Never played this series but am reading that the EE version isn't as good as the originals and that I can install mods that link all the games together and make the end fight really hard etc.
Any tips for what to install? What difficulty should I play at (is hardest fair or like Elder scrolls where they just scale damage and make it a frustrating grind fest?)
I'm not a fan of savescumming, does this game autosave/have checkpoints?
Play at core rules difficulty. The only difference after that is that enemies do more damage.
The game autosaves every time it has to load map data from disk in the originals (pretty much any time you enter new area). The EE versions don't have to do this, but it autosaves at any point where it would have in the original anyways.
Just go yo ho the EE and ignore the EE characters. You'll know them when you see them. Though getting the gem bag from Neera is super convenient.
The first game is slow and brutal without knowledge of it, but that's what makes it fun. Or it will drive you mad as the optimum builds are few.
Recent versions of EE changed a lot of things besides just the EE characters. The entire UI has been redesigned for mobile, for example.
Played BG2:EE for about 30 hours.
Boring, stupid game.
It's really difficult but in a bad way.
There's even an area where you can be teleported to (with no warning) which you can't get out of without fighting everything.
If you go in there when too low level - tough. Either use cheats or reload a very previous save (if you have any) or restart the whole game.
Also you're punished for going "evil" as you get insane store prices (but aren't warned at the beginning).
Yes, the game gives you 2 choices of "personality" but punishes you for not choosing the one they want.
Also the character voices are retarded and poor in choice.
"I'm on it."
"Right."
"On it."
"Moving."
That's what you hear every single time you click to move.
So you hear those 2-3 dialogue lines about 60 times an hour.
This also fucked up mod support I think. A while ago I decided to see how EEs were and people were complaining all about new version fucking up mods
Just pirate the EEs, it's an easy prepackaged modded BG. Ignore the Death Knight, Wild Mage and Monk OC DONUT STEEL characters and you're good to go.
Also ignore Dragonspear. It's made by beamdog and full of muh womyns and trannies.
This is why we don't have good games any more.
I went through Dragonspear and couldn't even find the tranny. Safana became 10x more of a bitch though.
The main problem with Dragonspear is that it's more like Icewind Dale.
This is why we can't have decent games anymore.
Beamdog took the originals off the shelves because people were buying those instead of their shitty repackaged mod edition Enhanced Edition. At least on GOG you still get the originals when you buy the EE, but what's the point? Just pirate the originals, get the basic mods and you're good to go.
The mod pack you are looking for is Big World Project. It includes Baldur's Gate Trilogy which ties all the games into one, a bunch of other essential mods like widescreen and bug fixes and you can install a number of content mods. If this is your first time playing you can settle for a minimal mod installation, there is more than enough content in the vanilla games. Don't overthink it and just have a good time.
That's a shame. I'll bet there are older torrents of it if they just ruined the new ones.
Look at him and laugh.
Play the original, modded versions. What you want is to download BG1 + expansion (TotSC) and BG2 + expansion. I don't know if the GOG versions work, so look it up before you try messing with those.
Anyways, what you want to do is install usoutpost31.com
gibberlings3.net
Follow this guide. The mods you'll want for your first playthrough are Unfinished Business, BG2 Tweak Pack (yes, BG2) and the widescreen mod. That's it. Nothing else.
For BG2, install the game + expansion and apply the official patch. Make a new character, save your game, exit. Install BG2 Fix Pack, BG2 Tweak Pack and the Widescreen mod. Install mods in the order I listed them.
As a gameplay tip: if you're not familiar with AD&D and/or its games, go read up on the basics.
Pssh…nothin personnel..kid…..
Why would you care about good games if you are satisfied with trash like BG?
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I don't know if you're baiting or if you're for real, but I said it and I'll say it again: EE is literally cancer. Even unmodded, the GoG release is by far superior in every way. Hell, the original release (with a res patch) is superior in every way.
If you HAVE to play the enhanced edition, there is no reason to not pirate the game. Not only is it not worth buying over the old version, but buying it on steam actually means you'll have to pirate the game anyway, because the latest version isn't on steam.
Just play the original version using mods to fix things.
No more coop games. I'm done.
Minus the fact that it maxes the processor and you have hours of labor to get any of it to work, if it works after your efforts at all.
You know what must be done
Nigger, it didn't max my processor back in 99 and it sure as hell doesn't now.
You call optional dicking around on your pc for what, 15 minutes labor? Fuck me, try digging some trenches or logging or shit.
OP here, appreciate all the suggestions.
What difficulty should I chose, Core or Insane? I generally like playing on hardest difficulty but not if it's ridiculously hard.
Any advice on how often I should save without cheesing?
For reference, I have beaten Doom episodes 1 - 3 on Nightmare difficulty without saving mid level, and Warcraft 3 on Hard without saving mid-mission.
Those are examples of 'Good' challenges.
