Will crafting balance come in alpha 22 or is crafting dead?

[Slingblade2040]

Alpha 22 needs to do some massive balance to this game to make crafting relevant. This isn't about some ridiculous playstyle nonsense like certain people point out or make the insane suggestion of skipping game content. We are talking playing the game as intended meaning you go to trader, you do some quests, base up in a PoI or build a base and follow the same pattern more or less. 

 

Somehow that breaks the entire crafting and magazine progression system. Not to mention once you hit I think the tier 5 or tier 6 infested caches you get trap bundles which then break the whole trap crafting system along with all the ammo you gain from those things as far as 9mm and shotgun ammo goes.

 

The zombies also at some point either need abilities added to them or new ones which pose a threat to us. It's crazy that even with radiated zombies the real danger we get are from the dogs.

 

if following a basic gameplay loop breaks a huge portion of the games content then it obviously needs to be looked into and fixed.

[ElCabong]

I'm not sure what your problem is.

Give a few specific examples of your experience and why you think it's broken.

[Catt]

Idk if this is his issue, but having a trader sell you or offer you a reward on day 10 or earlier that's a q3 tactical assault rifle or whatever, and you can't even craft a t5 pipe assault rifle there appears to be a balance issue.

[YourMirror]

Faatal already answered this. Balancing will happen until gold. 

Edited August 6, 2023 by YourMirror (see edit history)

[Vampirenostra]

And it shall wipe the crafting completely and make world non destructible 😆

[Riamus]

Don't forget that magazines were just added in A21.  That's the first iteration.  They've already made some minor balance adjustments and further adjustments will obviously be coming as they determine what adjustments are needed.

[RipClaw]

I always wonder with posts like this what the person means by crafting. Is it only the crafting of gear that is relevant to that person?

If I craft building materials or ammunition then that is crafting as well. If I cook something, that is also crafting. So crafting is still relevant in the endgame. At least in my games.
 

But I assume you are referring to crafting gear and comparing it to other sources like quest rewards, what the trader sells, or what you loot.
 

Quest rewards are a difficult issue because on the one hand they should of course compensate for time, effort and risk, but on the other hand they should not accelerate progress too much. Currently the quest rewards are a loot table based on the quest tier. Theoretically it would be possible to cap the quest rewards by tying them to the player level.
 

The other sources of items are all tied to the player level in some way with different multipliers, bonuses and perks that affect it.

 

Crafting, on the other hand, is tied to the magazines, and here it depends on how much you loot, what you loot, and how you distribute your points. If you spread your points strategically and loot every mailbox, every Crack a Book, every T1/T2 residential building and the office buildings, your crafting can be well ahead of the lootstage and the traderstage.

 

[Syphon583]

I suppose this just depends on playstyle. I've never crafted so much in this game compared to previous alphas, which was exactly the intention. I do agree there seems to be some imbalance when traders offer you gear as rewards that is far better than what I can craft, but I haven't experienced that too often. I do think they can sell those items because there's a cost associated with it if the player is willing to pay.

 

I will also say I'm tired of getting blade and dart trap bundles with practically every infestation quest 😆

 

As was said earlier, I think we need examples of what it is about the crafting you think is broken.

[Dark Wun]

On 8/6/2023 at 10:35 AM, Slingblade2040 said:

Alpha 22 needs to do some massive balance to this game to make crafting relevant.

 

Are you playing solo? With friends, on a random public server?

 

I think the devs are steering the game towards people to prefer the latter- PUGs on random public servers. Unfortunately, for those that don't like it, this type of game or play style demands fast progression, instead of a slow, drawn-out experience, hence the seemingly imbalance in the trader quest/reward system. It does kind of make sense though, because this type of game will appeal to more crowds and sell more copies.

 

If you want more of a slow-paced survival experience, consider playing with traders disabled. That's what I'm doing and it's quite fun. The crafting skill progression is somewhat more relevant. I'm not saying it's perfect, but it's been a much better experience so far.

