialogue/item description changes have to wait until I make a new game, and even then it can sometimes cause some problems to mess with dlg.tlk without a total reinstall. DSotSC IS a decent mod, like I said. It's just definitely got some issues which I think people should be made aware of before they download it with their BGT install.
NTotSC is also decent, but yes it definitely needs someone to re-translate/rewrite a lot of the dialogue in English. I actually am pretty convinced that somebody did just throw a lot of the dialogue into babylon/google translate or something because most Poles I know have a better working knowledge of English than what I have seen in this mod so far.

I definitely didn't want to come across as overly negative, I just get frustrated having to bugfix/edit so many things in my game when I didn't install any expert mods or anything that wasn't explicitly stated as compatible and recommended. If someone begins working on a project to address these issues, I would be glad to offer what help I can, though I am not very experienced with IE modding I can tool around in NI well enough to edit items at least, (playing with dialogue makes me nervous but I could definitely rewrite the text in easy to understand English if someone else was willing to put the changes into effect) and I know my way around the Baldur's Gate Trilogy.

#8 Miloch

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Posted 20 September 2012 - 04:32 PM

You don't need to know how to mod to rewrite text... you just need to know English :). As for the other stuff, if you can find your way around the CLUA console and/or Shadowkeeper to determine the item codes (or whatever) that need changing, and what you recommend changing them to, that should help.

As far as megamods go, DSotSC is probably still "recommended" IMO (again, as far as megamods go) but if you want to propose NTotSC should be elevated to "tactical" or "expert" or whatever they call the categories - go ahead. As I said, they are two different mods even if NTotSC tried to latch on to DSotSC it is completely separate. Best to post that in the megamod/BWP forum so whoever maintains it (if anyone) will see it specifically.

Infinity Engine Contributions
Aurora * BG1 NPC * BG1 Fixpack * Haiass * Infinity Animations * Level 1 NPCs * P5Tweaks
PnP Free Action * Thrown Hammers * Unique Containers * BG:EE * BGII:EE * IWD:EE
================================================================
Player & Modder Resources
BAM Batcher * Creature Lister * Creature Checker * Creature Fixer * Tutu/BGT Area Map & List * Tutu Mod List
================================================================
"Infinity turns out to be the opposite of what people say it is. It is not 'that which has nothing beyond itself' that is infinite, but 'that which always has something beyond itself'." -Aristotle


#9 melkor_morgoth75

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Posted 21 September 2012 - 07:21 AM

As for my experience, DSotSC is a nice mod, well done, no bugs in it and I would recommend it in any Bg game. It unfortunately has some OP items (i do have a personal version with ALL such items revisited by me).

NTotSC is a completely different story. Lot of bugs, all the quests are a mess and the storyline is not clear. Definitely you need to know the mod to enjoy it. If you know the mod (I knew all of it) and you don't mind facing lot of creature, good items and you don't care about storyline ... go for it, it has some nice add-on btw. If you don't know it or you're not a Power player, avoid it like a plague :)

As for the XP issue ... there are lot of mods around that could be of help (xp mod, Aurora S&B)... you can't avoid XP if you face a lot of creatures.

mm75

Edited by melkor_morgoth75, 21 September 2012 - 07:22 AM.

Tired of the same boring spawned creatures u face in BG? Try BGSpawn


#10 prowler

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Posted 07 October 2012 - 10:42 PM

'Balancing DSotSC for BWP' and 'Balancing NTotSC for BWP' projects are forzen?

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#11 Jarno Mikkola

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Posted 07 October 2012 - 11:55 PM

'Balancing DSotSC for BWP' and 'Balancing NTotSC for BWP' projects are forzen?

Well, basically... there's no posts... there's people that haven't been around much(OneEyedPhoenix) etc.
You can always make your own mock up of the files involved and see if people are intrested. You of course need to know how to make the files in a Weidu mod, it might eventually get added into the mod itself as a component.

And like it's said, updating a mod that's been around a decade, to make it more balanced... well, isn't going to done in a day, unless you try really hard. :P

Edited by Jarno Mikkola, 08 October 2012 - 12:19 AM.

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