Icewind Dale The Icewind Dale Series Thread

[IncendiaryDevice]

yeah, I always found the boss of HoW much easier than I was expecting as well. HoW I always found to be too topsy-turvy with regards to difficulty, in that it starts of incredibly difficult with the Drowned Dead and that uber-boss white bear/tiger/whatever-it-was and then gets gradually more and more easy as you progress. TotL was interesting but not really my bag, hence I usually just play the main game when I replay IWD.

 

[Sigourn]

yeah, I always found the boss of HoW much easier than I was expecting as well. HoW I always found to be too topsy-turvy with regards to difficulty, in that it starts of incredibly difficult with the Drowned Dead and that uber-boss white bear/tiger/whatever-it-was and then gets gradually more and more easy as you progress. TotL was interesting but not really my bag, hence I usually just play the main game when I replay IWD.

That white bear was really a bitch, it caught me completely off guard. Forgetting about difficulty for a minute, I think TotL was at its strongest during the first half, before you enter the castle. After that point it all goes to hell... both in the levels and in the difficulty, what with the Beholders, and those stupid shapeshifters at the lower caverns.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

I have so few lasting memories of TotL I can't even remember the Beholders and only vaguely recall the shapeshifters. My only strong memory is of the tedium of having my party split up in that maze-thing, which, IMO, goes against the point of IWD. That kind of shit goes with the program of the BG games, where your posse is constantly ripped apart and companions come and go like dicks at a brothel, but IWD is just supposed to be a tight knit team doing coordinated team encounters.

 

[Sigourn]

I'm back to the lower caverns of Trials of the Luremaster. I remember the higher level to be a pain in the ass, but this time it was much, much more manageable. I've only had to rest once (retreated to the slimes level), and that's because I decided to Hasten my party in the first Jackals encounter. After that, I didn't rest once. I simply stopped using Haste and fought all enemies with my Ranger meleeing (assisted by my Cleric) and with my Fighter and Thief using ranged weapons. Hardest encounter was around the lower right part of the map, where a few summoners appear alongside shamans. Lost three characters because of how retarded the pathfinding is in the game, but other than that it was smooth.

Now I'm tackling the last levels, which was a real bitch when it came to the harpies. I want to see how do I fare now.

EDIT: Wow. It took me only three tries to defeat the harpies. I went in unbuffed first to learn their tricks. Obviously I died. The second time I went in more buffed to see if I could beat them. Again, I died. The third time I went full buffs, fire protection in five of my characters, and only lost my Cleric. Moreover, compared to my last run of TotL, I didn't have to rely on retreating to the upper cavern to heal and instead destroyed all harpies on a single fight.

I hope this means I'm much better prepared to fight the Luremaster.

 

[Sigourn]

At last...

For my final encounter in Icewind Dale I went full autism and listed my useful defensive spells. I began to cast them all before facing the Luremaster, but because I casted Chant before a few others I was unable to continue casting my Cleric spells. So in I went, prepared to lose. Yet somehow, I took me only one serious attempt to win the fight: a first try, unbuffed, to see what I was up against. The second try, a total success. Only two dead party members: Yennefer (thief) who didn't have much health to begin with and I should have kept out of danger, and Shani (cleric) who was Chanting and thus had a reduced movement speed, even with Haste.

I prepared in advance to destroy the Dispell casting faggot by advancing my party to his position. As we decimated him, I had Triss (mage) run around the battlefield to disperse the enemies. Shani followed suit, alongside Jaskir (bard) and Yennefer (once her health got dangerously low). Meanwhile Geralt (ranger) and Zoltan (fighter) kept pummeling at the enemies. Soon enough I realize the fight was winnable and hoped nothing bad happened. Luckily the Luremaster never used his Lightning spell against me. After both Yennefer and Shani died, I grouped my party together so that Geralt protected Jaskir and Triss. I remembered Jaskir was no longer entirely useless thanks to his buffs, and gave him a bow and a few stacks of +2 arrows to help fight the heroes from a distance. Eventually they were all dead, and the Luremaster made his appearance. As you can see from the screenshots, my party was still hasted and it was just a matter of following the Luremaster around, disrupting his spells thanks to Zoltan and Jaskir's ranged attacks, while Geralt closed in for melee.

I can't believe I won the fight (in fact I just launched the game again to make sure the difficulty was set on Core rules). The Luremaster's speech is more powerful when I consider I lost to him many times in my previous run, and thus his words perfectly apply to my couple-of-months younger self. I will never forget you Luremaster.

I went back just to see if Hobart was still there. Appropiately, he was gone (I was hoping maybe I'd get a little speech or a "thank you" from him).

