The question is do I roll with NPCs, or make my own party like in IWD?
I've used the new "Create Party" button to create a few companions and left one slot for Imoen.
The early rats were ridiculous, so I skipped them. Killing them is not a strict requirement. Rather, many players leave Candlekeep early without completing any of the small tasks.
Fights take longer, yes, but as I've chosen to travel a lot in search of low-hanging fruit, I cannot complain about any fights that "took hours". The longest battle where I had to run away from the enemies multiple times (in order to get a chance to drink healing potions) was against Degrodel's guards: http://steamcommunity.com/app/228280/discussions/3/364040166676601606/
I also didn't have half a dozen archers in my party, but more melee berserkers. In most cases I engaged enemies directly and used consumables much more often than I do if playing at lower difficulty modes.
Overall, what I found most interesting about LOB mode was that I had to explore the world more carefully, fled more often (as I didn't want to spend hours on some fights), returned to some areas and fights later, and burned a lot more consumables than usual.
That is why I do not like uber difficulties, it just encourages using most strongest and cheesiest tactics/characters/abilities/etc. Especially in games that are not made with balance in mind.
Better to play moderately hard game in a way I like than to play super hard mode in very unfun ways
My problem with LOB mode is that I still like to play the game as if I were the main character. I naturally progress through the world and fully explore the areas. I don't mind running from a battle and revisiting an area later on when I am stronger but I feel like LOB mode forces you to use your knowledge of where items are and exploit areas in the game that will allow for quick level up. Going to the Basilisk map with protection from petrification memorized so that you can level up 5 levels right out of candelkeep does not work for me. I find it horribly cheesy and won't do it.
In my mind, all strategy is lost in LOB mode because having long range weapons and using the environment to ambush is pointless due to the enemies having so many hitpoints that they will walk up to you and hit you no matter what ambush you planned or how well thought out your spells and weapons are. I find spells are practically useless because enemies have saving throws that make them pointless to cast. Armor class is pointless because they have thaco's that will allow them to hit you all the time regardless of what you use. I cleared all of the main path areas between the friendly arm and Nashel and my characters were just hitting level two. The game is slow and tedious even with power characters. Maybe the game is more fun and challenging if you level up to max level within an hour of starting the game but that is not roleplaying or fun for me.
HOW was not designed for Baldur's Gate and it was intended for a second run through of Icewind dale. It wasn't even working when SOD shipped and you can tell that no effort was spent on this difficulty mode when it comes to game balance. I waited two weeks before starting the game just for LOB mode to work and when I finally got it, I didn't like it.
LOB may be more balanced and professionally integrated into SOD but the first game is not fun unless you just want the raw challenge and you are going to cheese it in every way possible. SCS is fun and adding it to LOB mode will help make the AI better but LOB itself is poorly done in my opinion.
Personally, I will continue to play insane difficulty with SCS full install. I like difficulty but not damage sponge difficulty. I don't like to play first person shooters where every enemy has to be shot in the face 7 times in order to kill them either. It's a cheap and lazy way of making a well balanced and fun game hard by removing all balance and fun from the game.
In my opinion LOB mode would be great if it doubled the enemy HP and added a small +1 bonus to thaco and added new enemies to each encounter and smarter enemies with good ambushes. Enemies with 6 times the normal HP with large thaco and saving throw bonuses are junk and the lack of extra enemies spawned and improvements to the AI just detract further from LOB's worth.
I Agree @the_sextein and see your points too @Lord_Tansheron...still playing HOF on IWD was tedious and was really hack n slash and cheese tactics and looks like LOB is the same...I still have to implement SCS after finishing my SOD runs and think that is much better than LOB until they can figure out....I played Ascension and really should follow that lead as want different enemy AI tactics than just more HP and harder saves/thaco
Some people really love HoW. It seems like LoB is just ported over from that engine. It's a good option for those who want it. I personally don't like difficulty enhancements that give the AI an unfair advantage, even though I'm a human and have the unfair advantage of thinking and reloading. I prefer AI enhancements, myself, but some people really like this type of difficulty increase.
