Character Transfers

wpmaura

So am I to believe that the same character I create from BG transfers to Dragon Spear and then from Dragon Spear to BG2?

Just seems like there will be a level imbalance.

Gallowglass

wpmaura said:

So am I to believe that the same character I create from BG transfers to Dragon Spear and then from Dragon Spear to BG2?

Yes.

wpmaura said:

Just seems like there will be a level imbalance.

You're not the only one concerned about that, but the company reckons it'll work out okay. We shall see in due course.

Permidion_Stark

Maybe they'll use the technique used in some Neverwinter Nights modules where the trauma of what has happened to you means you lose enough experience to get you back to the required level (mind you in the NWN modules I'm thinking of the trauma involves dying and starting again from level one).

Faydark

Apparently, BG2 already "scales" most encounters to match your party levels.

I generally play the infinity engine games with xp uncapped these days, and it hasn't turned BG2 into a cakewalk by any means, but then I don't play with SCS either... the existing balance of the game is fine for me.

So, I can see that people who really want a super hardcore challenge in BG2 will probably find the extra XP from SoD to be "gamebreaking", but in those cases, I just suggest using EEKeeper to remove some levels from your party until you're back where you want to be, or alternately if you fancy playing the expansion with the TotSC xp cap in place, mod the xp cap for SoD to be the same and voila, no problems for BG2.

I really don't see the problem.

wpmaura

using something that downgrades your character means your have failed at making the game. And I am fairly sure BG did not scale, maybe for random encounters but not anything else. In fact it was the otherway way round you needed to be a certain level to beat some encounters and if your were geared and leveled to high they were cake walks. Walking into BG2 5 levels higher then you were previously will make it easy.

Faydark

The impression I have so far from various threads and the Q & A at the announcement was that most classes are only going to pick up 1 or 2 levels in SoD. (It's an XP cap, and only some classes will reach level 12 apparently).

From playing numerous uncapped playthroughs of BG and importing into BG2, 1 or 2 levels over the standard cap doesn't make the game super easy, for me at least.

If you're the kinda person who finds standard BG2 so easy you could do it in your sleep, then maybe the extra levels would be too much cheese, in which case (from what I can tell of reading these boards) you're likely already playing on the hardest difficulty and using SCS and/or other difficulty enhancing mods, so why not add another mod to the pile and hinder your SoD character to rebalance etc.

I'm just saying, I'd be far more disappointed in a 30+ hour expansion where my character made no progression whatsoever in order to keep the "balance" of BG2.

(I based my comment on BG2 scaling on this comment from another SoD / BG2 xp cap thread: http://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/655249/#Comment_655249 )

Also the devs have mentioned they are going to ensure that BG2 remains balanced: http://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/655284/#Comment_655284

I think people are freaking out over nothing myself, but everyone has different opinions on balance, so that's understandable.

Gallowglass

Regarding scaling: as I understand it, BG2ee scales random encounters (i.e. most encounters), but not bosses or scripted encounters (i.e. the ones that matter). But I'm not certain about this.

Regarding what the devs have said about re-balancing BG2ee for higher initial XP: what @PhillipDaigle posted in the forum was reassuring, but what he said in an interview in the announcement video implied that they didn't intend to do anything about it. Of course it's the latter which has got people jumping up and down.

Cendar

BGII encounters definitely scale. Try changing the order you do the various quests, the number and strength of minion enemies in each dungeon increases and the board get harder to a certain degree. Just try doing firkraag suggestion towards end of hand and there will be like 15 vampires in one back room instead of 3 fledgling ones for instance.

doggy

I could see the PC and the ones you travel with loose XP in various ways before soa.

There is this mad wizard experimenting on you in his secret lair for the canon party.

But it could be anything from some wild surge happening during a quest or you running into a relative of Saemon Havarian.

And soa scales the encounters.

Still I would prefer not entering soa too op. Even though I have played it numerous times I prefer not to reach the XP limit mid game.

I think the devs have a plan so we will see in time.

CARV3R

I'm playing a LoB difficulty, 4 party created companions + Charname, leaving that 6th slot for in-game NPC's. I've finished BG vanilla uncountable times but finished my 2nd playthrough of SoD and imported those final save characters into BG2. I feel that without those additional levels derived from SoD, LoB difficultly in BG2 would be absolutely terrible. I'm already getting my face rolled by vampires with a level 10 party, and I can't even fathom Twisted Rune or facing another dragon yet; the gear just isn't there early on.

DJKajuru

The cap is 500000 xp , which means that you you'll reach level 12 if you're a roguish type, level 11 if mage,10 if fighter and 9 if cleric. So even though you might start SoA with a small advantage, it's not really that much of a difference since you could have reached that much with one or two stronghold quests completed.