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BG2 Completed Mods => Zyraen's Miscellaneous Mods => Topic started by: Zyraen on March 08, 2005, 11:05:23 AM

Title: Solo with a Party!
Post by: Zyraen on March 08, 2005, 11:05:23 AM
- Always wanted to play a Solo, but found the non-combat sections too boring?
- Find Solo-ing without a Thief too exasperating at the beginning?
- Want the challenge of a Solo and still enjoy that romance you haven't yet checked out?
- Want to really hit the limits of the Experience bar and see just how high level your main character can go?
- Wishing your party members could just go hide somewhere while you finished the baddies?
- Rerunning Baldur's Gate 2 with your uber Main Character to check out that new NPC but tired of having to babysit all your other party members?
- Irritated with having to spend a good portion of your game time to move the rest of your slow-moving party?

Well then, this Mod is for you! :) Features include

- XP Awarding - get it all for yourself!
- Resurrections - Automatically resurrects all and any dead party members after combat.
- Solo Combat - for the challenge, all party members automatically get Mazed and stay Mazed until the battle is over.
- Improved Haste - For ease of movement along the maps and to keep up with the main character, all other party members have Improved Haste on them at practically all times.

Hope that you enjoy it, feedback/bugs/typos etc can be emailed to me or posted here to this thread.

** Obsolete Links Removed **
Title: Re: Solo with a Party!
Post by: BallOfFire on March 08, 2005, 08:02:29 PM
Wow.  Wow.  Wow.  This is what I've been looking for!  You said it will work with NPC mods, but I'm still a little worried.  Maze has a tendency of disrupting certain things like romances because the NPCS apparently are no longer considered to be in the party.  Will it work with Longer Road?

Can't wait to try this out.  I was thinking about making something like this myself once I learned how to mod =P.  There is just one major improvement that I can think of; is there ANY way to not have to run around with the entire party when outside of a battle without making dialogue impossible?  The main reason I solo is I can't stand them getting stuck behind buildings.

Happiness....  :D
Title: Re: Solo with a Party!
Post by: Zyraen on March 08, 2005, 09:55:41 PM
I am almost 100% certain Maze will not disrupt romances, since the person stays in your party, though my original choice, Imprisonment, will disrupt romances.

You need Party members around to be able to initiate dialogue with them. I wanted to create a hotkey for the player to press to instantly recall all the party members to near him, though, but I didn't do that. If you want to I might give it a shot.

Anyway, the other way of getting them out of "stuck" places is simply to find someone nearby to fight. When a fight begins, all party members will be instantly brought to a place a very short distance from you and Mazed. Once the battle is over, they'll reappear good as new.  Since Haste is on all the time though on the other party members, they shouldn't have a problem keeping up with your PC even if he / she has Boots of Speed on.

It's done already, you can download it and run :) Experience earning at the beginning might be a little slow, as everyone needs to hit the 100K mark before you start profiting from their XP, and even then only about 20K XP at a time.
Title: Re: Solo with a Party!
Post by: BallOfFire on March 09, 2005, 02:02:06 AM
Ah man... this is so awesome.  I hope it's compatable with all the billions of other mods I'm installing.  Man...  Now I just gotta decide if I want to play BG2 as it's meant to be played or how I've always wanted to play it...  Hmm how does the installation/uninstallation work?  Do you have to start a new game either way?  I'd really like to install it at least for a while once I hit 100k on my NPCs, but I was planning on actually using NPCs for a change so I can't decide if I should use this mod this run-through...  My character is already 9/11/11 so the NPCs might even have 100k to start with.  Oooo I'm so excited.  Thanks for making this!

By the way, I was confusing Maze and Imprisonment.  Maze should work fine I think =).
Title: Re: Solo with a Party!
Post by: Zyraen on March 09, 2005, 02:17:20 AM
It's WeiDU so all the Mods in the world shouldn't be a problem.

Other information, you can find in the readme ;) But I'll type it here anyway.

