Short of any real information, I assume they're dead in the water. To do something like this right, a community project centered around coding, you need to setup a GIT Hub repo or something like it at the start. That advice was ignored, and here we are.
I had to take an 8-month break from all of this, just to detox from all the drama on the forum. I couldn't even read straight that the new modder has FULL permission from Weimer himself to modify the mod as he pleases, it just slipped through my eyes. It took some time to accept all the mini-changes and to _understand_ that this is how BG2:EE needs to see this mod. Of course, we need polls and fixes in the future, but not with the negativity we've seen around here. We need some hope instilled in us, from the moderators here and from the Beamdog's employees themselves. They seem too uptight with the well-known issues, and are holding community back as well.
it sounds like you're too emotionally invested, tbh. the original/GOG releases of BG2 are infinitely playable, and if you're commenting on a thread about community mod development, you're clearly comfortable using weidu to install mods.
I agree that the EE release is technically superior in some aspects, especially as an improvement to ToBex and the un-hardcoding of features like race restrictions for dual/multi classing. OTOH, the questionable added content and ridiculous exclusion of the option to choose the resolution we play at are huge negatives. Especially when taken in context of inferior mod compatibility.
Do yourself a favor, breathe some fresh air and step away from BG2:EE for a while.
I just wish people didn't immediately go personal. Look at your own issues with the games, who needs a breathe of some fresh air after that? I wish my issues were as easy as yours - the ones that include game screen resolution and advising others on what to do.
It looks like this forum's community does not like passionate people, or just people being passionate about anything. It's just "I'm TRIGGERED by this and that" and "go relax some more, and then we'll talk". Don't go personal, do not go there. Do not go personal. Talk about the issues with the mod, the issues with the game. Do not go personal. God damn.
It wasn't an attack man, just an honest reflection. How can you expect someone to not reflect on you when you use emotional language? And it wasn't a judgment- I'm offering genuine advice to a person who needed to "take an 8-month break from all of this, just to detox from all the drama on the forum.". It wasn't a personal vindictive, it was merely advice.
Short of any real information, I assume they're dead in the water. To do something like this right, a community project centered around coding, you need to setup a GIT Hub repo or something like it at the start. That advice was ignored, and here we are.
Even though I do not read the forums anymore, I am still active ... uneducated guess. I never needed more people to help code the modules, I always needed more people to test the modifications. Your repetitive advice was not ignored, it was replied, in the negative.
Anyone up to update and package all available and checked info into the main post? Also, it would be great for a down-to-earth more or less exact timeframes, rather than "I plan to work on this mod... eventually". I am ready to support the modder with what I've got - I don't know, is 10 bucks enough from a couple hundred people on a Patreon/other donate page? ... Sorry if I sounded rude (rude again), I know we all became too triggered in 2016. I - and I'm sure, many others - just want transparent info on these incredibly important and loved mods for the BG series.
Thanks for your interest in the mod. No timeframe sorry as this is in my list of hobbies. No donation, thanks. Not in my mindset, moreover it would sound extremely weird knowing that the core and historical project has always been free thanks to W.Weimer. And a final point, the license gives you the opportunity to get a free copy of my own code even if someone decides to fork and make it available with a fee.
I think the next release will be available around new year's day because that will allow me to get enough free time (Christmas) to test prior to releasing. Testing is by far the most time consumming activity. For instance, during the "conversion" of the Irenicus module I've spent more than 80% of the time in test sessions (ad nauseam).
I think the next release will be available around new year's day because that will allow me to get enough free time (Christmas) to test prior to releasing. Testing is by far the most time consumming activity. For instance, during the "conversion" of the Irenicus module I've spent more than 80% of the time in test sessions (ad nauseam).
@Musigny I could put some light on this topic and and post my feedback: The reason why you received so lite feedback from testers might be due to the fact that people want finish BG2 but they never able to do it. Starting new game is exiting, people want to test new class/party and new mods. Then repeat it 5 times. Often it means that they never finish BG2 more than once. Even if someone only choose to isntall tweak pack and you mod, before you meet Irenicus, there are many tough battles, it takes months to go through them all.
