Gosh, I had not realized that the Staff of the Magi was so powerful that it was considered cheesy. I gave mine to Neera and she alternates it with her sling and the Staff of Air Control. I shall henceforth alter my tactics, thanks to everyone who contributed to this thread. A pearl to you all
It is fine as long as you do not constantly click it to reapply the invisibility.
I do like Beamdog's improvements and I kinda love the HoF mode idea they did with LoB in bg2.
But.. It's a weird sentiment thinking you can re-balance the game. Sure Beamdog has taken ownership and I take no issue with that. But thinking you can do better at enhancing gameplay enjoyment and longevity (which is what nerfing measures are in a single player game) than the original Black Isle team seems a bit presumptuous. Not to mention nerfing poison just to balance your own newly introduced class..Come on guys, that's just beyond inelegant and quite frankly lame.
Please with all the modifications you're making, consider adding options in the settings gui to use original mechanics.
Adapt and overcome is usually the way I approach changes or challenges. I never used the exploits mentioned , and TBH, it would feel like taking unfair advantage (and making it less enjoyable for me). Just a game I know, but being able to at least try to immerse my self in any given run, and play it as fair as possible makes it more enjoyable and satisfying to ME. This is probably why I have played it for so many years.
To each his own though. I suppose some sort of option of reverting a game back to originals would not be unwelcome, but after a while the many options everyone would like to see available would get to be overwhelming for a developer. If a developer was bringing new life into the game as I think BEAMDOG has, changes or not, it can only help bring the game alive again and introduce even more players to the joy that is BG. Having more players and new players, to me, means at least some will get to be interested in modding and that will lead to more options and even some things that might never have been done or tried before.
The old adage 'You can always please some people some of the time, but you can't please everyone all of the time', seems like it applies, at least when it comes to games thousands play. We even have a few mods out there now that give options to change some things back.
Actually you CAN try to please as many people as you can. Alienating entire subgroups (in the sense that they share similar general concerns) of people never works (unless you wipe them all out, according to history) and using that "old adage" to justify doing so merely counts as using an excuse. This is clearly not about just individual players or fringe groups.
And like I keep repeating, the lines between what counts as an exploit or not blur when we talk about BG2 because many of the features in the game are BG2-specific and very little basis in D&D. Those lines are pretty much nonexistent to a strategy game player anyway, which is why I find it easy to notice them based on the feedback of other players. Some people simply have a hard time thinking about the game from a different perspective, but take the time to read thousands of peoples' opinions about BG2 over years and you'll begin to see the patterns too. Ultimately those lines seem more subjective than anything.
And I keep hearing people repeat "exploits" as if they absolutely know for certain which tactics/strategies count as exploits or not. Unless someone forgot to tell me that there's some sort of impartial organization that handles these things, the simple fact is that when it comes to certain tactics people are STILL going on about what counts as an exploit or not in this game. How exactly do you know? BG2 simply operates at a level that draws inspiration from but is distinct from D&D, and even if you DO try to use D&D logic here the simple fact is that when it comes to the interaction of many of these effects D&D's response is pretty much - "leave it to the DM/players".
Ultimately it boils down to power and options. When you accept that; when you accept that there are already too many ways to break the game using "legit" means anyway, or that the game has much, much worse "exploits" usually associated with clearly powerful classes (which is relevant if the game devs have some sort of double standard, which seems to be something none of us here are really want to consider) then essentially what's happening here is that your options are simply being slowly thinned out.
@Nuin Well of course, TRYING to please as many as possible would seem to be in everyone's best interest. And as you alluded to, alienation can lead to discontent. I was thinking that if ppl wanted it they still have access to play the original game, I'm not sure on that.
What would YOU do to fix the perceived/real problem as you see it? What do you think BEAMDOG should or should not have done, given they got the rights to work on things
That's pretty simple. Find a meta that allows both old and new to coexist. Instead of "fixing" things that don't need to be fixed, in the case of this particular example simply make it so that a bard can only have one Mislead image at a time, but that the Mislead, the bard and the Simulacrum image songs stack. All images now also count towards a much more strictly enforced summon limit, and enemy casters (divine ones, in particular) are now more likely to use spells like True Seeing. Which they should really be doing anyway. Of course these changes would then need to be fine-tuned as necessary.
People are always going to find ways to undermine the system, your job is to simply make it so that doing so means they're doing it with intent and to try and find some middle ground between effort required and reward. Otherwise you're simply trying to control people, and that's going to turn out so well.
I'm not sure if people are aware of this, but in recent years quite a number of games have experienced a resurgence of interest and "enhanced" editions. Maybe the people who once played these games finally grew up and decided to put their industry skills to work, maybe it's nostalgia, maybe it's combination of a lot of things and the fact that many of these games are now held as the standard for new games. The BG:EE series was not the first to get this treatment, but it was one of the early major attempts. Actually it's not an uncommon phenomenon in other entertainment mediums like movies, and you can actually draw many parallels between the movie industry and the (relatively younger) video game industry. Movies also get remakes/re-releases, there's a ton of papers on the subject if you want to see how that goes.
1) OMG dude, let's play the scenario out. You're in a room full of people trying to stab you to death. You prudently turn invisible do they can't find you. So far so good! What to do next? Now you have the stupendous idea of... singing. Singing. Out loud. How does that not lead to your immediate disemboweling? It's the dumbest idea possible in that situation... I'm sorry, the game should punish such an idea. And btw the entire game comes straight from D&D, this contention that they're unrelated is just... strange.
And in BG2 you can also stop time over and over again. What's your point?
2) It's done. Why are you still spilling digital ink and time and brainpower over this dead horse. (Yes I mix metaphors, get over it. ) They're not going back. Why keep trying to convince everyone you are Right, when 1) the people who disagree will clearly never accept your arguments, and 2) even if you are Right and they are Wrong, nothing will change anyway?
Because it needs to be discussed? Welcome to the new generation, where we actually talk about the skeletons in our closets instead of constantly trying to pretend they don't exist. Call it the internet generation but knowledge seems to be a much bigger thing these days, both the good and stupid/silly unfortunately. Ultimately this discussion might prove uselessas far as BG2:EE is concerned, but it really only matters that it's not stupid.
