AI Scripts and Party Banter/Comments
FAButzke
Member Posts: 29
Hello, fellow adventurers.
I've noticed two things that are bugging me (pun intended) in the EE edition of BG2.
1) The AI scripts for your party members are a lot more erratic than in the original.
I searched the forums and I found a couple of threads discussing this problem but none of those topics actually describe the behavior I'm experiencing. I'm not using any mods and everyone (but the thief) is using the Standard AI script (but all the other scripts have the same issue): If you order the party member to attack someone (or move somewhere), 90% of the time, the character ignores your command and attack the nearest enemy. In the original game, the script only kicked in AFTER your order took place (and was completed). If you ordered someone to move past an enemy (to get the mage), your character would not stop to attack the fighter midway through.
Another symptom that something isn't right is the battlecries. In the original, all characters only shouted once the battlecry (or when they changed targets). Now, Minsc can't even complete his first battlecry and he is shouting another. "Go for the eyes, B... Go for the eyes, Boo... GO FOR THE.... Go for the eyes, Boo" This occurs with every party member. Which tells me that the game is "recalculating" targets constantly.
Also, even if you order your party members to retreat, they stop short after to engage the enemies again.
2) Reputation (Happy/Unhappy) comments are not kicking in.
Minsc commented only once: "Ah, we are all heroes..." Once when my reputation reached 13 and never again. The same happened to Yoshimo: "I'm sure these setbacks are only temporary." Only once when my reputation reached 16(?) and never again. I'm not sure if this is intentional (as to keep dialogue redundancy low), but, for me, it makes the characters less "lively" and thus less interesting.
Plus I noticed that the new npcs don't react to reputation whatsoever. Never had a comment. Neera never complained about my 20 rep and Rasaad never expressed his happiness.
I also noticed Rasaad "twitching" (like getting into attack stance) and speaking one of his 'selection lines' without him being selected. I thought that he would have a dialogue after that (since all party members do speak one of their selection lines prior to engage in a dialogue with you), but nope, he just stood there and nothing happened.
This may be caused by my foggy memory, but I also think the "bored timeout" has been increased. I left the game running accidentaly for 10 minutes and only two party members commented on that.
Thoughts?
I've noticed two things that are bugging me (pun intended) in the EE edition of BG2.
1) The AI scripts for your party members are a lot more erratic than in the original.
I searched the forums and I found a couple of threads discussing this problem but none of those topics actually describe the behavior I'm experiencing. I'm not using any mods and everyone (but the thief) is using the Standard AI script (but all the other scripts have the same issue): If you order the party member to attack someone (or move somewhere), 90% of the time, the character ignores your command and attack the nearest enemy. In the original game, the script only kicked in AFTER your order took place (and was completed). If you ordered someone to move past an enemy (to get the mage), your character would not stop to attack the fighter midway through.
Another symptom that something isn't right is the battlecries. In the original, all characters only shouted once the battlecry (or when they changed targets). Now, Minsc can't even complete his first battlecry and he is shouting another. "Go for the eyes, B... Go for the eyes, Boo... GO FOR THE.... Go for the eyes, Boo" This occurs with every party member. Which tells me that the game is "recalculating" targets constantly.
Also, even if you order your party members to retreat, they stop short after to engage the enemies again.
2) Reputation (Happy/Unhappy) comments are not kicking in.
Minsc commented only once: "Ah, we are all heroes..." Once when my reputation reached 13 and never again. The same happened to Yoshimo: "I'm sure these setbacks are only temporary." Only once when my reputation reached 16(?) and never again. I'm not sure if this is intentional (as to keep dialogue redundancy low), but, for me, it makes the characters less "lively" and thus less interesting.
Plus I noticed that the new npcs don't react to reputation whatsoever. Never had a comment. Neera never complained about my 20 rep and Rasaad never expressed his happiness.
I also noticed Rasaad "twitching" (like getting into attack stance) and speaking one of his 'selection lines' without him being selected. I thought that he would have a dialogue after that (since all party members do speak one of their selection lines prior to engage in a dialogue with you), but nope, he just stood there and nothing happened.
This may be caused by my foggy memory, but I also think the "bored timeout" has been increased. I left the game running accidentaly for 10 minutes and only two party members commented on that.
Thoughts?
0
Comments
So I never give any scripts to the characters and always turn the AI off.
Thanks for stating your preference, I guess?
Could you zip and attach a save e.g. just before an encounter and describe what you see. I'd prefer to have the same circumstances to look at so any ticket raised is targeting the right (wrong) behaviours.
I quickly stopped using scripts on the original games so not too familiar with them, but started to re-use them on Android/iPad so aware of some of the points you raise particularly refusing to retreat when ordered.
Thanks
Just select one character (Rasaad is good because he is a little faster but anyone will do) and send him through the right door. Either click past the enemies or engage one in melee and try to retreat and you will see that he will ignore both commands and resume combat. Also, if you leave him alone, notice how he shouts multiple battlecries, often clipping through voice lines. "Pay for your sins. I see you... I see you in the ground. Pay for your... taste my foot"
To be honest, this "bug" "bugs" me less than the reputation/remarks one. This one I can "solve" by turning AI scripts completely off. Now, the "reputation remarks" is very odd to me. Specially since the new npcs don't have any reaction to it and the old npcs react a lot less.