Also about testing specific encounter: how to do it without actually playing two weeks to get to the specific fight? MoveToArea is worthless for classic BG2 and for BG2EE many global variables are not set properly. Saves are also screw up between different installation (wrong string referees, missing mod content etc) How to do it in a way which will provide valuable feedback?
So, In order to insincere a chance for receiving valuable feedback, consider: 1. Prepare fight/encounter list with actually test results (untested | tested internal | tested by @xxx,@yyy,@zzz)
2. Create instruction about how to preform testing of specific encounter: maybe a list of areas and variables which needs to be set or some sort of script which will fire encounter "exactly just like it would appear when you would play the whole game before"
3. Mod/component list which you were able to install and they won't interfere with you mod. SCS recently got updated to a version which takes new Spell Revision changes into consideration - http://gibberlings3.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=28249. Knowing the fact that many, many people play with SR and even more with SCS, even simple feedback about new Ascension+SCS+SR+EET2 combo would be appreciated
That's all. Thanks for all the hard work that you have done
Maybe a simpler option. @Musigny - if you have saved games that you use for your own testing, with just BG2EE + this mod installed, you can share those saved games and they will work for anyone else who just installs this mod into a clean BG2EE folder. That would make it easy for lots of people to experience the content without interference from other mods. It will also be possible for ambitious testers to apply other mods on top if they want, and report their findings; your saved games will still work in that case, since this mod came first. And it won't require more effort from you than uploading new saves each time you do a new release* (*only needed if that release changes areas already encountered in the save or changes the ordering of strings in dialog.tlk).
@agb1 yes I can paste a good sample of game saves but if everyone plays with the same configuration this is going to defeat the purpose of a wide testing campaign. Anyway, good idea, I will do it.
so maybe I'm just shooting blanks or something, but: 1) Original Tactics was really uneven in quality, it was extremely cheesy in some parts and very easy to beat with counter cheese. 2) IMO all Tactics components are in fact (more or less) incompatible with SCS, all of them - not only the ones mentioned in original SCS readme.
Is it really that hard to understand that original Tactics game mechanics/spell system was based on original game mechanics/baldurdash, which is practically cancelled and changed/altered by SCS??
So, if you want to have both SCS (plus Spell Rev., eh?) and original Tactics working as original Tactics back in the year fucking 2002 - just forget it! Go cry to urmom or something and stop being a moran and pestering the Modder. /white knight armor shines so bright must wear shades/
I've done some analysis on overlap of SCS vs. Tactics components, and there are many that outright conflict, some that partially conflict. The following Tactics components have no overlap with SCS:
Gebhard Blucher's Lich in the Docks Kensai Ryu's Improved Crypt King Kuroisan the Acid Kensai Mike Barnes' Improved Small Teeth Pass Mike Barnes' Improved North Forest
The above components do however conflict with the Big Picture (BP) mod, that includes modified versions of those components, and the Crypt King component also conflicts with Dark Side of Amn (DSoA) component 3, a mod that hasn't been ported to EE yet. The BiG World Setup tool reflects all of this overlap analysis in its conflict rules.
Ascension should be compatible with this. Not aware of any conflicts, at least. I've been maintaining Ascension 1.5 in @JediMindTrix absence; if you find any issues please let me know.
@chimaera Surprisingly the files pertaining to the tactics dungeon thieves still exist in the original package (not deployed though). I second @agb1 's statement, there should be no conflict with ascension. Possible points of interactions are dialogs and, very unlikely, the first challenge in tob's pocket plane.
I really appreciate your hard work, but I have to say I actually had a better experience with classical Weimer Tactics Ilyich (with ToB check in tp2 edited out) than with the corresponding component in your EE tactics (build 73 alpha). Details:
- Your component borks Imoen's behaviour: if kicked from the party, she just hangs around near the starting point (in the western corridor leading from the cage room). Not only that, she also initiates her leaving-the-party dialog at random. Nothing of the kind was observed with Weimer's original version of the mod installed. - You have decided to change Ilyich party members policy regarding calls for help. Sadly, it doesn't result in a different behaviour de facto. The only effect of these calls for help was an unintended one (I hope!): the dryad concubines turn hostile if within the range of a help call. Again, I have witnessed nothing of the kind in the original version. - Except for your version being somewhat buggier, I wasn't able to spot any significant differences after playing the mods extensively - and I mean it! - back-to-back. It's pretty much the same old Improved Ilyich, minus some minor loot changes, plus some new bugs. The same exact tactics work in your version; the Ilyich party behaves the same way. I'll stick with the classic version for the time being, I guess. At least it's tried, true and stable.
