Traders and quests need to be nerfed

[aamatniekss]

Hey!
So traders are kinda insane and the quests in particular even more so, they can completely annihilate any progression in the game. Example -
im day 3 in my game, im quite enjoying collecting the magazines and getting the ability to craft better stuff as I go, the progression feels good! 
The best tools I can craft now are level 3 stone tools. I was doing quests for the traders, and on a tier 2 quest rewards I got offered a iron axe level 4, i thought ok, that's a bit OP, but i'll take it, iron vs stone is not such a huge difference it's the next step, ill have to work a bit more on my tool skills to match up the crafting to it. Next quest I get a iron shovel level 3. Which is still not so bad since it's just iron. But next quest still tier 2, i get a steel pickaxe level 4, wait what, I couldnt even  make a pickaxe yet at all, and Im already at steel 4, in tier 2? That's not right at all. 
And this same way for everything, every single upgrade i have gotten a whole tier better weapon, or tool from quest rewards. I think the rewards should be severely limited to tiers of the quest.
Proposed fix:
Limit item qualities you can get depending on tier of the quest, it could go something like this, with probably some tweaking -
Tier 1 quest - only give iron 1-2 tools and equivalents for weapons as maximum for tier 1.
tier 2 quest - only give iron tools 3-5 and equivalents
tier 3 quest - only give steel 1-2
Tier 4 quest - only give steel 3-5

tier 5 quest - machine tools 1-2

tier 6 - machine tools 3-5. 

keeping level 6 tools and weapons all only for crafting, since the progression system really is fun, but at the moment there is absolutely no point to it. Im even contemplating not doing trader bartering and quests at all next playthroughs, since it completely destroys the progression and makes it too easy.

P.S I had no skill points into anything like better bartering or anything that has anything to do with traders.

Edited July 5, 2023 by aamatniekss (see edit history)

[pApA^LeGBa]

That´s still OP. With the current meta of looting, looting and even more looting you are on T3 quests super fast. It should start at T4 with steel and equivalents. If not even at T5 tbh.

 

 

[Riamus]

The reason it isn't based solely on tier is because doing so is too OP.  Instead, it bases it on your game stage and other things (as well as tier) so that if you're powering through quests quickly, you aren't going to get the best stuff as fast.  You'd have a more unbalanced rewards if you based it solely on the tier of the quest.  This doesn't mean the rewards can't be balanced more.

[aamatniekss]

9 minutes ago, pApA^LeGBa said:

That´s still OP. With the current meta of looting, looting and even more looting you are on T3 quests super fast. It should start at T4 with steel and equivalents. If not even at T5 tbh.

 

 

Yeah, I agree it might still be too OP the way I suggested,  but i definitely think it should be limited somehow more

[Scyris]

15 minutes ago, Riamus said:

The reason it isn't based solely on tier is because doing so is too OP.  Instead, it bases it on your game stage and other things (as well as tier) so that if you're powering through quests quickly, you aren't going to get the best stuff as fast.  You'd have a more unbalanced rewards if you based it solely on the tier of the quest.  This doesn't mean the rewards can't be balanced more.

 

Yeah in my current game I use clubs for my melee weapon and on day 8 I was given a ql 5 steel club for a trader reward, or a ql 5 steel pickaxe, I took the club since I could already craft ql 4 steel pickaxe's, the problem is now I have almost my best melee weapon for my build and its on day 8. Only thing better would be finding a ql 6 one. As vanilla has nothing left after steel. I personally usually get bored by day 8 or 9 in vanilla because by them I am so overpowered I can 2 shot most zombies with normal swings on warrior difficulty with my perked melee weapon. The game scales far FAR to slowly to support how fast you get strong resulting in the game just getting boring by day 8 or 9 even on warrior difficulty as the zombies are still mostly nothing but fodder. Even in t4 clear quests I might get a single feral in the entire poi. Ferals are about the right things for my chars power level at this point. I got 7 str and pummel pete 4.  Radiated would be above my current power level but, I am pretty much nearly capped out for melee by day 8 so... its why many people say they need a tier above steel finally, and maybe some higher tier zombies to go with it.

 

Imo 7dtd hasn't gone anywhere really in 4+ years other than visuals. Its why I turned to mods, as mods actually take the game places since the devs seem to have no interest in doing so anymore or at least this is what it feels like.

 

As for the steel tools, thats not that op, if your a str build, I can usually craft qual 3-4 steel tools by the time they are commonly in quests. harvesting tool mags seem to be fairly easy to find. Maybe the trader is balanced assuming you have max stat and perks to determine what it can give you for a quest reward? Its hard to say, as some magazines are much harder to find period as their main sources are just far rarer.