Edit: I'm playing the Steam version.
It looks like the original game only recalculated if the character wasn't already busy, below, while the Enhanced Edition ignores current action. Now need to try & find out if this was deliberate.
AGEN Script in BGII (original game)
[Spoiler]
IF
AttackedBy([ANYONE],DEFAULT)
ActionListEmpty()
THEN
RESPONSE #100
AttackReevaluate(LastAttackerOf(Myself),30)
END
IF
See(NearestEnemyOf(Myself))
ActionListEmpty()
THEN
RESPONSE #100
AttackReevaluate(NearestEnemyOf(Myself),30)
END
[/Spoiler]
AGEN Script in BGII:EE
[Spoiler]
IF
AttackedBy([ANYONE],DEFAULT)
THEN
RESPONSE #100
AttackReevaluate(LastAttackerOf(Myself),30)
END
IF
See(NearestEnemyOf(Myself))
THEN
RESPONSE #100
AttackReevaluate(NearestEnemyOf(Myself),30)
END
[/Spoiler]
Now I wonder what's up with the party's reaction to reputation.
http://forum.baldursgate.com/discussion/6903/reputation-for-neutral-characters
I noticed Yoshimo turning to me, saying one of his selection lines and my character turning to him. Nothing happened. That's the behavior that usually happens when there's a dialogue coming up in the next milisecond. I turned debug mode on then, and tried to force party interactions through CTRL + I. Lo and behold, that behavior repeated itself among EVERY character. Plus, the Minsc/Neera interaction (about Boo turning pink) kept repeating itself. (It already had happened normaly once, a couple of hours BEFORE I turned the 'cheat' on)
So, I have a couple of theories:
1) That Minsc/Neera interaction is messing up all the others.
2) There's no more interactions to be had and that strange behavior I noticed is nothing but a small bug. (unprobable IMO, since I know for a fact that Minsc + Mazzy have quite a few interactions and none have come up yet. Plus Neera LoveTalks seems to be stuck as well)
3) Something else is screwing with the banters/comments.
Anyway, thanks in advance for any insight you or anyone can provide.
I've tidied up specific instances of this issue for people but this involves guesswork + investigation around what variables are required. Once this issue is fixed in a patch it should stop further breakages but won't retrospectively fix saves that are already suffering.
I can't remember if Pink Boo is this issue or another one, will check and advise of a workaround.
If you haven't had the part where Minsc apologises set this variable.
C:SetGlobal("OHN_minsc","GLOBAL",2)
If he has apologised it looks as if you need to force the end of that interaction.
C:SetGlobal("OHN_minsc","GLOBAL",3)
No. Nobody died yet. One thing I did, that MAY have caused this, was to "kick" Minsc out to take Valygar to the Planar Sphere. I later kicked Valygar and took Minsc again. The "pink conversation" had already happened by that point and it came up again after Minsc rejoined.
Also, regarding that other thread, I already had found it but I could not see any of your replies there. I can see people using @Gate70 to reply to you but I cannot see your posts.
I'll try that first command and see what happens. He hasn't apologised yet. Thanks man.
Another questions: Is it possible to know if the lovetalks variable is really stuck? I tried Ctrl+T 30 days forward and nothing happened (the only interaction being the 'pink' one). Being a BG veteran I know for a fact that some interactions are real time based (as opposed to game time), but what I don't know is a way to speed up those real time ones.
For information sake, the variables are currently looking like this:
NEERALOVETALKS=27
NEERALOVETALKSTIMER=2554376
NEERAROMANCEACTIVE=2 (at least I know the romance is not broken)
Anyway, thanks again.
Swapping party members might also cause variable loss, I'll have to check that.
Looks like Neera will resume her romance in chapter 6. I would recommend going along with this as forcing values could break later steps or at the least make little sense because the dialogue might refer to events that haven't happened.
IF
Global("NeeraLovetalks","GLOBAL",27)
Global("NeeraRomanceActive","GLOBAL",2)
IsValidForPartyDialog(Player1)
IsValidForPartyDialog(Myself)
CombatCounter(0)
!See([ENEMY])
GlobalGT("chapter","GLOBAL",5)
RealGlobalTimerExpired("NeeraLovetalksTimer","GLOBAL")
THEN
RESPONSE #100
IncrementGlobal("NeeraLovetalks","GLOBAL",1)
END
Are there any other interactions of concern, other than the happy / unhappy comments (which I'm still looking at but from what I can see the new NPC's don't have this banter so will try to find out why).
Thanks man.
Regarding your question, I know there are a couple of interactions between Minsc and Mazzy that didn't happened yet. But perhaps it will still happen, since that 'pink' dialog could be in the way before. Can't think of any others, but I don't know the new characters well enough to assume anything. I would like to know why they don't make those remarks about reputation as well. They seem a lot quiter than the original ones. Also, Minsc commented about reputation again, but Mazzy didn't. Neither did Yoshi.
Thanks again for all the information regarding this issue.