Circle of Eight Modpack 5.9.x/5.9.xNC General Commentary & Discussion Thread

Like I said, I've searched EVERY MAP twice and no slavers. Maybe someone could PM me their location so I can figure out what went wrong?

 

Sent you a private message where to find the slavers. Have fun with that battle.

 

mmonagle, I agree with everything that you have written in the above quote. The way that situation currently plays out (where Alira just stands there after your party has slaughtered everybody else in the Waterside Hostel) is surreal and seems unrealistic. The only reason that I can think of why you wouldn't want Alira to join in the bar-room brawl is that she is an NPC that the player can talk to. If she joined the bar-room brawl, then the player would never get to talk to her (unless she was moved to another location in Nulb). She has her own scripted text dialogue. I haven't been able to get her to say anything else other than to tell my party to get lost. Does Alira have any more dialogue options than that? If not, then I also request that Alira has her faction changed to that of Wat, Rentsch, and Dala.

I have some observations while playing 5.9.1 NC:

The detailed description for the Spyglass (that Rannos Davl and Gremag sell) has a typo: "A spyglass allowa..."

The Fine Chest in the Moathouse where the Giant Lizard is has a DC of 19. I think that the ideal DC for the lock on that chest would be 29.

The character inventory window displays all of the character's skills on-screen except for the Perform skill which you need to scroll down in order to see. Is it possible to include the Perform skill with all of the other skills on-screen at the same time, thus elimimating the need for the scroll bar to the right of the list of skills?

 

I got the troll to tell me the epiphany word in 5.9.0.

 

Hi, could you please send a PM to me aswell, i have tried everywhere i believe

 

Done Chano.

 

Hi
I have played the "Thief" quest in Nulb in Vanilla and every version of Co8 up to and including 5.9.1 NC, and can say that Alira does join the fight sometimes. I just did the "hostel takeover", and she joined in ( and got quickly killed for her troubles ). If I had to guess, I would say she jumps into the fight about 20 - 30% of the time. I actuually don't think Alira's actions ( or lack thereof ) are "unrealistic" at all. Remember she is evil, which means that if she is going to jump into the fight it's because of two reasons.
A.) She feels that she can somehow profit from getting involved
B.) She feels that her "friends" have a good chance of winning
What I find somewhat "unrealistic" are the way the "Village People" jump into the fight without any provocation. Think about it, a group of people, some of whom are wearing decent armor and carrying good quality weapons walk into the bar where you ( a zero level NPC armed with a rusty dagger ) are having a beer with friends. One of the travelers catches Dalia trying to pick his pocket. Are you going to jump right up and attack an experienced, swordswinging fighter clad in chainmail with a rusty dagger, or would you sit back and say, "no skin off my nose", and watch the show ?? I know for a fact that if the fighter and his friends didn't swing at me, I would stay way out of their way.
One minor thing that I noticed. I went to Emridy Meadow and cleared out everything except the Giant and the Skeleton Priest and his three guards. When I went back the next day, I found a pair of "Amulets of Resist Turning" lying on the ground near the Rainbow Rock.
The Royal Canadian

 

I have gotten further along with my 5.9.1 run and have some new comments:

1) I really like the reactive temple mod. Could the earth temple be added to this mod as well? I tend to pick up the fire temple quests so I can have the ogre cave revealed. So I skipped around the earth temple on the first floor and ended up wiping out the fire temple once I got the cave. I did this after I found that picking up the fire temple quests meant they would not go reactive on me. However, I was surprised when the earth temple didn't react like the water and air but then I saw in the release notes that it is just air, fire, and water. I thought that with all the troops that the earth temple has, it would be one heck of a fight.

2) When I go to the moathouse respawn and enter the first floor, the werewolf tends to be too far over in its area. Thus when I rush into the room that he is in, he doesn't join the combat with the jackalwere and the wolf (dire wolf?) as he cannot be seen. Just doesn't seem to make sense that he would skulk back there and wait until I kill his fellows and then take on my party all by himself.

3) The battle with drow at the end of the moathouse respawn was better. They lasted longer and got in some more hits = definite improvement. I have to wonder if it could be improved just a bit more though. I understand the resistance to adding additional levels to the drow but how about putting a sixth drow in the group?

@Gazra_1971, thank you for your comments. I tend to end up taking out Alira as well since I talk to her and she reveals that she is a temple agent. So I end up with her map anyway. Her conversation isn't relevent to the game or any of the quests either so I too just thought it would be more realistic.

 

Yeah, a better ID would be the spawner's X,Y coordinates.

