Don't spoil our joy

[ChillPlayer]

Could you please make it so that rare containers and bodies who do not always spawn contain at least anything, preferable something more valuable than a candy bar? Same goes for locked containers like lockers or trunks. I think it's enough to make them randomly appear or not but if they get spawned, reward the player for finding it. This would increase the joy of finding something and reduce the anger about another empty rare container. They are already rare, so why should they get spawned in the first place if they are empty?

[Myshaak]

I think what you are saying is quite contradictory. On one hand, you want the player feel rewarded when he/she finds something cool, on the other you want to enforce less randomness to loot spawn. What you are suggesting is fine for the first few "lives," but once you understand the terrain you simply do the "early game runs" because the "rare" containers, as you call them, stop being rare the first time you find them.

The best example is the rifle.There are (as far as I remember as I haven't played in a while) three places to find a rifle in Mystery lake and one in Coastal Highway. It was cool when I first found the rifle, now I just check all the spawn points in quick succession.

PS: I have not used any maps, I drew my own and discovered all rifle spawns myself. They are quite obvious except for the one on Coastal Highway, which is very well marked anyway.

[ChillPlayer]

Actually there are 6 different rifle spawn points I know of in ML:

[spoil]Trapper's, Lookout, Office, Dam, Lone Cabin, Derailment, Lake Trail[/spoil]

And at least three in CH:

[spoil]body under the bridge near the crossing to Ravine, car near Commuter's Lament and some other corps near the Tooth IIRC[/spoil]

But that's not the point of the post. I'm speaking about containers like the 0-2 metal crates that can spawn near Tunnel Collapse, or the one under the bed in Trapper's, the various cars in CH with some locked trunks and also the safe as opeth correctly pointed out - although it's there all the time you have to put some effort into cracking it, hence it should contain more than just a flare. Except for the safe this are containers that you see only every 4-5 games. I think this is random enough so why not guarantee a valuable loot in there?

Speaking about RNG, too much randomness is what is hurting the game experience right now a bit and should be tweaked in my opinion so it is still random but within some borders. I mean it really is no fun to find in 3 out of 4 lake side cabins a pair of basic gloves and nothing much else.

There should be some rule sets, something along this way (don't take the numbers literal):

1. all items get rated by a dev from say 1-5, 5 being the best.

2. rare containers contain at least 1-3 items of at least class 3. it should also be guaranteed that at least say 3 rare containers are spawned per map.

3. each area has a finite ammount of spawn points and the engine should guarantee that no more than 20% of those spawn points can be occupied by the same item.

A rather simple adjustment to the loot generating process that would still preserve randomness without being so random that you end up in games with 12 can openers but only 2 sewing kits.

[White Fang]

+1; totally agree on the sadness of empty (or might as well be) rare containers. And another +1 on randomness in general. As an example, on my current play I found two sewing kits in all of ML before moving onwards to CH. In a single house I found no less than 5 sewing kits and I still have plenty more places to hit in CH before I hunker down.

[Myshaak]

snip

I get your point, I only mentioned the rifle as an example of what decreased randomness could do.

I like your idea of "controlled randomness," that's also how things are done in DayZ, but I cannot get behind the idea of increasing spawn chance for rare items in special containers, although it's nice and common in classic RPG games.

[calicokat]

Maybe think of it this way: You're lost in the woods. You're freezing. You're starving. You unexpectedly see the body of a traveler who's come before you.

You're now freezing, starving, and, something the old you might never do, rifling somebody's corpse.

What I mean is, it's an atmospheric element of the game.

I personally feel like there's already plenty of loot spawn points? Choosing whether or not to go after a body is a risk/reward decision that sometimes boils down to appreciating the atmosphere of ravens circling the dead because there's no guarantee there's going to be anything if I make it past those three wolves in between me and the body and I'm already headed somewhere I see a higher chance of reward at.

tl;dr: I think the not knowing what's going to be at loot spawn points is more broadly a big part of game balance, but also that "YAY, A BODY" isn't quite what they're going for.

[ChillPlayer]

Well after 50+ new games player tend to notice which containers are always there and which are only spawned sometimes. I'm only speaking about the latter. The game engine made already the decision to spawn a rare container, for some reason though the engine doesn't care about what this rare container has inside, if anything at all.

"Yey the create is there, bummer it's empty again..." - this is a thought I have very often when I play the game, though my mind choses more offensive words

[Lux]

You can't do this or seasoned players will, on a new game start, check all places for rifle, check all special loot spawns.

Wow...yeah...that sounds like fun survival and stuff... or not.

[ChillPlayer]

That's already happening. Not for containers, them I take just along the way as they come, but on day 1 I either have the rifle or it's in the dam and then I hit esc reload.

Besides I'm not talking about putting ammo boxes in all rare containers, just anything would suffice. Maybe I need it when I find it or maybe I don't because I have already plenty of "it", but at least there's something inside.

[Lux]

Playing on Stalker, mostly everything is empty. As long as they don't change that, they can do whatever they want with Voyageur and Pilgrim. Random chance to spawn stuff in every container is more realistic. Sure, some containers have more of a chance to spawn certain items, BUT, if thAt particular stuff goes through the algorithms and doesn't spawn wouldn't you rather have a chance at sOMething? Like a candy bar? I would. I like the system as it is now.

[swissheart]

i always find it disappointing when i have to force open a locker and then it ends up being empty. who locks an empty locker?

[PolarBear70]

Well, I always consider any container I open has things in it, just not stuff I can use. Otherwise, why does it take so long to rummage through an empty locker? I'm just imagining opening up a locked locker only to find someone's prized kewpie doll collection or their collection of their favorite DVDs. Important enough for them to lock up... not terribly useful for you. :lol:

[swissheart]

well maybe i need a kewpie doll.. it will be the closest thing to another human being at this point

hmm do those burn well?

i ll think of this next time i open an empty locker