@ChildofBhaal599: Did you get Balthazar or Bodhi to join you? That goes a long way towards balancing the scales, especially with Bodhi - sic her on Yaga Shura and she'll break through his protections like wet tissue paper.
Prepared to get jumped but my biggest wish is to have The Longer Road mod included in BG2EE. It's a awesome mod with great dialogues to redeem my favorite character, Joneleth Irenicus and have him in you party.
But I don't see it happening tho who knows if some modder would be able to fix it
I couldn't win the final battle in Ascension. Even though I had a strong party and got Bodhi, Balthazar and Irenicus to fight for me. I don't think it would be an appealing fight for most players and it's annoying that some fellows can't see why. However, the extra dialogue would flesh out ToB a little, so that part would be welcome.
@ChildofBhaal599: Did you get Balthazar or Bodhi to join you? That goes a long way towards balancing the scales, especially with Bodhi - sic her on Yaga Shura and she'll break through his protections like wet tissue paper.
I had Balthazar with me, yes. I take out gromnir because amelysan won't come in upon his death. I then weaken all the other characters down, and try to take them out all at once. usually, however, just one of them would spoil my plans, or I accidentally kill one and she is brought in. I got it down to just her once but it was too much for my injured party to handle, and she just wouldn't attack Balthazar
It seems you don't know SCS very well. Every single component of it outside AI improvement is optional : you have the choice to install it or not when you install SCS. Meaning, if SCS would be fully integrated in BGEE in the way it exist now (but we know for a fact it won't be), you'd have the new AI but every other component would be an option you could choose to activate, or not. Actually i don't see what could be annoying here.
Ascension is not working this way : you have it installed, or not.
I don't see why you want to add some difficulty to new players by adding Ascension, while you don't want SCS, because actually SCS would be more flexible for players to use (and less difficult with only the AI activated by default).
Anyway, i think the real discussion should be : do we want more options on BGEE. As of now, even the graphics options are really poor (vanilla BG and BGII actually had more graphical options in their launchers). I'd really like to see these games enhanced with a lot of options to try, and maybe a fully integrated mod panel like the Morrowind / Oblivion series have. You know, a screen where all you have to do when you have installed some mods is to select which mods you'd like to use when launching the game. But it seems we could wait a LONG time before seeing this.
I can't really reply to this because you clearly haven't read what I actually said.
Obviously I know that SCS has optional components, and obviously I have played with the mod. The keywords of what i said is "In its entirety" so your comment is redundant and somewhat pointless. And also weirdly still wrong too as if SCS2 was integrated then NO we most certainly would NOT have the option of which components to install - because the developers would decide that.
Also my comment about Ascension keywords were "in some form". So yeah. Do I need to elaborate?
The great thing about Ascension is you can get all of David Gaider's intention without installing a single fight difficulty modifier.
Not quite true - the core component still changes the final battle of ToB: instead of just fighting Amelyssan, you have to take on Irenicus and Bodhi, Slayer Imoen and the Five.
Hm, yeah, that's true. I forgot about that. I wonder why that was never optional, or why it always seemed impossible to talk Sarevok and Imoen down. I like the summoning of Irenicus and Bodhi, and the turning of Imoen and Sarevok, as those sort of bring everything full-circle, but the summoning of the Five seemed dumb, unimportant, and needlessly complicated the fight.
I wonder why that was never optional, or why it always seemed impossible to talk Sarevok and Imoen down.
I thought that if you kept Imoen alive through the Irenicus/Bodhi fight she rejoined the party. As for Sarevok, was he still evil, or had you turned him to good? I'd think a redeemed Sarevok would be far less likely to kill you.
Hm, yeah, that's true. I forgot about that. I wonder why that was never optional, or why it always seemed impossible to talk Sarevok and Imoen down.
You can't prevent Imoen from becoming the Slayer - even if she's not in your party, Amelyssan will teleport her in and trigger the change. But if you refrain from killing her, she'll turn human again after a bit and rejoin the party.
Sarevok's a bit more complicated, in that his betrayal depends on one of two possibilities: if you used a geas on him (Amelyssan will break it) or if his alignment is the opposite of yours. Otherwise he'll stay with you.
As for the Five: it proves that Amelyssan has become powerful enough to break the rule about Bhaalspawn being immune to resurrection.
As for the Five: it proves that Amelyssan has become powerful enough to break the rule about Bhaalspawn being immune to resurrection.
To be fair, so have you, after a fashion.
Okay, am I the only one now envisioning CHARNAME and Amelyssan trying to fight each other by spawning hordes of dead Bhaalspawn to attack each other? I don't know why, but the mental image makes me giggle.
