renke_
May 20, 2014
The inventory is randomed at some point. How are you going to prevent reloading it?
Not at all - if one has fun with save scumming I'm the last to stop him/her. It's more about balancing and "psychological" factors: Rerolling to worship the RNG god is an built-in feature of the current release, and therefor not at all cheating (the player invests time, the RNG gives better items); but not everyone is willing to invest the time (I got bored after 1 minute, I would _never_ stand this 90 [ninety, wtf?!?] minutes).
I got my dirty hands on one of your saves and the equipment was impressive - but I don't want a SOTW build balanced to your item quality
yayswords
May 20, 2014
Which leads to the question, what item quality do you want it balanced around? The average you're going to get from the shop? Okay, and then you didn't get the average. You got better and the game became too easy. You got worse and the game became unbeatable. Even if you make it harder to reroll it, you won't be removing the chance that someone just gets a crappy/godly selection on their first visit, and that will totally not mix with the difficulty of the game.
Economy is part of the challenge of an RPG. It should naturally be a crucial part of nightmare mode. I should go to the shop and think, what will suit my characters? What do I need badly and what can I live without? Would it be possible for me to not buy anything just to save up gold for that really juicy sword, would I be able to manage until then?
Right now there's a pretty sizable risk I go to the shop and see nothing I want to spend gold on. And then what. Do I throw my gold at monsters?
If we're supposed to rely on shops for equipment, then fill them with proper equipment. Let me decide between several upgrades. Reduce the flagrantly idiotic range of quality of items that appear. I'm sure you think it adds flavor to sell gear worse than my own starting equipment, but when that junk is competing for store space with items I would actually want, it's not exactly enriching my game experience.
(BTW - more shops in Dingirra reads to me right now as the extra casinos I need to equip the extra characters)
jack1974
May 20, 2014
Haha I find myself repeating a lot: right NOW, you control only 3 characters. Things become different when you have 6 (but even just 4-5 is already different). There can be more or less "lucky" randomized equipment, but once you have 5+ shops to browse things will be different.
The rollback will be disabled in the final game anyway
You can still reload the game of course, but I can't prevent that
And how I could let you decide between different equipment? I do what Diablo 3 does, randomized items based on tiers. I think it should work
renke_
May 20, 2014
[a reply to yayswords, jack broke the thread
]
those are good questions, and I don't see an obvious solution.
food for thought, maybe useful as a starting point: what about a mechanism the enforces at least one green item per category per character (if the shop permits it, the forge will never be able to fulfill the weapon needs of a druid, same for Shagala and fighter armour).
jack1974
May 20, 2014
And one last thing, the quests are those who will give the best equipment and let you decide your reward.
Shops now are made in a way that if I define base quality as Standard, there can be 10% chances that 1 item is of Fine quality (the next step) and so on. So if I define a shop of Fine quality, all the items there will be Fine with a few Masterwork. In the first act I've intentionally put low-quality shops. If I define just ONE shop in Dingirra with Fine quality and many items, that will offer plenty of variety to equip your team.
But as _renke said is not like your behavior is the "normal" expected one
though I'm sure many people will reload, I want to make the game so that it can be won WITHOUT the need to do it. I got saves from renke and fabulaparva for Nightmare and AFAIK they didn't use that trick, so it's OK from my point of view.
jack1974
May 20, 2014
food for thought, maybe useful as a starting point: what about a mechanism the enforces at least one green item per category per character (if the shop permits it, the forge will never be able to fulfill the weapon needs of a druid, same for Shagala and fighter armour).
I could try to do that but what would be the criteria? A druid can find useful a good staff, or good piece of armor/jewelry. I want you to wait the next act and then tell me if there's scarcity of good items to buy
in that case I'll fix it.
yayswords
May 20, 2014
You can let me decide between equipment by putting more upgrades in the store than I can afford to buy. Right now I have gold but crappy equipment so I reroll until there's less crappy equipment.
And one last thing, the quests are those who will give the best equipment and let you decide your reward.
I sure hope so. But there's a lot of equipment slots to fill... (Anima, I'm playing into your hands here)
I got saves from renke and fabulaparva for Nightmare and AFAIK they didn't use that trick, so it's OK from my point of view.
You designed nightmare because people complained Loren hard wasn't hard enough. What are you doing here, exactly?
(I don't want the "trick" to be required or not required, possible or not possible, I want it to have less impact)
what about a mechanism the enforces at least one green item per category per character
It's a start, sure. Don't see it being enough, but it's a start.
