Tools Degrading in Quality again

[Gatsu]

Anyone else think that tools should degrade in quality with each repair like they use to? I think that it is dumb to make 1 top notch tool and never have to worry about making another one.

 

The dev's changed farming from being tilled on the terrain to having to craft farm plots for balance and to me, adding back tool degradation seems a good step in balance as well, at least for me. 

[Riamus]

Not me.  I'm fine with them as they are.  Besides, the changes to crafting and amount of loot is going to make having that high tier tool a lot more time consuming to reach.  You won't end up with top tier and quality tools within the first week anyhow 

[Roland]

5 hours ago, Gatsu said:

Anyone else think that tools should degrade in quality with each repair like they use to? I think that it is dumb to make 1 top notch tool and never have to worry about making another one.

 

The dev's changed farming from being tilled on the terrain to having to craft farm plots for balance and to me, adding back tool degradation seems a good step in balance as well, at least for me. 

 

I agree with you about item degradation. I think it is needed badly. However, it seems to be a polarizing issue with as many people for it as are against it. Probably best left as a mod.

 

Also, farming was not switched from being tilled on terrain to farm plots for any balance reasons. It was simply that they switched to a new tech for generating terrain and it no longer allowed for changing terrain within a biome away from its basic type for that biome. To preserve farming at all they switched to the box plots.

[RipClaw]

8 hours ago, Gatsu said:

I think that it is dumb to make 1 top notch tool and never have to worry about making another one.

That's not likely to happen in A21. With the Learn by Reading system in place, people are likely to recraft their tools much more often.

 

[Gatsu]

8 hours ago, Roland said:

Also, farming was not switched from being tilled on terrain to farm plots for any balance reasons. It was simply that they switched to a new tech for generating terrain and it no longer allowed for changing terrain within a biome away from its basic type for that biome. To preserve farming at all they switched to the box plots

I see. I remember way back in the day when the terrain was cubic feels like eons ago. Game has really evolved and come a long way. Excited for what comes next for the game.

 

8 hours ago, Roland said:

I agree with you about item degradation. I think it is needed badly. However, it seems to be a polarizing issue with as many people for it as are against it. Probably best left as a mod.

Yeah, that is fine with me. I am sure it is probably more niche to want item degradation back in 🤪.

[Ramethzer0]

15 hours ago, Gatsu said:

Anyone else think that tools should degrade in quality with each repair like they use to? I think that it is dumb to make 1 top notch tool and never have to worry about making another one.

 

If it was re-implemented I don't think that'll have as much impact as you think.  With the tiny exception of early gamestages, to the current system of looting one need not bother even crafting a first one sometimes.   I'm currently playing a vanilla Navezgane playthrough with 3 friends, with and I only had to craft one set of tools for myself and the others before we were looting tools that were higher than I was crafting.  The system of item degradation as it stands seems to be enough to worry about.   I also understand that some folks' miles may vary, but in almost every case scenario I've experienced, past a few days in game, and looting seems to be more effective than crafting. 

[Gatsu]

13 minutes ago, Ramethzer0 said:

If it was re-implemented I don't think that'll have as much impact as you think.  With the tiny exception of early gamestages, to the current system of looting one need not bother even crafting a first one sometimes.   I'm currently playing a vanilla Navezgane playthrough with 3 friends, with and I only had to craft one set of tools for myself and the others before we were looting tools that were higher than I was crafting.  The system of item degradation as it stands seems to be enough to worry about.   I also understand that some folks' miles may vary, but in almost every case scenario I've experienced, past a few days in game, and looting seems to be more effective than crafting. 

That is the case with my one buddy, goes out and about and finds tier 5 Steel tools or guns and I sob in the corner. Usually not as lucky which is why I either take it from him or work on setting up my craft skillz so I can reliably get the quality tools I want/need.

But overall, yeah it will most certainly probably have a very small impact on late game players. I just want the game to be a bit more challenging then it is. I feel personally that I get to geared and set up way to quickly. I also play on survivalist difficulty, pointing this out so others cannot just say stop playing on easy.

[RipClaw]

1 hour ago, Ramethzer0 said:

If it was re-implemented I don't think that'll have as much impact as you think.

I think it would have a greater impact today than back when it was still in the game. Back then you had 600 quality levels, no mod slots, and except for the auger, no tool required anything you couldn't craft yourself.  In addition, you could increase the quality when you combined items in the workbench. For example, you had 10 steel picks with quality 500 and you could combine them up to quality 600.

 

 

[RipClaw]

1 hour ago, Gatsu said:

I feel personally that I get to geared and set up way to quickly. I also play on survivalist difficulty, pointing this out so others cannot just say stop playing on easy.

