i liked how morrowind had some pretty good loot that you could find if you poked around. the downside was that once you played the game a couple of times you knew where to get everything. i would like to see a system where each time you started a new game all the unique items would be placed in different spots so that you wouldnt always find the same sword in the same cave every game. i think this would dramatically improve replay value since you would actually have a reason to visit areas that you previously didnt find anything because this time might be different.

This is a pretty good idea.
There could be spots in dungeons where some nice loot appears, like a niche, an altar etc. Only different loot each time, or maybe none.
As long as it is set at the beginning of the game and not once you enter the dungeon, otherwise its gonna be a save/ reload fest.

I agree, thats the only issue I have with hand placed loot in games. after I go through the game once or twice, ik where every item I want is. so long as MQ specific items (keening, sunder, wraithguard ect) aren't randomly thrown about, Cuz that could cause some issues with npc dialog, or even there items going to a dungeon thats not difficult enough for what you're getting.

This does sound like a good idea, so long as they have stuff that can only be exchanged in dungeons of similar difficulty.

Radiant Story will take care of that for some quests, but probably not all quests. Most definitely not for bigger quests that must be related to a specific dungeon due to design and such.
For unique items that are non-quest related, I don't think anything will take care of it.

I agree that it's a really good idea, if they can be put on good places each time.

Since I'm playing Final Fantasy 12 right now, I can't help but notice the similarity:


with that.
FF12 has items that might be X, Y, Z, or empty.
Of course, FF lets you save/reload to get what you want. If TES could take that system and perfect it, it would be ideal.

Ultima Underworld 2 (from the early 1990s) did this: some of the unique or just rare items could appear in several places, or might not appear at all, based on your choices during character creation and/or a random seed. This also meant that you couldn't just reload an area to try to get something to spawn - the die was already cast, so to speak.

For example, there was a unique leather cap that provided 100% fire resistance in the sewers beneath the castle, but there were three different places within those sewers that it might show up - and there was a chance that it wouldn't appear at all - in each game.

One of the magical runes (Mani) that was otherwise-absent from the early game would show up in your storeroom if your character had chosen Casting and Mana as 'class skills' during character creation. While Skyrim won't have class skills, as I understand it, the principle could still be applied in other ways. (You relied most heavily on means X to complete the intro sequence, therefore item Y will appear in location Z...)

It would be easy to overdo this, but even a few items being randomized in this way would help to address the 'perfect loot path' issue that we saw in Morrowind.

I'm not sure about this, dear fellows. While I agree it adds to replayability, it reduces the dungeon to finding that one item and it's cut loose from any context. It'd be nicer if each unique item had a connection to the dungeon and events that happened in the general area. I prefer really strong stories embodied by multiple clues in dungeons and that stuff can't be randomized. Does anyone comprehend where I'm going and realize this?

Yes, and that's why I said that the devs would have to be careful not to overdo it if they were using an idea like this.

If you're (with apologies to Absurd Notions) heading into the caverns that are known to hold the legendary Rock of Rama-Lama, you'd better find it in there, or if not, a plausible explanation for why it isn't there anymore.

On the other hand, not every unique or unusual item has to have a specific association with a dungeon or other location. Considering how many of Tamriel's legendary items have a habit of showing up and disappearing on a whim (theirs or someone else's), it wouldn't be strange if Azura's Star could turn up in one of several places rather than only at one specific site (or just not happen to be in Skyrim at all during these events).

Again, as long as it's not overdone, it could even give the player a reason to explore locations that they'd otherwise have no reason to visit: if there are three different dungeons that the fireproof cap can spawn in, you've potentially got three different places to explore before you find it. Considering how many of the caves/forts/ruins/etc in Oblivion and Morrowind were otherwise-inconsequential, assigning several one-of-three-locations items to their Skyrim equivalents would give the player a reason to visit those places. Sure, only some of them will turn out to have one of those special items, but since you won't know in advance which ones they'll be...

The best way to implement random items is to have a pool of unique, powerful items, which are spawned in certain containers randomly via Radiant Story.

For example: most chests will have a standard loot table to draw from, and a small chance of drawing from a unique item table (specific stats of the items being customized based on information saved by Radiant Story). Important chests (chests in the final room of a dungeon, locked chests in the houses of rich NPCs, etc etc) will have a higher chance of drawing from a unique item table.

Unique item tables could include several different types of items (blade, axe, one-handed, two handed, bows, ammunition, spells) which would then be chosen based on skills and perks, and whose specific stats would be set by your in-game behavior (a character with a high proportion of sneak attack kills would get a dagger, or other sneak based weapon, and the higher your skill level, the better the weapon etc etc).

Furthermore, conforming the type of unique weapon received as a quest reward to your play-style seems very feasible in Skyrim. If Radiant Story can create random quests and enemies based on your play style, I'm sure it can change the type of weapon awarded and its stats based on play-style. it doesn't seem impossible to give bosses a high one-handed sword specialization if the player is meant to loot their weapon and has a similar specialization.

I already suggested this idea in the Fan interview some weeks back, essentially because Raidiant story can control NPC's and Locations why not do the same for Unique weapons

did you get a response? from what other people have described from much older games its been in practice before. id love to know the reason why they stopped with it cause maybe there is some negative gameplay element that im not considering.

I'm unsure why it was no longer practiced, maybe lack of foresight since this method could be applied even to morrowind with a little work, consistency? maybe, maybe not. I endorse the idea since not only will it keep things fresh and give a reprieve to going through a 3 level dungeon and opening a very hardlock chest only to find a iron sword, but it will also keep the stupidity that was Morrowinds complaint "I went straight to Ruin X so that I could find this legendary weapon Y and thus the entire game is easy" out of Skyrim...atleast..


hopefully there will be a response it was a thread set up by Beth for the Devs to answer questions