23 replies to this topic

[Sir BillyBob]

Okay gang,

I am working on the (hopely) last patch fix for this and NTotSC. I hope to revise the biff batch file as well and allow you to biff both mods after installation. Since CoM has finally released their version of DSotSC, I was thinking about reviewing their work to see what changes we should have here as well.

Some issues with DSotSC -
Items are way overpowered
Items don't always have good descriptions (like who can use it)
Dialogs are severly lacking
Not compatible with other mods (installation order issues)
Need to remove journal entries when moving on to BG2

Therefore, I hope to work on some of these and see what I can fix. Right now, the item problems are probably the biggest. I really don't see any reason for having a weapon being more than +2 in a BG1 game (a few +3 items like daggers) but not a +4 axe or sword. Also, the druid's Algernon(?) club with it's poisoned darts is way overpowered.

Any opinions on these and other items? Anything in the CoM version that is killer and you just got to have here?

[Yacomo]

From all the things you listed I'd say the overpowered items are the most important issue. Toning them down a bit or making them only usable for very special characters (like only usable by chaotic evil or the like) would be a great thing. Or usable for a very limited time?

Two other things comes to my mind:
1) Money - after you sell all the stuff you find in both mods you are incredible rich - again a balancing issue.
2) Experience - after playing BH and DSotSC my party was level 11 when I reached BG - yet another balancing issue.

[Chevalier]

My thoughts,

Tone down the overpower items, while keeping the sprite of the items. Things like haveing druid's Algernon club have 4 to 8 thorns aday. Or robes that need to be activeated for their protective powers to work for a limited time (i.e. 6 turns). You might have an optional install for the orginal items, to try to please everyone.

Also you might let some of the weapons get upgraded later in the game or as you increase in levels.

Dialogs are severly lacking

In the sprite of BG1 NPC Project, you might find some people who want to write banter for DSotSC NPC's. If I were to write a romance for Jet it would get dirty and inclued PC and Imoen.

Need to remove journal entries when moving on to BG2

I don't understand why this needs to be done? Why shouldn't you be able to look back at what you have done?

Experience - after playing BH and DSotSC my party was level 11 when I reached BG - yet another balancing issue.

Well you don't need to play though DSotSC before going to BG.

[Suluku]

I agree completely with the idea of reducing the pluses on weapons, and I also think it would be a good idea to restrict the use of some of the more powerful weapons to particular classes/kits and alignments. I'm not a big fan of additional banters. Some of those in BG1NPC I found very good and but others were excruciatingly bad - a good balance is hard to find.

My main gripe with DSotSC is that, while the first two of the four big quests are interesting and challenging (although I would have the phantom requesting assistance against the Dark One spawn to talk to the party as soon as the Banshee is killed to add continuity to the story, as it is not obvious until the party talks to the Dark One that he is reponsible for turning Jet's sister undead), the last two quest have very derivative storylines and too many redundant levels recycled from familar Bioware maps. I don't know whether a 'DSotSC Revision' mod for BP-BGT is a possibility, but I would certainly recommend editing out some of the levels and getting to the final battle more quickly in the last two quests. Furthermore, Lord Daerthmac goes down pretty fast in melee and I would like to see him better protected by undead cannon fodder to make him more of a challenge - at present he hardly has a chance to cast a spell if the party is properly prepared.

I also agree with Yacomo that experience gained from the extra quests can overbalance the game in favour of the party, and I don't think the comment that 'you don't have to play the mod' is at all helpful. I have noticed that Horred's XP reductions don't apply to some of the monsters introduced by mods (Skeleton Lords, for example) and hopefully, BP170 can address this. But I think there is a case for reducing XP awarded for quests as well and tweaking some of the standard Bioware encounters along the lines of the improved Xvart camp and Firewine trolls in BGT (Horred's work too, I believe). In short, what BG1 for BP-BGT really needs its its own, well designed version of Tactics

Edited by Suluku, 19 May 2005 - 01:01 AM.

[NiGHTMARE]

Perhaps you could post over in the BG1NPC Project forums which dialogues you found to be "excruciatingly bad", so the team can take a look at them and - if found to be neccessary - improve them?

[Suluku]

Perhaps you could post over in the BG1NPC Project forums which dialogues you found to be "excruciatingly bad", so the team can take a look at them and - if found to be neccessary - improve them?

