Jump to content

WTP Familiars (revised Find Familiar spell)


Recommended Posts

It is now on GitHub.

 

This version installs correctly in EET; and while I did not test yet, likely in BGEE, BG2EE, TOB and BGT as well. I still have to test in-game.

 

What I had tested with the modifications from before had two interesting effects:

  • Legacy of Bhaal mode gives tons of hit points to the familiar. Need to check how to work around this. You still only gain the "expected" amount of hit points.
  • The PC I created had an item giving magic resistance. After summoning a pseudo dragon, the magic resistance quickly climbed to 127. I don't know yet what is causing this.
  • The familiar was always deselected when moving between areas.

Still need to support IWD spells for pseudo dragon/imp affinity, including IWDification mod.

Link to comment

Hello Everyone
I have a question and maybe you could help me; Whenever i try to summon a familiar nothing happens (I had a familiar at the end of BG1 - a Faerie Dragon).

Casting the spell and choosing one of the other 2 familiars sort of works; but when you talk with them they disappear - With the Faerie Dragon nothing happens (as in the video)

Any idea on why this happens or how I could fix it?

Edited by koliko
Link to comment

Hello!

Sorry for the late reply.

 

I am not sure what the matter with your game is and I can not see any link to any video.

 

What you are describing is something I have never experienced before nor had any similar feedback in the past.

 

The fact that the Fairie Dragon cannot be summoned again is likely to depend on a variable which never reset itself. I will need you to run some testing to make sure.

 

Also, what version of the modification are you using? The EE compatible one or the original one?

Link to comment

Hello!

 Glad to see your managed to play without further issues (I hope). It may be that there is a bug with the transition from BG1 to BG2 but I thought I had taken care of it in one of my latest update to WTP Familiars. Can you tell me what version you had installed?

Thanks.

Link to comment

Hello,

Is there a way to give the familiar a permanently haste effect so he can keep up with the party? 

I'm using a mod that gives the party increased speed while out of combat (CDTWEAKS, "Increase party movement speed outside combat -> By 100 percent" component) and I constantly have to wait for him to catch up... which is exactly the thing I was trying to avoid when I installed the extra speed mod, to avoid having to use the Paws of the Cheetah and have one character that's constantly waiting for the rest to catch up. 

Also, I'd prefer to have an option to be able to keep the familiar on my bag while traveling the hostile world and only have to release it when in cities or the like... as it is, I think it's a bit too disruptive of the game-play for me, and I wish I'd have know from the start of this kind of functionality before installing it... and yes, I've read the Readme, and now checked and double-checked, and it doesn't say anything about the actual behavior of the familiars, just mentions the changes and the new way the penalty for dying work and that's all, and just a passing mention of "They will make themselves heard when they feel they've spent too much time in the backpack", and not much at all... else I'd not have installed it from the get go.

The nagging while they're in the bag is also a bit disruptive, is constantly interrupting the flow of the game even while in combat (at least, in my experience) and is too frequent and it doesn't allow for any time of having them on the bag at all... they start to nag you as soon as you grab them, with not even a few minutes pause.

For example, in my case, I had to grab my cat before transitioning an area that was giving me trouble on arrival, because it was bugging out and leaving one of the characters outside of the area boundary... and as soon as I arrived that cat just left leaving me with a penalty and no recourse to avoid it. And certainly the Readme doesn't mention anything about that particular feature at all.

Sadly, I cannot uninstall the mod now without completely ruining my modded install at this point, so I'd have to live with it... but I certainly would like a way to disable the mod's functions or, in the worst case, maybe get rid of the familiar without incurring on a penalty so I can complete the game in peace.

Best wishes,

Leandro.

Link to comment
3 hours ago, Leeux said:

Hello,

Is there a way to give the familiar a permanently haste effect so he can keep up with the party? 

I'm using a mod that gives the party increased speed while out of combat (CDTWEAKS, "Increase party movement speed outside combat -> By 100 percent" component) and I constantly have to wait for him to catch up... which is exactly the thing I was trying to avoid when I installed the extra speed mod...

 

It would be far better to ask the Tweaks mod to include Familiars on it's own. Rather than ask a fix for a problem in this mod that it didn't cause.

And yes, this should be able to be done. So ... I went and did that.

Edited by Jarno Mikkola
Link to comment
9 hours ago, Jarno Mikkola said:

It would be far better to ask the Tweaks mod to include Familiars on it's own.

