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

So now a player is supposed to know what is overpowered and what is not and make decisions within the game to avoid playing the game as it was intended in a manner that doesn't imbalance the game even though it is using the designed mechanics in the game?

You are trying to compare that to someone who cheats purposely from outside the game by reloading over and over?

That isn't just an illogical argument, it is plain stupid. Seriously, arguments don't get much dumber than that. Do you even read what you write or do you just blather on hoping somehow it will all make sense in the end?





Big scene? nope.. Just said I wasn't going to argue with you and then couldn't help pointing out the ridiculousness of your last argument. I didn't think you could top that one, but here you go ahead and make an argument that is so far out there, so obviously wrong that I actually am concerned about your safety to function in the world.

You're pretending players would be horribly stuck with their decision, that a respec mechanic wasn't promised during the kickstarter campaign, and that players won't have the option of choosing a more balanced set of skills (if that is their desire). In other words, you're trying to make a much larger deal out of this than it actually is, all in an effort to justify insulting me in front of the audience you seem to crave the attention of.

See, the difference between us is that I'm in favor of the developers making those two talents incompatible if a balance issue exists between them, just as I'm in favor of the developers fixing the loot mechanic if a balance issue exists there, just as I'm in favor of the developers fixing summons XP if a balance issues exists there - regardless of how trivial the community deems either problem to be, or how clearly each of those examples can be labeled a personal choice. You, however, want to pick and choose which problem to stand behind, and will go to ridiculous lengths to downlplay one while exaggerating the other.


In other words, you came out from under your rock to troll more. And apparently lied about placing me on ignore, but pretended that you were doing so in a public announcement to a) apparently gather some much desired attention and b) to be generally insulting.

Maybe I should be placing you on ignore.

You are assuming that RNGs are always seeded with the current time, this needn't be the case, if you re-initialize a RNG with the same seed the output will be the same. And since RNG's are generators, (as described in my previous post) then if you keep track of how many times you've already called it you can hop ahead to that "place" in the sequence.

In the example in my previous post I'd seed the generator once (possibly with the current time) when the game is created (so when you click "new game"), then the seed would be put in the savegame and every time after that when you load a game the saved seed would used.



Well, the amount of work would depend on how loot is generated, it could be fairly easy to implement, it merely sounds complicated.

Just wanted to note that I was merely interested in providing a technical solution (and proving that a viable system to avoid save scumming for loot could be reasonably implemented), I personally don't really have an opinion on whether they should or should not implement such a system.

Sadly, people insist it's difficult or "too much work" because they don't want to see the current setup change, not because it actually is. Thank you for speaking up, though!

There are also a boatload of other things which are much, much, much more important to fix than this.

Yep. Especially when the premise for changing it is that some people will load over and over until they get ideal loot, apparently "imbalance" combat resulting in players returning to the forums to complain about the game being too easy resulting in the developers chasing an imaginary balance issue.

I mean... yeah... uhh... riiiight.

I would say this "problem" rates somewhere on the to do list as, number... never.

This was already covered:

It seems that my point was misunderstood.
What I'm saying is that player actions are not the only thing that influence the RNG (see my NPC behavior example), so even if you loaded the same seed from the savegame, you may get different outcomes by just waiting a bit longer (might be seconds, might be milliseconds, depends on the number of NPCs / "ticking" objects on the map), as anything that needs to be randomized will change the state of the RNG and these events are not controlled by the player.

What theBlackDragon is trying to explain is that seeding can be handled in a way where time is not factored into determining the outcome. It wouldn't matter if you waited 1 second of 1000 seconds to open the chest, the results inside would still be the same. Yes, (as you stated) it can also be implemented in a way where the passage of time does directly (or indirectly) influence the outcome, but obviously that wouldn't be the route to take when trying to solve a problem revolving around randomized loot.

The goal, after all, isn't to try and create new ways to reroll the contents of the chests.

Time is not factored into seeding *DIRECTLY*.
However the "save the seed" solution only works when the RNG is only used for timing-independent actions.
Eg. take the following situations:
--- Case A ---
1) You load your savegame and load the random seed.
2) You immediately (as quickly as possible) open the chest, the contents of the chest are deterministic, as in reloading the same game with the same seed will yield the same output.

--- Case B ---
1) You load your savegame and load the random seed.
2) Wait for some time; during this time other game events will occur: NPCs start doing other actions, go wandering, do idle anims, etc. The game answers the NPC's "what should I do?" question (at least partially) by getting numbers from the RNG; thus simply by waiting and letting the game's systems work the RNG state is changed!
3) You open the chest, and the (now different) state yields different loot; if you then reloaded and waited exactly the same amount of time in step 2) you would (theoretically) get the same result every time; however even a millisecond of difference may yield different outcomes.

