63 réponses à ce sujet

[olivier leroux]

I'm pretty sure I already created such a thread a while (or even a few years?) ago, but with all the changes happening in the meantime (Bioware forum moving for the second time, old Vault being replaced by new Vault), I feel a bit overwhelmed with reorienting myself and picking up the pieces, so please accept my apology for bothering you again!

 

I'm a long time NWN player and I've made several attempts to get into NWN2, too, but so far they haven't been very successful, mostly because of the graphics, camera modes and UI. In my current attempt I started with playing the shorter adventure Mysteries of Westgate, and the setting seems interesting enough, but I still struggle with the controls. The game has rather dark lighting and tries to create atmospheric, eerie situations, but I find that even if if I make use of the gamma correction, it's often hard to distinguish enemies from the background in dungeons, and I never know what camera mode to work with - character mode seems more immersive if the character stands still but isn't really useful when moving or fighting, and even in the other modes I wish I could zoom out further.

 

Anyway, I don't mean to ramble, but how do you play NWN2, what camera modes and settings do you find most convenient? Also, I noticed that in cinematic dialogue, sometimes you can click through the text and sometimes you can't, and if you wait, sometimes the text continues without waiting for your input. Is that how NWN2 works in general or is it dependent on how a module was programmed? I'd prefer it if I could click through all the text but the text would not continue automatically on its own, before I confirm that I've read it.

 

And what are the essential mods to improve the GUI (and camera)? I remember I had a few installed several years back, especially concerning the inventory and the quickslots, but I don't remember their names and don't know whether they're still compatible with the last version of NWN2 (I bought it from GOG.com). Can anyone give me some tips and advice? Thanks!

[Arkalezth]

Welcome back.

 

Exploration camera mode, by faaaaar (I think you need the expansions). It's pretty much the same as NWN1, or even better if you ask me, as you can move it around with the mouse. I don't like the other camera modes, but frankly, ever since exploration was added, I don't get those NWN1 players who complain about the camera.

Regarding the UI, I personally use a combination of several mods. Some parts I'm not even sure where I got them from, but I use some stuff from here. You may also want to check Tchos' high resolution panels, which make the windows bigger.

 

I've never had that problem with enemies; maybe try to up your gamma in the game options. It may also help to map a couple of keys to target and attack enemies (the latter being under "perform default action on target").

[olivier leroux]

Welcome back.

 

Exploration camera mode, by faaaaar (I think you need the expansions). It's pretty much the same as NWN1, or even better if you ask me, as you can move it around with the mouse. I don't like the other camera modes, but frankly, ever since exploration was added, I don't get those NWN1 players who complain about the camera.

Regarding the UI, I personally use a combination of several mods. Some parts I'm not even sure where I got them from, but I use some stuff from here. You may also want to check Tchos' high resolution panels, which makes the windows bigger.

 

I've never had that problem with enemies; maybe try to up your gamma in the game options. It may also help to map a couple of keys to target and attack enemies (the latter being under "perform default action on target").

 

True, the exploration mode is pretty similar to NWN and objectively there's nothing wrong with it once you adjust the turn speed (which was really slow by default). I don't know why I still feel a little uncomfortable with it, maybe it's because I always used a camera hack for NWN that enabled me to zoom out further than the original game allowed - so I did not really like NWN's unhacked camera either. Granted, the characters get small enough if you zoom out in NWN2, but you never really get a good overview over the area for some reason ... I suppose I can get used to it though, in case there is no such camera hak for NWN2.

 

As for the enemies, I already upped the gamma in the game options, but maybe it's just that the backgrounds are so much more detailed and colorful that it becomes harder to distinguish anything of importance in them (and IMO that's quite unnecessary as most of the graphics are just fluff and still not the best looking and the game mostly lives from textual narration and strategic combat, not graphical immersion). I also noticed one big difference to NWN in the way the "highlight objects, characters etc." key works: If you press it in NWN, it also displays all the characters' names, while in NWN2 it just highlights their models, which makes it harder to single out important characters in a crowd or count how many enemies actually surround you.

 

Anyway, thanks for the reply! I'll check out the UI stuff you linked to.

