EET and other mods for an almost new (and confused) player
Lagonero
Member Posts: 56
in BGII:EE Mods
Hello everyone! (TL;DR at the end)
A little background to better explain my situation: around march this year, I finally decided to give Baldur's Gate 1 a try with the enhanced edition (vanilla with the exception for BG1 NPC project, so much quality) , and I had a blast.
So much so, that I got so invested in the plot, during the final stage of the game , that I rushed through the last chapter or two caught by the urgency of the situation.
I loved the game, and was about to jump into the DLC and then the second one, when I decided I wanted to thoroughly enjoy the first game and all its content with a new character, exploring more quests and different outcomes.
Unfortunately, IRL got in the way and only now I am able to focus a bit on a new set up to play the game start to finish, and I stumbled across the Enhanced Edition Trilogy mod, and that's pretty much exactly what I'm looking for at its core, if it actually functions as "advertised".
So I started to dig around a bit, and got myself confused about tools that can be used to install it (and alongside it, other interesting mods) , especially upon reading some controversial stuff about the "Bladurs extended world" tool by Roxanne and some mods being modified versions of the originals and so on (sorry if I misunderstood something, this is what I got from various threads).
So we come to the actual QUESTIONS of this thread:
1) I'm pretty sure I'm set on wanting to make a run start to finish with a EET setup, so what would be the recommended way of going about installing it? (I'm not experienced with modding or installing them, but I can follow instructions).
2) looking at the sheer number of mods out there (and of those a great deal of them seem to be very high quality): what other mods would you recommend adding to the base EET set up?
For example, I've read a bit about SCS and it sounds very interesting, I just don't know if I should bother with it on my second Bg1 and first bg2 playthrough, and in that case in what entity.
Quests, NPCs, tweaks etc, any help and recommendations would be greatly appreciated
TLDR:
I played through BG1 EE, loved it, and want to do a Trilogy run with the same character (replaying Bg1 all the way to the end of bg2) and I'm wondering on the tools to install the EET mod , and with that other recommended mods that could enhance my experience of the game. Any help and input is appreciated!
A little background to better explain my situation: around march this year, I finally decided to give Baldur's Gate 1 a try with the enhanced edition (vanilla with the exception for BG1 NPC project, so much quality) , and I had a blast.
So much so, that I got so invested in the plot, during the final stage of the game , that I rushed through the last chapter or two caught by the urgency of the situation.
I loved the game, and was about to jump into the DLC and then the second one, when I decided I wanted to thoroughly enjoy the first game and all its content with a new character, exploring more quests and different outcomes.
Unfortunately, IRL got in the way and only now I am able to focus a bit on a new set up to play the game start to finish, and I stumbled across the Enhanced Edition Trilogy mod, and that's pretty much exactly what I'm looking for at its core, if it actually functions as "advertised".
So I started to dig around a bit, and got myself confused about tools that can be used to install it (and alongside it, other interesting mods) , especially upon reading some controversial stuff about the "Bladurs extended world" tool by Roxanne and some mods being modified versions of the originals and so on (sorry if I misunderstood something, this is what I got from various threads).
So we come to the actual QUESTIONS of this thread:
1) I'm pretty sure I'm set on wanting to make a run start to finish with a EET setup, so what would be the recommended way of going about installing it? (I'm not experienced with modding or installing them, but I can follow instructions).
2) looking at the sheer number of mods out there (and of those a great deal of them seem to be very high quality): what other mods would you recommend adding to the base EET set up?
For example, I've read a bit about SCS and it sounds very interesting, I just don't know if I should bother with it on my second Bg1 and first bg2 playthrough, and in that case in what entity.
Quests, NPCs, tweaks etc, any help and recommendations would be greatly appreciated
TLDR:
I played through BG1 EE, loved it, and want to do a Trilogy run with the same character (replaying Bg1 all the way to the end of bg2) and I'm wondering on the tools to install the EET mod , and with that other recommended mods that could enhance my experience of the game. Any help and input is appreciated!
2
Comments
2. Don't install too many mods, you'll get confused quickly trying to get them to work together.
3. You'll need to install the mods in a certain order to ensure compatibility. There are a few examples of huge EET builds that worked for people over at Gibberlings, by Cahir and 4rdur4n, for example. Look up their threads and use their builds as a rough reference.
Now as to the actual recommendations:
1. Besides BG1NPC Project, you can have several Friendship Mods fleshing out the other NPCs. I use Ajantis BG1 Expansion, Xan Friendship, Coran Friendship, Garrick: Tales of the Troubadour for BG1. There are also several Friendship mods for BG2, but I have no idea how good they are. Banter Packs and Chatty Imoen seem good to me, too.