Edited July 5, 2023 by Scyris (see edit history)

[Gr.o.m.]

30 minutes ago, aamatniekss said:

Proposed fix:
Limit item qualities you can get depending on tier of the quest, it could go something like this, with probably some tweaking -
Tier 1 quest - only give iron 1-2 tools and equivalents for weapons as maximum for tier 1.
tier 2 quest - only give iron tools 3-5 and equivalents
tier 3 quest - only give steel 1-2
Tier 4 quest - only give steel 3-5

tier 5 quest - machine tools 1-2

tier 6 - machine tools 3-5. 

 

Solves nothing and makes it only worse. At the current state of the auger and the chainsaw, why bothering about machine parts. They are not better than steel tools, but need fuel and cause screamer problems.

 

It also don't solve the endless stream of dukes.

 

I think a better way might be to remove the automatic money reward and add them as a fith option. Also should daring adventurer at lvl 4 be changed so it gives automatically the fifth reward option the dukes and only one choice of option 1 to 4.

 

[OgreSlayeR]

I agree they are OP and need a big nerf. I don't think traders should offer weapons or tools as a reward at all, maybe just parts. You should mainly be crafting and looting stuff and should only be able to buy weapons and tools slightly better than what you would craft and they could be fairly expensive. Otherwise, I think you should use the traders a lot for resources and stuff like duct tape.

 

 

Edited July 5, 2023 by OgreSlayeR (see edit history)

[meganoth]

A partial fix for Daring Adventurer might be that instead of a traderstage buff some (not all) DA levels would just add a quality level to any weapon, tool or armor. So if everyone else would get a quality 3 iron axe from a quest the player perked into DA would get offered a quality 4 or 5 iron axe.

 

Though I don't know, maybe if they just balance the traderstage buff correctly then the result might be the same (?). But with the fixed quality boost the advantage is a lot easier to understand for the player.

 

 

 

Edited July 5, 2023 by meganoth (see edit history)

[Rince]

Wait a minute... you all are getting good stuff from traders?

[pApA^LeGBa]

59 minutes ago, meganoth said:

A partial fix for Daring Adventurer might be that instead of a traderstage buff some (not all) DA levels would just add a quality level to any weapon, tool or armor. So if everyone else would get a quality 3 iron axe from a quest the player perked into DA would get offered a quality 4 or 5 iron axe.

 

Though I don't know, maybe if they just balance the traderstage buff correctly then the result might be the same (?). But with the fixed quality boost the advantage is a lot easier to understand for the player.

 

 

 

 

DA isn´t the whole problem. Even without Daring Adventurer you get high tier items way too early.

[FranticDan]

Instead of whole tools/weapons, it should be parts to make said tool/weapon

[RipClaw]

How many quests do you do per day, if I may ask? The way it looks to me, people push through the quest tiers and then wonder why the balancing fails.

 

[meganoth]

39 minutes ago, RipClaw said:

How many quests do you do per day, if I may ask? The way it looks to me, people push through the quest tiers and then wonder why the balancing fails.

 

 

My impression is: In single player clearing POIs with quest gives about 3 times as much value as clearing it without quest. When playing in a 4 player group that factor seems more like 5 times as much.

 

My gut feeling is that most players would have enough incentive to do quests even with a factor as low as 1.3 or 1.5. But with such overwhelming odds the only reasons not to do quests are meta-reasons like "I don't like the quest loop" or "I want a slower progression and not questing is needed for this". In my group game we like to do quests, and some of us don't like the slow progression especially in the stone age, so neither meta-reason really applies to us.

 

Preferably the game should be well enough balanced that the decision to loot a nearby house instead of treking back to the trader would be a rationally valid decision from time to time (i.e. "ok, I will not get as much value out of it, but I save some time, it gets near evening and I need stuff I can get from that house"). With a factor of 3 or 5 that is never ever possible.

 

 

 

 

Edited July 5, 2023 by meganoth (see edit history)

[theFlu]

12 minutes ago, meganoth said:

Preferably the game should be well enough balanced that the decision to loot a nearby house instead of treking back to the trader would be a rationally valid decision from time to time

That, or we could have something, anything, else that's also somehow required to be done. Mining for coal for the water filters, hunting for animals for their meat. Those would not fix the current mess, but.. something.

 

At the moment it's just backwards; even if you Want to do something else (build a massive base (tools), explore (vehicles)), well, you'll get better at those mostly via the traders as well. So, what else is there to do ..?

