[BG:EE] Battle Enhancer Mod (ver 1.33 RELEASED!)

Charan

Battle Enhancer Mod ver. 1.33 (BG:EE 1.2 compatible)

Designed and created by Charan and lunar: Long awaited release of Harsh Faerun Mod - Now know as Battle Enhancer Mod!

Most important changes and features:
- ENEMY CORE AI IMPROVED:
Most enemies and NPC's have a chance to possess random potions and WILL use them in fight.
Enemies who use projectile weapons have a chance to possess random magical projectiles they can use and they WILL use them on the player.
Most enemies and NPC's use SMART TARGETING and attempt to chase your weakest members unless kited
Most mages and clerics will now reposition or attack between casting spells.
It's no longer possible to lure enemies from fog of war one by one. Attacking an enemy makes him call for help in a decent radius.

- GAME BALANCE REVISED:
Guards, soldiers and mercenaries recevied some proper training. A watcher in plate mail is no longer just cannon fodder that can't hit a gibberling. (Game is even harder for EVIL teams)
Human NPC's and monsters have received buffs by maxing their Hit Points rolls and stats for given levels.
Critter races have been separated into variety of tiers.
Some tiers received more significant overall buffs than others. Just try the Gnoll Stronghold now.
Exp rates revised and rebalanced according to challenge. Some rates went up, some rates went down.
It should be faster to leave the early game levels but overall pool of EXP per game did not go up too much.
Note: Most changes were HAND EDITED while stricktly following of AD&D rules and progression tables. Take care as the game WILL be HARDER now.

- DROP RANDOMIZER:
Most enemies have a chance to be in possession of random treasure which can be stolen or looted.
Drop chance and loot pool depends on the enemy tier.
Separate tier for spellcasters, which gives a better opportunity to get rare scrolls.
Some treasures in hidden stashes have been randomized in balancing purpose.
Drop rates have been adjusted so that during an average game course you will find: around 12 low tier items, around 6 medium tier items and 1-2 Legendary tier items.
Note: Critters who previously did not drop items did not receive the chance for loot.
It's impossible to find personalized/one of a kind items (for example, you won't find a second Helmet of Balduran)

- NEW FIGHTS
Some new encounters and new enemies added.
Some fight with mages have been reworked to be more difficult and interesting.
Reworked Ogre Mage fight mechanics to provide an ultimate and unique experience (Enjoy)
Chieftain and Leader critters received additional boosts and special abilities to strengthen their kin

- MEETING COMPANIONS AT MAX HIT POINTS ROLLS
All companions are met at their MAX HIT points rolls, regardless of player's level.

- HARSH TIMES
Shop prices are now higher but players won't receive more gold for their items (crisis right?)

Notes:
!WARNING!
THIS MOD IS NOT RECOMMENDED FOR BALDUR'S GATE BEGINNERS! It's perfectly possible to start a new game with it BUT you need to have at least slight idea on what you are doing.

1. Installation:
Simply put the Override folder into:
Steam Version: your BG Enhanced edition main directory (Example for steam version: \Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\Baldur's Gate Enhanced Edition)
Non-Steam Version: ...\Baldur's Gate - Enhanced Edition\data\00766\ folder

You can instal this mod at ANY moment of the game but it is just more fun and more balance to play with it from the beginning.

It should be compatible with all other mods (unless they change creature statistics and HP) and all game languages - especially if you install Battle Enhancer as last. Pr
"MEETING COMPANIONS AT MAX HIT POINTS ROLLS" can be overwritten with other mods that edit your companions (new kits, etc) and it will not affect the other features at all.

You can use ANYTHING included in this mod package without my permission - even for commercial use - I simply do not care. Just enjoy and make a good use of it.

PLEASE REPORT ANY BUGS IN THIS DISCUSSION SO I CAN HOTFIX THEM.

