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I am weird and prefer BG1 as I cannot get enough of dat wilderness exploration. If the wilderness is mostly full of trash mobs.
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Jan 1, 2016 06:15
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bongwizzard posted:I am weird and prefer BG1 as I cannot get enough of dat wilderness exploration. If the wilderness is mostly full of trash mobs. BG2 is awesome to me now but I can remember playing it for the first time and I was all like "where my wilderness exploration and trash mobs at?"
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Jan 1, 2016 06:20
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Mountaineer posted:But really, if you're only interested in story just skip BG1 entirely. It's hours of sidequesting and wilderness wandering with a rather bare main plot, and the beginning of BG2 tells you everything important (and there isn't much to tell). This is objectively, completely wrong. BG1's plot is actually the best of any FR computer game; it certainly gets the setting far better than anything else. It focuses on economics and politics, two of the things that make the Realms stand out and work very well. The story of Baldur's Gate isn't just the story of the Bhaalspawn - it's about the paralysis of the Sword Coast by the lack of a critical resource, the manipulation and schemes of secret societies, and the destabilization of city and nation states. In Baldur's Gate you're actually seeing a living world, where actions have consequences, people are living their lives, and the legacies of the past are reborn today. It's the closest of any computer game to Ed Greenwood's original model of Realmsplay. BG2 is very narrow and very brittle, in contrast. It's linear and encapsulated - very little in each chapter affects the next, and what does carry through is limited to a small cast of characters. Areas of the game are disconnected, and share no common grounding. Irenicus is a nice main character, but those are a dime a dozen - SoA could occur in any part of the Realms, or even another campaign setting entirely, and be pretty much the exact same. TOB is even worse in a lot of ways (although it does approach the idea of the Sothilissian Empire, at least. It's something.)
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Jan 1, 2016 06:44
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Yeah. BG1 story is great, although you have to get at it by reading the letters and so forth. That said, I personally don't like the final chapter (or everything coming back from candlekeep, I think that's the final chapter) as it (maybe intentionally) clashes with the romantic romping around in the wilderness sentiment of the earlier portions of the game. Also it's nice that characters are appropriately leveled, and not everything is a lich or a dragon and a level 7 mage is a badass. BG2 is still the better game, but Jon being a better and more fun villain I don't think is synonymous with the overall story being better.
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Jan 1, 2016 07:03
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BG1's main plot is really cool and all (and Durlag's Tower is very atmospheric and fun as well), but how much time do you actually spend interacting with it as opposed to exploring the wilderness and collecting bandit scalps? It's a game with a good story, but not a game I'd say you can really play just for the story. BG2 on the other hand has richer side quests and fleshed out party members. The problem is that BG2 requires a lot more knowledge of the rules and has things like Beholders, Rakshasa, Liches and Vampires that I'd assume would need some trial and error to figure out how to beat even on Easy. BG2 just has a lot of enemies whose weird special rules you need to figure out, while in BG1 it's probably enough to put the game on a low difficulty and use Shadowkeeper to give everyone something like 5000XP to get past the early game hurdle of getting eaten by random wolves. Radio Talmudist posted:If I get the Enhanced Version of BG1, are there mods to make the game less tedious in terms of combat and easier? I'm the sort of player who wants to blaze through fights for story content.
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Jan 1, 2016 11:29
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Another issue of BG1 is the dungeon design. There aren't that many, but nearly all of them are just awful mazes of corridors that force your party to walk in a single file due to how narrow they are and are broken up by the occasional room with a few monsters. It feels like they designed them by just drawing random lines on graph paper and for only a single character. Durlags Tower is the exception and is actually quite good. It's obvious Durlags was done done later on, and influenced or borrowed from the ideas that crafted the vastly superior dungeons of BG2.
