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Where did all the Black Talons go?

Permidion_StarkPermidion_Stark Member Posts: 4,861
in Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition
My Fighter/Thief spent much of last night stealthing her way through Larswood and Pelvdale planning to creep up and backstab the Black Talon Elite guys she expected to be lurking there but she didn't bump into a single one.

Where did they all go?
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Comments

  • GallengerGallenger Member Posts: 400
    Theyre just random encounters so you must've got lucky.
  • Balrog99Balrog99 Member Posts: 7,371
    edited August 2018
    Gone to graveyards every one...
  • PingwinPingwin Member Posts: 262
    Not keen on your strategy there, is your AC sufficiently good that they need a 20 to hit you? You'd hopefully kill the first one you attack but then the rest would make your thief into an icy cold pincushion.

    By that point in the game you should have a tank with fullplate, ring of protection, girdle of piercing and boots of avoidance, maybe also gauntlets of dexterity and a magic large shield, who can simply charge every group of black talons and force them all into melee.
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    edited August 2018
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  • Permidion_StarkPermidion_Stark Member Posts: 4,861
    Pingwin said:

    Not keen on your strategy there, is your AC sufficiently good that they need a 20 to hit you? You'd hopefully kill the first one you attack but then the rest would make your thief into an icy cold pincushion.

    By that point in the game you should have a tank with fullplate, ring of protection, girdle of piercing and boots of avoidance, maybe also gauntlets of dexterity and a magic large shield, who can simply charge every group of black talons and force them all into melee.

    I was soloing as a Fighter/Thief who only uses daggers and throwing daggers so sneaking and backstabbing seemed the best way to go. The plan was to chunk the first guy and melee the next one or, if possible, chunk the first one and then run off and hide before sneaking back to backstab the next one.

    I think it would have worked but I couldn't get any Black Talons to come out to play.
  • UnderstandMouseMagicUnderstandMouseMagic Member Posts: 2,147

    As @Gallenger said they are random.

    But what I've noticed, particularly with the BT in those woods. Should you get killed and reload, the groups of BT rarely show up again.
    Instead you get much weaker groups.

    Which is very annoying as those ice arrows are valuable.
  • Permidion_StarkPermidion_Stark Member Posts: 4,861
    It has just occurred to me that my own tactics might have stopped the Black Talons from spawning. Would the fact that I was hiding in the shadows all the time I was walking around the map have prevented random encounters from taking place?
  • PingwinPingwin Member Posts: 262
    Don't think so - I always have someone in the shadows scouting ahead when exploring a new area. It doesn't stop the black talons appearing.

    Did you find other creatures, bandits, guards etc. hanging around, or is the map virtually empty?
  • Permidion_StarkPermidion_Stark Member Posts: 4,861
    Both Larswood and Pelvdale seemed virtually empty, I did meet a few regular bandits but that was about all. At the time I assumed it was because I had gone there before clearing the Nashkel Mines.
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  • UnderstandMouseMagicUnderstandMouseMagic Member Posts: 2,147
    Shandyr said:

    Uhm... I don't know what is going on, but I must say I seriously dislike this.

    The Blacktalon Elites shouldn't be missing from Peldvale and Larswood. In my opinion they belong there. They pose a special challenge on those maps. And they have profoundly shaped my memory of those areas, in Peldvale more so than in Larswood.

    I remember that back in the day in vanilla Baldur's Gate, I almost never encountered them in Larswood but always in Peldvale.

    So, what I would like to know is, what mechanism in the game determines whether they show up or not and how many of them and on which map? Does anyone know?

    Just to back this post.

    I have just finished Peldvale and met one group of BT and like an idiot got killed (in my defence for being such an idiot, it was something of a pathfinding mistake. Charname mage threw out a web then instead of retreating as it cast, decided to walk the long way around a bush and walked towards them, lol)

    So reloaded and ended up not meeting any BT for the whole map.

    So I'd like to know what the mechanism is and why sometimes none appear and other times there are 2/3 groups.
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  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    Shandyr said:

    UnderstandMouseMagic said:


    So reloaded and ended up not meeting any BT for the whole map.