I'm not arguing that they don't, I'm arguing that the devs are changing the rules and turning the game into something different from the BG2 I know. That's kind of the whole point of all this...
Dude srsly don't do that. The sin of hubris is upon you... don't flash it around like a fancy new jacket. The internet generation acts rude to others but is horrified when criticized. They suppose their elders are all simpletons or neanderthals, they they themselves somehow sprung from the world like Athena, fully formed and brimming with wisdom, without guidance or inheritance. They publish "life hacks" teaching 25-year-olds what they should have learned at 14. And the result of their supposed magnificence? New kinds of vapid popularity contests, new ways to bully people, and pervasive advertising and corporate tracking of citizens' behaviors. Whatta world.
I'm not sure where this is coming from, hubris assumes that you have something to prove and that you absolutely know that you're right. You need to know the difference when someone is simply telling you what the facts are. I can't help if there's an overwhelming amount of info I know about the subject from my viewpoint, you tend to accumulate such things over the years. Anyway you will notice, for example, that I'm stopping short of simply telling people that Beamdog's version sucks. I simply cannot make that logical leap, and in any case it's the TREND of changes I'm heavily against. All I can really say is that he's turning BG2:EE into a game I don't recognize, and I don't like it.
I can tell people that such attempts to change the source material in a limiting way have precedents and they generally don't work out well, because it's true. I can tell people that such attempts go against the spirit of the game's strategy RPG core, because it's true. I can't tell people that Beamdog's attempts to change BG2 is going to ultimately suck, because that would be conjecture - I'm working with an incomplete formula. People are still basically free to "fill in the blanks" using their own opinions, or simply leave it blank (as in my case).
And don't blame people for acting like immature idiots. Youth has always been like that, the internet just gave them a wider audience. There's a difference between a youngster posting dick picks and people actually using the internet to point other people towards other important information (on a global scale) that you can't get anywhere else. There is simply no precedent for such a thing before the internet.
However you feel about things, we're living in a time where accountability and the spread of information is rising rapidly. People aren't joking when they say that even extremely obscure information can end up in the internet these days. It's the flipside of the system. The concept is why acknowledging the skeletons in your closet is better in this modern meta, because sooner or later someone comes looking. Discussions bring perspective, and perspective brings knowledge.
And really, you know could take some of your own advice and not care that the argument is still ongoing. It's not like we're discussing something risque or political or religious etc.
1) OMG dude, let's play the scenario out. You're in a room full of people trying to stab you to death. You prudently turn invisible do they can't find you. So far so good! What to do next? Now you have the stupendous idea of... singing. Singing. Out loud. How does that not lead to your immediate disemboweling? It's the dumbest idea possible in that situation... I'm sorry, the game should punish such an idea. And btw the entire game comes straight from D&D, this contention that they're unrelated is just... strange.
You seem to have very clear ideas yourself @subtledoctor about what's right or wrong on this issue, but there really is another side to it. - in terms of gaming the bard song is magical and thus I don't think real world experience is terribly relevant. 2nd edition rules have always allowed magic to be cast without breaking invisibility, so personally I can't see why the standard bard song should break invisibility (and I'm not aware of any 2nd edition rule that says this happens, but it is a long time since I read those rulebooks so I may be wrong there ). - if you do want to drag the real world into it, then I would agree that singing will let enemies know someone is there, but that's not the same thing at all as being able to instantly find them. There's been a lot of research over the years on emergency vehicle sirens - partly to do with the volume required for audibility, but also a lot on trying to ensure people listening are able to locate where the sound is coming from. That's still not always easy to do, even using a sound specifically designed to be located. It doesn't seem at all fanciful to me to believe that invisible bards, trained to disguise where their voice is coming from and moving around while singing, would be impossible to target with weapons in a standard fight.
You're in a room full of people trying to stab you to death. You prudently turn invisible do they can't find you. So far so good! What to do next? Now you have the stupendous idea of... singing. Singing. Out loud.
So do spellcasters, they chant, chant. Out loud.... Now should we let ALL spells break invincibility to avoid this double standards? You see, it's a never ending circle, and if we all do what we think we should or shouldn't, EE games won't be Baldur's Gate anymore.
Besides, as stated already, stack-able Songs is a wholly different matter. it's not blocking anybody's way, if you don't like it, don't use it, leave it to people who will, no body needs to kill it. Unless of course, the decision maker is the same person in charge from the original team.
reverting a game back to originals would not be unwelcome, but after a while the many options everyone would like to see available would get to be overwhelming for a developer.
Sorry I don't get it. It's EE dev who decided to "revert" from the original in the first place right?
If this thread gives birth to a mod kit for a bard whose song panics enemies, heals friends, and has a siren sound effect then it will have justified its existence .
You say that as if any thread on the forums has any value to someone who doesn't care anyway. In case it wasn't obvious, these threads only have as much value as you care to put in them. The forums could suddenly go offline and Beamdog will still have his Facebook, Twitter, his very own customer support website, etc.
In any case I highly doubt no one's tried to make an IWD2 bard song version mod.
@islandking Help me to understand better then because I would like to. Is it that the ones that bought the rights to work on game do not have the options to decide to change things? Do they have the rights to change anything i? Needed to ask that to get the underlying thinking here better. What's your opinion on this? Seems like it comes up sometimes with updating different games.
I didn't like many of the PnP things changed in AD&D after 1st, so I just keep and play the first, adapting anything new as I see fit. ( If I could mod a game I might do that).
As much as some things might bother me, in the end , I did not put up the cash to work on a great game of the past.
Can't one just play an original game, mod it to their content, OR play the new version,and take the changes as they are (or learn to mod them for oneself)? Just questions they I thought I needed to ask in order to better understand this issue. Is it JUST the bard song? I am thinking the game can still be enjoyed regardless, right (maybe not)? I am sure their must some changes that are regarded as nice, right(or am I wrong)?
