Tactical challenge mods?

Tenrecc

Hi, I would love to play a party of 4-5 self-made characters but not have the game become too easy, so I'm looking for some challenging mods to spice up the playthrough. I did a similar run back in the original game with the Tactics, Ascension and Solaufein mods, but of them it seems only Ascension has made it to EE. Most people talk about SCS a lot, but it doesn't really sound like that difficult of a mod.

So yeah, basically I'm looking for if anyone has any tips or insight of a combination of mods that would make a 4-5 men self-made group run really challenging. Think Kuroisan/Red Badge/Eclipse Party/Ascension final fight stuff.

Kurona

If you're feeling macho right now you could give Improved Anvil a try. In spirit it's much closer to Tactics than SCS or more specifically closer to what Tactics would have become had Weimer not retired.

Note that it's pretty much a self-contained install; you won't use many other mods with it and it changes a lot of items, spells and classes. If this bothers you then SCS is your only real other choice.

Tenrecc

Oh yeah, I remember looking that up back in the days, but from what I heard that was just on a completely other level of difficulty, almost to the point of ridiculousness. Like, there was this Rakasha god that waved his hand every round and autodispelled all your buffs even through spell immunity and whatever. Hard-coded. I don't really enjoy fights that cheats with the mechanics, so to speak.

I think that's slightly too macho for me. I'm looking more for fights around the Eclipse group in difficulty, since that to this day is by far my favourite BG2 modded encounter.

I'll keep it in mind though. Maybe one day it's time to brave that beast.

critto

What you describe (a bit inaccurately) is the end-game encounter, and if you get to it in IA, you'll be ready for it, I gather. Nevertheless, you are right that IA is something entirely different in terms of difficulty, even though the beginning of the game gives you plenty of opportunities to learn.

IA now has a very detailed complimentary readme that explores some of design decisions and the current state of the mod, especially on the so-called "cheat & cheese" subject. The readme available online and should give a better understanding of what to expect.

Tenrecc

@critto

Alright, that makes it sound a bit interesting. It was after all ten years or so since I read about it last, and what I disliked wasn't that it was extremely challenging - I'm after extremely challenging -, it was that it sounded like it was, as I said, to the point of being ridiculous and made hard just for the sake of it.

The reason I liked the Eclipse party is because there was plenty to learn and outside of scripted spell casting (which could've been argued as them having access to near unlimited scrolls) and party wide time stops, they all played by the rules, the rules that I had become accustomed to beforehand and was looking to put to the test. Anvil sounded nothing like that.

Basically, I'm looking for a challenge I can defeat while using my arguably wide knowledge about the game, I'm not looking to learn a completely new one.

Thanks for clearing things up about the mod though, will definitely be worth reading about it. Who knows, maybe it's exactly what I'm after.

critto

Tenrecc said:

Alright, that makes it sound a bit interesting. It was after all ten years or so since I read about it last, and what I disliked wasn't that it was extremely challenging - I'm after extremely challenging -, it was that it sounded like it was, as I said, to the point of being ridiculous and made hard just for the sake of it.

This is true to a certain extent, but the difference between "challenging" and "hard for the sake of it" depends on one's point of view. The tactical mods are supposed to be hard for the sake of being challenging, after all.

Tenrecc said:

The reason I liked the Eclipse party is because there was plenty to learn and outside of scripted spell casting (which could've been argued as them having access to near unlimited scrolls) and party wide time stops, they all played by the rules, the rules that I had become accustomed to beforehand and was looking to put to the test. Anvil sounded nothing like that.

