Been playing off and on constantly since A7. I wanted to say a thanks to the team at TFP for the thousands of hours of joy you have brought myself, and my friends/family/community!
I am a little worried about the magazine concept so I wanted to ask a few questions......
So, I remember RNG hell of one of the early teen alphas (12?) where you HAD to find a forge blueprint. Like, surviving until day 3 without a forge was difficult. There was a very very difficult "survive" play cycle, and then a very obvious thrive play cycle after, and the forge blueprint was complete and total RNG.
The reason this was actual RNG hell was because it was gating your capacity to make basic food/water. Some of that was cleaned up with tin can's for boiling water before a pot, and charred meat as something you could do.
So... for the questions! My family typically plays as a 4-5 unit. Typically each person picks an attribute to play with primarily, then branches slightly as we get further into the game. This gives us each a feeling of specialization. My concerns are around "RNG duplication" in a multiple player environment. 6 copies of a magazine no one needs anymore where we have 1 we just can't find that's gating our capacity to get to something we NEED.
I was thinking a trade-in system? 3-1? I have 3 magazines I don't need, so you give me 1 I don't have?
I'm not sure if this has application, because I noticed there were levels to each skill, and I can think of a few ways to "tier" things to make it work out right.... but i'm just trying to think through what has been issues in the past and different ways to avoid similar issues with new systems.
I hope everyone is having a fantastic day, and I look forward to any information you might can provide on the "skill" system specifically, as well as any systems that might can be used to help players playing alone that need all skills, as well as players who are playing in a large group and want to "feel specialized"!