Edit: So its not the passing of time itself that changes your seed, but the actions that take place during that time.

Got it?

That is irrelevant to the fact that your stupid premise was as I pointed out. That the REASON for demanding they spend time to stop people from save scumming is that some will do so getting ideal loot, and then go off to the boards to complain about the game being too easy, wasting the time of the devs with such claims.

That is the reasoning you used. That is your premise here and that is why it is absurd. Your premise is such a slippery slope of idiocy. I mean, to suggest that your premise is correct, you have to first claim that the player is going to spend hours of save scumming on each such encounter AND that getting such ideal loot really does imbalance the game AND that the person is going to be so frigging stupid to think that this is a game balance issue AND that the devs are going to accept some idiots claim of such without any mention of makeup.

What is funny is in your scenario, someone has to do a lot of work to cheat. It is like those who will be cheating to that extent are too stupid to realize they can edit their game files in seconds of time. Not only that, but how in the hell is the developer going to be able to tell the difference between the guy that saved scumm like a moron for hours vs the guy the just edited their saved game in less than a minute? Or even better, how can they tell from the person who just happened to be so darn lucky that they rolled the "ideal" loot in their play? So even if the devs stupidly waste time chasing such design goals, the person who edits their saved game is going to be able to achieve the same thing and there is NOTHING you or the devs can do to stop that. Care to explain?

It is a stupid argument, period. /boggle

Well, I got it before you explained it again, which is why I specifically said :



"..directly (or indirectly).." being an important part of that statement.

You can choose seeds that don't change easily or often, or without active "long term" participating from the player, and while the passage of time still (obviously) influences the seed indirectly, there comes a point where it requires too much time and it's "mission accomplished" in terms of neutralizing the usefulness or simplicity that makes the current save-scumming so easy.

And?

Oh, I'm sorry.. was that supposed to be your argument?



Yep. To them it's just feedback. I doubt anyone is going to tack on "P.S. I frequently save-scum to get the best gear, so keep that in mind when factoring my feedback.." onto their posts.

That said, I'm not sure why you keep thinking that's the only downside to the current loot setup.

Larian already has to look at feedback from players who simply missed things and assumed quests were broken or things were not in the alpha/beta yet, etc. I doubt some minority of players save scumming and saying the game is too easy are going to throw off the overall difficulty feedback Larian is getting, or their own experiences playing and internal beta testing.

So, again, it's not just about how the developers digest feedback on combat difficulty, that's just a point Tanist latched onto and decided to rest his entire argument on.

But (I'll bite), why assume it's a minority of players who use the save/load feature when a special container fails to yield useful rewards? Unlike the way Tanist spins the story, one doesn't have to reload a save game for hours to get better rewards from one of these special containers. It's simple enough that within minutes you can find yourself saying "Ah, much better loot". It takes a handful of seconds to reload a saved game created while standing in front of one of these special containers.

Hypothetical question: if frequent save-scumming was something you did while playing Divinity : OS, and you posted feedback during a difficulty discussion (without mentioning your save-scumming habit, perhaps because maybe you assume everyone does it, or it's not worth mentioning, or you consider it a legitimate part of the game, etc) do you think the developers would not take your opinion into account? What about [insert long-time forum member here]'s opinion?

Combat difficulty is a topic that comes up frequently, and if there's one thing that seems guaranteed to show up in every discussion it's a bunch of differing opinions on whether combat is too easy or too difficult. Even comparisons to the same fight result in wildly differing stories, where one player argues they can't beat it while another is suggesting it was too easy to even be memorable.

We can debate why all these different experiences are happening.. could be because of gear, could be because of skill, could be because of how you built your character.. but "could be because of gear" is definitely in there. Nobody should be pretending otherwise, especially when we have all played the game and know what a dramatic difference one tier of weapon can make compared to the next. And when someone abuses the current setup to "save-scum", they can end up with the best tier equipment at a given level fairly easily, and not even have that practice entering their minds when hopping into a difficulty discussion to measure their e-peens with everyone else. In the typical gamer's mind, s/he does better only because they're just better at playing the game.

I think we're being a bit naive to assume that nobody providing feedback here or on the Steam forums does that, but whatever. And (regardless) it's not the sole reason behind fixing (or not fixing) this abusable loophole in the design.

