Looting Progression Plan

[Worrun]

Like many others, the new loot system has killed it for me. From March 2020 to July 2020 I went from 200 hours to over 900 hours played on Steam, since playing A19 experimental for about 10 hours I haven't touched the game for more than 10 minutes at a time, perhaps 2 or 3 times since.

 

It's just not fun finding blunderbuss after blunderbuss, or stone sledgehammer after stone sledgehammer, until I eventually level up and start to randomly find better items.

 

It should be like Roland has toyed with, harder areas for better loot - like Morrowind.

[Laz Man]

6 hours ago, Xtrakicking said:

I believe there's a misconception, then. There's a difference between people who just want to have a chance of finding every item in loot, even if the good stuff is very rare, and people who want everything at once. Heck, the second guy you quoted even said "albeit that chance is very very small." and "So there's a very very very low chance that you get a level 4 pickaxe on day 1.", though of course, you didn't highlight those parts.

 

 

Here's the thing...how much of a very small chance is enough?  Its a moving target depending who you ask and at the end of the day ruins progression if excessive.  I remember some people who would actually restart their game after they got certain items too early.

 

[Kalen]

5 minutes ago, Laz Man said:

Here's the thing...how much of a very small chance is enough?  Its a moving target depending who you ask and at the end of the day ruins progression if excessive. 

Thats the real trick.... anything higher than zero is fine by me, but I suspect that wont be enough for everyone.

 

6 minutes ago, Laz Man said:

I remember some people who would actually restart their game after they got certain items too early.

Now that is just silly.... I think the randomness of loot makes some of the best gameplay.   Remember the frustration of not finding "Forge Ahead" in a reasonable amount of time?   I hated that.... until I kept playing and had to adapt my gameplay around not having a forge early enough.   It ended up being a lot more fun, because it was unexpected.   Likewise, I remember a game where I got a decent hunting rifle early.   I never used hunting rifles all that much.... didn't like them.   But, that game I used it.   I ended up doing something new, and it was fun.   

 

These are the kinds of things that are lost when you have a fairly standard loot progression.

[Laz Man]

22 minutes ago, Kalen said:

Thats the real trick.... anything higher than zero is fine by me, but I suspect that wont be enough for everyone.

 

Now that is just silly.... I think the randomness of loot makes some of the best gameplay.   Remember the frustration of not finding "Forge Ahead" in a reasonable amount of time?   I hated that.... until I kept playing and had to adapt my gameplay around not having a forge early enough.   It ended up being a lot more fun, because it was unexpected.   Likewise, I remember a game where I got a decent hunting rifle early.   I never used hunting rifles all that much.... didn't like them.   But, that game I used it.   I ended up doing something new, and it was fun.   

 

These are the kinds of things that are lost when you have a fairly standard loot progression.

Fair enough.  I personally wouldn't want a t2 or higher weapon drop early game.

 

So now we know the future plan from Roland's OP.  As a community, let's put together a list of requirements for a mod to tide us over until the plan is implemented. 

 

@Roland, let me know if I should start a separate thread.

 

For example:

 

1) All weapons/armor/tools containers need a 1% chance to drop up to +1 tier loot by < GS 10

 

2) All weapons/armor/tools containers need a 1% chance to drop up to +2 tier loot by 10 > GS < 20

[Kalen]

9 minutes ago, Laz Man said:

Fair enough.  I personally wouldn't want a t2 or higher weapon drop early game.

 

So now we know the future plan from Roland's OP.  As a community, let's put together a list of requirements for a mod to tide us over until the plan is implemented. 

 

@Roland, let me know if I should start a separate thread.

 

For example:

 

1) All weapons/armor/tools containers need a 1% chance to drop up to +1 tier loot by < GS 10

 

2) All weapons/armor/tools containers need a 1% chance to drop up to +2 tier loot by 10 > GS < 20

To balance it you really need item degradation.... I've been trying to think of a way to mod it in but there just doesn't seem to be an easy way.  At least not that I can think of.