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Jan 1, 2016 12:02
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Metal Meltdown posted:Another issue of BG1 is the dungeon design. There aren't that many, but nearly all of them are just awful mazes of corridors that force your party to walk in a single file due to how narrow they are and are broken up by the occasional room with a few monsters. It feels like they designed them by just drawing random lines on graph paper and for only a single character. The only one fitting that description is the Firewine bridge, which is poo poo I agree. I love BG1, it's a really fun game. Plots in RPG's are overrated anyway, give me fun exploration and combat with minimal plot over teenage level love drama and endless walls of text any day.
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Jan 1, 2016 12:32
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Dyna Soar posted:The only one fitting that description is the Firewine bridge, which is poo poo I agree. I love BG1, it's a really fun game. Plots in RPG's are overrated anyway, give me fun exploration and combat with minimal plot over teenage level love drama and endless walls of text any day. The thief trap maze and the first area in the expansion also come to mind as two other offenders and I feel like there are some I'm forgetting. Mind, I also still have a deep fondness for BG1 and replayed the entire game early this year. There are just some elements that are quite rough that BG2 really did improve on, and the dungeon design is one of the bigger offenders.
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Jan 1, 2016 12:35
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Metal Meltdown posted:The thief trap maze and the first area in the expansion also come to mind as two other offenders and I feel like there are some I'm forgetting. Mind, I also still have a deep fondness for BG1 and replayed the entire game early this year. There are just some elements that are quite rough that BG2 really did improve on, and the dungeon design is one of the bigger offenders. Well yeah, BG2 is the more polished game all around. It feels like they didn't quite yet know what was fun and what was is just tedious.
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Jan 1, 2016 12:38
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The biggest problem with BG1 is the difficulty hump at the beginning of the game, where your first three levels or so force you to move at a snails pace and pick things off slowly and depending on your character class it can take a while to level up, especially if you're running a party. Then of course most of your levelling up is done taking on trash mobs in the wilderness and it's very easy to aggro enemies that are much too powerful for your level even if you send your thief or ranger to scout because you won't have high hide in shadows/move silently skills. That combined with the plot being slow to really get started and coming at you in small amounts is what puts most people off the game. That's partly 2nd edition AD&D's fault and partly just bad encounter design from Bioware though, once you reach level 3 or 4 you can play a little more aggressively and not worry about being one shot by a wolf or gnoll or something. Baldur's Gate 2 on the other hand wastes no time with the story, putting you right in the action and a new created character is strong enough to survive a few hits from most enemies in the early game. You'll also have a much better THAC0 score in BG2, so you'll actually land hits on most enemies in the early game the majority of the time while in BG1 during the first three or so levels, you'll frequently get frustrated as your characters keep getting terrible to hit rolls and missing for 10 minutes straight, which is alleviated somewhat by using missile weapons but is still an often occurrence. Selenephos fucked around with this message at 12:54 on Jan 1, 2016 |
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Jan 1, 2016 12:50
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Mr. Fortitude posted:The biggest problem with BG1 is the difficulty hump at the beginning of the game, where your first three levels or so force you to move at a snails pace and pick things off slowly and depending on your character class it can take a while to level up, especially if you're running a party. Then of course most of your levelling up is done taking on trash mobs in the wilderness and it's very easy to aggro enemies that are much too powerful for your level even if you send your thief or ranger to scout because you won't have high hide in shadows/move silently skills. That combined with the plot being slow to really get started and coming at you in small amounts is what puts most people off the game. It's not that hard if you just follow the plot for the first few levels. Straight to The Friendly Arm inn, then straight to Nashkel and just do some easier quests on the way. I don't remember the game being unfairly hard even back when it came out, just challenging. Then again open-ended and totally unbalanced was pretty much how crpg's were built back then  The first really hard fight, maybe unfairly so is the assassins when you come out of the mines. Those guys took a lot of reloads back then. Dyna Soar fucked around with this message at 12:59 on Jan 1, 2016 |
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Jan 1, 2016 12:56
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Dyna Soar posted:The first really hard fight, maybe unfairly so is the assassins when you come out of the mines. Those guys took a lot of reloads back then. I dunno, Tarnesh ends a LOT of ironman runs even today.
