Crazy difficult

[Stun]

You mean elemental legion? I guess. Although If you're gonna waste 9th level druid spells on summons, I'd suggest Shambler. Of course if you start a 6 person party at level 1 in HoF mode you won't get either one until you're well into chapter 5, and by then Summons are no longer a big deal (enemies are back to destroying them in a few hits). But hey, that's when the real fun begins. You can simply Mass dominate/Symbol of Hopelessness half the screen (Yuanti, Trolls and lizardmen have horrible will saves) and Wail of the Banshee or Firestorm everything else.

Edited March 14, 2014 by Stun

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Obsidian should get some advice from the Sword Coast Strategem creators. They are still active and accessible. I cannot play Baldur's gate or Icewind Dale without those mods installed anymore--they enhance the game that much. In a single player tactical game, AI is everything. Do what you must to make sure it is done right the first time. Patching is great, but positive first impressions are greater.

[Jarrakul]

To be honest, I'm not a fan of Stratagems. I've played it, and it definitely adds challenge, but more in the "oh look, he cast Stoneskin again, now I have to hit him twelve more times" kind of way, or "oh hey, every enemy on the map just aggroed, I guess I'd better break out the Fireball wands" than in any way that actually made me think strategically. It felt like trying to chop down a tree with a herring. Yes, it's harder, but not in a way that makes it more fun.

 

I realize I'm probably not in the majority, here. That's fine. Subjective things are subjective, and I certainly don't claim that my experience is the universal experience. But while I'm all for smarter AI, I personally would rather not have Eternity end up like SCS.

[Hiro Protagonist II]

I don't like Stratagems and never use it.

[BruceVC]

I don't like Stratagems and never use it.

 

Whats your defintion of "Stratagems" in the context of this discussion

[Hiro Protagonist II]

 

Whats your defintion of "Stratagems" in the context of this discussion

 

 

The mod.

[kabaliero]

crazy difficult like Baldur's Gate 2 TOB

 

'msorry, what?

 

only 3-d party mods made BGs at >least< somewhat challenging

i mean, like, anti-beholder shiled? dragon-slaying traps? solo'ing cleric\mages? c'mon

 

while IWD2, yeah

it sure brought a feel of being a beat-up dummy

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

I hate Stratagems because it is has too many componets and too much cheese.

 

I'm probably in the minority here, but I prefer BP.

[Lephys]

I think the main problem that typically arises with AI is that it's never designed to "guess."

 

Humans, we try to weed out all the horrible strategies. But then, we also realize that the "best" one kinda depends on what the enemy does and whether or not they counter it. Sometimes, we pick a tactic that isn't inherently optimal, but that, under the given circumstances, forces the enemy to change either change what they're doing or allow this sub-par strategy to become above-par.

 

I realize it's a bit crazy to try to code a computer to "decide" on something like that, but maybe it could just be what amounts to a smallish chance of it choosing something purely just to functionally mix things up.

 

If that enemy that always tries to root your party in place, then close in to melee range to tear you apart, at some point just decides to root you, then start chucking stuff at you (even though its ranged attack isn't as good as its melee attack), then maybe you've just blown some melee defensive abilities preparing tactics for an assumed pattern.

 

I don't mean have enemies just do completely random stuff whenever. I just mean, out of the feasible to do, don't make them follow an always predictable pattern. Or, maybe they choose slightly different approaches. Feasible tactics, but not always the absolute "best" one every time. Because, if you know to prepare for the exact same pattern every time, it's not really the best anymore.

 

When AI plays like a powergamer, it becomes rather easy to not only stave off, but completely counter.

[Jarrakul]

Lephys, I totally agree with you, with the minor nitpick that, from a game theoretical sense, randomly sampling from a few strategies is very often the best overall strategy in games involving more than one decision maker. So what you're describing is probably actually the optimal strategy, or at least closer to optimal than any purely deterministic strategy would be.

 

Sorry about the nitpick, I'm just really pedantic and really like game theory.