[olivier leroux]

It's a bit embarrassing, but apparantly I also have trouble with the combat. The default companion AI seems to be just as dumb as that of NWN's henchmen - companions charge everything that moves and completely ignore traps in the process. I guess you could make them act a little more sensible by configuring their behavior, but then again, I thought it would be more fun to shut their AI off completely and control them myself. But they don't always do what I tell them. Sometimes they just stand around instead of fighting - possibly due to pathfinding issues? - and if I tell the cleric to cast a healing spell on someone during combat, she just keeps on fighting and ignores my command, even though she's supposed to be in puppet mode. The way I did it was: I opened the quickcast menu with F, clicked on the spell, and then clicked on the portrait of the character I meant to heal. That didn't work, so I clicked on the spell again and then on the character model I wanted to heal, also to no effect. Am I doing it wrong? How do I target a character for a healing spell?

[-Semper-]

you can target the spell by clicking on the portrait or on the game model, as you already did. you can also right click the target so its portrait appears at the top of your screen, but remember to deselect it afterwards or you'll cast all of your spells automatically on the selected target. dunno what went wrong with your priest - i never encountered such an issue. did you switch puppet mode on in the lower left of your screen?

 

i never leave puppet mode when playing nwn2, and i strictly play in exploration mode with a free camera and rectangle select to control the whole group. there's also a hotkey to quick select everyone.

 

@ui mods: i also highly recommend tchos's gui. i can't go back and play nwn2 without. especially the old dialogue window drove me nuts in the past you can also try tony_k's ai fixes and the reeron's spell fixes. and don't forget about skywing's client extension which fixes numerous other bugs.

[olivier leroux]

you can target the spell by clicking on the portrait or on the game model, as you already did. you can also right click the target so its portrait appears at the top of your screen, but remember to deselect it afterwards or you'll cast all of your spells automatically on the selected target. dunno what went wrong with your priest - i never encountered such an issue. did you switch puppet mode on in the lower left of your screen?

 

It was on, but it's good to know that you can also toggle it off and on with the button in the lower left of the screen, I hadn't noticed that yet. I have a suspicion now that the issue with the cleric might have been due to some condition she was suffering - as I was fighting spiders, it's likely that she was entangled and that this prevented her from casting a healing spell on someone else, assuming they are touch-based. I wish the game would give a little more feedback on such things instead of just ignoring my commands, but I'm slowly learning how it works.

 

I guess I could have made the combats a little easier by playing a fighter or a mage; I thought choosing a rogue would fit the setting of Westgate, but it turns out it was a bad choice, especially for one who isn't even fond of playing rogues in the first place, since there are only three companions in the campaign and they don't complement a rogue that well. Now I have two rogues in the party and not enough muscle or spell power, and the limited space, the way most combats are set up and the pathfinding issues make sneak attacks a rare occurrence. Oh well, with a little preparation and luck, it's still possible to win the boss battles, I guess.

 

Btw, is there a button to select the whole party without having to draw a rectangle around them every time, like in Baldur's Gate? That's the disadvantage of turning the AI off, I always tend to leave half of the party behind, because you constantly need to tell them to follow the leader, and drawing a rectancle becomes tricky if they are already too far apart for the camera.

[rjshae]

It was on, but it's good to know that you can also toggle it off and on with the button in the lower left of the screen, I hadn't noticed that yet. I have a suspicion now that the issue with the cleric might have been due to some condition she was suffering - as I was fighting spiders, it's likely that she was entangled and that this prevented her from casting a healing spell on someone else, assuming they are touch-based. I wish the game would give a little more feedback on such things instead of just ignoring my commands, but I'm slowly learning how it works.

 

There should be little condition icons next to the small character portraits on the screen. It probably also showed up in the feedback window, but that text can stream pass pretty fast.

[olivier leroux]

There should be little condition icons next to the small character portraits on the screen. It probably also showed up in the feedback window, but that text can stream pass pretty fast.

 

I know, but they don't say something like: "The spell you are currently trying to cast will not work because of your condition and therefor you can't even tell your character to try and cast it". As a player you just notice that something that's usually supposed to work is not working, and you don't notice it because the spell fails or your character complains or something but because the game is just not reacting to your commands which is confusing because it makes the game seem unresponsive and buggy. Admittedly I didn't keep an eye on the feedback window; next time I'll pay attention whether there is a text message about not being able to select a target for the spell (I suspect there isn't though). In any case, as I said, I'm learning; the game is not perfect - as NWN wasn't either - and maybe I'll be able to adapt and live with its quirks regardless.

