If TFP wanted natural progression might I suggest they bring back "spam crafting"

[Synvastian]

people enjoyed it because they could make 1 billion stone axes then make a perfect steel one from the "knowledge" they gained. or walk back and forth into spike traps to build armor skills/ health skills from healing.

 

LBD has been done, and talked about so many times, I'm sure if they ever thought about bringing it back, it would be already.

 

to be fair, I don't hate the idea of LBD, but seeing a new topic of LBD when one is posted almost weekly gets old

[Slingblade2040]

yeah that's why it should have been revamped. it shouldn't have been scrapped completely. obviously some parts of it were bunk.  it can be tweaked to work along side the current perk and book system. like all those damage boosting perks could've been removed and be placed instead to LBD for tools and weapons.  cardio could have been kept also for LBD as you get better your stamina usage drops. 

 

like i said the system just needed a revamp, overhaul whatever you want to call it but it made the game fun. this dumbed down perk system isn't horrible but it simplifies the game a lot and I think improvements could be made by using all 3 systems together.

 

If they want to slow down progression for players then maybe putting back in LBD to work with the other 2 system is the answer. they just need to overhaul it a bit.

[Teacyn]

LBD can only possibly work if it's used as a subsystem rather than the primary progression. Otherwise you loop back around to either crafting 400 stone axes or putting super strict and arbitrary caps on how much you can progress (based on GS or overall level if I had to guess), and that's awful for gamefeel.

 

IMO, it could work to have the currnet skill/perk system with LBD using to handle purely things that can't be cheesed, sort of more of a "Challenge" system than actual progression. Increase your block damage with a pickaxe by breaking ores. Decrease stamina usage of clubs by destroying 50 zombie heads with clubs. Decrease recoil with Machine Guns by landing 25 headshots in a row. ETC. Rather than being the primary source of progression, give the player difficult (or long-lasting, in the case of say the Pickaxe one) challenges that provide smaller bonuses that augment the skill/perk system.

 

If you'd asked me this same question in A18 I would have said that the new system is totally bunk and we should go back to LBD with some kind of fix for abusive stuff like crafting 400 stone axes, but A19 has patched up a lot of the holes in the new system. A lot of inconveniences and annoyances were fixed by condensing perks and consolidating Science. Having to put 5 levels into every skill was awful, but a lot of them are 3 or 4 now (and each level gives more bonuses, encouraging you to at least put one point) which makes it a lot more manageable. I still think LBD should come back in some form like the "Challenges" I mentioned so that players can become all-around stronger if they put the effort in without having to spend precious points, but it should not be the primary progression.

[Solomon]

5 minutes ago, Teacyn said:

LBD can only possibly work if it's used as a subsystem rather than the primary progression. Otherwise you loop back around to either crafting 400 stone axes or putting super strict and arbitrary caps on how much you can progress (based on GS or overall level if I had to guess), and that's awful for gamefeel.

Honestly it doesnt need much change.

 

 

Put everything combat related into LBD while the rest goes into perks. I mean if you whack zombies all day you are prone to pick up where to hit them actually but making the same stone axe would only make crafting stone axes better and not everything better in the same category.

[caatalyst]

With the new book system you wouldn't even necessarily need skill points at all.

Learn by doing could be applied to all physical skills (Stamina, digestion, weapon accuracy and recoil etc)

Intellect skills could be learnt by finding books. (Crafting tools, blocks, ammo etc)

These two combined would be very organic and the book system would eliminate spam crafting. You could even expand the intellect skills by allowing the player to break down items they find in the world at the work bench to learn how to craft them. Maybe the more you break down the better you become at crafting them (higher item level).

[RestInPieces]

1 minute ago, caatalyst said:

Learn by doing could be applied to ... digestion ...

Hm, I can imagine that. 

[caatalyst]

Spam crafting doesn't need to come back in order for learn by doing to work.

 

Instead we could have

• Physical Skills are learnt by doing. Things like stamina, digestion, weapon accuracy and recoil would all fit nicely here.
• Intellect skills are learnt from books, schematics or from finding and breaking down items you find in the world at the work bench. This would include things like crafting tools, weapons and blocks. The more you break down or books / schematics you find, the better you get.

This would eliminate the need for skill points entirely and would be far more organic and rewarding for players.

[caatalyst]

3 minutes ago, RestInPieces said:

Hm, I can imagine that. 

The going in part, not the going out 😉

[AtomicUs5000]

2 minutes ago, caatalyst said:

Spam crafting doesn't need to come back in order for learn by doing to work.

Especially since they removed that from the old LBD system in A16 and yet people still use it as the prime reason to abandon LBD.

[Glaston]

Who doesnt like  wearing a great cocktail dress ?

[sadpickle]

On 7/18/2020 at 6:12 AM, Ttocs said:

I do miss parts of LBD, it was part of the magic of the version i fell in love with 💔

 

On 7/18/2020 at 6:28 AM, caatalyst said:

I really miss learn by doing.