Chagelog:
Ver 1.11:
- Minor bugfixes with neutral NPC's sometimes assaulting the player.
Ver 1.12:
- Gnoll5 overbuffing and dialogNPC fix.
- Nashkel Mine lvl 3 crash fix.
Ver 1.2:
- Full compatibility with BGEE patch 1.2 (Rasaad required HP-Reroll due to change in his kit).
- Improved casters behavior between spell casts. Also they will no longer leave areas when repositioning.
- Enemy backup requests feature added (No longer possible to lure enemies from fog of war one by one).
- Slighty lowered drop chances.
- Improved potion using mechanism. Now enemies are much more likely to use their magical mixtures and will also do it faster than before.
Ver 1.21:
- Fixed potion using by neutral NPC's.
- Vampiric wolf is no considered Undead.
Ver 1.3:
- Smart targeting has been improved. Enemies won't attempt to chase your squishies too far - they will choose appropriate nearby target instead (it's almost impossible to keep them focused on the main party tank). Current design is more sofisticated and won't allow for hit'n'run exploit.
- Cosmetic fix for casters: They will now face nearest enemy after repositioning.
- Added Smart targeting to some enemies that were lacking it.
Ver 1.31:
- Script optimalization and cleanup.
- Smart targeting added to more enemies.
- Fix for Branwen starting HP.
Ver 1.32:
- Borda won't drink his cursed potions during fight.
- Improvement of script for creatures using both ranged and melee weapons. These enemies will sometimes attempt to increase their distance before switching to melee when approached by players(should be more annoying and harder to catch now). Also improved weapon switching response time.
- Some AI script performance improvements.
- Fix for quest to bring Worn Whispers boots. (Unfortunately it's not retrospective once you have killed the hobgoblin dropping the boots.)
Ver 1.33:
- Fix for Zombie Plague Quest.
- Fix for Xvarts attacking cow quest.
- Fix for Flind damage (they were dealing less than they should).

SpaceInvader

Charan said:

Possibly maintining creature level progression table and not breaking AD&D rules.

That being said, I'll be glad to try it

Charan

About 5% project done. Most of creatures encountered in the beginning of the game received an additional level + 1d Hit points and -1 to -2 Thaco. Slighty increasing EXP values so they are adequate to the challenge.
How ever Battle Horror (Horror Bitewny) Gained some fierceful stats and nice EXP value gain to compensate.

Still waiting for suggestions.

mlnevese

@Charan Let me know when it's released to add this mod to the mod list.

Borsook

Here is a mod that does that in a better way and will always be compatible, I haven't written the readme yet, but the code is ready. Basically it allows to choose how much you can boost enemies stats like saves, hp, thac0 etc. If you would like to test it here it is:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/9kdkjaov1urttnk/Diff_Tweak.zip

Charan

Thanks Borsook. I'll check it out in a minutes. Just few seconds ago i finished editing all critters files. The mod is completed and ready for download/testing.

Please guys, provide feedback on the mod - I might alter it later. Thanks and enjoy.

Charan

Released version 1.1

Version 1.1 (2013.07.20):
- Lowered lowest tier monsters EXP so they doesn't feel so awkward (Felt a little unfair receivng 135EXP for a hobgoblin - doesn't matter if he was more accurate opponent and thrice more durable then before.
Consistent character level progression should be maintained just fine.
- Lowered EXP rewards for soldiers (Flaming fist, Watchers, Town Guards, Amn Soldiers etc.)

Charan

Released version 1.2

Version 1.2 (2013.07.21):
- After further testing I decided to lower most of gained EXP values - especially on lowest tier mobs. They still should be adequate for the challenge though.
- Particular monsters were given additional fighting power or durability due to their nature (For example: Zombies became much more durable)
- Minor bugfixes in NPC stats.

I strongly recommend to update previous version because of few essential fixes. Also the EXP was a little big too high. Anyone even using this or should I stop releasing newer versions to public? Really could use some feedback - such a shame I'm testing it by myself.

lunar

Hey, just discovered this, looks cool. I myself have edited most enemy mages to give them higher levels and scripts, but never bothered to tamper with low level common critters. I may look into this. Now, if only this was a weidu mod for maximum compatability with other mods.

Charan

Well. I could spend some time to learn how to Weidu this for newest version I guess.

Funny thing. My level 5 party has some problems with gnoll stronghold (using some of the op equipement from dark horizons). I find it really funny. It's manageable but if you break formation and let gnolls surround your weaklings it can be over soon.