It doesn't toy with any scenarios, any characters, so bar Quests that are triggered by Levels and XP, it shouldn't affect anything.

Installing the Mod does NOT affect anything, you can still start normal Games and play normally. It only comes into effect when you set a Global Variable anytime in your game, so you can level your Party up to very high levels, and then set the Variable. This will cause all your party member's XP to drop to 100K, but their Level will remain the same (though they'll still get Mazed during combat, so it will only help you so much.)

However, in such a case, the XP that is lost by your party members will NOT all go to your PC - only after their experience is less than 140K, then you gain 20K XP per 20K XP they lose, till their XP is under 100K.
Title: Re: Solo with a Party!
Post by: Zyraen on March 09, 2005, 08:30:37 AM
Was trying it out with Saerilith, and found that certain dialogues trigger the Maze Effect at the end of it. This is due to using !CombatCounter(0) instead of ActuallyInCombat(), and has since been rectified.

Also changed the Healing so that it now is autocast on party members so long as the party member does not have 100% Life.
Title: Re: Solo with a Party!
Post by: BallOfFire on March 09, 2005, 05:40:22 PM
I love you =).
Title: Re: Solo with a Party!
Post by: Ghreyfain on March 09, 2005, 05:46:05 PM
Suggestion: Apply all effects from minhp1.itm to party members, minus the immunity to Maze?  Whether through a custom item or whatever is up to you, depending on how easy the various ways would be to implement.
Title: Re: Solo with a Party!
Post by: Zyraen on March 09, 2005, 10:53:37 PM
Actually I tried out using INVULNER initially, but the problem was that party members tended to "distract" the monsters from hitting you. So that was a Solo Challenge issue.

There are still minor problems though, on certain areas, such as if a character gets killed and is Mazed at about the same time, the Maze will last forever and the character cannot be resurrected, to my knowledge. (Saerilith got hit by this, to my horror! I hate the Improved MaeVar Mod :/ )

The other issue is that "eagle" CRE that manages the spellcasting (I used the PC for that previously, but I found out very quickly the Cowlies will jump on you left right centre)  sometimes gets "left behind" in a certain area, and it takes some time for its script to make it destroy itself happen. When this occurs sometimes the party members don't get Mazed, they just stay hanging around the battlefield, until the CRE finally shows up (when all other instances of that CRE have been destroyed) and mazes them. But generally once the CRE shows up, your party members stay Mazed, though there is typically a 1 second window or so before it comes into effect on them.

I also use MoveGlobal to get the party members to the CRE so it can maze them, but strangely it doesn't seem to have the effect desired.
ie. if I fight in Rayic's house and Minsc and Jaheira are hanging around outside in AR0300, there is no effect on them. though from my reading of command, MoveGlobalObject should actually move them, regardless of where they are in the game (even if they are in the Throne of Bhaal!) to the CRE and then Maze em.

I'm still not very sure how to get this issue resolved satisfactorily.
Title: Re: Solo with a Party!
Post by: Ghreyfain on March 10, 2005, 06:17:18 AM
Actually I tried out using INVULNER initially, but the problem was that party members tended to "distract" the monsters from hitting you. So that was a Solo Challenge issue.

Well, yeah, but they'd still be mazed.  The invulnerability to everything but maze would just be a safeguard.

Quote
There are still minor problems though, on certain areas, such as if a character gets killed and is Mazed at about the same time, the Maze will last forever and the character cannot be resurrected, to my knowledge. (Saerilith got hit by this, to my horror! I hate the Improved MaeVar Mod :/ )

Cast freedom under certain circumstances?

Quote
The other issue is that "eagle" CRE that manages the spellcasting (I used the PC for that previously, but I found out very quickly the Cowlies will jump on you left right centre)  sometimes gets "left behind" in a certain area, and it takes some time for its script to make it destroy itself happen. When this occurs sometimes the party members don't get Mazed, they just stay hanging around the battlefield, until the CRE finally shows up (when all other instances of that CRE have been destroyed) and mazes them. But generally once the CRE shows up, your party members stay Mazed, though there is typically a 1 second window or so before it comes into effect on them.

