Book II design question

[Axxaxx]

Oh my god the problem is not only the fricking loot !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The problem is thief' skills are pointless in this game because you can reload just before a trap or a closed door and wasting more than 3 points in pick lock and skulldudgery is nonsense.

Btw it seems like some of you don't have a basic sense of statistics, if loot is generated upon entering an area the "luck" factor is ABSOLUTELY the same as when it is generated upon opening the chest. Instead or rolling for 5 chests 5 times the pc rolls 5 times in the same instant. That means the rolls are the same number with the same probability of getting crap or gold.

Now if you what to reroll loot you're welcome, what I say is let's suggest the programmer a good way to make pick lock/disable traps more hard (so the points in the 2 skills are worth it) without stopping people reload every 2 second cause the want "shiny phallic sword +30".

[realmzmaster]

Actually most of us have more than a basic sense of statistics and probability. If someone wants to re-roll to pick a lock or break a trap, how is that affecting how you play? If the lock has a 1% chance of being picked and the re roller wants to re-roll 100 times or more until they pick the lock why should I care? Why should the designer worry about that issue?

If a trap has a 1 in 4 chance of being disarmed and you end up blowing up the character, when you reload you still have only a 1 in 4 chance of disarming the trap. The only condition that has changed is the number of tries. The law of averages states that the more tries one has at an event eventually a favorable outcome will occur. Why should I care if the re-roller wants to re-roll.

How does that affect how you play your character, unless you give in to the temptation to re-roll. Do not re-roll and there is no problem or concern. If you are playing a thief, put your skills points into lock picking and skullduggery, because that how you want to play it. Do not re-roll!!

The major concern of the designer is to allow the user to get the maximum enjoyment out of the game, not to stop people from abusing the system if they so desire. What you want is the designer to enforce discipline. Why? Especially if it affects someone else's enjoyment of the game. If the game must have it I prefer optional rules that I can apply or not apply.

[jinnes]

BW, I'm one of the people who have raised issue before. I personally do not like the one-minute reload limit. That seems like a very blunt instrument and could lead to all sorts of unforseen problems.

In my prior posts on this issue I've recommend the "store the random seed in the savefile" approach. This would solve all the abuses -- rerolling loot, rerolling lockpick, rerolling attack rolls, etc -- in one swoop, without requiring ANY other changes to any other game systems. I'm not sure why the 1-minute limit seems preferable to you than that.

I also think you ought to reduce the variability of loot and remove (or relax) the player-level-banding effect in the loot system. As others have said, and I've said before, getting trash loot from a chest guarded by a mini-boss is just not fun. Nor is sneaking into an area that's "above your level" and also getting trash. Achievements like this should be rewarded, and if the game system is not rewarding them then you ought to tweak it. Randomness is only so fun; at some point you have to direct the random engine a bit more.

I think it's also important to note that this is not just a matter of "self control." When I re-roll loot, it's because of the issue above about trash from a chest that should be rewarding. If the game's loot system did a better job of rewarding significant achievements, I personally would not be tempted to re-roll loot.

Thanks, BW, for considering solutions to these issues. It may just be a "vocal minority," as you hypothesized. But we're vocal b/c we care about it. And anyway, who exactly do you think posts on a game developer's bulletin boards for a game that's a year away? The vocal minorities.

-jinnes

[Axxaxx]

How does that affect how you play your character, unless you give in to the temptation to re-roll. Do not re-roll and there is no problem or concern. If you are playing a thief, put your skills points into lock picking and skullduggery, because that how you want to play it. Do not re-roll!!

That makes no sense, reroll when you are in front of a door or a trap is SO easy and FAST that everyone does it in this game, you can't say don't reroll, the program lets you do it, easy and plain, that is a choice the programmer made, not a bug.

That is what I'm trying to say, this has to change. Having 30 % chance to open a door means that if you try 4 or 5 times you probably will succeed, if you don't reload that means 4 or 5 chances to break your pick lock and that is annoying. Same thing for traps, but in that case is a go or no go thing.

I think the 1 minute pause between each reload is another very good choice.

[realmzmaster]

Yes, the program lets you do it. Yes, it is easy, but you have to choose to do it. The program does not make you reroll. The program is not holding a gun to your head saying reroll. You choose to reroll. So what if everyone does it! Why should you care, if they choose to play that way!

What you want is the designer to stop you from doing something because you cannot stop yourself! You want the designer to impose the limitation that you cannot impose on yourself.

And as I said the one save per minute rule will not stop the re-roller. They already have more patience than I do!

[jinnes]

It's pointless to debate whether this is a matter of "personal integrity." The onus should not be on the player at all. Game designers have a responsibility to try to eliminate opportunities for abuse in the systems they design. That's just part of good game design. If something can be abused, it's a flaw, just like a bug is a flaw. It should be fixed. It's just the "right thing to do."

