LoB and other ways to enhance difficulty
JuliusBorisov
Member, Administrator, Moderator, Developer Posts: 22,724
This discussion was created from comments split from: The Nightmare Mode Thread.
Feel free to continue this discussion here!
Feel free to continue this discussion here!
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The mode just doesn't feel right at the moment. I think that HP of non-epic encounter should be reduced 75%, and a 50% HP decrease for epic creatures. There's nothing to prove after you've already successfully hit the dragon/prince of demons/hooded figure with everything you've got, only to retreat & sleep & repeat (mode should be called RSR, heh).
1. Start with Insane Difficulty (double damage etc)
2. Improved AI (like with SCS)
3. Significant increase in hit points for all creatures but especially big monsters/bosses. My 4 man party still kills Firkraag in 3 rounds on day 4 even on Nightmare. He should have 3-5000 hit points for it to feel right.
4. More monsters - I know this can be hard to implement but it really should be the solution to needing more experience.
5. Limited Resting Environment (maybe even a baldur.lua option (0,1) so that you can't rest after every little fight.
6. Time limits - I know this is absolutely NOT what a lot of people want but I want there to be a feeling of pressure to complete things quickly and move the story along. Waiting 40 days to go to spellhold just feels silly to me. I don't mean a really harsh time limit but SOMETHING.
All of this is based on the "Legacy of Bhaal" mode and NOT a suggestion for any other game mode.
BTW, Hearts of Fury introduced new items, available only if you play the mode.
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| Smarter Drasgons
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So, I sat down to play BGII, that famous game based on TSR's Dungeons and
Demiliches game system. You know, the one where the the most powerful
monsters, the most mythic beasts, the creatures everyone fears
encountering, the stuff that dreams are made of ... are the Demiliches.
What's wrong with this picture? Perhaps I was really playing Dungeons and
Fire Giants, or Dungeons and Mind Flayers. Dragons clearly got the short
end of the stick somewhere. They're just not awe-inspiring in BGII. In
fact, they're pretty much pushovers, especially with half-decent tactics on
your part. They'll sit around while you surround them and plan their
downfall. TOB improves on this somewhat (e.g., you cannot set a ring of
traps near Saladrex) but it didn't back-port those features to the SoA
dragons. This patch is an attempt to do all of that (and more) for original
epitome of draconic glory: Firkraag.
If you're searching for a return to times of yore when dragons flew across
Faerun, kicking tail and taking names, this is the patch for you. If you'd
also like an extra bit of challenge in BGII that *isn't* the result of just
giving all enemies five chain contingencies and some greater whirlwinds,
this is also the patch for you.
Firkraag actually has a number of interesting powers. His .CRE file has
some interesting spells memorized: magic missile, scorcher, remove magic,
fireball and fire shield. I ignore all such spells (and his original script
does at well) -- looks like two different designers were at work here. His
original script gives him a number of innate powers, however: stoneskin
(once), dispel magic (once/rest), heal (once/rest), dragon fear
(once/rest), lower fire res (once/rest), wing buffet (at will), breath
weapon (once/18 time units), greater malison (once), haste (once/rest),
silence 15' (once), charm person (once), acid arrow (at will). All of
these powers except Charm Person (which is IC for PnP dragons but unlikely
to work in BGII) are retained. "Once" timing is unified by keeping the same
definition of "rest" as the original script. Stoneskin is re-cast every 8
hours to discourage players from hit-run-sleep-hit tactics.
One of the big problems with the original script was conceptual timing.
Firkraag waits until the fight has begun to cast stoneskin. Even Cowled
Wizards aren't that dumb. His powerful wing buffet is sorely underused.
Dragons are *BIG* and the buffet is one of the few things that reminds us
of it. It keeps away those warriors with Fury and Ages. In addition, the
nifty spell abilities almost never see use (despite a "lot" of effort in
the original script to include them). Raise your hand if you'd ever seen
him cast Charm Person? Didn't think so. Acid Arrow? Silence 15'? Nada.
He's got 17 INT (and 3 WIS, what's up with that?) -- let's use it! He's the
big magic-user that covered a troupe of good-saving-throw Paladins with
illusionary forms. Let's see that kind of thinking and magery.