The difficulty setting only affects how much damage you do to the zombies, how much damage the zombies do to you, and how often the rage mode kicks in. If you want to slow down how fast you get high quality gear you would have to play with reduced loot or with reduced XP.

 

You might wanna try the Undead Legacy mod. There the progress is much slower.

 

 

Edited May 25, 2023 by RipClaw (see edit history)

[theFlu]

Degradation isn't a bad idea, but I'd also love some "permanence" to the gear. As in, "this is my gun, I've maintained it thru a lot, and improved it over time", opposed to "oh look, a better gun in this random box, let me just toss my mods in there".

 

Something like permanent mods, ability to upgrade a gun (with significant effort) and a necessity to do some "heavier repairs" every once in a while. The effort spent in maintaining something makes the thing all that much more precious; sure it turns into a sunken cost fallacy when analyzed too deeply, but the feels are real thou ..

[Gatsu]

35 minutes ago, RipClaw said:

The difficulty setting only affects how much damage you do to the zombies, how much damage the zombies do to you, and how often the rage mode kicks in. If you want to slow down how fast you get high quality gear you would have to play with reduced loot or with reduced XP.

 

You might wanna try the Undead Legacy mod. There the progress is much slower.

Yeah will def check that out, thanks for the info!

12 minutes ago, theFlu said:

Something like permanent mods, ability to upgrade a gun (with significant effort) and a necessity to do some "heavier repairs" every once in a while. The effort spent in maintaining something makes the thing all that much more precious; sure it turns into a sunken cost fallacy when analyzed too deeply, but the feels are real thou

Love that idea, it makes the grind worth it and gives a better sense of reward for sticking through the grind. Plus, there could be so much there in terms of mechanics kinda like what you were saying.

[warmer]

repair penalties can be incredibly annoying. A rule that we used at an old game company I worked for was, "does it make it more fun?" if the answer was no, we moved on.

 

Repair penalties are anything but fun and does not add additional realism, but does add the cost of spending time to gather resources, but your gathering of resources, damages the item you are repairing!

 

Real world objects can be repaired to 100% think an ax with a broken handle or head. There is NOTHING stopping you from repairing that to 100%

 

The cycle is neverending and NOT fun.

 

If there was no bloodmoon to prep for, this wouldnt be such an issue, but the penalty is just a penalty with no game play value in my opinion.

Edited May 25, 2023 by warmer (see edit history)

[Riamus]

If you degrade weapons and tools, there is no reason to have a range of stats for each tier and quality.  You'd have to constantly replace them anyhow, so what would be the point.  Right now, I can compare two things and pick the best and I like that even if the stats aren't hugely different or even that meaningful.  If I know I'll have to replace it after a day of use, why bother?  Right now, I'll even craft something multiple times to try and get a better version of it.  There's no reason to if you lose it after a short amount of time (degrading quality = losing it because you'll just replace it).

 

In a game like Diablo 2, you had glass weapons and the ethereal modifier.  These couldn't be repaired and so you lost them once broken.  However, they were often good enough to make using them until they broke worthwhile.  Here, the items are too similar to make that a valid argument.

Edited May 25, 2023 by Riamus (see edit history)

[Gatsu]

34 minutes ago, warmer said:

repair penalties can be incredibly annoying. A rule that we used at an old game company I worked for was, "does it make it more fun?" if the answer was no, we moved on.

 

Repair penalties are anything but fun and does not add additional realism, but does add the cost of spending time to gather resources, but your gathering of resources, damages the item you are repairing!

 

Real world objects can be repaired to 100% think an ax with a broken handle or head. There is NOTHING stopping you from repairing that to 100%

 

The cycle is neverending and NOT fun.

 

If there was no bloodmoon to prep for, this wouldnt be such an issue, but the penalty is just a penalty with no game play value in my opinion.

Valid point and a great perspective. I am def no game designer so there is a lot of ignorance in my thoughts. As someone pointed out above there are mods for what I am looking for so I will for sure be getting those for my plays from now on.

 

I am in a small camp in that a continuous never ending up hill battle is fun for me. So even though it is a never ending cycle I will say that is awesome for me and what I would want. Not looking for the realism aspect just making it harder for me. But again, appreciate your contribution, and great thoughts from ya!

[Ramethzer0]

On 5/25/2023 at 8:45 AM, Gatsu said:

That is the case with my one buddy, goes out and about and finds tier 5 Steel tools or guns and I sob in the corner. Usually not as lucky which is why I either take it from him or work on setting up my craft skillz so I can reliably get the quality tools I want/need.

