I had to reinstall IWDEE on my Windows machine and have been getting parse errors with some of the modules, specifically the improved generic enemies, smarter mages and smarter divine caster. It installs fine and the installer puts all components as successfully installed, so I guess it simply skipped that or resolved the issue somehow. Attached the debug and weidu logs.
I'm thinking the fixpack. It's the only thing that has been updated (using the latest master). Are those errors serious? The installer did not fail or anything and apparently installed the modules in the end. Can I just ignore them?
Edit: Yes, apparently it's the fixpack. Errors don't show up on a fresh install.
I'm using last weeks github master release, so probably something funky with that articular snapshot. Going to try on my Linux machine. The modules install and I can perceive no errors in game, so I don't know.
I spoke with @CamDawg and the EE Fixpack beta is causing a conflict in TR with the NearSavedLocation() trigger. Should expect an update for the EE Fixpack in the next day or so which will correct it.
I think I ran into a "compound effect" with regard to Tactics Remix.
Let me explain what I mean with this.
First - I installed various mods, including the golem mod from Argent77.
I believe I also used the smarter AI component from Argent77.
I also use several tweak mods, e. g. the tweak mod.
From Tactics remix, I think I checked on smarter or stronger yuan ti,
smarter mages and stronger undead. Something along those
lines, perhaps a bit more.
So here I already saw a few, to me, confusing things. The golems all
look differently. This is, I assume, a desired changed by the mod
author, but one thing I noticed is that the iron golem is smaller.
It now fits through the door in Nalia's keep; normally it gets
stuck there. I am not certain if this is a good change or not, but
anyway, let me continue the problem description.
I was surprised that golems can throw stones or so, as ranged
attack. When the Dusk NPC was hit for one (!) strike of 40 hp
loss, I noticed that golems were kind of ... really strong.
It also keeps on using a poison, which I guess is the default
behaviour but that poison is really effective. Could the damage
output for throwing stones (remote damage) be looked into though?
It seems to do insane damage on ranged. Normally moving about
can help, but not when a golem throws stuff. But this is not the
main issue.
I noticed that the iron golem even gives chase to different levels.
I was surprised when it suddenly appeared when my party fought
that Tor something boss troll in the keep. I could avoid the golem
and hand over the keep to Nalia, but I was surprised it not
only fits through the door, but also follows across different map.
This may all not be a bug (if the golem is smaller then perhaps
it can now indeed fit through the door), but I was surprised
about it.
Now I come to the real problem though.
Upon engaging enemy liches, they insta-summon about 4
companions. When I leave the area, those companions
remain, e. . bone golems, demon knights; I just got a fiend
too. But when I then rest outside, and enter back, a new
batch arrival comes in. So now I am in the fallen ruins a
bit west of umar hills. And as I re-enter, now I have as
enemy group:
- 1 lich using time stop
- about 4 bone golems
- about 5 or so skeletons
- about 2 mummy liches
- and a pit fiend
Something along those lines. So about 13 enemies. Was that
really a desired change? The damage output is pretty insane.
I can probably handle this at a higher level, but from past
play-throughs I often end up facing a situation where the
add-on bodyguards also scale upwards. What I am specifically
surprised was that the initial four bodyguards perma-stay there;
this also happens in other areas where liches are.
With the yuan-ti it is not quite as serve; only one strong golem
appears. But there is still a scaling effect, e. g. when there are
more yuani ti mages, then I also have to fave all their golems.
In particular the clay golems are annoying to no ends, they
are insanely fast and Dusk died after three hits. That's an
auto-death; one can heal up a bit but a single golem kind of
nuking the party.
Could the scaling-up factor be reconsidered? I think the AI
behaviour changes are sort of improvements in general, but
some of the other changes are just making some fights
needlessly harder. I'll still give it a try but I think it requires too
much effort. Perhaps there could be more options, e. g.
default/vanilla, medium and hard difficulty. Right now it seems
that some components are more specific for players who want
the highest difficulty, which is fine for these players but I think
it may be nice to have some less severe upscaling. Anyway, I'll
keep on playing, some of the challenge has to do with low
party level and not the best equipment, but in particular when
there are liches, it seems I can't beat them due to so many
supporting undead. I think the issue is mostly a scaling issue
though - if liches would only have one ally, then this would be
much easier still than four default allies + like 6 more that get
summoned in. But perhaps that is a bug, I don't know right now.
I did some more testing. For instance, I noticed that the whole lich army is following me, so I kited them to the outside.
My next plan was to kite them even further away.
