The most eagerly awaited bugfixes & improvements of 2.6
ATigersClaw
Member, Translator (NDA) Posts: 161
I don't know about everybody else but it's about time to start another round of BG I + SoD + BG II followed by IWD I. I wanted to start quite some time ago but then read about patch 2.6, so I decided to wait. I'm still waiting which is totally fine but my anticipation grows every day.
I check these forums regularly just to see if there are more bugs being reported, hoping they get fixed with 2.6 but mostly to see if there are any news about the patch being released on day X.
To shorten the time until then a little: which is the most eagerly awaited bugfix or improvement of any of the IE games you are looking forward to the most and why?
I check these forums regularly just to see if there are more bugs being reported, hoping they get fixed with 2.6 but mostly to see if there are any news about the patch being released on day X.
To shorten the time until then a little: which is the most eagerly awaited bugfix or improvement of any of the IE games you are looking forward to the most and why?
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This is fixed in 2.6, because it was already fixed before 2.6. The release version of 2.5 for BG2EE is 2.5.16.6, while the release version of 2.5 for BGEE is 2.5.17.0. And the 2.5.17 update fixed this one.
What i want from 2.6 is the promise of improved multiplayer.. because it's just been terrible so far, preventing me and my buddies from completing the games together.
This is the big one for me too. I hope they take care of the bad audio, but I haven't seen any indication that they will yet.
I also hope that people who are eagerly awaiting some fixes will be satisfied, and that we will read some interesting new playthroughs and have some peaceful renewed game-related discussions because maybe a few more people will be motivated to roll a new character and start a new game.
More importantly, this patch will induce players to start a new game and hopefully talk about it here.
So let's all act like kids sitting in the back of Beamdog's car :
- Is 2.6 ready?
- Are we there yet?
- Is it over?
- Can we have it now, pleaaaaaaaaase?
I can finally sink back into the game once I get to experience it in actual full screen.
Not pathfinding as such (pathfinding technically is something else), the inability of party members to navigate around each other/other creatures/tight spaces without getting stuck.
Most of the other current bugs are relatively minor for me and addressed by community made hotfixes. This one is infuriating as it pops up every single encounter and even outside of combat - there was a community released exe that improved things slightly but it wasn't a full fix.
This is the single reason I might update to 2.6 early before the inevitable onslaught of new bugs/undesirable changes introduced by 2.6 are addressed by eventual hotfixes (probably resulting in a decent state of affairs with version 2.69783493 by... 2023? assuming BD doesn't abandon the game long before then).
TBH I wouldn't be totally surprised if this isn't adequately fixed by 2.6 (or at all). I'll wait and see before I update if/when this patch does come out.
This is just one of the reasons why I still revert back to good old reliable pre EE BG1/2/BGT from time to time.
If you start a new Baldur's Gate II Legacy of Bhaal (LOB) game with a custom party of 6 characters, then disband one of them to pick up an NPC like Yoshimo (for disarming traps in the starting area), then move to a new area, then come back to the original area to pick up your original custom character, then the custom character gets all the LoG benefits like 4x hitpoints, +50% levels, better AC, etc. It totally and permanently screws up your custom character! The developers need to not treat your own characters needing all the Legacy of Bhaal buffs after they are disbanded, you move to a new area, then return to pick them up again. This happens in all areas of the game, including the Copper Coronet. You might need to travel far away (like to the Watchers keep), then return to the original area (Copper Coronet) where you left your character in order for the bug to trigger. My only work around is to never accept any NPCs, or to use EEKeeper to repair the damage/character corruption caused by the bug, which is a pain because all the "Effects" (tab in EEKeeper) have to get manually set correctly. This sucks because 6 of my characters will be dual classed, and I don't want to dual class any of them from Kensai to Thief until my Fighter reaches level 25, or to Mage when my other 2 Fighters reach level 21.
The bottom line is that this bug makes LoB unplayable for a Custom Party of 6 characters if you plan to rely temporarily on the skills of NPC party members (like trap disarming, lockpicking), or if you want to have NPCs join temporarily for NPC quests and such.
