Should mods be removable? Pros and Cons.

[jdifran]

If mods are easily removable then mod slots simply become extra inventory space...

 

I would hope that weapons would only accept actual mods, so we couldn't put a stack of 1000 wet concrete blocks into a pistol's mod slot.

 

Our ability to suspend disbelief can only be pushed so far.

[Survager]

If mods are easily removable then mod slots simply become extra inventory space...

 

Nice mod system ))) I hope this system will not work the way you said!!!

[Tin]

If mods are easily removable then mod slots simply become extra inventory space...

 

So how about having mods take up slots depending on tier level?

Tier 1-2 only take up 1 attachment slots.

Tier 3-4 takes 2 attachments slots.

Tier 5 takes 3 slots.

 

Legendary mods (if they add them) are permanent and can only be used with legendary weapons.

 

Tier 1 mods requires a perk.

Tier 2 mods require 2 perks

etc,. for 3-5.

 

Could even go more in depth.

 

Perk lvl 1:

Using no "Workbench" to remove or replace: 30% break chance for Tier 1 mods. Tier 2 = 35%. Tier 3 = 40%. Tier 4 = 45%. Tier 5 = 50%

Using a "Workbench" have a 0% break chance to attach or replace a Tier 1. Tier 2 = 10%. Tier 3 = 20%. Tier 4 = 30%. Tier 5 = 40%.

 

Perk lvl 2:

Using no "Workbench" to remove or replace: 30% break chance for Tier 2 mods. Tier 1 = 25%. Tier 3 = 35% Tier 4 = 40%. Tier 5 = 45%.

Using a "Workbench" have a 0% break chance to attach or replace a Tier 1 and Tier 2. Tier 3 = 10%. Tier 4 = 20%. Tier 5 = 30%.

 

Perk lvl 3:

Using no "Workbench" to remove or replace: 30% break chance for Tier 3 mods. Tier 1 = 20%. Tier 2 = 25%. Tier 4 = 35%. Tier 5 = 40%.

Using a "Workbench" have a 0% break chance to attach or replace a Tier 1 to Tier 3. Tier 4 = 10%. Tier 5 = 20%.

 

Perk lvl 4:

Using no "Workbench" to remove or replace: 30% break chance for Tier 4 mods. Tier 1 = 15%. Tier 2 = 20%. Tier 3 = 25%. Tier 5 = 35%.

Using a "Workbench" have a 0% break chance to attach or replace a Tier 1 to Tier 4. Tier 5 = 10%.

 

Perk lvl 5:

Using no "Workbench" to remove or replace: 30% break chance for Tier 5 mods. Tier 1 = 10%. Tier 2 = 15%. Tier 3 = 20%. Tier 4 = 25%.

Using a "Workbench" have a 0% break chance to attach or replace a Tier 1 to Tier 5.

 

Or go to a Trader to have them do it but spend increasing amounts of money based on mod tier.

 

Legendary mods: The trader refuses to do so, unless you're friendly with the faction they're from.

 

.. just throwing out stuff based on wanting mods to be removable to a degree.

[Faded]

If mods are easily removable then mod slots simply become extra inventory space...

 

I get that would be a sort of side effect, but how is that different than weapons right now? If you find a bunch of parts, you can effectively save inventory space by assembling as many weapons as you can provided you read all the books.

 

If someone wants to play inventory tetris like that, let them. With all the new items in the game over the past few Alphas, we're due for an inventory size increase. (Make it an option, because I know primitive players would be happy with 4 inventory slots)

[Maharin]

If mods are easily removable then mod slots simply become extra inventory space...

 

Which is no different than how gun parts work now. You can combine several into partial guns to make room if you want and then break them back down later.

 

This isn't a bad thing.

[Guppycur]

I get that would be a sort of side effect, but how is that different than weapons right now? If you find a bunch of parts, you can effectively save inventory space by assembling as many weapons as you can provided you read all the books.

 

If someone wants to play inventory tetris like that, let them. Will all the new items in the game over the past few Alphas, we're due for an inventory size increase. (Make it an option, because I know primitive players would be happy with 4 inventory slots)

 

No, we are against allowing people to play how they want or take advantage of any system, even if it makes sense!

 

/channeling my inner Gazz (still love ya, buddy!)

 

...wait, where's he been, anyway.

[toores]

If mods are easily removable then mod slots simply become extra inventory space...