Try MakeGlobal()'ing the eagle creature, and then MoveGlobalObject() like familiars do.  That way you only ever have one eagle creature.

Not sure about the last bit, and I'm running out of time.
Title: Re: Solo with a Party!
Post by: irenicus on March 10, 2005, 06:51:10 AM
-blinks twice- i would end up dying, in say, secounds? i normally send the idiots up frount and i run of and hide -evil grin-
Title: Re: Solo with a Party!
Post by: Zyraen on March 10, 2005, 11:11:51 AM
I think when I have time to do it, I'll try to see if I can create a new version of Maze. If it can be listed under a cleric spell, I can completely drop the Eagle CRE and that would save a lot of buggy stuff.

Off the Freedom note, yeah the Eagle CRE already casts Freedom upon a battle ending, automatically. This still does not bring back a dead character who is Mazed :( Sad huh?

Meantime I see if I can make the Eagle a Global creature or something, and maybe use a new version Invulner after all :) so that Improved Haste doesn't need to be cast repeatedly, as well as the Resurrection etc stuff.

Thanks for the Tips! :)
Title: Re: Solo with a Party!
Post by: BallOfFire on March 10, 2005, 11:13:39 AM
Just thought of something.  Transition to ToB... NPCs get their exp set to 2.5 million, which isn't in the 100000-140000 range.  Will that break the mod?  And if it doesn't, that means I'll instantly get a huge experience boost because my NPCs will jump from 100000 to 2500000 and the extra 240000 from each NPC will go to me...  Does the mod account for these things?  Also, "quest experience" goes separately to each NPC, so especially in ToB and Watcher's Keep that would mean lots of extra experience for the main guy.

By the way, when I was thinking about trying to figure out how to make a mod like this I had a crazy idea that probably wouldn't work but I still hope somehow it is possible.  I wanted to have the option of doing with NPCs what you do with familiars: put them in your backpack.  I wanted like a Turn into Action Figure spell or something =).  That way I could run around with just one character.  Is there any possible way that you could have NPCs in your backpack and still make it possible for them to speak (or an invisible clone of them or something)?  That would be neat but probably impossible or really complicated...
Title: Re: Solo with a Party!
Post by: Zyraen on March 10, 2005, 05:43:02 PM
It might be possible if you created invisible CREs of the NPCs that had the same Death Variable, I think. I was thinking of doing such a backpack NPC for one of my Mods, lol, about this character who is dying of a particular complication, and eventually winds up in your backpack, so to speak.

About the XP, it isn't a problem. In my initial plays in the game myself, it was a huge problem because as soon as say, Anomen etc joins me, I get a lardo XP I'm not supposed to have (I once had over 500K XP given to me this way! Some NPC with high starting level in SoA). The current code that is uploaded on my geocities site addresses this problem though. They just keep losing XP until their XP is down to 140K, before you get the extra remaining 40K.
Title: Re: Solo with a Party!
Post by: BallOfFire on March 10, 2005, 06:06:50 PM
Ah, ok.  Though quest experience awards will still mean extra exp, since the point is that quest experience (when it says "quest experience") is a small amount that goes to each character without being divided.  Though that actually makes it more fair than in normal soloing, because that always meant no exp benefit from soloing.  I still wish there was some way I didn't have to drag around the NPCs all the time.  I love playing as a part thief character and constantly hiding in shadows so I can always make a preemptive strike on any enemies.

By the way, NPC starting experience is determined by the protagonist's level.  Each NPC has three possible starting levels in SoA.  This means that potentially you could get an NPC and he would be like level 9 or something, and if you had one more experience point he would jump to level 12.  I've checked out the chart for this and the starting levels changes depending on which NPC they are and when you FIRST encounter them.  Whether that means when they first join your party or when they first just talk to you, I don't know.

