Ozymandias wrote:Nice picture o_o
I don't think that powerful weapons should be in random drops. All randomized stuff should be common items at least. That way in order to get the really good stuff you have to do something amazing not do the same thing 5 million times until you get something good.
I agree with squirrel, because you need to have random weapon and item drops, unless you want to force the level designer to equip and stylize every single enemy in the game, you have to have random drops happen.
Your problem was that people might spend hours grinding a mountain pass trying to get a magic sword. Well then the answer is simple, and Ozymandias said it, there is no magic sword in that mountain pass. In fact, there is no magic sword in any mountain pass or random loot drop, these items must be acquired at unique events and places.
Healing herbs don't have to be totally magical. They could just happen to have the properties of an anti-bacterial and will help Turner heal quicker over the course of a long period of time. Like in Mount and Blade, there's a first-aid, and wounds treatment skill but that doesn't mean you'll be calling for a medic and he'll patch you up right then and there in the middle of combat and you'll gain health, he'll only stitch you up after the battle because this will allow you to heal quicker and with less scarring in the long run, but it wouldn't be useful in combat.
I don't know what kind of economies David will be planning, but I wouldn't mind having currency. It could be like burn and turn cash. In the movie The Boondock Saints, the characters acquired money off of some dead guys to buy a bunch of guns and equipment like pistols, and some rope, then they quickly used them to kill a bunch of guys and found out the dead guys had a big suit case with money so they stole it and bought more stuff. This money wasn't what kept them going and caused them to kill people, they could kill people without the money and they weren't trying to blatantly rob people for it it just happened to be there so they took it. They didn't have unlimited money and they weren't saving up for some huge mansion or an awesome gatling gun or car, but they had enough money to be able to buy what they needed. This didn't make them invincible and care free.
I think this would be a cool concept for Overgrowth. Money shouldn't be a problem because any weapon you need can be taken from an enemy. This is just something that Turner doesn't worry about. Enemies will have money on them and you can take it, so if you go to a bar or an inn there should be no question if you can afford it or not, you will have enough or you won't and you'll sleep outside because you chose to. If you want to buy a spear, you just trade in your sword and a reasonable amount of money you should have acquired and buy it. It shouldn't have to cost a ridicules amount and force you to sell a hundred swords at 10% their value to buy a weapon, because you could easily take one from an enemy, and for the weapons trader, a sword and some incentive cash for a spear is a good trade. I want the enemies to have a reasonable amount of cash on them to make currency not a problem for Turner for him to buy whatever basic equipment he needs, because realistically speaking, killing people is going to give you everything they own and that's going to be a lot for you to be able to do this and live like the Boondock Saints and not care about money because it's not important for someone who doesn't care about buying a fancy house and providing for a family.
Like the mentality for ammunition in Call of Duty 4, instead of hiding ammo from you, they just gave enemies whatever they would have in real life, like 6 clips of ammo so you would never run out, but ammo was still a factor you had to worry about, it just wasn't the whole point of the game like it was in say, Return to Castle Wolfenstein where only certain enemies would drop their ammo and it would only be like 6 bullets. Though they themselves would have infinite ammo.