I just finished BG1 in Legacy of Bhaal mode and really enjoyed it. However I am now starting the SoD prologue, and find it IMPOSSIBLE in LoB mode! There are litterally hundreds of monsters attacking you at once! Has anybody succeeded, and if yes, how?? Thanks in advance
Some people really love HoW. It seems like LoB is just ported over from that engine.
HoF = Heart of Fury mode. HoW = Heart of Winter, a DLC extension to Icewind Dale. I guess you mean HoF and not HoW. Anyway, HoF gives more XP per kill, so you level up much more quickly. LOB doesn't do that. Effectively you get nothing for killing a group of kobold hitmen. On the contrary, an XP boost for the enemies would not work in BG1 due to its XP cap. You would reach the cap early and have access to everything that's needed to win all fights in the game.
Going to the Basilisk map with protection from petrification memorized so that you can level up 5 levels right out of candelkeep does not work for me. I find it horribly cheesy and won't do it.
Doing that doesn't help much and is only one of many battles you need to win to level up. And you do want to level up, even if only for the HP, because not only can enemies kill you with one hit, they survive longer because of their increased HP. Every tiny bit of XP will help.
I say, seek out all the low-hanging fruit and kill early whatever is manageable with low effort. Those few fights where the enemies cause trouble, flee, leave the area and return later.
Legacy of Bhaal mode is the most over-the-top ridiculous difficulty setting I've ever seen. Just think about what it would be like experiencing it without having experienced Heart of Fury mode beforehand. You'd NEVER have expected this kind of interpretation of "extremely difficult." You'd think the mode was meant to be a joke.
@OlvynChuru: I've seen more over-the-top difficulty modes before. Well, just one. TES IV: Oblivion's maximum difficulty setting made enemies deal 6 times as much damage to you, and made your attacks deal only 1/6 of their normal damage. It effectively made the game 36 times harder, unless you relied on allies and summons to do all the work for you (they didn't get weakened at all).
Then I found out you could overpower even that difficulty by using Alchemy and Absorb Willpower spells to reduce your Willpower to deeply negative values, pushing your base Fatigue to 1 and allowing a 100-point Fortify Fatigue effect to multiply your attack damage by 101. I was going through one of OOO's final and most difficult areas on the maximum difficulty setting, and one-shotting the toughest enemies in the game with a crummy little shortbow, just because I thought the shortbow was cute.
Can you even kill Drizzt in Legacy of Bhaal? I would think one would run out of ammo doing the "trapped on the other side of a lake" trick. I guess you could buy a bunch of ammo and throw it on the ground there, then go fill up and get more, before you fight him. What a pain in the keester.
I'm doing LoB solo as a sorceror. I first noticed the limitations at Sendai, where I spent like 20 minutes before getting a bad string of wishes and had to reload. Ravager is similarly annoying, taking an obscene amount of time.
Abazigal was the last major battle where I felt really confident. This battle is won with a series of planetars, projected images, and simulacrums. Up until this point, a planetar will pretty much beat the game for you. He will kill your planetars if you let him. Use magic swords and hope he keeps attacking them long enough to get you distance to re-summon, re-buff, or wish. He can catch you if you don't have cheetah boots and haste up, but you will normally have many stoneskins up.
Another battle I'm not looking forward to is the final seal in Watcher's Keep. I did the easy seal with the Rilmani group and was again incredibly frustrated by the unbreachable weapon immunity clause. We both just spammed mirror images and other defensive spells and beat each other to death. I did not use tenser's transformation here, but it might have worked. I still have heart seal and Demogorgon to kill...
I SHALL PREVAIL! I SHALL PREVAIL! I SHALL PREVAIL! I SHALL PREVAIL! I SHALL PREVAIL!
as the developers have said many times, changing AI in existing games would take a lot of effort, it would be like creating an expansion.
I haven't read the whole thread, so let me know if this was asked already: Why would it be so much work? The work has been done already in SCS (and also other mods, I hear). I'm sure the author of SCS would be more than happy to allow his work to be incorporated into the game as long as he gets the proper credit and coin. So it would just be a matter of integrating it into the game. Admittedly, that wouldn't be trivial, but it would be a relatively low amount of work in exchange for a massive improvement.
