pApA^LeGBa Posted July 5, 2023 Share Posted July 5, 2023 (edited) Primary purpose or not, they could have done those changes without shifting the gameplay from play however you want to looting all the time. They gladly took the opportunity to finally make it happen that you have to loot a lot, no matter what. You can´t deny they badly wanted to force a playstyle. And if it wouldn´t have been crafting/water it would have been something else that made this happen. And i still don´t understand it. I mean the majority did that anyways. Why does it bother them so much that some players enjoy the non looting part of the game? Look at all the content creators, you didn´t see one popular streamer/yt´er doing the base mom playstyle ever. Edited July 5, 2023 by pApA^LeGBa (see edit history) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Khalagar Posted July 5, 2023 Share Posted July 5, 2023 5 hours 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. As many as can be done during the day, usually even doing them at night too. The game's setup is designed around quests, why would you loot any Poi that you don't have a quest for? You get the exact same loot as well as getting the extra quest rewards, so looting a building *without* a quest for it is flat out a worse use of time and ammo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vaeliorin Posted July 5, 2023 Share Posted July 5, 2023 Just now, Khalagar said: The game's setup is designed around quests, why would you loot any Poi that you don't have a quest for? You get the exact same loot as well as getting the extra quest rewards, so looting a building *without* a quest for it is flat out a worse use of time and ammo I used to loot houses in the first day or two looking for a cooking pot, but now that the trader has them (not that I've ever bought one) there's no need for that. In my current game I did go out of my way to loot every medical-type POI I could find, but that's because I'm playing on a map that's 40% desert, 40% snow and 20% wasteland, and I got infected on Day 1 in the desert. With no easy access to honey, it took me until Day 6 to get rid of my infection, which got as high as 65% (ironically because I finally found a trader selling antibiotics.) But if it wasn't for that, I wouldn't have bothered looting non-quest POIs that aren't Crack A Books. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roland Posted July 5, 2023 Share Posted July 5, 2023 My fix would be that the trader only ever gives quality one gear as rewards. That way you can take it and use it if it is better than what you can craft but eventually you’d be taking it to scrap it to get parts because you can craft better. Either that or the trader only ever deals in parts. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtomicUs5000 Posted July 5, 2023 Share Posted July 5, 2023 If we assume extremes, and a player happens to focus mainly on one thing for whatever reason they may have, and assuming that we still want a player to at least experience other things some of the time, the best balanced setup in my eyes is: - loot: I can wait until I find it for zero cost. I loot all day, everyday, so it shouldn't take me long. - craft: I want it sooner and doing so is either at zero cost or inexpensive if I choose to buy materials. I've done everything to be able to craft everything I need, now I want the rewards. - trader purchases: I want it ASAP and I am willing to pay inflated price for it. I work the economy and money is no object to me. - trader quests: Probably shouldn't do anything to increase loot or cash because doing so throws off the balance of the previous three. Rewards should probably be limited to special items that cannot be found or crafted, nice chunks of XP, perhaps some unique magazine sets, or eventually story progression when that time comes. In other words, it should probably be a standalone fourth method. If you happen to be the type of player who does not focus on one thing and you like to do everything, you shouldn't feel that doing one thing one day wasn't any better or worse than choosing something else another day, in the long run. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theFlu Posted July 5, 2023 Share Posted July 5, 2023 47 minutes ago, meganoth said: 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. But it used to be possible. I myself play mostly looter-shooter nowadays, so I'm not about to ragequit over the changes, but I have enjoyed the couple dwarf-mode playthroughs I've done over the years. I will probably give one a go soonish, but I'm guessing it'll end up requiring an outright two weeks of questloop to get going. And that's kinda against the idea of the whole self-sustaining thing; IMO artificially so. 54 minutes ago, meganoth said: Just now our group <snip> Hmm. Not playing MP, I can't really say much, the scaling is weird. Watched an ~8 player group take the week one horde in a cobblestone cube, size of which would be easily done by one player during the first day (at tops two). With no issues, other than the random spawns of 25 cops or demos by the host ... I'd say two days for a d14 horde is overkill, especially if it's a group effort - but then the group might be, you know, Not building for the most of the