I THINK what I was saying in the last post was I wonder how many options on the numerous issues different folks have with the various changes to the original game would they need to include for one to check 'apply' or 'not apply'? How many before it gets too complicated? I am just asking the questions here to understand it in a better light.
I always figured that someone who paid out the cabbage to buy the rights to a game, could change things as they saw it in 'THEIR mind', and take the risks of losing money or making enough of a profit to make it worthwhile. The original will always be there.
It just does not seem a big deal to me, but, in the same light, I can see how it might be for others, for not only bard song issues but other issues as well. The bard invisibility bothered me at first but did not stop me from playing many bards.
Seems like we can accept the changes, or just throw it away and never play the new edition again. I know I won't do that myself, certainly.
Maybe the main difference for me is I don't really play it to WIN, I play it for the roleplay aspect. Actually for me, getting to the end is the worst part. Game over ,no more 'that' character. It's not right or wrong but just me. Exploits take the fun out for me, but obviously not for others. To each his own. I actually found not playing the bard anymore made me appreciate some of the other classes more.
I reckon if I cared enough about it though I would write BEAMDOG a big enough check and say I would like this done, how much would it cost? Still waiting on that winning lotto ticket though.
I like to see ppl get along, hence the long response. Most of it is just thinking aloud so to speak, so I hope no one sees it as an attack, because it is not. It is an attempt to understand because it is what I like to do.
@Zaghoul It’s OK, I don’t think anyone sees it as an attack, discussions are reasons why we’re here after all.
Now the 1st thing I don’t get from your logic after I read your posts is that why do you think it’s overwhelming for EE dev to revert back to the originals given the fact that it’s all these reverting from originals that make this game called EE. It will take some efforts, no doubt, but certainly not overwhelming(aka. Impossible if I get your meaning correct?) And here I mean especially the Bard Song exploit considering there'll be just as the same efforts to revert it back as there were when they changed it to what it is like now.
2nd, we should consider every change separately and individually, not as a whole. Take this topic as an example, there’re two DIFFERENT discussions here: ~no.1~should bard songs break invisibility? ~no.2~should bard songs from phantoms stack?
For~no.1~ I think @Grond0 has made a fairly good point in previous posts, that bard song is considered magical, so if all self-targetable spells such as Aid, Protection from Evil/Fire/cold/Acid/Electrical, all self-only spells such as Draw Upon Holy Might, all self-centered spells such as lvl4 Protection from Evil etc. not break invisibility, why Bard Song break it? Because Bards 're singing loudly? As loudly as spellcasters chanting spells?
For~no.2~ I think I’ve mentioned several times already that those stack-able phantom Bard Songs is not standing in anybody’s way except under some extreme situations. “if you don't like it, don't use it, leave it to people who will, nobody needs to kill it” ~sorry for quoting again~. So why kill it? It’s killing freedom, eliminating potential playstyles, and does the change benefit anybody, does it benefit the EE version? No, it doesn’t, because it’s like content deletion. Wouldn't it be a much better way to implement their thoughts if they give players options to choose from?
Of course, Beamdog perfectly have every rights to do whatever they please with EE, and so do their customers. Now that players know what they'll do to their EE counterparts, it’s like telling everybody everytime they release a game that “We’ll kill freedom, eliminating possible ways of play available in originals, limiting the game into what we think you should play by every coming patch” which I don’t think is a good thing for anybody at all, even their loyal customers, because nobody benefits anything from limitations.
Lastly, maybe we’re both straying from the topic too much, so let’s try to focus back to topic as much as possible- the Bard song in Baldur's Gate.
@islandking Yeah, not impossible, just seems like something the devs. were not focusing on and did, or would not want to get bogged down. I'm not a modder so maybe it IS something they could tackle(the reversion thing). On the considering thing we probably should consider changes but I' was thinking more along the lines of who the WE actually was/is
I like to use RR mod which makes the bard songs bypass magic resistance to not really an issue using that for me. Atweaks gives the same options for the singing invisible thing so I can work around that if needed to. Given those two options It doesn't bother me. Some may not like to add the mods though so many will have a different reaction. Have you tried that one for the stay/not stay invisible option? It let's us break it down to all bards or just jesters. I remember being surprised when I added RR, it added the invisible singing back into the game automatically, if anyone is interested in that.
I agree options for bard songs and mislead spells, etc would be good to offer, but like I said, its up to the modders to decide how much work to put into options. Shoot, with hall the options ppl might like, IF we were going beyond these two alone, the option screen might look like the Harley Davidson motorcycle catalog. That's all I am saying on that, but again, not impossible. I just wonder if anyone would feel left out if the thing THEY did not want changed was NOT reverted and the bard songs were (just thinking ahead here).
Heck, I'm just happy to be playing the game again I can stray a bit, Hehheh ,but it is a tendency I have in looking at a wider view sometimes. Thanks for the reply, it helps.
@Zaghoul I like EE all the way, I brought them on release though I haven't played much till recently (waiting for them AND the mods to be stable...), I just think that Beamdog can do it better, staying true to the originals is the best foundation they can step on most of the time, bearing that in mind, do whatever creative way they like, I welcome all creativity with freedom.
I currently don't have mods that modify bard songs, and for install order & compatibility's sake I'll keep it that way before my next run, I think I'll have to change it to Plan B: kicking H'D out for classical Edwin way.
Stacking rules are crazy in the original games. I recall ToBEx helping things a bit, but the situation was still never good. The EEs, on the other hand, have become much more consistent in this regard. Many many little tweaks combined to create this consistency, and not stacking the same bard song is just one of them.
This is true. In the original, tons of stuff stacked that obviously shouldn't have, and pretty much everyone agreed that it was kind of dumb behavior. You could stack three Hardinesses to become 120% resistant to physical damage, so all physical attacks actually healed you. You could do the same thing with Armor of Faith.
Doom stacked and a team of divine casters could give enemies -10 or more malus to their saving throws in short order, (especially if some of them were C/M with access to sequencers). Friends was cumulative, so a mage with 3 CHA could just cast Friends three times to get the maximum store discount. Blur stacked, so you could cast a half-dozen and enemies got -18 to their attack rolls and you got a 6-point bonus to all saves.
