Give me tons of friendship mods, but keep the romance ones away from me.
Well that certainly is an unpopular opinion. I love them, They make the game a bit more realistic. Of course, not all of them are well written, but I love the concept.
Majority of the classes just felt the same, or played the same. Yea, the base fantasy classes like warrior, thief, cleric, and druid are somewhat different but majority of the others never really felt or played differently. You could basically recreate more effective versions of the other classes by just dual/multi classing the main classes. Since majority of the mechanically have little difference between them other that state changes that basically becomes pointless half way through bg2.
Jon Irenicus is a worse antagonist than Sarevok. In bg1 the story for the protagonist unfolds more naturally and you get a better feeling for the motives of the antagonist through direct interaction with his lackeys and hired assassins than in bg2 where everything is told via cut scenes to the player instead of to the protagonist.
Not sure if I responded to this already as it was so long ago, but I agree with this as well.
Also, BG2 tried WAAAAYYYYY too hard to "top" Sarevok as a villain by having Imoen tell you, point blank to your face, "He's sooooooo evil," and Irenicus speaking in quasi-philosophical soliloquies about "pain" and the like. The former sounds lazy and forced, the latter pretentious and phony IMO.
Sarevok may have had much less of a presence throughout BG1, but his actions spoke for themselves.
What happened to the "disintegrate high level Cowled Wizards with the flick of my little finger" person?
@UnderstandMouseMagic Lets be fair here, near and game you're can do the exact same thing to cowel wizards. So, by the time you've done the trials I'm expecting to be ridiculously powerful
Durlag's Tower is awful. I made a whole rant about it years ago, and I stand by it to this day. It's a boring slog with badly paced exposition, annoying gimmicks (cheater chess) and leads to the most annoying boss battle (Aec'Letec) in the entire game.
TotSC seems a bit out of place in the mainly story-driven Baldur's Gate game. Watcher's Keep is more in line with Throne of Bhaal which is more dungeon/combat oriented.
Durlag's Tower is awful. I made a whole rant about it years ago, and I stand by it to this day. It's a boring slog with badly paced exposition, annoying gimmicks (cheater chess) and leads to the most annoying boss battle (Aec'Letec) in the entire game.
TotSC seems a bit out of place in the mainly story-driven Baldur's Gate game. Watcher's Keep is more in line with Throne of Bhaal which is more dungeon/combat oriented.
I think TotSC was only released to give players something new to do and to keep them interested while BG2 was in development, plus generating some extra cash flow for the developers to keep them going. It's tacked on to the original content, and it shows.
If you didn't erase it, the game came with an "Adventure Pack" save file, which was a way to play TotSC content only with an appropriately leveled and equipped party out of the box, beginning the game in Ulgoth's Beard. The idea was that many players wouldn't want to start all over at level one, but their previous party would have ended the game, and the developers couldn't design any way for an export/import to work after the defeat of Sarevok while still allowing new players to start at level one.
TotSC seems a bit out of place in the mainly story-driven Baldur's Gate game. Watcher's Keep is more in line with Throne of Bhaal which is more dungeon/combat oriented.
TotSC is out of place now it's in the main game. However, it was perfect as an expansion after the end of BG.
After defeating Sarevok you are at a loose end and very powerful. It makes a lot of sense that rather than face the consequences of being a Bhaalspawn, you carry on as an adventurer, doing what you have done succesfully for some time while you work that out. It's your job, you have few other skills, what you going to do, take up farming?
Durlag's is the ultimate challenge for an adventurer in the area and money, never forget money.
Of all the things Beamdog chooses to mess around with, the one thing they didn't do was restore TotSC to it's rightfil position.
It would also help with smoothing the jarring nonsense of SOD where Baldurs Gate is suddenly filled with refugees and there have been no signs whatsoever of that happening. You have been away for a considerable time, on Werewolf Island, Ice Dungeon and Durlag's.
Unpopular Opinion: Tales of the Sword Coast is an overrated, boring chore of an expansion.
Watcher’s Keep, on the other hand, is tolerable. I even think it’s pretty good.
*hides in shadows*
I wrote something about this a while ago, but I forget where. My problem is mainly with the writing, which is so long-winded and pretentious. You get these lengthy, internally contradictory speeches from Dezkiel, the Demon Knight, and Kaishas Gan, full of incoherent bluster and trying-too-hard metaphors that seem like they predicted the Matrix sequels.
"You shall be the death and I shall be the life!"
"This place draws magic, and I am at the center, so it channels power into me by default! Ignore that I'm the weakest mage you've faced in this dungeon by far!"
"I absolve you of responsibility for what happens next...Despite me absolving you earlier, I've now concluded that you would never join my tribe, even though you said otherwise earlier. Prepare to die!"
Some of the most cringe-inducing dialogue I've seen from Bioware, up there with "I won't have my two best men killing each other. It's not good business," a line that's always driven me into paroxysms of rage, but that's another story.
All of that said, I do still like most of the writing in Durlag's Tower. The parallels between Durlag having to slay monsters bearing the faces of his loved ones, and you having to do the same under Candlekeep...yeah, that's pretty powerful. If only they'd made some callbacks to it in TOB, when you've become as strong as Durlag was, and use that to give more emotional grounding to things like the destruction of Saradush. No matter how strong you get, like Durlag, you still can't save everyone. That'd be something.
@UnderstandMouseMagic Um, what? TotSC was ALWAYS integrated into BG. It was entirely possible to stumble into DUrlag's Tower at level 1. Playing it, "After defeating Sarevok you are at a loose end and very powerful. It makes a lot of sense that rather than face the consequences of being a Bhaalspawn, you carry on as an adventurer" was impossible, as vanilla BG had no import function after defeting Sarevok, and the game went to credits and then the main menu immediately after the battle.