[Ramethzer0]

On 8/6/2023 at 12:35 PM, Slingblade2040 said:

Alpha 22 needs to do some massive balance to this game to make crafting relevant. This isn't about some ridiculous playstyle nonsense like certain people point out or make the insane suggestion of skipping game content. We are talking playing the game as intended meaning you go to trader, you do some quests, base up in a PoI or build a base and follow the same pattern more or less. 

 

Somehow that breaks the entire crafting and magazine progression system. Not to mention once you hit I think the tier 5 or tier 6 infested caches you get trap bundles which then break the whole trap crafting system along with all the ammo you gain from those things as far as 9mm and shotgun ammo goes.

 

The zombies also at some point either need abilities added to them or new ones which pose a threat to us. It's crazy that even with radiated zombies the real danger we get are from the dogs.

 

if following a basic gameplay loop breaks a huge portion of the games content then it obviously needs to be looked into and fixed.

 

I don't even know where to begin with all this, but I highly recommend letting go of the preconceived notions about 'intended' game play, and what is and isn't broken.

These things are highly subjective based upon individual experience.  Just because these things seem broken to you, does not make them broken for everyone else.

 

There are things still being looked into.  This game has a lot of moving parts, and you might want to consider that what you think might be intended will also change for you. 

 

 

Edited August 8, 2023 by Ramethzer0 (see edit history)

[zombiehunter]

I have to craft way more in A21 than I ever did in previous alphas.  That included food, drink, and building materials along with weapons, tools and armor.  My play style is questing, questing, and more questing.  That's how I progress and for me, if I get a tool or weapon that is a better quality than I can craft, I am happy about it and I'm not going to complain.  It doesn't happen often at all.

 

In previous alphas I bought most of my stuff because looting, with only fairly rare exceptions, never provided the gear I was looking for, and the traders had better stuff, especially when you put points into Better Barter, which is useless now.

[Krougal]

6 minutes ago, zombiehunter said:

I have to craft way more in A21 than I ever did in previous alphas.  That included food, drink, and building materials along with weapons, tools and armor.  My play style is questing, questing, and more questing.  That's how I progress and for me, if I get a tool or weapon that is a better quality than I can craft, I am happy about it and I'm not going to complain.  It doesn't happen often at all.

 

In previous alphas I bought most of my stuff because looting, with only fairly rare exceptions, never provided the gear I was looking for, and the traders had better stuff, especially when you put points into Better Barter, which is useless now.

BB isn't quite so useless when you want to buy solar panels and other expensive crap. Yes, I miss the secret stash too.

I'm doing the same (questing) with a pure int built.

Do I think traders have ruined the game? Absolutely, but if you can't beat em join em. The game is no longer about exploration (hasn't been since they took away the on the fly generated Minecraft style unlimited maps, yes, I understand the technical reasons, it is what it is), not even really about survival, it's about do quests, be home for base defense every week.

 

I still do quite a bit of crafting my own gear, but then I also have ql6 crafting mod.  So I wore ql 3 steel for a good while until I was able to make my own ql6, then put it away and ended up in ql6 military anyway (also homemade). My first ql6 stun baton I made myself, my machete and most of my guns are still mixed ql from quest rewards but certainly better than I can make. Granted at level 66 and having finished int and branched out,  I am getting to the point where I can make pretty much whatever I want anyway.

The only thing I really want or need right now is a bigger warehouse for all my crap.

 

I feel OPs pain but best advice I can give is "get over it", no seriously, I went through a period of hating the game myself. I started playing back in single digit build numbers when it was more like a hardcore sandbox. No skills, no levels. No @%$#ing tiers. Just how I liked it. Jump in, start exploring, use whatever you find and adapt and survive and thrive. Now it is practically an arcade game. I mean face it, releasing console versions is a bold admission of "this is a game for filthy casuals". So yeah, I had a lot of anger and resentment and hatred to the game for several alphas. Sometimes you just need to let go and learn to enjoy the game that is (and mod the rest).