And this was dumb, and some of it was patched by the BG2 crew, and the rest was patched by friendly mods that became nearly universal like the BG2 Fixpack, and many of those mods were among the first things incorporated into the EEs, and that was totally fine because that's a perfectly sensible, logical thing.
Now, maybe Bard Song Stacking is categorically different from Hardiness stacking or Blur stacking. Maybe it's categorically similar, but it falls along a spectrum such that fixing Doom stacking was good and fixing song stacking is bad. Or maybe it's really all just the same thing and the real shock is that it took Beamdog this long to get around to song stacking.
I just don't get the complaint that this is somehow new behavior from the Beamdog devs that constitutes a fresh betrayal, instead of merely continuing business as usual. Because they've been fixing what they viewed as erroneous ability stacking since day 1.
ok. somebody explain this to me. How does a 4 part harmony improve your morale and capability better than a single artist? Are they playing different instruments are something that somehow affect your brain a little differently?
A master musician can mix different songs and I can see the different tunes have different effects. Different types of music can help to put me in different moods and approach things differently.
That's just my view on reasonable justification why they shouldn't stack. And I don't feel an argument of "Because I should be allowed to break the System!" is a valid reason why it shouldn't be changed.
As for the invisibility part. Somebody already touched on it. But in vanilla BG and BG2 some of those non-damaging spells would actually reveal the general presence of the invisible individual. They just wouldn't make them targetable from a distance. But there is also the fact that casting a spell is not nearly as active and noticeable as an entire musical number.
And I'm not sure why the Challenges are getting drug up either. Many of the challenges are not about exploiting the system. They are about testing oneself and upping the difficulty to help to continue enjoy a game that they like and appreciate within the confines of a framework that is often more restrictive than the game itself is.
And I also happen to know there is a very large part of the Strategy population that finds it an even greater victory to actually beat things without using any exploits or cheese tactics to do so. Specially in a scenario framework that is stacked against them. So the whole Strategy background is a smoke screen argument for changes like the one mentioned here not to be made to BG on those grounds.
Are you actually trying to use logic to explain how D&D mechanics work? I would have thought the previous posts would have made it clear that that doesn't really work. Maybe inspiration does work cumulatively in a world where death is cheap.
You also seem to be speaking more as an active gamer (as in someone who's just playing the game) and not in the bigger picture of what those challenges represent. Gamers like to justify and rationalize things so they fall within the framework you describe - THAT is the true smokescreen. The bottomline is that something as simple as using a character to block a doorway against something that could normally just leap over you or simply knock you away counts as exploiting the system. That is actually one of the very first RP issues that came up in the old Bioware forums back in the day, and the dev explanation for it basically amounted to "because it's BG2". You could argue that game rules allow you to do this so it must be legal - but then what about the other exploits? You could argue that these exploits don't have any basis in D&D so they shouldn't be legal, but as I pointed out, isn't BG2 it's own game as much as it is a D&D game? You could pull the logic card... and we're back to square one.
In the end it boils down to the "spirit" of the game, and people are free to defend that as they choose. I've already explained my point on how I see changes like these as representing an unnecessary lessening of your options.
I didn't speak as a gamer. I used simple basic logic about acoustics and physics thanks. There is no true smoke screen to it. However I am a Gamer. This is why I know some things about challenge runs and the Strategy community.
Funny. I remember people actually using door way issues and a couple others for reasons as to leave things in and not change other things that were broken back in the day. When that one is actually in part a limitation of the engine as I recall. I was around in those days. I remember a discussion on one of the outside mod/tweaks forums talking about how they couldn't fix it. There were issues of collision detection. Beamdog or the modder community can be free to correct me if that's not true or has changed. It revolves around the exact same issue and broken cheese tactic as the old "Kick your members from the party to trap Driz'zt in one spot in BG1 and Summon so many creatures that nothing can move issues. The second of which they did fix by implementing the summon limit.
But the door issue wasn't primarily about enemies (most doorways you can do this in such as keeps and ruins aren't actually big enough to have something jump through them over you though certain things might be big enough to push you down D&D tactically is written that they have to succeed and certain maneuvers to actually do so unless the actual living DM rules otherwise. It's also something that screws up your own party more if your not careful than the enemy. Because the issue was about things like casters and archers stopping in the doorway and then your melee couldn't get through and escape primarily.
if your so big on tactics and challenges. I got one for you from this very incident. If you've always relied on an affect that increases your overall physical damage by the equivilant of one to two more Melee/physical ranged characters. Think of this as a free Difficulty increase mod that takes them away and now you have to think up strategies revolving around a smaller party in effect.
Or another option for you. Where you'll still get a lesser amount of cheese. Go add in IWDification I believe it's called with the multiple bard songs since your talking about a high end tactic anyway. And use what multiple songs are added in to get multiple lesser effects than your "God Damage" song exploit.
Also while I'm here. Might as well do this since you want it so bad. Mislead says nothing about anything auditory be produced in the spells description. In D&D or for Baldur's gate. It does however say that it cannot perform actions such as acting or casting spells. By Technicality. BardSong would be an action. By wording bard song would need to be continually performed to use it. All mislead can do is give a visual target that seems to be doing things for the enemies to target and make it harder to notice you because they expect you to be where the mislead is seen.
So half of your cheese does not work as intended and never did to begin with. Per the Vanilla Game and Origional Developers you hail so much to support your "don't change my game!" argument.
You also presume much. You presume that the original devs had this kind of vision of BG2 as extremely faithful to D&D/logic, and that they didn't set out to create a game with the limitations it currently has, and that they didn't try to make the most out of those limitations by creating an entirely unique meta to deal with them. You basically rode that "intent" angle way wayyyy into weird territory.
Actually nuin. I have the original game boxes and books. They were trying to be faithful within the limits of the engine. Stating that they primarily tried to change what wouldn't be feasible game play in a computer game or would not be allowed by the game engine to be designed. It's one of the first things stated in the original Manual of BG1 and is restated somewhat in BG2 with the Caveat that They were also trying to adapt what they could of new D&D rules coming out without getting too far away from BG1.
