Traders and quests need to be nerfed

[Riamus]

26 minutes ago, pApA^LeGBa said:

 

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 noticed the wording on that as well but I'm sure they just mean the game doesn't look at your crafting skill and only looks at the various factors that are used to determine quest rewards and trader inventory.  And it really shouldn't look at your crafting skill.  If someone has no interest in crafting and just sells all the magazines they find, they shouldn't be penalized from quest rewards or trader inventory just because they have no crafting skills.  This would break a play style, which is one of the things people are always upset about.

 

Regarding the other posts here, I think balancing can be done fairly well in terms of slowing down progression through loot, quest rewards and trader inventory even if it's not really possible to balance magazines so they progress at the same rate regardless of number of players.  It just needs more work to get to a good place.  I will say that loot is already reduced a lot from A20 even if you can get a lucky drop, which isn't a bad thing.  Yes, you can still get much better gear in the snow or wasteland biomes but that's intended and isn't likely to change.  If you want to loot there and progress faster, that's up to the player and the game shouldn't have to prevent that.  Again, it breaks a play style.

 

The big issue is that almost anything they do will break a play style.  People play this in so many different ways that there just isn't any easy way to make changes that won't impact someone's play style either positively or negatively.  They need to look at what will work for the most players (based on Game Sparks info not forum posts) and will still fall in line with the direction they want for the game.  Unfortunately, anything they do will cause issues for certain people.  One of the downsides of playing early access and developing a play style before the game is completed.

 

Also, bear in mind that in A20, crafting wasn't used by people too often except for specific things like vehicles so saying you progress faster in looting, quest rewards and trader inventory isn't anything new in A21; it is just more obvious because the magazines are making it so people want to craft when they didn't before.  Clothing, weapons, tools, armor were not usually crafted by people because it was so easy to loot it, buy it, or get it from quest rewards.  The magazines got people interested in crafting where many were not in A20.  However, it suffers from the same situation of balance.  I'd say it is better balanced as I actually will craft things sometimes that I had never crafted in A20, mostly because loot levels were decreased.  But it still has more balancing needed because it is still too slow a progression compared to the other options in most cases.  The other problem is the costs in duct tape for crafting stuff in A21 is way too high and so there's less incentive to bother crafting those things.  It's almost worse than crafting in A20 because of that.

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

[meganoth]

5 hours ago, theFlu said:

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...

 

Two days for just surviving a horde is overkill, yes. But if you want to make groundwork for a horde base that should last to endgame hordes you want to plan ahead and leave space for the future enhancements at the right places.

 

Though we probably will drop that game long before because we all got endgame equipment.

 

5 hours ago, theFlu said:

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.

 

 

Practically it looks like they are just at the second round of balancing. I would call it a bit premature to make predictions from that where TFP wants the balance to ultimately be at. We had the situation where crafting was not doing anything 95% of the time (A20) and it seems to have been one of the reasons to redesign it.

 

 

 

 

[Khalagar]

1 hour ago, Khissi said:

THIS!!  You have to remember that the developers must keep the base game playable for NEW players. 

 

None of the suggested changes would affect new players, what are you guys talking about? New players aren't chain doing quests to hit max tier faster than the magazines level up, and even if they do reach high level, they would still be getting rewards that are great. A new player getting to pick between a level 3 autoshotgun or 500 cement or 1,000 gunpowder or something would still give them plenty of excitement and incentive to do quests

 

Nobody is saying entirely remove rewards, we are saying that being handed a quality 6 version of a weapon completely invalidates the magazine line and means any more you find in loot are straight up trash. There's nothing wrong with saying only players can craft quality 5 and 6 and saying the trader can't give over quality 3 or 4 at most (probably should still be lower though)

[meganoth]

3 hours ago, pApA^LeGBa said:

@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?

 

But he said it in different context and he didn't say whether that means they will force something or just give incentives or remove incentives to just stay home. I don't remember at all on which occassions or to what he replied this way, but what if he said it when they removed zombie loot bags after more and more players made zombie farms with dozens of forges to farm zombies for example? Or what if he said it after they increased quest loot?

 

From our position we can not prove anything either way. If you feel 100% sure, good for you. but I hope you'll never get selected as juror 😉

 

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

[meganoth]

3 hours 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.

