Tactics Mod - Incredible Difficulty

[Kefka1983]

I am using the Tactics mod that makes encounters/battles more difficult and require more though, but I didn't know it would make them so hard that there is little chance of survival.

The intro battle against Ilasera is so hard now that my paladin dies in a few hits, I have no chance. Is this really a bad mod to use due to unbalanced difficulty or am I missing something? Thank you.

[Edar Macilrille]

Many people here complain about the Tactics Mod, and it is difficult indeed (you have much worse ahead than the intro battle if you solo all through, if you get a party, the other battles will probably be about as difficult as intro battle is alone...).

I would say that the intro battle if you start ToB as first with no SoA is very hard to beat. Otherwise I think Abisigal and Sendai are percieved as worst- and The Eclipse Ritual as Insane, though my own two most challenging has been Pontifex and Abisigal. In SoA the Improved Illyich is really bad as you actually have no weapons that can harm those allies he has (at least that is my experience, I never beat that without cheese), as is Improved Faldorn (had to have my allies hand me my Katanas before my Kensai/Thief/Mage could beat her- multiple Strongholds makes it impossible to just have Cernd fight it for you) and Kaangax... let us not go there at all...

I like Tactics, but I have yet to actually beat *all* of it with no Cheese, with Illyich you need weapons you do not posses (Shadowkeeper FTW).

Some say that Weimer has used cheese in the Mod as well, I cannot comment on that as I do not know the Game Engine or AD & D rules well enough to comment on that, but that is the quibble many people have with it.


Speaking of which, I just had a Pit Fiend in the SOA Amunator Dungeon do 750 hits to Anomen in one action (dunno how, it did 13 the attack before), 750 hits at once is a bit over the top methinks as Anomen is Lvl 14...


-------------------POSSIBLE SPOILER-------------------------

With The Eclipse Ritual my quibble is the same as with many other encounters in the game- only worse, the AI can react before you. Normally that is not really a problem, as you have the possibility to prepare, IE you *know* that the room you are about to enter is full of nefarious villains, so you can take your potions, cast protective spells, hang a few offensive ones, etc. Thus it evens out, but in The Eclipse Ritual that is simply not possible as you never know when it happens, and before you can react the AI has half yout party stunned by attacks while the Game Engine still refuses to acknowledge any keyboard and mouse input you try to give. Your input has second priority and is by necessity slower than the AI.

I think this is at the root of many complaints about the difficulty of Tactics, especially The Eclipse.

[Revi]

Many of the enemies in Tactics cast infinite spells, and have more hit-points, lower AC and such than they would have according to pen & paper AD&D. That's what people refer to when they say the enemies in Tactics use 'cheese,' I think.

If you're looking for a mod that improved enemy AI and makes boss-fights a little harder, there are other mods around which employ no such 'cheats.' Look for them on Gibberlings Three, Spellhold Studios or Pocket Plane Group, for example.

That said, I believe Westley Weimer has developed Tactics, and his many other excellent mods, purely out of love for the game. All the fights can be beaten without extreme use of cheese (to be honest, the way he's improved the AI of bosses, there isn't much room left for cheese).

Two things I can think of which might especially help if you have trouble beating a Weimer-improved encounter:

1: Use all the resources at your disposal. The fights are balanced for you to use pretty much every wand, scroll and potion at your disposal.

2: Bring people who can buff up your group, and strip away protections from your enemies.

[Thrifalas]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kefka1983 I am using the Tactics mod that makes encounters/battles more difficult and require more though, but I didn't know it would make them so hard that there is little chance of survival. The intro battle against Ilasera is so hard now that my paladin dies in a few hits, I have no chance. Is this really a bad mod to use due to unbalanced difficulty or am I missing something? Thank you.

Illasera is, afaik, unnafected by the Tactics mod. Do you mean Ascension? Those are two fairly different mods, although both increases the difficulty level immensely.

