Any sense of ETA for 2.6?
tedmann12
Member Posts: 128
Really looking forward to this patch. I have been waiting for it to continue my game from SoD into BG2:EE. Any idea how far out we are? Weeks? Months? Is the beta currently in a decent state?
Thanks!
Thanks!
4
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BG3 is not gonna happen for them, and any more sales on BG:EE probably won't depend on 2.6, so their reasons for even finishing it is probably not a thought of profit.
Make no mistake, I am glad it's coming.. and in light of not really understanding why they should care at this point, i think it's admirable that they do.. so hats off for that.
2020 has been a bit of a screwed up year for everyone, so i think some leniency on timescales is warranted.
NWN just recieved a huge update to the graphic engine and lighting effects so perhaps they will now shift over some of the crew that were working on that, to wrap up 2.6.
Mind you, it also takes time to update mods and such after a major patch. I'll be happy if 2.6 doesn't break anything and schedule a full modded run for maybe 6 months later.
No patch has taken 3 years yet.
I had some ideas today on what improvements I would absolutely love to see in BG(2):EE, but they would probably require deep changes in the engine which is unlikely to happen.
But hey, one can dream, so here it is:
1. Improved field-of-vision mechanics.
The existing mechanics have some issues. Sometimes an NPC that initiates dialogue will be right at the edge of your FOV (sometimes it even bugs and they're not visible yet) and this can make you miss some dialogue-relevant context like where they're standing / what's around them.
The most common and obvious example of this is when a blue NPC out of a group of foes talks to you and becomes red, but all their allies are still outside your FOV. It's annoying as you don't immediately see what group you're up against, and at the same time it lets you cheese the game by pulling in the enemies one by one. (Whether the possibility of doing that is desirable is probably a matter of opinion, i.e. how much cheese is too much cheese?)
A good solution IMO would be to add a second, larger layer to the FOV, with the following properties: doesn't contribute to map discovery, doesn't reveal containers when you hit TAB, doesn't reveal NPC details (like name), and NPCs won't initiate dialogue. It would merely give you a "preview" of what you're about to encounter. Hostile creatures should probably aggro you when they're within this extended FOV though, otherwise you're at too much of an advantage.
Bonus points if instead of having a clear cut off point, this "outer FOV" smoothly fades into darkness.
2. Improved path-finding.
The path-finding of the playable characters is abysmal! They take sub-optimal routes, run into dead-ends when there's a valid and visible path, block each other's path (even out in the open, not even just in tight spaces!) and as a result of blocking each other's way they sometimes take terribly long to get into formation. They also break formation way too easily, especially when changing direction.
Given the enormously more powerful hardware we have nowadays compared to back then, I'm sure that the path-finding algorithm could be changed to a much more accurate one. As for the path blocking, I wonder whether collisions shouldn't simply be disabled for party members, so they can all stay on the same spot / walk through each other. The only "disadvantage" (if it is one) is that it would make some fights in tight spots easier because you don't have to mess with positioning anymore, e.g. all your melee fighters can stand on top of each other attacking an enemy in front of them in a tight corridor, instead of the game forcing you to choose only 1-2 to melee in the front.
3. Allow continuing a save-game after finishing the story.
For instance in BG1, there's no reason you shouldn't be able to keep playing to visit Durlag's Tower, visit Ulgoth's Beard, finish some side quests in BG City or elsewhere, or finish some NPC quests, after finishing off Sarevok. If we're being perfectionist, a lot of NPC dialogue would need to change after the story is finished, but personally I wouldn't mind if this wasn't done.
As it is currently, you're shown the end-of-story cinematic and then the only thing you can do is load a save-game. Why not just teleport your character back into BG City and let you continue whatever unfinished business you may have.
This point is probably the only one that would be plausible to implement with a patch / mod at this stage. The first two would IMO be amazing but I don't see them ever happening. Correct me.
The third item on your list is already available as a mod in the form of @jastey 's Endless BG1 mod. You can find details of it on this thread: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/77975/mod-endless-bg1-a-mod-for-bg-ee-bg-sod-bgt-and-eet/p1
Neat! Maybe I'll install that and postpone TotSC material post-Sarevok then. (Currently going through BG:EE again.)
Even more neat! Any place I can read about this?
