Future tweak ideas - post 'em here

[Luke]

IMHO, the Effects of natural (creature) weapons such as GHAST1.itm or GHOUL1.itm should not be subjected to Magic Resistance. I'm talking about Vampiric Wolves, Ghasts, Ghouls, Basilisks, Wraith Spiders and so forth....

 

What do you think?

Edited August 30, 2018 by Luke

[Endurium]

NPC Schedules expanded to more ... NPCs!

 

Would mostly apply to people in civilized areas and those having homes in the country; up at dawn, gone (presumably to bed) at sunset. For added realism, could have sleeping NPCs on beds, or floors if there aren't any beds, with opposing schedules so it appears our hard-working farmer has gone to sleep.

 

Obviously not a good tweak for people who don't want to wait until morning to turn in a quest, but might be enjoyable to some role players in the community.

[DrAzTiK]

It would be nice to be able to increase the speed of party when there is no enemies in sight to make exploration faster. (similar to pillar of eternity gameplay) .

 

what do you think about this ?

[agris]

For all EEs:

• Let users specify the number of quicksave and autosave slots, independently.
• Let users scale the XP rewards from killing creatures. This would address DEFJAM not being compatible with the EEs.
• Let users scale the XP rewards from quests. This would address DEFJAM not being compatible with the EEs.

 

For IWD:EE:

• [HoF mode] Let user pick the enemy HP bloat %. Non-HoF core difficulty being 100%, HoF-bloat being X% (not sure what it is), let user specify the %.
• [HoF mode] Let user pick the enemy damage bloat %. Non-HoF core difficulty being 100%, Insane is X% HoF-bloat being Y%, let user specify the %. This component would require disabling difficulty-based damage increases.
• [All modes, including HoF] Let user scale the XP rewards from enemies. Core is 100%, Insane is X%, HoF is Y% (the player would be given these values in the weidu prompt so they're well informed when selecting a percentage), let user specify the %. This component would require disabling of difficulty-based XP awards, including nightmare/HoF.
• [All modes] Let the user scale the quest XP rewards. Core is 100%.

 

In IWD:EE, are there any items that only found/sold while playing HoF? If so, I'll add one other suggestion:

• Add HoF-only items into non-HoF games. Assuming there are HoF only items both sold and found, there would be sub-options for this component:
  • For HoF merchant items: Move all items to merchants OR move all items to random treasure list
  • For HoF found items: Move all items to merchants OR move all items to random treasure list.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Fo...

...IWD:EE ... OR move all items to random treasure list.

The thing with IWD items, and it's random treasure lists, is that the lists are specifically restricted to a very few drops. Meaning that you might get a specific +4 weapon once, and you'll not see it in the other game ever, as the drops are that restricted. You might even see a drop that features a whole list, that you get an item, 1. Not 2 or 7, just 1, out of a list of 3 to 10 items.

This also means that the items can be very powerful and it still stays within the balance, cause it's random which one you get and being random you can't relay on. Nor can you buy it off the street vendor.

Edited September 8, 2018 by Jarno Mikkola

[agris]

The thing with IWD items, and it's random treasure lists, is that the lists are specifically restricted to a very few drops. Meaning that you might get a specific +4 weapon once, and you'll not see it in the other game ever, as the drops are that restricted. You might even see a drop that features a whole list, that you get an item, 1. Not 2 or 7, just 1, out of a list of 3 to 10 items.

This also means that the items can be very powerful and it still stays within the balance, cause it's random which one you get and being random you can't relay on. Nor can you buy it off the street vendor.

 

Oh, I completely agree that it has the option to break the game balance. Still, I think it would be a nice option for those that want access to them. Especially combined with Cam's component that lets us pick or trade our random items for others on the list.

[agris]

Another suggestion for IWD:EE, maybe for all the EEs.

 

Revert shields and armor color behavior so that they use their original predefined colors, not character colors.

 

I miss the look of classic plate and black large shields on my party.

[mercurier]

Spot a potential glitch:

Delay High Level Abilities

Looks like this component does not consider the choice about vanilla/cleric's exp table for druid. So a druid (single or multi-class) with vanilla exp table will actually get fist HLA at level 21 would require 3.9M exp, which is too much.

