store random seed to remove temptation to re-roll treasure

[Rollor]

show-off

[kdorian]

Speaking as someone who LIKES the ability to 're-roll' chests, and dislikes the huge let-down of battling my way past hordes of monsters to get at a chest that turns out to have 3 gold pieces...

I'd like to second (or third or seventh) the idea of having treasure be a little less random in terms of what you find where. A skeleton or barrel in the middle of the wilderness is a logical place to find little or no treasure; that big solid iron-bound chest at the end of the dungeon should have something more significant.

Also, there should be a few items that are 'guaranteed' or at least very likely on a map, even if the location where they turn up varies. Given the cost of new skills, I pretty much depend on finding a book of bargaining to teach me the mercantile skill; likewise as a beginning character I depend on treasure to equip my character as he's starting out.

Finally, I'd like to suggest that you keep 'dropped' treasure bags random and 're-rollable', for the sake of those of us who either like playing with treasure possibilities, or may need to boost our incomes due to bad luck with random treasure in chests.

[Jude]

Finally, I'd like to suggest that you keep 'dropped' treasure bags random and 're-rollable', for the sake of those of us who either like playing with treasure possibilities, or may need to boost our incomes due to bad luck with random treasure in chests.

And maybe drawers, too, for those who are more stealthly and don't fight much, but still would like to re-roll some treasures.

Jude

[Cal]

For Book II I will make treasure pre-load into all containers upon map entry. Yes, that means that you could go to a saved game before you enter a map and have the whole map regenerate loot, but that also resets all the enemies, traps, and locks so that makes it far less tempting I would think.

I'm very much against this for exactly the reasons Kdorian brought up. Suppose I enter an area, then leave and come back a few levels later...I'll still be stuck with the lower-level items generated the first time I was there.

Opening a chest after a big battle and finding a lonely iron dagger is excruciatingly frustrating.

...although I'll admit this is coming from someone who's been known to open a chest, then reload...over and over...sometimes for over an hour.

Yes, I'm an inordinately patient fellow...

[b0rsuk]

Do we have an official confirmation that treasure is preloaded into containers upon map entry based on character's level and not area level ? The way I see it, value of treasure can be separate from character level.

If it was up to me, I would do my best to assure there's little room for grind in Eschalon. For the reasons I outlined here:
http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic ... icID=20317
(interesting discussion, by the way, but some points I fundamentally don't agree with)

Simply put, grind encourages players to repeat boring, low-risk, unnecessary activities for some gain. I see save/load abuse as grind, too. After all, it's a substitution of skill, tactics, planning (strategy) etc.
Ok, so container abuse is being dealt with. How about opening all doors with a single lockpick, resisting all traps with saving throws, and so on ? This forum is full of posts saying that you don't have to bother with lockpicking because you can destroy all doors and chests anyway. I suspect it's not different with traps.
I think trap saving throws and lockpicking should be dependant on character's skill only. No chance to save or break lockpick. If you have stats and skills above required level, you succeed automatically.
Note that combat is very hard to abuse with save/load . Typically there are at least several blows exchanged, which means that results end up much less random. Odds of a weaker character winning are pretty small, because many successful (repeated) hits are required to win. So there's no way to grind fights except to save after each round where you deal damage and enemy doesn't. Unbearably boring.

I'm not an opponent of randomness - far from it. I enjoy roguelikes a lot. Random events are good for variety, and they also encourage planning. Random encounters are fun if they add to tension, not boredom. Random monster placement is fun if it makes players invest in skills like stealth.

[BasiliskWrangler]

Those are some very good points b0rsuk. We'll play around with some of them and see what works for Eschalon and what doesn't.

As for your first question: treasure in Eschalon does scale to your character's level. Not all treasure does, however: there are many hand-placed items that are the same every game. A clever person could acquire a few really nice objects within an hour of starting the game if they know where to look.

Originally, treasure was not going to scale with level but that led to a major problem: random treasure could be wildly unbalanced, with an occasional "super weapon" popping up even with level 1 characters. We are working to have treasure scaled "per map" in Book II so that the maps themselves determine the quality of treasure...however, that means a high-level character who back-tracks to easier areas would find mostly worthless treasure.

As for grinding in relation to randomness: classic role-playing, including the grandfather of them all (Dungeons & Dragons), rely on a certain amount of random factor to determine success and failure. The role of the dice is critical to the lifeblood of a good RPG.

You mention making lock picking and trap disarming automatic when you have enough skill. There are a couple problems with that, namely that the opposite would be true: not having enough skill means you could never pick a particular lock / disarm a particular trap until your skill was raised. That's actually not very realistic. It's also not really very fun. In the real world, there is always a slight chance that a low-skilled person could perform a difficult task, and a slight chance that a highly-skilled person could screw up a simple task. That percentile chance of success, along with the dice roll, is as much of a game as anything else. It's the same reason people go to casinos and "grind" on slots: eventually you are going to get a sweet payout.