 

Sure they are not linked and progression is random. So a game designer would simple assume an average progression from time of play or level/gamestage and gives rewards accordingly. If you are lucky with magazines you would craft your guns and the rewards would be meh. If you are unlucky with magazines the rewards would save you from being underpowered.

 

As Papa said they could also just check the magazine level but I would not like rewards be linked with magazine levels.

Imagine you have really bad luck and just don't find any magazines for your main gun (and the gun also doesn't drop in loot). Also imagine for simplicity sakes the trader just gives you a gun one quality level above the gun you can craft.

So instead of being a safety net the trader would now give you a gun nearly as bad as the one you have and you would still be outgunned by the zombies. On the other hand if you are lucky with finding magazines and already have an OP gun the trader would give you an even better gun. The trader would not be a corrective. 

 

Edited July 6, 2023 by meganoth (see edit history)

[theFlu]

41 minutes ago, meganoth said:

I would call it a bit premature to make predictions from that where TFP wants the balance to ultimately be at.

For balance between trader stock / quest rewards / looting, for sure. For crafting, the fact that Q6 has been uncraftable by design for a few patches now is a pretty strong indicator for a vision of relative weakness. The trader may just as well be intentionally OP from alpha to alpha - to get people to play it for testing all the POIs etc - but the split between legendaries and craftables has been a stated design goal since ages. It ain't even wrong IMO, just the people who'd like to be the best manufacturer in the wasteland aren't happy.

 

And yeh, everything might change over and over again before gold; but it'd be awful quiet in here if we didn't talk about stuff that might still change ...

[Roland]

4 hours ago, pApA^LeGBa said:

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.

 

Okay, but this isn't really a balance issue. Even once they balance everything perfectly a quick jaunt into a tougher biome is going to net you loot at a higher lootstage. That is the way the game is designed and that is player choice. If you are a player who WANTS to craft your own gear and ENJOYS a slow progression, then don't make those choices. Daring Adventurer, Lucky Looter, Snow, Wasteland, and Desert biomes are all things you can ignore if you don't want the stuff you find and buy to be way beyond what you can craft. For people who love to buy great stuff and gain great rewards and find amazing loot, those perks and going into biomes you aren't suited for are fun.

 

Things like this will ALWAYS be in the game because it allows players to choose how they want to play. If you go into the wasteland and come back with great loot beyond what you can craft then that is what you want.

[meganoth]

3 minutes ago, theFlu said:

For balance between trader stock / quest rewards / looting, for sure. For crafting, the fact that Q6 has been uncraftable by design for a few patches now is a pretty strong indicator for a vision of relative weakness. The trader may just as well be intentionally OP from alpha to alpha - to get people to play it for testing all the POIs etc - but the split between legendaries and craftables has been a stated design goal since ages. It ain't even wrong IMO, just the people who'd like to be the best manufacturer in the wasteland aren't happy.

 

And yeh, everything might change over and over again before gold; but it'd be awful quiet in here if we didn't talk about stuff that might still change ...

 

I looked for Madmoles comment on this: https://community.7daystodie.com/topic/28129-alpha-21-dev-diary/?do=findComment&comment=486407

 

If you allow me to interpret this then he seems to imply that the reasons for not wanting q6 to be craftable do not exist anymore. At the same time he doesn't sound like he would rush to his telephone immediately because he was just reminded of the most important balancing fix of A21.

It sounds more like an issue he hasn't made up his mind about, and that isn't very important to him either way now that the reasons are gone. It definitely does not sound like it has a date attached and I would not be much surprised if it happened a week before gold or never. It might be eventually discussed in a team meeting, or it might never surface again unless players call for its change.

 

And if they still plan to add legendary weapons into the game (and man, I really hope for that) I can understand that it isn't an important issue for them anyway because it would be temporary.

 

 

@pApA^LeGBa In the course of looking for the comment above I also stumbled over this: https://community.7daystodie.com/topic/32098-what-was-the-point-of-the-water-change/?do=findComment&comment=522917

 

Madmole listed 3 reasons for the water change. Interestingly uniformity is not mentioned as a reason (which supports my impression it was just Roland and me talking about gas and acid being similar). Neither is there a reason "because we want players to go out". Why wouldn't he mention it then? He hasn't been shy of saying it in other contexts.

