meganoth

So can the shotgun, obviously. And where does the shotgun "interact" with mining and cooking in the strength tree?

Even if you want to "save up" some mod for that special weapon I am pretty sure you would install it into your low-level weapon as soon as you have found a second one. Because then you still have one left for that special weapon.

When I started playing co-op with 3 friends of mine they were at first rushing to the loot boxes and looting them as well. I observed this for a short time then I protested. Me: "Hey guys, I don't like how I never get to loot any final room loot boxes because I am usually the last arriving there. I want a fair share of them" Friend: "But it doesn't matter, you'll get any loot you can use, you know we share everything. If you want we can just leave the stuff in the chests after opening them" Me: "It does matter, I want the thrill of opening the chests myself. I want to be the first to peek inside and be able to share any lucky find instead of getting told from someone else there is a quality 6 magnum in my chest. And that also means I want a fair share of the better loot boxes as well, not always get the cardboard chests" Friends: "Ok" From that time on we divided the boxes up. And even that everyone has his share of better and lesser loot boxes works quite well, without any specific rules. And frankly, you should try the same method. Tell your friend you want a fair share. And if he protests and doesn't want to you have further options: The "begging/compassion" route: "please, it frustrates me, I'm thinking of playing something else") The "blackmail/coercion" route: "Hey, if you don't co-operate, why should I? I'll do my own quests now" or "I will just keep the food I cook for myself" or even "'ll just play wiith someone else or single player". You know better what might work with him, usually it is better to try the compassion route first though. In my opinion there is not much chance that TFP will change the loot boxes, because of time to implement it, because it would need rebalancing and because it works well as it is. I know of groups who have a designated looter while other groups like mine divide the loot. And with magazines I'm sure there will be groups that will make rules who gets which type of box (i.e. electric boxes always for the INT player, ...). This flexibility would be gone if the game forced one particular method of loot sharing. About the magazines: If you don't like to sort them out then just read them. As you say there are so many. You eventually will both get to craft everything anyway, it will just take a bit longer.

No, the rumor seems not to be about actual lasers, just that bandits would unerringly hit the player from any distance and therefore would be practically a death sentence for any normal player. And that TFP was not able to make them miss a shot. But when a mechanism that makes players miss randomly is already in the game that rumor can be easily refuted

Never heard of this. Ok, my memory is not the best, but I'm fairly sure no dev ever said this here on the forum. It is also a rather silly rumour in my opinion because all a dev needs to do is add a random generator to roll hit location like it is done for arrows in this game. Just increase the circle of randomness and you can achieve anything between sharpshooter and blind drunk hobo. In other words, why should it be a problem if the solution is already implemented in the game?

Now actually if you do some looting and questing by the side there may be far less problems ahead of you than you think. Magazines are only for crafting and most magazines are completely optional even for a builder. And that includes the tools magazines for example as you should be able to sometimes buy better tools at the trader. They worked on bandits, getting them maybe to 80% release-worthy (just my estimate from hearing Fataal talk about it). I think that ate a lot of their time but won't be seen at all until A22.

If you like you can change the "know how the "player base" plays" to "think they know how the "player base" plays". And it won't change reality one bit. I haven't seem them say anywhere that because of their player base being pure builders they are now throwing out all the POIs and zombies. By the way, what is your opinion about the new shapes and doors they added? As a builder I thought you would have cared for that.

If you don't have at least one looter in your group then yes, it is quite a hindrance. And I never said anything different. Why would I have suggested CM if it wasn't a problem for you now? Kosmik Kerman said it quite well. Also take into account that TFP has telemetry so they more than likely know how the "player base" plays.

But from TFP's standpoint it isn't a screw up at all. I may be speaking out of my league here, but the game was always designed and balanced by TFP for 1-8 people playing the whole game. "Fringe" styles like playing completely without trader, playing completely without looting POI's, playing nomad, playing with blood moon every night, playing pacifist, playing without leaving a tier5 building, playing completely underground and whatever else you can think of are not balanced and tested for viability at all. TFP has not the manpower to do this and even if they had they can't develop the game for the normal players in the way they want to if they have to accomodate all these other play styles. So those other play styles worked in earlier alphas because of many missing mechanisms that made the game more like a sandbox and incidentally often by chance. If you want to play a fringe play style, then you have to make sure yourself (or in combo with like minded players) that it is somewhat balanced for you again, or you have to accept that it may be getting harder or weirder any time. Because by chance any change to vanilla that makes totally sense for normal players can be bad for your play style. But the game gives you so many tools to correct problems thrown in the way of your play style. I think you are better off trying to find ways to get your type of game back by way of cm, options or mods than trying to get TFP to change back something that made a lot of "normal" players happy.

