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Tweaking the Beamdog NPC's a bit

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  • PaulaMigratePaulaMigrate Member Posts: 1,201
    ThacoBell said:

    Wait, Neera is scripted to use spells other than color spray in that fight? I've never seen her use anything else, and she has always targeted the mage. Consequently, I have never seen that enemy mage cast a spell. Am I just really lucky?

    THEN
    	RESPONSE #20
    		ForceSpell(NearestEnemyOf(Myself),WIZARD_MAGIC_MISSILE)  // SPWI112.SPL (Magic Missile)
    		IncrementGlobal("NEERA_SP","LOCALS",1)
    	RESPONSE #20
    		ForceSpell(NearestEnemyOf(Myself),WIZARD_COLOR_SPRAY)  // SPWI105.SPL (Color Spray)
    		IncrementGlobal("NEERA_SP","LOCALS",1)
    	RESPONSE #20
    		ForceSpell(NearestEnemyOf(Myself),WIZARD_BURNING_HANDS)  // SPWI103.SPL (Burning Hands)
    		IncrementGlobal("NEERA_SP","LOCALS",1)
    	RESPONSE #20
    		ForceSpell(NearestEnemyOf(Myself),WIZARD_SLEEP)  // SPWI116.SPL (Sleep)
    		IncrementGlobal("NEERA_SP","LOCALS",1)
    	RESPONSE #20
    		ForceSpell(NearestEnemyOf(Myself),WIZARD_CHROMATIC_ORB)  // SPWI118.SPL (Chromatic Orb)
    		IncrementGlobal("NEERA_SP","LOCALS",1)
    END
    However, that should not change the general outcome. I once encountered an issue where she cast a spell that killed innocent bystanders and thus corrupted the game but the issue was a mod that tweaked the script, so that's an error (now corrected).
    ArctodusThacoBellBleriot
  • lujolujo Member Posts: 236
    edited February 2018
    ThacoBell said:

    You do realize that at no point do you actually have to take Neera right? Its no different than how Viconia is introduced in either game.

    The difference is that Viconia is in the middle of nowhere and you can easily miss her entirely, but Neera is in the street in the first town. It's pretty jarring considering Garrick, on the other street corner, has a very similar introduction but triggers only when you talk to him. It doesn't matter whether you take her in or not, she still feels pushed on you, and she wouldn't if the fight just triggered only if you talked to her.

    And now that people have mentioned it, the fight IS pretty difficult for when you can run into it.

    I can see at least a glimmer of reason in every angle of criticism towards that encounter, even the insane troll arguments really boil down to a valid point most of the trolls themselves miss, but I just can't figure out any reason when people defend it. What's the point of defending it? Who'd lose if it was tweaked? And what? Who's decision it was to have it be like this in the first place and why? I can only see one possible worthwhile reason, but it turns out it's counterproductive. EDIT: And I'm itching to get into the why and how of it, but I also don't want to textwall much worse.

    And I don't even care about whether it's changed personaly, I'm just speaking plain thruth here.
  • lujolujo Member Posts: 236
    edited February 2018
    In fact, wth, I'll get into the how and why of it. Design lesson time.

    The way Neera is introduced feels pushy and obtrusive because she's introduced using a technique which you use when you want to absolutely make sure the player doesn't miss getting something deemed neccessary. This is how Imoen is introduced. Why? Because the OG devs, and you can fact check this, found out that people needed someone to help them get the the Friendly Arm Inn, but disliked begin pushed to take Montaron and Xzar for this purpose as those two are, well, obviously evil and psychotic.

    So the devs saddled the player with Imoen, rather late in the development, and she even lacks chat lines with other people because of this - there was no time to record them. She's a newbie crutch, and she well and truly is pushed on the player, because, well, level 1 characters in 2nd edition D&D are not very good at solo adventuring.

    And Imoen is very specific - she's so pink and girly that I know for a fact many people were annoyed at having her around. Not because of misoginy, but because she looked and sounded like what someone's gradeschool sister would roll up as a character if you parents made you babysit her while you and the crew play D&D. This can be fun - but it's really hard to keep a straight face or have a "serious" session while it's going on.