Unfortunately the lich teleports in most party members and then chain-spells mass confusion, sleep and other things, so some of my party members die either instantly or get disabled and then die. At that point I interrupted my current run; I may do my next run some time lateron.
In my opinion improves liches have some scaling issue here, at the least in combination with some settings such as stronger undead. For my next run I'll settle for less difficulty - having a lich army with ~13 strong undead to then close-in teleport the party, is a bit too much IMO. (The pit fiend appears to have turned on the other undead though, I think due to a fireball or so - that part was at the least entertaining.)
As another suggestion, perhaps there could be a bit more randomness, e. g. rather than always have the highest difficulty, to have like a 1D4 of summons, or 1D3+1 or something like that. Many changes are individually quite fine, IMO; it's only as combination where some of those effects become more "compounded" and then difficult.
Now there may be too many options to consider, but what if there would be some "batch installation" question early on, where the user could pick a specific template? Like, a template to specify which playing style may be preferred. I am not sure whether it is worth to add this, but people could then pick different difficulty levels perhaps. Say, 5-7 or so and have things be installed in that way. Though this also sounds a bit complicated to add or enable, so I am not sure if this would be a good addition; just mentioning in case someone has an idea how to simplify handling Tactics Remix as a strategy upgrade, without necessarily incurring scaling difficulties that make some fights very, very difficult. Anyway, this was not the only reason I stopped; I failed to install the most recent Dusk NPC mod (there were recent patches though, so it should work again) and I also ran into another issue with Aura NPC (a cut scene that would never resolve), so I'll do my next run probably at a later time again, probably in about two months earliest. Meanwhile anyone happy beta-testing is appreciated - you guys iron out bugs or issues while some of us replenish during our down time here! (I'll also try to find out how to do easy batch-installations via weidu, that should simplify updating mods anew too.)
The Golem changes are explained rather briefly in the website. The sprite changes surprised me too, but I can see the reason and they don't bother me in BG2. It does bother me in IWD, mainly because the Iron Golem sprite is cool and unique, but that's just a personal preference of mine. They can be annoying in a fight and it takes using different tactics to deal with them (no more stuck Golems at door ways). SCS does something similar, just not as extreme.
The extra summons in fights I do agree can be a bit too much. They scale with difficulty setting. I very much doubt they are strictly summons, but rather extra opponents gated in as bodyguards. In BG1EE this can get a bit troublesome as sometimes you get enemies gating in powerful elementals.
I do agree that a more granular difficulty setting can be useful. Something like SCS. I do rather enjoy the overall difficulty spike at Insane (particularly for trash mobs), but the mage/cleric pre-casting is crazy nuts (and the summoning of extra enemies).
One of the reasons for the extra animations is to better visually distinguish different types of enemies. Nabassu and Balor, for example, are vastly different creature types and now the player has a visual indicator as to what they are fighting. With golems it's partly for the visual indicator (and to keep them graphically aligned to DnD visual depictions of these creatures). It's also largely because the original animation does not have an animation for throwing a projectile. Without the new animations, golems would be standing still appearing to be doing nothing when they are attacking. Now the player can actually see an animation for them throwing a projectile.
Planning to try this in alternative to SCS. For the new added challenges, may I ask which of these add new items that gets dropped, apart from Kuroisan?
Love the Mod in general, but not a fan of Increasing Enemies's PR and Revise Cause Harm / Wound Spells component. This makes clerics too eligible to a party.
That was fixed a couple nights ago. Basically I had the wrong EEex action in the script, so when EEex is NOT installed it didn't get removed. Again, current version is fixed.
I'm planning to play bg1 and install the components you've made together with item randomiser by Wisp, because I would like to randomise the whole world after the nth playthrough.
I've got a query: I saw that you move the sword +3 to the demon knight.
What do you recommend to do? Avoid installing either your component or item randomiser?
Tactics Remix official release for version 8.0 which brings the following enhancements:
Added new component to Remove Experience Farming Cheese (BGEE / EET).
Added new component to make the Pocket Plane Ravager fight more difficult.
Updated Darkened Glory to correctly apply its effect on critical hit.
Updated Aec'letec to use his correct weapon (missing in non-EET).
Updated Spell Tweaks to include: Detect Invisibility (IWDEE only to match the area of effect in BG), Invisibility Purge & Doom (shorter cast duration), Protection from Fire (longer duration), Resist Fire and Cold (longer duration), and Blade Barrier (party friendly).
Tweaked BGEE Sarevok encounter so you can't avoid pulling Sarevok (reduced cheese).