@Malicron: Well, yes, that was the rationale behind the "Turnabout" mod - if Amelyssan could bring back the Five, you can bring back Tiax, Dynaheir, Xzar, Khalid, Gorion, Alianna and/or Yoshimo to help out in the final battle.
@Malicron: Well, yes, that was the rationale behind the "Turnabout" mod - if Amelyssan could bring back the Five, you can bring back Tiax, Dynaheir, Xzar, Khalid, Gorion, Alianna and/or Yoshimo to help out in the final battle.
That strikes me as more of a stretch. It's more logical, in mind, to restrict it to Bhaalspawn. Sarevok makes it plain that something of the Bhaalspawn remain even after they "rejoin" their father. As such, anyone with control of Bhaal's power would have access to the Bhaalspawn residue. Regular people? Not so much.
That strikes me as more of a stretch. It's more logical, in mind, to restrict it to Bhaalspawn. Sarevok makes it plain that something of the Bhaalspawn remain even after they "rejoin" their father. As such, anyone with control of Bhaal's power would have access to the Bhaalspawn residue. Regular people? Not so much.
At that point in the game, the Bhaalspawn essence is divided between your protagonist, Imoen and Amelyssan, with Amelyssan having the most of it. She can bring back other Bhaalspawn; you can't. What you can do with your smaller portion is temporarily summon past companions (and maybe resurrect one of them permanently, depending on whether or not you already made that promise to Bodhi).
Prepared to get jumped but my biggest wish is to have The Longer Road mod included in BG2EE. It's a awesome mod with great dialogues to redeem my favorite character, Joneleth Irenicus and have him in you party.
But I don't see it happening tho who knows if some modder would be able to fix it
@JonelethIrenicus The modder for this hasn't been spotted online for maybe 2 years I also love this mod
i played ascension on my first time through the series last year with all the improved battles, and the only one i couldn't handle is the last. it is insane to take on the five all at once. i think once i took down the five but i was still too weak to handle amellysan by that point. also i kind of cheated against abazigal because my main was hit by maze and abazigal waited on him, but with the team away from him i was able to save during the battle and load on spells. i just hope they include the story elements of it, but i hope it is quickly compatible so i could use my new knowledge to hopefully succeed without powergaming. i mean, i was so close it seems possible without power gaming
And therein lies the crux of the matter. What is the point of coming that far and being unable to complete the game because it's suddenly so insanely hard you can't do it on merit? If found that with the Champions of Norrath console games, the final boss battle was so insane compared to everything that came before I spent hours running around doing the level before it over and over just for the xp so I could get near to beating him, in the end I got so bored out of my mind I left it unfinished. Sure there needs to be a challenge but not to the point it's unbeatable for the casual gamer. Suffice to say if the game was shipped with SCS and the Ascension ending integrated, I wouldn't buy it. I do like the idea of a mod management console screen that someone suggested, but again I think that's something for the mod community and, forgive me if I'm wrong here, doesn't TuTu or BigWorld work that way?
And that's the thing with those mods.Excellent as they are,they'll force you to powergame.The 'tweak' mods are a must have,the rest should be optional.If you're forced to powergame that's roleplaying out the window along with all the weaker classes.For powergaming there's IWD,that's not what BG is about.My two cents worth anyway.
@Banex: What on earth are you talking about? There's no inherent contradiction between roleplaying and powergaming - if my PC is Evil and I have Edwin, Viconia, Korgan, Sarevok and Dorn with me, that party will shred through just about anything; that doesn't mean I'm not RPing the character regardless.
I don't understand this whole notion of deliberately crippling yourself so a game is more challenging, and then complaining when it's suddenly too difficult. If your RP demands you play BG2 with an all-Thief party, more power to you, but you are going to have a tougher time of it than someone using a balanced and optimized team.
By the same token, it's a defining characteristic of the BG games that different fights require different tactics: you wouldn't use the same strategy for Aec'letec that you would for Demogorgon. By the same token, the final battle in Ascension requires a bit more than "Time Stop/Shapechange/Go Nuts" (though that certainly helps).
You have a point with roleplay and powergaming.I got that wrong.My point is though,SCS makes the game more challenging and indeed you get the choice to add what you want when you install.It's a mod though.Not necessarily everyone's cup of tea.I have nothing against the mod but my point is,the base game should be left vanilla.The beauty of the original BG2 and it's great modding community was you could have the game any which way you wanted to play it.