    But people can take it because Imoen is pretty essential - you can say no to her, experienced gamers will easily reach wherever without her - but most folks are much, much better off with her than without her.

    Neera is not like that. You don't really want her in the party at lvl 1, and you'll easily run into her at lvl1. If you've got an evil party and have Xzar, you don't want her in your party because you don't need another spellcaster (or more characters dividing the XP). If you don't like the randomness of her class you don't want her in the party. She's got nothing to do with the main plot. She's non-essential to the extreme and is also a type of character, mechanicaly speaking, who's very niche. The technique used to introduce her is just plain wrong, from a professional game design perspective. People don't like that technique when you use it to push essential stuff on them, and it REALLY rubs people the wrong way when you do it with something as niche as Neera. What's worse, the more niche a character is the more different types of people you can rub the wrong way with it because there's more different reasons not to need or want her in the party.

    Various people articulated or felt the concequence of this in various ways, but end of the day, that was an objectively bad decision. I've got no stake in it one way or another, this is just to attempt to make it clear that whether that introduction is bad or good is not really a matter of opinion.
    Post edited by lujo on
  • UnderstandMouseMagicUnderstandMouseMagic Member Posts: 2,147

    at least give Neera the invincibility flag like Dorn has.

    Neera won't be able to die in the first encounter in Beregost in the 2.5 patch. The behavior will be consistent with Dorn.
    Are you kidding me?

    The only reason Neera exists in any type of sane analysis is to be killed for the gem bag.

    Just why?
    Why would they do that?
    So now you have to recruit the annoying ******** and then kill her.
    And that's not going to get any complaints I'm sure.
    tbone1Quartz
  • JuliusBorisovJuliusBorisov Member, Administrator, Moderator, Developer Posts: 22,714
    @UnderstandMouseMagic Why? There're lots of reasons, a few of them already mentioned above.

    This behavior towards Neera is inconsistent with the initial ambush of BG1:EE with Dorn (who has the minhp1 item) and, as it's Neera, creates problems for players:
    - Neera's HP at the lvl 1 are very low (4)
    - Neera's wild surge can kill herself (for example, through a Fireball surge)
    - Neera is in Beregost, the town many players reach while still of the 1st level and thus not having enough firepower to kill all the enemies before they hit Neera

    Another argument can be the following. Considering there's now a LoB diffuculty available, keeping Neera on LoB alive during the initial encounter is more difficult than all other tasks of the similar level of danger. Because of her AI (and not having a sling), Neera just melees enemies after casting her spells, thus becoming an aim of the Red wizards. https://support.baldursgate.com/issues/22273

    If you want to kill her, then either take or don't take her into the party and just kill her after the encounter.
    ArctodusTressetRaduziel
  • ArctodusArctodus Member Posts: 992
    edited February 2018
    @UnderstandMouseMagic If someone actually wants to use Neera - and yes, some people do, no matter what you may think about her - having her killed in this fight makes it impossible to resurrect her. That quite a big problem for those who wants to use her. If you don't want her in your team, you can still easily dismiss or kill her anyway, just like @JuliusBorisov said.
    JuliusBorisovThacoBellRaduziel
  • UnderstandMouseMagicUnderstandMouseMagic Member Posts: 2,147

    @UnderstandMouseMagic Why? There're lots of reasons, a few of them already mentioned above.

    This behavior towards Neera is inconsistent with the initial ambush of BG1:EE with Dorn (who has the minhp1 item) and, as it's Neera, creates problems for players:
    - Neera's HP at the lvl 1 are very low (4)
    - Neera's wild surge can kill herself (for example, through a Fireball surge)
    - Neera is in Beregost, the town many players reach while still of the 1st level and thus not having enough firepower to kill all the enemies before they hit Neera

    Another argument can be the following. Considering there's now a LoB diffuculty available, keeping Neera on LoB alive during the initial encounter is more difficult than all other tasks of the similar level of danger. Because of her AI (and not having a sling), Neera just melees enemies after casting her spells, thus becoming an aim of the Red wizards. https://support.baldursgate.com/issues/22273

    If you want to kill her, then either take or don't take her into the party and just kill her after the encounter.