Enemies in IA, in the majority of cases, do not abuse things like unlimited casting or "cheesy" stuff like timestop. The mod actually makes it a big point to eradicate such things as much as possible. It does, however, break the rules sometimes, and it usually comes down to two scenarios:

1) an enemy has an "extraordinary" nature which gives the opportunity to grant him an "illegal" ability (e.g., dragons are not limited in terms of fireballs but the AI scripted not to abuse it very often and fight more "intelligently")

2) adjusting overall effectiveness of certain spells and types of attack that allow for "cheesy" behaviour. One of the most glaring examples would be missile weapons or traps, which are relatively useless in IA. They allow the player to employ guerilla tactics (hit & run, luring, etc.) which the AI is helpless against. It's a part of the mod's overall framework, so to speak. This is the main reason why many players dislike IA and consider the enemies to be the "cheaters". They are right, to a certain extent, of course.

Tenrecc said:

Basically, I'm looking for a challenge I can defeat while using my arguably wide knowledge about the game, I'm not looking to learn a completely new one.

Thanks for clearing things up about the mod though, will definitely be worth reading about it. Who knows, maybe it's exactly what I'm after.

I am afraid you would have to learn some stuff about the game due to many changes in the balance introduced by IA. If you are looking for a more conservative approach, which is understandable, SCS with tactics/ascension is a good and challenging combo, I imagine.

Tenrecc

critto said:

This is true to a certain extent, but the difference between "challenging" and "hard for the sake of it" depends on one's point of view. The tactical mods are supposed to be hard for the sake of being challenging, after all.

Uh yeah maybe I phrased that poorly. To me, Ascension and Tactics were challenging for the sake of being challenging in the good way, to give meaningful content to players who has mastered the ordinary game and was looking to test their skills further. Anvil sounded like it was designed to just try to make the most ridiculously difficult mod that ever existed just to see if it could be done, or to "outdo" all the other challenge mods as if it was some kind of competition.

critto said:

Enemies in IA, in the majority of cases, do not abuse things like unlimited casting or "cheesy" stuff like timestop. The mod actually makes it a big point to eradicate such things as much as possible. It does, however, break the rules sometimes, and it usually comes down to two scenarios:

1) an enemy has an "extraordinary" nature which gives the opportunity to grant him an "illegal" ability (e.g., dragons are not limited in terms of fireballs but the AI scripted not to abuse it very often and fight more "intelligently")

2) adjusting overall effectiveness of certain spells and types of attack that allow for "cheesy" behaviour. One of the most glaring examples would be missile weapons or traps, which are relatively useless in IA. They allow the player to employ guerilla tactics (hit & run, luring, etc.) which the AI is helpless against. It's a part of the mod's overall framework, so to speak. This is the main reason why many players dislike IA and consider the enemies to be the "cheaters". They are right, to a certain extent, of course.

Well yeah, that sounds fair. I've never complained about Dragons having instant cast fireballs or the ability to see invisible units. But you can still protect against dragon's abilities in appropriate manners. Fire resistance, Mirror images, spell immunity, MR (I think?), there are tons of different ways to protect yourself from that.

A dispel magic that is global, frequent and impossible to protect from with spell immunity (etc) doesn't sound fun in the slightest however.

critto said:

I am afraid you would have to learn some stuff about the game due to many changes in the balance introduced by IA. If you are looking for a more conservative approach, which is understandable, SCS with tactics/ascension is a good and challenging combo, I imagine.

I'm not too avert to changes, I would almost appreciate the nerf of some of the more ridiculous classes and strategies, such as Inquisitor dispel magic or Spike/Time traps, to force me to try out new things.

I think I'll be settling for SCS with some restrictions or an additional mod for the next playthrough though. But thanks a lot for the information, it's definitely opened my eyes to the possibility of trying the mod out sometime in the future.

critto

Tenrecc said:

Uh yeah maybe I phrased that poorly. To me, Ascension and Tactics were challenging for the sake of being challenging in the good way, to give meaningful content to players who has mastered the ordinary game and was looking to test their skills further. Anvil sounded like it was designed to just try to make the most ridiculously difficult mod that ever existed just to see if it could be done, or to "outdo" all the other challenge mods as if it was some kind of competition.

