Do you think it's worth reworking chests so that everyone has to open them to get the loot inside? Or, if someone logs in and hasn't had the flag for that chest triggered for their character, it appears closed to them and is openable for them to get the loot from?
Yes, actually! It's been a topic of "should discuss" for a while now, together with the old issue of "should players be able to receive doubles of unique chest items by joining a multiplayer session?"
We finally did discuss it this morning, and the implementation we're likely to go for is:
For unique items, I can just use the "discovered" information to determine whether or not someone has opened a chest. For consumables and gold, the world flag will still be used (so the unlucky few disconnecting right before a gold chest will have the terrible misfortune of missing out). This is
slightly suboptimal but it's a rare case where things go wrong, and losing out on some potions isn't as big a deal as missing out on good gear or unique fun stuff. We're going for that version because it works on top of the current systems.
As for the multiplayer party-reward chests, we'll keep that feature for now. Yes, it's a slight shame if multiple people with nearly equal skill attempts it and some dude flukes through the phase shift stuff and diminishes the end reward for his friends. I don't think that's quite as bad as the scenario where the slowest person must concede the reward or suffer through not only being bad at the challenge, but also slowing his friends down! That person might be ridiculed and bullied by his friends, who then spread rumors about him in school. Even the teachers might join in, calling him "Phase-Less Al" and failing him in all his classes, despite him being a straight-A kind of kid before. Seeking solace in his father's wine bottles, the kid becomes an alcoholic bum at the age of 14, and the rest of his tragic story I won't suffer upon you. The child's name? Albert Einstein Jr., who would've discovered the Theory of Super Specific Relativity, if not for that stupid, optional puzzle-challenge his friends wanted to try out!
That's the kind of world I imagine if we remove the party-reward system, anyhow.
Side note: this will also have the added effect of making unique items truly unique, meaning no more 2 x Earrings of Balance! I'm pretty sure you've been a proponent of that feature in days of yore?