chests and the rewards they hold...

[curious]

as im about 90% finished, im guessing with my second play through, i'm finally think i've figured out just how unique items are 'dropped' in chests. there are 5 types of chests, not counting jars, that can be opened. 4 of which require locks. 2 of these locked chests can be opened with your starting lockpicking skill. of these 2 one is wooden with some metal braces and the other is metal and either the same or similar looking to the chest requiring the skill-difficult locks. they are different though. all unique items are contained within the metal normal locks. i will explain in a moment.

for those thinking of sinking any points into thieving i would advise not wasting any points in lockpicking unless you play on becoming a full thief since all 'unique' items can be found without any lps in thievery, and the difficult and impossible locks will only give you more random items. also there are many open lock spell scrolls which can be used if you want, though there will not be enough to open all difficult and impossible locks.

i believe there are around 50 of these normal lockpicking skill metal chests throughout the kingdom, some in remote locations, and others in caves, ruins, and some even in towns: for example there are 2 in the upper vengard castle.
in these chests are rare weapons/shields, amulets and rings, and pure ore weapon recipes that can only be found once in an entire game.

now i am not entirely sure all the factors that go into exactly calcutating what you will get when you open one of these chests. it could be level based. it could be that each of these chest has a weighted value so it is more likely to give you a better one than another. but it is certain that you will find the better items later in the game so i believe it 'checks off' the weaker items first as you open one of these chests. this time through for example i am mid 70's level and have cleared all but 1/3 of nordmar and have found a couple higher quality level items than my first game in which i cleared all of nordmar but only 2/3 of varant.

it is unfortunate this is not one of the things i set about to map as i believe it could be possible if you opened all these chests even at a very early level then you could get the best weapons, though it would be tough. personally i like the way they did this with the chest as it negates the exploit of prior gothics where since you knew where the powerful items where from prior games you could make your way to them early on.

i would be interested to know what others think about this.

by the way i am compiling a list of normar with lots of detail that should be finished in a couple of days, for those who have had difficutly their. i started nordmar 20 levels higher than last game and although being a powerful mage makes things easier, i find it much easier than the first time after they cut substantially the size of animal packs and maybe their amount to. the orcs are still bountiful though!

[Acleacius]

I haven't played in a couple of weeks but always thought all random even special chest were level based, at least my guess. :)

[hwfanatic]

Random chest content is yet another screw up. Takes away from the game play dramatically, and of course previous games didn't have this retarded system.

[Gorath]

WoG thinks the chest content is locked to the number of chests you´ve opened. The higher the number the higher the value.

[txa1265]

I dunno ... I got thieving high enough to level to 'difficult' locks (can't *stand* leaving those chests around!) and still seem to find mostly random crap.

[JonNik]

From my limited experience it seems a bit random too. But perhaps with
a "bias" related to the difficulty of the chest ?

[Danicek]

From my limited experience it seems a bit random too. But perhaps with
a "bias" related to the difficulty of the chest ?
I would think so...

[curious]

@hwfanatic- you want to explain a bit better why you think it is a screw up and takes away from the game? personally i think it adds a whole new level of challenge and suprise to the game.

@gorath- yes i think its something along those lines for sure but it is not a linear path. if all unique items are on a line then the amount you open simply pushes you further down the line, but there is a window it picks from. its also possible that some of these normal metal chests are linked to either weapons or rings/amulets. because i swear that certain chests in the game always seem to reward weapons.

@txa1265-you can get over 40 thieving in the game without putting any points into it just to let you know in case you're thinking of getting more skills. also there is a thieving amulet of +10 you can find. i thought you were playing a 'lawfully good' character though eh?

@jonnik-the difficulty gives you different types of loot, but often the impossible chests give you the least valued stuff. however if you were a low level it might seem valuable since these chests always have gold in them, but i've never gotten more than 500 gold from them. but that gold is about the same value as the gold item "treasure" you can pick up so it makes sense this way.

does anyone know if you having 100 thievery enables you to continually 'make excuses' when you get caught stealing?

[txa1265]

@txa1265-you can get over 40 thieving in the game without putting any points into it just to let you know in case you're thinking of getting more skills. also there is a thieving amulet of +10 you can find. i thought you were playing a 'lawfully good' character though eh?

That is one of those points where role-playing meets up with the guy who smashes every barrel and crate in NWN ... I will pick some locks, but only in the wild or dungeons. I won't pick pockets or learn any other thieving skills, or ever steal from people's houses.

It is even harder when you can tell that easy experience is being dangled before your eyes ...

