More trader nerfs in B238

[PoppaTot]

They nerfed stamina/food use. True story, no sarcasm needed. BTW, did someone complain about stamina use

before they nerfed it in B231?

 

It's been a hot topic, not sure if anyone actually said it was OP before they nerfed it hardcore though.

[Odin_the_Mad]

It's ok if they lower the prices that the traders will pay if they ALSO lower the prices that the trader charges for basic things. You sell a fully functioning pistol and you dont even get enough money to buy a full clip of 9mm rounds. There is no scenario I can think of where that makes sense. How are they calculating the value of these things? Or why is it that I have to sell 6 beers just to buy one bottle of water. Beer is clearly more expensive many times over and is mostly made up of water, but with a whole lot of additional labor put into it. How can 6 jars of water (with hops and labor/crafting time/ skill point investment added in top of it) only be worth enough to buy 1 jar of water in return? I know it's just a game but come on guys, especially with specialization you have to give us a way to use our specialization to make products to sell in exchange for things we cant make. That's the whole basis of trade.

 

I get that even in real life traders buy cheap and sell high but it's a bit too skewed in favor of the trader, even with points put into it. Guns should have a reasonable value. Theres no reason why I'm selling a quality 4 gun for less than 1k dukes but that same gun will cost me 16k dukes to buy. That's a profit margin of about 1600 percent. Not even wall street makes that kind of money! Lol who was traded rekt before the apocalypse, a hedge fund manager at Goldman Sachs??

 

I'm all for making the game harder but I think they may have unbalanced this aspect of the game. It's a "cheap" way of increasing difficulty. One of the best parts about braving the crazy feral-infested POIs of earlier builds was knowing that you might pick up enough high value items to trade for that thing you actually wanted/needed at the trader that cost an arm and a leg. Now it's basically worth more as scrap. The item still costs an arm and a leg, but for some reason the same item when it's in your possession is worth like 1/20th of the value

 

***Suggestion.... give us a setting for trader price multiplier. If you want to trade a shotgun in exchange for 3 pieces of torn cloth and a can of peas be my guest lol but I think I would like the option to increase it just a wee bit. Different strokes for different folks.

[Randomdude]

How are they calculating the value of these things?

 

You wing it baby!!!

 

MacGruber: "Piper, there's a big difference between winging it and seeing what happens. Now let's see what happens."

[meganoth]

Let's face is, quests are a joke. I don;t know why people would waste there time on them, unless they are really close.

 

Trader nerf sucks. Early game forget about buying anything but food at this point. I think the higher end stuff is more for mid to late game though. Don't think they want you buying that awesome pick with 3 mods in it on day 3. I think the trader nerf should be addressed with a massive duke buff on quests. They also need a really MASSIVE xp buff.

 

Great rule of thumb: If anything is so good that everyone does it as often as possible it probably is too good.

 

My impression was that everyone was questing as often as possible from day 1, and got all iron tools, some armor and weapons by day 5, through quests and buying the rest.

 

Our co-op games in A17 (like in A16) started with us looking for the trader and putting our base right next to it. This still may be the case now, but at least that doesn't give us everything we want on a platter. Now you really have to save up money if you want something good.

Like it is done in every other game. In a typical RPG the traders often have the whole range of weaponry available, even legendary weapons and armor, But anything but the lowest stuff is clearly out of range of what a low-level character can afford. This is how traders who are reachable from the get-go can be balanced.

 

And the 300 dukes you get for a T1 quest seem much more now in comparison to the junk you can sell.

[Kattla]

Great rule of thumb: If anything is so good that everyone does it as often as possible it probably is too good.

 

My impression was that everyone was questing as often as possible from day 1, and got all iron tools, some armor and weapons by day 5, through quests and buying the rest.

 

If the first one is the case, then birds nest is in for a serious reduction.

 

For the second one, count me out. I did one quest, to see what they was all about.

First of all, they are not worth the rewards. Second, they do not mean anything in the

gameworld. So they are also meaningless.

[meganoth]

I get that even in real life traders buy cheap and sell high but it's a bit too skewed in favor of the trader, even with points put into it. Guns should have a reasonable value. Theres no reason why I'm selling a quality 4 gun for less than 1k dukes but that same gun will cost me 16k dukes to buy. That's a profit margin of about 1600 percent. Not even wall street makes that kind of money! Lol who was traded rekt before the apocalypse, a hedge fund manager at Goldman Sachs??

 

Well, maybe we can find out what the profit margin was for traders near the Klondike river at the times of the gold rush. Usual story is that they got rich while many of the prospectors lost their gold to them (and bandits, taverns...).

 

Now I think the situation in 7days might be much closer to Klondike than to Amazon.

