Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Save scumming during pickpocketing. Can you deter this?

I understand that as a developer you cannot prevent every single game breaking possibility and you should allow a level of freedom to players because everyone plays differently. However, pickpocketing in this game currently feels very OP. Its almost game breaking. Perhaps if you were able to implement something that deterred save scumming all-together it would solve an array of issues. If you are not able to do so, please consider making stealing a more difficult process. Currently its immersion breaking and it basically requires no investment in any particular abilities. You just need a rogue and base proficiency in sleight of hand to steal 90% of items.

You actually do not even need a Rogue.
High dexterity along with 'sleight of hand' can suffice.
But I feel it was nerfed already.

I dunno about opening stuff. I would like some kind of legendary lockpit set that never breaks, veeeeeery late in the game at any cost.
What feels very strong currently are traps. Disarming them almost never worked for me.

I was going to try that for the first time today - and no it is absolutley not gamebreaking. If you don't like it - then don't do it. Don't ruin the game for everyone else because you don't like it.

How is dissallowing the game from being abused, ruining the game for everyone. Its basically cheating, as it requires no skill or investment in the game or thought process. You are always given a rouge. You only need to sneak behind someone in turn based mode and you can have free items. You might as well just allow a command prompt to give you those free items. Its not apart of the game at all, its just like an easy mode feature. The fact that its in the game to begin with, urges the player to use it since you want to win and you will use what is at your disposal to do so. Games dont operate on the premise of: This game is easy and if you want to make it harder for yourself, prevent yourself from playing the game to its fullest potential, instead play with a forced handicap so that it can be more challenging. Games are meant to be challenging for a reason, if you had the choice to have a cheat command prompt, would you use it? Sounds like it... but most people wouldnt.

This.
This is a single player game, as such savescumming won't affect you if you don't do it. So just don't do it and don't ruin the fun for everyone else either.

Yes it should be available, but some level of deterrence. Like some investment. Maybe it costs 50 gold... or maybe it starts you back off at camp. Something that puts a slight deterrence so that abusing the game is not so easily accessible and almost encouraged. Its hard as a player no to use the options availble to them such as pickpocketing for example. Do I want to reap the benefits from investing in a thief and sneak abilities? Yes. But just like in D&D you have to earn it. You arent able to steal over half the inventory of a shopkeeper, which items would have cost you 6000 gold, when you are level 2. Isnt that immersion breaking? Are you a master thief? I mean youre level 2 only.

So technically I never really need to invest in sleight of hand again or worry about adding on any special stealing skills. That part of the game is over. From start to finish I can now steal 75% of the inventory from all the shopkeepers in the game....

Thats called an exploit, not a feature.

It makes very little sense. Stealing was OP in Divinity for sure but not as bad as this currently. The shopkeepers have very value-able items, you can pickpocket them more than once, which you couldnt do in Divinity. You can also re roll stats on items to pickpocket until they hit 0, just by clicking another item then reclicking it. You can steal literally almost all of the inventory in one single try which you also couldnt do in divinity, because it was weight/price based limited by your thievery skills. So you either waited until you had a better stealing stat so you could steal more from them or you took the best items you could on your one try.

They should apply those same rules to this game and for all of you who enjoy exploits and being OP, they should just provide you with the special code that allows a command prompt to give you whatever items you want. You can always play story mode too.

If I bought the game it is MINE. I can abuse my property as I see fit. Stop meddling in my gameplay.
Punishing people for playing the game the way they want to play it is brutish, sadistic and stupid. If you don't like savescumming, don't do it.

Can't agree more with general sentiment. People will always get around anything you do to stop save scuming. This is a single player game and the devs should focus their attention elsewhere.

Thats if the game was intended to be played that way. However in this case we are still in early access, this isnt a finished product so no one is meddling in anyones gameplay. We are trying to help make a better final product. The game can change at any moment. Dont worry they will have story mode for you available where you can abuse the game to your hearts content. However for people who want a fair and balanced game, as intended by the designers who are known for making intricate and challenging games, please dont dilute their product because those people came from games like Skyrim that hand hold the player in everything they do so that they easily slice through the game without ever having to re think their situation or actually have to take a risk and thinka bout how they invest their resources. It goes both ways. Im not telling them to erase story mode for you (super easy mode) , and that would be rude if I did ... but at the same time, dont tell them not to design a challenging game that is immersive and balanced based on role playing just because you dont like challenges and want everything on a silver platter.