 

So A21 still isn't the game I ever hoped or wanted 7DTD to be but it is a lot of fun if you can accept it as the gamey game it is.

[Slingblade2040]

16 hours ago, Ramethzer0 said:

 

I don't even know where to begin with all this, but I highly recommend letting go of the preconceived notions about 'intended' game play, and what is and isn't broken.

These things are highly subjective based upon individual experience.  Just because these things seem broken to you, does not make them broken for everyone else.

 

There are things still being looked into.  This game has a lot of moving parts, and you might want to consider that what you think might be intended will also changed for you. 

 

 

I don't know how much clearer it is when there is a hub for questing, buying and selling. Even the devs have talked about the traders being and probably becoming more essential. 

 

Painfully obvious how the intended playstyle is especially with the starting quest taking you to the traders and having to talk to them and receiving quests and them being the only place where to you can buy and sell all goods. 

 

If traders are an essential portion of future content then their goods along with quest rewards need major work done otherwise its pointless gathering magazines to skill up to craft certain tools or weapons.

 

Saying that crafting seems broken to me when pick a certain perks to be able to craft certain tools and weapons and end up getting rewards that negate the crafting progression for those perks isn't a personal oh it's seems broken to me thing that is a total it's broken across the board thing. 

 

That's like you picking strength to go shotguns and tools you collect magazines to craft up to steel or craft up that double barrel into a pump shotgun then the quest reward is a auto shotgun which then entirely negates the point of crafting.

 

No saying don't do quests or use traders isn't a valid option. You are essentially telling me or new players hey skip out this huge portion of game content because it breaks the crafting progression for tools, armor and weapons. Which is ridiculous for a game that's been this long in development.

[Ramethzer0]

5 hours ago, Slingblade2040 said:

I don't know how much clearer it is when there is a hub for questing, buying and selling. Even the devs have talked about the traders being and probably becoming more essential. 

 

Painfully obvious how the intended playstyle is especially with the starting quest taking you to the traders and having to talk to them and receiving quests and them being the only place where to you can buy and sell all goods. 

 

If traders are an essential portion of future content then their goods along with quest rewards need major work done otherwise its pointless gathering magazines to skill up to craft certain tools or weapons.

 

Saying that crafting seems broken to me when pick a certain perks to be able to craft certain tools and weapons and end up getting rewards that negate the crafting progression for those perks isn't a personal oh it's seems broken to me thing that is a total it's broken across the board thing. 

 

That's like you picking strength to go shotguns and tools you collect magazines to craft up to steel or craft up that double barrel into a pump shotgun then the quest reward is a auto shotgun which then entirely negates the point of crafting.

 

No saying don't do quests or use traders isn't a valid option. You are essentially telling me or new players hey skip out this huge portion of game content because it breaks the crafting progression for tools, armor and weapons. Which is ridiculous for a game that's been this long in development.

Again, I think you're making a lot of assumptions here:

 

The first is that you think you have a clear understanding of what intended gameplay is.   You have gleaned this through your experience, which is essentially how you define whats intended for yourself but it lacks outside perspective.  You've boiled down what you think is intended gameplay, but in my experience is that traders are a tool, and might be esseential for certain things (getting dukes and some resources quickly) but traders ignore the fact that if you need specific things then you go after specific POIs, none of which need a trader pointing a finger at it to make it viable.

 

If you need food and water?  Hit up a restaurant, a hotel, a house even?!  Its in the cupboards, sinks, ovens, and drink machines.

 

If you need weapons and ammo?  Hit up a shotgun messiah or any POI that might have housed a survivor population.

 

If you need seeds and veggies?  There are farm and granary POIs.  Why not hit those?

 

Gas?  Easy peasy, there are gas stations all over the map!   Car parts are everywhere!

 

Need big guns?  We have military bases!    GO GO GO!

 

You're literally swimming in resources that are just waiting for you to show up and loot them.  I don't understand this deep reliance upon one single aspect of the game whereas you have up to 10k maps where there are towns that do not even have the benefit of having a trader within its borders.

