loot abundance is a broken setting

[Redarmy]

Had my loot on 25 % and was finding NOTHING in most places,cleared a shotgun messiah and got barely any ammo,no guns, and just a simple pocket mod.
Decided to change loot to 33% .....
Air drop lands a few days later,NOTHING WAS IN IT.....WTF??

The devs are ripping out and changing mechanics and yet not fixing existing ones. god awful

[RasaNova]

As far as I know, that's how it's supposed to work, nothing is broken. That 25% is applied to everything, rounded down, so if there would be 1 of something you now get zero of it instead. Or something like that, somebody could probably explain it better.

Never sounded fun to me, I love looting, and the thrill of wondering if that shotgun messiah will have a Q6 M60 or a couple stone arrows. (Spoiler alert: it's stone arrows.)

[Zordiark Darkeater]

-Sets loot from 100% to 25%
-Finds nothing
-Surprised Pikachu face

[DthBlayde]

Nah you've got the right of it Rasa. It's not "You only get 25% of the loot" but 25% of each individual potential item. So if a chest had four single stack items, It doesn't leave just 1. There's nothing because 25% of 1, rounded down is zero. If a bird nest normally had 4 feathers, 1 stick and 1 egg, we get 2 feathers. Thats it.

On the flipside, setting loot abundance to 200% would double everything, including single stack items. Instead of 1 book, gun or car engine, it'd be 2.

[FT]

Does setting loot% below 50% mean you'll never find non-stacking items in loot?
AKA, you'll never loot weapons nor tools nor armor, and you'll be forced to craft or depend upon the trader for those things?

If true, does the 75% round up or down for singular items (to 1 or 0)?

[Redarmy]

Originally posted by FT:

Does setting loot% below 50% mean you'll never find non-stacking items in loot?
AKA, you'll never loot weapons nor tools nor armor, and you'll be forced to craft or depend upon the trader for those things?

If true, does the 75% round up or down for singular items (to 1 or 0)?

ye this is my concern too. does it mean finding single items will be much much harder? becuase im 15 hours in,havent died yet and have not found a single melee or raged weapon,not one..and iv been to at least 4 mid tier / high tier POIs. I assumed low loot abundance just makes it slightly rarer to find stuff. The current system is not good,what are they thinking?

[DthBlayde]

Haven't tested it myself, but I would lean on the side of "No, it still rounds down." A reduction of even 75% is still a less than 1 sum, but if it rounded up then it would also have to also affect multi stack items, thus rendering it no different than 100%.

Might be possible with mods, but I think it'd be an entire overhaul of the loot table structure.

In the end though, it's still a reduction to the quantity of the loot, and not the chance of loot appearing. Hence "abundance". Volume and quantity. Great for a minimalist, hardcore survival or trader only run. Not so much for a nomad or stockpiling run.

[BGratz]

Yes its broken, here is my Bugreport
https://steamcommunity.com/app/251570/discussions/1/3387294407411187526/

[Shurenai]

Originally posted by FT:

Does setting loot% below 50% mean you'll never find non-stacking items in loot?
AKA, you'll never loot weapons nor tools nor armor, and you'll be forced to craft or depend upon the trader for those things?

If true, does the 75% round up or down for singular items (to 1 or 0)?

If it hasn't changed in any significant way, iirc Loot abundance affects two major values by design.
1: Chance for individual loot (chance for an item to spawn)
2: Stack Size*, resultant values always round down to the nearest whole number; Even 0.99 becomes 0.

*Nonstackable items, such as guns and weapon mods, are unaffected by the stack size adjustment. Similarly, items that drop as a stack of 1 by
default, like books, afaik are not affected by reduced loot abundance- They are still affected by increased abundance. This is easily provable, as even on 75% abundance if stack size of nonstackables and books were affected, you would literally never find any, ever- But that isn't the case.


Loot abundance being applied in two places makes for a very drastic reduction in what you find. And for some stackable items, like eggs in nests, can make them almost impossible to find since the values round down- You practically need to have eggs selected as a loot item for several of the slots in a single nest to get a single egg at 25% abundance.

===
To make an example, Take a hypothetical bird nest with 10 slots. To simplify math a bit, it has a 100% chance to spawn loot in each spot, a 100% drop chance for feathers, and when it drops feathers it always drops 10.

