Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - General Some questions about Rock-Paper-Scissors

So, whether you like it or not, RPS is a frequent occurence in dialogues in D:OS.
I noticed a few things about it that make me wonder about some of the underlying mechanics, though:

1) No Draw.
In normal RPS, you can have a draw. However, this never happens in D:OS. At all. So what happens there? Is the AI cheating, or is it "merely" re-rolling a draw automatically to speed up the mini-game?

2) Those points you receive on winning
They always stay at 3 for me. I increased charisma, I had dozens of dialogues that gave +something at the end, yet I always get 3 points for each win. I once (!) had an NPC with more points, the woman in the bathtub, which seemed not very inmpressed by my attempt at cool logic upon appearing in her bathroom out of thin air (8 vs 3). But that's it, it's almost always 3 vs 3. What's the use of charisma then?

3) What happens when I choose to skip?
Does it auto-decide based on my chars charisma or rather randomly plays RPS in the background?

4) Is there an AI behind it or is it random?
I think that there is some "AI" playing the game as opposed to your opponent choosing completely at random. It seems that you can kinda steer the AI towards certain moves and anticipate what it will choose. At least I win more often than I lose. Then again that could all be imagination.

Just to whine/complain/protest/more... I didn't even read OP but the title makes me furious! WTH enjoy that in single player?????

I understand it's an impasse to manage in Coop and make it a skill duel was perhaps not a cool solution (one character always having the decision). But in SP, I don't have enough words to protest and pinpoint how bad is this gameplay element.

Well, you can always skip it.
But I reccommend you nevertheless read and contemplate my well-worded exposition above.

1) The draw result seems to be automatically ignored, so its technically a 50% chance of winning each hand. I assume this is to speed up the process.

2) The numbers definitely change, but the numbers are based on a weighted ratio between your Charisma and your target's Charisma. I tend to boost it pretty quickly, so I often see 3:5 or similar match-ups against a lot of the early-game characters (or my co-op partner, who doesn't invest in Charisma at all). Even the woman taking a bath (can't recall her name off-hand) granted me a straight-up 5:3, and as near as I can tell she's the most difficult person to "argue" with in the first map.

3) This seems to immediately prompt a straight-up percentile check based on your skill versus their skill, with no "intermediate" levels of success (ie, one bar fills up or the other one does, but neither will fill up partially - as it might do if the RPS games were still happening "behind the scenes"). If you have the advantage in an argument, it almost never pays to auto-resolve - because statistically, you actually have a better chance of success if you play it out. When you're at a disadvantage, auto-resolving is slightly safer.

4) That, I couldn't say. But honestly, I think it's really just a straight-up coin toss since it's (more or less) a 50% chance of success each time you click the button. It's really kind of a waste of time, much like the "social" mini-game from Oblivion, but at least it looks pretty. :P

The mere fact that you cannot have a draw is a proof that the RPS game is not fair.

Still it cheats as there's never even like rock rock. It totally changes the perspective of the game.

That said in SP it's bad gameplay.

To answer the question about the AI
there is a AI behind, a very simple that just calculates "the next two possible steps"
i could win every game so far with max just 1 miss (most needed to figure out which calculation is used)

try it.. u will see its very simple when you think two steps ahead

Well, I wouldn't call that cheating, since the odds are still the same. In a normal game of RPS, ignoring any psychological "tells" or the like that might weight the process, it's a straight up 33% chance of three results - Win, Lose, or Draw. In D:OS, assuming there aren't any "hidden modifiers" behind the scenes, they just remove the Draw result - making it a 50% chance to Win or Lose.

Like I said above, it's more of a coin toss than a game of RPS. Personally, I just click the same thing over and over again, and inevitably get something like 2 wins and 2 losses before winning the argument overall (since I stack Charisma). It might be kind of fun in Co-op, for settling player-to-player disagreements, but in SP it's definitely a waste of time.

I think we could use some more documentation on how the RPS mini-game is handled.
The manual is a bit vague there.

Spacebar...
Problem solved :p

I actually really like the RPS in the single player game, I tend to have my characters disagree and then "roll the dice" on what the outcome will be. Makes for an interesting play through.

Except that the odds of success or failure seem to completely change, depending on whether you decide to skip or play the mini-game. As I mentioned above, from outside observation (without looking at the actual coding), it looks like you're always better off playing it out if you have "better" odds of success but skipping it if you seem to have "worse" odds of success.

Also, how the outcome from skipping it is handled is not really clear either.
I guess it's skill dependent, but which skill exactly and what other factors are considered?
It's ultimately the same issue as with the RPS game.
Now, I neither need nor want exact numbers there, but I'd like to make a reasonable estimation how likely a positive outcome will be.

Hover over the icons of the players, and it should give a breakdown of base (3), charisma bonus, and any potential modifiers due to your specific choice of wording...

Can't say I noticed that SagaDC, but then again, I never actually played it, just spacebarred...

sorry, are you angry at the OP for playing solo or angry at the devs for enabling RPS in single mode?



This, two dice is the way to go. Quick and simple. IMO2

I'm not too fond of this RPS system.

A simple skill check would have been better, i.e. strength->intimidation, charisma->charm, intelligence->reasoning or something.

Why even bother with charisma if you could use other skills to get what you want?

So zero chance to convince somebody stronger in a certain skill?

If somebody with 10 strength intimidates and you try to reason with your 9 intelligence, you just lose 100% of the time?

RPS is fast, a little fun, and gets the job done. Besides, against the computer you can win 100% of time if you pay attention. Their moves do not appear to be random. ;-)

Because that would be closer to what the developers originally planned and similiar to what other developers have done. The game used to have 3 skills for intimidation, charm and reasoning BTW before it was ripped out.

RPS might make sense for playing with a friend, not for use on NPCs though or in a single player game.