16 minutes ago, meganoth said:
Crafting being on equal footing would not mean a guaranteed level of magazines read, it would just define the average case. It is still random whether any of the weapons you want is ahead or behind the average.
I agree that crafting just like looting is a relatively cheap method of getting stuff. On the other hand, if you get mountains of dukes then buying is cheap as well (cheap in the sense of not being a difficult decision).
Day 15 is certainly a day when the player should have AK or double barrel shotgun and the occasional tier2 item like a pump shotgun, but I would guess you got all or nearly all of the good stuff from the trader and this "single source" of good stuff looks like a problem to me because it devalues crafting and looting.
Many players especially in MP seem to have a lot of better stuff at that time though and the problem is all that advanced stuff comes from trader and rewards.
Agreed on the average thing, it doesn't negate the point that traders should be able to sell you better things than you can build yourself, and questing like in all other types of questing games should offer you something you actually want and not just junk - look at all the discussions for b317, when everyone was complaining all the rewards were a load of crap.
There's also plenty I'm buying like food, liquids, ammo, cobble/concrete etc, so I can't just focus on saving every penny for the best weapon he offers - it took me several days of questing to save up what was needed to buy that pump shotgun - yes that one was from the trader. The AK I looted. Also something to consider here, is that I'm currently playing the intellect tree - they don't even have a gun you can spec into - so in that playthrough I'm entirely reliant on the traders/questing/looting to get anything good at all.
During experimental I got to day 40 or so I think with b313 - and I was buying stuff and crafting stuff. In single player it does seem ok, not perfect, but not far off either, like some people are saying it's a major issue. I think it's more of a tweak than anything major, at least for single player. I have no idea how you could stop people teaming up in MP, and just churning out 20 quests per day, that's no wonder the traders are showing them good stuff early on in that case.
Doing tier 4 quests with rads coming in now, I also do need some decent weapons - and don't say the double barrel is decent, most people skip that if they can cos it'll likely get you killed when there's a lot of zombies. Infact looking at it like this, perhaps it's the crafting side not keeping up with the rest of the game, cos I certainly feel with the enemies I'm getting that the equipment I've got to deal with them is about right.