An arrogant project

Littiz · Post by **Littiz** » Wed Sep 24, 2003 4:26 am

Bioware was wrong.
We know, time constraints and all. But now it’s time for additional refinements and corrections!

I’m here to advertise and illustrate a bit the up-coming Refinements Mod, which is nearing release time (ok, we don’t have a hosting place yet, but things will move hopefully!

)
This project started when I offered to translate in a WeiDU form some of the material T.G.Maestro was producing for his personal use. Of course things are evolved a bit since then (though TGM remains the main “producer” of ideas!).
The first aim of the mod is to provide completely new and fitting HLA tables, specific for each class, and in some cases, for each kit. Old abilities and newly created ones will be used to give each class a truly unique role in the BG2 environment.
But examples are better to explain my meaning.

Fighters will become the only masters of fighting. In original BG2 there is no real reason to play a fighter, since their only advantage over the other classes (GrandMastery) was seriously nerfed, and their High Level Abilities are shared with almost everyone.
We don’t provide the GrandMastery fix, and the fighter table is the only one that’ll remain unchanged, but now Barbarians, Rangers and Paladins will lose some of the most advanced fighting techniques (as Greater Whirlwinds) and will gain new class specific ones:
Barbarians will get Greater War Cry, Hardened Skin, Tireless Rage.
Paladins will get Holy Purge, Exorcism, Righteous Magic...
Or if we want to speak about the other classes, Druids will get Nature’s Wrath, Volcano, Tranquility, and refined versions of the existing ones.
Monks will have truly “monkish” abilities this time, no more “Dragon Breath – like” or other magical effects as it has been seen in other mods.
And so on, up to specific tables for some kits. Rogue tables will be *heavily* modified, but this is not the moment to talk about that...

The second almost ready component is the Sword Angel Kit, a fighter similar to the Kensai somehow, but... different. Among the other things, it has a new kit ability (Spiritual Harmony), and will get its specific HLA table (of course!).

Other components are already planned, mostly involving game balance, but everything that’s cool, stylish, and fitting is in the scope of this mod.
Hope someone will be interested, as we might use even a testing phase...

adventurerkilly · Post by **adventurerkilly** » Wed Sep 24, 2003 4:30 am

You bet that sounds kewl! That project is very promising!

I'm especially glad you fix the monk, cauze in the original game he's just a very strong fighter after all... I mean, look at Balthasar - THAT is a monk. And I'm also highly interested in the Angel kit.... Oh, and it's very right to prevent paladins from whirling.

Perroxx · Post by **Perroxx** » Wed Sep 24, 2003 5:56 am

That's great! Sounds like something worth waiting for... any idea of how big it'll be?

nephtu · Post by **nephtu** » Wed Sep 24, 2003 9:28 am

Cool!

Good luck on getting it working!

That HLA pattern has always sort of bugged me, too.

Ron_Lugge · Post by **Ron_Lugge** » Wed Sep 24, 2003 6:08 pm

As far as the new monk abilities go, have you looked at the improved monk abilities part of the (I think) ease-of-use mod? Or maybe it was another one... I like most of those abilities (The dimension door based one kinda sucked though).

UserUnfriendly · Post by **UserUnfriendly** » Wed Sep 24, 2003 11:28 pm

hey...this would make multiclassing much more attractive...

dual classing gives you the ability to pick a kit...with the fighter class the only class to get grandmastery, fighter mages look a lot more attractive...

Great sounding project...looks killer!!!

great going, buddy!!!

Littiz · Post by **Littiz** » Thu Sep 25, 2003 2:28 am

Thx all for the interest!

About Monks: there are already 2 tables out there. One is in Kish's Oversight mod. Those are basically a straight copy of Balthazar's abilities. Very good if you like them, and more for the powergamer.
But stances are somewhat magical, so we prefer to leave them as a special feature of Balthazar only.
Then there's the table that came out with the Kiara-Zaiya Mod.
Those *are* TGM's abilities, but the author of the mod wanted to re-insert stances again, and those are even tweaked and made more "magical" than they already were.
TGM wasn't happy about this, this time the table will be as intended, and with one or two revisions and new additions

@adventurerkilly: Paladins will still have lesser whirlwinds, penalties to Thac0 and damage should be enough, we think. But they'll lose also the two deathblows.
I'm currently working on the Kit's HLA table, I really hope you'll like it!

