I do agree up to a point, I would not like the game to have fixed loot (like you get the staff of whatchamacallit when killing baroness whoshe), but there should be a minor intelligence to loot distribusion. Say for intstance games like Icewind dale had fixed loot in some containers, but they also had "x chance of this item being here" and "the item in here is a random dagger/random staff/random sword" etc.
Archmage, I was absolutely not endorsing, suggesting or recommending fixed loot. I was just saying that bad results from seeded numbers can give me much the same *feeling* as bad results from fixed loot: when the results suck, you've often invested so much time that you're effectively stuck with them. *Bad* and *suck* in this context referring only to my subjective enjoyment of games I am playing by myself.
When I posted that, I was under the impression that I didn't enjoy such events. Since then, I've had my error pointed out to me, so you can disregard my earlier comment entirely...
Fact: The range of possible treasures which it is possible to be generated is so large that the chances of getting any particular one or combination of all-desireable treasures is so small that it's not worth anyone's time to reload, never mind being worth anyone's time to re-code so reloading no longer works.
Stabbey, that's a mighty wide brush you're using for facts. You start veering sharply into opinion somewhere around the words "that", "so", and "worth". I'll totally give you the bit about time to re-code, although opinions may vary on that. Particularly in this thread.
[*]Seeded crappy loot in a major reward actually feels worse than RNG crappy loot. I didn't just get sucker punched: I got sucker punched however many hours ago I started the game, and I have no recourse to judicious save-scumming to keep the fun from draining out.
I can't say I agree with this. Unless you intentionally try to work out/seek information on how loot generation is implemented, to the player they open a chest and rewards are within. Whether the items were determined the moment you opened the chest or hours/days/weeks earlier shouldn't matter.
At least, not until you start to try and game the system, at which point it does matter.
If you find yourself in a situation where you are going outside the flow of the game to "correct" a situation (e.g. essentially "cheating" by save scumming because you're unhappy with the items in a chest) something is failing, perhaps on more than one level. The fact that you feel it's necessary to do, the fact that the game enables you to do it, etc.. the game is no longer be played as designed at that point.
And yes, I feel comfortable saying that about the design so long as save scumming isn't proudly listed somewhere with a bullet point in a game's feature list. Until that day it's a shortcoming being abused, not a feature being utilized.
Thanks, Gyson, for once again explaining to me how I am wrong about my own reactions and experiences when I'm playing games.
God knows how I'd get along if I had to figure myself out by myself. Don't ever change.
Thanks as well for explaining to me that I have fun wrong. Cheating in single-player games has been a burgeoning problem in the Newell household for decades, now, and no-one ever seems to have stopped to Think Of The Children.
I can only hope someday to be able to make up to you the incalculable damage I must have done to your enjoyment of your leisure time, not to mention the legions of poor developers whose lives I must have blighted by my appalling abuse of their hearts' work. If only someone had warned them of the terrible mistakes they made in enabling me to trammel their art. If only I had listened to those wiser than I, when they warned and admonished me.
I am saddened and ashamed. I can only thank God I never took up solitaire: the potential social damage doesn't bear consideration.
Note for clarity (although I don't really expect you'll read this one either): I am not calling you a child. I don't believe or mean to imply that you are a child, or behave like a child, or that I think either of those is the case. I am using a common touchpoint for melodrama and unwarranted, intrusive concern, as I reject what I consider to be your annoyingly judgmental use of terms like "cheat" and "abuse" in this context.
