Do you like the A19 loot system?

[Sjustus548]

2 minutes ago, ItsHORDEnotHOARD said:

My experience with A19:

 

- Install the game after a year off. 

- Generate a map, and be gladly surprised it only took a few minutes. 

- Start playing, spawn on the desert looks great. 

- Loving the upgraded graphics, game looks and runs great! 

- Kill several zombies with a club. Very happy with combat. Challenging but not unfair. 

- Enter a small POI, found a crate. 

- Open the crate, found a stone axe WTF. 

- Found another sealed crate... With yeat another stone axe. 

- Close the game, uninstall and wait for A20, or whenever they complete the loot system. 

 

So to answer the OP question: no. I hate the current state of the system, IMO stone tools do not belong on sealed crates. 

 

However I understand  it's just WIP and the devs will fix it, just like they've fixed many other things. 

 

See you guys in another year and Happy Halloween! 

 

 

So you looked in two containers, didn't find anything good and decided it wasn't worth playing this alpha anymore?  Sounds like you should probably just get rid of the game then because there is nothing the devs could possibly do to satisfy you.  

[JCrook1028]

18 minutes ago, ItsHORDEnotHOARD said:

- Start playing, spawn on the desert looks great. 

You spawned in the desert in A19? I thought all spawns were supposed to be in one of the two forests.... Sounds like you either played an old version or had a bug?

[RipClaw]

1 hour ago, JCrook1028 said:

You spawned in the desert in A19? I thought all spawns were supposed to be in one of the two forests.... Sounds like you either played an old version or had a bug?

Or he used a Nitogen map. The spawn points are set when the map is created.
 

[hiemfire]

1 hour ago, JCrook1028 said:

You spawned in the desert in A19? I thought all spawns were supposed to be in one of the two forests.... Sounds like you either played an old version or had a bug?

Iirc Nomad (the old default) and Warrior spawn in the desert (Warrior might have the player spawn in a snow biome) in vanilla. The two lowest difficulties are forest spawn (Burnt and unburnt are both possibilities).

[Tahaan]

The looting system isn't bad per se.  It has the right idea.  But since you don't have that 1% chance to get something higher than your GS it takes away a lot of the fun in looting.  Looting has become mechanical.

[Hollowprime]

The new looting system is balanced, however it requires many levels to start functioning properly. I get it the devs want a less gamebreaking game, however the game requires even more levels to be enjoyable than before. That is all.

[Stranded_Napkin]

On 10/30/2020 at 10:19 AM, Boidster said:

I meant, "you [Stranded Napkin] appear to have a balance issue with how you prefer to play a non-vanilla game.

 

"I made these changes and now the balance is off!"

"Here's a way to restore some of that balance, in light of how you yourself have chosen to change the game..."

"STOP STIFLING MY CRITICISM!!!"

 

I wonder some times if criticism is the goal, not the means.

Like I'd said before, they had it right and also had better options. They just changed it to level caps. I'd thought that that issue had been understood when the devs took the level caps out of the skill tree.

 

I get the argument that I'm not playing vanilla but why should I be ok with it when they had it right previously?  It's also not like everyone plays the game the same way. There's people who play nomad. There's people who mine and avoid the horde. There's people who play run-all-the-time. There's people who play horde-every-night. There's people who turn off horde nights and mod it so there's more roaming zombies. One of the best things about this game is the variety of options in play style. 

 

Ideally I'd only come to the forums to tell the devs how much I like the game, pipe in on a few mod questions, and offer up thoughts about possibilities in the future (Pimp Dreams). Complaining is ugly. It only shows the negative and nobody likes negatives. I make my opinion known so they cannot say "I haven't heard the displeasure surrounding the new loot system, so it must be just fine with everyone."

[Roland]

1 hour ago, Stranded_Napkin said:

I get the argument that I'm not playing vanilla but why should I be ok with it when they had it right previously?

They so did not have it right previously. I could see an argument that they went too far in trying to solve the problem of too many OP weapons too easily obtainable too early in the game but to say that they had it right with the way it has been for years now means your fix might as will be to just save yourself any trouble and open the creative menu on Day 1 and give yourself everything you deem to be "fun". Because the way they had it "right" previously wasn't too many degrees from that...

[Stranded_Napkin]

10 minutes ago, Roland said:

They so did not have it right previously. I could see an argument that they went too far in trying to solve the problem of too many OP weapons too easily obtainable too early in the game but to say that they had it right with the way it has been for years now means your fix might as will be to just save yourself any trouble and open the creative menu on Day 1 and give yourself everything you deem to be "fun". Because the way they had it "right" previously wasn't too many degrees from that...

