Hi Morpheus long time no see since my last playthrough with Tactics-remix two years ago.
Dunno if you remember me or not, we talked in g3, the playthrough didn’t finish due to a bug that cause the cut scene to get stuck in the last chapter’s hell fight with Irenicus.
Now I have time to do another EET run and glad to see you have a lot progression in the mod, cheers!
I have a few questions before install the newest version. I see that you have made some changes to the mage chess game. So firstly if I didn’t install this component, only the ai part, would enemy mages behave strangely? Like casting breach on allies with spell deflection. And what is this new nightmare/lite version, was the old tactics mod nightmare version or not. I remember that the Demi-lich in dock district was lvl 40 the last time I play remix and is this nightmare version or lite? Since this was not added when I was played.
Secondly, does Tactics-remix affect Ascension? Because I wish to do the trilogy this time, if so, will it be much harder. I saw some changes like planar ignores pfmw and dispel on hit which feels very op. And anything about compatibility I shall be noted.
Thirdly, I see in your website that I’m not recommended to install both ai component from Tactics-remix and SCS, so does this mean I shall skip SCS completely? Or there’s still things I can install from SCS. And for the AI part, are there any enemy types or races that SCS covers but Tactics-remix doesn’t. Sorry because I’m still a bit confused between this two mods.
Lastly, may I make a small request for a new component for less powerful version of new items. Because I don’t use any item upgrade mods myself, and although tactics-remix already tuned down a bit of its new items, they still seems too powerful to me. Specially when EE already added some new op items like the anti-holy avenger that dispel ignoring level and etc, I fear too much powerful items will ruin game experiences.
I see that you have made some changes to the mage chess game. So firstly if I didn’t install this component, only the ai part, would enemy mages behave strangely? Like casting breach on allies with spell deflection.
This is my version of mage chess. If you do not install my version, then the Tactics Remix scripts will behave using the vanilla spell system.
And what is this new nightmare/lite version, was the old tactics mod nightmare version or not. I remember that the Demi-lich in dock district was lvl 40 the last time I play remix and is this nightmare version or lite? Since this was not added when I was played.
Improved Illyich is incredibly difficult on Nightmare, and I recommend playing it on Lite version unless you really REALLY want to punish yourself. Nightmare Irenicus is closer to the version you played 2 years. I introduced the Lite version for those who want not as aggressive an experience.
Secondly, does Tactics-remix affect Ascension? Because I wish to do the trilogy this time, if so, will it be much harder. I saw some changes like planar ignores pfmw and dispel on hit which feels very op. And anything about compatibility I shall be noted.
Yes, Ascension fights will be more difficult. I mostly touch the Five themselves and leave the final fight alone as it is already incredibly well done and at a great difficulty level.
Thirdly, I see in your website that I’m not recommended to install both ai component from Tactics-remix and SCS, so does this mean I shall skip SCS completely? Or there’s still things I can install from SCS. And for the AI part, are there any enemy types or races that SCS covers but Tactics-remix doesn’t. Sorry because I’m still a bit confused between this two mods.
Correct. You can install a couple of the quality of life components from SCS, but do not install any of the AI or Tactical components from SCS with Tactics Remix. The only spell changes from SCS I would touch is the IWD spells. I would avoid SCS spell changes. Tactics Remix covers the entirety of the series.
Lastly, may I make a small request for a new component for less powerful version of new items. Because I don’t use any item upgrade mods myself, and although tactics-remix already tuned down a bit of its new items, they still seems too powerful to me. Specially when EE already added some new op items like the anti-holy avenger that dispel ignoring level and etc, I fear too much powerful items will ruin game experiences.
I don't feel any of the items introduced via Tactics Remix are more powerful than items already introduced via the base game.
The fact that "planar ignores pfmw and dispel on hit" with vanilla rules was my bad observation/remark. I corrected in a following post to say that I was wrong. However, you will probably need extra layers of protection as it may not be sufficient.
And thanks Morpheus for all these constant updates, it is difficult to keep up
Lastly, may I make a small request for a new component for less powerful version of new items. Because I don’t use any item upgrade mods myself, and although tactics-remix already tuned down a bit of its new items, they still seems too powerful to me. Specially when EE already added some new op items like the anti-holy avenger that dispel ignoring level and etc, I fear too much powerful items will ruin game experiences.
I don't feel any of the items introduced via Tactics Remix are more powerful than items already introduced via the base game.
