Do you hate crafting?

[HungryZombie]

What's the point in doing that, if I already find better gear than I can craft?

 

Random stats.

[AshaMarie]

I never been do depressed before in my life. I enjoy crafting so much on top of building up a pretty base. My investment in crafting made it worth the effort, but now you can no longer make the top tier stuff... why should I keep playing now?

 

PLEASE re-add max tier crafting. I beg you...

[Prodigy]

I'm pretty sure you can be self sufficient in/around your base with blue level gear... There really isn't one ounce of "must" related to the aquiring of purple. It is great when you get it but self-sufficiency is attained by blue--possibly even green-- but blue for sure. So stay at home is still a choice if it means that much to you.

Sorry, I could (and should) have been a bit clearer. I was commenting more on the overall reliance on looting, than just QL6 items.

And, as someone who's played the stay-at-home approach, no, it really isn't a choice. When you're not actively looting and questing as much as earthly possible... it takes an ungodly amount of time to accomplish much of anything. Take farming for example: I play 30 minute days usually... I was on Day 15 before I could so much as cook stew & craft seeds. 7 and a half hours of grinding, just for that one, fairly basic staple.

 

Fairly similar experience trying to play a Chemical Engineer.

 

This all part and parcel of experimental. It isn't personal. Nobody is trying jerk the rug out from under anyone. It is just the way re-balancing goes. They knew shortly after A18 dropped that they had gone too far oo the looting side of things and unintentionally devalued crafting-- much like A17 devalued exploration and looting. So they made a pendulum swing change but realized they went too far by opening up the purples to crafting. I can tell you that the reason for the update after only 4 days was precisely because they didn't want people getting too married to purple crafting. Their vision for the game is that the top tier is non-craftable. I think they are getting closer to a good balance where crafting and looting both feel important and an integral part of the game.

 

People who never opt in to experimental and who only start playing when it goes stable will never know about this back and forth on the balance. We are choosing to experience it and we have to remember that our desire for a stable play experience has to come second to what the devs need to do to get the game ready for the real public release of A18.

I totally agree both (A17 & A18) had flaws. And I'm sure balancing is something that's going to be occurring for quite some time, lol.

It just looked like you were questioning people's complaints. I.E. "It was okay then, now suddenly it's not - WTF?" This was just a much more sudden, unexpected, smack-in-the-face type change without any forewarning that it was coming.

 

Also agree that, when you click the drop down and opt in, you've explicitly agreed to deal with the headaches that come with it.

[Prodigy]

if u can craft everything and its even equal/better than loot what the point of leaving the base? (this was the main problem in a17, it was nonsense to risk your life looting since you could just craft whatever u want yourself). I do like crafting and there is plenty of things to craft in this game, i do think that max tier should not craftable tho, perhaps make it more difficult to loot also since there is no degradation

 

Thing is, when it wasn't required... you still had the option to require it. You could impose "Nope, I'm going to go scavenge and salvage everything I can from the wreckage around me." And John Q Immersed could hunker in his base and be self sufficient.

 

While your justification is fair (they want looting to feel important), the argument is really about how they took the play how you want meta of A17, and turned it into just play how we let you. You could always choose to not craft L6 items. You never had to play my way.

But now I can no longer choose to immerse myself in the "we only leave when we need to" style of play that I feel is more fitting. I now am forced to play your way.

Hopefully that made sense? lol

[Roland]

So in the dev diary Madmole just corrected my statement that legendary would probably be t7 and said that it might end up being t6 with special abilities. Just wanted to say that the decision hasn’t been made yet to add an additional tier and t6 may end up never being craftable if you’re playing vanilla.

 

@Jedo, I guess this issue didn’t hit my radar before this most recent flip flop like it has now.

[Roland]

I never been do depressed before in my life. I enjoy crafting so much on top of building up a pretty base. My investment in crafting made it worth the effort, but now you can no longer make the top tier stuff... why should I keep playing now?

 

PLEASE re-add max tier crafting. I beg you...

 

Sorry that the change has so affected your enjoyment of the game. I can tell you that they feel very strongly about this and are very unlikely to change their decision.