I really appreciate your hard work, but I have to say I actually had a better experience with classical Weimer Tactics Ilyich (with ToB check in tp2 edited out) than with the corresponding component in your EE tactics (build 73 alpha). Details:
- Your component borks Imoen's behaviour: if kicked from the party, she just hangs around near the starting point (in the western corridor leading from the cage room). Not only that, she also initiates her leaving-the-party dialog at random. Nothing of the kind was observed with Weimer's original version of the mod installed. - You have decided to change Ilyich party members policy regarding calls for help. Sadly, it doesn't result in a different behaviour de facto. The only effect of these calls for help was an unintended one (I hope!): the dryad concubines turn hostile if within the range of a help call. Again, I have witnessed nothing of the kind in the original version. - Except for your version being somewhat buggier, I wasn't able to spot any significant differences after playing the mods extensively - and I mean it! - back-to-back. It's pretty much the same old Improved Ilyich, minus some minor loot changes, plus some new bugs. The same exact tactics work in your version; the Ilyich party behaves the same way. I'll stick with the classic version for the time being, I guess. At least it's tried, true and stable.
I can confirm this that the duergar party in irenicus dungeon are completely different and don't seem as challenging as in the original.
is there any chance to make someone a new update to scs2 - improved demons are working not like tactics analog Pit Fiends (summoned by the never-used 9th level Wizard spell "Gate" and rarely occuring "naturally" in places like the Watcher's Keep) get a number of stat and attack bugfixes based on the monster manual. Notably they regain their 50% cold resistance, their "genius-level" intelligence, their lethal-poison and disease bite, improved invisibility, their six attacks per round, and their ability to gate in other pit fiends (which we restrict to once per 600 time units and only when seriously wounded, rather than once per round when you feel like it!). SCS version does not support the summoning ability of fiends, and this is very sad.
Short of any real information, I assume they're dead in the water. To do something like this right, a community project centered around coding, you need to setup a GIT Hub repo or something like it at the start. That advice was ignored, and here we are.
Even though I do not read the forums anymore, I am still active ... uneducated guess. I never needed more people to help code the modules, I always needed more people to test the modifications. Your repetitive advice was not ignored, it was replied, in the negative.
Quite telling that this never moved beyond, and @ALIEN's reasonable, helpful feedback was never commented on.
OTOH, I'm glad to see the mod community is using GIT now. It's a shame this modder never took reasonable advice.
It's a shame that this mode have not been fully completed.
I very much totally agree. Tactics has everything that SCS actually lacks - custom made, handcrafted encounters, custom made enemies, custom made bosses and sometimes even a very nice quest and story on top of that (the Ritual). It is really sad that Musigny's tremendous effort (at least partially successful!) to bring Tactics to the new game mechanics has ended (for now, I hope he will continue someday) in such a lacklustre cliffhanger. ;p
Realistically, if one wants lets say Kuroisan to be 100% compatible with SCS then Kuroisan must be redesigned from the ground up. His AI, behaviour and spells must be changed and adjusted to the SCS standards (he can't just use his good old immunity divination/abjuration/imp. invisibility combo because in SCS "antimagic attacks penetrates improved invisibility" which makes this "dreaded" encounter almost trivial). etc. etc. all mod components must be changed this way. Spaniard's Time Stop in Chain Contingency? Compatible with SCS? In the year of our Lord 2018?? ummmm....let me think. no.
