86 réponses à ce sujet

[BoogieManFL]

Okay I've played this game a few times and I love it, easily one of my favorites of all time.

 However, every time I do a replay I swear the game either cheats(sometimes deliberately under rolls you) or enemies are very dilberately overpowered. (have higher THAC0s than they should, better save perhaps). Perhaps for balance and to maintain difficulty, but it still seems a little odd at times.

 Even mundane enemies like random rag tag nobody street thugs and even Kobolds can always easily damage my party. How can a Kobold reliably hit someone with -12 AC? It's just silly. My party are all heroes, decked out in powerful magical items and artifacts but a mercenary gang in a tavern with short swords and leather armor can dominate Minsc one on one when he's level 16 and geared up good.

Enemies reliably make their saving throws (greater than 70% of the time) and my people commonly fail them. They seem to almost never miss melee attacks. I had to cast dominate on an Illithid 9 times before it failed it's save after I successfully debuffed it, after several attempts just to do that. My people, low single digit saves. Pfft, that's nothing. Fail!

 If this were a game I was playing with a real group, we'd have already beat the ****** out of the GM for cheating and quit.

 So, are the "dice" loaded or do enemies sometimes have illegally low THAC0 and saves? There is no way my luck is that bad, game after game, year after year. And from stuff I see in various forums, I'm not alone in this line of thinking.

I'm not looking for tips, just if anyone else has ever had the feeling their rolls are sometimes suspicously bad.

EDIT: minor clarifications

Modifié par BoogieManFL, 14 août 2012 - 11:38 .

[Humanoid_Taifun]

I think what you are seeing is very simply the result of a long career.
One on one, Minsc would probably easily defeat a mere mook. Probably.
But put "probably" to the power of the amount of times you actually send Minsc into battle. The result is that the odds are suddenly turning on you.
If you want to be safe from the enemy, then get your saves into the negative realm, don't rely on save-or-else spells and use potions when your characters are in danger.

[BelgarathMTH]

I have had the same experience as the OP.

Over the years, I have spent some time studying the dice roll numbers in the actions window. First, they come up in patterns. The number sequences repeat themselves over time, although they are long. Also, numbers below 10 come up far more than fifty percent of the time. If the numbers were truly random, you would get a roll greater than ten at least as often as you get a roll less than ten. This fact is simply not true of the number strings I see in that actions window.

I can't prove it mathematically, or more precisely, I don't care to take the time to prove it mathematically in game.

After years of play, I have simply compensated for the "cheating" of the computer program by not depending on dice rolls for anything whenever I can. I choose equipment and spells to keep armor class as far below zero as possible, and use as many defensive spells and potions that provide immunities as possible. It also helps to be extremely familiar with all the different encounters in the game and all the monster and caster abilities.

I know from experience that a saving throw of 10 does not mean you will make the save fifty percent of the time. I've found that any saving throw of 10 or higher means that you *will* fail the save, with an exception rate no greater than 1 or 2 in 20, *not* 10.

Saves don't really provide much protection unless they are at 5, where they begin to work about half the time, or better yet 2 or 3, where the character will begin finally to save more often than not.

The "dice" are absolutely loaded in BG, and I have posted about this before. I don't think it's random at all - I think it's a pre-generated, lengthy sequence of numbers that keeps repeating itself in strings.

[Humanoid_Taifun]

Hm, okay... I guess I never OCD'd enough to systematically test the odds.

Edit:
But if you recognized the sequence, you should be able to post it, and it would be easy for anybody to verify, right?

Modifié par Humanoid_Taifun, 09 août 2012 - 09:39 .

[morbidest2]

Another thing to consider is that if you are using a small party, or send forward one tank against a bunch of kobolds or orcs while every body else throws rocks or spells, it's a better than 50% chance that a 19 or 20 will be rolled in 7 attacks, or a 20 rolled in 14 attacks. Thus in BG1 and early in BG2, if 6 goblins are allowed to gang up on Minsc, they will probably hit him every round or two. These insect bits can add up on a non-berserk, non-magic protected, poorly armored Minsc. Even the big fella needs help once in a while.

[The Potty 1]

BoogieManFL wrote...

I had to cast dominate on an Illithid 9 times before it failed it's save after I successfully debuffed it, after several attempts just to do that.

I'm pretty sure mind flayers are 90% immune to magic? In which case you got lucky there, it should have taken longer. Other creatures which are better beaten to death than cast at are golems, demons, & rakasha. Dragons also have high magic immunity, but are enough of a challenge that they warrant lowering their magic resistance and then hitting with magic. Demi-liches are even worse, they are 100% immune to magic, and in addition are imune to all spells level 5 and below. In summary, tough magic resistant enemies require a couple of lower resistance spells cast at them. Demi-liches require pierce magic.