 

I’m sure you’ll be able to find a modlet that returns purple crafting before very long.

[warmer]

Maybe I'm reading to much into their thinking, but I just assumed having Tier 6 being an un-craftable made sense in regard to no one having access to industrial equipment. Tier 5 being as refined as you can go without having highly engineered/refined industrial tooling.

 

Although...

 

That would make for an interesting POI. Having a POI like a Shot Gun Messiah Industrial Plant which has the required tooling to craft Tier 6 weapons. Require the crafting be done at the Plants crafting table. It would give you a reason to take it over and defend it on an MP server.

[Limdood]

 

 

This is all part and parcel of experimental. It isn't personal. Nobody is trying jerk the rug out from under anyone. It is just the way re-balancing goes. They knew shortly after A18 dropped that they had gone too far to the looting side of things and unintentionally devalued crafting-- much like A17 devalued exploration and looting. So they made a pendulum swing change but realized they went too far by opening up the purples to crafting.

 

Wait...

 

realized they went too far by opening up the purples to crafting.

 

It'd be really REALLY nice if someone could tell us, officially, WHY?!?

 

Crafting T6 doesn't devalue looting.

 

Yes, getting level 10 in an attribute and 5 in a skill is consistent, compared to the RNG of finding the level 6 item in loot...

 

but you still need to find the schematic. Yes it's more common than actually finding a given level 6 item...

 

but you still need the parts.

 

What this does (and what it has done since A18 released....there was significant pushback against the lack of impressiveness of crafting since A18 dropped) is devalue specialization. If I really want to be a miner/ranger/sniper/machinegunner/sledge-tank/etc...just ONE goal for my character progression, and I put all my points, all my effort, all my time into doing that one thing super amazing, I end up with pretty nice weapons/tools. But the absolute pinnacle of the path I really want to take? that's out of my hands. For some reason, TFP wants that equipment capstone for any path to be randomly equally available to all...no matter their focus, goal, or expenditure of time/effort towards it.

 

So....why?

 

What was it about crafting that was "too good" that it devalued looting, in the dev's eyes? It couldn't be that people would just sit in their base and loot, because you needed huge amounts of items no available except by exploring. So....why?

[Kalen]

Personally, I'm disappointed in this change. I liked being able to craft high end gear.... after all, it actually takes more work and time investment to craft a T6 item than it does to loot one. Shouldn't that dedication to a craft be rewarded? You have to level an attribute to 10... level a skill to 5... loot enough items to scrap into the appropriate parts. All that is much more than just opening a crate and finding a T6 item.

 

Also, I'm not swimming in the parts I need like some people are. Sure, I find plenty of gun parts, but steel tool parts or steel armor parts I'm not finding so much. In my current play through, I'm on day 25 and have found enough to make 1 steel tool and 1 steel armor piece.

[Prodigy]

Maybe I'm reading to much into their thinking, but I just assumed having Tier 6 being an un-craftable made sense in regard to no one having access to industrial equipment. Tier 5 being as refined as you can go without having highly engineered/refined industrial tooling.

 

Although...

 

That would make for an interesting POI. Having a POI like a Shot Gun Messiah Industrial Plant which has the required tooling to craft Tier 6 weapons. Require the crafting be done at the Plants crafting table. It would give you a reason to take it over and defend it on an MP server.

 

I would agree with this, if they made a couple small changes.

--Make QL 1-5 craftable without Parts items. Revert them to only scrapping for resources (so you can't scrap them for parts).

Rename the parts to something like "Refined Steel Tool Parts" or something like that. Indicate that they're high quality.

QL6 still requires the uncraftable refined parts.

 

This would hide the QL6 behind a lootgate, but make the QL1-5 items craftable (without being behind a lootgate), making them easy enough that they're worthwhile to craft and use.

 

Then, whenever you get QL6 items, you can scrap them for refined parts, so that you can - over time - try to recraft ones that have better stats (though it would be a gamble).