2. you can't go wrong with Unfinished Business for both BG1 and BG2.
3. If you want to march through the trilogy with the same set of companions, you may want to install your favourite BG1 NPCs for BG2. Kivan, Xan, Tiax, Ajantis, Branwen and Coran are ported well and have lots of BG2 content, but if you never actually went through BG2, you really want to give Edwin, Jan, Viconia, Jaheira, Nalia etc. a chance.
4. "Endless BG1" mod should make the transition between BG1 and SoD more smooth.
5. If you want more quests and content: Lava del'Vortel's mods are universally praised (www.weaselmods.net). For BG1 portion there is also Ascalon's Questpack, Mini Quests and Encounters, Northern Tales of the Sword Coast, Stone of Askavar, Dark Side of the Sword Coast - all of them are reasonably balanced and won't break your game. Fading Promises, Trials of the Luremaster, Test your Mettle, Fishing for Trouble have been considered to be quite good for the BG2 portion.
6. Lefreut's Enhanced UI and EEUI tweaks can really improve your interface. You'll need to dig up the thread on the latter for a documentation on the components.
7. "Portraits, Portraits Everywhere!" and "The Picture Standard" both make the game feel more complete. "S9Soundsets vol. 2" give more voices for your Charname to choose from.
8. atweaks, cdtweaks, klatu tweaks, EET Tweaks and jastey's Tweaks for SoD and EET all include some useful options, while some options sound better than what they actually do.
9. "Spell revisions" is a good, well, revision of spells, "Divine Remix" gives you more kits for your clerics and druids, "Song and Silence" adds a few Bard and Thief Kits.
To help organize your thoughts, if you can provide some feedback on what type of changes you'd like to make/are open to making for the following categories.
1. Quest mods: minor tweaks to the existing quests, additions that fit into the base game seamlessly, large DLC size additions, large mega-mods of varying quality because quantity > quality.
2. NPC mods: non-party member dialogue extensions and additional content, extensions of existing Bioware NPCs, additional NPCs of quality equal or greater than Bioware NPCs, additional NPCs of any quality, NPC megamod which may involve substantial rewrites or modifications to the characterization of NPCs or a web of new NPCs, author self-insert megamod fanfics.
3. Kit mods: Bioware kit adjustments, additional kits, kit subsystem replacements and significant modifications.
4. User Interface mods: Minor tweaks through wholesale replacements/reskins.
5. Graphical & Sound mods: Portraits, graphical changes, modified or new soundsets, movie adjustment mods, custom music additions.
6. Item & Store mods: Minor tweaks to existing items, additional items balanced with original items, additional items not balanced with original items, additional items no matter what.
7. Tactical mods: Minor adjustments to game scripts to fix minor issues with combat, additional combat encounters, revised tactical combat AI design with scaling difficulty, more hard fights no matter the quality.
Depending on how much change you want in the different areas, your modded install will be easier or harder to make. Either way, I'd be happy to answer questions and share my thoughts on specifics once you can provide a bit more feedback on what you want.
The other thing you may want to consider, is the more mods you use the longer it will take to figure out a stable install order. You can take advantage of the work of others like myself, Cahir, or 4urden to help avoid some pitfalls, but more mods always make things trickier.
I'd suggest avoiding the BEW stuff for a first time, since while it appears to offer an easier experience my reading and trials with the tool/mods reveals that there's a lot of bugs that you are likely to run into and virtually no support or update if the maintainer of the forked versions (not the original mod authors or generally accepted community maintainers) doesn't feel like addressing the issue you run into. My personal opinion is I didn't want to deal with that hassle and potential wasted time, so for my purposes I went with the more stable options.
First of all, thanks a lot for the suggestions, they are incredibily helpful.
I have read around that PI can get complicated to use, I've seen the claim that in certain situations it could be even more of an hassle than going manual installing, but those might be misleading or just updated comments, so I'm willing to try it if that will lead to a more stable game in the end, despite the learning curve.
As per the actual mods you suggested, I have heard of some of them , especially the UI ones, which I definitely want to try out, and I'll check out the others as well as they don't seem to be too invasive and might enhance the vanilla experience rather than overwhelming it.
Having said that, I've noticed you divided the mods into categories, surely for clarity but does that categorization and order have anything to do with install order? Unfortunately I have no idea about which types of mods should be installed first, especially when it then comes to EET ?