Well, it doesn't affect you. It's like two adults having consensual sex in the confines of their own home - if you're worried about it, then you have an unnatural focus on things that aren't any of your business. You are unaffected if people cheat - you're just grandstanding for no good reason. Mind your business; it doesn't involve you. If I mod the game to give my character all 20s and every badass item in the game - it's none of your business because it doesn't affect you in any way. If I mod a save so I am just one hit from winning the game: it still doesn't affect you though I wouldn't do that since it would ruin the game for me. If I want to savescum, then that only affects me. If I don't want to savescum, then I just don't do it. Stop trying to force your desires on other people when it doesn't affect you. If you have an issue with a game mechanic as it affects YOUR game, then that's valid, but if it's that you want something gone and you can just literally not use it then that is invalid. This sort of paternalism has plagued games for the longest time because there are people like you complaining that other people can enjoy themselves.


If it needs to be adjusted to your skills - well that would be fine except it's using 5e rather than earlier versions that allowed you to invest such specialization. But the exploit doesn't affect you if you don't use it - if you just decide not to use it then fine. If you want to get it sensibly adjusted because you want to use it and you feel it's too easy for you without exploiting, that's fair. But having it cost you gold to try or start back at camp is just sloppy patching for a problem that isn't there and makes no logical sense, taking people out of the game.

So then what would you say if the developers tomorrow decided they wanted to prevent save scumming and the final game didn't allow it or prevented it by deterring it in some way? What would you say then? Solasta is planning on doing this by erasing your quicksaves if you died during combat, and they also have an option (easy mode) to allow randomization rolls, so the rolls will change every-time you reload but the base game, (as it was intended to be plated) does NOT allow for new random rolls when you reload from a save. Now why in the world would a developer design an RPG game based on 5e like that? Hmmmmmmm.

EXACTLY. It goes both ways buddy. It depends on the final product and unfortunately for your argument, we do not have a final product. Its up for grabs and its flexible to changes. This is why my post is completely valid and the points are valid. Just because you like easy games that dont challenge you doesnt mean everyone wants that so dont step on their toes and argue for the game to be a cakewalk by saying they are wrong for wanting a fair and balanced game. Im casting my vote for a better product which I think will have lasting appeal and be more respected and appeciated by its fans.

Easy. If Larian decides to purposefully meddle in what I'm allowed and not allowed to do with my own damn video game, I will ask for a refund.
Also it goes one way: I pay for what I want, and if I don't like what I got I get my money back.
Only an idiot would piss off his own playerbase in order to do a powertrip like this. Larian won't do this. If they do, modders will solve it and people will get refunds.
If you insist on telling me how I'm allowed to play MY damn game I won't play, I will get my money back.
Simple, efficient, fuck the oppressors.

It doesn't affect you if you don't use it. You still have your challenge with those who want that extra bit of help still getting that extra bit of help. It is as if you are arguing that all marriages should be heterosexual because you don't want a homosexual marriage, despite the availability of homosexual marriage not impinging on your right to a heterosexual marriage. If you don't want a gay marriage, then don't get one. If you don't want to savescum, then don't savescum. If you don't want to play an elven ranger, then don't play one. This is literally only a problem if you choose to make it one for yourself; it's a single player game where my playthrough does not affect your playthrough. When it becomes multiplayer you'll be playing with others in your party and I'm sure there won't be savescumming then.

The key word here is OPTION. Solasta is providing an OPTION for randomizing rolls, and another for not - as rolls are controlled by the computer and not the user.

BG3 provides the OPTION of stealing everything including the kitchen sink, and the OPTION of not doing so - only in this case the decision to steal or not steal is up to the user, and not random rolls.

I have yet to steal a single coin or object in my play throughs to dat, because the characters I have tested would not do so. Next character I might play the same way, or might play as the thief of Baghdad, stealing everything in sight. My choice.

And should remain everyone CHOICE.

YOU do not get to choose MY playstyle, as I do not get to choose YOURS.

Well ...

* single-player playthrough (multiplayer might meet some resistance :P) ;
* role-playing choice / your story.

You can deter yourself from reloading, depending on if you like the story/outcome of trying to pickpocket a character/creature.

Yes this is a higher form of beta testing. Nevertheless i have the feeling that a lot of people can not manage freedom so they ask for thighter rules.

The barrels, the romance, the lockpicking, the highground strategies, and the list goes on.