To my knowledge, the mod was never designed with that intent in mind. In fact, the original author had quite the opposite motivation - make a mod where "cheesy" stuff (seemingly powerful item upgrades from the classic Weimer's mod which were indeed OP in vanilla) was paired with "impossible" stuff (a more sane version of another Weimer's classic) in order to produce a balanced experience. Eventually, it had evolved in a more of a "total conversion" kind of thing (although Sikret himself never liked that definition).

Tenrecc said:

Well yeah, that sounds fair. I've never complained about Dragons having instant cast fireballs or the ability to see invisible units. But you can still protect against dragon's abilities in appropriate manners. Fire resistance, Mirror images, spell immunity, MR (I think?), there are tons of different ways to protect yourself from that.

A dispel magic that is global, frequent and impossible to protect from with spell immunity (etc) doesn't sound fun in the slightest however.

One of the core ideas of IA is to focus on hand-crafted encounters that feel unique and provide different kinds of challenges. The rakshasa god is one of those things. By the time you encounter him (that's end game), you have a powerful party with lots of abilities (HLAs, alacrity, tons of spells and consumables, triggers & contingencies, etc.) to counter-act that kind of behaviour and build your strategy around it. It's fun for those people who enjoy that kind of thing.

But I can see why do you have that point of view. I remember some players who had beaten IA but stopped at the final encounter because it felt a bit too much or just a drag in terms of real playing time required. In fact, I have plans to tone that particular encounter down.

Tenrecc said:

I'm not too avert to changes, I would almost appreciate the nerf of some of the more ridiculous classes and strategies, such as Inquisitor dispel magic or Spike/Time traps, to force me to try out new things.

I think I'll be settling for SCS with some restrictions or an additional mod for the next playthrough though. But thanks a lot for the information, it's definitely opened my eyes to the possibility of trying the mod out sometime in the future.

No problem. If you ever decide to give it a try, we can always give you a few pointers or help out in some way.

Tenrecc

critto said:

But I can see why do you have that point of view. I remember some players who had beaten IA but stopped at the final encounter because it felt a bit too much or just a drag in terms of real playing time required. In fact, I have plans to tone that particular encounter down.

Are you a modder? If so, I'd appreciate if you let me know when/if that downtuning has been made.

ineth

Tenrecc said:

I did a similar run back in the original game with the Tactics, Ascension and Solaufein mods, but of them it seems only Ascension has made it to EE.

Tactics has made it too.
(The EE port is officially still an "alpha" release, but some components work perfectly well already. See the README and thread comments, to find out which ones are safe to install.)

Tenrecc said:

Most people talk about SCS a lot, but it doesn't really sound like that difficult of a mod.

You underestimate it.

It's main appeal isn't the "Tactical Challenges" components¹ - they're just a bonus, and many of them are redundant with the Tactics mod anyway².

Instead, it's the "AI Enhancements" components that give SCS its deserved fame.

Smarter Mages, Smarter Beholders, Smarter Mind Flayers, and Improved Vampires, in particular, can make a veteran BG2 player feel like a total n00b again, and force you to really learn how to use your party's spells and abilities to the max.

If you only want a moderate difficulty increase, skip Smarter Beholders and Smarter Mind Flayers, and select the option to disable enemy prebuffing when installing Smarter Mages.

---
1) See the README of the EE version of the Tactics mod, for details on which SCS and Tactics components can be installed together. Tactics' Improved Ilyich combined with SCS' Smarter Mages, for example, can make Irenicus Dungeon quite a challenge.
2) Though the Slightly Improved Drow component really is something else :

critto

Tenrecc said:

Are you a modder? If so, I'd appreciate if you let me know when/if that downtuning has been made.

I am currently maintaining IA. At the BWL forum, there's a progress report thread where I occasionally write reports on the state of events. Some toning down will probably happen for the upcoming 7.0 release, but there's no ETA on it. I will probably propose to add IA to the list of EE compatible mods here at Beamdog forums when the 7th version is out. It is already compatible, actually, but only with the 1.3 version.