[Randomdude]

Great rule of thumb: If anything is so good that everyone does it as often as possible it probably is too good.

 

I don't get this... Isn't this the point of all games ever created. Someone finds a way to be the best way of doing something and everyone follows. If you mean that every time someone finds the best way to do something it NEEDS to be nerfed, then we don't agree at all. Maybe I'm misunderstanding you.

 

My impression was that everyone was questing as often as possible from day 1, and got all iron tools, some armor and weapons by day 5, through quests and buying the rest.

 

This goes with my previous point. I thought the addition of the quests were to have an "alternative" way of gaining dukes, getting gear, and not having to fight/loot as much. If you take that away, you're making the same mistake as the AI/building situation. There's only a couple ways to build not to get wrecked.

 

Less options are not good. (Plus if I'm not mistaken, I believe I read somewhere that Traders were getting Reputation, so I believe they're a long term investment. No chance of removing them as some have asked for)

[meganoth]

If the first one is the case, then birds nest is in for a serious reduction.

 

For the second one, count me out. I did one quest, to see what they was all about.

First of all, they are not worth the rewards. Second, they do not mean anything in the

gameworld. So they are also meaningless.

 

Well, quests are the perfect side dishes if you are scavenging anyway and in the beginning are an excellent source for money, iron tools, armor and sledgehammer. If you have no need for them, good for you.

 

If you are a builder, you might take a look at the buried treasure quest since you need clay anyway and this gives a nice bonus.

[Kaiote]

Just testing out B238 trader. I wanted to see if our coffee and beer business from our last game would work. Before B231 we had planted 2 garbage bins (28 seeds each) of coffee and 1 of hops and every few days I would run stacks of both to top up each traders demand, making 900+ Dukes per stack, 4-5k Dukes per run. Decent coin, but felt the effort put in was pretty balanced. I see now that the prices are much lower off the bat 9 Dukes per coffee for example, but when I perked Better Bargain the increase looked more like 100% than 10%. The second point brought coffee to 27 dukes per, 300%. Gonna continue with my same character build of focused Salvage Ops/Better Barter/Hide in Shadows as a professional scrapper because the changes still seem viable once invested in at least 2-3 perks.

[meganoth]

I don't get this... Isn't this the point of all games ever created. Someone finds a way to be the best way of doing something and everyone follows. If you mean that every time someone finds the best way to do something it NEEDS to be nerfed, then we don't agree at all. Maybe I'm misunderstanding you.

 

I'm not talking about this or that way being 5% better. I'm not talking about the perfect balance. I'm talking about a condition where the trader was the central focus point for many play-throughs. I heard in A16 players on open servers were camping around the trader if it wasn't forbidden. In our A16 co-op games my "job" as scavenger was usually over by day 15 because everything ever needed could be bought from the traders. The trader was like a loot-box where you can CHOOSE what's inside. And money was never any problem.

 

And in A17 money was somewhat nerfed but because of the quests the trader became even more important.

 

This goes with my previous point. I thought the addition of the quests were to have an "alternative" way of gaining dukes, getting gear, and not having to fight/loot as much. If you take that away, you're making the same mistake as the AI/building situation. There's only a couple ways to build not to get wrecked.

 

In my opinion quests still provide good value because they are a source for dukes early on. I don't see this being taken away, especially since selling items to get dukes is worse now. And you can still get iron tools and other much needed stuff through them so I really don't see that they are useless now, at least for scavengers. As an alternative to the forge.

 

(All this with the caveat that we have to try it out to make a final verdict)

 

The problem of the trader always was that the scavenger could use the trader much better than a miner because selling the stuff he found was easily enough to buy anything. If you really want to balance that you may have to increase the worth of some higher crafted products. But definitely not the worth of loot.

[Randomdude]

(All this with the caveat that we have to try it out to make a final verdict)

 

Now I get it. You're focusing on the MP while I am on the SP experience. You have a group which makes your experience X times faster, X being the amount of players. I don't have that luxury nor do I want it.

 

I like the idea of traders for SP as they actually provide somewhere to scrap the things I get that don't need and "exchange" them for useful things I need. I wouldn't know for MP.

[Viktoriusiii]

Just testing out B238 trader. I wanted to see if our coffee and beer business from our last game would work. Before B231 we had planted 2 garbage bins (28 seeds each) of coffee and 1 of hops and every few days I would run stacks of both to top up each traders demand, making 900+ Dukes per stack, 4-5k Dukes per run. Decent coin, but felt the effort put in was pretty balanced. I see now that the prices are much lower off the bat 9 Dukes per coffee for example, but when I perked Better Bargain the increase looked more like 100% than 10%. The second point brought coffee to 27 dukes per, 300%. Gonna continue with my same character build of focused Salvage Ops/Better Barter/Hide in Shadows as a professional scrapper because the changes still seem viable once invested in at least 2-3 perks.

