The Drunken Lizard Pub

EB2 1.03

I played through a full game with a "fixed seed" for 25 hours resetting shops via time progression at least 12+ times looking for specific items (books and rings) and noticed the following:

• Different shops seem to carry the same stuff at the same time. Armor shops that can carry tungsten shields will all be carrying tungsten shields. Inns that sell Sword books will all be selling 2 or 3 sword books. It's like collusion
• Shops will never seem to sell any other items but variations of a core few. I never saw a cartography, or heavy armor book for sale along with rings that give a bonus to wisdom.

I'll make an educated guess that the same fixed random seed is used for all shops and some shops have a higher "quality" modifier that governs what they carry. To fix the problems above you could perhaps do the following which would allow for variety but still be consistent to prevent scumming:

• Have each shop have its own, different, fixed random seed. That way shops will all carry different stuff at different times,.
• Every week when you generate new inventory for a shop, create a new random seed from the last random seed (will produce consistent results). This will ensure that the shop has a chance of carrying different kinds of items than it did the prior week.

Having played with and without fixed random seed, in multiple games well over 60 game-hours each, I've seen times where the shops all seem to have the same stuff and times where there's a big variety.

Like other players, I would like it if the various shops had a set of "fixed" items and a set of random items, like they did in Book I, so you know every week that you'll find a certain number of healing potions at this vendor and a certain number of arrows at that vendor. Yes, the weapon vendors always have a certain selection of arrows depending on their "level" of shop, but the number of arrows in each shop could vary widely from one week to the next. That makes planning assaults for a ranger pretty complicated (at least until you have a high level to regen focus feat quickly).

In fact. Using one seed for all shops makes it less fixed, not more fixed.

When I needed the rare bronze boots and had been waiting for it for a couple of weeks I tried a different thing: Save, and visit the shops in several different orders.

Because they all use the same seed, sampling from it in a different order creates different items. This way, you can still use the save/reload trick to some extent.

In general I agree with observation. In my recent games, shops always seem to have several copies of the legendary swordman around, but I only found the bludgeoning book once (and not in a shop). But it is hard to guess the fairness of an RNG.

In my first game, where I had a fixed seed, over the course of most of the game, currently at level 20 in the final chapter of the game, I not even once have seen the Portal Spell, the Sharpeye Pendant, or a Brewmaster Ring in a shop. I only just found the Portal spell (approx. 1 hour before were I am now) in random chest #5460 and a Sharpeye Pendant only recently. Never even once in a shop.

While one could say that "Hey, great that you're still finding new, meaningful stuff so far into the game", equally powerful stuff have been a dime a dozen.

Finding the Portal spell just when it's lost it's value is not A-OK. Especially when my new character, without fixed seed, is currently level 10 in the first chapter of the game, and have all the basic stuff.

Bah.