 

See, people are confusing what is easy over what is worthwhile.  The trader is certainly a thing, but if you let that one thing define your every move then the problem isn't the trader itself, its whomever decided that they need a trader to hold their hand and point out an uncertain path when there are others available is exactly what I'm saying.  You don't have to do the quests.   You're missing the forest for the trees.

 

And the devs saying that the Traders becoming more essential was left without much context.  For all we know the best guess is that this is about lore and progression versus the Duke himself.  Nothing fills a void like speculation, and this is exactly what I am reading not just from your post, but many many others.  The truth is inside the heads of the developers and sadly.. not many here are in the actual facts of the development philosophy of the game, and those that DO know can only share what's been cleared for sharing.

 

So yeah, that IS my answer to you.   You might go and pretend you're stuck in the Matrix shackled to Trader Jen and her snake oil hype, and then bemoan how restricted you are, but I'm not.  I'm going to echo these wise words right here:

 

8 hours ago, Krougal said:

I feel OPs pain but best advice I can give is "get over it", no seriously, I went through a period of hating the game myself. I started playing back in single digit build numbers when it was more like a hardcore sandbox. No skills, no levels. No @%$#ing tiers. Just how I liked it. Jump in, start exploring, use whatever you find and adapt and survive and thrive. Now it is practically an arcade game. I mean face it, releasing console versions is a bold admission of "this is a game for filthy casuals". So yeah, I had a lot of anger and resentment and hatred to the game for several alphas. Sometimes you just need to let go and learn to enjoy the game that is (and mod the rest).

 

So A21 still isn't the game I ever hoped or wanted 7DTD to be but it is a lot of fun if you can accept it as the gamey game it is.

 

And if you're still stuck running on empty for anything you need, the best advice I ever gave anyone is PLAY WITH YOUR SETTINGS. You'd be surprised how noticeable certain things are if you just make an attempt at it.  It's not cheating to trim the settings.  I find it absolutely vital in the decision to live lean and constantly starving to 'Okay, I can eventually overcome this now.'   You'll get so much farther if you're more critical about your approach and attitude, and less just complaining about how everything else is just so broken and ruined to the point of victimhood.

 

So how can you just sell the rest of us how it really is, when there's years of evidence not just in how the game has come along, but in the hundreds of people that are also sharing their experiences and methodologies over those time periods?  How do you reconcile these two things?

Edited August 9, 2023 by Ramethzer0 (see edit history)

[binf_shinana]

この手の話題はよくありますが、個人的にはむしろ「アトリビュートスキルがまた死んだ」と表現します。
アトリビュートスキルによる本の出現率上昇は基本的に排他であり、特にすべての本が出る可能性がある本棚やポストなどのワイルドカードにおいて、余計なスキルを取ることはクラフトレベルの遅れに直結します。
a21のゲームバランスにおいては、雑誌の出現率に影響があるスキルの取得をひとつの銃種に限定し、かつ本屋とポストのみを回ることであっという間にM60やSMGが作れるようになるため、クラフトが先行します。
しかも、雑誌が出るストレージの多くはアイテム出現率が設定の影響を受けないようになっているため、設定に関わらず同じことができます。
（経験値が多い場合は、さすがに購入が先行する可能性はあります）

 

a20以前でも取るべきアトリビュートスキルの固定化は深刻でしたが、a21においても効率的に進めるならアトリビュートスキルを取得する方向性はかなり限定されます（銃と近接武器、などを取得すると概ね進行速度は半分になるため）。そのため、第二の死として表現します。（それがゲームメカニズム上支配的かどうかとは異なる意味です）
拾うべき雑誌の数が多いためほぼ期待値どおりの結果に収束することがまず一つ。
また、数冊脇道にそれた雑誌を拾った程度で、プレイ指針が変わるほどの影響はないからです。

 

※上記は、バニラのバランスに対しての感想をただ述べたものです。
※この手の議論でよく言われることですが「不満ならModを作るか使えばいい」というのも至極もっともですが、ここではそれは考慮外として述べます。
※基本的に初心者が好むバランスと慣れたプレイヤーが好むバランスは一致を見ることはまずないということは当然理解しています。

