Confused by Game Loop

[Darthclimo]

I'm finally ready to fully commit to this little gem, but would love some advice before starting. So first run, first foray into the forest and I've collected a bunch of decent loot to the extent my inventory is full. What now? Do I head back to base and sell my stuff or do I keep exploring? But then what's the point of exploring if the maps are procedurally generated? It's not like I can mark a spot and come back later to collect...

[=M$= Oroberus]

Originally posted by Darthclimo:

I'm finally ready to fully commit to this little gem, but would love some advice before starting. So first run, first foray into the forest and I've collected a bunch of decent loot to the extent my inventory is full. What now? Do I head back to base and sell my stuff or do I keep exploring? But then what's the point of exploring if the maps are procedurally generated? It's not like I can mark a spot and come back later to collect...

You had straight to the next extract (green bubble) by avoiding as much of the dangerous areas (grey squares) as possible.

The general gameplay loop is:
- Grab equipment
- Grab quests
- Head into a map
- Loot what you can get/find usefull/have a need for
- Fullfill quests you've taken
- Extract

What you're doiing with your loot depends on several factors:
- Sell if you already are equipped to stock up on cash
- Keep building/Scrap stuff to expand your base with modules

If you're into watching Youtube for some general advice, Oscar Mikey has a pretty recent series on Zero Sievert

[Darthclimo]

Originally posted by =M$= Oroberus:

Originally posted by Darthclimo:

I'm finally ready to fully commit to this little gem, but would love some advice before starting. So first run, first foray into the forest and I've collected a bunch of decent loot to the extent my inventory is full. What now? Do I head back to base and sell my stuff or do I keep exploring? But then what's the point of exploring if the maps are procedurally generated? It's not like I can mark a spot and come back later to collect...

You had straight to the next extract (green bubble) by avoiding as much of the dangerous areas (grey squares) as possible.

The general gameplay loop is:
- Grab equipment
- Grab quests
- Head into a map
- Loot what you can get/find usefull/have a need for
- Fullfill quests you've taken
- Extract

What you're doiing with your loot depends on several factors:
- Sell if you already are equipped to stock up on cash
- Keep building/Scrap stuff to expand your base with modules

If you're into watching Youtube for some general advice, Oscar Mikey has a pretty recent series on Zero Sievert

Appreciate it. I'll watch that YouTube suggestion too.

[Lack of Stuff]

If you are feeling ambitious you can go kill Lazar in the village with a Mosin. The standard progression would probably be to gather a bit of loot on Forest and then progress the Barman questline to open up more locations.

[=M$= Oroberus]

Originally posted by Lack of Stuff:

If you are feeling ambitious you can go kill Lazar in the village with a Mosin. The standard progression would probably be to gather a bit of loot on Forest and then progress the Barman questline to open up more locations.

In the beginning stay away from Lazar (he's right in the middle of the village in the forest), he's an absolute douche canoe if you're not yet fully acquaintend with the combat and sufficiently equipped. In regards of later locations: The Makeshift Camp might be the second map but it's far more dangerous then the Industrial Zone

[Darthclimo]

Is the game designed in such a way that you're constantly jumping back and forth between the base and say the forest multiple times? So what I've been doing is gathering loot until my backpack is full and then leaving right away for the base before coming back again to the same level. Is that how the game is "meant" to be played? Like, are you guys running back and forth say 20 times or so on the same level or no? This is really the root of the question I'm asking in the OP.

[Darthclimo]

OH.MY.GOD. I was just watching the YouTube videos recommended and you can dump your loot at extraction without leaving yourself! I had no idea and would probably never have known. Is this not communicated in the game? This changes everything.

[=M$= Oroberus]

Originally posted by Darthclimo:

OH.MY.GOD. I was just watching the YouTube videos recommended and you can dump your loot at extraction without leaving yourself! I had no idea and would probably never have known. Is this not communicated in the game? This changes everything.

Hehe yes this is still possible and probably the most used way to cheese the game, especially early on when EVERYTHING just weighs too much for you ^^

And yes, the game wants the player to bounce around between bunker and map several times. In this regard it's pretty much like Tarkov.

That doesn't mean you need to ru nthe same map 20 times in a row but in theory you COULD do that :)

Each map has pros and cons in regards of danger and loot. Let's say you mainy want to go grab Weapon Parts to repair your equipment, Forest is your best bet as the Lumbermill alone can provide you with roughly 10 weapons + the ones you find on bandits in unmarked locations in the forest while also only spawning low tier bandits.