 

 

 

4 minutes ago, Roland said:

 

Okay, but this isn't really a balance issue. Even once they balance everything perfectly a quick jaunt into a tougher biome is going to net you loot at a higher lootstage. That is the way the game is designed and that is player choice. If you are a player who WANTS to craft your own gear and ENJOYS a slow progression, then don't make those choices. Daring Adventurer, Lucky Looter, Snow, Wasteland, and Desert biomes are all things you can ignore if you don't want the stuff you find and buy to be way beyond what you can craft. For people who love to buy great stuff and gain great rewards and find amazing loot, those perks and going into biomes you aren't suited for are fun.

 

Things like this will ALWAYS be in the game because it allows players to choose how they want to play. If you go into the wasteland and come back with great loot beyond what you can craft then that is what you want.

 

But lucky looter seems actually quite balanced, especially compared to DA and trader. LL seems almost negligible in early game and only slowly increases its effect. And its best feature is that looting is faster!

 

[theFlu]

1 hour ago, meganoth said:

 

If you allow me to interpret this

I'll allow it. Thanks for the link!

I'm hoping that TFP is still looking to make the legendaries (why wouldn't they, funsies to be had).. soo, ye, temporary, at best

[RipClaw]

7 hours ago, pApA^LeGBa said:

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.

Sure you can do that but currently it is not done and I don't think the Fun Pimps want to do it. I based my statement on the current state of the game and there is no connection between the quest rewards and the crafting skills.

 

The quest rewards are basically nothing more than a loot group per quest tier and the game picks 5 random items from that loot group.

 

7 hours ago, pApA^LeGBa said:

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.

It would change some things. Players would not be able to find high quality items or get quest rewards that do not match their skills. Bye bye auger for those who don't have points in Miner69er. Players who have their points in shotguns will never get a good weapon for the vast amounts of 7.68mm ammo etc.

 

7 hours ago, pApA^LeGBa said:

And a good balance is something the game needs when going gold. Not months or years after that.

Balance is something subjective and there are many different aspects to balance between. Not only between what is currently important for you. For example, there must also be a balance between your gear and the gamestage.

[pApA^LeGBa]

7 hours ago, Roland said:

 

Okay, but this isn't really a balance issue. Even once they balance everything perfectly a quick jaunt into a tougher biome is going to net you loot at a higher lootstage. That is the way the game is designed and that is player choice. If you are a player who WANTS to craft your own gear and ENJOYS a slow progression, then don't make those choices. Daring Adventurer, Lucky Looter, Snow, Wasteland, and Desert biomes are all things you can ignore if you don't want the stuff you find and buy to be way beyond what you can craft. For people who love to buy great stuff and gain great rewards and find amazing loot, those perks and going into biomes you aren't suited for are fun.

 

Things like this will ALWAYS be in the game because it allows players to choose how they want to play. If you go into the wasteland and come back with great loot beyond what you can craft then that is what you want.

 

Well then they should make sure the game doesn´t send you in a biome with higher lootstage if you happen to spawn near biome borders, at least in early game. That is a balance issue imo. Asking the player to ignore the cars on the road right next to where he lives when sent into that biome for a quest is quite lazy. 

 

Also you find way better loot than you can craft in the forest already due to POI lootstage. Or are we also supposed to regulate that balance by ourselves by only doing T1 and T2 POI`s making the game repetitive?

Edited July 6, 2023 by pApA^LeGBa (see edit history)

[Gr.o.m.]

14 hours ago, Roland said:

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. 

I can remember the times, where I did not care to go to the trader or look into its inventory because there was no reason to do it.

If I can not expect the trader to have a good item, why bother to look into its inventory? Raw resources? Who cares if you can grind them in even greater quantities and for free with mining and wrenching? Parts? You find loads of parts while looting, if you craft every 2nd or 3rd tier improvement?

At least it would free up one inventory space because you smelt your dukes into brass and can throw away any one you find while looting.

[Ramethzer0]

On 7/5/2023 at 2:53 AM, aamatniekss said:

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.

 

First of all, welcome to the forums.  What you have experienced is somewhat normal, somewhat not.  The current loot and reward system could use some tweaking, and it will get it for sure.  But, you're not the first person to be the victim of the RNGeesus.  And don't worry, there will come a time when that RNG wont work in your favour so much.  So, be prepared for the pendulum to swing.

[Roland]

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

I can remember the times, where I did not care to go to the trader or look into its inventory because there was no reason to do it.

If I can not expect the trader to have a good item, why bother to look into its inventory? Raw resources? Who cares if you can grind them in even greater quantities and for free with mining and wrenching? Parts? You find loads of parts while looting, if you craft every 2nd or 3rd tier improvement?