    So I'd like to know what the mechanism is and why sometimes none appear and other times there are 2/3 groups.

    This is a very old issue with the Enhanced Edition. I remember it from many years ago.

    You have a bunch of monsters on a map (random encounter). You try to kill them but you fail and die. You reload and want to try again. But the monsters are gone, nowhere to be found.
    I thought this was fixed in 2.3. I used to reload after dying to bears on the way to FAI, only to have the bears disappear. I haven't had that happen since 2.3

    At one point, the EEs used party size as part of their encounter scaling. So playing solo might skew you towards the lower end of spawns. Does BG1 use scaling spawns? I don't know if that was ever changed.
  • JuliusBorisovJuliusBorisov Member, Administrator, Moderator, Developer Posts: 22,760
    @Permidion_Stark

    Have you started this game in 2.5? Do you use any mods? There shouldn't be any changes regarding this behaviour in the 2.5 patch, but you never know...

    Those users who haven't met any BT group on the map - please zip and attach your save at support.baldursgate.com for investigation. Thanks in advance.
  • Permidion_StarkPermidion_Stark Member Posts: 4,861
    JuliusBorisov said:

    @Permidion_Stark

    Have you started this game in 2.5? Do you use any mods? There shouldn't be any changes regarding this behaviour in the 2.5 patch, but you never know...

    Those users who haven't met any BT group on the map - please zip and attach your save at support.baldursgate.com for investigation. Thanks in advance.

    It's a new game in 2.5 and the only mod I am using is the EXP cap remover from the EET Tweak pack (I'm not using EET itself, just the EXP cap remover).

    I will be heading there again soon so I will save my game if it happens again.
  • UnderstandMouseMagicUnderstandMouseMagic Member Posts: 2,147
    Shandyr said:

    UnderstandMouseMagic said:


    So reloaded and ended up not meeting any BT for the whole map.

    So I'd like to know what the mechanism is and why sometimes none appear and other times there are 2/3 groups.

    This is a very old issue with the Enhanced Edition. I remember it from many years ago.

    You have a bunch of monsters on a map (random encounter). You try to kill them but you fail and die. You reload and want to try again. But the monsters are gone, nowhere to be found.
    They don't just disappear they are replaced with much weaker encounters, ie in the game I referenced, gibberlings.
    Yay, really challenging.

    And now I am going to rant, excuse me and skip if you want to.

    I am sick to the back teeth of hearing about this or that is an issue that has been "fixed" in the latest version.
    But I don't want to update to the latest version because it's never just the issues that have been fixed, there's a whole lot of unwelcome stuff added as well. And a whole lot of new issues.

    Not sure what the situation is with the current UI, but I detest the UI in SOD. So I keep the 1.3 version and have just recently rebought (paid real money) to get it on Steam as that is the only place you can get it now.

    Sorry but why Beamdog?
    Why can't you manage to sort out the product I bought years ago without insisting I accept something I don't like.
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    @UnderstandMouseMagic I mean, the other side of this argument is why prevent other people from enjoying the improvements because you don't like them? Sadly, what we have here is a classic case of not being able to please everybody. Its very frustrating for both sides, when each side thinks of the things the otehr side likes as garbage and ruining the game.
  • lefreutlefreut Member Posts: 1,462
    In this particular case, they didn't change anything (or at least not intentionally).

    I have seen the usual Black talons spawns in Peldvale in my current 2.5 game.
  • UnderstandMouseMagicUnderstandMouseMagic Member Posts: 2,147
    ThacoBell said:

    @UnderstandMouseMagic I mean, the other side of this argument is why prevent other people from enjoying the improvements because you don't like them? Sadly, what we have here is a classic case of not being able to please everybody. Its very frustrating for both sides, when each side thinks of the things the otehr side likes as garbage and ruining the game.

    Because I didn't buy them.

    I bought something that wasn't working properly according to the poster @Shandyr, and I would like to see that contract honoured.

    Now @Shandyr might be wrong (no offense intended) but what they describe is what happens in my version of the game.

