Late Game stage, POI's are getting to where they aren't worth looting anymore

[OnlyMeiya]

And if you decrease loot spawn... then you will find the game more challenging and not be on the forums whining about it being too easy.

 

It has nothing to do with loot amount, its that you become so self sufficient you have no reason to leave your base ever again for a poi loot so even if you lowered it, it may delay it some but it wont stop it from happening.

[Ghostlight]

And if you decrease loot spawn... then you will find the game more challenging and not be on the forums whining about it being too easy.

 

You are missing the point. The need for me to explore and loot ends super early in A17, not because the game gave me too much loot, but because the game let me craft everything it has to offer through perks without giving me a long-term progression goal that involved further looting. Gun parts and blueprints used to provide this.

 

Since I was trying to max out on each map in A16 (level 600 everything), I never once quit a map before day 100. Not once. In A17 being maxed out occurs on day 30 - 40. EVERY SINGLE RUN.

 

Thanks for ruining the adventure, perk system.

[Benjiro]

You are missing the point. The need for me to explore and loot ends super early in A17, not because the game gave me too much loot, but because the game let me craft everything it has to offer through perks without giving me a long-term progression goal that involved further looting. Gun parts and blueprints used to provide this.

 

+1 ...

 

The funny thing being there are several solutions for this problem but that actually requires a change of thinking in the Pimps mentality.

 

Simply have the starting area as safe, with low loot and low level enemies. As you go farther away, you encounter radiation in some areas, so you need rad suit or iodine tablets or other solutions. The enemies levels also increase. But so does the loot and resources. You gain the ability to craft items by researching them ( need multiple pieces ) or from books. Exploring a dangerous area can feel very rewarding!

 

By introducing more ( and rarer ) resources for crafting, these can be place away from the players starting position. That prevents the player from learning a skill and simply spam crafting items later on. And when you reintroduce real quality / damage / block damage levels as in A15, players also do not get overpowered items when first crafting.

 

Yes, its a more time sink but what do people prefer. Fallout like "get everything" fast with some XP leveling and getting bored off every game fast. Or play a long term game, where you really learn the world, locations etc. In my opinion the Pimps took part of Fallout 4 and forgot the reason why people played Fallout 4, the locations.

 

Hell, just copy Subnautica their system but yea, that means you need to have a random generator that can handle more content and better zoning. Thus we run into the issue where the limited biomes and similar POIs makes no city or location unique.

 

The main issue is simply, TFPs love to scale down complexity and its that scaling down complexity that drives them into a corner. Less resources means less ability to tie those resources into medium or rare items or limiting players getting over powered. Look at some of the mods, a lot actually increase item counts, crafting recipes complexity and resources types. And as a result it slows down the player automatically. But its done is such a way, it makes sense. Wood frames? Sure ... Wood -> Planks + Nails and NOW you have frames. Suddenly those frames become more valuable.

 

Its all in the design of the game and unless the Pimp give up on trying to create a MMO, its simply going make the gameplay feel unrewarding.

[Cirion]

Yeah the progression is pretty illogical currently. I like the idea of increasing loot quality the further you go out from the starting area. Anyway, it makes only logical sense you shouldn't meet radiated zombies until you get close to or at the radiated biome anyway, IMO.

 

Because theoretically virtually every POI has the same loot table (with some exceptions), there really is no need or desire to go too far beyond your home base (unless you have loot set to not respawn, and even then, trader quests force POI's to respawn).

 

TFP's answer to "increasing gameplay" time is to simply increase the grind of non-unique gameplay which I'm going to be honest here - I hate when dev's do that, it's lazy, shows kind of a lack of creativity (Sorry if I sound offensive just trying to be honest because I like the game and want it to be better), and all it does is increase frustration and boredom not add depth to a game. The first thing I did when A17 rolled out is modify my XML file to decrease XP required & # of skill points per level to circumvent this because that is not at all a fun solution to this problem. As you suggested, what's the point in exploring if the POI 5 km away from your base has literally the same difficulty of enemies, and the same loot table as the house 1 km away?

