[Known] Firewine dungeon respawn rate
Gallowglass
Member Posts: 3,356
I'm not sure whether this is a bug or a deliberate change in v1.3, but I'll post it in Bugs just in case it's a bug.Gate70 said:Firewine Dungeon should respawn kobolds
1. Load attached save.
2. Enter Firewine dungeon area AR5201 through the nearby door.
3. Travel to the two closest spawn points (refer to attached picture).
4. Kill any kobolds.
5. Return outside.
*Observed*
Repeating steps 2-5 several times will result in no further kobolds spawning.
*Expected*
Repeating steps 2-5 several times should result in more kobolds spawning.
*Note*
Have tested on the original game and can confirm respawning is quite aggressive in this area, with kobolds turning up every 2-5 visits or once per circuit if you explore the entire dungeon. Enhanced Edition spawns nothing in a comparable time.
There are more spawn points in this area, evidence is they have the same discrepancy to the original game.
& there are other high spawn areas that might have similar issues.
- AR3200 (High Hedge, exterior)
- AR5100 (Gnoll Stronghold)
Context: in original BG1, the respawn rate of kobolds in Firewine dungeon was very high, arguably excessive, and it's been noticeable ever since BG1ee came out that the devs had tuned down the respawn rate. Fair enough, that was clearly a deliberate decision, and I'd probably agree that it was a little excessive before.
But now, however ...
Observed: I've just cleared the Firewine dungeon in v1.3, going in-and-out thrice to carry away all the loot, and met not one single respawn in the whole process. Have the devs turned off respawn altogether, or maybe turned it down so low that respawns are now rare? Or is this sudden lack of respawns a new bug?
Expected: there ought to be some respawning kobolds in the Firewine dungeon, at the very least there ought to be some if you exit and re-enter. It was always the respawns which put a little challenge into this dungeon, it's too trivial otherwise.
Comments
At the time of this save, the fog-of-war is all cleared, and I've just sent Jaheira on a run round the dungeon, and found no respawns currently active. There are kobold corpses on the floor, but they're all first-instance corpses, not respawns, and were all killed before I carried out heaps of loot to a container in Gullykin and came back in again to get the rest ... all without seeing a respawn.
Firewine devoid of respawns is certainly not what we're used to seeing, so I reckon something has changed, either deliberately or inadvertently.
Thanks
Regards
When I compared to "original BG1", I meant original BG1+TotSC, with the last official patch and nothing else except the Baldurdash and Dudleyfix bug-fixes. No mods, no TuTu, no BGT.
BG1ee (from initial release through to v1.2) had a significantly slower respawn than that original BG1, but it seemed fairly consistent through those versions, and I recall the devs stating that they'd deliberately adjusted some respawn rates.
However, BG1ee v1.3 seems to have stopped respawn entirely in Firewine dungeon, or close enough that none are happening, and that doesn't seem right.
Cheers
So far I've got:
- AR5201 (Firewine Ruins)
- AR3901 (Ulcaster Ruins)
- AR5100 (Gnoll Stronghold)
Any others that should be prioritized for fixing?
Something else that should be considered, however, is how this change will affect the game's difficulty. Going from "one and done" to "one every time you leave the room" would be devastating to a lot of players who might not be used to it (and doesn't make a whole lot of realistic sense, to be honest).
It's likely that this fix won't be in the next patch, since if it affects all the areas that I think it does it's going to take a whole lot of testing to make sure it doesn't break everything (both from a technical standpoint and a "fun value" one), but I'm looking at the issue right now and the good news is that it's not related to the engine at all (which means it's a lot less likely to break everything).
In the mean-time, I'm attaching a small sample of modified areas. This includes the Gnoll Stronghold, Ulcaster Ruins, Firewine Ruins, Lion's Way, and Coast Way. Load them up, try them out, and see how they feel, then post here to offer feedback. This may not be the final solution we use, but it's just what I've cooked up while I'm on weekend-time.
What's been changed:
- All respawn points will respawn after one hour of game-time
- All spawn points should fire consistently when encountered (particularly the gibberling, wolf, and xvart combination in Coast Way)
Again, this isn't a final draft, more like a work in progress. Vanilla had these spawn points respawning immediately after leaving your field of view, which may have been why they were initially cut down to "one and done" events. Setting them to one-hour timers means you're unlikely to encounter a new band of kobolds while backtracking your way through Firewine, but if you rest then all the spawn points will regenerate for that area, and any time you come back from town the area will have a fresh group of spawns waiting for you.
Here's an updated archive including the areas noted above, as well as High Hedge.
For the moment, however, this is a feature request, since - from what I can tell looking at the areas in question - the current implementation is working as intended. (Note that it being a feature request doesn't mean it won't happen, just that it's not a sign of the game being broken.)
It won't respawn if you just sit and wait for eight hours, though; and at the moment there doesn't appear to be a simple way to shorten the wait for make it more intuitive. We may be able to look at it later, but there's the answer.
It's odd, though: in original BG1, there was a very high (probably somewhat excessive) re-spawn rate in there, and obviously Overhaul managed to reduce it substantially (probably too much), yet now I think you're implying that Overhaul don't quite have a handle on how to change it, even though they've changed it before ... I'm sure you'll understand that I'm left scratching my head in puzzlement, even though I appreciate having the situation explained!
However, never mind, you have more valuable work to do than trying to explain further to me, since I don't really need to know the ins-and-outs. I pointed out a problem, and you've clearly taken the issue on board, so I think I'll just declare "mission accomplished"; the rest is up to you.
We could restore the vanilla behavior, but at this point there are a lot of players who have gotten used to the new behavior that is much less punishing, and suddenly adding the spawns back in would likely be detrimental at best.
However, somewhere in between lightning-fast and glacial-slow, so that you do at least have to keep your eyes open when backtracking through the dungeon (or when exiting and re-entering) would be more "BG-like" without being a heart-stopping shock to new players.
For whatever that input might be worth. If I find random spawns are a problem again (not that I expect it but just in case) I will go back to that and pick up where I left off.