/facepalm

No, that would be your argument:









Nice, so apparently the developers here are so stupid that they are just going to take feedback with no report, evidence or reasoned explanation as to WHY the player thinks the game is too easy? Nope, apparently they will be too busy focusing on breathing to inquire about such things and will take unsupported claims as fact. Yep, because it is that sort of brilliant behavior that resulted in the development of a complex computer role playing game.

Again, another stupid argument.

So assume a majority of players are save scumming at least with bosses and special containers. Is the difficulty going to be cranked up so high that no tactics can help, and the only way to survive on the hardest difficulty is to save scum as well?

I am pretty sure Larian developers do not save scum, unless they are specifically checking loot distribution. They already have to go through the same situations many more times and test many more iterations than we see in beta releases. Internal beta testers would presumably refrain from save scumming specifically so that they could give accurate feedback on balance and loot drops, etc.

During the beta tests at Larian Studios, they mentioned that when people were playing co-op they were much less likely to reload (even for things much more significant than loot).

I'm not assuming nobody providing feedback reloads for loot, just that Larian is aware of that phenomenon and can take it into account when interpreting feedback.

I'm not sure why you responded to that with a quote from me, as that had nothing to do with my question. I guess you misunderstood what I was asking and my point went over your head.


Another strawman attack from you, you mean. You keep wording these scenarios like they're so incredibly far fetched, when in reality we can point to any and every piece of feedback on difficulty balance posted to these forums that has been responsible for a shift in design and ask the question of whether or not the player behind it save-scums. Because (the point is) this isn't the type of information players tend to volunteer when presenting their reports, so how would you know the difference? After all, according to your own statement "..how in the hell is the developer going to be able to tell the difference between the guy that saved scum..".

You act like our feedback never influences the developers to make a change, when every other week the developers are explaining how our feedback has resulted in changes. Even my feedback has had a hand in changing the game, and a) it didn't take much to convince then and b) according to you I make stupid posts. Maybe you should be worried? Or maybe it's just not as complicated or impossible a scenario as you're pretending in an effort to make a point.

You yourself said "how in the hell is the developer going to be able to tell the difference between the guy that saved scumm like a moron for hours..", and yet when I agree and point out that's a problem, you flip-flop and backpedal and start suggesting I think the developers are "dumb". I suggested no such thing. I'm just asking the same question as you: "how in the hell is the developer going to be able to tell the difference between the guy that saved scum.." and the person who didn't when reading feedback from us. We both seem to agree that it would be difficult for them to tell the difference, and yet when I say it's potentially a problem, you try to paint it as a non-issue.

I don't know about "cranked up so high that no tactics can help", but adjusted, certainly.


Well.. that's difficult to accurately judge as (up to now) reloading a saved game while playing co-op has been plagued with problems (companion sorting issues, for example). I can say for me personally (as I play co-op) those problems have been annoying enough that I do avoid reloading as much as possible, but mainly because of those problems. Once those problems are gone reloading in co-op becomes completely painless. It will always be likely to be less frequent, however, because reloading in co-op usually relies on first discussing the action with your partner (unless you're playing with someone who just breaks out surprise and arbitrary reloads on you, in which case I doubt you'd be playing with them for very long).

That said, prior to picking up an NPC companion, a friend I play co-op with tends to play the save/reload game at special loot containers. And since the possibility for something better always exists on that next re-roll of the dice, she tends to never be quite satisfied with what's coming out of the treasure chest. So, 10 minutes and ~20 reloads later I find myself having to ask "can we just go play the game now instead of playing slot machines some more?".

And that really is the meat of the problem - why create that issue to begin with? Players take advantage of this loophole in the design because it's there to take advantage of. And since there are better ways to implement this, ways that don't leave this mechanic open to abuse, perhaps they should be pursued. That's what we generally do with abusable mechanics that are bad for the integrity of the game - we try to fix them, even if it's a single player game. That's why the "Raistlin" and "Lone Wolf" traits are no longer compatible, that's why summons don't award XP anymore, and that's why save-scumming should be minimized.

Some people in this thread have been using the ridiculous argument that it's pointless to try and fix save-scumming because players can just cheat through other means (hex editor, trainers, etc). I label that argument as ridiculous because, going by that flawed logic, we might as well not fix any exploitable mechanic. Apparently no matter how much we fix there is always a way to break something else, and suddenly two wrongs make a right, there will always be bugs and things that need fixing and tweaking, so let's just ship the game now.

That's all just a load of nonsense. You fix what you can, and hope the rest doesn't bite you in the bum. You don't avoid fixing a problem because someone might work around your fix by using an editor.

Not really.
Basically, I just S/L when meet special events such as at the end of a boss encounter.