Alpha 21 Dev Diary

[Aldranon]

2 hours ago, Dreyseth said:

 

Perhaps outside the scope of the current game, but maybe one system that could help with trader "availability balancing" would be if a demand economy were further simulated.

 

Could be as simple as having a higher price at the trader for initial availability of an item, but the price drops an amount each day until sold.

 

 

Oh, I like that a LOT!

The game could have a low end price to simulate other survivors buying the bargain priced items.

Edited July 8, 2023 by Aldranon (see edit history)

[beerfly]

Guys, this is serious, forget everything. Go loot for ammo and weapons, perk your stuff up, read books. Gather all friends. 

Spoiler

 

We are going after Wallpaper Engine. A matter of time, doubts stay far away already.

 

Next one is TF2. But when A22 ships !

 

 

[Slingblade2040]

For the next update can the devs please remove the high block damage from the shotgun shells and slugs? I mean we have breaching rounds not sure if people actually use them but they are there for some reason.

 

Anyways It makes it a freaken pain using shotguns during horde night or even in PoIs in general because you can end up destroying loot containers. We want to use shotguns to kill zombies not our base and loot containers.

[Laz Man]

30 minutes ago, Slingblade2040 said:

For the next update can the devs please remove the high block damage from the shotgun shells and slugs? I mean we have breaching rounds not sure if people actually use them but they are there for some reason.

 

Anyways It makes it a freaken pain using shotguns during horde night or even in PoIs in general because you can end up destroying loot containers. We want to use shotguns to kill zombies not our base and loot containers.

 

Regular shells shouldn't shred blocks as much as they use to already.  Have you tried them out?

[zztong]

7 hours ago, Riamus said:

And even if that weren't the case, people would just wait until the day before the inventory changes to buy stuff.

 

I know very little about simulating economics, but if the assumption is there's others with which the player is competing, then while some items might linger and eventually be "on sale", maybe other items might just disappear from the list as if they had been sold to somebody else? Maybe trader lists could change slowly each night?

[the_envenom]

Has anyone else done this since the new alpha?

[the_envenom]

Love the new Chemistry Station model!!! 

[Ralathar44]

I think I agree with what a friend of mine said and maybe we need a bigger % of POIs that are not dungeons.  Just for variety.  I love the dungeons, but I can understand some people feeling like its a little overkill atm.  The non-dungeon POIs would prolly need lesser loot rewards because they're easier, but I think people could live with that.

Edited July 9, 2023 by Ralathar44 (see edit history)

[Sephiroth87xz]

22 hours ago, icehot said:

 

Yes it is a matter of opinion, your opinion is that it's broken, mine is that it's not and is correct, infact it's also how I'd design it, because I understand risk/reward ratio.  The higher the risk, the higher the reward you should hope for.  Otherwise there's no point in it - that's what dictates motivation along with ambition.  Might as well get rid of the wasteland cos that offers higher rewards than you can craft too.

You are confusing your opinion with how a videogame gameplay design need to work.

 

And you are ignoring the fact you need to risk to obtain the magazine needed to progress with weapons and armors.

 

Alot more than quests/traders/loot, because the progression of magazine is more slower and linear.

 

Instead quests/traders/loot are the easy way to play and even broke the difficulty system of the game.

 

Because this is the other problem you are ignoring.

 

Isn't only a matter of traders/quests/loot to have a unbalanced progression compared to crafting/magazine.

 

Traders/quests/loot are unbalanced compared to the difficulty system of the game.

 

The unbalanced progression of traders/quests/loot outpace too quickly and too easily the difficulty system.

 

Actually not worth to play traders/quests and you need to leave some loot if you want to keep a basic difficulty.

 

And this with the near max difficulty option active.

 

Now think how much is unbalanced the progression of traders/quests/loot compared to the normal difficulty, where this should be balanced.

 

Traders/quests/loot progression aren't in line with the game, this is the fact.

Actually traders/quests/loot are only an easy way for players to make the game more easy than normal.

20 hours ago, meganoth said:

 

If the player doesn't have the money to buy all the easily accesible systems then it does work. Ignore my comment if lots of money was part of what you meant with "easy access"

 

 

The problem is the presence of too much higher quality/tier items from traders.

