Lots of autoloot problems

[mikemayday]

Hello,
I've placed a ticket on this, but maybe I'm doing something wrong, so I wanted to discuss it.
Generally, I'm very unhappy with the choices the autoloot system is making. My companions prefer:

-cheap short axes over masterwork swords
-very poor quality kite shields over high quality huscarl's shields
-steppe horses over saddle horses
-sarranid boots (14 armor, 1.5 weight) over mail boots (21 armor, 2.3 weight) - no armor restrictions, strength requirements met

Is there something I can do to alleviate these problems?

 

[D3monic]

Do you have the option : "Do not break weapon sets" selected? If yes, I recommend you to unselect it as it is relict of the past and it messed with mah autoloot too.

 

[mikemayday]

That did not help. They still prefer a poor battle axe over a masterwork sarranid sword.

And now Firentis wanted to exchange his Spirited Charger for a Saddle Horse...

 

[D3monic]

Well in that case I am as clueless as you. Better wair for Windy

 

[jericson112]

Been just lurking for a while but I had this problem at one point as well and I wonder if you are having the same issue I was having.

Check each person's individual autoloot options. If they are set to One Handed weapons they can also be set to prefer axes rather than just all one handed. When you change the autoloot settings you have to click ok for each individual companion I noticed.

I'm sure you have already done all this but I noticed it helped with my problems to double check those.

 

[mikemayday]

No, all weapons are set to One Handed, any damage type. Changing options in which horse to look for (fastest, strongest etc) doesn't help.

One Handed Battle Axe has a rating of 412, compared to 411 of Tempered Soldier's Cleaver.

Large Bag of Heavy Throwing Axes- 472. Cheap Javelins - 525.

 

[jericson112]

That's really weird. Some strange coding or incorrect coding is my only guess. Unless the quality of the weapon is not taken into consideration and just the basic type of weapon rather than the quality modifier. Still seems strange though.

 

[Karl XII]

There's a lot of issues with valuations. The one that always irks me is taking poorer protection value armour, presumably because it gets bonuses for being "hardened" or whatever. Also as posted earlier the inability to differentiate within some classes of stuff, notably gloves and arrows. And for the life of me, I have no idea why it will prioritize a run-of-the-mill kite shield over a reinforced Huscarl shield.

I just consider it broken.

 

[Windyplains]

It is far from broken, but it definitely seeing some odd behavior for some folks.  I use it constantly during my own play-through and have not run into these issues.  Try to keep in mind that the rating each item is given is a representative of all aspects of an item vs. just damage or armor.  Shield size, health and resistance is all considered for example.  Then the scripting has to make some judgments on what special properties or damage types are worth and those opinions may not reflect your own.

A few thoughts on those ratings:
* Item quality is taken into account as the benefits of a modifier are known and added in.
* Special properties like crushing through blocks also affect ratings which may be deceiving.
* Do you have retain heraldic gear turned on?  This will force a heraldic item choice over a non-heraldic one.
* Not breaking item sets should not hurt anything as none of your save games will have weapon sets setup.  That was a relic from before WSE 3.1.5 which gave up an opcode the system needed so I disabled the feature.

When I get time I will do a lot of troubleshooting / testing to fine tune things.  From testing before the ratings for items appeared correct as designed.

 

[mikemayday]

Yeah, Retain Heraldic is off.
Some cases are obviously broken, even it terms of using the rating. For example they want to exchange their Charger (559) to a Sumpter Horse (320), and I have find best overall mount selected.

The abnormally hight rating of Javelins I don't get either, nor Fighting Axes (they're short and slow)- maybe their shieldcrushing ability is rated too high? Kite shields are another weird situation.

This autoloot system works great (the only thing missing I believe is forcing the team to search through the Quartermaster's and Player's belongings outside of battle, I miss it dearly sometimes), but I think it's really important to tune it- otherwise I need to skip the whole party's choices after every battle or get back to manual managing their weapons, shields and mounts (so far those cause the most problems).

More details on the axe problem:

Old Fighting Axe: wght 2.5 dam 31c spd 92 reach 90 req 8str bonus against shields
Chipped sabre: wght 1.5 dam 30c spd 99 reach 98 req 2str

Why would they prefer the former?

 

[deftech]

the only thing missing I believe is forcing the team to search through the Quartermaster's and Player's belongings outside of battle

You can force them to search your personal inventory through the autoloot setting UI.  There should be a button at the bottom IIRC.

 

[mikemayday]

It's kinda tedious compared to the after-battle event though.

 

[Karl XII]

One auto-loot suggestion:

I recall from Floris that it dumped all the items carried into the pile before the troops pick through it, and then collects the most valuable items on a space available basis. Seems it would be worthwhile to reproduce that in Silverstag. It would certainly save having to distribute the stuff the quartermaster is carrying after every second or third battle.

I agree "broken" may be too strong to describe current auto-loot problems. Apologies. How about far distant from optimal?

The armour really has me confused. If it swapped protection for weight when rating, that would make sense, but I'm not seeing that as a pattern.

 

[Windyplains]

It's kinda tedious compared to the after-battle event though.

Originally it was an option you could access there, but this lead to some glitches where your entire battlefield loot collection was lost.  Basically the system simply wasn't designed to track two sets of loot (player & actual battlefield loot).

I recall from Floris that it dumped all the items carried into the pile before the troops pick through it, and then collects the most valuable items on a space available basis. Seems it would be worthwhile to reproduce that in Silverstag. It would certainly save having to distribute the stuff the quartermaster is carrying after every second or third battle.