time... 43 minutes ago, meganoth said: Well, all three sources I don't disagree in principle, but took me a while to figure out what's the third source. There's no looting without questing in my world, and there's no questing without getting dukes to buy stuff. It is a legit difference, looting vs trader stock, but in SP, I'm spending my dukes just to spend them.. The best stuff comes from quest rewards, low tier lootboxes are nice but usually won't offer significant improvements. The trader inventory occasionally has a game-changing upgrade, but mostly it's electric stuff and books for me; and then a progress skipping chem station. All of it is basically aiming for T5/T6 quest rewards, preferably ASAP. The cement mixers and crucibles just show up "for free" along the way. But yeah, practically it looks like the skill magazines are going to end up being the "minimum rate of progression", with trader RNG likely pushing better stuff when lucky. Which makes the magazine system rather meh, they're there, but they're not doing anything 95% of the time. One upside though, I haven't had to think about spending points in cooking in any of my games yet, the kitchen cook books have given me grilled meat recipe early enough without the point... For the couple of the sideshow things they seem fine, cooking, seeds. Then again, I wouldn't mind a trader buff where the trader can actually teach you the basics, either from just outright buying it, or specific quests (Jen tells you to get 100 aloe for her supplies and teaches you to make bandoes..). 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Khalagar Posted July 5, 2023 Share Posted July 5, 2023 34 minutes ago, Roland said: Either that or the trader only ever deals in parts. Only a trader deals in absolutes Joke aside though, I think parts / resources are the best reward, with the trade being able to offer up to level 3 items. A level 3 Auger was a nice reward when augers weren't awful (please buff augers) or a level 3 auto shotgun is huge when you don't have one yet. But it also doesn't invalidate the magazine line and you will still want to craft one later. IMO traders should just offer resources like 5000 wood, 50 duct tape etc, and the crafting costs should be ramped up for end game items. Currently, I have like 60+ robotic turret parts, but it only takes like 5 to craft one. The duct tape cost is insane already, so the trader offering duct tape rewards would be good for this too. Scrapping a high tier item should also give more than 1 part The issue atm is that Tier 1 trader quests actually offers some of the best stuff in the game. It will give you molotovs and pipe bombs and resources etc, where as higher ones just spam useless things you may not need like double barrel shotguns and leather armor etc. Sure that's great the first time, but when I am needing a trillion duct tape, I really don't need a 12th doubel barrel shotgun right now Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
meganoth Posted July 5, 2023 Share Posted July 5, 2023 (edited) 1 hour ago, pApA^LeGBa said: Primary purpose or not, they could have done those changes without shifting the gameplay from play however you want to looting all the time. They gladly took the opportunity to finally make it happen that you have to loot a lot, no matter what. You can´t deny they badly wanted to force a playstyle. And if it wouldn´t have been crafting/water it would have been something else that made this happen. And i still don´t understand it. I mean the majority did that anyways. Why does it bother them so much that some players enjoy the non looting part of the game? Look at all the content creators, you didn´t see one popular streamer/yt´er doing the base mom playstyle ever. Or they simply were assuming that players do quests and loot, and do other stuff. In that case the changes were not changing anything (for the use case they were looking at). For me it doesn't, for my co-players it doesn't, except that it improves some things. You simply can't know if your are a target or just accidentally happened to be in the line of fire. Maybe that there is no sensible reasons for base-moms being the target means that they were not a target. For me it makes a lot of sense that TFP just does not have them on the radar when thinking about ways to make water relevant and fix crafting. But I don't see it making sense to target them specifically, especially because the result would just be them leaving or using mods and continuing with their playstyle. Edited July 5, 2023 by meganoth (see edit history) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RipClaw Posted July 5, 2023 Share Posted July 5, 2023 38 minutes ago, Roland said: My fix would be that the trader only ever gives quality one gear as rewards. That way you can take it and use it if it is better than what you can craft but eventually you’d be taking it to scrap it to get parts because you can craft better. You can bet that some players will then complain that the quest rewards are just not worth doing higher tier quests. That is the dilemma. Some players want a slow steady progress, others would prefer running around with endgame gear as soon as possible. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roland Posted July 5, 2023 Share Posted July 5, 2023 2 minutes ago, RipClaw said: You can bet that some players will then complain that the quest rewards are just not worth doing higher tier quests. That is the dilemma. Some players want a slow steady progress, others would prefer running around with endgame gear as soon as possible. The other problem is non perked weapons. If I’m not perked into Machine guns but the trader gives me a blue M60 that would still be a really nice secondary weapon to my perked weapon that I’d likely not be able to craft on my own. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
