sloejack

In terms of perk benefits that may be true, but the change as I understand it isn't just about boosts but whether you can craft something or not since it will now require getting the required magazine. So assuming everyone plays 'fair' then sure maybe it will all just work out. So I'm amending my prior concern that it's not about the change of how skills/capabilities are acquired. It's that the change IMO will exasperate the challenges with multi-player since people don't play to the design and only play to the rules of the game until they figure out a way to bend them. So, I'll leave it at this - this seems to be more than just a change to how that part of the game works for an individual but has a high potential for negative dynamics in multi-player. The current system (A20) from my perspective falls in line with your statement. The acquisition of skills to be able to perform the core building/crafting of the game are independent of the luck of random loot gen and are part of meaningful decisions . Random Loot Gen is interesting and makes exploring/scavenging fun as as provides a boost to the core skills or overall play. This change (A21) appears to remove the common building blocks of character development and throws it all at (weighted) RNG based on a path selection. This makes magazines more important to being able to play the game than they currently are and by extension increases the luck factor of the game. If it's weighted so heavy as to effectively grant the same capabilities by forcing the magazines that drive the same progression onto you then the value of the change is just change for change's sake. So while experiences with that will be different for different people, I am not a fan of the premise as it feels like meaningful decision is being taken away and replaced by the roll of the dice.

I think the assumption with this statement is that there's a state in the game that you should have all of the perks/abilities and they are all useful all the time. Not sure I agree with the sentiment but I understand where you're coming from. I'm not sure how MP functionality detracts from the SP experience, but we definitely see how the SP mechanics impact MP experience

The trader will have a limited random supply relative to what you can get from jobs. I actually like scavenging and discovering stuff, but the loot/container mechanics are not good for multi-player. For me it largely leads to feels-bad experiences whether it's waiting to get into a storage container (because the clock doesn't stop while waiting to get access to the shared loot boxes) or getting beat out of the experience of looting something by someone who zoomed past you while you were fighting, it's just a fun-siphon.

I saw some notes about A21 on reddit that drove me here and thought I would toss out my $0.02 since this upcoming change looks like it will have a significant negative impact on me as a player. Because I play with multiple loot ninjas, multiplayer scavenging/job completion is already somewhat frustrating. This new change to crafting and loot contents feels like it will be the final nail in the coffin for playing this multiplayer. The current system while still somewhat annoying at least meant that I could still participate in the game without too much conflict as magazines are nice boosts but not a gate to progress. Without instanced loot this newest change creates a new axis of conflict that's not worth the game. A brief read through recent posts here seems like this path is set. Please at least consider implementing a player instanced loot for items that impact the ability to progress your character so that even if you play with loot ninjas you can still progress at a reasonable pace.