At least it would free up one inventory space because you smelt your dukes into brass and can throw away any one you find while looting.

 

Good point. No matter how they tip the balance either toward crafting or toward acquiring, someone isn't going to be happy-- especially since they want both pathways to be an option in the game.

[Slingblade2040]

14 hours ago, Roland said:

 

Okay, but this isn't really a balance issue. Even once they balance everything perfectly a quick jaunt into a tougher biome is going to net you loot at a higher lootstage. That is the way the game is designed and that is player choice. If you are a player who WANTS to craft your own gear and ENJOYS a slow progression, then don't make those choices. Daring Adventurer, Lucky Looter, Snow, Wasteland, and Desert biomes are all things you can ignore if you don't want the stuff you find and buy to be way beyond what you can craft. For people who love to buy great stuff and gain great rewards and find amazing loot, those perks and going into biomes you aren't suited for are fun.

 

Things like this will ALWAYS be in the game because it allows players to choose how they want to play. If you go into the wasteland and come back with great loot beyond what you can craft then that is what you want.

This whole idea of oh just ignore perks, ignore biomes, ignore traders is insane and shows a really imbalanced game.  Telling experienced and new players that they need to ignore all of that if they want to craft is ridiculous. Heck even you calling it slow progression shows the ridiculous imbalance that traders and their quests rewards have made along with this whole loot bonus stuff from PoIs and biomes.

 

Telling players to literally ignore a massive portion of game content due to terrible balancing issues shows the kind of state this game is in even after 21 alphas.

 

Make stuff trader and biome exclusive. Didn't spawn near the gun trader? Oh well go out and explore for that trader. Remove the the whole loot bonus nonsense from PoIs and biomes.

 

And before the whole think of the new players stuff is brought into this i wish the pimps would stop treating new players like they are brain dead and can't get the grasp of this game. This game isn't that complicated or difficult that they can't get the hang of it after a few hours or watching some YouTube LP.  For some reason some folks here like to use new players as the scapegoats for certain decisions that either dumb down gameplay or as a way to justify certain imbalances.

[Gr.o.m.]

1 hour ago, Roland said:

 

Good point. No matter how they tip the balance either toward crafting or toward acquiring, someone isn't going to be happy-- especially since they want both pathways to be an option in the game.

If any kind of balance is going to happen.

At the moment there are so many things broken.

 

Using stone tools with one perk point in miner 69er and going out of stamina.

Finding weapon crafting magaines at the rate of 1 per day and I am talking of a 4 men group doing 2-3 quests per day. Day 12 bow 12, handgun 13.

The state of agility in general. At the moment it would be an improvement if you remove the complete attribute from the game.

 

Good luck trying to nerv acquiring. Even if you can not buy any good items at the trader (deathsentence for the daring adventurer and better barter skill) and can not get good items as a quest reward. No problem, go to the wasteland and use quests to reset your favorite poi. If you don't get better loot by looting poi, no problem stay in the wood biome and use quests to reset the book shops.

[Roland]

19 minutes ago, Slingblade2040 said:

This whole idea of oh just ignore perks, ignore biomes, ignore traders is insane and shows a really imbalanced game.  Telling experienced and new players that they need to ignore all of that if they want to craft is ridiculous. Heck even you calling it slow progression shows the ridiculous imbalance that traders and their quests rewards have made along with this whole loot bonus stuff from PoIs and biomes.

 

Telling players to literally ignore a massive portion of game content due to terrible balancing issues shows the kind of state this game is in even after 21 alphas.

 

Make stuff trader and biome exclusive. Didn't spawn near the gun trader? Oh well go out and explore for that trader. Remove the the whole loot bonus nonsense from PoIs and biomes.

 

And before the whole think of the new players stuff is brought into this i wish the pimps would stop treating new players like they are brain dead and can't get the grasp of this game. This game isn't that complicated or difficult that they can't get the hang of it after a few hours or watching some YouTube LP.  For some reason some folks here like to use new players as the scapegoats for certain decisions that either dumb down gameplay or as a way to justify certain imbalances.

Nobody is telling anyone to ignore anything if they don’t want to.  There are plenty of players who skip all the crafting and just use the trader and are happy with it. There are players who go straight to the wasteland and loot high level gear and are very pleased with that.  
 

There are also players who stick to the forest and minimize their quests and who craft most of their stuff and who are happy. 
 