 

Not much more then combining weapon parts right now.

And even then, is it so bad? The number of items to manage keeps increasing.

 

I actually have another reason for wanting easily swappable attachments. Say i have a facourite weapon and i carry extra attachments to swap out depending on the situation i’m going to engage. It adds depth to my game IMO.

Also, what if i wanna roleplay a character that only uses one type of gun and specialises in it. It’d suck if you’d have to carry 2 shotguns for different attachments.

[Tin]

No, we are against allowing people to play how they want or take advantage of any system, even if it makes sense!

 

/channeling my inner Gazz (still love ya, buddy!)

 

...wait, where's he been, anyway.

 

Gazz: -> ->

 

[Maharin]

Gazz is vacationing in the Mojave desert hunting swamp eels. He's not allowed to return until he finds three.

[intruder1_92tt]

Compromise for what? It adds no difficulty, decisions, or interesting gameplay. It just adds a superfluous wait to the build process until you return to one of your bases.

 

Like was said, add a firearms repair kit, ala the plugins for the forge or camp fire, and tie it to the weapon smithing perk.

Maybe I'm wrong, but it feels like the devs are trying to create at least a feeling of realism. Obviously the realism takes a back seat to gameplay, but the game, at least in my opinion, does a good job of conveying some of the realities of surviving in a post-apocalyptic world.

 

While I understand that you want more of a challenge, it seems you want added difficulties, just for difficulty's sake. If you could come up with a reasonable game mechanic that fits in with real-world weapon smithing, I would be supportive of it.

[meganoth]

I actually have another reason for wanting easily swappable attachments. Say i have a facourite weapon and i carry extra attachments to swap out depending on the situation i’m going to engage. It adds depth to my game IMO.

Also, what if i wanna roleplay a character that only uses one type of gun and specialises in it. It’d suck if you’d have to carry 2 shotguns for different attachments.

 

That is a reason for making them swappable, granted (at least your first reason). The roleplay though, I don't buy that. Why should the developers balance the game for people who invent arbitrary roleplay restrictions. And really, you can explain nearly any convoluted action with doing roleplay: "I turn my monitor off because I roleplay a blind person"

[Roland]

Compromise for what? It adds no difficulty, decisions, or interesting gameplay. It just adds a superfluous wait to the build process until you return to one of your bases.

 

It does add to the difficulty because you can't remodulate your weapons to fit a situation as it happens on the fly. You are stuck with what you've got and have to make do with that. This is similar to the arguments that people made against crafting timers claiming they did not add to the difficulty at all as though being able to make a full stack of something needed immediately was somehow not any easier than having to cope without it.

 

So for example let's say there is new ammo that gets crits vs irradiated enemies but requires a mod attachment in order to use.

 

Easy Button: Swappable mods any time any place because when you see that irradiated enemy guarding the quest objective in the final room you just swap in the mod and go-- especially if it woke up and is now pounding on the door to come and get you. Swap Swap and bang bang

 

Hard Button: Only swap mods at a workstation. Uh oh...Now you gotta face that baddie without the mod and ammo that could take it out easily. You have to deal with it from......a more difficult status.

[meganoth]

Maybe I'm wrong, but it feels like the devs are trying to create at least a feeling of realism. Obviously the realism takes a back seat to gameplay, but the game, at least in my opinion, does a good job of conveying some of the realities of surviving in a post-apocalyptic world.

 

While I understand that you want more of a challenge, it seems you want added difficulties, just for difficulty's sake. If you could come up with a reasonable game mechanic that fits in with real-world weapon smithing, I would be supportive of it.

 

Sorry, you misunderstand me here. If the developers make mods unremovable they surely will keep the overall difficulty the same by making more mods and weapons drop in the world. For me there are three reasons for unremovable mods (and I think reason 2 is the most important):

 

1) Because of above balancing you find more mods and weapons, so the chance that you never find a mod or weapon you absolutely want is smaller. Less chance of the RNG god punishing you.

 

2) Because you use up mods in weapons, mods you find stay relevant even if you already found such a mod. Consider the case you are an AK47 guy and like and always use the 4x scope mod in your AK. You find a mediocre AK and such a scope and put it in. Now every further 4x scope mod you find in the world is just garbage to sell or scrap and you won't get any pleasure finding it (because you already have it and just need one) if it is removable. If the mod is unremovable, finding a second scope will stil make you happy. Because you still have a use for it as soon as you find a better AK.