On the other hand, plenty of games have just ridiculous difficulty / save situations that basically require savescumming, which I tend to hate (eliminates the challenge) or requires not playing on hardest (which again, makes me feel like I'm missing out).
Maybe it's the tism, but I want to have a clear strategy/routine going in that I can stick with, particularly since this is going to be a 200+ hour game.
EE was alright.
Till The orc went full homo on you, and neera just comes out of fucking nowhere after the goblins onto you, like holy fuck bitch.
Always use D&D hardcore rules with freindly fire.
makes things properly difficult.
Install the uncut mods, romance mods NPC banter mods and such
Here's all the stuff I had downloaded preprepped for installation I use, I'm off to bed so I'll let them upload overnight.
Red before installing a mod as some have the exact same features as a part of their infrastructure, and don't install any portrait enabler mods/changers/follower class changers save for the actual portrait enabler mod itself intiially.
Core. Insane just makes everything hit twice as hard and makes it harder for frontline fighters.
If you know what you're doing, it's not too difficult. There's people who beat the game without ever having to reload. Even if you're playing for the first time, there's some general tactics you can use to minimize reloading if you're smart enough to figure them out (but most players just play like a retard).
There's a lot of things that can insta-kill you though, and there's some complete bullshit like a siren that insta-kills you when you talk to her, or that insta-kill wall-crushing trap that looks like any other trap but the player has no way of knowing that it's impossible to disarm.
Also don't use wild mage. Every chance they cast a spell there's a chance they will kill themselves and you.
Core. Insane will cause you to load saves every other fight.
Save before and after every new map.
Combat in D&D is RNG. Roll for everything, every time, all the time. There's a lot of ways to mitigate this, but sometimes your arcane caster's gonna get crit even though he has 8 Mirror Images up and sometimes the ogre's gonna hit your tank with every roll for 2 rounds in a row and sometimes everyone in your party will fail their save vs spell and you'll get picked off one by one. It will happen and you'll have to revive your NPCs (or reload if your PC dies).
Since you appear to be clueless about the IE games and D&D in general, here's the most basic tips for you: have an arcane caster (a Mage preferably, at the very least a Sorcerer or a Bard) and a Cleric (Paladins/Ranger/Druids don't fill the Cleric role).
Romance and banter mods are written like shit. If OP absolutely wants to try them, it should be done on a second playthrough.
Why? You are better off installing a mod like BGT or BGTuTu and some fixes / tweaks.
Here's the suggested ones you should install first with the least issues.
Still, look them up before using them. they're the smallest of the bunch that are most wholesome and less questionable.
The mods have decent configurability and the romance one can be configured ot fade to black, or reduced text for your leisure, but I've only played some of it, and some NPCs were good, the others not so much, like Random Theif that I thought was vanilla but actually did everything in his power to suck my dick and got so drunk he fell asleep on my shoulder as I avoided his violent homosexual advances awkwardly.
The NPC banter NPC quests and uncut stuff those is a keeper.
Also, the vola contains GOG SHIT torrent which is a GOG collection host to all the Versions of BG 1+2 and BG EE 1+2 and Icewind dale EE.
The Pale master kit is very fun to use.
Here's the pic anyway.
You have apparently mistaken old Bioware for the casual-pandering shiteaters they have become. The shopkeepers are trying to encourage you to take your business elsewhere because of your poor reputation
Next thing you know, you'll be playing Fallout 1 and 2 and complaining about how there's a bounty hunter after you every few days because you killed a town's child population
Do not play Baldurs Gate unless you're absolutely autistic and incapable of playing actual D&D with people either online or in real life. Otherwise you're just kidding yourself.
Grab the Ascension mod if you plan on playing through the series, though I don't know if it works with EE. Save early and save often, preferably in different slots in case shit goes really wrong and you can't get yourself out. 2 or 3 saves around should be plenty.
Ascension is known to not work with EE
As a beginner, OP shouldn't start with ascension. Stratagem, tactics and ascension are all pretty fun mods, but they aren't for a first playthrough
This. Won't make it past the first assassin with SCS.
i feel like this must be bait, but then again you can never be sure these days
Ascension does work for EE but there's 2 versions of it at the moment. The BP Ascension is the old version (which still works fine) while the newer version is on hiatus because the modder in charge of most things' friend was murdered
Im not sure where this "EE doesn't have mod support" meme came from either. Just about every mod works with the EE now. In fact, there's a mod for it that removes the EE companions entirely
shsforums.net
This. Got my ass chewed the fuck up with SCS, along with every other story battle.
It was a fucking nightmare, and that was just BG1. You need to know the magic system if you even want a chance.
Still haven't gone through BG2 with it. Oh, and SCS also buffs the AI of the Ascension bosses, so good luck with that shit.
Tactics is not meant for human consumption.
