SCS kicks ass

[Marty]

I think we're being too hard on Dave. Or rather, we can be as hard on him as we like, but he deserves some kudos with the criticism, don't you agree? Of course you do, so post something positive for a change! And to all you lurkers, who rack up a hundred views for six-post threads: c'mon, show your gratitude, we all know you've got plenty. I'm sick of all this whining about teeny weeny bugs on a mod which no one here paid for.

 

This mod kicks ass. I'd love to go on and on about it, but in 12 hours I've gotta read Sophocles' Antigone and write an essay on the use of animal imagery. So here is a run down, with an anecdote; if you agree with me, post a reply!

 

- The Ease of Use AI: one AI for all party members, very effective and yet so simple and easy to predict. This is the first time I've played through the game with the party AI turned on and many of the auto-pauses turned off.

- Candlekeep begone: In the space of thirty seconds I went from not sure about downloading this mod, to installing it and testing it out. What happened, of course, was that I read about this component in the readme. The writing isn't bad either!

- Improved everything: improved mages, improved kobolds, improved spiders, improved assassins, improved bosses, improved priests, improved bears, ...improved everything. These individual pieces are all great, but they not as significant as the core of the game:

- Improved AI for all enemies. I was taking a stroll down the coast with the Zhents one afternoon, and came upon some hobgoblins, a race I gave as much respect as xvarts and gibberlings. "Your voice is ambrosia" came through the speakers as I went to cast Larloc's Minor Drain on one of the seemingly helpless creatures. But the disgusting monsters focused their arrows on the mage and killed him in no more than three seconds! As the arrows punctured his flesh my ears and my ego were smacked by a phrase I hadn't heard since December of 1998: "The mad wizard falls!"

[Wanderer]

I've only spent a little time with SCS in TuTu, between waiting for various updates in other mods, but what I've seen has impressed me. It seems to be very well put together, from design to implementation; and the writing is indeed good, a fact that fills this former English major with appreciation!

 

Here's a question, too: I'm interested in using the party NPC AI component, but it incorporates hot-keys that I like to use for other tasks (S for stealth and D for Detect Traps, namely). Is it easy to reassign those keys for SCS?

[DavidW]

I'm very flattered by the comments - but don't anyone feel that I have a problem with criticisms or bug reports! Perhaps if I was being inundated with comments like "it's all awful" or "I get CTD every 5 minutes" I'd feel more depressed, but as it is I get the impression that SCS basically plays well and runs smoothly for most people, and so the occasional bit of constructive criticism or the occasional spotted bug is very helpful.

 

Here's a question, too: I'm interested in using the party NPC AI component, but it incorporates hot-keys that I like to use for other tasks (S for stealth and D for Detect Traps, namely). Is it easy to reassign those keys for SCS?

 

It's dead easy if you can edit script files (which you can do with an editor like Near Infinity or with the AI compiler that ships with BG2). If you can't, the easiest way to do it is to open up SCS\scriptmisc, open dw#gen.baf using a text editor (Notepad is fine) and change the lines

 

"HotKey([whatever you want changed])" to

 

HotKey([whatever you want it changed to])".

 

Then reinstall SCS (or the ease-of-use AI component, anyway).

[Lemernis]

SCS almost revolutionizes the gaming experience because it addresses enemy behaviors that until now were 'unrealistic' and highly exploitable. They unbalanced the game heavily in favor of the party. Prior to SCS, for some odd reason enemies

 

* targeted only the nearest party member, ignoring every other member of your party

* could be lured away one at a time without any of the others noticing/ reacting accordingly

* didn't come to each other's assistance during the heat of battle

* never used healing potions, magic potions, wands, or scrolls (these items often discovered to be on their person after the battle)

* used a very weak spell selection--strategically speaking, they were misrerably poor spellcasters

 

So now thanks to David's efforts the enemy mobs behave far more 'realistically', much closer to how the player controls the PC's party. And the game is a richer, more strategically satisfying experience as a result.

 

I'm hard pressed to think of another mod that has more impact on the experience of playing this game. And if I were limited to a single Tutu mod, SCS definitely would be it.

 

What David has done is all perfectly sensible--it's just that someone has finally done it after all these years. And it is brilliantly done--I don't think that is an overstatement. I'm sure David will continue to tweak SCS, and I won't be surprised to see him find creative ways to make it better. (I'd love to see what David would do with a BG2 dragon in BG1 Tutu for example!)

 

I also look forward to seeing the same basic approach applied to BG2's monsters. Imho that will revolutionize BG2 mods.

