Wednesday, 19th March 2014, 12:50 by BobIsDead
I've never noticed problems with unique spawn rates before, at least, not overall. I have had some pretty nasty experiences where I've come across three or four uniques on a single level before which, in my mind, is more of an issue than too many uniques per game. I can recall fleeing Azrael only to come across Mara or somebody and successfully evading her only to get pounced on, weak and low on fleeing stuff, by Arachne.
As for story elements versus boss fights, I tend to see unique monsters as... well... monsters, so probably err on the side of boss fight. That said, they're an excellent source of flavour and lore. Having an out-of-depth monster offering the same challenge and the same reward just wouldn't be the same. The tougher ones feel a lot like milestones (again, like bosses, I suppose) whilst the weaker ones are still fun and familiar and there's still the sense of accomplishment in overcoming them.
With regards to rewards for overcoming them quickly, I could get behind this. Mainly because I think uniques lose their threat a little if you know you can just go down a couple of levels, power up, then come up and mop the floor with them. Sure, by that point there experience is of less value to you, but you can still make off with whatever loot they have, still get the same reward overall.
I'm not sure, though, if I like some of the suggestions for how to deal with that. Personally, I think that whatever is used to discourage the "deal with it later" attitude should come organically from gameplay. To go back to the loot idea I mentioned last time (yes, sorry, but I really do like collecting goodies) there are a number of consumable items that could be granted to certain uniques and then the amount of that item (or charges in that item) could be used up naturally over time.
For example, something like making Blork the orc start with, I don't know, a dozen sausages. And for every thousand auts that passes, he eats one of them. Except with something a bit more useful than sausages. Maybe gold? Or potions? Or decks/wands? If I recall, manuals can be used up over time, so maybe those as well? I'm not sure, but the basic point is that I could get behind more organic reasons to dispatch of certain uniques more quickly.