I've sent you a private message- you got me interested in the script changes you were doing for yourself.

Borsook

Charan said:

Thanks Borsook. I'll check it out in a minutes. Just few seconds ago i finished editing all critters files. The mod is completed and ready for download/testing.

Please guys, provide feedback on the mod - I might alter it later. Thanks and enjoy.

Did you alter all the files by hand? If wow I wrote a script that searches for all the enemy files (though it might be missing some at the moment) it finds 2169 cre files. How many have you got if I may ask?

BTW final version of my mod is here, maybe you will have some use for the automodifying code, feel free to use it:
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/19928/release-difficulty-and-tweak-mod-ver-6

Charan

I manually edited all hostile NPC one by one - recognizing by name. Going from the beginning to the end of the list. (I did not touch shitload of files that concern hookers, shoopkeepers or random town people etc. I'm pretty sure i covered all of the vanilla - I worked with DCTEP with fresh and unmodded tlk's). It took me many hours but by manually adjusting each monsters and every variation of gives some additional benefits - like thoughtfull and gradual increase in difficulty of certain locations (Gnoll stronghold comes in mind - can't wait to return home and try to beat it finally). However yes I will try to find a use for automated script from you, and thank you for that . I'll give you proper credit if I manage to figure something out or find a proper use for it.

Personally I'm a little against increasing saving throws, because just increasing the Hit Points can make it much more diffucult for mages . And I love magic in Baldur's Gate. On lower levels it remains useful in form of crowd controll - Hint: Sleep spell is very usefull when invading gnoll stronghold.

Borsook

Charan said:

I manually edited all hostile NPC one by one - recognizing by name. Going from the beginning to the end of the list. (I did not touch shitload of files that concern hookers, shoopkeepers or random town people etc. I'm pretty sure i covered all of the vanilla - I worked with DCTEP with fresh and unmodded tlk's). It took me many hours but by manually adjusting each monsters and every variation of gives some additional benefits - like thoughtfull and gradual increase in difficulty of certain locations (Gnoll stronghold comes in mind - can't wait to return home and try to beat it finally)

That's a lot of editing. Still, how many files have you identified as enemies in total?

Charan

1137 items. Took me about 2 almost full days.

Borsook

Charan said:

1137 items. Took me about 2 almost full days.

Hmm I think you must have missed some the same as my mod may actually catch a few too many, but hopefully nobody joinable, just neutrals BTW Didn't you use near infinity? http://www.shsforums.net/topic/45358-nearinfinity/ It's the best game asset editor, if you have to go manual

Charan

I used DLCTEP for editing extracting creatures list and editing them one by one. I plan to rewrite the mod from the scratch when lunar provides me with some of his edits to NPC's. I guess I give it a try with nearinfinity then.

So far from testing it - everything worked as expected. I may not encounter every monster or npc yet, but majority of the basic kind are changes - I was giving my own exp numbers so I'd notice imediately if encountered an untouched critter.

Borsook

Charan said:

I used DLCTEP for editing extracting creatures list and editing them one by one. I plan to rewrite the mod from the scratch when lunar provides me with some of his edits to NPC's. I guess I give it a try with nearinfinity then.

So far from testing it - everything worked as expected. I may not encounter every monster or npc yet, but majority of the basic kind are changes - I was giving my own exp numbers so I'd notice imediately if encountered an untouched critter.

Do try it, near infinity is much easier to use. Plus I do recommend my Weidu code, this way you can change things mid-game and nothing will break if there is ever a patch and it modifies any of you cre files.

Charan

Need to learn weidu coding then. To be honest I completely disregarded when creating this. - I guess it may come in handy.

Borsook

Charan said:

Need to learn weidu coding then. To be honest I completely disregarded when creating this. - I guess it may come in handy.

Weidu has been developed for years before BGEE everything you install with it makes a backup and you don't have to copy full files (but can) just write a part that you want.
Plus just looking at creatures names may be misleading. E.g. what did you do with monsters that are summoned? Summons are used both by your party and enemies, if you modify all of them this will make the game actually easier in some cases.