Not sure what game you played but NOBODY had level 6 steel tools and firearms on DAY 1 of this game. I never did. I never had more than a single steel tool that was level 1. Now, admittedly I only played on pc since A16, but still if your argument is for version prior to that it's been a moot point for years now. Your argument is as bunk as any out there.

[Roland]

15 minutes ago, Stranded_Napkin said:

Not sure what game you played but NOBODY had level 6 steel tools and firearms on DAY 1 of this game. I never did. I never had more than a single steel tool that was level 1. Now, admittedly I only played on pc since A16, but still if your argument is for version prior to that it's been a moot point for years now. Your argument is as bunk as any out there.

I didn't say quality six steel tools. It's interesting that that is where you went...haha. I said "too OP gear, too early, and too easily obtainable". A quality 1 steel tool on Day 1 qualifies as too OP, too early, and if you grabbed it from a random car or by nerdpoling to the roof of a building you've memorized has the treasure rewards then....too easily obtainable. Quality 1 rifles, machine guns, shotguns, and pistols on Day 1 are also too OP, too early, and yes, those also sadly have been too easily obtainable. And I am specifically talking about A16, A17, and A18 -- although it was much much worse in A17 and A18.

 

Like I said, if you want to just skip over primitive gear completely from Day 1 then just give yourself the stuff you want. Go ahead and make it quality 1 gear. Against the early days zombies you will be encountering it will be every bit as much OP as quality 6 gear.

 

The fact that you think that getting a steel pickaxe on Day 1 of any quality isn't OP at all tells me we probably are too different in our approach to the game to have a productive conversation. Thank God the developers have finally started fixing what has been so broken about the early game. For you, the creative menu is your friend.

[Stranded_Napkin]

8 hours ago, Roland said:

The fact that you think that getting a steel pickaxe on Day 1 of any quality isn't OP at all tells me we probably are too different in our approach to the game to have a productive conversation. Thank God the developers have finally started fixing what has been so broken about the early game. For you, the creative menu is your friend.

I'm gonna have to agree with you on that one. If you think a single level 1 iron/steel tool on day 1 is OP, you and I probably won't have a productive conversation. That and the fact that you seem to think that the proper way to fix said issue is to guarantee that looting is a complete waste of time. No way I'm gonna ever agree with that one. It feels like a swing from one extreme to the opposite extreme. How does that even make sense? Even on the basis that it may be setting up a better system, its current form is terrible. Even if you play the game the opposite way I do and set it on near daily respawn, all you're doing is giving yourself a bunch more stone items to scrap. Yay, more materials that take longer to gather than actually mining with stone tools. I love the game and want the best for it, but this isn't a fix and I see no reason to pretend it is.

[Solomon]

10 hours ago, Roland said:

A quality 1 steel tool on Day 1 qualifies as too OP

Okay so first i didnt wanted to believe this so i made my calculations:

 

Stone Axe:

 

21-32 block damage for 8 stamina

 

Iron Pixaxe:

 

37-52 block damage for 18 stamina

 

Steel Pixaxe:

 

66-94 damage for 26 stamina

 

To destroy an 1000 hp block with a Q1 tool you are going to use up 381 stamina with the Stone Axe in 47 hits, 486 stamina with the Iron Pixaxe in 27 hits and 393 stamina with Steel Pixaxe in 15 hits.

At max quality its 31 hits with the Stone Axe for 250 stamina, 19 hits with the Iron Pixaxe for 346 stamina and 10 hits with the Steel Pixaxe for 276 stamina.

 

This balance is absolutely bonkers, like theres literally no point in using an iron tool apart from increased speed between tiers because their stamina usage is throught the roof!

 

Either iron tools need some serious buffs or steel tools need to be nerfed because it makes no sense this way, the tiers could literally go from Iron->Stone->Steel as they are now currently, just rename iron into "carbon" with some reskins and now you have a low stamina use albeit bit slower but still better option for your building needs.

[Roland]

2 hours ago, Stranded_Napkin said:

It feels like a swing from one extreme to the opposite extreme. How does that even make sense? Even on the basis that it may be setting up a better system, its current form is terrible. Even if you play the game the opposite way I do and set it on near daily respawn, all you're doing is giving yourself a bunch more stone items to scrap. Yay, more materials that take longer to gather than actually mining with stone tools. I love the game and want the best for it, but this isn't a fix and I see no reason to pretend it is.