It's pretty uncommon in mainstream FPS games. The only games I can think of that have this sort of progression system are indie roleplaying games... Cataclysm: Dark Days Ahead for example. Several MUDs have them as well. The problem is figuring out a way to keep it fun without enticing people to grind. Locking crafting behind a skill that you can grind in will pretty much guarantee grinding. It works well for activities that are monotonous and imperative anyway; in this game fighting enemies and resource gathering are the two obvious activities where a LBD system can feel rewarding.

[uselessjunkaccount]

1 hour ago, caatalyst said:

With the new book system you wouldn't even necessarily need skill points at all.

Learn by doing could be applied to all physical skills (Stamina, digestion, weapon accuracy and recoil etc)

Intellect skills could be learnt by finding books. (Crafting tools, blocks, ammo etc)

These two combined would be very organic and the book system would eliminate spam crafting. You could even expand the intellect skills by allowing the player to break down items they find in the world at the work bench to learn how to craft them. Maybe the more you break down the better you become at crafting them (higher item level).

 

 

This is what I'd like to see. Learn-by-doing for action skills. For crafting, you could access additional crafting tiers by obtaining more blueprints. To me, spam crafting not only didn't feel natural but it felt a bit like cheating. Although I wouldn't mind seeing it again if spam crafting only helped you craft the specific item you are spam crafting. So with stone axes you are only getting skill in crafting stone axes. Perhaps combine that with the skill-ups obtained through blueprints and you'd have a system that could incentivize both looting and crafting as viable ways to get better crafted items much more organically.

 

Also it'd be nice if some skills were just done away with entirely like Pack Mule. Just give us carrying capacity with every level. Having to study to be a better engineer in crafting things makes sense but having to study to increase my strength makes no sense when I'm carrying around a backpack full of crap all day.

[Scyris]

Just add LBD for things like Weapon skills, and mining tools, and have the perks for those weapons be based on the level of the LBD skill you have in it, with perks at 1,20,40,60 and then 80 skill. Darkness Falls mod uses this setup and it works great.

[ArcadeAndrew115]

13 hours ago, Onarr said:

I think it could be a trifecta of progression

• LBD - for raw numbers
  • weapon handling
  • gathering
• Perks - change in gameplay, something fun
  • animal tracker
  • lockpicking
  • etc.
• Magazines and books - recipes and unique bonuses
  • recipes
  • unique bonuses

 

Lot of concern in the game is with replayability. Might I suggest a selection of random new perk (select from 3) or using several perk points to improve already existing one? It works quite well in lot of roguelike games imho.

This would be the perfect way to do it, dont get me wrong NOTHING IS WRONG WITH HAVING PERKS, but if they want realism and immersion, the LBD method for basic skills like armor crafting&repair, and tools was much better and then supplement with perks/books. Ideally a no perk system, but LBD & find books to learn system would be the most realistic and natural progression BUT that would kill alot of good balance aspects of the game, or theyd have to be re-coded which could be difficult (IE: Well insulated perk would be a nightmare to try and code to show resistance to elements naturally over time, but in real life people can and do get used to the environment they live in so using it as a perk that you spend points on as you level up over time isnt THAT immersion breaking)

37 minutes ago, uselessjunkaccount said:

 

 

This is what I'd like to see. Learn-by-doing for action skills. For crafting, you could access additional crafting tiers by obtaining more blueprints. To me, spam crafting not only didn't feel natural but it felt a bit like cheating. Although I wouldn't mind seeing it again if spam crafting only helped you craft the specific item you are spam crafting. So with stone axes you are only getting skill in crafting stone axes. Perhaps combine that with the skill-ups obtained through blueprints and you'd have a system that could incentivize both looting and crafting as viable ways to get better crafted items much more organically.

 

Also it'd be nice if some skills were just done away with entirely like Pack Mule. Just give us carrying capacity with every level. Having to study to be a better engineer in crafting things makes sense but having to study to increase my strength makes no sense when I'm carrying around a backpack full of crap all day.

Spam crafting made sense though, If you dedicate time to make 100 stone axes, your first one will not nearly be as good as the 100th one...

[myrkana]

Can you stop beating this horse? It's so dead the maggots are even gone... LBD is not coming back. It had upsides and downsides like anything does. 

 

My most vivid memory of A16 was the fact that every single day1 I always holes up somewhere and crafted axes until morning, I dont miss that much

[myrkana]

At this point they really arnt going to revamp the entire system. Stop bringing this up  also theres also another LBD thread up right now.

[RestInPieces]

3 hours ago, ArcadeAndrew115 said:

Spam crafting made sense though, If you dedicate time to make 100 stone axes, your first one will not nearly be as good as the 100th one...

And diminishing returns + sensible item economy (e.g. reduced scrap material yield), would have made even more sense and solved that grindy nightmare that was spam crafting.  

