I'm kinda mad so many games are going the "randomly generated" route for what they're doing. I'm not talking about triple A of course, mostly smaller devs doing interesting projects. They all seem really talented, some are making Fallout inspired CRPGs, another is basically making the first interesting fps I've seen in a while, but both will have randomly generated shit.
It just feels like such a cheap way not to make content. Am I alone in this? Anybody here a big fan of randomly generated stuff?
Cutie for attention
Nolan Lee
Maybe if she closed her mouth.
Christopher Davis
No, I hate it too. I drop every game I think looks interesting if it has procedural generation or 'roguelike elements'.
Gabriel Morris
Randomly generated content at least attempts to address replayability which is all but dead in today's climate of overly-linear, overly-scripted & cutscene-heavy "cinematic" trash.
qts in return
Charles Gonzalez
Not that I disagree with you on the use of randomly generated content, but damn, dude.
Sebastian Brown
I hate the random shit 90% of the time too. Sometimes it's done well and I don't mind, but goddamn am I sick of devs using random gen as a crux to avoid actually designing levels and creating fun and interesting weapons and putting them in risky places that reward exploration and puzzle solving. I'll take a handful of well-designed dungeons and a few crafted weapons over "infinite replayability" via the "roguelike" cop-out any day.
Hunter Allen
What about The Binding of Isaac? With the way the game works, it would be awful if each floor was pre-made, because there wouldn't be even a quarter of the power-ups and either the later bosses would be piss-easy or 30-minute grinds, and it would be a chore to replay from the start. Some games it might be a cop-out. Others need it.
Isaac Cooper
It addresses it with shallow, repetitive content because they either go for aesthetic variety, and sacrifice substance, or everything just ends up looking and feeling the same, even when it is a bit different.
Adding complexity seems to be beyond lazy developers these days. Minecraft's world generation has consistently gotten worse every time it's been revamped, but all anyone does to fix it is add more biomes. Meanwhile, Dwarf Fortress has _actual_ replayability, and it does a simulation of a world, including mountains, rivers, erosion, etc.
Most of the randomness is just lazy development, though. Why make a thousand items with individual stats, and place them in the perfect place, when you can randomly generate all of it and sell your game as a "roguelight", because "le rogue randomly generated is nearly impossible and infinitely replayable" meme. People will pay more money for you to do less work.
Gaming is screwed because any time someone suggests bringing back good mechanics, depth, and effort, the casuals throw an autistic fit about it and demand more watered-down games to cater to their interests. Then, it becomes economically viable to bring something classic back, so a big developer will do it, and the casuals will be there to praise them for "renewing a classic", like they appreciated it before the marketing push.
Randomly-generated simulation worlds can be amazing, but you need a competent developer to actually put effort into it. A well-made random game probably takes more time and effort than a hand-made one, not less.
