IWD druid spells

zupsky

I think that this would be a great time to port IWD druidic spells to the BG:EE and BG:EE 2 during launch of Siege od Dragonspear, since both games are going to get an update. Are you guys at Beamdog thinking about this? Druid is my favourite class to play and it's a shame that they are so underwhelming in BG games.

OzzyBotkins

I am hoping for the spells and kits from IWD:EE to make into this expansion. Since there is very little chance that there will not be another expansion for BG:EE it has to be now or never

billbisco

Time for a poll as this has already come up and yes, these all deserve to be ported to all bgee games.

deltago

There was a poll back when IWD:EE came out about this and @Elminster made some good points about different versions of the same spell causing issues and determining which one should be prioritized.

I would offer a link if I was not on my phone but doing a forum search in General should bring it up of anyone is interested.

Adding some of the druid spells from IWD however could be an option.

Arcanis

deltago said:

There was a poll back when IWD:EE came out about this and @Elminster made some good points about different versions of the same spell causing issues and determining which one should be prioritized.

I would offer a link if I was not on my phone but doing a forum search in General should bring it up of anyone is interested.

Adding some of the druid spells from IWD however could be an option.

Mhm, there are many ppl in Beamdogs team that should know enough of 2nd AD&D and BG balance that
maybe they could implement some spells that are inspired from the ones in IWD. Would be (maybe)
more work than straight up implementation of the IWD ones, but if they are "new" spells there should
be less overlap..

Also, @billbisco please refrain from more polls.. at least till the game is out. We can still make petitions
and wishes once they start on patches instead of annyoing them while they are finishing the game..

Remember: you can't enchant a weapon (or armor) untill you have a finished masterwork ^_^
(at least I think it is like that, sorry rules currently not at hand =P)

billbisco

@arcanis the time to make requests is before the game ships.

deltago

billbisco said:

arcanis the time to make requests is before the game ships.

Nope. The time to make requests is during the development stage. Which has passed.
And when the game is receiving patches.

Now is time for them to fine tune and perfect what they do have and get it to market ASAP

Dawglicious

We should probably have a poll about the best time to start a poll.

Faydark

deltago said:

billbisco said:

arcanis the time to make requests is before the game ships.

Nope. The time to make requests is during the development stage. Which has passed.
And when the game is receiving patches.

Now is time for them to fine tune and perfect what they do have and get it to market ASAP

I don't get the impression that the development phase has passed. From what I've read, it's at the "might come out this year, might not" point.. but 6+ months is still "in the development stage" imo.

That said, I also agree we probably don't need a poll for this. It's been a requested feature for a while now.

billbisco

The game is still in development

deltago said:

billbisco said:

arcanis the time to make requests is before the game ships.

Nope. The time to make requests is during the development stage. Which has passed.
And when the game is receiving patches.

Now is time for them to fine tune and perfect what they do have and get it to market ASAP

These features have already been tested and implementrd in the same engine. It's as simple as to make a weidu mod to include them.

billbisco

Bingo. It doesn't hurt to ask. And, it's better to ask earlier than later.

Wowo

There are so many IWD spells which would be great in the BG series to give added depth to gameplay.

Also IWD spells seem to be slightly better balanced than in BG as a generalisation (though you'd need to go through the spells in a case by case basis).

Fardragon

Faydark said:

deltago said:

billbisco said:

arcanis the time to make requests is before the game ships.

Nope. The time to make requests is during the development stage. Which has passed.
And when the game is receiving patches.

Now is time for them to fine tune and perfect what they do have and get it to market ASAP

I don't get the impression that the development phase has passed. From what I've read, it's at the "might come out this year, might not" point.. but 6+ months is still "in the development stage" imo.

That said, I also agree we probably don't need a poll for this. It's been a requested feature for a while now.

It's in the debugging phase. It takes at least three months to debug a game like this - longer if bugs prove illusive, and it's impossible to predict (which publishers hate, hence why they insist games launch on a certain date, bugs and all). SoD doesn't have a publisher, so they can take as long as they need.

Arcanis

Fardragon said:

Faydark said:

deltago said:

billbisco said:

arcanis the time to make requests is before the game ships.

Nope. The time to make requests is during the development stage. Which has passed.
And when the game is receiving patches.