It appears that the only people who are unhappy are those who hate getting gear above what they can craft but can’t help themselves from doing activities that skip the crafting progression anyway and so they need the game to limit them forcibly from playing in a way that will ruin their fun. 
 

The end of this balancing road that people are asking for is going to be more restrictions that result in less sandbox elements— Just so everyone understands what is necessary in order to stop the few players who lack the impulse control to not optimize the fun out of the game for themselves….

[Slingblade2040]

31 minutes ago, Roland said:

Nobody is telling anyone to ignore anything if they don’t want to.  There are plenty of players who skip all the crafting and just use the trader and are happy with it. There are players who go straight to the wasteland and loot high level gear and are very pleased with that.  
 

There are also players who stick to the forest and minimize their quests and who craft most of their stuff and who are happy. 
 

It appears that the only people who are unhappy are those who hate getting gear above what they can craft but can’t help themselves from doing activities that skip the crafting progression anyway and so they need the game to limit them forcibly from playing in a way that will ruin their fun. 
 

The end of this balancing road that people are asking for is going to be more restrictions that result in less sandbox elements— Just so everyone understands what is necessary in order to stop the few players who lack the impulse control to not optimize the fun out of the game for themselves….

Doing activities? You mean the whole premise of quests, traders, looting and going into biomes. 

 

How is that not ignoring content? How is that you not telling people well if you want to craft ignore all of this content vanilla content that basically makes up like 90% of gameplay. So yes that is exactly what it sounds like you are saying but doing your best to word it differently. 

[Roland]

2 hours ago, Slingblade2040 said:

Doing activities? You mean the whole premise of quests, traders, looting and going into biomes. 

 

How is that not ignoring content? How is that you not telling people well if you want to craft ignore all of this content vanilla content that basically makes up like 90% of gameplay. So yes that is exactly what it sounds like you are saying but doing your best to word it differently. 

 

You must know that I’m talking about frequency and intensity of those activities and so it makes me wonder what your agenda is in your obvious misrepresentation.

 

I didn’t say avoid doing doing those activities at all. I said avoid power grinding or going into high Lootstage biomes so early if you want to craft. 
 

You’re basically pleading with the developers to force a limit on daily questing and gating the biomes to forcibly prevent players from going there until certain conditions are met. No matter how much balance is applied, as long as players have the freedom to go anywhere and spam anything from day 1 there will always be an optimization path that such people will claim is the only successful way to play. 
 

Hope you’re happy if the devs do decide to protect optimizers from themselves. So far they’ve been fine with letting people choose how they play. 
 

 

 

[Riamus]

2 hours ago, Slingblade2040 said:

Doing activities? You mean the whole premise of quests, traders, looting and going into biomes. 

 

How is that not ignoring content? How is that you not telling people well if you want to craft ignore all of this content vanilla content that basically makes up like 90% of gameplay. So yes that is exactly what it sounds like you are saying but doing your best to word it differently. 

It is telling people to choose a play style they enjoy and to do that play style and not worry about whether or not another play style is "better".  It is perfectly reasonable to play only the parts of the game you enjoy playing.  The problem is what Roland mentioned, that some people can't help but to do the most efficient way even if they don't enjoy it.  But that is a choice and the game shouldn't force people to play in a certain way if they don't want to (within limits).

 

I don't think anyone is saying the game doesn't need balancing between the various options you have for progression.  I think that is what you and others are missing.  Balance is definitely needed and people agree with you on that.  Crafting is too slow and not worth it at higher tiers.  Quest rewards have too high a chance to give better than average equipment.  It should be possible but it should be a situation where you are very lucky and not just a normal thing.  Trader inventory should not increase anywhere near as quickly.

 

But regardless of these things, it doesn't change the fact that if you don't like doing something, don't do it.  I find it cheesy to go to the wasteland in the early game in order to loot cars for better loot, so I don't do it.  Simple.  That didn't hurt my game at all to ignore a "more efficient" way of progressing.

 

If anything, I think the game should be set up to make it far more difficult to handle a higher tier POI or biome early in the game so that the risk is greater to make up for the greater reward.  If that kind of progression were slowed, I think it would help a lot, though speed runners wouldn't appreciate it.

Edited July 6, 2023 by Riamus (see edit history)

[BFT2020]

4 hours ago, Slingblade2040 said:

Doing activities? You mean the whole premise of quests, traders, looting and going into biomes. 

