This is something that's been annoying me for quite some time, ever since realizing that one particular game that intrigued me was using RANDOM LEVEL GENERATION. I personally find it to be a somewhat lazy way of doing level design. It just lacks that lovingly handcrafted feeling. Don't get me wrong, I know the hard work it takes to program such a thing, but I can't help but feel like it's just a lazy way of designing a level. You're letting the code do it all for you!

Referring back to the first sentence, sometimes I'll find a cool looking indie game only to find out it's using random level generation. For example, when I first saw of We Happy Few, it really intrigued me. It looked a lot like Bioshock style-wise, which is a game I really like. Then I learned something that somewhat changed my view of the game FOREVER... its levels were... randomly generated (at least a portion of them). Unfortunately, it was enough to turn me off. this all sounds way too dramatic, I know, but that's just one man's opinion.

Lately, I've been seeing more and more otherwise great looking indie games go down this road, and in my opinion, it's quite unfortunate.

What's your take?

Well as an extra it can be fun. The chalice dungeons in bloodborne where ultimately randomly generated except for the ones you can get a trophy for.

Depends on the game. But even for games that need more structure, I think guided random level generation might make a lot of sense for the developing team to get in the personal touces while still take a lot of work from their shoulders. So generate the base landscape, and then change it based on what is needed for the game.

Diablo 2 had randomly generated maps and it was better for it.

Diablo 3 had maps which were static but had elements randomized on it. And it was ridiculed for it... The game also didn't seem to have the same lasting appeal as Diablo 2.

Minecraft is randomized, for the better.

Many RTS games had random level generators... Like Heroes of Might and Magic 5, Red Alert 2 and more.

Personally I love it, when it is done right, it can give a game far more replayability as not all playthroughs end up the same.

Give me a Grand Strategy game that can give me plausible random worlds, and you've sold me day one.

That, and there are lots of game genres that are better off randomly-generated (in general). Ever heard of roguelikes and dungeon crawling RPGs?

Good for replay value,... bad for first time experiances (compaired to hand designed ones).

It works really well in games like diablo, and dungeon crawlers types.

only one game did it really well IMO, and it was Dont Starve.

My take? My take is the original Toe Jam and Earl was fucking awesome... that's my take lol.

randomly generated worlds have their place, and there are a lot of great games that would not exist without it. Minecraft became one of the biggest gaming phenomenons ever and it uses random world generation. but yes, it has been know to be abused from time to time. No Mans Sky chose to use a single RNG system to spawn several quintillion planets, ans as a result not a single one of them was interesting.

but the main purpose of RNG worlds is to make them feel real, or natural, like it wasnt man-made. if it can accomplish that, then i approve of it

It's great, except for when it doesn't work that well. Which is most of the time. For a lot of games, random level generation would have to be so advanced to be good that the games simply don't get quite there.