 

3) Interesting decisions. Gameplay should be about making decisions (at least now and then between all the grinding). Like in an RPG where you are asked to do something and you have to decide if the reward is worth it or you should haggle some more. Or decide if the quest giver is trustworthy or tries to lead you into a trap. Or decide if you want to go in with blazing guns or stealth in. One slighty interesting decision could be: Do I put this excellent mod into this mediocre gun or do I wait for a better gun.

[Maharin]

Hard Button: Only swap mods at a workstation. Uh oh...Now you gotta face that baddie without the mod and ammo that could take it out easily. You have to deal with it from......a more difficult status.

 

I like that idea a lot better than not being able to swap them at all. Either this or a significant timer because I agree that swapping "instantly on the fly" is a horrible mechanic to balance.

[meganoth]

So for example let's say there is new ammo that gets crits vs irradiated enemies but requires a mod attachment in order to use.

 

Depends on the scarcity of the weapons. As soon as I have a second weapon I would always have the second weapon with the crit mod installed instead of the mod to switch in one weapon. Takes up the same space in your bag and you don't need to click through to the mod-screen and switch mods every time you want to switch.

 

Sure, there is a time when you only have one exemplar of a specific weapon. So you are correct, it adds some difficulty. But we'll see if that window of difficulty is big enough to matter as it also has to be when those special enemies are around (if I stay with your example). At least in vanilla I would bet I got a second weapon of nearly every type before irradiated enemies surface.

[Faded]

It does add to the difficulty because you can't remodulate your weapons to fit a situation as it happens on the fly....

 

Remember, trying to stop min maxers only results in a series of awkward restrictions that individually seem reasonable, but collectively harm the game. You can also cause unintended side effects, such as: everyone will now carry 4 of each weapon. Now there are more complaints that we need more bag space.

 

Sorry, you misunderstand me here. If the developers make mods unremovable they surely will keep the overall difficulty the same by making more mods and weapons drop in the world. For me there are three reasons for unremovable mods (and I think reason 2 is the most important):

 

1) Because of above balancing you find more mods and weapons, so the chance that you never find a mod or weapon you absolutely want is smaller. Less chance of the RNG god punishing you.

 

2) Because you use up mods in weapons, mods you find stay relevant even if you already found such a mod...

 

3) Interesting decisions. Gameplay should be about making decisions ...

 

Only #3 will happen, because unremovable mods means I'll be hoarding them for a long time until I'm sure I won't regret putting them into a crap weapon. I'll bet you my next minibike the majority of the playerbase will do the same thing.

 

Surely there is a middle ground to be found here.

 

I like that idea a lot better than not being able to swap them at all. Either this or a significant timer because I agree that swapping "instantly on the fly" is a horrible mechanic to balance.

 

Ultimately, it doesn't need to be balanced. Release should have "Weapon mod removable/not removable" as an option, and let the players decide. Problem solved.

 

For Alpha, the workbench is an acceptable compromise.

[Royal Deluxe]

The simple problem we have here s that the new Buff system (and so the mentioned maybe new ammo kinds for special enemys) will maybe change the gameplay a way that makes it hard to estimate what will be better.

 

Generally (Counts for all games) i prefer carying only

1: Small Mellee weapon (Knife or machete)

2: Small Gun (Pistol, PDW, SMG, Shotgun) if possible something with a high Damageoutput to stop Groups of enemys short before melee range (and as tradeoff for huge ammo costs)

3: Long Range Weapon like a marksman rifle

4: a few explosives

 

so i prefer the ability to mod my weapons at least partially on the fly. Means for most games

Change ammotype

Switch Scope to Red Dot

add or remove silencer

 

For me Mini Nukes as in fallout or 4 Huge Rifles in inventory is immersion breaking.

I like it to have dedicated slots that allow only a small amount of Weapons carried ready to use.

[Roland]

Remember, trying to stop min maxers only results in a series of awkward restrictions that individually seem reasonable, but collectively harm the game.

I don’t have to remember any such thing. Getting rid of spam crafting for xp grinding was a huge improvement. But min/maxing isn’t what I’m talking about anyway. I’m talking about being able to take actions that really shouldn’t be instantaneous and doing them instantaneously like a magic spell.

