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Bit of a long shot but has anyone had an issue with BG2EE and party members no longer having banter dialogue? I'm 30 hours into my current playthrough and all the characters have developed massive social anxiety and stopped talking to one another/CHARNAME. Before that, banter has been incredibly rare - I think I saw about 6 non-romance dialogues through my playthrough so far. I submitted a bug on the Beamdog thing but I figured I might as well ask here as well. Console commands like CTRL + I and the one that pushes the real time clock forward don't help either - characters just turn to face each other and nothing else. No mods. It's a pity because the banter is something I hugely enjoy in BG2 and I don't want to keep playing through if it can be fixed, so I've had to put my run aside for now. Not gonna replay it from the start, either (although I just found out I missed the silver pantaloons goddamn it)
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Jul 23, 2018 20:32
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| # ? May 16, 2024 01:31 |
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Unmodded there actually isn't much banter in the game. You may very well have exhausted all the banter your current party composition has.
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Jul 23, 2018 20:42
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Huh. I recruited Anomen (shows how desperate I am, tee hee) and did CTRL + I and lordy lord it looks like you're right. Dialogue fired immediately. I must have assumed there was more banters than there is in reality - I think I swapped party members a lot when I was younger so I remember it being a lot more talkative. Now I feel like a total dingus, but thanks! Are there any banter expansion packs out there that aren't terrible?
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Jul 23, 2018 20:58
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I think the tweak pack has an option to increase banters. I also found this.
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Jul 23, 2018 21:30
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Dillbag posted:I think the tweak pack has an option to increase banters. I also found this. He's looking for new banters, not quicker ones. Songbearer posted:
Not really, the banter pack for the first game has it's fans but I don't think one was made for BG2 since the entire point of the first one was to just get it up to par with the sequel.
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Jul 23, 2018 21:38
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Skwirl posted:Not really, the banter pack for the first game has it's fans but I don't think one was made for BG2 since the entire point of the first one was to just get it up to par with the sequel. There is a banter pack on G3. Both the BG1 and BG2 banter packs are rather inconsistent due to different people writing different characters. Your mileage may vary. The behind the scenes drama when those banter packs were getting made was fun, though. Especially for BG1, some people had very, very different interpretations of some characters.
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Jul 23, 2018 21:40
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Cythereal posted:There is a banter pack on G3. Not surprising since BG1 characters are so barely there that if you are going to give a poo poo about them you have to fill in a lot of blanks yourself.
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Jul 23, 2018 21:44
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Fair enough. Now I know I've probably just exhausted the bants for my party it's not a problem anymore - back to playing!
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Jul 23, 2018 22:07
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Phlegmish posted:Well, why wouldn't she be? Azuren posted:I'm finishing up my BG1 SCS run and getting ready to import into BG2 and set up SCS. I've beaten the trilogy before but this is my first playthrough with SCS... any advice for things to not install in BG2 SCS? I installed all of the optional tactical challenges but turned off some of the things that sound really annoying (will not be using prebuffed mages or extra mage HLAs, for example). One thing I've been really annoyed by and will be disabling is the enemies using potions, solely for the thieves quaffing infinite invis pots every round forever, despite standing next to an inquisitor with true seeing Songbearer posted:Are there any banter expansion packs out there that aren't terrible? Both Spellhold Studios and Pocket Plane Group have a banter pack for BG2. I've tried friendship mods for Yoshimo, Mazzy and Viconia and thought all of them were well done. I liked Viconia's the least but I also like her less than Mazzy and Yoshimo in general so ymmv.
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Jul 23, 2018 22:53
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Skwirl posted:Not surprising since BG1 characters are so barely there that if you are going to give a poo poo about them you have to fill in a lot of blanks yourself. Yeah, I learned that lesson the hard way when making Valerie. Submit banters to half a dozen people to get some criticism and feedback, and get a dozen opinions back.
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Jul 23, 2018 22:58
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I didn't really mind the voice.