 

（Google Translation）

 

This kind of topic is common, but I personally would rather express it as "the attribute skill is dead again".
The increase in the appearance rate of books with attribute skills is basically exclusive, especially in wildcards such as bookshelves and posts where all books can appear, taking extra skills will directly delay the crafting level .
In terms of the a21 game balance, by limiting the acquisition of skills that affect the appearance rate of magazines to one type of gun, and by visiting bookstores and mailboxes only, M60s and SMGs can be made in no time. Craft takes the lead.
What's more, most of the magazine storages don't affect the item appearance rate, so you can do the same thing regardless of the setting.
(If you have a lot of experience points, there is a possibility that the purchase will come first.)

 

Even before a20, the fixation of attribute skills to be taken was serious, but if you want to proceed efficiently even in a21, the direction to acquire attribute skills is quite limited (if you acquire guns and melee weapons, etc., the progress speed will generally be to be halved). Therefore, it is expressed as the second death. (It has a different meaning than whether it is dominant in terms of game mechanics)
First of all, it converges to the expected value because the number of magazines to be picked up is large.
Also, just picking up a few sidetracked magazines won't have the effect of changing the play policy.

 

*The above is just my opinion on vanilla balance.

* It is often said in this kind of discussion that "if you are dissatisfied, you can create a mod or use it", but it is out of consideration here.
*Basically, we understand that the balance favored by beginners and the balance favored by seasoned players are unlikely to match.

Edited August 9, 2023 by binf_shinana (see edit history)

[Old Crow]

I'd say, just remove weapons, armor and tools from traders. Not for sale, not for quest rewards. You want rank 6 weapons armor and tools? Make them findable when you hit certain loot stages. Otherwise, no finding any weapons, armor, or tools rank 2, 3, 4 or 5.

 

Is this a perfect solution? Probably not. But it'd at least make crafting those types of items, and thus their magazines, worth getting.

Edited August 9, 2023 by Old Crow (see edit history)

[LipaCat]

The issue with 7 Days to Die lies in the lack of game content. The small amount of equipment and the extremely limited progression paths result in a game that cannot sustain gameplay focused on exploration, crafting, and quests. Merchants being unable to sell or provide unique items, along with the shortage of equipment upgrade paths, leads to a situation where merchants merely hand out items without the need for crafting or exploration. Consequently, everything loses its meaning.

[Maharin]

2 hours ago, LipaCat said:

The issue with 7 Days to Die lies in the lack of game content. The small amount of equipment and the extremely limited progression paths result in a game that cannot sustain gameplay focused on exploration, crafting, and quests. Merchants being unable to sell or provide unique items, along with the shortage of equipment upgrade paths, leads to a situation where merchants merely hand out items without the need for crafting or exploration. Consequently, everything loses its meaning.

 

I would argue you have a very narrow definition of "content".  Literally 100's of POIs, thousands of items and decorations, and unlimited randomly generated maps don't count?  A sculpted built-in map like Navezgane doesn't count?  Easily modable content with MANY mods already built to make the game different however you want?  None of this counts as content?

 

What is "content" to you then?  And what exactly is a unique item in the context of this game?  Please explain.

[Roland]

My only annoyance about trader rewards is when I am offered something better than I can craft in my primary perked path. If I’m not perked into something I don’t really expect to be able to craft it at a high level for a long time and if I’m rewarded with a high level high tier version of it and I know I might never be able to craft it then that’s awesome. 
 

Maybe just an exclusion in rewards for any item you are currently perked into would be enough. 

15 hours ago, Ramethzer0 said:

You're literally swimming in resources that are just waiting for you to show up and loot them.  I don't understand this deep reliance upon one single aspect of the game whereas you have up to 10k maps where there are towns that do not even have the benefit of having a trader within its borders.

