BG2: What am I doing wrong?

[JDR13]

That's because they are almost identical. The differences are purely cosmetic -- fancier materials and different styling on the Merc, as well as a great many intangibles built by marketing about what the brand of car you drive "says about you."

Conversely, compare an Escort with a Mack, a Kawasaki, a Colnago, or a Cessna. Those do have meaningful differences.

Ok fair enough, then BG2 is a Mercedes and KotOR is a Mack.

 

[Maylander]

@Gallifrey
There's a very high amount of non-linear quests in BG2. The end of ToB has four different endings, based on alignement and choices. All long questlines, such as the De'Arnise Keep, Umar Hills, Trademeet, Firkraag, etc either have various outcomes or different ways to be solved.

I believe Fallout and PS:T has a higher % of variety in their quests, but I can't come up with a single game that has more non-linear sidequests in total.

Anyhow, as far as story goes, it really does pick up after you get the money in Act 2, and the story starts to push you forward. Up till that point, you're free to do whatever you want, as long as you collect money one way or another.

 

[Prime Junta]

@Zakhary, @Maylander -- thanks. I'll try to stick with it until I get the 20k together, then, and see if I enjoy it more from there on out.

 

[JDR13]

You definitely have to enjoy the type of combat that BG2 offers though or you probably won't make it through the game, the sheer amount of combat in BG2 can turn some people off. It can either be a high point or a low point depending on what you like to do. I loved it personally, as I never grew tired of devising new ways for slaying some of the tougher enemies and nabbing their loot.

 

[woges]

@Zakhary, @Maylander -- thanks. I'll try to stick with it until I get the 20k together, then, and see if I enjoy it more from there on out.

David Warner really saved BG2 for me so stick with it a bit. I'm having ago at Icewind Dale 2 atm that I really wasn't impressed with much at the time but I seem to be enjoying it more now.

 

[Gallifrey]

@Gallifrey
There's a very high amount of non-linear quests in BG2. The end of ToB has four different endings, based on alignement and choices. All long questlines, such as the De'Arnise Keep, Umar Hills, Trademeet, Firkraag, etc either have various outcomes or different ways to be solved.

I can't speak to the ending of ToB as I lost interest well before that point. But as to the other quests you mention, I think the various outcomes or solving methods claim is reaching a bit. Yes, they do have some variations in them but they are very small and ultimately don't change that much in regards to the outcome of the quest.

I believe Fallout and PS:T has a higher % of variety in their quests, but I can't come up with a single game that has more non-linear sidequests in total.

BG2's quests are not at all non-linear though. The game is extremely linear. Yes you can choose to take quests or not but the difficulty is certainly scaled to the expectation that players will do all quests and so have the appropriate xp and gear. There is a facade of non-linear design in that you end up running all over the place doing quests irrelevant to the plot, but they are more distractions than real non-linear story progression.

And there's still very little in regards to role-playing. Dialogue choices are limited and extremely narrow in how your character is presented, and really whichever you choose makes no difference in how things play out.
There may be exceptions here and there, but that's the standard format for the majority of the game.

 

[Guest]

David Warner really saved BG2 for me so stick with it a bit. I'm having ago at Icewind Dale 2 atm that I really wasn't impressed with much at the time but I seem to be enjoying it more now.

Do you realize the power you might hold? When the world of flesh is beneath you, even creatures mysterious and magical will fall!!!

 

[Guest]

You might want to keep Jaheira in your party.
She is a lot less annoying as the game progresses and the relationships grow
... warmer.
She is also the only way you're gonna get the most interesting NPC related quest in the game (you have to have her in your party at all times and not piss her off).
But if you are not using the unofficial fixpak the quest will be broken with a very high propability anyway. It's a very long one and keeps going on an off for a very long time.
She is also the "best" romancing option. The deepest and most... well... "gratifying"
She is annoying early in the game though.

Whatever you do, do NOT - I repeat - DO NOT romance Aerie. Her whining will be intolerable and present at all times. And she won't be sharing her sleeping bag with you too often, either.

http://modlist.pocketplane.net/index.php?ax=list&cat_id=8

 

[magerette]

Good advice from Zakhary--just be grateful you're not playing a female lead character and have only the whiny cleric/paladin guy to toy with.

I haven't read all this thread in detail so forgive me if someone's already mentioned this. You can roll your own party in BG2 and dispense with the NPCs to whatever degree you have to to retain your sanity, using the multiplayer option.
Here's the only version I could find of how to do it with a really quick search, but I never needed to actually go online or move any saves when I used it.

Play a Custom Party Offline

Under multiplayer, pregenerate up to six characters. Start a game online importing all these characters. This allows you to play with a custom party, but requires you to be online everytime you play. If you save the game and drag the save file from teh mpsave folder to the save folder you can use your custom party offline. Note that the first character imported counts as the main character.