I said in my very first reply to you that I could understand and even agree with the argument that they took it too far but I can’t agree that what we had before was right and good or even better than now. I’d rather the loot be too stingy than too generous during the first week. 
 

As for changes that are the basis for future features but not themselves intended as the final implementation, welcome to playing a game that is still fully in development. You paid for the back stage pass and wanted inside the construction zone so don’t complain that various aspects of the game are released as WIP pieces.

 

Finally, you really have no clue about the preferences of others. You think I’m concerned over respawn rates?  I never touch them. I always play default 30 days. Please, get this through your head: I, and many others, actually enjoy a moderately paced primitive stage that lasts the first week or two of the game. We don’t try to skip it or speed run through it. We like the sense of progression. We actually like getting a yellow quality stone axe when all we have is an orange one.  None of us are  just pretending that we like the current direction nor are we pretending that we think the early game is better now without the best gear trivializing the struggle. You just can’t fathom that others have a sincere difference of preference to you and you really think that we are making it up for some reason?

[stample]

Like many, I don't like stone tools in sealed type-specific crates.

 

1)  Remove type-specific (Shotgun Messiah, Working Stiff, etc) crates from all T1 and T2 POIs, except thematic ones (T2 Working Stiff, for example)

2)  Give type-specific loot crates a chance (maybe not a large one, but a chance, 15-20% to have T1 iron tools at GS1)

 

That would give us a reason to open those crates before we get our GS up, and a reason to look for those "good" POIs like we did in A15/A16, and a reason to risk harder POIs at low levels, for a chance to get some low quality iron (or T1 gun) loot.  No chance at steel or T2+ weapons.

 

I think if you find a gun store on Day 1, you should be able to find a Q1 9mm or double-barrel, or an iron spear or club.  The stamina usage on the weapons and tools is self-limiting anyway, and ammo consumption limits gun usage early on.

[Stranded_Napkin]

On 11/6/2020 at 3:06 AM, Roland said:

You just can’t fathom that others have a sincere difference of preference to you and you really think that we are making it up for some reason?

Wow, assumptive much? Where did I say that nobody enjoyed the current game? Where did I say that the current game was unanimously disliked? Here's the answer, I never did. You seem to have a serious problem with putting words into other people's mouths. I get that you like it. I just don't...and here's something that's gonna shock you, I'm not the only one. The truth is that I don't give a rat's a** if you do or don't like it. You aren't the only person playing. I know that goes both ways too. You seem to think that since you like the current state of the game that the game is perfect and everyone who disagrees just needs to shut up. Something being a work in progress or incomplete is not a reason to keep quiet either. That's just a cop-out. 

 

And FFS you couldn't even understand that my comment about respawn rates was to demonstrate the absurdity of the current state. It never had anything to do with you. Way to twist that one.

[Roland]

Aah...you meant “you” in the general sense instead of me personally. You’re right that I read what you wrote the wrong way. 
 

I don’t think that you believe nobody likes the loot progression. I think you have a hard time understanding why anyone would. I’m not shocked to hear that people don’t like a design decision. That has been happening for years. 

[RestInPieces]

As someone who thinks that the current loot system is as bland as it gets AND wants slow, meaningful, progression:

 

Gathering higher tier stuff, no matter if you can't use them effectively yet, is a bad idea. Not when you can just stroll through a SM or find almost any POI anywhere on day 1, not when those so-called "sealed crates" are everywhere. The less prudently items are distributed into the world, the more any sense of exploration, looting, crafting etc are trivialized as the game progresses. Not that it particularly matters without an item sink but anyway.

 

So the devs are like "ahh, yes, we have vertical progression in the game, let's achieve that by handling the distribution of items with a meta number, that guarantees the same results in every playthrough, is known by the player at all times, renders unique POIs and containers rather meaningless in early game and, in general, makes the spatial variety we have worked so hard to create obsolete". Which is nothing new really, but became painfully obvious, gameplay-wise, with the latest change.

 

No wonder someone gets disgruntled when they visit that SM, open a sealed crate and find that stone axe on day 1, *rightfully* complain, and then have others *rightfully* tell them "what did you expect on day 1". Ironically, both make a valid point. Thing is, what players visit throughout their playthrough hardly changes, ergo what they visit doesn't matter much. It's that meta number that matters - almost solely. Which is why what @stample said, is among the excruciatingly few good concepts in this thread.