I can promise you I won't buy such an optional water filter in the first days at any price. They could as well remove it if they implement the idea. Or keep it so I am tempted to buy them for comfort when my money bag is overflowing with dukes much much later in the game. You are right about parts being a problem without a wrench, but I am not sure TFP's goal is that people should have a "guaranteed" dew collector on day 2 anyway. And when you can buy them at the trader they are the McGuffin you have to buy with Dukes earned any which way. In other words at game start it would be exactly the same as now, but later on you could wrench yourself as many dew collectors as you want

This is an alternative, sure, but I would spread the load to other ingredients like mechanical parts and electrical parts so polymer isn't the one and only thing everyone has to hunt for at game start. The filter has the advantage that you just can collect anything valuable and convert it to a filter by way of the trader. And my point isn't too bad either: No fluid containers were simulated in the game except water containers. And nobody cared!! Because everyone was used to it and just accepted that if you need fluid containers you had unlimited amounts of them or somehow fluid transport was taken care of. Tell me in two months if you still miss glass jars. And first try out a modded game where you can't stack full glass jars and tell me if you liked it. I doubt *I* would like such an inventory grind

How do you make gas cans when you wrench down a car or loot a gas pump without plastic? If you answer me this serious question I'll answer yours.

If you can plan ahead a nice option is to clear a POI (or POIs) in daylight but defer the looting. Then eliminate access to the upper floor except for yourself and loot the house, Thoroughly. Even the ground floor is no problem until zombies notice you. Let them wreck the house, it doesn#t matter, just continue looting and scrapping until day break

If you killed a million animals I would assume you also made a million of dukes and bought water at the trader with it and looted a few thousand houses and collected water there as well. With or without a farm of magic daily dispensers you probably would then be able to make a million/7 glue easypeasy. 😉 The magic filter in your helmet was in the game for ages, but it was relatively useless. Now its got its use finally. But I don't want to think about the logic either 😁

The game has a mode specifically for players wanting freedom and it is turned on with the "cm" command. Just give yourself a filter, a low level iron pickaxe and 20 magazines of your choice and the rest will likely work out because you can buy everything including better tools and magazines at the trader, just like before. You just need to have a source of income. As a disclaimer: I haven't tried this out, so feel free to correct me if there is a problem with this method.

Ah, I was talking about biome stumps. Didn't even know that POI stumps were a separate block

If you meant A19 with "previously" you are probably correct. I am pretty sure the nerf happened in A20 and stump chance for honey in A20 was 0.2 already (or even lower). I remember searching for it and having a low expectation to actually finding one.

Important: If you try to search for the file on your hard disk you need to use the correct name: map_info.xml

Once you have a cooking pot the filter would be superfluous then and you could produce fresh water in unlimited quantities, immediately from day 1. Exactly what the filter as a gate tries to prevent

In my single player game I had exactly the same problem. Tried to experiment (without much hope) if I could get mechanical parts from cars or appliances with a stone axe. When I was sure it wasn#t going to work I went to the trader to buy them and to a hardware store and gas station to find them. If I remember correctly I had the required amount very fast.

Okay. accepted. It may be more accurately described as hyperbole. You could have used words like good, veteran, excellent, experienced, intelligent, .... But perfection is according to wikipedia "a state, variously, of completeness, flawlessness, or supreme excellence." Sorry, I can't bring myself to accept the term perfection for people bringing back magazines. But let me ask you: If bringing back magazines is such an advantageous method in the game that you call it perfect play or the player a perfect player then isn't that proof that there is an incentive to doing it? If your point is that there is no direct incentive to bring back **tools** magazines then we are agreed. Case closed, there is no incentive to bring back tools magazines for the builder because there is no gameplay advantage for the builder to learn them. I as looter would still bring them back if the builder asked me because I am a nice person, but there is no real need for it. And then there is also no need for TFP to rebalance anything because it works well that way and the builder has no disadvantage, neither in the items he gets nor in XP gaining. I explained why and I assume you never contesting me on it means we are agreed. If you still think there is an issue here, please answer this question: Exactly which magazines does a builder need to read for himself in your opinion? Right now we all are just guessing like we have done for months before the alpha came out. TFP will not act on speculation and backseat analysis, they have said multiple times that they want feedback from actually playing the game. Strange. I was talking about "PartySharedKillRange" because you said "Yes, shared exp offsets this somewhat, but because the trader now avoids sending you on duplicate missions and there has been a focus on more wilderness quests, the looter is going to be out of range a lot sooner than you might expect,". So who was moving the goal posts to level 35 exactly? 😉 Oh, come on, is this a contest now where we have to try to find more rhetorical strategies/fallacies than the other? 🤪 Calling a way of playing "easy mode" is not even borderline ad hominem. It may be correct or wrong but it definitely is not a direct attack on the personality of someone. Have you tried this with A21? How often? Did you adapt to the new conditions after the first one or two games and the progression was still bad for the builder? How many hours have you already sunk in this? Our role in EA besides spectator is tester, not analyst. Yes. This is very difficult to balance. Someone here said he has done 10 tier1 quests on the first day. Even if that was boasting and he only did 5 that is still double of what I could do. In our current first game it was actually 0 on the first day. It isn't surprising that he may experience the trader as totally OP while normal players will see a relatively balanced play most of the time. In our games the miner usually advanced faster than the others but he went on quests as well. Upgrading blocks seemed a big source of XP as well and was sometimes used specifically to get levels. Low level dig quests are also something a miner/builder might do for the combined stone/clay/XP. Sure, it is still possible that someone would utilize all this and still fall behind. I am not claiming anything here, I am just expressing my doubt that there are no ways for a pure builder to level adequately. And even if he falls back a little in the first seven days it could mean nothing if his leveling speed picks up after that. Yes, it needs tested, and maybe tweaks.