[Stun]

I don't think we're there yet. The problem with the AI of many RPGs is that devs will load up an enemy with the same combat "tools" that the player party has, but then they won't bother using them. Mages will have wands and other devices in their inventory that they won't use. Fighters will have talents they won't activate. Enemy clerics will get surrounded by your party's summoned Skeletons but won't bother turning undead

 

And then there's basic AI stupidity. An enemy will find itself engulfed in one of your long lasting AOEs (like stinking cloud or cloudkill or grease) and won't bother trying to leave the area of effect. Instead they'll just sit in one place and try, in vain, to "counter" with spells of their own.

Edited March 14, 2014 by Stun

[Lephys]

I don't think we're there yet. The problem with the AI of many RPGs is that devs will load up an enemy with the same combat "tools" that the player party has, but then they won't bother using them. Mages will have wands and other devices in their inventory that they won't use. Fighters will have talents they won't activate. Enemy clerics will get surrounded by your party's summoned Skeletons but won't bother turning undead

Using that as an example, I think the AI not only should use all of the tools at its disposal (or at least "consider" them... it shouldn't just use every single thing it has for no reason), but should also sometimes use something that, while feasible, isn't necessarily the absolute "best" solution. That's the human element. Sometimes, we don't necessarily think "Hmmm. If I get my frontline dudes to occupy these people, then cast this other spell, that'd be a few points better than using this Wand of Fireballs, and I can save its charges for later." Sometimes, we just determine that using the Wand of Fireballs isn't going to be a particularly ineffective tactic (that it's sufficiently productive, in other words), and we go all "I'm gonna fire a fireball, because I feel like it, and not because math deemed it the absolute best statistical option in terms of winning this battle under the given circumstances."

 

A lot of AI's can even be "perfect" at calculating the most efficient path, but then, you've got that whole "what if I know you're going to do that?" factor, etc.

 

I dunno. Complexly, it's that "wait... is this a bluff, or is he actually planning this?" thing. If you counter a bluff, then whatever tactic the bluff was supporting is far more effective. Yet, if you call a bluff when it isn't a bluff, then even a "terrible" tactic can suddenly become non-terrible.

 

But, yeah, I just mean having the AI not always follow a predictable pattern in its decision-making, because that's the main difference between humans and AI: the ability to favor factors that aren't math/logic-based.

 

It's more about breaking a pattern and simulating the human element than actually getting an AI to truly think like a human and specifically decide to do something for a human reason.

 

Annnnnywho... (/endramble)

[Helz]

I barely played IWD, but if the Stragems mod is at all similar to the Tactics mod for BG2, than I heartily endorse it.  I personally don't mind if it makes the AI feel scripted, that's better than it being too stupid to use the weapons at its disposal. 

 

One of the biggest differences is that when you enter a new area, all of the enemies activate their long term buffs, spell immunities, racials, contingency spells, etc. so that they're actually prepared to fight when you meet them.  Before they'd either not use these spells at all, or waste their first turns in combat casting them while you were free to attack.  The player activates all this stuff ahead of time, and so should the AI.

 

One of the first, albeit minor, differences I encountered after installing Tactics has always stuck with me.  I was struck by how the duergar (evil dwarves) in the first dungeon went from useless fodder to a legitimate threat simply because they were able to use their racial power (invisibility). 

 

I would love for PoE's AI to scale with the difficulty setting.  Its so much more interesting when the game forces you to learn the intricacies of its combat because the enemy uses them against you.

Edited March 15, 2014 by Helz

[Amberion]

i have no idea how you are supposed to beat the last battle in TOB, couldn't do it to this day, even on easy

 

melissaan is highly resistant to magic damage types. her melee attack is devastating, and she will summon a ton of demons to aid her. have many many potions of greater healing, be prepared to chain-chug them, as her glaive hurts pretty bad. greater whirlwind + cleave?(the one that crits for 2 rounds) guarantees 10 hits all of which will crit. after a certain percentage of her health goes, she will dive into the fountain, and start drawing power. you will need to cut off one of the fountains nearby(they're guarded by monsters), after which she will resume the fight, summoning more monsters. Generally, it's not worth the time to kill the monsters she summons, unless they're getting seriously out of hand. Just focus fire on her. This is one fight where mages kind of get screwed; there are only a few things that mages can be useful for here, mostly for debuffing. There's also no resting during the encounter, so you have to plan your spellbooks ahead of time. Ranged attacks don't really work well on her, unless you have a massive supply of +4 arrows(arrows of piercing).