[AtomicUs5000]

38 minutes ago, Laz Man said:

I remember some people who would actually restart their game after they got certain items too early.

 

I haven’t gone that far with loot, but I have restarted a couple of times (by coincidence, twice in a row) because I spawned near a trader who happened to have every station in working condition. I mentioned it to MM and he  just said something like, well, that’s RNG, you got lucky. For me, these were broken games as RNG completely removed most of the early game struggle in an instant.

I still believe some things like that should probably be completely preventable, regardless of how slim the chance might be.

[Weazelsun]

I'm still mixed feeling about the current way loot is tied to game-stage in this alpha. I like it in that it now makes me feel more less-fast paced about looting everything, but once I hit the higher game-stages, sometimes RNG just doesn't like to have good loot.

[Laz Man]

15 minutes ago, Kalen said:

To balance it you really need item degradation.... I've been trying to think of a way to mod it in but there just doesn't seem to be an easy way.  At least not that I can think of.

Thats fine, it doesn't have to be perfect.  A good start is to keep the requirements simple.

[Roland]

1 hour ago, Laz Man said:

So now we know the future plan from Roland's OP.  As a community, let's put together a list of requirements for a mod to tide us over until the plan is implemented. 

 

@Roland, let me know if I should start a separate thread.

You want to attempt....consensus?

 

Definitely a different thread and for starters we need to come up with a way to mod the community.

1 hour ago, Kalen said:

To balance it you really need item degradation.... I've been trying to think of a way to mod it in but there just doesn't seem to be an easy way.  At least not that I can think of.

Easiest would be to just remove repair kits from the game. Anything that can be repaired without one isn’t really worth keeping for the whole game so primitive repair could remain but T1+ would degrade. 

[Laz Man]

56 minutes ago, Roland said:

You want to attempt....consensus?

 

Definitely a different thread and for starters we need to come up with a way to mod the community.

 

Yep, its more productive for folks to channel their energy into a workaround/solution instead of just repeating their displeasure in multiple treads over and over

[Laz Man]

I just started looking through the xmls....and it doesn't look like it takes much to mod loot progression to a happy place for anybody.

 

For example, I think t1 weapons have a 0% probability to drop until GS 10.  Wouldnt take much I don't think to change that to 1%.....

 

 

 

 

[Kalen]

3 hours ago, Roland said:

You want to attempt....consensus?

 

Definitely a different thread and for starters we need to come up with a way to mod the community.

Easiest would be to just remove repair kits from the game. Anything that can be repaired without one isn’t really worth keeping for the whole game so primitive repair could remain but T1+ would degrade. 

Hmmm, you'd still need repair kits for vehicles.  I feel like they should still be repairable.   Plus, if you're going to remove item repair then I feel like you need to decrease the rate an item degrades to compensate.   

[Roland]

10 minutes ago, Kalen said:

Hmmm, you'd still need repair kits for vehicles.

for now anyway...

[Laz Man]

13 hours ago, Boidster said:

Not going to name names 'cause I don't want to drag others into this fight, but here's from just this thread:

 

Outside of this thread, a certain poster has been pushing this mod wherever he can.

I checked out this mod, and he removed alot of the vanilla probability templates and replaced it with his own.  Some of the removals may have not even been necessary.  However, In general, he made all weapons/armor/mods/tools have a chance to be lootable at 4% at level 0.  He didn't touch any of the quality templates so even if you do get a higher tier item, it is likely to be a gray quality item until you reach a higher GS which is fair.

 

Edit: Just a thought, another possible mod to vanilla is to just alter the loot tables for the T4/T5 POI loot room chests to have a chance at higher tiered items so that the player has to earn the higher tiered loot and not just get "lucky" finding it in a lower tiered POI.

[DaChibii]

I know the conversation is shifting towards altering the probability values in the loot tables, but may I offer a suggestion.

Perhaps, add a player inventory check to see whether a player has a stone tool of an equal or lower quality, and if not remove the corresponding entry in the derived tables? (Or at least reduce the probability?) This way players that need the tool find it (and at higher quality), and those that would just scrap it are saved the .5secs it takes to do the action.