Thanks a lot for the thorough response as well, and yeah I just read the other comments on G3, i made the same post on these forums to maximize the number of insights I get ?
I'll try to answer thoroughly:
In general, as long as I can maintain the installation stable and the experience smooth once set up, I'd very much like to have a lot of GOOD QUALITY options, that are of course lore-friendly and balanced as much as they can be so that they fit into the general flow of the game.
I don't have many specific mods in mind, especially when it comes to quests and new NPCs, but I'd gladly use recommend ones from these threads to make the game even more alive and full of content, and if I don't explore all the options in one playthrough (in some case impossible, and otherwise unlikely) then I'll just have to play the game some more! ?
I'm looking to install a set up that's complete enough content wise that I don't have to reinstall it new if I want to start a new campaign to explore more options and content fitting to my current run.
As for modifications to game system, I really don't know the system deeply enough to make a judgement on this, but Ill trust recommendations on that part of there are mods or tweaks that male the game more polished or the experience more smooth and consistent, if you know what I mean. I'm not looking for any cheats or to make things more OP that they need to be, as I haven't played BG2 yet anyway, but I'm very much open to suggestions on tweaks in this regard that enhance the experience without making it a completely different game.
Now section by section:
1. Quest Mods: I'd say, additions that fit into the game seamlessly seems like my cup of tea, but I'm also open to BIG DLC type stuff without sacrificing quality, as I think vanilla game has enough quantify for a first time player pretty much, so anything that has good quality and fits into the game, I'm very much up for that. Overall, no need to add INSANE amount of new content just for the sake of it, unless it's really worth it quality wise.
2. NPCs mods: here I'm open to extensions for existing NPC dialogues and options, and also additional NPC s if the qualify is up to the vanilla games or even higher. You can see a recurring theme here, as long as it's good quality content, I'll gladly add it to the game!
3. Kit mods: this is a trickier one for me, as I am used to playing dnd 5e system but I also don't want to completely override the system the games were built around, so unless really worth it, I probably shouldn't go into big overhauls for my first time. I would gladly tweak some kits or add some new ones if they fit well into the system, more options are always good!
4. UI modifications: if they are functional, I will check out some GUI modification or reskin entirely, as long as they are close enough to the vanilla layout, since I like that style and my focus will be on the game map most of the time.
5. Graphical Changes: so far I loved the games aesthetics , but if there something that can enhance it , I'm all up for it. My Bg1 playthrough was done with the original movies , and I just love them.
6. Items and Store mods: definitely addition items balanced with the existing ones in mind, if they are interesting Enough. If it's just to add 6 more varieties of throwing axes just for flavour, I don't mind that but I also don't NEED them, if you know what I mean. If the additions are at least a bit interesting, then yes 100%, quality and balanced without breaking the game.
7. Tactical mods: I found the Bg1 combat and encounters hard but not TOO hard, challenging and satisfying. Having said that, I'm up for tweaks that fix things and make it less cheesy in some.situations, as long as it's scalable and I can eventually beat a tough encounter that's being made more realistic , I'm all up for it.
With all of this in mind, I assume I might as well start to familiarise myself with the PROJECT INFINITY tool, if it will help with a stable installation , and again if I have to cut something less important to make a stable installation that I can do more than one smooth playthrough on, then that's the route I'd like to choose.
Thanks again for you time and input, I'm looking forward to be able to run the game in a big world and a lot of options ❤️
Sadly it was shelved for a while, until after we finish SoD translation to Polish. Now that we're done, I'm considering going back to the idea of EET run (not sure if this will be done before or after patch 2.6 release), but I plan to revise my modlist. I realized that I threw too much stuff in there, because of "it looks cool","could be fun to play" or "better to have more character customization options" approach. But since I have played these games in so long ago, that I barely remember "vanilla" experience anymore I decided that I will install only those tweaks and customizations that fit or are needed for my character. Using categories listed by @Caedwyr, here are my thoughts regarding my revised modlist:
Quest mods: - this is probably the only category where I plan to add stuff. There are a bunch of cool new mods I want to try (Shades of Baldur's gate and The Balduran's Seatower are the two most notable).
NPC mods: - this is the category where I have the greatest dilemma, actually. I plan to play good(ish) character. Not LN good, but more NG or even CG. So, my initial thought was to select only the highest quality good NPC mods. BUT, I realized that there are SO many cool NPC mods with neutral or evil character that it makes me to revise my role-playing concept for my character. Instead of just stick to the "good character" role, I plan to use my neutral/evil party as a way to shift my character's alignment to the neutral or even slightly evil zone. That would fit nicely with all those horrors he will witness during the course of the game. The only problem is that I want to keep high reputation, but there are tweaks that allow your evil party members to stay in the party with high rep. Having all that in mind, I think this may actually be the second category where the number of mods I put to my list will be higher than in my current set up.