[kevL]

Btw, is there a button to select the whole party without having to draw a rectangle around them every time, like in Baldur's Gate? That's the disadvantage of turning the AI off, I always tend to leave half of the party behind, because you constantly need to tell them to follow the leader, and drawing a rectancle becomes tricky if they are already too far apart for the camera.

Options > Keymapping > Misc > "Toggle Group Selection"

personally i play full puppet -- but leave the characters set up so that I just click the AI on and they follow. Then click it back off as soon as enemies are spotted.

[olivier leroux]

Options > Keymapping > Misc > "Toggle Group Selection"

personally i play full puppet -- but leave the characters set up so that I just click the AI on and they follow. Then click it back off as soon as enemies are spotted.

 

Great, thanks!

[kevL]

oh note: when turning ai off, I think you have to cycle the characters to get them to recognize their AI is off. Ie, click each of their portraits on the partybar

(or tweak the scripts)

[Tchos]

My thought is that activating puppet mode and turning off the AI are different things that produce slightly different effects.  I'm not sure, though.

 

As the others, I use exploration mode, except on the occasions when I need to look upward, such as on a steep slope, in which case I temporarily switch to character mode.  In exploration mode, you can zoom in close to get personal and detailed, or out far enough to get a good overview.  I haven't felt the need to go further than it allows, but there's probably a hack for it if you need one.  I know the game supports it, because of the console's free camera mode, which completely unlocks the camera. 

 

I did need to adjust the speed of the camera turning, and I did it through the .ini file, not through the menus, since it seemed like it wasn't doing enough.

 

As others mentioned, yes, there is a key to select the whole party like in Baldur's Gate.  I don't know what it is normally because I remapped it to the same as Baldur's Gate.  But it only works in certain camera modes.  It will not work in character mode, just like drawing a marquee around the party only works in certain modes.

 

Pathfinding, as you surmised, can sometimes lead to party members not being able to reach their target, if the area is small.  Sometimes this is good, for creating choke points and other strategic play, or can create a challenge.  I used it intentionally in one of my area designs.

 

I have experienced some modules that were too dark to see, but that's usually a design decision, not the engine.  Some builders like dark dungeons.  Sometimes they even make it pitch black outside at night, which is terrible if they don't allow resting, or if their resting doesn't use the MotB system that advances the actual clock time or lets you wait until dawn.  My concern is for player.  I think the player should always be able to see.  We have status effects and penalties for darkness in D&D, but it's the character who can't see, not the player.  Same as if a target is concealed -- In NWN2 you can still see the enemy transparently, but attempts to target them for spells will fail outright.  In any case, the areas of my modules are well lit, and my exteriors have bright moonlight.

 

Likewise, if you can't distinguish the important parts of a scene from the unimportant parts, that's the fault of the design, not the engine.

 

You might like to try installing Lance Botelle's enemy HP bars, though.  I think it would restore the information you're missing from highlighting the enemies with the keypress.

 

The cinematic dialogue default is a pet peeve of mine.  I hate it except when it's used for certain purposes (like cinemas, though I'd prefer as few of those as possible), but never for casual dialogue.  My preference, and the one I use in my work, is the SoZ party chat, where you can select who in your party will speak up and answer a question at any time, with different options depending on their stats, class, or companion identity, and it uses a dialogue box instead of the cinematic style, where the dialogue advances when you click on a response.  No waiting!

 

The annoyance you mention, about the inconsistency of sometimes being able to click and sometimes not during a cinematic dialogue, is entirely due to builder choice when making the conversation.  If they chose to display the dialogue for a certain amount of seconds, then it will display for that long, and ignore your clicks.  They do that because if they have multiple NPC lines in sequence, they may flash by too quickly, but if they used timed silent wav files then they would not have to use such a delay, and you could click to advance them as normal.  This inconsistency in design is one of many reasons I hate cinematic dialogue.