Also, what's the best way of making ourselves heard with regard to what we'd most like to see? I just thought of another point of improvement:
It's a bit annoying when you merely whack away a group of 2-3 Xvart or Tasloi or something with a level 5+ party and the "battle music" starts playing as if you're in danger.
As for asking for new features...I wouldn't waste your time. Beamdog fell out of favor with WotC (for bull reasons) and they can't add new features to any EE product. Its strictly bug fixes at this point, sadly.
What bull#%&! reasons resulted in Beamdog falling out of favor with Wizards of the Coast?
Controversy around Siege of Dragonspear that led to review bombings..
I don't like the new NPCs either (and dropped SoD 5 minutes in because it felt too... different), but guess what my solution to those problems are. Just ignore the new NPCs, skip SoD, and enjoy the refined original content!
Hope they're happy about what they achieved, LOL.
That's exactly what it was. And you know it was review bombings from angry snowflakes who never played the game, because reviews from confirmed owners of the game were a full 2 points higher on average.
if anything there should have been more out rage over bg 3. but as larian is seen as the 2nd coming of bioware thats never happening.
Hmm, I wonder if there's any chance of Infinity Engine going open-source? It's not used for anything new anymore, and if Beamdog isn't allowed to make improvements, then what's the point of keeping it proprietary? I think releasing the source code to the community under a permissive license would be the most sensible thing to do at this point. (And if only I had the time, I would immediately start working on a GPL'd fork.
I can, and I will. Especially when Larian shows no interest in making BG3 look like anything but DOS3.
Honestly @ThacoBell, I agree with you. (also, good to see you! You've been around here for ages, non-stop!)
If I was the license holder WotC, I should be shocked and enraged at the moment. Every licensed D&D game (with the exception of the action titles) had one mandate, introduce CPRG players to the tabletop rules and world.
Larian is right now too far from 5e core rules experience to make BG3 appealing to me as a player seeking a D&D ruleset CPRG.
Interesting. I've been seeing almost nothing but the opposite response, with people commenting on how close Larian are sticking to tabletop implementation.
@ThacoBell RE BG3:
3. Combat
Cantrips. These are supposed to be synonymous with a fighter swinging a sword. They do a damage die and then that’s it. They should not create flammable surfaces, or ice patches. Firebolt is 1d10. That’s all. Not 1d6 + burning + fire surface.
Jump and disengage are DIFFERENT things. Period. Also, jump is NOT a bonus action. It’s part of the character’s movement.
If you are knocked prone, your turn is not over. You can still take actions, reactions, and bonus actions. And standing up takes ½ your movement. Let us stand up, not WASTE and entire turn.
It would be nice to create some way to do a readied action, I know this is probably wildly complicated, but it would help to ambush a group you are trying to funnel toward you.
Barrels are heavy. I know this is a video game, but “barrelmancy” should not be a thing. A barrel full of juice (just google it) weighs 600 pounds. We should not be able to toss them around. D&D is rooted in SOME semblance of reality. We have carrying capacities. The barrels shouldn’t be so easy to move around/ throw. Also. Exploding barrels? Seriously. One more thing for me to say “DOS:3”
The bonus action shove is a bad design choice – it truly trivializes a lot of things, since everyone can shove as a bonus action. It should be an attack action, thus taking a full action to perform.
I am not entirely sure how to quantify it, but the enemies/ tactics/ abilities really need to be looked at. A level 3 goblin shouldn’t have knockback arrows and exploding arrows. Gnolls shouldn’t be getting 3 attacks/ turn with their bows. Encounter planning was done as a video game, not as a D&D encounter should be designed/ considered. I think someone else on the forums said all the encounters in the game would be classified as very difficult or deadly. There is no ‘easy’ or medium encounters. For a party of 4? It’s A LOT of stuff when its 30 versus 4.
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Thread here:
https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=719422&gonew=1#UNREAD
A cubic yard of water (3x3x3 feet) is ~1700 lb.
Media does not appreciate how freaking dense liquids are and what it means to handle or be handled by them, whether it be games or movies or books, and so people don't generally have any idea.
Those walls of water in 'The Day After Tomorrow' or '2012' or 'Deep Impact' or a huge number of disaster movies? That thing would SHATTER the buildings it hit and it would SCOUR cities off the map clean to the bedrock as it receded if it was depicted as reality due to the weight of the water.