Aielund Saga Improvements (Need Input/Feedback)

[Legacy_Lilura]

               

Hi guys, first-time poster here.


I'm currently doing my first run of Aielund Saga and have just hit Act 2. Really enjoying it so far. However, I have two questions.

   Spoiler
   

When I first recruited Criosa, she would sneak, detect traps and perform other rogue actions, but not disarm traps. Then suddenly in another area she disarmed a couple of traps. But now I have Ronan in my party, and he just won't disarm any traps when they're clearly detected and right under his nose. What am I doing wrong, or is this a bug?

   Spoiler
   

Maggie won't Wildshape or summon her animal companion. I see in her dialogue it says "test wildshape" and "remove use", but these do nothing. Is this a bug?

I've found many typos and misspellings so far (Act 2), will try and post them later. I'm currently doing a fairly thorough run of this on my blog, recording everything I find (including EXP/loot etc). I would welcome comments and criticism, especially from veterans of NWN and any Aielund players.


Just a quick comment on Aielund's visuals, they're impressive with CEP baked in for sure. But I recently recounted Hordes of the Underdark infused with Project Q, and some models/reskins in that look much better (goblins, orcs, ogre mage.) It would be wicked to see these and many others brought into Aielund.


Anyway, I'd be grateful if someone could answer my two questions. Cheers!

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MrZork]

               

I didn't make much use of Ronan, but I know he has a dialog option related to trap-handling. You can tell him, "Could you please disable traps?" and I think that is supposed to get him into de-trapping mode.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Lilura]

               

I'm pretty sure Criosa also had a dialogue option to recover traps, which Ronan lacks (and he's currently lvl12; Criosa is capped at lvl6).


Anyway, trap disarming is definitely inconsistent for me, I'm currently in a highly trapped area and Ronan started disarming DC 31's, then I went down a corridor and he wouldn't disarm the ones down there...


It doesn't seem to matter if he's in stealth mode or not (and nor should it).


I don't know what's wrong, I'm used to Tomi in the OC being quite prompt in disarming and unlocking. I hope this (and the Maggie Wildshape) are simple issues that can be fixed, someday.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MagicalMaster]

               

The player can move the item in and out of the sarcophagus over and over, reaping the experience points.

 

Yep, will get fixed, but not really a big issue (if you feel like exploiting that then a little #DebugMode won't bother you either).

 

   Spoiler
   

When I first recruited Criosa, she would sneak, detect traps and perform other rogue actions, but not disarm traps. Then suddenly in another area she disarmed a couple of traps. But now I have Ronan in my party, and he just won't disarm any traps when they're clearly detected and right under his nose. What am I doing wrong, or is this a bug?

 

Offhand I'm not sure.  One potential issue is that those characters have enough search to DETECT the traps but not enough Disable Trap to DISARM them.  I don't suppose you checked their ranks in those skills?  Might need to bump their disable up.

 

   Spoiler
   

Maggie won't Wildshape or summon her animal companion. I see in her dialogue it says "test wildshape" and "remove use", but these do nothing. Is this a bug?

 

Let's just say the AI is absolutely awful and stupid with Wildshape and the animal companion isn't strong enough to be worth summoning.  It's intentional that neither happens, and that dialogue is a remnant of Savant testing whether they could be made to work halfway decently (the answer was no).

 

I've found many typos and misspellings so far (Act 2), will try and post them later. I'm currently doing a fairly thorough run of this on my blog, recording everything I find (including EXP/loot etc). I would welcome comments and criticism, especially from veterans of NWN and any Aielund players.

 

Will read it and comment later tonight.  Quite interested in seeing it.

 

Just a quick comment on Aielund's visuals, they're impressive with CEP baked in for sure. But I recently recounted Hordes of the Underdark infused with Project Q, and some models/reskins in that look much better (goblins, orcs, ogre mage.) It would be wicked to see these and many others brought into Aielund.

 

It's pretty unlikely as it means ripping out the CEP and putting Q in its place (and assumes that Q has all the necessary creature models for every Act).  If a lot of people would prefer it then I could probably take a quick crack it it once everything ELSE is done, but if it looks like it would be a major issue then it probably isn't worth the time.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Lilura]

               

1) Ronan had Disable Traps (19) and Search (17), and the traps he refused to disarm were actually lower DCs than those that he did disarm. But I worked it out, I have to put him in Guard Me mode to make disarming consistent (I didn't need to do this in official content). Would be nice if he could also recover them, there is a dialogue option for Criosa to do so and she does actually recover traps to her inventory. But maybe it's disabled for Ronan for game balance reasons, who knows. Thanks anyway!


2) Yeah, I guess you'd get more EXP too without a summon around. Though at high level they can be decent meatshields or decoys/trap springers. Wildshape I'm not too fussed about though Maggie could be getting dire shapes by now in my game. I think these features should be included even if they're of minimal utility, otherwise the dialogues should be removed to avoid confusion.

