Icewind Dale The Icewind Dale Series Thread

[cretin]

The mod is p. cool. It adds a ton of options, some make the game easier, some make it harder, depending on your preferences. The one option that I definitely would NOT recommend under ANY circumstances is the one that adds DR to armor. I found that it made the game impossible to enjoy because now everyone has DR and fights would take forever. I had to reinstall the game in order to get rid of it. I don't know if the feature could have been remove otherwise? Other than that everything runs great. I'd install the mod just for the improved loading times alone. I also really like the new spells that they added. They even added the fly spell, although I'm not that high enough level to use have access to it just yet, but I can't wait to try it out.

I'm undecided on DR so far. Haven't played enough to see if its a drag yet, but on paper I like it a lot and I feel it sidesteps some of the problems 3.x has re armor utility vs other AC sources.

It definitely prolongs fights, I'm waiting to see what kind of DR bypass tools you get (if any), but I suspect it will become a game of prioritizing big hits over hitting more often.

 

[cretin]

ok AoOs might be a little jank. I just had a situation where my wizard moved away from a orc shaman and casted magic missile, shaman rolled a successful AoO and killed my wizard, thing was, the gap between them was huge. So either there was a bit of lag time on the initial AoO as I moved away or it procced an AoO when i cast despite a large gap.

 

[cretin]

Grapple: looks janky, but fun as hell

Zombie was insistently pursuing my squishies even with paladin attempting to intercept, solution: get the barbarian to grab him by his skull and literally drag him away.

 

[e-mailio estevez]

Personally got enough of the trash fights right after clearing that frozen aquarium from frost salamanders. Somewhere after the Severed Hand.
See little point to continue playing if you don't find the game fun anymore.

If we're talking IWD1 I kinda like that part, actually. Last time I played through it I had a gnome fighter/illusionist with absurd AC that basically nothing could touch as my primary tank. The salamanders persistent AOE ice damage aura had been the first encounter that put a hurt on him in awhile-- even if it was just 1 or 2 points of damage at a time. I was trying to clear out the aquarium without resting but the aura damage from their high numbers really started to add up after awhile and they were winning the attrition game. Ended up having to load from an earlier save and reorganize the spellbook.

 

[octavius]

Tthe frozen aquarium is one place where buffing with a Haste spell is a good idea.

 

[Dorateen]

I recall going around with a thief in shadows and backstabbing the salamanders, taking them out one by one.

 

[Average Manatee]

10x web + one hasted character with freedom of movement to aggro the whole map, then spam fireball.

 

[Jvegi]

10x web + one hasted character with freedom of movement to aggro the whole map, then spam fireball.

Or you could be having fun.

 

[NecroLord]

Grapple: looks janky, but fun as hell

Zombie was insistently pursuing my squishies even with paladin attempting to intercept, solution: get the barbarian to grab him by his skull and literally drag him away.

Does grapple actually stop them in their tracks?

 

[cretin]

Grapple: looks janky, but fun as hell

Zombie was insistently pursuing my squishies even with paladin attempting to intercept, solution: get the barbarian to grab him by his skull and literally drag him away.

Does grapple actually stop them in their tracks?

successful grapple yes. You can literally drag them away with movement.

 

[Yuber]

I finished the PS4 Version of ID1 recently but was unable to play the addon thanks to a bug after the opening scene -.-"
Wrote to developer but they don't believe me.

 

[Gandalf]

I finished the PS4 Version of ID1 recently but was unable to play the addon thanks to a bug after the opening scene -.-"
Wrote to developer but they don't believe me.

Have you provided them any evidence of the bug, for example a video showing the bug?

 

[Yuber]

I finished the PS4 Version of ID1 recently but was unable to play the addon thanks to a bug after the opening scene -.-"
Wrote to developer but they don't believe me.

Have you provided them any evidence of the bug, for example a video showing the bug?

No because I already deleted the game in rage. Too lazy to install again and I wonder if they would actually fix it.
The UI is gone and I can't move after the guy walks away.

 

[Nano]

I finished the PS4 Version of ID1 recently but was unable to play the addon thanks to a bug after the opening scene -.-"
Wrote to developer but they don't believe me.

You deserve it for willingly cucking yourself by being a consoletard.

 

[Brancaleone]

Y'all, apparently new v35 of Sword Coast Stratagems now has "(Provisional, experimental, partial) support for Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition" (haven't tested it yet):

https://gibberlings3.github.io/Documentation/readmes/readme-stratagems.html#version

 

[cretin]

Y'all, apparently new v35 of Sword Coast Stratagems now has "(Provisional, experimental, partial) support for Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition" (haven't tested it yet):

https://gibberlings3.github.io/Documentation/readmes/readme-stratagems.html#version

Very long time coming.

I suspect the call for help scripts component would be the jankiest thing - much of IWD's encounters being designed around ambushes I hope hes done something to stop situations where enemies arent called from ambush positions to help some jobbers not get jobbed on.

 

[Brancaleone]

Y'all, apparently new v35 of Sword Coast Stratagems now has "(Provisional, experimental, partial) support for Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition" (haven't tested it yet):

https://gibberlings3.github.io/Documentation/readmes/readme-stratagems.html#version

Very long time coming.