coming late to the party, here are some of the things that i like/dislike that others might feel the opposite oh, and watch out SPOILERS AHEAD, so you've been warned:
PS: this became a lot longer than i thought, so i would suggest, getting a snack and something to drink because you will be here for a while
- i hate werewolf island to be honest, it is basically a waste of time because there is virtually nothing there worth getting ( except for maybe the staff-mace which is up there being the best one handed crushing weapon ) but other than that it is mediocre items ( except for 2 points of storm giant STR which only 6 exist in the game, 2 being on the island ) and more senseless XP that i dont need ( because every time i come here im ALWAYS at 161 000 ) but the ONLY reason why i come here is because of gold piece runs
- fully completing the durlag quest, once i finish off demonknight i virtually never continue on with the dagger retrieval, going back to ulgoth's beard, fighting lame enemies, and then fighting Aec'Letec, yeck, at that point in the game i have 161 000 XP per character 100000s of gold, and there is no real reward for going back with the dagger, unless again i do it for gold piece runs, and realistically it's only worth like 6-7000 gold at best
- sarevok is one of my favorite joinable characters, even though he is a stinky human and korgan and mazzy are better basically in every way, i still like him as a JC, ironically though i never bring him along because he is usually behind by around 900 000 - 1 000 000 XP but if i start a fresh ToB run, he is always in there, and that is really where he shines most
- i actually love enchantment spells and hate evocation spells, back when i was a younger lad i used to be the 100% opposite, but over time i completely switched over, Xan it my favourite wizerd of bg1 and i find the "powerful" evocation spells ( lightning bolt, fireball ) to be more hassle than they actually are, while enchantment spells you can just throw into the fray without a worry or care, although with that being said i love chain lightning in the bg series, and hate it in IWD because in IWD it can hit friend of foe alike, lame
- in ToB i actually like having good AC on my melee guys, a lot of people say AC is pointless in ToB, but to be honest that can be poppycock, on insane difficulty with double damage on, enemies are dealing outrageous damage at times ( like iron/adamantine golems that can deal around 100 damage on a normal hit nevermind critical ) so the difference of an enemy missing solely on 1s or being able to miss with even a 3 on the attack roll could mean the difference between life and death, plus i can usually hit around -15 for my top 3 melee chums, and -15 is a big difference from -10 and is quite noticeable, mix that in with protection from evil 10' radius, defensive harmony, mass invisibility and perhaps a berserk and maybe a select potion or 2, and then difference is even higher, also dont forget those armor modifiers, white dragon splint mail may offer the same AC as full plate +3 but full plate +3 has WAY better armor modifiers in general
- im not a fan of crom fayer, in fact just for spite im going to lean towards "hating" crom fayer because there is really too much hype for this weapon, and plus there are a couple of reasons why i never find the need to use this weapons; first of all, i like my weapon and board style AC, and crom fayer shines more going dual wield style, and in ToB i will have up to x3 +4 shields giving me that comfy +5 AC bonus per melee chap, plus using it as weapon with shield style, isn't as great as it sounds, yes it gives you 25 STR but the base damage is still only 2d4+3 as apposed to all the +5 weapons out there that go up to +5 damage, and given that the average warrior will no doubt have 22 STR, that is only a 2 damage difference, although automatically slaying small golems and trolls is nice, i like my AC weapons/ regeneration/ decap weapons ( which work on anyone basically, not just a small group of races ) much more
- blades, sorry but i give these guys two thumbs down, i just dont find them a fun class to play, i get bored of them because of the micromanagement involved in keeping these guys alive whether it being CONSTANTLY casting spells on them to survive in combat or just getting them out of the way to heal, bleh, if i want to play a melee class with a bit more pizazz then i always go with a swashbuckler instead, even though they start off with the same - start of squishy but eventually get better weakness - i find that eventually i dont need to micromanage my swashy once i hit level 20 or so ( especially level 24 mmm ) plus another problem i found very apparent with blades; they can't hit SQUAT, holy crap was this unreal, using the rogue thac0 table mixed with the fact that you ONLY become PROFICIENT in weapon proficiencies really hurts this class, at least with a swashbuckler you will eventually get a +8 to hit bonus AND you can specialize in weapons, but then again once you hit level 16 you can FINALLY use tensors transformation but by then bored of my blade being trash ( and i always have a main guy as a blade to even give them that much more oomph ) so sorry blades, but you're not for me, in theory you can become "invincible" with all your spell protections, but by the time i get a blade to irenicus' dungeon i've already had a half-orc berserker go from candlekeep to mellisan at the end of ToB because he doesnt need to screw around with spells/abilities, just wear some full plate, go berserk and slice through yer baddies like butter with your big bad two handed sword
- i really REALLY hate the abizigal fight, and not only this i find him way harder than his son ( a lot of people say his son is harder, and to that i would have to say LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL - and im 100% serious when i lol'd there ) in fact i hate the abizigal fight/ area in general SO much a good 80% of the time this is where my series runs will end, right at the beginning of abizigal's enclave, so why so much hate for abizigal, well here we go; first his human form isnt too bad anymore, i just exploit his shenanigans i get my wizerd type character up with a protection from magical weapons, and he will attack that character while the rest will GWW or attack abizigal as per normal - so far so good, but then when he hits dragon form, all sorts of dumb starts happening, first for some reason beamdog made him immune to time stop ( why? completely unnecessary ) next beamdog cranked his AI from the original ToB game, so the ONLY way to beat this dummy on insane with double damage is to exploit his dragon bunions, and that is the thing that i really REALLY hate about "improved difficulty" mods and crap where it gets to the only point that you can when is with exploits, ( this is why i never play SCS mods or the like, too tedious and again by the sounds of the final battle in ToB, F that noise ) anyway, so first what his dragon form does is releases a remove magic that works without fail, and since caster level checks apparently arent capped at level 20, but spell level checks are, if you are level 30 your remove magic will never fail, so there goes all my buffs on all my characters, then the next bizzario thing that happens is when he uses his breath weapon which does an ABSURD amount of damage on insane ( im talking around 200 or so, have fun surviving that if you are a default joinable character aka aerie,jan,imoen,nalia, basically anyone ) and best part is; INFINITE range, say what?!?! you betcha, no matter where you are on that map you will get blasted by that breath weapon, on all 6 corners you say? no worries 200 damgae for everyone, you get 200 damage, you get 200 damage, everyone gets 200 damage! oi, so to counter this madness after i kill the human form i have to get my wizerd ( who always wears the clock of mirroring ) up and personal with abizi-lamers and make sure that my wizerd is the ONLY one to get hit by that remove magic, because luckily that clock makes her immune to his breath weapon, so once she gets hit with the remove magic, throw her in the back, and have everyone else come in with GWWs and attacks per round through the roof, but there is a catch, if i cant kill him before he gets another remove magic off ( thanks to his stoneskin and 550 HP and shield of the archons and what not ) then its game over abizigal wins, reload and hopefully on the next load up, i kill him before he dispells my protection from lightning and chunks my whole team again, so yeah, boring as balls and not so much fun, ironically balthazar and even mellisan is a joke compared to this guy, at least they play more fair than this holmes
- i never use skull trap, i think out of the 1000s and 1000s of playthroughs i have had through the almost 2 decades this game has been out i've used that spell less than 5 times, even though it is better than fireball, i always have slow or flame arrow memorized instead, why? slow and flame arrow doesnt hurt party members
- im not a dual weapon fan, ( even though when bg2 first came out i thought it was awesome ) but now adays the ONLY time i will ever dual wield is when i play a swashy, a fighter/thief or if all the planets align in the solar system blade, other than that if im not using a shield, its two handed weapons all the way, and more specifically the two handed sword, out of the dnd lore, two handed sword is my favourite weapon of all time ( well perhaps the warmace actually is, but in the BG series im using my handy two handed swords )
- i play my BG games mod free, which sounds insayan but it be true, the only time i have "mods" installed is when i mod my own games to get rid of beamdog features that i hate ( like this 100000 save file nonsense, oi i understand the practicality of it, but damn, waving through all that save file trash to find my actual save game, i say; yeetus to yon extra save filetus )
- not a fan of SoD, reason more being, i hate it's placement in the BG saga, it makes no sense where it is, i feel that it spoils to much of SoA and the last boss fight, say what?!?! lol? i can understand why it is the way it is, but to be honest not very pratical, although one thing that i did enjoy about SoD was the items, i need to give credit where credit is due and i must say, the items placement/items in general A+ job on that, everything else, oi jam, i find myself having such a hard time playing SoD, i was only ever able to do a whole playthrough once, and it was basically to spite myself for buying it and justifying my purchase, will i ever play it again? probably not, and to be honest where SoD or a SoD type expansion could have really shine was ToB, that game was screaming for some extra content and even if you used the same story line as SoD and would actually work better in ToB ( even if you didnt base the game around BG the city ) ToB would have been a much better placement for this, because even with the XP gain ( which there was plenty or room for ) and item gain, it would not have ruined the final battle in ToB, SoD on the other hand destroys the game balance of SoA with your potential half million XP characters at the beginning of the game and even throughout the game laying diarrhea to your enemies, unless of coarse you plan on playing LoB mode than that starting XP is crucial, in fact speaking about that....