But I also wanted to make a point about the proposed "1 minute" solution. As I mentioned earlier, i think it's a bad idea and I hope it's not implemented. But if it is implemented, I wanted to suggest two refinements:

1) You don't have to restrict save at all. The abuse is not in the saving; it's in the loading. And some of us (yes, me) are compulsive quick-savers. Something good just happen? Quick save! Take two or three steps without something bad happening? Quick save! That may be freakish, but it's not abuse; please don't disable that. There is no way to abuse anything by saving; only by loading.

2) You could just restrict loading the *same game* repeatedly. Because really, that's the abuse behavior. Loading *different* games within 1 minute doesn't need to be restricted. (Let's say I'm going back a few saves to before I made some bad choice. I may need to load a few games quickly to remember which is the last save before my fateful decision. That is not the behavior you're trying to prevent, but it would be prevented. Loading the same game over and over is really the crux of the abuse.)

So, BW, please don't pick this fix. But if you do, don't disable all saving and loading for 1 minute. Just prevent repeated loads of the same file.

Thanks
-jinnes

[realmzmaster]

jinnes,

You say it is a flaw, others see it as a feature that may or may not be used. It is a matter of perspective. A bug is a flaw because it affects the actual performance of the game. A bug is usually unavoidable. Save and reload does not have to be used.

Restricting loading the same save game repeatly will not work. All it means is that the reloader saves the same state in two or three different save slots. You simply alternate between them until you get the result you want.

Many CRPG's designers past and present did not see this as a flaw or problem. If the person wanted to reload or reroll so be it.

The method used by Alternate Reality was you had to walk through a gate with numbers representing the attributes spinning above the gate. It was an attempt to keep people from trying to get the uber character. If you had the patience all you had to do was wait and step through the portal at the right time. And by reading the letters on the forum, some people seem to have an infinite amount of patience.

I would rather see BW and his team concentrate on the content of Book II rather than try to fix something that is not really broken.

If a person wishes to keep rolling or reloading until the person gets the uber character or the best treasure why diminish his/her enjoyment.

[jinnes]

Realmzmaster:

First off... Alternate Reality. What an awesome game. Probably the only RPG that modeled the effect of rainy weather on the types of monsters you'd encounter. Thank you for that little trip down memory lane.

I see your point about letting people play how they want. However, my personal enjoyment of the game *is* diminished by how easy it is to re-roll. So it's not purely a matter of "live and let live."

I think that ultimately, we're debating a symptom when BW should be addressing the cause. As axxaxx, I, and others have mentioned before, the REAL root of the problem is that the loot, lockpicking, stealing, etc systems (a) rely too heavily on randomness and (b) don't necessarily provide rewards that properly reflect the risk and/or skill point investment. If you fixed those issues, the temptation to ever reload-to-reroll could be vastly reduced.

So, I still stand by my statement that an opportunity for abuse is a flaw not a feature. But ultimately it's a symptom of a deeper issue -- flaws in the game systems that provoke people to reload. It's those deeper issues that BW should fix.

-jinnes

[krisklef]

Re: Axxaxx--I agree that it is hard to justify developing your pick-locks skill or remove-traps skill when it is easy to get around with reloading. And I think that concerning a deadly trap, the SP CRPG format just doesn't make those very effective. You die, you simply reload, just as if you underestimated that monster in the next room. Very few players are willing to start the whole darn game over because of a trap, especially if it's a surprise pressure-plate.

Re: loot argument--I will say that Book I is not all that frustrating. Boss monsters often have placed loot, and BW might just want to be sure that all dramatic encounters are at least minimally rewarding in Bk II. However, the AVERAGE loot return for a series of encounters is, well, whatever the designer anticipated it to be, over a run of games. That's the balance, that's the economics of Eschalon, and I personally found the game very enjoyable with found loot.

So, although the traps and lock are weaker than other elements, deadly traps will always be less effective in a SP game, and it is not any different to play locks "as they are" than loot: if you find the lack of lockpick importance annoying, simply elect to play as a thief and impose a no-reload-locks rule on yourself.

Ultimately, I guess the argument comes down to whether you feel the game designer has failed you by making a thief, in this case, less attractive as a character, or whether he has succeeded in creating a system that allows for many ways to role-play a character, some tougher than others, but all requiring the player to make certain trade-offs.

[realmzmaster]

It comes down to how much flexability and playability the designer is trying to put into the system.