[DarkRitual]

Have tier 6 craftable but tier 7 being unique to hard late-game stuff like boss loot (slayers), top tier quest rewards (questers), or extra-diffiocult PoI's (looters) would allow multiple methods of getting them (as opposed to needing to loot to get them from any compatible loot container).

 

But then there's no reason for tier 6 to be uncraftable untill the tier 7's get added in. It was a mistake to take away something to give the "feel good when looting great items" when adding a unique tier for loot (or even just unique variants of existing tiers) provides that at no loss to other playstyles.

 

Looters used to have an advantage with random stats on loot. This was a good way to do it. You could craft great things, but looters could find ones that were better but not by a huge margin. The best stuff looters had was fairly close to the best stuff crafters has (random stats). Now with random stats on crafted stuff but no T6 craftable, there is a much higher difference between the best stuff available to each playstyle.

 

Sure, you can randomly craft a T5 better than a crappy T6, but looters can still not only get an average T6 that's better, but they can also find a T6 that's got high random stats.

[Roland]

I still can’t wrap my head around this attitude that some of you seem to have that blue level gear isn’t high level crafting. It’s almost like you think 2-5 is crap and only 6 is good.

 

I get being disappointed that something you used to be able to do is now something you can’t do but can we at least stop with the comments that we can’t craft high level gear any more?

 

Yes we can. Tier 5 is awesome.

[Jihh]

Yes, getting level 10 in an attribute and 5 in a skill is consistent, compared to the RNG of finding the level 6 item in loot...

 

but you still need to find the schematic. Yes it's more common than actually finding a given level 6 item...

 

It's just pure balancing of chances. Imagine they want 1 in 400 looted items (of the same type) to be quality 6 with perfect stats. Then they could actually just increase the material costs (item parts) for crafting to an amount that you need to find and scrap 400 items to have the same chance of getting a q6 items with perfect stats. Now both are on par and you won't come far without looting.

Just leave the opportunity to also craft q5 items as well with the amount of materials needed right now.

 

Of course that doubles the chance of getting a q6 item, but just for the slots you are specialized in and I don't see anything wrong in having a higher chance to get a good item of the type you are spezialized in than of any other type.

 

I wouldn't mind if q5 items need 15 parts and q6 items need 40 parts, as long as looting a quality 6 item is equally rare.

 

Crafting items being too consistent is just a matter of tweaking numbers.

[Vapid Actions]

What this does (and what it has done since A18 released....there was significant pushback against the lack of impressiveness of crafting since A18 dropped) is devalue specialization.

 

I think this pretty much hit the nail on the head for my perspective. I'm not sure why Roland is saying this is a sudden thing, we had some discussion back after the drop regarding uncraftable bow parts and all the same complaints were being brought forward.

 

But this is the biggest point of the change overall imho. Your specialization is not really up to you. In my case in the old thread, I wanted to make an archer, but couldn't find a wooden bow if my life depended on it (I think it was something like day 32, still no wooden bow?).

 

"Crafting is useless now" - This isn't 100% true, and we all know it. I mean, you still need wooden frames and barbed wire. So I just did a playthrough actually to try to feel the impact of crafting in A18. I allowed myself to craft on day 1 for basic necessities, axe, club, wood frames, some storage chests and a barbed wire stockpile. After day 1, I was not allowed to craft *anything*, not a wood frame, not a barbed wire, nothing at all. So my horde base needed to be built on day 1, or use an existing PoI and modify it only by destroying blocks.

 

I played as a perception build, with rifles penetration ability to take advantage of the style of base I could build in a day 1 build rush, and of course lucky looter. The run finally died on horde night day 35, when I had finally run out of barbed wire, and they managed to get to my fight cage.

 

Honestly through this playthrough, I never really missed crafting. Had I allowed myself to continue crafting the basic necessities such as more wood frames, smelt iron/concrete, and barbed wire to keep the BM base at full operation, it would have been easy to continue.

 

That is how much impact crafting has now.

[Roland]

It'd be really REALLY nice if someone could tell us, officially, WHY?!?