Siege of Dragonspear already has many, many elements of SCS, including pre-buffing, debuffing, spell order, healing, wands, potions, and very intelligent targeting and spell choices.
as the developers have said many times, changing AI in existing games would take a lot of effort, it would be like creating an expansion.
I haven't read the whole thread, so let me know if this was asked already: Why would it be so much work? The work has been done already in SCS (and also other mods, I hear). I'm sure the author of SCS would be more than happy to allow his work to be incorporated into the game as long as he gets the proper credit and coin. So it would just be a matter of integrating it into the game. Admittedly, that wouldn't be trivial, but it would be a relatively low amount of work in exchange for a massive improvement.
I believe it simplifies to every single creature using its own script for AI, rather than there being an overarching set of instructions for creatures to draw from.
It's probably a lot easier to do as you place them creating new content, than backtracking through an existing game making edits to every creature.
i've completed BGEE and SoD so far..For me,huge amount of life on enemies sometimes was more annoying than challenging, on the other hand, i was forced to use a lot more various potions, spells like summons, wands, for example, while playing lesser difficulty, i would never use explosive arrows, just no point in using them, because everything would die fast enough already, and i would use summons only on rare battles like facing Firkraag.
SetPrivateProfileString('Game Options','No Difficulty Based XP Bonus','1')
Set it to "0"
I've recently started playing LoB in BGIIEE (for some reason it was not there last time I started BGEE/SoD, though both already v2.0+) and to make it reasonable, I've imported my alread pre-buffed (from Black Pits) character from BGEE/SoD plus some stuff (each game played with XP/lvl cap removed ofc). The reason for that is also that for the first time ever, I have main char multi-classed with 3 classes, so to actually achieve some reasonable level at least in ToB, I had to pre-buff it
However, I've learned there should be this XP or gold bonus. So I have turned the XP and gold bonuses on, plus actually turned on the Nightmare Mode, cause I had difficulty 5, but the NM was not on. Or is that yet something else? Cause the ingame settings shows LoB enabled.
Anyway, when I try to kill a dog now, I still get 70 XP, so I guess that's not correct behaviour? It seems there may also be a setting in each saved game (baldur.gam), so is it possible it remains such no matter what I change in the Baldur.lua?
EDIT// OK, I think it works, I got more XP for loxckpicking, writing down spells and also for the Gates lich, so…
I can't imagine how hard must be Lob+SCS! By the way IR/SR must be items and spells revision? The game is harder because some power items/weapons are nerfed?
I can't imagine how hard must be Lob+SCS! By the way IR/SR must be items and spells revision? The game is harder because some power items/weapons are nerfed?
Pretty much. The vanilla game has some fairly absurd strategies that make even LoB+SCS fairly easy if you use them (e.g. Improved Haste on 5 APR attackers to give them high-uptime 10 APR). While IR/SR don't address ALL of those, they do provide a significant rebalancing. It's not a straight-up nerf per se as some underpowered items also become more powerful (e.g. longbows), but it's true that the general power level should probably drop a bit using those two mods. Which is a GOOD thing. They also help in diversifying strategies, as more balance among items and spells generally tends to also lead to more competition among choice options.
Comments
The early rats were ridiculous, so I skipped them. Killing them is not a strict requirement. Rather, many players leave Candlekeep early without completing any of the small tasks.
Fights take longer, yes, but as I've chosen to travel a lot in search of low-hanging fruit, I cannot complain about any fights that "took hours". The longest battle where I had to run away from the enemies multiple times (in order to get a chance to drink healing potions) was against Degrodel's guards:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/228280/discussions/3/364040166676601606/
I also didn't have half a dozen archers in my party, but more melee berserkers. In most cases I engaged enemies directly and used consumables much more often than I do if playing at lower difficulty modes.
Overall, what I found most interesting about LOB mode was that I had to explore the world more carefully, fled more often (as I didn't want to spend hours on some fights), returned to some areas and fights later, and burned a lot more consumables than usual.