@shawne You have Edwin, Viconia, Korgan, Sarevok and Dorn? Well, that's great because they can be considered the most powerful NPCs in Baldur's Gate saga. True, you can roleplay them and having extremely powerful party at the same time. But, that's not always the case when using other characters.
Besides, fact is that difficulty that SCS/Ascension provides requires some metagaming knowledge. That fact itself prevents roleplaying, since roleplayer is making decisions from his/her character point of view, instead of knowledge of what happens next in game, or where you can find useful items for a particulary difficult battle.
Besides that, roleplaying is not "crippling yourself to make game more challenging". You have the wrong idea.
@Banex: I imagine that if SCS had been integrated into the EE, it would have been along the lines of a new difficulty level (ie: Easy, Normal, Hardcore, Insane, SCS), in which case you'd still have the option of not using it. "Ascension", though... that should have been mandatory. It's a net improvement to the final act of the game (give Sarevok back his sword that you've been carrying around since the start of BG2! Have a sixth NPC join you against Amelyssan! One last rematch with Irenicus!) and without it, one of the central marketing points of the EEs - "you don't need to use mods" - proves false.
And that aside, integrating those mods would have at least allowed for the possibility of Beamdog supporting them; as it stands, if a BG2:EE patch breaks "Ascension", or vice versa, the response will be "Uninstall Ascension". You might as well ask "Mass Effect" fans to play the third game without the Extended Cut.
@ZelgadisGW: Metagaming has nothing to do with this. BG2 requires preparation for every major fight - unless you're going to tell me that you blindly walked into Kangaxx's lair and took him down without using any protection spells beforehand (because, after all, your character didn't know he was there)? The "Ascension" battle is no different than facing the Unseeing Eye or Nizidramanii'yt: you either save a lot or you go into every battle buffed to the gills.
As for other characters, I've seen people beat "Ascension" with lots of unlikely character combinations. Some were intentional - the all-shorty party had Korgan, Jan and Mazzy; the all-women party had Jaheira, Imoen, Nalia, Viconia and Aerie; the all-mod party included (*shudder*) Saerelith, Nephele, Solaufein, Kelsey and Angelo. The secret to winning is the same as it is for the rest of the game - it's how you fight, not who you fight with.
And really? It's the same for most video games. You want to beat "Starcraft" using only marines/zerglings/zealots? Be my guest, it can be done. But if that's the choice you make, you forfeit the right to complain about increased difficulty.
@shawne I disagree. While your point about Kangaax might be right, you forgot something very important - you can cast protections WHILE fighting his first form. Fighting a litch and not casting some protections seems unbelievable to me. Not only Magic Protection/Undead Protection scrolls can be used to counter his Imprisoment, mind you. Even if other methods are rather short lived, fighting with Demilich never was a lenghty battle to begin with. Either he dies fast, or your party does.
Answering your question, I have never blindly walked to Kangaax. The fact that undead golden skull is asking you to retrieve it's bones, which are guarded by powerful Litches indicates that something is fishy here. Bringing some protection measures/equipment vs undead is the common sense there, if you are to retrieve his bones.
Facing Unseeing Eye is basically attacking him with a wand. The end. And even if you don't, fighting with him reminds me of fighting with a spellcaster. Nizidramanii'yt is the easiest dragon in the game, so it's nothing comparable to Ascension.
I agree that it's about how you fight, rather than who, but I think you should use other example of a party that can beat Ascension while roleplaying.
Last acapit: You still doesn't understand that roleplaying is not about crippling yourself. It's a shame, really. But of course, by handicaping myself I ought to be prepared for increased difficulty. The difference is that YOU want to choose dificulty to me to the point I will not be able to defeat the game. I'll never was able do beat Ascension before, even at my powergaming peak, so I doesn't even have ghost of a chance now.
but the summoning of the Five seemed dumb, unimportant, and needlessly complicated the fight.
Melissan summoned the Five because they each hold part of the Bhaal essense like you. They belong to her now! She controls nearly all the essence of Bhaal.... except yours and Imoen's part.
The fight is pretty easy... its actually easier to beat than the original one. There are many strategies for this battle. I would be happy to tell some if asked.
The Ascension (and SCS) final fight isn´t easier than the original one. Definitely not. But it is quite doable and doesn´t need cheating, cheesy tactic, new items or anything similar. Even recruiting Bodhi/Balthazar isn´t vital for success.
