I think finding secrets would have been better if increasing your stealth increased an amount per day you could search and your search radius. If you can only search like 5 times per rest youd think when you use it.

 

This would have added some more depth into talking to npcs. (e.g. this area behind this weird shaped rock i heard a sword is buried...)

It would be nice if searching a dungeon you see a funny shaped brick, do a search, and bam! You were right!

The secrets - and methods of finding them - could be improved a lot. I'd actually prefer that the discovery of secrets and traps were tied to Perception as a passive always-on search, with Sneak/Search mode giving a bonus to your chances of finding something as well as increasing your detection radius. And yes, it would be cool if you also had some things that could only be found after finding specific clues (either through talking to an NPC or old documents etc).

Only search 5 times per rest...that's hilarious.

Well the exact number doesnt really matter just some sort of limit so at least theres a bit of strategy or thought to sneaking to find secrets.

 

Or at least disable fast mode when sneaking to make it more tedious..

make it more tedious.

 

That is a really unusual request for a player to make.

I have very little patience and without fast mode i wouldnt be bothered to be sneaking around 100% of the time ruining the immersion of the game. Yes...i could impose house rules and not press the fast button..but its there and o-so tempting....

The idea with having a limit on searching per rest is that searching would take a bit of time. A limit might help to simulate this without the need to speed up time as your searching. Putting points into stealth (or simply making it perception based which definately makes the most sense) to increase uses between rests means the character is better and faster at it.

I know your moving slower when searching but there really isnt a downside. Have search mode on all the time, everywhere you go. Why not?

Search mode is a choice posed to the player:

 

A)  You can use it all the time, at a cost of slowing down your progress (with double-speed on or with double-speed off, searching is always slower than not searching).

B)  You can use it only when you think you are likely to find something, at cost of missing some hidden things and triggering some traps (with your skill at guessing the presence of hidden things determining how much or little you miss).

C)  You can never use it, at the cost of missing everything hidden and finding all the traps with your face (there are also some quests that would be harder or impossible, I think).

 

This choice hails from the days of pencil-and-paper RPGs, and has been included in a lot of computer RPGs because it is an interesting dilemma that different players will answer differently based on their personality traits.

 

I don't think that this is a case where forcing everyone to play the same way (method B) would improve the game or players' enjoyment of it.

Yeah i see your point emptiness. Ive been playing rpgs since the 80s and ive always had this competionist nature in my playstyle. Search every path, see everything, and find every secret in a single playthrough. Youd think i'd be happy with the option to search 100% of the time as it suits my personality. I guess i kinda feel guilty, like its cheating. But...yeah your right, if the developers made the game giving us these options its not really "cheating" since its up to the players discression as to how they want to play.

 

I guess its the same discression as saving and loading, and changing difficulties.

In large games my MO is the opposite - often I intentionally "miss" areas or rush by them in order to save stuff for future playthoughs.

 

Of course I am also a chronic restarter so sometimes it takes forever to even finish a game but I will have played the early chapters dozens of times with different characters, teams, personalities. 

 

Played BG2 for a year and half (often 20 hours + a week) before finishing...

 

make it more tedious.

 

That is a really unusual request for a player to make.

 

 

You must not have been around with the "remove AoE looting" thread.