[Boidster]

But what if I'm looting with my Q5 shovel on my belt and you my faithful party member suuure would like a Q4 shovel. I guess give all the best loot to one player (me, obviously) and then the n00b (you) has to loot all of the containers to make sure there's a chance for you to improve. Of course if you loot anything higher than what I have, you have to give it to me to restore balance. And I get to inspect your inventory after every loot incase you're hiding something from me because that is just the sort of thing you would do!

 

🙂

[DaChibii]

15 minutes ago, Boidster said:

But what if I'm looting with my Q5 shovel on my belt and you my faithful party member suuure would like a Q4 shovel. I guess give all the best loot to one player (me, obviously) and then the n00b (you) has to loot all of the containers to make sure there's a chance for you to improve. Of course if you loot anything higher than what I have, you have to give it to me to restore balance. And I get to inspect your inventory after every loot incase you're hiding something from me because that is just the sort of thing you would do!

 

🙂

Currently the loot system as I'm aware, has shifted to away from 'looter' as a specialized class and more of 'everyone should loot'. This from how loot level is determined by the highest GS within a party, and is applied to the entire party. Yes, Lucker Looter skill and magazines affect personal looting, but overall this means that on average everyone in the party loots the same.

In your scenario, it wouldn't be an issue unless one party member wasn't looting at all (which is like saying they're not killing zombies, or crafting anything, or harvesting blocks). So a party would roughly have the same stone tool level, and if a player had skilled into Lucky Looter then he would be handing down their old tools until they reached Q6 tools (at which point either each player would have to loot for themselves, upgrade to Iron tier, or be content with Q5 stuff).

I see can players suddenly getting a bunch of Stone Shovels because they don't keep them in their inventory (and thus be annoying to find unneeded duplicates). But as long as most players look at the mechanics, it would feel normal. You get a item you need when you need it and in a reasonable amount of time, and don't get an over abundance of items that you don't want. To be honest, most games have this as a way to help a struggling player and only players that look to exploit game mechanics really abuse it.

[Boidster]

10 minutes ago, DaChibii said:

Currently the loot system as I'm aware, has shifted to away from 'looter' as a specialized class and more of 'everyone should loot'. This from how loot level is determined by the highest GS within a party, and is applied to the entire party. Yes, Lucker Looter skill and magazines affect personal looting, but overall this means that on average everyone in the party loots the same.

I actually think the change to Lucky Looter has pushed in the opposite direction, hasn't it? We always did have a party-level gamestage for looting (where "always" = "in A18").

 

Before: we get a party "loot GS" and the whole party gets the benefit of Lucky Looter if one member has it

Now: we get a party "loot GS" but only the player(s) perked into Lucky Looter get the benefit

 

Seems to me a party would want one guy to spec into Lucky Looter (and give him any/all loot-related books) and then open most of the high-value crates for the party. It's as likely as not that I am missing something here, though...my co-op partner has been AFK for 6 weeks so I haven't done any party play in A19 yet.

[Tmodloader]

17 hours ago, Roland said:

Easiest would be to just remove repair kits from the game. Anything that can be repaired without one isn’t really worth keeping for the whole game so primitive repair could remain but T1+ would degrade. 

I don't like that idea and I'm sure that would mess with anyone that tends to keep all their consumables till the end of RPGs 
If something extreme like that was ever implimented I'd rather it be another option and certainly not mandatory. I much prefer simply loss of items on death. I am actually unsure how anyone can play with the backpacks but that's just me. Loss on death solves this somewhat though I do feel death needs to be more punishing in general too to discourage exploit-y deaths and make you feel like you must survive as long as you can more than just that being the name of the game.

[Kalen]

3 minutes ago, Tmodloader said:

I don't like that idea and I'm sure that would mess with anyone that tends to keep all their consumables till the end of RPGs 
If something extreme like that was ever implimented I'd rather it be another option and certainly not mandatory. I much prefer simply loss of items on death. I am actually unsure how anyone can play with the backpacks but that's just me. Loss on death solves this somewhat though I do feel death needs to be more punishing in general too to discourage exploit-y deaths and make you feel like you must survive as long as you can more than just that being the name of the game.