 

[Pequod]

I installed the EE version of IWD1.
Its fucking vile. I kid you not.
They have all these UI tweaks and all of it looks like utter fucking garbage holey shit.
By default, you get 32000 path nodes and it is not changeable ingame, only in some baldur.ini file. I shit you not - its a setting for a 450 Mhz average rig.
There is some kind of aliasing going on and the zoom is a literal zoom... The game runs at some set resolution and when you zoom, it feels like it just zooms in or out with some horrible algo like bilinear.........................
They changed the fonts! To some ugly ass shit. Journal and and Tab popups look like trash. The mouse over toolstips omfg...
And dont even get me started on the features...

Who buys these EE trashbags?

 

[Melcar]

I installed the EE version of IWD1.
Its fucking vile. I kid you not.
They have all these UI tweaks and all of it looks like utter fucking garbage holey shit.
By default, you get 32000 path nodes and it is not changeable ingame, only in some baldur.ini file. I shit you not - its a setting for a 450 Mhz average rig.
There is some kind of aliasing going on and the zoom is a literal zoom... The game runs at some set resolution and when you zoom, it feels like it just zooms in or out with some horrible algo like bilinear.........................
They changed the fonts! To some ugly ass shit. Journal and and Tab popups look like trash. The mouse over toolstips omfg...
And dont even get me started on the features...

Who buys these EE trashbags?

I bought IWD EE .

IWD EE is the only EE worth buying, if you are the kind that buys that sort of things.

 

[Pequod]

Hardware mouse is nice though...

 

[oldmanpaco]

I needed my Steam chivos.

 

[AwesomeButton]

I installed the EE version of IWD1.
Its fucking vile. I kid you not.
They have all these UI tweaks and all of it looks like utter fucking garbage holey shit.
By default, you get 32000 path nodes and it is not changeable ingame, only in some baldur.ini file. I shit you not - its a setting for a 450 Mhz average rig.
There is some kind of aliasing going on and the zoom is a literal zoom... The game runs at some set resolution and when you zoom, it feels like it just zooms in or out with some horrible algo like bilinear.........................
They changed the fonts! To some ugly ass shit. Journal and and Tab popups look like trash. The mouse over toolstips omfg...
And dont even get me started on the features...

Who buys these EE trashbags?

I only own the Complete edition, bought it on GOG while it was still available separately. I am curious to *try* out the EE just to see what will be the most broken OP party I can make, and use to breeze through the game.

 

[Parabalus]

I installed the EE version of IWD1.
Its fucking vile. I kid you not.
They have all these UI tweaks and all of it looks like utter fucking garbage holey shit.
By default, you get 32000 path nodes and it is not changeable ingame, only in some baldur.ini file. I shit you not - its a setting for a 450 Mhz average rig.
There is some kind of aliasing going on and the zoom is a literal zoom... The game runs at some set resolution and when you zoom, it feels like it just zooms in or out with some horrible algo like bilinear.........................
They changed the fonts! To some ugly ass shit. Journal and and Tab popups look like trash. The mouse over toolstips omfg...
And dont even get me started on the features...

Who buys these EE trashbags?

I only own the Complete edition, bought it on GOG while it was still available separately. I am curious to *try* out the EE just to see what will be the most broken OP party I can make, and use to breeze through the game.

If you make a (semi-)optimal party with the Bg2 options you can comfortably start on lvl 1 HoF, "normal" play is pointless but this is a worthwhile spin.

 

[agris]

I installed the EE version of IWD1.
Its fucking vile. I kid you not.
They have all these UI tweaks and all of it looks like utter fucking garbage holey shit.
By default, you get 32000 path nodes and it is not changeable ingame, only in some baldur.ini file. I shit you not - its a setting for a 450 Mhz average rig.
There is some kind of aliasing going on and the zoom is a literal zoom... The game runs at some set resolution and when you zoom, it feels like it just zooms in or out with some horrible algo like bilinear.........................
They changed the fonts! To some ugly ass shit. Journal and and Tab popups look like trash. The mouse over toolstips omfg...
And dont even get me started on the features...

Who buys these EE trashbags?

I only own the Complete edition, bought it on GOG while it was still available separately. I am curious to *try* out the EE just to see what will be the most broken OP party I can make, and use to breeze through the game.

If you make a (semi-)optimal party with the Bg2 options you can comfortably start on lvl 1 HoF, "normal" play is pointless but this is a worthwhile spin.

i.e BG2 kits can ruin the difficulty. Also, the EE's post v1.3 updates trash the interface, as Pequod mentioned.