Tenrecc

ineth said:

Instead, it's the "AI Enhancements" components that give SCS its deserved fame.

Smarter Mages, Smarter Beholders, Smarter Mind Flayers, and Improved Vampires, in particular, can make a veteran BG2 player feel like a total n00b again, and force you to really learn how to use your party's spells and abilities to the max.

Smarter doesn't mean much though, does it? I mean, my general strategy for mind flayers is simply backstabbing them since they can't see through invis. No amount of AI is gonna help them against that. And similar things exists for all creatures in the game, if you just know how to deal with them.

ineth said:

If you only want a moderate difficulty increase, skip Smarter Beholders and Smarter Mind Flayers, and select the option to disable enemy prebuffing when installing Smarter Mages.

No, I want something that can actually challenge me playing a whole premade party, and the problem is that even with all components, SCS doesn't sound like it can live up to that. Maybe mixed with Ascension or another mod, or some selfimposed restrictions or so.

I mean, basically everyone seems to be playing with SCS installed, so how hard can it be?

Kurona

SCS difficulty tends to be exaggerated but if you've never played it it might surprise you. Improved Vampires are cheap as all hell with an unblockable CON drain that lasts for hours and the Mind Flayers see through invisibility, not to mention they routinely become invisible themselves. It changes things quite a bit.

For human enemies, thieves focus heavily on maximum backstabs and target the squishies as much as possible. Mages are actually pretty disappointing overall, they're simply too obsessed with defenses to pose much of a threat unless they're Raskhasas at which point they can be dangerous.

Tenrecc

Kurona said:

SCS difficulty tends to be exaggerated but if you've never played it it might surprise you. Improved Vampires are cheap as all hell with an unblockable CON drain that lasts for hours and the Mind Flayers see through invisibility, not to mention they routinely become invisible themselves. It changes things quite a bit.

For human enemies, thieves focus heavily on maximum backstabs and target the squishies as much as possible. Mages are actually pretty disappointing overall, they're simply too obsessed with defenses to pose much of a threat unless they're Raskhasas at which point they can be dangerous.

Alright, alright, I like what I hear. Things like this will definitely force me into using alternative approaches, and it does seem to buff up some of the enemies that are supposed to be dangerous monsters, but really doesn't feel like it, like mind flayers and rakshasas.

Kurona

Oh and if you like dangerous Fiends, install aTweaks after SCS and give SCS-buffed fiends aTweaks AI (including Gating).

Tenrecc

@Kurona
@critto
@ineth

By the way, do any of you guys know if SCS insane changes more than just double damage taken? Like, are they even smarter or have more abilities? I'm trying to read as little of the mod as possible before trying, but this would be very useful to know.

critto

It's definitely the "smarter" part. SCS's AI scripts are extensive and well thought-out, there's no "dumb" approach.

In fact, SCS is pretty complicated in terms of engineering: the mod features its own framework library and meta-language with a kind of on-the-fly compiler for writing and generating complex scripts more efficiently.

Kurona

Tenrecc said:

@Kurona
@critto
@ineth

By the way, do any of you guys know if SCS insane changes more than just double damage taken? Like, are they even smarter or have more abilities? I'm trying to read as little of the mod as possible before trying, but this would be very useful to know.

There are couple options to allow this (like mages pre-buffing like crazy only on Hard or higher) but in general no.

Tenrecc

Kurona said:

Tenrecc said:

@Kurona
@critto
@ineth

By the way, do any of you guys know if SCS insane changes more than just double damage taken? Like, are they even smarter or have more abilities? I'm trying to read as little of the mod as possible before trying, but this would be very useful to know.

There are couple options to allow this (like mages pre-buffing like crazy only on Hard or higher) but in general no.

So unless I go in and mix and change things around, the only thing insane does is increase the damage enemies does by 100%?