I think Bloodbane is probably the most powerful weapon from my old experience with old Tactics+Ascension mods, +1 extra apr, -4 save to on-hit stun, no save poison damage and throwable. I banned that weapon myself because it both permanently CC the ascensions and high dps(+1 apr, no save poison) kills them fast enough. I saw others suggested this weapon can be tuned a bit and I totally agree, my suggesion is same as remove +1 apr and remove the -4 save penalty from it. But I'm fine with just modified my personal game if you have a different opinion, balancing is totally subjective.
Btw, component "Smarter Mages" has an option to add extra spells to them, what does it mean?
Lastly, may I make a small request for a new component for less powerful version of new items. Because I don’t use any item upgrade mods myself, and although tactics-remix already tuned down a bit of its new items, they still seems too powerful to me. Specially when EE already added some new op items like the anti-holy avenger that dispel ignoring level and etc, I fear too much powerful items will ruin game experiences.
I don't feel any of the items introduced via Tactics Remix are more powerful than items already introduced via the base game.
Bloodbane is probably the most notorious weapon from the old mod with its +1 apr, no save on hit poison, -4 save to on hit stun and throwable. The author tries to balance two handing and dualing by introducing an overpowered two handed weapon. I saw others suggested this weapon is too good and from my own experience I totally agree with them. I beat the old Tactics + Ascension, soloing with this as main weapon and none of the final five can resist the poison + stun combo.
My suggesion is same as a previous proposer, remove the extra apr, and remove the -4 save penalty. Reason behind is: a fighter with 5 star in spear and gmw gauntlet can have 4.5 apr with this weapon, 5 if you install morpheus's skill and abilities mod, and with improved haste it's 9/10 apr and then cs, you got a dps machine that throws 10 spears a round, each does stackable no save poison damage that can easily permant CC targets.
As for the rest of the items, the acid katana is fine from the end-game standard, but from the aspect of considering how early you get it (chapter 2 of soa), this feels a bit too good. Same as the permanent true seeing robe. I'd suggest that the sword shall be changed to +3 instead of +4, and the robe to be changed to permanent see invisibility with a higher bonus in detect illusion maybe (true seeing is a lvl 6 spell and permanent lvl 6 spell on item feels crazy to me and to a lore aspect).
But overall these are personal opinion and balancing is very subjective.
Morpheus, I have a question or an idea regarding the BG1 Part and Tactics;
Would you consider changing the bounty hunter groups to become random encounters while traveling between the maps instead of being stationary? SCS does this with one specific component and I always liked the feeling of real „ambushes“ instead of just walking into those groups and preparing with meta gaming knowledge.
You could link the encounters to a specific chapter or party level, to prevent low level parties from being overwhelmed.
What do you say?
Morpheus, I have a question or an idea regarding the BG1 Part and Tactics;
Would you consider changing the bounty hunter groups to become random encounters while traveling between the maps instead of being stationary? SCS does this with one specific component and I always liked the feeling of real „ambushes“ instead of just walking into those groups and preparing with meta gaming knowledge.
You could link the encounters to a specific chapter or party level, to prevent low level parties from being overwhelmed.
What do you say?
In city encounters and random encounters while traveling are two distinct sets of encounters as per the original developers original intent. Due to that original intent, I do not plan to alter it.
I have a question regarding compatibility if you don't mind. I'm planning a large EET Install and I wanted to take SCS and SR a long. In fact I'm generally particularly interested in new spells and intend to use mods such as OlvynSpells.
As I was skimming the web for mods to make the most perfect and grandiose EET Install, I could hardly pass by Tactics Remix without giving it a glimpse or two. Of course I read the compatibility part on your website but it still left me with questions.
As I understand it Tactics Remix plays fairly well with SCS as long as I watch which components of TR I install before and after. But you said that SR is likely to be incompatible. Are there just specific components that won't work well with SR or won't any of them work due to the nature of both mods? I don't mind for minor bugs or even if certain components don't function. I expect my install to be buggy and inconsistent anyway but I don't want to shred the game by accident either.
@Dyonis earlier versions of Tactics Remix were more compatible with SCS but it was much more limited in scope. Current version of tactics remix will only work with some of the quality of life changes and IWD spells available in SCS. I do not recommend any of the SCS AI or tactical components because Tactics Remix already covers this.
Given what you've stated for your install, I wouldn't recommend Tactics Remix. Spell Revisions makes large changes across the board to spells and how they behave that Tactics Remix is not accounting for. I like a lot of what Spell Revisions does, it's just a lot of work to build out that extra compatibility. I do not recommend mixing Spell Revisions and Tactics Remix.
I see. I'm guessing it's the same with SR and I shouldn't even try to get both together? In that case I think I will try SCS + SR first and TR on my 2nd run and then compare the two.