 

Of course, if you use SoZ style party chat or NWN1-style dialogue box, then you don't need to split up your NPC's dialogue into multiple clicks anyway, since there's a scroll bar in the dialogue boxes.

[kevL]

ai off = puppet on

(apart from characters affected & GUI updates)

[4760]

As the others, I use exploration mode, except on the occasions when I need to look upward, such as on a steep slope, in which case I temporarily switch to character mode.

Well, I guess I'm one of the very few who use character mode 95% of the time then...

 

I did need to adjust the speed of the camera turning, and I did it through the .ini file, not through the menus, since it seemed like it wasn't doing enough.

But maybe that was the reason: not being able to turn around when you're backstabbed is what decided me to not use exploration mode.

[4760]

The annoyance you mention, about the inconsistency of sometimes being able to click and sometimes not during a cinematic dialogue, is entirely due to builder choice when making the conversation.  If they chose to display the dialogue for a certain amount of seconds, then it will display for that long, and ignore your clicks.  They do that because if they have multiple NPC lines in sequence, they may flash by too quickly, but if they used timed silent wav files then they would not have to use such a delay, and you could click to advance them as normal.  This inconsistency in design is one of many reasons I hate cinematic dialogue.

As the name indicates, I only used cinematic dialog in my campaign when some action is supposed to take place (like some kind of a movie sequence, before the PC arrived, or when he lost consciousness). And in that case, I had to keep some lines displayed for a precise duration, so the NPC and creatures would appear when expected and doing what they are supposed to do at the right time.

 

But apart from these occasions, I switch to the NWN1 dialog style (I'll probably switch to the SoZ way for the next modules).

[olivier leroux]

...

 

Thanks a lot for your most insightful post! I've installed your GUI and I especially like the new dialogue window and bigger fonts. I'm not quite sure about the portraits yet, so I disabled them for the time being, but in general your improvements, combined with the tips on configuring exploration mode with free camera and party select button already made the game much more comfortable to me. I've also installed the Hit Point bars, and while they don't solve the problem of finding important NPCs, they should make combat a bit less chaotic. And I've found and installed Smaller Big Map to get an NWN style map (the minimap looks cool but I can hardly recognize anything in it; too bad you can't create your own marks on the map though). All in all I'm slowly warming up to NWN2; now it feels more like a mixture of NWN and Baldur's Gate, as it should be. That was what I remembered from my first and longest attempt to play it, too: That it can be fun but you need to work for it and invest some time configuring and hacking it according to your preferences first, because the default settings aren't that convenient.

 

I'm glad I'm not the only one who isn't impressed by the cinematic dialogues (particularly if used without voiceacting). Maybe I should check out your modules once I'm done with MoW, your vision as a builder sounds like they might be right up my alley. So far I've found "The Black Scourge of Candle Cove" plus Halloween add-on, did you create any others?

[Tchos]

Another default I don't like is the rotation of the view when your mouse hits the sides of the screen.  I turn that off, and rotate only with the mouse (and/or by holding down the X key).

 

I'm glad the UI mod is making it a more pleasant experience.    I'm glad you found it customisable to your preferences in regard to the portraits, though I'm surprised that you wouldn't want to use NWN1-style artistic portraits for your characters.

 

To help find important NPCs (I assume for the reason you mentioned, to assign priority on fights), Lance also created a mod that puts character names over the NPCs' heads, but I haven't tried it, so I'm not sure if it works automatically in any module, or if you have to set up the module to use it.  If you mean for questgivers, I modded a visual solution for that in my own work, but it requires the builder to set up the module to use it, so it can't be used automatically in all modules.

 

For NWN2, I have not created any adventures beyond the ones you listed, though I am working slowly on another as time allows.

[olivier leroux]

I'm glad the UI mod is making it a more pleasant experience.    I'm glad you found it customisable to your preferences in regard to the portraits, though I'm surprised that you wouldn't want to use NWN1-style artistic portraits for your characters.

 

Well, I do like NWN-style portraits, but above all I value consistency in the look and therefor I wouldn't like it if my character has a beautifully painted portrait while my companions or other NPCs still have 3D model portraits, and it would be too much work to find fitting portraits for all of them. The 3D models on the other hand don't look so good in the stretched frames because they fill up all the space and touch the borders on all sides, making the portraits look crammed. And currently I still use the HP numbers display on the portraits, which doesn't seem to scale along with the stretched portraits. That's why I thought it easier to just go along with the default portraits. Since they are small and don't take up too much space, I can easily overlook that they're not very pretty and just regard it from a practical point of view.