When you loot this nest, you will get 100 feathers.
Then you lower loot abundance to 25%.
This hypothetical bird nest now has a a 25% chance to drop feathers if it chooses that slot, and when it chooses a slot drops 2.5 feathers, rounded down to 2.
Since values are non-100 now, When you loot this nest n times you now get an average of 5~ feathers per nest in the long run- a 95% reduction from default.
==

Items with a small stack size are the most affected by this- Something that drops in stacks of 1-2 directly lose half their returns upon dropping below 100% abundance- 1-2 becomes 0.99-1.99, and rounds to 0-1.

This is why eggs seem to vanish entirely at reduced loot abundance- Not only do they drop in stacks of 1-2, but they also have only like a 30% chance of appearing in the first place, in an object with few chances for loot.

EG: IF you play on 75% loot abundance you'll rarely ever find eggs in bird nests; Because eggs spawn as 1-2 on 100% abundance; Multiplied by 0.75= 0.75 to 1.5 rounding to 0-1. So if a bird nest rolls 0.75 egg, you get no egg, and if it rolls 2 eggs you get 1 egg. Add in that you only have say, a 30% chance (then reduced by 25% to 22.5%) of getting eggs rolled as part of your loot and you get something like an 80-90% decrease in egg yield that is, technically, only a 25% decrease in loot abundance.


Overall, this is working as intended, iirc. Loot abundance is applied intentionally in two places. The issue is more one of expectations and choice of words- A player changing the loot abundance setting is expecting dropping from 100% to 75% to alter loot by 25%. The player is expecting this to only apply to one value, as it does in many other games- But the devs chose 'Loot Abundance' on purpose. Not 'Loot Chances', Not 'Loot Quantity'; But 'Loot Abundance'. As Dth puts it, Abundance is a combination of quantity and volume.


In short, If you want a 75% reduction in loot, picking a Loot Abundance of 66-75% is more likely to meet your goal.

[BGratz]

Btw as long as it is broken here a simple XML edit mod that does it the right way
https://steamcommunity.com/app/251570/discussions/5/3387294407411888543/

[meganoth]

Originally posted by Shurenai:

Originally posted by FT:

Does setting loot% below 50% mean you'll never find non-stacking items in loot?
AKA, you'll never loot weapons nor tools nor armor, and you'll be forced to craft or depend upon the trader for those things?

If true, does the 75% round up or down for singular items (to 1 or 0)?

If it hasn't changed in any significant way, iirc Loot abundance affects two major values by design.
1: Chance for individual loot (chance for an item to spawn)
2: Stack Size*, resultant values always round down to the nearest whole number; Even 0.99 becomes 0.

*Nonstackable items, such as guns and weapon mods, are unaffected by the stack size adjustment. Similarly, items that drop as a stack of 1 by
default, like books, afaik are not affected by reduced loot abundance- They are still affected by increased abundance. This is easily provable, as even on 75% abundance if stack size of nonstackables and books were affected, you would literally never find any, ever- But that isn't the case.


Loot abundance being applied in two places makes for a very drastic reduction in what you find. And for some stackable items, like eggs in nests, can make them almost impossible to find since the values round down- You need to have eggs selected as a loot item for several of the slots in a single nest to get a single egg at 25% abundance.

===
To make an example, Take a hypothetical bird nest with 10 slots. To simplify math a bit, it has a 100% chance to spawn loot in each spot, a 100% drop chance for feathers, and when it drops feathers it always drops 10.

When you loot this nest, you will get 100 feathers.
Then you lower loot abundance to 25%.
This hypothetical bird nest now has a a 25% chance to drop feathers if it chooses that slot, and when it chooses a slot drops 2.5 feathers, rounded down to 2.
Since values are non-100 now, When you loot this nest n times you now get an average of 5~ feathers per nest in the long run- a 95% reduction from default.
==

Items with a small stack size are the most affected by this- Something that drops in stacks of 1-2 directly lose half their returns upon dropping below 100% abundance- 1-2 becomes 0.99-1.99, and rounds to 0-1.

This is why eggs seem to vanish entirely at reduced loot abundance- Not only do they drop in stacks of 1-2, but they also have only like a 30% chance of appearing in the first place, in an object with few chances for loot.

EG: IF you play on 75% loot abundance you'll rarely ever find eggs in bird nests; Because eggs spawn as 1-2 on 100% abundance; Multiplied by 0.75= 0.75 to 1.5 rounding to 0-1. So if a bird nest rolls 0.75 egg, you get no egg, and if it rolls 2 eggs you get 1 egg. Add in that you only have say, a 30% chance (then reduced by 25% to 22.5%) of getting eggs rolled as part of your loot and you get something like an 80-90% decrease in egg yield that is, technically, only a 25% decrease in loot abundance.