So I'm not actually taking as big of a leap as you think.
Edit: Your google-fu doesn't stand up as much as you think. You pulled up the 3.5 version of the spell. 3.5 didn't exist when these games did and 3.0 was just coming out somewhere around BG2 and ToB. 3.0 and 3.5 changed a great many things (including turning gnomes for a time into non player race fey creaturs for a time). it adds in some extra wording. I however can simply grab the 2nd ed books and the game manuals. And see that Mislead is simplified slightly from the book spell. But even the D&D book spell doesn't allow for actual actions to be taken. It also mentions that it can only appear to act with the intent of the caster at the time of casting. So Even in 3.5 Speech does not equal bardsong. Bardsong is still technically an action akin to attacking and casting a spell. Because you are using an effect.
Should different types of songs stack? IMO it’s like listening to Taylor Swift and Yanni at the same time, and it makes sense to me that Misleads are performing “chorus” of the same song to stack, like I tested before, right now Skald song and EBS stack in a strange way, it's more an oversight than an intended behavior.
There’re a great number of spells in EE not breaking invisibility, and you don’t need to be “active” to be visible, the out loud chanting sound will do, especially you can do it in the middle of enemy groups and remain hidden, does that make sense?
It's nothing about challenges, why mention it? It's about the fact that we all have different opinions about how this game should play, so we should leave the choices to each player, not forcing others to be our own way, and we don’t assume what the original crew will do to Bard songs, because that will never happen, so best stay true to be called “Enhanced” not “Alternative”.
Actually nuin. I have the original game boxes and books. They were trying to be faithful within the limits of the engine. Stating that they primarily tried to change what wouldn't be feasible game play in a computer game or would not be allowed by the game engine to be designed. It's one of the first things stated in the original Manual of BG1 and is restated somewhat in BG2 with the Caveat that They were also trying to adapt what they could of new D&D rules coming out without getting too far away from BG1.
So I'm not actually taking as big of a leap as you think.
Edit: Your google-fu doesn't stand up as much as you think. You pulled up the 3.5 version of the spell. 3.5 didn't exist when these games did and 3.0 was just coming out somewhere around BG2 and ToB. 3.0 and 3.5 changed a great many things (including turning gnomes for a time into non player race fey creaturs for a time). it adds in some extra wording. I however can simply grab the 2nd ed books and the game manuals. And see that Mislead is simplified slightly from the book spell. But even the D&D book spell doesn't allow for actual actions to be taken. It also mentions that it can only appear to act with the intent of the caster at the time of casting. So Even in 3.5 Speech does not equal bardsong. Bardsong is still technically an action akin to attacking and casting a spell. Because you are using an effect.
My google skills came upon a AD&D Player's Handbook PDF. And in it, Mislead "The spell enables the illusion of the wizard to speak and gesture as if it were real, and there are full olfactory and touch components as well."
Which means that not only can you see it and hear it, you can even touch and smell it.
It doesn't really tell crap about what the illusion can or can't do.
Full text of spell description: When a mislead spell is cast by the wizard, he actually creates an illusory double at the same time that he is cloaked by improved invisibility magic (see the 4th-level spell). The wizard is then free to go elsewhere while his double seemingly moves away. The spell enables the illusion of the wizard to speak and gesture as if it were real, and there are full olfactory and touch components as well. A true seeing spell or a gem of seeing will reveal the illusion for what it is. A detect invisibility or true seeing spell or items such as a gem of seeing or robe of eyes can detect the invisible wizard (see the 5th-level wizard spell shadow door).
I have no stake in this. I do not Bard (Or Mislead either), and Haer'Dalis is in my group just to date Aerie and then GTFO with her.
I didn't want to bring it up because it seems pointless for this to devolve into a rules-lawyer argument, but you're free to keep going if you want to open that particular can of worms.
How hard is it to understand it still can't take any actual actions that produce any actual effects such as attacking and casting spells? If your bardsong stops you from attacking or casting spells why do you think your mislead should be able to do it?
At best your establishing that it can make the motions. Not produce the effect of the bard song. That's still up to your bard.
Comments
But.. It's a weird sentiment thinking you can re-balance the game. Sure Beamdog has taken ownership and I take no issue with that. But thinking you can do better at enhancing gameplay enjoyment and longevity (which is what nerfing measures are in a single player game) than the original Black Isle team seems a bit presumptuous. Not to mention nerfing poison just to balance your own newly introduced class..Come on guys, that's just beyond inelegant and quite frankly lame.
Please with all the modifications you're making, consider adding options in the settings gui to use original mechanics.
To each his own though. I suppose some sort of option of reverting a game back to originals would not be unwelcome, but after a while the many options everyone would like to see available would get to be overwhelming for a developer. If a developer was bringing new life into the game as I think BEAMDOG has, changes or not, it can only help bring the game alive again and introduce even more players to the joy that is BG. Having more players and new players, to me, means at least some will get to be interested in modding and that will lead to more options and even some things that might never have been done or tried before.
The old adage 'You can always please some people some of the time, but you can't please everyone all of the time', seems like it applies, at least when it comes to games thousands play. We even have a few mods out there now that give options to change some things back.
And like I keep repeating, the lines between what counts as an exploit or not blur when we talk about BG2 because many of the features in the game are BG2-specific and very little basis in D&D. Those lines are pretty much nonexistent to a strategy game player anyway, which is why I find it easy to notice them based on the feedback of other players.
Some people simply have a hard time thinking about the game from a different perspective, but take the time to read thousands of peoples' opinions about BG2 over years and you'll begin to see the patterns too. Ultimately those lines seem more subjective than anything.
And I keep hearing people repeat "exploits" as if they absolutely know for certain which tactics/strategies count as exploits or not. Unless someone forgot to tell me that there's some sort of impartial organization that handles these things, the simple fact is that when it comes to certain tactics people are STILL going on about what counts as an exploit or not in this game. How exactly do you know? BG2 simply operates at a level that draws inspiration from but is distinct from D&D, and even if you DO try to use D&D logic here the simple fact is that when it comes to the interaction of many of these effects D&D's response is pretty much - "leave it to the DM/players".
