Larian Studios Forums Divinity: Original Sin 2 Divinity - Original Sin 2 - General Why "Save Scumming" is not bad

Divinity is not an adversarial game. It's single-player or co-operative. Nothing you do in your game is going to ruin the experience for other players.

For this reason, Divinity should never be balanced with an anti-save-scumming agenda in mind.

If the loot is going to be random, you should be able to save-scum that chest as many times as you want, until you feel comfortable with its contents. I'm 100% okay with you doing that. What I'm not okay with is a super special boss chest containing daggers when no one in my party is a Rogue, and not being able to reload my save and re-roll because it's going to have the exact same loot every time.

This is also the reason I was okay with a lot of the RNG elements that Larian has removed to "streamline" D:OS 2. Shield block chance. Willpower saving throws. Body-building saving throws. Et cetera. You can be the type of player that accepts whatever hand you're given, or you can re-roll and see what happens. It's a role-playing game, and part of your role-playing is deciding whether or not to stick to the script you've been handed.

As described above, I don't think Larian should be caring about save-scumming at all, and, as a result, they could keep many RNG elements in the game that they've chosen to remove, and the loot system would cease to be a problem.

Meh.

With how much the first game didn't apologize for itself, I kinda always assumed it was designed with that in mind in a "we won't punish you for this" kind of way. I guess, sure, you can discover all the secrets and go in with no surprises if you're super investigative before you do *anything* but that's not me.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I don't think Larian removed RNG because "anti save-scumming". There's ironman/honour mode for that. I think they removed RNG because

1. Arena. You generally want to get rid of RNGesus in a competitive multiplayer environment.

2. AI. It's simpler for AI to analyze the situation when the success of his upcoming CC nuke is readily predictable by looking at target physical/magical armor. If instead it depends on saving throw then the AI has to draw its conclusion by either

a. cheating: directly accessing target character sheet. Obviously not the ideal way to do things.

or

b. deduction using methods available to players (examine with loremaster, looking at past success etc). This is not easy to code and can quickly lead to strange AI behavior.

Then the AI has to go two steps forward by having Plan B when things go south because of RNGesus. Physical armor/magical armor is an elegant way out of the mess.

Almost no one (I only say almost because on the internet, there's always someone) actually enjoys save-scumming. There's a difference between designing a game in which players CAN save-scum and designing a game in which players WILL save-scum.

Developers have to think about it: here is an incredibly unenjoyable activity that players are doing anyway. So why are they doing that? Identify the motivation and the problem can be fixed.

The loot system is... not good. To say "well, players can just keep reloading until they get what they want" is terrible design. It's lazy and ugly and bad.

I have nothing against save-scumming; it's a single-player game, and if you want to do it, then go for it. We all do it sometimes. What I do have something against is design that makes save-scumming the optimal path.

I have no idea what any of this has to do with D:OS2, though, since you never actually go anywhere with your premise.

Have you seen all the people on this forum talking about how bad the loot is in D:OS2? I'm essentially saying that if the loot wasn't exactly the same every single time you loaded a save, it wouldn't be nearly as bad.

Of course, you brought up a good point, that that's just a workaround to a symptom of a much larger problem: a lackluster loot mechanic.

I also brought up other things like saving throws, which I thought should have stayed in D:OS2.

If you're really determined to have this as the official solution to the loot issue, then the more elegant way would be to give the player a chance to loot drop immediately, or provide another way to exchange crap loot for something valuable (isn't that what merchants are for?).

Of course, the alternative is to just make loot more interesting overall.

Save scumming is always a negative. Though it doesn't necessarily make a game bad.

At the start of the game, in a prison, there isn't suppose to great loot dropping frequently.

I would actually prefer to have no inclination to save scum. I hate doing it. It isn't fun. And in a lot of ways ruins the game mechanics and the immersion. But when I'm in the thick of it and something stupid happens, or I said the wrong thing, I reload at the drop of a hat. It sucks. I wish more things were put in place to prevent it. My choices would matter more.

I like that the loot does not change, except that it does on the first go round. So for instance I finally win a big battle, take the loot, then someone in my party steps on fire or i accidentally heal a zombie, I reload and the items are different. But just that time, further loads will keep those items. I dislike that the items change.

I understand this, thematically, but it really makes it difficult at the beginning of the game.

Although there's really no good excuse for not getting decent loot when you kill a magister or other heavily armed enemy.

I'm less sleepy now, so allow me to elaborate a bit more why I was being dismissive:

I opened this thread more or less ready to agree, assuming it was about the player's right to save and reload constantly to experiment with things and so on, because I have absolutely no problem with that and I often "abuse" that sort of "savescumming" with a lot of enjoyment.

But when we are talking about mechanical issues (like the "loot lottery" before killing anyone/opening a chest) that actively encourage and reward the player for compulsive saving and reloading, then we have a problem, because that's extremely poor design.
The very opposite of "not bad".
And I DO think that Larian should definitely care about the problem and finally address it.

So yeah, in the end I disagree with most of what you argued for.

Ehm, loot still works exactly the same... I can reload a savegame, open the same 5 crates, get 5 different rolls.
Only fixed loot is, well, fixed anyways. The dagger thing makes me think of a certain boss which just drops those. Which you would know if you looked at them and say they had the unique item color.

I'm not sure who you were answering to, exactly, but... isn't this precisely what we were all talking about?

The problem is: the OP thinks this is a nice thing, while others (myself included) think it's an awful mechanical flaw that should be addressed.

I thought the OP was complaining that loot was always the same for him on reload - while this is not the case.

*shrug* As a D20 table too rpg fan, I've always had a special place in my heart for the RNG gods. In fact, when I noticed the dice rolling happening in the notification box in game, I was really happy with the system since I thought it made everything better.

It certainly doesn't detract from anything at all. While I definitely feel some things should be fixed, like special loot and how a guy wearing armour and dieing should drop that specific armor, I certainly did feel that the D20 style mechanics were very well done.

I thought honor mode was great. Save-scumming is a mechanic that makes the game significantly easier and tempts players to abuse it. You can ~choose~ not to, but even the best of us fall victim to the siren's song on occasion.

I hope os2 gets an honor mode like os1 had and i'll be happy.

I swear it's starting to feel like everyone is talking about a different topic here.

One throws in the D20 and dice rolls, the other talks about "honor mode" (aka "Ironman"). None of them addressed what the OP was actually talking about.

Also this...by giving an honour mode, save scumming is thereby removed for those who don't want it there :P

Well he's talking about RNG mechanics in game that people normally save scum around such as looting or willpower saves and such is how I took it?

Edit: and he's arguing how the developers shouldn't try to balance a game around stopping that