Unofficial patches: are they worth it?

JDR13 said:

Not being able to reach uber levels is one of the things I liked about BG1 though. I think you should give BG2 a try when you have the time.

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Agree. Plus, you are far more powerful on level 7 with BG1 than ever in BG2. Fireball and lightning are truly powerful in BG1, since you can wipe out big group of enemies with a single blast. And I hated how I had to fill the memory with debuff spells in BG2, like Breach and True Seeing. Too spell oriented for me and yet the spells feels feeble.

And even though the best items are +2 or +3 (except Drizzt's Scimitar), they really feel powerful and all of them are unique and cannot found from a barrel!! And still, almost everytime I played it through (4 times or so), I found something new to be discovered.

Ergonpandilus said:

And even though the best items are +2 or +3 (except Drizzt's Scimitar), they really feel powerful and all of them are unique and cannot found from a barrel!! And still, almost everytime I played it through (4 times or so), I found something new to be discovered.

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Yep, I remember being excited to find a +1 scimitar in Durlag's tower on my last playthrough. It was in a small hidden stash that I hadn't discovered before, at the top of the tower iirc.

Yay for low-level gaming and proper appreciation of +2 equipment! I think I enjoyed that more than the can-opening mage fights "another useless +2 sword that wont hurt powerful enemies" of BG2.

JDR13 said:

I'm not sure why anyone would bother to remove the level cap in Baldur's Gate. You might be able to reach one more level with the available experience, but even that would be hard, and wouldn't impact the game much.

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Doing everything in the game you'll probably end up about 50% over the cap.

It doesnt make a whole lot of difference in terms of the power of the character (one level or so since the XP requirements double for each level). It's just annoying to know that character development, as limited as it is in the 2nd edition ruleset, stops at 60-70% of the game. On my first playthrough of the vanilla game I hit the cap about halfway through the city of Baldurs Gate.

Zaleukos said:

Doing everything in the game you'll probably end up about 50% over the cap.

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For most of the classes, that won't even advance you a single level.

Here's a level chart for BG. http://www.planetbaldursgate.com/bg/character/classes/tables/xp.shtml

Well, I'm a purist at heart - but I've also learned, the hard way, that developers no longer really understand what makes games work.

Essentially, they're no longer visionaries - they're simply doing what they THINK people want them doing.

So, for newer games - I absolutely think mods are worth it, because there are many players who DO understand what makes games fun, like is the case with Oblivion and Fallout 3. Both games have mods/patches that change the gameplay at the core - and make them MUCH better.

Sadly, they also tend to break too much stuff, or not take enough into consideration - so it's extremely rare to get that "pure" feeling. I'm not sure I have ever tried that, when enough mods are installed. So, it's a trade-off.

I'd much rather have developers be competent and daring, and make games that are actually fun - instead of just the groundwork for others to build on.

Most developers who DO manage to make complete games, tend to aim low or not really have a strong ambition - which makes their games rather dull. Bioware is a fine example. Not that their games aren't ambitious in a sense - they're just not creatively ambitious.

Even Dragon Age suffered from some seriously poor design choices, in terms of character development and mechanics. Patches/mods can fix this to an extent - but can't really change the core issues - like a severe lack of variety within classes.

About patches, as in those that FIX games at the core, well…

Gothic 3 is definitely a better game with CP 1.74. But, it doesn't actually fix the game, in my opinion. The primary issue with Gothic 3 is the loathsome combat system, and even with the improvements - it's still hopelessly flawed. You can "live with it", but that was also possible with the vanilla version.

I played Bloodlines, for the first time, with one of the later Werner patches. I really have no basis for comparison - but it seemed rather complete. So, I guess that was a good example.

Arcanum? Can't really be fixed and I don't think the patches I've tried helps too much.

ToEE? Essentially the same experience for me, WITH patches. I guess it might actually work all the way through - but the issues remain the same. As in, there's just not a game there. It's a combat simulator, and it remains a combat simulator.