Kit mods: - this is the group that I will significantly reduce in size for a couple of reasons. In my current set up I used three main kit mods (those are mods are way more than just kit mods, but for the sake of this post, let's label them kit Mods): Tome & Blood, Faiths & Powers and Might & Guile. Apart from that I used a bunch of smaller, complementary kit mods (mostly to add more flavour to NPCs). All these mods covered all possibilities for customization that I could possibly imagine. But, to be honest, I don't need it all. I plan to play a sorcerer, so the only mod I really need is Tome & Blood. Most of the higher quality NPC mods I plan to use have their own custom kit anyway, which fits their story in the best way. I may add one or two kit mods more (like Shadow Magic - this one is top-notch, I can't miss it), but that's it. I may install only selected kits from M&G and F&P, but I'm not decided yet.
User Interface mods: - I don't plan to change anything here, I think. I was happy with my current set up. I may switch to Dragonspear UI++ when Pecca adds EET compatibility, but that will probably happen after 2.6 patch release.
Graphical & Sound mods: - no changes here either, I think my current set up is the best there is. You may consider adding Artaport mod (with lovely Artastrophe's portraits), but I decided they won't fit the overall set up. But I recommend this mod nonetheless.
Item & Store mods: - another group with a hard choice to make. I need to decide if I will use Item Revisions or not (I used Item Revisions Revised for my current set up). I love this mod, but it has one significant flaw, that for most people is probably non-existent. It doesn't follow EE-style item description. It does bother me a lot and I know there are very slim chances this will change. Now, to enjoy the mod properly, I need to manually adjust the descriptions each time there is a mod update. Which, as you imagine, is a chore. Second Item mod I really need is SoD to BG2EE Item Upgrade mod, and here I will wait for @Daeros_Trollkiller to update it to v1.3 (I know, your work was hampered lately, by unforeseen issues, but for your mod I can wait a long time
Spell mods - a category that was not on @Caedwyr list, but I think it's an important one. Here, for the same reasons as with IRR I'm considering to not use Spell Revisions Revised (SRR). Here, the changes that I would need to make in spell descriptions are much less significant, though, so I'll probably stick with it. There is one BUT, though. I want to use two additional spellpacks badly, this time: Olvyn Spells and Made in Heaven Spellpack. Now, I'm not sure yet, how those 3 mods work together, how much overlap there is. I need to do more research. If I choose to not use F&P, I can use Olvyn Spells and MiH in their full potential (F&Ps sphere system does not cover those spell packs). Another category with tough choice to make.
Tactical mods: - another category with lots of cuts. I will probably significantly reduce the number of Sword Coast Stratagems (SCS) components to install (on the other hand, there is now a way to adjust the difficulty of each one of them using in game sliders in Options menu, so I may as well end up not cutting anything here). Secondly, I will significantly reduce the number of tweaks. I tend to throw a lot of them, thinking these might be useful, but I'll stick to the ones that are really needed for my playthrough this time.
Now as I've mentioned already, I'm not sure yet if I'll wait for patch 2.6 to kick in before I start preparing my installation, but my initial set up will change a lot.
I hope my ramblings will help you at least a bit with your mods selection.
I made a response to your comment, but it seems like it failed to upload for some reasons, it was a moderately lengthy one as well ?
I noticed that we might have a similar "taste" in the direction of the set up I want to achieve and your comments on those different categories.
Regarding QUESTS: yes, I don't mind having a large pool of good quality quests and content in general, even if I can't possibly experience it all in one go, since I'd like to replay the game quite a few times with one good and solid set up.
With NPCs, again as long as they don't break the game and make it more "alive" , Im all up for it.
I do tend to use good aligned characters (I get do invested in quests and characters that I just can't choose the "evil" options, tho I must say evil NPCs like Edwin and veconia look very interesting, so maybe one day!)
On the kit mods I need guidance for sure, since those all look like awesome modifications with badass names! I would think a combination of specific tweak would be ideal for my intentions, maintaing a pretty vanilla feel while improving when possible without breaking the game too much. Same go with spells, I really want some of those awesome looking mods!