I don't speak english but even I can say that the use of the word "slightly" in "Slightly Tougher Demons" is a somewhat malicious joke. That "slightly" tougher demon is very hard to hit, regenerates like crazy, hits like a truck and can one shot you with his poison attack (percentage based vorpal, no save, deals like 999 damage iirc). And when he is near death, he will summon another demon, exactly the same bastard that he is. Slightly fun! Not to mention, if this component and Smarter Mages and Liches are installed, Lich will actually summon this demon. Yep. Even more slightly fun. So much drama you don't need forums. ;pp
also i agree, i agree so much that i play more the original game with tactics and sola mod installed than the EE... i really hoped that a full EE compatible version of the mod would have come to light. i was thinking lately about why i like so much this mod, and i think i did find the reason. the modern approach, scs, gives better AI, but also somehow change the magic system. tactics mod does not do it. it has cheating enemies, casting using scripts and doing illegal things, more powerful ones, like the demons, but had also enemy casters smarter and fighters more effective inside the vanilla magic and combat system. the enemies in the ritual are not cheating or over leveled, they fight in an efficient way. same for some mage battles like the gnome illusionist.
about efficiency noob < vanilla AI < player with some experience < tactics AI i like what weimer told in the Q&A section of sola mod. Q: why sola is so powerful when bodhi abducts him? A: actually your sola can be more powerful of the version siding with bodhi, learn how to buff and use your F/Mages...
and probably this is the reason i love so much this mod. it keeps the vanilla system, changing only enemy tactics and adding more powerful enemies and new encounters. with the modern modding approach a player has to learn again the basics depending on what mods he uses. imo the vanilla system was good enough, not perfect but good enough. i can live with having some spells almost not useful in vanilla, as tactics and sola proof that the average player uses only a fraction of the spell system potential and of the party synergy. i can not appreciate something that makes me re learn the game depending on the mods i have installed and even the version of those mods.
i really want to say THANK YOU to @Musigny for his effort.
Yes, really thanks, @musigny. I install tactics only for the new encounters, the new quests and the kits (scs v32 do the over job : "boost the opponents"), and all these components are really enjoyable. So thanks for this port on BG2EE.
I install tactics only for the new encounters, the new quests and the kits (scs v32 do the over job : "boost the opponents"), and all these components are really enjoyable.
sadly your approach brings some problems, as InKal already told
Realistically, if one wants lets say Kuroisan to be 100% compatible with SCS then Kuroisan must be redesigned from the ground up. His AI, behaviour and spells must be changed and adjusted to the SCS standards (he can't just use his good old immunity divination/abjuration/imp. invisibility combo because in SCS "antimagic attacks penetrates improved invisibility" which makes this "dreaded" encounter almost trivial). etc. etc. all mod components must be changed this way.
some more and other less but all the new encounters are designed to work with the vanilla system, this is very true for some of them like the acid kensai (kuroisan), but to some extent is true for almost every encounter as the enemies, the AI, do a quite advanced use of the spell system and to some extent also of the combat one. the more the scripts are advanced the more running them in a changed system can make them not effective. scs does a fantastic work boosting the vanilla enemies or the ones we find in an average quest mod because the AI scripts of the vanilla or average quest scripts are quite basic and simple, i fear, even if i did not gave a try at tactics+modern scs, that what makes the tactics new encounters so enjoyable, even if they are so old school, would be lost.
give it a try and please report here your experience cause i can be completely wrong about your tactics encounters+scs difficulty boost approach. for now i stand on my opinion that tactics has to be played as it was designed originally, that playing it in the original game is the best choice and that @musigny's work is great cause give the chance to who does not own or does not want to use the original to play the mod in EE.
thank for the link of the review. as tactics is also my favorite difficulty mod i am happy to read opinions about it from other players.
let me suggest to try again the starting dungeon and the encounter with "the russians", but this time without importing equipment using EEkeeper or using not legal kitted multiclass. i know that even so it is far from being easy, but the fact that you lack of good equipment is one of the things that make it so interesting. i roll only average stats for my charnames and i play insane without lowering the slider on leveling up, so they have less HP than playing "easy insane", but i was able to clear the whole dungeon solo with FMT, with FM, with sorcerer and other classes and combos, as well as with parties using the npcs you find in the dungeon. on the lowest level possible as i start my games in BG2 so don't have the xp boost that someone importing from BG/SoD has. i am surely not the best player out there, let's say i am an average advanced player, others have done it with plain clerics or plain fighters, thing that imo is far more difficult as thieving and arcane capabilities can turn the tide in that dungeon. i am surely not the best player out there, but to learn to beat the dungeon with fair means, even if lacking of levels and equipment, is the thing that contributed the most to my improvement in playing bg2, as you have to use everything you have at its best. let's take the ranged ammo as example, you find it in very limited amount, you can not waste it in lame kiting tactics, add more ranged ammo and the whole durgar/mages thing becomes a lot easier, kite the durgars and then face the mages as they have no helpers and is easily done...