NWN? I wouldn't call them "patches", but the user-created content has been FANTASTIC. The PRC and the endless brilliant modules have made a gigantic difference. My absolute favorite is Lord of Terror, which turned the game into Diablo with the D&D ruleset = pure bliss.

Those are some examples of my experiences…. I wouldn't want to live without the community stuff - but let's not forget that a working complete game is always preferable, at least to me.

Very few people understand games like a true designer, and very few unprofessionals have the time and resources available to truly FIX og CHANGE a game thoroughly. It's a lot more rare than most people seem to think.

I spent most of my fallout3 time modding the game to my likings. I never even tried playing it vanilla.

If you get all the experience in BG (and I mean all), which I usualy do since I'm a 'level clearer', you can max out the level well before the end of the game. If you add in any mods (which I usually do), you can hit it before you reach Baldur's Gate.

And for me, I am not a tactican by any means. When I played through the first time, I got to Saragon and couldn't beat him, depsite almost all my players being leveled out. Next time through, I removed the cap, got every bit of experience (around level 10 or so I beleive) and I was able to beat him.

The last time through, I think I hit level 14 or so with all the mods I'd added!

Ree said:

1. I avoid ANY fan made addons/mods or whatever because I am only interested in original game content and mechanics and because community content is often of poor quality and doesn't integrate well. Unofficial patches ARE community content.

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Clearly you have not played any Thief I and II fan missions. The best of them easily rival and in some cases even surpass what Looking Glass Studios put out. And keep in mind that Looking Glass was one of the best game developer studios of all times. The things they did more than 10 years ago have never even been attempted since let alone surpassed by any other studios.

zakhal said:

I spent most of my fallout3 time modding the game to my likings. I never even tried playing it vanilla.

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I was thinking about playing FO3 again soon. I haven't played it since it was released so I've never used any mods. Anything you would consider essential?

Looking for gameplay tweaks mostly, I don't like mods that add fan made things to the game. Also, did you try any of the iron sights mods that allow you to aim down the sight of your guns?

FO3 needs a few mods to make perks match their descriptions

I run these mods:

Better_Custom_Weapon_Repair-4664.zip (repair custom weapons with parts rather than with another assembled custom weapon)
FixedNinja-4481.zip (makes perk match description IIRC)
Nerves_of_Steel_Fix-7072.7z (as above)
Nverlord_Weapon_Bonus-8717.zip (removes unavoidable damage effect from Supermutant Overlord weapons)
Regulator_Intercom-8574.zip (adds an intercom to the regulator HQ in case the stupid Sonora Cruz runs away, but this one seems bugged)
MTUI.zip (change the font size in menus to fit more text on the screen)
BetterHeadshots-1827.7z (increase damage modifier for headshots and torso, but this makes the game a bit easy, even if I like that I dont need thousands of bullets to put late game enemies out of their misery)
For_Broken_Steel_-5712.rar (fixes sniper and slayer perks to match descriptions)

I would like a mod that slowed down levelling or XP gain a bit, but it would have to be complemented with some mod that gave more ammo as the ammo you find as scaled loot tends to be fairly scarce for the first ten levels. I would also love a mod that removed the stupid supermutant overlords completely. With heavy weaponry and ridiculous HP they tend to kill friendlies before you can save them in any high level mission.

JDR13 said:

For most of the classes, that won't even advance you a single level.

Here's a level chart for BG. http://www.planetbaldursgate.com/bg/character/classes/tables/xp.shtml

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That is actually all classes except for paladin and ranger.

The level cap was 89000 XP in vanilla. All classes gained a level with the TotSC cap of 161000. Doing everything in vanilla+TotSC except the Sarevok fight netted me about 250000XP which again is another level for most of the classes. That is without any mods except level cap remover and infinite stacking...

Not that the extra level makes a huge difference in terms of gameplay, especially not with the extremely limited character building of the 2nd edition ruleset, but it still diminishes the sense of progress. Even when they dont make much of a practical difference I find level caps annoying for that reason.