Ultimately it boils down to power and options. When you accept that; when you accept that there are already too many ways to break the game using "legit" means anyway, or that the game has much, much worse "exploits" usually associated with clearly powerful classes (which is relevant if the game devs have some sort of double standard, which seems to be something none of us here are really want to consider) then essentially what's happening here is that your options are simply being slowly thinned out.
What would YOU do to fix the perceived/real problem as you see it? What do you think BEAMDOG should or should not have done, given they got the rights to work on things
Find a meta that allows both old and new to coexist. Instead of "fixing" things that don't need to be fixed, in the case of this particular example simply make it so that a bard can only have one Mislead image at a time, but that the Mislead, the bard and the Simulacrum image songs stack. All images now also count towards a much more strictly enforced summon limit, and enemy casters (divine ones, in particular) are now more likely to use spells like True Seeing. Which they should really be doing anyway.
Of course these changes would then need to be fine-tuned as necessary.
People are always going to find ways to undermine the system, your job is to simply make it so that doing so means they're doing it with intent and to try and find some middle ground between effort required and reward.
Otherwise you're simply trying to control people, and that's going to turn out so well.
I'm not sure if people are aware of this, but in recent years quite a number of games have experienced a resurgence of interest and "enhanced" editions. Maybe the people who once played these games finally grew up and decided to put their industry skills to work, maybe it's nostalgia, maybe it's combination of a lot of things and the fact that many of these games are now held as the standard for new games. The BG:EE series was not the first to get this treatment, but it was one of the early major attempts.
Actually it's not an uncommon phenomenon in other entertainment mediums like movies, and you can actually draw many parallels between the movie industry and the (relatively younger) video game industry.
Movies also get remakes/re-releases, there's a ton of papers on the subject if you want to see how that goes.
Welcome to the new generation, where we actually talk about the skeletons in our closets instead of constantly trying to pretend they don't exist. Call it the internet generation but knowledge seems to be a much bigger thing these days, both the good and stupid/silly unfortunately.
Ultimately this discussion might prove uselessas far as BG2:EE is concerned, but it really only matters that it's not stupid.
That's kind of the whole point of all this... If we're talking absolutes, then who's to know really? I'm not sure where this is coming from, hubris assumes that you have something to prove and that you absolutely know that you're right. You need to know the difference when someone is simply telling you what the facts are. I can't help if there's an overwhelming amount of info I know about the subject from my viewpoint, you tend to accumulate such things over the years.
Anyway you will notice, for example, that I'm stopping short of simply telling people that Beamdog's version sucks. I simply cannot make that logical leap, and in any case it's the TREND of changes I'm heavily against.
All I can really say is that he's turning BG2:EE into a game I don't recognize, and I don't like it.
I can tell people that such attempts to change the source material in a limiting way have precedents and they generally don't work out well, because it's true. I can tell people that such attempts go against the spirit of the game's strategy RPG core, because it's true. I can't tell people that Beamdog's attempts to change BG2 is going to ultimately suck, because that would be conjecture - I'm working with an incomplete formula. People are still basically free to "fill in the blanks" using their own opinions, or simply leave it blank (as in my case).
And don't blame people for acting like immature idiots. Youth has always been like that, the internet just gave them a wider audience. There's a difference between a youngster posting dick picks and people actually using the internet to point other people towards other important information (on a global scale) that you can't get anywhere else. There is simply no precedent for such a thing before the internet.
However you feel about things, we're living in a time where accountability and the spread of information is rising rapidly. People aren't joking when they say that even extremely obscure information can end up in the internet these days. It's the flipside of the system.
The concept is why acknowledging the skeletons in your closet is better in this modern meta, because sooner or later someone comes looking. Discussions bring perspective, and perspective brings knowledge.
And really, you know could take some of your own advice and not care that the argument is still ongoing. It's not like we're discussing something risque or political or religious etc.
- in terms of gaming the bard song is magical and thus I don't think real world experience is terribly relevant. 2nd edition rules have always allowed magic to be cast without breaking invisibility, so personally I can't see why the standard bard song should break invisibility (and I'm not aware of any 2nd edition rule that says this happens, but it is a long time since I read those rulebooks so I may be wrong there
- if you do want to drag the real world into it, then I would agree that singing will let enemies know someone is there, but that's not the same thing at all as being able to instantly find them. There's been a lot of research over the years on emergency vehicle sirens - partly to do with the volume required for audibility, but also a lot on trying to ensure people listening are able to locate where the sound is coming from. That's still not always easy to do, even using a sound specifically designed to be located. It doesn't seem at all fanciful to me to believe that invisible bards, trained to disguise where their voice is coming from and moving around while singing, would be impossible to target with weapons in a standard fight.
Besides, as stated already, stack-able Songs is a wholly different matter. it's not blocking anybody's way, if you don't like it, don't use it, leave it to people who will, no body needs to kill it. Unless of course, the decision maker is the same person in charge from the original team. Sorry I don't get it. It's EE dev who decided to "revert" from the original in the first place right?
In any case I highly doubt no one's tried to make an IWD2 bard song version mod.
I didn't like many of the PnP things changed in AD&D after 1st, so I just keep and play the first, adapting anything new as I see fit. ( If I could mod a game I might do that).
As much as some things might bother me, in the end , I did not put up the cash to work on a great game of the past.
Can't one just play an original game, mod it to their content, OR play the new version,and take the changes as they are (or learn to mod them for oneself)?
Just questions they I thought I needed to ask in order to better understand this issue. Is it JUST the bard song? I am thinking the game can still be enjoyed regardless, right (maybe not)?
I am sure their must some changes that are regarded as nice, right(or am I wrong)?
I THINK what I was saying in the last post was I wonder how many options on the numerous issues different folks have with the various changes to the original game would they need to include for one to check 'apply' or 'not apply'? How many before it gets too complicated? I am just asking the questions here to understand it in a better light.