@Cuv: Well, it's not exactly rocket science - they're the same strategies you'd use to take down the Five individually. Have an arcane caster use the Mindflayer Shapechange to take out Yaga Shura (or, if you're Evil, sic Bodhi on him). If Balthazar is on your side, use him and your melee fighters to gang up on and eliminate (in order of threat level) Abazigal, Illasera and Sendai. Gromnir can be left for last. When Amelyssan enters the fray, have your casters bombard her with everything they've got while the fighters pick off the remaining members of the Five (Balthazar or Bodhi should attack Amelyssan directly). Summons (Juggernaut Golem, Planetar, Pit Fiends) help too; if things get desperate, have your PC become the Ravager and go nuts.
@ZelgadisGW: I've already explained that roleplaying has nothing to do with either powergaming or deliberate self-sabotage; I've given you examples of "underpowered" parties that won the final battle; I've pointed out the difference between metagaming and BG2's gameplay requirements. If you're determined to misconstrue and quibble - while insisting that it's not your gameplay that's wrong, it's the game that's just too hard - we'll just have to agree to disagree.
@velehal: Actually, Cuv has a point: Elemental Princes and Slayer Shades (the enemies in the default final battle) don't have the same kinds of weaknesses as the Five, not to mention your PC will have a whole bunch of shiny new powers thanks to the demon pools.
The fight is pretty easy... its actually easier to beat than the original one. There are many strategies for this battle. I would be happy to tell some if asked.
That's pretty good sense of humour. Because, how much easier can dealing with a guy who has been killed 2 times already, his sister and then five bhaalspawns all at once possibly be?
I don't know how, but surely it will be over the top.
@shawne I get the impression you don't know what I'm talking about. Whatever.
@Shawne Right! Use those powers... they were created to give you a chance... and if used wisely can indeed make the fight easier.
One quick strategy: Grab the Focus power early and the Control Demon. Cast Focus just before the first (and last, lol) fight with the 5. You will be immune to Sendai's Time Stop. Disrupt her and cast Imprisonment on Yaga Shura (both Sendai and Abazigal can cast Freedom). Send Balthazar (or Bodhi) after Abazigal alone, when Sendai begins to cast Freedom.... hit her with everything you got! Sendai is distracted. Take her down asap. Next is Abazigal (use Focus again). Illasera next, Gromnir is a pushover... him next. Lastly kill Yaga Shura... and then fight Mel for the end. Use your Control Demon power to keep her occupied during all this.
Comments
But I don't see it happening
I can't really reply to this because you clearly haven't read what I actually said.
Obviously I know that SCS has optional components, and obviously I have played with the mod. The keywords of what i said is "In its entirety" so your comment is redundant and somewhat pointless. And also weirdly still wrong too as if SCS2 was integrated then NO we most certainly would NOT have the option of which components to install - because the developers would decide that.
Also my comment about Ascension keywords were "in some form". So yeah. Do I need to elaborate?
SCS works quite well with BG:EE. There are a few minor known bugs, but overall it works great.
Sarevok's a bit more complicated, in that his betrayal depends on one of two possibilities: if you used a geas on him (Amelyssan will break it) or if his alignment is the opposite of yours. Otherwise he'll stay with you.
As for the Five: it proves that Amelyssan has become powerful enough to break the rule about Bhaalspawn being immune to resurrection.
Okay, am I the only one now envisioning CHARNAME and Amelyssan trying to fight each other by spawning hordes of dead Bhaalspawn to attack each other? I don't know why, but the mental image makes me giggle.
I don't understand this whole notion of deliberately crippling yourself so a game is more challenging, and then complaining when it's suddenly too difficult. If your RP demands you play BG2 with an all-Thief party, more power to you, but you are going to have a tougher time of it than someone using a balanced and optimized team.
By the same token, it's a defining characteristic of the BG games that different fights require different tactics: you wouldn't use the same strategy for Aec'letec that you would for Demogorgon. By the same token, the final battle in Ascension requires a bit more than "Time Stop/Shapechange/Go Nuts" (though that certainly helps).
You have a point with roleplay and powergaming.I got that wrong.My point is though,SCS makes the game more challenging and indeed you get the choice to add what you want when you install.It's a mod though.Not necessarily everyone's cup of tea.I have nothing against the mod but my point is,the base game should be left vanilla.The beauty of the original BG2 and it's great modding community was you could have the game any which way you wanted to play it.
All about choice,is what i meant.
You have Edwin, Viconia, Korgan, Sarevok and Dorn? Well, that's great because they can be considered the most powerful NPCs in Baldur's Gate saga. True, you can roleplay them and having extremely powerful party at the same time. But, that's not always the case when using other characters.
