I think I ran into 9 gnolls (maybe 10) in the entire gnoll fortress (not including the area outside the fortress). The captain had an escort of 2 other gnolls with him and that was it. It was all rather sad.
I met 5 gnolls and 12 xvart or so :P
I never found any Xvarts inside the walls of the fortress itself or leading up to it, only down south near the caves.
2 Kobold Commandos in the entirety of Nashkel mines. In vanilla BG1 I used to walk out of Nashkel mines with 20+ fire arrows, sometimes close to 40 (2 per kobold commando)
In addition to the pathetically easy amount of monsters while walking around, I've actually been seeing a different variant of this (and apologies if someone has already mentioned this) -- when transitioning to a new area, if I get the "You have been waylaid by enemies and must defend yourself" random encounter, about 75% of the time there are no monsters at all, and I just walk out. And when there are monsters, it's almost always one wolf or one bear. My party is third-level and fairly beefed up, and I'm playing on the "normal" difficulty, so I would expect monsters.
In addition to the pathetically easy amount of monsters while walking around, I've actually been seeing a different variant of this (and apologies if someone has already mentioned this) -- when transitioning to a new area, if I get the "You have been waylaid by enemies and must defend yourself" random encounter, about 75% of the time there are no monsters at all, and I just walk out. And when there are monsters, it's almost always one wolf or one bear. My party is third-level and fairly beefed up, and I'm playing on the "normal" difficulty, so I would expect monsters.
You don't want "normal" you want "core" but still same problem here. Anybody knows of way to tweak it or how to add the new content to tutu? This is a gamebreaker for me... i mean whats the point of ad&d 2nd ed core rules without the challenge?
edit: maybe if try clearing durlag tower's with a lvl4 party... but still...
@drawnacrol It is harder than before, that's for sure. I have never gotten so far so fast in BG before, and never before have I been that low of level. It takes really long for people to level up, but that's not a miracle when you get three 30 XP gnolls and their 100 XP leader as the whole garrisson of the stronghold, where before there were about three to four times as many, and respawning reinforcements.
It's been a while since I played vanilla, so my frame of reference is terrible, to be honest. IIRC, Tutu dramatically increased the spawns over vanilla, to great acclaim. I know I had a WTF moment upon encountering a lone diseased gibberling, but then I remembered I had been playing Tutu most recently.
Are the spawn patterns that different from vanilla? I know both Vanilla BG1 and BG2 had a spawn system that leveled with the party, but that those systems were different. The engine change probably applied BG2 spawn mechanics projected down to level one.
I just know I haven't played straight up Vanilla BG in about ten years
No more than before, in fact its kind of easier since you don't get that much xp from fights anyway(60 to 650 average divided by 6) it come mostly from finishing quest and now that they are easier to complete... well do the math.
In addition to the pathetically easy amount of monsters while walking around, I've actually been seeing a different variant of this (and apologies if someone has already mentioned this) -- when transitioning to a new area, if I get the "You have been waylaid by enemies and must defend yourself" random encounter, about 75% of the time there are no monsters at all, and I just walk out. And when there are monsters, it's almost always one wolf or one bear. My party is third-level and fairly beefed up, and I'm playing on the "normal" difficulty, so I would expect monsters.
I mentioned this earlier, there are far less monsters in encounters between maps and i think you have a good point (an ambush without enemies? )
By the amounts of attention this post has gotten i hope the devs will come up with a patch soon to fix the spawn rates and sizes, and ofc. the ambushes
In addition to the pathetically easy amount of monsters while walking around, I've actually been seeing a different variant of this (and apologies if someone has already mentioned this) -- when transitioning to a new area, if I get the "You have been waylaid by enemies and must defend yourself" random encounter, about 75% of the time there are no monsters at all, and I just walk out. And when there are monsters, it's almost always one wolf or one bear. My party is third-level and fairly beefed up, and I'm playing on the "normal" difficulty, so I would expect monsters.
@Rann Except for the occasional "bandits" encounter. My first no reload (blade) ended that way leaving the FAI. 10 or 12 bandits in a perfect circle around Charname and Immy. I think we both died in the first volley. Good stat roll too.
@Rann Except for the occasional "bandits" encounter. My first no reload (blade) ended that way leaving the FAI. 10 or 12 bandits in a perfect circle around Charname and Immy. I think we both died in the first volley. Good stat roll too.
You got that one! At what lvl! That was my favorite one: that feeling of dread, follow by awsomeness when you survived without losing anybody... ahh the memories... Maybe there's still hope.
I'm playing on core and I really would like to see enemy swarms back to how they were in BG1, its just not satisfying taking out single enemies.