The answer to that is that trader progression currently follows an unrestricted LBD game model. The more quests you do the better you get at questing. The faster you do them the faster you get to the top. The biggest weakness of LBD is that it tends to overwhelm all other gameplay for those who are susceptible to it and all they can do is spam that game loop.

Edited August 9, 2023 by Roland (see edit history)

[warmer]

I personally enjoy the fact that I can't predict exactly when I unlock things. It keeps the game fresh and requires me to find new solutions to problems.

 

Once they make everything predictable, as far as, this item unlocks when I do x, and I can predict x. Then the game ceases to surprise you, and that always equals boredom in my experience. The only challenge I get is trying to start in the wasteland and hopefully make it to town without dying (I play dead is dead and purposefully spawn in the harshest place in the random map)

 

If the games progression becomes predictable linear, I would get bored even faster. The only reason I have 1000+ solo hours in 7D2D is due to it surprising me.

[Krougal]

6 hours ago, LipaCat said:

The issue with 7 Days to Die lies in the lack of game content. The small amount of equipment and the extremely limited progression paths result in a game that cannot sustain gameplay focused on exploration, crafting, and quests. Merchants being unable to sell or provide unique items, along with the shortage of equipment upgrade paths, leads to a situation where merchants merely hand out items without the need for crafting or exploration. Consequently, everything loses its meaning.

I partially agree with you.

 

I don't know how you think there is a small amount of equipment, or paths. I mean 12 types of weapons with tiers, 6 stat trees. That is plenty for me. They could be ridiculous like Borderlands, where I realized all my time was being wasted shopping, because I have to try to compare stats on 100 items that don't even make any sense to me sure.  I'll take quality over quantity any day.

 

If things broke permanently that would maintain the need to continue exploring. Like I wanna say in A13 (I'm sure Roland will correct me if I'm wrong) when they first added QLs, you combined guns to get a higher QL gun and also you needed guns to repair guns. It was inconvenient and the generic repair kit has partially replaced it (the parts for crafting replaced the combine) and I wouldn't want to go back, and much as we all hate our precious stuff being destroyed (I know I do) it does necessitate continuous searching for replacement parts.

 

This is not a hardcore survival game, any chance of that, that ship sailed many alphas ago. Like I said in another thread, people need to get that fact through their heads. Game was released on console, that means they have to cater to the "filthy casuals".

 

I know it was a very difficult thing for me to do, but it let me stop hating what the game has become and actually start enjoying it again. I say this without sarcasm or malice or any other negative connotation.

Edited August 9, 2023 by Krougal
for clarity (see edit history)

[Roland]

1 hour ago, Krougal said:

Game was released on console, that means they have to cater to the "filthy casuals".

I say this without sarcasm or malice or any other negative connotation

 

If that were true you would have typed "gamers that are on the more casual end of the spectrum" or something else neutral like that. BTW, I don't know whether console gamers can collectively be called casuals any longer. Console gaming has come a long way and while control schemes must often be streamlined to work with gamepads, this in itself isn't what makes a gamer casual or not. Maybe in the 90s up through the 2000s there were mostly simplistic casual gaming experiences on consoles that drew a more casual player base but I think that has changed quite a bit in the last decade.

 

The streamlining of 7 Days to Die for consoles is entirely control-scheme-based and performance-limitations-based. Whether the game is balanced more toward crafting or more toward looting and quest rewards has absolutely nothing to do with it going to console and being played by the type of players who buy and play on consoles. 

Edited August 9, 2023 by Roland (see edit history)

[Kyoji]

I think the traders are in a much better place than they were in A20. Play the game long enough and you will see the slow progression towards progress. For me the game becomes 100 times easier when you don't do any quests initially and just raid Crack A Books, Mailboxes, etc. The annoying thing I noticed is that depending on the quest you may not get a minibike for a long time as an example, meanwhile I can craft a tier 5 bat and steel axe. 

 

It feels like the progression is off in that you can game the system to rapidly advance while also simultaneously fall very far behind if you play by the metric provided by just questing.