 

[Theodryck]

void rant (CHAR_DATA * ch, char * argument)

   {

    char buf [MAX_STRING_LENGTH];

    char message [MAX_STRING_LENGTH];

 

     while ( alpha_19 != fun )

       {

         str_cpy(message, "Here's the thing: so far I'm reading a lot of hate towards Alpha 19 game play mechanics.  You have a few people who'll defend their beloved Pimps to      the last with excuses like "Git Gud" or "You don't like a challenge" when none of the complaints have anything to do with how hard or challenging the game is.  It's mainly about how grindy and boring things have gotten.  Example: What's the point of going out and exploring when all you're going to find are stone tools in unopened tool crates (For....reasons).  Yes, I often go to my local Home Depot and Lowe's for their fine selection of stone tools.  So now nobody goes out and explores this beautiful new HD world because there's no point in looting box after box of stone axes, empty jars, and stone shovels.  After your GS gets high enough, sure.  But until then, why risk wasting precious POIs on crap loot?

 

Then there's the fun part of grinding through endless hours of rapid food and water consumption and no stamina while trying to do even the most menial tasks.  So, yay, I guess?  So you can either go after the terrible loot, or stand in a shallow pit while you wheeze and gasp from trying to mine one block.  Memo to The Fun Pimps: This is not fun!  Listen to what we are telling you!  The overwhelming vast majority of people really do not like alpha 19 at all.  The visual changes are great, but the game play changes are terrible and often feel lazy and vindictive; and at some points, even feel downright mean (such as getting mauled by 100000 birds after falling from my spot during the horde night on day 21 and not being able to run around to get back up to my perch.  So if you fall off your base, that's it.  You're just dead.  Deal with it.  Game over, man!  Game over!)") ;

      }

 

     sprintf(  buf, "%d/n/r", message );

     send_to_char (buf, ch );

     tail_chain();

     return;

   }

 

 

[Onarr]

9 hours ago, ArcadeAndrew115 said:

This would be the perfect way to do it, dont get me wrong NOTHING IS WRONG WITH HAVING PERKS, but if they want realism and immersion, the LBD method for basic skills like armor crafting&repair, and tools was much better and then supplement with perks/books. Ideally a no perk system, but LBD & find books to learn system would be the most realistic and natural progression BUT that would kill alot of good balance aspects of the game, or theyd have to be re-coded which could be difficult (IE: Well insulated perk would be a nightmare to try and code to show resistance to elements naturally over time, but in real life people can and do get used to the environment they live in so using it as a perk that you spend points on as you level up over time isnt THAT immersion breaking)

Spam crafting made sense though, If you dedicate time to make 100 stone axes, your first one will not nearly be as good as the 100th one...

LBD is not a good fit for crafting, but more for weapon skills and mining. Spam crafting does not make sense. If you make 100 stone axes you wont be able to make better iron axe or anything different.

[Solomon]

10 hours ago, uselessjunkaccount said:

To me, spam crafting not only didn't feel natural but it felt a bit like cheating.

It kind of makes sense, in a practice makes perfect logic but the problem is that we had too many things grouped up together and gone full Skyrim.

 

For example it makes sense that if you spamcraft stone axes they become better but it doesnt make sense that you spamcrafting stone axes makes you able to create steel pixaxes.

[Raestloz]

Skyrim has learning by doing. What happens is people just grind the hell out of the parts they dislike

 

Sneaking, crafting, jumping, enchanting, etc. People simply refuse to do things they don't like, and the whole experience is best summed as: "Ugh, when can I go back to doing fun bits?"

 

Experience system allows people to do whatever they like to do, and shore up the parts they don't like, which supports the parts they do like. For what it's worth, as much as it doesn't make sense for someone to get good at gardening while blowing undead brains off, it makes sure people are doing what they want to do, not doing what they have to do

 

Because they've already done the latter during work hours

[Hellsmoke]

Yeah kinda miss it too. There was always this grass and stone grind so you had something to do the first few nights, you were really busy! Now a days I tend to just sit around after sorting a bit waiting for morning. Haven't played 19 yet so no idea how it is with new lighting.

[n2n1]

The "Grind" problem is just an "cause"/excuse to remove the LBD.

Grind's problem could be solved easily.

And to be honest, it wasn't a problem per se. Who wanted to grind - they grinded and it was their game - they were happy.

Who would not want to grind not grinded , and this wasn't a problem for them.

 

Now we have the same XP-grind, just is no choice now. Things have become more monotonous and boring. Looteeer-Shooteeer  ..."all as in Aaa games".

[Xtrakicking]

In paper, LBD sounds like an amazing way for players to progress, but in reality the system was really easy to exploit and it ended up being a mess with all players crafting 500 stone axes the first day, reaching maximum quality level in tools by the end of it. It even became sort of a famous gimmick in the community of the game.

 

I'm not against crafted gear being gated behind player level. It might be a bit grindy due to XP gaining and requiring more materials the better the quality is, but it's not all that bad imo. I am against the way loot progression works now, though. Luckily, there are more iterations to come.

[pApA^LeGBa]

@n2n1

 

So sitting in the interface of a forge watching things getting crafted in it was better? That is what happened with LBD. On MP servers you wouldn´t meet anyone during the night, they all were sitting in their bases, either spamcrafting or running around their campfires in circles to get atlethics up. And how you gonna stop that running around the campfire while still maintaining learning by doing when you actually run anywhere? And that´s only one example why LBD is so hard to do without a high chance of exploiting it.

 

No matter what they do, it will be exploited. And that will kill public MP for people who refuse to run in circles the whole night.