To lower the saving throws of standard enemies, first cast the arcane spell greater malison on them, and/or the cleric spell doom. Malison is area effect, doom is single target. Once this hits you can also follow it with glitterdust, which reduces their saves even further, and possibly makes them blind. Note that without malison first they are likely to save against glitterdust. After those spells all of your other spells will work much better.

[AnonymousHero]

The Potty 1 wrote...
Demi-liches are even worse, they are 100% immune to magic, and in addition are imune to all spells level 5 and below.

This is incorrect. Regular liches are immune to L1-L5 spells, demi-liches are immune to even higher level spells (up to 8, IIRC?). AFAIK there are only two exceptions to this level-based immunity in the Vanilla game: Dispel Magic and Remove Magic. Depending on mods and such, Breach may also go through.

[corey_russell]

Just a quick note about dominating an illithid - if used those circlets that you can make if you free the human prisoners who are in that "dream" state, then those are much more effective. However, in order to dominate an illithid/mind flayer via a conventional spell, the mindflayer has 50% magic resistance, so it have to fail that AND it would have to fail a normal save. So it's not surprising it took you 9 times, as both have to fail for you to succeed.

Also, just because an enemy has magic resistance, it doesn't mean you can't use magic against them. Bolts of Glory and cloudkill, for example, both ignore magic resistance. Melf's Minute Meteors can work on almost anything, MR or no. Death spell kills all non-gated summons, regardless of any magic resistance the summons may have...and so on.

Keep in mind that in D&D, a 20 is an automatic hit, regardless of the armor class of your tank. This is why you should expect your tank to get hit if mobbed by many enemies, regardless of his equipment.

There are many powerful enemies in BG 2, no doubt. However, with properly balanced party, good use of equipment (some equipment you only need for certain times, like fire resistance when dealing with Firkraag), good use of spells, and proper tactics, the player should come out on top.

I don't think the player's party ever becomes invincible, however, without the use of cheese type tactics (like many cloudkills out of sight, etc.). Or the very SLOW but sure cheese of the Staff of the Magi - a mage could hit, then equip it (which makes him invisible), hit, then equip, etc. until all enemies are dead, not giving the enemies a single chance to cast or attack the PC. If the enemies can't dispel invisibility, it's a sure but slow victory.

[goblinsly1]

It would be great if someone tested the thing with saving throws, it is VERY importaint to know the formula for them. Well we already know the formula ( you throw 1D20 and if its a normal save of else spell with no penalties, you have to hit as much as your saving throw for the specific thingy, meaning if you have saving throw against magic 5, you must throw 5 or more ( or maybe 6 or more ? ) to be safe ). But yes, from my experience i would be willing to bet that not everything is as it should be. Cause if it was, by the end of the game save or else spells would be practicly useless against you.

[BelgarathMTH]

I agree with goblinsly and the OP that the dice rolls are intuitively not random. However, I also think that HumanoidTaiphun brings up a really good point that the hypothesis *is* scientifically testable. The problem is just that it would take a lot of time to do.

And practically, does it really make that much difference to playing the game? Lower armor class is still going to be better than higher armor class, and lower saves are still going to be better than higher saves. You will still need to use good tactics, and good spells and potions to protect yourself and prevail in combat.

I was just excited at first when I read the OP's post, that someone besides me had noticed that those dice rolls sure do *seem* to be stacked in the computer's favor.

But I admit that I could be wrong, and this may really be a case of selectively reinforced memory.

Modifié par BelgarathMTH, 10 août 2012 - 06:49 .

[Humanoid_Taifun]

It might be relevant to the Baldur's Gate EE project however. I don't know how much of the old code is going to keep being used, but it is certainly possible, if the dice are loaded in this version, that this property is being carried over to EE.

[corey_russell]

Oh forgot to mention - you know the many muggers that try to rob you using their non-magical weapons in Athkatla? They hit much better than you would expect for a thief, because they are Fighter/Thieves, which in turns increases their Thac0 and allows them to hit ya despite your good armor.

[Grond0]

Having played the game quite a bit over the years I don't think that the dice are loaded, i.e. a saving throw of 10 would allow you to save half the time.

I have some sympathy with BelgarathMTHs view that patterns are present, but I also think it's quite possible this is just a result of the human brain's desire to seek patterns. For instance if your character has just been hit once with a critical I feel as though the chance of the next attack also being a critical is higher than 1 in 20, but this may well be just because I pay more attention to rolls where this is the case than others.

