Scribing Spells, Disarming Traps, Picking Locks...
Durenas
Member Posts: 508
In the original BG, none of these actions gave XP, yet in BG2, they did. In some cases, the XP contribution in BG2 was pretty significant. IN BGEE, we did get XP but it was 1% or so of what you would otherwise have gotten. Will we see in BG2EE a return to the 1000xspell level xp gain for scribing spells into your book, and similarly for the rogue skills? Or are we continuing with what was done in BGEE?
*hoping for the older school xp gains*
*hoping for the older school xp gains*
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Spells mainly help with dual classing, because they allow you to regain early levels very quickly. Without that, dualing a mage in BG2 would be even more annoying. Traps/locks work similarly.
In the big picture, though, it's not that much of an impact. At hundreds of thousands of XP per level per character, the few thousands you get from a spell or trap are but a drop in the bucket.
@Lateralus: I agree it's a bit weird, and it certainly makes you think when dualing a class other than mage or thief. Maybe those two classes tend to be the most fragile after dualing and need a boost? A bit of a weak argument I suppose... From an RP perspective, you could see those two actions as providing insight and training, though, and thus be worthy of XP. While you're right that there should be an equivalent for all classes (like sparring for fighters, or praying for priests), I guess it would be much harder to implement those and so they didn't.
I will say, though, that the XP loss from taking out this feature has to be made up somewhere. Otherwise we'll probably see a lot of XP grinding in places like the Fire Giant Lair.
Rogues get a flat 250 (PERSONAL) xp per trap or lock, regardless of level. And Mages/Bards get 500 +50 per spell level personal xp for every new spell they learn (and remove the ability to erase spells as it was in pre-tob BG2).
Just give every one else a 10 personal xp reward per kill.
Considering you can beat all of BG2 + ToB at a 161,000 xp cap....no...they don't have to make up $#^#.
People who are obsessed with hitting max level will still do so since they don't care about playing the game, they only care about numbers, and I see no reason why they should be catered to further. They're basically cheating any way by farming xp...why not save some time and just SK/Console it in.
I think we're just going to have to agree to disagree on this. I want the BG2 XP rewards to remain untouched, simply because there's no reason to take it out, and every reason to keep it in. It can mean the difference between one or two levels in the early game of BG2, and I don't see any reason why they would nerf it.
In BG2, 80% of your combat ability comes from gear, aside from casters. And even they have plenty of tricks at their disposal due to tons of wands, and being able to simply stockpile scrolls for later use.
The shadow dragon was probably the hardest part of the game, due to it's Aoe - 6 levels level drain.
And not only can you beat the game with a party using that cap, several classes can SOLO it just as easily.
I think that people who aren't used to BG and have logged a decade worth of experience will find the vanilla game reasonably challenging, and they'll be happy for the little tidbits of XP here and there. For veteran players and modded games, it hardly matters. So either way, the issue is not a big deal.
< now rumor has it that scs makes the game a lot more challenging and such and would probably be great for me, but the one downside with that is, it sounds like a power gamer only type mod, and if I plan to play weak parties then im going to get squashed with no hope of redemption, much like that ascension mod for ToB, only used it once, beat it all and never used it again, there is no way I would ever be able to beat that mod with a team starting fresh at the beginning of ToB, and im one of those weirdos who sometimes like doing that sort of thing, so yeah, no scs or ascension load of silliness for me please
As for SCS, it has a gazillion customization options, and it was designed with the idea that it should remain beatable with practically every setup. It won't be as easy for some parties as for others, but it's doable. All it takes is some practice and good knowledge of the mechanics. Ascension is a bit tougher, but as long as you have a mage around it's also doable for nearly every party.
Defeating SCS Sarevok on insane (no max HP either) with your Jester and a gang of Garrick, Jaheira, Kahlid, Branwen and Imoen (thief) without metaknowledge and planning just won't happen. The fight is no walkover even with a fully buffed optimized PC group if you don't cheese (ie, if you actually fight them all at the same time).