 

The official reason is that there are several very successful games that have set a precedent for the top tier level of gear being loot only. Given that the devs want this and have other games that are wildly successful that they can point to as justification you have your why.

 

A17 was the “everything is craftable” version and the devs agreed with a lot of feedback out there that it made the world not worth exploring. By making purple the loot only tier they solved this issue. Because it is a design already tested and found to be successful in other games they felt secure in the decision.

 

I can assure you that players new to the game who never crafted purples in the past won’t even blink an eye. They’ll have fun crafting up to blue and finding their purples. It is only those who know what used to be (and care) that feel the pinch and for them there are sure to be mods.

 

The design has proven to be good so why wouldn’t TFP utilize it if it goes along with their preferences as well?

 

This isn’t even the first time. In the past purples were not craftable. You could only attain them by combining dupes on a workbench.

 

At other times weapons were not craftable at all. In fact for most of this game’s lifetime (after molds went away) you couldn’t craft guns — only find them or find parts to assemble. Somehow, this game was able to advertise itself as a crafting game through all those changes and it is still a crafting game now.

[Prodigy]

I still can’t wrap my head around this attitude that some of you seem to have that blue level gear isn’t high level crafting. It’s almost like you think 2-5 is crap and only 6 is good.

 

I get being disappointed that something you used to be able to do is now something you can’t do but can we at least stop with the comments that we can’t craft high level gear any more?

 

Yes we can. Tier 5 is awesome.

I think it's a combination of:

1. Loot-Gating the Highest Tier
   
2. Forcing your specialization/character development's best equipment to rely on RNGeezus instead of player choice
   
3. The ridiculously slowed progression rate, combined with smaller reward for that dedicated time
   

 

I believe it takes 17 points to max an attribute. Plus 5 points for maxing the specific weapon/tool skill. At absolute bare minimum, that's 18 levels - if you don't spend a single point in anything else. Given the changes to the leveling rate, that's at least ~20% more exp than was required in A17. Add to that the increased tankiness of zombies,etc., and what you have is multiple in-game weeks of effort (a part-time job's worth of hours in real life)... and you still are at the mercy of RNG as to whether you get the item that your entire time has been dedicated to specializing in.

 

All in all, I think that leaves a salty taste in most peoples' mouths.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

The official reason is that there are several very successful games that have set a precedent for the top tier level of gear being loot only. Given that the devs want this and have other games that are wildly successful that they can point to as justification you have your why.

 

Don't those other wildly successful games generally give some sort of additional incentive/explanation for those items being loot-gated, in the form of additional functionality and/or increased statistical bonus?

 

I could be off here, but I feel like generally, "high-level, normal, mundane gear" generally isn't loot-gated.

[snatchedalmond]

I'm not really a fan of taking something away from the player that we already had, especially if you dangle it in front of us for a few days but this is a far cry from the biggest problem with the game lol

[Jihh]

I still can’t wrap my head around this attitude that some of you seem to have that blue level gear isn’t high level crafting. It’s almost like you think 2-5 is crap and only 6 is good.

- Needing 3 hits to destroy a stone block takes 50% longer than needing 2 hits. That's not just a bit weaker, that's a whole lot weaker. If you balance the block damage so that q5 items need the same amount of hits as q6 items, then there is absolutely no reason to restrict players from crafting q6 items. If you don't balance it that way, the difference is huge and crafting is more or less useless, since most players probably will find q5 items, before they are even able to craft them and no matter if they craft additional q5 pickaxes or not, they will stay at 3 hits at best.

 

- In both A18 games I played, I found q2 items (of the type I specialized in) before I could craft q2 items. I also found q3 items before I could craft them. The same with q4 and q5. So even if TFP reduces the chance of finding q6 items in early game, there is no point in crafting items. It isn't that I think q2-5 is completely crap, but looting even without lucky looter is way too strong. Of course you could nerf looting to the ground, but does it really make sense to use crafting potential as a base for loot chances/quality, rather than using intented progression rate as a base?

