Weapon Progression feels really off.

[No' Name]

So currently sitting at lvl 34 (just hit it), and the weapon progression is incredibly weird.

So first we start of making Pickaxes, and Axes, and Clubs. Sure, that makes sense considering you've just started, not much else to expect I guess. Then we move onto more primitive weapons, Spears, Bow and Arrows, again makes sense, then we "advance" to a bat, kind of just a fancier word for a club... but sure, still "Sort of" makes sense....

Now the next part is where everything becomes increasingly more confusing. We finally run into Humans around the same level as us (around lvl 5-10), and they're using Handguns, Automatic Rifles, and Hand Grenades... Kill said humans, they drop Ammo, we pickup ammo, and yet, not one of the many Humans dropped their weaponry (well, sometimes grenades, but no guns), and hopefully you would release the Pal inside the cage. Ok cool we now have assault rifle ammo we weren't really expecting to upgrade our weaponry that fast anyways. Oh what's that, can't use the assault, or shotfgun level 5's dropped until level 40+? Get's even more confusing now.

Next we move onto the Pal Free World Alliance. People in clothes who seemingly have a name that implies they want to save Pal's, yet they hunt them down just was well, yet, instead of rifles, we seem to have gone through an apocalypse some where down the road, and they're back to using crossbows, and clubs once again, and in fact they do drop ammunition (arrows) that yes, we can use, for our primitive bow.

A few levels later, we can finally make a Crossbow which does seemingly a good amount of damage, and we have ammunition for it, and can make it dirt cheap.

But wait, a few levels later, and we can make the "Makeshift Handgun". Wait a second... It does LESS damage than the crossbow? And the cost to make ammunition is astronomical in comparison to making basic wooden arrows? Or even the many variants of arrows there are? Now that's not making sense at all.

Finally we can make something better than the crossbow, a Musket doing a whopping 1K dmg albeit slow reload spead, so it's almost better to use the crossbow regardless, because it's stronger, and cheaper to use than the makeshift handgun. But wait, just a few more levels and we can make a Normal Hangun, using actual ammunition. Wait... it's WEAKER than the Makeshift Handgun!? And the ammunition costs more!? (obviously a bug). Something is not adding up here.

Then we arrive to the next Single shot Rifle, which again uses different Ammunition than a musket, but does a MASSIVE 100 more damage.

It's kind of a silly weapon progression system, and silly the types of enemies you fight early on in the game, while you can't obtain their weaponry, yet you can get the ammunition just fine early on. You'd think outta the many that have fallen, one of them would drop their weapons.

Personally the early human enemies, should have "Makeshift" guns, and have a chance to drop them, and much like Soulmask. their weapons coul NOT be repaired, and would be damaged upon picking them up. Would at least make sense picking up their ammunition so early on in the game.

That, or have those early human camps use crossbows like the free pal alliance. At least that makes some sort of sense.

[Duilf]

No single person has a monopoly on sense. Therefor making sense, or not from a personal perspective =/= to actually making sense. It is in every person's best interest for them to understand this. The core issue is when most people think they have the answer they stop looking for answers, but as life is messy rarely ever is there 1 pure 100% correct answer. There could be multiple, or a hand full of close enough answers however the assumption that there is a answer is sheer folly.

We can't just loot weapons off enemies as crafting weapons is supposed to be rewarding. Most likely at some later point enemies will be reworked including giving them more level appropriate weapons. So this will happen after we have enough weapon variety that each group can stay on theme.

There is an advantage the Makeshift Handgun has over the Crossbow. It has more bullets, and reloads quicker. The same advantage the regular Handgun has over the Musket. Is it a good enough advantage? That is debatable, but there are areas where the weapon is superior to the current alternatives. Get better pals, and/or better base locations will result in more plentiful resources.

If you are complaining about a 100 point difference then you don't know how this system works. The weapon stats are multiplied by our attack (not on a 1 to 1 basis), and divided by the enemies defense. Thus a 100 point difference isn't a 100 damage difference. Additionally again you are overlooking reloads, and magazines. The Rifle reloads in about half the time as the Musket.