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Jan 1, 2016 13:11
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Dyna Soar posted:It's not that hard if you just follow the plot for the first few levels. Straight to The Friendly Arm inn, then straight to Nashkel and just do some easier quests on the way. I don't remember the game being unfairly hard even back when it came out, just challenging. Then again open-ended and totally unbalanced was pretty much how crpg's were built back then It is when you're trying to get a half-decent party that isn't completely awful set up first. Plus, your first few levels are just at the mercy of the RNG. One unlucky critical on your MC and you're boned, time to reload. That's why there's so many ironman runs of BG1, to see how far people can get without dying. You don't see as many ironman runs of BG2 or any of the other Infinity Engine games.
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Jan 1, 2016 13:18
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Arivia posted:This is objectively, completely wrong. BG1's plot is actually the best of any FR computer game; it certainly gets the setting far better than anything else. It focuses on economics and politics, two of the things that make the Realms stand out and work very well. In BG1 I did not care about the iron crisis. It didn't do anything which created any urgency. Nobody in the world dies because their hoes and so on are breaking. You can gently caress off to Werewolf Island for a few months and hey everyone's still around, cool. Nothing mundane was out of reach for the player to buy except for the first hour or so, either. It's a total non-event. Sometimes unenchanted metal weapons broke, yikes!!!, it's not like you're hurting for NPC drops, and because of how 2e was, you're spending the first couple of levels firing extremely cheap arrows and rocks from your unbreakable bows and slings anyway.
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Jan 1, 2016 13:28
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Taliesyn posted:I dunno, Tarnesh ends a LOT of ironman runs even today. Yeah, let's be fair here, Tarnesh is some real bullshit and he'll probably kill every single player when they meet him unless they know what he can do beforehand.
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Jan 1, 2016 13:35
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During my ironman runs I kick everyone out the party and then go do some easy zero combat quests until I'm at least level 2 hopefully 3 depending on exact class before I go and grab some party members and take out Tarnesh. This isn't needed just for Tarnesh because Xzar/Montoran/Imoen/PC can take him out easily. But gaining a few levels with that sweet sweet solo xp is a big help in the early game. Why not go to Nashkel and get some sick armor and exhaust Noober's dialogue or talk to Marl and Firebeard? Those three alone is almost a level for most classes.
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Jan 1, 2016 14:20
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Depending on my class (meaning what tools I have to kite it around and such) I like to take care of the belt ogre on the way to Friendly Arm. Combat early on is rough if you try to melee but bows and crossbows are absurdly strong and safe if you gap open in between shots.
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Jan 1, 2016 14:45
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If you iron man and feel like cheesing you can just hike to the basilisk area and get absurdly overleveled with the help of Korax.
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Jan 1, 2016 15:02
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Milky Moor posted:Yeah, let's be fair here, Tarnesh is some real bullshit and he'll probably kill every single player when they meet him unless they know what he can do beforehand. hah, forgot about tarnesh. yeah that dude is bullshit... i usually just take the midget and xzar with me and use them as meat shields while the guards handle tarnesh.
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Jan 1, 2016 15:06
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jBrereton posted:The problem with having a socioeconomic story is that people have to be really invested in the world, and it has to really affect your characters and the world around them. This. I didn't give a gently caress if some rando-merchants were upset because of poo poo iron and bandits. The only interesting part of the plot was when you found out you were a Bhaalspawn, which didn't happen until the last bit of the game, and still pretty much affected nothing.
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Jan 1, 2016 15:06
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Metal Meltdown posted:Another issue of BG1 is the dungeon design. There aren't that many, but nearly all of them are just awful mazes of corridors that force your party to walk in a single file due to how narrow they are and are broken up by the occasional room with a few monsters. It feels like they designed them by just drawing random lines on graph paper and for only a single character. In original, out-of-the-box BG1 the monster spawns would refill every time you loaded or even just saved the game. It made Firewine incredibly aggravating. The BG2 engine works differently so using BGT or Tutu you shouldn't have this problem, and I'm pretty sure BGEE avoids it too.