[Wanderer]

I also look forward to seeing the same basic approach applied to BG2's monsters. Imho that will revolutionize BG2 mods.

PPG's QuestPack already does this to a certain (less methodical?) extent, from what I've read and not yet tried out. Expanding that and putting it into a mod separate from modded quests seems like a logical step.

 

DavidW: I've got a Mac, and am not familiar with script files, so I'll just use BBEdit on scriptmisc. Thanks!

[Lemernis]

I use the Quest Pack as one of my core mods now, and it does some of the things SCS does. But have a go at SCS and you'll see what folks are on about.

 

To be honest I found the differences in the AI between unmodded SoA and Quest Pack to be noticeable, yes, but not all that marked (no disrepsect intended there--QP adds a lot of things, I realize).

 

In contrast, the difference is dramatic in SCS. For spellcasters in particular, the difference is like night and day.

 

I would love to see David's AI applied to that higher level spell selection in BG2. Enemy mages casting spells like Time Stop, Greater Alacrity, Dragon's Breath, etc.--all of the stuff that the player typically uses.

 

There are ways that you can pretty easily counter high level mages in SoA/ToB. I'd like to see smarter mages that you can't simply cast Breach, Spellstrike, and other protections stripping spells to easily defeat. Also, traps should still be useable somehow, but nowhere near so easily.

 

I've yet to play Tactics, so take my comments on all this with a big grain of salt!

[Chev]

BP is a good AI improvement mod for BG2 and it works with Quest Pack.

[SimDing0]

PPG's QuestPack already does this to a certain (less methodical?) extent, from what I've read and not yet tried out.

Less methodical to a degree, yes. Currently I improve some parts of the game while leaving others unchanged. On the other hand, I work through creature types making relevant changes in much the same way as, say, SCS's spiders. As Lemernis observes, however, spellcasters are untouched. There are two key reasons for this lack of thoroughness:

1) BG2 is tactically more complex than BG1, and producing effective strategies for enemies is considerably more work.

2) I am fairly lazy, and haven't put the same care and effort in that has gone into SCS.

 

Expanding that and putting it into a mod separate from modded quests seems like a logical step.

Given that our design ethics seem quite agreeable, I'd have quite an interest in working with David on a tactical-type mod for BG2 with contributions from QP where appropriate if he decides to do this. That being said, the intent behind the tactical content in QP has always been that it complements the quest content, and ripping it out to use in a new mod counteracts much of this effect. I'm undecided here.

 

To be honest I found the differences in the AI between unmodded SoA and Quest Pack to be noticeable, yes, but not all that marked (no disrepsect intended there--QP adds a lot of things, I realize).

I'd be intrigued by some examples of areas I've touched where the AI is still openly shite, because I don't know if I've mentioned before but *I never hear anything about this component!* (Presumably because it hardly actually, uh, does anything? )

[berelinde]

One might accuse you of being a little hard on yourself there, Sim.

 

You never waved a flag and said "I did this" so people might not really appreciate the tactical changes you made. That doesn't mean they were not good.

 

By the time someone gets around to installing QP, they've probably played an unmodified game a couple of times, but they aren't exactly jaded to the experience. They might have already improved their game to the point where tactical changes are less apparent.

[Lemernis]

Yep, berlinde is on the money there. I've only played BG2 a total of four times now. And only on the first runthrough did I play it unmodded (just patched and w/ Baldurdash Fixpack). The last two (three?) games were both Quest Packed.

 

I did find the unmodded game too easy at Core Rules difficulty. But having played BG2 unmodded only 1x, I can't quite recall the differences with Quest Pack. Anyway, I'm probably am not picking up a lot of changes that you made.

 

The before-and-after difference in the spellcasters is what is so impressive with SCS. If you and David can devise the same sorts of scripts for BG2 spellcasters believe me, I've no doubt people will be raving (BG2 being the more popular of the two games).

[Lemernis]

Also, I realize this isn't a very realistic hope on my part, but the custom spells in the excellent Wild Mage Additions mod would be pretty darn cool to implement into such a tactical mod for BG2. The mod's custom wild magic spells are extremely well done. An enemy wild mage casting those spells would really throw lots of players for a loop! With many of them being random, strategy would be all the tougher.

[Guest Urmstone]

Finally finished the mod today, soloing as a cleric/illusionist. Final battle was potentially very challenging, but beat it by investing in about 6 wands of monster summoning and lots of invisibility potions. Sarevok & minions were overwhelmed by sheer weight of numbers.

 

Well done - a great mod.