@Edvin now i am in one of my not playing phases so i am quite rusted as i don't play a game since months, but i will take a look and try to answer at my best. glad to hep you if i can! i hope that i can answer today. EDIT: "Please enter your lowest parameter between those limits. min = 0 (Ishan's mod) max = 400000 (vanilla)." when the game creates some of the spawn creatures it uses 3 xp thresholds to define 4 ranges of increasing difficulty, the vanilla ones are 0-400k, 400k-1m, 1m-2m, above 2m. so if charname is let's say at 80kxp he gets the easiest spawn, if is at 800k gets the 3rd in difficulty spawns, if is at 1,5m gets the 2nd in difficulty and over 2m gets always the toughest enemies possible.
for each of the 4 increasing enemy toughness spawns you can choose the xp threshold. if you chose always 0 to get the hardest ones from the beginning of the game, but you can also set your own threshold values. let's say that you enter 100000, then 300000, then 1000000. in this case starting the game you have the easiest spawns but as soon as you reach 100k xp the enemies become harder, when you reach 300k xp you get even harder spawns and past the 1m xp you get the hardest possible spawns.
then you have to chose the threshold at which a lich and his undead helpers are spawned in the dungeon, again 0 means that it always happens, 2000000 means that it happens only after you reach 2m xp, but you can set an other threshold, let's say 500000 to have the lich spawns only after you reach 500k xp.
i am not sure if is possible to set values easier than the vanilla ones or in case of the lich let's say a value like 8m , so it never spawns, but as the point of the mod is to increase difficulty and not to make the game easiest i suppose that this is not so important, maybe can be relevant for the lich as it can be very hard, but i have always set its threshold at 0 and always managed to find a way to kill it, solo or with party, even if it can takes sometimes a lot of reloads . 2m xp should be fine for every player that wants to experience the mod's flavor without having an over frustrating gameplay.
hope it helps, in case something is not clear i will gladly add more clarifications, for the little i am able to do it.
and thanks again for making possible to play tactics in EE. i must say that i did not test it until now cause i play it in original and lately i am not playing much, but as a side effect of the research to answer to your question i discovered that i can have multiple installations of the game working on the pc at the same time so i will surely give it a try in the future, a good reason to begin to play this wonderful game again an other time... best regards, gorgonzola.
Comments
Short of any real information, I assume they're dead in the water. To do something like this right, a community project centered around coding, you need to setup a GIT Hub repo or something like it at the start. That advice was ignored, and here we are.
it sounds like you're too emotionally invested, tbh. the original/GOG releases of BG2 are infinitely playable, and if you're commenting on a thread about community mod development, you're clearly comfortable using weidu to install mods.
I agree that the EE release is technically superior in some aspects, especially as an improvement to ToBex and the un-hardcoding of features like race restrictions for dual/multi classing. OTOH, the questionable added content and ridiculous exclusion of the option to choose the resolution we play at are huge negatives. Especially when taken in context of inferior mod compatibility.
Do yourself a favor, breathe some fresh air and step away from BG2:EE for a while.
It looks like this forum's community does not like passionate people, or just people being passionate about anything. It's just "I'm TRIGGERED by this and that" and "go relax some more, and then we'll talk". Don't go personal, do not go there. Do not go personal. Talk about the issues with the mod, the issues with the game. Do not go personal. God damn.
It wasn't an attack man, just an honest reflection. How can you expect someone to not reflect on you when you use emotional language? And it wasn't a judgment- I'm offering genuine advice to a person who needed to "take an 8-month break from all of this, just to detox from all the drama on the forum.". It wasn't a personal vindictive, it was merely advice.
