[WIP] True Survival SDX

[Xamllew]

I'm all for repairing, at the moment given our ability to get pretty much any material stupidly easy, repairing is not even worth it really. I believe 'repair' is a mechanic that is well underused and should probably be brought out into the forefront. If it were a 'true survival' scenario, you can bet your bottom dollar anyone with 2 braincells to rub together would be repairing their tools rather than making entirely new ones all over, especially anything above stone. Of course the XP gained from repairing would need to be carefully balanced over time to match with the tools average usage otherwise it could make it really annoying to level up, which is a large part of most peoples game.

 

It would be a really nice fresh look at this game [and also at much in its genre] where you did not have to look back at the thousands of items you ground out over the course of the game to achieve your levels, but instead looked back at the care you gave to the tools you did have.

 

I'm fully on board with this idea. I think disposable tools is counter-intuitive to a resource gathering game, even after those tools broke beyond repair they'd likely be broken down and salvaged if you were trying to conserve resources. Would be nice if instead of the item simply vanishing upon breakage, they're just made unusable until repairs are made, I kinda hate how things just pop out of existence if you forget to top off the damage-ometer.

[unlike them]

I would go even further and tied the quality of the crafted tool to the corresponding skill, for exampe, the more your mining skill, the better pickaxes and shovels you craft, the more you use (shoot) shotguns, the better shotguns you craft. Eliminates grinding.

[Spider]

@Unlike Them-

I am actually trying to get away from mechanics like that. They just dont make since to me. Why would holding a pistol and shooting at the wall increase my ability to repair and craft guns? Why would chopping a tree with a Axe make me better at forging a blade or sharpening it? I dont think using and crafting should be tied together at all. In the next build every weapon or tool that has a quality bar will be its own crafting skill. So a Stone axe Skill, a Stone Shovel Skill, a Wooden Bow Skill and so on. Crafting these will take longer and i might increase the materials needed. Crafting these items will give "0" xp. Only by repairing the item will your crafting skill for that one item increase. After a while of using and repairing and leveling you will have the chance to purchase a higher base crafting level. So at Level 20 Stoneaxe Skill you can buy a point to make your base crafted Stone Axe quality 100(still no xp for crafting)and then start repairing/improving it from there instead of having to start improving it from level 1 quality every time you craft one.

 

thoughts?

[Nikola]

Why as a fireman can I make the Iron Fire Axe and Steel Fire axe at level 1... but I can't make the Axe Head to make the actual fire axe till I train in those which unlocks the plan anyway?

 

Sounds like an oversight, but you never know. I never played fireman so never occurred to me how silly that was. I suppose they could argue you should buy axe heads from someone else? Hard to understand how they decide this should be real (firemen don't know how to forge an axe head) and what should just be a design choice that forgoes realism.

[unlike them]

Yeah, my suggestion doesn't make "since", but I still belive it gives a better gameplay. I we want to reflect real life, then yes, lets make hundreds of stone axes to improve our 'stone axe crafting skill', because that's what we do in real life: grinding. I spend years on my job doing one thing over and over again. That makes me good at my job, but do I enjoy it?

[Spider]

@Unlike Them-

I dont think you are understanding what I'm tying to say.With this new xp system I am describing a player could technically only craft one Stoneaxe their entire time playing and still level their Stoneaxe Skill to level 100 and be able to improve Stoneaxes to quality 600. So This way would not only completely eliminate the benefit from grinding but also remove any reason to do it.

 

This would make that axe you crafted valuable. You can only craft a level one axe and you have had it for 8 player levels and have improved it to level 100. If it breaks or you die and lose it you will have to re craft a level 1 axe and then start all over improving it again.

[Nikola]

@Unlike Them-

So at Level 20 Stoneaxe Skill ...

thoughts?

 

Is the intention to have a separate skill for every tool? If the code lets you see how much durability was lost when repairing and awarding XP based on this difference (current durability vs max durability) I could see this working. It would even allow for 'powerleveling' - I could rent a vending machine and sell 1/600 durability axes ready to be repaired. Could be pointless, though - with no durability lost on repair, it would effectively mean a level 1 has no reason to ever make a stone axe - ever. One high-level purchased axe would be immortal. Does the effectiveness of the stone axe depend on the axe or the wielder? I know what side of this I am on.

 

The only way around this is to make a new crafting "repair station" that forgoes the in-game repair process for something you can control. For example, if you are only at 5 skill, your best repair job on a 1/600 axe makes it 25/25. I think this goes to far, however - making people run back to base camp when their 5/5 durability axe wears out is no longer fun and immersive. You would end up with people placing blocks in their base, destroying it, repair, replace, repeat. More grinding.