You're totally right on that point, of course! :)

Thank you for bringing that point to the original mod's thread, I wasn't sure where it was hosted and I was tired of having to debug a different issue on my modded install yesterday, and didn't want to research too much... sorry! 😧

BTW, other than the speed issue and the area transition issue, I didn't had any problems at all having the familiar travel with us in the open... and it's a nice change from the original game! It's just, I regret taking the blasted Cat (😠), I'd probably have had better luck with the Fairy Dragon, maybe 😆

The only issue seems to be that the timers on events are a bit low (maybe they interact badly with the Banter timer reduction tweak?) and the permanent loss is a bit too much IMO, I think for starters it should be good to have the familiar pop out of the bag by themselves and not disappear at all... and maybe be grumpy for a bit!

 

EDIT: Forgot to add,

Quote

Rather than ask a fix for a problem in this mod that it didn't cause.

There's still the issue of the bugging out on area transition that seldom happens for me (maybe due to the extra 7th party member, depending on place of arrival...) which is the real issue that started everything! :)

Edited by Leeux
typoed + forgot to add
Link to comment

Hello!

Quote

Hello,

Is there a way to give the familiar a permanently haste effect so he can keep up with the party? 

I'm using a mod that gives the party increased speed while out of combat (CDTWEAKS, "Increase party movement speed outside combat -> By 100 percent" component) and I constantly have to wait for him to catch up... which is exactly the thing I was trying to avoid when I installed the extra speed mod, to avoid having to use the Paws of the Cheetah and have one character that's constantly waiting for the rest to catch up. 

As jarno pointed out, this is out of scope for this mod. I can understand the frustration for having to wait for familiars to regroup with hastened/sped up party members but it is not something I can do anything about from this side.

Quote

Also, I'd prefer to have an option to be able to keep the familiar on my bag while traveling the hostile world and only have to release it when in cities or the like... as it is, I think it's a bit too disruptive of the game-play for me, and I wish I'd have know from the start of this kind of functionality before installing it... and yes, I've read the Readme, and now checked and double-checked, and it doesn't say anything about the actual behavior of the familiars, just mentions the changes and the new way the penalty for dying work and that's all, and just a passing mention of "They will make themselves heard when they feel they've spent too much time in the backpack", and not much at all... else I'd not have installed it from the get go.

Having an option to keep the Familiar in the bag when it is convenient goes against the mod's vision of having the Familiar on the field as much as possible and counter the cheap exploit of having just free HPs for the protagonist.  This modification tries hard to compensate that by making them more useful though, including the cat.

Quote

The nagging while they're in the bag is also a bit disruptive, is constantly interrupting the flow of the game even while in combat (at least, in my experience) and is too frequent and it doesn't allow for any time of having them on the bag at all... they start to nag you as soon as you grab them, with not even a few minutes pause.

This instead sounds like a bug. The familiar should not nag at all about wanting out under ongoing combat (unless you are using a version that is earlier than 1.7). And once it is in the backpack, it should not just ask to leave it again shortly after. There are timers that keep track of this and I should investigate it further. Problem is: I have not installed nor played Baldur's Gate for well over a year and this may take some time.

Quote

For example, in my case, I had to grab my cat before transitioning an area that was giving me trouble on arrival, because it was bugging out and leaving one of the characters outside of the area boundary... and as soon as I arrived that cat just left leaving me with a penalty and no recourse to avoid it. And certainly the Readme doesn't mention anything about that particular feature at all.

I am not sure I understand what you mean with "leaving one of the characters outside of the area boundary" but it may be another bug. About the penalty: it is not permanent. There is a mourning time after which the penalty is completely gone and you are free to summon a new familiar. This has been introduced to make keeping the familiar alive something that has tangible consequences and I am quite proud of the implementation. 

Quote

Sadly, I cannot uninstall the mod now without completely ruining my modded install at this point, so I'd have to live with it... but I certainly would like a way to disable the mod's functions or, in the worst case, maybe get rid of the familiar without incurring on a penalty so I can complete the game in peace.

You can get rid of the familiar easily and the penalty is only temporary. You can also choose another type of familiar once you are able to summon a new one, unless you are playing with a True Neutral character.

Cheers!

Edited by Salk
Link to comment

Hey there, big thanks for your reply, I'll quote parts and answer below them:

11 hours ago, Salk said:

As jarno pointed out, this is out of scope for this mod. I can understand the frustration for having to wait for familiars to regroup with hastened/sped up party members but it is not something I can do anything about from this side.

I understand that and yeah I wouldn't ask for that feature to be introduced, but just wanted to point out that there's something strange that has to be going on, as other extra-party companions gets taken into account by the haste mod (in particular an NPC from a mod comes with a wolf companion and he was getting hasted), but not this mod's familiar, for some reason. Perhaps it's something to look for, maybe?