@morpheus562 Since now Remix is mostly incompatible with SCS, do you have plans for more spell tweaks similar with SCS, it has a seperate component that I used, 1) Rebalancings of slightly-too-powerful spells. 2) Spells increased in power.
So I am testing the latest Tactics Remix right now, version 3.1.1, and I think I encountered
a tiny bug. Doing Lava's Southern Bridge mod, there are those vampiric wolves or so and they
can do some spells. One spell is hold person I assume; another one is charm person. I sent in Wulfgar
after berserking him, as otherwise the wolves charm my party quickly; Wulfgar is under the hold person
effect now, I believe, as there is a red mark on his character, and in the overview-menu it is written "Held",
but I can move him about freely, so this is a bit confusing. So, he seems to not be held at all, yet the effects
induced appear to make him assume to still be held to some point. This may have to do with rage effect,
although as I just looked, and "Held" is still shown in the character overview, but he is no longer under the
"Rage" effect, so I am a bit confused (and I think he could not be held before, due to the way how berserk
ability works, so this is really strange). Either way I assume there must be a missing or incorrect check, as
"Held" should only show up when the character is truly held, which is clearly not the case right now. (I have
not checked the back log, but I think the wolves only cast spells initially and then were engaged in close
fighting and no longer did any hold spells. Note that I also have a dryad in team and these one have been
a bit behaving oddly with Tactics Remix mod, but this time here it may not be the fault of the dryad.)
Anyway, just reporting this. I'll work my way towards Crucible eventually.
I just had another strange combat situation; there is the gnome illusionist, Valtor Darkspell, part of oldschool
Tactics Remix.
I lured the two imps away and now went on to face him directly, at fairly low level though (e. g. level 10 or something
like that). Interestingly he was very occupied doing spells but never attacking; I tested this a few times, going out,
entering again, going out - he seems almost stuck with some kind of routine (normally he begins to give chase
at the second time, even outside the house, but now he seems almost frozen in place).
So, he did stoneskin, and mirror image etc... but my party just whacked him down after a while where I noticed he
just stood still. He also just now tried to do a projected image or so, aka an illusion; my party could still see his
original image (which is also a bit strange, I don't recall anyone able to see invis in my party) and kept on fighting
him down (the original, not the projected illusion) until he eventually died - without doing any damage at all. (Also,
his loot seems to have changed; I am playing on insane difficulty.)
This situation is quite different to earlier play-throughs by the way, where he was quite strong (not as strong as
Kuroisan but usually did a lot of damage in a hasted manner).
Note: I did not pick all options in Tactics Remix this time; for instance I opted out of some summons (e. g. no tons
of planetars) and also did not opt for summon buddies for enemy mages, but I did pick improved AI for the mages,
I think. If this is the case then perhaps the AI messes itself up being too occupied with spells, which perhaps works
for pure mages, but at the least for the gnome illusionist it does not seem to work well; he never attacked at all. (I
think I also ran into this with other fighter before, still observing). I'll give more feedback once I go against Kuroisan,
The Ritual etc... but my prelimary findings are that the difficulty seems less severe at the least for the regular
components of Tactics remix - the elemental lich was also super-easy to kill, Korgan soloed him at level 10 or
so, at second entry, without the sword from the Gates district. I think the frost axe +3 was enough.)
Edit: It also seems as if the bodyguards, before Kangaxx (on the level above), behave a bit oddly. The lich that
followed my party outside, was throwing those fire missiles, but I managed to isolate him and his target (Drizzt)
moved away. The lich was then kind of trapped and did not do anything else it seem and was whittled down
by my party. Inside the house there was another dwarf fighter; normally he also gives chase and whacks like
a truck, but this fight he also did not do anything, did not strike at all and was quickly killed. (I think I also
noticed this before, now that I think about it, in that there is this charmed captain in the arnise keep and
I think he was only hitting once; normally he hits a LOT after hasting himself. I am not 100% certain this is
due to Tactics remix, as I am also testing the new tweaks mod from github directly, but either way just
reporting this so that it is known.)
You do weird things with your installs and fail to provide install logs. I can't test against this. Also, there is no option to disable enemy summons.
EDIT: I took a look at the gnome F/I and see that it is listed as EVILCUTOFF instead of ENEMY which is disrupting the attack trigger. This is being corrected in the next release.
Probably soon. I loaded one up today and created a character to do some early testing with it. Couple bug fixes but I'm also adding additional EEex features: enemies will now identify and target/attack player characters who are casting spells to force an interrupt.