- perhaps even more than abizigal i hate HoF/LoB mode ( in fact i call LoB mode Legacy of LOL mode ) in fact i hate this mode more than captain james hook hates peter pan ( to get this reference go watch the move Hook with robin williams/ dustin hoffman and wait for the scene where hook says; i hate i hate i HATE peter pan ) yeah, that sort of hate towards this garbage mode, now for those of you who like it, i say give 'er gas, accelerator pedal all the way to the floor, but for me, its an easy no, first of all in the BG series, it is HILARIOUSLY unbalanced, holy crap, like in IWD it's possible to start off at level 1, but in BG 1 it is hyper impractical, how i completed it was import my level 8 team cast invisibility 10' radius on everyone and rush to the last boss battle, and bg2, oh my god bg2, thank the beamdog gods you only had to beat irenicus in hell to get the achievement because to have to beat ToB to get it, i would rather castrate myself than do that ( especially with the abizigal nonsense mentioned above ) but with that being said, i just find the mode boring, tedious, and unfun ( and especially so in IWD 2, it's even more ridiculous and broken i find ) so sorry you silly +6 to hit/saves, +1 attack per round, + x3+50 ( or 80! ) HP but you can go pound sand good buddy
- so i've been doing more ranting perhaps than "popular opinions" so lets do a more constructively positive shall we? when it comes to NWN 2, my favourite game out of all the lets say "official content" is storm of zehir, i actually find it quite fun, its actually quite ironic because i remember going on to some site and reading a review and this person was listing off all the things they hated about SoZ and those exact things were the reason why i liked SoZ, now with that said, SoZ is a very niche game, if it doesnt fill your niche than you will probably never like it, but i like the trade system ( perhaps because i like business type stuff in real life ) i like the size of dungeons; smaller gets to the point, not over done with nonsense, i like the idea that your skills can help find you random goodies on the overworld map, making skills much more useful than they have ever been before, i also like the idea of the kind of old school "random battle encounters like how older RPGs used to be like" even though in general im not a fan of the old school random battles on the overworld map mechanic in general, i feel that SoZ implements it much better, plus item creation is awesome in SoZ, super easy, doesnt require a 6 month correspondence coarse on gathering this and getting that jargon, just nice piss simple item crafting, A+ to you SoZ for making item crafting not complete ass, even though item crafting horribly breaks the game, but hey, no one said you HAD to have 60 AC....
- ah, just remembered another one that kind of grinds my gears a bit; the random item tables in IWD, wowzers, this is a whopper, now i dont mind random loot, but what grinds me is that the BEST items in the game you only have a small ass chance of ever getting them ( well okay sometimes its only 33% chance ) but still, and not only that, sometimes the difference in item scale is outrageous ( and when i mean outrageous im talking about more outrageous than an adamant dragonite with max attack IVs and EVs using outrage sort of outrageous ) need an example? dont worry i have more than 1, first off being the "shield" table in the severed hand, we have 3 options, 2 are good, one is complete feces, option 1 - small shield +1 ( LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL ) option 2 - a large shield +2 ( party on, not bad ) or option 3 - great shield +3 which is the BEST shield in the game and this is the ONLY way of getting it, now what grinds me is that there is a 33% chance that you are going to get dumpstered on and get the crap weasel small shield +1, like for reals holmes, that is a mammoth gap even between the large shield +2 ( i believe the shield is called; shield of the hand ) another instance of this is with kaylessa or however her named is spelled ( the female holmes who wears the boots of speed ) she will drop 1 item out of a pool of 4 where 1 is 100% useless, another one being pretty much useless, one being a A- set of armor for a thief, thief/mage type character, or, the one AMAZING set of mits that gives a whopping +1 DEX and +1 AC, so basically 50% chance of diarrhea, 25% of mediocre satisfaction and 25% chance of something that i will actually use, but even with that being said, another "complaint" i have is sometimes the weapons selection is crazy random, one game you might find crap loads of long swords and virtually no morning stars, another game, the other way around, and this makes it difficult to give your warriors weapon proficiency points because you just don't know what weapons will be appearing in your game ( luckily HoW has more set weapons for its NPC characters ) so at the very least, i can survive with the odd garbage dump of useless items in those random item pools, but weapons, not better weapon pools ( and maces, there is like what? 3 maces that are pass +1/ have magical abilities beyond the fact that they are +1, seriously, more maces please )
- the werewolf transformation for the druid kit, ironically when it was bugged as hell in the original game, not only did it make the kit more fun to play, it still wasnt an OP unbalanced power house, now that it is "fixed" ( i say "fixed" because you will see later ) this class is ABSOLUTE garbage, and i dont even hate to say it, its crap, completely, and here is my reasoning; first, why is the regeneration gone? half the reason why you want to become a werewolf is for the regeneration, even though it wasnt knock your socks off amazing, it was a cool ability to have, even if beamdog made it so it was a static ability ( that wasn't based off of your CON so then you couldn't use CON as a dump stat ) that still would have worked, but instead, we get notta, so what do we get instead? we get a melee weapon that NEVER improves, and this is a big deal because even with the one that you start with isn't all that great, and while your other team mates are progressively getting better weapons your little fist-o-cuffs are basically hitting with the ferocity of a new born baby's loving smile, and to top it off, you get to use the "awesome" divine caster thac0 table ( which in retrospect isn't bad, but in reality isnt good either, especially in bg1 ) and remember you melee weapon never improves, unlike other classes with bad thac0 tables they at least have weapon improvement to get better, no such luck with the shapeshifter, so what is the big bad awesome advantage of this tree hugging clowns? the AC you say, the irony continues because realistically the value of their AC ( which also doesnt improve ) will be matched by the warriors you have in melee anyway, now with that being said i do believe i hit -16 AC with the greater werewolf form before, but enemies will roll 20s eventually and on insane difficulty with no hardiness or good HP from a warrior pool, you will be turned to mush quite quick, and with the fact that your to hit will be complete trash you have no reason to be up front in the first place, Oh! but Sarevok57 they have spells, and spells make them good! yeah, guess who else has spells ALL the druids, in fact the... avenger i believe? has the biggest spell pool of them all, and also if you are playing a shapeshifter to cast spells and not use the shapeshift ability, then you are kind of missing the point, this could be a reason why cernd the nerd gets so much flack where his class kit used to be not bad in the original ( once he was using staff of the woodlands as his main weapon in werewolf form ) to just being a druid that now cant use armor because his shapeshift ability is bleh, sorry my forum chum and chumettes, but i just can't justify being a shapeshifter anymore when all the other druid class kits are pretty much just better ( hell even the default druid is better, lols indeed )
