Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity Original Sin - Beta Abusing container loot mechanics with saved games.

The other side of the coin is: You get good loot in a chest, you identify it, your game crashes. And BAM! next time you load the game your good loot is gone and replaced with some shitty cooking pot or cheese. As my luck with RNG is shitty, I spent most of the beta running around with shit gear. Just becuase I didn`t bother reloading for chests.

Hey! Archmage: content in the thread! Excellent. Two points.

That kind of, "Look at this! Isn't it great? Say goodbye, now." is frustrating as hell. Which said, I'd still rather have RNG than seeded numbers.

• Fixed results - whether hand-placed or seeded - just makes me feel like a game is on rails.
• Seeded crappy loot in a major reward actually feels worse than RNG crappy loot. I didn't just get sucker punched: I got sucker punched however many hours ago I started the game, and I have no recourse to judicious save-scumming to keep the fun from draining out.

Especially in an ongoing beta, spending the time to try to max out my characters' kit is so not happening.


Note: the meaning of the term "fun" in this comment involves not finding disappointment enjoyable. If your personal definition of fun is somehow more moral that that, never mind: this comment doesn't apply to you and we really don't need to argue about it.

I can't say I agree with this. Unless you intentionally try to work out/seek information on how loot generation is implemented, to the player they open a chest and rewards are within. Whether the items were determined the moment you opened the chest or hours/days/weeks earlier shouldn't matter.

At least, not until you start to try and game the system, at which point it does matter.

If you find yourself in a situation where you are going outside the flow of the game to "correct" a situation (e.g. essentially "cheating" by save scumming because you're unhappy with the items in a chest) something is failing, perhaps on more than one level. The fact that you feel it's necessary to do, the fact that the game enables you to do it, etc.. the game is no longer be played as designed at that point.

And yes, I feel comfortable saying that about the design so long as save scumming isn't proudly listed somewhere with a bullet point in a game's feature list. Until that day it's a shortcoming being abused, not a feature being utilized.

• Never be unhappy with your treasure rewards again. Our loot is generated when you open the chest, and by making use of our save/load system you can try your luck as many times as your heart desires!

See? There's ways to spin it. But I'm not seeing that listed anywhere, so instead it feels more like an exploit.

Fact: The range of possible treasures which it is possible to be generated is so large that the chances of getting any particular one or combination of all-desireable treasures is so small that it's not worth anyone's time to reload, never mind being worth anyone's time to re-code so reloading no longer works.

That's an opinion, as what is worth or not worth reloading to you is obviously different to someone else since people *do* save-scum. You may not do it, but it happens, and for a reason.

Also, I don't believe anyone ever suggested someone could abuse save-scumming to get "exactly" what they wanted, only that they can abuse it to get something they prefer over that which the game originally rewarded them with.

For a game that's trying to capture that table-top D&D vibe, it's odd that it allows players to essentially convince the Dungeon Master to reroll their treasure rewards repeatedly until they're satisfied with their haul. That would be one pushover of a DM, and I certainly never played in pen-and-paper D&D session like that.

That makes the "virtual DM" of Divinity feel "stupid". Maybe we can make him "smarter"? I'm not sure what's so awful about that.

Now since this is a "classless" game up to a certain point, loot drops based on class won`t work. However would it be poss to have equipment drop based on what type of skills you have or items currently equipped? Say if you have a staff equipped, chances to get a staff in a chest would increase by X %. This however has the downside of giving you daggers, when you really are just using a dagger cause it was better than your sword.

I do agree up to a point, I would not like the game to have fixed loot (like you get the staff of whatchamacallit when killing baroness whoshe), but there should be a minor intelligence to loot distribusion. Say for intstance games like Icewind dale had fixed loot in some containers, but they also had "x chance of this item being here" and "the item in here is a random dagger/random staff/random sword" etc.
A middle ground would be kinda nice. I was in a party playing coop as 2 mages, and during both our 2 playthroughs of the beta we were selling tons of swords/axes/daggers and didn`t get a single staff/robe drop. We had to buy our mage upgrades at the vendors, and even they had kinda shit items. Best we got robe wise was a 10 armor + int robe. And staff wise it was +1 to two spellcasting skills.

I love reloading saves to see what I get, to me it's just something fun to do - a slot machine in my rpg -- Something I've appreciated since the 80s with Might & Magic and on.

No different than loading saves after a poorly fought battle, or loading saves at anytime you *just feel like it* - altering what "was" is still reloading a save -- everyone does it at some point, some more than others.

I'm in the camp of happy reloads. Many are actually, they just don't admit it.

...serious......serious people?....ya all must be getting really bored..this is the new focal point to complain about?

"Hey that player reloaded their game!"
"The economy in the game is ruined!|
"...Wait..what happens in their game does not effect mine" <- Happy face.

No one on this forum has the right say who can or cannot reload for better loot. if a player is that desperate for max loot they could simply use the creation tools~ there is a new topic for ya to freak out on! *dun dun dun!* Unless you want to spend the money to buy everyone their copy of the game. Zip it and let people play the game their way~

This is not reporting anything broken or needing attention to fixing, this is just another personal complaint thread....And again I will put this "Larian cannot make a game for just one persons likes, they will lead to extremely poor sales."

Well, that seems to be a great sign to me. If unimportant nitpicky stuff like this gets so much attention, the major problems seem to be solved.

This thread was created months ago. Please realize that as new players join the community they're going to have opinions they'll want to share and, as a result, some of these older topics will surface again with additional feedback.

