Icewind Dale Beamdog's Icewind Dale: Enhanced Edition

[IncendiaryDevice]

Yes, I'm sure. Don't forget to loot your dead Skeletons.

Yxunomei is one of the toughest battles of the game, you will have problems here until you figure it out. A Ring of Freedom of Action might help with being held if it's that kind of spell, or the Freedom of Movement spell, otherwise your saves will be important, such as a high Wisdom/Dex stat. This is a good time to use your Haste potion/s. As long as you're not held you could try the Haste potion and use the Messenger of Sseth bow with +2 Arrows or Acid/Fire Arrows + Boots of Speed (optional) (if they've dropped yet?) to run then fire at Yxunomei until she's down then work on the others.

IIRC the Holding comes from traps on the floor, not the Mages, so you could also try experimenting with where you stand/move after the battle commences.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Supplemental:

The Boots of Speed come later, but you might have had the Boots of the Fox drop by now which have 40% increased movement speed, but they're a random drop so it's possible you don't have those (a possible reward for killing the Lizard King on the 1st level of Dragon's Eye).

 

[Xeon]

Yea, you are probably right. Traps are pretty brutal.

I just beat her. I summoned and after the talk, I just ran to the room with the 3 chests and kept sending summons and hoping they use up the spells and managed to kill them eventually at the door after third try I think.

Cleric/Rangers can't use bows I think, the only range weapon available is Slings. I would have stolen the Ring of Freedom and Protection Ring +2 but I can't pickpocket. I couldn't find Boots of Speed or any boots so far and AFAIK if its similar to BG then it will not have the Haste state just the fast movement.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Yes, it's just for movement, but makes soloing Archer's a kiter's dream.

I've never used a Cleric/Ranger combo, I just assumed the Ranger aspect would give you bows, I'm no good at multiclassing help as I've never done it.

 

[Melcar]

Yeah, C/R are not that great in this game. The only thing they got going for them is the free dualwielding (hope you're investing in flails/morningstars) and Iron Skins. Some of the lower level Druid spells are rather good, so you may want to exploit them.

 

[Lonely Vazdru]

I did, These are the things in front of the -9 AC.

Plate Mail Armor
Armor Class: 3
Dexterity: -5
Black Wolf Talisman: -1
Shimmering Sash: -3
Mantle of the coming Storm: -1
Rogue's Cowl: -2

You didn't get the details in vanilla IWD, but it was easy to check when out of a fight that "Protection ftom evil" gave constant +2 AC and saving throws. I guess they fixed it in EE.

Also it's true that Cleric/ranger is a pretty lousy combo since you can't use bows or crossbows and the dual wield emulation is just a measly supplementary attack, provided you use a one handed weapon and don't use a shield, which sucks. As for druid spells, they only grow as fast as ranger spellcasting goes, and that is slow as fuck. Soloing might make it faster but I wouldn't hold my breath over it if I were you.

 

[DemonKing]

Is anyone playing this on Ipad? My naturally inclination is to go PC Master Race but then I remembered I have to visit my in-laws overseas next year and the evenings will be pretty dull unless I have something decent to keep me entertained while there in the evenings and my PC is a little too large to fit in my luggage.

Do they work or do they just plain suck compared to the PC?

 

[GloomFrost]

Is anyone playing this on Ipad? My naturally inclination is to go PC Master Race but then I remembered I have to visit my in-laws overseas next year and the evenings will be pretty dull unless I have something decent to keep me entertained while there in the evenings and my PC is a little too large to fit in my luggage.

Do they work or do they just plain suck compared to the PC?

It's both lol. Yes it is more then playable on iPad and no it is not nearly as comfortable compared to playing on PC. It also depends what difficulty you choose, on the highest one when you have to control every Damn move of your characters it does get frustrating.

 

[octavius]

Why do you need 100% more XP if your characters are invulnerable. Why is this even a thing. Why play IWD if you don't want to actually play it.

Because it's on Steam.

 

[Melcar]

Found a bug. Starting to try out trigger and contingency spells. Casting a spell trigger for the first time causes the game to freeze. This is on Linux.

 

[roshan]

OK, so I've started a game of Icewind Dale Enhanced Edition and I'm still dicking around Easthaven. Playing a gnome fighter/illusionist, a half elf ranger/cleric, an orc fighter/thief and an elf archer. Overall, I think Beamdog has done a pretty good job enhancing this game.

