Has anyone tried Improved Anvil v6?

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Good progress especially Abazigal. Didn't know you could nuke him that fast. What spells did you use? Multiple Magic Missiles?

Nope, the Ultra and Ice golem don't drop anything. At least in v5 they didn't. So you did the right thing. Azi must die fast, or the golems will overwhelm you (last but not least, because of their Purge Magic ability).

Balthazar is vanilla. He won't give you any trouble. Your next (and final) challenge will be the Epic Divine Encounter. That one's tough and I cannot give you any pointers because I haven't tried it in v6. If the Rakshasan prince has his 2 Ultra Golems and 1 Supreme elemental golem, then expect to be showered by Purge Magics. I assume it may be indeed a good idea to protect as many party members from fire and/or magic damage via static items. That means that you should also forge items like Royal Elemental Staff and give it to PC probably, for 100+% fire res. Also, I hope you've assembled enough Barbarian Essence potions. You should definitely use these, though how - do not now. Maybe it's wiser to keep the sorceress out of combat, and PC under Shapechange, so he could turn to Iron Golem if need be and thus evade ADHW spells.

The prince lowers all of target's resistances (physical, elemental, magical, magic) by 25% on successful hit. Dunno if this ability always triggers on each hit, but I guess it does. Also, don't know what's its duration. Maybe 1 turn. Maybe 2. Maybe it's tweaked in v6 to be less. The Supreme golem lowers the elemental resistances on each successful hit, but only by 10%.

 

fml, just spent 2 hours on EDE. Most of the time alone with the prince after clearing up without too much problem. Can't kill him. 4 times atleast he's hid under undispellable Absolute Immunity and regened to full when he's badly injured. Now I'm out of most spells and it will most likely end in a failure.

http://i.imgur.com/FjWjO.jpg

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Some context for those who haven't played IA. EDE (Epic Divine Encounter), is a fight inside your planer sphere nearly at the end of ToB, just before you leave for Melissan.

You are attacked by a Rakasha Prince, alongside him there's two Ultra Golems and a Supreme Golem. The Prince is unkillable until the mentioned golems are slain.

The Ultra golems are 100% resistant to all magic and elements. They are most vulnerable to crushing damage, having only 90% resistance to it. They have 300hp and -13AC. Every few rounds they gate in Amber golems, which are "lesser" golems, having 170hp -4 and 100% resistance to everything except crushing (90%) and slashing (75%) and an annoying, permanent lightning shield which damages attackers with electric damage and reduces the attackers electric resistance, cauing the attacker to take higher and higher amount of damage every time he hits it.

The Supreme golem is 100% resistant to all magic and elemental damage aswell (I think all golems in IA are). It has 95% resistance to all physical damage, 400hp and -13AC. Needless to say all the golems also hit incredibly hard, are permanent imp.hasted and have great thac0. The Supreme one is also a form of elemental golem, having heavy elemental damage added to its attack. On top of this he also gates in a Elemental Golem every few rounds. The elemental golem has "only" 90% resistance to physical damage, 300hp and -9AC. He aswell gates in a lesser golem every few rounds, namely a Gem or Coin Golem.

The Prince himself is a tremendous fighter as well as a high level mage. He has 383hp, -22AC,100% resistance to magic and elemental and 75% resistance to physical damage. He can gate in Noble Rakashas who in turn gates in Horrid Rakashas who loves to shower your party with ADHW. He's also at least immune to spell levels 1-7 as all Rakashas are. (not sure if he's immune to more). He also has several poweful unique abilities. Universal purge magic which removes all of your dispellable buffs and, annoyingly enough, interrupts your casting. Field of repulsion does heavy damage to a target, knocks him back and leaves him unconcious for a round (similar to wing buffet). Also, he has heavy, permanent regeneration and a seeminly unlimited supply of Absolute Immunity, Dragon's Breath, Remove Magic and ADHW spells.

Needless to say with all this gating in of new enemies things can quickly become overwhelming unless you act fast and precise. Note, you are also assisted in the fight by a fighter named Pasha Mahmoud who is a great help.