Loss of items on death would have zero impact on anyone that plays dead is dead.   

[Tmodloader]

52 minutes ago, DaChibii said:

I see can players suddenly getting a bunch of Stone Shovels because they don't keep them in their inventory (and thus be annoying to find unneeded duplicates). But as long as most players look at the mechanics, it would feel normal. You get a item you need when you need it and in a reasonable amount of time, and don't get an over abundance of items that you don't want. To be honest, most games have this as a way to help a struggling player and only players that look to exploit game mechanics really abuse it.

I feel like that ruins the purpose of looting even more than A19 haters hate it.
Not every loot needs to "feel good."

2 minutes ago, Kalen said:

Loss of items on death would have zero impact on anyone that plays dead is dead.   

True true, wasn't considering that, wish that was an option. Maybe a more extensive repair system is a solution because repair kits are definitely somewhat cheap. Iron age keeping repair kits is fine but maybe steel T3 type gear needing more expensive repair would be good for the game.

[Kalen]

2 minutes ago, Tmodloader said:

True true, wasn't considering that, wish that was an option. Maybe a more extensive repair system is a solution because repair kits are definitely somewhat cheap. Iron age keeping repair kits is fine but maybe steel T3 type gear needing more expensive repair would be good for the game.

The real problem is that currently, items are infinitely repairable so that when you find an item you get to keep it forever.   This becomes an issue when you consider opening up early game looting to have the potential to drop higher tier items.  Since modding in a degradation system seems pretty difficult, eliminating repairs entirely might be the best solution.  

 

Personally, I think, if you do that, you also have to increase the durability of items to compensate.   Figuring out how long an item should last will probably be a source of contention as that is entirely based on peoples' opinions on what "feels right".   I would think an item lasting roughly 2-3 days of continuous use per quality level would be a good starting point.

[Tmodloader]

If you make repair expensive enough that you don't always have new kits though then you may be able to keep the item forever but you will have times where you can't use it. Would have to require something that is really only lootable to make sure the grind doesn't skyrocket. Then again you have to keep in mind how annoying and how much time it'll take to move all item mods.

[Laz Man]

59 minutes ago, DaChibii said:

Currently the loot system as I'm aware, has shifted to away from 'looter' as a specialized class and more of 'everyone should loot'. This from how loot level is determined by the highest GS within a party, and is applied to the entire party. Yes, Lucker Looter skill and magazines affect personal looting, but overall this means that on average everyone in the party loots the same.

In your scenario, it wouldn't be an issue unless one party member wasn't looting at all (which is like saying they're not killing zombies, or crafting anything, or harvesting blocks). So a party would roughly have the same stone tool level, and if a player had skilled into Lucky Looter then he would be handing down their old tools until they reached Q6 tools (at which point either each player would have to loot for themselves, upgrade to Iron tier, or be content with Q5 stuff).

I see can players suddenly getting a bunch of Stone Shovels because they don't keep them in their inventory (and thus be annoying to find unneeded duplicates). But as long as most players look at the mechanics, it would feel normal. You get a item you need when you need it and in a reasonable amount of time, and don't get an over abundance of items that you don't want. To be honest, most games have this as a way to help a struggling player and only players that look to exploit game mechanics really abuse it.

I think the duplicate issue with any item can be minimized by offerring some type of quest turn for them.  For example, don't have a use for multiple blunderbusses because you already have 4 on your hotbar for chain attacks?  No problem, just turn in 10 for a quality 1 pistol at trader joels!

[Tmodloader]

Just now, Laz Man said:

I think the duplicate issue with any item can be minimized by offerring some type of quest turn for them.  For example, don't have a use for multiple blunderbusses because you already have 4 on your hotbar for chain attacks?  No problem, just turn in 10 for a quality 1 pistol at trader joels!

If only there was a way to exchange items. Maybe for coins or something so you can build up progress for that quality 1 pistol.