Industrial Zone probides you with an ungodly amount of Tool and electronic boxes so you'll be making way more money in Industrial then in Forest while being slightly more dangerous due to the new enemy types that are spawning their compared to forest

[Lack of Stuff]

Originally posted by =M$= Oroberus:

Originally posted by Lack of Stuff:

If you are feeling ambitious you can go kill Lazar in the village with a Mosin. The standard progression would probably be to gather a bit of loot on Forest and then progress the Barman questline to open up more locations.

In the beginning stay away from Lazar (he's right in the middle of the village in the forest), he's an absolute douche canoe if you're not yet fully acquaintend with the combat and sufficiently equipped. In regards of later locations: The Makeshift Camp might be the second map but it's far more dangerous then the Industrial Zone

Lazar is dangerous but he was nerfed pretty hard by the new gun range brackets. He was possible to kill before and he's easier now and the early high-end loot is very handy. Thankfully he's not the death-laser he used to be. He's still the ambitious choice though as previously stated.

The makeshift camp is uneven in terms of difficulty. If you get jumped by Arman then you are screwed, but if not it's fairly chill due to the heavier GA presence (as long as you haven't ticked them off.) The high rads are a pain but manageable.

[=M$= Oroberus]

Originally posted by Lack of Stuff:

Originally posted by =M$= Oroberus:

In the beginning stay away from Lazar (he's right in the middle of the village in the forest), he's an absolute douche canoe if you're not yet fully acquaintend with the combat and sufficiently equipped. In regards of later locations: The Makeshift Camp might be the second map but it's far more dangerous then the Industrial Zone

Lazar is dangerous but he was nerfed pretty hard by the new gun range brackets. He was possible to kill before and he's easier now and the early high-end loot is very handy. Thankfully he's not the death-laser he used to be. He's still the ambitious choice though as previously stated.

The makeshift camp is uneven in terms of difficulty. If you get jumped by Arman then you are screwed, but if not it's fairly chill due to the heavier GA presence (as long as you haven't ticked them off.) The high rads are a pain but manageable.

He still outranges early Assault Rifles and can be on par regarding range with the Nozin (dependant on which attachments he spawns with), while at the same time using ammo that ignores everything but C6 armor and spewing 1200rpm. It takes 6 hits for the player to die, those 6 hits need 0,0024 seconds to be fired, that's below human reaction time. If you don't already perfectly know what you're doing, you're dead before you even notice that you're shot at.

Lazar is still a severe run ender for everyone that's not yet fully acquainted to the mechanics and even to those who are he still can be a thread if approached N/S instead of E/W or if he's triggered by one of the ghouls or hunters and starts to wander.

Don't get me wring, I farmed him quite a bit myself without issue but telling someones that's completely new "Go kill Lazar" is probably the most trolly and griefing advice possible, except "Don't ever use G to throw bolts" maybe ^^

[Lack of Stuff]

Originally posted by =M$= Oroberus:

Originally posted by Lack of Stuff:

Lazar is dangerous but he was nerfed pretty hard by the new gun range brackets. He was possible to kill before and he's easier now and the early high-end loot is very handy. Thankfully he's not the death-laser he used to be. He's still the ambitious choice though as previously stated.

The makeshift camp is uneven in terms of difficulty. If you get jumped by Arman then you are screwed, but if not it's fairly chill due to the heavier GA presence (as long as you haven't ticked them off.) The high rads are a pain but manageable.

He still outranges early Assault Rifles and can be on par regarding range with the Nozin (dependant on which attachments he spawns with), while at the same time using ammo that ignores everything but C6 armor and spewing 1200rpm. It takes 6 hits for the player to die, those 6 hits need 0,0024 seconds to be fired, that's below human reaction time. If you don't already perfectly know what you're doing, you're dead before you even notice that you're shot at.

Lazar is still a severe run ender for everyone that's not yet fully acquainted to the mechanics and even to those who are he still can be a thread if approached N/S instead of E/W or if he's triggered by one of the ghouls or hunters and starts to wander.

Don't get me wring, I farmed him quite a bit myself without issue but telling someones that's completely new "Go kill Lazar" is probably the most trolly and griefing advice possible, except "Don't ever use G to throw bolts" maybe ^^

You are confusing Lazar with Arman. Lazar, the boss in Forest has the AS Val (yeah I know in-game it's the ZZ Vel but coming from Stalker it's always the Val to me) which has 900 RPM and and doesn't get the same long-range bracket that the Mosin gets even with attachments.