I've always felt that was a boring and unbalanced way of increasing difficulty which only leads to dual or multi mages being even better since they flat out negate damage and doesn't care whether they fight kobolds or ravagers when it comes to how much damage they take.

If that's the case I'll play on Core most likely. Just want to make sure I'm not missing anything of importance and people going "oh that isn't the real scs" over it.

Kurona

Yeah Insane is stupid. Hurr durr double damage. Supposedly it now also raises the amount of spawns but I only noticed the difference in Siege of Dragonspear.

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Tenrecc

subtledoctor said:

SCS is excellent and challenging in a very satisfying way.

Nice praises, since you seem to know what you're talking about. I've decided to go for only SCS for now, with the self-imposed party limitation of only playing humans, and only a Fighter, a Thief, a Cleric and a Mage. Hopefully it'll be a good run, if it is I can look into more mods later

subtledoctor said:

Finally, turn on Hard or Insane difficulty, but turn *off* the damage and XP adjustments that go along with it. So the only result is extra enemy spawns. (I recommend my creature-kill XP reduction mod along with this.)

Ow right, forgot that was a thing.

And thanks for the tips, might look into a lot more mods in the future

critto

> All of that together should make things pretty interesting, without changing or violating the basic rules and game mechanics.
Barring, of course, complete removal of magical resistance as a concept by one of your mods

Following your logic, MR is a part of game mechanics. IA and SCS grant extra MR, DR or other resistances to monsters whereas you take them away. How is that not a violation of basic rules?

PS: I'm not criticising, just curious. And your combination sounds quite fun. I'd try it if you weren't releasing a new version every other day

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critto

> My new versions are slowing down a lot - these days I'm mostly just bug-fixing. (Except for Faiths & Powers will be released soon and will be glorious, in every sense of the word.)
Any plans for a final release?

I've written a pair of paragraphs in reply regarding the MR issue but decided to drop it since this is pointless anyway. The overall idea sounds curious and I'd try it whenever the mods reach a certain more stable check-point. Perhaps, when the EET is stable too. That'd be a good opportunity to do the whole saga one last time.

gorgonzola

subtledoctor said:

Personally I think Tactics and IA add a superficial kind of challenge by "breaking the rules" - giving enemies unexplained and non-standard immunities, etc. Basically they are impossible until you figure out the "winning" strategy for each encounter; and then with that strategy, it becomes fairly easy. That's an over-generalization and I don't mean to insult those mods - they are very well done and have devoted, smart fans. They are just not to my taste.

I agree with you on the fact that they are impossible until you figure out the "winning" strategy, even if this is what make me appreciate them so much. Because there is not only a "winning" strategy, I find my fun in finding every time new ones (or maybe not new but as long as I didn't know them and didn't copy them from others for me are good as new ones).
Different tastes and this is fine

My point is just that if you you figure out, or even worst steal from other players, the "winning" strategy for each encounter and stick to it forever I suspect that the game will become boring and easy, no matter how is modded.

Your approach is completely different to Weimer's one and Sikret's one is different from both. And that is great because a player can choose according to his tastes or maybe enjoy all them in different runs and I tank you modders one more time for the GREAT work that you donate to the community.
But the fact that when you have found the trick the game becomes fairly easy (and boring) imo is independent from the modder approach, is a player related problem. All of those approaches can lead to funny and creative gaming if a player uses his creativity, always search for new still unexplored ways.

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critto

Actually, I was referring to the whole "Something & something" series of mods. Combining all of them together sounds like a fairly new experience, along with the Scales of Balance. I tried to get a play-through going some time ago, but with my gaming speed (about 30 minutes per week) the install had gotten hopelessly outdated very quickly. That's why I decided to put the whole thing off for a later date.

> Oh I understand it's not for everyone. It's really just for me, I only released it in case some other weirdo finds it fun.
Well, that's a good motivation. Any mod should represent an idea of a good playing experience of the mod's author, first and foremost.

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