Wow, played NWN 2 years ago and dropped it at the beginning of Act 2 OC. Came back thinking another try would be fun. What a shitshow of a.i. and clusterfck problems.

-Camera is constantly problematic, regardless of which mode is used.
-A.I. for both sides is horrendous, running through traps, changing wpns at the wrong time, or just completely not doing anything at all.
-Weapon graphics disappear completely so you can't even see the weapon being used.
-A.I. item usage is screwed regardless of what you tell them to do, gulping potions or casting inappropriate spells.
-Cheesy as shit obnoxious npc comments.
-A complete inability to play strategic combat with the constant meltdowns of a.i.

Trying to find some quality gameplay here, but its moving closer to the uninstall perma button never to be looked back at again. Trying to work my through the bandit camp is an exercise in frustration fighting the game interface and a.i. problems while finding no tactical combat enjoyment.

Expansions are suppose to be though, so something to think about.

The bad camera is definitely one of NWN2's greatest problems. Not insurmountable, but pretty bad.

As for tactical combat, I manually adjust the party AI to taste. Spellcasting and item usage should be off; as you point out, the AI is terrible with these things. You can also adjust the follow distance and engagement rules to keep a tighter leash on your characters.

As for the obnoxious NPC's... yeah, the OC is just as bad as ever. Wouldn't be so bad if the game didn't force you to take a "party member of the day" with you all the time, whether you like it or not.

Agreed. Camera is a disaster. No argument there.

AI is OK though, as long as you TPC in the clinch and turn off spellcasting and items. Meat shields can be a bit of a PITA too. An occasional "Stand Your Ground" command can be helpful in keeping them from charging off into the AOE of your own fireballs at the first sign of an enemy.

I've started this game numerous times only to shelve it. The last time (which must of been nearly 3+ years ago) I gave up just past Old Owl well. The Camera is awful. I agree completely. I find it easier to navigate using character mode and play battles in strategic mode, that being said character mode suffers from a random lag which can result in your character teleporting back to your party. This I believe happens because of the constant pressing of the WASD keys. The A.I is incredibly bad I agree. I've seen my party suddenly run to start attacking an unseen enemy while clearly ignoring the large red trap area that your thief has discovered. There is an AI mod out there though (unfortunately they still seem to run off, but I may not have set the AI correctly):
Tony_K's AI Mod

The casting of other members spells seems to work quite well in this mod. Turn of automatic weapon switching however, otherwise you may damage your computer :) Haven't run into this issue, it couldn't be that the AI is switching out your weapon or dropping it all together? Perhaps useless advice, but sometimes Transparent anti-aliasing settings can do some strange stuff (first thing that came to mind, I don't mean to offend otherwise). Try the AI mod mentioned above.
Tony_K's AI Mod Agreed, the NPC's dialogue does seems to come across very unnaturally..I did just come from playing Dragon Age Origins so my expectations were higher however. I am very close right at this point in time to finishing Mask of the Betrayer (This is my first full play through the Original Campaign and Mask of the Betrayer). Mask of the Betrayer has Considerably better dialogue.

Many would probably say the story is better in Mask of the Betrayer (I haven't finished it yet so perhaps they are right). I feel though that the story was actually fairly decent in the original campaign; it was just let down by the way it was told and by whom it was told by. There were points in the original campaign that made me think; wow, if only they explored the dialogue a little more here added a bit of music and had the voice actors add a bit of emotion things could of been amazing. The AI does let you down, though I've found it a lot better with the AI mod above. I know your frustration and I'm glad you posted about it, you certainly are not alone in how you feel about this. I'm sure Obsidian could turn around and say that the reason the AI was so poor was to cater to those players who could not fully comprehend the D&D 3.5 system they implemented; that is however a cop out.

That Bandit camp though was pretty horrible, especially as you almost have to fight the second wave straight after the first. I would probably say the bandits played that one right though by surrounding you from within the camp. It gets a lot easier later on when everyone you meet tends to always appear in front of you rather then around you :)

I feel that I owe my ability to complete this game largely to the user created fixes out there. Most of these users deserve to have been paid to incorporate their features into the game in the first place.

