Larian Studios Forums Beyond Divinity (English) Suggestions Randomized treasure & quests

Firstly, I'd just like to say I greatly enjoyed Divine Divinity, and I think Riftrunner has great potential (I like the good-and-evil-working-together premise).

If there was one thing that detracted from my enjoyment of the original game, it was that it was too random. The contents of literally every container and merchant was randomized. Every weapon, suit of armour etc (even unique ones) had random stats. While this probably saved the developers time, because they didn't have to hand-place anything other than plot items, it led to ridiculous things like beggers selling you $10000+ spellbooks, and finding an "ultimate" unique sword that was about as useful as a toothpick.

This sort of thing might work in a multiplayer-type game like Diablo 2, where the dungeons are regenerated each time you rejoin the game. In Divinity, however, it meant that in order to avoid being "ripped off" by a quest, you had to save the game, click the chest or merchant or whatever, and see what you got. If it was useless - reload, try again. If you didn't do this, you ran the risk of meeting the end boss armed with a toothpick.

Another example: Each bookcase in Divinity contained either (a) a book/scroll worth approx $0, or (b) a $10000+ spellbook (which gave you a free skillpoint). The placement of spellbooks was entirely random, so you could (with enough reloading) get a spellbook from every bookcase in the game.

Now with what I'm hearing about random quests in Riftrunner, I can't help but think that the developers are leaning even more towards randomization in this game, which IMO is not a good thing.

If it's not too late for Larian to change their approach, I would greatly prefer hand-placed items and quests. Does anyone else have other opinions/ideas?

I like the idea of random quests, if they have enough variation in them... - They could make the game more interesting, but they could also easily be considered a cheap trick to extend the playing time...

I agree, the random objects in <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/div.gif" alt="" /> didn't work for me as well... Of course, in such a huge world, they would have to hire someone specifically for the job of placing objects (not to mention the trouble they had to go through afterwards for finding a suitable name for the job of this employee when they write the credits <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/ouch.gif" alt="" /> )

I might volunteer tho <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" />

what realy would kick some but, is if there would be SET items like in diablo2!
something like the dragon armor set but with fixed stats!
and ofcours these items had a unique look at our hero when equiping it.
but i think this is more a feature for <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/div.gif" alt="" />2

The randomness was a bit annoying at first, but when I got used to it I had a blast reloading. My last game, I had a Sword of the Gods with 111 durability, 5 charm slots, frost, spiritual damage, mana drain, and a bunch of nice stat bonuses (maybe I'll post a screenshot one day). That means I could kill and kill and kill, and my sword would still never break. Stuff like this, the developer would never really allow if they manually put it in the game. Also, I think different stats means that people with different playing styles can find bonuses that they want on a weapon or armor or item that they like. I would say change it, but BG2 is not really replayable until you add mods to it, whereas DD is, because every time you play, you get something different. With much reloading, that is... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shame.gif" alt="" />

I like how this was handled in Diablo2. You couldn't reload hundreds of times to get a good weapon or armor. Sure, Diablo had it's own tricks, like re-entering the city to see items at merchants renewed. Or, even go and slain boss or high-lvl monster again and again to get a good drop. But, here we come to monsters respawn system. And IMO it was very well implemented in D2 also.

I see theese endless reloadings close to cheating, where you cheat to get a better equipment. From other hand, having this possibility, noone wants to end up with Sword of Chaos with stats of wooden-training-toy-sword. But, having to reload and reload lowers gaming value.

About those random quests. I think I do not clearly understand what is it?
Random encounters like in Fallout? No, this is probably different.
There were random quests in DAoC. You talk to NPC and he asks you to do one of three things:
1 take this letter, take it there
2 kill that mob or that critter
3 find me thingie like tail of a red scorpion or balls of a cave rat.

Theese quests or to be specific- tasks, were random, they had time limits, like until next morning, and you could get and make them endlessly provided you are higher lvl 10 and lower lvl 30.
Theese quests were quite repetitive, but gave good opportunity to lvl faster. But, lvling is what we do most of the time in MMORPG.

PS That Larian and Dragon armor definitely had to have fixed stats. I reloaded 150 times to get good Silver armor, and then 150 more times, because after it turned into Larian armor, it got whole new stats, that completely sucked.

I think randomisation is fine, but it needs a few tweeks.

Prepare random items beforehand (as you enter an area), not on the fly. This will prevent the option of reloading.

Perhaps have an invisible counter going: you have earned this much treasure. In every new area, random items are produced, with at least one preplaced random magical item. The value of these item are taken from your earnings counter. This would help ensure that you don't get overly lucky or unlucky hauls.