retrogamingdev Posted July 5, 2023 Share Posted July 5, 2023 I am still getting my feel for A21, so please take this with that in mind. But, I do like Roland's idea of only level 1 stuff. Or a modification on that being maybe max level is half of the tier of quest you are on. So, if you are on a tier 1 or 2, the best you will see is level 1. Tier 3/4, level 2 is the best possible, Tier 5/6, level 3 is best. It still gives some benefit to players getting going, but also sort of caps out driving you to want to craft tier 4 and up. I don't fully understand the logic on what they sell, so I can't comment super strongly on what to do there. But, I think there should be a cap on quality of what you can buy too. Basically, tier 4+ needs to be crafted. Possibly make 4+ very rare random drops too in high level POIs - but really very very low chance. Like, you would be lucky to see one 4+ item out of maybe 100 loot rooms that were eligible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
seagas Posted July 5, 2023 Share Posted July 5, 2023 Why does everyone want to make the base game tougher for everyone, nothing is stopping you from making it tougher for yourself! The trader rewards, IMO, have been toned down plenty from A20. Some people find the base game tough enough, I tweak the game game to be tougher on me, but that's my choice. At 69, my ability to play at the level of those youtubers or you super gamers do, my best gaming days are long past me. I love 7D2D and have been playing since A16 when I was turned on to it by a friend. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
retrogamingdev Posted July 5, 2023 Share Posted July 5, 2023 2 minutes ago, seagas said: Why does everyone want to make the base game tougher for everyone, nothing is stopping you from making it tougher for yourself! The trader rewards, IMO, have been toned down plenty from A20. Some people find the base game tough enough, I tweak the game game to be tougher on me, but that's my choice. At 69, my ability to play at the level of those youtubers or you super gamers do, my best gaming days are long past me. I love 7D2D and have been playing since A16 when I was turned on to it by a friend. I totally hear you, but I think people like variable levels of challenge. Perhaps these options need to be game settings to account for everyone. Like "Max Item Level from Traders" or something. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vaeliorin Posted July 5, 2023 Share Posted July 5, 2023 1 hour ago, theFlu said: But it used to be possible. I myself play mostly looter-shooter nowadays, so I'm not about to ragequit over the changes, but I have enjoyed the couple dwarf-mode playthroughs I've done over the years. I will probably give one a go soonish, but I'm guessing it'll end up requiring an outright two weeks of questloop to get going. And that's kinda against the idea of the whole self-sustaining thing; IMO artificially so. My experience so far, as someone who usually didn't loot much after Day 14 previously, is it takes about 4 weeks (2 hour days) to max out all the magazine lines. I haven't tested that extensively, but that's the feeling I get. Obviously later magazine lines progress faster, as the completed lines get dropped from the loot table. POI availability also effects this, of course, and how willing the trader is to offer book-rich POIs as quests. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roland Posted July 5, 2023 Share Posted July 5, 2023 1 hour ago, seagas said: Why does everyone want to make the base game tougher for everyone, nothing is stopping you from making it tougher for yourself! The trader rewards, IMO, have been toned down plenty from A20. Some people find the base game tough enough, I tweak the game game to be tougher on me, but that's my choice. At 69, my ability to play at the level of those youtubers or you super gamers do, my best gaming days are long past me. I love 7D2D and have been playing since A16 when I was turned on to it by a friend. I don’t see it as wanting to make it tougher so much as wanting gear to be something we mostly craft instead of mostly buy or find. Right now finding or buying or being rewarded with something beyond what you can craft kind of takes the wind out of your sails if you like crafting your own stuff. When you just need a few more magazines to be able to craft a higher tier than you have it makes finding those magazines exciting. When you need 16 more magazines just to match what the trader gave you then it makes it much less exciting. