Road to 2.6 | Is the Baldur's Gate II 2.6.3.0 Patch Ready to Release?

JuliusBorisov

Patch 2.6 is close to release!

Steam Beta 2.6.3.0 for Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition is available now for public testing!

Based on your feedback on Build 2.6.2.0, we've added some fixes and removed a few regressions. HUGE thanks to everyone testing these games and helping us make this patch a success.

IMPORTANT:
Patch 2.6 will NOT be the last patch for Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition

• Patch 2.6 will not fix every issue— but we hope to make further improvements in future
• Here's what in the patch: 2.6 Patch Items

System Requirements have changed:
Minimum: Windows 7, 8.1, 10 64-bit, OS X 10.9, Ubuntu 18.04 or equivalent

• Please check your device meets the updated System Requirements before testing
• Make sure your device supports 64-bit games

TEST OBJECTIVE: Start questing! Is the patch good enough to release?
How to Participate

- Playthrough some quests & VOTE on the release
- Tell us about *new bugs (the beta shouldn't add any issues) - comment below!
- Tell us about major issues affecting saves, visuals, sound & quality - comment below!

How to opt-in & verify you're using the correct version

• Please make sure you're using a clean (unmodded) install. Clear your override folder before testing the beta build
• In your Steam Library, Right-Click Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition and choose “Properties”
• Click on the Beta Tab
• Choose the road_to_2.6 in the drop down menu
• If you don't see the road_to_2.6 in the drop down menu, please restart Steam
• In-game, on the main menu, you will see that the build is 2.6.3.0

WHAT CHANGED SINCE THE LAST BETA

All Games | Green lines no longer visible in various places
All Games | Interrupting client character creation causes bad state
All Games | Debug Console should now support up/down arrow keys to select previously executed commands
All Games | Nearest Neighbor Scaling should now behave as expected
BGIIEE | German text translations should now be readable when selecting audio
BGIIEE | Fixed issue where Remove Spell function did not work without specific game settings
BGIIEE | Fixed issue with soundsets assigning sound index randomly

We won't move forward with a 2.6 Patch release until we hear feedback from enough Windows, Linux & macOS players for each Infinity Engine Title:

- Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition
- Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear
- Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition
- Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition

*Note: We're focusing on Windows macOS & Linux now, but stay tuned for details on the 2.6 Patch for Android & iOS!

Join the Beta & Vote Below!

Testing Status:
6/20 Windows Players
1/3 Linux Players
0/3 macOS Players

_Luke_

@Galactygon

• [existed in v2.5] SPWI418D.SPL – The 'Range' field (Extended Header at 0xE) should be set to a very high value (32767 ideally) and the 'Projectile' field (Extended Header at 0x26) to a new Projectile that should be coded as suggested here:
  • The same applies to all those spells such as Fireshield, to control the range of the feedback damage without generating the "One of your spells has failed" message.
• [existed in v2.5] SPWI224.SPL – Glitterdust: certain effects bypass Magic Resistance, whereas other not. None of these effects should bypass Magic Resistance. Optionally, you could delete op#142 since the Blindness portrait icon is built-in the Blindness opcode...
• [existed in v2.5] SPPR208.SPL – Hold Person: string ~Held~ is displayed twice (one comes from opcode #175, the other one from "CDHELD.EFF"... As a result, you should delete op177 effect whose `resource` field is "CDHELD"...
  • This issue affects most/all "Hold Person/Monster/Animal" spells/abilities, such as "SPIN988.SPL", "SPWI306.SPL", "SPWI507.SPL", "SPPR305.SPL", "SPPR989.SPL" and the like...
• [existed in v2.5] Polymorph Self, Shapechange, Druid Polymorph abilities and the like:
  When you shapechange between two different non-natural forms, you will lose effects from equipped items.
  
  I know you said this is a code issue, but for the time being, you might want to consider the idea of either using opcode #53 (p2=0) or setting op135's parameter2 to 1 (Appearance only).
  
  Also for the record, here's another feature of op135: When the `resource` field is empty, it will also remove any item in SLOTS(34|SLOT_MISC19), the 'Magical Weapon Slot', whether or not it was supplying a polymorph effect. So the zero second B1-6.itm trick should be unnecessary...
• [existed in v2.5] BDSUM00.BCS: its attack blocks (line #264–#275 and #277–#284) should contain a "See(LastSeenBy(Myself))" check, otherwise summoned creatures will stutter whenever their target goes invisible.