Corrected captured Korlasz who was missing their mage script.
Slightly refined Magic Missile targeting.
Added ini support to NOT install web, cloudkill, and skulltrap changes as part of my spelltweaks.
Updated Prebek and Sanasha to use TR Mage scripts.
Fixed bug where Beholders may accidentally use their fear ray on themselves and allies.
Fixed bug where evil mages were summoning non-Fallen Planetar.
Added portrait status icons for when characters have a debuff for a reduction to their physical damage resistances.
Fixed bug with Watcher's Keep Green Dragon of Fear casting too many bugs.
Nerfed Bloodbane Throwing Spear.
Updated Cambion scripts to be more distinct from Demon Knights.
Fixed bug that Elder Air Elementals had the wrong spell cast on hit.
Fixed bug where Yaga Shura Lieutenant Mage was missing his mage script.
Golem cloud will now automatically slay any summoned creature within it.
Tweaked Abazigal fight to be slightly more difficult and now include spawning in adds.
Improved Margrog fight in Call of the Lost Goddess.
Tweaked Dragon Slippers to block the Wing Buffet spell (vanilla and Tactics Remix version) in addition to blocking the Wing Buffet effect.
Updated final lich in Crucible mod to summon typical TR lich guardians.
Added net new Demonflesh Golem animation, courtesy of NWN.
Hello. Morpheus or anyone else that has the knowledge. Do you know/remember which last version of the mod was compatible with SCS and Made in Heaven (Mih)? I would like all three of these together and I knew they worked together before (cause I had them together once) and I would like to know which one to pick for my next playthrough before all compatibility went to hell.
There was never a time when all three worked together without breaking your game somewhere down the line. For your install I'd make the following suggestions:
Install Tactics Remix if you want the smartest enemy ai and toughest encounters.
Install SCS if you want a more laid back experience but with intelligent ai.
Add MiH into the mix if you want to break your game and don't want to make it to the end.
There was never a time when all three worked together without breaking your game somewhere down the line. For your install I'd make the following suggestions:
Install Tactics Remix if you want the smartest enemy ai and toughest encounters.
Install SCS if you want a more laid back experience but with intelligent ai.
Add MiH into the mix if you want to break your game and don't want to make it to the end.
Is MIH really that bad with it? I mean, as far as I am aware some of its contents only add creatures (e.g. Candlekeep catacombs component added some more types of undead rather than doing anything more intrusive)
Crashes to desktop, immortal enemies due to conflicts, etc. it will install, but that's a bad indicator of what is going to happen later. Additionally, I found when playing MiH that (outside of a select few encounters) it actually made the game significantly easier with the experience bloat it introduced. My recommendation is to stick with either SCS or TR depending on where you want the difficulty to be at.
Crashes to desktop, immortal enemies due to conflicts, etc. it will install, but that's a bad indicator of what is going to happen later. Additionally, I found when playing MiH that (outside of a select few encounters) it actually made the game significantly easier with the experience bloat it introduced. My recommendation is to stick with either SCS or TR depending on where you want the difficulty to be at.
I suppose it also depends on how you use them. For example, installing your component for improved Cloakwood Mines, and avoiding MIH cloakwood mines but using Ulcaster from MIH whilst avoiding the one from Tactics Remix (if it has Ulcaster, can't remember off top of my head). Potentially they could be mixed if someone is stubborn ;D
You can try, but the most support you're going to get when things break is an "I told you so". Nothing that MiH introduces is going to be as stable or as difficult as what TR does. Mixing and matching SCS and TR ai enhancements would likely just straight up break things at this point. SCS scripting isn't as good as TRs and you're not gaining some hybrid magic by mixing and matching the two.
You can try, but the most support you're going to get when things break is an "I told you so". Nothing that MiH introduces is going to be as stable or as difficult as what TR does. Mixing and matching SCS and TR ai enhancements would likely just straight up break things at this point. SCS scripting isn't as good as TRs and you're not gaining some hybrid magic by mixing and matching the two.
