I just tried the Silke fight after installing hotfix, she immediately casted invisibility and didn't do anything more. When the invisibility was dispelled, she just standed there while my party was hacking her.
I just tried the Silke fight after installing hotfix, she immediately casted invisibility and didn't do anything more. When the invisibility was dispelled, she just standed there while my party was hacking her.
Did you visit Beregost before or after installing the hot fix? My guess is after and she is running her original scripts as her creature file was already generated. What you are describing above is her original script behavior.
I took on Tarnesh and the red Wizards. Nice fights with the summonings and all that. I noticed that all of the mages casted mirror image twice. Is this intended? They‘re also saying „damn, where are they?“ from time to time. Whats the meaning of this? Does it mean, they lost sight or something?
I took on Tarnesh and the red Wizards. Nice fights with the summonings and all that. I noticed that all of the mages casted mirror image twice. Is this intended? They‘re also saying „damn, where are they?“ from time to time. Whats the meaning of this? Does it mean, they lost sight or something?
I have some fixes coming in the next release to ensure Mirror Images are only cast once, so what you are seeing is not intended behavior.
In regards to "Damn, where are they?" is triggered if conditions are met and the mage does not see the player.
First impressions :
- so far, Tarnesh, Jemby and Tranzig seem to use the same prebuff spells : minor spell deflection, protection from missiles, and summons. Is intended or should I see more variety in spells casted depending of the casters ?
- Tarnesh is maybe a little too hard for level 1 character. He's virtually immune to missiles and spells, meaning if GW is not a frontliner, he will have almost no way to hurt him (and Imoen and Xzar are no help either).
- the gnoll fortress update is cool (I tried it with the beta Calling mod adding new foes and areas there), but makes it difficult for very low level characters. Maybe it would be nice to modify the timer for Minsc and Edwin quests ? They want the party to go after Dynaheir early on, and they are recruited at level 1.
- low monsters seem to land critical hits more often, with crit range at 19 or even 18. Maybe it's from Artisan's houserules weapons styles rework, but if not maybe it's a little too much to have crit at 18 against characters with low hit points ?
- priests are dangerous now, and hard to disrupt with concentration checks. It's nice to fear them too. :-)
- so far, Tarnesh, Jemby and Tranzig seem to use the same prebuff spells : minor spell deflection, protection from missiles, and summons. Is intended or should I see more variety in spells casted depending of the casters ?
Agreed. Lower level mages have less spells at their disposal and it will buff pretty similarly. As they progress in levels, they will have more variety in base prebuff options, elemental resistances chosen, Spell Immunity chosen, and guards. All that said, in my playthrough I have the same takeaway as I feel you are getting at and I want to see more variety in this manner. All I can say is this is my first iteration to get the mod out and that I plan to do more in future full releases to get this addressed. Already thinking of ways to diversify mage fights based on mage caster race and Specialization kit.
- Tarnesh is maybe a little too hard for level 1 character. He's virtually immune to missiles and spells, meaning if GW is not a frontliner, he will have almost no way to hurt him (and Imoen and Xzar are no help either).
It is made to be tough, and it may be advisable for an adventurer to get some levels under his/her belt before facing off against him. Ajantis is not far away and could fulfill a frontline position if one is needed.
- the gnoll fortress update is cool (I tried it with the beta Calling mod adding new foes and areas there), but makes it difficult for very low level characters. Maybe it would be nice to modify the timer for Minsc and Edwin quests ? They want the party to go after Dynaheir early on, and they are recruited at level 1.
Very good callout and I'll see how to get these edited.
EDIT: I have made the update so players will now have 30 days (prior was 10 days) to complete this quest. Should give you a bit more breathing room, but it can be adjusted further if necessary.
- low monsters seem to land critical hits more often, with crit range at 19 or even 18. Maybe it's from Artisan's houserules weapons styles rework, but if not maybe it's a little too much to have crit at 18 against characters with low hit points ?
This is probably due to the prevalence of enemy creatures having two-handed and single weapon styles which both improve the enemies crit range. Weapon Styles were not something present in og BG, and BGEE didn't go ahead and add weapon styles to these creatures. I'm guessing me adding it is what you are seeing. If Artisan tweaks it further, then I could see it being a shock going from creatures not using weapon styles to now them using weapon styles and the styles themselves are boosted a bit.
