Icewind Dale The Icewind Dale Series Thread

[NecroLord]

What IWD games could've used was more spells.
The spell selection is quite lacking, especially the high spell levels.

The EE added more spells, but then you get people who are extremely butthurt that Time Stop was added at a higher level.

Well, it is a 9 level spell.
Must be at least level 18 Mage to cast it in 2E and at least level 17 in 3E and 3.5.

 

[Lambach]

What IWD games could've used was more spells.
The spell selection is quite lacking, especially the high spell levels.

What IWD games could've used was actual encounter design, not just "throw 60000000 gorillion disposable retarded trash mobs at the player and call it a day" design. It's just garbage, through and through.

 

[Jigby]

What IWD games could've used was more spells.
The spell selection is quite lacking, especially the high spell levels.

What IWD games could've used was actual encounter design, not just "throw 60000000 gorillion disposable retarded trash mobs at the player and call it a day" design. It's just garbage, through and through.

You can always install Tactics. At least for 2. No idea where the mod scene is with Beamdog iwd1ee.

 

[Jvegi]

What IWD games could've used was actual encounter design

IWD1 has better encounter design than bg1, and it's not even close in any way.

 

[octavius]

What Arcanum could've used was actual encounter design, not just "throw 60000000 gorillion disposable retarded trash mobs at the player and call it a day" design. It's just garbage, through and through.

FTFY.

 

[octavius]

What IWD games could've used was actual encounter design

IWD1 has better encounter design than bg1, and it's not even close in any way.

IWD1 has better large battles, but BG1 has better boss fights. BG1 also has SCS.

 

[Modron]

IWD1 has better encounter design than bg1, and it's not even close in any way.

Walk two steps triggering a crap ton of trash mobs then walk two more steps to melee a disengaged enemy and trigger the next batch repeated for the next 30 minutes: "yo dawg, this gameplay is fire."

 

[Jvegi]

It's been a couple of years, but one thing I remember from IWD is the difficulty that comes from having to navigate your party in those large battles with actual environments influencing your tactics. It's not just corridors and open spaces. I remember being impressed by how varied the terrain was. The same applies to IWD2 which has absolutely amazing combat, but is buried under a huge amount of issues.

I should play the game again, but that is what I remember. I am, however, playing through BG1 with SCS turned all the way up, and it's not impressive at all. Some battles are very good, but it's not even close to BG2 and ToB SCS.

 

[Modron]

The EE added more spells, but then you get people who are extremely butthurt that Time Stop was added at a higher level.

It's not like you would even reach level 18 in IWD2 to see those spells without cheesing the enemy xp scaling by not leveling up or bringing a couple level 1 guys along with you to keep the party CR/average level down.

 

[agris]

proto-Obsidian wasn’t any better at encounter design than Obsidian proper. Whereas BioWare did a decent job of creating set pieces, (proto)Obsidian did the lazy zerg style of encounter design - if you can even call it design.

It’s a 25 year weakness that they’ve never been able to shake.

 

[Sunri]

booba

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

booba

 

[Butter]

What IWD games could've used was actual encounter design

IWD1 has better encounter design than bg1, and it's not even close in any way.

Better than BG1 is a really low bar.

 

[Jigby]

IWD2:EE is out -> https://github.com/RedChimera/IWD2EE
Some useful engine-level QoL>

• Load times are much faster.
• IWD2EE includes built-in widescreen compatibility, making the Widescreen Mod unnecessary. DO NOT INSTALL THE WIDESCREEN MOD WITH IWD2EE; IT WILL CRASH THE GAME. When you start IWD2EE, a menu opens that lets you set the game to a higher resolution.
• IWD2EE includes a ddraw fix unless you already had one installed. This should improve performance unless you already had a ddraw fix.
• Scrolling the screen should be smoother on some devices.
• It is possible to scroll with the middle mouse button.
• Right-clicking the inventory button opens the quickloot menu.
• Right-clicking a spell or innate ability on the actionbar brings up its description (though most innate abilities don't have descriptions unless Class Revisions is installed).
• You can now go through dialogue as fast as you want; there's no longer a brief delay each time you choose a dialogue option.
• The character record screen includes a Reform Party button.
• The options screen includes a button to access the IEex Options menu (currently it includes an option to alter the fog of war so that it doesn't flicker, if you were having problems with it flickering).
• If you do not have the vanilla option to rest until healed enabled, characters heal a number of HP equal to their level on rest, rather than only healing 1 HP.
• As long as you have the console enabled in IWD2's normal config menu, cheat keys will be enabled automatically without needing to enter a command.
• For modders, IWD2EE includes several new opcodes, and offers the ability to run Lua code in-game via the console or various hooks (and some of the new opcodes can call custom Lua functions), as well as a limited ability to modify the GUI. This opens up many possibilities for modding.

