Problem with weapon manufacturing vs maintenance with gun cleaning kit 'balance'

[Tetrameth]

Correct me if i'm wrong, but i feel the balance between the ease of finding the materials to make an endless stream of any given type of gun vs the ease of keeping a gun maintained with gun cleaning kits is horribly imbalanced. Once you have a mold, the process to make a new gun can be so much less hassle than finding all the components of a cleaning kit and then actually bothering to use it. I feel somehow there needs to be more incentive to use (and covet) these kits, this could come in the form of: 1. Making 'effective' weapon manufacturing more difficult (thus making weapon maintenance more meaningful) 2. Make cleaning kits more effective either by increasing their repair amount (perhaps a single kit repairs the entire weapon to a 'like new' state) 3. Increasing the cleaning kit components drop rate (this could get a bit messy) 4. Or perhaps even make cleaning kits give the weapon a slight buff in a certain area somehow eg: reload speed/damage/accuracy etc... 5. Make weapons deteriorate at a much slower rate. Dont get me wrong, i think the kits are a great idea, i just think their implementation could use a little love. How does everyone else feel about this ?

[Vinyl]

The only uncommon to get item is the oil.

[Henshaw]

Previously, I scrapped all other weapons after my first, and never made a single weapon mold. There was more than enough oil to make repair kits from zombie drops and cars. I actually ended up not even looting oil eventually as I already had over 50 kits waiting to be used. Now I do make molds from the first parts I find, but still haven't actually made any parts. I already have nerfed the oil drop amounts and weapon repair kit repair amounts (to 10 from 40), and still have no need to craft weapons, or even keep the parts after making the initial weapon. I just scrap them. I do agree that being able to make the parts so easily is cheesy, and that is one of the reasons I don't make them myself. On my current game I have all of the weapon recipes and molds in a book on the rare books list (modified the lists and books quite heavily) so that I wouldn't be running with a pistol and a shotgun half way day 1.

[Scornstar]

I rebuild common weapons and save the repair kits for SMGs and Sniper rifles when/if I find/cheat one.

[SoulChaserJ]

I think the weapon molds should be one time use. Not carte blanche to print your own brand new gun whenever you like. So if you want a new MP5 you have to sacrifice 3(or 4, I don't remember) to get one or find the parts. Basically the only reason for the parts is to make finding/making the gun harder. Printing the gun from the forge is way too easy. I also agree about the degredation. It should happen much slower. The way to balance would be to up the durability of the weapon. The weapon repair kits on the other hand should be left alone in respect to the recipe. They should be hard to find but way more effective. Since we're talking about jamming and not "breaking" it should be 1 repair kit(really should be maintenance or cleaning) restores a gun to full health and takes a good while to do...say 5 minutes(real time). TL;DR version. One time uses for gun molds, higher durability, more effective repair/cleaning kits.

[Henshaw]

[QUOTE=SoulChaserJ;135641]I also agree about the degredation. It should happen much slower. The way to balance would be to up the durability of the weapon.[/QUOTE] I played from 8.6 till 9.0 with durability of 500 (SMG has 500 durability by default) for all weapons, and it played much better. I didn't need to be repairing them all the time, so I could leave the kits home and do a good repair session when I returned from my day's trip. I have had weapons and have shot tens of thousands of rounds, so know all about need to (and not needing to) clean and real life durability. On the other hand I do understand the low durabilities as a game design decision. That is also the reason why I now play with original unmodded weapons. About the repair kits: I lowered the drops for oil from 2-6 (junk) and 1-10 (automotive) to 1 and 1. I still get enough kits to keep 1 or 2 weapons repaired, thus forcing me to decide which ones are the important ones. This to me adds some welcome pressure to the game. I play on 25% loot, but with the new values of 1 for oil, it doesn't actually matter unless one goes up to 200%, as 1 is still 1 even at 1% as the number is rounded up. This thread has made me think of completely removing weapon molds from my current game just to test it... Would definitely be interesting. :-)

[mosh_pete]

there's more to come along the road, i remember madmole talking bout different quality weapon parts, so your guns will be upradable for a long time until they reach max, that's where molds start making sense again. and for the other faction who thinks repairkits are useless. i m not so sure how it plays out atm with finding them: but for example, when i find a whole sniper rifle or smg (i suppose you still can find em total, not only the parts) you will be very thankfull for that weapon repair kits. but as madmole stated that the weapon system is far from being finished there's sure a lot of balancing work ahead of us

[SyberSmoke]

[QUOTE=mosh_pete;135832]there's more to come along the road, i remember madmole talking bout different quality weapon parts, so your guns will be upradable for a long time until they reach max, that's where molds start making sense again. and for the other faction who thinks repairkits are useless. i m not so sure how it plays out atm with finding them: but for example, when i find a whole sniper rifle or smg (i suppose you still can find em total, not only the parts) you will be very thankfull for that weapon repair kits. but as madmole stated that the weapon system is far from being finished there's sure a lot of balancing work ahead of us[/QUOTE] I hope that they get rid of the molds and go to another bench or work station approach. It rubs me a little wrong knowing that your making a working gun by poring liquid iron into a mold. I can see making parts, gun parts and the like, but that would need steel not iron. Really...With iron and the such I would not mind a collection of makeshift weapons with you being able to find and maintain more powerful manufactured arms. But hey, it is a game...and alpha so what will come in the future is any ones guess.