Due to reallife time constraints I had to put my last run on semi-hold, but I continued
recently. I am not yet in Chapter 6, but I also installed the stronger vampire components
from Tactics Remix this time around.
There are a few small oddities I seem to have noticed; not sure I may call them as bug,
but instead the word "oddities" may be better, some of which seem AI-related. Also, it
may make vampires a bit too strong, but before I explain that, let me summarize my
findings a little bit, to provide some context to the thought process here.
Individual vampires are strong but not unkillable. For instance they may hit Dusk with
+50 damage per hit (that's a lot - that is basically two hits and Dusk is dead) and level
drain (makes subsequent hits easier and deadlier too); and the charm effect is quite strong
(e. g. Domination). But solo vampires or even smaller groups are quite doable still, in
particular once you have stronger magical items.
I have, however had, noticed that their AI behaves oddly at times. So when Korgan goes
berzerk mode, they seem to specifically avoid or ignore him sometimes (and probably all
who are enraged). I was about to fight down Bodhi, and the vampires give chase as a
group. Interestingly Korgan was standing as front tank (away from the other party members)
and the vampires seemed to ignore him and run ... quite to the other end of the map
(this is the area where Bodhi can be found in her hideout, so it is a large area,
the vampires were running from top left to middle right in a straight B-line, ignoring
everything in between their paths, until they reached the target, interestingly
enough). I noticed that they were eager as a beaver to throw domination on
non-berserked group members, which was their first action once they reached the
other end of the map. So their "intrinsic motivation" was to try to dominate someone.
My first question here, though, is: how do the vampires know they can run to the end of
the map, to find some target there, IF they can not see anyone else but Korgan?
I understand the rationale of making fights difficult, so the objective is to avoid the
hit-and-retreat cheese tactic, but to me it feels as if the vampires should not have a
bird's eye view and see everything on a map when they normally can not either. Anyway,
this is not the bug though. I fought them a bit and had to retreat. When I went back
in, I chose the other exit this time around (e. g. opposite where they would be, so I
went in from the left side), assembled the summons and Korgan was going forward again,
being berserked. Interestingly this time, they did not do anything, so they did not
even rush to the remaining party members and charmed them (even though they could still
not see them). Instead, Korgan went in and began to whack each vampire down like a
helpless whelp. They did not attack him at all; they did not even fight back either,
so they just stood still, not moving at all, waiting for Korgan to kill them. (So, the
AI seems to behave differently here; in the first time around they would run to the
other side of the map; this time they would not move. Actually some of them were in
another group from the top, so perhaps they were confused too. I may have disposed
of the initial group already.)
When Korgan's rage went away, suddenly they would attack Korgan (or at the least those
who were attacked by him, but I am quite certain all attacked Korgan the moment rage went
off, just that only like two vampires were left at that point in time; I sent the rest of
the team in as well at this time, though, so perhaps not all then attacked Korgan when they
could find new targets). So this is kind of the main bug: the vampires seem to get confused
about berserk in general. (Also, I am not even sure how they know someone is berserked -
Korgan is basically a walking full plate mail and helmet on top, how can they in-character
infer someone is raged? But I leave that to others, I understand the game has to make
simplistic assumptions for many effects. I just found it strange how they all avoided
throwing domination at Korgan; on the other hand, they would not always NOT do that
either, e. g. the first vampire group wanted to just dominate the group, the others
seemed more confused as to what to do.)
In larger group fights, domination is extremely powerful as it disables individual
party members. I guess there are ways to resist that but it increases the time
required to fight vampires. The damage output of vampires is also quite high and
the level drain is quite powerful.
I think balance-wise my biggest issue is how many vampires get spawned in total.
I noticed this in prior mods, e. g. Nalia's keep with the trolls (so many spirit
trolls, but perhaps that was another mod), but also more recently here when like
20 vampires were spawned in the lair of the red dragon.
I think it is possible to defeat them, but it takes so much more effort that I'd
wish I would not have installed the vampire add-on, largely because of the mass-number
scaling effect it has here. Taking down those vampires is harder than taking out
the red dragon in vanilla (I guess he is stronger this time; the shadow dragon
was stronger too.)
So my complaint is not primarily tied to how strong individual vampires are, but also
(primarily) the counter-level amassing, number-wise. I guess it is not easy to adjust
the difficulty-setting without also amassing more units, as the party may have better
summons etc..., which aids the party as well and makes fights easier - but I feel that
just dropping more and more monsters is not a great way to handle balance in general.
See World of Warcraft where the level 1 wolf would scale up to level 20 wolf, just to
keep being a challenge grind-wise. On the other hand some players may prefer permanent
challenges even number-wise, so for those players I would concur that more numbers can
be useful.
