6 hours ago, zztong said:
Raimus covered this a little. They are available from the Trader, but I don't yet know at what point in A21. In A20, they were available very late in the game and I think you had to use Perks to improve your relationship.
I do vaguely recall only quality 3+ cells came from the Trader and that I had added some XML code to a private game to allow quality 1 and 2 cells to be available earlier. I went looking for that code, and here it is. Note that this was for A20 and I've not tried it in A21.
<traders> <!-- Add lower quality Solar stuff to the Trader's electrical group.. --> <insertAfter xpath="/traders/trader_item_groups/trader_item_group[@name='traderElectrical']/item[@name='switch']"> <item name="solarbank" count="1"/> <item name="solarCell" count="1,2" quality="1,2"/> </insertAfter> </traders>
I'm sure the Devs are thinking "free power" is a game play issue, and I would agree. Though as a solar enthusiast, I like to see it in the game and not just a final thought before I shutdown my world and move to a new game, if I even get that far into the game.
In A20, you would find solar banks with Better Barter 4 and solar cells with Better Barter 5, I believe. And by default, you could get any quality level from 1-6 from them. Maybe that was changed in an alpha later than when you made that change in yours? At least, I was seeing quality 1 and 2 cells now and then.
3 hours ago, Mister Forgash said:I usually think your takes are spot on, but I'm going to disagree here. I think this argument sounds really close to that made with certain horde base designs that took advantage of blocks zombies wouldn't cross/break to stay safe through the night, and then people would say 'I'm just playing the game the way I want, why is that a problem to you?'
The way I see it, it's just plain balance. The trader in this iteration is very strong. I think it's too strong. There may even be enough people agreeing to give credence to this claim.
Gaming with my friends, it's day... 12? he's perception build, lucky looter maxed, no int., vanilla settings except 75% loot 125%XP We'd gotten him a Q2 iron spear early in the week- as we're working through our T3 quests with the trader and do turn ins, he gets a level 5 steel spear as a quest reward. .. From T2Q2 to T3Q5 and again, he's not even spec'd into traders, nor were we that deep in the trader quests. I don't think it's on the player to say 'I don't want -that-' much of an upgrade, it's on the development to make sure player progression is smoothed.
Maybe Lucky Looter plays a part in quest rewards? I'm not really certain what factors affect those. If so, then that might not be unexpected. I don't disagree that the rewards can be adjusted. My point was only that you have the option to play in a way that you enjoy or in a way you don't enjoy. I've seen many people say that they have to play efficiently and that they don't like playing that way. That is a choice regardless of any balancing in the game. Traders are meant to be used even if some people don't want to use them, so they will be a big part of the game's design choices but it is possible not to use them or to use them less often or various other choices someone might make depending on what they like or don't like, regardless of what is most efficient. But, like I said, it probably could use some balancing for rewards and/or inventory.
What may have happened is that they reduced drop chances of weapons/tools/armor in loot in A21 to balance a bit with crafting but they might not have adjusted quest rewards and trader inventory. Trader stage is also new, so it's also likely that they just need to work on how it's calculated to get a better result.