Icewind Dale Beamdog's Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition

[IncendiaryDevice]

Ah, well, HoW isn't really "the original game", lol, but yeah, never been a great fan of HoW, though Lonelywood itself is quite a nice location, I found all the long, winding, samey roads with repeated monsters all the way down them to be a lot more uninspiring than the original game.

 

[dukeofwhales]

I assume that giving less XP on easy mode eventually ended with characters being underlevelled for the content and therefore actually making the game harder? Unless there was more level scaling in IWD than I remember.

 

[Melcar]

So I spend the weekend playing IWD EE. Man, balance is out the window. Even with the slider all the way to the right, I'm walking through every encounter. Original IWD was easy, but still. My half orc Berserker can pretty much solo everything so far. My human Archer just one hit kills everything. My human Sorcerer only needs to sneeze.
Haven't done TotLM yet, but I have a feeling it won't be any better.
A question. Does anyone know if enemy spell casters use any of the new spells? Like the buffs and spell/combat protections? So far I have not seen it happen.

 

[aVENGER]

So I spend the weekend playing IWD EE. Man, balance is out the window. Even with the slider all the way to the right, I'm walking through every encounter.

Note that playing on the highest difficulty setting also doubles all the XP awards, again, same as in the original game. This means that your characters will likely be level 6 in area that were balanced for a level 3 party, effectively making the game easier.

A question. Does anyone know if enemy spell casters use any of the new spells? Like the buffs and spell/combat protections? So far I have not seen it happen.

They only use anti-magic and divination spells such as Breach, Secret Word, True Sight etc. and only as a reaction to the player using BG2 magical protections and illusions. So if you don't use any BG2 spells, you will get the original IWD spellcaster AI, but if you use the magic protections/illusions they will have means to counter them.

 

[SwiftCrack]

-whoops, mixing up my games-

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

I assume that giving less XP on easy mode eventually ended with characters being underlevelled for the content and therefore actually making the game harder? Unless there was more level scaling in IWD than I remember.

I'm going to be assuming a lot in this post, but here goes: I assume that by moving the slider to the easier position it has the effect of making the enemies less powerful (I don't know how exactly, but that must be the assumption). So my big assumption would be that, by playing on the easier settings, you expand the learning curve so that you play on each difficulty level for a lot longer, allowing for a more patient approach to learning about the game - instead of bounding through the levels, requiring a steeper learning curve.

It gives the player more game-time to get acquainted with the mechanics and game-skills being the factor that makes it easier. So easier = more n00b friendly rather than story-mode. As I say, that's all assumption, you'd need to ask the guy who implemented it really, and though I give kudos to aVenger for even responding (I can't actually brofist yet as I'm a disgusting codex n00b) I don't think they're the guy to do that as they only seem to have experience of the Expansion and forward.

 

[MicoSelva]

So I spend the weekend playing IWD EE. Man, balance is out the window. Even with the slider all the way to the right, I'm walking through every encounter.

Note that playing on the highest difficulty setting also doubles all the XP awards, again, same as in the original game. This means that your characters will likely be level 6 in area that were balanced for a level 3 party, effectively making the game easier.

Waaaaaaait.
I do not have elephant memory, but as far as I can recall, BG1, BG2 and IWD1 did not increase your XP gains on any difficulty. Lower difficulty made enemies weaker (they dealt less damage), but the party received LESS experience from combat. Higher difficulties made enemies deal more damage (150% and 200% respectively), but the XP gains were the same as on medium.
Heart of Fury increased XP gains AND made enemies much tougher, but it was basically a separate (expert) game mode.

 

[Infinitron]

Waaaaaaait.
I do not have elephant memory, but as far as I can recall, BG1, BG2 and IWD1 did not increase your XP gains on any difficulty.

HoW added the XP award bonuses on lower difficulty levels.

 

[MicoSelva]

HoW added the XP award bonuses on lower difficulty levels.

That is not how I remember it. I believe it only added bonus XP on higher difficulties, not lower.
Would love some confirmation of that. I could check myself, but I am at leat six hours away from being able to go home and reinstall IWD.

 

[agris]

So I spend the weekend playing IWD EE. Man, balance is out the window. Even with the slider all the way to the right, I'm walking through every encounter.

Note that playing on the highest difficulty setting also doubles all the XP awards, again, same as in the original game. This means that your characters will likely be level 6 in area that were balanced for a level 3 party, effectively making the game easier.

Do you mean HoF mode? Because I'm pretty sure the last time I played IWD on hardest non-HoF, there was no XP increase.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

HoW added the XP award bonuses on lower difficulty levels.