- next i have some beef with 2 joinable PCs rasaad and dorn, i may have discussed this before but as my friend eric has said before; telling a story for the 1 000 000th and first time is always a charm, so first lets talk about rasaad, dont mind the concept, dont mind that he is in the game, what i do mind is his usefullness in combat, now bg1 isnt exactly a game geared towards having a monk, and if you want to promote the idea that monks are "cool" and all that jazz, rasaad should really reflect upon this, you see this in BG2 where when the original devs were making those "weaker" character/class type joinable NPCs they didnt mind throwing in an 18 or a 19 there to make them viable, here we have a monk, someone who is designed for melee combat with mediocre dexterity and NO constitution bonus, this is a very puzzling way to introduce monks to the world of BG especially for new players, rasaad is going to get his ass kicked A LOT in melee, even with his "cool" monk abilities, and those good ol' critical hits are going to make his portrait disappear and there will be rasaad bacon all over the landscape, realistically this guy should have 18 DEX, 16 CON, and at least 17 STR, hell, even 18 STR, even with that little stat boost rasaad actually becomes viable because now his to hit/to damage is a little higher, the AC difference is noticable and he will actually HAVE some HP, now i know the people will say; oh but wise old Sarevok57 you can increase those stats with items! yes, but you're missing the point, the point being, if he is only good with items, what happens when those items are drained? what happens if those items arent found? then all you have left over is a wet noodle.
Ah the first period in this entire essay of a run on sentence, and now it is time for the 2nd joinable NPC and that is dorn, again, dont mind his story and the fact that he exists and all that good jazz, its stat talking time again ( im actually finding it amazing on how just the stats themselves can make/break/redefine on how a character operates ) first 19 STR is WAY to good for BG1 especially if your default STR is 19, remember how the tome of STR is near the end of chapter 6? yeah, there is a reason for that, it's because 19 STR in BG1 is friggin amazing, that could be one reason why half-orcs werent in bg1 because 19 STR is so damn good ( i wonder if im getting my point across? ) so anyway, here we have a joinable PC who can be found in early chapter 2 with a whopping 19 STR and a super powerful class kit to boot, holy crap this guy is out of control, and he is skilled with two handed swords for the triple tri-fecta ( no idea if im spelling that right, but by the red squiggles im assuming its wrong ) this is just a recipe of mayhem, so i need to pick this one at a time, first the strength; too high, not going to repeat why, but its just too good and im a power gamer, this guy blows minsc right out of the water and makes dorn better than minsc in everyway basically, realistically they should have given this guy 18/90, then his STR would have been justified in my opinion, another reason why this also grinds me is because his 19 STR is mixed with the most damaging weapon in the game, the two handed sword, and again not only that he does this astronomically better than minsc ( coming in with 2 proficiencies in two handed weapon style ) this absolute silliness and needs to be redone, in my opinion here is what should have happened; A- if he is going to have 19 STR like a BAWSS then make him skilled with spears and make his whole persona around spears there are WAY too many characters that use two handed swords as it is ( Minsc, Keldorn, Sarevok, and now this clown, who's leading this party? Minsc, swords for everyone? apparently ) or, give him the 18/90 STR and make him skilled with halberds instead ( again for the reason that there is too many two handed sword wielders ) even though i said before two handed swords are my favourite weapon, but i also love meat lovers pizza and i dont eat 4 larges in one sitting, just 1 large , in conclusion, rasaad needs a stat boost, dorn needs either a stat decrease and a weapon change, neera and baeloth, A okay with all the quirks that come with them
- video game romances, eck, i remember back when i was..... 12? 13, having a romance for the first time in BG2 i thought it was so cool ( because back them something of this caliber was unheard of ) now, that im in my early 30s, oi, i cant do video game romances, i have such a hard time getting attached to my 1s and 0s and im more of a power game sort of guy, so there is no time for romance jargon, but not only that, it seems that now adays every new character has to have romances and they shove it down your throat, eck, get this romance nonsense out of here, i can see maybe rasaad and neera, but dorn? friggin LOL, and hexxat? the LOLS are even more extreme, this isnt buffy the vampire slayer where mere mortals are dating vampires, thankfully she only romances female characters and i rarely if ever have a female character as my main character so no romance nonsense there, seriously, if people want romances go outside and get one in real life, those are a million times better than any simulated romance for better or for worse, but at least you can shut down the romance candidates when that spiffy romance music plays, although i do admit i like viconia's romance music, one of my favourite soothing tracks of the game
and with that, that is all i can think of at this time, perhaps i will be back with more in the future
@UnderstandMouseMagic Um, what? TotSC was ALWAYS integrated into BG. It was entirely possible to stumble into DUrlag's Tower at level 1. Playing it, "After defeating Sarevok you are at a loose end and very powerful. It makes a lot of sense that rather than face the consequences of being a Bhaalspawn, you carry on as an adventurer" was impossible, as vanilla BG had no import function after defeting Sarevok, and the game went to credits and then the main menu immediately after the battle.
She's talking about the base game from before Tales of the Sword Coast was released. TotSC came as a separate disc, and you could indeed begin and play the TotSC content post-Sarevok using a special save file that was included with the disc.
@UnderstandMouseMagic Um, what? TotSC was ALWAYS integrated into BG. It was entirely possible to stumble into DUrlag's Tower at level 1. Playing it, "After defeating Sarevok you are at a loose end and very powerful. It makes a lot of sense that rather than face the consequences of being a Bhaalspawn, you carry on as an adventurer" was impossible, as vanilla BG had no import function after defeting Sarevok, and the game went to credits and then the main menu immediately after the battle.
She's talking about the base game from before Tales of the Sword Coast was released. TotSC came as a separate disc, and you could indeed begin and play the TotSC content post-Sarevok using a special save file that was included with the disc.
