Siege of Dragonspear; Opinion.
Wisterias
Member Posts: 154
Finally, after almost 10 years since I bought it, I've completed Siege of Dragonspear, and since I wasn't expecting much... I can confirm, I was right. There are some interesting things, like the Neothelid or the Shadow Aspect in the Temple of Bhaal, and the graphics are fine, but honestly:
1. I don't see the point of the story, and it's not interesting enough to make the effort to find out what it's about, just some Caelar and a crusade for... I don't know what. I also find it unnecessary for the main saga, like a tacked-on addition that's irrelevant. To top it all off, it glitched out at the end when you're in the cell and you're about to have that Skie dream (I don't understand why Skie is suddenly so important; I don't think I even met her in the originals). Imoen is once again 'out of service,' as she was in almost all of Shadows of Amn, which further explains why Imoen holds no interest for me. This point has always bothered me because in theory Imoen is key to the saga, but she is included in such a way that it makes me not very interested.
2. Large-scale combat is a bit of a mess with so many allies in the middle that you fry with your own fireballs. Plus, you keep tripping over allies, which is quite annoying. Imagining what that's like in LoB makes me nauseous... (boring, brutal arrow consumption, lack of spells at those levels, overuse of fireball wands...)
3. Belifet as the final boss (?) and practically the same vibe as Icewind Dale 1. Plus, the difficulty is low, the strategy is limited to lowering his magic resistance and paralyzing him with a simple level 2 web O_o, and then you beat him with everything. (In LoB, I think a shot from the polymorph wand leaves him nearly dead.)
4. This is more personal. I'm not into romances or interactions, but maybe if any of the new NPCs were even remotely interesting to me, I would have tried them. But I'm just not interested. And honestly, I'm not going to go around with an ugly goblin in my party of handsome guys.
5. Again, a bunch of quests that are limited to 'go there, kill this one, bring me that' and the like...
I played it on Insane, I don't know if I have the patience to play it on LoB... maybe in 2035.
1. I don't see the point of the story, and it's not interesting enough to make the effort to find out what it's about, just some Caelar and a crusade for... I don't know what. I also find it unnecessary for the main saga, like a tacked-on addition that's irrelevant. To top it all off, it glitched out at the end when you're in the cell and you're about to have that Skie dream (I don't understand why Skie is suddenly so important; I don't think I even met her in the originals). Imoen is once again 'out of service,' as she was in almost all of Shadows of Amn, which further explains why Imoen holds no interest for me. This point has always bothered me because in theory Imoen is key to the saga, but she is included in such a way that it makes me not very interested.
2. Large-scale combat is a bit of a mess with so many allies in the middle that you fry with your own fireballs. Plus, you keep tripping over allies, which is quite annoying. Imagining what that's like in LoB makes me nauseous... (boring, brutal arrow consumption, lack of spells at those levels, overuse of fireball wands...)
3. Belifet as the final boss (?) and practically the same vibe as Icewind Dale 1. Plus, the difficulty is low, the strategy is limited to lowering his magic resistance and paralyzing him with a simple level 2 web O_o, and then you beat him with everything. (In LoB, I think a shot from the polymorph wand leaves him nearly dead.)
4. This is more personal. I'm not into romances or interactions, but maybe if any of the new NPCs were even remotely interesting to me, I would have tried them. But I'm just not interested. And honestly, I'm not going to go around with an ugly goblin in my party of handsome guys.
5. Again, a bunch of quests that are limited to 'go there, kill this one, bring me that' and the like...
I played it on Insane, I don't know if I have the patience to play it on LoB... maybe in 2035.
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Don’t get me wrong, I don’t completely disagree. I think the whole thing is badly let down by poor writing. The main story is problematic, the villain is not interesting, her plot is idiotic, and your assigned missions are very stupid in context (gee, Caelar desperately wants some Bhaalspawn blood, so let’s send the Bhaalspawn into her headquarters for some trivial information we don’t really need). And a lot of the little quests are written by someone with a childish worldview (go find out what motivates your fellow coalition members?!).
But that said, I think it’s gorgeous and I love the gameplay of it. I love the large scale battles. They did a good job of capturing the feel of a *large* operation, and I think it plays great. I think Dynaheir is well written, it makes her fate in SoA heart breaking. I found Skie entertaining and her story adds to the list of reasons to hate Irenicus.
I’s also mention the opening dungeon is explained clearly in the story and makes logical sense. You do need to pay attention to the story in a RPG. Simply, you are asked to hunt down some survivors of Sarevok’s crew who have taken shelter in an old crypt. It’s not complicated, but it does make sense, it is explained. I think this is actually part of the strength of SoD, a lot of these little set pieces are well designed and constructed. It plays well and is very atmospheric.
