Small Things That Should NOT Be Overlooked
RomulanPaladin
Member Posts: 188
I was really worked up for this game so, when the release got pushed back, I couldn't wait, I had to have me some Baldur's Gate. So, I started playing BGII again (as not to spoil my BGI experience in November). While playing, I started compiling a list of things I'd like to see changed. Here is a list of the minor changes from my list (things that I don't expect to generate much discussion individually).
If any of these are reposts of requests, I'm sorry. There's about 900 discussions right now so I'm not scanning all of them. Just drop a link to where they are discussed.
1.) Please remove the destruction of treasure from frozen death. This severely limits the utility of cold spells and effects; I find myself avoiding using these spells because I don't want to accidentally freeze someone enough to destroy all the treasure.
2.) I would LOVE a way of telling if my mage does not have a spell in his spellbook just by looking at the scroll, say a yellow highlight like the blue or red tinge on unidentified or unusable items respectfully. I hate shopping for new spells and having to keep going between the store and my spellbook to see if it's a spell I have or not. Please highlight the spell scrolls for spells I don't have. But not for sorcerers!
3.) Check lore stat to identify items upon entering the inventory. Right-clicking on everything is fun at first but gets old real quick. Mayhaps an option to identify based on largest party lore stat in party rather then just the character holding it?
4.) A "Loot All" button for dropped piles. Pick up everything with one click.
5.) Anti-alasting? Love the old graphics but can we get anti-alasting? Is that already a planned / included feature?
6.) How about the ability to "Wait" an hour or until evening / dawn. This is likely not all that useful in BGI but would be incredibly useful in BGII where no small number of quests or events happen at certain times of day. Consider including this in BGI for consistency between the two games.
7.) We can set path waypoints by shift-clicking. However, the party formation is angled / oriented based on current position on every waypoint, not just the first one. I find my party formation angled broadways when going through narrow passages instead of oriented to fit within. Can we have party formation orientation for a waypoint based on the position of the last waypoint set? This will make navigation MUCH smoother.
8.) When purchasing items, we are limited to a buying a stack no greater then 16 (the size of a character's inventory). Many of those items can fit multiples in a single stack (15 potions of the same type only takes 3 inventory spaces). Can we get smarter purchase stack limits or even allow overloaded characters to automatically hand off items to other characters or drop them on the ground?
[EDIT] 9.) Almost forgot: There's some AI script functions that I would like to add. I'd like a "HasOpcode" trigger function and an "Equip" function that equips items from the inventory (that actually works, not like the one already in BGII that doesn't work like that).
[EDIT] Topic title change: was "[Request] List of minor fixes / features / changes"
[EDIT] 10.) Spell protection spells (spell deflection, spell trap etc.) produce a white webby globe that's difficult to see through or around. It's like a giant walking blind spot. Can we get this otherwise neat effect toned down? Maybe just ramp up the alpha channel or something?
[EDIT] 11.) Don't know about anyone else but the sound accompanied with "failing to scribe a spell" has acquired a very negative connotation in my brain. Don't change that. What I'd remove is this very same sound from failing to write a spell because you already have it. Scares me every time I hear it.
If any of these are reposts of requests, I'm sorry. There's about 900 discussions right now so I'm not scanning all of them. Just drop a link to where they are discussed.
1.) Please remove the destruction of treasure from frozen death. This severely limits the utility of cold spells and effects; I find myself avoiding using these spells because I don't want to accidentally freeze someone enough to destroy all the treasure.
2.) I would LOVE a way of telling if my mage does not have a spell in his spellbook just by looking at the scroll, say a yellow highlight like the blue or red tinge on unidentified or unusable items respectfully. I hate shopping for new spells and having to keep going between the store and my spellbook to see if it's a spell I have or not. Please highlight the spell scrolls for spells I don't have. But not for sorcerers!
3.) Check lore stat to identify items upon entering the inventory. Right-clicking on everything is fun at first but gets old real quick. Mayhaps an option to identify based on largest party lore stat in party rather then just the character holding it?
4.) A "Loot All" button for dropped piles. Pick up everything with one click.
5.) Anti-alasting? Love the old graphics but can we get anti-alasting? Is that already a planned / included feature?
6.) How about the ability to "Wait" an hour or until evening / dawn. This is likely not all that useful in BGI but would be incredibly useful in BGII where no small number of quests or events happen at certain times of day. Consider including this in BGI for consistency between the two games.
7.) We can set path waypoints by shift-clicking. However, the party formation is angled / oriented based on current position on every waypoint, not just the first one. I find my party formation angled broadways when going through narrow passages instead of oriented to fit within. Can we have party formation orientation for a waypoint based on the position of the last waypoint set? This will make navigation MUCH smoother.
8.) When purchasing items, we are limited to a buying a stack no greater then 16 (the size of a character's inventory). Many of those items can fit multiples in a single stack (15 potions of the same type only takes 3 inventory spaces). Can we get smarter purchase stack limits or even allow overloaded characters to automatically hand off items to other characters or drop them on the ground?
[EDIT] 9.) Almost forgot: There's some AI script functions that I would like to add. I'd like a "HasOpcode" trigger function and an "Equip" function that equips items from the inventory (that actually works, not like the one already in BGII that doesn't work like that).
[EDIT] Topic title change: was "[Request] List of minor fixes / features / changes"
[EDIT] 10.) Spell protection spells (spell deflection, spell trap etc.) produce a white webby globe that's difficult to see through or around. It's like a giant walking blind spot. Can we get this otherwise neat effect toned down? Maybe just ramp up the alpha channel or something?