11 hours ago, Salk said:

This instead sounds like a bug. The familiar should not nag at all about wanting out under ongoing combat (unless you are using a version that is earlier than 1.7)

The readme I have installed says it's v2.1, but in my WeiDU.log says 2.2:

~WTPFAMILIARS/SETUP-WTPFAMILIARS.TP2~ #0 #0 // WTP Familiars (Requires ToB, BGT, BGEE, BG2EE, or EET): 2.2

Could it be caused/related to using a banter accelerator for companion dialogue? Or the fact that I'm playing the game at 60 or 45 ticks per second (not sure atm,) instead of the default value?

It definitely started nagging as few as 30 real time seconds after I picked up...  and yeah, one of the times after an area travel/transition we got attacked instantly on arrival (random spawns) and the cat starting asking to be left out of the bag also at the same time while the combat was happening around us... it probably something triggered as soon as we arrived to the area, when there wasn't any enemies still engaged... but when the dialogue popped up, we were in the thick of combat already.

Also, it seems that the timer runs/take into account area travel time?  As I said in my original post, after a 16hs area travel time the cat decided to forcefully leave me... even if I picked it up just a moment before transitioning and not even 10 seconds had passed.

11 hours ago, Salk said:

I am not sure I understand what you mean with "leaving one of the characters outside of the area boundary"

It happened exactly as it sounds, we traveled from an area to an adjacent area and landed exactly in the corner of the destination area... 6 of the party members where placed correctly inside the valid terrain, but the 7th (which was my PC) landed outside the area limits, in the black region of the map where there's no terrain... 

I imagine that this should be something to do with the fact that there's an extra party member that the game doesn't recognize while selecting the positions in the destination for each character? Also, much later I tried again the same transition (after a full game restart) with all the 7 party members out, and that time the bug didn't occurred, so is not entirely 100% reproducible sadly.

In case it matters, the areas in question where modded ones, I think from either DSotSC or NTofSC... perhaps they have some issue themselves? Cannot say for certain... still, when I picked up the familiar and did the same travel in the same session, when we're a party of 6 members we all landed correctly in the same spot where we had the issue in the attempt just prior.

Also, another problem of having the familiar out is that it also causes lots of pathing issues, specially in dungeons/crowded spaces/corridors, and often don't want to walk at all when you use select all party members and give an order, depending on the formation you chose and the space available on destination, and you have to select him (the familiar) and move it individually to make it start accepting orders. 

11 hours ago, Salk said:

Having an option to keep the Familiar in the bag when it is convenient goes against the mod's vision of having the Familiar on the field

That's sad to hear, as the mod is the only one that I know that solves the issue of having a single familiar type assigned to each alignment... I would really like to plat a Chaotic or Lawful Good character and still be able to pick the cat, instead of being forced to have a Fairy/Pseudo Dragon (I don't recall now which is which,) and not be forced to go Chaotic Neutral to be able to have a cat familiar 😢

Still, I understand your point of view and respect your decision, but I hope you can see my side too... I really don't understand how it can be justified even from a RP point of view, the familiars seems to be intelligent creatures, at least going by how they speak (I can't see their stats in-game) so they would surely understand the fact that keeping them safe is the best course of action while traveling the hostile world, and specially in dungeons where traps abound and is often difficult to path around.

W.r.t to the fact that they are buffed... my experience atm in my game, and keep in mind that I'm playing an imported character that finished ToB to quickly test my current mod installation, and for that reason the familiar levels got bumped to L36 after I summoned him... and he stills dies to bears in BG1 areas, in 3 or 4 hits... (playing the game on Insane mode atm.) so no, they aren't suitable for combat even with the buffs, sadly... and the fact that you have to micromanage an extra party member that has no abilities and no defensive options, is a bit too much in my opinion. Also, for some reason non-hostile bears turn hostile when near him, and not when the party is near them... I'd think a bear would not "hate" other animals that much, but I could be wrong 😕

I don't see having the familiars on your pack as an exploit myself, I don't personally agree with that... you have to resign one of your inventory slots permanently, and as someone that often plays solo runs I can testify as to how valuable inventory slots are!

I'd concede and agree with the fact that the idea that you could keep the cat on your bag for a period of time is a bit dubious, and perhaps it's a good reason to chose a different companion! 😁  But I assume that all of them do the same complaining, with no difference of familiar type, no? I haven't tested them all yet.

Anyways, great mod overall, I really liked the good parts, and besides some few minor gotchas I haven't had any other problems... but perhaps is not for me, sadly 😢

Best wishes,

Leandro.