With Eschalon, I really wanted to avoid things like locked doors that can only be opened when you reach a certain point in the game. I wanted the player to feel like there are always multiple ways to complete a task; multiple ways to get past a locked door; multiple ways to get from point A to point B.

We are going to add a few rules to limit some exploitations and grinding, and also we will let the player choose at the start of the game what rules they want applied to them, For example, you could choose to play "Hardcore" which means no loading or saving while poisoned, diseased, critically injured or with enemies nearby. This is decided when the game begins and cannot be changed. Playing "Normal" mode would be a lot like Book I, and there will be an "Easy" mode as well.

[b0rsuk]

1. I don't see ANY problem with low-risk areas containing low quality treasure. You seem to oppose difficulty scaling, but have no problem with loot scaling ? Strange.
Furthermore, I like the idea of sneaking through an area you can't beat now to get some good loot. It's just a matter or ensuring that sneaking is non-trivial and can fail. I think it's too easy to hide in shadows/run away in Book1.

2. About lockpicking... Deus Ex has quite interesting lockpicking system. Each lockpickable door, electronic device etc. has a set number of 'hit points'. Lockpicks break after removing certain number of those 'hit points'. How much does a lockpick remove depends directly on your Lockpicking skill. Either way, a lockpick is used up once the door becomes unlocked, so it's at best 1 lockpick per door.
This system has three advantages:
- there's no save/load scumming
- even low-skilled thief can break into most doors or treasure vaults. It just costs more lockpicks, and they're limited.
- you always get what you paid for. I mean, lockpicks are never wasted. Vast majority of lockpicks is found, not bought, so there's never a dillema "Should I buy more lockpicks, or just more loot?".
Note that in this system player knows exactly how many lockpicks it will take. Depending on your preference, it's either good or bad(no tension) thing.

Overall, Deus Ex had an interesting system and I think it's worth considering.

[Eschalonian]

Wow, I can't believe someone suggested storing random seed because he can't resist the temptation to reroll. That's like demanding that we outlaw McDonalds and Burger Kings because some people can't resist fast food.

If you don't like fast food, don't go to McDonald. Some of us like McDonald just fine.

For me, the complete randomness in EB1 is probably the most addictive part of the game. Bad for me. Good for the developers. But I'm ok with that.

[realmzmaster]

I believe randomness is good. It represents luck. Yes, skill is always important, but luck plays a part. A skilled poker player will beat a average player approximately 90% or more of the time. But, that other 10% or less the average player will beat the pro, because of the fall of the cards. If a average player is dealt a Royal Flush or straight flush in poker, he/she knows they are going to win. I do not care how much the pro bluffs.

Or if you are playing contract bridge and get dealt all the spades, you go directy to 7 spades (Grand Slam). You do not have to worry about your partner and it does not matter how skilled are your opponents.

Or a low level thief gets lucky and hits upon the combination of a safe and hits the jackpot. Yes, the possibility is low, but it does exist.

What are your chances of hitting the lottery? You have a better chance of being hit by lightning. But people play and people win, because they got lucky.

Storing the seed can still have good or bad results. If it is truly random, on a particular map all the chests or loot drops could be smelly old socks. I know it is an extreme example, but it can happen. I guess I would have to redo the entire map in hopes that the new seed will generate better treasure

Now, a number can be assigned to every treasure item and have the seed for each map only generate within a certain range. Which means you can set the seed so certain treasures and monsters generate in certain areas. But, does that enhance the gameplay?

I am of the opinion if you want to sit there and re-roll treasure until Doomsday, so be it.
If that adds to your enjoyment of the game, why should it be taken away? Why should the designer be tasked with restraining your temptation?

[renkin]

Seems like this thread turned into the same topic as my thread...

I think trap saving throws and lockpicking should be dependant on character's skill only. No chance to save or break lockpick. If you have stats and skills above required level, you succeed automatically.
...
I'm not an opponent of randomness - far from it. I enjoy roguelikes a lot. Random events are good for variety, and they also encourage planning. Random encounters are fun if they add to tension, not boredom. Random monster placement is fun if it makes players invest in skills like stealth.

I agree. When you can save/load at any point, skills based so much on chance can be exploited, and even though you could say I should just "resist the temptation" to re-roll or abuse (and I do, btw), I don't think the game mechanics should allow easy abuse like that. It's a bit like saying "why do you need a hardcore mode in <game>? Just resist the temptation to load when you die!"

A middle way to this would be to lower the chance involved in skills, but not remove it. For example, a character with lockpicking skill 4 randomly produces a value in the range 2-6, so he can pick locks with difficulty level 6 after a few tries, but can still never pick a lock of difficulty 8. I don't know how you define lock difficulty, etc, but you get the point.