Anyway, do as you will.
I never needed more people to help code the modules, I always needed more people to test the modifications.
Your repetitive advice was not ignored, it was replied, in the negative.
No timeframe sorry as this is in my list of hobbies.
No donation, thanks. Not in my mindset, moreover it would sound extremely weird knowing that the core and historical project has always been free thanks to W.Weimer. And a final point, the license gives you the opportunity to get a free copy of my own code even if someone decides to fork and make it available with a fee.
I think the next release will be available around new year's day because that will allow me to get enough free time (Christmas) to test prior to releasing. Testing is by far the most time consumming activity. For instance, during the "conversion" of the Irenicus module I've spent more than 80% of the time in test sessions (ad nauseam).
The reason why you received so lite feedback from testers might be due to the fact that people want finish BG2 but they never able to do it. Starting new game is exiting, people want to test new class/party and new mods. Then repeat it 5 times. Often it means that they never finish BG2 more than once. Even if someone only choose to isntall tweak pack and you mod, before you meet Irenicus, there are many tough battles, it takes months to go through them all.
Also about testing specific encounter: how to do it without actually playing two weeks to get to the specific fight? MoveToArea is worthless for classic BG2 and for BG2EE many global variables are not set properly. Saves are also screw up between different installation (wrong string referees, missing mod content etc)
How to do it in a way which will provide valuable feedback?
So, In order to insincere a chance for receiving valuable feedback, consider:
1. Prepare fight/encounter list with actually test results (untested | tested internal | tested by @xxx,@yyy,@zzz)
2. Create instruction about how to preform testing of specific encounter: maybe a list of areas and variables which needs to be set or some sort of script which will fire encounter "exactly just like it would appear when you would play the whole game before"
3. Mod/component list which you were able to install and they won't interfere with you mod. SCS recently got updated to a version which takes new Spell Revision changes into consideration - http://gibberlings3.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=28249. Knowing the fact that many, many people play with SR and even more with SCS, even simple feedback about new Ascension+SCS+SR+EET2 combo would be appreciated
That's all. Thanks for all the hard work that you have done
yes I can paste a good sample of game saves but if everyone plays with the same configuration this is going to defeat the purpose of a wide testing campaign.
Anyway, good idea, I will do it.
so maybe I'm just shooting blanks or something, but:
1) Original Tactics was really uneven in quality, it was extremely cheesy in some parts and very easy to beat with counter cheese.
2) IMO all Tactics components are in fact (more or less) incompatible with SCS, all of them - not only the ones mentioned in original SCS readme.
Is it really that hard to understand that original Tactics game mechanics/spell system was based on original game mechanics/baldurdash, which is practically cancelled and changed/altered by SCS??
So, if you want to have both SCS (plus Spell Rev., eh?) and original Tactics working as original Tactics back in the year fucking 2002 - just forget it! Go cry to urmom or something and stop being a moran and pestering the Modder. /white knight armor shines so bright must wear shades/
Gebhard Blucher's Lich in the Docks
Kensai Ryu's Improved Crypt King
Kuroisan the Acid Kensai
Mike Barnes' Improved Small Teeth Pass
Mike Barnes' Improved North Forest
The above components do however conflict with the Big Picture (BP) mod, that includes modified versions of those components, and the Crypt King component also conflicts with Dark Side of Amn (DSoA) component 3, a mod that hasn't been ported to EE yet. The BiG World Setup tool reflects all of this overlap analysis in its conflict rules.
Surprisingly the files pertaining to the tactics dungeon thieves still exist in the original package (not deployed though).
I second @agb1 's statement, there should be no conflict with ascension. Possible points of interactions are dialogs and, very unlikely, the first challenge in tob's pocket plane.
- Your component borks Imoen's behaviour: if kicked from the party, she just hangs around near the starting point (in the western corridor leading from the cage room). Not only that, she also initiates her leaving-the-party dialog at random. Nothing of the kind was observed with Weimer's original version of the mod installed.
- You have decided to change Ilyich party members policy regarding calls for help. Sadly, it doesn't result in a different behaviour de facto. The only effect of these calls for help was an unintended one (I hope!): the dryad concubines turn hostile if within the range of a help call. Again, I have witnessed nothing of the kind in the original version.