If Trouveur is referring to Hobgoblins and the like, it‘s a bit tough for no-reload runs, but I dont find them too hard. I had to reload once or twice and then used to kite them with MC and let Imoen shoot arrows. I mean, after all Hobgoblins are meant to be trained Mercenaries…
Tactics Remix official release for version 0.9.8.5-alpha which brings the following enhancements:
- Tweaked Basilisks to further reduce early game cheese.
I updated the page for Tactics Remix and under the Content section you can download files that show all the updated spells and new items introduced by Tactics Remix
I am currently re-installing lots of mods, after a fresh installation, and I am also now testing tactics remix
v0.9.8.3-alpha.
During the "Tougher Planar Sphere" step, I get some error about club-proficiency, e. g. cannot convert
into an integer. Aside from this I have not noticed any installation-related problems.
I am currently re-installing lots of mods, after a fresh installation, and I am also now testing tactics remix
v0.9.8.3-alpha.
During the "Tougher Planar Sphere" step, I get some error about club-proficiency, e. g. cannot convert
into an integer. Aside from this I have not noticed any installation-related problems.
Can you send me the error message/debug file and your weidu log?
So this is a little bit more feedback; I only played some of the changes ~yesterday,
so I don't know what all has changed yet. Sometimes I may mix up which mod makes
what change; right now I am at almost 80 different mods, and many have options that
could potentially interfere (e. g. the tweaks mod in particular; I only need perhaps
5 changes out of 50 options there or so). Anyway.
First, the summonable nymphs seem confused. I am not sure if this is due to tactics
remix, but the nymph often isn't doing anything. Normally I let Jaheira summon nymphs
because they can do fancy spells, but the nymph seems to just stand around and not
attack or do anything. It's still cannon fodder and distracts the enemies, but usually
nymphs cast healing spells or harm, or teleport via shadow door (or whatever else they
use). The nymph now seems confused. I am not sure if this is due to tactics remix changing
any spells, but if you ever get to have a look at it, perhaps you could also check
whether the nymph behaviour changed.
I notice that enemy mages seem to be smarter, e. g. the mages with the duergars casting
some protective shield early on, so they tend to last longer.
Resting in Irenicus' first dungeon now seems to trigger duergar warparties. These can
be challenging. At first I thought I stand no chance against them at insane difficulty
(but normal HP), as I thought they appear always when resting (without resting I could
not e. g. have Imoen cast Haste, which made it impossible to escape those war parties).
After some testing I found out I can sometimes rest. Perhaps the chance for a patrol
could be decreased a little bit; or at the least we could get some "free
resting", such as 3 or so. That way we can more easily setup the
party, equip it properly and so forth.
I also play with Region of Terror, so Wulfgar is a great help here (hammer + berzerk).
So, the last feedback point here, brings me to the second point, which I am pretty
certain comes from the modified Tactics remix, and that is the duergar boss. This
fight seems pretty difficult so far. The lesser demon (not wanting to give away too
many spoilers) seems hasted and in particular the golem rushes in and whacks down
hard (I also have argent77's golems mod installed, not sure if that has made golems
harder). I'll test this fight in an hour or two, probably with Drizzt in team, to see
whether that can be done, but it seems very difficult for a fairly low level team. I
guess you want to maintain this fight to be difficult, but perhaps the mob composition
could be a little bit more "streamlined", in that there is not a variety of different
monsters with different strengths and weaknesses, but more like one group of the same
monsters that share the same traits. Not sure what I would change here, but my initial
thinking is more that the lesser demon as well as the medium sized golem could be
replaced with another monster type. So the duergar boss could perhaps have two duergar
bodygurds or so and two large wardogs or whatever else would achieve a comparable
difficulty level. (Guess it may be a slight downgrade to the status quo, but that
fight seems a bit impossible right now. Or perhaps the golem could be replaced with
something else; golems can be pretty difficult due to their high resistances.)
Perhaps some of the early mobs could also have one or two magical weapons or armours;
does not have to be much, but anything may help, e. g. chain mail +1 or a club +1 or
so, to help the party a little bit. Like the first duergar party could have one of
that perhaps (the one after we spoke with the djinni who wants of us to push both
buttons, in Irenicus dungeon).
Also, aside from this, I think my favourite change before was the Sahuagin city
change or so; the Avatar fight is quite nice.