I suspect the call for help scripts component would be the jankiest thing - much of IWD's encounters being designed around ambushes I hope hes done something to stop situations where enemies arent called from ambush positions to help some jobbers not get jobbed on.

I'm quite optimistic about it, David Wallace modelled his SCS component 'calls for help' straight from IWD, and IWD EE is basically his and CamDawg's 'IWD in BG2' conversion which they had almost finished, and they decided to give Beamdog for free. He should know how to make it work properly.

 

[Brancaleone]

Ok, mod seems to work.

My problem now is, I cannot seem to disable all of the rotten filters of IWD:EE (there's always at least one on, if I set the original 640 x 480 resolution in a window, it still gets filtered). I've already tried disabling DPI scaling, changing the resolution/fullscreen in the Baldur.lua config file, and playing with the Use Nearest Neighbour Scaling option (which graciously allows you to choose between two flavours of shitty smudginess).

Anyone knows how to fix this?

 

[Taim]

Thinking of firing up IWD1 again for the first time in...a decade? Maybe more.

This thread is hard to parse - should I go for IWD1 or the Enhanced Edition?
I will not use kits as I hear they destroy the balance of the game. IIRC the game is easy enough as it is.
BG1EE sucked without a shitton of mods to fix things

• UI
• Weapon Proficiencies
• Movies
• Paperdolls
• Pause on Inventory
• And spells, unfortunately, couldn't really be fixed. Entangle sucks now. Sleep is OP.

Fortunately mods existed for BG1EE to fix all of the above issues except for spells - and with those mods I found it to be mostly a better experience than the original engine.

BG2EE was "much better" (i.e. all you really needed was to remove the new NPCs) because it was the same engine.

I hear the IWDEE is better but that is a low bar and I have no idea how much has changed in it. It's not the BG2 engine so I'm skeptical.

There was a ton of stuff that was different in IWD, including sound effects, spells, weapon proficiencies, and all of Sawyer's changes to things in HoW (making bards good, for instance). Is all of that actually accounted for or is this also "lets just shove IWD into the BG2 engine with no regard for how that changes things" like BG1 did.

Is the UI nice? IWD1 had the best looking by far out of BG1,BG2,and IWD1. PST and IWD2 aren't in the running as they are quite different stylistically.

So why wouldn't I just use IWD1? Good question:

• Zoom is nice
• Auto loot
• Inventory management stuff is baked in - no more stacks of 20 arrows
• widescreen support out of the box
• Also i remember installing IWD1 a year ago with 800x600 with nearest neighbor scaling but wasn't working super great
• The moddable UI can lead to better UI's than even the originals (there's a really good one for BG1 that emulated and surpassed the original stone ui)

Again - my goal here is to keep the game as hard as it can be - ideally maintaining the original experience as much as possible.

EDIT: It might be as simple as just getting this question answered: Does IWD1EE use IWD1 proficiencies or BG2 ones?

EDIT2: Just checked - it uses BG2 proficiencies. Jesus christ why the fuck is it so hard to not shove BG2 into every IE "remaster"? This can be fixed easily enough with a tweak packs component but goddamn man.

 

[Hagashager]

I'm currently replaying IWD original (non-EE) right now. There  are certain UI, visual and balance aspects to original IWD, but it's hard to go back to with the QoL features of EE. I played both original and EE previously.

If you play EE without kits, the game is functionally the same...sort of.

It's on the BG2EE engine, so some quirks of BG2EE bleed through.

I am very interested in trying the SCS IWD version however.

 

[Taim]

I'm giving IWD original a shot.

1152 x 648 with integer scaling seems like it's working pretty well on my 1440p display.

 

[cretin]

Taim

IWD o.g is great but it will still require mods to fix obnoxious bugs left uncared for by the developers, such as the wrong weapon and armor hit sounds in the final version.

I think IWDEE would be worth trying purely for the new SCS support. I imagine that makes the BG2 kits and such less overpowered, especially since those very kits are also distributed to NPCs (iirc)

 

[Squidhead]

People can shit on Beamdog all they want but I think they did a pretty good job with all the enhanced editions (Neverwinter still being worked on to this day). Icewind Dale with cloud saves and zooming was all I needed to be convinced. Oh and scoring it for less than 5 bucks (I think it was a buck at one point during a humble bundle)

 

[Hagashager]

Taim

IWD o.g is great but it will still require mods to fix obnoxious bugs left uncared for by the developers, such as the wrong weapon and armor hit sounds in the final version.

I think IWDEE would be worth trying purely for the new SCS support. I imagine that makes the BG2 kits and such less overpowered, especially since those very kits are also distributed to NPCs (iirc)

As far as I know, the SCS component only improves AI, it does not add kits to enemies.

That said, AI improvements can make a huge difference. Evwn with smarter mages/clerics the kits may be more justified.

 

[Krivol]

I haven't played it for a (long) while but - IIRC - kits (so lack of balance) are the only (yet a big one) problem with ID EE. If you stick away from kits you will be fine.