Is the magic cap increase after wand upgrade really random

[大喷子]

I have been trying to S&L my way into getting a mage with desired combo of two magic class, hoping that they have as high cap as possible.

The game mentioned that, upgrading wand can add +1 cap to one random magic besides the main class, I though I could S&L into getting the right rolls.

However, it seems to have a random seed based on certain factors. If I load the save and don't do anything (i.e. no chance of task, no potion swap etc), it keeps giving me the same roll.

Is the roll truly as "random" as it says to be?

[ulzgoroth]

Presumably so, and you're certainly not providing any reason to doubt it. Not playing along with save-scumming is not an indication something isn't random.

[Jaggid Edje]

Originally posted by 大喷子:

I have been trying to S&L my way into getting a mage with desired combo of two magic class, hoping that they have as high cap as possible.

The game mentioned that, upgrading wand can add +1 cap to one random magic besides the main class, I though I could S&L into getting the right rolls.

However, it seems to have a random seed based on certain factors. If I load the save and don't do anything (i.e. no chance of task, no potion swap etc), it keeps giving me the same roll.

Is the roll truly as "random" as it says to be?

During early access, you could save scum the skill increases but you needed to save the game before you start the wand upgrade ritual. The seed was generated at the time the ritual was started.

I don't enjoy save scumming, so I haven't tried it since release. But if you have tried it by save reload on an already-in-progress wand upgrade ritual, you're wasting your time. Try doing your save before the ritual is started.

[大喷子]

Originally posted by Jaggid Edje:

Originally posted by 大喷子:

I have been trying to S&L my way into getting a mage with desired combo of two magic class, hoping that they have as high cap as possible.

The game mentioned that, upgrading wand can add +1 cap to one random magic besides the main class, I though I could S&L into getting the right rolls.

However, it seems to have a random seed based on certain factors. If I load the save and don't do anything (i.e. no chance of task, no potion swap etc), it keeps giving me the same roll.

Is the roll truly as "random" as it says to be?

During early access, you could save scum the skill increases but you needed to save the game before you start the wand upgrade ritual. The seed was generated at the time the ritual was started.

I don't enjoy save scumming, so I haven't tried it since release. But if you have tried it by save reload on an already-in-progress wand upgrade ritual, you're wasting your time. Try doing your save before the ritual is started.

Yep you are absolutely right about result been set after the ritual started. What I found interesting was that it seems to depend on some manipulatable operation (i.e. some old PC game damage setting trick like in Valkryie Profile). But yeah I don't have enough data to back it up.

[大喷子]

Originally posted by ulzgoroth:

Presumably so, and you're certainly not providing any reason to doubt it. Not playing along with save-scumming is not an indication something isn't random.

you are right. To be precise, what I meant by random here is that the roll isn't dependent on the game actions you can take. i.e. if you repeat exactly what you do, you get the same rolls.

And you are also right that I don't have enough data to back it up.

[Jaggid Edje]

Originally posted by 大喷子:

Originally posted by ulzgoroth:

Presumably so, and you're certainly not providing any reason to doubt it. Not playing along with save-scumming is not an indication something isn't random.

you are right. To be precise, what I meant by random here is that the roll isn't dependent on the game actions you can take. i.e. if you repeat exactly what you do, you get the same rolls.

And you are also right that I don't have enough data to back it up.

In early access, I was able to get the exact skill I wanted without doing a single different action on reload. Always just a reload->start wand ritual.

Saving after you start it, even if you cancel then restart it, wasn't effective.

[ulzgoroth]

Originally posted by 大喷子:

Originally posted by ulzgoroth:

Presumably so, and you're certainly not providing any reason to doubt it. Not playing along with save-scumming is not an indication something isn't random.

you are right. To be precise, what I meant by random here is that the roll isn't dependent on the game actions you can take. i.e. if you repeat exactly what you do, you get the same rolls.

And you are also right that I don't have enough data to back it up.

That'd be rather peculiar, for a modern game.

So, basics, while this did vary for some old games, these days anybody generating random numbers for a game will be using a pseudorandom number generator which generates a sequence of numbers which is deterministic based on a starting "seed" value but functionally random unless you know what the seed value is.

Some games make a point of carrying through seed values, and arranging the separate lines of pRNG, so that if you re-run things (by loading or in some cases by providing the seed) you see things work out the same way. Other games will simply re-seed the RNG during startup rather than try to carry anything over.