 

Because of this, I find I rarely explore my game maps 100%, and ironically, when I finally get vehicles and CAN explore I often don't do a ton of it... because I realize pretty quick, the town that is really far away really doesn't have an advantage to bother with at all, except for the fact it might scratch my boredom itch just slightly to see something "new".

 

Now, if there is a plan already in place to do this, that's cool, but AFAIK we don't have much of a roadmap do we? I really think that'd placate a lot of players. Look at Deep Rock Galactic for an example. They have an AWESOME roadmap t hat clearly 100% lays out their future plans so players can kind of follow the Dev's logic in the game. I know devs don't owe that to us necessarily, but trust me when I say that would reduce a LOT of complaints and frustration players voice about a given patch (there will always be complainers, of course though, not denying that).

 

 

*EDIT*. The added benefit to this is that you could apply it to blood moons. Make it so blood moons in newbie zones are fairly benign, you could survive with just wood bases. Basically eliminate any "Game stages" or make the game stage relative to each "Zone" you're in. Increased game stages would make each zone more challenging but only to a degree. IE, you'd never get irradiated zombies in the newbie zone but you might get a few more bloaters. You could then in theory, placate the casual players by letting them just build everything in the newbie area and be relatively safe throughout the game on horde night. On the other hand, the disadvantage to building in the newbie zone is that the newbie zone would have poor loot and poor ores etc so you'd have to venture out far to get the good loot and far to get all the way back to put the loot. Players would think twice about camping out at the starter area if it takes several game hours to get back every day, would give incentive to migrate the base into more dangerous territory where the blood moons are also more dangerous but they are now near the better loot so there are pros and cons to do so whereas currently it doesn't really matter where you build since all POI's give the same loot and all areas are essentially as dangerous as the next.

 

This has the additional added benefit that people would build more bases, experiment more, learn what works, try something new a lot. THe only drawback is that people will complain that they don't wanna keep rebuilding. But, you don't. You just have to deal with the consequences, increased travel times.

[PixelLife]

I agree with OP post. Maybe Limiting the number of Rad Zombies per POI.

Small POI = 1

Medium = 2-3

Large = 3-4

Very Large = 5-6

Factories = 6-10

 

or something alongs those lines

[Feycat]

Running out of reasons to leave your base because you have everything you need has been a problem literally the entire game. Frankly, doing quests and the need for much more ammo than previously keeps that from happening for us now.

[EpicSince81]

We removed all items apart from decor and solar from the traders inventory and disabled selling. Now we depend on going outside for loot and ammo so much more.

 

POIs and Quests are much more important and ammo needs to be crafted or taken from cars/POIs again instead of buying everything for cheap.

[Ghostlight]

Running out of reasons to leave your base because you have everything you need has been a problem literally the entire game.

 

Yeah but it didn't occur anything like as early as it now does in A17. Day 30, I have everything and no need to leave the base except for Bones and Gunpowder.

[Perramas]

the need for much more ammo than previously keeps that from happening for us now.

 

If you need ammo late game the last place you want to go is a POI with all those glowing super zombie sponges. Which is the point of the OP

[General Lee]

If you need ammo late game the last place you want to go is a POI with all those glowing super zombie sponges. Which is the point of the OP

 

Bingo! You will spend much more ammunition on clearing zombies out of POIs than you will get out of POIs if something goes wrong and stealth goes out the window. I was thinking one way to deal with this regarding smaller POIs is to work with at least one partner...one of you goes in, wakes up the zeds, and then runs out of the POI leading the majority of them away from the POI, while the other person goes in and finishes clearing it out if need be. Then the rabbit can circle back and help clear it out and loot the place.

 

This wouldn't really be necessary if the devs hadn't nerfed explosives all to hell. As it is, even with perks, explosives don't really do enough damage to warrant their use.

[meganoth]

Now that legendary weapons are on the horizon I think long term playability is getting better. Still I think crafting as well as the trader should not be able to craft/sell items with max quality, because crafting is absolutely deterministic and plannable, there isn't any luck involved. And mass production is no problem at all.