 

[Pequod]

If you make a (semi-)optimal party with the Bg2 options you can comfortably start on lvl 1 HoF, "normal" play is pointless but this is a worthwhile spin.

Really? I just ran around in IWD1 a bit and on Insane the goblins instagib you... How do you fight level 10 monsters as a wet blanket?

 

[AwesomeButton]

He meant BG2 kits which are available in IWD:EE give you advantages for which the IWD encounters weren't balanced. Create a cheesed out triple-18 attributes party, give out overpowered BG2 kits in IWD:EE, and slice through combat encounters like a hot knife through butter. At least in theory. I haven't tried yet.

 

[Pequod]

But Heart of Fury is for a level 13 party?

 

[AwesomeButton]

Ah, I've never tried to start IWD directly from Heart of Winter. I don't know what level will the party begin from in that case. Is it from first?

 

[FeelTheRads]

If you make a (semi-)optimal party with the Bg2 options you can comfortably start on lvl 1 HoF, "normal" play is pointless but this is a worthwhile spin.

Really? I just ran around in IWD1 a bit and on Insane the goblins instagib you... How do you fight level 10 monsters as a wet blanket?

It's doable even in the original IWD.

Yeah, I always like to brag about that.

You just need to min-max and cheese it like an autist.

 

[Parabalus]

But Heart of Fury is for a level 13 party?

On paper yes.

If you make a (semi-)optimal party with the Bg2 options you can comfortably start on lvl 1 HoF, "normal" play is pointless but this is a worthwhile spin.

Really? I just ran around in IWD1 a bit and on Insane the goblins instagib you... How do you fight level 10 monsters as a wet blanket?

If you google you will find people soloing HoF with level 1 in "old" IWD. With 6 EE characters you don't need to engage in degeneracy and it makes for an enjoyable run.

Ah, I've never tried to start IWD directly from Heart of Winter. I don't know what level will the party begin from in that case. Is it from first?

Heart of Fury isn't Heart of Winter. It's the "new game+" mode.

 

[Pequod]

Now I confused myself.
Ok, so HoF is a difficultly rating. HoW is the expansion content for high level parties.
Parabalus, is HoW doable at level 1 or did you mean HoF, as written?

HoF is prolly not too bad. Composite bows do 2.5 attacks at level 1 and most of the enemies let you cheese them in different ways... (since there is no engagement like in poe keke)

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

Yes, vanilla IWD HoF is doable with a level 1 party. I did it a long time ago and AFAIR it takes some cheesing/reloading until you finish dragon's eye, then you're high level enough to go through the rest of the game as with core setting.

I don't think I ever tried HoW with a level 1 party. I always play IWD first (except for the final Easthaven trip of course).

 

[AwesomeButton]

I know Heart of Fury is the extra hard difficulty, but I thought Pequod was referring wrongly to HoF and means HoW xD

 

[Sceptic]

I always play IWD first (except for the final Easthaven trip of course).

I seem to remember there was some advantage reason to completely finish IWD then import your characters into a new game of HoW but I can't remembre why now. I vaguely remember it having to do with a weapon you pick up early in IWD, then get upgraded at the very end when returning to Easthaven, and that you can do something with in HoW? I could be wrong somewhere though, but I don't think there's anything "extra" like this that you'd get from doing HoW in the middle of IWD, and besides, anything left over from IWD (even if it's just Easthaven) after HoW becomes trivial, IIRC (I don't think their buffing the Belhifet fight makes much of a difference).

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

Yes, you can upgrade the sword of Aihonen in the Gloomfrost but there are better weapons to use so it's not that interesting unless you have multiple sword users in your party. As for playing the game like this it's because it's the only way to play the game in one go. First, finish TotL, then HoW and only then finish IWD. And yes sure, IWD final fight is pretty easy then.

 

[AwesomeButton]

First, finish TotL, then HoW and only then finish IWD

That's how I did it. I like being overleveled, as a reward for being a bit underleveled for a time.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Placing a note here regarding Icewind Dale 2 set up:

After installing the game and installing any mods - tweakpack, widescreen, etc., on windows 7 and above you still need to fix the fog of war and the game lagging.

The reason for this, as far as I was able to understand, is because IWD2 will always run non-accelerated mode. They never implemented 3D support for IWD2.

One suggested fix has been to delete your ddraw.dll from the game's main directory, but in my case this didn't do anything to solve the lag and fog of war problems.

I found and downloaded the latest version of DDrawCompat: https://github.com/narzoul/DDrawCompat/releases

Placing the ddraw.dll provided there fixed my issues with the fog of war and the lag. Now IWD2 runs and looks like any of the other IE games.