I want Improved Irenicus in hell BACK!

[luddifier]

So to my horror I saw that this component was removed from the latest release of sword coast stratagems.

 

I must say I am very dissapointed by this since I thought it was the funniest battles of all last time I played through a modded BG2. I might appreciate the feeling that it is not entirely "fitting" but I still feel that removing it was against the modular nature of the mod since it is up to the player to choose what to include and not and there are MANY more components I don't use when using SCS.

 

Now I like to mention where I'm coming from so people understand what type of SCS user I am. I use many of the components that affect the story, such as increasing Gaelans price to 40 000 and the license cost to 10 000. I improve the general AI and calls for help and use most if not all of the tactics challenges. Also while I improve Dragons, beholders and generally all the creatures and so forth in the game I NEVER use the smarter mages component. It just sucks the fun out of the game as there is NO cannon fodder at all anywhere. If there was a way to not only install HLAs on specific mages in SOA and TOB but also to just make some of them smarter and more prepared I would definetly do it, as I like to save my most precious fireworks for the truly spectacular fights.

 

Overall I feel that the rest of the components increase the difficulty in the more "special" encounters but preserve the feeling of normal levels of difficulty where its appropriate. I think the problem is that the AI is "perfect" with the smarter mages mod, and leave little room for human error which makes it tediously boring to make perfect use of my own spells and requires me to have "tools" before undertaking certain quests instead of choosing where to go based on roleplaying reasons.

 

Also, I must say I really appreciate the final fight in BG tutu with SCS installed. I always felt that all of Sarevoks cohorts should be defeated before him and this was a nice challenge. But I do feel it is sort of warranted to have SOME form of improved final battle with a SCS flavour in SOA as well. I kind of appreciated the theme of the change, since it just made it more thematic with the cohorts Irenicus had instead of the generic fiends that he usually musters forth in that final fight.

 

Now I am not too sad for this playthrough since my first ever run through the games was so long ago that I remember very little about how it felt to fight Vanilla Irenicus, but since I so deeply appreciated the difficulty and feel of the improved final battle in hell and feel that what I mostly want to beef up in difficulty is the FINAL battle in all three portions of the trilogy I feel that it, or some form of replacement, should be added. I guess it is due to my way of playing, I do not want to beef up ALL mages because it becomes too boring but I really want to have a big, epic final battle to look forward to for which I save all resources I gather along the journey. BG1 now has improved Sarevok and TOB has Ascension. BG2 deserves a similar treatment damn it!

[kreso]

Afaik it could be included in the next version.

[Ineth]

I must say I also really enjoyed that battle during my first SCSII game (which was using v21, I think).

 

Why was the component removed? To avoid redundancy with the Tactics mod?