Reflections after a first-time runthrough as solo mage
Ishii
Member Posts: 1
This post is admittedly a bit unfocused, but I'm compelled to get a few things off my chest and perhaps a kind soul will indulge.
I played BG2 before but never learned the spellcasting aspect until recently. The first thing I discovered was how broken several spells are, and that they apparently have been so for decades. Which is rather amazing. For instance Mislead: the caster is brokenly still invisible after attacking, despite the description that says it works as Improved Invisibility, that is, the caster should be detectable after attacking. Among other things this permits unlimited backstabbing for a mage/thief, which doesn't make any in-world sense.
Another bogus spell is Project Image. Doubling the caster's memorized spell slots is clearly not the intent of the spell. It's only an illusion, after all, but even if it were an alteration or whatnot then it would still be stupidly overpowered.
Moving to a different area of brokenness: why is the original XP cap removed on SoA? The game was designed for XP below 3 million; it's not for godlike characters with epic abilities. The game was already sufficiently easy with the cap in place -- why remove it and render it insanely easy (in other words, not fun)? Not to mention that it's a slap in the face to the original SoA designers.
Lastly, the "collector's edition" items are similarly unbalancing. For instance the Vecna robe alone changes the entire dynamic of the game. Have you ever played a game that enticed you to buy powerful in-game items with real-world money? I find such things viscerally gross, but that is similar to the origin of Vecna and friends, which, somehow, eventually became included in the game proper.
I presume all this is part of the impetus for modding, but that doesn't answer the question of why such enduring brokenness to begin with? I mean, how hard can it be to fix Project Image, for instance? Why leave it to modders to fix it?
I played BG2 before but never learned the spellcasting aspect until recently. The first thing I discovered was how broken several spells are, and that they apparently have been so for decades. Which is rather amazing. For instance Mislead: the caster is brokenly still invisible after attacking, despite the description that says it works as Improved Invisibility, that is, the caster should be detectable after attacking. Among other things this permits unlimited backstabbing for a mage/thief, which doesn't make any in-world sense.
Another bogus spell is Project Image. Doubling the caster's memorized spell slots is clearly not the intent of the spell. It's only an illusion, after all, but even if it were an alteration or whatnot then it would still be stupidly overpowered.
Moving to a different area of brokenness: why is the original XP cap removed on SoA? The game was designed for XP below 3 million; it's not for godlike characters with epic abilities. The game was already sufficiently easy with the cap in place -- why remove it and render it insanely easy (in other words, not fun)? Not to mention that it's a slap in the face to the original SoA designers.
Lastly, the "collector's edition" items are similarly unbalancing. For instance the Vecna robe alone changes the entire dynamic of the game. Have you ever played a game that enticed you to buy powerful in-game items with real-world money? I find such things viscerally gross, but that is similar to the origin of Vecna and friends, which, somehow, eventually became included in the game proper.
I presume all this is part of the impetus for modding, but that doesn't answer the question of why such enduring brokenness to begin with? I mean, how hard can it be to fix Project Image, for instance? Why leave it to modders to fix it?
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Comments
For the broken items, you can just not use or buy them, if you use mods, you just remove them or move them to ToB.
"Balance" is a tricky thing to define, and quite complex an issue. Plus, since this is single player only, balance concerns are not THAT high of a priority.
There's also just plain and simple practicality to worry about. Fixing old stuff means resources away from making new stuff. Choices have to be made. And since it's so trivial to mod these things and there already exist many very well-written and highly popular mods (like SCS, IR, SR, etc.) that address many of the issues...
If you find the vanilla game too easy, I strongly encourage you to try out mods. SCS in particular will open entirely new worlds to veteran players who know how to kick the engine's butt (but I also highly recommend the Item Revisions and Spell Revisions mods on top of that).
SCS, Item and Spell Revisions balance things out perfectly.
Edit: As an aside, what was your favourite strategy for dealing with Magic Resistant foes? Using summons?
As I recall the BG2 collectors edition had lots of really neat stuff besides just the extra items which are now included (and were originally given away for free after BG2 had been out a while, or was it with ToB? I can't remember). Some of the items are actually pretty good for different character builds (helping them out mainly) and some are stupendously powerful and available from day 1, which can pose a problem. You could just ignore them completely, or only the ones you think are too powerful they're by no means required to complete the game.