 

Edited by Leeux
typoes and rewording
Link to comment

Hello, Leandro!

Thanks for the feedback. It is always useful to see what people who tried the modification think.

For starters, it is really hard to make sure there aren't compatibility problems with heavily modded games like your own. While I do believe few of the issues you described may be solely related to WTP Familiars, I'd take a guess about most of them being due to poor interaction between different mods (including my own) and honestly I tested WTP Familairs on my own standard BGT install which includes a good number of modifications but nothing like "banter accelerators" or increased party movement speed tweaks. In particular, the added Quest mods you have mentioned may have caused some problems with the party spawning such that any familiar (which is not really considered a party member by the original engine which limits it to six) would have caused the same.

But the core of the matter is that I believe you are right saying that this is not the mod for you because I do believe that from a RP point of view and also a gameplay point of view the Familiar should be out of the backpack as often as possible. And yes, the time does take in consideration travel time so it is normal that after a trip the familiar wants out because, role play wise, it would have possibly stayed in your backpack for hours. Still, the familiar doesn't leave the backpack after the first warning. It takes three unheard pleas before it should just take matters in their hand. So the fact that your cat left for good after your trip to another region is a bug.

Said that, the familiar is quite useful when out (some more than others, but I tried hard to make them be good at something), especially after introducing Empowerment for the Thief/Warrior classes and Spell Bounce  but it is normal that they are very vulnerable.  I don't account for the difficulty being higher than Core. If you play on Insane with SCS installed then it is natural a familiar could even be killed by a bear in the BG1 portion of the game.

The micromanagement is instead a valid complaint. It is not something I could really solve and I realize that it can cause frustration.

I don't sympathize much with the "a familiar in the backpack takes a valuable slot" argument to convince me that keeping a familiar hidden there is an inconvenience. If you talk to other BG players you will know they are all happy to keep a familiar there and leech off them to boost the protagonist's total HPs, which is the first thing this modification wanted to avoid. Again, playing "solo" is a legitimate choice like playing on "Insane" but then such extremes come with drawbacks. WTP Familiars is tailored after my own gaming choices and do not scale well (but this could at least partly be remedied).

Lastly, from a pure RP point of view, I do believe Familiars, being intelligent, wouldn't want to be confined in a small backpack for hours of in-game time. And yes, being intelligent they have an instinct for survival and that instinct is scripted. They should not get out in the middle of a combat and they should be running back to the backpack when their health hits a critical value (if the owner is in range).

Like any "pet", they need a certain amount of care. I tweaked their dialogues too to give them more depth.

I know they can die pretty easily but keeping them alive can be rewarding in itself. The loss of the familiar is fully accounted for and the way it is done is, in my biased opinion, quite good. The protagonist suffers the consequences but they are limited in time, unlike the permanent Constitution loss of the original Find Familiar implementation.

One more thing: the last version is 2.1. Not sure why your WeiDU log reports a 2.2 version.

Cheers!

 

Edited by Salk
Link to comment

Hello there!

Thanks for the warning.

I am at the moment unable to verify anything since I don't even have the game installed but I will take a look at it since I got another bug report in private. Are you using version 2.1? Could you attach your WeiDu.log please?

Thanks!

Link to comment
On 5/8/2019 at 2:02 AM, Leeux said:

 That's sad to hear, as the mod is the only one that I know that solves the issue of having a single familiar type assigned to each alignment... I would really like to plat a Chaotic or Lawful Good character and still be able to pick the cat, instead of being forced to have a Fairy/Pseudo Dragon (I don't recall now which is which,) and not be forced to go Chaotic Neutral to be able to have a cat familiar 😢

Not to post about competing mods* but Tome & Blood has this if you are playing an EE game. The component is called, fittingly enough, “Choose-Your-Own Familiar.”

* (I don’t actually think we are competing. We’re all trying to make fun and interesting stuff. This mod is much more involved and ambitious than TnB’s version. But they both give the player choice, rather than being bound by alignment.)

Link to comment
22 hours ago, subtledoctor said:

Not to post about competing mods* but Tome & Blood has this if you are playing an EE game. The component is called, fittingly enough, “Choose-Your-Own Familiar.”

* (I don’t actually think we are competing. We’re all trying to make fun and interesting stuff. This mod is much more involved and ambitious than TnB’s version. But they both give the player choice, rather than being bound by alignment.)

Ah nice to know! Thank you @subtledoctor! I'll keep that in mind and try it next time I come back to BG... I'm patiently waiting on IWD on EET support to restart my modded playthrough :)

Link to comment

Join the conversation

You are posting as a guest. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...