VIDEO OF RIGGED COMBAT SYSTEM

[Stabbey]

The combat system uses saved seeds to determine your chance to hit before you act. That "73%" is totally meaningless.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24giMb-n5u4

I am pretty ticked off to discover this. I first noticed this issue when I loaded a quicksave I made in the arena.

I don't remember why I made the original save, but I noticed that Sebille's Ricochet skill ALWAYS bounced to 4 targets but only The Avid One was hit, everyone else was missed. In fact, I couldn't hit anyone except the Avid One with Marksman's Fang (two pairs of the enemies were lined up) or normal attacks either.

At first I thought it was because I was a level below the enemies and all except the Avid One had Encouraged. But on the next turn I was able to hit Rex the dog at a closer range even though his buffs were still in effect.

That prompted me to investigate further. I loaded my first save and moved Sebille close to Rex so distance wasn't a factor and made a new quicksave. Nope, still couldn't hit him. I tried Ricochet and Marksmans's Fang, and I still couldn't hit anyone except The Avid One.


THIS IS GARBAGE.

What is the point of having a stupid ridiculous "73% chance to hit" percentage? Why not just change it to "YES" or "NO", because that's what it really boils down to.

I was okay with seeds to predetermine loot from chests, that makes it easier to balance. But Larian stepping between the player and the combat system? That's Total BS and is unacceptable.

If Larian doesn't want people to save-scum in combat, then DISALLOW SAVING IN COMBAT. Not the stupid half-measure crap that this is.

Personally, I would much, much, MUCH rather allow people who want to save-scum in combat to do so than to interfere and micromanage combat on this level for the player's own protection".

This is NOT a good system, and it is NOT a fun system. CHANGE IT.

[Decider]

It prevents save scumming and if it told you if you'd miss or hit you would play different. It's not rigged it just prerolls the outcomes and stores them for when you take your action.


Just like how you could save scum boss loot in the first game until you got perfect drops.

Not being able to save in combat is stupid as well, what if something comes up during a long fight and you just have to leave immediately?

[ToXxy]

This is exactly how XCOM works, and probably other games too, that's just one I know from personal experience. Nothing "rigged" about it. What do you think the percentage's for? It still rolls the chance, just not as you take the action.

[mbpopolano24]

Overreaction – Definition: to react or respond more strongly than is necessary or appropriate. Use it in a sentence: Random guy see something does not like in a game and decided to start screaming like a lunatic on the internet, overreacting on a semantic issue (when the % of success takes place, at the beginning of concurrently to a specific action).

[Stabbey]

Originally posted by The Indecider:

It prevents save scumming and if it told you if you'd miss or hit you would play different. It's not rigged it just prerolls the outcomes and stores them for when you take your action.

Guess what? It's too late! Now I DO know that whether I hit or miss was not a dice roll but pre-determined! I can't pretend that I don't know that.

My preferred method of play was to do each fight start-to-finish without saving. I like the challenge and trying to think up the best tactics.

For instance, if there are four enemies in a tight group, a good move would be Ricochet. But because the seeds are fixed, if I use it and get 1 hit and 3 Misses, I know that wasn't an unlucky roll, but a predetermined waste of a turn.

That is highly discouraging. It makes me - a start-to-finish-or-bust player MORE LIKELY to save-scum to try and find a better move. It is having the OPPOSITE effect than what is intended.

Just like how you could save scum boss loot in the first game until you got perfect drops.

This is different since loot tables are easier to balance in the long run for an optimal distribution of gear. There should be no such thing as mandating the amount of hits and misses a character will have and forcing that to fit a pattern regardless of displayed chance-to-hit.

Determining in advance - before the fight even starts (apparently, according to further tests) whether an attack will hit throws strategy and tactics out the window.

Not being able to save in combat is stupid as well, what if something comes up during a long fight and you just have to leave immediately?

I would rather lose the entire fight than have this crappy rigged system, but then again I prefer playing fights from start to finish.

Originally posted by ToXxy:

What do you think the percentage's for? It still rolls the chance, just not as you take the action.

I really don't believe that. Three enemies, each with a 73% chance to hit or greater. What are the chances of missing all three? 1.96%. And yet that was the predetermined result. It doesn't matter which one I targeted or whether I got closer or not to reduce the chance of missing. Tactical positioning did not matter.

