Baldur's Gate : The Sword Coast Chronicles : NWN2 Persistent World

Exactly what the title says. When you find the, for example 'Chauntea's Yellow Beard', is it all programmed into loot tables, or does it randomize items?

Chests draw from the pre-set loot tables. Creatures/bosses and certain placeables (eg. skeletal remains, corpses, some crates) utilise the random-gen system, creating items with random names and stats (including negative stats/cursed items). Higher level monsters/areas have a greater chance of dropping better random gen equipment.

Essentially it is as Tsidkenu writes.

The random generator and loot table are both set up to drop items when you trigger chests or kill monsters. Precisely what drops is based on how it's prioritized in the loot generators, so that common items (steins, rags, ugh!) are something nearly everyone collects on a loot run, where super epic items maybe have a 0.025% drop rate and some will only see one or two their whole careers (if they're so lucky).

The random generator is a little unusual, in particular, in that it will sometimes create extremely powerful random items that not even the DMs can replicate.

Of course the opposite is also true. It will occasionally churn out an item so incredibly useless or dumb that you're left to scratch your head, wondering if the dragon you just killed hoarded only the junk items the bigger and stronger dragons left behind in the burning wreckage of their caravan raids.

Well as we all know there is no such thing as truly random on a computer. It is all up to RNGesus and many have noted that the system consistently pops two identical items out frequently in different chests across the server. So while you pull a "+3 flame long sword" out of a chest in the UD it is possible and even somewhat probable someone will just happen to pull a "+3 flame longsword" out of a chest on the surface. I noticed this because often enough I will find that sword put up at the auction within 30 minutes of me finding one. When I PM the seller they confirm they found it 30ish minutes ago.

I digress. The point is go worship this guy

But random in this game isn't really random. If it would use the clock of a computer, that would change a bit. But as it stands now, it gets interesting if you roll many dice. That is why you get sometimes many crits in a row. Or very low rolls.

I imagine it is totally random (as possible) but there is something that is "working as intended" as my programmer friends say. Maybe multiple people can loot something on the same random "tick" that perhaps occurs once a second or something. That isn't to say it works like that but I am like 99% sure something causes the same item to pop up twice at once.

The randomness is formulaic (computer generated, after all).
It draws a number based on the time, your location, etc..

I've seen that it rolls the same numbers, often, if you have multiple rolls the same second.
And sometimes for the same round.
It gets more random after a round.

I don't think there's anything we can do to offset that.
At least not in a pretty fashion.

If its terribly annoying to a lot of people then I can make it more random than it currently is by preventing it from feeding you the same number twice. But having double numbers, sometimes, is part of randomness.

So if you REALLY want good stuff, you go to the highest level dungeon and spend a few days killing the mobs.

No you spend a few years killing stuff / looting chests. If you want epics that is.

ctothep wrote:No you spend a few years killing stuff / looting chests. If you want epics that is.

^depressing

It is safe to say that after observing the changes of the loot system, the random loot gen system needs some work.

increasing the percentages of dropping good items.

mrm3ntalist wrote:It is safe to say that after observing the changes of the loot system, the random loot gen system needs some work.

increasing the percentages of dropping good items.

I agree.

Doable. Recruiting a couple more devs. One of them can probably take a look at the loot randomizer once they've gotten acclimated to things staff side.

As long as it doesn't suddenly start churning out mithral full plates like they're going out of style.

i'd like to see that. years to "gear up" is a bit much

we do have crafting coming, which will help a bit

the limits of items are set. no more than 4 ac on an item. 4 eb. 3 str. etc. getting geared up a bit more quickly wont break anything. the mobs are balanced vs item limits, class limits, ward limits

if there is fear of folks getting bored because they have no more items to look forward to..i just don't feel that is the case. people come here, stay here, come back here, for the rp, setting, dm events. in contrast, a few do leave on occasion, from getting frustrated on trying to gear up

Blame The Rogue wrote:i'd like to see that. years to "gear up" is a bit much

we do have crafting coming, which will help a bit

the limits of items are set. no more than 4 ac on an item. 4 eb. 3 str. etc. getting geared up a bit more quickly wont break anything. the mobs are balanced vs item limits, class limits, ward limits

if there is fear of folks getting bored because they have no more items to look forward to..i just don't feel that is the case. people come here, stay here, come back here, for the rp, setting, dm events. in contrast, a few do leave on occasion, from getting frustrated on trying to gear up

I have actually quit playing a majority of my characters because of lack of gearing up. I have decided to switch my focus to RP and Gear you can buy from merchants.. because lets face it, unless your a vet sitting on a pile of items for trading, you aren't going to be epic geared.