But overall, yeah it will most certainly probably have a very small impact on late game players. I just want the game to be a bit more challenging then it is. I feel personally that I get to geared and set up way to quickly. I also play on survivalist difficulty, pointing this out so others cannot just say stop playing on easy.

 

You can trim looting settings if it becomes too easy.  Finding the balance with your game toggles has been essential for helping me find the sweet spot.  Good luck!

22 hours ago, RipClaw said:

You might wanna try the Undead Legacy mod. There the progress is much slower.

I can absolutely second this.  UL made this game entirely better for me in all the ways that I enjoy.  Massive props to Subquake and co for making it!

[Ramethzer0]

22 hours ago, RipClaw said:

I think it would have a greater impact today than back when it was still in the game. Back then you had 600 quality levels, no mod slots, and except for the auger, no tool required anything you couldn't craft yourself.  In addition, you could increase the quality when you combined items in the workbench. For example, you had 10 steel picks with quality 500 and you could combine them up to quality 600.

 I remember that era of 16.4 and I found that while it made the game more grindy and gritty, it did virtually nothing to help me enjoy it in the long term.  I was far more into public worlds then, but many of them lacked staying power for fear of the entry level grind.   Without a minibike, most folks were kinda stuck in place, and a single city looses it luster after a while.  This was doubly true if the city you were stuck in was nothing but a massive field of cell towers.

[Scyris]

On 5/25/2023 at 12:46 AM, Roland said:

 

I agree with you about item degradation. I think it is needed badly. However, it seems to be a polarizing issue with as many people for it as are against it. Probably best left as a mod.

 

Also, farming was not switched from being tilled on terrain to farm plots for any balance reasons. It was simply that they switched to a new tech for generating terrain and it no longer allowed for changing terrain within a biome away from its basic type for that biome. To preserve farming at all they switched to the box plots.

 

Yet many mods brought back being able to Hoe the ground like it used to be and it works perfectly. I mean yeah you can't Hoe Sand/snow/wasteland so you just place some dirt/top soil blocks and Hoe those, and all those biomes have access to clay to do this. Even when you could Hoe the ground in vanilla, in the game you couldn't Hoe Snow/Sand/wasteland either and still needed to make dirt blocks so... yeah. It was a design choice, not a technical one least in my opinion.

 

As for the topic of item degradation, I am kinda against it, it just adds tediousness to the game and nothing else of value. I'd rather it just be much harder to find higher qual stuff, but when you DO find it, you can keep it that quality. I also feel its stupid in vanilla how higher tier of the items uses much more mats to craft, it doesn't make sense, if anything it should be using LESS mats as your more skilled at making it. Its a thing thats always bugged me since it was put in as its kinda silly.

[Roland]

1 hour ago, Scyris said:

Yet many mods brought back being able to Hoe the ground like it used to be and it works perfectly.

 

It seems to but it is also a hacky methodology. The developers operate differently than modders and have more considerations than modders do. I don't fully understand the coding aspect of it other than that I know that TFP chose not to hack the microsplat technology and instead chose to change farming to farm plots for technical reasons. Maybe they had secret design purposes they didn't share with me but at the time their stated reasoning was technical concerns. I'm glad there are mods that get around it and work though for those who don't like farm plots.

[warmer]

now a change I would like to see is making repair kits cost more. duct tape and an iron ingot is way to cheap. 

 

Add super oil and then I am onboard. after I make a forge I usually have a stack of repair kits on me and an item breaking is never a worry.

[Roland]

Repair Kits will be a secondary fuel for your vehicles depending on where and how well you drive them...

[RipClaw]

6 minutes ago, Roland said:

Repair Kits will be a secondary fuel for your vehicles depending on where and how well you drive them...

Will be interesting to see how much damage my landings do to the gyrocopter. They are sometimes a bit rough.

[FA_Q2]

On 5/24/2023 at 8:46 PM, Roland said:

 

I agree with you about item degradation. I think it is needed badly. However, it seems to be a polarizing issue with as many people for it as are against it. Probably best left as a mod.

 

Why?

 

I do not see what it adds to the game since the loot is so varied, there are a ton of things that I loot and will never use simply because there is so much stuff that is outside your chosen perk trees.

 

I prefer the variety over the idea that I need to find the same thing over and over again, particularly when there is a random element involved AND I am required to find my top their loot rather than craft it.  For degradation to be added in I think such things would have to be removed.

 

What added feel is gained from looking for your tenth pick that game? 

 

[Roland]

6 hours ago, FA_Q2 said:

Why?