I have thought about doing so, but it is all matter of personal taste and interpretation and I have no interest in tracking people down to trample on their sensitivities. Furthermore, last time dropped by the BG1NPC forum it had been taken over by a protracted debate over editorial policy, which is something of a turn-off for ordinary gamers.

Edited by Suluku, 19 May 2005 - 04:04 AM.

[Sir BillyBob]

To clarify the journal issue - after the transition and you are sitting in the cage, the script strips out all the journal entries so you have a clean slate for SOA. I suspect this is because they are listed in each chapter and it would look weird in SOA to see a chapter 5 quest when you are still on chapter 2 of SOA. The process of removing all those entries is part of the reason why the transition takes so long (and why people thing it doesn't work). I remove the BoneHill entries as you leave Restenford. This speeds up the process later (and I didn't want to mess with the script of AR0602 or is it AR0603?). Any how, NTotSC and DSotSC don't have many journal entries and that may be part of why people don't like those mods. Not enough meat.

As for redoing the areas of DSotSC, not me. My plan from the beginning was to bring the mod over to BGT. I don't want to rebuild it or NTotSC as if it was a new mod. I have a TC project to work on instead. If someone else wants to make a mini-mod that uses different areas, fine by me.

Items are a different story. They are easy to change and I think it gives the story better acceptance from those that have always hated/disliked DSotSC. Also, the money from these items needs to be more inline.

The original NTotSC mod modifies several of the DSotSC items. I did not follow that path in my conversion of NTotSC. I do like the idea of giving the player the option of which to install and I can work on this as the next project.

Banters - not sure where to go on this. I would like to see someone bring these NPCs into the fold of the BG1NPC type of project. I suspect it would only happen if someone makes a Tutu version of DSotSC.

Lastly, the XP for each creature. Most creatures are BP so they already have the toned down XP that Horred created. However, the specialty creatures like Lord Daerthmac are probably way too high. I haven't even looked into balancing these. Good point.

[SimDing0]

I'm not a big fan of additional banters.

I think you'd be missing out to dismiss all banter-adding mods purely based on your experience with one. The quality of material depends largely upon the author-- BG1NPC has a huge number of different authors, which explains the variation. The Banter Packs, on the other hand, are fairly widely acclaimed for staying consistently true to Bioware characters. Any banter added to DSotSC would therefore depend on the author(s) with regards to the standard of writing, and I'd discourage objecting to the prospect on principle.

But I think there is a case for reducing XP awarded for quests as well and tweaking some of the standard Bioware encounters along the lines of the improved Xvart camp and Firewine trolls in BGT (Horred's work too, I believe). In short, what BG1 for BP-BGT really needs its its own, well designed version of Tactics

I've always felt that it shouldn't be the job of individual mods to reduce Bioware XP rewards so as not to overshoot the XP cap by miles. One mod doing this works fine, but when several attempt to, it still becomes unbalanced-- with the BP-integrated version of DSotSC this is less of a problem with Horred modifying basically everything, but for standalone mods I'd typically advise trying to remain consistent with Bioware XP rewards and deferring people to Experience Fixer which will give consistently fair overall XP reduction with multiple mods installed.

Regarding improvement of DSotSC, does the BG2 version address the "feature" whereby experience drain is incorporated with no means of restoration? If not, I think making full use of the BG2 engine's capabilities here might improve playability.

Edited by SimDing0, 19 May 2005 - 09:57 AM.

[Suluku]

I've always felt that it shouldn't be the job of individual mods to reduce Bioware XP rewards so as not to overshoot the XP cap by miles. One mod doing this works fine, but when several attempt to, it still becomes unbalanced-- with the BP-integrated version of DSotSC this is less of a problem with Horred modifying basically everything, but for standalone mods I'd typically advise trying to remain consistent with Bioware XP rewards and deferring people to Experience Fixer which will give consistently fair overall XP reduction with multiple mods installed.

Great! I've been looking for something like this for a while. Strange I've not noticed it before, but I suppose the lesson here is not to judge a book by its cover

[SimDing0]

You mean you looked at pocketplane.net and just thought "nah, these guys suck" and closed the site?

[NiGHTMARE]

Banters - not sure where to go on this.  I would like to see someone bring these NPCs into the fold of the BG1NPC type of project.  I suspect it would only happen if someone makes a Tutu version of DSotSC.

A Tutu version of DSotSC complete with lots of new banters is being worked on over at the Chosen of Mystra .