Now is time for them to fine tune and perfect what they do have and get it to market ASAP

I don't get the impression that the development phase has passed. From what I've read, it's at the "might come out this year, might not" point.. but 6+ months is still "in the development stage" imo.

That said, I also agree we probably don't need a poll for this. It's been a requested feature for a while now.

It's in the debugging phase. It takes at least three months to debug a game like this - longer if bugs prove illusive, and it's impossible to predict (which publishers hate, hence why they insist games launch on a certain date, bugs and all). SoD doesn't have a publisher, so they can take as long as they need.

I once read an interview with a game developer (years ago, so no idea where to find it, sorry ^^) in which
he said that he was actualy thankful for the publisher because if they didn't push the game out they would
never be finished with stomping bugs -> good sounding features -> recreating balance -> stomping bugs

So.. Take your time with the game, but please ship it one day (I hope for.. 4 weeks before christmas,
would be a nice birthday present for me =P)

Quartz

@billbisco is the bane of my sanity.

elminster

deltago said:

There was a poll back when IWD:EE came out about this and @Elminster made some good points about different versions of the same spell causing issues and determining which one should be prioritized.

I would offer a link if I was not on my phone but doing a forum search in General should bring it up of anyone is interested.

My wall of 12,000+ posts might prevent people finding any such post

bob_veng

Many iwd-only spells can be brought over without alteration. The issue is with differences between spells that are in both games.

billbisco

It'd probably be easier to avoid replacing spells in SoD.

bob_veng

I think that some iwd spells will be brought over and no already existing spell will be replaced by its iwd version. Probably, there will also be completely new spells but maybe not for the druid

Wowo

bob_veng said:

I think that some iwd spells will be brought over and no already existing spell will be replaced by its iwd version. Probably, there will also be completely new spells but maybe not for the druid

It's a short list of spells that have different effects isn't it?

Some of the spells that have different effects are clearly overpowered in one iteration (ADHW and Insect Plague come to mind) but are much better balanced in the other.

Does anyone have the definitive list of new spells and different spells from IWDee?

bob_veng

It's a long list but the differences mostly aren't that noticeable. Noone made it yet afaik

Maxxximus

So the new class Shaman is Totemic Druid but improved... and TD is weakest druid, so maybe just delete him cos now we have shaman and he is much better...
BTW we(druids) need shapeshifting boost!

Arcanis

Maxxximus said:

So the new class Shaman is Totemic Druid but improved... and TD is weakest druid, so maybe just delete him cos now we have shaman and he is much better...
BTW we(druids) need shapeshifting boost!

..While Shapeshifter is my favorite druid kit, I have to say it is the weakest one.
The totemic druid looses the weakest druid ability (the wolf & bear shapeshifts) and gains summons
that aren't really bad. So, no it isn't the weakest kit.

And I have the feeling that the shaman will have a different spell progression than the druid, maybe
even different equipment. This, combined with the different summoning methods, will prevent the
TD of being useless.

miker60

I've never been that excited by druids in the BG games. None of the kits have ever jumped out at me in the same way that, for example, Cavalier or Archer did. Anything Beamdog does to pump the druids spells and powers up a bit would be welcome. To be fair, I probably formed a negative opinion of druids back during the original run of BG/BG2 and never revisited them for the EE to see if they were made more useful/powerful.

I think it gets to the heart of the differences between table top roleplaying and a PC computer game. In a table top game player interactions plus the clever uses of a characters skills abilities to overcome story obstacles can be highlighted above combat usefulness for a class to make playing the druid fun. Unfortunately for the druid, in a video game, you have to measure abilities like shapeshifting and animal summoning against other classes combat utility and the druid seems to come up lacking to me.

I can't really think of an example in either BG game where a shape shift or a summonsed animal can be used to get past story obstacles in a unique way. Is my memory faulty? Is it possible to address this in SoD?

FrozenCells

Yes please. Finishing up a BG:EE game and Jaheira's only spell used for the majority of the game was cure light wounds. I need Beast Claws!

Madrict

Yeah I hope they add IWD spells to BGEE etc, would be amazing!

Exile

I sorta have to agree. Druid's (and also Ranger's) spell sucks compare to spells they have in Icewind Dale.

Dee

Moving this to Feature Requests.