The Ascension Illasera is a worthy member of the Five, as opposed to her stupid vanilla version. I can't recall trying, but beating her with a solo directly-created ToB character sounds almost impossible to me. With a self-created party or a party imported from SoA it's a fairly easy battle as her allies are pushovers, but yeah, I think you need a party on this one. Or a powered SoA-character.

Tactics/Ascension makes battle so hard that they are nearly impossible before you have figured out them. The first time I tried Eclipse or Ascension final battle I had to facepalm and go "come OOOON, you can't be serious," but in the end they just proved to be very, very epic battles.

Besides, the vanilla game really is too easy after a while.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Edar Macilrille I like Tactics, but I have yet to actually beat *all* of it with no Cheese, with Illyich you need weapons you do not posses (Shadowkeeper FTW).

You get a +2 weapon in the fight itself, you just need to know who to kill in what order and equip the weapon in-fight. It's a neat trick that I think that more battle could've used as an interesting quirk.

[Edar Macilrille]

A neat trick indeed, and I seem to recall feeling very smug first time I did it. But getting to him and killing him, then killing the two? Three others that requires magical weapons to hit them is still exceedingly hard.

I like Tactics, but... it is sometimes too hard to overcome, something between that and Vanilla in hardness would be nice.


Any thoughts on my AI-Raises-Dif theory?

[Thrifalas]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Edar Macilrille With The Eclipse Ritual my quibble is the same as with many other encounters in the game- only worse, the AI can react before you. Normally that is not really a problem, as you have the possibility to prepare, IE you *know* that the room you are about to enter is full of nefarious villains, so you can take your potions, cast protective spells, hang a few offensive ones, etc. Thus it evens out, but in The Eclipse Ritual that is simply not possible as you never know when it happens, and before you can react the AI has half yout party stunned by attacks while the Game Engine still refuses to acknowledge any keyboard and mouse input you try to give. Your input has second priority and is by necessity slower than the AI. I think this is at the root of many complaints about the difficulty of Tactics, especially The Eclipse.

There are variables for when you arrive in their hold. You do not randomly stumble upon them with no preperations at all. Sola tells you about them and urges you to be prepared and even if you don't know what's coming the first time, you will the second. Because there will be a second.

Going into the Eclipse party unprepared is really devestating. It's not meant to. The reason why you are being teleported is to avoid cheesing with traps and summons before the fight starts. It's true - this battle is kind of reverse. They are the ones who gets to be prepared.

In fact, they have a lot of advantages.

1) They're prepared. Buffed and with summons ready to go.
2) They have a full-party Time Stop spell being cast each round or so, depending in what difficulty you play on.
3) Their spells are completely scripted meaning they will never run out.

However, this fight is not all that bad. It's true that they look scary and the first couple of times they will rip you to shreds without you doing much damage to them. But once you start to realize how they work you can totally kick their assess.

That's right. In order to win this battle you actually have to figure out how *they* work. That is the fun thing with tactics/ascension-battles such a Kuroisan. You need to figure out what they do, how they do it, and then counter it.

The best part with the Eclipse is however that no matter how scary they look, they can be easily beaten. Just put a huge focus on your own buff and dispell their buffs and you will have a much easier time. For example, a well-placed dispell magic from an Inquisitor will strip the warriors of their buffs and with two chains filled with ADHW (6x) their front row will die instantly. This takes about one round to perform and with two simple characters you can down half their group before their swords even can touch you.

But I drift, to the subject all I can say is that well, they do not get to prepare a lot more than you do. They are fully buffed, so can you be (if you know the instance will trigger after Sola's dream when he and main char are close together at night). Worth noticing is that Eclipse isn't tactics, it's the Solaufein mod, and it can be triggered by writing

CLUAConsole:CreateCreature("SolaSpy1")

[Cippa Lippa]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Revi Many of the enemies in Tactics cast infinite spells, and have more hit-points, lower AC and such than they would have according to pen & paper AD&D. That's what people refer to when they say the enemies in Tactics use 'cheese,' I think.