Contributed By: noob_of_destiny

By doing this with a 4-5 char party, I could pick up individual NPCs that appealed to me and skip having to hear Minsc replays all game. Still never finished the game, though.

 

[woges]

Yerp, I played through BG1 & BG2 with 6 of my own characters and that is still the bulk of my efforts through the games.

 

[Prime Junta]

Well, I've been at it for another two and a half hours. Spent some time nosing around and swatting random monsters like flies, then ran into two fights that annihilated me within a couple of rounds -- again simply by dint of having a magical attack against which I have no defense. And I'm *not* a D&D newbie -- I've been playing the damn PnP game for twenty damn years -- I *know* I've got my buffs and tactics down.

Challenge is great, but putting up these death-traps at every corner *with no prior warning that they're there* is just plain rock-stupid game design. While a wide-open go-anywhere do-anything design is great, there should be *some* indications of where the newbie can go first without stumbling into something that's obviously out of their depth. I can't envisage getting anywhere in this game without a walkthrough that tells in which order it's feasible to do these damn quests, and I hate damn walkthroughs. Damn.

This game is like a tap that runs alternately hot and cold -- just when I'm starting to enjoy myself, it dumps on me. At least I'm starting to develop some kind of emotion towards it, even if it's white-hot hatred...

OK, I'm ranting I guess. Gotta cool down, and perhaps just chalk this game up as a loss... and join the ranks of those sneering at BioWare design. (Trouble is, I *like* some BioWare games -- I liked KOTOR, and I liked Jade Empire, to name two.)

 

[Arma]

It's a strange advise to somebody to try out BG2 mods to improve his liking of the game, since 99 % of them take for granted that you do like the game already.

I absolutely agree that the supposed freedom and choise in the quests is superficial - there are different option, indeed, but most of them have little meaningful difference between them. The freedom of choise is mostly limited to choosing which quest to do when.

Then comes the roleplaying - while the first time I played it, I admit I was overwhelmed (I was new to both PC games and RPGs at the time) from a more recent point of view it turns out there is very little in that. First, my character cannot be truly good nomatter how much he/she tries since we have the bad in our blood. Then comes limited choise - If I (role)play a paladin (or at least I do) it makes little sence to join either of the two camps in the 2nd/3rd chapter, and when I do that should make me fallen by the defaul rules. Same limit goes for other things - as magarette already said while there are 3 romancable female PC in the unmodded game, there is only one male.

What makes BG2 good in my opinion is this - the combat system has some tactical element to it, and that makes it fun. Especially the mage fights. Up to a point. And you haven't played ToEE, that takes away all fun that BG/Infinity's combat provides. NPC interaction is fun, but you have to like the NPCs in the first place. The storyline is pretty good and has scope (if you like that sort of thing) but its way watered down in the 2nd and 3rd chapters - while most of the gameplay is here, none of the quests at large have anything meaningful to do with the rest of the story.

 

[Dhruin]

Funny, I think BG2's 2nd chapter is an excellent piece of gaming (one that carries the game for me - without Ch.2, I wouldn't bother and the rest of the game pales in comparison) -- and one of the reasons is that I get some freedom from the pitiful main story and get to drive things in my direction a little.

@PJ, which fights were you thinking of? I recall getting slapped around by some of the liches in Athkatla and a few others but it was fairly obvious to me that was going to happen.

 

[SirJames]

I'm one of the BG2 players who's clocked the game several times over... Last time I played i went from BG2 through to the very end of throne of bhaal with ZERO npcs and only 2 characters i rolled.... I believe these are the two best characters you can get and ive never told them to anyone before! :O

Half-elf - cleric/ranger
The best cleric ever. absurdly overpowered when they get the ranger spell Iron Skins, which soaks 50 hits of any damage per cast. She'll end up on -10 thac0 duel wielding and wearing plate...

Now this is the tricky character.....

Human kensai / thief (24/28 at max level i think, too lazy to check )
This guy has -27 thac0 both hands, +14 damage, 5x backstab, timestop traps and can use ANY WEAPONS OR ARMOR because of theifs "use magic dev" meaning the kensai "cant use armour or gloves, etc" is null and void.

This guy can also, with aid of a few epic moves, deliver 10 backstabs for 150 minimum damage *non crit!* in a round without stealth to the face. He can kill ANY boss but the final in TOB with traps+rest. This "thief" can also use weapons like +6 carsomyr, absolutely anything

So!! if i can clock the game with 2/6 guys without looking at a 2nd ed rulebook, so can you! cleric/ranger is perfect for a new player... Kensai/thief is an amazing yet VERY hard to roll right (was trying for -30 thac0) but if you pull it off you have a thief that puts to shame the greatest fighters!!

edit: best backstab I ever did was over 500 damage, btw

 

[JDR13]

I think the various outcomes or solving methods claim is reaching a bit. Yes, they do have some variations in them but they are very small and ultimately don't change that much in regards to the outcome of the quest.

