Random Encounter Frequency

I'd like to see it for very high end items. Something like "Sorry, I can't really buy that Amulet of Whatever from you for 27,000 gold right now. But... here's a quest related to that item."

It would also be nice for dinky merchants like Jinnerth to have a limit (the one people seem to always mention since he can't afford a few coins to make uniforms), but keep the larger merchants having bottomless pockets except for the really special expensive item like I mentioned above.

Other than that I think it would ultimately just annoy people, more than feeling like a fun role-playing experience.

 

I agree that limiting the cash flow will be irritating to some people. But reducing the REs 'cause some players don't want to put any levels in Survival skill . . . well, that just irritates me. I love when guys want "balance" but tweak their characters to be uber-powerful game-breakers. Get some survival skill, yo -- I'm hardly ever ambushed on the road.

 

No problemo, yo. I understand. I've been modding games for years (SP:WW2 & SP:MBT), and worked on Arcanum for Troika, so I know what you guys are up against -- I don't expect you to fix my modding attempts.

 

I have two suggestions.

Firstly, on random encounters, would it be feasible to vary the base probability depending on the number of encounters the par had faced? It seems a logical thing to me that if the party are going around killing every wolf/bandit/whatever in the area that the probability of an RE should come down. This would also offset the XP and gold blow out issue, too. I have no idea if it is possible though.

Similarly, I think it would be great if the party's loot selling had a game response. Tailoring the economy sounds like a huge task, and may be off putting to some people. Not being able to sell high powered magic items in a rural economy is logical but terrible. But perhaps it could be addressed by some scripted events. For example, if a party is routinely cashing in magic items (which presumably the rural village exports to some rich city), then logically this might prompt a response. For example, an evil party might come to attack the adventurers when the word gets around about their loot. Or perhaps some high level thieves could do some pick pocketing. This might offset the economic impact. It might also annoy the party but that depends on the excellence of the scripting!

Sorry if these thoughts are ridiculous or already implemented. I'm holding off trying the game until the patch. But it's an interesting subject so I thought I'd toss in my two cents.

Cheers, and thanks for the mod,

JD

 

I don't think you understand.

By putting points into survival and avoiding random encounters you're actually shooting yourself in the foot (especially from the 'uber-powerful power gamer' point of view). You're investing in a skill with the sole purpose of getting less XP.

 

Unless you are in the habit of just saving before you travel, and then reloading if you get a bad encounter, Survival will help you avoid those deadly unbalanced encounters at early levels. Especially so when you are returning back to the Keep with 2 unconscious guys and everyone else at half HP. The only way you are shooting yourself in the foot is by NOT having survival.

 

Out of about 20 random encounters I've seen, only 2 of them were forced. I had 2 characters who started with 4 surival. Of the two encounters, one was a pretty easy dual giant frogs ... but the other was a complete blood bath. it was like 4-5 raiders and a bunch of other characters with sneak attacks and they were in running distance of my characters which meansall of them that had initiative ran up and sneak attacked me. i lost most of my team before I got a turn.

 

Quicksaving/reloading doesn't cost any strategic resources unlike investing in a skill.

 

If a power gamer wanted to gain exp, they would find a map with high exp random encounters where they could safely tuck their squishy characters up against a wall and surround them as well while they rest over and over to get the encounters. They would not rely on random map encounters.

I might add that survival in this mod is also needed to skin animals. also since this module isn't that high level of one, you can go nuts multi classing. Rangers/barbs give survival as class skills so start as one and then after a couple levels take another level as one and top off your survival again.

 

I thought that the nature knowledge thing was about skinning and harvesting and not survival skill.

 

Actually, Survival skill ONLY lets you decide if you want the encounter or not -- correct me if I'm wrong, but this is how I see it working. So if you want uber-experience points just go ahead and have the encounter when it asks if you want to or not. Having Survival skill only lets you decide whether or not you think you will survive . . . ;-)