Overall, this is working as intended, iirc. Loot abundance is applied intentionally in two places. The issue is more one of expectations and choice of words- A player changing the loot abundance setting is expecting dropping from 100% to 75% to alter loot by 25%. The player is expecting this to only apply to one value, as it does in many other games- But the devs chose 'Loot Abundance' on purpose. Not 'Loot Chances', Not 'Loot Quantity'; But 'Loot Abundance'. As Dth puts it, Abundance is a combination of quantity and volume.


In short, If you want a 75% reduction in loot, picking a Loot Abundance of 66-75% is more likely to meet your goal.

But the player expects to have options that tell him the changes in terms he understands. He doesn't read the XML and there is no Journal page that explains loot changes like you did here. How can he know those inside details?

A car manual does tell you which button to press to turn off the radio. It doesn't tell you to cut off the voltage to the gate of transistor T35 to turn off the radio. The latter would be printed in a service manual, not the end user manual.

[Shurenai]

Originally posted by meganoth:

Originally posted by Shurenai:

-snip for space-

But the player expects to have options that tell him the changes in terms he understands. He doesn't read the XML and there is no Journal page that explains loot changes like you did here. How can he know those inside details?

A car manual does tell you which button to press to turn off the radio. It doesn't tell you to cut off the voltage to the gate of transistor T35 to turn off the radio. The latter would be printed in a service manual, not the end user manual.

True; But that doesn't mean the setting is broken and/or that it isn't working as intended. It being explained in terms a user would generally understand is a QOL thing.


And it's a QOL thing that really doesn't need front-and-center attention either, since your choice is ultimately a matter of personal preference anyway.. To borrow your analogy, You don't need to know that cutting the voltage to the gate of transistor T35 will turn off the radio- You know pushing the button will do it.

In example, If you go to 25% loot abundance and that's way too harsh, you raise the loot abundance until you're satisfied with it. You don't need to know it's specific inner workings as I explained them to know you aren't happy with 25% but are with 50%.

[BGratz]

This comment is awaiting analysis by our automated content check system. It will be temporarily hidden until we verify that it does not contain harmful content (e.g. links to websites that attempt to steal information).

[Mardoin69]

It IS broken....sort of...imo. And, BGratz modlet aims to fix that so you get a more 'expected' loot result based on your setting. I'd recommend it for anyone wanting to turn down loot abundance quite a bit.

[mathaniel]

Well, don`t get me ta lyin lol.

[meganoth]

Originally posted by Shurenai:

Originally posted by meganoth:

But the player expects to have options that tell him the changes in terms he understands. He doesn't read the XML and there is no Journal page that explains loot changes like you did here. How can he know those inside details?

A car manual does tell you which button to press to turn off the radio. It doesn't tell you to cut off the voltage to the gate of transistor T35 to turn off the radio. The latter would be printed in a service manual, not the end user manual.

True; But that doesn't mean the setting is broken and/or that it isn't working as intended. It being explained in terms a user would generally understand is a QOL thing.


And it's a QOL thing that really doesn't need front-and-center attention either, since your choice is ultimately a matter of personal preference anyway.. To borrow your analogy, You don't need to know that cutting the voltage to the gate of transistor T35 will turn off the radio- You know pushing the button will do it.

In example, If you go to 25% loot abundance and that's way too harsh, you raise the loot abundance until you're satisfied with it. You don't need to know it's specific inner workings as I explained them to know you aren't happy with 25% but are with 50%.

I'm fully with you that the issue is not urgent and is to be expected in EA. But whether it is considered a bug depends on the significance you give to UI design.

For example a UI text that is not understandable by a normal person with average knowledge might not be considered a bug by some people, but a UI designer would call it a bug just like he would call a line that runs over some text a bug.

But there is more:
It could be called a QOL thing if the explanation just said "You find less" without any reference to a percentage and that would be a design decision to keep some things vague. But if the text tells you an exact percentage the **intention** is to give the player the full information about the change (or at least this is assumed by the reader). But then a mismatch where you need inside knowledge to really understand the number is just like a wrong number. And that means it is a bug.

You would consider it a bug if the text for perk level 5 of a gun would promise -50% damage, wouldn't you? What's the difference between a wrong value shown and a value that is wrong for everyone except a few experts who have some elusive inside knowledge of the loot system?