Last but not least, and I mentioned that before, so I won't write too much about it;
it would be great if Tactics remix could, in the long run, if you ever feel motivated
to do so, also become a bit more of a quest-like setting, in addition to your primary
focus of more challenging combat and fights (which I guess is a bit similar to the
sword coast stratagems). For instance, my earlier suggestion of a bounty-hunter like
guild or entity that can tie together e. g. the gnome-illusionist, the Kurosai etc...
kind of like a guild that would chase down targets (not only the party). And after
defeating these bounty hounters (and you could add more of course), we could visit
the guild hall on the wolrd map (designed by someone else, to lessen your
workload ) and have a "final showdown battle" there. Or any other storylike that
loosely connects things together; does not have to be a huge quest, just more of
a story-background. Similar with the various liches that pop up, there could also
be some connection to those, e. g. a mage that tries to become a lich but in the
process causes some havoc. (Here this also does not have to be done by you primarily
either, mind you; perhaps the lichdom mod could start with a larger quest-like
storyline, and incrementally add more content, that could then also be referred
to by tactics remix.) Anyway, I digress about this, so I'll leave it at that.
This here is just some semi-early feedback; I am aware you pointed out that this
is an alpha release, so no problem in this regard. I'll have a look at the changed
content of other parts lateron as I progress.
I'll take a look at nymphs because that doesn't sound right. In regards to the Irenicus dungeon, welcome to Nightmare mode! It is incredibly brutal. I did do this with a party out of BGEE, and I managed to survive. It is doable, but the difficulty on Nightmare mode is cranked up. If you go to Lite mode, many of your suggestions already exist, and it will be a much more manageable experience.
- The summonable nymph actually does cast; for instance, she turned hostile and then used insect swarm or whatever the name is that does damage-per-round, actually killing my party. (She still seems somewhat confused during combat though, e. g. sometimes just standing still doing nothing or just going into melee without then casting harm; usually she does cast harm.)
- I realised I could not damage the golem, no weapon worked, so I could not defeat the duergar boss while the golem was there. That got me an idea, though, and I was able to kite the golem away. (He did re-appear near the boss lateron again, but that is another consideration.) After I got the golem away, I realised I could kill the lesser demon, and did so. \o/ The confusion spell was the most difficult part here. I believe I could defeat the whole enemy party, including the duergar boss, via kiting them away, either individually, or ambushing them when they go around the corner. At this point in time, though, it took me too long to fight the duergar boss here, so I decided to move on with the main quest instead (this time I actually want to solve all of Drizzt's quests from Region of Terror.)
(I ran into an unrelated problem of another quest where I was unable to continue Dusk's
quest; rather than reload from an older save from almost 28 hours ago, I decided to stop
my current run and continue at some later point in time, perhaps next month. I do have
one more feedback to give in regards to the changed Tactics remix though.)
I recently went to the elemental lich hideout and upon starting the fight, he insta-summoned
several helpers, one of each of: pit fiend, bone golem, magical sword, and a planetar with that
globe of swords surrounding him. This is the second time I noticed a planetar showing up; in
an earlier fight against the Zalla-something cowled enforcer boss (the one that has a hourglass
timestop item), she also had a planetar and other helpers nearby. So I think Tactics remix
changed things here for some boss-mages or something like that.
I believe that composition (planetar, pit fiend etc...) is very problematic though. My party
level is at around level 9 or 10. Of course I can train them up more, but in particular the
planetar is really difficult to defeat, due to haste, hitting just about every strike hard, as
well as having those defences on. What is further making this hard is that so many helpers are
suddenly summoned in. For instance, the elemental lich usually summons a pit fiend. Now with
the change he has like 4 tough allies. And that seems to be valid for many boss enemies.
Zalla-something for instance also had the big earth elementals and other elementals if I
remember correctly (or perhaps those were summoned in by the cowled enforcers); these ones
are easier to kill than the planetar. Or golems in general; in particular high resistances are
an issue - not just in regards to the changes via Tactics remix but, for instance, in the Dusk
NPC mod where even guards from Amn have, oddly enough, mega-high resistances as "balance-scaler".
(This is in the last fight of Dusk's storyline, where there are six mages and tons of more
summons.)
Basically I "summoned" Zalla-something in the gate district and now that district is kind of
"locked", since planetar, cowled enforcers and Zalla will stay there until killed - but there
is no way my party composition right now can deal with a (single) planetar alone, yet alone
all of those other ones. So those area are now no-go areas, due to the change in Tactics Remix.
I don't think this was a desired intent of the changes in the Tactics Remix mod; but fair enough
that other item mods may not have been anticipated, so perhaps Tactics Remix focuses more on
the vanilla setting of the game. Even then, like the example of the elemental lich, it seems
to scale up the difficulty slider way too much.
