Does anyone share this same feeling as me? (about BG2 vs BG2EE

Bubbles

For those who played both versions, do you sometimes have a feeling that some things in BG2 was deliberately designed to be such (seemingly buggy) while the EE patched them up and you find you loose some fun?

Example: Kangaxx (demi-lich) in the old BG2 it only attacks nearest target and it doesn't have full map range. I used to enjoy sending full party in to try to kill it fast, now I am somewhat forced to use charname + that "thing" alone to go in and face it (if I wanted that ring early in the game).

Example: Shield of Balduran in the old BG2 do not always successfully reflect back the beholder's attacks adding some small bit of suspense when you face beholders and their relatives. Now the EEs make it work all the time, thus forcing me sometimes not to use that shield to try and get back some of the fun and challenges.

Lord_Tansheron

While bugs add their own sort of "flavor", I think it's debatable whether it's a good thing or not. For some people, those bugs you mentioned were as annoying as they were fun for you - and since the developers can't go and ask everyone how they'd like it, they have to make choices. I'm fine with that. And considering how much truly NECESSARY fixes and convenience tweaks the EE offered, I do not see myself ever going back.

Bubbles

@Lord_Tansheron
Frankly, in the early years of BG2, I was annoyed by the buggy Shield of Balduran too (very annoyed ^^).
But now that they fix it, Beholders feel so cheesy .... in some runs I simply ignore the 2 bonus merchant, attempting to simulate the very first SoA sold (without them ^^) and it is actually quite a lot more fun in a different manner ^^.
Well, probably I have grown out of the very cheesy days and looking to play it with a bit more challenge.
Oh, any idea what happened to Core Rules? It used to give random HP when level up but these days it doesn't seemed to do so.

JuliusBorisov

Bubbles said:

Oh, any idea what happened to Core Rules? It used to give random HP when level up but these days it doesn't seemed to do so.

With the last patch, it became possible to change more options through the baldur.ini.

There's a line

'Game Options', 'Maximum HP', '1',

that lets you always get max HP regardless of the difficulty level. 0 means you don't always get max HP, a 1 means that you do.

But because of the oversight during creating the patch, default setting was set to 1.

https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/37833/a-bunch-of-neat-baldur-ini-options-in-bg2ee-1-3-that-ive-noticed-carry-overs-from-iwdee/

Bubbles

@bengoshi
Okie thank you !!

mashedtaters

@Bubbles I feel that way about the ranger/cleric bug. I really liked how the ranger/cleric got all the Druid spells and Cleric spells in BG2. I am glad you can change it to the way you want in the ini. file.

Overall I feel that BG2EE is the better game. There are a few surprises, or changes, but I think it's generally better and less buggy.

Dee

Sometimes I think we should have an "Optional Bugs" section of the Options menu. But the contrarian part of me would make all of the options use the label "Make my game more broken" and a description of "This option enables a bug that Beamdog already fixed. Are you...are you sure you want to do this?"

Lord_Tansheron

If you REALLY want things to work in a specific way, I suppose there's nothing stopping you from getting an Infinity Engine editor and tinkering with the game yourself.

Bubbles

@Lord_Tansheron
I only want patch v1.2030 back T_T but no such options ....

gorgonzola

As I play only notEE I can tell only a couple of things.
I really appreciate how now is possible to chose in the .ini file things like HP leveling up or the druid magic part of R/C. I think is the right way to go.
For the other fixes it depends, imo some are worth, an item that is supposed to do something 100% of the time and sometime don't do it for a bug has to be fixed. Using 3 x PI in CC can lead to "good"* cheese research, maybe let chose in the .ini file if to nerf it or not is better.
In other words fixing bugs that prevent the game to work properly is one thing** , closing doors to possible cheesy tactics, that the player can decide himself if use or not is different.

* As different players enjoy to play the game for different reasons imo is good to let them choose their own reasons and playing style, as long as that don't make impossible for other players to play in a different way. One of my personal reasons is that I like the research on exploits, and I am not alone. Other players love those exploits for power related reasons.
*Having an item that work randomly for a bug is different then giving a certain percentage of effect happening.

Bubbles

@gorgonzola
It is very often very difficult to give any "humans" any choices at all ^^.
When there is option 1/2/3 someone out there will always ask for 4 ^^.
So I guess I shall continue to be my Bhaalspawn and channel my "immortal" power through NI or DLTCEP and send ripples accross the "tapestry" ^^