 

As for the names over NPCs - yes, I meant for questgivers or any individual NPC with longer dialogue, as opposed to random common cityfolk who repeat the same one-liners over and over again. I'll check out Lance's other hak. Btw, I've only ever heard about Lance Botelle as the author of the NWN module "Soul Shaker", I didn't know he was into NWN2, too. Is he still around? Did he create any adventure modules for NWN2?

[Tchos]

I agree the 3D portraits are less than ideal.  I always customise companion portraits when I play, but I understand some may not want to do that.  As for the HP numbers, there's a patch for that, putting them at the bottom where they should be.  I initially missed it because I play with the numbers off.

 

I'm sure Lance will speak for himself when he notices this thread, but yes, he's been actively creating content for NWN2 over the years, and is close to a beta release for an adventure campaign.  He has a development diary blog, and a thread here.

[olivier leroux]

Choosing a rogue to play Mysteries of Westgate really turns out to be a problem. Any tips on how to win the mandatory arena battles against greater groups of powerful opponents in an open space when you have only one tank, one cleric and two (not all that useful) rogues? Should have chosen a mage as player character instead. Thankfully my rogue has some magic items for casting Invisibility, Fireball, Lightning, but they're not that much of a help when the rest of the party is down so quickly, and the opponents don't take too much damage from these spells.

[Arkalezth]

I've never played MoW with a rogue, but my tip is: Leave it for later. You can delay it until you're level 13 or maybe even 14 (I'm assuming you haven't reached that point yet), and then it'll be easier with all the good gear and spells. Specifically, Word of Faith can probably win the battle by itself. And buffs, lots of buffs.

[olivier leroux]

I've never played MoW with a rogue, but my tip is: Leave it for later. You can delay it until you're level 13 or maybe even 14 (I'm assuming you haven't reached that point yet), and then it'll be easier with all the good gear and spells. Specifically, Word of Faith can probably win the battle by itself. And buffs, lots of buffs.

 

Thanks for the advice! It seems I won't even need to win the arena batteles after all, since I amassed just enough money by doing the sidequests, and luckily I hadn't spent any of my money during my playthrough yet. The thing is, when I wrote about the arena battles being mandatory, I was 100% sure there weren't any sidequests I hadn't tackled yet, because I had already explored every location. On consulting a walkthrough, it turned out though that there were several new ones that had only popped up after me getting the quest to collect money, and in places I didn't have any reason to re-visit. I could only have found them by myself, if I had searched every shop and tavern in the module again, which sounds very tedious, especially considering how inconvenient traveling to and fro in MoW is, despite the overland map (because you still need to walk to the map exits every time before you can use the quick travel map). I consider that another design flaw in MoW - if you re-use old locations you need to give players a reason to re-visit them.

 

It's also a bit ridiculous that you actually have to pay the sum of 40.000 just for getting a passage on a ship, if you consider how much money that actually is in the game (when some side quest adventures only give you 1.000-2.000 gold and treat this as if you're stinking rich now; someone in the mod says that you can buy a small kingdom for 1.500 gold, so imagine what 40.000 would buy you). Then again, most items you can (or rather cannot) buy in shops apparantly are worth several small kingdoms, too. Oh, well.

 

In any case, I'm able to advance the main plot now even if I don't manage to win the arena battles, so thanks a lot for encouraging me to go on!

[Tchos]

Hm, when I played it, it never occurred to me what the arena battles may have been there for.  I assumed it was just a side thing for people who like arena combat, not something mandatory for gold reasons.  Did you start with a brand new character, and not import one who already had gold and gear from previous adventures?  The module starts at level 8, which according to 3.5 rules should own about 33K gold in cash and gear from previous adventures (46K for level 9), but if you played any of the official campaigns, you'd likely have more.  Even if you start with a fresh character, if a module auto-levels you to the necessary level, it should give you the gold you're expected to have at that level, but I know many don't.