 

[Falkon Swiftblade]

fwiw I've not played a difficult rpg in like 15 yrs. Unless it was a broken glitch, I feel like dev's should be able to take the kid gloves off a bit more these days, especially if they're designing a balanced game that allows us tactical options to play through instead of just mashing one two three four on the keyboard.

[Mr. Magniloquent]

I'm very surprised at how many people here have a poor opinion of Sword Coast Stratagems. This is honestly the first time I can remember encountering a negative opinion.

 

In vanilla BG, enemies don't move to escape area effects and generally just attack the first thing they encounter/is closest to them. Creatures don't call for help, nor do they respond to immunities or protections by attempting to dispel/breach them or change to targets they can damage. Casters make poor use of spells, spend most of their time buffing. In between spells, they either stand there--or worse, enter melee, rather than walking around evasively.

 

Everything changed with SWS. Try breaching that Stoneskin or Spell Reflection when they're simultaneously using Protection from Abjuration. Things get really interesting when they're using a Simulacrum, Mislead, or Improved Invisibility and have Protection from Divination! Think you've finally got that mage down for the count? Now he's activated a sequencer with invisibility and mirror image--only to now summon a demon! Or try when one of your characters is low on health to find that this mage rips of a sequence full of magic missiles that seals your poor adventurer's fate. Try team-work for that matter. That archer which previously ignored your mage suddenly decides to wail on him once he's been breached. I could go on and on.

 

SWS did things the correct way. AI used not only used spells and abilities to their maximums, but they responded to player actions and changed approaches when necessary, cooperate, and even flee when nothing they throw at your works. While I found Icewind Dale 2 to be a thorough challenge, it was mostly due to contrived "gotcha" scenarios where I was fighting my fifth horde of equivalently level (or greater) creatures with no safe rest zones. It's still preferable to HP bloat and associated gimmicks that J"RPG"s and MMOs resort to, but lacks the elegance and real tactical combat that SWS brought forth.

 

 

i have no idea how you are supposed to beat the last battle in TOB, couldn't do it to this day, even on easy

 

Cold and raw magic damage are the best ways. Ice Storm, Cone of Cold, and Skull Trap do wonders against both Melissan and her allies. Each pool will rest and restore your party. Summon, buff, and lay traps everywhere before using each one. For Melissan in particular, it also helps if you have a fighter equipped with the sword "The Answerer". It's also wise to move quickly and not waste any time in between cutting off the pools of Bhaal's essence. The longer you take to do this, the stronger she becomes.There are many ways to do it. The above is simple guidance, and should be enough to win the day whether you are playing vanilla or any combination of modding.

 

*Edited to extend ToB advice.

Edited March 15, 2014 by Mr. Magniloquent

[ZornWO]

I totally support ppl expressing their subjective dislike of SCS.  It's totally valid to say one didn't enjoy SCS.  But it kills me to see this unfair criticism that it isn't strategic or it's somehow cheesy when DavidW put years of thought and hard work into making it strategic and into heavily reducing the cheese in the game.  He put a lot of effort into keeping a consistent ruleset for players and opponents, closing off some of the broken nonsense like Cloudkilling enemies offscreen, and by avoiding Weimer Tactics-style "gotchas." 

 

He created a bunch of code so the AI can detect what you're doing and react sanely.  Having fighters know to switch to ranged weapons when they're stuck in a Teleport Field makes TF tactical rather than stupidstrong.  The first time seeing enemies move outside cloud AoEs was almost as impressive as the first time seeing an enemy priest cast Zone of Sweet Air to help his party.  Not to mention the outlandishness of enemies that know how to open doors to chase after you as one of your characters tries to retreat!  Those enemies were showing even more gall than that fighter who had the audacity to take an antidote when poisoned.