This is an example of the code I used for modifying HP:

COPY_EXISTING_REGEXP GLOB ~.*\.cre~ ~override~
PATCH_IF SOURCE_SIZE > 0x70 THEN BEGIN

This finds all the cre files and excludes those that are empty

READ_SHORT 0x24 "currenthp"
READ_SHORT 0x26 "maxhp"
READ_LONG 0x1CC "biography"
READ_BYTE 0x270 "Ally"

just reads the parts of the files that we will modify

PATCH_IF (NOT ("%biography%" > 0) AND NOT ("%Ally%" = 5) AND NOT ("%Ally%" = 20) AND NOT ("%Ally%" = 3) AND NOT ("%Ally%" = 30) AND NOT ("%Ally%" = 1) AND NOT ("%Ally%" = 4) AND NOT ("%Ally%" = 2))
THEN BEGIN


This excludes all the NPCs that are not potential enemies (nearifnity is great for checking what NPC have what Ally status), here the biggest problem were the summons.

WRITE_SHORT 0x24 (("%currenthp%" * 150) / 100)
WRITE_SHORT 0x26 (("%maxhp%" * 150) / 100)

And this writes the given change (in this case adds 50% to creature's HP

If you want to have a look at my tp2 file

Charan

Summons have EXP values of 0 - It was quite easy to leave them untouched when editing manually. However I did tamper with them a bit in version 1.2. in Version 1.3 I will most likely leave all summons untouched because you made a great point.

agris

hey @Charan, I have a question. Since this is a mod to increase difficulty (it certainly reads that way), why did you increase the XP awards? How did you go about balancing the increased XP with the harder mobs? Presumably if you found the vanilla BG:EE experience easy, creating harder mobs that give more XP just makes you level faster... so you're higher level when fighting your tweaked monsters... which keeps the difficulty curve parallel to that of the original saga... maybe I'm all buffle headed, but it seems to me that a harder experience would keep the level curve the same but make mobs more difficult, or restrict XP more while keeping the mobs vanilla.

Charan

Everything is explained in first post. SLIGHTY increased EXP awards are there so the player can actually keep up with much tougher enemies later on. Most noticible EXP rewards increase are made to so called shit tier enemies, which allows you to hit level 2 and 3 faster, but later on getting 33(bout 6 exp for each party member) exp instead of 7 from a kobold does not matter as much.

Many even lowest tier monsters received too significant stats boost for a player's party that constantly lingers around level 1-2. They difficulty curve goes up as the adventure progresses - Without the advantage of one extra level average, the player could forget about beating many encounters.

Give it a try or wait 2 days for weidu version 1.3 with incorporated contribution of lunar: Just gonna say that it will be some freaky nasty fights with spell casters all over the game. 1.3 will come along with some tone-downs in EXP values but 1.2 is actually quite adequate now (make sure you don't have dark horizons installed as it adds a ton of extra exp and unbalanced items).

Charan

Anyway. Difficulty increase of each encounter have increased by 200-300% on average, while most exp values increased by 20%-60% (The more the harder).

Let's say average exp acquired by character in vanilla BG1 + tosc was around 200k. Even if all encounters were increased in difficulty by 60% that would allow the player to get 200k + 120k exp extra on average.
That is only one, sometimes two additional levels average (end game).

Completely different situation is with boss enemies etc. Some of them may be even almost broken now - manageable only for the toughest but I still couldn't see how vanilla level character could beat some of them without cursing all the time

The main goal of the mode is to provide additional challenge and making the gameplay more interesting, along with providing a more consistent level progression path. It's a different approach made by editing each encounter. Many fights will be a lot tougher strictly from strategical point, and many more casual encounters will be tougher by brutal force - you will never know what to expect.

Borsook

Charan said:

Anyway. Difficulty increase of each encounter have increased by 200-300% on average, while most exp values increased by 20%-60% (The more the harder).

Let's say average exp acquired by character in vanilla BG1 + tosc was around 200k. Even if all encounters were increased in difficulty by 60% that would allow the player to get 200k + 120k exp extra on average.
That is only one, sometimes two additional levels average (end game).

