What is the general opinion of Improved Anvil?

[DavidW]

Carrying on my original post: how much can we make the game harder without cheese? (I say again: I'm not using "cheese" disparagingly. I don't like it for various reasons, but each to their own.)

 

Using (the original) SCS as an example, it does:

 

(1) [AI] bigtime. It's mostly a smarter-script mod. Size is no guarantee of quality, but SCS scripts are usually about 100 times as long as vanilla-game scripts.

 

(2) [Cheese] very little. (I hope!) It plays a bit fast and loose with the spells-per-level rules (more because I'm lazy than out of a systematic desire to cheat); it offers a couple of tweaks to a couple of spells (which affect player and enemy equally but are aimed with enemies in mind).

 

(3) [Pre-casting] lots of this (but you can turn it off if you think it counts as cheating).

 

(4) [Higher-level opponents] Quite a lot of this, usually in small ways like a couple of extra opponents or a couple of extra levels to existing opponents.

 

SCS is generally agreed to make the game quite a lot harder. What's interesting is that it varies hugely from player to player how hard it is in absolute terms. I can beat it on Core with maybe a dozen reloads, almost always needed just because I wasn't concentrating. (OK, I have an unfair advantage, but I try fairly hard not to metagame - helped by the fact that I play with my wife who doesn't know it nearly so well). Other people play on Core and reload a dozen times per fight. Other people play on Insane as a solo character in no-reloads mode. I can only assume that there's a huge range of strategies and styles.

[Salk]

Extremely interesting contribution yours, DavidW!

 

I am a fervent advocat of method (1 - Smarter AI) as the only perfect way to make the game harder. Unfortunately, this is often combined with a massive use of Detectable Spells/Stats which is , in my personal opinion, a not welcome choice. Vote: 10 (8 if the AI is highly influenced by DS)

 

I am not crazy about method (3 - Precasting) but it's for me absolutely acceptable and even enjoyable as it simulates a realistic behaviour. Vote: 7.

 

Methods (2 - (Un)Limited Cheese) and (4 - Higher level/More enemies) are not to my liking although I realize that an AI improvement Mod won't perhaps be so effective without at least a partial use of those. Vote: 4.

 

DavidW has not mentioned another excellent aspect (Vote: 9) for improving the general difficulty of a battle: the addition of P&P abilities to monsters. SCS, if I am not mistaken, is doing this in a minor way whereas SCS II will be presenting this feature in full splendor.

 

Another AI Mod aigleborne is working on (with a small contribution on my side) called Enhanced Creatures (forum at BWL) will introduce an innovative way to make each fight against NPCs really interesting: many NPCs in fact will have a kit and will make use of the same abilities that TuTu players can take advantage of while creating their character. It's a very ambitious project and it's been worked on for over three years although with long breaks but eventually it will be ready to be tried by anybody who is interested.

 

I'd like to thank once more all the modders and DavidW in particular for AI contributions, wishing him and his wife a safe enough journey through the Sword Coast!

[DavidW]

interested in Sword Coast Strategems 2. Is there an anticipated release date?

 

One week? Two? It's finished, I'm just finishing up testing.

[Cashews]

interested in Sword Coast Strategems 2. Is there an anticipated release date?

 

One week? Two? It's finished, I'm just finishing up testing.

 

Well, let me the first here to say: WAHOO!!

 

::Does a strange little dance::

[Guest temujin]

My opinion of IA (v4.2). Some random thoughts (may contain spoilers).

 

Improved Anvil, at one point (around version 3 or earlier), was a great mod. In fact, it had the potential to be the best tactical mod ever made. But now, with each version release, and more and more items/spells getting nerfed or removed and replaced with crap, it's really starting to go downhill. Things like Project Image, Simulacrum may be considered overpowered if exploited, but these are some of the cool things about the game. When you remove such spells regardless of whether you think they are overpowered are not, you are taking the fun parts out of it.

 

Most of the game's best items are nerfed down because they are considered too powerful. Yet, on the same breath, the mod introduces new items like Judgement Day, Memory of Apprenti, Improved Ring of Gaxx, those potions that grant you permanent physical resistances, etc to name a few which are WAY more overpowered than the items that are thought to affect game balance.

 

Almost all the battles are heavily melee-oriented. Offensive magic is rarely effective since most enemies especially late in the game will have high resistance that you basically have to rely on your party members with the best THACO, and physical damage. Despite what the author or anyone else says, pure class mages and thieves (and perhaps even druids) are just about worthless, so multiclass is the way to go.

 

I don't mind most of the enemies having high resistances/regeneration/immunities or whatever as I understand in order to make enemies tougher, you have to increase some of their attributes. But what annoys me is that the game's original items are given the shit end of the stick and the mod's own items are promoted. Purists who like to play with only Bioware's items will be heavily disappointed.

 

I actually found IA's final battle against the Rakshasa Prince very interesting and fun. The dialogue for that battle, however, needs to be heavily improved. Of course, I know IA's main priority is to improve the AI, not write dialogue. But you don't get the feeling of facing a TRULY near-invincible opponent without its accompanying dialogue. You are facing another god, not some bum across the street. Many of these newly added elite enemies' conversations end in 2 or 3 sentences. Very undramatic.

