Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - Suggestions and Feedback Suggestions on how to fix Thievery

The reason it's broken is there's no lasting consequence for doing so. If the items marked as stolen could not be sold back to any vendor (fences only, as in TES) or if you were unable to wear them in public without being caught by guards or the person that sold them to you; that would be a start. I don't just mean they look through your knapsack once and give up, I mean they're constantly on the lookout for stolen goods until you have passed a persuasion check at least once. Bribing them shouldn't be as easy as it is now, but correspond to the value of the goods taken and still have to pass a persuasion check (easier than the others). If you fail the check and then commit murder of shopkeepers or Magisters, then a TOUGH party of enforcers shows up with power equivalent to the Flaming Fist or Cowled Wizards in BG2.

In addition to the above, there shouldn't be 100% of a shopkeepers items of every tier showing up in his / her pockets; it should be distributed thus:

100% of normal items available to steal.
75% of uncommon items available to steal.
50% of rare items available to steal.
25% of epic items available to steal.
A single legendary item available to steal with a 50% of it not showing up in pockets at all.
A single divine item available to steal with a 75% chance of it not showing up in pockets at all (do they show up at all in shops?)

100% of tier 1 skill books available to steal.
50% of tier 2 skill books available to steal.
25% of tier 3 skill books available to steal.
A single tier 4 skill book available to steal with a 50% chance of it not showing up in pockets at all.
A single tier 5 skill book with a 75% chance of it not showing up in pockets at all.

25% of shopkeeper's total gold available to steal.

In addition to that, there should be a level variance of the gear available to purchase in the shop, within 5 levels of your party, rather than the very latest at all times.

I don't like any of these ideas and I don't think there's a problem. If you don't want to steal, then you, personally, have the choice to not steal. Heck, I have a thief character and I mostly steal from those who I'm already planning to kill (because they're evil). I still have a lot more money than I'm likely to spend. (200,000+ at level 17)



That would be incredibly obnoxious and tedious having to switch all your gear each time you enter town.

Even if you couldn't sell back to those you stole from (which I don't mind), there are lots of vendors around anyway. There was one particular quest item which is flagged as stolen and forces all guards to search for it when you come near, but I sold it to a random merchant anyway.

Even the most painless addition of a fence for stolen stuff would still be an extra step to take, which adds nothing but annoyance to the game.



Here's the problem with this idea: You do not give civil points very often. You cannot be both good at stealing and good at persuading. So you get screwed over even more, which means even more irritating swapping of stuff on your character. Terrible.




Bribing usually doesn't work anyway, not that I've tried it much.

If you fail a check and end up in a fight with merchants you wanted alive, you'll just do what everyone always does and reload.

This isn't an open world game and we don't need an evil bounty hunting party on our asses because someone stole a fork.




No. By the way you can only steal once per character. So already people aren't going to bother stealing until they think they've got as many points into Thievery as they're likely to get. So the lower levels of thievery won't serve a lot of purpose.




Definitely not. Have you even played this game? That will just break itemization in a frustrating way.

Because of the way scaling on happens, every piece of gear lower than your current level is bad and buying it is a waste. Weapons above your level lose 20% chance to hit per level above, so if you get a bunch of weapons 2-3 levels above your character or 1-2 levels below your character, that's no good. Armor above your level makes you a lot more powerful than you are expected to be.

OP, here's a question I have for you:

Is your suggestion to make the game more fun? No? Okay. Yeah, thievery is fine as Stabbey has outlined already. If you really want it changed still, you can always make a mod.

Well I like them. Having more consequences for stealing being part of the game makes it more interesting, balanced and realistic.



Then the character that had done the deed would have to face up to the consequences of stealing and sneak around town or stow his gear away. What's the point in having items marked as stolen right now after you teleport away from all trouble to a waypoint?



No, you'd only be able to sell gear marked as stolen to fences. Or people with Scoundrel skill books, if you will. And they should get less base gold per hour, of course.



It adds more balance and interesting mechanics to the game. Of course it's more annoying to people who just want to steal their way to victory.



Either you'll have to get your persuasion specialist to talk your way out after sneaking away with your thief specialist, or Larian will have to give each character enough Civil points to invest in more than one ability, which is a balance suggestion that I'd actually have to endorse myself.



It's worked every time for me.



Not if I'm playing properly, or on Honor difficulty. Don't make me use the "c" word. I'd have to make do without the item if I kept reloading my game and stealing, because the check would keep happening.



Not just for a fork, I'm talking about the consequences of murdering the shopkeeper after he catches you.



Which brings me to the other balance idea I had; you should be able to steal as many times as you like but the VALUE and WEIGHT LIMIT counters should persist in any future thieving escapades. So as you improve your steal ability, you can steal more and more up to your max thieving level. Even if another one of your characters goes to steal, the VALUE and WEIGHT bars remain as they were, unless he has a higher thievery level, in which case he can steal a couple of more items, etc.