They really need to focus on LoB difficulty balance as well as fixing this bug. The AC buff they added in the last patch was too powerful and made playing LoB in Baldur's Gate 1 dumb, unfun, and a waste of time. They should make the AC buff in BG1 for LoB to maybe only -4, and then cap the HP bonus to just 4x or 5x the original (Core Rules) HPs. They should also add an option to get extra XP, or special items/achievements for LoB players.
Getting LoB difficulty right is very important for veteran players and replayability. It was a really great idea, and can be made so much better with just a few modifications.
I agree, and many people complained about the AC buff, it totally ruined LOB mode for anyone who actually roleplays or uses a party. Considering this is a party based roleplaying game by design it seems like a terrible decision. HOF mode was meant to be played on a second playthrough with a level 10 party. In BGEE the AC bonus to enemies and XP bonus to the player was disabled and for good reason. I have no idea why they chose to give enemies the AC bonus again in the 2.5 patch and refuse to balance it properly after 3 years of complaints from the veteran player base. In BG2EE the character and party members are around level 9 so it's fine in BG2EE but it's totally broken in BGEE.
As a veteran player I had considered LOB mode to be one of the most worthwhile features of the EE games and it remains the most broken and disappointing problem with BGEE for the last 3 years. All because of a single AC bonus that was most likely an oversight in 2.5.
Here you go!
Here is how to reproduce the bug easily:
1) Create a party of 6 custom chars for a Legacy of Bhaal game
2) Kick one of them from the party.
3) Save the game (I used quicksave)
4) Reload the game (I used quick reload)
5) Ask that kicked out character to rejoin
6) Wallah! That character now has the LoB buffs! +50% levels, about 3x the HP, etc.
I did find a workaround, but it requires level 3 & level 6 wizard spells.
1) Kick the character out (male in my case)
2) Cast "Flesh to Stone" on him until your character fails his saving throw. (this will make your player hostile, but also stone)
3) Save the game. Go play in any other areas of the game, then come back.
4) Cast "Stone to Flesh" on him. Quickly cast "Dire Charm" on him before he can walk up and attack you and disrupt your spell.
5) Talk to him, have him rejoin the party. This time, he won't have all the buffs. His original stats were "frozen" in stone, kind of like Han Solo
6) In EEKeeper, under "Characteristics" tab, set "Enemy/Ally" from Evil to "PC". This prevents the character from remaining hostile after the Dire Charm expires.
Is this going to the devs so they can fix it?
That would be considered part of proper dynamic pathfinding.
The issue is that the Infinity Engine only seems to do static pathfinding, where all other characters are treated as fixed obstacles at the location where they currently are at the instance the static pathfinding is performed. And this instance is: (1) When you order a character to move, and (2) again when their path gets blocked - resulting in the infamous "character turns around and embarks on a massive detour just because someone else was already going through the door in front of them".
From what I've read, true dynamic pathfinding (that makes your characters navigate around, or queue behind, moving obstacles whenever it makes sense) is very difficult to implement in a way that is both CPU-efficient and doesn't introduce new types of problems.
A simpler solution that covers probably 99% of problematic cases, is what Pillars of Eternity does: When you select multiple party members in that game and issue them a movement order together (which is what players normally do), the party members don't each embark on their own path. Instead, the whole party moves together, in formation - and temporarily transitions the formation to a queue when going through a tight corridor or door. This way, party member can never block each other unless you issue them separate movement orders.
But I won't hold my breath that we'll ever see a proper solution like that in the Infnity Engine games.
"Improved pathfinding" has been a Release Notes item of pretty much every Infnity Engine patch going back to Bioware times, but it never addressed the actual problems (i.e. those resulting from characters temporarily blocking other character's paths).
Instead, it was always just improvements to the static pathfinding algorithm (e.g. adding more search nodes), which was never actually the problem. On the contrary, these improvements kinda made things worse, because with better static pathfinding, characters are able to find even more ridiculous detours when their path is temporarily blocked.
Thanks, passed this to the development team. Appreciate a lot that you went into so many details and provided those saves.
I'm unfortunately late to report a quest bug: The "Prisoner of the Gnolls" quest doesn't show as completed although I found and rescued Dynahier (after talking to the gnoll Ingot on the other map).
This is interesting. Is this perhaps the mod you mean?
They are available at least from the Galaxy. Please ask GOG about offline launchers.