Truth be told, I believe Mapek may be onto something. Made in Heaven seems to have few different components of varied usage. Tactic Remix rewrites AI and adds new behaviours to enemies. MIH's components called Revised Golems, or Revised Vampires or Revised Liches would almost definitely not go in pair with Tactics cause they both make changes to same creatures but MIH also have components like Enhanced Battles: Candlekeep Catacombs which only adds Wigths to the catacombs as far as I know, or Durlag's Tower which adds more Battle Horrors on few floors, or Korlash Tomb which also adds a few more undead. Now, my educated guess is that if these addition components add creatures and are installed first and Tactics go after, that'd mean Tactic would only revise these creatures which haven't been touched by MIH. Abovementioned MIH components only put more enemies in certain areas rather than change them or overwrite them. Tactics would probably give them same treatment as any other villains, give them new abilities and that would probably be it, wouldn't it. They'd just exist in new areas where MIH put them but with Tactic abilities cause they are only placed there with no new skills. As long as MIH does no changes to any creatures and is before, wouldn't that mean it is moderately safe to use provided it is installed before Tactics and without certain components? Again, I am no modder and this is my take on it.
Your take is far off and incorrect. MiH is far more encompassing and doesn't abide by standard modder practices to properly designate components. Additionally, it's stuff is far more reaching and destructive than it seems on the outside. End of the day, it's a self correcting issue: if you add it, your game will break.
Comments
BGEE and BG2EE install go without issues.
Edit: Yes, apparently it's the fixpack. Errors don't show up on a fresh install.
Better use the release and not the latest master.
Let me explain what I mean with this.
First - I installed various mods, including the golem mod from Argent77.
I believe I also used the smarter AI component from Argent77.
I also use several tweak mods, e. g. the tweak mod.
From Tactics remix, I think I checked on smarter or stronger yuan ti,
smarter mages and stronger undead. Something along those
lines, perhaps a bit more.
So here I already saw a few, to me, confusing things. The golems all
look differently. This is, I assume, a desired changed by the mod
author, but one thing I noticed is that the iron golem is smaller.
It now fits through the door in Nalia's keep; normally it gets
stuck there. I am not certain if this is a good change or not, but
anyway, let me continue the problem description.
I was surprised that golems can throw stones or so, as ranged
attack. When the Dusk NPC was hit for one (!) strike of 40 hp
loss, I noticed that golems were kind of ... really strong.
It also keeps on using a poison, which I guess is the default
behaviour but that poison is really effective. Could the damage
output for throwing stones (remote damage) be looked into though?
It seems to do insane damage on ranged. Normally moving about
can help, but not when a golem throws stuff. But this is not the
main issue.
I noticed that the iron golem even gives chase to different levels.
I was surprised when it suddenly appeared when my party fought
that Tor something boss troll in the keep. I could avoid the golem
and hand over the keep to Nalia, but I was surprised it not
only fits through the door, but also follows across different map.
This may all not be a bug (if the golem is smaller then perhaps
it can now indeed fit through the door), but I was surprised
about it.
Now I come to the real problem though.
Upon engaging enemy liches, they insta-summon about 4
companions. When I leave the area, those companions
remain, e. . bone golems, demon knights; I just got a fiend
too. But when I then rest outside, and enter back, a new
batch arrival comes in. So now I am in the fallen ruins a
bit west of umar hills. And as I re-enter, now I have as
enemy group:
- 1 lich using time stop
- about 4 bone golems
- about 5 or so skeletons
- about 2 mummy liches
- and a pit fiend
Something along those lines. So about 13 enemies. Was that
really a desired change? The damage output is pretty insane.
I can probably handle this at a higher level, but from past
play-throughs I often end up facing a situation where the
add-on bodyguards also scale upwards. What I am specifically
surprised was that the initial four bodyguards perma-stay there;
this also happens in other areas where liches are.
With the yuan-ti it is not quite as serve; only one strong golem
appears. But there is still a scaling effect, e. g. when there are
more yuani ti mages, then I also have to fave all their golems.
In particular the clay golems are annoying to no ends, they
are insanely fast and Dusk died after three hits. That's an
auto-death; one can heal up a bit but a single golem kind of
nuking the party.
Could the scaling-up factor be reconsidered? I think the AI
behaviour changes are sort of improvements in general, but
some of the other changes are just making some fights
needlessly harder. I'll still give it a try but I think it requires too
much effort. Perhaps there could be more options, e. g.
default/vanilla, medium and hard difficulty. Right now it seems
that some components are more specific for players who want
the highest difficulty, which is fine for these players but I think
it may be nice to have some less severe upscaling. Anyway, I'll
keep on playing, some of the challenge has to do with low
party level and not the best equipment, but in particular when
there are liches, it seems I can't beat them due to so many
supporting undead. I think the issue is mostly a scaling issue
though - if liches would only have one ally, then this would be
much easier still than four default allies + like 6 more that get
summoned in. But perhaps that is a bug, I don't know right now.