Completely different situation is with boss enemies etc. Some of them may be even almost broken now - manageable only for the toughest but I still couldn't see how vanilla level character could beat some of them without cursing all the time

The main goal of the mode is to provide additional challenge and making the gameplay more interesting, along with providing a more consistent level progression path. It's a different approach made by editing each encounter. Many fights will be a lot tougher strictly from strategical point, and many more casual encounters will be tougher by brutal force - you will never know what to expect.

The only problem I can see with this is that if you go everywhere you reach level cap 80% of the game. Adding XP will make the end game more boring...

Also, have you looked at this mod: http://forums.gibberlings3.net/index.php?showforum=118

Charan

I can assure you that end game is anything but boring.
My own and Lunar's only concern is that End game may be unbeatable at some moments. We will be testing some of end fights today

Borsook

Charan said:

I can assure you that end game is anything but boring.
My own and Lunar's only concern is that End game may be unbeatable at some moments. We will be testing some of end fights today

I'm not saying is not difficult and challenging, just that you will not have any levels to gain which is a part of fun. If you're goal is making a game challenging maybe the XP should be lowered? And amongst 1,000,000 mods developed for BG there is one for that too:

http://www.pocketplane.net/mambo/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=110&Itemid=83

Charan

Like I said. The goal is not only making it harder (also from strategical point of view). A hidden goal of this mod is to allow a consistent reasonable elevated level gameplay. EXP cap is not included, but is recommended to run with this mod. The EXP values are still too low for the difficulty increase so it's balanced. Let's stop this theory crafting and just get to testing shall we?

Charan

Version 1.3 is in creation. I have joined forces with Lunar and his awesome edits and adjustments

What will be in next release:
- Renamed mod to Charan's and Lunar's Harsh Faerun mod.
- Revised challeneges with mages thanks to Lunar's edits and custom scripts. Fighting certain spellcasters will be a real adventure.
- Randomised soms of the drops, Randomised treasures in hidden stashes.
- Added spawn points to certain location to make things harder.
- Additional enemies in certain encounters
- Chieftain and leader mobs will buff self and their companions - basically acting like mini boss monsters
- Ogre mages arsenal received makeover. You have to see on your own eyes how annoying can they be from strategical point of view.
- EXP values revised and adjusted further.
- Summoned creatures will not have their stats edited.

Borsook

Charan said:

Like I said. The goal is not only making it harder (also from strategical point of view). A hidden goal of this mod is to allow a consistent reasonable elevated level gameplay. EXP cap is not included, but is recommended to run with this mod. The EXP values are still too low for the difficulty increase so it's balanced. Let's stop this theory crafting and just get to testing shall we?

Of course, you're right, but personally I can't try your mod in this form, as I don't want to play anything that raises or requires raising the XP cap, I'd like to use my character in BG2

Charan

To be honest with current settings and without Dark Horizons, you shouldn't even get more than 20%(which is not even 1 level more end game without grind) exp more than you normally would through the game. I noticed that some of the exp inbalances while testing were caused by Dark Horizons mod and it's high exp rewarding encounters.

Or you can just wait for 1.3 which will be toned down further for some reasons.

Charan

Update on progress with version 1.3:

- Renamed mod to Charan's and Lunar's Harsh Faerun mod.
- Revised challeneges with mages thanks to Lunar's edits and custom scripts. Fighting certain spellcasters will be a real adventure. (Mostly done, Lunar adds new ones though)
- Randomised soms of the drops, Randomised treasures in hidden stashes. (Done)
- Added spawn points to certain location to make things harder. (Almost Done)
- Additional enemies in certain encounters. (Almost Done)
- Chieftain and leader mobs will buff self and their companions - basically acting like mini boss monsters (Done)
- Ogre mages arsenal received makeover. You have to see on your own eyes how annoying can they be from strategical point of view. (Done)
- EXP values revised and adjusted further. (Not done)
- Summoned creatures will not have their stats edited. (Done by default)
- NEW! Advanced targeting and target priorities for some intelligent enemies (Done - just need to expand implementation range)
- NEW! More changes yet to be announced.