Should Ascension be installed the very first time?

[Althernai]

To those who have played Ascension: would you recommend somebody who has never played ToB before to install it the very first time they play? Or see the default ending first?

I was recommending mods on the Bioware boards for a first time run-though, and this one is a tough choice - on the one hand, you may want to see the original game. On the other, Ascension is (IMHO) just so much better than the original and having played through one, you know the ending to both so you might as well see the better one first.  :unsure:                    

[Kish]

Install it right away.  You're losing nothing worth seeing, and you're gaining a tremendous amount.                    

[Userunfriendly]

except the keyboard of the user's computer goes flying thru the window of his/her house after 3 days non stop of trying to beat ascention...

im fairly good at cheese, and the final battle still stumps me on a safe efficient way of beating it...doesnt mean i wont try....

telly field, i never heard from littiz or alson who were going to try my stacked hardiness via wish spell exploit....slow, massive armies of planetars via project image...

all in all, my first run, thru, i ended up cntrl ying everything just to see the new ending...sigh....                    

[Caswallon]

Yep - story-wise, Ascension is way better than the original ending. If it were only that - definitely yes.
It isn't only that, however.

If you're playing ToB or even the entire game for the first time, I'd think that it's simply too difficult. Even the original fight against Melissan is (in my experience) a major step in combat difficulty (my first time ToB, I had played BG1 and BG2 repeatedly w/o major problems, but gave up at the end), and Ascension only adds to this.

So - no, don't install the first time through.                    

[KaPe]

It wouldn't be a good idead, imo, since Ascension is sooo tough... And even normal ToB ending is way tougher than most of the game, so such huge jump in difficulty would be "annoying", at least... I was quite satisfied with standard ending, except for Balthazar dialogue, and I consider Ascension "combat-heavy" mod, with plot just as a bonus(hm, I hope you can understand my poor english :ph34r:  )                    

[Althernai]

To be honest, I wasn't even thinking of the difficulty.  First, it is going to be hard either way -- the strategies Ascension enemies use are not used anywhere else in the game (well, except maybe Weimer's Eclipse, but if you've beaten that, you are already very competent). It is precisely because of this that the battle is so hard -- they actually cast Breach on Prot. from Magic Weapons, Freedom on Imprisonment and have ways to withstand GWW. It is going to be hard no matter how many times you've played BG2.

Besides, shouldn't the final battle be difficult? I've found the original to be disappointing in this regard - once you've figured out what to do (and it's a fairly obvious solution), you can't lose. When that happens, when you have "a safe efficient way of beating it," it is no longer exciting - just something you have to sludge through to get on with the story.                    

[Caswallon]

Hmmm... to me it was anything but obvious, and I wouldn't say even now, after winning that fight three or four times, that I have "a safe efficient way of beating it"; I'm only more or less lucky.
As I see it, a fight that can (only?) be compared to the Eclipse, is definitely not for a first-time player.

just something you have to sludge through to get on with the story

When I first played (original) ToB,  wished it would have been. I still play BG2 that way, but that's only me.                    

[Userunfriendly]

the original ending is easy to cheese, just like any version of demogorgon....


unless things have been changed in ascention weidu, placing 7 spike traps at the spawn point in orginal non ascention demogorgon or mel will end the story easily....

you see, much of the fun in my playing of ascention and tactics mods is finding ways to do this...cheesing them utterly,,,i consider them to be puzzles and complex problems, not tactical situations....

like my new tactic i was going to try out for the heart seal in watchers keep....sequenced sunfires of doom...should kill them all instantly...hehheheheh....    :lol:                    

[Althernai]

Hmmm... to me it was anything but obvious, and I wouldn't say even now, after winning that fight three or four times, that I have "a safe efficient way of beating it"; I'm only more or less lucky.
As I see it, a fight that can (only?) be compared to the Eclipse, is definitely not for a first-time player.

                   Are you talking about Ascension or the original?

I meant the original. In Ascension, there is no easy method. In the original, such a method exists (you don't even have to resort to Spike Traps - just attack Mel with all of your warriors and she goes down fairly quickly).

Ascension is probably the only fight in the game harder than the Eclipse.                    

[Caswallon]

I was talking about the original. *resists the urge to hide in shame* *g*
Usually I tend to play mage-heavy parties (and no thieves except Imoen, so traps are not an option), and the successive fights are draining spells... and the first time through, I didn't know about Wish. That's what I meant - for the first time, you don't know about all the possibilities and tactics. The original fight is therefore a leap in difficulty from the rest of the game that is already great enough, so there is no need for even more (for a beginner, that is).                    

[Althernai]

Oh, I see. I seem to recall a similar dilemma (I had a Sorcerer, was romancing Aerie and had Imoen with me as I always do), except that I had Sarevok and Minsc on my team so it was no big deal. I can see why with a solo-spellcaster (or an extremely mage-heavy party) the original might be difficult due to its marathon nature.                    