Regardless, I have one or two suggestions to make in this regard.
1) One problem is how varied the enemies are in the fights. By e. g. summoning magical sword,
pit fiend, planetar, earth elemental, it is very hard to exploit any weakness since they have
different strengths and weaknesses. Here I think it may be simpler to focus on allies that
would be more similar in group composition. For instance, only earth elementals or only pit
fiends. (Granted, pit fiends are stronger than earth elementals, so there would have to be
some set point in balancing anything here, but it is a bit difficult to have to micro-optimise
for all of those different enemy units in a combined manner. Magical sword kind of want
magic missile, which is next to useless to a pit fiend and so forth.)
2) Some units are, IMO, too strong in an early stage of the game. I noticed this in Irenicus'
dungeon already, though I could lure away the golem and then kill the lesser demon; the
remaining units still seemed very strong and quickly killed the party. (This is hard in the
first dungeon because there aren't that many great items to help boost the party strength.
At a later time in the game this becomes a bit easier since some items are really helpful.)
Now with planetars showing up almost everywhere, those fights basically become guaranteed
losses. It's not a huge issue to deal with planetars at a later point in the game - see
crucible mod, where the fights were also hard, but I was able to damage the planetars. In
the early stage of BG2, though, there is not much that can be done. Even with better weapons
such as flail of ages, the hasted planetar with blade, is hitting like a truck and
obliterating my party easily; e. g. Drizzt died in about three strikes. If it were just one
planetar perhaps this becomes more managable, but there are so many high level units summoned
in addition to other "regular" features of boss-mode mobs that this seems way too difficult.
It also seems to make balancing the game harder overall, since those extra strong summonables
seem to make all fights significantly harder when it comes to e. g. enemy mages in particular.
During installation I was not aware that planetars would be placed down now; admittedly without
testing this may not easy to notice either.
If you want to retain the strong upwards scaling effect and not nerf those extra allies, though
I think it may be simpler to remove e. g. the planetar altogether, at the least in the early
part of the game, then perhaps there could be a separate option offered during the installation,
in that this could be limited somehow - for instance no planetars as install option, or some
more generic allies that aren't that powerful instead (the elementals are basically ok in
comparison, as they are easier to defeat than a single hasted planetar).
Like an option during the installation to let the player choose how difficult those summonables
should be. Then people could choose not the hardest difficulty here, e. g. the one with
planetars, but a setting below that like of medium difficulty where the summonables are,
say, elementals or something else instead. Though removing the planetar would be easier,
or at the least having him show up in later parts of the game instead. Or, if there would
be too many options to ask, perhaps allow grouping of options. At any rate, that's it for
the feedback. Perhaps if you have time in the future you may consider some changes to be
made before the new releases of Tactics remix become stable. (There are probably more
efficient players, e. g. I saw videos on youtube where people would kite even five
hasted planetars, in that other mod where the final enemy mage summons that many planetars,
but I am more focusing to playing to have fun, not to micro-perfect every single step
to have a slim chance to win. I feel that at some point in time, there is too much
time investment for little gains in regards to fun, if things are too difficult.)
Basically I "summoned" Zalla-something in the gate district and now that district is kind of
"locked", since planetar, cowled enforcers and Zalla will stay there until killed - but there
is no way my party composition right now can deal with a (single) planetar alone, yet alone
all of those other ones. So those area are now no-go areas, due to the change in Tactics Remix.
I don't think this was a desired intent of the changes in the Tactics Remix mod; but fair enough
that other item mods may not have been anticipated, so perhaps Tactics Remix focuses more on
the vanilla setting of the game. Even then, like the example of the elemental lich, it seems
to scale up the difficulty slider way too much.
Again, welcome to Tactics. Don't fight mages with access to HLAs with a party of level 9s or 10s. You are getting crushed because you should be getting crushed by this at your level.
2) Some units are, IMO, too strong in an early stage of the game. I noticed this in Irenicus'
dungeon already, though I could lure away the golem and then kill the lesser demon; the
remaining units still seemed very strong and quickly killed the party. (This is hard in the
first dungeon because there aren't that many great items to help boost the party strength.
At a later time in the game this becomes a bit easier since some items are really helpful.)
Per my previous statement, welcome to Improved Ilyich - Nightmare Mode. If you want an easier Improved Ilyich, please use the Lite Mode version.