What i think would be best is the final product will be tinkered to gave differents levels of difficulty to the players. That is with increasing difficulty the things that make the game easier for casual players (or the ones that just want to have easy fun instead of have to make a second job of the gane to be able to advance) become fewer and fewer, that is the only sensate way to manage the question because if right now a non casual player (or the ones that like to approach in more serious way
the game) HAS the choice to avoid things that can make the game to easy to their taste, tighter uniform rules for everyone would deny the first kind of players of that choice that right now the second kind of players have.

I would have accepted all the "it's a beta test so it has corners that need to be rounded etc etc.. ..." if there weren't that "save scumming" insertion.

I am a casual player (and no, the "then don't play this game" is not a reliable or acceptable argument because it can be easily sent back to the one who says so), I already have a job that requires energy, fatigue and so on.

So I want a game, a RPG game because I love this genre no matter what the setting is (indeed I played vampires games, lovecraft ones, japan rpg, etc etc.. ...), that allows me to get rid of the concerns of my job and to relax, and yes saving and reloading is cheating.

Do you know what? I don't do multiplayer so if I want to cheat in MY playthrough that's something than only concerns me, myself, and I alone. If some estranger feel offended it's their problem specially since they aren't able to understand that my cheating doesn't affect their playstyle.

But again at my not so tender age (I'm 45 years old) I've come to realize the to enjoy freedom of choice is something quite difficult, instead of apply their willpower and make choises that align with their way of thinking people want to get rid of choices (that is I'm aware of abusing save/reload, but I don't blame the game mechanics, I take responsabilty fo being a really weak man who sucumbs to tentation as easily as he can but nonetheless there are sometimens whe I opt to go on with the game without using the reload).

I just hope that Larian in the final product put on the difficulty levels like in VampYr, The Outer Worlds, Original Sin I an II, Diablo III, Dragon Age Inquisition and so on so I will be able to choose the "oh come on this is so fracking easy even atoddler would be able to get through the game" level and other players could choose the "oh my, I thought non one would even think to use this one!" level.

On a final note I do have problems with the picpocketing/lockpicking/stealthing/backstabbing but only because it deprives of sense the Rogue class (a rogue should be a master in assassination, pickpocketing, lockpicking, stealth) and some backgrounds (what's the point of having the urchin background or the criminal one if a noble, scolar, hero, can do the rogue things the same?) and that is a big plothole (like the fact that wizards can learn cleric's spells), that is I agree that for non rogue characters the difficulty shoud be rise.


Oh, by the way, game breaking? Seriously? It becames so if you knowingly and willingly decide to use the save/reload without controlling yourself and if you decide to pickpocket npc and vendors up to when they have nothing more than their clothes on them.

its not your video game, its their video game that they created for you to play and buy. You dont have to like it, and its not considered meddling in "Your game" because YOU didnt create it. They can decide what barriers and rules to make because they are creating the game the way they want to. So you could never begin to even consider it meddling in the first place.

No I mean a an actual Menu option, like easy is a game option in the menu or decreasing difficulty. However the game as intended was designed by default to disallow randomized rolls per game reload (cheating) Why would anyone create a game and want you to cheat in it. Whats the purpose of creating a game in the first place. Like said, I am not arguing to erase Story mode for you people, so why would you care if I was asking for them to make the game more realistic and easier to RP with, and polish the game so that its a better product. Trust me, you will still have an easy game mode always. It will be exploitable and there will be no barriers. Thats what story mode is for, no one will meddle with your choices there. Its just a different table to eat at, know what I mean?

If they are designing a game that is restrictive to users then users will demand a refund - which is not good for them. Bruh's point is that he is purchasing a copy of the game and should be able to play it in the way which he desires to play it without paternalism from the game's designers. Of course, I'm pretty sure he doesn't actually own a copy of the game at this point because capitalism has decayed so much that you lease things rather than own them outright more as time goes on - you aren't allowed to modify your phone because Apple or Samsung or whomever claims to still own the phone and it is buried in some legalese.

But it is a very bad idea for any company to get paternalistic and tell consumers how they must consume their product without a very well documented reason of significance to do so. If this were a multiplayer game and he was tricking out his character to give it an advantage over others, actually ruining others' game experience, that would provide such significance - but what he does in single player is of no one's concern but his own. The drive of this seems to be that players who lack the daily grind want a challenging product and feel entitled to demand that everyone else also have that same challenging experience rather than minding their own business. A successful company appeals broadly and so gives options and variation - they don't pen everyone into the same experience.

Instead of preventing save scumming, just limit pick pocket to things that actually is in a persons pocket.