Also, a thread doesn't always have to be a bug report - sometimes it can simply be feedback or discussion regarding the game. As with all discussions, if they don't interest you personally then don't feel obligated to read them. It will make your forum browsing experience much better (and likely improve the experience of others as they won't have to see "OMGWTF-RUSERIOUS" style responses).

oh don't like how I respond? don't read it~ will improve your browsing experience~ ^_^. I express how I feel~ and right now I feel like people are way to worried about things that will not effect their game in any way~

A discussion is usually about something that matters~ How someone plays their Single Player or Multiplayer (with someone they know so it's on that person to decide if they like it or not and want to stay)

Til the games release I will continue to pop on and sigh and post on some of the topics created. ^_^

"right now" ? You always feel like people are "way too worried" about some aspect of the game. Honestly, I'm not sure if the alpha/beta process is for you if you can't handle seeing feedback.


Well, at least you're consistent if nothing else. Like I said, I'm not sure if the alpha/beta process is for you. You're not going to see too many "game's perfect, don't change a thing!" posts during that period.

I'm sure you have more to say.

you are funny~ there has been some great feedback, but sadly a lot of personal complaints~ one sided needs being requested. If you want to hang around and try n say someone isn't ready for early access. have fun with that~ I don't think you are ready for the internet and people who can comprehend that a game company has to appeal to a larger audience then one. ^_- have fun~

pssst. Stop worrying what others will do in their game, doesn't effect you in anyway. Not nice to try and control others games ^_^

I'm not sure I understand what all the fuss is about. How am I harmed if someone wants to camp a chest or two for drops? It doesn't affect me or my game in any way. This is not an MMO. No one is gaining any kind of an advantage over anyone else here.

Frankly, I don't think it matters what people do in the game or how they want to play it. If they're enjoying it, more power to them.

If we go by that logic it's not worth plugging any mechanic that can be exploited. You can just choose not to abuse them and if other people do, why worry about it?

I'm not a fan of that thinking, personally. Really, the best thing you can do (in my opinion) is report your findings and let the developers decide whether they want to address it or not.

As with all exploits, you will always have people that object to having them fixed. I'm not saying that is the case with everyone here; many seem more concerned with Larian's schedule. I think the developers are smart enough to handle their own scheduling however, and can prioritize as they see fit.

Archmage, I was absolutely not endorsing, suggesting or recommending fixed loot. I was just saying that bad results from seeded numbers can give me much the same *feeling* as bad results from fixed loot: when the results suck, you've often invested so much time that you're effectively stuck with them. *Bad* and *suck* in this context referring only to my subjective enjoyment of games I am playing by myself.

When I posted that, I was under the impression that I didn't enjoy such events. Since then, I've had my error pointed out to me, so you can disregard my earlier comment entirely...


Stabbey, that's a mighty wide brush you're using for facts. You start veering sharply into opinion somewhere around the words "that", "so", and "worth". I'll totally give you the bit about time to re-code, although opinions may vary on that. Particularly in this thread.



Thanks, Gyson, for once again explaining to me how I am wrong about my own reactions and experiences when I'm playing games.

God knows how I'd get along if I had to figure myself out by myself. Don't ever change.

Thanks as well for explaining to me that I have fun wrong. Cheating in single-player games has been a burgeoning problem in the Newell household for decades, now, and no-one ever seems to have stopped to Think Of The Children.

I can only hope someday to be able to make up to you the incalculable damage I must have done to your enjoyment of your leisure time, not to mention the legions of poor developers whose lives I must have blighted by my appalling abuse of their hearts' work. If only someone had warned them of the terrible mistakes they made in enabling me to trammel their art. If only I had listened to those wiser than I, when they warned and admonished me.

I am saddened and ashamed. I can only thank God I never took up solitaire: the potential social damage doesn't bear consideration.

Note for clarity (although I don't really expect you'll read this one either): I am not calling you a child. I don't believe or mean to imply that you are a child, or behave like a child, or that I think either of those is the case. I am using a common touchpoint for melodrama and unwarranted, intrusive concern, as I reject what I consider to be your annoyingly judgmental use of terms like "cheat" and "abuse" in this context.

teehee, you sir need to google what Personal means. You "bugs" are more personal dislikes in a mostly single player game. (I count the co op as single ish player since its just two people, not an MMO setting.)

Edit. Ya know I cannot wait for the good laughs when people start sharing mods you do not approve of \o/

So.. I'm looking at my response to you, and then looking at your response to me, and wondering how in the heck mine warranted yours.

For the record, when I said "If you find yourself in a situation where you are going outside the flow of the game to "correct" a situation (e.g. essentially "cheating" by save scumming because you're unhappy with the items in a chest) something is failing, perhaps on more than one level. The fact that you feel it's necessary to do, ... " that last bit was not referring to some suspected deeprooted cheater tendencies in the "Newell household".

I was actually referring to shortcomings in how loot is implemented that leave people feeling like they have to save-scum just to get desperately needed items. e.g. going through a rough boss battle and then the game randomly rewarding you with absolutely nothing anyone in your party can use. When the game does something like that and puts players in a position where they feel they need to save-scum just to break even, that aspect of the design (I feel) has failed.

That is really the only part of my statement that I think could have been taken the wrong way. If that was the case.. maybe just ask me to clarify next time?

Congratulations on just trolling away with a comment that doesn't actually have anything to do with what I just said. Did you even read before you posted or did you just have at it the moment you saw me respond to someone?

So predictable.

Why don't you do us all a favor and explain to everyone why you apparently think "reporting your findings and letting the developers decide whether they want to address it or not" is, apparently, a bad thing in Ellary's razor sharp mind.

This should be oh so interesting..