I don't have a good solution for this; obviously it may help a bit to not make vampires
so strong individually, and (perhaps more importantly so) hard-limit the additional
summons no matter the party level (e. g. to, say, maximum of x1.5 as a factor of the
regular summons, that is 150%, so if we have 6 vampires at maximumin an area, in a
vanilla game, the mod would not create more than 9 vampires on the very same spot
no matter what). Or perhaps some other metric to use.
However had, a perhaps simpler two-level "scale" effect was already made in some of
the mods in use by Tactics Remix. Take the initial Duergars in the first dungeon: we
have the nightmare mod and the lite mode (though, I am not sure it is necessarily
"light", but it is definitely doable, whereas nightmare was super-hard; that may
also depend on other mods installed, e. g. golem mods and other changes done by
other mods). For the vampire improvement in Tactics Remix, we could then simply call
the current variant as the very difficult one (e. g. "nightmare", or whatever name is
used); and a "lite" mode to also favour only a slight increase instead. I am not sure
what variables would be relevant for the "slight increase", but it may be useful at
the least in regards to the vampires-modification, so that we can either have the
god-like vampire strength (current setting), or a moderate improve instead, with
a bit weaker vampires - but still stronger than in vanilla. I am fine with challenges,
naturally, but I more lean towards the non-nightmare variant in difficulty, so I kind
of pick those instead these days. Players could then opt for the slightly-easier
but still a challenge way too, e. g. the "two-tier variants" (or actually three:
vanilla setting being the first, first-challenge level as the second, and the
second-challenge level aka "nightmare" as the third and last one). Of course other
solutions and ideas could be possible as well, so this is just an idea really.
(AI-wise some changes probably may still make sense, to avoid mobs doing naturally
stupid things, such as trying to charm an undead. Oddly enough, Bodhi appears to
be able to take over skeletons; that was a surprise to see. Bodhi solo is quite
easier than group of aggregated vampires though.)
Comments
Dunno if you remember me or not, we talked in g3, the playthrough didn’t finish due to a bug that cause the cut scene to get stuck in the last chapter’s hell fight with Irenicus.
Now I have time to do another EET run and glad to see you have a lot progression in the mod, cheers!
I have a few questions before install the newest version. I see that you have made some changes to the mage chess game. So firstly if I didn’t install this component, only the ai part, would enemy mages behave strangely? Like casting breach on allies with spell deflection. And what is this new nightmare/lite version, was the old tactics mod nightmare version or not. I remember that the Demi-lich in dock district was lvl 40 the last time I play remix and is this nightmare version or lite? Since this was not added when I was played.
Secondly, does Tactics-remix affect Ascension? Because I wish to do the trilogy this time, if so, will it be much harder. I saw some changes like planar ignores pfmw and dispel on hit which feels very op. And anything about compatibility I shall be noted.
Thirdly, I see in your website that I’m not recommended to install both ai component from Tactics-remix and SCS, so does this mean I shall skip SCS completely? Or there’s still things I can install from SCS. And for the AI part, are there any enemy types or races that SCS covers but Tactics-remix doesn’t. Sorry because I’m still a bit confused between this two mods.
Lastly, may I make a small request for a new component for less powerful version of new items. Because I don’t use any item upgrade mods myself, and although tactics-remix already tuned down a bit of its new items, they still seems too powerful to me. Specially when EE already added some new op items like the anti-holy avenger that dispel ignoring level and etc, I fear too much powerful items will ruin game experiences.
Best wishes, dunehunter
Improved Illyich is incredibly difficult on Nightmare, and I recommend playing it on Lite version unless you really REALLY want to punish yourself. Nightmare Irenicus is closer to the version you played 2 years. I introduced the Lite version for those who want not as aggressive an experience.
Yes, Ascension fights will be more difficult. I mostly touch the Five themselves and leave the final fight alone as it is already incredibly well done and at a great difficulty level.
Correct. You can install a couple of the quality of life components from SCS, but do not install any of the AI or Tactical components from SCS with Tactics Remix. The only spell changes from SCS I would touch is the IWD spells. I would avoid SCS spell changes. Tactics Remix covers the entirety of the series.
I don't feel any of the items introduced via Tactics Remix are more powerful than items already introduced via the base game.