On 11/6/2020 at 6:36 PM, stample said:

1)  Remove type-specific (Shotgun Messiah, Working Stiff, etc) crates from all T1 and T2 POIs, except thematic ones (T2 Working Stiff, for example)

Not that this alone would change something for the better but it would be a ...start.

 

And biome modifiers will help, sure, but the thing is, that's just what they are - modifiers - they are not meant to *gate*, and even though they will offer some nice difficulty variations between areas, if they keep scaling perfectly with the player's level at all times, I don't expect they will really bring any meaningful variation to the players' visiting habits. Which is why I roll my eyes every time I hear someone saying "the latest change was a necessary step towards the system" etc etc.

 

[jeromeN7]

On 8/26/2020 at 2:15 AM, Xtrakicking said:

I kind of disagree. While A19s loot is bad, A18s loot wasn't good either. It was kind of the extreme opposite of what we have now; you could get level 4 AKs even in smaller POIs during the first week, it was just too OP.

 

Im gonna have to agree. As much as I dislike A 19's loot system, A 18's loot system was a little bit too generous at times.

[Aldranon]

Distance from traders should be reflected in loot quality (people would have already looted the good stuff near a trader) and difficult biomes and buildings should have better stuff.

 

A person's level (GS) should have nothing to do with loot.  Your level will just allow you to go to the hard places and get the good stuff.

  

[Solomon]

6 hours ago, RestInPieces said:

Gathering higher tier stuff, no matter if you can't use them effectively yet, is a bad idea. Not when you can just stroll through a SM or find almost any POI anywhere on day 1, not when those so-called "sealed crates" are everywhere. The less prudently items are distributed into the world, the more any sense of exploration, looting, crafting etc are trivialized as the game progresses. Not that it particularly matters without an item sink but anyway.

This idea is mainly inspired by LBD but i think it can be used without it in A19 too.

 

How about we put in a efficiency? You can pick up any tool and gear you want but if you dont have the proper perks for them you cant use them efficiently.

Lets say you found an auto-shotgun on day 1, its a hella powerful weapon so you decide to raid an SM factory with it. You enter the first room with the counters and see a zed awake.

You take aim, pull the trigger and the zed is dead while you got pushed back soo hard that you dropped your gun. Well no @%$#, you never learned how to use a shotgun not even an automatic one.

 

The same can be applied to everything to some degree, as long as you dont have enough points in specific perks you can use a weapon properly. For our auto shotgun example you would need either 3 points in the shotgun perk or 5 points in strenght to make the effect go away.

 

This makes sure that you can use the weapons in some way but you would rather not before speccing into them.

[Liesel Weppen]

I like the progression system, bacause a lucky find won't make you overpowered from an early day. And it also makes you find regular improvements instead of one lucky find and then you will find nothing better for ages. Imho it's way better than just luck-based.

 

However the loot-system improvements hopefully coming with A20 that add gamestage offsets depending on region and poi will make this completely obsolete again. THAT will be the solution. I don't want to be able to find OP stuff on day one in a lonely garage just from a shotgun messiah box. However, if i decide to go into a shotgun messiah factory, i expect more than just regular Zs on day 1 (*), but if i make my way to the loot room anyway, THERE i might at least have chance to find a autoshotgun even on day 1.

I hope the changes are capable of doing so, and if they do, i don't want to have the progression system anymore, because then it is working against the new system.

 

(*) currently you can do a shotgun messiah factory relatively early, because there won't be any ferals, radiateds or cops, as long as your gamestage is low. The only problem early is its size (and maybe partially the amount of sleeper volumes). So you probably need some supply first to endure the time you need to fight through it. Besides the effect that the factory/ies are not efficient to do, because they are simply to big and take to long. Especially as they don't give you any better loot than you can't get everywhere else. Even if you get a trader quest additionally, they are absolutely not worth doing them. And THAT should be changed.

[meganoth]

9 hours ago, RestInPieces said:

Which is why what @stample said, is among the excruciatingly few good concepts in this thread.

Removing shotgun crates et al. from all the T1 and T2 pois is IMO too much work for TFP to really think about it. But they could very well add "premium shotgun crates" to the selected T4 and T5 pois. And they could ensure that those premium pois only spawn in zones of higher difficulty. 

 

[stample]

12 minutes ago, meganoth said:

Removing shotgun crates et al. from all the T1 and T2 pois is IMO too much work for TFP to really think about it. But they could very well add "premium shotgun crates" to the selected T4 and T5 pois. And they could ensure that those premium pois only spawn in zones of higher difficulty. 