Thats a premade party and not YOUR party though. There is no way to take your character or your assembled party to TosC post Sarevok.
@UnderstandMouseMagic Um, what? TotSC was ALWAYS integrated into BG. It was entirely possible to stumble into DUrlag's Tower at level 1. Playing it, "After defeating Sarevok you are at a loose end and very powerful. It makes a lot of sense that rather than face the consequences of being a Bhaalspawn, you carry on as an adventurer" was impossible, as vanilla BG had no import function after defeting Sarevok, and the game went to credits and then the main menu immediately after the battle.
She's talking about the base game from before Tales of the Sword Coast was released. TotSC came as a separate disc, and you could indeed begin and play the TotSC content post-Sarevok using a special save file that was included with the disc.
I didn't argue the point because I thought I might have remembered it wrong.
But I do remember getting TotSC and trying to figure out where the hell Durlag's Tower was. It's a really hazy memory though.
Not made better by my experience with Werewolf Island where I missed all the clues telling me how to get to the ship, didn't find the secret door and wondered round and round after killing everything, completely trapped. Consequently, with no internet and my old PC being very dodgy anyway (crashes were a frequent occurance), I gave up ever trying to finish the expansion and put it down to "oh this game doesn't work".
Either way, restoring Durlag's and the rest of the SC content to post Sarevok would have been a very worthwhile endeavour. Instead of having to illogically take a massive break when playing BG, and a sea voyage FFS, when you are hunting down Sarevok.
In what Universe does that make any sense? Almost as bad as being drafted into the army and fighting Caelor in SOD.
@UnderstandMouseMagic , You can still play it the old way with the "Mission Pack Save" using the unmodded GoG version of BG1, but it would be on the old vanilla version of the game. I don't know if that special save file even works with TuTu or BGT installed. My guess is that BGT would crash it. It might work with TuTu, but I doubt it.
The way you were meant to get to Durlag's Tower using the pre-generated party when TotSC was first released was by talking to that tour guide in Ulgoth's Beard, who would teleport you down there. Otherwise, you had to start a first level party and uncover it on the world map via exploration, which is probably what most people remember doing. I know when it came out, I didn't like the pre-generated party, so I started over at first level.
If the first thing you wound up doing from Ulgoth's Beard was going to Werewolf Island and then getting stuck there, I can understand why you wound up putting the whole thing aside.
Unpopular Opinion: It really wasn't a very good expansion. I've never liked Durlag's Tower. Sometimes Werewolf Island and Ice Island are okay as part of my runs, but I'm usually just wanting to finish up the game and move on to BG2 by the time I get to that level. The difference between 89,000 xp and 161,000 xp going into BG2 is pretty much negligible because of how the xp curve works in BG2.
The base game and the main story and maps from before TotSC are where BG1 really shines for me.
Why are people talking about resotring the "old way"? TotSC has always worked the same way. IT WAS ALWAYS INTEGRATED INTO MAIN GAME. The mission pack save wasn't the "intended" way to play, it wasn't even the player's party. It was a balanced party provided by the devs in the new quest area, so that players months later, who may not even have old saves, wouldn't have to start a new game for the new content. Considering where Durlag's is placed on the map, right in the middle of otherwise early game content, that devs intended players to stumble on it by accident before they were capable of dealing with it. Its builds the dread and mystery of this weird tower on the outskirts of town.
Comments
Give me tons of friendship mods, but keep the romance ones away from me.
@UnderstandMouseMagic
Lets be fair here, near and game you're can do the exact same thing to cowel wizards. So, by the time you've done the trials I'm expecting to be ridiculously powerful
Watcher’s Keep, on the other hand, is tolerable. I even think it’s pretty good.
*hides in shadows*
Durlag's Tower is awful. I made a whole rant about it years ago, and I stand by it to this day. It's a boring slog with badly paced exposition, annoying gimmicks (cheater chess) and leads to the most annoying boss battle (Aec'Letec) in the entire game.
If you didn't erase it, the game came with an "Adventure Pack" save file, which was a way to play TotSC content only with an appropriately leveled and equipped party out of the box, beginning the game in Ulgoth's Beard. The idea was that many players wouldn't want to start all over at level one, but their previous party would have ended the game, and the developers couldn't design any way for an export/import to work after the defeat of Sarevok while still allowing new players to start at level one.
However, it was perfect as an expansion after the end of BG.
After defeating Sarevok you are at a loose end and very powerful. It makes a lot of sense that rather than face the consequences of being a Bhaalspawn, you carry on as an adventurer, doing what you have done succesfully for some time while you work that out. It's your job, you have few other skills, what you going to do, take up farming?
Durlag's is the ultimate challenge for an adventurer in the area and money, never forget money.
Of all the things Beamdog chooses to mess around with, the one thing they didn't do was restore TotSC to it's rightfil position.
It would also help with smoothing the jarring nonsense of SOD where Baldurs Gate is suddenly filled with refugees and there have been no signs whatsoever of that happening. You have been away for a considerable time, on Werewolf Island, Ice Dungeon and Durlag's.
"You shall be the death and I shall be the life!"
"This place draws magic, and I am at the center, so it channels power into me by default! Ignore that I'm the weakest mage you've faced in this dungeon by far!"
"I absolve you of responsibility for what happens next...Despite me absolving you earlier, I've now concluded that you would never join my tribe, even though you said otherwise earlier. Prepare to die!"
Some of the most cringe-inducing dialogue I've seen from Bioware, up there with "I won't have my two best men killing each other. It's not good business," a line that's always driven me into paroxysms of rage, but that's another story.