 

- I still can't wrap my head around the attitude that some of you seem to have that it's a bad thing, if ~2 out of ~10 slots (those you are specialized in) are competitive in crafting, while every other slot isn't. Aren't you specialized in those slots for a reason? Looting still is the most important part of progress, since you need the materials from looting and you need loot for the other ~10 slots.

 

 

I get being disappointed that something you used to be able to do is now something you can’t do

But that's absolutely not my reason, as I explained in my wall of text some posts prior. And as far as I understood the other only a few of them have this particular problem.

 

Just one of the reasons I mentioned before (and it isn't the most important one): With looting being stronger than crafting and lucky looter being a thing, there is like no reason to not spend your first 21 (I guess) points into perception and lucky looter, before you go for the skill tree you actually want to play with. That's clearly bad game design. Also since you asked in your first post of this thread, why there is suddenly such an outrage, as far as I remember people already commented on lucky looter being too strong before the streaming event, when madmole uploaded videos for the different skill trees. Since the dev diary has a (let's say) decent size, I sadly won't be able to find those comments .

[Roland]

I think this pretty much hit the nail on the head for my perspective. I'm not sure why Roland is saying this is a sudden thing, we had some discussion back after the drop regarding uncraftable bow parts and all the same complaints were being brought forward.

 

I remember those conversations and they were limited to the catch22 of needing parts to craft weapons you already had at a tier that was higher or the same as what you could craft. I’m sorry I don’t remember the “OMG we can only craft to blue quality” piece of those conversations.

 

TFP is dealing with that other issue by making weapons and tools drop as brown and orange much more often for much longer. The higher quality finds will be much rarer as they should be and players will have more time and parts to craft higher tier items before they can find them anyway.

 

None of this has anything to do with the complaint that tier 5 counts as garbage for crafting and players MUST be able to craft tier 6 or they can’t thrive or be a specialist. Getting to tier 5 is specialist level and soon the world will support that when most everything is brown or orange in loot and at the trader.

 

But this is the biggest point of the change overall imho. Your specialization is not really up to you. In my case in the old thread, I wanted to make an archer, but couldn't find a wooden bow if my life depended on it (I think it was something like day 32, still no wooden bow?).

 

That has been fixed by changing parts to groups of weapons rather than specific weapons. And you can still specialize. T5 is the new cap for specialization. Choosing what to specialize in at 7am of Day One is simply a strategic error in my opinion. If you wait to decide what to specialize in until after the first horde night you will have a clearer picture of the best choice to make— even then you can go against what fate decrees during your first week and make it more of a challenge for yourself.

[Limdood]

I still can’t wrap my head around this attitude that some of you seem to have that blue level gear isn’t high level crafting. It’s almost like you think 2-5 is crap and only 6 is good.

 

I get being disappointed that something you used to be able to do is now something you can’t do but can we at least stop with the comments that we can’t craft high level gear any more?

 

Yes we can. Tier 5 is awesome.

 

No one is saying T5 isn't awesome, but if you're specializing in something, your goal is to eventually make it to the pinnacle of that specialization, and that work/effort for reward has been devalued GREATLY....sure, we can still work towards a T5 item, and yeah, that's awesome...it's enough....EXCEPT that T6 items exist and are available to anyone, at any time, with complete random equality.

 

The argument that T5 MIGHT be better than T6...maybe....if RNG hits a certain way, is bulls*** pure and simple.

 

Allow me to tell a story...

You work in a business. You bust your a** every day and work hard to climb the ladder in your department, because the way your business is set up, you get paid more the more time and effort you've put in and the salary can be anywhere from 10 to 50k per year for these hard workers. Your company does something weird though...It hires people from other businesses for 10 to 60k per year...seemingly at random. You just got word, as you've been busting your butt and climbing the ladder, that the salary cap just rose from 50k per year to 60k per year for longtime employees, in addition, all employees will now get paid 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, or 60k per year, but that can fluctuate by up to 6k in either direction.