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Jul 23, 2018 23:02
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Cythereal posted:Yeah, I learned that lesson the hard way when making Valerie. Submit banters to half a dozen people to get some criticism and feedback, and get a dozen opinions back. I definitely and absolutely know what this character who has a total of 17 lines would say or do in this situation.
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Jul 23, 2018 23:05
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There were like 4 or 5 people writing dialogue for Faldorn for the BG1 NPC Project and it really shows. She has just as many different personalities and you can't even say that one of them is not supported by the original game because Faldorn's shadow druid background, her feral portrait and her decidedly less feral voice acting are all at odds with each other to begin with.
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Jul 23, 2018 23:08
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Not helping is that all the BG1 NPCs except Imoen were based on the developers' old tabletop DnD characters - and they played in entirely different settings from the Realms, which is the source of weirdness like Xan with his moonblade and Minsc being both a berserker and having his miniature giant space hamster (an actual thing in one old DnD setting). I sometimes regret that I never quite finished Valerie's BG2 portion, but I'm very glad to have left the modding community behind.
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Jul 23, 2018 23:13
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What  Moonblades are from the Realms. Elaine Cunningham created them for Elfshadow.
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Jul 23, 2018 23:55
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Arivia posted:What According to one of the old Black Isle devs, though, Xan was originally a fighter/mage of some kind (bladesinger?) in a Greyhawk game. 
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Jul 24, 2018 00:06
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Azuren posted:I'm finishing up my BG1 SCS run and getting ready to import into BG2 and set up SCS. I've beaten the trilogy before but this is my first playthrough with SCS... any advice for things to not install in BG2 SCS? I installed all of the optional tactical challenges but turned off some of the things that sound really annoying (will not be using prebuffed mages or extra mage HLAs, for example). One thing I've been really annoyed by and will be disabling is the enemies using potions, solely for the thieves quaffing infinite invis pots every round forever, despite standing next to an inquisitor with true seeing My experience is that basically all of the SCS components simply make BG2 more aggravating and less fun. I love it in BG1, where enemies have few enough spells that the improved AI and spell use leads to some legitimately diverse enemy strategy and spell synergy. But BG2 still suffers from the same homogeneity of enemy caster tactics, they just get more tedious because they layer protections in a more annoying way. I think the logic of SCS goes something like if the enemy mage is level 30 then there's nothing wrong with giving them an appropriate number of spells and letting them use them to their fullest. But the devs never intended players to know what level the enemies were, and I suspect the ultra high level enemies you encounter frequently are just because the devs wanted them to have better saves/higher immunities/more HP. I think SCS would've worked a lot better in BG2 if the modders had adjusted the levels of enemies to be more in line with the PC at different points, before filling out their spell books appropriately. Also components like the improved illithids, vampires, demons etc are even worse and just highlight the ways in which the game engine is limited, rather than actually making the game more challenging in any kind of balanced or fair way. YMMV though, it does depend what you enjoy about the games and I know other people wouldnt play through BG2 without SCS. Personally I dislike all but the basic script enhancements and enemy AI improvements, the latter of which you unfortunately can't have without some other annoyances. voiceless anal fricative fucked around with this message at 00:34 on Jul 24, 2018 |
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Jul 24, 2018 00:30