I'll also check out your graphical set up currently, and your suggestion, if I can make it prettier and more immersive, why not
As for the items, more options with equal quality to the vanilla quality and feel that don't break the game or make it unstable are very welcome, tho I do enjoy reading descriptions so could you elaborate on the difference with the EE descriptions?
For tactical mods, if the difficulty is scalable, some SCS tweaks that make the game more satisfying and realistic sound quite interesting,
I will probably look into it more thoroughly .
Your rambling has been very helpful for sure!
I'm understanding more precisely what type of set up and changes I want to go for, so I can start building a list soon!
Quests -> I recommend anything that @LavaDelVortel, @jastey or @kulyok made without even thinking twice. If you value FR lore consistency greatly, though, I would PROBABLY skip mods that are part of Colours of Infinity series, since those produce more of an eerie feeling and are not written with FR lore in mind. But if this is not of any concern to you, by all means install them all. Those mods are top-notch quality, and you will love every one of them.
I also tend to skip so called megamods (very large mods made in the early days of WeiDU modding) because those are usually subpar from a quality standpoint than newer mods. I have made an exception for Northern Tales of the Sword Coast, since it was recently balanced and polished.
Kit mods -> feel free to ask specific questions, but generally:
There are a plethora of other options those mods have to offer (like feats system in M&G), but if you want to recreate a vanilla experience, those options may not be for you for this run. This is one of the points I have revised regarding my modlist.
Item mods -> I meant the difference of how stats part of item description are presented. The template is slightly different in EE that was in vanilla games. It's not drastically different, but there is a dissonance if you have some items with vanilla style stats and others using EE-style.
Now, most of the quest or NPC mods that offer additional items are written with two sets of item descriptions (for vanilla and EE games) and also SoD to BG2EE Item Upgrade mod is obviously using EE-style descriptions (since it's EE-only). Unfortunately Item Revisions is an older mod, that even if compatible with EEs, still uses vanilla-style descriptions. As I've said this is usually no problem for players, since I didn't see anyone complaining about it except me
Tactical mods & Tweaks -> If you are not an experienced player, you need to be careful with installing too many SCS components, you can easily turn your game to be too difficult and frustrating. Fortunately, the mod is easily configurable via Options menu directly in game. So you can set it up nicely for your tastes. As for tweaks, I'd start from Tweaks Anthology. There is a great chance you will find every tweak you need there. If not, you can check out a couple of other tweak mods like: Klatu Tweaks and Fixes, Artemius House Rules, Made in Heaven - Tweaks, Olvyn Tweaks, EET Tweaks or Tresset's Tweaks. There are plenty of various mods here to choose from. Just don't get too excited with adding everything to the pool. It's what I've done initially, but it seems too much for me in the end. Just select the tweaks you really need. All of those mods offer to install individual tweaks, so there is a great flexibility here for you.
UI mods -> there are a couple of UI mods to be chosen from, but the two currently the most popular are: Lefreut's Enhanced UI and Dragospear UI++. The first one aim to recreate the UI feel you have in patch 1.3, before the UI change Beamdog introduced in the 2.0 series of patches. Dragospear UI++ changes the UI more drastically, but it looks stunning. Unfortunately it's not EET compatible yet.
Graphical mods -> couple of mods I would recommend here:
Wow thanks a lot! This is the kind of in depth recommendations I need to make up my mind on the huge selection of mods and possibilities.
Yeah I forgot to mention I did stumble on your epic mod list thread while googling about EET , but I couldn't really get a good grasp of what everything did, now I should be able to see it better though.
Regarding QUESTS mods, I'm pretty sure I will install all of those you pointed out, at a glance they seem to be really really good! I don't mind too much if the FR lore isn't "respected" too much, since I've only started to explore it , and I can appreciate those kind of eerie atmospheres.
I'll probably include them all in my list, alongside NTOTSC.
KIT MODS: yeah I actually would appreciate a clarification of the term "cover": do they drastically overhaul the existing classes and subclasses, and races interactions with them, or do they simply add options? I'm fine with installing one or all of them if they give more options overall without transforming the base ones "too much", if that makes any sense. Of course I'll check out their respective readmes, but I also trust you on this since you seem to have a feel about what synergises with vanilla feel of the game and what transforms it.
Overall, if I had to pick one, I intend to go with a bard Charname , probably blade, so might and guile would be the pick if anything. As you point out, I would go with the "light" versions of these mods, if such thing makes any sense, without adding too many new mechanics and stuff, at least for a first playthrough.