A second big problem was some sort of glitch in the game that caused him to
cast all of his spells as a level 1 caster. Maybe he did cast silence 15'
but you never noticed because it wore off in two rounds. What's up with
that? Changing his class in the CRE file fails to fix this problem, but I
have hacked around it in the script. It looks like a number of special
spells (e.g., DRAGON_SILENCE vs. CLERIC_SILENCE) were created just for this
purpose (DRAGON_SILENCE's lowest-level effect is equal to CLERIC_SILENCE at
level 20) but on my machine they don't work (DRAGON_SILENCE is a no-op). He
always casts remove magic at the first enemy he sees in the original script
... too bad his level 1 cast of it will never remove any enchantments. (To
kill two bugs with one stone, he's probably the only caster in the game who
can successfully charm/uncharm Glaicas in Nalia's keep. Why is this game so
buggy?) We fix all that (well, not the Glaicas part) and solve the phase
ordering problem (e.g., remove magic before silence, that sort of thing).
Wouldn't want to undo our own spells! And we would want to build on the
benefit of greater malison.
His third big problem was targeting. He always picked the nearest enemy,
leading everyone to swarm him with Mordies (or even goblins). He has stated
in the game that his goal is to torment Gorion by attacking his ward
(). Let's not get side-tracked by summoned monsters. Half-orc
PCs are smart enough to avoid the summons of Mellisan and Demogorgon and go
for the real target. Firkraag has been around the block a few times and
should be similarly savvy. Finally, Firkraag is at least 40' tall ... but
he gets the same visual range as the PCs, even though some of his spells
(notably his fire breath) were designed to work at longer ranges (i.e., the
spell definition includes a range of 320 (!)). I'm sure he can see to the
end of his cave, so his "eyesight" is extended in that special case. This
also discourages certain "fog of ware" abuses that the game engine allows
but a live DM would not.
Finally, I made him a little chattier: he taunts more during the battle.
I fully expect this to be a more difficult battle than it was previously.
10th and 11th level parties will probably have difficulty. Aren't
challenges fun? Maybe your next party will be forced to do the Underdark
first :-).
Disclaimer: You may be surprised to notice that a number of spells are
ForceCast on top of each other. The original script did this as well, it
was just comparatively inept about it. Really, there's no additional power
here. Just better management. Innate abilities get ForceCast, otherwise
it's SpellNoDec.
The Shadow Dragon, Hell Dragon and Irenicus Dragon are modified similarly
(of course, they have different innate spell abilities and breath weapons).
Adalon gets the biggest boost: since she is known to be able to cast
dimension door, she may flee the fight to recover if you take too long.
Rassadihn offers this advice:
When I swapped Valygar for Solaufein, I could almost feel the
magic/melee scale tipping in favor of the former. We have moi, the
protagonist (C/M), Imoen (T/M*), Jaheira (F/D), Tashia (M) and now
Solaufein (F/M). Experience has taught me that you can make pretty
much any party work in BG 2, some just take more care than others.
Still, I was a little worried we wouldn't be able to pull our weight
properly in the tough battles.
I was an idiot. Firkraag went down like a house of cards. Not
surprising, since I had three mages casting Pierce Magic/Lower
Resistance for a battle opener, and everyone was Protected from Fire
to beyond immunity. Boy, did that Wyrm look stupid when his awesome
breath didn't even singe the self-appointed dragon slayers. "Firkraag-
Minsc was immune to my damage." Couldn't help but smile at that one.
All I had to do was send in one of Minsc, Jaheira or Solaufein to
distract the ol' Firkracker - they'd be Wing Buffeted away, of course,
but it gave the spellcasters time to launch another Wand of Lightning
discharge, or some more Magic Missiles. In the end, a whole bunch of
neato spells I'd pulled out especially for him were for naught. I'm
going to have to rearrange some quests the next time; the dragons are
now too tough just before Spellhold, but too easy after. Failing that,
I'll try fighting with a handicap (no Lightning, no Magic Missiles).
This strategy is contingent on you actually killing Big F before your supply of defensive spells wears off. He hits like a freight train and will tear through unprotected people in very few hits. Now if he had significantly more HP, it would put that strategy in considerable danger. You'd run out of protections before you managed to do enough damage.
Universal School of Magic
Spells that belong to the universal school can be learned and cast by every specialist mage (in the case of arcane spells), and cannot be blocked by the Spell Immunity spell. Universal spells include Find Familiar, all contingency spells, all sequencer and trigger spells, and Wish spells. - oh come on, what a bunch of crap for sequencer-contingency abusers.