The party started lightly buffed, excpecting to have them dispelled not too soon anyway. 5xBarb potions for all three fighters (IA potion, undispellable +20% resistance to physical damage for 10 turns, stackable) Imp. Haste, Prot from Energy and Giant Strenght. CC were prepeared with Foreknowledge and 2x MSVI. As you can see I chose to focus on the Supreme Golem first.

As the Supreme guy neared death the prince gate in a group of rakashas. Ignoring them for know the fighters focused on the golem, and slew him shortly after, managing only to gate in one Elemental Golem before dying.

Focusing then on the annoying Rakashas, the party cleared them quickly and the fighters started working on one of the Ultra Golems while the casters continuously summoned up mobs to keep the rest of the enemies occupied. After a while the first Ultra Golem fell. Then the second one..

Clearing up the lesser golems the prince soon found himself alone.. Here you can see him using "Field of Repulsion" on one of my fighters, blowing him across the room..

Keeping imp.haste, Protection from Energy up and using criticals the party threw themselves at the prince with full force.

Bad timing. Karon, the riskbreaker, is low on health and the prince has just gated in a group of rakashas who are starting ADHW targeting him. He quaffs a Magic Shielding potion, but the Prince throws a remove magic at him which hits just before the ADHW, leaving him dead.

Clearing up the Rakashas, resurrecting Karon and summoning in more help the party quickly seems to have the upper hand again.

The Prince however, will not be bested so easily. Getting low on hp he hides behind Absolute Immunity and regens to full hp.

Being unable to do anything about his protections, the party has to wait it out, occupying him with summons in the meantime. When his AI fades, the party throws themselves at him with full force yet again, unfortunately with the exact same result.

Repeat. And again.

The party, out of spells, potions and HLAs are now in dire straits.

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Pasha falls.

And bleh.

Well that was a days work. Not gonna bother with this more today.

 

Not a bad progress, slaying the three golems on your first attempt. Many people can't do that Anyway, don't despair. People in v5 claimed that without Wishing for Rest, this battle is nearly impossible. Try Wishing for Rest even if this means that hostile enemies appear. They would be only a fallen deva and an Elemental golem, and your undispellable buffs won't be dispelled by the Wish. You may save vs the Field of Repulse, although its save is with quite a penalty. It's not the field that's killing you, it's the Greater Malisons. You may apply Chaotic Commands to protect yourself vs the unconsciousness effect of the field, but this won't save you from the knockback effect. I am unsure if it's possible, but you may consider bringing the Prince to Badly Injured, yes he'll activate his undispellable Absolute Immunity, but you should hit him outright under Alacrity with Cernd's quest anti-rakshasa spell and also PC's Bigby's Clenched Fist and Bigby's Crushing Hand spells. I doubt that this will be enough damage though, but still you may try beforehand and see how much damage would such an assault inflict altogether. As far as i remember from IA v5, the Prince doesn't have an infinite number of Absolute Immunities - he had 14. Counted post factum. You may add PC to the melee offensive by turning into Mind Flayer and casting Black Blade of Disaster from a scroll (and hoping the enemy doesn't cast Remove Magic soon). BBoD is the most damaging 1-handed weapon you can use vs the prince anyway. But I think that when you finally leave the prince alone, you should simply refresh party spells/items via Rest, send some summons vs the prince, and force him to use his 14 absolute immunities, then he's yours.

 

@dmc Heh, well yeah, it was frustrating, but also very exhilarating. My heart was beating fast at many points, because of all the planning and the careful execution, and in the end you feel you're so close. After four Absolute Immunity castings and yet again bringing him to 'badly injured' and thinking "this is it. He can't possibly do that **** again, I've got this, I've actually got this." But then he did, so.. bleh

@Saros
Thanks for the tips. In all honesty I got a bit frustrated and impatient in the end, but my big mistake was using too many wishes and RVE's too early when it wasn't essential to use them, and they would've been much more useful later in the battle. Btw, this wasn't my first attempt, I had several learning runs, but this was the first proper one

Not sure when I'll have time to play again. Will take pics and update this post when I do, but atm I'm too busy.

Not sure about Bigby's spells, but Cernds HLA seems utterly useless.

