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Do you like the A19 loot system?


Dracula

Do you like the A19 loot system?  

125 members have voted

  1. 1. Do you like the A19 loot system?

    • Yes
      55
    • No
      70


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Nerdpoling isn't even the thing in question here, none complained about it so you can just take a deep breath and calm down. :)

 

But since it was mentioned I won't miss the chance to say, that every time you mention "nerdpolers are ruining their own game by choice", a cute, fluffy UX person dies somewhere in the world, and we don't want that, do we.

 

With that out of the way, one of the important things here is, whether one chooses to nerdpole or not makes no difference to the fact that they know what to expect in a randomly generated sandbox. Now If you don't think that's an obvious problem, or a problem at all for that matter, there is no point in discussing this further.

 

12 hours ago, Liesel Weppen said:

And in this point madmole is absolutely right, because those people mostly complain about RNG, but random containers would just take RNG further.

What's the point of "i haven't found X yet, but that's stupid" with making it even more RNG?

As i said previously: Loot tables per POI that override the world-loot-tables.

 

Day 40 now and still not found a crucible, nor one was sold by 4 traders. Haven't seen a perk that makes me able to craft a crucible. Did i miss a perk?

RNG FTW! Bad luck locks the whole progression. And there is no way where to go to increase chance to find one.

Oh *those* poor babies, the developers added an essential recipe in a highly random pool (oops), and now RNG is the devil as a whole eh? My deepest sympathies!

 

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2 minutes ago, RestInPieces said:

Nerdpoling isn't even the thing in question here, none complained about it so you can just take a deep breath and calm down. :)

If it comes to the point how loot should be distributed, there ALWAYS comes up the argument, that the loot rooms of many POIs are easy accessible if you know where they are. And most lootroom are on top of buildings. So even if you don't know a POI but look for the loot, going up by nerdpoling and look there is always a good start.

 

2 minutes ago, RestInPieces said:

Oh *those* poor babies, the developers added an essential recipe in a highly random pool (oops), and now RNG is the devil as a whole eh? My deepest sympathies!

Not sure how to understand that answer. I didn't say RNG is the devil. RNG is perfectly fine for "normal" loot. It doesn't matter if duct tape or paper is dropped, even the skill books are fine, because they are optional. But when it comes to items that are essentially needed for further progression, like a crucible, pure RNG is ... stupid.

Either there should be a possibility where you have really high drop chances for this item, or maybe there should be other mechanics like maybe increase drop chance after each "miss". So that at your 15th try the chance is 100% and you will definitely get this item.

Or have another source for this item, like e.g. those engine blocks in garages have 100% chance of dropping a motor when wrenched. So there are sources where i can get a motor by 100%. A motor! Which obviously has high drop chance from any car anyway. But for an item that is required to progress... nope.

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1 minute ago, Liesel Weppen said:

Not sure how to understand that answer. I didn't say RNG is the devil. RNG is perfectly fine for "normal" loot. It doesn't matter if duct tape or paper is dropped, even the skill books are fine, because they are optional. But when it comes to items that are essentially needed for further progression, like a crucible, pure RNG is ... stupid.

We agree on this - such an essential recipe on a highly random loot pool is absurd. And this is the problem in this particular instance, which can be solved in many ways, like having a different source like you said. I don't see how that makes MM right about the randomized containers though, since those two things are definitely not mutually exclusive.

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26 minutes ago, RestInPieces said:

I don't see how that makes MM right about the randomized containers though, since those two things are definitely not mutually exclusive.

I referred to the problem of finding essential items. Random loot boxes will increase the RNG-factor even further, but currently those items also drop in these boxes.

So currently i could at least look up what type of box has a high drop chance for the wanted item and then loot POIs that have lots of these box-types. But if even the boxes in a poi are randomized, i can't even look for POIs that provide a better chance.