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I can't stick with just one IE game at a time, so I'm back in BG2 with my fighter/mage again. This time I finished off the Underdark and have fought my way back to the surface. Okay, so I can only imagine the quest line is a little bit different if I was a female PC. I was able to avoid being raped by the priestess by claiming I belonged to another (after loving up and flat out refusing her, which turned the entire city hostile). I saved the male drow so he gave me the double fake eggs which I then used. It took me a greater invisibility spell and two invisibility potions to steal the eggs without getting into a fight (I forgot to put the fake egg back in the container so that made me burn another potion). It has to be clear to both the guards and the golems that someone snuck in because a door magically opened right in front of them. Thank goodness the matron and her daughter are idiots. I was a giant nerd in high school, so when I saw the House DeVir drow thrown into the pit, I giggled. If you hadn't read Homeland, I don't think that easter egg would land. The most difficult fight for me in the entire Underdark was the random group of thugs?adventurers? that ambushed me when I was on my way to ambush some mindflayers for the drow. That loving battle took me four or five tries! For the mission to kill the smuggling beholder, I had Anomen using the Shield of Balduran. One of his little minions tried a stone to flesh ray, which reflected off him and petrified the beholder. I didn't know that was a thing! I got so caught up in the main plot and escaping, I completely forgot to use the stupid rope I bought for a thousand gold to get into the wizard's tower. Do I just have a useless rope in my bag now, or does Jarlaxle come for it at some point? When the silver dragon teleported us, I assumed she was teleporting us to the surface so I didn't have any buffs cast when she put us right at the exit, with the group of drow ready to start murdering. With her help I barely pulled through that one. Now I'm back on the surface and heading to the city to confront Bodhi. I ran into Drizzt along the way and secured his help against the vampire. I laughed when I saw the angry dialogue option about killing him before and it was time to finish the job. I like they acknowledged a lot of players would probably have killed him for his juicy magic items. I am planning on finishing a couple of side quests (probably gonna give Firkraag another shot), along with delving into Watchers Keep. Two questions: is there a point of no return, when I won't be able to return to the world map? And will there be a time limit given at any point in this final march towards Irenicus? The drow city quests caught me off-guard with the time limits, which hadn't really been a thing other than a couple of side quests as far as I could tell.
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Jul 24, 2018 23:22
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no thanks posted:Destroying the Idol will immediately destroy all the undead in the room.
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Jul 24, 2018 23:23
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Phlegmish posted:I didn't really mind the voice.
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Jul 25, 2018 08:43
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Lucas Archer posted:I can't stick with just one IE game at a time, so I'm back in BG2 with my fighter/mage again. This time I finished off the Underdark and have fought my way back to the surface. You missed out on meeting Jarlaxle by not using the rope unfortunately. I feel like they overuse references to/cameos of Salvatore's characters so I almost never bother with the Jarlaxle sidequest, it's pretty tedious anyway. Also annoyingly even if you kill Drizzt in BG2 you don't get to keep his gear. Malchor Harpell comes and takes it from you and it's impossible to avoid him or prevent without mods. Even if you kill him (he's flagged unkillable so you have to use a stat drain to do it, like getting his int to 0 with a mage shapechanged into a Mindflayer) he still spawns in again whenever you leave or enter a new outdoor area. It's dumb as gently caress. Speaking of Salvatore characters, I remember reading somewhere that Black Isle initially wanted to include Artemis Entreri in the game somewhere, to the point that there are various remnants of him in the game files, but he was narrowly cut. Am I misremembering this or can someone remind me if this was true?
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Jul 25, 2018 09:06
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bike tory posted:You missed out on meeting Jarlaxle by not using the rope unfortunately. I feel like they overuse references to/cameos of Salvatore's characters so I almost never bother with the Jarlaxle sidequest, it's pretty tedious anyway. In restored content mod, he pops up in the vampire basement if you got Drizzt to help you. He has no dialog, drops plain enchanted equipment, and his life stealing dagger.
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Jul 25, 2018 10:30
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Doesn't he also show up if you try to bork your game by killing Aran Linvail in Chapter Three if you're on the Thieves Guild route?
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Jul 25, 2018 12:01
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Encore pire!
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Jul 25, 2018 16:45
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sebzilla posted:Doesn't he also show up if you try to bork your game by killing Aran Linvail in Chapter Three if you're on the Thieves Guild route? That's Arkanis Garth, he's invincible and will instagib you.
