The OBVIOUS simple AI fix that will greatly improve vanilla EE battles
Ygramul
Member Posts: 1,059
It occurred to me while playing IWDEE (which has no SCS available for it):
Mobs shuffle to attack you only when you are visible to them. So, if there 10 mobs in a hall and you were seen by 3 of them, only those 3 will attack you. You can then pull, say, 4 of them next, followed by the remaining 3, rendering the battles trivial with the exception of special encounters. (SCS avoids this by having an aggroed mob agro its neighbors as well, within a certain distance.)
SIMPLE FIX:
Line of sight agro chain.
What I mean is: if a mob is agroed it agroes all its neighbors within its sight. (With a possible chain limit of, say, 1 or 2 jumps depending on difficulty.)
That's it. Easy peasy.
I remember now why I couldn't bring myself to play IWDEE. It is like shooting fish in a barrel. No challenge.
(... and no challenge despite my punitive game setup of no-reload and no-munchkin play: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/36352/the-way-it-is-meant-to-be-played-tm-an-ocders-guide-to-making-iwdee-a-challenge/p1 )
If you are afraid that players will find it too hard, tie it to difficulty. (I play INSANE with no XP/damage bonus.)
Mobs shuffle to attack you only when you are visible to them. So, if there 10 mobs in a hall and you were seen by 3 of them, only those 3 will attack you. You can then pull, say, 4 of them next, followed by the remaining 3, rendering the battles trivial with the exception of special encounters. (SCS avoids this by having an aggroed mob agro its neighbors as well, within a certain distance.)
SIMPLE FIX:
Line of sight agro chain.
What I mean is: if a mob is agroed it agroes all its neighbors within its sight. (With a possible chain limit of, say, 1 or 2 jumps depending on difficulty.)
That's it. Easy peasy.
I remember now why I couldn't bring myself to play IWDEE. It is like shooting fish in a barrel. No challenge.
(... and no challenge despite my punitive game setup of no-reload and no-munchkin play: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/36352/the-way-it-is-meant-to-be-played-tm-an-ocders-guide-to-making-iwdee-a-challenge/p1 )
If you are afraid that players will find it too hard, tie it to difficulty. (I play INSANE with no XP/damage bonus.)
Post edited by Ygramul on
4
Comments
If you lay down a mass of webs/grease followed by cloudkill/fireballs/skull traps it actually makes the game easier sometimes. Every enemy in the area rushes in and gets caught.
So for instance in BG, entering Tazok's tent is a tricky fight, but with SCS installed, everybody is killed easily outside.
So one massive onslaught you have time/leisure to set up ends up clearing the whole area. You don't have to worry about using up all your spells and then meeting something unexpectedly that is still alive or keeping something back for the next fight.
Moreover though, I never pull groups so I am not sure how that changes.
Edit: ninja'd
Seriously though, given the great job Beamdog did with their recent BGEE DLC (near-SCS level AI), why are they not updating their vanilla AI as well.
I will happily pay for it.
$10 per game for an AI-only upgrade is well worth the money, in my opinion.
And that actually made vanilla BG-EE much more interesting.
Bonus points if the enemies are tailored to their environment - Divinity Original Sin does this nicely.
SCS is hard for a newcomer to balance: if you enable all the options the game becomes unplayable (unless you are a one of the gods).
Perhaps, the AI upgrade would best be a challenge upgrade:
i.e. AI + some reasonable encounter challenges.
That is why AI-only improvements are great.
Differentiation with options seems to me the only real way to make difficulty meet player skill properly. And SCS really isn't THAT complex. Maybe people just find 20 options daunting? Even though they're fairly straightforward?
And my point is that IWDEE is in desperate need of this. And nothing more than this.
In fact, the lack of these --i.e., AI improvements-- makes IWDEE unplayably trivial to a competent player.
That said I am not at all averse to this, and I like it becoming an option, as most Icewind Dale enemies are supposed to be dumb. Not the Drow obviously, but ghosty orcs shouldn't be too clever.
There is a difference between "competent" and "masochistic".
Also, RP isn't a concern for everyone. People enjoy these kinds of games without being too invested into the RP aspect of D&D; that's sort of what the games are there for. It's great that they let people RP if they want to, but I enjoy the game for different reasons. That's true. There's also a difference between "constructive" and "derogatory".
Its not that hard to just go for 50% efficiency, and suddenly the game is more challenging without even needing a mod. *shrugs* I clearly stated I was in favour of having optional enhanced AI, so don't try to bite my head off.
You mean like the comment that I was replying to?
And to be clear, this isn't a discussion about skill, or competence, or forcing people to play one way or the other. Personal preference and customization are the supreme guiding concepts. It's a single-player game after all - nothing you do has any impact whatsoever on anyone else. Let's keep it that way.
I never understand objections to the improvement of AI.
What purpose is there to play against a dumber opponent when you can have a challenge? Especially since it is very rare that such a challenge is possible:
SCS is a gem in CRPG history. There is almost no other AI that matches its complexity. Not even in the best recent CRPGS (PoE etc.).
To deliberately leave it out (as is the case for IWDEE) when it can be available with some effort (a paid effort if need be) is mind boggling to me.
But to be honest, I don't think SCS *needs* to be included. Mods are such a big part of this series that they should be celebrated, and not done away with by inclusion. Of course, that also implies that mods should be adapted for each game. As was rightly mentioned, IWDEE doesn't support SCS and as a result is unplayable to me (and like-minded people). The same is probably true for SOD, which is why I never bought it.
Well, the last part is just assumptions on my part, which is why I so far have not dared install any.
I would *love* an official mod-pack-already-included, with stuff like the Solaufein mod, and unfinished business pack, and some of the new areas/quests etc mods and of course SCS and of course higher XP mods and of course increasing level of later game critters etc. I realize getting the license from all those modders, and ensure the mods flow together, would be a burdensome task... not to mention start rabid flame wars because of everyone thinking their most beloved mod was not included when it should have been or that shit mod was included when it should not have. But what the heck, the BeamDog employees should earn their salaries one way or another, right? Instead of wasting time on stuff like the LoB "challenge" - but then again, just how much programming time was invested in that (literal) hack job anyways?
That way, everyone can have any mod in any configuration they want, and don't need to wait if/when the devs decide to put that mod or part of it in some fixed configuration into the stock game. Seems like a much better solution, doesn't it?
Now it may well be me (very likely), or it maybe because of other mods (and people have tried to help). But the only real solution that is recommended is to download/reinstall a clean copy of the game. Many of the experienced players/modders here say they keep a clean copy of the game completely seperate when using mods so that they have that backup.
Edit: Also helpful for such a tool would be links for your computer (where the tool resides, or at least one half of it), so if you want a mod, you just click on a list, the tool downloads it for you - or at least directs you to the site that offers the mod -, and also warns you if it is not compatible with another downloaded mod. When you get your preferred pack together, you connect your android to your computer, click a button, wait for file transfers and game updates, start the game on your android and VIOLA the new mods are up and running. Fuck it, I'd pay 20 euros for that tool.
2nd edit: Also throw in a character editor in the mix, and I'd marry someones otherwise impossible to wed daughter for it.