 

Isn't more easy for developers make this item not appear them instead of rebalance price rewards or rebalance price system/reduce overall sell price?

 

Because simple cut the money rewards of quests not solve you can easily obtain money in other way and not solve the problem of quests rewards and loot.

 

I think make this items appear more late in gamestage/days is a more easy way for developers to solve the unbalanced progression of traders/loot/quests.

 

Giving a more slower progression to traders/loot/quests will be more in line the actual game progression.

 

Actually is too quick and ruin totally the balance and even the difficulty.

Edited July 9, 2023 by Sephiroth87xz (see edit history)

[killjoy1941]

3 hours ago, the_envenom said:

 

LMAO

 

That's a Saddam Hussein reference.

[Riamus]

2 hours ago, Sephiroth87xz said:

You are confusing your opinion with how a videogame gameplay design need to work.

 

And you are ignoring the fact you need to risk to obtain the magazine needed to progress with weapons and armors.

 

Alot more than quests/traders/loot, because the progression of magazine is more slower and linear.

 

Instead quests/traders/loot are the easy way to play and even broke the difficulty system of the game.

 

Because this is the other problem you are ignoring.

 

Isn't only a matter of traders/quests/loot to have a unbalanced progression compared to crafting/magazine.

 

Traders/quests/loot are unbalanced compared to the difficulty system of the game.

 

The unbalanced progression of traders/quests/loot outpace too quickly and too easily the difficulty system.

 

Actually not worth to play traders/quests and you need to leave some loot if you want to keep a basic difficulty.

 

And this with the near max difficulty option active.

 

Now think how much is unbalanced the progression of traders/quests/loot compared to the normal difficulty, where this should be balanced.

 

Traders/quests/loot progression aren't in line with the game, this is the fact.

Actually traders/quests/loot are only an easy way for players to make the game more easy than normal.

 

The problem is the presence of too much higher quality/tier items from traders.

 

Isn't more easy for developers make this item not appear them instead of rebalance price rewards or rebalance price system/reduce overall sell price?

 

Because simple cut the money rewards of quests not solve you can easily obtain money in other way and not solve the problem of quests rewards and loot.

 

I think make this items appear more late in gamestage/days is a more easy way for developers to solve the unbalanced progression of traders/loot/quests.

 

Giving a more slower progression to traders/loot/quests will be more in line the actual game progression.

 

Actually is too quick and ruin totally the balance and even the difficulty.

There isn't anything wrong with traders having good stuff as long as it's hard to get (reducing money gains will make it harder to get many good items from the trader very quickly).  Yes, you can make money a variety of ways but right now you can make thousands of dukes on day 1 very easily, making it easy to buy pretty much anything you want right away.  If quest rewards cut down the dukes reward by something like 75%, it would take you 4 days to build up the same amount of money from questing.  And although you can sell things, you aren't going to make a ton selling stuff in early game because you need a lot of the stuff in the early game and you're also limited in what you're finding.  And they could easily lower sell prices to help with this.  By making it harder to buy things, you'd be able to offer a few nice items at the trader without the player being able to afford them without purposefully saving up to get them.  This can help a lot to balance trader inventories.  There's no good reason to remove the possibility of a trader having a good item for sale.  It shouldn't be all the time and they shouldn't be significantly higher than your loot stage warrants.  So if you can loot an Iron Q2 item, the trader might offer (on occasion) an Iron Q4 or Q5 item.  Enough upgrade to make the player consider spending their limited dukes to get it but not so much that it'll break progression.  And with the more limited dukes, the player has a choice to make between that upgrade or saving for something else that might be more helpful after restock.  The problem now isn't that the traders has good stuff but that the player has so much money they can buy basically anything they want right from the start of the game.

 

When it comes down to it, the game offers you controls to change your progression.  Changing XP and loot abundance can significantly alter your progression rate.  Progression rate is generally fine because you have such options.  The issue is really about trying to get crafting to be at least close to in line with looting and quest rewards.  That is a balancing act that they need to work on.  I don't believe they'll ever get it perfect for all numbers of players 1 through 8 as things just work differently based on the number of players.  But they can at least get it more balanced than it is.