Oh, I've found a deeper layer. Well, come on man, this is just pathetic: http://www.gibberlings3.net/readmes/readme-spell_rev_descriptions.html
Strength of Stone -> Duration: 5 turns; For the duration of the spell, the caster also becomes immune to everything, magical or otherwise, that pushes him away (e.g. wing buffets, gusts of wind, telekinesis, etc.), but will move at a reduced speed. Oh WHAT A "bad" side effect, as if mage needs to move while casting... damn this mod is ridiculous and overpowers mages so much..
I've just CTRL+F'ed "immune to" on that second page, got one hundred and twenty results...
Okay, laughed out loud on Neutralize Poison revision: 1 turn/level immunity to poison and cloudkill
To say that Strength of Stone is overpowered because of the immunity to wing buffet is silly. Barely anything in the game ever uses that effect--it's basically limited to dragons and SCS Mind Flayers and Beholders. Also, it still won't protect the mage from Wing Buffet's damage or its unconsciousness effect. In fact, it'll make things worse because a dragon can knock you out with Wing Buffet and then attack you while you're unconscious. Normally Wing Buffet gives you a reprieve from the dragon's attacks. Not so with Strength of Stone. And with a dragon's extremely high APR, it could easily kill you before you wake up. Strength of Stone's immunity to wing buffet effects is extremely situational--and in the most common situation where it actually has an impact, with dragons, it's probably counterproductive.
This is the mod that allows monsters to resist Harm. This is the mod that splits the infamously powerful Spell Immunity spell into multiple components. This is the mod that removes shapeshifting exploits, prevents clones from using quick slot items, strengthens monster summoning spells, weakens Mordenkainen's Sword, allows victims of Greater Command to wake up when struck, and converts many spells to using saves vs. breath instead of saves vs. spell. Among many other changes to address game balance.
I've torn this game to pieces over and over, and Spell Revisions is the most balanced mod I've ever come across. I can find game-breaking exploits in 2.0 a couple days after release--I'm notorious on this forums for creating exploits--but it takes forever to find exploits in SR. @Demivrgvs has made SR and IR far more balanced than the vanilla game.
An immunity to an extremely rare and often beneficial status effect like wing buffet does not make Strength of Stone overpowered.
Unless the mod author adds something similar to warriors, this mod is beyond broken.
Oh yeah, and whats with that "true sight" being only helpful to mage? Its like this whole mod was made to mock non-magic fighters.
P. S.: Found this gem:
Wizard Spell Shield
Level: 5
School: Abjuration
Range: Personal
Duration: 5 rounds
Casting Time: 5
Area of Effect: Caster
Saving Throw: None
This spell grants extraordinary protection from spells and spell-like effects for a limited amount of time. Every time a saving throw is required to reduce or negate an effect the caster will automatically succeed the save. Due to this spell's nature and short duration, it is mainly used to buy the wizard a few rounds in the thick of a magical duel. This effect lasts for the duration of the spell or until dispelled.
Can you feel the sarcasm? 5 rounds is brushed off and presented as means "to buy a few rounds in the thick of a magical duel" MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAA oh my god, oh my freakin' god. Five rounds. Many other spells got 100% resistance (Protection from Magic Energy actually doubled resist from 50% to 100%, yup very balanced indeed). I rest my case.
Sorry for venting this, I meant no offense.
SR increases choice, variety, complexity, and depth compared to the vanilla spells. I can only recommend you actually try it out, but no one is forcing anyone to use anything. You play how you want.
I'd only ask you tone the acerbity down a bit. There's no need to be aggressive about your opinions, or derisive about things you have never even tried.
@lazutu you could not find Dispelling Screen because you are looking at V3 whereas the last build is V4. Anyway, let's get to your points...
SPELL SHIELD's immunity to dispel was an old attempt to remove SI:Abj - which was the same thing only more powerful and with longer duration lol - but since then we reverted SS and replaced SI:Abj with Dispelling Screen. The latter protects caster and allies from dispel effects, but only once (a sort of Spell Shield that works against Dispel Magic instead of spell removals).
Mind you, vanilla Spell Shield could absorb an infinite amount of beholder's rays. We fixed it. SI:Abj could block an infinite amount of dispel attempts. We made it block only 1 dispel effect.