    Instead of all this palavar, why not just have the encounter PID as Garrick's is?

    Can you not understand how Dorn's encounter plays different to Neera's for the player because it's in an inbetween area?

    The only thing you have said I agree with is this,
    "Neera, creates problems for players:

    So the initial implementation was poorly incorporated and now it's made worse trying to fix that.

    Having her situated so that you cannot access part of Beregost was a poor choice.
    Allowing her to cast the colourspray spell was a poor choice as it catches the player/player's party.
    Giving her the only gembag in game was a poor choice (I mean seriously you are going to try and argue that was an entirely neutral decision rather than one to give the NPC more value)

    And your argument for the implementation of this Neera invulnerability is because the design of the encounter as it stands is because it's created by poor choices.
  • JuliusBorisovJuliusBorisov Member, Administrator, Moderator, Developer Posts: 22,714
    edited February 2018
    For the record: the initial implementation had Neera wearing the minhp1 item, but with a bug which didn't take that item away after the encounter. That bug was fixed (for the 1.2 ver) but minhp1 item was taken away. Now this item is restored.

    As for design choices, this thread shows people with different opinions about them. All the feedback is being heard.
    TressetRaduziel
  • lujolujo Member Posts: 236
    Why isn't she introduced via PID?
  • UnderstandMouseMagicUnderstandMouseMagic Member Posts: 2,147
    Arctodus said:

    @UnderstandMouseMagic If someone actually wants to use Neera - and yes, some people do, no matter what you may think about her - having her killed in this fight makes it impossible to resurrect her. That quite a big problem for those who wants to use her. If you don't want her in your team, you can still easily dismiss or kill her anyway, just like @JuliusBorisov said.

    As I say in the above post, the implementation of Neera in game has been created poorly.

    I have no argument with people wanting to use the NPC, good for them. Why do discusions about this have to come down to the personal?
    It has nothing to do with what the player chooses to do, a scenario was created that doesn't work well full stop.




  • ArctodusArctodus Member Posts: 992

    The only reason Neera exists in any type of sane analysis is to be killed for the gem bag.

    That's nothing personal. In your comment, you just said that she's useless and she should only be killed for her gem bag, which projects a subjective preference like an objective statement. I never use Neera and I've been telling in this very forum how I find her forced cutscenes unflavorful.

    However, I recognize that, if someone do want to use her, she should at least be able to survive the encounter where you meet her to prevent reloading everytime she dies. No matter what I think about her cutscenes, it's better for her to be able to survive on a mechanical standpoint, that's all.
    ronaldosemiticgoddessRaduzielContemplative_Hamster
  • profanitywarningprofanitywarning Member Posts: 294
    I'm sure this will trigger a "killing Neera in Original ways before the fight is over" contest. Can't wait to read the first reports :smiley:
  • JuliusBorisovJuliusBorisov Member, Administrator, Moderator, Developer Posts: 22,714
    From Neera's story, how could it be possible that a moment the Red wizards appear depends on the moment the player speaks to her?
    Should Red Wizards wait before teleporting till the player reaches the 5th chapter, for example?
  • lujolujo Member Posts: 236
    edited February 2018

    From Neera's story, how could it be possible that a moment the Red wizards appear depends on the moment the player speaks to her?
    Should Red Wizards wait before teleporting till the player reaches the 5th chapter, for example?

    The player can't know. The player talks to Neera, and Lo and behold, omg, they found her, good thing he was around. If this is all that's preventing you from having this be a PID, change it immediately.
    UnderstandMouseMagicbob_vengBalrog99Contemplative_Hamster
  • AstroBryGuyAstroBryGuy Member Posts: 3,437
    lujo said:

    Why isn't she introduced via PID?