 

I do not see what it adds to the game since the loot is so varied, there are a ton of things that I loot and will never use simply because there is so much stuff that is outside your chosen perk trees.

 

I prefer the variety over the idea that I need to find the same thing over and over again, particularly when there is a random element involved AND I am required to find my top their loot rather than craft it.  For degradation to be added in I think such things would have to be removed.

 

What added feel is gained from looking for your tenth pick that game? 

 

 

1) It would add more significance to looting and crafting. Without degradation, if you find a purple pick axe, you never have to craft or find another for the whole playthrough of that game. In fact, finding another one is depressing since you already have one and that find could've been something you don't yet have. Why ever craft a pick-axe if you already found a better one than you were able to craft? With degradation, eventually that pickaxe would be used up and disappear and then you would need to craft yourself a new one. If you were to find another one then that would be rewarding since you needed one.

 

2) It would make mods that add durability have actual relevance. Who cares about the current diamond edge mod that adds durability to your item when it is infinitely repairable? Instead of actually adding to the longevity of the item, it simply reduces the frequency with which you need to repair it which is meaningless because repairing is such an insignificant mechanic itself.

 

3) It would increase the situations in which the player must make do without. These situations add variety to gameplay. One of the staples of survival games is that you must often try to survive without the perfect set of tools and you need to get creative in how to overcome the threats with whatever you have on hand-- or use inferior items until you can replace them with high-quality items. Without degradation those situations are often never seen in the game.

 

4) It would make first-day or first-week super lucky finds be amazing but not balance-breaking since they wouldn't last for the entire rest of the playthrough. TFP could even increase the chance of finding a rare epic item on day one since it wouldn't stick around forever.

 

Those are four big reasons I can think of that appeal to me and why I think degradation is needed but like I said, some people just hate losing stuff they have and those reasons above are not enough to overcome their distaste of non-permanence. But I'd be happy with permanent degradation as a mod and not part of the base game.

 

In addition to the above for item degradation, food spoilage would also add many new dimensions that are a lot of fun (for some) and I would love for that to have been something they wanted for this game.

Edited May 28, 2023 by Roland (see edit history)

[Riamus]

15 hours ago, Roland said:

1) It would add more significance to looting and crafting. Without degradation, if you find a purple pick axe, you never have to craft or find another for the whole playthrough of that game. In fact, finding another one is depressing since you already have one and that find could've been something you don't yet have. Why ever craft a pick-axe if you already found a better one than you were able to craft? With degradation, eventually that pickaxe would be used up and disappear and then you would need to craft yourself a new one. If you were to find another one then that would be rewarding since you needed one.

Except you can't craft tier 6, which leaves you stuck on tier 5 most of the game except when you find a tier 6 and then only until it needs repaired one time.

 

I know many people like the idea but it just isn't for me.  And, like I mentioned, if you're going to degrade items, there's no value in having random stats on items because there's no value in trying to get a better stat item if it's just going to degrade and become useless in a day or so anyhow.  Things like the auger would constantly have to be replaced for anyone who likes to mine and that would quickly become annoying for them.  Having to grind to get enough stuff to keep remaking your weapons and tools and I assume armor would fall into this for those who like the idea would get tiresome.  Again, this is just my own opinion on it and others like it.  As you said earlier, I think leaving it to mods is the better option.  If this game had far more variety in items and stats the way a typical ARPG does, then that would be different as you'd always be working to upgrade your equipment anyhow.  But when you have so few options, there just isn't any good reason for it, imo.

[Roland]

14 minutes ago, Riamus said:

Except you can't craft tier 6, which leaves you stuck on tier 5 most of the game except when you find a tier 6 and then only until it needs repaired one time.

So what? What’s wrong with tier 5?  Tier 6 is supposed to be legendary so you should be playing most of the game at tier 5 with rare tier 6 gear to supplement. I can’t think of a single activity in the game that can’t be handled adequately with tier 5 gear. Tier 6 is way too common imo and degradation would help with that if they aren’t going to nerf Tier 6 availability. 
 

14 minutes ago, Riamus said:

And, like I mentioned, if you're going to degrade items, there's no value in having random stats on items because there's no value in trying to get a better stat item if it's just going to degrade and become useless in a day or so anyhow.

How do you make that leap?  Random stats can work just fine with degradation. And who said that an item would break after a day?  That is what balancing is about but nobody who is for degradation wants to go from infinity to a day. We just don’t want infinity. 
 

There’s no need for exaggeration. There’s no danger the status quo on this issue is going to change. I’ve argued this with Madmole and he is firmly on your side. 😀