 

Awesome! It feels like it's about time...I mean. Nothing against those other business hires...there's a lot of risk there after all, they might get paid only 10 or 20k! It just felt odd that you put so much effort in, and focused so hard on getting ahead in YOUR department, and every now and again, someone would get hired out of the blue for more than you could ever even HOPE to achieve.....But that's all over now, right?! I mean, you'll still have to work hard and keep at it to get to that level, but at least now you can get to it. 50k was enough, but it always seemed such an odd choice to randomly bestow an even higher salary on people no matter what they were doing.

 

But 4 days later, they announce "whoops, we're removing the 60k cap for longtime employees...it will again be exclusively available to outside hires." You're upset. Yeah, it's the same situation as before, but briefly, it felt like they'd actually listened to your previous complaints and were finally starting to value the time and effort you put in.

 

You complain about the recent change and the Human Resources representative says "cheer up! I don't understand what the problem is! It's the same thing you had and you weren't complaining then! In fact, it's even better...with that 6k fluctuation, it's actually possible for you to make MORE than someone on the 60k tier!"

 

You'd be pretty upset....feel like you're being ignored. What's the point of working so hard when the company just doesn't value it? The company insists that all ways of working are equal...but you just think to yourself "yeah, but some are more equal than others."

[Roland]

- Needing 3 hits to destroy a stone block takes 50% longer than needing 2 hits. That's not just a bit weaker, that's a whole lot weaker. If you balance the block damage so that q5 items need the same amount of hits as q6 items, then there is absolutely no reason to restrict players from crafting q6 items. If you don't balance it that way, the difference is huge and crafting is more or less useless, since most players probably will find q5 items, before they are even able to craft them and no matter if they craft additional q5 pickaxes or not, they will stay at 3 hits at best.

 

- In both A18 games I played, I found q2 items (of the type I specialized in) before I could craft q2 items. I also found q3 items before I could craft them. The same with q4 and q5. So even if TFP reduces the chance of finding q6 items in early game, there is no point in crafting items. It isn't that I think q2-5 is completely crap, but looting even without lucky looter is way too strong. Of course you could nerf looting to the ground, but does it really make sense to use crafting potential as a base for loot chances/quality, rather than using intented progression rate as a base?

 

- I still can't wrap my head around the attitude that some of you seem to have that it's a bad thing, if ~2 out of ~10 slots (those you are specialized in) are competitive in crafting, while every other slot isn't. Aren't you specialized in those slots for a reason? Looting still is the most important part of progress, since you need the materials from looting and you need loot for the other ~10 slots.

 

You are assuming the future will be the same as the past. Once TFP is done (probably by next week) you will not be finding or buying gear that is better than what you can craft. They recognize the glut of higher tier loot at the trader and in loot and how that makes crafting meaningless. All looting needs to keep it exciting is a chance to find high tier loot. This will also help specialization because the gear you didn’t specialize in will all mostly be lower level stuff but the things you can craft will be higher— especially now that stats are random now for crafted items.

But that's absolutely not my reason, as I explained in my wall of text some posts prior. And as far as I understood the other only a few of them have this particular problem.

 

Just one of the reasons I mentioned before (and it isn't the most important one): With looting being stronger than crafting and lucky looter being a thing, there is like no reason to not spend your first 21 (I guess) points into perception and lucky looter, before you go for the skill tree you actually want to play with. That's clearly bad game design. Also since you asked in your first post of this thread, why there is suddenly such an outrage, as far as I remember people already commented on lucky looter being too strong before the streaming event, when madmole uploaded videos for the different skill trees. Since the dev diary has a (let's say) decent size, I sadly won't be able to find those comments .

 

You don’t need to find those quotes because I remember them—but again while being a related issue it was not the same issue as what is being complained about specifically now: Not being able to craft purple tier gear.

 

I agree that TFP needs to find a happy medium between looting and crafting. I think they are on the right track. Absolutely, lucky looter needs to be looked at and tweaked and in a post apocalyptic world most of the loot found needs to be the mundane stuff with the rare gem to be found and treasured while those who develop skills in crafting can make really high quality stuff— you know, like green and blue.