Now, either of those approaches can be combined with a degree of anti-savescumming. For instance, if you generate all the skill upgrades for a wand at the time that you summon a student, it won't be very practical to scum their tier-3 skillset. In theory you could even lock it in when the wand is crafted, though I don't think that it's likely individual wands have hidden values when they're storable items.

Doing something like that by preserving RNG seeds, though, requires you be very careful about how you manage those. If you've got just one line of random values saving it wouldn't work at all, because every time any mage casts a spell it uses a random number to determine whether it gets bonus effect from an elemental relic. So a second's difference would put you on a different path. You'd pretty much have to have a random number series used exclusively for random skill generation...

Originally posted by Jaggid Edje:

Originally posted by 大喷子:

you are right. To be precise, what I meant by random here is that the roll isn't dependent on the game actions you can take. i.e. if you repeat exactly what you do, you get the same rolls.

And you are also right that I don't have enough data to back it up.

In early access, I was able to get the exact skill I wanted without doing a single different action on reload. Always just a reload->start wand ritual.

Saving after you start it, even if you cancel then restart it, wasn't effective.

That's pretty odd! There's a lot of places where it would make sense to generate the skill, but generating it when running the ritual but saving the generated skill for later if you don't actually complete it? Weird.

[Jaggid Edje]

Originally posted by ulzgoroth:

That's pretty odd! There's a lot of places where it would make sense to generate the skill, but generating it when running the ritual but saving the generated skill for later if you don't actually complete it? Weird.

I didn't say anything about saving it.

I never tried starting the ritual->saving->reloading->Canceling the ritual->saving again->reloading->then starting the ritual. Didn't see a point in trying that...it's incredibly convoluted, so I didn't bother. Given that the game doesn't appear to store seeds in the save file, though, I imagine that would in fact work fine.

The only thing I did try is Starting the ritual->Saving->Reloading->canceling and then restarting the ritual. Remembering the seed already generated within the same session is not the same as actually saving it.

It might even be short term remembering of the seed after cancelling the ritual. i.e. the game might use that seed for 'something else' if you do some other activities that involve rng before restarting the wand upgrade ritual such that you get a different seed for the ritual. Tons of games work that way, even those which store seeds in the save file (Xcom, for example).

[Manxome]

Originally posted by Jaggid Edje:

The only thing I did try is Starting the ritual->Saving->Reloading->canceling and then restarting the ritual. Remembering the seed already generated within the same session is not the same as actually saving it.

I'm still pretty surprised that they would generate random values when you start the ritual and then remember them when you cancel it, even without a save/load cycle.

They hypothetically could have some sort of "ritual in progress" data structure that stores the boosts being given by that ritual, but in that case you wouldn't expect them to persist when the ritual is canceled.

Or they could hypothetically store the random boosts as part of the wizard's data (which is actually the easiest thing to do, since the wizard data structure needs a space to store them anyway, for when they're actually awarded). But in that case, the start of the ritual would be a weird time to pick the random elements. If you wanted to generate them as early as possible, you could do it as soon as the student is first summoned; if you wanted to generate them as late as possible, you could do it when the ritual finishes. There's nothing special about the start of the ritual that makes it a natural time to pick the random numbers if you're doing it this way.

I suppose someone could have made a decision that they wanted to make save scumming a little harder but didn't want to make it too hard...but, again, there's no particular reason it should persist when the ritual is canceled, in that case.

Weird.

Originally posted by Jaggid Edje:

It might even be short term remembering of the seed after cancelling the ritual. i.e. the game might use that seed for 'something else' if you do some other activities that involve rng before restarting the wand upgrade ritual such that you get a different seed for the ritual. Tons of games work that way, even those which store seeds in the save file (Xcom, for example).

Having a saved seed but giving the next number to whatever needs it first is, indeed, a common thing. But to take the random number from a canceled ritual and push it back onto the top of the queue would be not normal at all. The natural thing to do would be to generate a fresh number every time you need one, and not try to save or reuse one.

[Jaggid Edje]

I'm not even sure it still works the same as Early Access, as I said earlier.

I saw a conversation in Discord where people were complaining about them closing some of the save-scumming of RNG possibilities in an update, shortly before release.

The people complaining weren't specific regarding what game system(s) they were talking about, and I didn't care enough to ask for elaboration or go searching for more specifics in the Discord, so I have no idea to what exactly they were referring (nor if they were even right about something being changed).