 

Or did i get the idea of random boxes wrong? Just placing them random, but still predefined amounts and types? Well, that would remove the "loot room". But then... just don't create POIs with a centralized loot room, but spread the boxes over the POI. If they are spread, there is no single point you can quickly go to. Either you only get few boxes, or you need to go through the whole POI if you want to grab them all.

 

Still not mentioned that POIs then need boxvolumes that say where a box may spawn. Just like the sleeper volumes. Imho a real random box placment would require a very good algorithm for placing them. I don't think that will work, especially not without high performance overhead.

 

In earlier versions POIs didn't have a loot room. That came with the trader quest and almost every POI had been "dungeonized" since then. An i guess the lootroom should be a motivation to clear a POI till the "end". The dungeonization is required because a clear quest in a huge POI would be really pita if there is no path you can follow, but have to search the whole building "manually". But still not a reason why there has to be a loot room at the end.

 

And yes, alternative sources for required items and random boxes don't exclude each other. But if the solution is to have no loot room, just don't design loot rooms. No need for random boxes. It's not searching a solution for a problem. It's a random solution looking for a fitting problem.

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1 hour ago, RestInPieces said:

With that out of the way, one of the important things here is, whether one chooses to nerdpole or not makes no difference to the fact that they know what to expect in a randomly generated sandbox. Now If you don't think that's an obvious problem, or a problem at all for that matter, there is no point in discussing this further.

Im kind of sad that neither does the world have true sandbox feeling, nor the loot anymore.

 

If i wanted to play a game where i memorized the layout of every "dungeon" and know exactly what loot awaits me at the treasure room what is always in the same spot i would play any of the rpgs out there. Sandbox aspect is the greatest aspect of this game, the fact that you "can" (but not worth your time) build any base and have myraids of ways to get into that poi and secure the treasure is great and the less we have in that the closer we are getting to being yet another generic zombie survival.

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14 hours ago, Liesel Weppen said:

Day 40 now and still not found a crucible, nor one was sold by 4 traders. Haven't seen a perk that makes me able to craft a crucible. Did i miss a perk?

RNG FTW! Bad luck locks the whole progression. And there is no way where to go to increase chance to find one.

There is a perk to craft a crucible. It requires int 10.

 

Int gives you another way to get a crucible as well. Once you get better barter to either 3 or 4 (forget which), crucibles become pretty common secret stash items for traders.

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1 hour ago, Liesel Weppen said:

I referred to the problem of finding essential items. Random loot boxes will increase the RNG-factor even further, but currently those items also drop in these boxes.

So currently i could at least look up what type of box has a high drop chance for the wanted item and then loot POIs that have lots of these box-types. But if even the boxes in a poi are randomized, i can't even look for POIs that provide a better chance.

 

Or did i get the idea of random boxes wrong? Just placing them random, but still predefined amounts and types? Well, that would remove the "loot room". But then... just don't create POIs with a centralized loot room, but spread the boxes over the POI. If they are spread, there is no single point you can quickly go to. Either you only get few boxes, or you need to go through the whole POI if you want to grab them all.

Containers should definitely be pre-defined if POIs are meant to have unique loot lists (which they should imo and already do to an extend). I am referring to the locations (or the important containers spawn chance) in dungeon-POIs - the "loot rooms" as you correctly said and some decentralization so that the POI experience gets differentiated a bit.

 

But at any case a alternative source like a perk, trader, or something that can be "controlled by the player" can guarantee that you will always get something, if it is essential. TFP overdid it imo, in that regard, compared to the time when all recipes were just random. They went to the other extreme and introduced an alternative for almost everything. Then implemented books to somewhat make up for it, after realizing the value of the expectation in random loot. 

 

1 hour ago, Liesel Weppen said:

Still not mentioned that POIs then need boxvolumes that say where a box may spawn. Just like the sleeper volumes. Imho a real random box placment would require a very good algorithm for placing them. I don't think that will work, especially not without high performance overhead.

Well depends how they want to approach it. This is one of those problems (if, again, you consider it a problem), which has a huge number of solutions, depends on how they already have built their stuff, their profiler bottlenecks and only someone like faatal is really qualified to explore. 