New character faces by Xaltar (Much, much better then the original faces in my opinion):
Xaltar's Character Faces

New High definition User Interface by Tchos (Larger text, one big inventory (same size just no longer need to switch between bags!):
Tchos HD UI
Note that you will need the compatibility fix for the AI fix mentioned above, otherwise the options will not appear in game.

High resolution portraits for your characters by Deserks (works with Tchos UI above):
Deserks Portraits

General fixes and improvements by Reeron and Trekari (Mostly to fix non-functioning spells or bring them in line with Pen & Paper D&D):
Reeron and Trekari's Spell fixes

Vordan's Hero creator - Fantastic module that plays by the rules to allow you to create your ideal character (up to level 30 of course!). Should of been included with Neverwinter Nights 2. Some say exploration is part of the fun in character creation, I disagree when it comes to AD&D based games (If any game is in desperate need of a book to reset all skills and abilities this game is at the top). Planning is a large part of the gameplay and this module allows you to easily do it.
Vordan's Hero Creator

I would also utilize the very informative Neverwinter Nights 2 Wiki here

The UI improvement by Tchos is highly recommended, just for how much readable text becomes in game and the serious reduction of scrolling through item descriptions to get to the all important stats :)

This time round I believe I have a much better understanding of the game mechanics and it is one of the most in depth RPG's out there. Enjoy creating your character; that has been my key to enjoying this game. Look into crafting, the best items in this game are not bought, they are made (with a few rare exceptions). I think you will be a bit happier with some of the mods out there, the AI one might help the most based on your post.

Neverwinter Nights 2 original campaign does get better as you progress further into it and Mask of the Betrayer is an improvement in just about every area (graphics look nicer even!).

This happens when you clip into a wall or rock or something.
If you keep an eye on your map, you will see your followers stop following you when you do it, so just release the W key.

Lol, thank you, I remember now why I had let this game down.
NWN1 is the best.

Try looking around here for a variety of solutions to camera issues (they almost made me rage-quit when I first got NWN2!):

http://www.gog.com/forum/neverwinter_nights_series/nwn_2_camera_making_me_sick

So many people having trouble with the bandit camp. Maybe I am confused about which bandit camp y'all are talking about but I did not find it hard at all.

SPOILER:
Don't mess around with the palisade. Nobody wants to talk to you. Scout around back and you will find a small hill which leads into the camp. Set your party up with a Stand Your Ground about 25-30 meters from the base of the hill. Sneak (or just walk) up the hill and lure the pickets into your ambush by firing ranged weapons or spells. Try to pick off the guys standing furthest back first to separate them from the group, and wait for wanderers to be relatively isolated.

Be ready for surprises. You will very likely lure more than just the one guy you hit, and wanderers are likely to happen by during the fight and call for help. Low level spells like web, grease, and entangle can be very useful at the base of the hill (a convenient choke point) to slow the enemy advance if things start to get out of control. AOE spells like burning hands can help soften up slowed enemies.

Take them on in waves. You should have no problem clearing out the bulk of the mob. You can even rest between waves if you are using your spells too fast. Then rest and just walk in the back door to kill the boss.

Use the combat voice command menu to tell your party to hold while controlling your rogue (or whoever going to be disarming the trap). Then have the rogue disarm the trap. You can never take 20 on a disarm trap roll, so you're not increasing the risk of failure when you do this.

You can set the other characters to ranged attacks, whether with weapons or spells, but be careful. There's a quirk with the voice commands where they only apply as long as you're controlling the character who issued the command, so if you switch to another character your party may start charging over the traps again. Essentially right. Combat in NWN2 is generally based around a small number of powerful characters (your party) facing a large number of lower level characters (undead, bandits, orcs, and the like). When you open a door, it's best to think of it as defending the doorway, rather than attacking the room. You can generally position your tank and one other character spec'd for close combat by the door, then have the rest of the characters behind them to support with ranged attacks and buffing/healing when you have the tank open the door. This is hard on the tank's health, but it generally works better than charging in and getting surrounded and cut to pieces because half your party's stuck in the door, held up by one or two enemies.