ITEM MODS: I see what you mean by different descriptions, if it's mainly a matter of layout rather than information, I'm pretty sure it won't bother me too much
So item revised seem something that I would gladly add to the list!
TACTICAL MODS : looking at SCS, I will see what custom set up will make for a smooth yet challenging experience, and if I have the option to customize it to an extent in game as I go along, I see this as a very good candidate honestly. At a glance, I would probably not activate the "pre-buff" add on , it looks (from my Bg1 experience) like it could get very very hard to deal with certain encounters.
I will also check out tweaks anthology, since honestly I might mostly not even know what I would want to tweak ahaha. I'll try to follow your advice and go light on this, if you have a set of tweaks that you deem absolutely necessary, please let me know
UI: I guess I'll start the installation with what's available with EET, I'm assuming a UI mod won't be too hard to replace (might be wrong of course, just feels like the type of modification that won't break a save file). Leufret looks nice!
GRAPHICAL MODS: yes, those 2 look right up my alley and are definitely going into my list! Thanks a lot, they seem like they would greatly add to the experience overall.
So let's try to recap and put this into a first draft of a mod list:
MISCELLANEOUS:
- old movies
- the one that lets you continue Bg1 after the last fight (never ending Bg1?)
- EET
QUESTS:
- Mods by LavaDelVortel, Jastey and kuliok.
- Northern tales of the sword coast.
NPCS:
- BG1 NPCs project
- Imoen4ever
- an equivalent banter mod for bg2 (if any exists)
- other loose NPCs that I still have to look into well.
KIT MODS:
-might and guile (planning to make a bard)
- possibly the other two you mentioned.
SPELL MODS:
- anything that looks cool and it's not too clashing with the vanilla spells would be a good addition, will look into this more.
ITEMS:
- Item revisions
- SoD to bg2 items
TACTICS:
-SCS (Light tweaks just to make the AI better and some more realistic challenge)
TWEAKS:
Not sure yet, but most likely some had picked from
-Tweak anthology.
UI:
-Leufret's Enhanced UI
GRAPHICS:
-Portraits everywhere
- The picture standard.
this is a first draft, and I'll look into any conflicts or compatibility issues with EET, but if I missed something crucial or heavily recommend, please point it out! Same goes with obvious conflicts or stability issues with this compilation of mods.
Thanks again, this has all been incredibly helpful so far.
I divided them by priority I'd give them.
An order of mods (by 4udr4n) can be found here and if you are even more curious, he even made a spreadsheet with rules telling you which mod needs to go before the other in any case.
As a rule of thumb: the soundsets need to be installed first on your target BG2, outside of any build. Then you need DLC merger, then come the un-updated legacy BG1 mods that need to be installed before Trilogy, then goes EET, then I generally install the UI mods, Quest mods, NPC mods, kit mods, tweaks, portraits, EET End mod. But you best check with 4udr4n's list and maybe double-check the readme files of the mods.
The mods I mentioned mostly don't conflict with each other (except some things like that you shouldn't use both the Unfinished Business version of Svlast and Nim Furlwing and the NTOTSC versions). Some components of the Tweaks and UI mods are mutually exclusive, though, so you really need to read their documentation to know what the components do.
QUESTS -> if you don't stick too much to FR lore, then go ahead, install all of Lava's mods.
KIT MODS -> All 3 kit mods are very modular, so you can install only those components you really want (ok, there are CORE components, that are mandatory for the rest of components, but generally there is a lot of flexibility here). Those mods also come with very good ReaDme docs, so you can get all info you need from there: Might & Guile, Faiths & Powers, Tome & Blood. But I feel you can just install a couple of kits you need, without changing the base game mechanics. If I end up to install M&G this is probably what I do.
ITEM MODS -> yes, this is purely cosmetic issue for me. The actual information is the same. One point to note, Item Revisions doesn't (generally) and new items to the game, just revise existing ones in the way, more of those items are meaningful to be used in the game. The goal was to have as few useless items as possible. Other item mods adds new stuff to the game. Te tricky point is to not overload the game with overpowered stuff that comes from various mods. That's the way I would recommend to use Item Revisions plus one or two item packs. My personal recommendation would be SoD to BG2 Item Upgrade, but here I would wait for v1.3 to come out, since it will come (among other cool stuff) with native EET compatibility (you won't need to install it on BG2EE prior to EET installation).
"Song and Silence" is an older, less sophisticated version that expands bards without deviating too far from what vanilla was doing, which is why I prefer it, but to each his own.
For quests in BG1 I would also recommend Ascalon's Questpack.