Everything done to SS and the above mentioned DS was done to NERF Spell Immunity.
STRENGTH OF STONE being "pathetic and OP" because it grants immunity to "knockback" effects as per PnP is an interesting point of view. As others already said, dragons can still knock you out, and they can still bash you to death. It's a situational effect, mostly there to give the spell some character. Yeah, and 80% of those are probably stuff like Horrid Wilting not working against undead creatures, grease/web/entangle/etc. not working against incorporeal and giant creatures, or similar stuff. TRUE SEEING working closer to PnP is actually a nerf to spellcasters. With vanilla TS you just needed 1 mage to cast it and all other allied spellcasters no longer had to deal with Improved Invisibility. SR's TS forces EACH spellcaster to deal with II.
Sorry man, but it looks like you don't even know what you are talking about. Let's see:
- IR gives spears enough range to bypass Fire Shield
- IR replaces Potion of Infravision with a potion which lets any class see invisibility (a sort of lesser True Seeing)
Your claims about me and DavidW hating non-magical classes is hilarious.
IR gives them a huge amount of new tools such as weapons able to drain spells from spellcasters, banish summons, dispel illusions, breach protections, and so on; armors and shields with similarly great protective options; not-dispellable potions with many new effects (e.g. Potion of Stone Form lets any class get a lesser Stoneskin); etc.
As @semiticgod tried to explain you, SR blocks tons of spell exploits, and/or abuses while also reducing the OPness of many spells. The goal is "variety and balance", surely not to buff mages.
You go ahead, you go ahead and waste battle rounds to use spells from items, its anti-fun and anti-fighterish. Yeah, go ahead and show me the "fun" is clicking backpack on EVERY mage, choosing breach from one fighter, dispel illusions from another, lose gold for potion of LESSER stoneskin (while mages get a fresh and free one)
Damn, people are tough to admit anything on these forums, even flat out lies. This mod was made to feel fighters miserable, while mages can shine and spam their fortress of defence, no penalties (hello, Universal school of magic, a free ticket for specialist mages).
It seems to me that what you really want is to stand there and clobber mages while they don't do anything that can't be broken by more clobbering. In that case, just don't install SCS and you can right-click-afk your entire way through with your Carsomyr-wielding death machine.
Me, I prefer more complexity and depth. I like struggling, and overcoming. I like finding a way to balance or combine offensive, defensive, and utility skills in various combinations - and not purely because I want to do it, but because I need to in order to succeed. Finding the optimal path becomes a whole lot more complicated when your options increase, and options increase only when there are enough tools to work with. But not everyone likes having options. Many prefer to just grab one thing, use that, and be done with it.
There is no shame in wanting to play a simpler, less complex game. The beauty of modding is that you can customize however you like, and play the degree of difficulty you enjoy most. To some, this involves lots of spellcasting on both sides. To others, it's just about equipping one unstoppable fighter and tearing through the world like a lightsaber through lard.
That being said, you should also be open to trying new things. If you want to evolve your game, you have to try the options available and figure out what you like best. I certainly am not arrogant enough to assume I've found the holy grail of mods and that nothing could ever possibly surpass the purity of my own setup. I try out new mods all the time. It's how I got to SR/IR in the first place. I loved how I had it set up before that, then I tried something new and loved it more. That's how things work. You try, you think, you decide. And it's okay to try something and then not like it, too. What's not okay, though, is to give something a perfunctory glance, draw some facile conclusions and then go on a rant how terrible it is. That doesn't help anyone, and it sort of disqualifies you from reasonable debate.
I know whats for me, I love tough battles, and if you find being raped by a mage complex and rewarding, full of depth - then thats your opinion on fun. It's not a fact. Fact is that fighters are unable to reasonably fight mages in SCS/IR/SR.
If you set constraints for yourself, that's fine. You can impose whatever restrictions, but you can't condemn a setup generally just because it doesn't roll over to those specific restrictions. Most people play this game with a party (shocking, I know), i.e. with several different characters. Each has their own role, their own strengths and weaknesses. SCS doesn't demand you play 6 mages or die. It doesn't even demand 1. It probably wants you to have at least 1 caster of SOME kind, but given the variety available to choose from I think that's not unreasonable. IIRC SCS has been beaten solo (on Insane) by just about any class now. While it's true that pure Fighter is one of the most difficult ones (can't remember if it was actually possible to finish Ascension with one or not), that is a FRINGE case scenario. Hardly anyone will ever do that, and those that do, do it knowing what it entails.