 

If someone puts in the work of setting up that big of a farm, he should yield more than just 900 dukes per stack!

You might not think it too few, but it definatly is! Okay not definatly, but I very strongly feel that hard work SHOULD reward you with good coin and goods! Its not an exploit, its hard work! There is a gradiant (500 cement blocks are easy to do, gave a lot of coin in A16, which wasn'T right! But if I farm trees for hours on end with a chainsaw (time, fuel, repair kits) , it SHOULD give you good coin. But currently you only get 1 coin for 50. I wasn't at the endgame, but I feel that is too few.

 

But that is what I feel! Work should be rewarded in some sense! But if I can't buy something good after doing something for hours, its not fun at all!

[meganoth]

Now I get it. You're focusing on the MP while I am on the SP experience. You have a group which makes your experience X times faster, X being the amount of players. I don't have that luxury nor do I want it.

 

I like the idea of traders for SP as they actually provide somewhere to scrap the things I get that don't need and "exchange" them for useful things I need. I wouldn't know for MP.

 

Just as an example. I was also playing SP and pretty much had the same experience, building near the trader made everything MUCH easier. Quests and trader provided me with all iron tools. The only difference being that SP is naturally harder.

[Jedo]

Only bc posts like his. You make it sound like he shouldnt complain bc its still WiP. It's the other way around, it's a WiP bc players explain their concerns.

 

Yes they are WiP, which is why im giving my feedback 😁

 

I'm sorry: What part of "quests are a joke; I don't know why people would waste their time" helps improve the WiP? For that matter, I'm not even sure it acknowledges that they are a WiP. Don't try to sell me this ♥♥♥♥. Turds have been removed and trading has been nerfed, so I ain't buying.

 

Also, it's a WiP because TFP has said that they aren't done, that this is just phase 1 of quests. Kalarro, you are the one who has it backwards.

[Roland]

Now I get it. You're focusing on the MP while I am on the SP experience. You have a group which makes your experience X times faster, X being the amount of players. I don't have that luxury nor do I want it.

 

I like the idea of traders for SP as they actually provide somewhere to scrap the things I get that don't need and "exchange" them for useful things I need. I wouldn't know for MP.

 

Have you perked into trading or are you bemoaning the purchasing prowess of someone who has no trading skills?

 

Just testing out B238 trader. I wanted to see if our coffee and beer business from our last game would work. Before B231 we had planted 2 garbage bins (28 seeds each) of coffee and 1 of hops and every few days I would run stacks of both to top up each traders demand, making 900+ Dukes per stack, 4-5k Dukes per run. Decent coin, but felt the effort put in was pretty balanced. I see now that the prices are much lower off the bat 9 Dukes per coffee for example, but when I perked Better Bargain the increase looked more like 100% than 10%. The second point brought coffee to 27 dukes per, 300%. Gonna continue with my same character build of focused Salvage Ops/Better Barter/Hide in Shadows as a professional scrapper because the changes still seem viable once invested in at least 2-3 perks.

 

This right here sounds right. If the trader prices are important to you then spend points in that area to become a master trader yourself.

[Randomdude]

Have you perked into trading or are you bemoaning the purchasing prowess of someone who has no trading skills?

 

Well, 'aight, check this out, dawg. First of all, you throwin' too many big words at me, and because I don't understand them, I'm gonna take 'em as disrespect. Watch your mouth and help me with the sale.

 

On a serious note, of course, but you have to understand that in SP we need to be everything. Spreading points around and not going for specific perks are just a way to make the game way harder for yourself.

 

Little story, one time I spent a point in barter and ran to the trader to sell all my stuff as there was an auger there and I wanted that ♥♥♥♥. Got there, sold everything just to realize he had restocked and the auger was gone. Point wasted and no auger. I'm not complaining, but isn't it anti-intuitive to hold on to points as you might need them later?

 

Bonus points if you get the reference...

[madmole]

Yet more nerfs on the trader. He now pays less for goods and all tiers of better barter have been nerfed by 5% on all tiers.

 

So now buying things will take much longer? Really hope they adjusted what quests give as rewards to make up for these nerfs and they fixed the crazy distance on tier 1 quests. Because I see no point in running on foot 1.5km or more for a quest that barely gives 1k exp and 400 dukes.

 

It was really OP dude. If you bought the perks you would know. If you advance in the quest tiers the loot gets really good. Wait until you have a bicycle to start working for the traders.

[PoppaTot]

It was really OP dude. If you bought the perks you would know. If you advance in the quest tiers the loot gets really good. Wait until you have a bicycle to start working for the traders.