[curious]

what about in towns you have liberated? either way i envy your amount of restraint. gothic 3 really poses many morality questions. siding with even the 'good' faction like the rebels has you doing many evil deeds. have you mugged anyone mike? while not a main quest there is a fairly large quest that the only way you be able to complete it is through thieving and mugging which is strange because that same group of people also test you honesty by seeing if you lie-pirhana bytes like to toy with us!

oh and whats your opinion on dueling, do you take their weapons and items after you beat them?

[hwfanatic]

@hwfanatic- you want to explain a bit better why you think it is a screw up and takes away from the game? personally i think it adds a whole new level of challenge and suprise to the game.
The whole Gothic world is defined at the start of the game. Places, people and their items, plants etc. But then for some reason when you open a chest, the game randomizes it's content on-the-fly. Why? I don't get it. I really don't. Is there some divine point to this that I'm missing?

Why doesn't it get randomized at world's creation (new game), or in the development phase and then just saved in some file... If I didn't have to load so much, I probably just wouldn't even noticed that this occurs. But now that I do, it sickens me to think it's yet another downgrade from previous installments.

[curious]

i understand what you are saying. in gothic 1 i even wrote down all the lock combinations of all the chests so on other playthroughs i wouldn't break so many locks. but like i said some of the magic of finding a great item is lost when you know where it is. so with the removal of the lockpicking mini-game i think the way they set it up is great. it rewards you for not knowing where something is by your own past deeds, or someone elses, but by finding all those locked chests. and i noticed that if you reload a game and open the same chest next again without opening another first then you will get the same special item along with different random junk. haven't tried this with leveling up, but i think that might alter it as well. with all the people complaining about dumbing down, its odd to see this more advanced system getting any complaints.

[Acleacius]

Maybe from one perspective, but we all enjoyed Gothic 1.
I certianly did even though I knew where the good weapons were.
Not only that in most cases the weapons while known were still a challenge to get, which was much more personal design structure, well at least that I can think of at the moment. ;)

[hwfanatic]

but like i said some of the magic of finding a great item is lost when you know where it is. so with the removal of the lockpicking mini-game i think the way they set it up is great.
This is a not a very good argument. Don't you agree that some magic is also lost when you know everything about the world, story, characters, quests and items (in other words every aspect of the game)? Why would you even try to justify this new system on the base of replay ability?

Once upon a time you could spend all the time in the world and all the pick locks you have if you really wanted or needed to open a chest badly enough, either because you're never coming back or because you're in a great opportunity. Not any more! I really think the new system is dumb. It is possible that it is a trade-off to the average American* player who just can't be bothered by the mini-games. Why would the rest of us have to suffer? And the game is fully impregnated with these trade-offs and degradations. It makes me sick really. And disappointed, of course.

*) Not referring to Americans specifically (although this time around PB did target the American market intentionally), it's just a figure of speech really. Meaning: those players that are not to be bothered by little things, learning curves and such.

[curious]

why does everyone feel the need to turn a discussion of a game into a forum for their hatred towards other, ie americans. anyone who does this loses all credibilty to me in discussing anything else. i mean hwfanatic, even your tag suggests that you don't care what others have to think. go play a game where you can kill americans, and stop playing gothic 3 which you apparently hate along with americans. and actually your comment about mini-games makes no sense, since most console games and dumbed down games are full of mini-games so much so that that is often all they offer.

and by the way i am disgusted by many things are country has done, and by some of the sick-minded people in this country. and even if the average american were less intelligent and less cultured it still doesn't make them evil or worse people. america is and has been in a decline in many ways, but it also has a lot of potential, and its possible that if enough people try to make a 'difference' then the lofty dream of its founders could amount to something grand. it could also end up the backwater of the world, but again it matters what the people here do. not what outsiders say about our country who probably need to be doing all they can do in their own country which i'm sure is far from perfect.

[txa1265]

Unless there is a supposition of nationalistic superiority / inferiority ... then there is no need to defend America or Americans. And if there is that supposition, then the problem is with the narrowminded person with that prejudice.

As for the locking system, I agree with hwfanatic even as I rolled my eyes at his parochialism. I liked the dex-influenced challenge of opening chests.

But at the same time I liked the mini-game in Dungeon Lords (uh-oh, that is an American game, since this is a European game that came after a poorly received American game - maybe G3 was dumbed down for Europeans ... hehehe ... sorry, had to make that rediculous leap ;) )

But I *hated* having to do it with *every* chest - but I'd rather have to endure that than get a binary chest-open respose.

[hwfanatic]

It's a figure of speech. Deal with it, or don't it is your choice. The game has been Americanized, or if you don't like this particular term - simplified (in all the wrong places might I add). I'm sorry, I didn't make this term up, nor did I stroll away from the subject. It is you who chose to write a short paper on something you don't really know about (me). Where do you find the nerve to talk about bias...