[nymersic]

Honestly, the "problem" here (I don't think it's really a problem) is that you have to unlock technologies, so implicitly you're discouraged from trying things that you don't think you need.

If you'd try certain weapons you'd usually figure out why they're considered upgrades, even if they don't look like it from the simple stats you see.

Like the makeshift handgun IS great. Although I'd say the problem with it isn't that it's strong, it's that it's so nonsensically durable. You'd think this is a weapon that you have to repair every time you go back to base, but no, that thing seems to last longer than so many other weapons...
like shotguns. What the heck, these shotguns fall apart in NO time.

As a side note, you might find it worth making the earlier ammo, but buying the later ammo. (And yeah, if you crunch the numbers, you definitely get more bangs for your buck crafting crude ammo than rifle ammo, etc.)

Anyway, you aren't wrong that they aren't balanced perfectly, and that there are a lot of weird decisions out there.

[Duilf]

Originally posted by nymersic:

Honestly, the "problem" here (I don't think it's really a problem) is that you have to unlock technologies, so implicitly you're discouraged from trying things that you don't think you need.

If you'd try certain weapons you'd usually figure out why they're considered upgrades, even if they don't look like it from the simple stats you see.

Like the makeshift handgun IS great. Although I'd say the problem with it isn't that it's strong, it's that it's so nonsensically durable. You'd think this is a weapon that you have to repair every time you go back to base, but no, that thing seems to last longer than so many other weapons...
like shotguns. What the heck, these shotguns fall apart in NO time.

As a side note, you might find it worth making the earlier ammo, but buying the later ammo. (And yeah, if you crunch the numbers, you definitely get more bangs for your buck crafting crude ammo than rifle ammo, etc.)

Anyway, you aren't wrong that they aren't balanced perfectly, and that there are a lot of weird decisions out there.

...Ya among the things they can rework how the tech tree progresses is definitely up there. As I have previously stated on this forum I doubt they listen here, and I am really want things said to be suggestions not demands. However as a fun thought sense there are already incentive to collect pals what about captured pals dropping tech points based on element, and rarity. So if someone wants a better furnace they need fire pals. It could be more complex with a single research needing multiple elemental tech points. To help with distribution there could be a point converter at half, or third value.

[DxDark]

There needs to be a rework that includes micro-materials for earlier upgrades...entire ingots for spheres that take, what, 40 seconds each? ~30 with a Lv1 Handi Pal? And then you can miss or they can deflect them? They cost too much at lower levels.

Let me use nuggets and nuggets are turned into ingots or something.

[The Grinch]

"No single person has a monopoly on sense. Therefor making sense, or not from a personal perspective =/= to actually making sense." What the hell are you talking about? Make a philosophical statement in your own post or engage in an honest conversation about weapons, which is clearly what this person made a post about.

[Cocytus]

Originally posted by DxDark:

There needs to be a rework that includes micro-materials for earlier upgrades...entire ingots for spheres that take, what, 40 seconds each? ~30 with a Lv1 Handi Pal? And then you can miss or they can deflect them? They cost too much at lower levels.

Let me use nuggets and nuggets are turned into ingots or something.

it's not like metal is that hard to come by tbh, even at the earliest stages when you just got a metal pickaxe and a lvl1 fire pal, just teleport to the abandoned church, mine the ore there and you already got 120-160 ingots soon enough.
if you built your base near some ore spot on top that's even more easy to pick ore right away every cycle.
since it's the same as with all other "survival" games, just farm stuff and do something else while it respawns/get's processed.

[No' Name]

Originally posted by Cocytus:

it's not like metal is that hard to come by tbh, even at the earliest stages when you just got a metal pickaxe and a lvl1 fire pal, just teleport to the abandoned church, mine the ore there and you already got 120-160 ingots soon enough.
if you built your base near some ore spot on top that's even more easy to pick ore right away every cycle.
since it's the same as with all other "survival" games, just farm stuff and do something else while it respawns/get's processed.

Ore wast never the point of the post. No one is saying ore is difficult to come by, pretty sure nothing about Ore was even mentioned.

