Roland

A) No one from TFP has ever claimed that each new iteration is supposed to resolve all progression issues. Development is ongoing and a work in progress. There will be further developments until the game is finished. Each update should not be viewed as an attempt to totally fix the issues with the previous version. Instead, they should be viewed as iterative advancements from the previous version with some experimentation thrown in at times. B) The core survival game includes the existence of traders. You may not think of the traders as being part of the core survival game and think it a good idea to balance everything perfectly first with the absence of traders and then just add them to the game as optional additional content. But TFP has traders as part of the core survival game. So following my reasoning the core game should be about trading, doing jobs, exploring, building, mining, farming, gathering resources, crafting, killing zombies, defending your base, and any other personal objective you set for yourself. If you choose to ignore or remove aspects of the game then you need to be prepared to mod the game especially as all those parts get solidified and integrated with each other in the game. Doubt away but you should know that my statement isn't based on the fact that there isn't a game mode to remove traders. I mentioned that for emphasis. My statement is based on the statements and plans of the developers. Traders aren't meant to be an add-on to some sort of survival core game that doesn't include traders. You can certainly play without them but you will have some issues that will need to be overcome if you choose to do that and the extent of what you will need to do will only become more significant as the game gets fully fleshed out for release. Also closing the initial quest doesn't create the bug of no trader. Closing the initial quest simply means you start with zero skillpoints and must find the trader on your own without help. It is my own preferred way to start. The no trader bug happens most often when you have remnants of code from a previous version map causing problems in your new map. Isn't that why you wrote in to say that you were finding it nearly impossible to play without the traders and that you used to be able to ignore them and play in A20 but now your game experience is messed up? Yeah, here is your own quote: As the core game gets more and more integrated with all the aspects of the game it is going to be more and more difficult to just ignore an aspect of it without modding. Sure. I guess I misunderstood how you were trying to play. Thanks for your feedback that the game isn't worth playing with the current implementation of traders. Hopefully you will like them once further development occurs or will be able to mod the game to be able to play the way you want. I am thrilled at all the different ways people play the game using mods and/or imposing voluntary limitations. I just don't want you to continue with the erroneous assumption that traders are some peripheral add-on to the core game and that TFP should or would balance the game with the complete absence of traders in mind.

There is no game mode without a trader that is supported and so there has been no balancing for that type of mode. It should tell you something that there is a “No Zombies” option in the top menu but there isn’t a “No trader” option. The trader and doing jobs are considered integral to the vanilla game experience. In fact when you do get a “No Trader” message it is considered a world generation bug. If traders were able to be easily ignored in the past then that is simply because their role in the game was not fully fleshed out and I doubt they are still completely fleshed out. As traders continue to be developed along with the jobs they offer, the reputation system that will be coming along with factions, and any further services they might provide beyond what they currently do, you will find that the need to mod the game to allow for their absence will become more significant. This game is not a wilderness survival sim. It is designed that at least minimal reliance on traders as well as urban areas is needed. You can mod the game to support something closer to a wilderness survival last human being on earth type of play style but that is what it is going to require more and more going forward.

They reduced slightly the number of overall magazines you get from some specific loot containers like mailboxes and removed magazines from being the de facto reward choice by making them only show up as quest rewards part of the time and reducing how many you get. They haven’t touched the boost granted by perks which is what we’ve been talking about. The balance isn’t all messed up anyway especially if you play the game without intentionally trying to hyper grind magazines. In my opinion, the balance was perfect for normal play and they may adjust things slightly back to where it was eventually because there is no use trying to balance for min/makers. My feeling is to let those kind of players do what they do and let them complain that they’ve wrecked the balance for themselves and just focus on keeping things well balanced for well balanced players. There are some players who like to move past the primitive stage as quickly as possible and balancing vs min/maxers is going to come in the form of gates that will just frustrate everyone.

If you say so. Hours played over two weeks time in which A21 was only available during one of those weeks isn’t proof. But if you say you’ve restarted many many times this past week I’ll take you at your word. Not really a stretch. Most reports came in starting Monday and Tuesday which was the day and day after the game was first available. It is an assumption, granted, but not “quite a bit” During testing this past year we restarted hundreds of times (collectively) with the intent to FORM an opinion on the balance. You seem to already have an opinion and you’re looking at eveidence to FIT your opinion while overlooking the evidence that doesn’t fit.

Something else that needs to be understood is that the devs wanted empty jars gone. Regardless of whatever system of thirst survival they came up with, the removal of jars was a requirement and guaranteed to happen. They don’t want them and they’ve had a goal to remove them for quite some time.

What was eventual about the jars? You could have a stack of water on day one with jars that could be filled and then refilled forever just by a casual looting of several cupboards and toilets. Is that what “eventually” means to you? Any system can be rushed by hyper-efficient players speed running through the game. So the time frame for “eventually” will vary from player to player but in all cases it was way way shorter of a progression when jars were in the game: nonexistent then compared to a variable time frame now depending on your efficiency.