    Because it doesn't fit the dialog. Like Imoen, Viconia, and Alora, she initiates the dialog.

    Neera isn't forced into your party any more than Viconia or Alora are in their initial encounters. There is an initial encounter, but after the encounter, you can decline to let Neera join your party. If you decline, she will then go to the FAI and you can pick her up later. Note that with most of the original BG1 NPCs, once you engage them in dialog (even those done via PID), once you start the dialog, you either add them to the party or dismiss them forever (or have to fight them). Neera is actually better implemented in that she can be diverted to the FAI and added to the party later.

    Also, as of BGEE 2.x, Neera's JOINXP script won't fire until she joins the party for the first time, so you can pick her up later and her XP will adjust at that time.
    Skatan
  • lujolujo Member Posts: 236
    edited February 2018
    Wait, this really is what's preventing you from making this a PID?

    Are you people for real? Just change the dialogue! FFS the player can't know, I can think of 20 ways it can work. The wizards were tracking the player, for example. The wizards knew she was in Beregost but not where until she revealed herself by talking to the player. There's people badmouthing your company, not without reason, the implementation is widely complained about, for various reasons many of which are perfectly reasonable - and THIS is why it's not being changed? And if you just make it a PID most of the criticism becomes very much baseless...

    I... I'm speechless...
    Contemplative_Hamster
  • UnderstandMouseMagicUnderstandMouseMagic Member Posts: 2,147
    edited February 2018
    Arctodus said:

    The only reason Neera exists in any type of sane analysis is to be killed for the gem bag.

    That's nothing personal. In your comment, you just said that she's useless and she should only be killed for her gem bag, which projects a subjective preference like an objective statement. I never use Neera and I've been telling in this very forum how I find her forced cutscenes unflavorful.

    However, I recognize that, if someone do want to use her, she should at least be able to survive the encounter where you meet her to prevent reloading everytime she dies. No matter what I think about her cutscenes, it's better for her to be able to survive on a mechanical standpoint, that's all.
    I recognise that too.
    But what Player A might want to do should not affect Player B's game and vice versa.

    I don't think we are in disagreement in the main. I think/agree/concur that should a player want to use her then she should survive being recruited.

    However, the mistake lies there. Long before any player even saw the game. And it's not just Neera who can die in that recruitment scenario. If you want to recruit her and you are low level, you run the risk of being killed. Especially as to compound the problem of being attacked, she can sometimes fire off a colourspray spell that knocks you/your party out.

    What's suggested as a work around IMO merely moves the problem from one player to another.
    Player A can recruit her and now she will survive.
    Player B can't just kill her.
    Both players still have to avoid a section of Beregost.

    Edited to add.

    Garrick falls under the same umbrella.
    To recruit Garrick you have to kill Silke. And that's difficult at low level, especially with SCS.

    But at no point does any player have to avoid the area.
    Arctodus
  • lujolujo Member Posts: 236
    edited February 2018
    Err, no, and your attitude isn't helping things. I've got no reason to baselessly bash Beamdog and I could do a seminar on why not making Neera recruitment a PID was a bad design decision. Scroll back a little and read my post on it for the essence. It's a demonstrably bad decision which led to many different sorts of people feeling bad about it, and it's also the root of why the character is quite disliked. Really, way fewer people would be complaining about her personality or writing or even general niche nature of her class skillset, or about Beamdog's contributions to the game - if you could walk around the first city in the game without a forced interaction with her.