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pApA^LeGBa Posted July 5, 2023 Share Posted July 5, 2023 (edited) @meganoth You said it yourself that he said that several times. I am 100% sure that they exactly knew what this change means in terms of playstyles when they made it. If this isn´t one of your goals why would you willingly force people to a certain playstyle when there is surely other ways to achieve what you want? Edited July 5, 2023 by pApA^LeGBa (see edit history) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Khalagar Posted July 5, 2023 Share Posted July 5, 2023 1 hour ago, seagas said: Why does everyone want to make the base game tougher for everyone, nothing is stopping you from making it tougher for yourself! The trader rewards, IMO, have been toned down plenty from A20. Some people find the base game tough enough, I tweak the game game to be tougher on me, but that's my choice. At 69, my ability to play at the level of those youtubers or you super gamers do, my best gaming days are long past me. I love 7D2D and have been playing since A16 when I was turned on to it by a friend. The game still has to be balanced at a fundamental level. Trader rewards are not balanced. The trader handed me a level 6 steel club when I had like 10 club magazines at most read. That means the entire club magazine line is pointless now Currently the trader will give you gear that's FAR superior to what you can craft, in a fraction of the time. Even with me having 10 int and every related Junk Turret perk, the trader still handed me a level 6 drone long before I could craft one. You can start getting ridiculously good trader rewards within the first week or two, well before you could ever find them in the wild or craft them. It isn't about making trader rewards useless, it's about making them useful but not game breaking. Instead of offering you a level 6 steel club, he should just offer you 150 forged iron or a mod bundle or something 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theFlu Posted July 5, 2023 Share Posted July 5, 2023 45 minutes ago, Vaeliorin said: is it takes about 4 weeks (2 hour days) to max out all the magazine lines. Ye, my guess on d14 (60 min x 14) was about getting the basics, while still doing some work on the "establishment". Recipes for seeds & stews, some decent tools etc. Reaching tolerable, but not in any way maximized. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
retrogamingdev Posted July 5, 2023 Share Posted July 5, 2023 (edited) The other road to take this down for balance would be to go BOTW and break gear with no option to repair. I really don't support this idea, but it would help balance out the fact that you can get 'end'-ish game gear from trader in the first week or two in game. Sure, you may get lucky and got a steel pickaxe on day 6... but when it breaks, you are back to whatever you can craft (or hope to get lucky again from trader). Again, I don't support this specific plan, but it might help frame it from another perspective for those not seeing the problem at the moment. (this is also hypothetical, based on others responses. My first couple games, I have two ongoing, I have yet to get anything tier 6 from trader and I am in to day 8 and day 10. I am getting better gear than I can craft, though - so I can see the issue.) Edited July 5, 2023 by retrogamingdev (see edit history) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pApA^LeGBa Posted July 5, 2023 Share Posted July 5, 2023 (edited) Currently the only things crafted are armor and vehicles for us and here and there a tool. Only in MP though. I didn´t craft any weapon, tool or armor in SP so far. And it´s not only the trader and quest rewards. It´s also the loot. If you have snow or wasteland nearby, it´s easy to grab some quick way overpowered loot even though you aren´t really suited for those biomes. Even the desert can already make a difference early on. A quick car looting in the wasteland neighbourhood gives you high tier tools almost guaranteed if you have some cars nearby. The game is so loot heavy right now and has a pretty limited loot pool for a game that focuses so heavily on looting, that this is the logical result with the current loot bonuses for POI´s and biomes. @retrogamingdev Maybe not completly unrepairable but downgrading when repairing so that you can at least repair it twice or so. But with the current degradation this would be tedious af. Would need an overhaul of durability aswell. Edited July 5, 2023 by pApA^LeGBa (see edit history) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
retrogamingdev Posted July 5, 2023 Share Posted July 5, 2023 (edited) 11 minutes ago, pApA^LeGBa said: @retrogamingdev Maybe not completly unrepairable but downgrading when repairing so that you can at least repair it twice or so. But with the current degradation this would be tedious af. Would need an overhaul of durability aswell. True. It would need some nuance to not be completely annoying. Funny thing is I am pretty sure an older version of the game did this, lost quality levels on repair (or something like that). Ultimately, I don't think this is the path at all - better to balance the loot availability (both from trader, quest and loot boxes) to severely limit how much high end gear you can get. Or better yet, block the high end stuff behind crafting. For example, You can only get a 4+ tier