I’d also add I think “Insane” is poor choice for assessing anything. It’s only AD&D on Core. That’s the on;y why I’d ever play it.
Like I said at the start, I don’t completely disagree with your assessment. But I think a lot of the gameplay of it is a ton of fun. I never skip it anymore.
Hi. Well, I've read that it wasn't that good, that it was okay but not impressive and all this... but that's not the reason it didn't convince me; for example, people tend to like Icewind Dale 2 less, and say it, and yet it's my favorite of all these games for some reason.
It's more of a genuine opinion, I thought it was unnecessary to add a game between Baldur's 1 and 2. It was better to leave what happened to each player's imagination than... this. Making an EE to improve the base games was fine, I suppose, although I actually prefer the originals. But if they wanted to create a game... make a new game, unrelated to the original series.
What you say is true, I don't pay attention... that's the problem. I haven't paid attention to the story because it doesn't interest me. When I played BG1 and SOA, even the obvious TOB, things were interesting, so I focused on understanding what was happening, enjoying both, story and combats. With SoD, it's a bit like IWD1, I still haven't bothered to understand who Poquelin was and what's up with Belifet xD I played it just for the combat, which isn't very exciting either. I feel like this is a bit better in both aspects in IWD2, a clean and easy to understand story for a combat-oriented game.
Well, I found Insane to be pretty easy tbh. The only dangerous moment was the Shadow Aspect, had to summon lot of monsters to block the backstabs. Only died in the Bridgefort explotion because I had no idea of what was going on or what I had to do to stop that mage casting xD But that's all.
Another thing I don't like at all is that white mist that appears and blocks your view. What's that supposed to do, just to piss you off?
https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/88695/quick-campaigns-fully-random-trios
and I temporarily switched to other games. 😎
I’m thinking though, you criticize the story right from the opening dungeon, as boring. That seems like you tuned out before it even started?
Now I wouldn’t disagree with saying it fills a void that didn’t need filling. But because I like the basic mechanics and gameplay of the IE, I enjoy the various sub adventures. Right from that opening dungeon. Add in the Repository of Undeath, the Temple of Bhaal, several of the overland areas, the defense of the coalition camp, and the large scale battles… And I just love the gameplay of it. Including having to put together an ad hoc party for a short adventure with some big fights. Apart from feeling some contempt for the story/writing I see a lot to enjoy.
Maybe it just means SoD is to me what IWD2 is to you. It is clearly the weakest link of the original saga. But I enjoy it, and never skip it now.
The white mist is annoying. I asked the question about disabling it a year or so ago, and got a line of code to add that does seem to reduce it, but does not completely eliminate it! The thread is still available, I *think* on this SoD thread. Somewhere.
Nah, there's No Shapechange: Mindflayer in BG1 base game neither, and it's my favourite from the whole BG saga xD
Yes... I guess it's pretty tedious. I guess it feels more manageable with 6 arcane casters all them with fireball wands, summon monster wands and stuff... I mean, I play with 3 DD, 1 f/m, 2 f/m/t, alll of them are arcane casters and the last three are good archers too. One of the f/m/t is a good trapper.
I tried to start this game before like... 2 or 3 times, managed to reach the coast way crossing and was like zzz... no more. Now I had some free time and ''had to'' play it. But well, its done now.
I mean... a little bit of mist would be nice, but not when you can't see LITERALLY ANYTHING xD
BTW, my previous question about this is just a ways down this front page as "Rolling Fog". The fix is a simple copy/paste sort of thing, now a part of that thread.
Personally, I think much of the game's content falls apart in the final stretch, while I think the early part of the game has much to praise. I enjoy the opening dungeon, the time in Baldur's Gate, and the initial wilderness area marches towards Dragonspear. I think the later section of the game clearly suffers from a lack of playtesting and quality assurance.
I do think your second point is simply wrong and it's just a refusal on your part to be flexible. You shouldn't use fireballs in a fight where you have a bunch of allies. There's plenty of options, for your mages, to be effective. Even against large crowds. Use confusion, use the Emotion spell. Yes, you can't blast away cavalierly there, that's the whole point. You need to learn to how engage in the combat and spell system in a deeper manner. The designers want you to break out of just spamming fireball to win everything. It's worth embracing that challenge. One of the chief points of this adventure is to test veteran players in the combat system, more than BG1 did at least. Especially on insane difficulty, which I highly recommend to any veteran wanting to play SoD.