The xvart village was a real disappointment, it was barely populated. I miss walking minsc into the middle of the village and turning him berserk then sit back as he single handedly slaughters the whole village.
seriously bring back bg1 mobs (especially for core difficulty and higher)
In addition to the pathetically easy amount of monsters while walking around, I've actually been seeing a different variant of this (and apologies if someone has already mentioned this) -- when transitioning to a new area, if I get the "You have been waylaid by enemies and must defend yourself" random encounter, about 75% of the time there are no monsters at all, and I just walk out. And when there are monsters, it's almost always one wolf or one bear. My party is third-level and fairly beefed up, and I'm playing on the "normal" difficulty, so I would expect monsters.
You don't want "normal" you want "core" but still same problem here. Anybody knows of way to tweak it or how to add the new content to tutu? This is a gamebreaker for me... i mean whats the point of ad&d 2nd ed core rules without the challenge?
edit: maybe if try clearing durlag tower's with a lvl4 party... but still...
Good catch, sorry for confusion, I meant "normal" in the sense of "normal AD&D," i.e., "core" (oddly enough, I totally forgot that there was a setting called "normal" that wasn't "core," actually).
It's been a while since I played vanilla, so my frame of reference is terrible, to be honest. IIRC, Tutu dramatically increased the spawns over vanilla, to great acclaim. I know I had a WTF moment upon encountering a lone diseased gibberling, but then I remembered I had been playing Tutu most recently.
Are the spawn patterns that different from vanilla? I know both Vanilla BG1 and BG2 had a spawn system that leveled with the party, but that those systems were different. The engine change probably applied BG2 spawn mechanics projected down to level one.
I just know I haven't played straight up Vanilla BG in about ten years
I actually played pure vanilla no more than a few months back (pure as in no Tutu). The spawns have definitely changed.
I encountered 12 xvarts in Xvart village in BGEE. Normally there are more than twice as many there. I've also run into many groups of 1-2 Xvarts in the wilderness, in vanilla there are always at least 4. As many others have pointed out, Gnoll Fortress should have 5-6 groups of gnolls. In BGEE, I encountered two groups (chieftain + 2 gnolls, and 3 gnolls) as well as a lone gnoll. En route to Gnoll Fortress, I also ran into a lone hobgoblin, twice. Out of the 6 ambushes I've encountered so far, 4 of them had no monsters.
What can I say? It's a bummer, and it hurts the gaming experience. You don't feel very heroic battling a lone Xvart.
From what i've gather so far there is still one way to be randomly attack by a decent amount of enemies rest assure, and it is done by... resting(the irony!)... in the xvart village for example there is more xvart attacking your group trying to rest then there is in the whole map! So the only time your gonna get a good challenge is when you need a rest(and don't really want it!(the challenge)) i guess...
edit: maybe if try clearing durlag tower's with a lvl4 party... but still...
I actually went to Durlag's tower with a lvl4 party. No, I didn't clear the bottom levels (got full on loot and went away), but the top levels (and reaching the tower altogether) presented, I believe, way less difficulty than they should.
And generally I'm often catching myself thinking along the lines of "no point bothering the casters, the archers and melee will take it apart" - no matter if we're fighting skeletons or dopplegangers. As far as I remember, in the original game such thoughts were mostly limited to encountering gibberlings and xvarts.
I really hope we can get that fixed soon. I'm a relative neophyte to the series (only completed BG1 a few times, never played the addons or BG2) - at first the difficulty of BG:EE was enjoyable (omg, I R mighty!), but after clearing the bandit camp without using a single heal it ceased to be so.
It's been a while since I played vanilla, so my frame of reference is terrible, to be honest. IIRC, Tutu dramatically increased the spawns over vanilla, to great acclaim. I know I had a WTF moment upon encountering a lone diseased gibberling, but then I remembered I had been playing Tutu most recently.
Are the spawn patterns that different from vanilla? I know both Vanilla BG1 and BG2 had a spawn system that leveled with the party, but that those systems were different. The engine change probably applied BG2 spawn mechanics projected down to level one.
I just know I haven't played straight up Vanilla BG in about ten years
I actually played pure vanilla no more than a few months back (pure as in no Tutu). The spawns have definitely changed.
I encountered 12 xvarts in Xvart village in BGEE. Normally there are more than twice as many there. I've also run into many groups of 1-2 Xvarts in the wilderness, in vanilla there are always at least 4. As many others have pointed out, Gnoll Fortress should have 5-6 groups of gnolls. In BGEE, I encountered two groups (chieftain + 2 gnolls, and 3 gnolls) as well as a lone gnoll. En route to Gnoll Fortress, I also ran into a lone hobgoblin, twice. Out of the 6 ambushes I've encountered so far, 4 of them had no monsters.
What can I say? It's a bummer, and it hurts the gaming experience. You don't feel very heroic battling a lone Xvart.
Actually the Xvart village is the one place I have had a decent amount of enemies but this is because every time my characters walked over any entrance to the village a section of it would instantly respawn. I've also had this problem with the pairs of kobold commandos in Firewine Bridge, each time I walked along a different corridor path all the dead kobolds repawned even if I was stood next to the corpse. I've not had the issue with the ambushes yet but I find its often pairs of worgs or war dogs.