 

And a reduction in dukes would go a long ways toward helping with trader inventory balancing.  Just so long as it's still possible to afford multiple solar cells once you're at that point in the game because a solar bank is pretty useless until you have it filled at least most of the way with solar cells.  Depending on how the duke balancing works out, they might have to adjust pricing of solar cells to compensate if you can't afford them within an appropriate timeframe.

 

Your ideas are a start but have holes just like pretty much everyone's ideas (including mine).  Any changes made have repercussions.  A fix for one thing will affect other things and that can be a negative effect.  What you think will work could end up breaking something else and leave you with a worse situation.  Development isn't about grabbing what sounds good without looking at how it all fits together and what the consequences of changes will be.  TFP may not be the best in that regard, it's true.  They do tend to pick fixes that break other things.  But that doesn't mean they should just take someone's suggestions and use them without considering alternatives.  Your suggestions have some merit and so do the suggestions of many others, including those who disagree with you.  And they all offer a fix for part of the problem that will tend to cause other problems.  As someone pointed out, if you make it so nothing valuable is sold at the trader, then you make the trader pretty much useless for buying things.  That's a negative effect of trying to fix the trader situation.  It may not matter to you but it will matter to those who want to use the traders.  People who don't want crafting will be hurt if the suggestions that tie repairing stuff to being able to craft stuff even if that sounds good to the person who likes to craft.  Each suggestion has pros and cons and they need to look at all options and determine what has more pros and the least cons (that will be based on their opinion of how the game should work and not ours) as well as what cons they can fix with other changes.

 

Also remember that crafting is an OPTION to progress, just like the other options.  Players can choose the option they prefer.  These options to not need to be identical in difficulty or speed.  They should be at least relatively equal in speed but there's nothing wrong with a more difficult option offering a faster progression.  Crafting is easy.  Getting magazines is easy.  You can progress in crafting without fighting a thing if you want without much trouble.  Maybe it'll slow you down a bit but it's possible.  Looting can also be done without fighting if you want, though it's more difficult to do that than it is for getting magazines.  Magazines can be grabbed off the street easily and you can even get into some of the Crack a Books for at least a few sets of bookshelves or stacks without fighting if you hurry.  Looting just on the street offers some stuff but you won't get very far if that's all you do, so you really do need to get into POI to loot and do very well so it's somewhat more challenging even if you're avoiding fighting.  Quests on the other hand, require fighting for most of the quests.  Even fetch quests often require fighting at least a little and you're not likely to get many of those in a day.  The rest require more fighting.  So there's really nothing wrong with quest rewards being a good way to progress more quickly.  More risk, greater reward.  Still, I do feel that the quest rewards need to be reduced somewhat.  Like the trader inventory, I think it should not offer you a reward too much over your loot stage.  And as far as traders, they are very easy but with the requirement that you need dukes and obtaining dukes can require risk, though there are options that have little to no risk such selling resources you obtain.  Mining has little risk if you aren't mining iron or something else that generates a lot of heat and you can move to different chunks to avoid heat build up issues for the other resources you can mine, greatly reducing the risk.  So traders are a mix of easy and hard depending how you're obtaining the dukes.  But as I mentioned, you can reduce dukes obtained in quests and even for selling stuff and that would help to balance that part.

Edited July 9, 2023 by Riamus (see edit history)

[meganoth]

4 hours ago, Sephiroth87xz said:

Isn't more easy for developers make this item not appear them instead of rebalance price rewards or rebalance price system/reduce overall sell price?

 

But reducing dukes isn't really hard. Getting a good balance may be more difficult than just throwing away choices for the player, but the reward is a much better game as you can't simply buy anything you want and have to make difficult decisions where you want to set your priorities.

Instead of dukes losing all value in mid game and only getting melted for brass, or the stacks filling up chests in MP  because there is nothing worth buying with all that money. 

 

Even if players eventually always reach that point of dukes getting inflationary it is worth the effort to make that point getting reached later in the game, because until players reach that point they will value their money and play the "money mini-game".

 

4 hours ago, Sephiroth87xz said:

Because simple cut the money rewards of quests not solve you can easily obtain money in other way and not solve the problem of quests rewards and loot.