I have definitely played the game and the itemization needs fixing, but then again lucky charm is quite powerful last I heard. Shopkeepers having the latest and greatest stuff is also unbalanced and weird.

Here's my thoughts, while trying to be as objective as I can. My question after reading your suggestions is: are you trying to make thievery more "realistic", or simply more of a hassle just for the sake of it? Because, if "realism" is your aim, then I'd like to point out that, not being able to sell stolen stuff to vendors would actually be less realistic than the other way around. If I steal my roommate's brand new textbook, there's nothing to prevent me from selling it to some other random student. In this particular aspect, there's no reason to try and make it be more like TES games.

The same thing for "not all items showing up in target's inventory". Again, why? This is, again, unrealistic. And that means the only purpose of this is just to make thievery less rewarding. You want your characters not to be able to steal that many legendary items? That's what the weight/value limits are for.

Also, as Stabbey pointed out, you can only steal from each character once anyway. With the way itemization works in this game, even if you happen to steal a bunch of good stuff that are exactly what your party can use, they'll be outdated after 4 fights. Most of the time, you'll just get a bunch of valuable stuff that you might as well sell for gold. My point is, at the end of the day, "stealing being too easy" in this game will simply translate into "getting easy gold for your party". And as far as gold is concerned, by the end of act 2, most players would have so much of it they just stop caring about it. So you're saying stealing is way too easy? Yes, maybe so, but at the end of the day, it doesn't become any big deal.

In the Baldur's Gate games, if neutral NPCs carry unusually useful stuff, that is so that you can steal them. Tbh, the fact that D:OS2 even has NPCs checking their surroundings and questioning you is already more than most games of this type do. The devs should know you can totally steal your way through the game - thievery works like this because they wanted you to be able to do just that. If you can keep your party ultra powerful throughout the whole game just by stealing alone, then so be it. That's one way of playing the Divinity games. Your suggestions actually go against its philosophy - those things are not what this game is about.

If you don't like thievery *that* much, you can just avoid it. I'm all for playing games hardcore-like and not liking games to be too easy, but even I don't care that much about this particular issue.

As for the "level variance of gear showing up in shop"... Seriously man... I have to agree with Stabbey here, it's hard enough as it is to hunt for the right items just so you can keep up with the crazy scaling of this game. With your suggestion, I can't imagine how much of a pain Tactician would be.

I'm on team "You silly." for this one, except for the suggestion that you can steal infinite times but restricted by the weight\value limit so you don't feel pressured to only steal at the end of your stay in the area.

HOWEVER, for thyne amusement, a 5 level difference in gear vendors offers makes you get some funky values.

(Common) Full Plate Armour from lvl.10 to lvl.15 is a phys armour value difference of 184 (72 vs 256), meaning that your purchased gear could be almost four times better than contemporary equipment. Five levels down however, the armour only grants 23 physical armour. That's three times lower than contemporary gear.

But armour is pending rebalancing, right? But let's assume the weapons work as intended. Let's say you saved up your pennies and got a legendary weapon. (Divine) Dwarven Broadsword:
lvl.5: 11-12 dmg (0 rune slots)
lvl.10: 21-24 dmg (2 rune slots)
lvl.15: 50-55 dmg (2 rune slots)

All of these can spawn with strength, cleave, and life steal; the lvl.15 version having 2 strength instead of 1. Now, for every AMULET you have with a venom rune in it you can get up to 16% extra accuracy per slot. You know, to off-set the -50% to-hit you get from the lvl.15 sword. OR you could just put 10 points in single-handed and become the world's greatest duelist at a whopping 0% penalty to your hit chance without rune supplements. Not that it greatly matters because those 8+8% accuracy points you get from two large venom runes will already offset you by a whole three levels, so you can even put 3 points in warfare.

Wouldn't live be wonderful with gear 5 levels higher than your intended? I can't wait to go from 68-112 ma\pa to 243-396, with +2 skill and attribute modifiers across the board.


AH, FUN WITH MATHEMATICS!

Your mathematics was all for nowt, I'm afraid, because I wasn't saying we should get 5 levels higher items at the vendors, I only meant up to 5 levels lower than your current level, but now I think of it, we could have 1 or 2 levels higher stuff at the vendors.

I notice that the word you didn’t include in your reasons was the single most important word that there could possibly be: “fun”. Does your proposed change make the game more fun, or just more irritating?




Yes, like the consequences of making thievery so annoying that no one will ever want to use it again. Here’s another idea: delete thievery entirely and make it so that you cannot pickpocket or pick up owned items. Problem solved. Your idea adds only annoyance and aggravation and adds zero fun.




Nothing about this adds value, it only adds more tedious steps just for the sake of making Thievery a non-viable path, because you, personally, do not like it.