 

I am sure that there will definitely be a price to pay on performance/loading times, whether one runs something like this at runtime, generation, changes the prefab asset or an instance of it, or has prepared various prefab instances beforehand and has to load all of them like @Solomon said etc.

 

But do container locations need to be completely randomized in the POI space, nearby block checking and all, sacrificing that cinematic experience of the admittedly great POI design? I don't think so. As long as the solution achieves the specific purpose of making a POI looting experience rather random and unpredictable, since containers are plentiful, it can be something as simple as to assign the "this is a phat lootbox" variable to whatever container within the house, tweak its spawn-chance in the first place etc, so that, for example, instead the e.g. 1 or 1-2 per POI becomes 0-3. My point is, as far as I am concerned, any solution that makes it look random to players, *is* random. 

 

1 hour ago, Liesel Weppen said:

In earlier versions POIs didn't have a loot room. That came with the trader quest and almost every POI had been "dungeonized" since then. And i guess the lootroom should be a motivation to clear a POI till the "end". The dungeonization is required because a clear quest in a huge POI would be really pita if there is no path you can follow, but have to search the whole building "manually". But still not a reason why there has to be a loot room at the end.

Oh don't get me started with the... quests, let's not get into them. But yes - it's a similar logic (also reminds me of some game's "radiant" endless quests). Never liked dungeon-ization for that very reason. Dungeon-POIs are beautifully designed and if this was an open world game they would be stellar. I would too want players to experience a dungeon-POI's cinematic experience by carefully encouraging the player's chosen path. But in a randomly generated sandbox, where those POIs are pasted multiple times, their novelty wears off very quickly -- in a single playthrough even, and it doesn't make any sense to want players to repeat the same "canned" experience random N times.


Say you want to create a tiled floor, but its pieces will be placed randomly. But you can only get your tiles from, either a stack with a combination of tiles that resemble a beautiful picture, or a stack with generically painted tiles and random shapes.

 

1 hour ago, Liesel Weppen said:

And yes, alternative sources for required items and random boxes don't exclude each other. But if the solution is to have no loot room, just don't design loot rooms. No need for random boxes. It's not searching a solution for a problem. It's a random solution looking for a fitting problem.

Even if, again, POI designers did an excellent job, the loot rooms belong in the Elder Scrolls etc, not a randomly generated world with many identical mostly-randomly pasted POIs. But they obviously are not going away now and it would be a terrible waste if they did. Loot rooms still make sense, even if they don't contain the majority/best of the loot in the POI. So at this current situation, a solution has to be found for the problem that was created, which again, *disclaimer*, may not be seen as a problem for others. 

 

 

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1 hour ago, Aldranon said:

However, none are essential to playing late game. 

A crucible is not essential? So you play late game without any steel? Or just that few amount you can loot and buy at traders? That's barely enough if you want to craft some tools, but fun to gather almost 400 forged steel for crafting a 4x4.

 

32 minutes ago, katarynna said:

There is a perk to craft a crucible. It requires int 10.

Hu? Which one is it? I took a look but haven't seen it.

But you are right, if there is a perk, that's an alternative source.

However... imho requiring int 10 is a "bit" to much. There are lots of other skills accesssible with less than int 10 that enable you to craft stuff that already require steel.

 

25 minutes ago, RestInPieces said:

 So at this current situation, a solution has to be found for the problem that was created, which again, *disclaimer*, may not be seen as a problem for others.

Yes, some people may not see it as a problem, but a lot do anyway. As you can see on the forums on an almost daily basis. ;)

And there are a lot things that go hand in hand. The thread here was about the progression system, which some people don't like. The progression system was needed because other people didn't want to become overpowered by a lucky find early. Because of the progression system loot rooms are unspectacular in early game, because they won't give you anything really good anyway. Loot rooms where introduced because of the quest system. Loot rooms make people trying to use shortcuts to them. Which then again refers to the progression system that is intended to slow down, even if people do shortcuts to loot rooms. And especially because the "difficulty" is just tied to the game stage, you can even access the best lootrooms of the biggest pois easily even in early game.

