Reshuffle the Loot or Bluelight Special on M1911 rounds.

[bazbake 456]

Currently, loot is generated at a few high-value areas and several low-value areas. When I first played Chernarus, I was amazed at how intuitive much of it felt. But over time I realized that it was designed increasingly around a few loot hotspots.

What was originally just random exploration to see what I could get up to and then stumbling across something incredible (this has been made more likely by helicopter crashes, God bless them), for the most part became a search to find a particular item in a particualr area. And sometimes this doesn't make much sense.

So, a couple of humble suggestions.

1. Spread the loot and vehicle spawns out while lowering their chance for appearing. For instance, instead of a 5% chance of a vehicle appearing in three places, make it a 1% chance of appearing in 15 places. That way it's less likely a team will anticipate vehicle spawns.
   
2. Tie loot closer to hot zones while increasing the number of loot areas and decreasing the chance of loot spawning. For instance, I currently find Alice packs in supermarkets. Wouldn't this be a place to primarily find canned food, soda, matches, maybe a map or hunting knife? Maybe a flashlight? It feels more like an arbitrary loot distribution area than an actual supermarket.
   

To emphasize number two, what if there were more loot areas scattered all across the map, even in places you wouldn't expect to find people? For instance, old camping sites are likely to have tents, matches, hatchets, backpacks, and compasses along with firewood but they won't be anywhere near civilization. There are plenty of park benches and natural landmarks with signs beside them showing how cool they are but nothing spawns there even though they would probably be well-trafficked areas.

I'm not saying a high chance of loot spawning. I'm more saying a very low chance of loot spawning anywhere but tons of places where loot spawns and tying it directly to the type of loot it is.

I shouldn't stumble across an army backpack in a supermarket. A can of sardines, naturally.

I should sometimes find a map in the gas station. I should sometimes find a czech backpack or compass or water bottle in the middle of the forest.

The exception to this, of course is loot that is extremely common. Watches on corpses and in houses. Even gun ammo in places you wouldn't expect it.

Generally, a feeling of "wow, I didn't expect to see that here...but it makes sense that it's here" seems more natural than the current AKM clip hiding in a hospital or a bluelight special in Aisle 2 on morphine injectors and makarovs.

Also, more loot spawns means more random places for zombies to appear. (Maybe the further from civilization, the smaller the chance of loot/zombies spawning).

Edited August 12, 2012 by BazBake