Farming in this way might be a means of difficulty management. Players who can't beat the next level (as I've often seen happen with Nightmare level and beyond in Diablo II) will replay the same few levels again and again just to have something to do.

I think it will only become farming if they can, in fact, buy stuff that's better than what they could find. At any given character level repeat trips through the same dungeon will automatically lower the value of goods in the player's eyes (in that what was once great is now considered "trash"). If it's dangerous to get and not worth all that much because they've been through several times I think they'll grow bored and move on.

If you are really determined to stop them from looting the chests then maybe chests could become more dangerous themselves. Chests could have higher levels of traps, or even be monsters mimicking chests. If you explain the process and it's a part of your world I don't think folks will complain all that much.

Randomizing their locations (a large set to have only a subset show up at any 'session') helps to get people to explore looking for them (assuming the area is of any size).

Having a mix of results adds the element of surprise -- empty chests, garbage filled chests, goodies, very good goodies, traps that do horrendous damage or activate alarms/nasties -- all make them more interesting.

I'm never gonna use a chest generator (aka, randomize x,y and content). I think it sucks. We have level design to balance things in such a way that gameplay is interesting, why give up on that and risk the balancing to be sucky and turn people away?

Random drops with the 'random' stripped out, so each drop advances a counter. Stuff with 1/10 chance to drop do so on the tenth drop. 25% chance-to-drop appears on the fourth drop(and 8th and so on), 1% on the hundredth and like that. So the player is advancing from more common to more rare with each drop.

Let's assume that a healthy human being lives to 80 years old (except you of course). Playing the game 12hrs/day for 80 years (you've got the teether add-on), at maybe 1 drop/second... That's only 2.525 billion -- 2.5 GigaDrops later -- you'll get the Ultimate Prize. On average. Your mileage may vary.

Quote:Original post by Orymus
I'm never gonna use a chest generator (aka, randomize x,y and content). I think it sucks. We have level design to balance things in such a way that gameplay is interesting, why give up on that and risk the balancing to be sucky and turn people away?

Level design is used with randomization just as much as it's used with set level design. After all, your parameters for the random ranges have to come from somewhere. If you value replayability it's a very useful tool, but if the point of the game is to be a consumable product played only once then it's probably not very useful.

I'm not particularly aiming at replayability there. I wouldn't categorize it as a consumable either. Chrono Trigger and FFVI didn't really offer surprises on the second and third runs, but they were fun to play regardless. I think there was something satisfying in knowing how things would turn out to be. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who thinks that.

Also, everything put to chance is taken from strategy. I want the game to be 'expectable' I hate the concept of critical attack for this purpose. I've played rpgs where your character always deals damage based on his attack. You get to rely on that, and plan your strategy accordingly. Otherwise, you end up planning an entire strategy, to the last final hit, and then, you 'miss' randomly which breaks the feeling of control you have over this universe. I do understand what randomization tries to establish, but I think it was introduced to compensate where the teams did not have time to compensate. The critical and miss were made to make the battle system more fun when without interesting choices. Random drops feel like a bad piece of design to me.

Quote:Original post by Wavinator

Quote:Original post by Orymus
I'm never gonna use a chest generator (aka, randomize x,y and content). I think it sucks. We have level design to balance things in such a way that gameplay is interesting, why give up on that and risk the balancing to be sucky and turn people away?

Level design is used with randomization just as much as it's used with set level design. After all, your parameters for the random ranges have to come from somewhere. If you value replayability it's a very useful tool, but if the point of the game is to be a consumable product played only once then it's probably not very useful.

Mob drops are generally customized to a monster type, so they don't drop completely random loot. This is both good and tricky: Good because it's better than a killer mosquito with a twenty pound sword. Tricky because 'common/uncommon/rare' becomes intertangled with the rarity and locale of the monsters dropping the loot. The loot's drop rate has more to do with the creature's spawn rate, which is partially controlled by the way players hunt. Which includes things like the usability of the primary game forum, demographic profile of gamers who play it, and personality preferences of the dev team.

In a way, it could be a self-balancing system; good mob drops cause the mob to respawn more rapidly because players hunt that creature. If the value of the treasure were based in part on how many of that treasure currently exist, then supply and demand could kick in.

If we imagine players to be a form of hunting animal, then part of their nutritional intake is slaying mobs for loot. What does it take to sustain a player's interest in loot? How much mobs/player is needed to graze on? A measure of effective loot: It only counts as effective if the player actually swaps it into inventory; otherwise it's just gold pieces waiting to be converted.

[Edited by - AngleWyrm on March 20, 2010 9:05:36 PM]

Quote:Original post by Orymus
I do understand what randomization tries to establish, but I think it was introduced to compensate where the teams did not have time to compensate. The critical and miss were made to make the battle system more fun when without interesting choices. Random drops feel like a bad piece of design to me.

I think it's a big mistake to look at this in terms of superior / inferior. Personally I can't stand playing a game where the outcome is known-- where's the surprise, or the sense of self sufficiency in compensating for the unknown? In tightly guided experiences I often feel as if I must conform to the whims of the developer and am punished for thinking outside the box.

That said, however, clearly there are different types of players, and just as I know I don't want to design a book or movie when I'm experiencing it I also know that there are players who want a more relaxing, guided experience when playing a game. So I try not to make the mistake of generalizing my preference to all players.

Randomization is a tool just as a wide variety of set choices would be a tool. Both serve, in the context of what we're talking about, to widen the overall range of decisions (random drops forcing compensation and evaluation of trade-offs) and each has it's own set of flaws. As I mentioned lack of replayability would be a severe flaw but fortunately not one you'd have to worry about for the players you're expecting to cater to.

I remember an interview with Dustin Bowder (sp?) where he explained why SC2 did not have 'randomized' damages. Predictability doesn't make the game any easier, but it allows strategic planning. A various amount of things the player simply didn't foresee will eventually break these plans, but the player won't feel cheat if 'he forgot' If the randomized cheats his plan, frustration will occur. "ah cmon, why did I have to miss and he made a critical, this monster was nothing but dead otherwise'.
This is the 'bad' kind of frustration I want to avoid. Random drops feel like that to me. Having non-randomized drops and chest contents can be balanced in a way where the player won't mind. There are other solutions than randomness to make things unpredictable by the player. SC uses time of reaction vs calculation time as a way, which causes mental stressing and makes the addicted players feel 'in the zone'... But it is just one of many solutions.