 

So if you change one of this parameters, it will affect all the other ones.

 

And yes i know from older alphas when you needed to find receips for almost everything. That was changed and imho the crucible was the last one that had no alternative then just finding one. (what is wrong if there is a perk i just haven't seen yet).

 

And i could continue here with complaining about the skill system because that's also involved. Int 10 for a f*cking crucible? Are you serious? So i have to become an int build just because i haven't found one single crucible?

And for the RNG-devil im quite sure once i put the last skillpoint into int to max it, just because i need a f*cking crucible, i will find a crucible within the next 5 minutes. *lol*

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28 minutes ago, Liesel Weppen said:

Hu? Which one is it? I took a look but haven't seen it.

But you are right, if there is a perk, that's an alternative source.

However... imho requiring int 10 is a "bit" to much. There are lots of other skills accesssible with less than int 10 that enable you to craft stuff that already require steel.

The perk is level 5 of Advanced Engineering.

Level 10 intellect is a lot but with the forgetting elixr you could work around this problem. A quick respec to int to craft crucibles and then back to your normal build.

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56 minutes ago, Liesel Weppen said:

Yes, some people may not see it as a problem, but a lot do anyway. As you can see on the forums on an almost daily basis. ;)

And there are a lot things that go hand in hand. (...)

So if you change one of this parameters, it will affect all the other ones.

Painfully true - which is why I always whined about the level scaling as I was seeing more and more things depended on it. With level scaling, you don't need to "gate" long-term goals, you don't need to worry about container distribution, or difficulty variability. Everything is automatically taken care of, for the most part at least...

 

And yes, even some complaints that may seem irrelevant to this topic may be rooted in it. Even requests - for example, the need for legendaries, higher tier content, long-term goals etc, in a game that, objectively, has one of the largest asset varieties I've seen in an indie game.

 

I dare not say that the game suffers from replayability issues, since statistics show otherwise after all -- the game steadily has an impressive amount of concurrent players on steam. In fact, I'd wager that the game's current statistics indicate to TFP that the game needs to attract new players, rather than increase its replayability/player retainment. I can only speak for myself and the fact that over-reliance on statistics and their literal interpretation doesn't always yield the best results in the long run, nor can they show you how higher the bar could have been set.

 

56 minutes ago, Liesel Weppen said:

And i could continue here with complaining about the skill system because that's also involved. Int 10 for a f*cking crucible? Are you serious? So i have to become an int build just because i haven't found one single crucible?

That's one of the drawbacks of having crafting recipes (not crafting improvements) and misc character development in the same perk point pool. You end up with gimmicks of having to respec two times in a row, and the awkward moment when you have invested in something in a whole playthrough and your team mate just finds it in a pile of trash 😛 Tbh I'd prefer if the recipes were gained in a Subnautica-style way, even if it isn't exactly meant for a sandbox. 

 

 

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1 hour ago, Liesel Weppen said:

A crucible is not essential? So you play late game without any steel? Or just that few amount you can loot and buy at traders? That's barely enough if you want to craft some tools, but fun to gather almost 400 forged steel for crafting a 4x4.

 

Hu? Which one is it? I took a look but haven't seen it.

But you are right, if there is a perk, that's an alternative source.

However... imho requiring int 10 is a "bit" to much. There are lots of other skills accesssible with less than int 10 that enable you to craft stuff that already require steel.

 

Yes, some people may not see it as a problem, but a lot do anyway. As you can see on the forums on an almost daily basis. ;)

And there are a lot things that go hand in hand. The thread here was about the progression system, which some people don't like. The progression system was needed because other people didn't want to become overpowered by a lucky find early. Because of the progression system loot rooms are unspectacular in early game, because they won't give you anything really good anyway. Loot rooms where introduced because of the quest system. Loot rooms make people trying to use shortcuts to them. Which then again refers to the progression system that is intended to slow down, even if people do shortcuts to loot rooms. And especially because the "difficulty" is just tied to the game stage, you can even access the best lootrooms of the biggest pois easily even in early game.