1. Character Creation - being able to see the total roll is an excellent convenience tweak for min maxers and powergamers. It's also informative in it's own right. Overall, the new options means that there are a lot more ways you can configure or build your party. I usually go with four character parties, but aside from my picks, I also really wanted to try a Skald, Blackguard, Fighter/Druid, Kensai, Swashbuckler and several other characters. In a game where you create a whole party, it really does add a lot to the fun. You also need to think more carefully about weapon proficiencies, due to the added weapon styles and narrower weapon categories.

2. Interface - really well done actually. Looks great and natural, seems to fit IWD well although the original GUI was probably aesthetically better. The new interface is quite informative though and you can see all the modifiers to your secondary statistics. A couple of things I didn't like though was the interface scaling, when you use a large monitor, the interface basically "pops out" and looks too big. I also didn't like the new selection circles because they tend to blend in with the snow. However, these features were easily disabled through the options menu. Zoom is awesome.

Annoyances:
A. It's pretty fucking annoying that when you click on new game, there is a default starting party already assigned for you and you need to delete all six characters.
B. It's also retarded that character arbitration has been removed from the single player game.

What party did you play the game with? How did the game balance hold up with the new classes, features and spells?

 

[roshan]

aVENGER why does the scimitar in Easthaven look like a long sword? Both in the paper doll and on the actual character itself, didn't BG2 have separate graphics for scimitars?

 

[Sykar]

People buying EE games why?

 

[roshan]

One thing I noticed while playing the game was that it is simply not as visually pleasurable as regular Icewind Dale + HOW... something seemed to be off. So I created a side by side comparison of the two games at approximately the same zoom level:

The EE looks washed out and dull. Notice the grain on the wooden things by the docks. Could it be that 3D acceleration for the game is not working? Also the avatars look more blocky and pixelated...

EDIT: Oh yeah and I can't seem to scroll the screen of the EE on windowed mode... so playing it on windowed mode is unfortunately not an option... Or is this some way this can be configured?

 

[aVENGER]

aVENGER why does the scimitar in Easthaven look like a long sword? Both in the paper doll and on the actual character itself, didn't BG2 have separate graphics for scimitars?

This will be fixed in the upcoming patch. Bastard swords currently have the same issue.

As for pixelation and zoom levels, if you turn on the Zoom Lock setting in the Graphics Options menu, the graphics will be displayed at their native resolution. Otherwise, zooming in and out will cause minor blurriness or pixelation (depending on which other settings you chose). The game uses 2D sprites for character animations so there's no way around this.

Oh yeah and I can't seem to scroll the screen of the EE on windowed mode...

Mouse scrolling in widowed mode is disabled via code. I don't think there's currently a way around this.

 

[roshan]

OK, so I've been playing the game, and it's been quite a sad affair so far. My characters just got to Kuldahar, playing in insane mode with a 4 person party, and my multiclassed characters are level 3/3, and my single class archer is already level 4. Too much level bloat. The insane mode gives additional XP, and it seems that the game also throws more enemies at you if you are higher level, and the result has been ridiculous. Quite the masterpiece of retarded design. An insane mode that actually makes the game trivially easy. What kind of stupid fuckwit developers came up with this shit???

Both Easthaven and Kuldahar are basically boring and lifeless. It's amazing how poorly these gems of the late 90's/early 00's hold up today. Does anyone know if the game will get any better or have at least a LITTLE bit of challenge? Will turning the difficulty down to normal make the game harder? Game kinda sucks.

 

[Surf Solar]

You're really on a trip to out-edgy everyone on the codex lately eh?

If you find the game 'soulless and boring' (which it is not) why do you even keep playing?

 

[Tigranes]

Insane has always given extra XP. I don't think it's ever added any enemies, or if EE really does it.

 

[roshan]

Insane has always given extra XP. I don't think it's ever added any enemies, or if EE really does it.

I don't really remember how the regular game plays, but when I cleared the orc cave, there were four ogres there, is that the same in normal difficulty or in the base game?

I know insane mode gave extra XP even in the original game. Beamdog should have created a real hard mode for this game instead of a "story mode" which is the last thing Icewind Dale needed (specially considering the game doesn't really have much of a story to begin with, and with the various additions to the game making it even easier). As it is regardless of your choice the difficulty is automatically adjusted to "trivial".