[Zin]

What about the idea of leaving it the way it is as far as finding parts for weapons. Removing the ability to print them in the forge. Leaving the ability to "print" parts in the forge. But changing it a bit by making it only rough parts that have to be machined. This would require a few things, most of all it would require a weapon crafting bench. Then a type of mill for finishing all barrels could be part of the bench but that would require oil and water for lube plus x number of bits to work the barrel depending on length. For the ammo, you'd need all the usual equipment that could probably be part of the weapon bench for ease and less complication/clutter. This approach would make finding all the extra oil less of an annoyance and give it a purpose ie actually crafting the finished weapon instead of a rough forge pour producing a fully functioning 44 lol. Just an idea

[RavenGMT]

All great ideas and all, but I'd caution going down the road that DayZ did. I'd have a bunch of random parts for 3 different guns. They made it so convoluted that it was totally awful IMHO. For the sake of having a full-time job, gf, etc., I'm giving 7DTD an allowance for creative representation of certain elements to keep the game challenging and FUN :)

[Zin]

aye, there has to be a fine line drawn by the devs on how realistic they want the game to be vs how tedious is it. In a game based on 1. Zombies 2. Crafting 3. Surviving ( not necessarily in that order ), it'd be acceptable to assume there would be fully functional weapons much more often than just parts. However you take out a big chunk of crafting at that point. Where a game like this either shines or flops is on those 1 2 and 3 points. If any become lost amongst the others, the game dies. But making one super easy means making it near non existent in content terms. All in all I think it'd be a good idea to find the weapons whole and have each part degrade, at which point you have to replace it ( likely from another complete weapon) or manufacture a part you need. I'd like to see it where there are TONS of weapons that could be crafted ( 100-300 ). Considering the crafting system of this game is a HUGE drive to me. However making that amount of content and even playing with that amount of content becomes tedious... and yea.. the game dies.

[Tetrameth]

The fact is, that 'effective' weapons give you a HUGE amount of leverage against zed's in this game. The benefit of this 'leverage' should come at a cost. Of course, this cost should be well balanced, and the key is finding that balance. i think being able to 'print' unlimited weapons at will is WAAAAY too easy (because finding iron is really not that hard to anyone who knows what they are doing) As it stands, the Achilles heel of this system is only finding a few weapon parts/schematics, and to achieve this, a few lucky scavenge hunts in prime locations is easy enough to orchestrate. Once these parts are found, finding clay and making a mold is a piece of cake. To enrich the content of the game, i dont think the advantage of owning a weapon (of any type) should come entirely by a few lucky loot drops and some lumps of clay. Instead, manufacturing effective weaponry should be something that is earned by skill and maintaining it should be something that is done with love.

[Zin]

@ tetrameth so essentially a mini game that effects the final stats based off of the outcome of the game?

[Yojimbo]

IMHO, whole guns should be more common in the game [B]but[/B] those weapons should be severely degraded and contain little, if any, ammo.

[Tetrameth]

[QUOTE=Zin;136109]@ tetrameth so essentially a mini game that effects the final stats based off of the outcome of the game?[/QUOTE] Call it what you wish, but in essence it is an idea that can stretch out and keep a form of challenge in the gameplay prior to reaching 'endgame'

[Euzio]

I did make a comment before bout the gun deterioration rate right now is rather messed up now. It's condition decreases way too fast right now. Real life guns can fire thousands of rounds before they require maintenance but the guns in the game can barely muster a even a fraction of that amount. The pistol can fire just 175 rounds before it stops working? Considering a single clip already contains 15 bullets and unless we headshot every single zombie in a feral horde, our gun is more likely to break before we run out of bullets. The ideal numbers to ensure some use for the gun repair kit would be like 500 durability. Perhaps they should make it such that the repair kits would repair a weapon to full regardless of the condition of the gun. The exchange perhaps being that it costs more metal strips or cloth to make the kit and the repair duration being longer.

[ollo]

[QUOTE=Euzio;136164]I did make a comment before bout the gun deterioration rate right now is rather messed up now. It's condition decreases way too fast right now. Real life guns can fire thousands of rounds before they require maintenance but the guns in the game can barely muster a even a fraction of that amount. The pistol can fire just 175 rounds before it stops working? Considering a single clip already contains 15 bullets and unless we headshot every single zombie in a feral horde, our gun is more likely to break before we run out of bullets. The ideal numbers to ensure some use for the gun repair kit would be like 500 durability. Perhaps they should make it such that the repair kits would repair a weapon to full regardless of the condition of the gun. The exchange perhaps being that it costs more metal strips or cloth to make the kit and the repair duration being longer.[/QUOTE] The key here ist that it's a game, not real life. In real life it would take months to years to build a concrete fortress, and you wouldn't be able to carry even one block of concrete. You also wouldn't be able to forge a gun by taking it apart and using some clay and iron, to get back to the topic at hand. I play 7D2D to escape from real life, so the single important thing that's relevant to game mechanics is: "is it fun (and kind of believable in the context)". As we're playing a zombie survival game here and not call of duty, it makes sense that you have to think about every shot you take and not run around guns blazing. Maye we have another point here that should be an option, gun repair kits ranging from easy (160 dur) to hard (20 dur).

[fanzypantz]

Guns are fairly cheap and you get so many gun parts when you loot, espesially pistols, shotguns and hunting rifles. But SMG's more rarer guns need this. But you get oil pretty easily. I dont think its a big deal.