 

How is that not ignoring content? How is that you not telling people well if you want to craft ignore all of this content vanilla content that basically makes up like 90% of gameplay. So yes that is exactly what it sounds like you are saying but doing your best to word it differently. 

 

You can do all that and still craft everything you want to.  Nobody is saying use that shiny new weapon you found while looting or doing a quest.  Instead, turn it into scrap parts to use for crafting, or sell it to a trader to get dukes so you can buy those weapon or tool parts you need to craft those items.

[theFlu]

2 minutes ago, BFT2020 said:

Nobody is saying use that shiny new weapon you found while looting or doing a quest. 

You're seriously going for broken windows economics..? Break it just so you can have the work of fixing it?

[Slingblade2040]

2 hours ago, Roland said:

 

You must know that I’m talking about frequency and intensity of those activities and so it makes me wonder what your agenda is in your obvious misrepresentation.

 

I didn’t say avoid doing doing those activities at all. I said avoid power grinding or going into high Lootstage biomes so early if you want to craft. 
 

You’re basically pleading with the developers to force a limit on daily questing and gating the biomes to forcibly prevent players from going there until certain conditions are met. No matter how much balance is applied, as long as players have the freedom to go anywhere and spam anything from day 1 there will always be an optimization path that such people will claim is the only successful way to play. 
 

Hope you’re happy if the devs do decide to protect optimizers from themselves. So far they’ve been fine with letting people choose how they play. 
 

 

 

That's literally saying don't play the game as intended if you want to craft and giving no examples.  What the heck is power grinding?

 

I've literally just gave an example of playing the game as you folks have intended which is doing trader quests which is an integral part of this games content and even possibly future story.  This isn't some most effective or efficient path nonsense this is playing the game as the pimps have intended. 

This literally kills the whole learn by looting system they just implemented.

 

How is a new player even supposed to know hey don't quest alot cause you will make crafting pointless. Hey slow your roll on the frequency of your activities and how you play cause it throws the game off balance. Even at base default settings.

 

9 minutes ago, BFT2020 said:

 

You can do all that and still craft everything you want to.  Nobody is saying use that shiny new weapon you found while looting or doing a quest.  Instead, turn it into scrap parts to use for crafting, or sell it to a trader to get dukes so you can buy those weapon or tool parts you need to craft those items.

I don't see how you are even trying to be serious with that suggestion. Might as well say hey that gear you got from a raid yeah scrap it for crafting materials even though it's an obvious upgrade. 

 

No players and especially new players would even consider doing something like that because it makes no sense. 

 

 

[theFlu]

15 minutes ago, Slingblade2040 said:

as the pimps have intended. 

But you just can't know that they didn't intend for you to stare at the campfire mesmerized for 3 days a week. That way the airdrop books would keep your crafting skills up to date!

 

(Sorry. This thread is so much of weirdness that I'm just going with silly at this point ... )

[Roland]

4 hours ago, Slingblade2040 said:

That's literally saying don't play the game as intended if you want to craft and giving no examples.  What the heck is power grinding?

The way I play the game results in mostly the experience that I like. That’s why I play it that way. For example:

 

I usually do about one quest per day (60 minute days or less) and mix in other tasks and objectives such as harvesting materials for building and looting nearby POIs to find a cooking pot and other materials for cloth armor, a dew collector, and hunting for meat. I usually stick to the forest until a trader quest takes me into a new biome. 
 

“Power Grinding” is a term I use to mean completing quests as quickly as possible to the exclusion of all else for the purpose of rapidly moving up the quest tiers to get to the best rewards as soon as possible. 
 

There is nothing wrong with that playstyle as long as it results in fun for the person playing that way. When I play where I take roughly a job per day, I find that I do craft a lot of things before I find or am offered better as a reward. I’d like things to be balanced a bit more towards crafting but it feels pretty good. 
 

There’s also nothing wrong with going into a tougher biome early on to get better loot if that’s what you want. I’m not calling on anyone to stop doing that stuff if it brings them fun and satisfaction. 
 

When I play the way I described,  my focus is on living a natural sort of life within the game world and it is fun for me to play that way even if there are faster methods of earning dukes and getting top tier gear, etc.  I often don’t spend skill points until I’ve built up 4-5 of them because it isn’t my first focus. I’m not saying everyone should play my way but it is a good way to be more of a crafting player.