 

Moving it into zones of higher difficulty wouldn't really solve it though, unless the higher zones only spawned tougher mobs.  Not that I disagree with the idea, it should definitely be done.

 

In my current playthrough, I used a custom Nitro map to make sure cities only spawn wasteland/snow/burnt (primarily wasteland, edges of city bleeding into the other two).  Traders also only exist in the cities, so they also only exist primarily in wasteland, with a few in snow/burnt.

 

I'm also changing it up by not speccing into my favorite tree (Agi) so I'm running around with Str/Perc build (or.. will be).  In other words, I'm trying to make this harder on myself, personally, by getting way out of my comfort zone.

 

But my strategy from Day 1 has been to seek out and loot the T5 4-story Crackabooks to try and get necessary recipes before those POIs get tough.  Otherwise I have to wait until my gear catches up to my level before I can go back.  And its been ridiculously successful.  I have basically every recipe I generally need by Day 15/Level 30-ish (except Steel Tools, go figure, I have dozens of Parts lying around).  I've died once due to infection I got on Day 1 and never could get cured.

 

But (Here comes the point, sorry), I know going into those Crackabooks that there are no "special" zombies that'll punish me for entering a T5 POI when I'm low level.  I know this is possible, because some POIs will spawn Cops or other special stuff Day 1/Level 1 if you go in them (Vick's Pawn iirc, and one of the new bookstores or grocery stores has a cop drop out right at the front door, military POIs etc).  So its certainly possible to do today, but just hasn't been done in the T5 POIs.  I assume its because it'll take time and they just haven't been reworked since this has been made possible.

 

Anyway, I would like to see some rework done on T4s so they always have at least a couple Ferals and maybe  a Cop or two.  T5 likewise should have lots of ferals, and a handful of glowies, regardless of player level.  We should fear those POIs early, regardless of biome, because they will likely kill you if you go in early, even if you're a long-time player and know the POI well.  And if biome difficulty further increases that, even better!

[RestInPieces]

36 minutes ago, meganoth said:

Removing shotgun crates et al. from all the T1 and T2 pois is IMO too much work for TFP to really think about it. But they could very well add "premium shotgun crates" to the selected T4 and T5 pois. And they could ensure that those premium pois only spawn in zones of higher difficulty. 

Why? It's not like they would do such a thing manually. Just loop and replace. With another container, or a "looted" version of the same container to guarantee nothing will look awkward. Anyhow, as long as these T4 and T5 POIS are accessible from day 1 (small difficulty spike if you don't know their ins and outs, but perfectly doable), that alone won't solve anything.

 

And modifiers (given their name) may increase that difficulty spike in some biomes, but a modifier that scales along with you will, at any point, be within your reach. This is why they are saying that this was a necessary step. Unless they add high/low scaling caps and allow them to scale with you only within a specific range, up to a point, or starting from one. 

[Liesel Weppen]

1 hour ago, meganoth said:

Removing shotgun crates et al. from all the T1 and T2 pois is IMO too much work for TFP to really think about it. But they could very well add "premium shotgun crates" to the selected T4 and T5 pois. And they could ensure that those premium pois only spawn in zones of higher difficulty.

Adding another class of high quality class boxes and only place them in factories doesn't work either, because factories are not tougher to handle, just bigger. The Zs spawning there also just depends on your gamestage.

But instead of bloat the different box classes, it would be easier to bind the loot tables to the poi per boxtype, instead just box type worldwide. Or add poi-custom loottables that override the default ones if they exist. So every untouched POI would drop loot like known, updated POIs however would drop specific loot.

The "gamestage offset per POI and region" will also "just" change all boxes.

 

There is also the other side: In my current solo-playthrough i'm on day 35 and still haven't found one single crucible (nor the receipe). Imho for that case there may be a special POI(s) (e.g a forge) where you have really high chance to find a crucible (with any gamestage). E.g. a working stiffs box in the loot room that has 30% to drop a crucible.

You still need to find such a POI and it's still not guaranteed to find one in the first try... but for gods sake, on day 35 i looted so many pois, so many tool boxes, and not even a a trader was selling one.

There is no need to absolutely need to find a T6 shotgun, but the crucible is absolutely progression relevant. No crucible, no steel. And it's still only luck based to find one.

I also remember other (multiplayer) playthroughs, where we even on day 80 just had 2-3 curcibles found and still not the receipe...