If I could do it without knowing shit about DnD at first anyway then anyone could do it. Of course the last bits took me a long time to get through, but made it all the more satisfying when I finally got through it. By the time OP gets to ToB he should get a better handle on how things work.
The boss rush finale was completely unexpected and took me like 2 hours to get through.
Ok you know how broken good a mage can be when you give it the right Spell Triggers and Contingencies and Time Stop and all that shit? Imagine every fucking Lich having those spells and using them really fucking well. And they spam protection from magic weapon to protect themselves from melee attack but Liches have built-in immunity from normal weapons. So you have to play "strip off the buffs" without dying. And if you don't have an Inquisitor to make Dispel worth a damn against higher level enemies (Liches are like lvl 21 or 22), then you have to wait out their buffs to kill them with melee.
I can't imagine how fucking bad the Kangaxx and Demogorgon fights are.
Am I meant to be impressed?
Dont flatter yourself. I was giving them as a frame of reference so that anons could better advise me.
Well I recommend suicide, Holla Forums could do with less casual trash
Demiliches are like lvl 35 casters with the spell repertoire to match their caster level. Oh and they're still Demiliches so they still try to spam Imprison and they summon celestials and demons if you try to use Protection from Undead scrolls or Spell Strike if you try to use Protection from Magic scrolls.
Demogorgon just spams demons so you basically have to kill him in like 3-4 rounds otherwise you get overwhelmed.
But that's not the hard part of SCS in BG2. When you get to the Drow city and trigger the alarm and don't get out on time there will be waves after waves of GROUPS of high level warriors/clerics/mages that will come to fuck you up. It's basically an hour straight of fighting. But you don't have any of the ToB spells and gear to help you get through it except for the Watcher's Keep stuff.
You Vecna's Robes? That mage chest armor that reduces spell casting time significantly? You don't buy it from the special store. You loot it off of the Lich that guards Demogorgon. And he's scripted to make really, really good use of the item. Then there's the extra fight vs 3 dragons. Dragons have a TON of extra health and are casters now with Contingencies and like lvl 7 spells.
Just play core rules with the Baldur's Gate Trilogy mod. The optional and secret boss fights will provide enough challenge if you really want it.
The big two difficulty mods Sword Coast Stratagems and Ascension just ramp up the AI and add difficulty to boss battles (and pretty much all scripted encounters) for veteran players. It's for people that have decent knowledge of spells and abilities, so they can keep up with what can be described as "mage chess" where you're constantly maneuvering around the battlefield, stripping spell defenses and throwing up new ones. If you end up liking the game a lot, it can be worth it to throw up those mods (along with something like BGSpawn) and test your might.
Also install Imoen's Romance.
We're gonna need more skull traps.
Alternatively, play Wild Mage because they get Nahal's Reckless Dweomer, which lets them cast any of their spells provided you roll decently. Gets insanely OP when you can reliably just cast the spell you select.
Just memorize Wish, max out your wis and int, and hope for "I wish my party was fully rested" wishes.
Drow have high magic resist and a ton of health. Skull Trap damage is capped like Fireball. They bring golems with too.
We cannot get out. The end comes. Drums, drums in the deep. They are coming.
>im fighter because dont know how to play dont bully
My last playthrough was a solo wild mage. They nerfed most of the broken things in the game, but I still managed to break it with the bg2 wand of lightning glitch, allowing me to duplicate the use of any item 6 times. This includes potions (healing potions heal 6x now), wands (all your wands shoot 6 times. If you turn off the summon limit, you get a ridiculous amount of monsters with summoning), and your scrolls get casted 6 times. You can even target 6 different things while you're at it. Usages include shooting 30 missiles with a magic missile scroll, 6 acid arrows, somewhere around 18 flame arrows, 6 skull traps (although individually they're weaker than the skull traps you can cast), 6 summon monsters, 6 lower resistance, 6 energy drains, 6 meteor swarms, etc.
I also discovered a new powerful glitch during that playthrough that allows you to duplicate any spell that automatically targets yourself 6 times. For most spells, this is useless (mirror image and stoneskin doesn't stack on itself if you cast it 6 times), but some notable spells that this works with include sunfire, mislead (bards can stack improved bard song with this), limited wish, wish, mordy swords, and sunray. I ended up nuking entire maps by spamming my 6x wish to get the horrid wilting option.
Oh and there's also reckless dweomer stuff you can do I guess.
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I really need to set aside some time to play BG2+SCS because this sounds like a hoot.
it tells you in settings what difficulty does, get the gibberlings 3 mods
look, son, it don't even make any damn sense that being a feared outlaw leading a band of plunderers would make store owners try to rip you off; if anything you'd be getting discounts just from the intimidation factor. if there were no perks to being evil, no one would bother with it.
Friendly reminder to both of you fags that arguably the best NPCs are evil. Also quite a few spells and artifacts are evil alignment related.
BG tweak is a thing and that's one of the first options
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