Another potential problem.  Say I was "duoing" with my main char and one NPC.  Then I do some huge quest or kill a dragon and get, say, 82k at once.  The NPC would end up with over 140k experience, it would be reduced to get back in the correct range, and I would have missed out on the extra experience.  Does your mod account for that?
Title: Re: Solo with a Party!
Post by: Zyraen on March 10, 2005, 11:26:53 PM
The extra XP from completing Quests is also mentioned in the Readme.txt for the Mod that you *will* get extra XP from the NPCs for such Quest XP. It's really quite difficult to get around this, unless I take a look at SimDing's XP Rebalancer Mod or something.

You have to drag them around for banters etc to happen. However, when backstabbing, make sure you are as close as possible to the enemy before Backstabbing. The reason being is that often, once you issue an Attack command, you're considered in Combat, and all your NPCs will appear near you before being Mazed. When that happens, your target sometimes turns around to face the NPCs as they are being mazed, making the backstab come out as a normal blow.

The NPC experience is a moot point since the 140K limit handles it. It just takes a while to cut the XP down to 140K. I had mine because that time I hadn't have a way yet to control the limit.

Dualing has no effect on the total XP, from the Point of View of the Game Engine. The XP checks counts from the Total XP the NPC has. This also means that the NPC will effectively almost never be able to level up after Dualing.

However, if you are playing the Original SoA, you might find yourself extremely quickly hitting the 2.95 million mark. Even with ToB, after a few quests in SoA (MaeVar, Copper Coronet, Aerie, DeArnise, Riejek, Trademeet, Slave Lords, Twisted Rune, Tirdir, Defeated Bodhi for Aran) I'm already pretty near the 4 or 5 million mark (I think). You may want to get an XP Cap remover if you intend to really hit the XP roof with this Mod.
Title: Re: Solo with a Party!
Post by: BallOfFire on March 11, 2005, 12:52:09 AM
But what about when you get an amount of experience that puts the NPCs over 140k?  You lose anything over that?
Title: Re: Solo with a Party!
Post by: Zyraen on March 11, 2005, 10:18:49 AM
Obviously, yes you do, lol.
Title: Re: Solo with a Party!
Post by: BallOfFire on March 11, 2005, 01:34:00 PM
Aw...  Maybe I'll just add a little extra with Shadowkeeper =).  I'm justifying your mod by pretending that my guy will be using his Bhaalspawn powers to drain the life from the NPCs to make him stronger.  Bwahaha.  Haha.  Ha.
Title: Re: Solo with a Party!
Post by: Zyraen on March 11, 2005, 05:30:35 PM
You should be getting a LOT more XP than you normally would already, due to Quest XP awarded to NPCs being added on to your PC's XP. But its your choice ;)
Title: Re: Solo with a Party!
Post by: BallOfFire on March 11, 2005, 06:04:19 PM
Hey, I'm a god-to-be, I can do anything =).  I probably won't though.  Probably  :P.
Title: Re: Solo with a Party!
Post by: Zyraen on March 22, 2005, 07:08:31 PM
Oh man.. yesterday just checked the .zip file when I was about to install PartySolo on my clean installation of BG2... and horrors, I realised the updated .bafs were placed in the root directory instead of in the partysolo directory!

This means that any installations, unless you actually moved the .bafs, were actually still with the previous version! ACK... anyway its ok now :( ugh. Talk about buggy Zip files... or rather, stupid authors :/
Title: Re: Solo with a Party!
Post by: BallOfFire on March 23, 2005, 07:59:32 PM
I haven't installed it yet because I just installed a bunch of new mods and NPC mods and I decided to try them out how they were meant to be played for once, since the divided experience will make up for the extra I get from new quests.  Someday though, I intend to play your mod.
Title: Re: Solo with a Party!
Post by: BallOfFire on April 04, 2005, 01:54:21 AM
Has anyone tried this mod yet?  I'm curious as to how well it works and how fun it is.  I tried playin with a full party and got bored in an hour, so I may install it this time after all. 

