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SCS difficulty and BG1 top BG2 difficulty comparison?

DeeKayNLDeeKayNL Member Posts: 110
in Baldur's Gate II: Enhanced Edition
Hello,



I have some question regarding SCS with BG2 and BG1. I currently own BG2 and played this numerous times.

When quests became to easy I installed SCS, but only a few components. I have Better Calls for Help, Smarter Mages en Smarter Priests installed. Also Prebufs enabled.

Currently have the difficulty slider on Improved.



My runs go really well with a few moments where I have to reload. I want to expand my SCS installation and add some more difficulty.

I was just wondering if I should enable some or all features. And which features make it really hard or just extra challenging.



I am also thinking about buying BG1 since I never played it. Should I play that with SCS on for my first run? How much more or less difficult is BG1 compared to BG2?



Thank you.

Comments

  • KhyronKhyron Member Posts: 636
    BG1 is significantly less complicated than BG2. I am not going to say easier, because that's a bit subjective i guess.

    But with lower levels, there are less spells and abilities to change things up. There are however a lot of scenaries that will kill you very quickly if you do not have a countermeasure.. perhaps more brutally/quicker than in BG2 where you kind of have a countermeasure for everything ready to pop.

    I have a feeling though that if you're used to SCS and high difficulty in BG2 and ToB, then BG1 will feel a little trivial.. even so, for a first playthrough i always recommend unmodded.
  • DeeKayNLDeeKayNL Member Posts: 110
    Thank you, I just finished TOB with an evil party and gonna plan my first playthrough from the beginning. Any advice for BG2 SCS extra challenges?
  • The_Baffled_KingThe_Baffled_King Member Posts: 147
    Note that I know a reasonable amount about BG2, but I haven't actually played it, so everything I say here should be understood in that light. I do however know BG1 pretty well, and I play with SCS. That means I've actually thought about precisely what you're asking about, only from the perspective of moving from BG1 to BG2, rather than vice-versa.

    I agree with almost everything the above poster has said, including the general advice about playing unmodded for first playthroughs, but I differ from them about whether that advice applies to an AI mod when moving from BG2 to BG1.

    An unusual and extremely useful feature of SCS is that you can change how much of the mod functions in game by (a) adjusting the difficulty slider; and/or (b) adjusting the behaviour of specific components via dialogue called by the UI menu. So, if you find BG1 with SCS a little more difficult than you'd like, or perhaps just find a specific encounter more difficult than you'd like, then you can just adjust the difficulty slider or, for example, turn off pre-battle casting before trying that encounter again.

    Conversely, if you're playing without SCS, and you find the vanilla game's AI unbearably stupid compared to what you're used to, then you're forced to either continue with something you're not enjoying that much or install SCS and start all over again. I notice you have Better Calls For Help installed - I personally can't stomach playing BG1 without that, in particular.
  • NeverusedNeverused Member Posts: 803
    BG1 and SCS is kind of interestingly difficult in that it's very consumable based: outside of Free Action, there's almost no permanent item-based immunities. Saving throws aren't low enough to be reliable either. So it's a game of using consumables wisely (Potions of Magic Blocking, Shielding, Clarity).

    If you're playing through BG2 with SCS... I'd say playing BG1 with SCS wouldn't be the worst decision ever. Just note that the recommended route by the game can very easily get you killed because Sleep is pretty much murder early on.
  • DeeKayNLDeeKayNL Member Posts: 110
    Thank you for your comments, I just bought BG1EE and Dragonspear. Really cheap on Steam now. I just installed some basic components from SCS and gonna use the slider as suggested.

    Installation is kinda a thing, but got everything to work in my linux/Ubuntu installation.

    For more questions on the actual game i am gonna make a topic in the correct forum.

    Thank you all! Hope I get to experience the full BG1 + BG2 + TOB run for the first time and hope its fun.
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