Random spawns in EE, why so weak?

blackchimes

So roughly half an hour ago I reinstalled Baldur's Gate: The Original Saga for a quick check how AI pathfinding works in the original game. For this I needed enemies in open areas, so I just rushed to Gorion to get out of Candlekeep. Sorry Shank and that other guy.

After kicking Imoen out(who wasn't terribly upset by this - apparently she has a different kick-out dialogue if you roll a low reaction! Never knew that) I then rushed into the darkness of fog of war in search of enemies, and sure enough, here are two Gibberlings.

Wait. TWO Gibberlings?! And not even Diseased ones?! What is this madness?

Last weekend I've been hammering the EE to death and in the ~20 hours played I've never seen spawns so high. It's almost like EE is hardcoded to give you lowest possible spawns only. One regular Hobgoblin, one normal Wolf, one Black Bear, one Bandit... the only time when I've seen two enemies randomly spawn was when they were Kobolds. And that was on Insane difficulty, which supposedly should give you more HD in random spawns.

Hell, I remember back when TuTu was a thing, that one of the versions "accidentally" maximized random spawns in the game. Instead of one Black Bear, you got three. Bandits spawned in clumps of 5(all with bows. FML) Regular Wolf spawn was a Worg, and if you got unlucky(or lucky, depends on how you want to look at it) you got a Dread Wolf. Yeah, a Dread Wolf straight out of Candlekeep! So if you want to know how "Insane" spawns should look like, here you go.

tl;dr: there seems to be something wrong with random spawns in EE. They just don't deliver. Obviously I'm not talking the crazy spawns from TuTu should be back(unless on Insane, then why not) but if the regular, vanilla Baldur's Gate spawned 2-3x more HD of monsters than EE, then this goes beyond whining of an old fanboy and into not accurately representing the original game.

And don't give me that crap about it being "too hard". This is the game which puts an Ogre in second area of the game. Tarnesh the Terrible in FAI. Spiders in Beregost. And so on. Surely anyone playing this game can handle two non-diseased Gibberlings.

Gallenger

I remember my first installation of TUTU was one with the busted spawns lol. I had 6-7 gibberlings spawning in the first zone and sometimes they would even spawn inside of each other and thus couldn't move lol. It was insanity. And then I made my way to the first forest zone South of Beregost and encountered a Vampiric Wolf which was something I could *not* deal with being as I had 0 magical weapons at that point and had to just run for it all the way out of the map lol.

ThacoBell

It could just be random luck. I pretty regularly get a dread wolf on the ambush map in EE.

Grond0

I think the relationship with party levels is a bit different. In vanilla BG1 I seem to remember the spawns were geared to average party level - so a party of 6 could face the same spawn as a party of 1. In BGEE I think the spawns are affected by total levels, so if you have more in your party you'll face stronger opponents. If you've been testing with a solo character blackchimes that therefore probably would make BGEE seem easier, but I don't think that's the case for the game overall.

blackchimes

That could be the case, as I was running the EE with solo F/M/T. Then again, a solo character will quickly "catch up" in levels with a regular six people party.

UnderstandMouseMagic

It's not been my experience with EE.
I got the vampire wolf once, mentioned in the second post, and there are large groups of gibberlings at the FAI/Coast Way crossroads.

On the other hand, last couple of playthroughs solo dismissing Imoen, I haven't encountered the wolf who always used to turn up where Gorion was killed.

So looks like @Grond0 has got it right.

blackchimes

Judging by this mod, apparently the game doesn't level spawns as it should, and it indeed checks party size and not just the average level.

Either way, I expected the Insane difficulty to override any such variation - isn't that what it's for?

gismorum

On legacy of bhaal difficulty I got a random encounter pack of 6 gibberlings and while desperately trying to kite them to death I ran into another pack of 4, in the first area south of beregost.

Got a random pack of like 7 skeleton slingers/melees in the high hedge area.

Beregost temple map I ran into a massive 8+ pack of mixed wolves.

That's without any mods installed. And yes I believe random spawns on normal maps (not the random encounters while traveling) check for your party size and possibly power, as I roll with a full group most of the time.

I think the traveling ones can be ridiculous either way because I got sucked into a "bandit archer circle death sentence" encounter while traveling to the friendly arm solo. -_-

ThacoBell

That wolf pack at the temple is a fixed encounter. Every map has a few that aren't random.

Grond0

blackchimes said:

Judging by this mod, apparently the game doesn't level spawns as it should, and it indeed checks party size and not just the average level.

Either way, I expected the Insane difficulty to override any such variation - isn't that what it's for?

What spawns should be is a question of taste - to me it makes perfect sense that you will get a more difficult spawn for a party of 6 than a solo character.

I agree that you might reasonably expect insane difficulty to affect the numbers and levels of creatures - but with the odd minor exception that's never been done in unmodded BG or BG2 (either in vanilla or EE). However, the game difficulty level does considerably affect the spawns you find in SoD - so if you like that idea you might want to give that game a go.

St. Andrew

I vaguely remember getting 1 shot by a gibberling right off the path while playing baldur's gate og, back in 98. Imoen watched in horror as her brother blew into chunks, and I saw my first disintegrating hand of death.