 

Oh please tell me those other easy sources of money.

 

[Matt115]

i didn't even notice that 21 stable was released XD

[pottervogel]

24 minutes ago, Matt115 said:

i didn't even notice that 21 stable was released XD

Good morning. ^^

[beerfly]

1 hour ago, Matt115 said:

i didn't even notice that 21 stable was released XD

You found a skeleton, didn`t you ? 

[Yopo]

20 hours ago, Laz Man said:

 

Regular shells shouldn't shred blocks as much as they use to already.  Have you tried them out?

Kinda of a shame imho. I enjoyed ripping though buildings and carving my own path with a shotgun. Like I was some kind of juggernaut. Never really had the problems that get complained about it. 
i feel the ppl who hated and/or complained about that perk where just not very good shooters to begin with lol. 

[Winkiss]

You can make coins part of your choice of rewards - either money or an item. If the item is good, you will refuse the coins.

[Dreyseth]

15 hours ago, zztong said:

 

I know very little about simulating economics, but if the assumption is there's others with which the player is competing, then while some items might linger and eventually be "on sale", maybe other items might just disappear from the list as if they had been sold to somebody else? Maybe trader lists could change slowly each night?

 

I like that idea.  Or maybe an item unsold at one trader could show up at another trader at a different price, keeping availability but adding time/money expense for the players with excess resources to chase after 

[Sephiroth87xz]

7 hours ago, Riamus said:

There isn't anything wrong with traders having good stuff as long as it's hard to get (reducing money gains will make it harder to get many good items from the trader very quickly).  Yes, you can make money a variety of ways but right now you can make thousands of dukes on day 1 very easily, making it easy to buy pretty much anything you want right away.  If quest rewards cut down the dukes reward by something like 75%, it would take you 4 days to build up the same amount of money from questing.  And although you can sell things, you aren't going to make a ton selling stuff in early game because you need a lot of the stuff in the early game and you're also limited in what you're finding.  And they could easily lower sell prices to help with this.  By making it harder to buy things, you'd be able to offer a few nice items at the trader without the player being able to afford them without purposefully saving up to get them.  This can help a lot to balance trader inventories.  There's no good reason to remove the possibility of a trader having a good item for sale.  It shouldn't be all the time and they shouldn't be significantly higher than your loot stage warrants.  So if you can loot an Iron Q2 item, the trader might offer (on occasion) an Iron Q4 or Q5 item.  Enough upgrade to make the player consider spending their limited dukes to get it but not so much that it'll break progression.  And with the more limited dukes, the player has a choice to make between that upgrade or saving for something else that might be more helpful after restock.  The problem now isn't that the traders has good stuff but that the player has so much money they can buy basically anything they want right from the start of the game.

 

When it comes down to it, the game offers you controls to change your progression.  Changing XP and loot abundance can significantly alter your progression rate.  Progression rate is generally fine because you have such options.  The issue is really about trying to get crafting to be at least close to in line with looting and quest rewards.  That is a balancing act that they need to work on.  I don't believe they'll ever get it perfect for all numbers of players 1 through 8 as things just work differently based on the number of players.  But they can at least get it more balanced than it is.

 

And a reduction in dukes would go a long ways toward helping with trader inventory balancing.  Just so long as it's still possible to afford multiple solar cells once you're at that point in the game because a solar bank is pretty useless until you have it filled at least most of the way with solar cells.  Depending on how the duke balancing works out, they might have to adjust pricing of solar cells to compensate if you can't afford them within an appropriate timeframe.

 

Your ideas are a start but have holes just like pretty much everyone's ideas (including mine).  Any changes made have repercussions.  A fix for one thing will affect other things and that can be a negative effect.  What you think will work could end up breaking something else and leave you with a worse situation.  Development isn't about grabbing what sounds good without looking at how it all fits together and what the consequences of changes will be.  TFP may not be the best in that regard, it's true.  They do tend to pick fixes that break other things.  But that doesn't mean they should just take someone's suggestions and use them without considering alternatives.  Your suggestions have some merit and so do the suggestions of many others, including those who disagree with you.  And they all offer a fix for part of the problem that will tend to cause other problems.  As someone pointed out, if you make it so nothing valuable is sold at the trader, then you make the trader pretty much useless for buying things.  That's a negative effect of trying to fix the trader situation.  It may not matter to you but it will matter to those who want to use the traders.  People who don't want crafting will be hurt if the suggestions that tie repairing stuff to being able to craft stuff even if that sounds good to the person who likes to craft.  Each suggestion has pros and cons and they need to look at all options and determine what has more pros and the least cons (that will be based on their opinion of how the game should work and not ours) as well as what cons they can fix with other changes.