The percentage is a lie and more to the point if it does not display an accurate chance, then it is useless and serves no purpose. I can't use the percentage to determine if I should attack or not because it does not matter.

Originally posted by mbpopolano24:

Overreaction – Definition: to react or respond more strongly than is necessary or appropriate. Use it in a sentence: Random guy see something does not like in a game and decided to start screaming like a lunatic on the internet, overreacting on a semantic issue (when the % of success takes place, at the beginning of concurrently to a specific action).

Post a valid argument or get lost.

[Frede]

This is a brutally insulting system that essentially means dice rolls and percentage based chances only are included in the UI to give the player an illusion of control. If you haven't already, I highly recommend that you contact Larian directly on their own forums or through other means and express your discontent.

The argument that this prevents save scumming is completely void since the 100% reliable knowledge or whether or not your first attack will miss can be exploited to ensure you don't waste key abilities by using regular attacks or low AP abilities to ensure you 'use' your forced missed attack. While I doubt this feature was implemented as a direct measure against save scumming there is nothing that prevents the player from quitting/reloading until they've found the optimal ability rotation during a single turn as long as it's possible to save during combat.

The original game, both EE and Classic didn't use this kind of system and I fail to see why it should be necessary to change that at any given point.

[Wesker Frank]

Go play Xcom.

[Stabbey]

Originally posted by Bukke:

The argument that this prevents save scumming is completely void since the 100% reliable knowledge or whether or not your first attack will miss can be exploited to ensure you don't waste key abilities by using regular attacks or low AP abilities to ensure you 'use' your forced missed attack. While I doubt this feature was implemented as a direct measure against save scumming there is nothing that prevents the player from quitting/reloading until they've found the optimal ability rotation during a single turn as long as it's possible to save during combat.

Pretty much.

Most skills have a 3-turn cooldown, and early on you don't have all that many of them. You need to pick your spots to use abilities. It's annoying when it's just a bad-luck dice roll which makes them ineffective, but knowing that it's pre-destined to fail is just going to make people save-scum MORE, just to find the right target to hit so they don't waste it. That is pretty much the opposite of the intended effect.

The original game, both EE and Classic didn't use this kind of system and I fail to see why it should be necessary to change that at any given point.

Yeah, I was around for the discussions of D:OS 1, and I don't remember a lot of people calling for a fixed seed combat system in that game or complaining that one wasn't in.

[Zemos]

im generally ok with this idea, however ill say that i have missed more times in 20 shots, like after 20 shots of 95%+ acc hits over many combats, ill probably see 2-3 misses. i dont like the idea of a miss being a miss no matter who you target though, those %'s are 74 and 75, could just be a bit unlucky, but different targets should have different rolls no matter what.

the next question is, will acc/dodge altering skills change this roll? i.e
80% > miss
80% > skill making you have 90% > ? would it be auto miss still or will the roll at least reroll to have a chance of hitting, thats my main concern about this

[ToXxy]

Originally posted by Bukke:

The argument that this prevents save scumming is completely void since the 100% reliable knowledge or whether or not your first attack will miss can be exploited

It prevents save scumming to an extent, not entirely.

Originally posted by Stabbey:

Originally posted by ToXxy:

What do you think the percentage's for? It still rolls the chance, just not as you take the action.

I really don't believe that. Three enemies, each with a 73% chance to hit or greater. What are the chances of missing all three? 1.96%. And yet that was the predetermined result. It doesn't matter which one I targeted or whether I got closer or not to reduce the chance of missing. Tactical positioning did not matter.

You got unlucky, ♥♥♥♥ happens. I missed 95% and 92% consecutive shots in XCOM. Now I don't know at which point Divinity makes the rolls, but you'd think firing from a different distance, thus affecting the hit chance, would also affect the result?
EDIT: Haven't actually played an archer in DoS 2, I read the video description, according to which positioning does not change bow accuracy. So if the percentage couldn't be changed anyway, I don't see the issue. Works just like XCOM seeds do. Take a different action if you want to save-scum that bad.

Originally posted by Zemos:

the next question is, will acc/dodge altering skills change this roll? i.e
80% > miss
80% > skill making you have 90% > ? would it be auto miss still or will the roll at least reroll to have a chance of hitting, thats my main concern about this

You'd think it does that, otherwise it makes no bloody sense.

