meganoth

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.

Rumor has it there is a "General Support" section in this forum. Just saying ... 😎

You don't need to do quests. You can just loot buildings, craft and build.

"so long as it doesn't affect other players" which it usually does when you change game mechanics. I would say the game as it is balanced now rewards team play when you play in a team. What you seem to propose is balancing it so you can be as effective as a selfish person in a team which would mean there would be no incentive for team play. That would affect everyone. Well sure, if we are talking about min/maxing and perfect play. In reality many players waste hundreds of opportunities for getting XP and still have fun. I usually am up to 10 levels behind our INT/trader/xp whore player in our group by the time we cross level 50. Guess what, it doesn't matter, since we don't play PvP I don't feel any hindrance and usually one of the guys with more levels gets killed a lot more than I do. And I am not sure if you wrote this before reading the rest of my post, but I have shown that a builder would get the better tools at exaclty the same time, independant of who reads the tools magazines. So your point is about xp gain, but not about magazines and cooperation at all. And since you don't get the tool any earlier when the looter brings back the magazines instead of the ability to craft the better tool, that point is not about magazines at all. Ah, so what you really want to say is that you are missing the progression shortcut by putting all points into miner69er and craft a quality3 iron pickaxe on say day 2 or have that lucky find in a trunk? Am I right in assuming this is the issue? Since that is gone you builders have to follow a rather slow tool progression like everyone else (Or do you think the PER player is happy about using a hunting rifle at first?). Well ok, if XP gathering now proves to be much slower for builders than for looters then surely TFP can increase the XP gain from upgrading blocks or hitting blocks until it is balanced for everyone. Nothing to do with magazines. Apart from that you should not be surprised that the game by default wants everyone to follow the progression.

The cookie was created as a negative reaction (AFAIK) but a lot of people don't know or assume differently and I have received it as a positive as well as a negative reaction on occasion. So I ignore it as well. The Prime ones can easily be identified by their hover text. knuckle rub is a Roland original and he should be asked about its exact meaning. The Afraid icon is sometimes used by Blake_ (or Jost Amman?) to probably express shock. No one else seems to be using it, ever.

No surprise, people get testy in your presence. Pun intented 😁

The emojis actually might have helped, there are a lot of foreign language people here who have problems understanding the nature of a comment

Yes. Maybe there will be even groups where the looter just puts magazines in storage chest somewhere and asks the builder to collect them at this place. But generally I think magazines are the "gold" of early scrounging while you don't need lead or brass this early in the game. I'm sure most groups will leave other stuff behind in storage chests and bring back the magazines that the others need. Figuring out what magazine does what is just a learning process of a few hours or days. Similar to books, I don't think anyone who played 7d2d has a problem with immediately associating "The Art of Mining" book icon with the strength player/builder.

Sure, the learning curve may extend to two playthroughs. Replayable games are fun because you can always learn something new and apply it to the next run. And sure there will be a few idiots who won't learn anything from it. Should the game be balanced for them? Or for the majority (probably) who knows how to play co-op and learns how to put down a few storage chests in the streets to combat full inventories. Tools really are a bad example because it **really** doesn't matter who learns to craft them. The builders won't have any disadvantages if the looter simply reads the tools magazines and crafts the new tools as soon as he is able to. There isn't even any additional delay because either the looter comes back with magazines in the evening or with the ability to craft the tool. And since progression is smoother now he will just get a scrap pickaxe of quality 4 when he is already using a quality 3 scrap pickaxe at a minimum. The only person who could feel bad about this is a player who wants to be a crafter as main occupation or wants the satisfaction of crafting his tools by himself. But crafter as main job wasn't really an option in A20 and won't be one in A21. Xp and xp sharing has nothing to do with the topic of magazines and crafting progression. Even idiot looters who don't understand co-op and read all magazines will happily craft the better tools for the builders at home as soon as they come home (which would be the same time as the intelligent looters would return home to drop off the magazines needed by builders for crafting their better tools). Tools crafted by idiot looters are exactly as good and sharp as tools crafted by builders themselves 😉

At least you have the realistic option of flying over the date line and get the game one day earlier 😎😁 In A20 you needed the steel sledgehammer book before you could craft any. Whether you find an item or can craft it was very random but skewed to finding it first in A20. In A21 the progression should be smoother with more steps of upgrade and easier to balance for TFP. So likely you will get to craft better weapons a lot more than in A20. The trader will sell parts more often than complete weapons, so this is another step in the direction for more crafting This is an often discussed topic with many players very much for or against it. TFP seems to have decided to make items easily repairable, but there surely will be a few mods that will provide that game mechanic

What a few forum posters here were saying was that there were players who didn't like how crafting was (actually in response to your "Nobody wanted this" if I recall correctly). What they didn't say was that this change was done **because** of those players not liking it. TFP could see the disadvantages of the old crafting system as well as many players. And so crafting was changed.

You are correct that the looter could as well read the tool books and craft the tools, because that is done in a second. But I don't think the looter will be happy when he his asked back to base every 10 minutes even in daytime because the builder needs a few new traps, someone wants some more meds crafted or the food ingredient box is full and someone needs to start a serious cooking session? Oh, and the farmer asks to come back because he can't craft the seeds and the looter should please come back for that. This may also be the moment when the farmer says to the looter that he'll be looking for a new group where he can actually work as a farmer. Maybe then the looter has learned his lesson. This isn't about social niceness. The looter obviously doesn't want to farm and cook and build but if he doesn't bring back those magazines no one else will do it.

I am sure you do. The first thing you should train your four-legged friend is to remember the forum password for you 😁