Also, can it be installed/uninstalled at any time?
Title: Re: Solo with a Party!
Post by: Zyraen on April 04, 2005, 05:51:41 AM
Yes it can, but I suggest you install it last. And I will be releasing another version of it soon, just need to get the script to work more consistently, there seems to be quite some delay before it kicks in.
Title: Re: Solo with a Party!
Post by: BallOfFire on April 04, 2005, 04:20:09 PM
I meant can it be installed or uninstalled mid-game (not sure if you understood that or not).  I'm playing Warcraft 3 like mad so soon I'll get sick of it and return to BG2 and try out your mod =).

Is this mod only downloadable from this thread?  Because if it works it should be available all over the place, because if people are anything like me this is what they have been waiting for since BG2 came out.

Edit:  Hey.. would this work with BG1 TuTu?  I've been wanting to try out the NPC mods but also wanting to solo.  I probably wouldn't use it for BG1, but I'm curious.
Title: Re: Solo with a Party!
Post by: Zyraen on April 04, 2005, 09:44:40 PM
It's been mentioned earlier in my 3rd reply on the thread thread that it can be run mid-way, and it doesn't affect anything. :) In any case there is the readme file to look at. If you want to you can try it out, but it is still a little.. "unclean", so to speak. The new one I have is much better, and not only are the party members permanently protected, the Maze no longer shows irritating Maze graphics - the NPCs just disappear almost instantly when combat begins.

However, for some reason when I enter a new Area the Maze does not occur for quite a while. This means my party members lie around distracting the enemies (they won't die, though), which makes it a LOT easier than a pure Solo. To resolve this, saving game after you enter an area and Loading that Saved Game will make the Maze work quickly and effectively.

If you want to I can upload what I already have and post a link here, you'll probably find it better than my v1 Party Solo.
Title: Re: Solo with a Party!
Post by: BallOfFire on April 05, 2005, 01:25:00 AM
Cool thanks.  Sorry for being lazy and having no memory.
Title: Re: Solo with a Party!
Post by: Zyraen on April 06, 2005, 09:15:04 AM
Well v2.0 is officlally finished! :) I will be starting a new thread for it, but the link is still in exactly the same place, as well as the new Readme overwrites the previous Readme link.
Title: Re: Solo with a Party!
Post by: BallOfFire on April 06, 2005, 02:14:54 PM
You're awesome =).
Title: Re: Solo with a Party!
Post by: Silk on April 20, 2005, 09:51:41 AM
Has anyone tried this mod yet? I'm curious as to how well it works and how fun it is. I tried playin with a full party and got bored in an hour, so I may install it this time after all.

I have it installed.  It's working fine so far but due to sidetracking, I haven't taken it very far yet.  It's fun and it provides a complete new set of tactics thinking.  (Suggestion: Multiclass your character or at least DualClass ;) )
Title: Re: Solo with a Party!
Post by: BallOfFire on April 20, 2005, 11:56:13 AM
Why?  Just because you are essentially soloing or because of how this mod works specifically?
Title: Re: Solo with a Party!
Post by: Silk on April 20, 2005, 12:01:09 PM
errr ... why what?  Why haven't I taken it very far?  Because I've been busy proofing and writing and doing other things and not playing BGII.  Otherwise, please clarify.
Title: Re: Solo with a Party!
Post by: BallOfFire on April 20, 2005, 02:20:39 PM
Sorry I'm lazy.  Why multiclass or duel class?  Because of the mod or because it's easier for soloing?
Title: Re: Solo with a Party!
Post by: Silk on April 21, 2005, 03:16:37 AM
Because it makes your chances of survival greater :)

Unless of course, you're planning to use SK.
Title: Re: Solo with a Party!
Post by: Zyraen on September 11, 2005, 10:13:42 PM
Have consolidated this Mod, along with some of other my Mods, into a little collection of Mods that can be found at the

http://www.pocketplane.net/zyraen

The files for the stand-alone versions will be removed from my site :) Thanks!

As this is a very old version of Solo with a Party, this thread will be locked.