- Except for your version being somewhat buggier, I wasn't able to spot any significant differences after playing the mods extensively - and I mean it! - back-to-back. It's pretty much the same old Improved Ilyich, minus some minor loot changes, plus some new bugs. The same exact tactics work in your version; the Ilyich party behaves the same way. I'll stick with the classic version for the time being, I guess. At least it's tried, true and stable.
Pit Fiends (summoned by the never-used 9th level Wizard spell "Gate" and
rarely occuring "naturally" in places like the Watcher's Keep) get a
number of stat and attack bugfixes based on the monster manual. Notably
they regain their 50% cold resistance, their "genius-level" intelligence,
their lethal-poison and disease bite, improved invisibility, their six
attacks per round, and their ability to gate in other pit fiends (which
we restrict to once per 600 time units and only when seriously wounded,
rather than once per round when you feel like it!).
SCS version does not support the summoning ability of fiends, and this is very sad.
OTOH, I'm glad to see the mod community is using GIT now. It's a shame this modder never took reasonable advice.
Realistically, if one wants lets say Kuroisan to be 100% compatible with SCS then Kuroisan must be redesigned from the ground up. His AI, behaviour and spells must be changed and adjusted to the SCS standards (he can't just use his good old immunity divination/abjuration/imp. invisibility combo because in SCS "antimagic attacks penetrates improved invisibility" which makes this "dreaded" encounter almost trivial). etc. etc. all mod components must be changed this way. Spaniard's Time Stop in Chain Contingency? Compatible with SCS? In the year of our Lord 2018?? ummmm....let me think. no.
I don't speak english but even I can say that the use of the word "slightly" in "Slightly Tougher Demons" is a somewhat malicious joke. That "slightly" tougher demon is very hard to hit, regenerates like crazy, hits like a truck and can one shot you with his poison attack (percentage based vorpal, no save, deals like 999 damage iirc). And when he is near death, he will summon another demon, exactly the same bastard that he is. Slightly fun! Not to mention, if this component and Smarter Mages and Liches are installed, Lich will actually summon this demon. Yep. Even more slightly fun. So much drama you don't need forums. ;pp
i really hoped that a full EE compatible version of the mod would have come to light.
i was thinking lately about why i like so much this mod, and i think i did find the reason. the modern approach, scs, gives better AI, but also somehow change the magic system. tactics mod does not do it. it has cheating enemies, casting using scripts and doing illegal things, more powerful ones, like the demons, but had also enemy casters smarter and fighters more effective inside the vanilla magic and combat system.
the enemies in the ritual are not cheating or over leveled, they fight in an efficient way. same for some mage battles like the gnome illusionist.
about efficiency noob < vanilla AI < player with some experience < tactics AI
i like what weimer told in the Q&A section of sola mod.
Q: why sola is so powerful when bodhi abducts him?
A: actually your sola can be more powerful of the version siding with bodhi, learn how to buff and use your F/Mages...
and probably this is the reason i love so much this mod. it keeps the vanilla system, changing only enemy tactics and adding more powerful enemies and new encounters. with the modern modding approach a player has to learn again the basics depending on what mods he uses. imo the vanilla system was good enough, not perfect but good enough.
i can live with having some spells almost not useful in vanilla, as tactics and sola proof that the average player uses only a fraction of the spell system potential and of the party synergy. i can not appreciate something that makes me re learn the game depending on the mods i have installed and even the version of those mods.
i really want to say THANK YOU to @Musigny for his effort.
scs does a fantastic work boosting the vanilla enemies or the ones we find in an average quest mod because the AI scripts of the vanilla or average quest scripts are quite basic and simple, i fear, even if i did not gave a try at tactics+modern scs, that what makes the tactics new encounters so enjoyable, even if they are so old school, would be lost.
give it a try and please report here your experience cause i can be completely wrong about your tactics encounters+scs difficulty boost approach.
for now i stand on my opinion that tactics has to be played as it was designed originally, that playing it in the original game is the best choice and that @musigny's work is great cause give the chance to who does not own or does not want to use the original to play the mod in EE.
