2 replies to this topic

[Matthew S.]

Hey, first of all, thank you for your hard work Qwinn! And scient of course, and ghostdog, and all the other modders and guys who helped with the bugs and scripting and ideas and stuff. We the (mostly) silent majority may not say it much, but we do appreciate it a great deal. I'm about to start my first playthrough of my favorite game in years, the first with your mods, and thanks to ThunderPeel's installation guide I'm expecting a smooth install and a rockin' gaming experience Do not underestimate how much it means to be able to replay an awesome game knowing it will once again be able to genuinely surprise you.

But I also want to ask you guys something that I've been wondering for a while (since I've been lurking on the forums waiting for 4.1 so I can start playing ) and that is: the Fixpack is sort of close to finished, right?

I mean, a few bugs remain, sure, and there's that whole business with Mantuok, and Qwinn, you've said that 5.0 will be focusing on fixing up the semi-broken implementation of magic in the game, and as I understand it scient plans to add a few more BG2-type features to the engine, so it's not like you guys are done. But what after that? I can't offhand think of any (other) major aspect of the game that remains unimproved. Am I missing something? Do you have plans for some other major improvements? This is also a compliment, by the way - you've done so much already that I'm having trouble figuring out what else you could do. And I'm not trying to talk you into more work But I am genuinely interested in any wider plans you may or may not have for the future of the mod(s). Would you mind talking about that for a bit?

And on that note, another thing - if you're really intent on getting your hands dirty with the magic system, and trying to balance it properly, wouldn't that fall under Tweaks? Some minor adjustments might logically be considered bugfixes, but as I see it the problem is not (just) in the implementation, but more of a conceptual nature. The AD&D spell rules as they stand just don't mesh very well with the gameplay. Just making high level spells useful would mean tampering with the way resistances are calculated, and any further work would change things even more. Make no mistake, I wholeheartedly approve of the idea and will definitely be using it, but it just seems to me more of a (great) Tweak than a Bugfix.

And, finally, do you have any thoughts on the general difficulty of the game? I think we can all agree it's a bit easy, which is not bad in and of itself, but what that means is most of the great toys we get to play with are rarely fully utilized. I think it would make sense to aim for a level of difficulty where I feel that every epic spell and weapon I get in the game might genuinely be needed if I want to finish - but not harder than that. PS:T was never as tactical as, say, BG2, and the combat isn't the focus anyway. It's not so much about grinding or powergaming; I'm thinking more along the lines of being able to spread your wings (of DEATH! ) fully within the game. Are there mods out there that try to deal with that? If there aren't, would you be interested in doing it? I understand that you might not care to, it's just an idea.

In any case, thanks for your time, and once again, great work all around guys!

[Qwinn]

I'd say we're getting pretty close to the point where there's nothing worthwhile left to do. Course, I said that after v1, and v3, and v4.0... then something comes along (like scient, and then devSin ) to humble me yet again... so take that with a grain of salt.

There's no big plans following the stuff you've referred to. Most of the spell fixes that have been discussed for 5.0 are actual bugs, things like the Ice Knife bug, and Aid not increasing current HP if cast on you at full health, etc. Actual bugs like that. We *have* talked about a possible *tweak* that would implement AD&D v1 rules regarding magic resistance, where a creature's MR is modified by the caster's level - -5% to the target's MR for every caster level over 11. But yes, that would be a tweak for sure. Nothing else I can think of in the works that isn't a real bug fix. That's the only tweak in the works I can think of.

I'm not really all that interested in a balance mod... I do think my mods overall improve balance, but of course that's subjective, and I'm sure some will disagree. But is there enough room for improvement when playing the game on hard difficulty to warrant a mod of its own? Eh. Maybe. I'll let someone else do that if desired, though. Personally, I don't think there's enough required combat in the game to warrant it.

Qwinn

[scient]

There is also "Friends" spell stacking when it shouldn't. Ignus only spell "Infernal Shield" is completely broken where it will actually make his fire resists negative causing him to be more susceptible to fire damage. There are a few issues like stats roll over with thief/resists via items and exceptional strength progression. Only a handful of engine bugs are left that I know of. For tweaks, I only have MR Qwinn mentioned above, BG2:TOB feature of highlighting using tab, and ability to skip spell movies. For UB, it's looking into hardcoded IE ambient sounds as well as adding in some of relevant unused PC sound sets. Once a "known issues" is setup for v4.1, will make up complete list.

Edited by scient, 16 April 2010 - 07:48 AM.