PS: this became a lot longer than i thought, so i would suggest, getting a snack and something to drink because you will be here for a while
- i hate werewolf island to be honest, it is basically a waste of time because there is virtually nothing there worth getting ( except for maybe the staff-mace which is up there being the best one handed crushing weapon ) but other than that it is mediocre items ( except for 2 points of storm giant STR which only 6 exist in the game, 2 being on the island ) and more senseless XP that i dont need ( because every time i come here im ALWAYS at 161 000 ) but the ONLY reason why i come here is because of gold piece runs
- fully completing the durlag quest, once i finish off demonknight i virtually never continue on with the dagger retrieval, going back to ulgoth's beard, fighting lame enemies, and then fighting Aec'Letec, yeck, at that point in the game i have 161 000 XP per character 100000s of gold, and there is no real reward for going back with the dagger, unless again i do it for gold piece runs, and realistically it's only worth like 6-7000 gold at best
- sarevok is one of my favorite joinable characters, even though he is a stinky human and korgan and mazzy are better basically in every way, i still like him as a JC, ironically though i never bring him along because he is usually behind by around 900 000 - 1 000 000 XP but if i start a fresh ToB run, he is always in there, and that is really where he shines most
- i actually love enchantment spells and hate evocation spells, back when i was a younger lad i used to be the 100% opposite, but over time i completely switched over, Xan it my favourite wizerd of bg1 and i find the "powerful" evocation spells ( lightning bolt, fireball ) to be more hassle than they actually are, while enchantment spells you can just throw into the fray without a worry or care, although with that being said i love chain lightning in the bg series, and hate it in IWD because in IWD it can hit friend of foe alike, lame
- in ToB i actually like having good AC on my melee guys, a lot of people say AC is pointless in ToB, but to be honest that can be poppycock, on insane difficulty with double damage on, enemies are dealing outrageous damage at times ( like iron/adamantine golems that can deal around 100 damage on a normal hit nevermind critical ) so the difference of an enemy missing solely on 1s or being able to miss with even a 3 on the attack roll could mean the difference between life and death, plus i can usually hit around -15 for my top 3 melee chums, and -15 is a big difference from -10 and is quite noticeable, mix that in with protection from evil 10' radius, defensive harmony, mass invisibility and perhaps a berserk and maybe a select potion or 2, and then difference is even higher, also dont forget those armor modifiers, white dragon splint mail may offer the same AC as full plate +3 but full plate +3 has WAY better armor modifiers in general
- im not a fan of crom fayer, in fact just for spite im going to lean towards "hating" crom fayer because there is really too much hype for this weapon, and plus there are a couple of reasons why i never find the need to use this weapons; first of all, i like my weapon and board style AC, and crom fayer shines more going dual wield style, and in ToB i will have up to x3 +4 shields giving me that comfy +5 AC bonus per melee chap, plus using it as weapon with shield style, isn't as great as it sounds, yes it gives you 25 STR but the base damage is still only 2d4+3 as apposed to all the +5 weapons out there that go up to +5 damage, and given that the average warrior will no doubt have 22 STR, that is only a 2 damage difference, although automatically slaying small golems and trolls is nice, i like my AC weapons/ regeneration/ decap weapons ( which work on anyone basically, not just a small group of races ) much more
- blades, sorry but i give these guys two thumbs down, i just dont find them a fun class to play, i get bored of them because of the micromanagement involved in keeping these guys alive whether it being CONSTANTLY casting spells on them to survive in combat or just getting them out of the way to heal, bleh, if i want to play a melee class with a bit more pizazz then i always go with a swashbuckler instead, even though they start off with the same - start of squishy but eventually get better weakness - i find that eventually i dont need to micromanage my swashy once i hit level 20 or so ( especially level 24 mmm ) plus another problem i found very apparent with blades; they can't hit SQUAT, holy crap was this unreal, using the rogue thac0 table mixed with the fact that you ONLY become PROFICIENT in weapon proficiencies really hurts this class, at least with a swashbuckler you will eventually get a +8 to hit bonus AND you can specialize in weapons, but then again once you hit level 16 you can FINALLY use tensors transformation but by then bored of my blade being trash ( and i always have a main guy as a blade to even give them that much more oomph ) so sorry blades, but you're not for me, in theory you can become "invincible" with all your spell protections, but by the time i get a blade to irenicus' dungeon i've already had a half-orc berserker go from candlekeep to mellisan at the end of ToB because he doesnt need to screw around with spells/abilities, just wear some full plate, go berserk and slice through yer baddies like butter with your big bad two handed sword
- i really REALLY hate the abizigal fight, and not only this i find him way harder than his son ( a lot of people say his son is harder, and to that i would have to say LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL - and im 100% serious when i lol'd there ) in fact i hate the abizigal fight/ area in general SO much a good 80% of the time this is where my series runs will end, right at the beginning of abizigal's enclave, so why so much hate for abizigal, well here we go; first his human form isnt too bad anymore, i just exploit his shenanigans i get my wizerd type character up with a protection from magical weapons, and he will attack that character while the rest will GWW or attack abizigal as per normal - so far so good, but then when he hits dragon form, all sorts of dumb starts happening, first for some reason beamdog made him immune to time stop ( why? completely unnecessary ) next beamdog cranked his AI from the original ToB game, so the ONLY way to beat this dummy on insane with double damage is to exploit his dragon bunions, and that is the thing that i really REALLY hate about "improved difficulty" mods and crap where it gets to the only point that you can when is with exploits, ( this is why i never play SCS mods or the like, too tedious and again by the sounds of the final battle in ToB, F that noise ) anyway, so first what his dragon form does is releases a remove magic that works without fail, and since caster level checks apparently arent capped at level 20, but spell level checks are, if you are level 30 your remove magic will never fail, so there goes all my buffs on all my characters, then the next bizzario thing that happens is when he uses his breath weapon which does an ABSURD amount of damage on insane ( im talking around 200 or so, have fun surviving that if you are a default joinable character aka aerie,jan,imoen,nalia, basically anyone ) and best part is; INFINITE range, say what?!?! you betcha, no matter where you are on that map you will get blasted by that breath weapon, on all 6 corners you say? no worries 200 damgae for everyone, you get 200 damage, you get 200 damage, everyone gets 200 damage! oi, so to counter this madness after i kill the human form i have to get my wizerd ( who always wears the clock of mirroring ) up and personal with abizi-lamers and make sure that my wizerd is the ONLY one to get hit by that remove magic, because luckily that clock makes her immune to his breath weapon, so once she gets hit with the remove magic, throw her in the back, and have everyone else come in with GWWs and attacks per round through the roof, but there is a catch, if i cant kill him before he gets another remove magic off ( thanks to his stoneskin and 550 HP and shield of the archons and what not ) then its game over abizigal wins, reload and hopefully on the next load up, i kill him before he dispells my protection from lightning and chunks my whole team again, so yeah, boring as balls and not so much fun, ironically balthazar and even mellisan is a joke compared to this guy, at least they play more fair than this holmes
- i never use skull trap, i think out of the 1000s and 1000s of playthroughs i have had through the almost 2 decades this game has been out i've used that spell less than 5 times, even though it is better than fireball, i always have slow or flame arrow memorized instead, why? slow and flame arrow doesnt hurt party members
- im not a dual weapon fan, ( even though when bg2 first came out i thought it was awesome ) but now adays the ONLY time i will ever dual wield is when i play a swashy, a fighter/thief or if all the planets align in the solar system blade, other than that if im not using a shield, its two handed weapons all the way, and more specifically the two handed sword, out of the dnd lore, two handed sword is my favourite weapon of all time ( well perhaps the warmace actually is, but in the BG series im using my handy two handed swords )
- i play my BG games mod free, which sounds insayan but it be true, the only time i have "mods" installed is when i mod my own games to get rid of beamdog features that i hate ( like this 100000 save file nonsense, oi i understand the practicality of it, but damn, waving through all that save file trash to find my actual save game, i say; yeetus to yon extra save filetus )
- not a fan of SoD, reason more being, i hate it's placement in the BG saga, it makes no sense where it is, i feel that it spoils to much of SoA and the last boss fight, say what?!?! lol? i can understand why it is the way it is, but to be honest not very pratical, although one thing that i did enjoy about SoD was the items, i need to give credit where credit is due and i must say, the items placement/items in general A+ job on that, everything else, oi jam, i find myself having such a hard time playing SoD, i was only ever able to do a whole playthrough once, and it was basically to spite myself for buying it and justifying my purchase, will i ever play it again? probably not, and to be honest where SoD or a SoD type expansion could have really shine was ToB, that game was screaming for some extra content and even if you used the same story line as SoD and would actually work better in ToB ( even if you didnt base the game around BG the city ) ToB would have been a much better placement for this, because even with the XP gain ( which there was plenty or room for ) and item gain, it would not have ruined the final battle in ToB, SoD on the other hand destroys the game balance of SoA with your potential half million XP characters at the beginning of the game and even throughout the game laying diarrhea to your enemies, unless of coarse you plan on playing LoB mode than that starting XP is crucial, in fact speaking about that....
