BG:EE Update Request
Callirgos
Member Posts: 105
Hello. I'm a big fan of Baldurs Gate, and Baldurs Gate:EE
I'm also a combat designer and have been playing this specific game on and off for many years.
I'd like to bring up the boss battles of Mulahey and Seravok as two gameplay moments where the game seems broken on normal and Core difficulties.
I think some rework on these two boss battles would help the game remain a staple of RPG game history.
I believe the skeleton summoning script by Mulahey is also broken and can result in multiple uses that puts the player at an extreme statistical disadvantage. Additionally, whie I understand that Hold Person was in the original game at this stage, I would recommend that Mulahey not use hold person until later in the boss fight (perhaps after 50% health loss) and perhaps even scripted that he doesn't do it if the skeletons have already been summoned. At level 3 players are not very resiliant, though this is the perfect time to introduce them to some incapacitating magic... just not something that incapacitates the entire party in a crowded room... surrounded by skeletons.
The Seravok battle has no build or tension. It seems altered from the original game in its ruthless efficiency. I believe this is combination of Enemy AI, spells, and these specific enemies being reworked. This part of the game is beyond a fun challenge and difficulty and requires abusing game systems in an unnatural way to pass/win.
The Wizard: Should focus on the teleportation aspect, and not engage in party killing control spells unti lthe player has had some amount of time to digest the movement aspect of this character. (this character is the real threat of the battle. It might even be best to have him enter combat in a later round)
The Archer: Fine. Though he could make use of normal movement more and position himself from time to time.
Tazok: Redundant to Seravok's role, though mostly fine. This character should be the spike damage of melee combat (not Seravok).
Seravok: His accelerated movement and abiltiy to hit is enough. I'd recommend lowering his damage output so that his role is more of a constant damage threat, and melee experience.
While there is a point of view of keeping the content "pure", I think the content has already been altered in a significant enough way through various improvements. And I appreciate the improvements in the game. For these specific boss battles I think it would be valuable to playtest and reasses what the design goals are. These two boss battles are not fun. The single reason for this is that there is no opportunity for the player to learn and recover. Both of these boss battles simply overwhelm and end the game, and the player isn't really participating, overcoming, or interacting.
I'm also a combat designer and have been playing this specific game on and off for many years.
I'd like to bring up the boss battles of Mulahey and Seravok as two gameplay moments where the game seems broken on normal and Core difficulties.
I think some rework on these two boss battles would help the game remain a staple of RPG game history.
I believe the skeleton summoning script by Mulahey is also broken and can result in multiple uses that puts the player at an extreme statistical disadvantage. Additionally, whie I understand that Hold Person was in the original game at this stage, I would recommend that Mulahey not use hold person until later in the boss fight (perhaps after 50% health loss) and perhaps even scripted that he doesn't do it if the skeletons have already been summoned. At level 3 players are not very resiliant, though this is the perfect time to introduce them to some incapacitating magic... just not something that incapacitates the entire party in a crowded room... surrounded by skeletons.
The Seravok battle has no build or tension. It seems altered from the original game in its ruthless efficiency. I believe this is combination of Enemy AI, spells, and these specific enemies being reworked. This part of the game is beyond a fun challenge and difficulty and requires abusing game systems in an unnatural way to pass/win.
The Wizard: Should focus on the teleportation aspect, and not engage in party killing control spells unti lthe player has had some amount of time to digest the movement aspect of this character. (this character is the real threat of the battle. It might even be best to have him enter combat in a later round)
The Archer: Fine. Though he could make use of normal movement more and position himself from time to time.
Tazok: Redundant to Seravok's role, though mostly fine. This character should be the spike damage of melee combat (not Seravok).
Seravok: His accelerated movement and abiltiy to hit is enough. I'd recommend lowering his damage output so that his role is more of a constant damage threat, and melee experience.
While there is a point of view of keeping the content "pure", I think the content has already been altered in a significant enough way through various improvements. And I appreciate the improvements in the game. For these specific boss battles I think it would be valuable to playtest and reasses what the design goals are. These two boss battles are not fun. The single reason for this is that there is no opportunity for the player to learn and recover. Both of these boss battles simply overwhelm and end the game, and the player isn't really participating, overcoming, or interacting.
Post edited by Callirgos on
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Comments
for mulahey, when you first meet him, you don't HAVE to fight him, you can tell him that tazok sent you, and then get your team into a more advantageous position, plus just before you enter the mine, if you need it on the far north west side of the map there is a wand of frost inside a tree, if you grab xan or have another mage you can use that wand and zap mulahey a couple of times and he peaces out without a fuss, as for the skellies and kobolds, they are super low level enemies and as long as your front line is in front of them, they shouldn't be much of a problem to take down
with the sarevok fight, in theory it's even easier because its the last battle of the game, so this is the time to go full out, drink AS MANY beneficial potions as you can, they make a huge difference, such; giant STR potions and invulnerability potions for your fighters, potions of power, potions of magic shielding, magic resistance, mind focusing, ability score set to 18 if NPCs need it and so on
then cast any defensive spells as well making sure to cast the longer duration ones first, once all that is done you go straight for angelo who is going to try and zap you with a remove magic, so get in there and whip him up quick, if you can pop him before he gets that spell off then the rest of the battle is laughable really, even on insane difficulty with double damage, if you have perfect saves then semja can't really do squat to you since he only casts crowd control like spells, tazok is just a joke, and as long as your AC is super great while wearing a golden girdle and full plate vs sarevok you can actually see him miss
in my opinion, out of the entire BG 1 & 2 series the ONLY fights that require exploits to win on insane difficulty with double damage on are; draconis, abizigal and one of the rounds with melissan.