*edit*

Re. the Earth Temple, you can artificially trigger the script with the following console code if you want to try what has been done:

Code:

from itt import *
earth_reg()
[code]

The main problem is that I can't get all of the critters to actually engage the party, especially if the players stands back at the corridor bottleneck.

What I'm thinking of doing is changing the scope to a more limited regroup, where Romag gets some reinforcements in his private chambers (Ogre Chief + a couple of the leaders).

 

Hi Gaear
Just a few notes regarding HB.
1.) I had Lord H. give his same speach twice during the battle.
2.) None of the archers (Orc or Bugbear) used the 5' step when my fighters were nearby
3.) After killing Lord H., The cave had the Green Tent, is it supposed to be that way.
4.) The way I did HB is as follows: I Cleared out the all the groups of humanoids except the two groups of orcs near the cave. I then returned to Hommlet to rest. Upon returning to HB, I finished clearing everything aboveground before clearing the cave. After clearing the cave and the other underground lair, I decided to walk around HB to make sure I had truely cleared everything. When I got to the first battle location ( orcs and goblins ) I was confronted by a "Goblin Leader", who once combat started, bacame nothing more than a red circle. I killed him by selecting "Full Attack" from the radial dial and clicking on his portrait.
Upon returning to Hommlet, Brother Smyth asked me to open the chest. My 6th Level Rogue spotted the trap, was unsure if he had successfully deactivated it or not, so after picking the lock, he had the wizard cast "Open / Close" on it. Needless to say, the old "using magic borks the chest" bug is still in effect.
The Royal Canadian

 

Skole Goons Encounter:

When you take Skole's quest, there's a timed event scheduled for three days later where you are supposed to be beset by his goons in a special wilderness encounter.
Due to the way timevent_add works (you have to visit the map where it was scheduled), the player would rarely, if ever, come across this.

The attached files contain a fix - added a proper event scheduling inside the san_new_map script to bulletproof the scripting. (now you don't have to actually visit the Boatmen's tavern in order for the event to fire - simply changing maps to anywhere else will suffice)


Also:

Update to quickstart functionality.

Purpose:
To facilitate rapid testing of ToEE with more realistic parties. (e.g. for balance testing, etc.)

The following will simulate / initiate autoplay of WB + Moathouse + Emridy Meadows + Assassin + A little of Nulb:

Code:

from t import *
quickstart(3)

Effects:

• Auto-equips party with some basic gear according to each PC's class and what is available from the shopmap.
• Simulates doing WB by spawning and insta-killing all the critters from there.
• Whenever you'll set foot in a Moathouse map or Emridy Meadows, it will:
  • Autokill all the baddies
  • Loot most of their items
  • Convert their jewelry and common items to gold (according to your party's highest appraise skill)
  • Give (and in some cases complete) common quests, e.g. the Hommlet Inn quest, and set the relevant flags.

Notes:

• The Moathouse lower dungeon requires entering and exiting twice, to make sure you don't lose on XP in case your party is small.
• The Big 3 Ambush is only autokilled if you exit from the cave exit.
• As you may have guessed, a good-oriented playthrough is assumed. (May change in the future)
• Leveling up and distributing the loot within the party still has to be done manually.
• Autoloot:
  • Haven't been able to get the Giant's head looted properly yet.
  • Items that are autoconverted to gold will appear to be still worn by critters (they are simply flagged NO_LOOT, while you are awarded GP according to their worth and multiplicity).
  • It's not perfect yet, some items will still remain on the corpse. But at least gems, jewelry and money are looted, which are primary sources of income in the game.
• The quickstart() script accepts a numerical argument from 0-6 that roughly corresponds to what your party would have accomplished at the end of the matching story_state:
  • 0 - gearup + minor Hommlet business
  • 1 - WB auto completed
  • 2 - Moathouse + Emridy
  • 3 - Nulb (partial)
  • 4,5,6 for now just mark the map and change the story_state.
  • The effects are cumulative, e.g. quickstart(6) will do everything up to 6.

 

It probably won't be a big deal, assuming you won't change their object name IDs (even then it's fairly trivial to change).

Also, I give my casters wands of Flame Strike / Holy Smite / Fireball (10th) in case some things slip through

 

In layman's terms, what does "mobbed in" mean, in context of specific encounters? Does it mean that those encounters are now sponsored by the Corleone family and if they have any problems they can get help from Don Vito? Does it mean more monsters?

Don Vito to Luka Bugbearazzi: "I want you to go to the party. I want you to tell them that the people they are messing with are good people and under my protection. I can't have everyone running around wild, thinking they can just do whatever they want in the tempio. It sets a bad example. Tell them they are pisciare on my whole operation. Ask them, if they were me, what would they do? You go and tell them and then come back and tell me. Andare avanti!"