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Jan 1, 2016 17:28
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It was worse than that. Every spawn point you didn't have line of sight to (i.e., it was in the fog) would keep spawning kobold commandos. You had to leave party members behind to deactivate them.
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Jan 1, 2016 17:34
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jBrereton posted:The problem with having a socioeconomic story is that people have to be really invested in the world, and it has to really affect your characters and the world around them. But they also have random bounty hunters looking for you specifically and with increasing pressure, plus the bandit issue, and the whole assassination thing right out the gate. I like the story a lot, at first its fairly low level adventurer type stuff prompted by the people you would naturally turn to when scared and out in the world on your own for the first time right after your father is murdered. Then it quickly becomes very high stakes once you reach Baldur's Gate, and the personal side of things becomes clear. It's well conceived and thought out, particularly in the wider context, being that you're not some super powerful hero so you shouldn't expect to tangle with some world-ending force by the end of the game.
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Jan 1, 2016 22:14
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fong posted:But they also have random bounty hunters looking for you specifically and with increasing pressure, plus the bandit issue, and the whole assassination thing right out the gate. I like the story a lot, at first its fairly low level adventurer type stuff prompted by the people you would naturally turn to when scared and out in the world on your own for the first time right after your father is murdered. Then it quickly becomes very high stakes once you reach Baldur's Gate, and the personal side of things becomes clear. It's well conceived and thought out, particularly in the wider context, being that you're not some super powerful hero so you shouldn't expect to tangle with some world-ending force by the end of the game. I would kind of have to agree. Having the only father you've known murdered by someone who's obviously after you is generally kind of personal. Sure, some of the writing itself was pretty bad, but the story was solid.
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Jan 1, 2016 22:25
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Wasn't the "resting makes enemies disappear" bug fixed in BG1EE? It just happened to me. Steam version if it matters.
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Jan 1, 2016 22:28
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Man how was the Ironman thread not named: From the Iron Throne to the Throne of Bhaal?
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Jan 3, 2016 12:01
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cheesetriangles posted:Man how was the Ironman thread not named: From the Iron Throne to the Throne of Bhaal? I dunno, but every time I read this year's title, I get Queensr˙che stuck in my head.
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Jan 3, 2016 15:35
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Playing through Icewind Dale EE for the first time. Played it a bit back in the day but never beat it. The dialogue is fantastic. I love all the snarky responses you can give to the snake cult in Dragon's Eye. Especially when Xunamei is waxing poetic about being a dust mote in the universe or some poo poo and your PC is just like "whoa." It's uncanny how good Black Isle/Obsidian are at writing naturally funny dialogue.
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Jan 6, 2016 21:26
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Making some progress through NWN2. I'm actually really charmed by this campaign so far. While the whole having a shard in me thing seems like generic fantasy fare, I love the whole court intrigue with me having to prove my innocence regarding the massacre at Ember (which is where I am now - please don't tell me anything about what follows!). I also love being elevated to the nobility to avoid extradition to Luskan. This is much better than what I was expecting out of this game.
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Jan 6, 2016 22:10
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chaosapiant posted:Playing through Icewind Dale EE for the first time. Played it a bit back in the day but never beat it. The dialogue is fantastic. I love all the snarky responses you can give to the snake cult in Dragon's Eye. Especially when Xunamei is waxing poetic about being a dust mote in the universe or some poo poo and your PC is just like "whoa." It's uncanny how good Black Isle/Obsidian are at writing naturally funny dialogue. One of the things I appreciate most about Icewind Dale is the amount of work that went into the dialogue considering that just about all of it is flavor.
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Jan 7, 2016 03:39
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I just reinstalled my gog copies of BG and BG2 and I ran into an issue I can't seem to resolve. I followed the mod list for BGT from the OP, and everything so far seems great...yet, Imoen just joined me after leaving candle keep and I found out she is already a lvl 24 Mage and a lvl 9 thief  Is there anyway to fix this? The only thing I think it might be is setting the BG2 character base stats option in BGTweakpack, but that didn't mention anything about ToB levels, just basic stats. Anyone run across this?