[Bartimaeus]

Disable random treasures. I hate picking them up, and the vast majority of them are worthless. I also hate seeing them left on the ground. Ergo:

 

COPY_EXISTING_REGEXP GLOB ~^.+\.cre$~ ~override~
PATCH_IF (SOURCE_SIZE > 0x2d3) BEGIN
REMOVE_CRE_ITEM ~rndtre01~
REMOVE_CRE_ITEM ~rndtre02~
REMOVE_CRE_ITEM ~rndtre03~
REMOVE_CRE_ITEM ~rndtre04~
REMOVE_CRE_ITEM ~rndtre05~
REMOVE_CRE_ITEM ~rndtre06~
REMOVE_CRE_ITEM ~rndtre07~
REMOVE_CRE_ITEM ~rndtre08~
REMOVE_CRE_ITEM ~rndtre09~
END
BUT_ONLY

[Endurium]

Disable random treasures. I hate picking them up, and the vast majority of them are worthless. I also hate seeing them left on the ground. Ergo:

 

COPY_EXISTING_REGEXP GLOB ~^.+\.cre$~ ~override~

PATCH_IF (SOURCE_SIZE > 0x2d3) BEGIN

REMOVE_CRE_ITEM ~rndtre01~

REMOVE_CRE_ITEM ~rndtre02~

REMOVE_CRE_ITEM ~rndtre03~

REMOVE_CRE_ITEM ~rndtre04~

REMOVE_CRE_ITEM ~rndtre05~

REMOVE_CRE_ITEM ~rndtre06~

REMOVE_CRE_ITEM ~rndtre07~

REMOVE_CRE_ITEM ~rndtre08~

REMOVE_CRE_ITEM ~rndtre09~

END

BUT_ONLY

Ah yes, those. I also disable (via no-drop flag) mundane (non-magical) equipment from dropping from creatures so I don't end up with hundreds of short swords, leather armors, etc.

[mercurier]

Ah yes, those. I also disable (via no-drop flag) mundane (non-magical) equipment from dropping from creatures so I don't end up with hundreds of short swords, leather armors, etc.

Totally agree. It was a chore that I just cannot stop doing... Can you please share your code so that I and other guys can use it right away?

Edited September 14, 2018 by mercurier

[Bartimaeus]

Non-magical equipment is not as big of a deal to me, since they're virtually worthless and the game eventually culls them anyways. Dealing with 1-2 gold drops off of a couple of enemies is easy to do...but the overall amount of wasted time doing it throughout a playthrough, combined with all the worthless gems and level 1 scrolls that I'm endlessly sticking into gem and scroll bags...it adds up and you eventually gotta realize it's not worth it, .

[mercurier]

I would like to see a tweak that enables adjusting difficulty in map/creature scripts WITHOUT interfering with the GUI difficulty slider bar. It could be something like this:

COPY_EXISTING_REGEXP GLOB ~^.+\.bcs~ ~override~
  DECOMPILE_BCS_TO_BAF
  REPLACE_EVALUATE
    ~DifficultyLT\([0-9]\)~
    BEGIN
      SET level = MATCH1
    END
    ~GLT("MCRScriptDifficultySlider",%level%)~
    
  REPLACE_EVALUATE
    ~DifficultyGT\([0-9]\)~
    BEGIN
      SET level = MATCH1
    END
    ~GGT("MCRScriptDifficultySlider",%level%)~
    
  REPLACE_EVALUATE
    ~Difficulty\([0-9]\)~
    BEGIN
      SET level = MATCH1
    END
    ~G("MCRScriptDifficultySlider",%level%)~
    
  COMPILE_BAF_TO_BCS
  BUT_ONLY

Then difficulty in scripts can be controlled through the console. More noob-friendly access might be implemented as well.

Edited September 15, 2018 by mercurier

[agris]

There was an old the_bigg mod that did just that, albeit I think it was only for BGT/BG2.

http://www.spellholdstudios.net/ie/bigg

~TB#TWEAKS/TB#TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2050 // Improved Difficulty System. -> Serious dialogue (recommended). (v2.10)

 

 

Improved Difficulty System: some mods (including, but not limited to, Ascension, Oversight, Return to Windspear and Ding0's Quest Pack) will make you fight more and smarter enemies according to your difficulty setting. However, these enemies will cheat and inflict double damage. By borrowing a technology originally developed by Return to Windspear, this mod allows you to set your script difficulty setting via a dialogue, without altering the damage output like you would do when using the slidebar.

[mercurier]

 

There was an old the_bigg mod that did just that, albeit I think it was only for BGT/BG2.

 

http://www.spellholdstudios.net/ie/bigg

~TB#TWEAKS/TB#TWEAKS.TP2~ #0 #2050 // Improved Difficulty System. -> Serious dialogue (recommended). (v2.10)

 

Improved Difficulty System: some mods (including, but not limited to, Ascension, Oversight, Return to Windspear and Ding0's Quest Pack) will make you fight more and smarter enemies according to your difficulty setting. However, these enemies will cheat and inflict double damage. By borrowing a technology originally developed by Return to Windspear, this mod allows you to set your script difficulty setting via a dialogue, without altering the damage output like you would do when using the slidebar.

 

Thanks for bringing this up. The component responsible for this tweak looks mostly valid for EE(T). The tweak can be further improved by moving the script block for summoning the "helper creature" from baldur25.bcs to the avatar morphing script in TA. I'd say this will be good addition to TA provided that Cam and TheBigg are both comfortable with it.

Edited September 15, 2018 by mercurier