I always figured that someone who paid out the cabbage to buy the rights to a game, could change things as they saw it in 'THEIR mind', and take the risks of losing money or making enough of a profit to make it worthwhile. The original will always be there.
It just does not seem a big deal to me, but, in the same light, I can see how it might be for others, for not only bard song issues but other issues as well.
The bard invisibility bothered me at first but did not stop me from playing many bards.
Seems like we can accept the changes, or just throw it away and never play the new edition again. I know I won't do that myself, certainly.
Maybe the main difference for me is I don't really play it to WIN, I play it for the roleplay aspect. Actually for me, getting to the end is the worst part. Game over ,no more 'that' character. It's not right or wrong but just me. Exploits take the fun out for me, but obviously not for others. To each his own. I actually found not playing the bard anymore made me appreciate some of the other classes more.
I reckon if I cared enough about it though I would write BEAMDOG a big enough check and say I would like this done, how much would it cost? Still waiting on that winning lotto ticket though.
I like to see ppl get along, hence the long response. Most of it is just thinking aloud so to speak, so I hope no one sees it as an attack, because it is not. It is an attempt to understand because it is what I like to do.
Now the 1st thing I don’t get from your logic after I read your posts is that why do you think it’s overwhelming for EE dev to revert back to the originals given the fact that it’s all these reverting from originals that make this game called EE. It will take some efforts, no doubt, but certainly not overwhelming(aka. Impossible if I get your meaning correct?) And here I mean especially the Bard Song exploit considering there'll be just as the same efforts to revert it back as there were when they changed it to what it is like now.
2nd, we should consider every change separately and individually, not as a whole. Take this topic as an example, there’re two DIFFERENT discussions here: ~no.1~should bard songs break invisibility? ~no.2~should bard songs from phantoms stack?
For~no.1~ I think @Grond0 has made a fairly good point in previous posts, that bard song is considered magical, so if all self-targetable spells such as Aid, Protection from Evil/Fire/cold/Acid/Electrical, all self-only spells such as Draw Upon Holy Might, all self-centered spells such as lvl4 Protection from Evil etc. not break invisibility, why Bard Song break it? Because Bards 're singing loudly? As loudly as spellcasters chanting spells?
For~no.2~ I think I’ve mentioned several times already that those stack-able phantom Bard Songs is not standing in anybody’s way except under some extreme situations. “if you don't like it, don't use it, leave it to people who will, nobody needs to kill it” ~sorry for quoting again~. So why kill it? It’s killing freedom, eliminating potential playstyles, and does the change benefit anybody, does it benefit the EE version? No, it doesn’t, because it’s like content deletion.
Wouldn't it be a much better way to implement their thoughts if they give players options to choose from?
Of course, Beamdog perfectly have every rights to do whatever they please with EE, and so do their customers. Now that players know what they'll do to their EE counterparts, it’s like telling everybody everytime they release a game that “We’ll kill freedom, eliminating possible ways of play available in originals, limiting the game into what we think you should play by every coming patch” which I don’t think is a good thing for anybody at all, even their loyal customers, because nobody benefits anything from limitations.
Lastly, maybe we’re both straying from the topic too much, so let’s try to focus back to topic as much as possible- the Bard song in Baldur's Gate.
I like to use RR mod which makes the bard songs bypass magic resistance to not really an issue using that for me. Atweaks gives the same options for the singing invisible thing so I can work around that if needed to. Given those two options It doesn't bother me. Some may not like to add the mods though so many will have a different reaction. Have you tried that one for the stay/not stay invisible option? It let's us break it down to all bards or just jesters.
I remember being surprised when I added RR, it added the invisible singing back into the game automatically, if anyone is interested in that.
I agree options for bard songs and mislead spells, etc would be good to offer, but like I said, its up to the modders to decide how much work to put into options. Shoot, with hall the options ppl might like, IF we were going beyond these two alone, the option screen might look like the Harley Davidson motorcycle catalog. That's all I am saying on that, but again, not impossible. I just wonder if anyone would feel left out if the thing THEY did not want changed was NOT reverted and the bard songs were (just thinking ahead here).
Heck, I'm just happy to be playing the game again
Thanks for the reply, it helps.
I currently don't have mods that modify bard songs, and for install order & compatibility's sake I'll keep it that way before my next run, I think I'll have to change it to Plan B: kicking H'D out for classical Edwin way.
Doom stacked and a team of divine casters could give enemies -10 or more malus to their saving throws in short order, (especially if some of them were C/M with access to sequencers). Friends was cumulative, so a mage with 3 CHA could just cast Friends three times to get the maximum store discount. Blur stacked, so you could cast a half-dozen and enemies got -18 to their attack rolls and you got a 6-point bonus to all saves.
And this was dumb, and some of it was patched by the BG2 crew, and the rest was patched by friendly mods that became nearly universal like the BG2 Fixpack, and many of those mods were among the first things incorporated into the EEs, and that was totally fine because that's a perfectly sensible, logical thing.
Now, maybe Bard Song Stacking is categorically different from Hardiness stacking or Blur stacking. Maybe it's categorically similar, but it falls along a spectrum such that fixing Doom stacking was good and fixing song stacking is bad. Or maybe it's really all just the same thing and the real shock is that it took Beamdog this long to get around to song stacking.
I just don't get the complaint that this is somehow new behavior from the Beamdog devs that constitutes a fresh betrayal, instead of merely continuing business as usual. Because they've been fixing what they viewed as erroneous ability stacking since day 1.
A master musician can mix different songs and I can see the different tunes have different effects. Different types of music can help to put me in different moods and approach things differently.
That's just my view on reasonable justification why they shouldn't stack. And I don't feel an argument of "Because I should be allowed to break the System!" is a valid reason why it shouldn't be changed.
As for the invisibility part. Somebody already touched on it. But in vanilla BG and BG2 some of those non-damaging spells would actually reveal the general presence of the invisible individual. They just wouldn't make them targetable from a distance. But there is also the fact that casting a spell is not nearly as active and noticeable as an entire musical number.