 

My own current no-reload party is approaching fast the EDE (having only Irenicus, Illasera, Gromnir, Yaga-Shura, Azi and Sendai as improved fights to go through), and I have little doubt that they will reach it successfully, but I also doubt that they will manage to win the fight on the first attempt. Still, at least will have an excellently equipped party for testing it and may be able to provide important details by the end of the week.

Edit: I'm there, testing will start in a couple of hours.

 

Okay, I didn't expect the battle to be so easy. It's just long, but once you know what everyone does, it's predictable. I almost won it on the first attempt(lost because of my own carelessness) and second time won it without trouble. Here are the pointers:

The Supreme Elemental Golem and/or the Ultra Golems do not have the Purge Magic ability (unlike other identical enemies you may encounter during the game, such as Helm's supreme golem or WK lvl 5's Ultra Golem, which do have Purge Magic and use it, and I think Azi's Ultra Golem also has it, but not 100% sure). This is excellent, since the only way you have to fear is the prince's Remove Magic.

Dunno what level is the prince, but given the fact that he had a chance to dispel arcane buffs, he should be at least 36th mage level. Didn't see him dispelling clerical buffs though (except via Universal Purge of course), which probably means that yes, he's lvl 36. Still unpleasant of course no-reload-wise. So it's important to bring your characters to the cap (at least mages, that's for sure).

Buff very well at start of combat. Include protections from all elements on all fighters, and also from either elements or energy. Because of the elemental backlash ability of the Supreme golem, which inflicts quite some damage, as well as vs the regular Elemental Golems and the Supreme Golem's own melee attack, which hits hard with all kinds of elemental damage at once. if you're protected from elements + all other elemental protective spells (Fire, Cold, Acid, Elec), then you will be healed by each hit of those golems instead being harmed. Yeah, first target is the supreme golem, no doubt about that.

Make your second target an ultra golem. Usually, Pasha picks one of those, and is good enough to nearly kill it by the time you're finished with the Supreme Elemental golem. Use criticals with all your fighters! The prince and the ultra golems are anyways immune to criticals.

In short, that golem dies in 3-4 rounds under heavy critical hits. After that there are probably some summoned Rakshasas. Kill them fast! Don't leave a single Rakshasa alive except the prince. The rakshassas dispel specific protections on hit. Basically, all the golems are far less scary (under heavy Barb essence buffing, that is) than even the lowliest rakshasa, due to ADHW spells.

Dragon Breath: You CAN escape from the effects of a single Dragon Breath spell. The Rakshasa prince uses Lower Fire Res ability, and btw I think it lasts for the duration of the combat, or the Field of Repulse he uses applies constant Lower fire resistance, since all my fighters were with -128% fire res constantly, even ones raised and rebuffed after only a few hits on the enemy. Or maybe the Prince's melee hits lower the fire resistance (in v5 they lowered all resistances). Simply see where the Dragon Breath spell is targeted and quickly disperse everyone. It's of course needed to have many pairs of Boots of speed for that strategy, at least 1 for each of the fighters.

Of course, one fighter may be protected with the Dragon breath halberd.

One more important scroll I noticed: this is the Protection from Magical Energy scroll. You need to rebuff that each time the prince uses Universal Purge Magic, and memorized ProMW spells wane. Or you may use the Protection from Energy spell. From the dead rakshasas you may also pick proMagicEnergy scrolls.

Basically, don't memorize any ProMW spells with PC, use the sixth-level slots for Improved Haste and Promagicenergy only.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Last combat pre-buff must be Recast Vital Energy. Multiple ones, with all kinds of buffs. Before the RVE casting, summon powerful allies (Greater Djinni, Noble Spider, Skeleton Lord) and give all summoning devices to PC. Get the 'magical rest' pre-combat, it's risky to rely to get it after the start of the battle. Replace all RVE spells with Wish ones (leave a couple of Alacrities), be careful with the sorceress 9-th lvl spells (you may summon a couple of Yuantis, but frankly, if you want to distract the Prince effectively when he's last one standing, use a Farsight-navigated Planetar, since that is immune to the fire damage of the Dragon breath, and by circling around evade melee hits from the Prince). Use Wishes when you need the 'Rest' option. My overall Wish-quantity was 18 (9 PC, 6 sorceress, 3 scrolls), so it's nearly impossible NOT to get at least one 'rest' option, and btw almost all other options are also good (mass Heal, Greater Restoration, mass Hardiness, mass ProMagicEnergy, mass IHaste on party or everyone). Wishes are better than RVE, because basically, all you can get from the RVE is 50% to HP of entire party or regeneration, or a Skeleton Lord (but I usually get that as a pre-buff, and it's one-per-day RVE option only, so that choice is off).