[RipClaw]

15 minutes ago, meganoth said:

My impression is: In single player clearing POIs with quest gives about 3 times as much value as clearing it without quest. When playing in a 4 player group that factor seems more like 5 times as much.

That could be tested. Simply loot the same POI twice. Once without the quest activated and once with the quest activated. Throw the loot into a box after each run and compare them afterwards.

 

I know for a fact that the gamestage is boosted during an Infestation quest but I never paid attention to whether the lootstage will be boosted as well.

 

[Gr.o.m.]

56 minutes ago, RipClaw said:

How many quests do you do per day, if I may ask? The way it looks to me, people push through the quest tiers and then wonder why the balancing fails.

 

With our 4 man group we do about 2-3 quests per day. While 2 of us kill the zombies the other 2 loot and pillage (wrenching, shoveling, etc).

[pApA^LeGBa]

1 hour ago, RipClaw said:

How many quests do you do per day, if I may ask? The way it looks to me, people push through the quest tiers and then wonder why the balancing fails.

 

 

I mean that´s exactly what TFP want´s you to do, so the balancing should be accordingly to it. They did the skill and water changes to make you go looting all day and ofc the majority will use quests to do so.

[meganoth]

1 hour ago, pApA^LeGBa said:

 

I mean that´s exactly what TFP want´s you to do, so the balancing should be accordingly to it. They did the skill and water changes to make you go looting all day and ofc the majority will use quests to do so.

 

The reasons they told us are different and sound believable (to me). If you think they are lying or not telling us all reasons you should at least mention that this is your conjecture and not a fact.

 

I think Madmole has said on occaison that they want people to go out and loot, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the skill and water changes were done for this reason.

 

 

Edited July 5, 2023 by meganoth (see edit history)

[pApA^LeGBa]

As you said, he said it multiple time over the years and now we get two changes that make exactly that happen that do not benefit anything else to the game. And no removing glass jars only for the purpose of not having them in the game is no logic step on it´s own. Who tf cares if this serves the uniformity with acid and gas? Players don´t and critics won´t either.

 

Same for the magazines, they don´t really chnage the game other than the way you get  your crafting skills and that stay at home players are punished.

Edited July 5, 2023 by pApA^LeGBa (see edit history)

[meganoth]

2 hours ago, RipClaw said:

That could be tested. Simply loot the same POI twice. Once without the quest activated and once with the quest activated. Throw the loot into a box after each run and compare them afterwards.

 

I know for a fact that the gamestage is boosted during an Infestation quest but I never paid attention to whether the lootstage will be boosted as well.

 

 

Great men think alike 😁. The same test occured to me, though double dipping is not necessary as I am sure you find the same stuff in a POI whether it was created in RWG or after a quest reset. So I would just do a quest and compare loot with loot+reward

 

Another test could do the same with infestations quests though, it might be different.

 

 

[myrkana]

2 hours ago, Gr.o.m. said:

With our 4 man group we do about 2-3 quests per day. While 2 of us kill the zombies the other 2 loot and pillage (wrenching, shoveling, etc).

I play with 1 person, so me and another player. We can do 1-6 depending on the tier and how thorough we are with looting, if another trader is near we can ru nto them, Sometimes we focus on the loot room and run through.  By day 14 we're on tier 5 quests, thats with doing most pois once before we start the quest. We would loot most containers and then start the quest, wed do around 4 a day. Thats 8 if you account for the fact that it counts for each of us, so we each get loot from those 4 quests.

Edited July 5, 2023 by myrkana (see edit history)

[meganoth]

46 minutes ago, pApA^LeGBa said:

As you said, he said it multiple time over the years and now we get two changes that make exactly that happen that do not benefit anything else to the game. And no removing glass jars only for the purpose of not having them in the game is no logic step on it´s own. Who tf cares if this serves the uniformity with acid and gas? Players don´t and critics won´t either.

 

Same for the magazines, they don´t really chnage the game other than the way you get  your crafting skills and that stay at home players are punished.

 

As I said, just a conjecture of you. I disagree, I find removing the ubiquitous glass jars that nobody ever wanted to see in loot was in line with the removal of other almost useless or too frequent items, for example the turds or the zombie loot bags.

 

I don't even know if TFP themselves had uniformity as a reason or ever mentioned why they exactly wanted glass jars removed. The gas cans and acid cans were usually brought as examples from Roland or myself in discussions among us forum users. And it was to argue that it isn't something exceptional and people will just get used to it, as they have been doing that with gas cans all the time without asking why their motorcycle swallows plastic cans.