[Stabbey]

Originally posted by Zemos:

im generally ok with this idea, however ill say that i have missed more times in 20 shots, like after 20 shots of 95%+ acc hits over many combats, ill probably see 2-3 misses. i dont like the idea of a miss being a miss no matter who you target though, those %'s are 74 and 75, could just be a bit unlucky, but different targets should have different rolls no matter what.

They do seem to have different rolls. The Avid One I have a 100% chance to hit on the first attack and 100% chance to Critically Hit with a second attack.

the next question is, will acc/dodge altering skills change this roll? i.e
80% > miss
80% > skill making you have 90% > ? would it be auto miss still or will the roll at least reroll to have a chance of hitting, thats my main concern about this

Excellent question! I did a quick test, I loaded my pre-arena fight save, took my guy to buy Mark and walked back and saved again. This did not seem to affect the initial pre-fight seed.

It'll take me some time to make a video, as I have something like 13 scenarios to demonstrate, and I should do at least 5 attempts rounds with each scenario, multiply that by 4 targets... it'll take a while.

I tested Mark. There is one enemy with a 73% chance to hit (Rex) and three with a 74% chance to hit. Mark boosts the chance to hit to 88/89%. Rex with the 88% chance to hit is still a miss. The Avid one is still a hit. The Cultured One at 89% is still a miss, but The Tenacious One at 89% changes to a hit. So I still don't know what's going on.

I reaffirmed that moving close to the targets does not change who I actually hit, and I also tried delaying my turn and having my mage teleport me to high ground. That also did not affect who I hit at all. That's right, even with two people moving before Sebille and moving her to a different location, it didn't affect my chance to hit at all.

I don't care what you have to say about XCOM - This is OBVIOUSLY not working properly.

[Alien]

I don't understand exactly what's your problem.

You say :
What is the point of having a stupid ridiculous "73% chance to hit" percentage? Why not just change it to "YES" or "NO", because that's what it really boils down to.
But you probably know that's not the same thing at all. There's still a 73% chance, just that it won't change when you reload. You have no way to know if an action will be successful before trying to perform it.

Then you say :
If Larian doesn't want people to save-scum in combat, then DISALLOW SAVING IN COMBAT. Not the stupid half-measure crap that this is.
But you agree with thez guy who says :
The argument that this prevents save scumming is completely void since the 100% reliable knowledge or whether or not your first attack will miss can be exploited to ensure you don't waste key abilities by using regular attacks or low AP abilities to ensure you 'use' your forced missed attack. While I doubt this feature was implemented as a direct measure against save scumming there is nothing that prevents the player from quitting/reloading until they've found the optimal ability rotation during a single turn as long as it's possible to save during combat.
So you're kinda incoherent in your argumentation. You're saying that it makes combat tacticsless but you're not convincing anyone like that.

It's just a very common bias. I've see a lot of people saying that kind of thing about Blood Bowl, and they were wrong too. Basically, you're only noticing the stats when they feel very unfair to you, but 2% doesn't mean 0%. Compare the chances with the number of actions you make in your game.

If you still think that the % chances mean nothing, you'll need to prove it experimentally.

[Qiox]

I always have been and always will be anti-save scum.

Larian made the right choice here.

[Jiroa]

I don't get why this changes anything, if you play the game normaly it absolutly does not change your odds of hitting or missing enemies.

The game simply pre-rolls a few numbers from 0-100 in advance (Usually about 10) then when you make a move that requires a check it pits those rolls agaist the % chance to see if it works.

Wether those rolls are made in real time or are pre-made does not effect the actual chance of missing or hitting.

In your richocet example if you had 76% hit chance on 4 targets and the 4 most recents pre-rolls were 86-92-36-79 you would always miss target 1-2 and 4 and hit target 3.

[Qiox]

Originally posted by Jiroa:

The game simply pre-rolls a few numbers from 0-100 in advance (Usually about 10) then when you make a move that requires a check it pits those rolls agaist the % chance to see if it works.

No that is not how it works. No game pre-rolls and saves a bunch of numbers.

What is being seen here is a direct result of a how an Random Number Generator algorithm works.