I wouldn't call it trolling when I simply give an answer/counterpoint to one interpretation of a complaint that had multiple possible interpretations. Sure. But this is a forum, anyone can talk to anyone and butt into any proclamation if he wants. In my (admittedly worthless) opinion this paraphraph would work much better as feedback than your initial post.

and me ... 🤣

Can't say anything about that. Can't say anything about that. You don't need to do quests. You can just loot buildings, craft and build. Can't say anything about that. Can't say anything about that. Can't say anything about that. Is that better now? 😁 Seriously, his rant didn't really say if he just doesn't want to quest or not enter POIs. Or what else he wants, the game also allows a player just to craft and build after all. I thought it a good way to get from rant to a conversation though when I checked back here right now the thread already had moved on.

Hey, I am sure this isn't on purpose, but you are strawmaning me here. Where did I ever ask for perfection? Is it perfection now if people play cooperatively? In that case my group of 4 people, each of which died at least once on our first day in A21, are perfect players. They'll be glad to know but probably surprised. It isn't even necessary for a "co-op looter" to bring back any magazines on the first day and instead read them or throw them away. The first day is especially hard for our small inventories, no bag mods yet, and the user is usually trying to join the group which is often 1-3 kms away. It doesn't really matter if a few of the magazines get lost. Even if he sometimes drops those magazines in later game when he has so much more important stuff in his inventory (though what stuff should that be really?), that makes only a marginal difference in how advanced the builder or builders in the group will be. The builders generally will not feel any difference in their XP gaining speed when they get the upgrade from a quality4 to a quality5 iron pickaxe a day later. Doubly that if they already have a quality3 steel pickaxe bought at the trader. But if the looter doesn't **generally** bring back magazines the builders absolutely need or ask for (for example the farming and electrical traps magazines) then he is not even half-competent, he is an absolut loser at playing co-op, sorry to say. Fighting together and getting stuff to the people who want that stuff are the two big areas of co-operation in a game, what else do you think co-op play is about? All possible balancing changes, and remember I mentioned that xp gain could be increased if necessary for balance. But ideally we should talk about measures once it is established that there is a problem at all. Right now I can't imagine your group has already tested A21 and determined they can't adapt to it and there is something wrong. You may fear or expect it but unless YOU are perfect you simply can't know. No matter in how many minutes that change could be done, you will surely not get anyone from TFP to make it right now. My statement was about tool magazines and you infere from this something about all magazines? Come on, logic 101. The looter can read tools magazines and it will not make a yota of a difference to the builders. The looter can not read the traps or seeds magazines without it heavily affecting the builders/farmers. And the looter is incentivized to bring back those magazines. I don't know how to say it any simpler. A theory and a possibility, except that with the looters out of share range. Roland reminded us that there is an option for PartySharedKillRange. When you can set the range who cares where the trader sends them. Balancing changes may be coming after some playtesting. Or maybe builders do find out that it doesn't matter that they are only level 35 when the looter is already level 40. Or the builders find out that some mechanism in the game allows them to build and be happy in A21 by just doing something a little different. I don't know. Must be playtested. My "easy route" comment was specifically about the tools progression. If you are fine with slowly progressing from stone to iron to steel tools, that is what A21 is or should be. How much influence that has on xp gaining is again to be determined by playtesting and can then be adjusted. PartySharedKillRange exists for that subset of players. There is your option. And the trader may be the other big option as it seems from first feedback that the traders are OP as always. Remember that magazines are only determining what you craft. A builder doesn't care about what pickaxe he can craft when he can buy a better pickaxe at the trader.