My next plan was to kite them even further away.
Unfortunately the lich teleports in most party members and then chain-spells mass confusion, sleep and other things, so some of my party members die either instantly or get disabled and then die. At that point I interrupted my current run; I may do my next run some time lateron.
In my opinion improves liches have some scaling issue here, at the least in combination with some settings such as stronger undead. For my next run I'll settle for less difficulty - having a lich army with ~13 strong undead to then close-in teleport the party, is a bit too much IMO. (The pit fiend appears to have turned on the other undead though, I think due to a fireball or so - that part was at the least entertaining.)
As another suggestion, perhaps there could be a bit more randomness, e. g. rather than always have the highest difficulty, to have like a 1D4 of summons, or 1D3+1 or something like that. Many changes are individually quite fine, IMO; it's only as combination where some of those effects become more "compounded" and then difficult.
Now there may be too many options to consider, but what if there would be some "batch installation" question early on, where the user could pick a specific template? Like, a template to specify which playing style may be preferred. I am not sure whether it is worth to add this, but people could then pick different difficulty levels perhaps. Say, 5-7 or so and have things be installed in that way. Though this also sounds a bit complicated to add or enable, so I am not sure if this would be a good addition; just mentioning in case someone has an idea how to simplify handling Tactics Remix as a strategy upgrade, without necessarily incurring scaling difficulties that make some fights very, very difficult. Anyway, this was not the only reason I stopped; I failed to install the most recent Dusk NPC mod (there were recent patches though, so it should work again) and I also ran into another issue with Aura NPC (a cut scene that would never resolve), so I'll do my next run probably at a later time again, probably in about two months earliest. Meanwhile anyone happy beta-testing is appreciated - you guys iron out bugs or issues while some of us replenish during our down time here! (I'll also try to find out how to do easy batch-installations via weidu, that should simplify updating mods anew too.)
See you folks in about two months or so.
The Golem changes are explained rather briefly in the website. The sprite changes surprised me too, but I can see the reason and they don't bother me in BG2. It does bother me in IWD, mainly because the Iron Golem sprite is cool and unique, but that's just a personal preference of mine. They can be annoying in a fight and it takes using different tactics to deal with them (no more stuck Golems at door ways). SCS does something similar, just not as extreme.
The extra summons in fights I do agree can be a bit too much. They scale with difficulty setting. I very much doubt they are strictly summons, but rather extra opponents gated in as bodyguards. In BG1EE this can get a bit troublesome as sometimes you get enemies gating in powerful elementals.
I do agree that a more granular difficulty setting can be useful. Something like SCS. I do rather enjoy the overall difficulty spike at Insane (particularly for trash mobs), but the mage/cleric pre-casting is crazy nuts (and the summoning of extra enemies).
I've got a query: I saw that you move the sword +3 to the demon knight.
What do you recommend to do? Avoid installing either your component or item randomiser?
Is MIH really that bad with it? I mean, as far as I am aware some of its contents only add creatures (e.g. Candlekeep catacombs component added some more types of undead rather than doing anything more intrusive)
I suppose it also depends on how you use them. For example, installing your component for improved Cloakwood Mines, and avoiding MIH cloakwood mines but using Ulcaster from MIH whilst avoiding the one from Tactics Remix (if it has Ulcaster, can't remember off top of my head). Potentially they could be mixed if someone is stubborn ;D
Truth be told, I believe Mapek may be onto something. Made in Heaven seems to have few different components of varied usage. Tactic Remix rewrites AI and adds new behaviours to enemies. MIH's components called Revised Golems, or Revised Vampires or Revised Liches would almost definitely not go in pair with Tactics cause they both make changes to same creatures but MIH also have components like Enhanced Battles: Candlekeep Catacombs which only adds Wigths to the catacombs as far as I know, or Durlag's Tower which adds more Battle Horrors on few floors, or Korlash Tomb which also adds a few more undead. Now, my educated guess is that if these addition components add creatures and are installed first and Tactics go after, that'd mean Tactic would only revise these creatures which haven't been touched by MIH. Abovementioned MIH components only put more enemies in certain areas rather than change them or overwrite them. Tactics would probably give them same treatment as any other villains, give them new abilities and that would probably be it, wouldn't it. They'd just exist in new areas where MIH put them but with Tactic abilities cause they are only placed there with no new skills. As long as MIH does no changes to any creatures and is before, wouldn't that mean it is moderately safe to use provided it is installed before Tactics and without certain components? Again, I am no modder and this is my take on it.