Sure, everything is easy if you abuse your knowledge of the engine, but if you play the game in good faith the hardest modded options necessitate much metagaming.
Having 3 million xp or 4 isn't a big deal at the end os SoA anyway.
What is puzzling me though, is how much XP all the new areas in BG2EE will give. It could be unbalanced. Unless most of these areas are in the ToB part. We'll see.
for the OP : xp rewards for these actions was fine on SoA. I don't see why they should change that. Getting less xp rewards on BGEE was necessary. Not in BG2EE.
As a GM, I would award a Cleric who came to a major revelation about his god or dogma some XP, just as I would reward a Fighter who got some kind of special training or if a Wizard completed a really ambitious experiment.
Still, once you get into it and behind the details, it quickly becomes trivial to beat. Meta-knowledge was mentioned and is definitely a main culprit. D&D was designed to be mysterious and unpredictable, heck it's the whole reason for the Vancian system of magic. Obviously you can't replicate that in a video game because you don't have a human mind setting the course for you, and throwing you off every now and then to keep things interesting.
That's where the mods come in; while they can't erase meta-knowledge, they can restore the challenge in different ways. I don't mean "cheese" or cheating; SCS in particular prides itself in doing things "within the rules", though admittedly some other mods stretch things a bit more. Beating those mods also does not require "cheese" or cheating. There's still plenty of situations like the one @sarevok57 described, where scripts bug out and make a fight trivial - but that is unintentional, and should be avoided if you're an honest player. After all, you're playing this *for* the challenge, aren't you?
SCS and Ascension (the arguably most popular difficulty mods out there) aren't easy. It's normal that you get your butt kicked if you don't know exactly just what you are doing. But that doesn't mean you have to cheat, or "cheese", or even tailor your party to a specific min/max setup. It does mean you need to try harder. It means you may need to consider new tactics, or delve deeper into the theory behind it all to understand what is happening, and how to deal with it. That in itself is a rewarding process for many people, it certainly is for me.
I just want people to understand that these mods are designed to be a challenge, and that challenges often seem insurmountable until you figure them out. You are complaining about SCS being too difficult, while veterans are already clamoring that it's become trivial once again. There's always going to be a wider spectrum of players than there is of difficulty options, but that doesn't mean they should be done away with. On the contrary, mods like SCS consciously and actively implement a large number of options to customize the experience, specifically so a larger range of players can experience it adequately.
Don't give up too easily! Don't blame things on the system too quickly! Think, research, and above all: try, try, try! You'll find it much more fun than breezing through things too easily, and it's going to last much longer. There is, after all, a reason we still play this game after over a decade.
For my own personal way of playing, I think that (a) XP should be given for class specific activities such as scribing scrolls, picking pockets and opening locks, and (b) this XP should ONLY go to the party member that performs the activity. While you do get some crazy XP (7K for scribing a 7th level spell), when spread across a six party group of 10th levels, it becomes inconsequential. And it really makes no sense that Minsc learns from Edwin writing Magic Missile into his spell book. I am fairly sure that Minsc would think that the funny squiggles on the piece of parchment are less useful than the droppings the Boo leaves in his backpack.
Mae'vars guild house gives you around 30 000 experience just from locks and traps.
Scribing a complete spellbook worth of spells with all available vanilla BG2+ToB spells for one single character grants the party ~881000 experience.
Multiply that with available/potential mage NPCs (Aerie, Edwin, Imoen, Jan, Nalia, Sarevok, Haer'Dalis) and you've got 6167000 experience for your party from scribing spells alone, give or take a few thousand due to scroll availability/spells already learned by a NPC.
- either all the xp is coming from killing stuff (Diablo Style)
- or you can get xp from roleplaying stuff, like doing quests, learning magic and practicing your thievings skills (Skyrim style ?)
I think BG2 had a really good balance when xp matters. I don't really see why it should be changed in one way or another.
If you think there is to much xp in this game, then why do you want to reduce only one kind of xp ?
I agree that it might be a bit high. But not sure that 10% is right either.