other than that, any other fight in the series if you prep properly you can win it without exploiting the AI at all ( at least in the base game, not sure about SCS type fights though )
also, bg is kind of notorious for hard fights, look at tarnesh at the friendly arm inn, very high chance you are only going to be level 1 the time you face him, and yet this holmes is level 5, and if you are insane difficulty with double damage on, its impossible to survive his magic missiles
actually even all the assassin bounty hunters ( the one in beregost and the one in nashkiel ) are all relatively strong the time you face them, with around 0 AC each which is a very tough AC to hit with a level 1 team, and even the bounty hunter in nashkiel is blastin ya with level 3 spells, while you are probably still level 1
or even nimble in nashkiel, i remember the first time i met that guy at level 1 or 2 and how he wiped me with his 4 magic missile darts
so there is actually a lot of tough fights in the game, but usually its just tactics is what changes a fight that seems impossible to easy peasy
for me, the hardest fights in bg1 are; the demonknight if you don't use the mirror on it and the tanarri demon guy aec-whats-his-pickle, i find those battles way more difficult than mulahey and sarevok
I'm curious why you think Draconis is on this list. I'm in the process of playing through ToB right now, and just got past him (haven't gotten to Abazigal yet, so can't comment on him). I'm playing on insane scs and double damage, and even without prepping with acid protection, Draconis went down pretty easily (though he did one shot my mage).
only certain classes can survive something this silly, plus the battle is bugged where when he changes to dragon form if you were to close to him you will be stuck on his position and he just swats at you until you eat the dirt nap and you can't move
on insane difficulty draconis does 70+ damage a hit with 4 APR at least, and even if your AC is insanely low, he is going to get at least 3 hits on your per turn, and if you are playing with a weak NPC team, they get swatted pretty quick, nevermind his breath weapon that deals over 150 damage which almost no NPC who isn't a melee person can survive without protection
and since you are stuck on his position and can't get out of the way, that wonderful remove magic hits you and dispels all of your beautiful buffs, so you take full damage from everything ( except for equipment bonuses and special abilities )
now it could be possible that SCS made draconis more fair/ fixed some of his bugs, but basically on insane with double damage on, its very difficult to defeat him without having anyone die without using exploits, and in my opinion, any fight should be winnable with all 6 team mates if prepared properly
and then when it comes to abizigal, he starts off in human form with a nifty little -22 thac0, which basically means he cannot miss, and even with whirlwind he deals 78 outrageous damage a hit at 10 APR, even with only 8 hits with a 60% resistance to damage he still deals over 240 damage to that character, which no joinable NPC is surviving period
the only way to get around this madness is to have mage or sorcerer or bard use protection from magical weapons and fool the AI and go toe to toe so abizigal wastes all of his attacks on someone he cannot damage
then in his dragon form, for some weird reason it seems that his lightning breath has infinite range and of coarse deals around 150 damage again, but at least this time its possible to have most of your team run out of the way of his remove magic
now when it comes to exploits our definitions may be different, but i remember playing some sort of ascension mod waaaaaaaay back in the vanilla days and holy hell did i have to exploit the piss out of the game to win, my favourite part was when the mod creator said their casters were "fair" which was laughable as hell because i remember the abizigal fight had 2 dragons ( him and a purple one ) and every 5 rounds or so no matter what was happening a stoneskin would always pop up on them both, and abizigal was casting imprisonment almost more often than a demilich, so because of shenanigans like that, that is why i don't play ascension or SCS mods
Anyway, I disagree with both suggestions on principle - I think it feels better to give enemies a set of abilities and then have them use them as efficiently as possible, not hold back to make the combat fair or artificially introduce MMORPG like phases. You deal with Mulahey as you do with all casters: try and stop him from casting. It's not a fast casting spell. If he's at 50% he is already taking steady damage, and it becomes trivial to do so. Especially if there are no skeletons around.
On the Sarevok fight: if you nerf his damage output your party can just gang up on him and kill him quickly which ends the game. Why would the Wizard hold back instead of trying to win the battle?
For what's it worth what gave me the most problem back in original BG 1 way back in the original release was the Davaeorn battle and some of the TotSC encounters, not the final battle or Mulahey.
Definitely doesn't do that with scs. Any mage using timestop is also dropping all other HLAs right after typically, so they're too busy doing that to be meleeing.
I experienced this as well on both Draconis and Abazigal. I think what' supposed to happen is that everyone is blown back upon transformation, but I think the game is bugged in that it blocks the wing buffet effect with too many things that shouldn't be blocking it, like amulet of power and spell shield, so if you've got people with these effects in melee when the transformation happens, they get stuck.
Personally, I'm just ctrl-J'ing the stuck characters a few feet next to him should that happen in the future. No reason not to.
That sounds like most dragons honestly. They all hit super hard, super fast and don't miss, which is why it was odd to me that you picked this guy out specifically. Though if you refuse to unstick your characters with ctrl-j who are stuck due to a bug, then yeah I can see why you'd get rolled.
I guess that's why I didn't have too hard of a time with them (though Abazigal with ascension+scs and double damage was rough as hell), as I'm running a party with a blade, two druids, wizard, cleric and ranged fighter. So other than the cleric, all the melee guys have stone/ironskins and the blade and wizard also have pfmw. Man, doing this fight with mostly fighter types and clerics... yikes. I agree, you'd get chewed up fast.