Now with planetars showing up almost everywhere, those fights basically become guaranteed
losses. It's not a huge issue to deal with planetars at a later point in the game - see
crucible mod, where the fights were also hard, but I was able to damage the planetars. In
the early stage of BG2, though, there is not much that can be done.
In my current playthrough, I'm in the early/mid portion of BG2EE and have not encountered a Planetar yet because I know I should not be going up against liches and high level mages at this stage.
It also seems to make balancing the game harder overall, since those extra strong summonables
seem to make all fights significantly harder when it comes to e. g. enemy mages in particular.
During installation I was not aware that planetars would be placed down now; admittedly without
testing this may not easy to notice either.
Yes, again, welcome to Tactics. The description for the Smarter Mages component literally tells you this is going to happen.
I am more focusing to playing to have fun, not to micro-perfect every single step
to have a slim chance to win. I feel that at some point in time, there is too much
time investment for little gains in regards to fun, if things are too difficult.)
I'm going to tell you the same thing I told you earlier: I do not think you are the intended audience for Tactics Remix. Enjoy something easier like SCS or vanilla.
EDIT: For some reason one of my reply quotes was cutoff, but the game's difficulty slider works with Tactics. If you are on a difficulty setting less than Insane, the enemies will not summon forth Planetar's.
Nice! Eager to try Loretakers with TR.
Chapter 3 battle was epic, with three deaths on my side.
Molkar crew was easier thanks to a lucky silence spell and a oil of fiery burning.
Thanks for the hotfix by the way, it's nice to be able to update a playthrough.
I'm trying a no reload run with bard strategist from Artisan's Bardic Wonders. I already noted many changes to my usual way of playing.
Now not only do I use consumables, but I also buy them! Elemental arrows are mandatory against dread wolves or mages.
Do you also plan to apply Tactics Remix to some others quests mods, like SotSC or BST? Could also be on Black Hearts.
btw, on my last Setup I was wondering how Tactics handles the P&P Creature Updates of atweaks? Especially the ones both of the Mods take on, like Undead oder Demons?
btw, on my last Setup I was wondering how Tactics handles the P&P Creature Updates of atweaks? Especially the ones both of the Mods take on, like Undead oder Demons?
Pnp Fey, Mephits, and elementals are the only ones I recommend. Can confirm issues with the other ones.
EDIT: Newest update to Tactics Remix covers sirines, so I no longer recommend using PnP Fey from aTweaks.
Comments
Did you visit Beregost before or after installing the hot fix? My guess is after and she is running her original scripts as her creature file was already generated. What you are describing above is her original script behavior.
I have some fixes coming in the next release to ensure Mirror Images are only cast once, so what you are seeing is not intended behavior.
In regards to "Damn, where are they?" is triggered if conditions are met and the mage does not see the player.
- so far, Tarnesh, Jemby and Tranzig seem to use the same prebuff spells : minor spell deflection, protection from missiles, and summons. Is intended or should I see more variety in spells casted depending of the casters ?
- Tarnesh is maybe a little too hard for level 1 character. He's virtually immune to missiles and spells, meaning if GW is not a frontliner, he will have almost no way to hurt him (and Imoen and Xzar are no help either).
- the gnoll fortress update is cool (I tried it with the beta Calling mod adding new foes and areas there), but makes it difficult for very low level characters. Maybe it would be nice to modify the timer for Minsc and Edwin quests ? They want the party to go after Dynaheir early on, and they are recruited at level 1.
- low monsters seem to land critical hits more often, with crit range at 19 or even 18. Maybe it's from Artisan's houserules weapons styles rework, but if not maybe it's a little too much to have crit at 18 against characters with low hit points ?
- priests are dangerous now, and hard to disrupt with concentration checks. It's nice to fear them too. :-)
Agreed. Lower level mages have less spells at their disposal and it will buff pretty similarly. As they progress in levels, they will have more variety in base prebuff options, elemental resistances chosen, Spell Immunity chosen, and guards. All that said, in my playthrough I have the same takeaway as I feel you are getting at and I want to see more variety in this manner. All I can say is this is my first iteration to get the mod out and that I plan to do more in future full releases to get this addressed. Already thinking of ways to diversify mage fights based on mage caster race and Specialization kit.
It is made to be tough, and it may be advisable for an adventurer to get some levels under his/her belt before facing off against him. Ajantis is not far away and could fulfill a frontline position if one is needed.
Very good callout and I'll see how to get these edited.