[Cocytus]

might want to check 2 posts above mine, i just didn't quote it because i thought mine would be directly following it instead of another post being between.

but yea, fixed that now^^

[Duilf]

I could say more, but tomorrow is the big update. Seems kind of odd to talk about what could/should be when change is right around the corner. Will all the new weapons be late game, or will they be mixed in? Again my hypothesis in paragraph 2 of post #1 basically states we will get weapon variety per level bracket at some point.

[Reaper415]

The Free Pal Alliance (not pal free world) is basically a satire on PETA. They advocate for animal rights whereas reality is something else entirely.

[Barick]

I agree that the progression with weapons feels kinda off in this game. When I last played and had the difficulty turned up I would just use the musket as the high damage for the low ammo cost simply made it better to use over the other weapons till you get closer to end game, you would just need to take cover and let your pals fight while you reload.

I feel like we should face the Free Pal Alliance before the Rayne Syndicate... It's annoying that the FPA drop arrows when you no longer need them and the Syndicate fill your inventory with ammo you won't use for a while.

Part of the reason some guns do less damage is because they have a higher reload rate, Ammo cap, or fire rate. Unless you spend a ton of time breeding perfect base pals it's often not worth it using better weapons till you get to that point as you level so fast that your base's production can't keep up. I feel like if all of us played online on the live servers with a base automated and working 24/7 this would not be an issue.

[No' Name]

Originally posted by Barick:

I agree that the progression with weapons feels kinda off in this game. When I last played and had the difficulty turned up I would just use the musket as the high damage for the low ammo cost simply made it better to use over the other weapons till you get closer to end game, you would just need to take cover and let your pals fight while you reload.

I feel like we should face the Free Pal Alliance before the Rayne Syndicate... It's annoying that the FPA drop arrows when you no longer need them and the Syndicate fill your inventory with ammo you won't use for a while.

Part of the reason some guns do less damage is because they have a higher reload rate, Ammo cap, or fire rate. Unless you spend a ton of time breeding perfect base pals it's often not worth it using better weapons till you get to that point as you level so fast that your base's production can't keep up. I feel like if all of us played online on the live servers with a base automated and working 24/7 this would not be an issue.

Ha, and that's kind of what I'm getting at. The Pal Alliance is basically dropping stuff I've finished using ages ago, while like you said at the beginning, they clutter your inventory/storage with stuff you can't make until level 15 ish.

And as you said, I'd just use the Musket while my Pals deal damage. There is no point in using a Handgun, over a Musket, when my Pals deal MORE damage than the Handguns, cost no resources but food to manage, and considering I can summon/recall them as much, and anytime I like. I'd rather overall just assist my Pal's in doing big burst damage for a low resource cost to make the ammunition, then waste them on anything else.

[Cocytus]

the handgun (not the makeshift one) deals way more damage than any pal could ever hope to deal at that level, same for the musket when you consider the firerate of the handgun.
plus the handgun is great on another field, not killing everything right away without having to constantly switch accessories for when you actually want to kill targets (RS/FPA etc) and stuff you don't wanna kill like pals you still gotta catch 12 or pals etc

[Duilf]

Originally posted by Cocytus:

the handgun (not the makeshift one) deals way more damage than any pal could ever hope to deal at that level, same for the musket when you consider the firerate of the handgun.

Well yes, and no. If you have the bullets to maintain DPS then overall it does out damage pals. However per hit damage, or if you have to conserve are other stories. The thing is Pals do more seemingly with less as they have higher attack stats to multiply their skill damage. I mentioned better Pals for more resources before, but there are also merchants to flat out buy ammo from. Fisherman's Point at -480, -745 (Volcano's south coast) is a better spot to buy things then the Small Settlement of 75, -480. So farm weak bosses will pal skills, Sell their luxury drops, buy ammo, and farm pals you need to use the ammo on is another strategy.

[No' Name]

I mean a lvl 18 Loupmoon or w/e the thing is called, is super agressive, and it's Shadowburst AoE does like 1500-2K dmg per hit.

I highly doubt a handgun is putting out that much damage. And all I have to do is feed it berries.