 

Also remember that crafting is an OPTION to progress, just like the other options.  Players can choose the option they prefer.  These options to not need to be identical in difficulty or speed.  They should be at least relatively equal in speed but there's nothing wrong with a more difficult option offering a faster progression.  Crafting is easy.  Getting magazines is easy.  You can progress in crafting without fighting a thing if you want without much trouble.  Maybe it'll slow you down a bit but it's possible.  Looting can also be done without fighting if you want, though it's more difficult to do that than it is for getting magazines.  Magazines can be grabbed off the street easily and you can even get into some of the Crack a Books for at least a few sets of bookshelves or stacks without fighting if you hurry.  Looting just on the street offers some stuff but you won't get very far if that's all you do, so you really do need to get into POI to loot and do very well so it's somewhat more challenging even if you're avoiding fighting.  Quests on the other hand, require fighting for most of the quests.  Even fetch quests often require fighting at least a little and you're not likely to get many of those in a day.  The rest require more fighting.  So there's really nothing wrong with quest rewards being a good way to progress more quickly.  More risk, greater reward.  Still, I do feel that the quest rewards need to be reduced somewhat.  Like the trader inventory, I think it should not offer you a reward too much over your loot stage.  And as far as traders, they are very easy but with the requirement that you need dukes and obtaining dukes can require risk, though there are options that have little to no risk such selling resources you obtain.  Mining has little risk if you aren't mining iron or something else that generates a lot of heat and you can move to different chunks to avoid heat build up issues for the other resources you can mine, greatly reducing the risk.  So traders are a mix of easy and hard depending how you're obtaining the dukes.  But as I mentioned, you can reduce dukes obtained in quests and even for selling stuff and that would help to balance that part.

 

I see your comment is based on a wrong assumption.

 

Trader is an option for you.

 

The truth is trader isn't an option, is part of overall progression of the game and when there will be a main quest, will become even more important.

 

So can't be unbalanced in this way.

 

If you need to stop using a part of the game like traders or even looted weapons/tools, because they break the progression and make the game too much easier, only show this parts of the game is bad balanced.

4 hours ago, meganoth said:

 

But reducing dukes isn't really hard. Getting a good balance may be more difficult than just throwing away choices for the player, but the reward is a much better game as you can't simply buy anything you want and have to make difficult decisions where you want to set your priorities.

Instead of dukes losing all value in mid game and only getting melted for brass, or the stacks filling up chests in MP  because there is nothing worth buying with all that money. 

 

Even if players eventually always reach that point of dukes getting inflationary it is worth the effort to make that point getting reached later in the game, because until players reach that point they will value their money and play the "money mini-game".

 

 

Oh please tell me those other easy sources of money.

 

The problem is if you reduce only the duke rewarded by quests, you will find players spam crafting things worth to be selled to traders.

 

And even with the day limits will be a problem, for this exact reason developers added day limits because players started to spam crafting and selling thing.

 

If you reduce the duke rewards, people will only return to spam crafting and search more ways to get around the limit, selling more different things.

 

Not a good way of balance the trader progression problem.

 

Will only pile up more problems for developers.

 

Is more easy stop from spawn weapons/tools are released too soon for the gamestage/days progression.

 

And rememeber reduce duke rewards don't solve the quests rewards and loot unbalance problem.

 

There is in any case a need of a proper overall balance for traders/loot/quests.

 

I doubt place a bandaid solution only for traders when there are balance problem for quests rewards and loot too can help.

Edited July 9, 2023 by Sephiroth87xz (see edit history)

[Matt115]

3 hours ago, beerfly said:

You found a skeleton, didn`t you ? 

i didn't check yet. are they added skeletons props???