 

I will say that I think I only had Barter 1 and found out that a perfect lvl 5 AK sold for like 13k dukes. I made 3 of them because of the bug that made the mod slots RNG. Figured I would just sell the ones that were less slots. I was like "Holy ****" when he offered me 13k for it....

[Kaiote]

Yeah, just got Bargaining level 3 and it feels like it is really paying off. This is what I am enjoying most as A17 progresses, if you want to succeed at something you better invest points, and deal with the consequences elsewhere. It makes sense to me too, as these narsty merchants would have to be a Pawn Stars/Thunderdome-crossbred cut-throats fleecing survivors without the guile to know better.

 

I did enjoy the premodded gear at the traders, and it was cool to try out new mods, but IMO that needs some balancing as I was buying Padded Armor with three mods (green dye, fittings, plate) for the same cost as 1 mod alone.

 

I still do not find my coffee example, even with reduced profit, to have been nerfed. It was a sustainable income, with the added bonus that once invested in would never be lost, only grow. Plus the added benefit having enough caffeine in game to match my RL consumption while playing.

[madmole]

Let's face is, quests are a joke. I don;t know why people would waste there time on them, unless they are really close.

 

Trader nerf sucks. Early game forget about buying anything but food at this point. I think the higher end stuff is more for mid to late game though. Don't think they want you buying that awesome pick with 3 mods in it on day 3. I think the trader nerf should be addressed with a massive duke buff on quests. They also need a really MASSIVE xp buff.

 

Modded items getting into the trader loot was kind of a bug so we removed it. We will add it back when we have some means of controlling it. I'm buffing the xp and dukes right now, it is crap. The hard thing to do is players can craft guns so we can't have them getting rich selling pink guns. That is part of the reason I increased the parts requirements for guns so people can't get super rich crafting.

[Kage848]

I'm sorry: What part of "quests are a joke; I don't know why people would waste their time" helps improve the WiP? For that matter, I'm not even sure it acknowledges that they are a WiP. Don't try to sell me this ♥♥♥♥. Turds have been removed and trading has been nerfed, so I ain't buying.

 

Also, it's a WiP because TFP has said that they aren't done, that this is just phase 1 of quests. Kalarro, you are the one who has it backwards.

 

I have explained elsewhere and many times. Nice try though.

 

- - - Updated - - -

 

Modded items getting into the trader loot was kind of a bug so we removed it. We will add it back when we have some means of controlling it. I'm buffing the xp and dukes right now, it is crap. The hard thing to do is players can craft guns so we can't have them getting rich selling pink guns. That is part of the reason I increased the parts requirements for guns so people can't get super rich crafting.

 

That makes sense. Even though guns dont sell for a lot we still get to scrap them for valuable mechanical parts. And they all come with ammo. Please dont nerf gun drops.

[Kattla]

Modded items getting into the trader loot was kind of a bug so we removed it. We will add it back when we have some means of controlling it. I'm buffing the xp and dukes right now, it is crap. The hard thing to do is players can craft guns so we can't have them getting rich selling pink guns. That is part of the reason I increased the parts requirements for guns so people can't get super rich crafting.

 

How are we supposed to earn dukes then, if not crafting.

[Kage848]

How are we supposed to earn dukes then, if not crafting.

 

There are ways. But the days of making half a mil dukes early game are over.

[LuckyStar]

Well I LIKE Traders and I like that TFP are adjusting them and testing and looking for a balance.

 

That's kind of how you balance things... right?

 

 

Economies are the most difficult thing to deal with in games [according to Time/Life Magazine].

 

Jagex, the company who makes Runescape, won some major award for being the first to create a Stable Virtual Economy.

Apparently it was a big deal.

 

What the Time/Life article talked about is how incredibly difficult is can be to balance a virtual economy.

 

So.... here's TFP trying to make an economy in 7DTD and people are complaining they don't like the process.

There's NO easy way to do this.

I you're so wise that you know more than the whole world, please, by all means share your wisdom.

Every developer on the planet is struggling to make these economies work.

Your knowledge would end a lot of struggling.

 

Sorry but I'm not going to agree with these comments putting down TFP for their efforts.

This is a task that's going to rival anything they will face while making 7DTD.

 

- I like Traders

 

- I like that TFP are testing them to find a good balance

 

- I like watching the development process

 

- I like Economies in game, they are fascinating

 

- I don't like people chastising something I feel they don't really understand

 

You can disagree and I'm fine with that.

[Randomdude]

There are ways. But the days of making half a mil dukes early game are over.

 

At this point I wouldn't mind the addition of Rare Relics that the trader will buy. The don't scrap to anything valuable, but if you get them to a trader they'll pay good coin for it. 1-2k dukes maybe?

 

Diversification of how to get dukes and not having just "the main way" of getting them, is good.