First Rest is free, the second probably too. However, if you play carefully, there is no 'second'. Here is what you have to do when the prince's alone:

Leave your two-handed weapon wielder alone vs the enemy, for distraction. Give him the remaining Barbarian essence potions, so you may rebuff his physical resistances when the initial potions wane after 10 turns. Use the two halberds to become immune to the enemy spells which may be thrown at your character (ADHW and Dragon Breath, but if you're careful, Dragon Breath won't harm you). Use that character to fight the minor rakshasas summoned by the prince, while the rest of the party is buffed away from enemy sight. Use Criticals. Buff that character with Ihaste too, and make sure he's wearing a good strength belt. Summon fodder, if you want to, but frankly, this character, navigated properly, is completely able to distract enemies by his own for 4 rounds. Approach with rebuffed fighters, kill minor rakshasas, harm prince enough so he has to activate Absolute Immunity anew. Rinse, repeat. I don't remember how many times the prince used AI, but looked far less than 14 - more like 6 or 7, can't put my finger on it.

Edit: Further exploration reveals:

If the Rakshasan prince sees no party member in his field of vision, he won't:

Gate in Noble Rakshasas
Edit: Sorry about that one, he WILL use Universal Purge Magic once each turn whether he sees a party member or not!
Use lower fire resistance.
Edit on that one too. The prince will only use Lower Fire Resistance on a fire-protected (whether by a spell or an item) character. The Lower Fire Resistance has an area of effect similar to Remove Magic. It lowers resistance by 50%, and lasts until the end of the fight, meaning - for a long time. Moreover, Amber Golems who lower electrical resistances on hit - in other battles that ability wanes in a couple of rounds. Not in this case - it also lasts for quite some time, until the end of the battle there were characters with significantly lowered Electrical resistance. In the same time, the prince has a chance (per hit) to lower magical/magic damage or even physical resistance, but this chance seems to be very small, and dissipates in a relatively short amount of time.
He will still cast ADHW and/or Dragon Breaths though.

Edit: Sorry, Pasha didn't vanish, he just didn't join the last assault, but was present the whole time

There is a total limit of the noble rakshasas the prince will gate in, that number is 5 or 6.
EDIT: The number is 4 Noble Rakshasas, counted loot post-factum. Who gated in 8 more Horrid Rakshasas.

Summons + Pasha mahmoud can easily eliminate one Ultra Golem + the eventually spawned 1 amber golem. Powerful summons, of course, not lousy ones.

Wish for Rest is not needed, provided the party has enough Protection from Magical Energy scrolls. If one plays on a difficulty Core or lower, then even ProEnergy scrolls or spells are sufficient.

Planetars are maybe the best summon for distracting the prince, although any summon can do the same + farsight navigation. All 4th lvl spell slots should be occupied by Farsight spells (PCs) and maybe a few priestly 4th lvl slots as well. Navigating summons via Farsight is the key to the downfall of the enemy prince. While he for example chases a single Elite troll, the rest of the summons + Pasha eliminated his Ultra Golem, and in the bottom part of the screen the party eliminated the Supreme + second Ultra golem, that whole thing happened in less than a turn (+ an Elemental Golem slain).

So basically it's possible to distract the prince via summons from the very beginning far away from the party. It's best to redirect the prince to the upper-left Ultra Golem, while the party fighters + PC eventually go down towards the Supreme golem, and afterwards the lower-right Ultra golem also comes near them to be slain.

When the prince's alone, and battling summons, finish the rest of the minor monsters, then approach with PC under Alacrity. He will both Purge, and gate in 2 Noble Rakshasas (who will gate in 4 Horrid one naturally). Be ready for the massive ADHW and other spells which will pour upon the party, position them in such a way that no harm is done. Major harm would be directed to PC, have a trigger ready with ProMagicEnergy and ProMW, and ProFire as well (although that last one can be cast under Alacrity instantly).