Hi all

I have recently reinstalled BGII after years of "fasting" and I have reinstalled tactics (my usual favourite - I don't know if I am gonna try IA as that really sounds like cheese). I have to disagree that the tactics opponents need to be beaten by cheese... but, as always, it comes down to what is cheese for you - some people consider using potions and scrolls cheese...

Improved Ilyich is very difficult if your party is not well rounded but I recently beated it with a group of 1R/C, 4 F (2Berserkers) and 1 thief... so having mages is not necessary - as with all components of tactics it always comes down to having the right strategy - it is exceedingly frustrating at the beginning but when you manage to find the right way to do it it gives you tremendous satisfaction... I am now having problems with the improved fire giants - it took me a while to understand that their script was conflicting with the script of sanchudooku thereby killing its wielder instantly...

and Improved Irenicus was insane... :-)

[Rancour]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Revi 1: Use all the resources at your disposal. The fights are balanced for you to use pretty much every wand, scroll and potion at your disposal.

Yeah,that's a good suggestion, but the problem is that most of the times you get torned to pieces so quickly, that you are not able not only to use "wand, scroll and potion" but to run away to save your own ass neither.
I'm playing the game with this mod now and it was impossible to beat many enemies (Kuirosan,Faldorn,Twisted rune, dragons are quite tough) in the second chapter, especially on the 'insane' difficulty setting.However,now that I got out of the underdark this time it was me who easily chopped those encounters I had had to skip in the second chapter. The key to the problem with the tactics mod is 'wait till you are really strong and then it is them who gets to run' .

[Khumak]

*Warning, some spoilers included*

I've found all the battles in tactics quite doable. The caveat being when you do them... The boss fights I do by the end of chapter 3 are Illych, Maevar, Torgal, and Bohdi. I save all the rest for chapter 6. Unfortunately some of the fights are basically impossible without foreknowledge.

Improved Irenicus is extremely cheesy and annoying for it's placement in the opening dungeon. If you make a custom party it's doable with zero cheese. All you need is enchanted weapon and magic missile. If you're playing with the default party and your PC is not a mage it can be very frustrating. The real threat is the cleric. Interrupting him is an absolute must.

Bohdi is extremely hard if you do her in chapter 3 instead of chapter 6. Doable but very hard especially considering you have to go through her to advance the story if you're playing a good party. Some of the other stuff like the druid grove are also best left for chapter 6.

Torgal can be really nasty if you send a fighter type in to go toe to toe with him but he's quite doable with a level 10 or 11 party. However badass you think your main tank is at that point, Torgal is badder... I use his see invis against him by pulling him solo with a thief and fighting all his thugs after he's dead. Buff up, lay a few traps, send the thief in to pull him, dispell him, slow him, nail him with ranged weapons and spells while you pull him through the traps, then finish him off with melee.

Maevar is easy especially if you pick pocket everything before you go down for the fight.

I'd say the improved mage mod is by far the most annoying overall. I wish it had an option that only goes all out on the boss fights. As is, I find it too bothersome to constantly have to dispell all of the contingencies that all the trash mages bring up so I kill most mages with my fighter types using plain old non magical weapons and no spells. Sometimes they still get a spell off but usually not. With non magic weapons you just have to spend about a round burning through stone skin and then they're dead. It would be even more irritating for most of the game if the mages used Absolute immunity instead of PFMW because then you'd HAVE to dispel everything unless everyone was packing +5 weapons.

The Sahaugin city can be rather frustrating as well if you don't have either some high level mages or some high level thieves. This is especially true if you skipped most of the chapter 3 stuff and went to go save Imoen asap.

[appo13]

I got most of this after me and I must say: It was Gr888 FUN! (SPOILERS)

All inproves are just awsome, I play with tactics nearly all components. I had to uninstall Torgal (it was a bug, every time I did *load* some additional groups appeared, so I found myself fighting 30 Yan-Ti mages and 20 elder umber hulks^^) and Faldorn. With no druid char in my group this was wuite impossible... But all other mods worked fine, some bugs occure but most can be cleared without problems. Illych himself drops a club+3 so that you can hit the deams BTW.