here is my review of it
https://darksideofrpgs.blogspot.com/2018/12/tactics-mod-for-baldurs-gate-2.html
as tactics is also my favorite difficulty mod i am happy to read opinions about it from other players.
let me suggest to try again the starting dungeon and the encounter with "the russians", but this time without importing equipment using EEkeeper or using not legal kitted multiclass. i know that even so it is far from being easy, but the fact that you lack of good equipment is one of the things that make it so interesting. i roll only average stats for my charnames and i play insane without lowering the slider on leveling up, so they have less HP than playing "easy insane", but i was able to clear the whole dungeon solo with FMT, with FM, with sorcerer and other classes and combos, as well as with parties using the npcs you find in the dungeon. on the lowest level possible as i start my games in BG2 so don't have the xp boost that someone importing from BG/SoD has.
i am surely not the best player out there, let's say i am an average advanced player, others have done it with plain clerics or plain fighters, thing that imo is far more difficult as thieving and arcane capabilities can turn the tide in that dungeon.
i am surely not the best player out there, but to learn to beat the dungeon with fair means, even if lacking of levels and equipment, is the thing that contributed the most to my improvement in playing bg2, as you have to use everything you have at its best. let's take the ranged ammo as example, you find it in very limited amount, you can not waste it in lame kiting tactics, add more ranged ammo and the whole durgar/mages thing becomes a lot easier, kite the durgars and then face the mages as they have no helpers and is easily done...
I have written first part of my bg2 walkthrough maybe it will be interesting to youngsters
https://darksideofrpgs.blogspot.com/2019/01/baldurs-gate-2-enhanced-edition.html
@gorgonzola
Guys, can you help me?
It's about Tactic optional content.
Ishan's "Always Toughest Random Spawns in Dungeons"
The description is a little vague to me.
If I want hardest possible enemies, what number should I write during installation?
Always zero?
Or that vanilla max numbers?
now i am in one of my not playing phases so i am quite rusted as i don't play a game since months, but i will take a look and try to answer at my best.
glad to hep you if i can!
i hope that i can answer today.
EDIT:
"Please enter your lowest parameter between those limits.
min = 0 (Ishan's mod) max = 400000 (vanilla)."
when the game creates some of the spawn creatures it uses 3 xp thresholds to define 4 ranges of increasing difficulty, the vanilla ones are 0-400k, 400k-1m, 1m-2m, above 2m.
so if charname is let's say at 80kxp he gets the easiest spawn, if is at 800k gets the 3rd in difficulty spawns, if is at 1,5m gets the 2nd in difficulty and over 2m gets always the toughest enemies possible.
for each of the 4 increasing enemy toughness spawns you can choose the xp threshold. if you chose always 0 to get the hardest ones from the beginning of the game, but you can also set your own threshold values.
let's say that you enter 100000, then 300000, then 1000000. in this case starting the game you have the easiest spawns but as soon as you reach 100k xp the enemies become harder, when you reach 300k xp you get even harder spawns and past the 1m xp you get the hardest possible spawns.
then you have to chose the threshold at which a lich and his undead helpers are spawned in the dungeon, again 0 means that it always happens, 2000000 means that it happens only after you reach 2m xp, but you can set an other threshold, let's say 500000 to have the lich spawns only after you reach 500k xp.
i am not sure if is possible to set values easier than the vanilla ones or in case of the lich let's say a value like 8m , so it never spawns, but as the point of the mod is to increase difficulty and not to make the game easiest i suppose that this is not so important, maybe can be relevant for the lich as it can be very hard, but i have always set its threshold at 0 and always managed to find a way to kill it, solo or with party, even if it can takes sometimes a lot of reloads
hope it helps, in case something is not clear i will gladly add more clarifications, for the little i am able to do it.
and thanks again for making possible to play tactics in EE. i must say that i did not test it until now cause i play it in original and lately i am not playing much, but as a side effect of the research to answer to your question i discovered that i can have multiple installations of the game working on the pc at the same time so i will surely give it a try in the future, a good reason to begin to play this wonderful game again an other time...
best regards, gorgonzola.