 

So if you change one of this parameters, it will affect all the other ones.

 

And yes i know from older alphas when you needed to find receips for almost everything. That was changed and imho the crucible was the last one that had no alternative then just finding one. (what is wrong if there is a perk i just haven't seen yet).

 

And i could continue here with complaining about the skill system because that's also involved. Int 10 for a f*cking crucible? Are you serious? So i have to become an int build just because i haven't found one single crucible?

And for the RNG-devil im quite sure once i put the last skillpoint into int to max it, just because i need a f*cking crucible, i will find a crucible within the next 5 minutes. *lol*

Advanced Engineering 5. You could have found out easily by just looking at the crucible recipe and selecting the requirements tab.

 

The INT glasses save you one point and with the forgetting elixier you have multiple options even if they cost you dearly (from respecing to INT completely, or temporary with 2 potions, or just by removing some cruft perks you learned and don't need that much and can invest in INT)

 

I'm one of those people who don't see it as a problem. IMHO there should be even more of those semi-essential recipes that provide variety for long-time players.

 

4x4? If you don't have the crucible then don't build it. You can't tell me the 4x4 is essential. And you can always buy the pieces at the trader if you really really want it.

 

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Just now, RipClaw said:

A 4x4 is essential. How else will you impress a woman in the apocalypse if not with a big car ? :D

 

You got me. How do you get Trader Jen out of her cubicle to even see your car? (If it is the zombie nurse instead, I don't want to know) 😉

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18 minutes ago, meganoth said:

4x4? If you don't have the crucible then don't build it. You can't tell me the 4x4 is essential. And you can always buy the pieces at the trader if you really really want it.

Motorcycle also requires steel. Steel tools (surprise) do also. Weapons do. Almost every mod does.

So the late game for you is being stuck with a minibike? I'd say without steel it's impossible to reach endgame. No matter how long you play, without steel it's never "end game".

 

The amounts trader sell (at least in my current game) is minimal. If anything a trader sold 15-20 steel... that's not even enough to craft a single T5 shotgun (iirc).

 

Conclusion: there is a perk. That's good. It's position is... doh.

But imho the whole skill system is absolutely bad design, but that's another topic. Requiring INT10 for a curcible is just another nail in the coffin of how i think about the skill system.

As i can see clearly now it's even worse in singleplayer then it was in multiple multiplayer playthroughs.

Indeed even in multiplayer never anybody of us skilled int to 10. In any other playthrough we always found the receips "in time".

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56 minutes ago, Liesel Weppen said:

Motorcycle also requires steel. Steel tools (surprise) do also. Weapons do. Almost every mod does.

So the late game for you is being stuck with a minibike? I'd say without steel it's impossible to reach endgame. No matter how long you play, without steel it's never "end game".

Who said to play without steel? You just have to prioritize for what to use the steel you buy or find. "make do with what you find" is the credo of a survival game 😉

 

You always find 90% of steel tools, weapons and mods you need through looting. And it is the one or two items that just don't drop that you then have to craft. And for that you use your pitiful resources of steel.

Playing with economy of scarcity is what this game would need more often.

 

Quote

 

The amounts trader sell (at least in my current game) is minimal. If anything a trader sold 15-20 steel... that's not even enough to craft a single T5 shotgun (iirc).

 

Find multiple traders, scrap steel from buildings and cars. Higher wrench-perks helps with this I think

 

Quote

 

Conclusion: there is a perk. That's good. It's position is... doh.

But imho the whole skill system is absolutely bad design, but that's another topic. Requiring INT10 for a curcible is just another nail in the coffin of how i think about the skill system.

As i can see clearly now it's even worse in singleplayer then it was in multiple multiplayer playthroughs.