I could sum up my wishes really easily though. Let's say right now the store randomizes a selection of items with a quality range of 1 to 10, allowing the possibility of everything between absolute trash and a practical Hawk Blade. What if instead the range was 6 to 8?
renke_
May 20, 2014
I got saves from renke and fabulaparva for Nightmare
full disclosure: all my saves were with wimp (=normal) difficulty
I could try to do that but what would be the criteria?
I meant the normal comparison logic - I proposed this mostly as it is disappointing to visit a shop after restocking and not a single item is worth a look.
yayswords
May 20, 2014
I get that this is just the first act though and it's shorter than the others and not worth a ton of emphasis, but I will argue night and day that relying on shops for items will not be okay just because you add more shops without changing anything about them. As long as shops are casinos, more shops just means more casinos.
jack1974
May 20, 2014
I could sum up my wishes really easily though. Let's say right now the store randomizes a selection of items with a quality range of 1 to 10, allowing the possibility of everything between absolute trash and a practical Hawk Blade. What if instead the range was 6 to 8?
Right now the store doesn't do that at all. If you found items too powerful, then is a bug
1) define "base quality" and level (but level is the same for all items, so this is just a generic value. Usually I pick a level that can be reached in the current act, or just pick the party level so I'm sure items can be used)
2) randomize, and there are few chances of a +1 quality item
3) now is hard because is the first act. As I said already, in next act I'll have most shop selling Fine items so there won't even be the problem.
the code is:
[code] if pQuality=="Rusty":
pQuality2=NonUniformRandom([("Rusty",10),("Standard",5),("Fine",1)]).pick()
elif pQuality=="Standard":
pQuality2=NonUniformRandom([("Rusty",5),("Standard",10),("Fine",2)]).pick()
if pQuality=="Fine":
pQuality2=NonUniformRandom([("Rusty",2),("Standard",5),("Fine",10),("Quality",5)]).pick()
if pQuality=="Quality":
pQuality2=NonUniformRandom([("Rusty",1),("Standard",3),("Fine",5),("Quality",10),("Excellent",5)]).pick()
if pQuality=="Excellent":
pQuality2=NonUniformRandom([("Standard",1),("Fine",3),("Quality",5),("Excellent",10),("Masterwork",5),("Rare",1)]).pick()
if pQuality=="Masterwork":
pQuality2=NonUniformRandom([("Fine",1),("Quality",3),("Excellent",5),("Masterwork",10),("Rare",5)]).pick()
if pQuality=="Rare":
pQuality2=NonUniformRandom([("Quality",1),("Excellent",3),("Masterwork",5),("Rare",10)]).pick()
[/code]
pQuality is the store base quality, pQuality2 is each item quality (is a cycle that picks several items). So for Standard you'll get most time Standard items, 50% less time Rusty items and 2/10 Fine. I could remove the lower quality perhaps, so that store will always have at least the "minimum quality". That I can do
yayswords
May 20, 2014
I meant only there could be such a difference between the best and worst items you find. We haven't seen rare items yet, so I won't say they couldn't roflstomp anything I could find in the shop.
This got a little ironic though, it used to be me asking for numbers and you saying I don't need them I just need to have fun. Well I can tell you that whatever that coding mumbo jumbo means, it doesn't change the feeling I have that I need to refresh the shop countless times to find items worth my gold
Though taking a look at the actual English of that post, I have to point out that a Fine item doesn't seem to necessarily (but probably on average) have many stats. When I see the F I think: Okay, this item could potentially be awesome (even the most awesome possible), but for sure it will be expensive
renke_
May 20, 2014
Though taking a look at the actual English of that post, I have to point out that a Fine item doesn't seem to necessarily (but probably on average) have many stats. When I see the F I think: Okay, this item could potentially be awesome (even the most awesome possible), but for sure it will be expensive
no, this seems to be only the distribution of item quality for a given shop level.
e.g. a fine store (pQuality=="Fine") - the random picker (NonUniformRandom) has a chance of 10/22 to select a fine item (pQuality2), 5/22 to choose standard and quality, and 2/22 a lousy rusty one.
The RNG god (or devil?) for attribute generation of the item is not invoked in this code snippet.
jack1974
May 20, 2014
Yes exactly. I have generated a lot of items randomly while testing, and beside the quality also the level matters, a level 1 Rare mace will be better than a level 11 Standard Mace but not by much:
http://i.imgur.com/uFhDxvJ.jpg" style="max-width:100%">
http://i.imgur.com/5r3ozC5.jpg" style="max-width:100%">
http://i.imgur.com/UDIsmT1.jpg" style="max-width:100%">
fabulaparva
May 20, 2014
In the first act I've intentionally put low-quality shops. If I define just ONE shop in Dingirra with Fine quality and many items, that will offer plenty of variety to equip your team.