[Roland]

No one is saying T5 isn't awesome, but if you're specializing in something, your goal is to eventually make it to the pinnacle of that specialization, and that work/effort for reward has been devalued GREATLY....sure, we can still work towards a T5 item, and yeah, that's awesome...it's enough....EXCEPT that T6 items exist and are available to anyone, at any time, with complete random equality.

 

The argument that T5 MIGHT be better than T6...maybe....if RNG hits a certain way, is bulls*** pure and simple.

 

Allow me to tell a story...

You work in a business. You bust your a** every day and work hard to climb the ladder in your department, because the way your business is set up, you get paid more the more time and effort you've put in and the salary can be anywhere from 10 to 50k per year for these hard workers. Your company does something weird though...It hires people from other businesses for 10 to 60k per year...seemingly at random. You just got word, as you've been busting your butt and climbing the ladder, that the salary cap just rose from 50k per year to 60k per year for longtime employees, in addition, all employees will now get paid 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, or 60k per year, but that can fluctuate by up to 6k in either direction.

 

Awesome! It feels like it's about time...I mean. Nothing against those other business hires...there's a lot of risk there after all, they might get paid only 10 or 20k! It just felt odd that you put so much effort in, and focused so hard on getting ahead in YOUR department, and every now and again, someone would get hired out of the blue for more than you could ever even HOPE to achieve.....But that's all over now, right?! I mean, you'll still have to work hard and keep at it to get to that level, but at least now you can get to it. 50k was enough, but it always seemed such an odd choice to randomly bestow an even higher salary on people no matter what they were doing.

 

But 4 days later, they announce "whoops, we're removing the 60k cap for longtime employees...it will again be exclusively available to outside hires." You're upset. Yeah, it's the same situation as before, but briefly, it felt like they'd actually listened to your previous complaints and were finally starting to value the time and effort you put in.

 

You complain about the recent change and the Human Resources representative says "cheer up! I don't understand what the problem is! It's the same thing you had and you weren't complaining then! In fact, it's even better...with that 6k fluctuation, it's actually possible for you to make MORE than someone on the 60k tier!"

 

You'd be pretty upset....feel like you're being ignored. What's the point of working so hard when the company just doesn't value it? The company insists that all ways of working are equal...but you just think to yourself "yeah, but some are more equal than others."

 

Let me tell a shorter story that actually relates to the game instead of the ups and downs of an opt-in experimental build:

 

You wake up in a hellish post apocalyptic world where a nuclear war has been waged and monsters roam the earth. All pre war fabrication and manufacturing is gone. There is no longer any possible way to recreate the technology that yielded the best gear that people enjoyed in the old world. You do the best you can with the limited forge and workbench you’ve pieced together and using all your skill and knowledge you have been able to craft some amazing gear but every once in awhile you get lucky and find of some of that pre-war stuff that is just impossible to replicate with post-war technology.

 

No doubt Society will rise again and old technologies will be reclaimed but probably not in your lifetime.

[Vapid Actions]

So I'm trying to get all the eggs in one basket.

 

Players:

- Want specialization to allow them to specialize in item power

 

Developers:

- Want loot to be the single source of end game items

 

What if specialization impacted looting? Drop lucky looter, and each point you put into something increased the chances of finding its related item(s), with Q6 items locked behind a5 points. This completely eliminates finding Q6 items early, allows only those specialized into a class of items to get the best of those items, and is completely loot driven. Then we can get rid of crafting outside of building components, and just make base crafting into a quick wheel, and boom, we're done! We've matched the criteria requested and implemented several successful proven techniques in other games!

 

Ok, maybe a bit hostile at the end there, I'll admit. But one of the things I was enjoying about 7dtd was that it was more complex and in depth than other games. You had to get to know your recipies, know what to gather and where, know what steps to take to build something better. Now... I mean, I just completed a day 35 run without opening any crafting menu after the first night. Literally thinking about nothing but kill zombies, and run with what you get. Making the game completely loot based makes it... a lot more mindless. And while that mindless approach has certainly proved successful in other games, its not what attracted me to 7dtd.