[Flanders72]

Anyone else get stuck at "starting game" and it wont go further loading environment etc? I cant log onto a server.

 

/Flanders

 

Nm, seems its a problem with darkklotz server.

[unlike them]

@Spider, I do think I understand you, my rant was triggered by your 'doesn't make sence'. I could argue that your new mechanic does no more sence. I like you being creative and eager to eliminate all the negative boring aspects of 7dtd, but I'm afraid it is a rather big change and we cannot predict all the unforeseen consequences (like the one Nikola has come with).

[ShankyMcStabber]

@spider

 

One thing to consider with your new proposed skill system are things like Scrap Armor. Getting enough skill to make a decent quality armor uses up so many valuable resources that none of my players bother to make even that first set (resources like Duct Tape, which there never seems enough of because of how many recipes it is used in). Leather seems to be the go-to armor simply because you wont blow through an obscene amount of duct tape just to get to a decent quality level.

[Spider]

@Nikola-

A lot of clearing up to do with your post.

Yes every quality weapon or Tool(non Gun) has its own crafting skill. There are no vending machines in TS, they just don't fit in the game. If you see one thats usable in TS please let us know, thats a bug and they should not be usable only be able to be disassembled for parts. You are confusing Durability and Quality. They are two completely separate stats.Durability is what you lose every time you use your weapon or tool, this is what you fix when you repair a item. Quality is the stat that sets the top end ability of the item. This stat goes down when you repair the item right now.

 

What Im talking about is throwing out the current system completely, stop thinking about it. Instead you would only be able to craft quality level 1 weapons and Tools(non Guns) forever, always, they would take less time to craft but cost the same amount of mats as now but they would give no xp to anything. Then when you used the item and its durability went down you could repair it using another of the same item(like it used to be), one repair would fix the items durability completely and it would take as long as making a new item does now. Doing this would improve the quality by 1 and also give xp to your Stoneaxe Skill. As you leveled the Stoneaxe Skill the amount of quality you improved repairing an item would increase maybe to a max of 5 or 10 +quality at level 100 Stoneaxe. The time it took to repair would decrease as you leveled it and the time it took to craft the item its self would decrease as you leveled Stoneaxe Skill. Also every 20 levels you got in Stoneaxe would unlock the option for you to purchase with skill points a perk that would set your crafting quality up +100 quality levels. So at level 20 Stoneaxe you could spend 2 points and now when you crafted a Stoneaxe it would be a level 100 instead of a level 1 quality. So if your forgot to repair your stoneaxe and it broke you would not have to make a quality level1 Stoneaxe and start improving it from there. Instead you could craft a fresh quality level 100 stone axe and start improving it from there.

 

This isn't something I'm saying Im doing its just a thought I had and the more I think on it the more I think it would solve a lot of boring game aspects and improve game play. Less sitting around for timers and more doing required.

[unlike them]

Much clearer now, thanks.

So I get my +1 quality after I repair the tool. Does it let me repair it and improve +1 quality after I hit something once and repair the tool immediately after it? Can you make it so the amount of improvement is relevant to the amount of durability repaired?

[Spider]

Honestly I dont know. I have never really looked into exactly the maths behind the repair feature. I will load up a game later and do some test and see how it does it. It gives xp for repairing I know that but I'm not sure if it scales with the amount repaired or if its a set amount. Shouldn't be hard to test for. Either way by using the Item itself as the repair it makes repairing expensive and time consuming I'm hoping. What do you think about the purpose though? To remove the drive to craft grind for levels and try and make you need to just play the game?

[unlike them]

I'm open to new mechanics, if it works out and helps against grinding I'd go for it. But only if it doesn't let me get the full benefit after every minor repair (then it is even more pervert grinding). Though I still lilke my previous idea better, no crafting skill, you craft better items if you are skilled in using those items. It basically does the same thing as your mechanic, but is unrealistic... just like yours.

[caatalyst]

Do i need to roll back to an older alpha 15 in order to play True survival or does it work on the latest version?

 

Cheers,

[Spider]

@Unlike Them-

In mine you gain skill in making Stoneaxes by crafting, using and repairing a stoneaxe. All 3 things must be done to get the xp, where as now you only get most of the xp for crafting and a little for repairing. In your way a player could max out their skill in stoneaxe by hitting a hard object for a long time.