Remember that if your saving throw is 10, i.e. 50% chance of success, your probability of getting through a combat without being affected by magic is likely to be far lower (as you are likely to be targeted a number of times).

Remember also that if you are playing with a party the enemies you meet are likely to be significantly higher level than you, so they will have better base saving throws. You can compensate for this by concentrating items to improve saving throws on some characters (particularly your main character). If you get saving throws down to 1 or below you will automatically save against most spells (there is no critical failure chance as in pen & paper D&D). Remember though that some spells have saving throw penalties and you also need to worry about spells reducing your saving throw (like greater malison) - this is uncommon in vanilla, but very common with some mods (like SCS2).

Just to reinforce H_Ts comment about repeated encounters. Over the course of the game, if you are not playing carefully, your party will be exposed to spells many hundreds of times. That means you would see repeated failures even with very good saving throws.

[BoogieManFL]

Well, what prompted me to finally comment on this was two things. There is a trapped door in the Bridge District that petrifies on activation. Of course Minsc gets to do the door first and get petrified. I reload it 3 times just for giggles and he fails each time, with Petrify/Polymorph at 3 (-3). Eh, it happens. Mathematically unlikely but it happens. Oh well.

Then I go into the Sewers and get attacked by a group of like 9 Kobolds. Killed the caster first with a Flame Arrow from the main character. Aerie and Imoen flame arrowed two more, all which died basically instantly as expected. Viconia fumbled with her sling and accomplished little, Minsc and Jaheira mop up most of the others, but one lone archer Kobold remained. Shooting his little short bow and regular arrows at Jahiera. Repeatedly hitting her when she has a base AC of -12, and bonus vs. missle weapons on her gear, mostly from the fortress shield. Her adjustment vs. Missle weapons is *-17*. So out of pure morbid curiosity I stopped everyone and stood there. Out of 8 shots it hit her 5 times. Really?

Yes, it's all possible but these very improbable events just keep repeatedly happening. I have 3 Mages cast AOE crowd control abilities at a group of like 7 badguys and each one gets hit 3 times and like 2 of them are affected. It's just so unlikely to occur which such frequently that I firmly feel that there is indeed something fishy going on.

As for that Illithid domination, that was using the staff I found there in their lair. I was having another string of bad luck and had to use the circlets simply to get through using them to fight each other. I am trying to go through with minimal resting in general and *trying* to minimize resting at periods where it seemed like it really wouldn't be possible, like escaping from an Illithid city. I hit him with Greater Malison and Lower Resistances. It was one of the weaker "Mind Flayers" and not a Ulitharid. Just examples as these things repeatedly play out.

Still love the game but it can get frustrating from time to time.

Modifié par BoogieManFL, 11 août 2012 - 05:45 .

[BelgarathMTH]

@BoogieMan: Aha, thanks for doing some actual experimentation to support our hypothesis! It looks like your early data do indeed support your and my intuition, observation, and experience about "something fishy" with those dice rolls! I have had the same kinds of experiences as you are describing dozens if not hundreds of times over years of play.

LOL - a kobold hitting armor class -14 five out of eight times indeed! Mmmhmm.

EDIT: This phenomenon *could* be explained by artificially lowered THACO's as opposed to artificially elevated dice rolls. For example, your little kobold archer might be given a THACO of 3 or something really low like that. To tell the difference, we need to know what the exact dicerolls were that were hitting Jaheira's -14 AC.

Modifié par BelgarathMTH, 11 août 2012 - 06:04 .

[AnonymousHero]

Grond0 wrote...
I have some sympathy with BelgarathMTHs view that patterns are present, but I also think it's quite possible this is just a result of the human brain's desire to seek patterns. For instance if your character has just been hit once with a critical I feel as though the chance of the next attack also being a critical is higher than 1 in 20, but this may well be just because I pay more attention to rolls where this is the case than others.

Like you I'm going to remain skeptical. Keywords: confirmation bias, gambler's fallacy, paradolia (etc. etc.)

It's practically impossible to rule out a bad PRNG (which could lead to predictable but unbiased patterns), but all of the discussion so far reeks of anecdotes rather than real data. As someone very clever once said "the plural of anecdote is not data."

In that vein: I think I've once observed one of my characters crit-missing 4 times in a row, which is an absurdly unlikely event ((1/20) ^4 = very very small). However, if you consider how many times said character engages enemies, it's bound to happen eventually.

(Likewise, I've had another character crit-hit 4 times in row.)

It's just the nature of randomness and the human brain's urge to perceive patterns whereever it can.