This is incredibly annoying. The nashekel mine was a cakewalk, now with the bandit hunting phase of the game I have to actually search for bandits, there are so few of them. Also while the enemy spawns are smaller the frequency seems to have increased, i had a few encounters where an enemy respawns on top of the previous ones corpse literally seconds after it has been killed. I casually strolled trough most of the wilderland areas, just clicking on the appearing solitary enemies. If the point was to give the players less xp so they would rech the level cap later than it could have been achieved by maintaining the enemy numbers but lessening the xp they are worth.
I find this lack of monsters to be a serious design flaw, if it's indeed design instead of bug. It seems everybody here in this topic agrees on this. I wonder what the dev's standpoint on this really is. I hope @TrentOster would care to take a moment to explain and if and what they intend to do with this criticism. Of course hardware problems and hunting gamebreaking bugs should get priority, but once you got a game that runs well, this lack of monsters still takes a lot of pleasure out of the game.
On a personal note: I haven't gone far in BGEE yet, but this lack of monsters and therefore lack of challenge (added on top of Hard Times and SCS not being compatible yet) really takes away my desire to play. I still have two Tutu campaigns going, I have more fun playing them right now, than BGEE. I'm still postponing definite judgment though. For me, it's still hanging in the balance if enhancement is improvement to me. So far I tend to be more of a 'fanboy', but the game should give a challenge to be fun.
Comments
To any modders out there; how difficult would this be to rectify? A matter to patching the monster spawning algorithm?
edit: maybe if try clearing durlag tower's with a lvl4 party... but still...
Are the spawn patterns that different from vanilla? I know both Vanilla BG1 and BG2 had a spawn system that leveled with the party, but that those systems were different. The engine change probably applied BG2 spawn mechanics projected down to level one.
I just know I haven't played straight up Vanilla BG in about ten years
By the amounts of attention this post has gotten i hope the devs will come up with a patch soon to fix the spawn rates and sizes, and ofc. the ambushes
Except for the occasional "bandits" encounter. My first no reload (blade) ended that way leaving the FAI. 10 or 12 bandits in a perfect circle around Charname and Immy. I think we both died in the first volley. Good stat roll too.
Except for the occasional "bandits" encounter. My first no reload (blade) ended that way leaving the FAI. 10 or 12 bandits in a perfect circle around Charname and Immy. I think we both died in the first volley. Good stat roll too.
You got that one! At what lvl! That was my favorite one: that feeling of dread, follow by awsomeness when you survived without losing anybody... ahh the memories... Maybe there's still hope.
The xvart village was a real disappointment, it was barely populated. I miss walking minsc into the middle of the village and turning him berserk then sit back as he single handedly slaughters the whole village.
seriously bring back bg1 mobs (especially for core difficulty and higher)
I have played BG EE for about 3/4 and I've found it easier and less flavoured concerning traveling in wild areas.
Should have a Game Option that you can use to select Original Monster Spawn Rate or something to that effect.
I encountered 12 xvarts in Xvart village in BGEE. Normally there are more than twice as many there.
I've also run into many groups of 1-2 Xvarts in the wilderness, in vanilla there are always at least 4.
As many others have pointed out, Gnoll Fortress should have 5-6 groups of gnolls. In BGEE, I encountered two groups (chieftain + 2 gnolls, and 3 gnolls) as well as a lone gnoll.
En route to Gnoll Fortress, I also ran into a lone hobgoblin, twice.
Out of the 6 ambushes I've encountered so far, 4 of them had no monsters.
What can I say? It's a bummer, and it hurts the gaming experience. You don't feel very heroic battling a lone Xvart.
And generally I'm often catching myself thinking along the lines of "no point bothering the casters, the archers and melee will take it apart" - no matter if we're fighting skeletons or dopplegangers. As far as I remember, in the original game such thoughts were mostly limited to encountering gibberlings and xvarts.
I really hope we can get that fixed soon. I'm a relative neophyte to the series (only completed BG1 a few times, never played the addons or BG2) - at first the difficulty of BG:EE was enjoyable (omg, I R mighty!), but after clearing the bandit camp without using a single heal it ceased to be so.
My motivation to play this has dropped dramatically since I realized this..
I've also had this problem with the pairs of kobold commandos in Firewine Bridge, each time I walked along a different corridor path all the dead kobolds repawned even if I was stood next to the corpse.
I've not had the issue with the ambushes yet but I find its often pairs of worgs or war dogs.
The nashekel mine was a cakewalk, now with the bandit hunting phase of the game I have to actually search for bandits, there are so few of them. Also while the enemy spawns are smaller the frequency seems to have increased, i had a few encounters where an enemy respawns on top of the previous ones corpse literally seconds after it has been killed.
I casually strolled trough most of the wilderland areas, just clicking on the appearing solitary enemies.
If the point was to give the players less xp so they would rech the level cap later than it could have been achieved by maintaining the enemy numbers but lessening the xp they are worth.