Baldur´s Gate with TotSC is just not a very well balanced game anyway and the last few chapters are always pretty boring combat-wise.
Rising the level cap to 250000 and playing with SCS makes the latter parts quite a bit more interesting.

I remember there being a demon in the village north of Baldur's Gate that was added in by TotSC that was basically impossible to beat, even with your characters leveled out. I tried dozens of different things before I used GateKeeper to give one of my character 100% magic immunity (which I took away after the fight) and I still barely beat him.

Yeah, the demon is probably BG´s most difficult encounter. That gaze spell that makes party members blow up is particularly nasty cos it isn´t all that well indicated.
IIRC, arrows of dispelling and wand of summoning were quite crucial in that battle.

What I mostly meant though, is that there´s no ideal time when to do Werewolf Isle and Durlag´s Tower. If you do them early it will be a struggle and the rest of the game will become a joke, doing them late doesn´t make much sense storywise and all the loot gained there goes for naught, plus this late these areas are rather redundant for leveling purposes as well, with the original cap in place.
So basically, the problem is that later chapters (with the exception of final battle) weren´t rebalanced in accordance with the additional content.

SCS elevates this a bit by making some of the later battles more difficult.
Similarly, I think it generally provides better balance between the main quest and free roaming. On one hand, some main quest encounters are pretty much impossible without having more levels under belt, on the other hand there are some nasty surprises in the optional areas as well - overall effect is a less straightforward experience which I think is a plus.

Um, kinda off topic, sorry .

@Zaleukos: Thanks for the suggestions, I'm going to give most of those mods a try.

DeepO said:

What I mostly meant though, is that there´s no ideal time when to do Werewolf Isle and Durlag´s Tower. If you do them early it will be a struggle and the rest of the game will become a joke, doing them late doesn´t make much sense storywise and all the loot gained there goes for naught, plus this late these areas are rather redundant for leveling purposes as well, with the original cap in place.

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I don't see how they would be redundant for leveling purposes, you need them for that transition to the extra level that TotSC adds.

As far as the storyline, I'd pretty much have to agree. They don't fit in perfectly at any given time. It's like they were basically added just to give fans more stuff to do.

That being said, Durlag's Tower is still one of my favorite dungeons in a crpg, and Werewolf Isle was very well done, with a plot twist that took me completely by surprise.

Probably depends on the game and patch.

Planescape Torment with the fixpack and the restored content and the widescreen+high res+bigger font mod is pretty much perfection. I haven't tried it because I'm not too fond of the games, but I'm sure the BG's and IWD's are the same.

The recent batch of patches for Might and Magics 6/7/8 by Grayface have all been great too, removing bugs, implementing mouselook, and such. It's pretty much has made them all awesome again.

I tried TOEE with a recent CO8 patch but it kept crashing still, so I gave up, so I can't continue the praise there. I am sure I coulda fixed it with hours of work, but it just didn't seem worth it.

I gotta throw my 2 cents worth in here. Unofficial patches/mods are always worth a look. Especially if you've passed the game the first time and would like a different experience the next time around.

I have a folder on my computer that has over 70 gigs of mods and unofficial patches. Most of that 70 are for Fallout 3, Oblivion, Morrowind, Sims 2/3, Civ 3/4, Baldur's Gate 1 & 2, NWN 1 & 2, and Forgotten Realms Unlimited Adventures. Those are just to give a different type of experience than the first time I played like Civ 3 has a great mod called the Warhammer Fantasy Mod that let's me a Civ 3 game with Warhammer troops. Fallout: The Rebirth is also another must have mod for me. It let's you play a civ game in the Fallout Universe. .

But REE (he seems to have disappeared ) asked about unofficial patches and those are a different kind of beast than mods. Most unofficial patches are a must especially for older games like for fallout 1 & 2, Arcanum, System Shock 2, Wizards & Warriors (they sorta have some unofficial patches that get that dang game working), Bloodlines, Temple of Elemental Evil, and the the superb TSL Restored Content Mod (not by team gizka btw) for KOTOR 2. These just squash any bugs, restore content that the developers didn't get around to or like in the unofficial patch for Fallout 2 it first and foremost squashes the tons of bugs in the game and makes the game playable on modern computers. Even if you get F2 to run without this patch on your modern computer you'll have all kinds of problems. Like when you get to the map screen for F2 your character will travel around the map at lightning speed.