Concerning BasiliskWranglers argument that it's unrealistic and not fun if an unskilled person cannot succeed picking a difficult lock, I have to disagree. To me, it's more fun to know that when I upgrade a skill, it does something meaningful (instead of saving me a few reloads, or a hand axe for that matter), than knowing that I can pick that super lock with my lockpicking=1 if I just try long enough. With everything based on chance only, things get lost in the numbers. For combat, the chance thing works, as b0rsuk pointed out, because in combat there are so many actions that are chained, and all are based on chance. There, increasing a chance by 5% can be meaningful. Finally, about realism. I find it quite uninteresting whether something is realistic or not. As long as it's not ridiculous, f*ck realism.

ADDED: I felt compelled to comment realmzmasters reasoning about luck. While I agree with you, providing the player with limitless save/load defeats the purpose of in game luck, doesn't it? (except in combat, simply because there, save/load isn't limitless)

[Kreador Freeaxe]

Renkin,

Even in Book I, there are doors that you need to have pretty decent lockpicking skills to even have a shot at opening, most particularly Lilith's little side room. Until I have over 5 skill in lockpicking, my chance to pick it is 0, and it goes up very slowly from there.

Of course, I'd have to disagree with Realmzmaster's odds of the poker pro beating the amateur, but then I live in Vegas and I know a lot of broke professional poker players. It's a game of finding alternatives, not necessarily winning every hand. That's what I like about Eschalon, it's got a lot of alternatives. You can bull your way through, or you can magick your way through, or you can sneak your way through, or you can combine elements as the need arises.

It would be nice in Book II if BW and crew made some of the challenge game ideas as choices at the start, such as "strict" gameplay-no save/reload to retry stuff, just save and exit, so you always come back where you left off (as many of us do need to work and sleep in between playing). That would allow those people who don't like the save/load abuse to play without the temptation, and those who don't care, or who like to try out different dialogue trees to see what they do, or whatever, to play the way they want. I don't know from a programming standpoint how difficult that would be, but it would stop some of the argument here.

[realmzmaster]

Renkin said,

ADDED: I felt compelled to comment realmzmasters reasoning about luck. While I agree with you, providing the player with limitless save/load defeats the purpose of in game luck, doesn't it? (except in combat, simply because there, save/load isn't limitless)

Actually , providing the player with unlimited save/loads does not defeat the purpose. The only event that changes is the number of tries the player gets to attempt. The luck factor does not change it simply bows to the law of averages.

For example, I have a 25% chance of picking a lock. I try and I fail. I reload the save and try again. I still have only a 1 in 4 chance of picking the lock. I can still fail. Eventually, I will succeed according to the law of averages but it can take a very long or very short time. I could retry 200 times and still fail. Each attempt still only has a 25% chance of success. If I have a 1 in 100 chance of picking the lock I would have to be extremely lucky, because I should only be successful once every hundred times. But, I could be successful on the first attempt. That is what luck is all about.

The same applies to any one betting on a slot machine. The percentage for each individual spin do not change. But, the more attempts I make the more likely I am to win, as long as my money holds out.

Yes, you are right Kreador Freeaxe, there are a lot of broke professional poker players, but that is because they ran up against to many beginner's having a lucky streak Lady Luck can be a cruel mistress.

[jhorto1]

renkin quote
"I agree. When you can save/load at any point, skills based so much on chance can be exploited, and even though you could say I should just "resist the temptation" to re-roll or abuse (and I do, btw), I don't think the game mechanics should allow easy abuse like that. It's a bit like saying "why do you need a hardcore mode in <game> Just resist the temptation to load when you die!"

If a player can resist the temptation to save/load, why does it bother you that other people are permitted to do it?
I couldn't care less how anyone else plays the game. As long as they are getting enjoyment out of it, it's fine.

I say if you don't want to re-load, don't.
However, obviously some people do.

Why take away player's options and force them to play your way?

P.S. - Sorry for my poor use of the quote button.

[renkin]

renkin quote
"I agree. When you can save/load at any point, skills based so much on chance can be exploited, and even though you could say I should just "resist the temptation" to re-roll or abuse (and I do, btw), I don't think the game mechanics should allow easy abuse like that. It's a bit like saying "why do you need a hardcore mode in <game> Just resist the temptation to load when you die!"

If a player can resist the temptation to save/load, why does it bother you that other people are permitted to do it?
I couldn't care less how anyone else plays the game. As long as they are getting enjoyment out of it, it's fine.

I say if you don't want to re-load, don't.
However, obviously some people do.

Why take away player's options and force them to play your way?

P.S. - Sorry for my poor use of the quote button.

Good point. I just think the game would feel more robust if I'm allowed to use all of the implemented mechanics without feeling like I'm cheating. Re-rolling isn't a cheat after all, it's loading the game. Honestly, though, when I started debating this (in another thread), I didn't think anyone would want the chest re-rolling to stay in the game (and BW already said they're removing it anyway, so I'm satisfied in that area). I see your point, though. Maybe having two modes - like how there's a normal and hardcore mode in some games - is a good solution?