[txa1265]

It's a figure of speech. Deal with it, or don't it is your choice.
It is a figure of speech among idiots - do you run around calling everything 'gay' like a 13-year old also?

[curious]

actually what i wrote the paper on was what i had figured out about the chests in my over 200 hours with the game. i wanted to know if anyone else had figured out any details themselves. i wasn't talking about the prior gothics whose chest opening i enjoyed greatly. hearing those sounds of a click on your headphones is great and immersive. but its not in gothic 3. and as i've stated in other threads there is no point in complaining. why not trying to add what you've learned? if you don't like the game like some people, you've probably only learned new ways to not like the game. so really try to keep from littering (something americans do a lot of and you wouldn't want to be called one of those) in other peoples threads that are trying to delve into the mysteries of a game they enjoy.

[Acleacius]

The thing I think is more important loss is Picking Pockets now its much more cash flow like hunting was in G1 and G2 no xp is crap.
Damn Americans!
Hehe, I live here. :)

[Acleacius]

Well I think its for several reasons curious and one of them was the time constraints, normally a designer wouldn't put out the Uber weapons till in the final phases of development, which PB did not have at all, afaik.
I think they had to make serious cuts and random loot for Highend gear was one of the cuts.

[Wulf]

@hwfanatic, you are spot-on with your suspicions re: your quote - [Why? I don't get it. I really don't. Is there some divine point to this that I'm missing?) - - the answer put simply *YES*

We are all aware that in G3 when "interacting" (one way or another) with various item and characters etc' - that the effect of the associated allignment will have consequences for the nameless hero within the game world and the final outcome. This was explained by PB.
So the highlight text was colour coded and placed above the object/beast/character so as to warn of the divine reaction within the favourisms of the three gods.

It is by the use of "divine intervention" of the related god magics that cancel-out these effects. So in the case of 'RED' text'd chests, using a suitable negating magic, eg: the 'unlock' spell, the red text will change to white which means the reaction of the relative chest owners god will reverts to neutral and will allow the contents to be taken. I suspect that the contents reward factor is somehow linked with this.

[hwfanatic]

I am trying to add to this discussion (as unlikely as it may seem to some).

Gothic was, until now, good at creating a functional world where people would interact with each other, factions and animals too. And the whole Gothic "universe" would work just as well if the Hero didn't show up at all, although some alternative events would probably take place. So whenever I come across a chest I like to assume some skilled person made the chest and the locking mechanism with great care, then sold it to some other person for a hefty price and then finally the second person put some of his or hers belongings for safe keeping. And this whole immersion thing really goes into thin air when I come across randomly placed chest, generically locked with randomly generated items in it. It's like it was put there just so I can bloody loot it!

I think that's not what Gothic is supposed to be about.

@Wulf It's an interesting theory. :)

[txa1265]

I am trying to add to this discussion (as unlikely as it may seem to some).

Which is why after pointing it out I went on to agree with you.

[curious]

going along with the divine notion i would state that since all these special powerful items are in normal locked metal chests that you can open with the skills granted to you at the strart of the story adanos wanted you to open all of these. if you advance in thieving (beliar) then you are drifting away from the center and will find it harder to keep track of what chests to open. and if you are as pure as innos then you won't open many of these chests at all and miss out on a lot of this power set before you.

imagine these set amount of special items and a set amount of chests which they can be in. now picture them all as stars in the sky floating around you the north star which is the center of the story which all revolves. will there position not vary at any given time of the day, or time of the year? you must also let the sky turn before you to see all the stars that are to exist. thus you must search for each one of these chests to fully get a grasp of the constellations that exist until all is known to you...and you are most powerful.

[VPeric]

Well, my own experience in the matter is meager at best, but here goes...

I believe the chests could be both level based, or "how-many-chests-already-opened" based, but they certainly aren't all random, because I once reloaded about... 30 times to open a single Impossible-locked chest, and I got more or less the same things (bit of gold, bit of transformation potions, some random loot). Of course, that might mean the chests are simply weighted, because that was one of the first impossible locked chests I found (Schrats near Vengard).

<shrug>

[curious]

...can't sleep so heres more...
the constellations could be interpreted to be the different types of lesser 'divine artifacts' which each have a set number of items/stars but are independent of the order of the other constellations.

1 handed swords-this is one of the largest constellations and thus finding them all can be difficult. the flame sword is not part of this even though powerful, since it can be bought multiple places. ironically the ice sword is much weaker but there is only one. hopefully the fireblades stats are lowered in the patch.