I took a look at those links, they seem very very useful! I'll definitely use them as a guideline. Does the first link you provided useful for use in PI if I only choose a partial portions of the mods? Or is it just to manually compare my log and see if everything is in order?
Either way, the spreadsheet is very useful and at a glance seem to include most mods I'd like to use.
Regarding Might and Guile , I'll check the readme in its entirety and see if it makes any sense for me to use or just don't bother for now, in favour of Song and Silence provided that stability and compatibility wouldn't be compromised (which doesn't seem to be the case
@Cahir thanks for the links, I'll jump into them soon and see!
I like the idea of getting just a few hand picked tweaks and leave the rest vanilla for the most part.
Regarding items, thanks, the name said it but I want sure ahahah.
I'd like to at least give the installation a try pretty soon, so if the only downside of not waiting for the SoD to bg2 item mod update is having to install it "outside" of EET, I think I can manage that (hopefully). Then if I need to upgrade it mid playthrough, do you think I'd be able to do it without having to start from scratch?
Either way, thanks guys you are making this a lot easier than it would have been, if I could offer you a pizza I would ?
In a few hours I think I'll start tinkering with the base installation of the games and probably try to install some base mods with PI to familiarise with the tool and see if I want to use that or go manual. I'll probably update this thread with the final mod list and see how it goes!
Nice to be able to interact with the original mod maker
Also, thanks a lot for the other suggestion, I will definitely check those out. If a goes well, I'm sure I will enjoy these quests a ton, you guys seem very passionate about it and to keep up with the vanilla quality (at least Bg1 since that's what I played so far), they must be very very good
I'd also recommend Lure of Sirine's Call as a small BG1 questmod.
I'm a bit biased though as I maintain both mods currently.
Generally I would recommend Project Infinity as an installation tool. It may have a bit steep learning curve, but once you master it, it will save you a LOADS of time. You just need to remember two things while using it:
1) You need to download all your mods manually
2) You need to do a research and plan your entire modlist ahead
The Alternative is using Roxanne's tool or install all mods manually. Personally I would recommend Project Infinity.
I'm in the very process of selecting mods, downloading them, and making up the install order as i undestand it. I will most likely post it and @ someone (apologies in advances, you guys have been so helpful already) , so I feel like project infinity won't be _that_ bad
I think the easiest way would be to check her signature at G3. Just find one of her posts and reveal hidden contents in signature
@Caedwyr that's awesome, in the meantime I downlaoded a good portion of the mods I'm pretty sure I'm going to be using, installed the games fresh, and download Project Inifinty as well. In a few hours I'll probably go to sleep , I might do some reading of some more complex mods readmes to fully grasp what they are supposed to do, and then I'll definitely be looking forward to your detailed list! Really thanks for the time you are putting into helping a stranger on the internet out, I greatly appreciate it.
oh yeah this helps a ton, actually.
During my brief Google session of looking up EET threads, I stumbled upon yours but skimmed through as I didn't understand most of the stuff anyway, since I had and still have not a lot of knowledge on different mods and what they do, let alone how they interact with eachother. Looked like a very epic set up though, something I thought I might try after I completed the games a couple of times in a more light set up.
I think I am with you on most preferences from the looks of it, at least in concepts: I really don't mind having a big selection of quests and content mods as long as they are good quality (and it seems like there A LOT of good quality ones) and as long as they don't override the main game if that makes any sense.
Same goes with NPCs, more options the merrier as long as I don't have to guess which ones are the "good ones" once I'm playing the game, and so far I played ( and intend to play) a good aligned character, neutral probably at best. I might change my mind, but so far I got so invested in quests and sidequests, and their respective characters, that I definitely don't see myself going purely EVIL anytime soon, I wold just feel too bad ? at the same time, the few evil aligned party members I encountered during Bg1 (mainly Edwin and veconia I think is the name) looked very cool and I felt bad not being able to bring them along, so ONE DAY I will have to go for it, I guess.
Anyway, I don't mind the quantity as long as it's all good quality, and as long as it doesn't break the game of course.
Now for the kit mods: damn, those are some glorious looking name, not going to lie. I've stumbled upon a couple of them but I need to read on them more to understand exactly what they do. In a previous response I stated that I might go light on these kind of kits since I haven't even completed a trilogy vanilla run yet, but if these can enhance combat and character customization without making the game super unstable or full of bugs and conflicts, than I might think about them.
The most efficient way would probably to add specific tweaks of each of these mods to avoid conflicts and make for the best tailored experience, but alas I would need help on that xD. They do look hella cool and I'll read their descriptions more thoroughly to get s better understanding.
