Larian Banner: Baldur's Gate Patch 9
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https://twitter.com/larianstudios/status/523142611054645248

Larian asks if they should "nerf" (reduce the gold value) the paintings.

I think this would be a good thing to do. Right now, it is kind of silly how you can just steal everyone's paintings and make a ton of money. I'd also go a step further and have pewter goblets, knives and forks on MOST tables that have a value of 2 or 3 gold coins. Make the light golden goblets rare to find and have them sell for a lot.

Pewter is what would have been used. The acids in tomatoes had a chemical reaction to pewter that caused people to believe tomatoes were poisonous. In Lord of the Rings: Return of the King you see pewter being used in the throne room while the hobbit sings for the Steward of Gondor.

I also think a few should paintings and golden goblets should remain high in value. Like having two or three rare paintings. That if you remove, you are most likely going to upset NPC if you'd go into their house again. Provided you stole the paintings without them looking in the first place. Make it more quest like to get a few paintings to sell off. As for the tableware, well they are not quite as noticeable as a painting missing.

Seriously, I am surprised Larian never copied what happens in this game when you DO steal something without the shop keeper noticing...and then to return there.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbUjzYPzHLI

Oh dear...

Now imagine if you got the chickens to attack that one cook in Cyseal like this...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x73bjtVQXkY

Last edited by LightningLockey; 17/10/14 09:30 PM.

Every time there I run into trouble on the road, there is always a dwarf at the bottom of it. Don't they know how to drive above ground?
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Yes, paintings should be worth much less. A tenth of their current price, I say. Same with cups and forks and stuff. Really, they should make everything the player sells worth less, because as is, getting money is absurdly easy. It could be part of the difficulty scaling: the harder the difficulty, the less you sell your stuff for. Easy: what you sell stuff for now, Medium: 75% value, Hard: 50% value, Hardcore (new difficulty), 25-30% of current prices (might be a little too low at that point, but it probably would still be plenty.

Actually am working on a post about suggestions regarding loot and economy, so glad to see Larian realizes at least paintings are an issue.

It'd be cool if stealing in general had more consequences, and preferably delayed ones. What if it affected your reputation? I mean, if the whole town has all their belongings stolen right after you showed up, I think people would at least trust you a little less.

Only being able to sell stolen goods to a fence would be cool too, but that's probably too much to ask.

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Yup, Larian should really balance gold a bitr better.

With bartering 4 and attitude 100 at the most important traders things get out of control late in the game. I left Cyseal with appr. 40,000. I left the Luculla maps with appr. 250,000. And I am before Balberith after Death Temple and Cassndra with 450,000. That is after I bought more than 50% of the legendaries the intergalactic trader and the Hunters Edge undead trader had to offer after each level advance.

But the main driver is not paintings but loot from the literally thousands of vases and barrels and the fights. When you need gold most (very early) it is scarce, when you need it least it is plenty- one of the most disregarded game features me thinks.

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Thorsten

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Not necessarily; I think they validate having a higher sneak skill in the earlier levels when you would really like to have more money as you very likely haven't found any notable gear with which to fight with and need to rely on purchasing things instead. Lowering the value of steal-able items kind of invalidates the desire to steal anything at all, which is already pretty low considering the vast amounts of dungeon loot you get (gear, scrolls, accessories, etc).

What I might change instead is the way that you can very easily turn invisible and basically loot everything in sight. Performing illegal actions right in front of someone while invisible should illicit some kind of negative response. Naturally they should remain unaware of your presence if you simply walk by them, but I feel like a shop keeper would notice if their stuff suddenly got up and started disappearing.

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I dropped all items drastically, so yes. Why do they go to twitter for this?

PC Game... mobile marketing?

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I don't know why they are going to twitter. I simply can't stand twitter and am surprised it actually got as popular as it did.


Every time there I run into trouble on the road, there is always a dwarf at the bottom of it. Don't they know how to drive above ground?
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Originally Posted by Warkupo
Not necessarily; I think they validate having a higher sneak skill in the earlier levels when you would really like to have more money as you very likely haven't found any notable gear with which to fight with and need to rely on purchasing things instead. Lowering the value of steal-able items kind of invalidates the desire to steal anything at all, which is already pretty low considering the vast amounts of dungeon loot you get (gear, scrolls, accessories, etc).

What I might change instead is the way that you can very easily turn invisible and basically loot everything in sight. Performing illegal actions right in front of someone while invisible should illicit some kind of negative response. Naturally they should remain unaware of your presence if you simply walk by them, but I feel like a shop keeper would notice if their stuff suddenly got up and started disappearing.


They should have interesting things to steal, not just numerous amounts of valuable garbage which you can sell right back to the owner half the time. You don't even have to go invisible; you can stealth right next to someone and steal things practically right in front of them. But I agree, invisible stealing could have a humerous threat from the shopkeeper. Guards and other people who catch you sneaking around should become suspicious, perhaps increasing their FOV or arresting/calling the guards on you after so many catches.

But the simple fact is, this game will never really have good stealth or stealing mechanics. They would really have to increase NPC walking patterns and the number of NPCs in certain areas to actually make it a challenge, and that would probably be more tedious than satisfying. Good stealth quests and environments would be cool, but I just don't see Larian spending their time doing that. Reducing the price of paintings would at least help the economy, if just a hair. I don't think beginning game economy would be harmed that much from taking out paintings.

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Absolutely not; I discovered this by accident and it was a wonderous thing. I could perhaps see an inflation thing where if you sell too many of a type of item the price drop but quite frankly why waste the time on petty things like this when there are so many broken things that need fixing.

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Broken? Donï½´t see anything "broken"?

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Thorsten

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I think paintings are fine, they only really affect the first 4 or 5 levels of gameplay. After level 5 or so you'll have more than enough gold from selling other loot.

If you reduced the sale value of paintings it would take a couple more levels to get the level 4 spells, firefly, boulder bash, fireball, fire elemental, etc. These spells do make this part of the game easier, but its still more challenging than the rest of the game, and they help make gameplay more interesting. Personally, i think paintings are fine, and that they should focus on things that affect later parts of the game.

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since you get the "invisibility spell" you can get as much gold as you want - because you can steal anything you want without being caught.

the real problem is the "invisibility spell" and not some paintings or other gold items you can sell....!

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Inventory management takes a bit too much time and gold is indeed a bit bountiful.

Best way to kill two birds with one stone IMO isn't to nerf the value of paintings but the amount of good things that can be resold easily just lying around.

Remove from paintings and goblets and such, but leave their value intact. Bit more work, but better overall.

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It would be hard to remove from the paintings and tableware without breaking immersion. We find lots of paintings because we run through lots of homes and taverns that are naturally decorated a little, for atmosphere.

So no, balancing via removal is a no-go here.


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The paintings wouldn't be removed, just reduced in value.

The silverware and all would just be swapped with lower grade pewter. Gold tableware was as rare back then as it is today. Though today we got cheap imitations of gold tableware.


Every time there I run into trouble on the road, there is always a dwarf at the bottom of it. Don't they know how to drive above ground?
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My opinion is that wouldn't make that much of a difference..and its something to do at low levels when there is not much do to. I think removing features is bad, instead of doing that..add AI or add more features to make combat and exploring more fun.

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Or make skill gaining part of level-up (ie, a choice at level up) so that the entire economic reason to plunder and loot everything becomes moot.

Because the reason people loot everything and sell is because of the prices of skill-books wink

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Maybe tie it to difficulty level then. I have no issue with making gold scarcer on Hard.


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