After you manage to kill all minor rakshasas, starts the hit-and-run fight. Hit only with fighters who have:

Are immune to physical harm 100%. Well ok that's in a no-reload in your case, 80. Rakshasan prince dispels Hardiness on hit, do not rely on Hardiness. Chain Breaker stance I think is not dispelled on hit, but then again, it lasts only for 5 rounds. You have to rely on items which provide permanent protection from physical harm, or Barbarian essence potions. Frankly, I came to this fight with 31 potions, so I could rebuff melee characters with potions after 5-6 turns of the start of combat, which helped in two ways - ensured that their resistance will remain 100% even after 10 turns, and provided them with 127% resistances for the remaining 4-5 turns, which meant they actually healed on each successful enemy melee hit, and healed a lot, since the prince hits hard.
Good saving throws. Do not use magic shielding potions to boost saving throws - use them to counter Greater Malison! When you drink such a potion with a Malisoned character, the Malison effect dissipates!
Are protected from magical energy at least up to 75% (in my run, 100% is a must, because on Insane that magical damage from the shield on each hit quickly progresses)
Are improved Hasted or are soon to be improved hasted.

When you see a Dragon Breath spell coming, it's best to clear the blast area even if your characters are heavily protected from fire. Because there is no chance that they won't be knockbacked from the blast, which will hinder them more than if they simply retreat a bit and then rejoin the fight.
When you see a Remove Magic spell coming, check buffs (IHaste and ProMagicEnergy/ProEnergy). If those are dispelled, retreat with the fighter and let the mage(s) rebuff before rejoining the fight.

Edit: Sorry, Cernd doesn't have ProMagicEnergy, got confused on that one. Then again, I've never played with him that much. Maybe the only way to cast a really high level proMagicEnergy is via a high-level thief (but not Swashbuckler).

When you see a Greater malison spell coming, it's not always possible, but make sure it hits one target, not all three.

Distribute your magic shielding potions evenly amongst fighters. Frankly, I started the fight with 24, and ended it with 14, so 10 judiciously spent potions should help.

When and if you see an ADHW spell coming, if it's a single one, you can survive the impact, if there are two or more targeting one unprotected target, there is something wrong with your strategy, but it's possibe to quickly protect the target via throwing it the Poseidon's wrath halberd and equipping it fast.

When you see that the prince activates Absolute Immunity, retreat with everyone but your two-handed weapon user, your Kensai, who should be wearing Boots of speed (all fighters should be), and with Dragon Lord halberd equipped (and Poseidon's wrath has to be in the pack too). The prince will target him with random spells for 4 rounds, make sure you keep track of the rounds, and if you see an Universal purge rebuff. I had 31 Promagicenergy scrolls, those helped immensely, had maybe 10 at the end of battle. BTW all 6-th lvl slots indeed have to be ProMagicEnergy and ImprovedHaste (but if the sorc knows Ihaste, then focus on more ProMagicEnergy).

Next 3 Universal Purges will be accompanied by a Noble Rakshasa, plan for it, and force the Noble Rakshasa + Horrid ones to target your fighters with Remove Magics, and kill them with Criticals! It's no use keeping those criticals for the prince. But if you had 2 Riskbreakers, this would help vs him greatly, because of the Risk Increment ability. Still, even with just one you will be OK. So in short, Critical strikes are used on the Supreme Elemental Golem, Elemental Golem (should be only one summoned before the supreme dies), remaining Amber golems and lower rakshasas.

Mages mainly buff and summon, and you may cast Wishes if you feel like it, I'd rather plan on a non-random strategy and exclude wishes, will probably memorize Monster Summoning spells with PC. Mages may also occasionally cast a Remove Magic on the lower rakshasas. Offensive spells/mage combat is not needed. Although I personally used PC to help slay the Supreme and ultra golem via the Golem Slayer staff. But I think that with it-without it, it's simply a matter of a couple more seconds for the golems to live. Nothing that big.