    If you are killed, the random spawns afterwards are always much weaker.
    So you get one shot at fighting the bigger/stronger groups.
    Always.
    And it happens elsewhere as well.

    And why do you have to be so polarising in your arguement to defend Beamdog?

    I have no problem or dislike of people wanting a different version of the game where there have been significant changes.

    However, should you dislike the significant changes but simply want the identified and admitted issues fixed, why is it wrong to expect that?

    That's what's so frustrating.
    I've been playing BG since the start. I know it has problems and TBH, well you paid your money for the discs and worked your way round things going wrong.
    And not much did.

    But now, on this forum, there's post after post, thread after thread, highlighting things going wrong.
    And every answer is,
    "the new version will fix things"

    But and it's a big effing BUT,
    "you've got to accept all the other changes as well"
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 0
    edited August 2018
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  • UnderstandMouseMagicUnderstandMouseMagic Member Posts: 2,147
    AstroBryGuy said:

    @UnderstandMouseMagic - The spawn points are random encounters. They always have been. Even in the original BG1.

    This is BG1-TotSC (not BGEE or even Tutu), looking at AR2400.ARE. It's one example of a spawn point. It might spawn gibberlings, bandits, wild dogs, or Black Talon Elites.


    I was not discussing random spawns.

    If you had read the post it was about the spawns actually ceasing to be random because if you reload after being killed, the stronger enemies don't spawn.

    TBH, I always thought it was the game being a bit kind, a bit nicer.
    "Damn, we've killed charname, better help them out."

    It wasn't until I participated in this thread and it was mentioned that that wasn't meant to happen.

    Simple question,
    Is that meant to happen?
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  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    @UnderstandMouseMagic I don't understand your frustration with my point. All I said was that this is a lose/lose situation we have here. You are unhappy with the new features. But if Beamdog were to revert all of the new implementation, you have a bunch of people (like me) pissed off that the "Enhanced Edition" has no enhancements.
    Going back to the weaker enemies spawning on re-load, if the same enemy always spawned, it wouldn't be a "random" spawn. Are you getting the weaker spawn everytime you reload on death? Or are you getting different things each time?
  • UnderstandMouseMagicUnderstandMouseMagic Member Posts: 2,147
    ThacoBell said:

    @UnderstandMouseMagic I don't understand your frustration with my point. All I said was that this is a lose/lose situation we have here. You are unhappy with the new features. But if Beamdog were to revert all of the new implementation, you have a bunch of people (like me) pissed off that the "Enhanced Edition" has no enhancements.
    Going back to the weaker enemies spawning on re-load, if the same enemy always spawned, it wouldn't be a "random" spawn. Are you getting the weaker spawn everytime you reload on death? Or are you getting different things each time?

    Everytime, always weaker.

    You don't want to know how many gibberlings I have killed, it's a genocide.
    Also zombies.

    I don't play the game particularly "well", I rather enjoy doing stupid things and having another go just to see if I can.
    And that's why, until this thread, I thought it was the game itself kind of rolling it's eyes and saying,
    "again, she died again"

    To the earlier point.
    It doesn't have to be a lose/lose situation, does it?

    Release the fixes without the new features.
    Allow me and others who feel the same to download a 1.3 version with the issues fixed.
  • ThacoBellThacoBell Member Posts: 12,235
    @UnderstandMouseMagic "Release the fixes without the new features.
    Allow me and others who feel the same to download a 1.3 version with the issues fixed."

    Not all of the fixes are possible in 1.3. Some stuff depends on the upgraded engine. I'm not sure what all would be viable or not.
  • switswit Member, Translator (NDA) Posts: 495
    edited August 2018
    Spawn point mehanics explanation: https://gibberlings3.github.io/iesdp/file_formats/ie_formats/are_v1.htm#formAREAV1_0_Spawn
    party size is not present in this formula: 
    (Frequency * Average Party Level) / Creature Power
    If what @AstroBryGuy mentioned is true, IESDP info has to be updated. Maybe some Beamdog dev could share the correct formula?
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