I’ve read many comments as well and there are many who don’t think that the boost is working while playing on their first playthrough. I don’t know how many times you’ve restarted but I’ve restarted dozens of times over the past year and, yes, it seems to me to fit the criteria I stated. I’ve definitely had several games where the perks I took did not result in me getting a noticeable boost in parts and perks and others where the boost was quite noticeable and everything in between. After so many restarts I knew there would be a lot of divergent reports at first because everyone would be on their first playthrough and report their own experience and true enough the reports have been across the spectrum because— still pretty random despite the boost.

No. It’s still mostly random. You will get a boost to the magazine and parts for the matching perk you took but it is not an overwhelming boost. Your results will still vary but you shouldn’t ever find yourself in a playthrough where you never find those things. It’s a safety net. You’ll get different results each time you play and, of course the type of container and location matters as well.

I think the pooling of knowledge between allied players sounds pretty good on the surface. It would need to be tested and definitely would need a rebalancing of how many mags would be needed to progress to each milestone because groups would be learning a lot faster than single players. My biggest regret would be the loss of any need for coordination between players which my team really enjoyed. But if it turned out to help builders enjoy the game better and teams with P3 players then it might be a worthwhile trade off.

Blame church! I copied the pic just before but couldn’t upload until after. Look at all those sinners! Lol

Congratulations Fun Pimps! You’ve broken your past record again!! People are loving A21.

Probably easily modded in too. Definitely easily done as a voluntary limitation to test it.

I don’t think we really need 1000+hour veterans trying to speculate and anticipate the behavior of brand new players. I mean go ahead for the thought exercise but TFP uses Game Sparks to learn the exact and actual behavior of new players. Thanks but the role of player behavior tracker and analyst has been filled…

This problem could be solved by limiting attachments to one slot and removing tier 6 quality from primitive items. Iron should be limited to two slots for all quality levels with tier 6 allowing a third and the steel limited to three slots at all quality levels with tier 6 allowing a fourth.

So….you didn’t uninstall then?

Sometimes it is because of balancing and TFP is working through that and will continue to work through it for the 21.x updates. But a lot of times it is because someone figures out how to make it work and soon the word spreads and eventually playstyles thought to be closed by the dastardly developers really aren’t. Im not saying I’m the genius who can figure it out but someone will. Or not—and perhaps people will need to mod the game in order to play it the way they want to.

Thirst has always been meant to be overcome. This is exactly what the point of the change was so that both efficient and inefficient players could eventually establish a stash big enough to make as much glue as they wanted. Thank you for reiterating the design goal. Did you think you were poking a hole into something…?

I’ll let you convey my thanks to all of them but I’m just talking to you. The poll here counts for sure. I even defended the author for making it. What’s interesting about the polls is that YouTube comments are historically more critical and hostile than these forums are and yet 3100 players showed an overwhelming positive first reaction. The 46 people(so far) in the poll here show a more negative reaction where most people are viewed as being more supportive of TFP decisions. I don’t think they’ll do anything. They are fine with players going to the wasteland and looting and questing for rewards that bypass the crafting. It’s just an optional path. It doesn’t make the crafting progression useless if a lot of players want to go that route. It’s funny that critics like you accuse TFP of shutting down player game play choices when TFP has never claimed that they want to force players to play the game only one way. Now it is YOU calling for TFP to shut down an entire option to loot in the wasteland because you see crafting as useless. The answer is that TFP is happy to allow players to either craft, or loot, or purchase, or quest, or any combination to progress.

Thanks for your opinion. I really hope once your favorite mods get updated for A21 you’ll have a version of the game you can be happy playing.

But….no….energy!!

Here is an interesting poll external to this forum community done by Nerds Guns and Steel. Just a first impression poll of 3100 players. 😀

It has nothing to do with positive or critical posts. It has to do with time after time after each alpha this person or that says the changes made their play style impossible only to be proven 100% wrong. My personal favorite was the supposed end of building underground bases that have since been proven completely possible..lol Why should they? The mods have already done it as you said. What’s wrong with having a variety of versions to play? If the devs just duplicate the mods then there’s just one version. Why so angry about A21 if you already have access to the version you enjoy? It shouldn’t be long before you can have A21 visuals and performance with your favorite alternative version of player progression. Seems like these changes shouldn’t even really phase you or affect you honestly. Why do you care if you already use mods? Seems like you could just ignore the vanilla updates at this point and just wait for your favorite mod update. Why so displeased in something you aren’t going to play? There are plenty of people who are pleased so they can be happy and you can be happy. Exactly! You’re covered. Be at peace.

Whoa…Especially me? I’m not even salty….lol. I’ve enjoyed playing all the iterations and have been able to let each one go as each new one was developed. Even if vanilla becomes so restrictive that it completely limits everyone to one single dev-approved play style, they have made sure to make the game moddable so that all players can still play the way they want to. But here’s the thing. Reports of dead and destroyed game play styles are always greatly exaggerated during the first weeks of experimental.

It’s all random. The perk boost is not a guarantee. You and your wife are flush with Forge Ahead mags this playthrough but could experience a famine of them next playthrough. It is different every time I play. Sometimes it’s parts I can’t find and sometimes it’s magazines and other times I have plenty of everything. @Archer and his group could restart and have a gush of all the right magazines that new game. As expected, there have been people wondering if the perk boost is bugged and others claiming it is too powerful.

You should be. Our response to your affront to our person can only be, “Off with their head!”