 

3) Let me know what you think about the blog posts.

 

4) I think many people would prefer Project Q variants to CEP, if only they knew of it. Still, this shouldn't be on any priority list - just thought I'd mention it. The CEP orcs and goblins look like someone took a dump on my screen, but the Project Q ones look great.


Oversights: I've seen a couple of floating placeables high up in the air, one lamp in the basement of Johnson's Estate and a tree in Kingswood when you head west to find the sadistic hunter.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MagicalMaster]

               

But I worked it out, I have to put him in Guard Me mode to make disarming consistent (I didn't need to do this in official content). Would be nice if he could also recover them, there is a dialogue option for Criosa to do so and she does actually recover traps to her inventory. But maybe it's disabled for Ronan for game balance reasons, who knows. Thanks anyway!

 

How odd.  I don't know of any reason for that behavior, I'll investigate.

 

2) Yeah, I guess you'd get more EXP too without a summon around. Though at high level they can be decent meatshields or decoys/trap springers. Wildshape I'm not too fussed about though Maggie could be getting dire shapes by now in my game. I think these features should be included even if they're of minimal utility, otherwise the dialogues should be removed to avoid confusion.

 

Trust me when I saw they won't be decent meatshields and you're better off manually triggering a trap and healing in this situation.  Nearly every player I know already rages if a companion summons a creature because it leeches XP -- they really don't want to lose 20% more XP.

 

The dialogues shouldn't exist, that was just for testing purposes presumably and never removed.

 

Oversights: I've seen a couple of floating placeables high up in the air, one lamp in the basement of Johnson's Estate and a tree in Kingswood when you head west to find the sadistic hunter.

 

Good to know, more details also helps.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Lilura]

               

Well, there are a few floating objects around like a tuft of grass in Bracksworth revisited. There must be hundreds of spelling errors, maybe it's best just to run the dialogue through a spellchecker?

 

Maggie chooses to memorise Shapechange at Level 9, but she refuses to attack in such Elemental forms. Shapechange is also doubly annoying in that she blocks narrow passageways and gets stuck all the time. So a worthless spell pick except for "stand there and tank" (which is dumb). Probably should be removed. I've posted updates on the blog, btw.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MagicalMaster]

               

Well, there are a few floating objects around like a tuft of grass in Bracksworth revisited.

 

More info on that stuff would help!

 

There must be hundreds of spelling errors, maybe it's best just to run the dialogue through a spellchecker?

 

Did I really miss that many playing through?  I trust you're accounting for the British spelling of many words?

 

I can look into the NWN spellchecker I've heard mentioned before, I suppose.  By Han Olsen or something I think.

 

Maggie chooses to memorise Shapechange at Level 9, but she refuses to attack in such Elemental forms. Shapechange is also doubly annoying in that she blocks narrow passageways and gets stuck all the time. So a worthless spell pick except for "stand there and tank" (which is dumb). Probably should be removed. I've posted updates on the blog, btw.

 

Yeah, the AI sucks with polymorphs (including when to use them).  Not sure if the spell can be removed from her since she uses a level-up package, might just have to script it to do nothing if cast by an NPC.

Holey moley updates on the blog, you're on a roll!

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Lilura]

               

No, the spelling and other errors are independent of the British differences. Spellchecker should pick up most of them, others are just plain mistakes you only see by reading (like the author referring to "slaadi" in plural as "slaads").

 

Floating placeables: Kingswood Act Two and outside Dale's house in Bracksworth Act Three and Johnson estate basement Act Two.

 

Also posted another update on blog.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Lilura]

               

Missing textures in elven city, here and here.

 

The hak is in the hak directory, so not sure what's wrong - haven't encountered any texture issues until now.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MagicalMaster]

               

I've never encountered that either.  Interesting.  Did you try leaving the area and returning to force a graphic refresh?

 

Also...

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaad

 

"In the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, slaad (pluralized as slaadi, or in 4th edition as slaads) are a fictional race of Outsiders that resemble giant humanoid toads of various colors."

 

Oh no!  How do we decide?

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Lilura]

               

I'll try that, it seemed to happen with transition from day to night...

 

Well, NWN is 3.0 and in-game description window pluralizes as Slaadi (so does NWN wiki), so... Also noticed author uses Eldar instead of Elder for Elementals. Eldar are ancient elves, only.

 

Also replied to your blog comments.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_MagicalMaster]

               

I know, I was being a bit facetious.

 

Waiting to hear about texture bug.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Lilura]

               

Can't reproduce tex glitch, problem might have been my end.

 

Also two more updates + comments.

               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Jereniva]

               

I'm only in Act 1 so far, but Kipper Bob in Act 1 has a few typos in his conversation, "anchoered" instead of anchored, and "inclinded" instead of inclined.