The problem here is that you may not want them to give up certain things.  The system was designed to cater to most folks, but may not fit the style of everyone.  For instance, if I had it dump the player's inventory into the loot pile prior to selection...making sure you get back everything you had that wasn't selected becomes problematic.  It's simply cleaner to keep these separate.  The Quartermaster's pile of loot is stuff that everyone rejected already so it makes sense to not pile this stuff in (keep in mind inventories do have a space limitation).

I agree "broken" may be too strong to describe current auto-loot problems. Apologies. How about far distant from optimal?

Perhaps, but show me an auto-loot system designed with even 25% of the customization options.  Most are simply "upgrade armor / horse", "upgrade weapon 1", etc.  I looked at what Prophesy of Pendor, Custom Commander (what Floris & ACOK use) and Diplomacy for how each was designed and looked to see what could be done to "fill the option gaps".  That kind of diversity in options means the system is very complex and prone to constant tweaking.

You can read about the initial design stage of building the autoloot system Silverstag has in this older Floris Dev Blog.

 

[mikemayday]

I have to agree, this is the best autoloot system I've seen. If the values are tweaked to correct the problems I've been having, I'll be mighty happy with it.

And re: reassessing the inventoried after the battle- I didn't mean for them to search both inventories at once. In fact, now that you mentioned it, it doesn't make sense to let them all batch-search the player's inventory, since I always keep stuff there that I want for myself

But a quick way to give all the stuff I want my team to have to the Quartermaster and let them search his inventory exactly as the battle loot pile- that would be nice.
One button that first opens the player-quartermaster transfer window, and when that window is closed, the mass-pile-searching happens? What do you think?

The reason I'm asking is that I feel the battle loot is of much lower quality than in native, so I often use my tournament rewards to go shopping- which (due to my constant winning of lordly black armour) means I buy tons of stuff, which I would then want to get quickly redistributed.

 

[D3monic]

(due to my constant winning of lordly black armour)

How in the seven Hells?!!! I always got some bastard swords (don't get me wrong those are usefull but...), shields and gloves, sometimes mount. I WANT BLACK ARMOUR GOD DAMMIT. How did you managed to get that?

The reason I'm asking is that I feel the battle loot is of much lower quality than in native

Having some points in Looting and companion with scavanger is usefull, but I have to agree, the best way to equip yourselves and your companions are tournaments and/or shopping. Which makes sence, since loot is likely to be damaged, but it's still annoying sometimes Not that I have problems with buying myself shiny stuff, being a king with 40K - 60K weekly income really helps, but.. you know

 

[Karl XII]

The problem here is that you may not want them to give up certain things.  The system was designed to cater to most folks, but may not fit the style of everyone.  For instance, if I had it dump the player's inventory into the loot pile prior to selection...making sure you get back everything you had that wasn't selected becomes problematic.  It's simply cleaner to keep these separate.  The Quartermaster's pile of loot is stuff that everyone rejected already so it makes sense to not pile this stuff in (keep in mind inventories do have a space limitation).

I wasn't clear, my bad.

I just meant dump all the Quartermaster's stuff, then pick up the most valuable of what the QM dropped and the stuff from the current battle.

As for the rest, take the kvetching as looking to suggest improvements, not tearing down what has been done.

 

[Windyplains]

And re: reassessing the inventoried after the battle- I didn't mean for them to search both inventories at once. In fact, now that you mentioned it, it doesn't make sense to let them all batch-search the player's inventory, since I always keep stuff there that I want for myself

Exactly.  That's why I put the player's inventory as off-limits unless you specifically requested to search it via their autoloot settings.

But a quick way to give all the stuff I want my team to have to the Quartermaster and let them search his inventory exactly as the battle loot pile- that would be nice.
One button that first opens the player-quartermaster transfer window, and when that window is closed, the mass-pile-searching happens? What do you think?

Two many steps for a post-combat scenario.  The original design of a single page per companion was a concern as far as "click grind", but it is the only way to have a confirmation screen work.  Initially when all of the companions need upgrades and you get into some larger battles this can be 7-8 companions at a time.  Later on it is usually 0-2 at a time which felt reasonable.  The idea was to have the Quartermaster's inventory be a place for non-desired loot (that no one wanted to upgrade to) to be placed.

Battlefield Loot -> Autoloot Process -> Quartermaster Picks up Leftovers.  The quartermaster isn't the inventory that folks search within or that battlefield loot pops up in.  That's a separate inventory that is later picked through by the quartermaster.

The reason I'm asking is that I feel the battle loot is of much lower quality than in native, so I often use my tournament rewards to go shopping- which (due to my constant winning of lordly black armour) means I buy tons of stuff, which I would then want to get quickly redistributed.

It's intended to often feel weaker initially.  Your looting level and how much "scavenger" bonuses you can gain among companions makes a large difference in the quality of your battlefield loot.  You should be able to win several thousand denars worth of loot from a normal lord's party with a high looting level.  The stronger benefit of the current system is that it can load -anything- that your opponents were wearing that is not unique.  That is something native did not do.

 

[Theo H]

How in the seven Hells?!!! I always got some bastard swords (don't get me wrong those are usefull but...), shields and gloves, sometimes mount. I WANT BLACK ARMOUR GOD DAMMIT. How did you managed to get that?

It could be that your tournament settings are too low or you have level scaling off.
If you want the best rewards you need 100% difficulty and that's means random equipment checked and max team. Plus level scaling.

 

[D3monic]

Hmh... I did not know the difficulty is related to the prizes... Deffinitely going to try it