 

I only found BG1 and BG2 when it came to Gamefly, which I happened to have at the right time.  So I wound up exploring their mods, including SCS, before trying IWD.  Yeah... it doesn't compare.  IWD is a great game, and it had some fun to offer, but it felt like a much older game.  Its AI just wasn't very responsive.

 

 

Edit (on top of some re-wordings):

I'll add abt Weimer's Tactics mod - one difference b/w it and SCS for me is metagaming.  I try hard not to metagame BG2 except for quest order and maybe some inventory decisions.  Not only is it possible not to metagame in SCS, the mod facilitates that goal.  On a fresh install, it randomizes spellcasters' spellbooks out of a handcrafted set appropriate for their level so you can't metagame the spells you'll face.  I found Tactics was too puzzle-like to do avoid some metagaming.

Edited March 15, 2014 by ZornWO

[Death Machine Miyagi]

 

I'm very surprised at how many people here have a poor opinion of Sword Coast Stratagems. This is honestly the first time I can remember encountering a negative opinion.

 

In vanilla BG, enemies don't move to escape area effects and generally just attack the first thing they encounter/is closest to them. Creatures don't call for help, nor do they respond to immunities or protections by attempting to dispel/breach them or change to targets they can damage. Casters make poor use of spells, spend most of their time buffing. In between spells, they either stand there--or worse, enter melee, rather than walking around evasively.

 

Everything changed with SWS. Try breaching that Stoneskin or Spell Reflection when they're simultaneously using Protection from Abjuration. Things get really interesting when they're using a Simulacrum, Mislead, or Improved Invisibility and have Protection from Divination! Think you've finally got that mage down for the count? Now he's activated a sequencer with invisibility and mirror image--only to now summon a demon! Or try when one of your characters is low on health to find that this mage rips of a sequence full of magic missiles that seals your poor adventurer's fate. Try team-work for that matter. That archer which previously ignored your mage suddenly decides to wail on him once he's been breached. I could go on and on.

 

SWS did things the correct way. AI used not only used spells and abilities to their maximums, but they responded to player actions and changed approaches when necessary, cooperate, and even flee when nothing they throw at your works. While I found Icewind Dale 2 to be a thorough challenge, it was mostly due to contrived "gotcha" scenarios where I was fighting my fifth horde of equivalently level (or greater) creatures with no safe rest zones. It's still preferable to HP bloat and associated gimmicks that J"RPG"s and MMOs resort to, but lacks the elegance and real tactical combat that SWS brought forth.

 

Exactly. What made me love it, above all, is that there was so much conscious effort to avoid cheese. Typically, 'hard mode' in a game just means that the enemy suddenly has twice as much health and deals twice as much damage or some such. You've still got the same dumbass AI that falls for the simplest tricks. Its just the dumbass AI is now effectively cheating. 

 

In SCS, while there are some elements that toughen up enemies, the heart of the mod lies in modifying behavior. The enemy is tougher to beat, not primarily due to stat boosts, but because they make an effort to mimic the behavior of an intelligent player. Item use, spell selection, calling for help from nearby allies, protection spells to keep still other protection spells from being stripped away by Breach or Dispel Magic...none of that is cheap. Its how an intelligent enemy should behave but usually doesn't because the AI is lacking. 

Edited March 15, 2014 by Death Machine Miyagi

[Helz]

Huh, I loved Tactics and have used it every time I've done a reinstall.  Thanks for the info about Stratagems, I'll give it a try.  That sounds exactly how I'd want the AI in PoE to behave.