So for mods I would say that is totally up to your playing preference. Some people prefer to stick to the "developers vision". I still think those people are nuts for not wanting to try something new with one of their games, but to each their own as they say. However, most unofficial patches stick to the intended vision and either make it playable on today's computers or squash bugs that the devs didn't get around to getting the first time around.

There is no good argument, imo, against using an unofficial patch that just does what the devs didn't get around to when they released the game. Prime examples of that are all the games released by Troika. The community has done what Troika didn't have the time/resources to do in the first place and make all of their games almost completely bug free and totally freaking awesome

I belong to the "developers vision" people and I rarely replay games I finished once before, so it's rare that I check out patches that comes long after the games release. I beated Gothic 3 in vanilla mode while the game was still eating up saves for example.

I do not want content patches or "balancing" patches that change the entire system. I also tend to not use such mods, at least not until I beated the main game. I accept interface mods, such as the one in System Shock that allow you to play the game in 1280x1024, or patches that override the controls like real mouseaim in Fallout 3. I used "larger interface" mods for Oblivion, Dragon Age and Neverwinter Nights since they were too small in 2048x1536. I used graphical tweaks for Oblivion and Gothic 3 to improve the visual settings beyond max.

Sometimes I use hacks that disable limitations to be able to explore something in 1 playthrough. For example I sometimes use romance mods that either disable opposing romances or remove gender restriction, just to be able to explore more content on one playthrough. I might accept content that was cut from the game, like the Droid Factory in KOTOR2.

Beyond that I want to play the game the developers intended it to be. I do not want a new map or new equipment that some unaffiliated modder placed in the game. I tend to run the game hardcore. I maxed out my Oblivion character the traditional way without using the rebalancing mod. I never used cap removers for games like Baldur's Gate, but we did beat Elminister which is meant to be impossible. I accepted the insta-kill boars as a challenge in Gothic 3 before there was a patch that fixed them.

There's one exception though; I did use a mod that removed those birds in Morrowind. Gahwd they were annoying. When the game is 50% "avoid the birds", they are just a nuisance.

I used the Community Patch for Arcanum for my first playthrough as I skipped the game when it was young and buggy. I couldn't tell whether or not was new or not since I hadn't played the original, but I didn't see anything in the game that wasn't in a FAQ I used back then.

A good unofficial patch will be exactly that, a patch that gets rid of the bugs that are still creeping around in the game or makes the game playable on today's computers. Unofficial patches that rebalance or add things to the game should be called mods because that is exactly what they are. I'm happy with either one since by the time someone releases an unofficial patch I will have already beaten the game (or stop playing it due to boredom) so my next play through will be slightly different than the first time I played.

I sorta understand why you, Jemmy, wouldn't want a mod that alters the game if you're only going to play it once, but like you said there are some unofficial ones out there that are an absolute must because of all of the bugs still in the game. Like those in Arcanum.

Btw, Jemmy, I don't believe there was any user made content in the Arcanum patch. It only restored content and squashed a ton of bugs in the game. You played the game as the developers really intended if they had more time before they released it. No worries there on coming across something that wasn't supposed to be there

Texture/resolution mods are about the same as a good unofficial patch. They just give it a face lift

JemyM said:

or patches that override the controls like real mouseaim in Fallout 3.

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What do you mean by "real mouse aim" in Fallout 3? Are you talking about a mod to reduce the targeting assistance granted by your weapon skill?

I think that's what he meant. Since were talking about aiming mods there is only one that I will ever need to install. It's called the iron sights. Awesome mod that lets you use your gun sights to aim instead of zooming in a tiny bit. Here's a video of it in action. This is an absolute must install for me when playing F3.