10 hours ago, meganoth said:
When you loot a general container you have a chance of say 5% to find a magazine. If you hit that 5% then all 17 magazines have the same chance of 1/17 to drop.
Now you put one perk point into the pistol perk. When you loot a general container you now have the exact same chance of say 5% to find a magazine (so no overpowering of other types of loot). If you hit that 5% then every magazine has a chance of 1/18 to drop and the pistol magazine 2/18. It is as if you had a bag with 17 different marbles to draw from and then add another "pistol"-marble.
So even if you have pistol perk at 5, that means each other magazine has a 1/22 chance and the pistol magazine a 6/22 chance. A factor of 6 at max and you will find a pistol magazine only in 1/4 of all such general containers.
This is just the math: I share your opinion that it is still too much in normal play, not in single player, but if any player in co-op wants to do something else (like mining and building) his friends will not find many of the magazines HE needs to bring back, because they can't boost the odds unless they perk into skills they don't need
According to the wiki, each skill point invested increased odds by 200% for related items. Tier 0 is 100%, Tier 1 is 300%, 500%, 700%, 900%, then finally 1100% at tier 5. So in your example, and if the wiki is correct, it would actually be adding two marbles to the bag, not one. This would make a difference of 11 marbles for one magazine compared to 1 of other varieties, if any.
Regardless of the specifics, my particular skill investment for my first solo game made it very difficult to acquire magazines of certain varieties, unbeknownst to me. I am a detail oriented person, yet I was confused. It doesn't matter how anyone can argue how loot is found or calculated because it won't change the fact that it cannot be understood without online research or in-depth troubleshooting. It should be fixed as described.