 

@ShankyMcStabber-

All items with a quality bar that are weapons and tools(non guns)

 

@caatalyst-

TS SDX is on current 7D2D build

[EsTygo]

Unfortunately repairing is not the opposite of grinding. Repairing items works so that the amount of repair materials decides the amount of exp you gain from repairing (not the amount of durability repaired), so a different form of grinding using repairing works just fine in both vanilla and TS. Basically its just hitting a wall with your stone axe once then repairing it, then repeating 100x or 1000x times or so, and does not result in a more enjoyable way of grinding, but rather a grind that makes your hands hurt when you repeat the exact same clicks hundreds of times.

 

Previously the repairing was giving too much exp, so it was nerfed. Now in TS, grinding by repairing is pretty balanced. I would also like to see alternatives to grinding, and perhaps another way of getting repair exp that doesnt lead to this repair-grinding could work also.

[unlike them]

In your way a player could max out their skill in stoneaxe by hitting a hard object for a long time.

 

Yes, like now you can level mining this way, or athletics by running for weeks, or archery by shooting arrows in the air. But nobody does it.

[Blazer777]

Spider or xyth wondering if its possible to take the poi's and cars and apply them to vanilla? jus curious

[Nikola]

How is your proposal less grindy? It seems like you are just swapping out crafting for repairing... actually worse, because it seems like you suggested we must craft a new axe to repair an existing axe. So now, to make repairing my axe not a chore I would premake as many stone axes as I can and just put them in a chest. Do I do this repair in a workstation at my base? Early game I can't chop a single tree down without repairing that first axe at least once. Would I need to spend a day grinding axes so I can chop a single tree and have a stash of axes to repair it with?

 

I like the idea of removing unfun things, just not seeing how this accomplishes that. To get a nice axe today I build my base with a hammer...I dont grind axes. Base building is fun. I love the idea of primitive vs journeyman crafting..my favorite part of the mod. Let's me build stuff and raises skills = fun times. You are suggesting that it would be more fun to make me craft two axes, use one for a dozen hits or so, then repair it with the extra axe...use it for 14 hits, make a new axe, use it to repair...not fun to me.

 

If the goal is to extend the early game more, I think there are better ways to go about that. It doesn't seem to be the intention here, however.

[Tetrameth]

How is your proposal less grindy? It seems like you are just swapping out crafting for repairing... actually worse, because it seems like you suggested we must craft a new axe to repair an existing axe. So now, to make repairing my axe not a chore I would premake as many stone axes as I can and just put them in a chest. Do I do this repair in a workstation at my base? Early game I can't chop a single tree down without repairing that first axe at least once. Would I need to spend a day grinding axes so I can chop a single tree and have a stash of axes to repair it with?

 

I like the idea of removing unfun things, just not seeing how this accomplishes that. To get a nice axe today I build my base with a hammer...I dont grind axes. Base building is fun. I love the idea of primitive vs journeyman crafting..my favorite part of the mod. Let's me build stuff and raises skills = fun times. You are suggesting that it would be more fun to make me craft two axes, use one for a dozen hits or so, then repair it with the extra axe...use it for 14 hits, make a new axe, use it to repair...not fun to me.

 

If the goal is to extend the early game more, I think there are better ways to go about that. It doesn't seem to be the intention here, however.

 

So make yourself useful by making an actual suggestion

[xyth]

Spider or xyth wondering if its possible to take the poi's and cars and apply them to vanilla? jus curious

Not easily. The vehicles need SDX to load and that is very difficult to use. The POIs are all from the compo pack and can be loaded using the 7d2d launcher. Spider uses a subset of the compo pack so if you want to match TS you would need to edit out many of that packs POIs.

[Nikola]

So make yourself useful by making an actual suggestion

 

I posted my suggestion regarding this in a previous post that Spider replied too. Tie XP gained from repairing to the amount of durability repaired. Max durability is directly related to quality. I even commented how this might be abused. You get more experience repairing an axe at 1/200 than a 1/50 where 1 is durability left and 200 is the max durability.

 

This post was meant to explain why, from a players perspective, repairing by combining axes isn't fun and doesn't remove grinding (felt like this is the goal for the change). I feel like the current system of primitive/journeyman is near perfect. I can avoid grinding by building a base - fun plus skill gain. Win win.

 

I do like the idea of repairing giving xp for specific tools. Maybe combine the two ideas. Primitive crafting sets durability and quality of the axe. Stone axe skill sets the block dmg. Best of both worlds.

[Rizzano]

Hey spider

 

Just wondered if it is intended that barbed wire fences take forged iron to repair when it does not take forged iron to craft.

[JCMONEY]

How does one make corn meal? Is there a book or something? When i try to make it, it says i don't have the recipe but in my entire play through (day 141) i haven't found a book and there doesn't seem to be a skill which unlocks it.