@Perrox: well version 0.8 on my drive is about 300k

It'll grow but nothing scaring.

@User: it's not a mod for powergaming, but I bet you'd have plenty of new combos to discover

Rav · Post by **Rav** » Fri Sep 26, 2003 6:03 am

What kind of Abilities did Balthasar have? (I killed him far too quickly to see any of them

)

Rav

IHateUsernames · Post by **IHateUsernames** » Fri Sep 26, 2003 3:38 pm

Originally said by Homer Simpson
Whoho

Now I might even play a fighter.

And looking forward to hear more about mahe and rouge (guess wich classes i play the most

)

Littiz · Post by **Littiz** » Sat Sep 27, 2003 2:00 am

Definetely I’m not the monks expert, anyway Balthazar has abilities like Tiger Strike, Dragon Fist, Shadowless Kick, Faster than the Eye, Solar and Lunar Stance. Many have multiple effects, like simple damage, removed protections and so. Lunar Stance gives many Immunities, Time Stop included. This is *highly* unbalancing for players, since enemy mages will always act as if party members were frozen, their scripts aren’t ready to that option. Well, you can gain Time Stop immunity in Ascension, but there it is handled correctly.

Mages: they’ re powerful, but their table is weird. They run out of picks fast, since they can’t do multiple selections, and the spells they get are all in competition for 9 level slots! In practice they gain “fewer” abilities compared to other classes. ATM the mod just adds 2 spells and 2 (mutually exclusive) special abilities.
It shouldn’t be unbalancing as mages will still use slots for Alacrity and the like, but at least players will have some more picks for fun and spells to try.
But I just had a new idea which I’ll have to discuss...

Rogues, well... we expect ... “opposition”, indeed.
We’ll remove UAI as an option for thieves, and leave it only to bards. UAI is the most cheesy ability, and what is worse, it is *implemented* in an even cheesier way.
At least, bards have *some* reasons to gain it, being jacks of all trades, having high lore and all. And finally, even bards will have some unique reasons to be played!

That, and they have a minor “cheese potential” compared to thieves with UAI: I’m mostly thinking about dualclassing abuses. We don’t want to “punish” legitimate combos like the Wizardslayer/Thief, just remove things that have no reason to be there. TGM wanted to grant thieves the traditional Use Scrolls ability, but despite the help we’ve asked and the tricks we’ve tried, some rules seem too much hardcoded to do something about it.
Anyway thieves will be compensated with more fitting abilities for each kit. These are the intentions, that is

Kaitsuburi · Post by **Kaitsuburi** » Fri Oct 10, 2003 6:29 am

@Littiz, this Refinement Mod sounds very intriguing; I can't wait to try it out

Is it going to be WeiDU? I was also wondering, does the project have a homepage?

Thanks!

-Kaitsuburi

Littiz · Post by **Littiz** » Mon Oct 13, 2003 2:13 am

Originally posted by Kaitsuburi

Is it going to be WeiDU? I was also wondering, does the project have a homepage?

WeiDU is mandatory!
We're also "coordinating" with the author of the Rogue Rebalancing Mod, to ensure a form of compatibility even with that. Actually we have to receive some material from him, some HLAs will be probably shared

We've been offered a hosting place for the mod and a forum, but we're waiting to have at least version 1.0 (BETA) ready, right now we're around 0.9.
I'm spending much "coding time" on the table for the Kit, at first I didn't plan such a deep work with that, but now I can't stop

Kaitsuburi · Post by **Kaitsuburi** » Mon Oct 13, 2003 11:31 am

Originally posted by Littiz
I'm spending much "coding time" on the table for the Kit, at first I didn't plan such a deep work with that, but now I can't stop

Wow, sure is very detailed work! Thanks for the reply and good luck!! Standing by for updates

-kaitsuburi

Littiz · Post by **Littiz** » Tue Oct 14, 2003 12:42 pm

Take my word, in some cases is more a matter of OBSESSIONS

Thanks for the reply

you kidding, thanx to you for reading this!

