Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - General Reloading for better loot.

So I got into a bit of an argument on global chat with somebody over whether saving before you open a chest checking what you had gotten for loot and then reloading if you weren't happy should be changed or not...

My thinking was that if there were any PvP or Market features added to the game an exploit like that could make the game unbalanced. Even if these features aren't released leaving an exploit such as this is something I would rather see changed.

The other persons argument was that, like all exploits, they only affect those who use them and this wouldn't affect gameplay.

Just wondering what others thoughts are on this.

I have to toss in my two coins on this one. That really only effects the one who uses it.. not sure how fun it would be saving and reloading a bunch O.o but to each their own. Personally I feel half the fun is the random chance of what you might get! sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad. Just means you push on to the next chest.

Not happening.

There are a few areas in Divine Divinity that are actually worth doing this. I often did this to ensure I got a good weapon offering mana drain. There was also Ares Magica that I used to do this at to ensure I got at least one spell book to buy. While it didn't make the game much more easier, it did make it a bit more fun.

To patch this exploit would mean everything is generated once you create the game. Is that really possible? How much processing would be required and how long would it take to load the game just so all the possible future drops can be generated immediately after character creation.

It is irritating as fuck killing a legendary boss and getting 5 blue crossbows as the drop, when you are a mage + shield warrior.

I've had something like this happen more than once, I think the game just loves bows.

But the game will come with an editor so... your argument is invalid!
Seriously, we'll be able to create overpowered weapons (I guess) so It's not a big issue to be able to reload the game to obtain better items.

But, about chests, I have a question. The chests' items level are fixed or depend on the players' level ?

Haha, I think I saw that conversation in global chat! For what it's worth, I am in the tribe of people that feel this exploit is "mostly harmless." It is easily ignored by those who want the purest play experience, and it doesn't flat-out break any systems that are currently planned for the game.

At best, it can even erase the frustration of a lousy drop at a critical moment! At worst, it probably lets a player get all overpowered that would have found an exploit to do that one way or another. As a counter-example, the early Diablo games have consistenly had gliches that allow players to duplicate any item in the game for a trivial amount, i.e. get a copy of any great loot that another player managed to score, but despite this fairly glaring issue, Diablo and DII were still tremendous fun to play. Sometimes it was even more fun playing with the illicit epic loot!

So I like that it's a fun but mostly inert "feature" that Larian doesn't need to spend time adjusting right now. "Save scumming" has been a common player behavior ever since random chance and save-anywhere systems were implemented in the same game, but by and large it hasn't impacted the quality and fun of those game as a whole. I say loot and let loot!

Never understood these types of complaints. I think it is borne from MMO's where everyone is concerned about what everyone else is doing as it may have an effect on their play be it directly or indirectly. There is some reasonable arguments to be made for such, but when it comes to single player games, the argument fails.

What people do in a single player game is irrelevant. There is no logical reason to object to the method that people use when they play the game. If people exploit, more power to them! I mean, it only ruins their game if they do. Now, there are some valid arguments as it concerns people demanding design features in a game as those can directly affect other players, but unless it is a forced design aspect (lowest common denominator design methodology) to which there is no reasonable avoidance, then there shouldn't be an issue.

I don't understand what it is about some people who demand save scumming exploits be removed. It is almost like they are demanding the game designer dictate to them their game play as they can't be responsible enough not to use an exploit if they find one. Lets face it, anyone who wants to cheat in a single player game is going to be able to and there really is nothing a company can do to stop people from cheating. Also, do they really care to waste development time on it? I mean, I can understand fixing a bug that grants rewards to an unsuspecting player as unintended situations like that should be eliminated, but if someone has to go out of their way (reloading a save, doing a complex set of actions or behavior) to gain benefit, well... I would say them doing it is intended and as I said, if it is intended, it is going to happen.

Now there is one thing I can agree that is bad about people cheating and that is the result of complaints about the length or quality of the game because the person cheating their way through it. In those instances, the only reasonable response to the person is... "dumb arse!"

Couldn't have said it better myself...

I wasn't involved in that chat conversation, but this topic has come up on the forums before and I'll say now what I said then. I would argue that this "feature" makes it unnecessarily tricky to balance combat for everyone.

When you have players who don't abuse save-game functionality and are working with truly random drops, and other players who are reloading saved games to cherry-pick the best spawns out of every loot table, and both of these groups are coming to the forums and giving their opinions on how difficult or easy combat is, how are the developers expected to make heads or tails of the conflicting reports? It's comparing characters outfitted like patchwork peasants to characters that are hand-tweaked demigods.

Good luck balancing combat like that. Why not get everyone playing from the same rulebook first instead and save the developers some unnecessary combat-balancing headaches?

Worse, this community wants the developers to police some bad habits while allowing others. For example, when certain encounters with the summoning ability allowed for scenarios where huge XP gains could be made (by intentionally allowing the summoner to live), many objected and demanded summons be worth no experience - despite the fact that intentionally farming these encounters (to borrow a quote from this thread) "..really only effects the one who uses it".

So, infinite XP is bad, but infinite loot rerolls is fine. I don't see the difference.. if you're going to plug exploitable mechanics, then plug them. Not just the ones you don't have an interest in abusing.

The fact is, there are ways to generate loot that don't allow for this behavior, so why not use them? Players are reluctant to back that, however, because we all love the shiny stuff. And we all dislike a treasure chest that doesn't have anything useful in it. And, because of that, many seem willing to trivialize and ignore an obviously flawed mechanic.

It's supposed to be "random loot" in those treasure chests, right? Not "try as many times as you like" treasure chests. I just want to be sure because, if it's supposed to be the latter, then just make them magical talking treasure chests. You can walk up to them and strike up a conversation, the chest will tell you what's available on the loot table, and you pick whatever sounds interesting. Do away with all the boring game loading. You know.. polish the "feature".