 

The progression feels good when you are achieving new unlocks, but lets say you spec 4/5 into Clubs you will likely max out on clubs by Horde #2 by the sheer increase of club books, furthermore this decreases your chance or getting involved into anything else. I will have a tier 5 steel club with a tier 2 AK or tier 1 knife. It just seems off to me. I feel like it would be better to reduce the skill point magazine find rate down to half and see how that works.

[Krougal]

45 minutes ago, Roland said:

 

If that were true you would have typed "gamers that are on the more casual end of the spectrum" or something else neutral like that. BTW, I don't know whether console gamers can collectively be called casuals any longer. Console gaming has come a long way and while control schemes must often be streamlined to work with gamepads, this in itself isn't what makes a gamer casual or not. Maybe in the 90s up through the 2000s there were mostly simplistic casual gaming experiences on consoles that drew a more casual player base but I think that has changed quite a bit in the last decade.

 

The streamlining of 7 Days to Die for consoles is entirely control-scheme-based and performance-limitations-based. Whether the game is balanced more toward crafting or more toward looting and quest rewards has absolutely nothing to do with it going to console and being played by the type of players who buy and play on consoles. 

My bad, "I say this without sarcasm or malice or any other negative connotation" applies to the part after the comma, not the preceeding sentence. I edited it to be more clear.

I fully mean console gamers are filthy casuals. That's also more of an old joke at this point and I don't do political correctness.

I mean don't get me wrong, some of my best friends (yes, I actually have friends, I know shocker!) are filthy casuals. It doesn't make you a bad person.

Edited August 9, 2023 by Krougal (see edit history)

[Uncle Al]

14 minutes ago, Roland said:

My only annoyance about trader rewards is when I am offered something better than I can craft in my primary perked path. If I’m not perked into something I don’t really expect to be able to craft it at a high level for a long time and if I’m rewarded with a high level high tier version of it and I know I might never be able to craft it then that’s awesome. 
 

Maybe just an exclusion in rewards for any item you are currently perked into would be enough. 

With the current imbalance between quest rewards vs. magazine progression, that would cause the even more annoying situation that you'd probably be better off abandoning your perked weapon choices for what the trader gives you. The difference is that big.

 

Anecdotal example I've used elsewhere, but I'll repost it because it really highlights how bad the issue is:

 

My latest anecdotal contribution is day six of a new game. Went out, did a Tier 2 buried supplies which took no time at all, then while retuning home I got curious about one of the new Checkpoint POIs (A Tier 4) and ended up venturing into it and picking up a fair few things including the main loot. It was bloody hard killing mass soldiers using Q3 ish stone/pipe weapons, but it was great fun.

 

At this point I've got a mix of crafted and found gear, plus a T1 quest reward or two. Pretty consistently using Q2-3 tier zero stuff. So far so good.

 

Best loot I find in the hideous Tier 4 checkpoint is a Q4 primitive bow and a Q4 stone shovel. Both useful, great.

 

Stagger back from the checkpoint mission of death and hand in the buried supplies quest that took me about 30 seconds to complete, he offers me a Q5 iron crossbow and a Q5 iron pickaxe.

 

If you put in an exclusion for say, spears, because I was perking spears in that playthrough, then I can never get a wildly unbalanced T5 iron spear as a reward. But if I'm now going be offered a T5 baseball bat instead, then I'm better off totally ignoring my perked weapon and using the bat, rather than the T3 stone spear I can currently craft. Now not only is my magazine hunting invalidated, my perk choices are too. That's even more horrible.

 

Unless quest rewards are somehow linked to level (via traderstage/lootstage etc.) then it's going to be almost impossible to balance the usefulness of rewards for the first trader you do work for against the fourth or fifth.

 

I'm actually coming round to the idea, posted elsewhere but I forget by whom, that quest rewards should ONLY consist of dukes. That makes them inherently self balancing, as you can only buy what's available from the traders, and traderstage scales off level. Personally I think Daring Adventurer is totally out of whack, but apart from that, traderstage works pretty well.