Better to play moderately hard game in a way I like than to play super hard mode in very unfun ways
In my mind, all strategy is lost in LOB mode because having long range weapons and using the environment to ambush is pointless due to the enemies having so many hitpoints that they will walk up to you and hit you no matter what ambush you planned or how well thought out your spells and weapons are. I find spells are practically useless because enemies have saving throws that make them pointless to cast. Armor class is pointless because they have thaco's that will allow them to hit you all the time regardless of what you use. I cleared all of the main path areas between the friendly arm and Nashel and my characters were just hitting level two. The game is slow and tedious even with power characters. Maybe the game is more fun and challenging if you level up to max level within an hour of starting the game but that is not roleplaying or fun for me.
HOW was not designed for Baldur's Gate and it was intended for a second run through of Icewind dale. It wasn't even working when SOD shipped and you can tell that no effort was spent on this difficulty mode when it comes to game balance. I waited two weeks before starting the game just for LOB mode to work and when I finally got it, I didn't like it.
LOB may be more balanced and professionally integrated into SOD but the first game is not fun unless you just want the raw challenge and you are going to cheese it in every way possible. SCS is fun and adding it to LOB mode will help make the AI better but LOB itself is poorly done in my opinion.
Personally, I will continue to play insane difficulty with SCS full install. I like difficulty but not damage sponge difficulty. I don't like to play first person shooters where every enemy has to be shot in the face 7 times in order to kill them either. It's a cheap and lazy way of making a well balanced and fun game hard by removing all balance and fun from the game.
In my opinion LOB mode would be great if it doubled the enemy HP and added a small +1 bonus to thaco and added new enemies to each encounter and smarter enemies with good ambushes. Enemies with 6 times the normal HP with large thaco and saving throw bonuses are junk and the lack of extra enemies spawned and improvements to the AI just detract further from LOB's worth.
I say, seek out all the low-hanging fruit and kill early whatever is manageable with low effort. Those few fights where the enemies cause trouble, flee, leave the area and return later.
Yes, I meant HoF, thanks for the correction.
Then I found out you could overpower even that difficulty by using Alchemy and Absorb Willpower spells to reduce your Willpower to deeply negative values, pushing your base Fatigue to 1 and allowing a 100-point Fortify Fatigue effect to multiply your attack damage by 101. I was going through one of OOO's final and most difficult areas on the maximum difficulty setting, and one-shotting the toughest enemies in the game with a crummy little shortbow, just because I thought the shortbow was cute.
LoB in SoD is poorly designed.
LoB in BG2 EE is good.
Use at your own peril.
I'm doing LoB solo as a sorceror. I first noticed the limitations at Sendai, where I spent like 20 minutes before getting a bad string of wishes and had to reload. Ravager is similarly annoying, taking an obscene amount of time.
Abazigal was the last major battle where I felt really confident. This battle is won with a series of planetars, projected images, and simulacrums. Up until this point, a planetar will pretty much beat the game for you. He will kill your planetars if you let him. Use magic swords and hope he keeps attacking them long enough to get you distance to re-summon, re-buff, or wish. He can catch you if you don't have cheetah boots and haste up, but you will normally have many stoneskins up.
Another battle I'm not looking forward to is the final seal in Watcher's Keep. I did the easy seal with the Rilmani group and was again incredibly frustrated by the unbreachable weapon immunity clause. We both just spammed mirror images and other defensive spells and beat each other to death. I did not use tenser's transformation here, but it might have worked. I still have heart seal and Demogorgon to kill...
I SHALL PREVAIL! I SHALL PREVAIL! I SHALL PREVAIL! I SHALL PREVAIL! I SHALL PREVAIL!
It's probably a lot easier to do as you place them creating new content, than backtracking through an existing game making edits to every creature.
However, I've learned there should be this XP or gold bonus. So I have turned the XP and gold bonuses on, plus actually turned on the Nightmare Mode, cause I had difficulty 5, but the NM was not on. Or is that yet something else? Cause the ingame settings shows LoB enabled.
Anyway, when I try to kill a dog now, I still get 70 XP, so I guess that's not correct behaviour? It seems there may also be a setting in each saved game (baldur.gam), so is it possible it remains such no matter what I change in the Baldur.lua?
EDIT// OK, I think it works, I got more XP for loxckpicking, writing down spells and also for the Gates lich, so…