2 handed or large weapons-a good amount of these

magic staves - there are about 6 of these one for each magic class and a couple of others.

shield - a very small constellation i think the only shield that is of magical power is the rune shield.

amulets - there are over 15 of these that are unique such as the amulet of the druid. there are also many that are not. there are many of these, for instance i found over twenty of the protection of ice and amulet of health.

rings - its possible there is only one of these that is unique.

recipes - these are ones that can't be bought or earned through quests. i've found 2 pure magic ore recipes and there might be a couple more.

-i've been wondering if it would have been possible at all to have the lockpicking game at all in gothic 3. the sheer size of the game in that it is ~5 times larger than gothic 2 gold and with it a vast amount of chests it might make one get tired of constantly been forced to perform the task. also the openness of gothic 3 would be hard to justify staticly placing all these powerful artifacts thus forcing you to have play by a certain route if you wanted a certain item. in previous gothics it worked because there was some amount of linearness. but as the prior gothics chests could be seen as a two-dimensional sky in a 3-d world now they have a 3-d chests system to match there great 3-d world and i personally wouldn't want to look a sky that was always oriented the same even though i did have the freedom to see it all and look where i want.

i think pirahna bytes should be congradulated on evolving this aspect at the very least. not to mention the actual skies in the game are the best i've ever seen...i would of payed $10 if the game only had one hill where all you could do is look at the clouds pass by, the moon phasing in and out, and the fog rolling in

[VPeric]

Alright, this is from a guy from GameFAQs... hope that helps. :D

Because there is another forum (in Russian Language), when some guys, with little help from me, research what type of chests have Gothic 3 and what type of items you can get from them. I try describe it, sorry for language because I don't know English very well. So they found there is 8 types of chests:

1)Chest with white word "Chest" above. Without lock, small number of random loot.
2)Chest with red word "Chest" above. Lock, normal number of random loot
3)Chest with red word "Metal Chest" above. 2nd level Lock, big number of random loot
4)Chest without word above, 1st level Lock, big number of random loot with one permanent weapon item. Loot changed with Save/Load, but 1 item always be here.
5)Chest without word above, 1st level Lock, big number of random loot with one permanent magic item.
6)Chest without word above, 2nd level Lock, with one random high level item (scroll with high level magic, blank magic ore, magic staff or other things) and low level loot.
7)Chest with 3rd level Lock, with permanent number of gold. More open chests of this type - more number of gold
8)Permanent chests (like Alchemist chest in Cape Dun, Ali's Chest in Faring, Ashton's Chest in Montera, tutorial chests in Ardea). Permanent loot.

There is 2 list of items for chests 4-5. #13 is Bearded Axe, #14 is Katana, #15 is Paladin's Sword in weapon list, so you need open 14 chests of this type to get Katana, there is Bearded Axe in 13th chest and Paladin's Sword in 15th chest.

[txa1265]

Cool - thanks for that list!

[SirDeity]

I'm not really a big fan of random items in chests or containers in single-player games either. In multiplayer games it's great because it makes the other players who share the world with you more diverse and unique (since items ultimately amount to money which ultimately amounts to strength multiplied by level). But in a single player game, although I can understand that, at least for some people, it may increase the replayability, at the same time I think it takes away from the suspension of disbelief. I'll try to explain... If everytime I open a chest or container I know that I have a random chance of finding something good or something bad, I'll be tempted to reload to a save just prior to opening the container and try again until I get something I'm happy with and since I know that this is repetitive and that it's not the way the real world works, it makes it harder to enjoy (only slightly). Now I know there are some people out there who're tempted to flame at me for comparing the game with the real world... I know it's not supposed to be real. But it is supposed to be a fantasy. Fantasies have to be, at least to some extent, loosely based on the real world in order for it to feel liveable. Unless we can feel the fantasy is alive, we can't immerse ourselves into it and truly enjoy it to its fullest. Some people (perhaps even most for all I know) might be able to imagine a fantasy with random chests... or similarly, a world where the contents of a container which no living being knows about might actually depend on the person who opens it, but I for one cannot. I believe quite inescapably, that trees really fall when no one is around to see them fall, that things exist as they are whether or not any human being or living entity is aware of their presence, and that things just generally happen in a natural order; that the world or universe doesn't revolve around any single entity, but rather everything it's composed of as a whole, essentially indistinguishable from its other parts.

Since the Gothic 3 system isn't completely random (it is based in part on the number of containers opened), that makes it better. How were the loot systems in Gothic and Gothic 2? I don't remember.

[aldee]

For "normal" chests the G3 loot system _is_ completely random. In G1 and G2 there was no randomness at all.