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Jan 7, 2016 04:23
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Fosson posted:I just reinstalled my gog copies of BG and BG2 and I ran into an issue I can't seem to resolve. I followed the mod list for BGT from the OP, and everything so far seems great...yet, Imoen just joined me after leaving candle keep and I found out she is already a lvl 24 Mage and a lvl 9 thief I've never heard of that, but you should be able to de-level her in Shadow Keeper. Or just enjoy breaking the game in half.
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Jan 7, 2016 08:21
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Fosson posted:I just reinstalled my gog copies of BG and BG2 and I ran into an issue I can't seem to resolve. I followed the mod list for BGT from the OP, and everything so far seems great...yet, Imoen just joined me after leaving candle keep and I found out she is already a lvl 24 Mage and a lvl 9 thief Follow the steps in #4 of the FAQ here to put her back to a level 1 thief: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?goto=post&postid=395169103#post395169103
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Jan 8, 2016 03:09
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Thanks, both of you. I had a feeling Shadow Keeper would help (it has been so long since I've played) and during my frantic search for the solution I had my doubts. Not sure what went wrong with this install. Everything worked great before, but I updated to Win 10, and changed my ancient HDD to a second SSD so I had to reinstall. Some quick testing from starting a new BG2 game showed that it appeared to be only Imoen who achieved god status in both games before everyone else. I also have the EE games, and look forward to Siege of Dragonspear as a sort of interlude. I always tell people that I suffer from a Baldur's Gate curse due to late 90's, early 2000's when I would try and play and something would gently caress up (reformat needed, busted hdd, game bugged where I had to reinstall). I beat SoA years ago, but ToB poo poo itself after Saradush. I was never able to beat BG1 back then, so I wanted to make my dream run through the entire trilogy plus experience Ascension (and some less masochistic parts of SCS, though I know that is available for EE...mostly looking forward to Ascension and some of the BG2 UB content that I enjoyed) Anyway, thanks for the advice, it was driving me insane. I forgot how peaceful playing the IE games were (even though most fights early and later on can and will wreck my poo poo) 
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Jan 8, 2016 05:42
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I made a bad post/video on the SCS forums outlining how to abuse the AI in the final fight of BG1 that someone may find interesting or which might be some inspiration for the Iron Man runners. My notes can be found in the thread: http://gibberlings3.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=27745 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNfzlZiSZu0
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Jan 11, 2016 11:51
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The SCS Bandit Camp is kicking my rear end, hard. It seems like the entire camp alerts as soon as you engage one guy?
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Jan 12, 2016 04:42
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Radio Talmudist posted:Making some progress through NWN2. I'm actually really charmed by this campaign so far. While the whole having a shard in me thing seems like generic fantasy fare, I love the whole court intrigue with me having to prove my innocence regarding the massacre at Ember (which is where I am now - please don't tell me anything about what follows!). I also love being elevated to the nobility to avoid extradition to Luskan. This is much better than what I was expecting out of this game. Without spoiling anything, you are at what most people consider the high point of the game and its writing. Act 2 is genuinely strong, well-written stuff that stands up well independent of the rest of the game.
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Jan 12, 2016 04:46
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bongwizzard posted:The SCS Bandit Camp is kicking my rear end, hard. It seems like the entire camp alerts as soon as you engage one guy? Yep, you need to be tossing down a bunch of webs and stuff ahead of time. Trying to solo this with a f/m/t made me switch it back to normal instead of SCS for my solo run.
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Jan 12, 2016 06:39
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You'll find lots of -AC to missile items on your travels that will be a huge help, also if you have a sorcerer that can pick protection from normal missiles that will probably work too. Shield style too gives a bonus vs missiles too but it isn't very good in the long run. I tend to send in a tank with over 100 fire resist and high AC vs missiles then use the wand of fireballs from the ankheg cave + my own fireballs with mages and support those mages with other chars.
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Jan 12, 2016 10:29
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Oh and don't forget to give your tank a potion of absorption because the guy that comes out with the blunt weapon from the tent is super dangerous.
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Jan 12, 2016 10:30
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