And thanks Morpheus for all these constant updates, it is difficult to keep up
I think Bloodbane is probably the most powerful weapon from my old experience with old Tactics+Ascension mods, +1 extra apr, -4 save to on-hit stun, no save poison damage and throwable. I banned that weapon myself because it both permanently CC the ascensions and high dps(+1 apr, no save poison) kills them fast enough. I saw others suggested this weapon can be tuned a bit and I totally agree, my suggesion is same as remove +1 apr and remove the -4 save penalty from it. But I'm fine with just modified my personal game if you have a different opinion, balancing is totally subjective.
Btw, component "Smarter Mages" has an option to add extra spells to them, what does it mean?
Bloodbane is probably the most notorious weapon from the old mod with its +1 apr, no save on hit poison, -4 save to on hit stun and throwable. The author tries to balance two handing and dualing by introducing an overpowered two handed weapon. I saw others suggested this weapon is too good and from my own experience I totally agree with them. I beat the old Tactics + Ascension, soloing with this as main weapon and none of the final five can resist the poison + stun combo.
My suggesion is same as a previous proposer, remove the extra apr, and remove the -4 save penalty. Reason behind is: a fighter with 5 star in spear and gmw gauntlet can have 4.5 apr with this weapon, 5 if you install morpheus's skill and abilities mod, and with improved haste it's 9/10 apr and then cs, you got a dps machine that throws 10 spears a round, each does stackable no save poison damage that can easily permant CC targets.
As for the rest of the items, the acid katana is fine from the end-game standard, but from the aspect of considering how early you get it (chapter 2 of soa), this feels a bit too good. Same as the permanent true seeing robe. I'd suggest that the sword shall be changed to +3 instead of +4, and the robe to be changed to permanent see invisibility with a higher bonus in detect illusion maybe (true seeing is a lvl 6 spell and permanent lvl 6 spell on item feels crazy to me and to a lore aspect).
But overall these are personal opinion and balancing is very subjective.
Would you consider changing the bounty hunter groups to become random encounters while traveling between the maps instead of being stationary? SCS does this with one specific component and I always liked the feeling of real „ambushes“ instead of just walking into those groups and preparing with meta gaming knowledge.
You could link the encounters to a specific chapter or party level, to prevent low level parties from being overwhelmed.
What do you say?
In city encounters and random encounters while traveling are two distinct sets of encounters as per the original developers original intent. Due to that original intent, I do not plan to alter it.
I have a question regarding compatibility if you don't mind. I'm planning a large EET Install and I wanted to take SCS and SR a long. In fact I'm generally particularly interested in new spells and intend to use mods such as OlvynSpells.
As I was skimming the web for mods to make the most perfect and grandiose EET Install, I could hardly pass by Tactics Remix without giving it a glimpse or two. Of course I read the compatibility part on your website but it still left me with questions.
As I understand it Tactics Remix plays fairly well with SCS as long as I watch which components of TR I install before and after. But you said that SR is likely to be incompatible. Are there just specific components that won't work well with SR or won't any of them work due to the nature of both mods? I don't mind for minor bugs or even if certain components don't function. I expect my install to be buggy and inconsistent anyway but I don't want to shred the game by accident either.
Thank you for your help.
Given what you've stated for your install, I wouldn't recommend Tactics Remix. Spell Revisions makes large changes across the board to spells and how they behave that Tactics Remix is not accounting for. I like a lot of what Spell Revisions does, it's just a lot of work to build out that extra compatibility. I do not recommend mixing Spell Revisions and Tactics Remix.
Thank you for your prompt response!
Or I can use these two in SCS with Remix?
a tiny bug. Doing Lava's Southern Bridge mod, there are those vampiric wolves or so and they
can do some spells. One spell is hold person I assume; another one is charm person. I sent in Wulfgar
after berserking him, as otherwise the wolves charm my party quickly; Wulfgar is under the hold person
effect now, I believe, as there is a red mark on his character, and in the overview-menu it is written "Held",
but I can move him about freely, so this is a bit confusing. So, he seems to not be held at all, yet the effects
induced appear to make him assume to still be held to some point. This may have to do with rage effect,
although as I just looked, and "Held" is still shown in the character overview, but he is no longer under the
"Rage" effect, so I am a bit confused (and I think he could not be held before, due to the way how berserk
ability works, so this is really strange). Either way I assume there must be a missing or incorrect check, as
"Held" should only show up when the character is truly held, which is clearly not the case right now. (I have
not checked the back log, but I think the wolves only cast spells initially and then were engaged in close
fighting and no longer did any hold spells. Note that I also have a dryad in team and these one have been
a bit behaving oddly with Tactics Remix mod, but this time here it may not be the fault of the dryad.)
Anyway, just reporting this. I'll work my way towards Crucible eventually.
Tactics Remix.