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Otherwise, for combat, the AI's pretty dumb, so you're going to have to spend a lot of time micromanaging in general. Using the voice commands, particularly "Hold", "Follow" which makes them stop attacking, and "Guard Me" helps manage them on the fly. However, at some point the AI was patched so that they using healing items on themselves. This mostly works with healers kits, although I've seen them use potions as well. Since the GoG version is patched up to the latest patch (1.23) by default, this should still apply.

Spellcasting should either be set to scaled or off in the AI options, and playing around with the rest should get you a party that works reasonably well without too much direction. Puppet mode ensures that companions only do what you want them to do, but the trade off is that you're going to be spending a lot of time pausing and switching characters to make sure you get the best use out of them.

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Edit: Oh, and the bandit camp isn't that bad either, assuming we're talking about the one near Fort Locke. You just have to exploit the enemy AI a bit. urknighterrant offers a pretty good suggestion, but there are other options. For instance, when you start out you can provoke a fight with the guys outside the palisade easily with ranged weapons, and this will make sure that no one inside the palisade will engage you. Once you've killed them, rest and move into the palisade. Split your party into two or three groups and send each group towards one of the campfires--this is where the bandits are/spawn. Each individual group isn't that hard to beat, it's when they gang up on you that things get messy, so don't let them do that by attacking multiple groups at once.

Once you've freed the hostages, do more or less the same thing. Here, however, you're going to want to keep your PC back by the entrance to the second palisade where the hostages were kept. The hostages follow your PC, so if you keep them there and let your companions do most of the fighting they won't be getting in the way.

The really hard fights in the first act, besides the last ones, are the Back Alley, the Warehouse, and the Githyanki hideout in Neverwinter. In all three cases you'll be facing lots of fighters or rogues, backed by casters, in tight quarters. If you're fighting rogues, expect to have a lot of sneak attacks hitting you. There's really no tactical way to manage these fights, you just have to muscle through. Your best option is to strike first with area of effect spells and then hope for the best.

To be honest, I was just so happy to have multiple NPCs that you could control again (I'm looking at you, NWN 1) that it took me a while to notice the AI problems, but they're there.


I have yet to play a 3D RPG with good combat. I don't think it's ever happened. NWN 1 would be okay if they let you control your party.

The NWNs are definitely more awkward than Baldur's but I wouldn't say they're unplayable. I just turn the AI on/off a lot. Especially when scouting ahead with a stealthed thief. IMO the real issue there isn't so much AI as dumb AI plus bad level design. Don't pile enemies into heavily trapped areas or put traps on the other side of a door in a room full of enemies. That's not clever. It's obnoxious and doesn't even make sense. Who sets deadly traps at the interior of the entrance of their own bedroom or office?

Turning off AI to micro-manage when needed works pretty well for me. Unfortunately you can't tell an NPC what to do so you're SOL on avoiding aggro/losing trap experience when they start running amok. I find this more funny than painful most of the time though.

Bandit camp is easy. Get the druid first (head to High Castle and you'll be interrupted by a short quest that adds her to the party). If you have a fighter type main character, hit your front-liners with barkskin and that flaming weapon spell and just stomp on in and don't even worry about how many enemies you aggro. In my latest game, I hadn't done lizard cave, or graveyard yet so levels probably could have been higher.

If your main is more fragile, just do a bit more micro and draw them to you with ranged attacks as suggested by others. Turn the AI off when it starts to run around too much and pull it back towards targets near the rest of the party.

When freeing the prisoners I split my party between my main (a warrior-type) and the rest. The main handled the smaller group to the left of the prisoner area entrance (assuming you're facing it from outside of the prisoner area). The rest stayed focused on everybody between the pallisade exit and the prisoners.

And make sure you rest up/save between fights. The game's too buggy not to save constantly and resting constantly with zero risk seems to be the new D&D.