[Humanoid_Taifun]

BoogieManFL wrote...
I reload it 3 times just for giggles and he fails each time, with Petrify/Polymorph at 3 (-3). [...]
Her adjustment vs. Missle weapons is *-17*. So out of pure morbid curiosity I stopped everyone and stood there. Out of 8 shots it hit her 5 times. Really?

These examples cannot be representative for a greater pattern. If your saving throws and AC etc were that useless throughout the game, then you would probably not reach the underdark at all.
The fact that you did reach the underdark implies that, as luck would have it, sometimes you are lucky, sometimes you are not.

[BelgarathMTH]

Humanoid_Taifun wrote...

BoogieManFL wrote...
I reload it 3 times just for giggles and he fails each time, with Petrify/Polymorph at 3 (-3). [...]
Her adjustment vs. Missle weapons is *-17*. So out of pure morbid curiosity I stopped everyone and stood there. Out of 8 shots it hit her 5 times. Really?

These examples cannot be representative for a greater pattern. If your saving throws and AC etc were that useless throughout the game, then you would probably not reach the underdark at all.
The fact that you did reach the underdark implies that, as luck would have it, sometimes you are lucky, sometimes you are not.

HT, I think your statement only applies to a no-reload. Boogie never said he was playing no-reload. Any player under any circumstances at all is going to finish the game if they keep reloading until they get the dicerolls they want.

In fact, I have seen posts from many players who do just that - keep reloading until things go their way. The ultimate place reached in the game does not have any bearing on this issue.

However, I do think that you and the other skeptics about the issue may, in the end, have the right of it. While Boogie and I are suspicious of the computer program's integrity vis a vis dicerolls, the burden of proof is on us. And we have flimsy data indeed to support our intuited hypothesis that the programmers of the original game took some shortcuts with virtual AI by subtly controlling the dicerolls "behind the scenes".

[Humanoid_Taifun]

BelgarathMTH wrote...

Humanoid_Taifun wrote...
The fact that you did reach the underdark implies that, as luck would have it, sometimes you are lucky, sometimes you are not.

HT, I think your statement only applies to a no-reload. Boogie never said he was playing no-reload. Any player under any circumstances at all is going to finish the game if they keep reloading until they get the dicerolls they want.

Since I do not think you understood what I said I have cut that quotation down to the central message.

[BoogieManFL]

Not very lucky, I had a particularly hard time with the Illithid lair this run through despite my main character being more powerful than previous runs. I had to reload to get through this place about 23 times. It was downright horrible how quickly they were killing my party members. I exhausted my immunity items. Things just weren't going my way at all. Was always failing saves vs. mind control and stun effects.

I don't think it really makes sense to say that simply by making it there things worked out. Even if I only had a 1% chance to survive each fight up till then, given enough time, it would be done.

Modifié par BoogieManFL, 12 août 2012 - 01:14 .

[BelgarathMTH]

Derp. LOL. Twenty-three reloads against the illithid lair?

Hookay, maybe this isn't really what I thought it was.

Boogie, what is the INT of your party members? Did you know that illithids will do a "brain-eat" attack that drains intelligence, such that if it reaches zero, the poor victim dies? Are you using potions of genius to increase the INT of your front-liners? Are you sure you know about all the resistances and abilities of illithids?

Now I'm not sure if we're on the same page or not.

<shrug>

Oh well, I continue to intuitively and through my game experiences suspect the actual randomness of the dice in the game; however, I cannot prove it, and I suspect my own suspicion.

[BoogieManFL]

That was just an example of how me simply getting there wasn't in itself a reason to say I'm just as lucky as I am unlucky.

I reloaded the moment anyone died since it was so common. And yes I am fully aware of their abilities, I had somehow forgot about the brine potions that gave temporary immunity until I was half way through. And eventually it just became a challenge I wanted to see if I could do it without them. Their attacks and the mechanics dealing with them is a fair bit different than rest of the game so this specific experience had little to do with the point of my posts, since it was my mistake, which is why I didn't bring it up until now. I also have a mod installed that fixes Free Action effects/spells to NOT provide protection from stun effects since they aren't supposed to. That makes it a bit harder too.

Modifié par BoogieManFL, 12 août 2012 - 03:01 .