Littiz · Post by **Littiz** » Thu Nov 06, 2003 1:12 pm

Obviously the Modder's Curse hit us as well... Lot of delays here!
Since some of you showed a bit of interest, allow me to explain what's happening

T.G.Maestro came up with a load of cool ideas, so now the main goal is: unique HLA tables for each class AND each kit in the game! This means, for example, that Specialist Mages will have each a specific 10th level spell.
Several liftings to the kit: ok it's a biased opinion, but it' s a little masterpiece by now, and its HLA table rocks!!
Very *stubborn* work on my side, at last I found a way to code totally custom item restrictions (while it seemed only possible to use combinations of the existing "restriction sets": true, but it can be exploited). This was needed to give more deepness and life to the character, I think.
As a result I had an idea to use a "reversed" version of the trick to code Use Scrolls for thieves.
Seeing the amount of code needed I don't know if I'd do it again, but now it's in
So: Use Scrolls for thieves and Use Any Items left to bards.
Jan will lose UAI, but as an Illusionist, he'll gain a new and powerful spell
Visual Effects: so far we've used mainly combinations of the existing ones, you'd find that with the right timings you can obtain pretty impressive results (and it's certainly no less than what already happens in the original game, where many effects are used for different spells).
BUT, turned out that there were even many effects left there and never used, some of them are very cool! When fitting, we'll include them.
Icons: I considered this the "weak point" of the mod, but with my surprise, TGM created a very cool new icon for a clerical spell. The mistake of his life, now I'll *force* him to create ALL the icons we need!
There were also a dozen unused in the game, anyway.

All in all I think the final result should be worth the delays. I hope.
Well, until we start searching for BUGS

Luis Antonio · Post by **Luis Antonio** » Thu Nov 06, 2003 1:26 pm

IMHO

Well, I like to play as a Barbarian Char, so, if you could place an Improved Barbarian Rage (perhaps raising even more his habilities) will be cool.
And, for the Bard, perhaps a unique hla, but as a spell. Like, "HellRaiser Bardsong" wich will increase all party stats and try to confuse and kill all enemies with lower levels...
But I really would ask you something to balance the game:
Make druids more powerfull (to play with them solo AND no multiclass).

Thanks!!!
And, wow, your add on will just be strong... congratulations

Harbinger · Post by **Harbinger** » Fri Nov 07, 2003 3:04 am

Question Littiz: Do you anticipate any glaring compatibility issues with existing mods? I like the fresh ideas, but I cant help wondering how friendly it will be with the many mods I have installed.

Littiz · Post by **Littiz** » Fri Nov 07, 2003 10:17 am

so, if you could place an Improved Barbarian Rage

Already in, named Tireless Rage

About bards: I don't know what will happen in the end, since we'll also include some of the abilities created by aVENGER for his Rogue Rebalancing Mod (he just released version 3.00, check it out!)

Make druids more powerfull (to play with them solo AND no multiclass).

That'd require a Total Conversion

I think they've improved quite a lot, but don't expect overpowered spells, as a general rule.
Druids so far are entirely TGM's work, and I am a powergamer compared to TGM

Compatibility: We'll test in time, but I'm sure most will work just fine.
I don't foresee problems with NPC mods, or popular mods like Tactics.
I can say though that it won't be compatible with TDD, but then again, that one is hardly compatible with anything...

I'll be forced to ask something about the order of installation, though.
Example: if you wanted to try the Sword Angel Kit, then this component should be installed after Item Upgrade or the Ruad pack, if you use them. I need WeiDU to see which items are present and perform the necessary actions, otherwise some items would result as USABLE by the Kit, while they shouldn't.
Another little annoying issue is the following: other fan-made kits (like Weimer's Antipaladin) should be installed *AFTER* Refinements, as they won't be preserved by our installation.
This is due to a current limit of WeiDU, Weimer couldn't know that someone would need to add "shadow" kits intended to be referenced by script (they're totally invisible kits and don't even consume slots).
WeiDU's commands at the moment are inadequate to allow the settings for such scripts to be placed "on the fly".
I've requested a little additional feature to Wes to solve this, but right now he's not responding to anyone as he's busy with his doctorate.
If he adds this feature in the future, I **might** even do a version compatible with TDD after all, but I'm not sure, I don't really know that mod.