Hurricane

A few issues in BGII:EE v2.6.3.0 that did not exist in v2.5.16.6:

• (1) The sequences of the party member and player soundsets are broken as follows. For testing, make sure to turn on Options -> Sounds -> Command Sounds = Always and Selection Sounds = Always, and do not select another character in-between selections or commands. When fixing this, be aware that this is BG2-specific, i.e. make sure not to break the BG1-style soundset sequences in BG:EE in turn.
  • (1.1) Regarding the selection sounds of the party member soundsets and the vanilla player soundsets FEMALE1-4 and MALE1-5, the characters only respond to the first 9 clicks and become mute when clicking on them for the 10th time and beyond, instead of continually going through their selection sounds forever. See BGII:EE v2.5.16.6 or the original BG2 for the expected behavior. As an exception, this issue currently does not affect the AoN player soundsets, as these start to play some rare selection sounds on the 10th click, which do not exist in traditional BG2-style soundsets.
    • (1.2) Additionally, in the case of the vanilla player soundsets FEMALE1-4 and MALE1-5, the characters only say three of their selection sounds, which matches the behavior in v2.5.16.6, but is bugged compared to the original BG2, where they say all four of their selection sounds. So if you're looking at the soundset sequences anyway, I assume it would make sense to evaluate this part as well. Also remember that the party member soundsets, by contrast, have six selection sounds, which are currently all playing and should still do so after the fix.
  • (1.3) Regarding the action acknowledgement sounds of the party member soundsets and any player soundsets including the AoN soundsets, the characters only say their very first common action acknowledgement 9 times in a row (i.e. repeating the same line 9 times), instead of going through all of their seven common action acknowledgements for the first 9 commands. See BGII:EE v2.5.16.6 or the original BG2 for the expected behavior.
    • (1.4) Additionally, on the 10th command, the characters randomly say either one of their two rare action acknowledgements before returning to the first common action acknowledgement on the 11th command, which matches the behavior in v2.5.16.6, but is different from the original BG2, where they say both of their two rare action acknowledgements on the 10th and 11th command before returning to the first common action acknowledgement on the 12th command. Not sure if there's a reason BGII:EE behaves this way, but I suspect it should work as in the original BG2, so if you're looking at the soundset sequences anyway, I assume it would make sense to evaluate this part as well.
  • (1.5) Regarding the action acknowledgement sounds, if you select a character 9 times and then issue a command to that character, the character says a rare action acknowledgement, i.e. selecting a character is counted as if it were a command for determining the start of the rare action acknowledgements. Instead, the character should only say a rare action acknowledgements after the 9th command, i.e. only commands should be counted for determining the start of the rare action acknowledgements. See BGII:EE v2.5.16.6 or the original BG2 for the expected behavior.
  • (1.6) Regarding the action acknowledgement sounds specifically of the AoN player soundsets, on the 10th command, the characters stay silent, and then return to the first common action acknowledgement on the 11th command. I assume they should either say a rare action acknowledgement in this spot (or two, if the behavior is changed per the original BG2) or, if the AoN soundsets are not designed to have any rare action acknowledgements, the characters should skip them and instead return directly to the first common action acknowledgement on the 10th command (or perhaps continue directly with the third common action acknowledgement).
• (2) Regarding the Adventurers of Neverwinter soundsets, two of Sarah's lines listed below have incorrect sound references, causing at least the second one to not play the corresponding sound. Note that when fixing these soundrefs in the various language projects on the Translation Tool, make sure to use the CSV-with-no-text-column import, so that the two strings do not accidentally lose their out-of-date status if they are not translated yet.
  • The soundref of string 103571 is set to "103571", which should instead be "bdtpsdo".
  • The soundref of string 103572 is set to "103572", which should instead be "bdtpsd08".
• (3) In the Options -> Language menu, the new entry "French" is currently listed below "Spanish". It should instead be listed between "English" and "German", per Beamdog's previous decision to always keep the languages in alphabetical order, using their English names.
• (4) The changing of the spider colors to BG1-style (also noted in the document from this post) should qualify as a bug because it goes against the original developer intent, since BioWare deliberately changed the BG1 spiders to look different in BG2, presumably to match BG2's more sinister-looking spider-spawning areas such as the graveyard underground, as opposed to BG1's more naturalistic areas such as the Cloakwood Forest. That means this change is unfaithful to BG2's design, so I recommend you take a second look at this decision.

ATigersClaw

I read the comment of @Galactygon in the IWD I thread about 2.6 is close to being wrapped up (yay!) and I know, it won't be the last patch but since @Hurricane posted quite some more bugs/inconsistencies maybe it does make sense to push out the release of 2.6 just a few days more and consider both @_Luke_'s and @Hurricane's suggestions.
I mean we waited quite a long time for the patch, a few days more won't matter now, right?

PS: There are also a couple of minor string suggestions open within the Translation Tool, so it would be great if someone could go through them and approve them before the release of 2.6.