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Jul 25, 2018 22:08
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BG2 status: conquered. The black dragon fight for the cup was the most difficult fight in BG2 for me. I couldn't get through it without at least 3 members of my party dying multiple tries. I was finally able to move my melee fighters in and out and keep pumping them full of potions as I whittled his HP down. The fake final fight against Irenicus was shockingly easy. The final fight was also fairly simple - he teleported out of my visual sight while I was fighting the four demons he gated in. This let me just focus them down, fully heal up and buff back up, and then go down to finish him off. I used the same strategy as I did against the dragon. Once his buffs wore off, it was game over man. So I know I left a bunch of stuff undone, but that'll incentive me to play again eventually. As it is, I just dipped my toe into Throne of Bhaal. Hey there Sarevok! Join my party? Sure!
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Jul 27, 2018 17:53
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BG2EE: So I did not kill the shadow dragon guarding the Shade Lord. Can I still go back and get him later?
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Jul 27, 2018 18:23
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TotalLossBrain posted:BG2EE: So I did not kill the shadow dragon guarding the Shade Lord. Can I still go back and get him later? Yes but iirc the shadow gem has a timer and it will attack you right away instead of ignoring you at first. Doesn't make the fight that much harder and if you come back after a couple levels and with better equipment it might end up being a breeze.
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Jul 27, 2018 18:25
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Huh, that's weird. I'm chaotic evil now, apparently? How the hell did that happen? I didn't do anything evil in hell - I even gave up blackrazor, which was a loving sweet weapon.
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Jul 27, 2018 19:31
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Lucas Archer posted:Huh, that's weird. I'm chaotic evil now, apparently? How the hell did that happen? I didn't do anything evil in hell - I even gave up blackrazor, which was a loving sweet weapon. Did you sacrifice one of your party members to avoid the stat drain challenge thing?
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Jul 27, 2018 19:45
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Dillbag posted:Did you sacrifice one of your party members to avoid the stat drain challenge thing? I went through the wrong door at first, but since it didn’t kill my party member I went around the other way and got all the penalties; hp drained by 2, Dex by 1, and some xp.
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Jul 27, 2018 19:48
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Lucas Archer posted:I went through the wrong door at first, but since it didn’t kill my party member I went around the other way and got all the penalties; hp drained by 2, Dex by 1, and some xp. Maybe the “wrong door” is the trigger for the alignment change?
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Jul 27, 2018 19:49
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Well that kind of blows. I know it probably doesn't matter much in terms of actual game play - unless all of my good party members realize I'm suddenly super evil and abandon me with all their awesome poo poo.
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Jul 27, 2018 19:59
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Lucas Archer posted:Well that kind of blows. I know it probably doesn't matter much in terms of actual game play - unless all of my good party members realize I'm suddenly super evil and abandon me with all their awesome poo poo. You may want to consider getting one of those third party tools, EEKeeper or whatever, and changing your alignment back. Maybe it won't affect anything but why risk a playthrough that you've gotten this far in?
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Jul 27, 2018 20:24
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Alignment doesn't change anything. Evil NPCs won't even leave in ToB if your reputation goes above 18. What matters are your dialogue choices.
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Jul 27, 2018 20:51
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Doesn't alignment change your ending in TOB if you decide to ascend to godhood instead of giving up Bhaal's power?
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Jul 27, 2018 21:28
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Dillbag posted:Doesn't alignment change your ending in TOB if you decide to ascend to godhood instead of giving up Bhaal's power? No. Only your answers to the Solar matter.
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Jul 27, 2018 21:29
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A good roleplaying game.
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Jul 27, 2018 21:46
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Alignment only affects your starting reputation, your bhaal powers and your class choices (or vice versa really)
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Jul 27, 2018 22:46
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| # ? May 16, 2024 01:31 |
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Some dialogue options are alignment gated, like offering to side with Firkraag against lord Windspear, and in general being able to do the evil resolution of certain quests like poisoning the druid grove to stop the attacks on Trademeet (don't do this.)
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Jul 27, 2018 22:57
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