More randomness = more replay value

[Susramanian]

Today I got my first berserker winner. It was great fun, except for a few things. I'll put each in a separate post, as they're quite unrelated.

The first thing is randomness. T4 needs more of it. The reason I'm not playing T4 this very minute after waiting and waiting for beta 13 to come out is that I know too well how the game's going to play out. I know where the bosses are, I know what they're going to do, and, most importantly, I know what they're going to drop. Randomizing the bosses doesn't seem like a great idea, but I wholeheartly believe that randomized loot from bosses (with maybe a very few exceptions) is the way to go. The current system causes these problems:

1) Having lots of fixed artifacts means that it's difficult to implement world artifacts. Take, for example, the problems caused by an early, guaranteed Ringil. This has already been discussed quite a bit.

2) Lack of replay value. I want to want to play ToME again (if that makes any sense), but the sameness of each playthrough is currently making writing this more fun.

3) Players can pick and choose which dungeons they want to explore based on what drops at the end. While there's nothing inherently wrong with this, the ideal situation would be players wanting to do everything they can and go every place they can, 'cause you just never know. I guess what I'm saying here is that I find that having fixed drops leads to ugly metagaming:

p: "The Shade of Angmar's icy evilness is leaking out of the tower of Amon Sul! Please, hero, you must save us!"

@: "Nah. He only drops caster junk."

4) All balancing, boss tuning, and general game design must be done under the assumption that all players will have the fixed artifacts. For example, the existance of an artifact that causes any monster who hits you to get knocked back will inevitably lead to melee bosses all having knockback immunity. This devalues all sorts of cool talents and strategies that involve knockbacks. But if they're not knockback-immune, the existance of this artifact means that any player can trivialize the encounter.

Possible solutions:

1) The simplest solution is to just pile all artifacts into the world artifact pool and have bosses drop a random world artifact. Unfortunately, this comes with problems. You don't want Bill dropping some high level artifact that will either be impossible for the character to wield for another 20 levels or game-breaking if wielded at early levels. You'd have to make the drops somewhat level appropriate, which could be tricky. What if there are no available artifacts of the appropriate level? Does the boss drop nothing?

2) I feel a better solution would be to implement random artifacts (not random selection of world artifacts). Unlink all current artifacts from their respective bosses and add them to the world artifact pool, then make each boss drop a level-appropriate random artifact instead. Exceptions could be made, of course. The Sandworm Queen should always drop her heart, for example, and possibly a random artifact too. The Sandworm lair is dangerous enough to warrant the bonus drop. This would solve all four problems I mentioned above, and doesn't have any of the awkwardness of solution 1.

A final note while I'm on the subject of randomness: make the stat bonus values for ego cloaks variable. It drives me nuts that every cloak of the Lonely Mountain I find, whether in the Trollshaws or the High Peak, gives 2 Strength and 2 Con. Bleh.

[teachu2die]

im with you 100% on all these issues. the regularity of the fixed artifacts has been a concern for about 4-5 betas. even the replay value of tome 2/theme was diminished by the power of the guaranteed artifacts and the somewhat predictable game course. and the situation here is far more extreme.
i am in favor of solution #2 - or perhaps a modified version wherein bosses have a fair probability of dropping 'their' artifact (maybe 20-50%, depending on the artifact) - if not, they drop a randart (or an out-of-depth high-powered ego).
however, from what i can discern throughout the course of development is a decided push away from randomness in tome 4 - which is fine, as many players prefer a more predictable game course.
what i'm hoping for is some modules with a much more unpredictable game course (i have zero coding skills, otherwise i'd probably already be at work on that...).

oh, one quick note - the addition of the escort quests now causes me to complete every dungeon that im capable of.

[darkgod]

Na I'm not at all against randomness
I want to find a good way to do it that's all.

And I do agree with you on the issue yes. I'll probably make them use their own artifact but not always drop it, if they dont drop it then it can drop somewhere else.

[Gwai]

and if Bill had even decent chances of dropping a randart, my rogues etc. might be more likely to go after him , for instance.

[Zonk]

I'll probably make them use their own artifact but not always drop it, if they dont drop it then it can drop somewhere else.

Personally I'm a fan of guaranteed artifacts from bosses, but if you implement this...DO remember the last part('it can drop somewhere else').

If you want randomness, here's another idea though: what about having some semi-random dungeons placed on the map, with a semi-random boss(generated according to class templates)with a randart/artifact?
Say a random wizard unique would have a tower, a bandit lord some kind of cove, and so on...

[teachu2die]

random dungeons would definitely be cool.
one of the great things about the tome environment compared to most traditional roguelikes is that it has the potential to feel like a "living, breathing" world... anything to increase the 'organic' feel of things is good, imo - random dungeons, random encounters (from packs of monsters to wandering merchants), and random quests all can add a lot to both gameplay and atmosphere.

[raithe]

Definitely agree. I have a stack of great classic rpgs, (eg original fallout) the reason I don't play them much? I know where everything is. Fallout 2 was challenging till you played through once and discovered all you had to do was zip down the coast to 'Frisco and nab a bozar from the merchant. I've noticed T4 has that feel which, to me, is very un-roguelike.

I like the idea the idea of a boss having x% to drop it's artifact, if not it goes in the general pool. However you still need to make sure that once that first drop is done, the chance to drop said artifact is removed from that boss for the rest of that game. Otherwise it's still more probable to just re-run the boss till it drops, rather than hunt it.

Also the dungeons popping up in A-B-C order kind of creates that feel as well. Since most things seem to scale or be capable of scaling it might be better to leave the world open but have random plot bits acquired in each dungeon, that link together regardless of order. The classic roguelike method for this is needing x pieces of the shattered wosname to destroy the evil foozle. Then you just hunt them in the order that suits the character type since certain classes have an easier time with certain area and enemy types, if the levels scale to the player then the number factor of HP etc becomes moot.

[darkgod]

I am not sure what you mean, once a boss dropped it stays dead

[raithe]

Oh yeah it does doesn't it. Sorry that whole too many different games in too close a timeframe thing.

[darkgod]

I have now made most bosses have only a chance to drop their own artifact.
If they do not drop it then it will be added to the pool of world artifacts (this means it can not be randomly found before the boss is killed) and a random artifact from the pool is selected (until, or in addition to, the randart feature).

I could make it droppable before the boss is killed but I am unsure, still pondering

[darkgod]

Ok I made them droppable no matter what.
If they have dropped already when the boss is generated it will cheat and still use it but force a different drop

[Susramanian]

That's awesome. Thanks, Darkgod. Out of curiosity, what's your plan for random artifacts? If they're a long way down on your list of things to do, I certainly understand. But if you're looking for community ideas, I'd be happy to speed the process up by thinking hard

[darkgod]

Well i suppose I'll assign points to various properties, then take a base object, give it a name, get a power level base on its type of the power I need and start picking properties.
Some propertie's could maybe be grouped into "affinity" groups so that randarts are a bit themed