- perhaps even more than abizigal i hate HoF/LoB mode ( in fact i call LoB mode Legacy of LOL mode ) in fact i hate this mode more than captain james hook hates peter pan ( to get this reference go watch the move Hook with robin williams/ dustin hoffman and wait for the scene where hook says; i hate i hate i HATE peter pan ) yeah, that sort of hate towards this garbage mode, now for those of you who like it, i say give 'er gas, accelerator pedal all the way to the floor, but for me, its an easy no, first of all in the BG series, it is HILARIOUSLY unbalanced, holy crap, like in IWD it's possible to start off at level 1, but in BG 1 it is hyper impractical, how i completed it was import my level 8 team cast invisibility 10' radius on everyone and rush to the last boss battle, and bg2, oh my god bg2, thank the beamdog gods you only had to beat irenicus in hell to get the achievement because to have to beat ToB to get it, i would rather castrate myself than do that ( especially with the abizigal nonsense mentioned above ) but with that being said, i just find the mode boring, tedious, and unfun ( and especially so in IWD 2, it's even more ridiculous and broken i find ) so sorry you silly +6 to hit/saves, +1 attack per round, + x3+50 ( or 80! ) HP but you can go pound sand good buddy
- so i've been doing more ranting perhaps than "popular opinions" so lets do a more constructively positive shall we? when it comes to NWN 2, my favourite game out of all the lets say "official content" is storm of zehir, i actually find it quite fun, its actually quite ironic because i remember going on to some site and reading a review and this person was listing off all the things they hated about SoZ and those exact things were the reason why i liked SoZ, now with that said, SoZ is a very niche game, if it doesnt fill your niche than you will probably never like it, but i like the trade system ( perhaps because i like business type stuff in real life ) i like the size of dungeons; smaller gets to the point, not over done with nonsense, i like the idea that your skills can help find you random goodies on the overworld map, making skills much more useful than they have ever been before, i also like the idea of the kind of old school "random battle encounters like how older RPGs used to be like" even though in general im not a fan of the old school random battles on the overworld map mechanic in general, i feel that SoZ implements it much better, plus item creation is awesome in SoZ, super easy, doesnt require a 6 month correspondence coarse on gathering this and getting that jargon, just nice piss simple item crafting, A+ to you SoZ for making item crafting not complete ass, even though item crafting horribly breaks the game, but hey, no one said you HAD to have 60 AC....
- ah, just remembered another one that kind of grinds my gears a bit; the random item tables in IWD, wowzers, this is a whopper, now i dont mind random loot, but what grinds me is that the BEST items in the game you only have a small ass chance of ever getting them ( well okay sometimes its only 33% chance ) but still, and not only that, sometimes the difference in item scale is outrageous ( and when i mean outrageous im talking about more outrageous than an adamant dragonite with max attack IVs and EVs using outrage sort of outrageous ) need an example? dont worry i have more than 1, first off being the "shield" table in the severed hand, we have 3 options, 2 are good, one is complete feces, option 1 - small shield +1 ( LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL ) option 2 - a large shield +2 ( party on, not bad ) or option 3 - great shield +3 which is the BEST shield in the game and this is the ONLY way of getting it, now what grinds me is that there is a 33% chance that you are going to get dumpstered on and get the crap weasel small shield +1, like for reals holmes, that is a mammoth gap even between the large shield +2 ( i believe the shield is called; shield of the hand ) another instance of this is with kaylessa or however her named is spelled ( the female holmes who wears the boots of speed ) she will drop 1 item out of a pool of 4 where 1 is 100% useless, another one being pretty much useless, one being a A- set of armor for a thief, thief/mage type character, or, the one AMAZING set of mits that gives a whopping +1 DEX and +1 AC, so basically 50% chance of diarrhea, 25% of mediocre satisfaction and 25% chance of something that i will actually use, but even with that being said, another "complaint" i have is sometimes the weapons selection is crazy random, one game you might find crap loads of long swords and virtually no morning stars, another game, the other way around, and this makes it difficult to give your warriors weapon proficiency points because you just don't know what weapons will be appearing in your game ( luckily HoW has more set weapons for its NPC characters ) so at the very least, i can survive with the odd garbage dump of useless items in those random item pools, but weapons, not better weapon pools ( and maces, there is like what? 3 maces that are pass +1/ have magical abilities beyond the fact that they are +1, seriously, more maces please )
- the werewolf transformation for the druid kit, ironically when it was bugged as hell in the original game, not only did it make the kit more fun to play, it still wasnt an OP unbalanced power house, now that it is "fixed" ( i say "fixed" because you will see later ) this class is ABSOLUTE garbage, and i dont even hate to say it, its crap, completely, and here is my reasoning; first, why is the regeneration gone? half the reason why you want to become a werewolf is for the regeneration, even though it wasnt knock your socks off amazing, it was a cool ability to have, even if beamdog made it so it was a static ability ( that wasn't based off of your CON so then you couldn't use CON as a dump stat ) that still would have worked, but instead, we get notta, so what do we get instead? we get a melee weapon that NEVER improves, and this is a big deal because even with the one that you start with isn't all that great, and while your other team mates are progressively getting better weapons your little fist-o-cuffs are basically hitting with the ferocity of a new born baby's loving smile, and to top it off, you get to use the "awesome" divine caster thac0 table ( which in retrospect isn't bad, but in reality isnt good either, especially in bg1 ) and remember you melee weapon never improves, unlike other classes with bad thac0 tables they at least have weapon improvement to get better, no such luck with the shapeshifter, so what is the big bad awesome advantage of this tree hugging clowns? the AC you say, the irony continues because realistically the value of their AC ( which also doesnt improve ) will be matched by the warriors you have in melee anyway, now with that being said i do believe i hit -16 AC with the greater werewolf form before, but enemies will roll 20s eventually and on insane difficulty with no hardiness or good HP from a warrior pool, you will be turned to mush quite quick, and with the fact that your to hit will be complete trash you have no reason to be up front in the first place, Oh! but Sarevok57 they have spells, and spells make them good! yeah, guess who else has spells ALL the druids, in fact the... avenger i believe? has the biggest spell pool of them all, and also if you are playing a shapeshifter to cast spells and not use the shapeshift ability, then you are kind of missing the point, this could be a reason why cernd the nerd gets so much flack where his class kit used to be not bad in the original ( once he was using staff of the woodlands as his main weapon in werewolf form ) to just being a druid that now cant use armor because his shapeshift ability is bleh, sorry my forum chum and chumettes, but i just can't justify being a shapeshifter anymore when all the other druid class kits are pretty much just better ( hell even the default druid is better, lols indeed )