[Humanoid_Taifun]

BoogieManFL wrote...
Not very lucky,

Nobody is "very lucky" naturally. The point is that you claim that if it is possible to fail a saving throw, you will fail it every time and that the enemy has at least 62,5% critical hits (while almost always making theirs).
If that was true, then you would need at least 23 reloads for every single fight in the game and, by extrapolation, you would need at least 23 times as long - probably longer - as other people to make any progress whatsoever. (furthermore, this would no longer be a general discussion on the game die having a repeating sequence, because nobody else here [not even BelgarathMTH] has experienced an entire run of this kind, so it can't be part of the vanilla game)
You would probably have discarded armor since its only purpose would be to be unfashionable and you would only rely on spells for protection and offense (since for some reason you haven't yet reported a Dragon's Breath that dealt 10 points of damage to somebody with 0% fire resistance, so apparently the damage dice still work), while of course ignoring every save-or-else function.
This is the game you want us to believe you are playing.
I am saying I don't believe you.

Even if I only had a 1% chance to survive each fight up till then, given enough time, it would be done.

100 reloads per fight? Now you're exxagerating. You're playing a Baldur's Gate that takes over 10 000 hours to finish?

[morbidest2]

BoogieManFL wrote...

Not very lucky, I had a particularly hard time with the Illithid lair this run through despite my main character being more powerful than previous runs. I had to reload to get through this place about 23 times. It was downright horrible how quickly they were killing my party members. I exhausted my immunity items. Things just weren't going my way at all. Was always failing saves vs. mind control and stun effects.

I don't think it really makes sense to say that simply by making it there things worked out. Even if I only had a 1% chance to survive each fight up till then, given enough time, it would be done.

The traditional fallbacks for dealing with pesky mindflayers are sending in armored skeletons and clouds of poison gas, slamming the door shut, waiting the proper # of rounds and then going in to do mop up. How useful did you find this? And then there's the fact that every PC needs intelligence of at least 11.
It's been argued that one of the beauties of BG2 is that every once in a while you encounter an enemy that forces you to think hard about your tactics, experiment a little, and then gratefully wipe the sweat off your forehead when you find something that finally works. You can "stubborn" your way through, but almost always there's a more elegant way to deal with the menace.
If you didn't like mindflayers, just wait until you meet Draconis and his daddy in ToB.  

[BoogieManFL]

Humanoid_Taifun wrote...

BoogieManFL wrote...
Not very lucky,

Nobody is "very lucky" naturally. The point is that you claim that if it is possible to fail a saving throw, you will fail it every time and that the enemy has at least 62,5% critical hits (while almost always making theirs).
If that was true, then you would need at least 23 reloads for every single fight in the game and, by extrapolation, you would need at least 23 times as long - probably longer - as other people to make any progress whatsoever. (furthermore, this would no longer be a general discussion on the game die having a repeating sequence, because nobody else here [not even BelgarathMTH] has experienced an entire run of this kind, so it can't be part of the vanilla game)
You would probably have discarded armor since its only purpose would be to be unfashionable and you would only rely on spells for protection and offense (since for some reason you haven't yet reported a Dragon's Breath that dealt 10 points of damage to somebody with 0% fire resistance, so apparently the damage dice still work), while of course ignoring every save-or-else function.
This is the game you want us to believe you are playing.
I am saying I don't believe you.

Even if I only had a 1% chance to survive each fight up till then, given enough time, it would be done.

100 reloads per fight? Now you're exxagerating. You're playing a Baldur's Gate that takes over 10 000 hours to finish?

You respond to hypothetical situations like the person making them is meaning them to be factual, that's not the case. You're reading far too much into this, like I'm questioning your religeon or something. I'm just saying the game seem to clearly have a tendancy to be a little harsh on the rolls. That's really it. If you don't share them, fine. After several playthroughs I have clearly noted that enemies make saves more often than my party.

Your results may vary. Also keep in mind this is just a casual discussion not an argument or a situation where you need to try so hard to prove me wrong. It's just talking.

morbidest2 wrote...

The traditional fallbacks for dealing
with pesky mindflayers are sending in armored skeletons and clouds of
poison gas, slamming the door shut, waiting the proper # of rounds and
then going in to do mop up. How useful did you find this? And then
there's the fact that every PC needs intelligence of at least 11.
It's
been argued that one of the beauties of BG2 is that every once in a
while you encounter an enemy that forces you to think hard about your
tactics, experiment a little, and then gratefully wipe the sweat off
your forehead when you find something that finally works. You can
"stubborn" your way through, but almost always there's a more elegant
way to deal with the menace.
If you didn't like mindflayers, just wait until you meet Draconis and his daddy in ToB.  

Yes I did send waves of summoned beasties at them, especially skeletons. They did well but since my goal was minimal resting (and I forgot the brine potions as I said) it eventually became brutally difficult. A summoned Pit Fiend dominated a group handily, but I didn't get any experience when it killed them.

Modifié par BoogieManFL, 12 août 2012 - 06:33 .