 

Looking past these shortcomings, the battles can still be enjoyable (especially if you've previously played tactical mods).

 

So the bottomline - is IA worth playing? Well, as of right now, I would say its one of those mods that you would play only once. That is, its not a mod that you would want to have in every single run through of the game.

 

 

The only way IA can redeem itself and establish itself as the best tactical mod would be to do the following:

 

- the mod MUST be split into several components. The mod is currently composed of several things - Improved AI, New Quests/Encounters, New Items/Spells, New Class (Vagrant Kit), New Store (? or item upgrades), Bug Fixes, etc. These can all be considered individual components. I know some people have already suggested this, but the only response was something like "all of the components are interrelated so that's why IA cannot be split". To me, this is just a BS copout/excuse. A supposedly good author like Sikret can easily come up with a well thought-out plan if he had just tried. This way the mod can only attract more players as they can install whatever they want, depending on their tastes.

 

- bring back or restore the game's items/spells to their original power. At least, make this an option so that players who want to play without the mod's items can do so.

 

- improve dialogue for some of the extremely difficult battles. You can't immerse yourself in BG2 without its dialogue. Make the player feel he is facing an opponent that is truly special. Also, new battle music (if possible) that plays in the background while facing the Rakshasa Prince/Demon Prince/etc would be a great addition. It can only spice up the battles even more and make them all the more dramatic.

[Caedwyr]

After reading cmorgan's post, I agree with him. He's clarified my thoughts on the matter much better than I've done on my own.

[Belladonna]

Perhaps I've been gone too long, but didn't Improved Anvil start out as some kind of item upgrade mod? Like... a Cromwell upgrade?

 

That's how it was advertised when I first heard of it.

The name is misleading. A name like Improved Anvil, one would make the assumption that it was a store or item upgrade mod, not a tactics mod. Change the name to something like Improved Tactics.

[Guest temujin]

For those who don't understand the above, i.e. why big or complex mods are more sensitive to compatibility and interrelations, I can recommend the relevant part(s) of my first post.

 

From that long post of yours, it's no surprise you have an agenda against Bg2 Fixpack for whatever reason. Anyway, that's not my concern.

 

And I don't give a shit what category you place IA in. Frankly, I don't care. If a mod is good, I'll download and play it and give credit where it's due.

 

As I said, if you combine all the components into a single mod, it means you're just taking the easy way out. EVERY good mod out there gives players several options on what they want to install because chances are they most likely will not like or agree with some of the author's decisions (but they WILL most definitely be interested in other parts of the mod).

 

Not everyone will show interest in IA's fancy items, or the vagrant kit, or be happy with Imoen being made into a sorceress, or having the game's items/spells replaced or severely nerfed down or ... whatever. I bet almost all players who downloaded the mod would mainly expect to see the newly improved AI/encounters first and foremost, not these "side effects".

 

And so what if you encounter bugs in the process of creating several components? That's the way all mods are like. And by fixing those bugs is how they will eventually achieve greatness. From the way you phrased your post, it shows you are afraid to confront your fears.

 

 

"why should an author spend 50 hours on something he has never agreed with?"

 

Well that same line of thinking can be applied by ANY author whose mods are divided into several pieces. But guess what? They don't. And they STILL GIVE OPTIONS ANYWAY without asking this silly quesion. If you don't like to spend time modding, why the hell would you even make a mod in the first place and put it up on the internet for others to judge?

 

Of course, Sikret may do whatever he wants, but in the end, don't expect all feedback to be full of praise. As I said, keeping it all as a single component is just playing it safe. No two ways about it. You may write essays and novels on why this or that wouldn't work, but in the end, none of it holds any value.

[cmorgan]

I will admit to being limited in outlook, and certainly I have different conceptualizations of what constitutes good or appropriate coding from Silkret - I have admitted freely his right to code his vision. (And I take no offense at debate). I am pretty secure in my analysis, but always welcome other opinions - but I am afraid that if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks occasionally, swims around in water, lays eggs, and is being served with a nice plum sauce and brandy reduction on my plate (with a really nice dry white wine, yum... ) it is unlikely to fail the DNA test. It probably is a duck, naming it any other way one wishes

 

Or, in more concrete terms, if the modder in question is looking for specific, detailed, and complex behaviors in his mod such that extensive use of COPY or destructive overwriting is required, the list of potential and actual conflicts as reported by the author are consistently and widely advertized, the attention to players is predicated by a specificly tailored set of requirements, and the stated purpose of the mod is to enhance all of the BG2 experience...

