I think I will address some of TwinkieGorilla's concerns, seeing I was the one that made most of the modifications to the church fight in the Den. As far as I know (and killap can correct me on this if I'm wrong), my modifications made it into both the Restoration Project and the Unofficial Patch fairly early in the process, and it hasn't been modified since.
I'm also assuming that you decoyed Tyler and two of his goons away from the church -- otherwise the fight gets much much harder.
To make things clear, I made no modification to the stats of any of the critters involved in the fight. Every gang members' armour, hitpoints, primary stats, skills and weapons remained the same.
The only real change as far as the fight is concerned is how the game counted the number of Tyler gang members. Before I made my changes, thanks to a bug only Marc (the other guard at the door) was counted as part of Tyler's gang (yes, Tyler himself was counted too, but he isn't here for the fight). The four other members of Tyler's standing in the church are not counted as part of Tyler's gang, though they are set hostile to the player once the fight is initiated. Note the following implications:
- That segment of the quest is successfully concluded once Marc is dead -- you don't have to kill the other four gang members.
- The four gang members in the church won't come out to help Marc out during the fight (but see point 4).
- If you keep yourself out of perception range of the four gang members in the church (sneaking helps), then once Marc is dead, the battle is over, and you'll see Lara and the rest of her gang calmly saunter into the church, ignore the four members of Tyler's gang, and claim victory. I think that if your sneak skill is high enough, you can even sneak talk to Lara to gain your reward without triggering their wrath.
- If on the other hand any of the four gang members somehow sense you, then they will come out and try to attack you. However, they will totally ignore Lara's gang -- at least until Lara's gang inflicts enough damage on them (Lara's gang didn't target them before, since the game didn't consider them part of Tyler's gang. But since Lara's gang is counted as your allies, once any one of the four goons hit you Lara's gang will count them as hostiles. And even then, the four may still focus their attention on you.
- In the unlikely event that Lara dies, you can loot her corpse to get your reward money.
All I have listed above is
vanilla behaviour. The only change I made is to now count all four members of the church as part of Tyler's gang. This simple change has several relatively major implications:
- Thanks to how the gang counting script works, during the fight the game will now remove Tyler AND two other gang members in the church, leaving a grand total of three opponents (Marc and the two goons in the church).
- The two remaining gang members in the church will now actually run out of the church and assist Marc in the fight. So for Lara, her gang, and you, the fight just got three times more dangerous. Why? see the next point.
- Assuming that you previously recruited Sulik, you and Lara's gang combined outnumber the opposition two to one (previously, it was six to one, since the four gang members in the church is deadweight unless triggered by the player), so you should still win the fight handily.
- However, given that the opposition is slightly better armed than you, expecting to come out of the fight without any casualties is perhaps a bit...unrealistic.
- Given that Lara is at the forefront of any charge, it is likely that all three gang members will target her first, unless the player makes himself or herself a nuisance. So all things being equal Lara has a much bigger chance to die.
- In the somewhat probable event that Lara dies, you can still loot her corpse for the reward money (unchanged from Vanilla).
I think it's easier to present the rest of the information in Q&A format, so here goes....
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Q: So, is the fight harder?
A: Yes -- in fact, three times harder than before.
Q: Is it impossible to win?
A: No -- but you will have to use some advanced tactics (see below). Simply sitting back and watching the fight will result in a Pyrrhic victory most of the time (only two members of Lara's gang generally survive the confrontation unless you intervene).
Q: What if the player has a non-fighter build and can't intervene effectively?
A: Well, you can always exit to the west side of the Den once the fight has started. Combat will automatically end, and when you re-enter the East side of the Den, Lara's gang will have won the fight, Marc and the two gang members in the church disappear, and you can talk to Lara to claim your reward. Of course, you don't get the loot from Marc and the two gang members, but
c'est la vie. Note that this is vanilla behaviour as well.
Q: I'm no coward! I want to fight and keep Lara alive. What can I do?
A: The key is to keep the enemy's attention on you: You may be more fragile than Lara (i.e. less hp), but most likely you're carrying a load of healing items, which Lara doesn't carry. How to get their attention? First of all, make sure you're carrying a more damaging weapon compared to Lara. Unless you inflict more damage compared to Lara, the enemy's attention will shift to her. Secondly, try to be the first to inflict damage on Marc and the two gang members. All things being equal, they will target the person who first inflicts damage on them. Thirdly, try to stand in the middle of the church doorway. The blocks the two gang members in the church from rushing out and joining the fight. Of course, it does mean that they are hitting you instead, but you have the healing items...
Q: The fight seems much more dangerous than before, and is no longer worth the reward (loot from dead people, Lara's reward, and kill xp). Why should I do it?
A: Well, there was suppose to be a +1000xp reward once you help Lara successfully beat Tyler's gang, but thanks to another bug this extra xp wasn't being rewarded to the player. For the RP and UP, I've fixed this. Given most players' development at this stage of the game, 1000xp is nothing to sneeze at.
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The bottom line to all this is that I think the original developers intended for the church fight to be relatively hard, given how the script was laid out. But thanks to a few bugs that didn't happen. It was my hope that by fixing the bugs, it made the church fight in the Den a major fight instead of the minor road bump it was.
If you have any questions or comments, please PM me, and I'll be more than happy to address them. Thanks.
Cheers,
The Haen.
). He had Energy Weapons tagged, but no weapon of that class yet, so he was using Spiked Knuckles with 80 in both melee and hand-to-hand. Along for the ride were Sulik with a Sharpened Spear and Vic with a 10mm pistol. All three had Leather Armor.