 

The moment you can craft items of quality x, your whole group has instantly all items you can craft at that level. While if you scavenge a lvl x pick axe, only one person has such a pick axe (until you find more) and nobody has a lvl x shovel or lvl x fire axe.

 

The trader has luck involved, but he is practically like a loot container with not 1-3 items inside but about 100 where you can pick what you want. Or like a quest reward selected with a "Daring Adventurer" perk of 100.

[Benjiro]

We removed all items apart from decor and solar from the traders inventory and disabled selling. Now we depend on going outside for loot and ammo so much more.

 

POIs and Quests are much more important and ammo needs to be crafted or taken from cars/POIs again instead of buying everything for cheap.

 

Yea, 7D2D needs a total overhaul in my opinion.

 

 

 

* Traders need to go or only trade very basic loot near a players start location.

 

* The more away you are from your starting location, the move dangerous enemies you get!

 

* The more away you are from your starting location, the better the loot becomes

 

* The more away you are from your starting location, then Traders sell more valuable loot but at VERY EXPENSIVE prices. Hey, they need to be expensive to pay for their protection in these dangerous areas.

 

* You can have medium value POIs "near" the starting location but they must be clearly dangerous looking. So new players know "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here."

 

* The game needs a mechanism so you can not drive around with your minibikie, jeep without impunity. Currently that game mechanic is broken because as long as you have gas and do not stop, you can get out of almost any situation.

 

* Distant loot makes the vehicles actually more useful / important.

 

* Vehicles need to be Zombie targets ( warm engine, ... ), so you actually need to protect your vehicle and can not just dump it around where ever you go!

 

* Weapon / Tools / Parts need to be research able ( see Rust / Subnautica ... maybe you need x items to research ) or you need to find books in cabinets. No more magic god XP knowledge because you beat a few zombies to dead.

 

* Blueprints can be Trader Quest rewards! Lean a man to fish ...

 

* We need radiated / poison and other zones to limit the player from simply cross crossing all over the map. POIs can have poison or radiation stacked on it but also hold very good loot ( never looted ).

 

* And we need more stuff, more tools, items, crafting combination, workbench or other manufacturing types so you base becomes ultra important, giving you more a reason to defend. And more reasons to explore, to find items.

 

* The Zombie balance is for a different topic.

 

So sorry Pimp but this system looks way more balanced and interesting then what 7D2D is turning into. Its newbie friendlier but also gives people reasons to travel around. Not like now, seeing the exact same city everywhere on the map, what gives you really no reason to even explore.

 

Lets say Alpha 25?

[Cirion]

* The game needs a mechanism so you can not drive around with your minibikie, jeep without impunity. Currently that game mechanic is broken because as long as you have gas and do not stop, you can get out of almost any situation.

 

I think bandits would solve this problem. You might run into a bandit controlled territory, some roadblock. If you aren't paying attention you could get sniped by guys guarding the wall if just blindly driving.

 

If TFP is particularly ambitious, they could make an almost infinite progression system, but I admit this likely is not realistic, but it doesn't change the fact that personally I would find it very fun and almost infinite replay value...

 

Instead of world limitations, make infinite worlds... I mean, it's been done before in many other games, so why not?

 

The advantage of this is that then, if you apply the increased loot, increased difficulty principle to the game, you could literally progress forever.

 

I know, probably not going to happen, but hey, never know.

 

AT the very least could make it so bigger worlds have more progression so a 16 km world would have more progression than a 4km world would. Makes it so playing 4 km worlds would be more newbies and 16 km is for someone wanting to play a longer, more challenging game.

[RipClaw]

* Traders need to go or only trade very basic loot near a players start location.

 

* The more away you are from your starting location, the move dangerous enemies you get!

 

* The more away you are from your starting location, the better the loot becomes

 

* The more away you are from your starting location, then Traders sell more valuable loot but at VERY EXPENSIVE prices. Hey, they need to be expensive to pay for their protection in these dangerous areas.

 

* You can have medium value POIs "near" the starting location but they must be clearly dangerous looking. So new players know "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here."