An RNG algorithm is 'seeded' with a number before it is used. That simply means you pass a number to the algorithm to reset it to a particular state unique to that seed value.

For example if I seed it with the number 74392, and then ask it for a random number it will give me one. I then ask for another random number and it gives me another one.

If I then give it the same seed value of 74392 to reset it, and then ask it for 2 random numbers in a row it will give me the exact same 2 random numbers that it did when I seeded it with that value the 1st time.

This behavior is actually why RNG algorithms are called pseudo-random. For a particular seed value, the algorith will produce exactly the same sequence of random numbers every time. And the length of the sequence is finite, after which it will repeat the entire sequence.

What developers do in an anti-save scum design is to store a seed value for the RNG in your save file when you save the game. When you load that save the RNG is seeded with that stored value. This way, going forward each time the game asks for a random number from the algorithm it will always draw the next number from the sequence of random numbers uniquely defined by that saved seed value.

To allow save scumming, no seed values are saved in the save file. Instead, the algorithm is re-seeded with a random value based on the system clock time measure in miliseconds since last power on -- or something similar.


The program has no list of pre-rolled stored numbers and it has no idea what number will be next generated by the RNG algorithm. When a previously used seed value is resent to the RNG after loading a save, the fact that the same sequence of numbers will be generated still allows you to change the outcome of events.

You simply have to force the next value generated to be used for something other than what it was used for last time you loaded a save. This will then produce a different sequence of events. This is mentioned by the OP when it is suggested to use a basic attack to waste a bad roll, knowing that the second attack will be a good roll, which you use for a high damage skill instead.

In games where the AI is making many decisions, or is making them simultaneously to you a repeated sequence of generated random numbers will end up being used differently each time.

But in a game like this where you load a save and it is your turn and you have total control over when the next random number is drawn the effects of a stored seed value become readily apparent.

[Jiroa]

Originally posted by Qiox:

Originally posted by Jiroa:

The game simply pre-rolls a few numbers from 0-100 in advance (Usually about 10) then when you make a move that requires a check it pits those rolls agaist the % chance to see if it works.

No that is not how it works. No game pre-rolls and saves a bunch of numbers.

What is being seen here is a direct result of a how an Random Number Generator algorithm works.

An RNG algorithm is 'seeded' with a number before it is used. That simply means you pass a number to the algorithm to reset it to a particular state unique to that seed value.

For example if I seed it with the number 74392, and then ask it for a random number it will give me one. I then ask for another random number and it gives me another one.

If I then give it the same seed value of 74392 to reset it, and then ask it for 2 random numbers in a row it will give me the exact same 2 random numbers that it did when I seeded it with that value the 1st time.

This behavior is actually why RNG algorithms are called pseudo-random. For a particular seed value, the algorith will produce exactly the same sequence of random numbers every time. And the length of the sequence is finite, after which it will repeat the entire sequence.

What developers do in an anti-save scum design is to store a seed value for the RNG in your save file when you save the game. When you load that save the RNG is seeded with that stored value. This way, going forward each time the game asks for a random number from the algorithm it will always draw the next number from the sequence of random numbers uniquely defined by that saved seed value.

To allow save scumming, no seed values are saved in the save file. Instead, the algorithm is re-seeded with a random value based on the system clock time measure in miliseconds since last power on -- or something similar.


The program has no list of pre-rolled stored numbers and it has no idea what number will be next generated by the RNG algorithm. When a previously used seed value is resent to the RNG after loading a save, the fact that the same sequence of numbers will be generated still allows you to change the outcome of events.

You simply have to force the next value generated to be used for something other than what it was used for last time you loaded a save. This will then produce a different sequence of events. This is mentioned by the OP when it is suggested to use a basic attack to waste a bad roll, knowing that the second attack will be a good roll, which you use for a high damage skill instead.

In games where the AI is making many decisions, or is making them simultaneously to you a repeated sequence of generated random numbers will end up being used differently each time.

But in a game like this where you load a save and it is your turn and you have total control over when the next random number is drawn the effects of a stored seed value become readily apparent.

Right i remenber this, back on FF12 if you opened a chest after getting a 12 hit chain barehanded then a 8 chain you would always get the rarest drop possible from it because the RNG would always roll a 1 after that.