I just got over 6K XP just for finding a ring and talking to the innkeeper about it. While the dialogue was well written, it was basically "click next to WIN!". You don't have multiple options regarding what to say to him once you have chosen whether to bribe or take the good path, you don't need to navigate a complex dialogue tree that could lead to multiple results, you just keep reading and clicking till you get a ridiculous amount of XP for doing absolutely nothing.

 

[roshan]

You're really on a trip to out-edgy everyone on the codex lately eh?

If you find the game 'soulless and boring' (which it is not) why do you even keep playing?

No, I'm certainly not actively trying to be EDGY, in fact I think I am quite easy to please, I really liked every game I played from last year (even Dead Man's Switch which I played on the Director's Cut engine).

I played Icewind Dale when it was released, and back then it was an almost magical experience, loved the ambiance and the sparseness of the north. Graphics and music are of course top notch to this day, I mean, I find myself amazed at how gorgeous the game is (not even the later Infinity Engine games like BG2 and IWD2 can compete with the sheer beauty of this game's art). But I also find myself mystified, why in the world did the developers expend so much effort designing an empty house? I mean it looks amazing, but there's nothing to do, there isn't even a container to loot or an NPC to interact with.

What this game really needs though is no more extra XP on insane, plus a mod like Tactics for IWD2 that massively buffs up enemies and encounters, and another SCS style mod that improves the AI. That would be heaven.

 

[roshan]

OK so I'm at the Vale of Shadows and basically blazing through dungeons, I've cleared two so far. Even the pacing is totally off because the game has become too easy, enemies have really low HP and are just quickly hacked up like a bad party based Diablo. My characters are almost hitting level 5 or the multiclass equivalent thereof and all I have done is kill some trash mobs like goblins and skeletons. This is really mindless and boring stuff. In Baldur's Gate without TOTSC the max level of a fighter was 7 and getting to that point took hours of gameplay whereas in IWD I have gained a ridiculous amount of levels while doing or accomplishing absolutely nothing.

I also think that character design really doesn't hold up to modern standards, even compared to IWD2. For example, Arundel has absolutely no personality. Is he quick to anger? Is he intelligent? Is he bigoted? He's nothing at all, just completely bland and lifeless, not much better than a quest compass. His dialogue is flavorless. He has no history either except for retarded cliches like "keeping the balance between humans and nature". If anyone has actually been out in the wild (I do quite a bit of hiking)... It is a fucking monstrosity, a force to be reckoned with, not some baby that needs to be cradled. Compare Arundel to characters like Maralie Fiddlebender in IWD2, or Mrs. Kubota in Shadowrun Returns, or Paul Ansel in Dragonfall. Heck even minor characters in Banner Saga or the Shadowrun games have more fleshed out personalities than Arundel. I wonder if I will destroy my childhood memories of Kresselack and Larrel with continued play?

Art is still really fantastic but the end effect is like that of an interactive screensaver.

 

[Infinitron]

Maybe you should just restart at Normal before it's too late, roshan.

 

[roshan]

Well, I doubt that would be enough, I mean this is a seriously broken experience. I think an insane mode with 50% reduced XP might hit the spot though. I think I will have to quit and wait for mods that can "incline" the whole thing.

I'm actually really surprised at realizing this well over a decade but I have to admit that old Bioware until BG2 at least was significantly better at game design than Black Isle. Their paradigm was to throw challenging encounters at players while on the other hand BIS sought to jerk players off with ego massages, like insane mode making IWD laughably easy, or how your character was immortal in PST and on top of that there was even a run mode so you could escape every encounter. I'm really not surprised anymore that Avellone, Brenneke and other Obsidian designers have turned out to be completely incompetent at playing the very type of games they create. Obsidian really is carrying the torch of BIS with their "by retards, for retards" approach to CRPG combat.

 

[Infinitron]

If you want to compare your current experience of the game with your experience from a decade ago, you should probably be playing with the same configuration you did back then...

 

[roshan]

If you want to compare your current experience of the game with your experience from a decade ago, you should probably be playing with the same configuration you did back then...

Well I don't think there is a major difference between the two versions because aside from the archer, the other characters I'm using are multiclass combos available in the original game, and I haven't used any of the new spells either. In fact I was actually sending the archer into melee as I felt guilty about using her. Unless there are "under the hood" changes and the monster stats have been nerfed.