[Jarrakul]

Understand, I have nothing against Stratagems in concept. I totally agree that the unmodded BG AI can be... really dumb, and it'd be nice if it were smarter in a lot of ways. But Stratagems, particularly when fighting mages, tends to end up as "did you take enough anti-magic to take down improved mantle and spell immunity: abjuration four times? no? then have fun dying horribly." For that matter, the fighters like to make any attempt at any sort of crowd control irrelevant by having and chugging potions of magic protection, thus guaranteeing that they'll make every save. Now, you might point out that I can do those same things, and that's true, I can. But both sides doing really cheap things doesn't make the game good, it just highlights the ways in which the game is bad. Turns out you can get a similar effect on difficulty by just playing the unmodded game and not using obviously broken spell combos, items, and strategies that take advantage of poor AI, and the game doesn't become a test how many cheap tactics you know or know how to counter.

 

But again, this is just my personal experience. If you don't agree that the tactics mentioned are cheap and kind of stupid, you'll obviously have a very different opinion of Stratagems. I also want to make it clear that I do agree that Eternity should have better AI than BG, if at all possible. Perhaps a Stratagems-like AI would be appropriate in a game harder to break than BG. Which, admittedly, is not a very high bar. But while something as smart as Stratagems might be appropriate, I sincerely hope that we don't get something that plays like Stratagems.

[Death Machine Miyagi]

Understand, I have nothing against Stratagems in concept. I totally agree that the unmodded BG AI can be... really dumb, and it'd be nice if it were smarter in a lot of ways. But Stratagems, particularly when fighting mages, tends to end up as "did you take enough anti-magic to take down improved mantle and spell immunity: abjuration four times? no? then have fun dying horribly." For that matter, the fighters like to make any attempt at any sort of crowd control irrelevant by having and chugging potions of magic protection, thus guaranteeing that they'll make every save. Now, you might point out that I can do those same things, and that's true, I can. But both sides doing really cheap things doesn't make the game good, it just highlights the ways in which the game is bad. Turns out you can get a similar effect on difficulty by just playing the unmodded game and not using obviously broken spell combos, items, and strategies that take advantage of poor AI, and the game doesn't become a test how many cheap tactics you know or know how to counter.

 

But again, this is just my personal experience. If you don't agree that the tactics mentioned are cheap and kind of stupid, you'll obviously have a very different opinion of Stratagems. I also want to make it clear that I do agree that Eternity should have better AI than BG, if at all possible. Perhaps a Stratagems-like AI would be appropriate in a game harder to break than BG. Which, admittedly, is not a very high bar. But while something as smart as Stratagems might be appropriate, I sincerely hope that we don't get something that plays like Stratagems.

 

What is the 'smarter', non-cheap strategy you would have hoped to see for enemy mages if not skillful use of magical protection? They're glass cannons, by design, and can only survive for long enough to do damage with the right protection spells up. If anything is to blame on that front, it isn't SCS, but the AD&D 2nd edition ruleset.  

[Failion]

Baldurs gate series were the easiest infinity engine games in my eyes. They gave you plenty of pots and powerful clicky items at your disposal. While Icewind dale gave you pots and items also they were not op as in baldur gates. The encounters were much much harder. Because your party would only be about level 5-7 and you get giants and bone horrors, elite archers thrown at you that can quickly smash and riddle your with arrows. Game was much more linear then baldurs gate 2 so you couldn't cheese your way through by knowing where the good items are and grab them early on. I never liked icewind dale 2 because 3rd edition dnd feels even more hack and slash then 2nd edition but very early on. Its all a hit point game. How much abuse your party can take from giant hp pools all those hp increases spells like false life, stone skin determines whether you win encounters. Also dumb how 2handed weapons>everything practically. The added feats didn't help that it still felt a little dumbed down and unbalanced.

 

difficult games have always been popular in gaming. A genre of games known for combat difficulty you can see is making a comeback in gaming. Swordfighting games like dark souls, gothic 2, blade of darkness, die by the sword, jedi academy. The former rather then the later are known for being cult classics because of their difficult combat.