Or.. just fix an obvious flaw.

There's a difference between needing to actively do things to exploit (say, reload 10 times) or passively (play normal and still gain insane XP due to respawns).
If you don't see the difference, well... then I guess that explains why you see it the way you do and our responses seem uneven.

Feel free to point me to the reloaders btw, since most of us really don't got the patience to reload till we get something nice...

you cannot say that waiting on purpose for another summon again and again is a "passive" exploit bug... same kinf od cheating IMO

I have to confess, i do use this sometimes. Its just so frustrating to get some rare drop after a boss fight, but its completely useless bc nobody in your party uses single-handed weapons. So i do reload, but only if i get completely useless stuff, and only for boss drops. It increases the enjoyment of the game for me, and i don't see how i harm other players doing so (in Singleplayer)...

Exactly this. Come on now, Hassat, let's not pretend it happens "accidentally". Demanding to fix the summons-XP issue but turning a blind eye to this loot-generating "feature" is more than a bit hypocritical. And I feel like people are cherry-picking which "feature" they want to keep on hand.. just in case.


I completely understand that and agree that it is frustrating. However, shouldn't the solution be to create a smarter loot system that provides useful rewards rather than going the route of re-rolling loot in a container every time a player reloads a save? The point is, you should finish those fights and receive something useful for your effort, rather than feeling like you need to reload in the first place to roll the dice once more.

There are two types of game influences, "inside" game influences and "outside" game influences. Inside the game is the world and intended play field. It is important that this be balanced within the developers vision of how they intend the game to be played (its rules and structure).

Outside the game is irrelevant as it is impossible to balance such influences. It is a complete waste of time for a developer to attend to such possibilities in a "single player game". Trying to implement regulating features to keep someone from save scumming is futile as those who wish to cheat will end up cheating regardless of what you do to stop it.

As I said, those who cheat and then complain about the game being easy because they cheated receive the title of "dumbarse" and should be disregarded. Besides, how are you going to stop people from using the game editor, or a hex editor, or a dev console code etc... to cheat the game? You aren't and that is why you balance the game for "inside" influences and not outside ones.

I think it is because the game is not supposed to reward everyone with the best loot every time. It is a dangerous path when you start giving people what they want in every reward. They then expect a linear progression of rewards, that every time they get a reward it should be equal or better than the last one. Note this expectation has been killing gaming systems over the years as players get bored with the systems because everything they do is rewarded with valuable gifts and the act of receiving a reward for ones effort becomes pointless.

So rather than giving everyone great rewards because some will save scumm to get them anyway, you let those who wish to cheat the system make that choice for themselves while everyone else plays the game as intended, without concern for what Bobby or Billy will do when they play the game.

I mean, if you think you should get better rewards, you can either save scumm, or build/wait for a mod that ups the reward level of all rewards. After all, this is a game, not a vending machine. /shrug

But they're not disregarded. They give feedback on the forum about difficulty balance and that, in turn, has an impact on the rest of us. Because nobody "save scumming" is giving feedback on balance and including the phrase "by the way, I'm save scumming, so take my feedback with a grain of salt".



There's a pretty big and obvious difference between trying to stop someone from hacking the game versus a loot mechanic that is so easily exploited by simply abusing the save/load feature provided by the game. Like you said in your speech, "..there are two types of game influences, 'inside' game influences and 'outside' game influences..", and hacking is definitely an "outside" influence, while easily abused reward mechanics are an "inside" influence.



Precisely. Which is why the current setup that allows players to treat treasure-giving devices like a vending machine should really be fixed.

They are disregarded by those who matter. You have seen the devs here discuss before correct? They do listen, but they require you to provide reason and logic in your discussions as they also respond with such in kind. If you think that someone throwing a tantrum about something and not providing any context or proper explanation concerning the issue is given strong consideration with any seriousness by the devs, then I don't think you know Larian and its team.







Save Scumming is an outside influence, not an inside one. It is not an "in game" feature.




You can't stop people from cheating. You balance "inside" the game, never outside or you are wasting time.

Just my two cents:

If the number of containers in an area is large enough, two players will end up with approximately the same loot after clearing this area due to the mathematical law of large numbers. So, say, there are 1000 containers in Cyseal and the probability of finding a healing potion is 1/4, a dagger 1/4 and a lockpick 1/2. Then player 1 will end up with 244 healing potions, 267 daggers and 489 lockpicks. Player 2 will have 269 healing potions, 507 lockpicks and 224 daggers. So, balancing is pretty easy for large number of containers because of the underlying probability principles.

As Tanist has said, save scumming is an "outside" game influence. When balancing a game, this should not be taken into account.

How many containers and creates are in Cyseal? And how many items in the loot table? Let's assume there are around 1000 containers and 100 items (with a constant probability distribution function). If you want to receive a specific item from each container, you have to load the game 100 times on average to get it. Assuming you need 1 minute to load the game, then you'll spend 100 000 minutes or 30 hours with just saving and loading to optimize your character. If someone would like to spend so much time - well it's up to them! (Even you want to get a specific item, say a healing potion, from a certain chest then you still have to invest more than an hour to get this item)

As far as I know, treasures from bosses should be fixed items and not randomly generated. For example the lighthouse boss always drops the club.

Pretty much disagreeing with your opinion for reasons already stated above, and not in the mood to re-type it out again.


That could be a valid point if we were talking about every container in the game, but we're not. These are very specific containers we're talking about, ones that when opened always provide several pieces of random magical equipment scaled to your level. Specific containers that I can give you loc coordinates for and you would find good equipment in every time. We're not talking about random crates and barrels littering the landscape that may or may not have something of value in them.