 

When your fate is completely at the hands of RNG, why should you really care about any particular action you would take. It's just about if you get lucky or not anyways. I used to like to stealth my way through PoI's, clearing them out. doing 3-4 a day. And I could do that, because all that little loot I picked up clearing the PoI I could craft into something. Now, all that matters is the big loot boxes at the end of dungeon, so you just bash your way to it doing 10+PoI's per day, ignore the rest of the PoI and cross your fingers. I have less interaction with PoI's outside of my base in A18 than I did in A17, because I don't ever need to worry about picking up small loot found throughout PoI's.

[Synvastian]

Let me tell a shorter story that actually relates to the game instead of the ups and downs of an opt-in experimental build:

 

You wake up in a hellish post apocalyptic world where a nuclear war has been waged and monsters roam the earth. All pre war fabrication and manufacturing is gone. There is no longer any possible way to recreate the technology that yielded the best gear that people enjoyed in the old world. You do the best you can with the limited forge and workbench you’ve pieced together and using all your skill and knowledge you have been able to craft some amazing gear but every once in awhile you get lucky and find of some of that pre-war stuff that is just impossible to replicate with post-war technology.

 

No doubt Society will rise again and old technologies will be reclaimed but probably not in your lifetime.

 

^This is both so, so fun to read, as that is what would actually happen, and saddening because finding said items would show just how far we would have fallen

[Limdood]

The official reason is that there are several very successful games that have set a precedent for the top tier level of gear being loot only. Given that the devs want this and have other games that are wildly successful that they can point to as justification you have your why.

Your first argument is "because someone else did it and it worked." but in the past you've argued that 7dtd isn't exactly like any other game. In fact, in months of history on the forums, you tend to shoot down the comparisons of 7dtd to other games REPEATEDLY with "7dtd isn't other games, so what works in those games doesn't really mean much of anything regarding 7dtd." This seems just a BIT of a flip-flop on that position...

 

A17 was the “everything is craftable” version and the devs agreed with a lot of feedback out there that it made the world not worth exploring. By making purple the loot only tier they solved this issue. Because it is a design already tested and found to be successful in other games they felt secure in the decision.

The devs countered this argument when they released A18....you HAVE to explore to craft 3rd tier items at any quality. There is NO WAY to get enough parts AND the schematic without extensive exploration. You guys had a problem, and implemented a wonderful solution (item parts and non-skill, looted-only schematics). It solved the problem perfectly. You could craft top end Tier 2 items, but to get Tier 3 items, you HAD to explore. But then you resolved the problem, quite unnecessarily by just flat out removing what the hermits in A17 even wanted. Adding the Q6 craftable back in, and then making randomized crafted items, it seemed that TFP finally realized that they had already HAD the perfect solution in place...craftable T6 means you could search for it OR make it (after extensive searching for marginally less rare items and time and effort for the perks). Using parts and loot-only schematics meant you couldn't just hide in a mine and level up, then come out decked out in full Q6 steel armor with a Q6 sledge and machinegun. Finally, adding the randomization meant that all those parts you looted didn't become completely useless the moment you found or crafted a Q6.

 

B149 SOLVED the problem, using the reasoning you're giving, B152 OVER-SOLVED the problem, and created a new (old) one.

 

I can assure you that players new to the game who never crafted purples in the past won’t even blink an eye. They’ll have fun crafting up to blue and finding their purples. It is only those who know what used to be (and care) that feel the pinch and for them there are sure to be mods.

Really? you think that someone new to the game won't give themselves a goal of getting a cool item (I hear the M60 is quite sought-after) and then wonder WTF they were saving up all those parts for when they find a Q5 or Q6 version of it in a gun box? Sure, there will be some elation at first "yay I found this amazeballs item!" but then they get back to base and look at the machinegun parts in their chest, and then open their skills and see those points they put into all the endurance and intelligence perks to get the ability to eventually craft one and wonder...why? I mean the skill still gives them some benefits, but like half of it just got erased.

 

 

 

This isn’t even the first time. In the past purples were not craftable. You could only attain them by combining dupes on a workbench.

which, despite any quibbling that "that wasn't technically 'crafting' per se"....was still craftin Q6 items.