Indeed even in multiplayer never anybody of us skilled int to 10. In any other playthrough we always found the receips "in time".

It is okay if you don't like the survival aspect of that, but it is supposed to be part of the game (for me this is survival, getting along with scant resources). Everyone sets difficulty to warrior or insane and expects to get @%$#loads of steel to make the game easy again (best weapon with best mods, horde base decked out in all steel).

Preferable would be that for example you really have to decide which 5 blocks you can really afford to build in steel because they are the essential ones at some point in the game.

 

 

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2 minutes ago, meganoth said:

It is okay if you don't like the survival aspect of that, but it is supposed to be part of the game (for me this is survival, getting along with scant resources). Everyone sets difficulty to warrior or insane and expects to get @%$#loads of steel to make the game easy again. Preferable would be that for example you really have to decide which 5 blocks you can really afford to build in steel because they are the essential ones.

Oh, i basically agree with you there. And that's why i'm still going on that playthrough. Of course it is an additional challenge. I don't want to find a crucible on day 1. However once there comes a point, where it becomes simply anoying still not having a crucible. Basically everything that comes up now requires steel, the only thing i don't have and that locks my whole progression. If i continue playing the only current remaining task is: Trying to get a crucible. And that's basically what i'm trying since almost 2 ingame weeks.

 

And the tip to use forgetting elexir is good. Respec into int, craft 10 crucibles, respec again to whatever i want. I could do that. But for me that absolutely feels like cheesing.

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5 minutes ago, Liesel Weppen said:

Oh, i basically agree with you there. And that's why i'm still going on that playthrough. Of course it is an additional challenge. I don't want to find a crucible on day 1. However once there comes a point, where it becomes simply anoying still not having a crucible. Basically everything that comes up now requires steel, the only thing i don't have and that locks my whole progression. If i continue playing the only current remaining task is: Trying to get a crucible. And that's basically what i'm trying since almost 2 ingame weeks.

 

And the tip to use forgetting elexir is good. Respec into int, craft 10 crucibles, respec again to whatever i want. I could do that. But for me that absolutely feels like cheesing.

I would probably refuse to do that as well. But I might really use the elixier once and change to an INT build, just because it would force me to change my strategies and possibly even the layout of my horde base.

 

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14 minutes ago, hiemfire said:

Vending machines, chandeliers and the tall modern street lights can be wrenched for steel. Cars and everything else metal is scrap iron or forged iron.

 

15 minutes ago, RipClaw said:

You only get scrap iron from cars. You get steel from some street lights and from vending machines.

 

Thanks for the info. Maybe I found steel as loot in cars and was confused by that. You also get steel from a contraption (hydraulic hoist?) found on the floor of car repair shops. and wasn't there a specific gym torture machine that also gives steel?

 

Looking in blocks: There is the gunsafe and the hardened chest, the mortician drawer and the munitions box. Seems the above mentioned contraption and the gym machine are not among the steel providers anymore!

 

 

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2 minutes ago, meganoth said:

You also get steel from a contraption (hydraulic hoist?) found on the floor of car repair shops. and wasn#t there a specific gym torture machine that also gives steel?

That "hydraulic hoist" is the top of a power pole, just repurposed I guess. As such, it used to be found in the wastelands, but I haven't spent much time there lately. The gym equipment gives Forged Iron at best.

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51 minutes ago, meganoth said:

Who said to play without steel? You just have to prioritize for what to use the steel you buy or find. "make do with what you find" is the credo of a survival game 😉

 

You always find 90% of steel tools, weapons and mods you need through looting. And it is the one or two items that just don't drop that you then have to craft. And for that you use your pitiful resources of steel.

 

Playing with economy of scarcity is what this game would need more often.

"You find almost everything by looting and since nothing degrades, you will never have to craft it (or loot it again), so you can make due without a crucible (1 out of 100 times you can't find it or afford to spec in it) and enjoy the scarcity of steel!"

 

Yeah, it would, but don't you find it sad that we praise the economic scarcity of... a fringe case?

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