Assuming you actually play with a party, Fighters aren't marginalized at all. Quite the opposite. For me, the pervading paradigm of party composition is, if anything, that I try to have as many Fighters/Fighter-types as possible. They are the best source of damage (barring AoE scenarios), they are highly resilient, they are highly reliable. They can't do EVERYTHING, but I don't expect nor want that. I like combining classes. I like the depth and complexity offered by the choice of classes other than Fighter, and I take advantage of it. And after I do, Fighters still remain the core component for my party. Now what does that say about how SCS is all about punishing fighters, as you claim?
"Now what does that say about how SCS is all about punishing fighters, as you claim?" - I'm saying exactly what I've said before: you have zero chance of hitting any mage through all of their psychotic defense set ups. It's anti-fun for fighter, you have to stand aside as a fighter in any fight against a mage, for a looong time, until you remove a myriad of his defenses.
Seriously, I think I've said enough. You won't admit anything, that's not how a fair and democratic discussion goes. It's the THIRD topic where I am trying to reach to some of you, and its like hitting a wall. I already wish I could add people to ignore list on this board, even though there are only like what, 5-10 of us here. Stop hurting other people's feelings with ignorance, guys.
[spoiler]
@lazutu: I have to point out some things about the way you're posting in this thread. You say you want a democratic discussion and then wish you could block people. It is literally impossible to block people and still have a democratic discussion and reach people.
The reason why you're on the third topic and people aren't agreeing with you is because they're not convinced. You can make your point, but that doesn't mean people will change your minds. I don't know about the other two threads, but the people here have been directly addressing your claims. They are in fact listening to you; they just don't agree.
Also, you accuse your fellow forumites of being stubborn and lying: Stubbornness is plausible. Lots of people are stubborn. But accusing people of flat-out lying is not plausible. What we have here are two different viewpoints. Not one person telling the truth and another person lying. This is a pretty big accusation. It's perfectly reasonable to say that you, as a fighter-oriented player, are miserable when playing this mod. I don't think you should be, but you are. I can't contest that.
It is not reasonable, however, to say that @Demivrgvs created the mod in order to make you miserable. @Demivrgvs did not spend hundreds of hours creating this mod just to make people unhappy. Creative types are not motivated by the desire to cause misery.
How does @Demivrgvs address you? He says your criticisms are inaccurate. Like when he points out IR gives fighters anti-mage options like the Potion of Infravision. And when you rebut the point and say a mage can just dispel it? He points out that IR potions are undispellable.
[/spoiler]
My point?
@Demivrgvs disagrees with you and then provides a reason for it. He doesn't accuse you of lying, he doesn't accuse you of trying to hurt his feelings, he doesn't accuse you of trying to make anyone unhappy, and he doesn't say he'd block you if he could. That's how a "democratic discussion" goes. That's how @Demivrgvs attempts to "reach" you.
*All unique equipment (items with a unique icon and backstory) will be upgraded similar to in IWD2 HOF mode, and a few new items will be added.
*Instead of everyone other than the party getting a specific super-buff, different enemies will be made super-powerful in different ways. Not every enemy will have tons of health, but certain tough enemies (particularly giants) might have even more health than they do in regular HOF mode.
*There will be some additional enemies, and most enemies will give more experience.
*Creatures that the party can summon won't be powered up, but certain enemies might have special summoning spells that summon powered-up enemy minions.
*As the game goes on, the buffs that enemies have will get more and more ridiculous. The game will start off with orc archers that stun your characters with the HLA Power Attack, later on you might have sword spiders that see invisibility, have maximum movement speed and attack 10 times per round, then even later on you'll encounter a Tarnished Sentry that, upon hitting a party member, will summon a Tarnished Sentry that, upon hitting a party member, will summon a Tarnished Sentry, and so on (not to mention that all these Tarnished Sentries will be wielding Throwing Axes of Detonation). Early on in the game, it's not going to be as crazy as HOF, but later on, it'll be much crazier.
This will be a mod, not a difficulty setting, so you'll be able to play it on whatever difficulty you want, including Heart of Fury mode itself, if that's your kind of thing.