I have thought about doing so, but it is all matter of personal taste and interpretation and I have no interest in tracking people down to trample on their sensitivities.

Fair enough. However, if you have issues with any of Alora's banters or interjections please let me know, as I'm the author of most of those, and am always looking to improve the quality of my writing .

Edited by NiGHTMARE, 19 May 2005 - 02:14 PM.

[Sir BillyBob]

Regarding improvement of DSotSC, does the BG2 version address the "feature" whereby experience drain is incorporated with no means of restoration? If not, I think making full use of the BG2 engine's capabilities here might improve playability.

Okay, what does that mean? If you mean how they made sure NPCs couldn't be level drained and thereby also couldn't advance in levels, no that is not in this mod. Since real level draining is in SOA, I left it the way SOA drops levels and allows restoration to restore them. Therefore, an Undead Hunter is immune to undead level draining as aways, magic items that block level draining work (not that you should find one in BG1 anyway), and being level drained displays the icon on your portrait like it should. In other words, I didn't screw with it.

[cujo]

magic items that block level draining work (not that you should find one in BG1 anyway)

You do have the mace of disruption +2 (at least I believe it was that one) that adds level drain protection. You get it after the priest upgrades the mace that the smith made for you. I cannot remember their names and I'm at work so I can't look them up.

On another point about weapons, you can get the CF in a NTotSC quest. When you return to BG you are attacked by that acidic kensai. In my game he was just standing there and was not even attacking me, so he was an easy kill and I have two very strong katanas. IMHO this is a bit too much for BG1.

[Sir BillyBob]

I wondered if that would happen if you had the sword. I'm sure the Kensai's scripts were not planning on BGT areas so he may not have had a valid dialog to say to you. Okay, so either the sword goes, or I need to make it slightly different so the Kensai doesn't appear.

Good point on the mace. I was thinking of an Amulet of Power which you shouldn't have. The mace is the only item with level drain protection I can think of in DSotSC.

To me, being level drained when the PC is at level 4 or 5 is not normally a big deal. You aren't going have to reset too many spells in memory (unlike SOA where you could be level 15 or 20 and have to reset every spell). Carry a Restoration scroll (I have plenty in BH because of the wraith) and you are good to go. In the original DSotSC, it was an issue because level draining didn't work right and you couldn't recover the lost XP.

[cujo]

I wondered if that would happen if you had the sword.  I'm sure the Kensai's scripts were not planning on BGT areas so he may not have had a valid dialog to say to you.  Okay, so either the sword goes, or I need to make it slightly different so the Kensai doesn't appear.

The dialog went fine, he told me that I should give him the katana because he's trained to use them and when I refused he told me I stole it of a dead body. It was after the dialog was finished and he went hostile that he was just standing there not doing anything.

[NiGHTMARE]

Celestial Fury... in BG1? Over-powered much?

Yes, methinks it should go .

[Eon Blue Apocalypse]

I have not looked into the CoM DSotS, but assuming it is of adequate quality, I suggest you merge your projects. Unless your DSotS features something that their DSotS does not, I see no point not to. It seems that with them developing a Tutu compatible version, you could get the best of both worlds.

[Chevalier]

It will most likely take them a year or two to get a Tutu compatible version out. I am all for compatiblity and would love to have any additions and improvements from CoM as part of BGT-DSotSC.

[Sir BillyBob]

Unless your DSotS features something that their DSotS does not

Several of the NPCs have kits that are only available through BGT-BP (Dragonslayer being one of them). It wouldn't be difficult to change it around to generic kits so they will all work without the BP kits. Nothing else I can think of that is unique to BGT-BP. Several spells were already in TDD so I didn't have to remake them.

As I have mentioned in previous posts, the only part of DSotSC that I totally ignored were some cleric/druid spells that seemed to be corrupted or at least they had no valid descriptions to them. So I wasn't able to figure out what they were supposed to do. BP adds so many new cleric spells that this really isn't a problem. Other mods add spells as well. So unless they have some really "gotta have" spells, I don't see much point in changing anything here.

Item changes, better dialogs, and different area graphics would be about the only things CoM is going to have that may be different between our mods. I'm already proposing the first two (though I won't be writing any of the second).

Changing the mod too much makes it a whole new mod which I have no interest in doing. Also, NTotSC is built around it and I am not changing that mod at all without permission from the author. Though I will need to tone down some magic items and give you the option of which items to install.