[EDIT] 11.) Don't know about anyone else but the sound accompanied with "failing to scribe a spell" has acquired a very negative connotation in my brain. Don't change that. What I'd remove is this very same sound from failing to write a spell because you already have it. Scares me every time I hear it.
Post edited by RomulanPaladin on
7
Comments
2., 3., 4., 6., 8., 9. would appear handy and 5. if it can be easily done,
Finally, I see you are a new user. Welcome to the forums! There actually is a search function on the bottom left, but it's not very good and almost no one uses it. And in case you didn't know, to edit your post, rename your thread, or move your topic in case you accidentally post it in the wrong place, hold your cursor over the top right of your post and click the gear.
The lore thing is interesting, as is the scroll idea. My suspicion is the engine isn't sophisticated enough for such things; that's why inventory and abilities are handled on a singular basis and so rigid. The game lacks the concept of a real group beyond the fundamental level.
I wanted to mention it once too, but forgot, although I wanted to ask if item destruction due to petrification could be removed. I know, it makes a lot of sense RP-wise, that if you freeze someone or turn them to stone, their items would be shattered as well, but game mechanic-wise... I also try not to use such spells, so I don't accidentaly destroy some valuable treasure.
Other ides are not bad either (if I should take a guess, I would say that some of these may have already been implemented...). I'm not sure I like the auto-identify (it's not much of a problem, but I agree that it's a bit frustrating when picking up lots of arrow+1-s
I would really love to have a "Wait" function too!
1.) Baldur's Gate is supposed to be based on 2nd Ed AD&D rules. Nowhere in AD&D does it say that death from massive cold should have any more effect on carried items then death by any other damage. This is something the game designers added to BG. I think that normal AD&D challenging to a very satisfactory degree and that, often, being truer to those rules likely won't detract from the game.
2.) One has to wonder why the game designers added this. My guess is that they wanted a cold extreme death effect like the fire extreme death effect (both very cool) and they had already make petrification work. So, instead of making something completely new, they just stole the petrify effect. Not a complaint but, since we're reworking the game, why copy petrify so exactly?
3.) If you choose NOT to use the cold spells because of fear of treasure destruction, your mage has a large gap of direct damaging spells between Fireball and Chain Lightning (that's 6 - 7 character levels between, WOW!).
Don't get me wrong. I'm not a fan of nerfing challenging games, especially something I love as much as BG. I'm totally for keeping Flesh to Stone and Disintegrate just as they are, that's part of the fun. But, due to the previous points, mayhaps this particular "feature" should be reconsidered.
Item Categories were: Bone or Ivory, Cloth, Glass, Leather, Metal, Oils, Paper (parchment included), Potions, Pottery, Rock Crystal, Rope, Wood, thich and Wood, thin.
You're definitely on top of your AD&D rules though.
I would LOVE to see this done. This has always been one of my biggest pet peeves in the game. The same also applies to when unloading items from a bag of holding, gem bag, etc.
That is my AD&D/D&D collection.
The DMG also says that you needn't make a save for all items. Just a few of the more obvious things like your scrolls and potions when hit by a fireball. There's no need to make saves for most of the items you carry, specifically weapons and armor.
The second point is that, in BG, the only elemental damage that destroys items is cold damage. If you take a look at the saving throw table in Chapter 6 in the DMG you'll find that the item save against cold is very often the best of all it's saves. The original point was that 2nd Ed AD&D has no rules that makes items specifically vulnerable to cold damage; this is a mechanic unique to the BG series and a technical deviation from the original concept. If BG only had lightning and disintegration damaging items, elements that items ARE generally vulnerable to, then I would make no such claim.
Personally, I enjoy debates like this. It's very nostalgic. Some people don't. Please allow no opposition of mine to spoil your humors.
Zing!
Welp, looks like point 1 (cold destroys items) is a sufficiently divided issue that it warrants a toggle much as @Bercon and others have suggested. Personally, I would like a toggle for cold item destruction to be separate from item destruction due to disintegration and petrification. These spells need drawbacks for being death spells available at lower levels and are part of the intended flavor I believe. It wouldn't even need a GUI; just being able to type something like "colddeath=0" in the INI file would make me stupid happy.
Failing that, we need at least ONE non-cold direct damage spell at either level 4 or 5 to fill in that 7 level gap. The only one I can think of is shout though, comically, the original intent of that spell IS to break things! I suppose they could just make it fling and deafen people, do a bit more damage then listed, and have a chance of deafening yourself. Doing "magic" damage would also make a few other things that protect from magic damage more useful. That would sate my personal spell lust.
Hey, @LadyRhian, by any chance, is there an Unforgotten Realms supplement somewhere that might have a decent 4th or 5th level direct damage spell for wizards? Totally awesome @Moomintroll. Totally forgot.
Book of wizard spells? Do you mean the Tome of Magic? I checked that. Well, whatever you have that they can use. That's why I suggested Forgotten Realms.
Suitably narrow yet or do I need to think of more conditions?
Unfortunate thing about Beltyn's Burning Blood: I think they used it in one of the IWD games and I believe there is some kind of legal embargo on IWD or PS content for BG:EE. Too bad; that was one of the more likely candidates, I think.
What about those other spells you mentioned like thunderlance? Let me guess, lots of damage to one target? That would be good because then you have direct damage but it's only to one target which still allows ice storm and cone of cold (area spells) to not be usurped as useful 4th / 5th level spells.
I know for sure that, without a cold item destruction on / off setting, if we don't get a decent direct damage in that level range, I'm definitely modding some in! Probally Beltyn's Burning Blood since I wouldn't have to do much messing with graphics.