Arman in the Makeshift camp has the Vintar with the 1200 RPM and the Sniper range bracket.

I'm also not entirely sure the RPM is even dependable. The Weapon.json uses a different "rate_of_fire" value and I'd need to test if it actually translates to the weapon descriptions. In addition to that the bullet travel time gives the player some buffer in long range engagements since the AI doesn't get hitscan shots with scopes.

Edit: After messing with the values the rate_of_fire stat does look to be coupled with the RPM although it's definitely not what I would consider below human reaction time. However, that's kinda subjective as that will vary from person to person.

I'd still say that as long as you are only taking Null to Glancing hits it's manageable.

[=M$= Oroberus]

Originally posted by Lack of Stuff:

Originally posted by =M$= Oroberus:

He still outranges early Assault Rifles and can be on par regarding range with the Nozin (dependant on which attachments he spawns with), while at the same time using ammo that ignores everything but C6 armor and spewing 1200rpm. It takes 6 hits for the player to die, those 6 hits need 0,0024 seconds to be fired, that's below human reaction time. If you don't already perfectly know what you're doing, you're dead before you even notice that you're shot at.

Lazar is still a severe run ender for everyone that's not yet fully acquainted to the mechanics and even to those who are he still can be a thread if approached N/S instead of E/W or if he's triggered by one of the ghouls or hunters and starts to wander.

Don't get me wring, I farmed him quite a bit myself without issue but telling someones that's completely new "Go kill Lazar" is probably the most trolly and griefing advice possible, except "Don't ever use G to throw bolts" maybe ^^

You are confusing Lazar with Arman. Lazar, the boss in Forest has the AS Val (yeah I know in-game it's the ZZ Vel but coming from Stalker it's always the Val to me) which has 900 RPM and and doesn't get the same long-range bracket that the Mosin gets even with attachments.

Arman in the Makeshift camp has the Vintar with the 1200 RPM and the Sniper range bracket.

I'm also not entirely sure the RPM is even dependable. The Weapon.json uses a different "rate_of_fire" value and I'd need to test if it actually translates to the weapon descriptions. In addition to that the bullet travel time gives the player some buffer in long range engagements since the AI doesn't get hitscan shots with scopes.

Edit: After messing with the values the rate_of_fire stat does look to be coupled with the RPM although it's definitely not what I would consider below human reaction time. However, that's kinda subjective as that will vary from person to person.

I'd still say that as long as you are only taking Null to Glancing hits it's manageable.

I did mess uo the 900 vs 1200, that's correct but that doesn't really change much. The ZZ Vel can indeed spawn with a scope attachment, therefor causing him to notice or even kill you from off screen if he's N/S and not E/W.

Funnily enough, I just had a random run in with Arman yesterday, Arman has a longer time to kill on a player wearing C6 armor then Lazar has on a C5 Player and the glancing shot mechanic doesn't really work if done by NPCs as NPCs always count as zoomed in, therefor raising the distance at which an NPC will effectively put out damage and the non-glance-range of the ZZ Vel while sighted in is indeed a full screen width.

Sure, you can then just easily 'outdance' him with cover etc but (and this is something you COMPLETELY ignore all the time), we're not talking about a player with 20 or 30 hours and some extensive experience with the games combat and a MLG-game-sense, we were initially talking to/about someone that has JUST THEN started playing the game at all.

For you and me f.e. having a Blink pop up 2 foot in front of us also won't be an issue just as Lazar and Arman are not an issue but we're not talking about you or me ... but hey, keep telling newbies to go to places that will pretty much instantly kill them, people rage quitting is always better then people sticking to the game! :D <--- sarcasm btw, stop trolling new players

[Lack of Stuff]

Originally posted by =M$= Oroberus:

I did mess uo the 900 vs 1200, that's correct but that doesn't really change much. The ZZ Vel can indeed spawn with a scope attachment, therefor causing him to notice or even kill you from off screen if he's N/S and not E/W.

Funnily enough, I just had a random run in with Arman yesterday, Arman has a longer time to kill on a player wearing C6 armor then Lazar has on a C5 Player and the glancing shot mechanic doesn't really work if done by NPCs as NPCs always count as zoomed in, therefor raising the distance at which an NPC will effectively put out damage and the non-glance-range of the ZZ Vel while sighted in is indeed a full screen width.