EDIT: I have made the update so players will now have 30 days (prior was 10 days) to complete this quest. Should give you a bit more breathing room, but it can be adjusted further if necessary.
This is probably due to the prevalence of enemy creatures having two-handed and single weapon styles which both improve the enemies crit range. Weapon Styles were not something present in og BG, and BGEE didn't go ahead and add weapon styles to these creatures. I'm guessing me adding it is what you are seeing. If Artisan tweaks it further, then I could see it being a shock going from creatures not using weapon styles to now them using weapon styles and the styles themselves are boosted a bit.
Perfect to hear!
https://www.morpheus-mart.com/tactics-remix
https://www.morpheus-mart.com/tactics-remix
- Tweaked Basilisks to further reduce early game cheese.
https://www.morpheus-mart.com/tactics-remix
Thank you! The issue is corrected and will be part of the next update/hotfix.
v0.9.8.3-alpha.
During the "Tougher Planar Sphere" step, I get some error about club-proficiency, e. g. cannot convert
into an integer. Aside from this I have not noticed any installation-related problems.
Can you send me the error message/debug file and your weidu log?
so I don't know what all has changed yet. Sometimes I may mix up which mod makes
what change; right now I am at almost 80 different mods, and many have options that
could potentially interfere (e. g. the tweaks mod in particular; I only need perhaps
5 changes out of 50 options there or so). Anyway.
First, the summonable nymphs seem confused. I am not sure if this is due to tactics
remix, but the nymph often isn't doing anything. Normally I let Jaheira summon nymphs
because they can do fancy spells, but the nymph seems to just stand around and not
attack or do anything. It's still cannon fodder and distracts the enemies, but usually
nymphs cast healing spells or harm, or teleport via shadow door (or whatever else they
use). The nymph now seems confused. I am not sure if this is due to tactics remix changing
any spells, but if you ever get to have a look at it, perhaps you could also check
whether the nymph behaviour changed.
I notice that enemy mages seem to be smarter, e. g. the mages with the duergars casting
some protective shield early on, so they tend to last longer.
Resting in Irenicus' first dungeon now seems to trigger duergar warparties. These can
be challenging. At first I thought I stand no chance against them at insane difficulty
(but normal HP), as I thought they appear always when resting (without resting I could
not e. g. have Imoen cast Haste, which made it impossible to escape those war parties).
After some testing I found out I can sometimes rest. Perhaps the chance for a patrol
could be decreased a little bit; or at the least we could get some "free
resting", such as 3 or so. That way we can more easily setup the
party, equip it properly and so forth.
I also play with Region of Terror, so Wulfgar is a great help here (hammer + berzerk).
So, the last feedback point here, brings me to the second point, which I am pretty
certain comes from the modified Tactics remix, and that is the duergar boss. This
fight seems pretty difficult so far. The lesser demon (not wanting to give away too
many spoilers) seems hasted and in particular the golem rushes in and whacks down
hard (I also have argent77's golems mod installed, not sure if that has made golems
harder). I'll test this fight in an hour or two, probably with Drizzt in team, to see
whether that can be done, but it seems very difficult for a fairly low level team. I
guess you want to maintain this fight to be difficult, but perhaps the mob composition
could be a little bit more "streamlined", in that there is not a variety of different
monsters with different strengths and weaknesses, but more like one group of the same
monsters that share the same traits. Not sure what I would change here, but my initial
thinking is more that the lesser demon as well as the medium sized golem could be
replaced with another monster type. So the duergar boss could perhaps have two duergar
bodygurds or so and two large wardogs or whatever else would achieve a comparable
difficulty level. (Guess it may be a slight downgrade to the status quo, but that
fight seems a bit impossible right now. Or perhaps the golem could be replaced with
something else; golems can be pretty difficult due to their high resistances.)
Perhaps some of the early mobs could also have one or two magical weapons or armours;
does not have to be much, but anything may help, e. g. chain mail +1 or a club +1 or
so, to help the party a little bit. Like the first duergar party could have one of
that perhaps (the one after we spoke with the djinni who wants of us to push both
buttons, in Irenicus dungeon).
Also, aside from this, I think my favourite change before was the Sahuagin city
change or so; the Avatar fight is quite nice.