For the graphical mods, I'll look up your set up for sure, and the recommendation, seems like there is a ton of great quality content coming from these games' fans!
Can you elaborate more on the description of item revised? Seems like an interesting one, but I also enjoy reading descriptions of times in game as they find them very flavoury and they add to the overall atmosphere. Good thing there are only 2 mods that you recommend here, makes the choice easier ahaha
I'll need to inform myself better on the spell mods, here I'll really need to trust you guys on something that maintains the game's feel and balance, I wouldn't like it very much to be able to discern too easily "ah that must be a mod spell". Not that it's a bad thing if it happens, I'd just like it not to be too obvious if that makes any sense.
The SCS is one of those I've read upon a bit, and it seems interesting as long as I can reliably adjust the difficulty as I go along, I don't want to get stucked on every average encounter, even if that would be more realistic. So maybe a few selected tweaks from this mod would be best, if they can enhance the AI , I don't mind the challenge at all, if it makes the experience more rewarding and satisfying .
That was a very very helpful rambling ? and I'll check out your current set up again with more knowledge about stuff, still this is helping me deciding the direction I want this to go and the experience I'm looking for.
Create a temporary folder somewhere to help organize your various downloaded mods before you install them. I'm going to go with the following structure for now
.../Documents/BGEET/Install
With the following subfolders
BG1
BG2
Download and extract the mods to these two folders. You are going to want to make sure there is a Setup-Foldername.exe and a Foldername for each mod in these folders. Project Infinity may have some additional steps here and you should follow them, but doing this will help organize things and makes it simpler if you choose to do a manual install.
If doing a manual install, what you'd do is copy the contents of these folders to the .../Baldur's Gate - Enhanced Edition and .../Baldur's Gate 2 - Enhanced Editions on your computer, wherever you've installed the games. You'd then go through the install order listed below, running each Setup-Foldername.exe file one at a time, making sure to hit enter to close the ms-dos window or manually closing if that doesn't work between running each Setup-Foldername.exe file. For Project Infinity, you'd want to follow the instructions for the program in assembling a saved install order. I wanted to use some mods that didn't support Project Infinity and I've been around long enough that I'm more accustomed to babysitting an install, but it meant there were a couple of days where doing it manually meant I was babysitting an install for over 6 hours. Project Infinity means you can just start the install and come back the next morning without having to babysit the install.
Thus, if this is your first time doing a serious bunch of modding your game and you don't want to go for the simpler approach of just grabbing a couple of mods and trying them out, then I highly advise figuring out how to use Project Infinity. There's a thread here on these forums where you can ask for help.
Install to the BG1 game in the following order
Some of the excellent mods I've left out because of minor issues I've encountered in my game
Sirene NPC - This had some random wilderness comment lines use of some of Tenya's lines instead of what was originally written. I'm not sure if this was an issue with this mod or Tenya, so I'm leaving it off your list.
Tenya Thermidor - I've modded the couple of overpowered items to be limited charge items instead of daily use items in my install. This had the aforementioned issues with Sirene and maybe other mods.
Install to the BG2 Game in the following order
First thing first, a sincere thank you for the this, I can see this might have taken up a good chunk of your time to put together in a post and comment almost every single entry to explain why it's there and if it's optional/mandatory.
I'm going to read through this more in a bit but from my first read through, it seemed to have everything i wanted to implement and a bit more, which doesnt' hurt. I like the "more options" approach you used for the book club installation, because if everything goes smoothly with the installation, I want to replay the game multiple times without changing the set up too much if possible and this will help with content and replayability for sure.
So far I have a few questions:
1) Reading the instructions for PI regarding EET installation in the post you linked, ALIEN says to stick with BG2 as the "game" to select while modding, and it just adds that if I have any mods to install before EET, to move them before EET core. Should I still install them separately with BG1 selected for the first section of your list, and when it's done move to BG2 starting with EET, or can i make a single installation list and the software will understand what needs to go where?
2) I noticed you put the mod "Ascension" which seems to modify the story to an extent, should I still include it in my list even though I have neve played BG2 vanilla before?
3) When Project Infinity asks me to select the path for the games, it has both an option to select BG2 EE and BG2 EE for EET: should i enter the same path for both options, or should i disregard one of them?
Again, thanks for the huge help, I'll start downloading the bunch of mods and orgnize them, and maybe install the first couple of mods 1 by 1 to familiriaze with PI , and if I come up with more questions I'll post here