SCS or BP. What is your AI enhancement of choice?
mlnevese
Member, Moderator Posts: 10,214
I often see people praising SCS (Sword Coast Stratagems) AI enhancements, but rarely hear anything about BP (Big Picture). So, which one do you prefer and why?
* Added full names of the mods for those who don't know them.
* Added full names of the mods for those who don't know them.
- SCS or BP. What is your AI enhancement of choice?159 votes
- BP6.29%
- SCS66.67%
- Both, I use BWP to make them compatible10.69%
- Neither, vanilla AI is good enough for me16.35%
Post edited by mlnevese on
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Comments
SCS includes many tweaks or enhanced creature stats/abilities which may not be liked by some players, not to mention the level of difficulty of SCS is way beyond the average player of nowdays imo, and BGEE is supposed to be "for everyone" not just for "hardcore players".
We charge in and engage the hostiles. The xvart shamans cast a bless on themselves, and then try to cast Doom upon me.
It hits, and I feel a sinking feeling in my stomach. But I respond with Horror, giving a sinking and panicked feeling to many stomachs, including the shaman that doomed me.
A moment later, though, his co-shaman Silences me. It is time for staff work only.
I retreat to be by Minsc's side for this. The remaining xvart shaman is no fool, though. He casts Resist Fear on his cohorts, calming their hearts and removing their fear. Even though they are still scattered about the area in a panicked tangle, the panic itself is now gone.
Gameplay note: See how appropriately NPC mages and clerics respond to situations now? You would never see such intelligence in a normal game. Cast one Fear, and the whole fight is over. But now with all these mods you cast Fear, the shaman casts Resist Fear, and the fight goes on. He also easily shut me down with a Silence. Incredibly appropriate to the situation. I'm lovin' it!
You just can't get that can't of challenging and intelligent fun in the base game.
Towards the end, after killing all his companions, I'm almost *positive* that the Chieftan intentionally backed up and tried to kite my party over the traps in the floor. The little stinker. :-D
Yes. Problem is, my release of the game is supposed to be patched, and yet, SCS installator doesn't recognize it as such. It just won't install.
On the other hand, that's one of reasons I wait for BG:EE. When modders will make SCS combatible with BG:EE, then I wouldn't have to worry about release version.
I never tried that. It's a little matter now - I've planning nearest BG playthrought when Enhanced Edition comes out.
BP : This is a compatibility mod that allows to integrate most of the currently existing large mods (...).
BWP : it is an ongoing project that aims to bring together as much mods as possible into one complete big Baldurs Gate game (...).
@Kerozevok: BP was originally a compilation project to bring together three mega-mods (Darkest Day, Shadows over Soubar, Tortured Souls? - not sure, I don't play megamods). It goes back to the dark days before the WEIDU modding tool, when making any two mods compatible required explicit coding. In the process of writing it, it also acquired an AI component. Its original purpose is basically moot now - pretty much all the megamods have been converted to WEIDU - so the AI core remains, but with a rather misleading name.
@ZelgadisGW: SCS really shouldn't be smart enough to check if your game is patched, so I don't think that can quite be the bug you're getting. This probably isn't the right place to help but if you post whatever error report you get at gibberlings3.net, I can possibly help.
For the poll.. none of these options, i liked the vanilla AI when i discovered the game, but now, the game seems to me too easy... I respect the work of DavidW, but i made myself the scripts and various changes for the fun.
By contrast, going back to unmodded AI and realizing that vanilla enemy casters usually don't seem to manage even vocalizing when you silence them can make the game feel that much more artificial and limited.
Was less surprised by the poll results, than by how few people have heard of BP. It just recently celebrated its 10th birthday as a mod, after all. For at least seven of those years, since my first-draft conversions of the TeamBG "big mods" to weidu format, it's been solely an AI/enhancement mod. I guess that's my own fault for "retiring" from IE modding in 2006--lack of promotion and regular updates.
We'll see if that can be changed in the present/future, as I slowly bring BP into the modern era and apply what I've learned over the last six years from my other works. I wouldn't expect less than a major overhaul to make it compatible with BG:EE/BG2:EE, and much that I did to patch the vanilla content might now be redundant. Even some of the strategic nuances I added might prove unneeded. If so, that means I can concentrate more on new content and less on AI and game/rule fixes. We'll see as the saga unfolds...
I don't know, I think:
(a) smarter AI --> more player immersion
(b) there's still a difficulty slider
[cp: easy levels don't mod spells much; easier should reduce avg. caster level and restrict spells]
(c) most players don't know about scs, etc. and hence miss out
Also, @Demivrgvs :
I just wanted to say 'cool stuff' on the Spell Revisions mod and getting it ~scs integrated. I'd argue about some specific changes -- but definitely a community service with some neat ideas-Thanks!
(actually: how hard is it to extract the files to play with without loading the mod; I'd love to work on some myself?)
Serious suggestion : if you release an updated BP mod that's just ai / strategic enhancmenets/changes : Change the name.
It sounds like a resolution mod.
Too much info in the world (and especially these forums).
The unobvious goes unnoticed, etc., etc.
Fret not, I have no current plans to officially update this old mod for BG2EE (though it seems to work fine with it already). The name will remain as it has from 2002. It's been strictly an AI/enhancement mod since 2005, so while I understand your point I fail to see the problem. This is the very first posted suggestion of this nature in all of these years.