But as _renke said is not like your behavior is the "normal" expected one though I'm sure many people will reload, I want to make the game so that it can be won WITHOUT the need to do it. I got saves from renke and fabulaparva for Nightmare and AFAIK they didn't use that trick, so it's OK from my point of view.
Yea, I can confirm that I don't reload shops, and most of the saves I've sent are in NM. The only button I spam is the "restart" at two of the boss fights (Mormont & BigBug).
Now, I'm also purrfectly fine is the shops as they are now. If Ninim would offer far better and far more quality items, then the Dingirrans would bring in iron and other raw materials for the elves to work with --regardless of what Shea/Althea
supposedly did -- and buy their weapons instead of their pelts, right? Isn't that one of the reasonings why there won't be a trial? Good weapons are hard to find because the materials required to make them are not in abundance. The people of Ninim are afraid that they won't get good raw materials any more if they piss off the Dingirrans. It doesn't even matter that this is only the first chapter; it's hard to live up there in the North, folks.
yayswords
May 20, 2014
I'm not sure what your point is. The Dingirran vendors suck too, they just have more items. Also where are we gonna be in act three, some shitty place again where you can't motivate the vendors having better items than in Dingirra? Are we gonna go through that entire act without upgrades for lore reasons?
It's dangerous to go down that road.
Troyen
May 20, 2014
If you were able to find all the best possible gear for your characters in act 1, what would you buy in act 2? You might see minor upgrades here and there, but unless item power goes up dramatically (which would be bad from a balance standpoint), you could quickly find all the best stuff early on and then find yourself sitting on a pile of gold until the act 3 or act 4 shops open up.
I'm sure gold income was tweaked a bit since my last clear, but I was able to outfit almost every slot on all my three characters with something from act 1. The jewelry definitely wasn't the best quality, but sometimes some stats are better than none (I'm not talking about the +1 items either, there were usually +3/+4 in two stats).
yayswords
May 20, 2014
I'm not asking to find all the best possible gear, I'm asking to find decent gear easier. And I think you are overestimating just how good gear I get even with mousewheel roulette. I have one level 6 item (and that was actually a Mormont drop), the rest are 1-3. I have only two fine items. It's nowhere near the best theoretically possible gear, and yet it's better than I ask to be able to find on just one normal visit to the shop, and maybe it's better than anyone else so far has acquired in act one. If the item level to stat budget ratio is anywhere near decent, I should be having no problems finding upgrades among level 7+ items.
If gold is supposed to be our means of acquiring upgrades, then the problem should be managing gold, not finding stuff to spend it on. I should be overwhelmed with choices and have to make the right decisions.
If we'll indeed be fully outfitted with quest rewards one day then I suppose that is something, though.
fabulaparva
May 20, 2014
I'm not sure what your point is. The Dingirran vendors suck too, they just have more items. Also where are we gonna be in act three, some shitty place again where you can't motivate the vendors having better items than in Dingirra? Are we gonna go through that entire act without upgrades for lore reasons? It's dangerous to go down that road.
Do I have a point or am I just generally warped in my thinking?
I meant to say that it makes sense to me that most of Ninim's selection is crap, since they are using this excuse
http://oi61.tinypic.com/b8a0k9.jpg
to give Althea/Shea into slavery. To me, this is a pointer how vast the gap between Dingirra's and Ninim's resources is. We might end up in some godforsaken place later in the game, but will those locations have so bad weapon-making skills and resources that they'll just toss people and money towards Dingirrans out of fear to losing their trade?
Yeah, I'm one of those lunatics who say All for Lore(n) and Lore(n) for all!
EDIT: The Dingirran shop might as well have some better items, though.
yayswords
May 20, 2014
Then maybe you can start arguing that the Dingirrans should pay more for my pelts since Morran is all up in arms about it
Furthermore, we could go into exactly WHICH resources are scarce. Is wood scarce in Ninim? No, so anything made out of wood should be higher quality? Pelts are abundant, leather should be excellent! It's really setting yourself up for madness
fabulaparva
May 20, 2014
Then maybe you can start arguing that the Dingirrans should pay more for my pelts since Morran is all up in arms about it
Furthermore, we could go into exactly WHICH resources are scarce. Is wood scarce in Ninim? No, so anything made out of wood should be higher quality? Pelts are abundant, leather should be excellent! It's really setting yourself up for madness
Well, yeah, the Dingirran camp
should pay more for my pelts than the tanner! (greed)
Setting myself up for madness? I'm merely getting ready to meet Rowinda.
(EDIT: I think Daronas mentioned later in the conversation that they haven't been able to mine iron.)