Do you have verifiable source on these? I haven't really seen much evidence that NPCs always apply a range bonus from scopes or that they ignore the glancing hit system either. I'd definitely like to know though if the dev has chimed in about it. Even if the scope range bonus is always applied for NPCs it would still be lower than the scoped Mosin, which is how I usually do it. You want to be beyond the screen width with the PU.

Originally posted by =M$= Oroberus:

Sure, you can then just easily 'outdance' him with cover etc but (and this is something you COMPLETELY ignore all the time), we're not talking about a player with 20 or 30 hours and some extensive experience with the games combat and a MLG-game-sense, we were initially talking to/about someone that has JUST THEN started playing the game at all.

Which is why in my original post I said going after him was the ambitious choice and that it was more standard to skip him and just continue the Barman questline. That said it is doable, I was able to take out Lazar when I first started playing (1-3 hours) by "outdancing" him. Exploiting the larger horizontal fieldview isn't necessarily a veteran strategy, depends on the player.

Originally posted by =M$= Oroberus:

For you and me f.e. having a Blink pop up 2 foot in front of us also won't be an issue just as Lazar and Arman are not an issue but we're not talking about you or me ... but hey, keep telling newbies to go to places that will pretty much instantly kill them, people rage quitting is always better then people sticking to the game! :D <--- sarcasm btw, stop trolling new players

If you are just going to call me a troll because I don't fully share your opinion then I suppose there's really not much point in having a discussion. So i'll just agree to disagree and we can leave it at that I suppose.

[=M$= Oroberus]

Originally posted by Lack of Stuff:

Originally posted by =M$= Oroberus:

I did mess uo the 900 vs 1200, that's correct but that doesn't really change much. The ZZ Vel can indeed spawn with a scope attachment, therefor causing him to notice or even kill you from off screen if he's N/S and not E/W.

Funnily enough, I just had a random run in with Arman yesterday, Arman has a longer time to kill on a player wearing C6 armor then Lazar has on a C5 Player and the glancing shot mechanic doesn't really work if done by NPCs as NPCs always count as zoomed in, therefor raising the distance at which an NPC will effectively put out damage and the non-glance-range of the ZZ Vel while sighted in is indeed a full screen width.

Do you have verifiable source on these? I haven't really seen much evidence that NPCs always apply a range bonus from scopes or that they ignore the glancing hit system either. I'd definitely like to know though if the dev has chimed in about it. Even if the scope range bonus is always applied for NPCs it would still be lower than the scoped Mosin, which is how I usually do it. You want to be beyond the screen width with the PU.

Originally posted by =M$= Oroberus:

Sure, you can then just easily 'outdance' him with cover etc but (and this is something you COMPLETELY ignore all the time), we're not talking about a player with 20 or 30 hours and some extensive experience with the games combat and a MLG-game-sense, we were initially talking to/about someone that has JUST THEN started playing the game at all.

Which is why in my original post I said going after him was the ambitious choice and that it was more standard to skip him and just continue the Barman questline. That said it is doable, I was able to take out Lazar when I first started playing (1-3 hours) by "outdancing" him. Exploiting the larger horizontal fieldview isn't necessarily a veteran strategy, depends on the player.

Originally posted by =M$= Oroberus:

For you and me f.e. having a Blink pop up 2 foot in front of us also won't be an issue just as Lazar and Arman are not an issue but we're not talking about you or me ... but hey, keep telling newbies to go to places that will pretty much instantly kill them, people rage quitting is always better then people sticking to the game! :D <--- sarcasm btw, stop trolling new players

If you are just going to call me a troll because I don't fully share your opinion then I suppose there's really not much point in having a discussion. So i'll just agree to disagree and we can leave it at that I suppose.

There's no source except personal experience and I made this experience. Go grab a C4 or C5 and get on to the same screen as Lazar on max screen range, he WILL hit you for damage, not glancing anything and this only leaves 2 conclusions:
1. Range brackets do not exist for NPCs
2. NPCs actually use the sighted range brackets

1. Is false, otherwise NPCs would not try to close the distance if they got a shorter range weapon
2. Pretty much confirmed if you compare the ranges of NPCs firing with the same weapon/scope and sighted range if used by the player

The reason I'm calling you out as a troll is that you keep repeating how pretty much everything that makes him dangerous doesn'T even actually exist, therefor implying that complete noobies should go for him