 

The basic assumption with many of your suggestions is that the player does not move too far from his starting point at the beginning. However, if you started in a rather uncomfortable corner, you might want to walk a few kilometres to get to a friendlier area.

 

In my current game I play on the Navezgane map and started in the desert. Since this is not the best area in the A17, I went to the green one. That's almost 2 kilometers I ran there.

 

In addition one would have extreme problems with multiplayer. Each player has his own starting point.

[Cirion]

The basic assumption with many of your suggestions is that the player does not move too far from his starting point at the beginning. However, if you started in a rather uncomfortable corner, you might want to walk a few kilometres to get to a friendlier area.

 

In my current game I play on the Navezgane map and started in the desert. Since this is not the best area in the A17, I went to the green one. That's almost 2 kilometers I ran there.

 

In addition one would have extreme problems with multiplayer. Each player has his own starting point.

 

Well, one could always apply the principles of ARK. Each biome has its own dangers and loot but when you start a new game you can pick a biome to spawn in, so you can choose your own adventure so to speak... wanna start in a tough area to challenge yourself? Why not?

[Feycat]

Yeah but it didn't occur anything like as early as it now does in A17. Day 30, I have everything and no need to leave the base except for Bones and Gunpowder.

 

Wait, really? A16 it was SO easy to have everything you need, SO early. Zombies just delivered it right to your door.

[Benjiro]

The basic assumption with many of your suggestions is that the player does not move too far from his starting point at the beginning. However, if you started in a rather uncomfortable corner, you might want to walk a few kilometres to get to a friendlier area.

 

In my current game I play on the Navezgane map and started in the desert. Since this is not the best area in the A17, I went to the green one. That's almost 2 kilometers I ran there.

 

In addition one would have extreme problems with multiplayer. Each player has his own starting point.

 

Its a issue with the map generation. This can be solved by having player spawn near 0,0. And having 0,0 being a friendly zone.

 

Multiplayer and Single player are two different games. By pushing changes for A17 that benefit MP, we see the consequences for SP. 7D2D was supposed to be a SP focused game but it feels like A17 turned that table around.

 

If the MP is group playing, then having them start in the same area is not really a big issue. Most people wast time anyway running toward each other now.

 

The real issue is if its a competitive / open server. But that type of servers has always had balancing issues, especially when people enter a already established server as new players ( Zombie levels, lack of resources, stripped cities, high level other players etc ).

 

It can still be solved but it depends on how many players a server supports. You can do multi safe zones where the players are separated but they you run into issues with the map size ( more safe spawning zones means more medium zones and less dangerous zones ). There is a reason why the Pimp ignored this part for most of the Alphas. It does not balance very well with SP. This is why most games separate single player vs open multi player.

[RipClaw]

Well, one could always apply the principles of ARK. Each biome has its own dangers and loot but when you start a new game you can pick a biome to spawn in, so you can choose your own adventure so to speak... wanna start in a tough area to challenge yourself? Why not?

 

That would probably require maps to be handmade. All ARK maps are handmade and therefore it is easy to differentiate the areas.

 

With randomly generated cards this should be a lot more difficult.

[Benjiro]

That would probably require maps to be handmade. All ARK maps are handmade and therefore it is easy to differentiate the areas.

 

With randomly generated cards this should be a lot more difficult.

 

7D2D already has this ability. The map generation uses biomes, these biomes use a list of assets that can be placed in this biome. The issue is that more biomes means more resources needed. And this is where the pimp already run into issues with 7D2D.

 

If they did not have this issue, generating more unique biomes is much more possible. As well as nominating spots where to generate them more frequently. While maps will be more predictable ( snow north, desert south, hills east, ... ), they still have random terrain, cities etc.

 

Then it becomes a issue of having spawn areas and loot tables in those areas. No offense but this is actually not the hardest part. I did that kind of stuff 20 years ago when modding Ultima Online. It just takes more time to set up and maintain those list. The route generation does not need to be changed, nor the city generation. What you need is more district types for cities: Commercial Low, Commercial Med, Commercial High, each with different buildings, who in turn have different loot and enemy spawns. If you want to go crazy, you can have Commercial Snow Med, Commercial Snow High, ... etc ...for even more distinct styles.