How many RPGs actually do give you choices that dramatically change the outcomes of sidequests? Not many that's for sure.

BG2's quests are not at all non-linear though. The game is extremely linear. Yes you can choose to take quests or not but the difficulty is certainly scaled to the expectation that players will do all quests and so have the appropriate xp and gear. There is a facade of non-linear design in that you end up running all over the place doing quests irrelevant to the plot, but they are more distractions than real non-linear story progression.

You have an interesting definition of linear if you think BG2 is" extremely" linear, that couldn't be further from the truth. Yes you are guided along an overall story arc, but what game doesn't do that? BG2 is not a sandbox game and doesn't pretend to be. As far as sidequests being irrelevant, um...yeah that's why they're called sidequests, most sidequests in CRPGs in general are irrelevant. They're optional but that's the whole point, you can do them if you want or not do them at all. They're not totally irrelevant anways if you want to get the most powerful weapons, items, etc, as well as learn the back stories of the NPC's.

 

[JDR13]

Well, I've been at it for another two and a half hours. Spent some time nosing around and swatting random monsters like flies, then ran into two fights that annihilated me within a couple of rounds -- again simply by dint of having a magical attack against which I have no defense. And I'm *not* a D&D newbie -- I've been playing the damn PnP game for twenty damn years -- I *know* I've got my buffs and tactics down.

Challenge is great, but putting up these death-traps at every corner *with no prior warning that they're there* is just plain rock-stupid game design. While a wide-open go-anywhere do-anything design is great, there should be *some* indications of where the newbie can go first without stumbling into something that's obviously out of their depth. I can't envisage getting anywhere in this game without a walkthrough that tells in which order it's feasible to do these damn quests, and I hate damn walkthroughs. Damn

I'm surprised that you're finding the game so difficult, I never played D&D in my life before getting BG 1&2. Did you play the original BG first? I lot of people who didn't start with BG1 find BG2 a tad too difficult at first.

(Trouble is, I *like* some BioWare games -- I liked KOTOR, and I liked Jade Empire, to name two.)

Ugh! ...and those are probably the 2 worst games they ever made. Oh well, different strokes for different folks.

 

[Prime Junta]

@PJ, which fights were you thinking of? I recall getting slapped around by some of the liches in Athkatla and a few others but it was fairly obvious to me that was going to happen.

OK, here are the specifics.

I've made three what I thought were decent starts to the game: after finishing the prologue and the circus, I went to the Copper Coronet to plan my next move.

(1) I listened to poor Nalia's lamentations and went with her. Ended up in the d'Arnise keep. There, things got *almost* unbearably hard with the umber hulks and the final confrontation with that troll critter that took over the keep -- but with very careful buffing, potion use, and heal spells, not to mention a dozen reloads, I just managed to scrape through those. But it was bloody frustrating, and I ended up with a "Now what?" feel.

(2) I listened to that evil-sounding dwarf, and went to find his book. Promptly ran into some vampires and wraiths, which were too tough for me to handle. Dead end.

(3) I went to the Shadow Thieves' guild, took on the Mae'vir quest, reported in, went to the Temple Quarter, took the Helm's Temple quest, went into the sewers, ran into a party demanding a grand for passage, and got stomped (again).

As a note, I am playing on Hardcore rules. I've been doing that since NWN OC, and they've served me well.

 

[Fenris]

Enemy Casters have usually a lot of protection-Spells active - the use of Spell Breach and similar Spells is necessary, otherwise it takes a long time to destroy the stoneskins and "protection against energie/missles"-Spells. Later in the Game - if you decide to work for the thieves guild - you get an amulett that protects against level-drain. After that the Vampires are much easier to beat; if you have TOB installed there are new merchants in the Adventureres Mart. One of them has a Shield that protects against the gaze-attacks of the beholders that you will meet a lot in the sewers, you can tank them also with summoned elementals, wich IIRC are immun against most gaze-attacks.

 

[Prime Junta]

I'm a low-level party -- I have no Spell Breaches available, the nastiest critter I can summon is a goblin, and I have no way of protecting against level drains, mind attacks, gaze attacks, or such. I'm sure there are low-level quests out there; I just don't know where, and I keep running into ones that would be appropriate for someone at a higher level. That's bad design IMO -- I mean, sure, you can make it *possible* to get the "too difficult" quests early on should you be so inclined, but there should be some warning of what you're about to take on, and there should be something nudging you towards the stuff that you're "supposed" to do first.

As it is, I'll have to look up a walkthrough, and, as stated, I hate having to do that. I just don't have the patience to do this by trial and error, when "error" means dying and reloading, sometimes at an earlier point.

 

[Dhruin]

What do you mean by "Hardcore rules"? I'm aware of the HCR rules mods for NWN but not for BG2.

Edit: you mean you have the difficulty turned up to full?