- next i have some beef with 2 joinable PCs rasaad and dorn, i may have discussed this before but as my friend eric has said before; telling a story for the 1 000 000th and first time is always a charm, so first lets talk about rasaad, dont mind the concept, dont mind that he is in the game, what i do mind is his usefullness in combat, now bg1 isnt exactly a game geared towards having a monk, and if you want to promote the idea that monks are "cool" and all that jazz, rasaad should really reflect upon this, you see this in BG2 where when the original devs were making those "weaker" character/class type joinable NPCs they didnt mind throwing in an 18 or a 19 there to make them viable, here we have a monk, someone who is designed for melee combat with mediocre dexterity and NO constitution bonus, this is a very puzzling way to introduce monks to the world of BG especially for new players, rasaad is going to get his ass kicked A LOT in melee, even with his "cool" monk abilities, and those good ol' critical hits are going to make his portrait disappear and there will be rasaad bacon all over the landscape, realistically this guy should have 18 DEX, 16 CON, and at least 17 STR, hell, even 18 STR, even with that little stat boost rasaad actually becomes viable because now his to hit/to damage is a little higher, the AC difference is noticable and he will actually HAVE some HP, now i know the people will say; oh but wise old Sarevok57 you can increase those stats with items! yes, but you're missing the point, the point being, if he is only good with items, what happens when those items are drained? what happens if those items arent found? then all you have left over is a wet noodle.
Ah the first period in this entire essay of a run on sentence, and now it is time for the 2nd joinable NPC and that is dorn, again, dont mind his story and the fact that he exists and all that good jazz, its stat talking time again ( im actually finding it amazing on how just the stats themselves can make/break/redefine on how a character operates ) first 19 STR is WAY to good for BG1 especially if your default STR is 19, remember how the tome of STR is near the end of chapter 6? yeah, there is a reason for that, it's because 19 STR in BG1 is friggin amazing, that could be one reason why half-orcs werent in bg1 because 19 STR is so damn good ( i wonder if im getting my point across? ) so anyway, here we have a joinable PC who can be found in early chapter 2 with a whopping 19 STR and a super powerful class kit to boot, holy crap this guy is out of control, and he is skilled with two handed swords for the triple tri-fecta ( no idea if im spelling that right, but by the red squiggles im assuming its wrong ) this is just a recipe of mayhem, so i need to pick this one at a time, first the strength; too high, not going to repeat why, but its just too good and im a power gamer, this guy blows minsc right out of the water and makes dorn better than minsc in everyway basically, realistically they should have given this guy 18/90, then his STR would have been justified in my opinion, another reason why this also grinds me is because his 19 STR is mixed with the most damaging weapon in the game, the two handed sword, and again not only that he does this astronomically better than minsc ( coming in with 2 proficiencies in two handed weapon style ) this absolute silliness and needs to be redone, in my opinion here is what should have happened; A- if he is going to have 19 STR like a BAWSS then make him skilled with spears and make his whole persona around spears there are WAY too many characters that use two handed swords as it is ( Minsc, Keldorn, Sarevok, and now this clown, who's leading this party? Minsc, swords for everyone? apparently ) or, give him the 18/90 STR and make him skilled with halberds instead ( again for the reason that there is too many two handed sword wielders ) even though i said before two handed swords are my favourite weapon, but i also love meat lovers pizza and i dont eat 4 larges in one sitting, just 1 large
- video game romances, eck, i remember back when i was..... 12? 13, having a romance for the first time in BG2 i thought it was so cool ( because back them something of this caliber was unheard of ) now, that im in my early 30s, oi, i cant do video game romances, i have such a hard time getting attached to my 1s and 0s and im more of a power game sort of guy, so there is no time for romance jargon, but not only that, it seems that now adays every new character has to have romances and they shove it down your throat, eck, get this romance nonsense out of here, i can see maybe rasaad and neera, but dorn? friggin LOL, and hexxat? the LOLS are even more extreme, this isnt buffy the vampire slayer where mere mortals are dating vampires, thankfully she only romances female characters and i rarely if ever have a female character as my main character so no romance nonsense there, seriously, if people want romances go outside and get one in real life, those are a million times better than any simulated romance for better or for worse, but at least you can shut down the romance candidates when that spiffy romance music plays, although i do admit i like viconia's romance music, one of my favourite soothing tracks of the game
and with that, that is all i can think of at this time, perhaps i will be back with more in the future
Thanks @BelgarathMTH
I didn't argue the point because I thought I might have remembered it wrong.
But I do remember getting TotSC and trying to figure out where the hell Durlag's Tower was. It's a really hazy memory though.
Not made better by my experience with Werewolf Island where I missed all the clues telling me how to get to the ship, didn't find the secret door and wondered round and round after killing everything, completely trapped.
Consequently, with no internet and my old PC being very dodgy anyway (crashes were a frequent occurance), I gave up ever trying to finish the expansion and put it down to "oh this game doesn't work".
Either way, restoring Durlag's and the rest of the SC content to post Sarevok would have been a very worthwhile endeavour. Instead of having to illogically take a massive break when playing BG, and a sea voyage FFS, when you are hunting down Sarevok.
In what Universe does that make any sense?
Almost as bad as being drafted into the army and fighting Caelor in SOD.
The way you were meant to get to Durlag's Tower using the pre-generated party when TotSC was first released was by talking to that tour guide in Ulgoth's Beard, who would teleport you down there. Otherwise, you had to start a first level party and uncover it on the world map via exploration, which is probably what most people remember doing. I know when it came out, I didn't like the pre-generated party, so I started over at first level.
If the first thing you wound up doing from Ulgoth's Beard was going to Werewolf Island and then getting stuck there, I can understand why you wound up putting the whole thing aside.
Unpopular Opinion: It really wasn't a very good expansion. I've never liked Durlag's Tower. Sometimes Werewolf Island and Ice Island are okay as part of my runs, but I'm usually just wanting to finish up the game and move on to BG2 by the time I get to that level. The difference between 89,000 xp and 161,000 xp going into BG2 is pretty much negligible because of how the xp curve works in BG2.
The base game and the main story and maps from before TotSC are where BG1 really shines for me.