 

Like i said, not hard but work intensive. Especially when the game keeps changing. If you have a stable game with stable and plentiful assets, then creating the lists and balancing them out is just a bunch of boring work that needs to be done one time and maintained after that.

[HungryZombie]

* The game needs a mechanism so you can not drive around with your minibikie, jeep without impunity. Currently that game mechanic is broken because as long as you have gas and do not stop, you can get out of almost any situation.

 

I think bandits would solve this problem. You might run into a bandit controlled territory, some roadblock. If you aren't paying attention you could get sniped by guys guarding the wall if just blindly driving.

 

If TFP is particularly ambitious, they could make an almost infinite progression system, but I admit this likely is not realistic, but it doesn't change the fact that personally I would find it very fun and almost infinite replay value...

 

Instead of world limitations, make infinite worlds... I mean, it's been done before in many other games, so why not?

 

The advantage of this is that then, if you apply the increased loot, increased difficulty principle to the game, you could literally progress forever.

 

I know, probably not going to happen, but hey, never know.

 

AT the very least could make it so bigger worlds have more progression so a 16 km world would have more progression than a 4km world would. Makes it so playing 4 km worlds would be more newbies and 16 km is for someone wanting to play a longer, more challenging game.

 

How many times have you driven around to avoid hordenight?

[Cirion]

How many times have you driven around to avoid hordenight?

 

Never actually. I've avoided fighting at bases sometimes and fight on foot, but driving all night is boring, and I want their exp

 

There's really no realistic way to force the player to participate at this point short of making hordes target your base and not you anyway.

[RipClaw]

Never actually. I've avoided fighting at bases sometimes and fight on foot, but driving all night is boring, and I want their exp

 

There's really no realistic way to force the player to participate at this point short of making hordes target your base and not you anyway.

 

Forcing players to do something is never a good idea.

You should encourage players to do something. If you force a player to do something, it feels like a punishment and it always goes down badly.

[HungryZombie]

Never actually. I've avoided fighting at bases sometimes and fight on foot, but driving all night is boring, and I want their exp

 

There's really no realistic way to force the player to participate at this point short of making hordes target your base and not you anyway.

 

Me either. I asked cause I was curious then why this is a concern. I think such a small portion of the playerbase would even consider this that it's not worth them trying to figure a counter for.

[Cirion]

Forcing players to do something is never a good idea.

You should encourage players to do something. If you force a player to do something, it feels like a punishment and it always goes down badly.

 

Agreed. And they already do. Zombies are rich with exp and loot and I think that's reward enough ;-) Plus the sheer satisfaction that comes with killing a horde.

 

All I was saying is that if the intent was to make it so the player was forced into combat, that I provided a scenario that would do so, not that I necessarily want that solution to be implemented.

 

One idea that could provide incentive to fight at your base rather than away from it is to provide bonus to loot and exp from zombies if you are less than 50, 100 meters from your land claim block. This would reward players, while not "forcing" you to fight away from the base or even run away.

[RipClaw]

Agreed. And they already do. Zombies are rich with exp and loot and I think that's reward enough ;-) Plus the sheer satisfaction that comes with killing a horde.

 

All I was saying is that if the intent was to make it so the player was forced into combat, that I provided a scenario that would do so, not that I necessarily want that solution to be implemented.

 

One idea that could provide incentive to fight at your base rather than away from it is to provide bonus to loot and exp from zombies if you are less than 50, 100 meters from your land claim block. This would reward players, while not "forcing" you to fight away from the base or even run away.

 

What the Horde delivers to me in loot and XP brings me also few PIOs. The loot is small and there is nothing special about it. Currently I don't see any real reward for fighting the Horde.

 

As far as the satisfaction of having fought the Horde is concerned, I'm not so enthusiastic. Give me an auger with enough fuel, repair kits and enough to eat and drink and I build you a tunnel across the whole map. That's my kind of fun.

 

I fight the Horde but for me it's more a duty than a pleasure.