[Thaledwyn]

On 7/6/2023 at 11:07 PM, Exxodous said:

The fix wont come until A22?? kinda figured we would see an A21.1 or something. The wife is going to be @%$#ed if I keep throwing her around the room for another year and a half lol.

 

Exact same situation here....

 

Please provide a small hotfix for saving our mariage 🙂

Edited July 9, 2023 by Thaledwyn (see edit history)

[meganoth]

3 hours ago, Sephiroth87xz said:

The problem is if you reduce only the duke rewarded by quests, you will find players spam crafting things worth to be selled to traders.

 

To spam craft you need easy to get materials and something that is really worth much more after crafting out of only easy to get materials. I seem to remember TFP balanced the value of items because of this. So there might or might not be such items left. I want a practical example so I can test if it really works with A21.

 

One tier1 quest  gives a single player about 1800 dukes if he sells everything he gets from the POI (did a test game to check this out a few days ago). If he doesn't want to waste time shoveling all the resource piles I would guess it would be more like 1500 dukes but the quest plus travel and trader-interaction would be done in about 10 minutes(?) real-time by a normal player. Now show me for this case how that same player can acquire materials, craft something with them, sell them and reach anything in the vicinity of 1500 dukes in about 10 minutes.

 

3 hours ago, Sephiroth87xz said:

And rememeber reduce duke rewards don't solve the quests rewards and loot unbalance problem.

 

There is in any case a need of a proper overall balance for traders/loot/quests.

 

I doubt place a bandaid solution only for traders when there are balance problem for quests rewards and loot too can help.

 

Quest rewards are part of the trader balance (for me). Naturally the trader can't give out steel stuff as quest rewards for higher tier quests. See this older post from me in this thread where item 2) is about the item rewards of quests:

https://community.7daystodie.com/topic/28129-alpha-21-dev-diary/?do=findComment&comment=529609

 

And I'm not sure that loot is unbalanced compared to crafting. It may still need some fine-tuning but really not that much.

 

Edited July 9, 2023 by meganoth (see edit history)

[Riamus]

5 hours ago, Winkiss said:

You can make coins part of your choice of rewards - either money or an item. If the item is good, you will refuse the coins.

The main problem with this is that for you to do anything with money, including saving up to eventually pay for the very expensive solar stuff, you will have to take the money rewards somewhat often and that means not getting other rewards that are useful.  Yeah, it's a choice and I'm generally fine with choices but that feels too punishing.  It would almost require that everyone max out daring adventurer so they can take the money and still get a normal reward.  And doing that increases the rewards, making it more unbalanced in the eyes of those who don't like the trader having good stuff.  A lower duke reward that you get automatically rather than as a choice is a better option, imo.

 

3 hours ago, Sephiroth87xz said:

 

I see your comment is based on a wrong assumption.

 

Trader is an option for you.

 

The truth is trader isn't an option, is part of overall progression of the game and when there will be a main quest, will become even more important.

 

So can't be unbalanced in this way.

 

If you need to stop using a part of the game like traders or even looted weapons/tools, because they break the progression and make the game too much easier, only show this parts of the game is bad balanced.

You claim people make wrong assumptions even while you do exactly what you are saying others are doing.  You are set in your belief and are unwilling to listen to any other options.  If you can't hear other ideas without immediately saying that they are wrong (regardless that these are opinions just as yours is and therefore can't be "wrong"), then you won't get anywhere in your hope to try and provide a viable fix suggestion for the problem.  A fix will most likely be a mix of ideas that work together to form a solid fix and that means it's better to work toward such a fix rather than turning down every single suggestion people provide if it isn't yours.  For that matter, your suggestion amounts to "fix the balance" without giving any details on how to do so.

 

Buying from the trader is entirely optional.  You are never forced to do so.  Even if you consider it the efficient way to play doesn't invalidate that it is an option.  There is always a "most efficient" way to play any game but that doesn't invalidate playing the game in other ways and games do not need to make every option equal.  There is nothing wrong with having a "most efficient" way to play the game for those who prefer doing such things as long as it isn't so unbalanced from other options that playing in any other way isn't possible.  But that's where balance comes in.