I lured the two imps away and now went on to face him directly, at fairly low level though (e. g. level 10 or something
like that). Interestingly he was very occupied doing spells but never attacking; I tested this a few times, going out,
entering again, going out - he seems almost stuck with some kind of routine (normally he begins to give chase
at the second time, even outside the house, but now he seems almost frozen in place).
So, he did stoneskin, and mirror image etc... but my party just whacked him down after a while where I noticed he
just stood still. He also just now tried to do a projected image or so, aka an illusion; my party could still see his
original image (which is also a bit strange, I don't recall anyone able to see invis in my party) and kept on fighting
him down (the original, not the projected illusion) until he eventually died - without doing any damage at all. (Also,
his loot seems to have changed; I am playing on insane difficulty.)
This situation is quite different to earlier play-throughs by the way, where he was quite strong (not as strong as
Kuroisan but usually did a lot of damage in a hasted manner).
Note: I did not pick all options in Tactics Remix this time; for instance I opted out of some summons (e. g. no tons
of planetars) and also did not opt for summon buddies for enemy mages, but I did pick improved AI for the mages,
I think. If this is the case then perhaps the AI messes itself up being too occupied with spells, which perhaps works
for pure mages, but at the least for the gnome illusionist it does not seem to work well; he never attacked at all. (I
think I also ran into this with other fighter before, still observing). I'll give more feedback once I go against Kuroisan,
The Ritual etc... but my prelimary findings are that the difficulty seems less severe at the least for the regular
components of Tactics remix - the elemental lich was also super-easy to kill, Korgan soloed him at level 10 or
so, at second entry, without the sword from the Gates district. I think the frost axe +3 was enough.)
Edit: It also seems as if the bodyguards, before Kangaxx (on the level above), behave a bit oddly. The lich that
followed my party outside, was throwing those fire missiles, but I managed to isolate him and his target (Drizzt)
moved away. The lich was then kind of trapped and did not do anything else it seem and was whittled down
by my party. Inside the house there was another dwarf fighter; normally he also gives chase and whacks like
a truck, but this fight he also did not do anything, did not strike at all and was quickly killed. (I think I also
noticed this before, now that I think about it, in that there is this charmed captain in the arnise keep and
I think he was only hitting once; normally he hits a LOT after hasting himself. I am not 100% certain this is
due to Tactics remix, as I am also testing the new tweaks mod from github directly, but either way just
reporting this so that it is known.)
EDIT: I took a look at the gnome F/I and see that it is listed as EVILCUTOFF instead of ENEMY which is disrupting the attack trigger. This is being corrected in the next release.
recently. I am not yet in Chapter 6, but I also installed the stronger vampire components
from Tactics Remix this time around.
There are a few small oddities I seem to have noticed; not sure I may call them as bug,
but instead the word "oddities" may be better, some of which seem AI-related. Also, it
may make vampires a bit too strong, but before I explain that, let me summarize my
findings a little bit, to provide some context to the thought process here.
Individual vampires are strong but not unkillable. For instance they may hit Dusk with
+50 damage per hit (that's a lot - that is basically two hits and Dusk is dead) and level
drain (makes subsequent hits easier and deadlier too); and the charm effect is quite strong
(e. g. Domination). But solo vampires or even smaller groups are quite doable still, in
particular once you have stronger magical items.
I have, however had, noticed that their AI behaves oddly at times. So when Korgan goes
berzerk mode, they seem to specifically avoid or ignore him sometimes (and probably all
who are enraged). I was about to fight down Bodhi, and the vampires give chase as a
group. Interestingly Korgan was standing as front tank (away from the other party members)
and the vampires seemed to ignore him and run ... quite to the other end of the map
(this is the area where Bodhi can be found in her hideout, so it is a large area,
the vampires were running from top left to middle right in a straight B-line, ignoring
everything in between their paths, until they reached the target, interestingly
enough). I noticed that they were eager as a beaver to throw domination on
non-berserked group members, which was their first action once they reached the
other end of the map. So their "intrinsic motivation" was to try to dominate someone.
My first question here, though, is: how do the vampires know they can run to the end of
the map, to find some target there, IF they can not see anyone else but Korgan?