Last but not least, and I mentioned that before, so I won't write too much about it;
it would be great if Tactics remix could, in the long run, if you ever feel motivated
to do so, also become a bit more of a quest-like setting, in addition to your primary
focus of more challenging combat and fights (which I guess is a bit similar to the
sword coast stratagems). For instance, my earlier suggestion of a bounty-hunter like
guild or entity that can tie together e. g. the gnome-illusionist, the Kurosai etc...
kind of like a guild that would chase down targets (not only the party). And after
defeating these bounty hounters (and you could add more of course), we could visit
the guild hall on the wolrd map (designed by someone else, to lessen your
workload
loosely connects things together; does not have to be a huge quest, just more of
a story-background. Similar with the various liches that pop up, there could also
be some connection to those, e. g. a mage that tries to become a lich but in the
process causes some havoc. (Here this also does not have to be done by you primarily
either, mind you; perhaps the lichdom mod could start with a larger quest-like
storyline, and incrementally add more content, that could then also be referred
to by tactics remix.) Anyway, I digress about this, so I'll leave it at that.
This here is just some semi-early feedback; I am aware you pointed out that this
is an alpha release, so no problem in this regard. I'll have a look at the changed
content of other parts lateron as I progress.
- The summonable nymph actually does cast; for instance, she turned hostile and then used insect swarm or whatever the name is that does damage-per-round, actually killing my party.
- I realised I could not damage the golem, no weapon worked, so I could not defeat the duergar boss while the golem was there. That got me an idea, though, and I was able to kite the golem away. (He did re-appear near the boss lateron again, but that is another consideration.) After I got the golem away, I realised I could kill the lesser demon, and did so. \o/ The confusion spell was the most difficult part here. I believe I could defeat the whole enemy party, including the duergar boss, via kiting them away, either individually, or ambushing them when they go around the corner. At this point in time, though, it took me too long to fight the duergar boss here, so I decided to move on with the main quest instead (this time I actually want to solve all of Drizzt's quests from Region of Terror.)
quest; rather than reload from an older save from almost 28 hours ago, I decided to stop
my current run and continue at some later point in time, perhaps next month. I do have
one more feedback to give in regards to the changed Tactics remix though.)
I recently went to the elemental lich hideout and upon starting the fight, he insta-summoned
several helpers, one of each of: pit fiend, bone golem, magical sword, and a planetar with that
globe of swords surrounding him. This is the second time I noticed a planetar showing up; in
an earlier fight against the Zalla-something cowled enforcer boss (the one that has a hourglass
timestop item), she also had a planetar and other helpers nearby. So I think Tactics remix
changed things here for some boss-mages or something like that.
I believe that composition (planetar, pit fiend etc...) is very problematic though. My party
level is at around level 9 or 10. Of course I can train them up more, but in particular the
planetar is really difficult to defeat, due to haste, hitting just about every strike hard, as
well as having those defences on. What is further making this hard is that so many helpers are
suddenly summoned in. For instance, the elemental lich usually summons a pit fiend. Now with
the change he has like 4 tough allies. And that seems to be valid for many boss enemies.
Zalla-something for instance also had the big earth elementals and other elementals if I
remember correctly (or perhaps those were summoned in by the cowled enforcers); these ones
are easier to kill than the planetar. Or golems in general; in particular high resistances are
an issue - not just in regards to the changes via Tactics remix but, for instance, in the Dusk
NPC mod where even guards from Amn have, oddly enough, mega-high resistances as "balance-scaler".
(This is in the last fight of Dusk's storyline, where there are six mages and tons of more
summons.)
Basically I "summoned" Zalla-something in the gate district and now that district is kind of
"locked", since planetar, cowled enforcers and Zalla will stay there until killed - but there
is no way my party composition right now can deal with a (single) planetar alone, yet alone
all of those other ones. So those area are now no-go areas, due to the change in Tactics Remix.
I don't think this was a desired intent of the changes in the Tactics Remix mod; but fair enough
that other item mods may not have been anticipated, so perhaps Tactics Remix focuses more on
the vanilla setting of the game. Even then, like the example of the elemental lich, it seems
to scale up the difficulty slider way too much.
Regardless, I have one or two suggestions to make in this regard.
1) One problem is how varied the enemies are in the fights. By e. g. summoning magical sword,
pit fiend, planetar, earth elemental, it is very hard to exploit any weakness since they have
different strengths and weaknesses. Here I think it may be simpler to focus on allies that
would be more similar in group composition. For instance, only earth elementals or only pit
fiends. (Granted, pit fiends are stronger than earth elementals, so there would have to be
some set point in balancing anything here, but it is a bit difficult to have to micro-optimise
for all of those different enemy units in a combined manner. Magical sword kind of want
magic missile, which is next to useless to a pit fiend and so forth.)