 

You can also cause unintended side effects, such as: everyone will now carry 4 of each weapon. Now there are more complaints that we need more bag space.

 

TFP is expert at ignoring complaints about bag space. They’ve been practicing it since 2013. Didn’t you post earlier that requiring a workstation to remove mods was an acceptable compromise? I agree with you.

[toores]

I’m talking about being able to take actions that really shouldn’t be instantaneous and doing them instantaneously like a magic spell.

 

I'd be ok with a timer for swapping out attachments.

 

There are some mods that should require some kind of toolset or workstation. Some even should be irreversible. But silencers, scopes, magazines should be easily attachable - on the fly.

 

It makes no sense to make something harder in an illogical way just to make something harder...

[Faded]

I don’t have to remember any such thing. Getting rid of spam crafting for xp grinding was a huge improvement. But min/maxing isn’t what I’m talking about anyway. I’m talking about being able to take actions that really shouldn’t be instantaneous and doing them instantaneously like a magic spell.

 

The result to that change was a bunch of level and skill gating that dragged out the early game to an unacceptable level. Since it was very easy to choose to not spamcraft, making such a vast change to force players to "play fair" was the wrong call. That was a very contentious subject; I believe we had a very, very long thread about that back during the summer.

 

You are talking about min/maxing; yes, some people will really switch mods for every different enemy they come across, just like some people felt "forced" to spamcraft. I do agree, we can use the workbench to gate mod removal if we need to, but that is a compromise at best. I am in favor of an unrestricted system, and for release, it needs to be a game option. Anything less will further harm the game by impeding player freedom for no gain.

 

TFP is expert at ignoring complaints about bag space. They’ve been practicing it since 2013. Didn’t you post earlier that requiring a workstation to remove mods was an acceptable compromise? I agree with you.

 

I wouldn't be proud of that fact. Since modding bag space requires .dll modification, complaints about it are not so easily brushed aside with "you can mod it". Each step required to overcome design oversights gets closer and closer to "Make your own game if you don't like it".

[SylenThunder]

I wouldn't exactly call it a "design oversight". I'm pretty sure they intended for you to struggle with inventory space. Just imagine if everything was weighed and you had a cap on how much weight you could carry. I know that was a consideration at one point in the development cycle.

 

IMHO, some mods can be swapped in the field, but there has to be a balance. You can't just willy-nilly change mods. There needs to be a cost. Like time or loss of durability.

[Roland]

The result to that change was a bunch of level and skill gating that dragged out the early game to an unacceptable level. Since it was very easy to choose to not spamcraft, making such a vast change to force players to "play fair" was the wrong call. That was a very contentious subject; I believe we had a very, very long thread about that back during the summer.

 

You are talking about min/maxing; yes, some people will really switch mods for every different enemy they come across, just like some people felt "forced" to spamcraft. I do agree, we can use the workbench to gate mod removal if we need to, but that is a compromise at best. I am in favor of an unrestricted system, and for release, it needs to be a game option. Anything less will further harm the game by impeding player freedom for no gain.

 

 

 

I wouldn't be proud of that fact. Since modding bag space requires .dll modification, complaints about it are not so easily brushed aside with "you can mod it". Each step required to overcome design oversights gets closer and closer to "Make your own game if you don't like it".

 

Lol...the game is not “harmed” just because it employs design choices you don’t like. Backpack size is fine. If they never change it and always ignore those who want more inventory slots the game will not be harmed in the least. As contentious as the pre-change discussions were, there has been almost zero complaints and quite a bit of praise for how the game plays sans spam crafting.

 

If they go the route that some mods can be swapped but others need to be permanent then they absolutely will not (nor should they) add a top menu option to have them all or none be swappable.

[Guppycur]

Disagree. MM said they'd double the gameplay time, which they did by gating everything and slowing progression with level gating... But yeh, it harmed the game. And I suspect they know it.

[Roland]

Level gating was in addition to getting rid of crafting xp. They could lose the level gating in my opinion. But there are others who like that too.

[Guppycur]

Yes. Spam crafting... The straw man problem that was created because you could gain the ability to create concrete by making stone axes...

 

...not a lot had changed, because now you can BUY concrete by... Also doing something that has nothing to do with the other. =)

 

It's all good, a17 brings more changes, I pay attention. As long as there are two steps forward I don't mind the steps backwards.