I understand the rationale of making fights difficult, so the objective is to avoid the
hit-and-retreat cheese tactic, but to me it feels as if the vampires should not have a
bird's eye view and see everything on a map when they normally can not either. Anyway,
this is not the bug though. I fought them a bit and had to retreat. When I went back
in, I chose the other exit this time around (e. g. opposite where they would be, so I
went in from the left side), assembled the summons and Korgan was going forward again,
being berserked. Interestingly this time, they did not do anything, so they did not
even rush to the remaining party members and charmed them (even though they could still
not see them). Instead, Korgan went in and began to whack each vampire down like a
helpless whelp. They did not attack him at all; they did not even fight back either,
so they just stood still, not moving at all, waiting for Korgan to kill them. (So, the
AI seems to behave differently here; in the first time around they would run to the
other side of the map; this time they would not move. Actually some of them were in
another group from the top, so perhaps they were confused too. I may have disposed
of the initial group already.)
When Korgan's rage went away, suddenly they would attack Korgan (or at the least those
who were attacked by him, but I am quite certain all attacked Korgan the moment rage went
off, just that only like two vampires were left at that point in time; I sent the rest of
the team in as well at this time, though, so perhaps not all then attacked Korgan when they
could find new targets). So this is kind of the main bug: the vampires seem to get confused
about berserk in general. (Also, I am not even sure how they know someone is berserked -
Korgan is basically a walking full plate mail and helmet on top, how can they in-character
infer someone is raged? But I leave that to others, I understand the game has to make
simplistic assumptions for many effects. I just found it strange how they all avoided
throwing domination at Korgan; on the other hand, they would not always NOT do that
either, e. g. the first vampire group wanted to just dominate the group, the others
seemed more confused as to what to do.)
In larger group fights, domination is extremely powerful as it disables individual
party members. I guess there are ways to resist that but it increases the time
required to fight vampires. The damage output of vampires is also quite high and
the level drain is quite powerful.
I think balance-wise my biggest issue is how many vampires get spawned in total.
I noticed this in prior mods, e. g. Nalia's keep with the trolls (so many spirit
trolls, but perhaps that was another mod), but also more recently here when like
20 vampires were spawned in the lair of the red dragon.
I think it is possible to defeat them, but it takes so much more effort that I'd
wish I would not have installed the vampire add-on, largely because of the mass-number
scaling effect it has here. Taking down those vampires is harder than taking out
the red dragon in vanilla (I guess he is stronger this time; the shadow dragon
was stronger too.)
So my complaint is not primarily tied to how strong individual vampires are, but also
(primarily) the counter-level amassing, number-wise. I guess it is not easy to adjust
the difficulty-setting without also amassing more units, as the party may have better
summons etc..., which aids the party as well and makes fights easier - but I feel that
just dropping more and more monsters is not a great way to handle balance in general.
See World of Warcraft where the level 1 wolf would scale up to level 20 wolf, just to
keep being a challenge grind-wise. On the other hand some players may prefer permanent
challenges even number-wise, so for those players I would concur that more numbers can
be useful.
I don't have a good solution for this; obviously it may help a bit to not make vampires
so strong individually, and (perhaps more importantly so) hard-limit the additional
summons no matter the party level (e. g. to, say, maximum of x1.5 as a factor of the
regular summons, that is 150%, so if we have 6 vampires at maximumin an area, in a
vanilla game, the mod would not create more than 9 vampires on the very same spot
no matter what). Or perhaps some other metric to use.
However had, a perhaps simpler two-level "scale" effect was already made in some of
the mods in use by Tactics Remix. Take the initial Duergars in the first dungeon: we
have the nightmare mod and the lite mode (though, I am not sure it is necessarily
"light", but it is definitely doable, whereas nightmare was super-hard; that may
also depend on other mods installed, e. g. golem mods and other changes done by
other mods). For the vampire improvement in Tactics Remix, we could then simply call
the current variant as the very difficult one (e. g. "nightmare", or whatever name is
used); and a "lite" mode to also favour only a slight increase instead. I am not sure
what variables would be relevant for the "slight increase", but it may be useful at
the least in regards to the vampires-modification, so that we can either have the
god-like vampire strength (current setting), or a moderate improve instead, with
a bit weaker vampires - but still stronger than in vanilla. I am fine with challenges,
naturally, but I more lean towards the non-nightmare variant in difficulty, so I kind
of pick those instead these days. Players could then opt for the slightly-easier
but still a challenge way too, e. g. the "two-tier variants" (or actually three:
vanilla setting being the first, first-challenge level as the second, and the
second-challenge level aka "nightmare" as the third and last one). Of course other
solutions and ideas could be possible as well, so this is just an idea really.
(AI-wise some changes probably may still make sense, to avoid mobs doing naturally
stupid things, such as trying to charm an undead. Oddly enough, Bodhi appears to
be able to take over skeletons; that was a surprise to see. Bodhi solo is quite
easier than group of aggregated vampires though.)