When the prince is alone, you may actually save and/or change armor. Simply leave the prince to battle only summons off-screen, assemble your team and dress whatever armor you feel like. Or save the game. Didn't check it, but probably you may rest like that. Of course, didn't risk it, and it's indeed almost a cheat to do so, even though the game engine allows it. This way, you may equip dead and raised characters with armor once again.
EDIT: You won't be able to save the game if you actually see the Rakshasan Prince even only via Farsight. So if you wanna still save, make the summons leave the Farsight-lit area, save/change armor and quickly cast Farsight to light the new battlefield area.

There is one unpredictable element when the prince knockbacks someone in the direction of your mages. Your mages should be kept out of prince's sight, but when such a thing happens, the prince may chase its unconscious target, and find the mages, and then try to kill them with a spell. if that spell is ADHW, immediately protect the mage via items protecting from magical damage/magic shielding potions. Basically, your necromancer is easily protected. The problem is the sorceress. If the spell is Dragon's Breath, equip boots of speed on the mages and get them the hell out of the blast radius. If that's impossible, equip them with fire-protective items (there are two rings, a staff, a robe and several other items which protect from fire, like potions of Fire Res).

Hope that helps, sorry for the long post. Here is another tip: how to buff fighters properly in a combat situation. Supposedly, your riskbreaker, protected from Magical Energy, fights the prince together with your other fighters. The prince dispels the ProMagicEnergy on the riskbreaker. Riskbreaker retreats off-screen to the waiting necromancer/sorceress/auramaster, who begin casting ProMagicEnergy on him. At the second the casting begins, that riskbreaker is ready to return to the battlefield. Even if he's offscreen to the magic-user when the spell is finished, the spell will still take effect, the magic-user will still be in a safe position behind, and the fighter won't sit still while the entire spellcasting is finished, but rather will have already engaged the prince in melee once more.

Sorry for the long post. Hope that helps. The battle is sooooo easy with a full party that it simply takes the fun out of life. I had far more fun and adrenalin and everything when I was devising solo-strategies in IA v5 vs the Ancient Dragon or the Rakshasan prince. Back then I even had to think! In IA v6, I don't have to.

 

I've two remarks

1. dmc asking Ruben is like when a person who enjoys slow jogging asks a bungee jumper. OK, a bungee jumper who plays chess while jumping.

2. The fact that Improved Anvil received so much controversy outside BWL and still there are people who follow Sikret's vision (perhaps without knowing about it) shows IA is a great success. In whatever respect, a huge success. Not subjectively -- objectively. I write this, because in a few pages earlier in this thread, cca. 2 years ago, there was a discussion whether IA is a success. People tried to prove me it is not, and it's only BWL who thinks it's a success. Well, one of Sikret's visions is reflected exactly here:

Careful planning. Careful execution. I'm sure this was one of Sikret's visions and goals when designing Improved Anvil.

 

cherrypicking favourable results, a nice carefully executed tactic, obviously leading to objectively huge success.

 

No, you're ridiculous, dmc, because it's the same thread, and the topic of Improved Anvil is as current as before (if not more). And not because I say so, but because posters keep the thread active. I have right to react to whatever I wish.

On a side note, my comparison was not an inferior-superior comparison; it was just to present: to each his own. Some people like crazy things (they enjoy it, and they hve the necessary free time/patience etc.), others like more peaceful or simply just different stuff. So if you meant the same with the above statement then we're saying the same:

Equally important -- but different.

 

Hmph, I just won third time in a row the Epic Divine battle (failed just the first time testing). While first two tries, however, had at least one Wish for Rest, this one had no such thing (indeed, there had been some Wishing, but didn't get the Rest option even once - well I wished a total of 5 times so that's no wonder ). I'm going to post the battle on the Bioware no-reload thread (it's 80 pictures), so if you want to, watch it there. But indeed, the battle is lame and far too easy.

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I disagree. Many things are 'designed' to rely on pure luck (especially if one plays as Sikret intended, without exploits) and thus multiple reloading. Even the best gameplan may end in disaster due to a simple die throw, as in my case, the EDE Rakshasan prince has 50% chance to dispel mage buffs. However, in one run that may mean that 3/4 of his dispel magicks are successful, while in another - that only 1/4. This terribly affects strategy, as the resources for the last fight are limited. Of course, if Sikret intended for the mod to be played at core level...but then again, where is the tactical challenge when someone's gonna play a difficulty increasing mod on core

Edit: hope I'm not breaking any forum rules by posting the link here.

http://social.bioware.com/forums/forum/1/topic/182/index/3120942/177#12080717

 

That's your opinion, but probably because you aren't good enough to win, and this is how you compensate it (+ the no-reload tactics -- other players can't even win Improved Anvil, let alone without reload!).