 

40K was quite excessive for ship passage, though I was surprised to see it in there, since I had also required the player to raise gold to rent a ship in my own campaign.  If I had known it was done in MoW, I would have probably done something different.  But I researched costs for boats in the D&D sourcebooks, and only required the player to raise 2500 gold, and only because demand outweighed supply in my situation.  The player still has the option to haggle, since smaller boats can be bought outright for less than that amount.

 

I revisited those old areas in Westgate from time to time, because of the conspicuously usable but key-locked doors.  There's no reason in a well-designed module to leave doors usable if you'll never be able to enter them (they can be marked "static" instead, and they will not highlight or be selectable), so I expected they would open eventually.  Still, they should have put descriptions on the door so when you examine them, they tell you what to expect inside.  I believe that any object that can be selected should have a useful description, and a door that's key-locked should have some indication that it can be opened later in some way.  In my campaign, I put descriptions on signs near doors for common shops, or on doors when there are no signs (or at least descriptive names), because when you approach a door, you should be able to hear some of what's going on behind it, and notice visual clues around it that give you a general sense of what the place is like before you decide to go in.

[olivier leroux]

Like I said, this is a completely new start for me and MoW is the first NWN2 campaign I play (apart from having played through half of the OC several years ago and one or two mini-mods), so I didn't have any characters to import. I heard that MoW was independent from the OC and expansions, so I assumed it would start at level 1. My character was leveled up to 8 in the beginning and I did get a little gold, but not that much, something between 2k and 6k, I think. By doing all the side quests (and not spending any of my money) I ended up with around 47k, and then I tried my hands at the arena battles again and managed to beat all but the last one-on-one combat and the Dukes (aka the dudes from Ossian Studios; not sure if there are still more party battles after that). That got me to about 59k.

 

For the sidequests you had to re-visit shops and tavern and such, not the locked doors. It's true that the doors hint at things to come, but it's very tedious to constantly check on areas to see if something has changed. There need to be pointers for things like that, even if it's just some generic hint like "Maybe some merchants could use your help" or "Taverns are always a good starting point if you're on the lookout" etc. Something that makes the players recognize that the game wants them to re-visit old locations, so something might have changed there. It's not enough to assume that players will check the stores on the regular, because you can sell all your stuff in the same place, and most of the items sold in the shops were too expensive for me anyway. In general I'm not fond of re-using locations because I know this issue all too well. If you've already explored everything before, you get less thorough and more likely to overlook something, thinking "I've already seen and done everything there is". IMO there is already too much running to and fro in MoW as it is (e.g. person X in area Y tells you to go see person A in area B, who tells you to report their answer to person X in area Y who tells you to see person Z in area B and so on and so on, all for one quest).

 

Btw, speaking of locked doors, I noticed that my rogue character always tries to unlock a door first before getting a message that a key is needed. IIRC in NWN you got that message immediately so you wouldn't waste time trying to unlock the door, but I might be mistaken. What's definitely different though is that sometimes the mod authors put events on the locked doors - you click on the door, a dialogue window is openend, saying "You knock on the door" or something -, but if I click on these doors with the rogue, she always tries to unlock them first, before the window opens, which is weird and inconvenient. Not sure if that's a general quirk of the engine or due to how the mod authors set up the events. In NWN, having dialogue on locked doors did not interfere with the rogue skills. Then again, I think in NWN rogue PCs didn't unlock doors automatically, only when you explicitly told them to do it.

[Arkalezth]

What are those places you had to revisit in order to take sidequests (maybe use a spoiler tag)? Right now I can only think of a couple of them, and an NPC approaches you outside in both cases.

 

The 40k thing was somewhat poorly done, not because it's that much, but because you may spend the money elsewhere before you even know about it. Perhaps you should have been made aware of it from the beginning, though that'd require changing the plot a bit.

 

I agreed that those doors that require a key are annoying, but there's not much you can do about it. You can right-click and "open", which skips the lockpicking attempt... if you know it's one of those doors beforehand. There's likely a way to make picking locks and disabling traps faster (I've used an insta-rest mod for NWN1 before, so something like that), but don't ask me how to do it.

 

PS: There's an official guide on Ossian's site that goes in detail about all the sidequests. You may want to check it out, even if only where to start them, just to make sure you don't miss any.