Loot and luck
Learning paths through this topic
Give a chance of extra items in a drop without runaway piles
Herbs, arrows or gems that sometimes drop in twos or threes make gathering exciting, but each bonus that can trigger another bonus can run away, and a luck boost can make it silly. This entry shows how the count behaves, how to cap it, and what players really get on average.
Scale a boss reward with the number of fighters so a crowd is not punished
When more players join a fight, the monster gets tougher, but if the prize stays the same, each person gets less and nobody invites friends. If the prize grows in step, the crowd farms faster than a lone player. The right growth sits between the two, and it needs a ceiling.
Work out how much meat a carcass gives for the animal, the tool and the wait
Skinning a deer with bare hands should be messier than with a good knife, a rabbit should not give as much as a boar, and a carcass left in the sun should be worth less every minute. All of this multiplies, and doing it in the wrong order or with decimals gives odd amounts.
Let what you can catch depend on time of day, weather and skill
A fishing spot that gives the same catch at noon and at midnight feels dead. Adding conditions is easy to do badly: a spot can end up with nothing to give, or the odds shown no longer match what the player can really get. This entry keeps both honest.
Make a chest hold the same items every time the game is reloaded
A player opens a chest, sees a rare sword, quits without saving and reloads, and the chest now holds a stick. Rolling again on every open invites reload cheating and bug reports. This entry fixes the contents from the world and the chest itself.
Refill a looted chest after a while, but never in front of the player
Chests that fill themselves again keep a world alive, yet a chest that pops back full while you stand next to it feels like a glitch, and one that refills after a clock change feels like a cheat. This entry shows when a refill may happen and what the new contents depend on.
Show whether new gear is better when it replaces two items at once
The little green arrow beside a new weapon is only right if it compares the whole outfit before and after. A big two-handed weapon looks like a gain until you notice it throws away the shield. This entry works out the real change for every stat.
Stop a double click from looting the same corpse twice
Two quick clicks, two players at once, or a full bag at the wrong moment can make an item appear twice or vanish. This entry decides who gets a corpse's item, when it counts as taken, and what happens when there is no room.
Let wild plants ripen and rot on their own time without a timer on every plant
A world with thousands of berry bushes cannot afford to update each one every moment, and the player expects them to have grown while they were away. The state can be worked out when someone looks. But a change in growth speed in the middle needs care, or the plant jumps.
Fill a dangerous room with loot worth exactly what the danger deserves
A room with three armed guards and a room with a sleeping rat should not hold the same reward. Giving each room a spending allowance is easy, but filling it naively spends everything on one huge item, or loops while hunting for something small enough. Here is a way that always ends.
Decide what a player keeps and what lies on the corpse after death
Losing everything on death feels brutal, losing nothing makes dying meaningless. A middle path lets the player save a few stacks, but choosing which ones is harder than it sounds, and the wrong rule lets people hide their treasure behind a pile of junk.
Keep the number of items lying on the ground in check without losing treasures
After a long fight a level can be covered in loot, and the game slows down or the player cannot tell what is worth taking. Removing items to keep the floor tidy is easy; removing the wrong ones, or one that just appeared, is what players remember. This entry chooses what goes.