[Jarrakul]

 

Understand, I have nothing against Stratagems in concept. I totally agree that the unmodded BG AI can be... really dumb, and it'd be nice if it were smarter in a lot of ways. But Stratagems, particularly when fighting mages, tends to end up as "did you take enough anti-magic to take down improved mantle and spell immunity: abjuration four times? no? then have fun dying horribly." For that matter, the fighters like to make any attempt at any sort of crowd control irrelevant by having and chugging potions of magic protection, thus guaranteeing that they'll make every save. Now, you might point out that I can do those same things, and that's true, I can. But both sides doing really cheap things doesn't make the game good, it just highlights the ways in which the game is bad. Turns out you can get a similar effect on difficulty by just playing the unmodded game and not using obviously broken spell combos, items, and strategies that take advantage of poor AI, and the game doesn't become a test how many cheap tactics you know or know how to counter.

 

But again, this is just my personal experience. If you don't agree that the tactics mentioned are cheap and kind of stupid, you'll obviously have a very different opinion of Stratagems. I also want to make it clear that I do agree that Eternity should have better AI than BG, if at all possible. Perhaps a Stratagems-like AI would be appropriate in a game harder to break than BG. Which, admittedly, is not a very high bar. But while something as smart as Stratagems might be appropriate, I sincerely hope that we don't get something that plays like Stratagems.

 

What is the 'smarter', non-cheap strategy you would have hoped to see for enemy mages if not skillful use of magical protection? They're glass cannons, by design, and can only survive for long enough to do damage with the right protection spells up. If anything is to blame on that front, it isn't SCS, but the AD&D 2nd edition ruleset.  

 

 

Well, more focus on the glass cannon-ness and less on becoming an unbreakable stone wall would've been nice. But honestly, I totally agree that they were played intelligently within the rule set, and that it was the rules' own fault that it wasn't fun when everyone was played at their smartest. Nonetheless, I didn't find the result enjoyable, and prefer to handicap myself rather than use SCS because I think it makes for a more interesting game. Hence, while I'm not necessarily opposed to AI as smart as SCS, I really don't want a game that plays like SCS.

[Ffordesoon]

As someone who's been making his way through BG (Enhanced Edition) for the very first time sans SCS, I feel I have an outsider's perspective on this issue.

 

To be honest with you, I started on Core Rules, tamped it down to Normal after a while, and finally switched to Novice. If I am not a bad enough dude for BG1, I can accept that, but since I am a bad enough dude for Dark Souls and any number of exceedingly complicated roguelikes, I feel like there is something wrong with BG1 difficulty-wise.

 

For me, someone who is not familiar with 2E rules whatsoever, the problem is that the game is a bad teacher of them. Spells and status effects in particular are so obtusely presented that it's impossible to know what to do about them before they occur, and even after.

 

What's more, the RNG has too much control. Saving throws are a fun mechanic in PnP, but in the context of a single player game, they're just boring. Is there any reason I should be caught in an AoE spell like Web or Entangle for as long as I am in BG? Sure, I can cast Dispel Magic, but I can still get my guys caught in the damn thing again, depending on their position.

 

In too many fights, the solution is either A) the one the designers want you to use despite failing to communicate that to you, or B) luck. I don't necessarily mind combat being a murder-puzzle, but I can't assemble a puzzle if I have no pieces.

 

I thought about installing SCS, since watching enemies act intelligently is one way to learn how to act intelligently yourself, but that still doesn't solve the fact that 2E's rules were never meant to work in a computer game. More intelligent enemies in a broken system doesn't fix the system, even if it helps you learn it.

 

And don't get me started on the amount of prebuffing you have to do.

 

I'm having more fun on Novice than I had on the previous two difficulty levels, and that doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

 

Still way better than DA:O, though.

[Hiro Protagonist II]

I found Stratagems to be the very definition of cheese. Especially when you change NPCs to do things they're not supposed to. In BG1, Yeslick can now use axes? Great. Re-introduce potions of Extra-healing? Wonderful. Move Boo to the backpack and give Minsc another quick slot even though he doesn't need it? Awesome.  Like pretty much all mods, when you try and balance something, all you do is unbalance it in another way.