 

If money is adjusted from rewards and from selling prices, players have choices to make.  They either buy something or don't buy it based on their money.  That reduces the amount you can make use of the trader inventory.  If a player wants to craft a lot of stuff to sell, that is a valid way to play the game.  With a reduction in sell costs, it will not be something most players are going to choose to do.  But for those interested, there isn't anything wrong with that.  They are making the choice to use resources that could be used for other things on trying to make dukes and that's a reasonable choice for players to make.

 

Trader quests are also optional.  No matter the reward, trader quests will always offer more than just looting and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.  Name any game that allows looting without a quest and looting with a quest and you will see that looting with a quest is always the more profitable choice.  There isn't anything wrong with that.  Players who choose not to quest can do so.  They understand the profit is less.  Yet there are players who don't quest and still loot.  There are also players who don't use traders at all.  Sometimes that requires some modification to make certain things available in other ways (like the filter) but that's just a minor change.  It obviously isn't as efficient but the players who prefer not using traders enjoy it and that's what matters.

 

The trader will always be part of the progression.  Crafting will always be part of the progression.  The other ways to get weapons and armor and other things will always be part of the progression.  These are not required to have the same progression as I already explained in the previous post that you quoted so I won't explain it again.  People too often think that only the most efficient option is usable.  That is not true.  You have a choice and you can do just fine without playing the game that way.  I rarely buy from the trader even if there's something good.  Does that mean I can't keep up with the game?  No.  I don't usually craft higher tier things in A21 because the costs are ridiculous (my opinion) and so I skip that.  That doesn't in any way hurt my game.  Later game, I will often stop questing and will just loot POI instead.  This is because I've done the POI the quests took me to already and now I want to do the POI that I've never done because the quests never took me there.  This doesn't prevent me from keeping up with the game.  If I wanted to not quest at all, I could do so and still keep up with the game.  This isn't a matter of skipping part of the game because it breaks the progression.  I choose not to do things that I just don't need or want to do.  I see no need to buy stuff from the trader because I do fine without spending the money.  I choose not to craft high tier stuff because I don't like the costs and not because there is any problem with progression.  The game offers you choices and just because you make a choice to play the game the way you want doesn't mean that choice has anything to do with progression being broken.  Many people don't like crafting at all and so won't craft anything.  That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the game.  It just means they have a personal preference on what they enjoy doing in the game and they picked an option that the game offers instead of another option that the game offers.  Options are good.

 

The game can absolutely be balanced in a way that will help prevent extreme differences in progression.  Making it so the trader inventory and quest rewards can't be more than 2-3 quality levels higher than what can be looted would do that.  Making crafting have better crafting costs (I thought A20s costs were good) and balancing magazines some more you aren't getting a bunch of extra magazines of what you perk into and so your perks aren't preventing you from finding other magazines as often would do that.

Edited July 9, 2023 by Riamus (see edit history)

[Ralathar44]

Anecdotally I was finding magazines at good pace with an intellect/perception build, Had Quality 5 stun baton shortly after day 20.  Iron tools 3.  Almost to chemistry station, good foods, etc.  Only thing lagging behind really was vehicles with mini bike a couple magazines from unlocking.
 

At this point I was offered a Quality 4 Steel pick from the trader.  Granted I had daring adventurer 2 but that was still an entire tier ahead and i was nowhere near making steel but progressing quickly.  It definitely felt off.  Especially because It was a Tier 2 quest, later on the capstone reward offered me a workbench as a reward lol.  I was like "clearly tht should have been a Q4 Iron Pick, not steel.

Edited July 10, 2023 by Ralathar44 (see edit history)

[Sephiroth87xz]

11 hours ago, Riamus said:

The main problem with this is that for you to do anything with money, including saving up to eventually pay for the very expensive solar stuff, you will have to take the money rewards somewhat often and that means not getting other rewards that are useful.  Yeah, it's a choice and I'm generally fine with choices but that feels too punishing.  It would almost require that everyone max out daring adventurer so they can take the money and still get a normal reward.  And doing that increases the rewards, making it more unbalanced in the eyes of those who don't like the trader having good stuff.  A lower duke reward that you get automatically rather than as a choice is a better option, imo.