I understand luck is a great feature in these games, but I think people waste too much time to ensure good luck, which in turn makes the game too easy. Players should be rewarded for adventuring, not re-loading.

I'm looking forward to the next one. Now, I just need to finish the first one... (stupid deleted save-game... <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/memad.gif" alt="" />)

that all sounds neat and all, but it must be hell for the programmers.

So are most of the ideas here, but we can dream.

Then I affraid, gamers will reenter that area endlessly <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />



Hmm, earnings counter. This is something quite difficult. Look, it has to calculate the value of your treasure, I mean, whole treasure, that is in your inv + treasure stacked somewhere in the chest + any gold you have. How will it decide that you need new sword, if you have 2 swords and 6k gold? Then you will probably be forced to sell, sell, sell all swords to raise that probability. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> And then peeps will just pass all swords and gold to their companions <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

But, sure, the idea is good.

There should be luck, and no way to cheat it.

"gamers will reenter that area endlessly"

How many times would you be willing to clear the first level of the catacombs to compare the different loot acquired each time? How many times would you need to re-do the cursed Abbey to get a sword with Frost on it, etc?


"How will it decide that you need new sword"

I believe HandEFood meant that the value of what you find in a particular area would be set to a certain amount (or range), independently of what you already have. If one or two very good items were generated, the remainder of the items would be poorer quality. Alternately you could have a lot of average items. This would prevent many lucky finds / re-loads (or many crappy finds) in a particular area.

What about those small levels of dungeons? And btw, Abbey is not that large to go through it several times in hope of worthy reward.



I am trying to make it clear to myself.
Or will this counter start working only if one or two good items have been generated? Then it prevent from more good items to generate? hmm. where is luck then? If I have found two good items in the beginning of Abbey, I can skip looking into any chests or on any drops as all will be junk, right? How will it decide that theese are high lvl items or desired items. What is better - 80-100 dmg sword with +3 hearing, or 25-80 sword with +2str, +2int.
Btw., I can go there being lvl 10 or lvl 30. What is good for lvl 10, is junk for lvl 30. Help me, I think I am missing something. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/puppyeyes.gif" alt="" />

What I mean with the loot ocunter, is that you should get, say, 1 Gold Piece worth of loot for every 10 Experience Points you earn. These Gold Pieces of loot don't have to be gold though. They might be weapons or armour or magic or free skills. So after killing an army of orcs, earning 2000xp x 50 orcs = 10000 gold pieces. This would be split into gold, armour, weapons (many of which you won't keep), and the odd magical item. It prevents you from getting too lucky and receiving 5 magical items from one battle, or from the opposite and receiving 3 broken steak knives and an orange.

It is a bit over the top and a lot micro-managing on the games behalf, but it might balance things out a bit.

yeah; could be cool. lets keep dreaming of cool things.

The loot counter idea sounds all well and good, but what happens when you use up your quota after it spawns 60000 enchanted clubs but no armour? Are you expected to run around naked with a club for the rest of the game?

I still think it would be better to have at least some unique items with fixed stats so that the challenge of the game isn't entirely dependant on luck (or compulsive reloading).

That's true. But the possibility of getting 600 clubs in a row is already in <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/div.gif" alt="" />, and you don't see that happen very often. Some areas could have preset items (eg. Shield, Boots, Sword) with a set value. The random stats are applied to make the item worth this value. So you will definately find a pair of super-magical boots, but will they have magical resistances or magical attack or magical skills?

I think that the game should have at least one or two presets of each item so that the player can eventually find the perfect mix of items, but with the random stats thrown in to add to the mystery and chance.

yeah, but then some people start reloading about 100 times trying to get one hell of an awesome sword.

Good point. Oh well. It looks like the reloaders will always be reloaders.

yeah.

Thank you HandEFood, now I understand. Your idea is to bind loot counter to experience earned. If ballanced well, in one area killing 50 orcs may give you 60 clubs or so, in another area you can get one sword worth 10k gold.
Yes, this is good idea indeed. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/up.gif" alt="" />
Sorry, it took long for me to catch it.

Implementing this, another detail comes in mind. Imagine, you haven't got drops in one area, will counter reset going in another area or will it sum up with those 10k earned. But, this can be ballanced, by adding more clubs into first area or resetting the counter <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Btw, does it make sence to bind certain items to locations. I mean, orcs in orc camp may drop orcish boots of strength, or there is probability to get to get sword of life leech at the graveyard. What do you think?

i like your ideas, Egin. it's very relevant as one would expect something orcish when one hacks his/her way to an orc camp. one can either find set items pertaining to racial attributes(orcs & their physical strength) or render the set items useful(larian armour or holy weapons). only then it'll make sense venturing into a particular area.

another of my 2 cents wasted.