 

[Jvegi]

I really hope it works. There's a tone of space to fuck things up with such a broad modification, but the base game is a mess already. If they pulled it off, this could become amazing.

I'll play it today. It better not be an amateurish design fiesta.

 

[NecroLord]

It better not be an amateurish design fiesta.

Prepare for goblin, orcs and ogre massacres, one after another.
Combat, LOTS of combat.
Try and make a "balanced" party, you know, healer, tank, rogue, caster, the usual.
Game is great and a fun D&D romp.

 

[Lagole Gon]

IWD2 does have some very good combat encounters.
But it also has some of the worst trash mobs. In large quantities.

 

[Jigby]

I only used the engine enhancements and played it with Tactics4IWD. The fast load times and smooth scrolling is worth it

 

[NecroLord]

IWD2 does have some very good encounter design.
It just happens to also have some of the worst trash mobs. In large quantities.

That's why you cast Sleep on them.
The rest can be dealt with just fine, not too difficult.
Besides, one has to gain the favor of Tempus, and what better way than by fighting hard?

 

[Jvegi]

It better not be an amateurish design fiesta.

Prepare for goblin, orcs and ogre massacres, one after another.
Combat, LOTS of combat.
Try and make a "balanced" party, you know, healer, tank, rogue, caster, the usual.
Game is great and a fun D&D romp.

I have played the game before.

Duh.

 

[agris]

Does the EE convert it to the superior 2e rule set?

 

[cretin]

Had a great time with IWD1 right up until severed hand, which feels like a slap in the face. Shadow orcs and shadow skeletons, seriously? This is a glorified palette swap, the only way it could be more egregious is if the enemies were bright red instead of shaded.

Currently my save has been sitting untouched for weeks. I'm not sure whether its worth continuing, because up until this point I would've given it a glowing review, particularly the lower levels of the dragon's eye where i refused to abuse rest and the encounters and lack of resupply forced me to utilize a great variety of tactics to overcome, in complete contrast to what people usually meme about the infinity engine's simple combat. At one point I was using my ranger like a tactical shooter, having to pie off corners to engage yuan ti elite rangers one at a time and then having to fall back to the rest of my men to ambush the melees with the few crowd control spells we had left. Fantastic. Then, all of the sudden, I get the dogshit that is severed hand, complete nosedive in pacing and quality.

Worth continuing or have I met the peak of this game?

 

[Modron]

I don't know I kind of felt like The Severed Hand was the peak of IWD 1 finally an area without excessive amounts of trash mobs, ghosts to talk to, more environmental interaction than other areas, lore to read, et cetera; sure it was all indoors, dark, and circular so not as pretty as other parts of the game but it just felt like if they put some of the design effort displayed in the hand everywhere else in the game those areas would have been more memorable and not just pretty areas you had to grind through to get to the otherside.

I honestly don't even remember much after the Hand, one pretty ice area I have vague recollections of. But it was certainly back to the style of everything before it so you should probably continue on.

 

[octavius]

I thought the Severed Hand was great. There is an in-game reason for the shadow monsters, and it's probably the part of the game with the most interesting large scale battles.
Definitely worth continuing.

 

[Devastator]

Had a great time with IWD1 right up until severed hand, which feels like a slap in the face. Shadow orcs and shadow skeletons, seriously? This is a glorified palette swap, the only way it could be more egregious is if the enemies were bright red instead of shaded.

Currently my save has been sitting untouched for weeks. I'm not sure whether its worth continuing, because up until this point I would've given it a glowing review, particularly the lower levels of the dragon's eye where i refused to abuse rest and the encounters and lack of resupply forced me to utilize a great variety of tactics to overcome, in complete contrast to what people usually meme about the infinity engine's simple combat. At one point I was using my ranger like a tactical shooter, having to pie off corners to engage yuan ti elite rangers one at a time and then having to fall back to the rest of my men to ambush the melees with the few crowd control spells we had left. Fantastic. Then, all of the sudden, I get the dogshit that is severed hand, complete nosedive in pacing and quality.

Worth continuing or have I met the peak of this game?

My memory of IWD1 is pretty fuzzy, but I think it's worth continuing, as I don't believe that the Severed Hand was the peak of the game. Of course, this is subjective, but I believe that Wyrm's Tooth and Dorn's Deep are better environments. I'm not a big fan of IWD; I played it twice, including the DLC, and will probably never play it again. The trash mob design gets mind-numbingly boring, and creating an entire party has little appeal to me, as there is no banter. But it is still far better than IWD2.