2) Some units are, IMO, too strong in an early stage of the game. I noticed this in Irenicus'
dungeon already, though I could lure away the golem and then kill the lesser demon; the
remaining units still seemed very strong and quickly killed the party. (This is hard in the
first dungeon because there aren't that many great items to help boost the party strength.
At a later time in the game this becomes a bit easier since some items are really helpful.)
Now with planetars showing up almost everywhere, those fights basically become guaranteed
losses. It's not a huge issue to deal with planetars at a later point in the game - see
crucible mod, where the fights were also hard, but I was able to damage the planetars. In
the early stage of BG2, though, there is not much that can be done. Even with better weapons
such as flail of ages, the hasted planetar with blade, is hitting like a truck and
obliterating my party easily; e. g. Drizzt died in about three strikes. If it were just one
planetar perhaps this becomes more managable, but there are so many high level units summoned
in addition to other "regular" features of boss-mode mobs that this seems way too difficult.
It also seems to make balancing the game harder overall, since those extra strong summonables
seem to make all fights significantly harder when it comes to e. g. enemy mages in particular.
During installation I was not aware that planetars would be placed down now; admittedly without
testing this may not easy to notice either.
If you want to retain the strong upwards scaling effect and not nerf those extra allies, though
I think it may be simpler to remove e. g. the planetar altogether, at the least in the early
part of the game, then perhaps there could be a separate option offered during the installation,
in that this could be limited somehow - for instance no planetars as install option, or some
more generic allies that aren't that powerful instead (the elementals are basically ok in
comparison, as they are easier to defeat than a single hasted planetar).
Like an option during the installation to let the player choose how difficult those summonables
should be. Then people could choose not the hardest difficulty here, e. g. the one with
planetars, but a setting below that like of medium difficulty where the summonables are,
say, elementals or something else instead. Though removing the planetar would be easier,
or at the least having him show up in later parts of the game instead. Or, if there would
be too many options to ask, perhaps allow grouping of options. At any rate, that's it for
the feedback. Perhaps if you have time in the future you may consider some changes to be
made before the new releases of Tactics remix become stable. (There are probably more
efficient players, e. g. I saw videos on youtube where people would kite even five
hasted planetars, in that other mod where the final enemy mage summons that many planetars,
but I am more focusing to playing to have fun, not to micro-perfect every single step
to have a slim chance to win. I feel that at some point in time, there is too much
time investment for little gains in regards to fun, if things are too difficult.)
Again, welcome to Tactics. Don't fight mages with access to HLAs with a party of level 9s or 10s. You are getting crushed because you should be getting crushed by this at your level.
Per my previous statement, welcome to Improved Ilyich - Nightmare Mode. If you want an easier Improved Ilyich, please use the Lite Mode version.
In my current playthrough, I'm in the early/mid portion of BG2EE and have not encountered a Planetar yet because I know I should not be going up against liches and high level mages at this stage.
Yes, again, welcome to Tactics. The description for the Smarter Mages component literally tells you this is going to happen.
I'm going to tell you the same thing I told you earlier: I do not think you are the intended audience for Tactics Remix. Enjoy something easier like SCS or vanilla.
EDIT: For some reason one of my reply quotes was cutoff, but the game's difficulty slider works with Tactics. If you are on a difficulty setting less than Insane, the enemies will not summon forth Planetar's.
Chapter 3 battle was epic, with three deaths on my side.
Molkar crew was easier thanks to a lucky silence spell and a oil of fiery burning.
Thanks for the hotfix by the way, it's nice to be able to update a playthrough.
I'm trying a no reload run with bard strategist from Artisan's Bardic Wonders. I already noted many changes to my usual way of playing.
Now not only do I use consumables, but I also buy them! Elemental arrows are mandatory against dread wolves or mages.
Do you also plan to apply Tactics Remix to some others quests mods, like SotSC or BST? Could also be on Black Hearts.
Edit: incorrectly listed another awesome author.
Do you mean Acifers Mods? Any Plans for Dark Tidings or Lost Goddess?
Yes and thank you, Acifer's work! Both are in scope and some of my work is already in Call of the Lost Goddess.
Pnp Fey, Mephits, and elementals are the only ones I recommend. Can confirm issues with the other ones.
EDIT: Newest update to Tactics Remix covers sirines, so I no longer recommend using PnP Fey from aTweaks.