piece of gear if it was crafted by a player. Or maybe the player crafted gear gets extra bonuses. Basically, they need to entice people to craft stuff to make the whole system of magazines and learning to be worth while. Edited July 5, 2023 by retrogamingdev (see edit history) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Khalagar Posted July 5, 2023 Share Posted July 5, 2023 Gear breaking is an interesting idea. I was thinking just give gear more random stats, so you have the late game goal of finding better gear like an ARPG, but RNG can be really annoying and finding better gear so you can find better gear gets old fast. If gear broke every so often or if repairing it downgraded it a tier, it would actually give you a lot more reasons to grind late game Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RipClaw Posted July 5, 2023 Share Posted July 5, 2023 (edited) 1 hour ago, Khalagar said: The game still has to be balanced at a fundamental level. Trader rewards are not balanced. The trader handed me a level 6 steel club when I had like 10 club magazines at most read. That means the entire club magazine line is pointless now The rewards are in no way linked to your crafting skills. The game does not know what you can craft and in what quality. I also don't see how they could balance that. After all, you can be unlucky or lucky with the magazines, so your progress can vary a lot. There is no "The player is level X and therefore has the following crafting skills". The developers can at most balance it based on assumptions and statistics but that's it. It won't work for every player, every playthrough, and every playstyle. 1 hour ago, retrogamingdev said: True. It would need some nuance to not be completely annoying. Funny thing is I am pretty sure an older version of the game did this, lost quality levels on repair (or something like that). This was the case until Alpha 16, but the game had 600 quality levels back then and you could upgrade items by combining them in the workbench. Edited July 5, 2023 by RipClaw (see edit history) 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Khissi Posted July 5, 2023 Share Posted July 5, 2023 9 minutes ago, RipClaw said: The rewards are in no way linked to your crafting skills. The game does not know what you can craft and in what quality. I also don't see how they could balance that. After all, you can be unlucky or lucky with the magazines, so your progress can vary a lot. There is no "The player is level X and therefore has the following crafting skills". The developers can at most balance it based on assumptions and statistics but that's it. It won't work for every player, every playthrough, and every playstyle. This was the case until Alpha 16, but the game had 600 quality levels back then and you could upgrade items by combining them in the workbench. THIS!! You have to remember that the developers must keep the base game playable for NEW players. It's a balancing act I'd certainly not wish to try to do, but it's something that they must do. As long as they're able to create a stable, well crafted base game, all this other can come later on either through mods, or in future settings or DLC once we go gold. Let them watch and see how it goes and I hope to the gods that they're NEVER going to go off the stuff that gets ranted on here in the forums since the people who are out there enjoying what they've created, don't usually spend all their time here. They'll come and check when there's an issue or try to find an answer to a problem, but, honestly, they're too busy having fun the rest of the time. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pApA^LeGBa Posted July 5, 2023 Share Posted July 5, 2023 (edited) 36 minutes ago, RipClaw said: The rewards are in no way linked to your crafting skills. The game does not know what you can craft and in what quality. I also don't see how they could balance that. After all, you can be unlucky or lucky with the magazines, so your progress can vary a lot. There is no "The player is level X and therefore has the following crafting skills". The developers can at most balance it based on assumptions and statistics but that's it. It won't work for every player, every playthrough, and every playstyle. This was the case until Alpha 16, but the game had 600 quality levels back then and you could upgrade items by combining them in the workbench. Wait. You are telling us it´s impossible for the game to know what my crafting skill is? How? It might be a challenge to code it right, but as the game does very well know what my crafting skills are (i mean how else would the game know what i am able to craft and what is still locked?), i am sure it is possible to make a link with the trader rewards/inventory and loot pool. Maybe too much work, but possible for sure. I also don´t see how this would make the game more complicated. The crafting skills beeing in relation with the rewards/loot/inventory wouldn´t change the gameplay at all. It would still work the same. And a good balance is something the game needs when going gold. Not months or years after that. Edited July 5, 2023 by pApA^LeGBa (see edit history) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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