If you know a bit science and physics, "luck" i.e. probability is often used because the exact behavior/factors of something are not known, not modeled, can't be modeled etc., so it's easier to approach it via statistics.

Therefore, what you see "luck" in Improved Anvil may be something deeper. But you didn't recognize its factors, so you are unable to influence it.

 

I've based my conclusions on pure testing. Why don't you try it for a change, think, and then write? Giving examples with in-game situations is a far better argument than throwing empty words, you know.

I don't get the part 'not being good enough to win'. Based on my no-reload run and all. BTW, I haven't (even at the time I was still welcomed at bwl forums) never ever seen your posts about playing the mod. Afraid to try it?

BTW about your remark on the mod being successful - it's not very well argumented, given the fact that there are few who have tried the mod, and almost all of them have shared that after the first run, they don't feel like it going for another - because the mod itself is boring, as I stated many times already, and this is by far not only my opinion. A mod may be called a success IMO when a bunch of people who played it come with satisfactory remarks and display willingness to try the mod again and explore all its possibilities.

That said, hope Ruben wins his EDE battle with the provided info. As I already said, v6's EDE is not a very well re-designed battle. In fact, I can't remember even a single v6 battle being something better than v5 ones.

 

I actually agree witht that. As Baronius said later, to each his own.

But then there's this:

The thing about determining whether something is a success is that it has to be measured against what the initial expectations were. So if Sikret had started out hoping that a very small handful of people would enjoy IA, then congratulations - that's exactly what he got. But I'm pretty sure that his vision was much greater - he wanted A to be widely popular; yes, he recognized that it would likely only appeal to a certain type of player, but he wanted most of those players to be IA fans. But he hasn't come even close to that.

Now yes, it's true that, as time goes on, it's fair to modify goals. But when you so utterly fail to meet your original objective, then constantly resetting the bar to meet results isn't called success - it's called denial.

 

There's quite a difference in upping the difficulty by making the monsters play smarter (such as SCS and SCS II) with an occasional extra bonus thrown in here and there and overhauling everything to the point of having to reverse-engineer every fight to try to come up how the maker of the mod envisioned it.

Sure, you could argue that most anything in both standard and SCS-boosted BG is still "easy" once you nail in the tactics that are actually worth their salt. But going totally overboard with stuff so that you need to come up with very spesific game plans for each and every fight is quite probably more than most people seeking a challenge bargained for. And that's why you get such a backlash.

Mods like this should come with flashing red 72pt font stating something like: "You WILL be humiliated, time after time again. Enjoy your ride to the mental institute as this mod will cause you stress like nothing else. And just as you think you've figured out something, expect to be backstabbed. IRL."

 

I wonder what psychological phenomena it is when individual people start trying to prove how "everybody else", "everyone" etc. thinks exactly the same way about something as they do. Feeling the "mass" eh? On a side note, success (even non-subjectively) is an interesting term. BWL is going pretty well in these days, guys In all respects

Envy, envy, no matter what you say, it's envy. Guys, if you weren't interested, irritated, etc., then you wouldn't be writing about Improved Anvil in the first place. (There are some exceptions, of course; I'm not addressing all posters here, just those to whom this applies.)

The most funny phenomenon is saros himself. He thinks Improved Anvil is badly designed and boring (!), yet he has spent tens/hundreds of hours playing it. He's trying to prove something, fine, but then this prooving process is a joy for him, isn't it? Or he does things he doesn't enjoy? If yes, is he a masochist? Or a prophet?

 

Don't you think it's actually you (not just you personally) who tries to convince everyone how bad Improved Anvil is? It's a bit suspicious.

You mention this thread: how come saros (the one who said IA is "boring", etc.) writes the most in this thread? Isn't it a bit suspicious that a person who finds IA boring is writing the most about it?