    This isn't "having all the answers" this just common sense and experience. This isn't some unreasonable demand, and noone needs to defend Beamdog from it. This is product analysis and it's worth actual money in the real world, and I'm giving it away for free. If I was hired as a consultant/producer/whatever, which is far from unreasonable, for something like this I'd be saying the same thing in an official meeting if the topic was how to improve the image of the company with the established BG franchise fan base. Tone down the assertivenes of the new NPC's. And it would work.
    UnderstandMouseMagic
  • UnderstandMouseMagicUnderstandMouseMagic Member Posts: 2,147
    @Tresset

    You've built a big enough strawman there to burn Edward Woodward inside it.
  • TressetTresset Member, Moderator Posts: 8,262
    Bah! I never suggested that any requests were unreasonable or any bashing was baseless. I didn't even say what I thought about Neera, actually. I just suggested that there will always be disagreement on everything. Call My comment what you will, it still sounds like a lot of you think your answers/suggestions are eminently more reasonable than everyone else's. And that goes for BOTH sides of this discussion.
  • lujolujo Member Posts: 236
    edited February 2018
    @Tresset

    This is now a discussion between two small fluffy woodland critters. :smile:

    I'm confident because what I'm expressing isn't just my opinion but a result of an analysis of various complaints. I've already filtered all the insane/personal taste/grognard/purist/society-specific nonsense and analyzed the rest of it and it boils down to things which can be understood. I'm translating a worthwhile subset of complaints into speech that ought to be more understandable than the general babble of disparate grumbling and hatefulness. The essence is what I'm saying, it's not all that unreasonable, and what's best is that it can actually be adressed without compromising much at all. It won't satisfy everybody ever, there's all sorts of nutcases out there, and there's people who just plain don't like Beamdog's writing, but it will help a lot with the experience for many different kinds of customers.
    semiticgoddess
  • TressetTresset Member, Moderator Posts: 8,262
    edited February 2018
    Eh, I'd rather not get overly involved in this debate. I have an opinion of my own, certainly, but right now I am mainly interested in keeping the debate civil and cool headed. Also, sorry if I came across a bit harsh earlier; I had just learned that raw sewage was backing up into my basement... Again...
    lujosemiticgoddess
  • semiticgoddesssemiticgoddess Member Posts: 14,903
    edited February 2018
    lujo said:


    This is now a discussion between two small fluffy woodland critters. :smile:

    Hey, yeah... Here, have an Insightful!
    lujo
  • The user and all related content has been deleted.
    TressetArctodustbone1ThacoBell
  • TressetTresset Member, Moderator Posts: 8,262
    edited February 2018
    Hmm... Once upon a time I was a private beta tester for the EEs of BG. During that time I have seen quite a few gamebreaking issues that had been introduced to the games. For instance, one time they broke stealth so completely and utterly so that it was 100% impossible to backstab. That was a gamebreaker. This is a minor inconvenience. Believe me.

    Anyway, I guess I can see your point. I didn't really care for some of the encounters in SCS because they seemed unrealistically hard or nigh impossible for certain classes to progress in a role-play typical fashion. For instance, Shank and Carbos are assassins who use poison weapon. Get hit = Dead. I don't like this because I always felt they should be bumbling morons who couldn't even kill a lame gnat. It fits their dialog and character better than to have them agilely and expertly poisoning their weapons for the kill. Another SCS encounter I didn't like was Tarnesh at the FAI. It makes most sense RP-wise to make a beeline for the FAI as Gorion suggested, but in SCS that often becomes inadvisable or even impossible due to an unavoidable mage that will put you to sleep and kill you while barely breaking a sweat. Also, Silkie makes Garrick extremely hard to recruit early on.

    Come to think of it, even in the base game, Tarnesh is nothing to sneeze at. He is completely unavoidable (if you want to enter the inn) and a similar challenge to the Neera encounter (admittedly a tad less with the guards helping). It is at least possible to avoid Neera. I just don't see this as that big an issue, but I suppose I can understand where you are coming from.
    Post edited by Tresset on
    ThacoBell
  • UnderstandMouseMagicUnderstandMouseMagic Member Posts: 2,147

    lujo said:

    I can see at least a glimmer of reason in every angle of criticism towards that encounter, even the insane troll arguments really boil down to a valid point most of the trolls themselves miss, but I just can't figure out any reason when people defend it. What's the point of defending it?