The only thing pulling me forward was that the way the areas and the armies were set up was nice and refreshing. There is indeed a different need to solve fights rather than the brute force way.
The npcs have more depth to them. The areas and quests have varied solution directions.
Well, my main char is Chaotic Neutral who loves to spam fireballs everywhere 😅. No, but tbh I fried more allies than enemies I think.
And again, maybe it's my lack of attention but I still don't know how Irenicus 'kidnaps' me in the end of the game. I mean, I just killed a powerful being like Belifet and a Crusade army and... what exactly do they do to me to make me capture so easily?
But for me the only purpose a game between BG1 and BG2 should have is to explain that part properly... not a completely unrelated adventure 🤷🏻♂️. Anyway, Irenicus isn't that powerful judging by how easy it is to kill him at the end of SoA.
I would still like a mod that disables only him. XD
Yeah... if you've played the original series, there's no mystery about who he is... only those playing the first time would be left wondering.
When he visited me in my cell at the end of the game, there was a bug and nothing happened, no cinematic played, and no one else came... I had to reload.
It's not hard to imagine a level 30 mage easily succeeding at kidnapping a team of level 9-12 adventurers with the help of shadow thieves. Last scene shows magical mist and slumber on the party while shadow thieves attack.
At the end of SoA the party power is totally different than the party power at the end of SoD, so being able to defeat Irenicus at SoA end doesn't mean Irenicus is not powerful. Main story shows at multiples occasions how he's powerful, entering the ducal palace at will, killing a shadow thieves army, overpowering the cowled wizards...
The main thing about the bridge between BG1 and BG2 is not the kidnapping, but why no one would notice charname disappearing or try to search for him. And the answer is given by SoD events : you're no longer the hero of Baldur's Gate hosted by the dukes and loved by the people, but a suspect of murdering the daughter of a duke, send more or less willingly and kindly out of the city and no longer welcome in, meaning no one miss you or care about what may happen to you.
Now all that said, it does change certain expectations many of us had from when the games first came out. To me, the biggest being it makes the elapsed time between the two games seem much shorter, more compressed than I expected. It also gives us some experience with Irenicus that feels a little wonky at the start of SoD.
And I really dislike that there’s no opportunity to *fix* the crime you’re accused of. Arguably, Skie’s story is well managed. She’s introduced as a minor character the player may, or may not, already be familiar with. She is funny and annoying, a good comic relief sort of supporting character. And then tragic, very effectively I think. Since I always play the hero, the good-guy, it really irks me to have no opportunity to set this right.
I *believe*, that Beamdog intended to do another such bridge adventure to connect SoA to ToB that would have continued/finished this story. At least there were some vague rumors of this. But the dismal reception of SoD was the end of such talk. Lava’s mod “Skie: Cost of One Girl’s Soul” does provide a satisfying resolution for the character. Highly recommend this for all players who care about her fate. It is presumably much briefer and simpler than a full on expansion would have been. But it works for me.
My relationship with SoD will always be a little strained. I dislike so much of the story and writing. But I love the encounters, the action, and flow of events. I particularly love having to put together a scratch party for an emergency. So I’ll always run it on every playthrough of the saga. And I’ll always wish certain details were a little different.
I thought Black Heart was aimed more at evil parties?
👀 Please NO.
You wanted to fight Belhifet again? 😅
I liked their *technical* work. I would have liked to see them do more. Especially if they ever could have found a decent writer.
Black Hearts fits both evil or good party, with missions to stop clearly evil guys.
It adds a lot to the Illasera character in BG1, and expands Sarevok, Bhaal and Bhaak's cultists stories in SoD.
Particularly in SoD, it adds optional quests and areas tied to main char and not to the Crusade, thus giving more incentives to do SoD for the player and to travel north for the main char.
I'd suggest the epic Golden Pantaloons run! 😜
I think that is a really good idea. He irritated the crap out of me when I first played it and the passing years haven't improved him any. There is a mod by subtledoctor called Reflections of Destiny which allows you to access certain areas from SoD when you are playing SoA (so long as you have chosen to skip SoD completely) so he might have found a way to get rid of the hooded guy. I haven't played it because I think it might clash with some of jastey's SoD mods, and those are a must-have as far as I am concerned.
But I think it's finished, she's dead or something. I don't know, I honestly don't care much 🤷🏻♂️.
I still think the most important thing this game needed to clarify was The Ambush of Irenicus, and that never happened. Everything else they put in this game is filler in my opinion.