 

Crafting was broken in A20 and before (and many players were complaining by the way), and I was posting the reasons why they probably did it even before they mentioned them "officially". If even I can spot the reasons immediately then there really must be something wrong.

Now if the reasons don't seem important to you and the new solution steps on your shoes that doesn't mean they aren't valid reasons, and the stepping on your shoes could be anything from hidden agenda, one of many reasons, or just a coincidence. What you as stay-at-home player never seem to take into consideration is that your use case might be ignored by TFP and any changes are not about you. They are about getting the balance right for the "normal" players (as defined by TFP) who build, but also loot and do everything the game offers.

 

And while crafting is momentarily not "there" yet, anyone could experience that with the first experimental it was OP and with the second experimental too weak again. Which means somewhere inbetween could easily be a spot where it would be well balanced with looting. And even now you can see how the progression in crafting is finally smooth, something impossible with the old system. If you can't acknowledge that there is progress in that change then my only conclusion is that your feelings have taken over your reasoning.

 

 

 

 

Edited July 5, 2023 by meganoth (see edit history)

[theFlu]

17 minutes ago, meganoth said:

As I said, just a conjecture of you.

Looking from the sidelines... both the crafting change and the water change do encourage looting and thus the trader loop. This was Papa's original point in this trader-thread. Whatever the reason for either of the changes, or whether anyone likes them or not, they do push players to the loot loop.. get dukes for dew or books for crafting.

 

21 minutes ago, meganoth said:

And while crafting is momentarily not "there" yet,

But where _should_ it be? I agree with the "it felt too fast early, now it's too slow", but I have no idea where it's supposed to land compared to loot/traders. Should the traders be giving away the best you can craft, worse, or better?

 

It would be satisfying to craft better, but eventually, as legendaries won't be craftable, the trader/looting will inevitably be the source for the best-in-slot. Should it just be that way the whole game then, mostly using crafting as a means to help keeping up if the loot-gods aren't in your favor? For most playthroughs, it might just not be there then, making it mostly a wasted system.

[meganoth]

3 hours ago, theFlu said:

That, or we could have something, anything, else that's also somehow required to be done. Mining for coal for the water filters, hunting for animals for their meat. Those would not fix the current mess, but.. something.

 

At the moment it's just backwards; even if you Want to do something else (build a massive base (tools), explore (vehicles)), well, you'll get better at those mostly via the traders as well. So, what else is there to do ..?

 

Building as alternative activities is fine IMHO. Looting and looting with quests have the same goals of basically getting stuff and money and are directly comparable. Building is about using whatever you got from those activities and mining. And the normal player will not start building a massive base at lvl 1. He usually builds a small base or bases to survive the first horde night and with better tools and better materials extend that into what may become a massive base eventually. And since you get XP for upgrading you also progress while building.

 

Just now our group is two days before a horde night and we decided to use those two days to prepare a new horde base (and abandon our first). Now I think 2 days is not really enough for that and consequently our new base will suffer from some hasty design decisions. But I think it shows that at least with out group building is not replaced by quests. Though we did only the absolute minimum preparation with our 7day horde base.

 

 

[meganoth]

5 minutes ago, theFlu said:

Looking from the sidelines... both the crafting change and the water change do encourage looting and thus the trader loop. This was Papa's original point in this trader-thread. Whatever the reason for either of the changes, or whether anyone likes them or not, they do push players to the loot loop.. get dukes for dew or books for crafting.

 

But where _should_ it be? I agree with the "it felt too fast early, now it's too slow", but I have no idea where it's supposed to land compared to loot/traders. Should the traders be giving away the best you can craft, worse, or better?

 

It would be satisfying to craft better, but eventually, as legendaries won't be craftable, the trader/looting will inevitably be the source for the best-in-slot. Should it just be that way the whole game then, mostly using crafting as a means to help keeping up if the loot-gods aren't in your favor? For most playthroughs, it might just not be there then, making it mostly a wasted system.

 

Well, all three sources give you the same stuff. If any one gives you everything the others become secondary, with the exception that with crafting the other sources could still function as material sources.

 

In A20 and before crafting was very planable as you just needed to invest into the perks and could almost reliably plan when to build everything up to iron q5. Because it was planable it had to be inferior/slower than looting. 

 

As crafting is now a smooth progression but still somewhat random it could very well be on par with looting or only slightly behind. So for example you might find better melee weapons than you can craft but since you found more armor magazines you might be ahead with crafting your armor (all IMHO)

 

And the trader could have better stuff if money is made scarce enough, otherwise he needs to be only a safety net and therefore worse than what can be found or crafted.