Some CRPGs erase the character and save file if the character dies in the game. Most gamers would find this unacceptable if you are half way or more through the game. Luckily if it is this type of game you will know the first time your character dies (which is usually very early in the game). You would then find the save game folder and make periodic duplicates of it. Most gamers would call this a flaw, but it was the intent of the designer (Perma-Death). Re-roll a new character and start over. Works well in a face to face DM moderated session (still a considerable amount of heartache), but not a single player CRPG.

Baldur's Gate series, which I think are excellent CRPGs, but if the main character dies the game ends. Baldur's Gate did allow you to reload from a saved game. What happened to the other members of the party? Why did they not take the main character to a healer or use the resurrection spell? The designer felt it was your responsibility to keep your main character alive. If the main character dies, reload. Dungeon Siege II allows you to take control of other party members if your main character bites the dust and heal him. Your whole party has to die.

Some designers would set up designated save points. You can only save at an inn. The inns would be in certain spots (mainly villages, cities and an occassional one on the road). This cut down on most of the re-rolling. The only problem is that sometimes the designer forgot to place an inn before a big fight! Nobody wants to redo an hour long fight (yes, some of the Gold Box games fights were long drawn out affairs).

It becomes a balancing act. The thief character is able to pick the lock, but the fighter is unable to bash down the door. Therefore a provision must be made for the fighter to be able to open the door. (In one thread I suggested hiring a mage or thief, or doing a quest for a mage or thief to get them to open the door or invest in explosives).

You might say well put some points in lockpicking, but that defeats the purpose of role playing a fighter. Or you could have a door that has no lock. The only way to open it is to bash it down. Is that fair to the thief? (well the the thief could go hire some muscle or invest in explosives).

BW would say that most character builds end up being jacks of all trades and masters of none, not pure builds. But if you play a pure thief you are not going to be on average heavy on the muscle and using fighter weapons. A fighter is usually big on strength, not dexterity and his skills are in weapons and armor.

But ultimately it is up to the designer.

[Galder]

Making the containers leveled, there would not me high level stuff in low leveled containers(*), would make it less rewarding to re-roll.
It might be nice if the containers could be made class specific, so there would be less warrior gear in the wizards tower.

*)Edit and no low level stuff in high level containers.

[Jaesun]

Personally I would have loot automatically created when entering a new area, like Black Isle Studios did with Icewind Dale.

That was the original idea, but that doesn't stop people who also reload for picking locks, disarming traps, or frequently steal things and don't want to deal with getting caught.

Okay, well as I said it would have to be an optional setting since its no fun to force people to play a certain way. We want to make sure Book II plays the same as Book I, but with optional rules that can be applied if desired.

I doubt this is possible, but how about once a lock is broken or a trap was failed to disarm, the item is saved that the item cannot be picked further or disarmed further period. You can reload and reload, but you cannot change what you did.

[Higher Game]

Assigning certain value ranges to loot would be the best solution. I think only a very small minority would reload from getting good loot that doesn't fit their class; after all, it can be sold for a decent amount or adapted into one's playstyle. I think most reloading is when a chest yields 2 gold and a sacramental urn or other really bad results.

[realmzmaster]

I doubt this is possible, but how about once a lock is broken or a trap was failed to disarm, the item is saved that the item cannot be picked further or disarmed further period. You can reload and reload, but you cannot change what you did.

What if I raise my lockpicking skill level? If we use your suggestion as is my character could never come back and pick or disarm the trap.We can modify your suggestion so that the program checks to see if your skill has increased then gives you another chance at picking the lock or disarming the trap. If your skill is still at the same level every attempt at picking the lock or disarming the trap would fail.

[realmzmaster]

Assigning certain value ranges to loot would be the best solution. I think only a very small minority would reload from getting good loot that doesn't fit their class; after all, it can be sold for a decent amount or adapted into one's playstyle. I think most reloading is when a chest yields 2 gold and a sacramental urn or other really bad results.

Your suggestion will probably cut down on some of the reloading and rerolling for treasure. Certain people are still going to reroll to get the best possible item in the given value range. For example lets say chests in a particular region have a range value from 100 to 250 gold pieces (items are randomly assigned). I open one chest I get 50 gps. I decide to reload and reroll. I open the same chest and find a long sword +2.

I take to the merchant and have it appraised for 200 gps. I am now intrigued. What is the upper limit for this chest. I keep rerolling recording my results. Eventually I find the upper limit is 250. I will then go to each chest in the region and reroll until I get the upper limit item or an item that my character can use.

Now you can have every chest contents determined when you enter the region. Therefore rerolling at a particular chest will just yeild the same contents within the value range.

The program would also have to check to see if you leave and try to re-enter the area to get the program to reroll the contents. A simply flag would check to see if you have been in the area before and use the same chest contents which would be saved in an array.

Your suggestion with modification would limit rerolling treasure.