    Literally nobody in this thread has defended it. (@AstroBryGuy came closest I think, but he didn't really express any opinion in defense of the encounter design, he only pointed out a couple technical details that were overlooked.) If you don't want to be lumped in with "insane trolls" then it would be helpful to express sanity by acknowledging that no one here is trying to fight you or your opinion.
    lujo said:

    Are you people for real? Just change the dialogue! FFS

    Calm down little woodland creature. You're going to sprain your tail.

    Must I quote my own post? Yes, I suppose I must:

    Plus the Beamdog NPCs were coded four years ago. They're not going to make major changes to how it is written now. This turkey is cooked.

    It's crappy design. Go down to Nashkel, talk to Rasaad. Watch him fight while not in your party. Ask him to join, or not, it doesn't matter. Rasaad's introduction is excellent design. And yet they were both added at the same time, by the same developer. How to explain this? They tried a couple different things. One worked, one didn't. Now we are left with a game with a little encounter that is badly designed. It's unfortunate, but it doesn't amount to a bug and it's utterly unreasonable to demand that it be patched. We can buy the game, or not; we can play the game, or not; we can give feedback to the devs so they don't do it like that anymore. But that is the extent of our editorial power.

    There have been badly-designed elements in every video game I've ever played, ever, going back to the old Atari and Coleco systems. That's life. Why is Beamdog different? Why are you building this up into a hill to die on? Why is simply giving criticism somehow not good enough in this case?
    In my defense, I would like to point out I didn't comment in this thread at all until I saw the post saying that Neera would now be made unkillable.

    Now if that's happening as @JuliusBorisov has said, it seems fair comment to ask or discuss whether the way that's being implemented is the best way to fix something that's a bit of a mess.

    And as it will be a change, to comment on whether/how that's going to affect each players game.

    When you ask "Why is Beamdog different?"
    Well in this case it's because (to be childish) they started it.

    I'd very much like it if Beamdog did start having a much stricter approach when it comes to
    "well this turkey is cooked".
    There are many posts and threads discussing changes being made, updates getting rid of exploits ect. ect.
    It's a little disingenuous to suggest that all the complaints are from people pointing out "faults" that have existed for years.
  • ThelsThels Member Posts: 1,416
    Making her unkillable would be something of a stealth change. Most people wouldn't even notice the change. The number of objections would be minimal. "Oh, now I gotta manually kill her after the fight, or recruit her and kick her out again!" seems like a minor inconvenience at most, whereas having her die during the fight, because she was stupid enough to mistake herself for a melee fighter, has much bigger issues for whomever would try to recruit her.

    Changing Neera from an active approach to a passive approach changes the perspective of the story. Currently, Neera moves towards the party the moment she is seen, and it could easily be considered that she's running out of the fog towards the party, the Red Wizards high on her heels. Were she instead casually hang out where she was, until a player talked to her, then the whole dialogue makes a lot less sense. Sure, the entire dialogue could be changed, but the current dialogue befits her story.

    Garrick is an entirely different situation, as he isn't being chased. There is no urgency of people chasing after him like they are chasing after Neera.

    Viconia's situation is a lot more similar, except she doesn't stupidly wade into melee with 4 hit points.
    ArctodusBalrog99Skatan
  • The user and all related content has been deleted.
    ThacoBellArctodusSkatan
  • JuliusBorisovJuliusBorisov Member, Administrator, Moderator, Developer Posts: 22,714
    edited February 2018

    As an example: I just learned that if you poison someone who has Fire Shield active, you will take Fire Shield dame every time they take poison damage.

    That's really bad - clearly contrary to the design and description of the spell. Even if some players use this against the game, it can also interfere with normal players in a way that can undermine their enjoyment. If I'm a dev, to me that's worthy of attention in a patch. The changes to Poison Weapon have been controversial, and the execution of those changes may have been botched. But the intent behind them was to fix an issue that was never anticipated or intended by the original game design.

    Can you please file it?
    Also, using this opportunity, @subtledoctor - please, reply about https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/comment/947539/#Comment_947539 in that thread.
This discussion has been closed.