And I'm not sure why the Challenges are getting drug up either. Many of the challenges are not about exploiting the system. They are about testing oneself and upping the difficulty to help to continue enjoy a game that they like and appreciate within the confines of a framework that is often more restrictive than the game itself is.
And I also happen to know there is a very large part of the Strategy population that finds it an even greater victory to actually beat things without using any exploits or cheese tactics to do so. Specially in a scenario framework that is stacked against them. So the whole Strategy background is a smoke screen argument for changes like the one mentioned here not to be made to BG on those grounds.
Maybe inspiration does work cumulatively in a world where death is cheap.
You also seem to be speaking more as an active gamer (as in someone who's just playing the game) and not in the bigger picture of what those challenges represent. Gamers like to justify and rationalize things so they fall within the framework you describe - THAT is the true smokescreen. The bottomline is that something as simple as using a character to block a doorway against something that could normally just leap over you or simply knock you away counts as exploiting the system. That is actually one of the very first RP issues that came up in the old Bioware forums back in the day, and the dev explanation for it basically amounted to "because it's BG2".
You could argue that game rules allow you to do this so it must be legal - but then what about the other exploits? You could argue that these exploits don't have any basis in D&D so they shouldn't be legal, but as I pointed out, isn't BG2 it's own game as much as it is a D&D game? You could pull the logic card... and we're back to square one.
In the end it boils down to the "spirit" of the game, and people are free to defend that as they choose. I've already explained my point on how I see changes like these as representing an unnecessary lessening of your options.
Funny. I remember people actually using door way issues and a couple others for reasons as to leave things in and not change other things that were broken back in the day. When that one is actually in part a limitation of the engine as I recall. I was around in those days. I remember a discussion on one of the outside mod/tweaks forums talking about how they couldn't fix it. There were issues of collision detection. Beamdog or the modder community can be free to correct me if that's not true or has changed. It revolves around the exact same issue and broken cheese tactic as the old "Kick your members from the party to trap Driz'zt in one spot in BG1 and Summon so many creatures that nothing can move issues. The second of which they did fix by implementing the summon limit.
But the door issue wasn't primarily about enemies (most doorways you can do this in such as keeps and ruins aren't actually big enough to have something jump through them over you though certain things might be big enough to push you down D&D tactically is written that they have to succeed and certain maneuvers to actually do so unless the actual living DM rules otherwise. It's also something that screws up your own party more if your not careful than the enemy. Because the issue was about things like casters and archers stopping in the doorway and then your melee couldn't get through and escape primarily.
if your so big on tactics and challenges. I got one for you from this very incident. If you've always relied on an affect that increases your overall physical damage by the equivilant of one to two more Melee/physical ranged characters. Think of this as a free Difficulty increase mod that takes them away and now you have to think up strategies revolving around a smaller party in effect.
Or another option for you. Where you'll still get a lesser amount of cheese. Go add in IWDification I believe it's called with the multiple bard songs since your talking about a high end tactic anyway. And use what multiple songs are added in to get multiple lesser effects than your "God Damage" song exploit.
Also while I'm here. Might as well do this since you want it so bad. Mislead says nothing about anything auditory be produced in the spells description. In D&D or for Baldur's gate. It does however say that it cannot perform actions such as acting or casting spells. By Technicality. BardSong would be an action. By wording bard song would need to be continually performed to use it. All mislead can do is give a visual target that seems to be doing things for the enemies to target and make it harder to notice you because they expect you to be where the mislead is seen.
So half of your cheese does not work as intended and never did to begin with. Per the Vanilla Game and Origional Developers you hail so much to support your "don't change my game!" argument.
Yes they can talk. They wouldn't very misleading if they couldn't.
You also presume much. You presume that the original devs had this kind of vision of BG2 as extremely faithful to D&D/logic, and that they didn't set out to create a game with the limitations it currently has, and that they didn't try to make the most out of those limitations by creating an entirely unique meta to deal with them.
You basically rode that "intent" angle way wayyyy into weird territory.
In any case, game design doesn't work that way.
So I'm not actually taking as big of a leap as you think.
Edit: Your google-fu doesn't stand up as much as you think. You pulled up the 3.5 version of the spell. 3.5 didn't exist when these games did and 3.0 was just coming out somewhere around BG2 and ToB. 3.0 and 3.5 changed a great many things (including turning gnomes for a time into non player race fey creaturs for a time). it adds in some extra wording. I however can simply grab the 2nd ed books and the game manuals. And see that Mislead is simplified slightly from the book spell. But even the D&D book spell doesn't allow for actual actions to be taken. It also mentions that it can only appear to act with the intent of the caster at the time of casting. So Even in 3.5 Speech does not equal bardsong. Bardsong is still technically an action akin to attacking and casting a spell. Because you are using an effect.
There’re a great number of spells in EE not breaking invisibility, and you don’t need to be “active” to be visible, the out loud chanting sound will do, especially you can do it in the middle of enemy groups and remain hidden, does that make sense?
It's nothing about challenges, why mention it? It's about the fact that we all have different opinions about how this game should play, so we should leave the choices to each player, not forcing others to be our own way, and we don’t assume what the original crew will do to Bard songs, because that will never happen, so best stay true to be called “Enhanced” not “Alternative”.
Which means that not only can you see it and hear it, you can even touch and smell it.
It doesn't really tell crap about what the illusion can or can't do.
Full text of spell description:
When a mislead spell is cast by the wizard, he actually creates an illusory double at the same time that he is cloaked by improved invisibility magic (see the 4th-level spell). The wizard is then free to go elsewhere while his double seemingly moves away. The spell enables the illusion of the wizard to speak and gesture as if it were real, and there are full olfactory and touch components as well. A true seeing spell or a gem of seeing will reveal the illusion for what it is. A detect invisibility or true seeing spell or items such as a gem of seeing or robe of eyes can detect the invisible wizard (see the 5th-level wizard spell shadow door).
I have no stake in this. I do not Bard (Or Mislead either), and Haer'Dalis is in my group just to date Aerie and then GTFO with her.
At best your establishing that it can make the motions. Not produce the effect of the bard song. That's still up to your bard.