Besides, fact is that difficulty that SCS/Ascension provides requires some metagaming knowledge. That fact itself prevents roleplaying, since roleplayer is making decisions from his/her character point of view, instead of knowledge of what happens next in game, or where you can find useful items for a particulary difficult battle.
Besides that, roleplaying is not "crippling yourself to make game more challenging". You have the wrong idea.
And that aside, integrating those mods would have at least allowed for the possibility of Beamdog supporting them; as it stands, if a BG2:EE patch breaks "Ascension", or vice versa, the response will be "Uninstall Ascension". You might as well ask "Mass Effect" fans to play the third game without the Extended Cut.
@ZelgadisGW: Metagaming has nothing to do with this. BG2 requires preparation for every major fight - unless you're going to tell me that you blindly walked into Kangaxx's lair and took him down without using any protection spells beforehand (because, after all, your character didn't know he was there)? The "Ascension" battle is no different than facing the Unseeing Eye or Nizidramanii'yt: you either save a lot or you go into every battle buffed to the gills.
As for other characters, I've seen people beat "Ascension" with lots of unlikely character combinations. Some were intentional - the all-shorty party had Korgan, Jan and Mazzy; the all-women party had Jaheira, Imoen, Nalia, Viconia and Aerie; the all-mod party included (*shudder*) Saerelith, Nephele, Solaufein, Kelsey and Angelo. The secret to winning is the same as it is for the rest of the game - it's how you fight, not who you fight with.
And really? It's the same for most video games. You want to beat "Starcraft" using only marines/zerglings/zealots? Be my guest, it can be done. But if that's the choice you make, you forfeit the right to complain about increased difficulty.
I disagree. While your point about Kangaax might be right, you forgot something very important - you can cast protections WHILE fighting his first form. Fighting a litch and not casting some protections seems unbelievable to me. Not only Magic Protection/Undead Protection scrolls can be used to counter his Imprisoment, mind you. Even if other methods are rather short lived, fighting with Demilich never was a lenghty battle to begin with. Either he dies fast, or your party does.
Answering your question, I have never blindly walked to Kangaax. The fact that undead golden skull is asking you to retrieve it's bones, which are guarded by powerful Litches indicates that something is fishy here. Bringing some protection measures/equipment vs undead is the common sense there, if you are to retrieve his bones.
Facing Unseeing Eye is basically attacking him with a wand. The end. And even if you don't, fighting with him reminds me of fighting with a spellcaster. Nizidramanii'yt is the easiest dragon in the game, so it's nothing comparable to Ascension.
I agree that it's about how you fight, rather than who, but I think you should use other example of a party that can beat Ascension while roleplaying.
Last acapit: You still doesn't understand that roleplaying is not about crippling yourself. It's a shame, really. But of course, by handicaping myself I ought to be prepared for increased difficulty. The difference is that YOU want to choose dificulty to me to the point I will not be able to defeat the game. I'll never was able do beat Ascension before, even at my powergaming peak, so I doesn't even have ghost of a chance now.
The fight is pretty easy... its actually easier to beat than the original one. There are many strategies for this battle. I would be happy to tell some if asked.
@ZelgadisGW: I've already explained that roleplaying has nothing to do with either powergaming or deliberate self-sabotage; I've given you examples of "underpowered" parties that won the final battle; I've pointed out the difference between metagaming and BG2's gameplay requirements. If you're determined to misconstrue and quibble - while insisting that it's not your gameplay that's wrong, it's the game that's just too hard - we'll just have to agree to disagree.
@velehal: Actually, Cuv has a point: Elemental Princes and Slayer Shades (the enemies in the default final battle) don't have the same kinds of weaknesses as the Five, not to mention your PC will have a whole bunch of shiny new powers thanks to the demon pools.
I don't know how, but surely it will be over the top.
@shawne
I get the impression you don't know what I'm talking about. Whatever.
@Shawne Right! Use those powers... they were created to give you a chance... and if used wisely can indeed make the fight easier.
One quick strategy: Grab the Focus power early and the Control Demon. Cast Focus just before the first (and last, lol) fight with the 5. You will be immune to Sendai's Time Stop. Disrupt her and cast Imprisonment on Yaga Shura (both Sendai and Abazigal can cast Freedom). Send Balthazar (or Bodhi) after Abazigal alone, when Sendai begins to cast Freedom.... hit her with everything you got! Sendai is distracted. Take her down asap. Next is Abazigal (use Focus again). Illasera next, Gromnir is a pushover... him next. Lastly kill Yaga Shura... and then fight Mel for the end. Use your Control Demon power to keep her occupied during all this.