Larian Studios Forums Divinity - Original Sin Divinity - Original Sin - General Isn't stealing too easy?

Players should understand that this whole stealing thing is just a part of the game but not an integral part. You can complete every single quest without stealing or killing non-hostile NPCs. The game is meant to be flexible, so Larian allows you to steal things using some tricks. You want more challenges to exercise your brain, Larian offers that as well. There are lots of puzzles in this game, some are so difficult that people have to come to open threads asking for solutions, just that they are not about stealing.

This is a game, and we don't talk reality and common sense, please. With half an eye open you can still identify a suspicious person moving in the disguise of an extra barrel in your own house even when that barrel is out of your "cone of sight".

Not too easy. I was delighted when I found out it was possible to "distract" people like that. Making it harder would just encourage save/reloading to avoid pissing off the entire city. It's OK with a measure of predictability, especially in a turn based game.

If it absolutely MUST be changed, then make it turn based and require strategy for getting it completed. Requiring twitch reflexes for stealing in real time - in a turn based game - would be stupid.

I am confused by this thread. After years of playing RPGs I was convinced that it was part of the long, heroic traditions of world saving heroes. You know, saving princesses, slaying dragons and stealing everything that isn't nailed down (unless you have a hammer).

The thing is, if you steal something from a room and come back hours later, it will still be gone. This is part of the interactive world people like so much

Okay, point taken on the whole evoking common sense thing. You're right that it's a game and common sense doesn't apply.

Still, invisibility skills being an effortless "easy button" to infinite wealth isn't exactly what I'd call good game design.

I think this is part of a long list of issues where some people would like to see all of the things they personally want to do differently taken away from everybody else. Because that's what people do, really. See this thread - http://www.larian.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=520864#Post520864 - or half the bloody beta forum if you can wade through it.

After all, just because it's a *game* about legendary, semi-mythical beings rediscovering who and what they are in a magical world, that doesn't mean they should have any kind of special advantages that *I* wouldn't have in the real world.

What if they added a new difficulty level called "fun-sucking-totally-nerfed-grimdark", where stealing took careful timing, implausible luck and micro-management; combat was crushingly difficult; and all of the silliness was removed and replaced by "gritty" realism?

Or what if they just did the kind of fantasy romp that they've done so very well and people stopped nit-picking and proclaiming their opinions as universal, self-evident truths?

Nah. Never gonna happen. I've gotta stop looking at threads like this.

I love Zelda games. You can go into people's houses, smash all their pots, and they don't even blink an eye. If you are low are money, you can cut grass. It doesn't have to be real to be fun.

For the people who want realism, why aren't you also demanding bladder meters and hunger meters where you constantly have to excrete waste and intake food to maintain your bodily functions?

As a newb to RPGs I hope they leave it in with difficulty scaled to play level l.e. easy, hard,etc.

I don't think stealing is too easy. It's quite fun as it is.
It's just way too profitable. Household stuff shouldn't be worth that much.
Seriously i think someone made a decimal error on painting values. -.-

It's a really great game but:

There really should be a penalty for stealing TONS of stuff in a town, even if you aren't caught. Yeah, a thing here and there are easy to get away with, but when the source hunters roll into town and every painting in a square mile radius is stolen and then fenced to a local cheese vendor, it's really not hard to figure out who did it.

Mechanically, there should just be a counter that counts the value and number of things you steal, and when both those numbers go above a certain point in one area, the kind where you basically completely ransacked two or more houses, your reputation should start dropping and the legion should start harassing you and following you when you're in town.

Right now, it's too much "why not steal everything in this basement", when really, that doesn't make any sense. People do notice when things are stolen, and you're literally the only person that's been there, and also you were sighted fencing all the stolen items to an upstanding merchant.

People might not notice or forgive a potion here and there, but when everyone's houses no longer have any paintings...

No it's not too hard to work out who stole all the paintings. Rock paper scissors-it was the cheese merchant! He always had his nose in everything...

Here's a great example of how this exploit can ruin the game: My friend and I were really looking forward to this game, and playing coop. Not too far in, he discovers the stealing exploit, and starts stealing everything he possibly can.

To start, it was a super boring mechanic as it is, so I am already annoyed to have to keep waiting for him (I refused to steal because I think it's a huge exploit; a money god-mode). Then, I start to notice there is no consequences to him stealing what-so-ever. None. In fact, he can steal stuff right in front of them, and barter it back to them, and they don't even notice either way.

Add to that, now he's going around with OP equipment and pretty much every item he wants, again, with no game repercussions of any type. Me and my character play by the rules, and look like fools for not using the exploit (I'm still saving for once piece of equipment I want, and he laughs at me).

And the final dominoe for me was how he just plows through enemies so fast, combat is boooooring! So for now, we are going to play the game separately, solo.

So yes, it is an exploit, a huge one, and the few people saying it isn't sound like they use savescumming and exploits in all games anyways. In every other game I've played with stealing, it is risky, you can almost never steal something of much value, and there are big repercussions for doing so also even if you are successful.

Just cast invisible, then you can steal anything and everything without any problems.

If you want to take things into your own hand you can modify game difficulties fairly easy. The games vision cone is defaulted at 90 degrees, you can modify it well above that to make it so you can't basically steal with anyone in a room, which is probably a lot more realistic. However there are some exceptions to that.

I don't know what this does for invisibility since it don't have that skill, I'll give it a whirl though to see.

I use 500 degrees, because there was still enough of a sliver for some reason behind a NPC you could still sneak successfully in. 500 wipes that out.

I don't know if this can break the game in some way in some type of mission. What I do is modify the three difficulty levels. Hard 500, Normal 240 and Easy 90 (games natural default), so if I had some place I had to have only 90 degrees cone vision, I can move to Easy really quick and do that and then continue. I created an Easy that is more like a setting to help if I get stuck, lots of extra perception etc in Easy, in the case I can find something important.

I can assure you though, you will not go into any area with NPC's and steal. It does seem a lot more realistic. Now you have to get them out of the room or do very bad things to them.

I agree that stealing is WAY too easy, so much so that it unbalances the game's economy if exploited. I like how Skyrim handled stolen goods. While it could be easy to steal in that game as well, stolen items were unsellable to any vendors except for the fences in the thieves' guild, which you had to seek out and become a member of before you could sell to them. Hopefully, a D:OS mod will fix this.

Yeah... Stealing.... I really tried hard to be a good guy and not steal people's stuff. But the economy is sooo broken. I can't afford any skill books and all the enemies kick my arse. All the loot I get from the areas I can actually wade through is barely enough to upgrade one item or buy one new skill when I come back to town. And some of the plots seem nearly impossible to advance without a little B&E action. So I kind of feel forced to break the law to advance.

I don't necessarily mind stealing being easy, but I am bothered by the combination of zero consequences for stealing and painful poverty if you don't. A little balance tweaking here would definitely be appreciated.

tbh need a mony sink imho

2 much gold in da gaem

MORE DEN 1 SMITTY PLZZZ

NT JUS TIBERIAMS SMITTY (goblin)

so i can spend mony on smitty or sumthin....

2...much...gold

How do you modify the vision cone angle?

Here is the link:
http://www.larian.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Main=44210&Number=518031#Post518031

You would want to modify upwards in character.txt, (90 is default):
data "FOV" "90"

There are many things we can tweak game play wise that fixes many of the issues talked about. For example in the file you can limit how much resistance is possible in the game, so you can't become totally immune.

If you want to have different FOV's based on Easy, Med and Hard after doing the above, PM me.