[Userunfriendly]

still not really...the project image supercheese will allow you to summon hordes of pets to soak up the damage, i handled it easily with a sorc led party...and the trick to handling mel is to know sunfire and dragon breath ignores magic resistance...g acuity, and unleash all your dragon breaths on mel, and then trigger spell triggered sunfire....

dont even need fighters, really...

a sorc with good spell selection can easily handle anything in original tob, and with a good party, can handle anything in ascention...tho abzegal, with the multiple dragons is hard....

but once again, dragon breaths will save the day...love the spell, far far by far one of the best spells for any party....

sorcs rule....

as alson discovered in eclipse, telly field will always drastically shift  the balance of power back to your party, as it breaks the enemys personal initiative....makes your party immune to their mondo meelee skills for 3 rounds, time enough to cast a bunch of spells and thin them out a little...and telly field stacks!!!!

                   

[Althernai]

Yes, but did you know about Abuse-of-Illusions the first time you played? Furthermore, I believe (not very sure about this - haven't done it in a long time) the original Mel is immune to Fire and vulnerable to Magic Energy. Ascension Mel is reversed - immune to Magic Energy, but vulnerable to fire.                    

[Userunfriendly]

actually abuse of illusions i learned before i even bought the game,,,,,hhehehhehehehheh....

i like lurking the boards before i bought the game, the quality of cheese is a big factor in purchasing decision...hehehehheheh....

hmmmmm immune to fire...i cant remember either...                    

[KaPe]

Sure the original Mel would go down with 2-3 warriors attacking her, but still the difficulty was much higher than rest of the game - and I mean NO cheesing(really, I don't understand being proud of using game flaws and bugs to my advance, sorry UU^^) Solar was a surprise for me, as was "no resting" and 7 fights was a bit much.
And Ascension, sure it is better, but "first timer" would probably get mad at seeing his party slaughtered *yet again*. I remember I had to restart my game, since my chars were way to weak to kill 2 solars at once... And even with my "dream team^^" it isn't easy - although mostly because of this annoying "XXX not dying" thingy(last time I had 2 of them at once... and rest of the Five just stood in one place waiting :ph34r:  )
BTW. Once again I ask this, anyone had this "problem" with Ascension?- Mel appearing exactly 1 second after she summons the Five? Now that's exciting battle                      

[Quitch]

I have to say, I never had any trouble with the original ending.  I got through first time, and that was with an even spread of the high level abilities.                    



[!--EDIT|Quitch|Dec 15 2002, 04:14 PM--]

[Raistlin]

The original was fairly easy. I didn't have any trouble with it either. Its a long haul, but the majority of those battles are dead easy. The one thing I think most of us forget about is the difficulty slider. If someone is finding Ascension too difficult, I think the slider changes the difficulty significantly, moreso than for other battles.                    

[Userunfriendly]

ive handled ascention on both core and insane...but once you install smarter mages...........

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

sendai and abzegal were never priority targets in ascention, yaga shura and sarevok, or bodhi and irenicus were...

now that has changed..when they start throwing immensely powerful abu dahzim attacks, i am so glad the frail party members all have inertial barrior belts...

and prot from magic energy...and regen spell cast on them....balthazar is still quite nasty, and i find his shadowless kick very annoying, but once mel spawns and those nasty demons start for you, its time to start spell casting and pray....

smarter mages, spell 50 and ascention..i was mad....                    

[Michel]

I always install in this order:

===
SoA
ToB
Official Patch
===
Then I backup the "override" folder and my dialogue.tlk file to a safe place
Then I install the mods

Mods:
Ascension
Solaufein
Kelsey SoA
Kelsey 103-104 Patch
Kelsey ToB
Valen
Ease Of Use
Item Updrade
Tactics.
Flirtpack 81

Then I make a new backup of the "override"folder and the dialogue.tlk with all the mods installed.

Then I install RTW Beta.

This way I always have:
1 Clean install of a patched BG2
1 Clean install of the mods
1 install where I can mess around with any file in the override or if I want to mess around with ITEM files.
                   

[Tancred]

I'd say that the Ascension ending is considerably more intense and anarchic than the original... but if you've also installed the Improved Bad Guys that come with it, you should have had a fairly good grounding in anarchic, intense battles and you would have learned from these. If you haven't, then you're not even going to get to the final battle, so there's no problem either way!

After all, the first thing you meet would be "$%^@ Improved Illasera, and that's no cookie for the unprepared. She sets the tone very well...

[Nebukad]

I'd say that it's better to complete the original ending first. One reason for this is that I was so unskilled player back then that I wouldn't have stood a chance against improved Abalzigar and far less the Five together, even though I didn't have too much difficulties defeating the original Melissan.