That is not how I remember it. I believe it only added bonus XP on higher difficulties, not lower.
Would love some confirmation of that. I could check myself, but I am at leat six hours away from being able to go home and reinstall IWD.

XP was normal at the middle difficulty (core rules), +50% on hard and +100% on insane (ie double XP on insane). Same with easier modes, +50% on easy and +100% on very easy (actual names of the different modes I forgot).

 

[Melcar]

I always played the originals like that and I don't remember having such an easy time.
They have also seemed to beef up some of the encounters. Added more special enemies at certain places. Or maybe it's just the level scaling. Whatever.

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

I'm playing the original with HoW right now, and yes, lower and higher difficukties grant more XP. I didn't know it either.

 

[Baron Dupek]

Mass Amnesia. It got me off guard too.

By the way - heard that Beamdog have Vita tools now and want to port BG and IwD into Vita, to save that dying console or something?
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/2msl96/we_are_beamdog_developers_of_baldurs_gate_i_ii/cm7ik7b

 

[Xeon]

Are there races or classes with hidden dialogues or secrets that you get if you have them? I tried to Google but couldn't find a useful list.

I know a Bard can get an extra hidden dialogue if you use him to talk, Druid IIRC is useful in chapter 2 I think because of a sick NPC or something, are there any other stuff like that?

 

[haraw]

Are there races or classes with hidden dialogues or secrets that you get if you have them? I tried to Google but couldn't find a useful list.

I know a Bard can get an extra hidden dialogue if you use him to talk, Druid IIRC is useful in chapter 2 I think because of a sick NPC or something, are there any other stuff like that?

Paladins have some small flavour and at least one instance that affects gameplay (nothing major but still), I think.

 

[Surf Solar]

My mother brought this game as a gift to me (currently in hospital) so I have something to do. On a.. samsung tablet (she also bought it on steam for me for some strange reason) and aside the butchered/changed UI and some of buttugly fonts, it's playing allright. It's cool to have so many new kits to choose from.

Only thing I really rage about is the lack of flavour drawings on the items the original had. WHY THE FUCK did they remove that?

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

Are there races or classes with hidden dialogues or secrets that you get if you have them? I tried to Google but couldn't find a useful list.

I know a Bard can get an extra hidden dialogue if you use him to talk, Druid IIRC is useful in chapter 2 I think because of a sick NPC or something, are there any other stuff like that?

A bard will get additional dialogue lines in Easthaven, like talking to a random guy in the tavern or during the Aihonen quest. A druid or a dwarf can get Tiernon to craft special items in HoW. A paladin will see through Albion's bullshit in Dragon's eye right away.

That's all I can think of.

 

[agris]

My mother brought this game as a gift to me (currently in hospital) so I have something to do. On a.. samsung tablet (she also bought it on steam for me for some strange reason) and aside the butchered/changed UI and some of buttugly fonts, it's playing allright. It's cool to have so many new kits to choose from.

Only thing I really rage about is the lack of flavour drawings on the items the original had. WHY THE FUCK did they remove that?

That's odd, you would think they could increase, not decrease., the variety given bg1/2 assets. aVENGER?

 

[Athelas]

Maybe my memory escapes me, but I thought only the BG's had those sketches in the item descriptions?

 

[Surf Solar]

Huh, just google checked, you are right indeed Athelas , no sketches in vanilla IWD either. Missed opporturnity anyway to add some of them in the EE version

 

[Athelas]

Knowing Beamdog, they'd just replace the cutscenes sketches with their own work.

 

[Grinning Reaper]

Any reason to hate on Beamdog, right?

"OMFG Beamdog added XP gains to higher difficulties!! What's that, it was always that way, oh my bad."

"Beamdog took out the item sketches from vanilla IWD wtf?!? Oh they didn't? Well, Beamdog really fucked up not adding them then, yeah, screw Beamdog!"

Over on the official EE forums people were bitching about how they removed a bunch of music tracks, well, guess they didn't actually. I mean, there's plenty of reasons to dislike Beamdog and the Enhanced Editions I suppose (although I'd say most of them should illicit apathy more than anger), but the bitching and moaning is showing through as being pretty baseless with some of these complaints.

 

[hoverdog]

Any reason to hate on Beamdog, right?

Yes.

 

[aVENGER]

Over on the official EE forums people were bitching about how they removed a bunch of music tracks, well, guess they didn't actually.

No music tracks were removed and 5 previously unused music tracks were restored. The confusion regarding this is twofold:

1) Very few areas in Icewind Dale had combat music (tracks that play when a battle is in progress). People are used to the BGs and expect combat music to play during battles in every area.
2) The Mac version that was initially uploaded on GoG was missing all of the music. This has been corrected by GoG in the meantime.