 

well, I renew my thought that a mod with that wide ranging a set of changes really should even be distributed as a non-weidu mod, compressed the way EasyTutu is, and dropped into place with a stable, clean installer and an intact override. Then the questions about fixpacks, etc. would be moot. The mod is set up the way the author intended the game to be played, and the changes allowed after the conversion can be worked on without the annoyance of install order problems, etc. This seems to be the most efficient implementation of the philosophy and practical application. (I don't know where "non-weidu mod" became synonymous with "bad". WeiDU really shines in situations where the desired behavior is collaborative rather than comprehensive - non-weidu distributions meant that modders who really wanted a large amount of control over a player's install setup and choice of mods had it. Not my cup of tea, but certainly adveritzed as IA intent; an all-in-one upgrade of BG2.)

 

I really think that a TC that can use some additional mod components is well placed to be advertized as such. I don't see how this harms the mod; it reenforces the importance of following the procedures laid forth by the modder, warns a player that this particular mod shoul be seen as the "primary" on the install, and only serves to reduce the numer of folks atttempting to shoehorn on things that the author does not want.

 

The only reason to spread a mod over many categories is to appeal to the novice player, who will look and see "wow, that thing changes *all this*? Cool - I had better include this in my install! Plust that, and that, and that..." which again leads to the author having to troubleshoot the mod in a way that the author never intended.

 

And to reiterate - we don't have any control over any PPG materials, and we don't maintain a list of non-G3 mods, as far as I am aware. If I have a complaint, it is that in general G3 tends to be non-aggressive when it comes to promoting in-house mods, but since that is all our job, I blame myself. Theoretically, we are supposed to work as a team to promote, and often we simply let CamDawg add that to his list of "things that may or may not get done because there is too much to do and not enough time". Or we are a little proud and want the work to speak for itself, which is silly - mods don't jump off the site and force themselves into new player's installs!!! I think we want to be open and inclusive, and somehow "look at this, it's great" gets mixed up with "if I say that perhaps I mean you stink and we are great " - which again ain't what we set out to be a part of over here.

 

No one here has a systematic list of "ok and not ok mods to install" on any platform. Even the Tutu State of the Modding Union thread is a list of mods that *function* on EasyTutu and Tutu v4, and not a list of "good" vs "bad" vs "approved" mods. It goes against site philosophy here - we aim to be open to all comers, regardless of personal feelings or past histories - a noble experiment that occasionally wears thin, but so far hasn't broken through).

 

And now I am so bloody far off topic I shall restrict myself from further lengthy posting, sit on my hands, and let other folks talk for a bit. We need a thread titled "cmorgan's pointless musings on IE modding"

[jastey]

After reading cmorgan's post, I agree with him. He's clarified my thoughts on the matter much better than I've done on my own.

I liked your original post very much, too: That a mod shouldn't be called a kit mod if the kits can't be installed seperately makes very much sense to me (random example).

 

Baronius: I have the impression the only one who loses sleep over these things is yourself.

[KIrving]

but I am afraid that if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks occasionally, swims around in water, lays eggs, and is being served with a nice plum sauce and brandy reduction on my plate (with a really nice dry white wine, yum... ) it is unlikely to fail the DNA test. It probably is a duck, naming it any other way one wishes

You've gone and cooked one of my favourite sayings and made it sound delicious.(and I'm vegetarian. Bad man!! )

 

On the other hand, Improved Anvil is not sounding so tasty. I think I'd be better off playing Halo(on console) on Insane and still have an easier time of it. Does the Anvil part of the description have a particular reference source or is it the PC and party's mettle getting bashed and battered and tempered in pools of blood?

[DavidW]

I am pretty secure in my analysis, but always welcome other opinions - but I am afraid that if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks occasionally, swims around in water, lays eggs, and is being served with a nice plum sauce and brandy reduction on my plate (with a really nice dry white wine, yum... ) it is unlikely to fail the DNA test.

 

If it's passing the DNA test, send it back, it's undercooked.

[berelinde]

Improved Anvil is called that because it did start out as an item/store mod, where you could get Cromwell and Cespenar to forge items. Given Cespenar's manner of forging, though, probably just as well it wasn't called Cespenar's Bar and Grille.

 

Although the latter name is catchy, too.

[Baronius]

Improved Anvil is called that because it did start out as an item/store mod, where you could get Cromwell and Cespenar to forge items. Given Cespenar's manner of forging, though, probably just as well it wasn't called Cespenar's Bar and Grille.

 

Although the latter name is catchy, too.

Just noticed your post, berelinde. Thanks for the clarification, so I don't need to do it. Well, Belladonna suggested that its name should be changed because its content was extended. (I don't know if it's meant to be a joke or not.)

 

Well, now a nice collection could be made of "feedback" received so far, about what must/should be done with IA: it should be weidu-blacklisted, it should be changed to a Total Conversion, it should be renamed, and it should not be released in one component... I'm sure there were more but I don't remember! Sorry, couldn't resist.

[Guest Mr. X]

The name is misleading. A name like Improved Anvil, one would make the assumption that it was a store or item upgrade mod, not a tactics mod. Change the name to something like Improved Tactics

Actually, given Siket's obsession with doing everything he can to encourage players to use a ranger protagonist, I think the mod's name should be changed to Improved Ranger.

 

Of course, that would do nothing to resolve how the mod should be classified.