 

You claim people make wrong assumptions even while you do exactly what you are saying others are doing.  You are set in your belief and are unwilling to listen to any other options.  If you can't hear other ideas without immediately saying that they are wrong (regardless that these are opinions just as yours is and therefore can't be "wrong"), then you won't get anywhere in your hope to try and provide a viable fix suggestion for the problem.  A fix will most likely be a mix of ideas that work together to form a solid fix and that means it's better to work toward such a fix rather than turning down every single suggestion people provide if it isn't yours.  For that matter, your suggestion amounts to "fix the balance" without giving any details on how to do so.

 

Buying from the trader is entirely optional.  You are never forced to do so.  Even if you consider it the efficient way to play doesn't invalidate that it is an option.  There is always a "most efficient" way to play any game but that doesn't invalidate playing the game in other ways and games do not need to make every option equal.  There is nothing wrong with having a "most efficient" way to play the game for those who prefer doing such things as long as it isn't so unbalanced from other options that playing in any other way isn't possible.  But that's where balance comes in.

 

If money is adjusted from rewards and from selling prices, players have choices to make.  They either buy something or don't buy it based on their money.  That reduces the amount you can make use of the trader inventory.  If a player wants to craft a lot of stuff to sell, that is a valid way to play the game.  With a reduction in sell costs, it will not be something most players are going to choose to do.  But for those interested, there isn't anything wrong with that.  They are making the choice to use resources that could be used for other things on trying to make dukes and that's a reasonable choice for players to make.

 

Trader quests are also optional.  No matter the reward, trader quests will always offer more than just looting and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.  Name any game that allows looting without a quest and looting with a quest and you will see that looting with a quest is always the more profitable choice.  There isn't anything wrong with that.  Players who choose not to quest can do so.  They understand the profit is less.  Yet there are players who don't quest and still loot.  There are also players who don't use traders at all.  Sometimes that requires some modification to make certain things available in other ways (like the filter) but that's just a minor change.  It obviously isn't as efficient but the players who prefer not using traders enjoy it and that's what matters.

 

The trader will always be part of the progression.  Crafting will always be part of the progression.  The other ways to get weapons and armor and other things will always be part of the progression.  These are not required to have the same progression as I already explained in the previous post that you quoted so I won't explain it again.  People too often think that only the most efficient option is usable.  That is not true.  You have a choice and you can do just fine without playing the game that way.  I rarely buy from the trader even if there's something good.  Does that mean I can't keep up with the game?  No.  I don't usually craft higher tier things in A21 because the costs are ridiculous (my opinion) and so I skip that.  That doesn't in any way hurt my game.  Later game, I will often stop questing and will just loot POI instead.  This is because I've done the POI the quests took me to already and now I want to do the POI that I've never done because the quests never took me there.  This doesn't prevent me from keeping up with the game.  If I wanted to not quest at all, I could do so and still keep up with the game.  This isn't a matter of skipping part of the game because it breaks the progression.  I choose not to do things that I just don't need or want to do.  I see no need to buy stuff from the trader because I do fine without spending the money.  I choose not to craft high tier stuff because I don't like the costs and not because there is any problem with progression.  The game offers you choices and just because you make a choice to play the game the way you want doesn't mean that choice has anything to do with progression being broken.  Many people don't like crafting at all and so won't craft anything.  That doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the game.  It just means they have a personal preference on what they enjoy doing in the game and they picked an option that the game offers instead of another option that the game offers.  Options are good.

 

The game can absolutely be balanced in a way that will help prevent extreme differences in progression.  Making it so the trader inventory and quest rewards can't be more than 2-3 quality levels higher than what can be looted would do that.  Making crafting have better crafting costs (I thought A20s costs were good) and balancing magazines some more you aren't getting a bunch of extra magazines of what you perk into and so your perks aren't preventing you from finding other magazines as often would do that.

You not understand how game design work.

 

Every part of the game need to be balanced with the overall progression and difficulty of the game.

 

Traders/loot/quests aren't balanced with the actual progression and difficulty of the game.

 

And they are all main parts of the gameplay.

 

Choicing to use something because is not balanced isn't an option, only show lack of balance.

 

Developers will fix it, they already confirmed the game need more balance few pages behind.