You have absolutely zero idea what balance or interesting mechanics are at all. Balance does not mean “thievery should be so incredibly obvnoxious and restrictive on every level so that it no one will ever want to take it”. Interesting mechanics does not mean “take off all your stolen crap each time you enter town, can only sell to one vendor and get 1 gold per 10 value, and have to be subject to obnoxious hassling forced dialogue constantly”.

And I just told you that I don’t steal much at all, so don't give that strawman argument crap.




Obviously you have never used stealing in this game, so I don’t know why you’re insisting that it be removed. There’s absolutely no such thing as “just talk to them with your persuasion character”. The NPC talks to the nearest party member at some unknown time after the theft and there’s no way to reasonably ensure that it’s always the persuasion character.

Even if more civil points are added, forcing thieves to also be persuasion masters is just another annoying restriction meant to punish thieves.




Not for me. It’s only worked once to free the Magister.




What do you mean “playing properly”? So in other words, the only “proper” way to play is to keep going no matter what happens and you should only save when it’s time to end a gaming session. Well you are not the final arbiter of what is The One True Proper Way to play. You can play how you like, but don’t you tell everyone else that they should be playing the same way you are.




Which pretty much no one will do anyway.



Oh okay, let’s get rid of the thief build because you, personally, don’t like it, so everyone can just put points into lucky charm instead. Who needs diversity when there’s a single-player game which has an optional mechanic you don’t like?[/quote]

No wait. No one would realistically leave stuff lying around in random crates and chests. Better remove those. Getting all that stuff is way too easy. I know, let's find a better way to have players make money. How about peeling potatoes in a kitchen or gutting fish for 2 gold an hour (real-time, not game time).




This is a game where we already need to stop doing whatever we were doing every other level to spend an half-hour touring the merchants and comparing what gear they have.

You see that system and think “you know what would make this better? If the merchants had a huge selection of stuff which EIGHTY(80) PERCENT OF THE TIME is absolutely, completely, fucking useless and only serves to waste the player's time”. There are no words.

No wait, never mind, there are words: "idiotic" and "pointless".

So, you want shopkeepers to continue stocking the latest possible gear in their pockets, available to steal at a whim, as well as their gold; then you can teleport away to a waypoint, return to them and sell their own stuff straight back to them. And any possible deviation from this is to be condemned as "idiotic", "pointless" and a detriment to fun.


No, let's not get rid of it altogether, Monsieur Sarcasm, let's nerf it, because it needs a-nerfin'.


Yes, let's assume that I am the one true arbiter of thievery balance in this thread, thank you very much. I'm the only one that seems to be thinking of creative solutions to what is clearly a thievery balance issue, after all.

Items in the game need to be replaced very often. Stuff you find in chests doesn't come close to being enough to keep a party of 4 outfitted, so shopping trips are mandatory. It's already time-consuming enough having to compare several different merchants all over the place to find the items we want. And you think it would be a good idea if 8 out of 10 times, the randomly generated item would be 1-4 levels out of date which no one would ever buy?!

To prevent thievery? Even if you steal an awesome item, it'll be outdated in two levels. Whoopie.

Your merchant change will actually screw over legitimate players worse than thieves, which is exactly the opposite of what your goal is, which is to make thievery so annoying and tedious that the consensus will be to not bother with it at all.

So yes, I fully stand by my statement calling that idea idiotic, because it is.

Assuming that itemization and level scaling remains as it is, then you might have a point (except for the idiotic part). I thought they were urgently being addressed soon, though.

here's the problem with your idea that struck me even before all of the other problems there are with it: thinking that something is especially strong, or even too strong, doesn't translate to "it needs to be nerfed". this isn't a moba. balance is important in every game to varying degrees, but in a game like this that is played as much in single player as it is in multiplayer, nerfs have ripple effects that can affect more players negatively than they do positively. if somebody wants to use something that is especially strong, that's their prerogative, and it's not yours to advocate it to be nerfed for everyone just because you think it's too strong. the alternative is to just not use it yourself. difficulty in this game is equal parts limiting what you do as it is changing the setting from classic to tactician, and you're perfectly free to never steal anything rather ask for something to be nerfed so that nobody can enjoy it. believe it or not, many people enjoy doing things in game that make them feel strong from time to time, and this is not a cause for having those things removed or neutered

like every other suggestion of this sort, if this aspect of the game is too strong in your opinion (and it is very strong), you're at liberty to increase the difficulty of your own playthrough by not using it. alternatively, you could only steal in certain ways (don't have one character talk to the npc while another steals, for example) to make it harder. there are a plethora of ways for you to control your own playing experience that have no chance of adversely affecting the experiences of others

thankfully, i don't think this kind of change will ever be implemented, though you're welcome to try your hand at modding for others who might be interested