Alpha 21 Navezgane Map and Balance

[ladyeternity]

So I decided to try out the Navezgane Map since I had read they changed some of it. Not gonna lie.....it's very challenging starting out.

I went in blind, ran over to my usual spot next to Trader Jen and she's gone :P Apparently she was moved into the burned biome. So I went ahead and headed to Diersville. Looted all the houses to try and find a pot&grill and some water/food. Once I had acquired some I headed out to find Jen. At the time I didn't know where she was and was basically looking in logical places. Figured TFP would have spaced they traders out. Anyway, few zombie dogs and wounds later I found her. At this point I pretty much decided that Joel is gonna have to be the way. So I went back to Diersville, grabbed what I could carry and headed to Joel to turn in my trader quest. Decided to build across the street from Joel.

30ish tree's later I am look at my starter base. Trader Joel's quests are all a 500+ away. Which totally sucks. But I console myself with the notion that if I just tough it out I'll get a Bike and then it will get more fun. So a runnin' I go lootin nests and killin anything that moves. After a few quests (which I was lucky and got water with as a reward) and a about another 30ish trees some rocks and clay and I have my horde base built. It's day 5 and I know I need that bike. Gonna have to do a loot run so I can get enough mag's to make bacon and eggs bc cooking meat on the grill is a horrible waste. So I pound out a few more quests and finally get the bike. I head over next to the snow and loot a few houses which finally net me the workbench and bacon and eggs, I also get my stone tools to tier 5 so yay :) Head back to the house and cook ALLLLLLLL the meat and eggs I have stored, take all my dukes ( I have 3 water left at this point and I am getting worried) and I buy 3 dew collector water filters, make them and stick them on my roof. Ug they are slow

It's now halfway through day 7 and I am taking a break posting this.

I've been critical about the trader rewards, water and the magazines. But maybe it's all balanced for Navezgane. Because I am actually having fun. It's hard and I am having to work to get anywhere. I just wanted to post about it because it really hadn't occurred to me until now that perhaps the game wasn't balanced around Random Gen. With Random Gen you can loot MANY more POI's run missions WAY faster bc the POI's aren't all spread out if you set up next to a trader, in a settlement.

I'm literally living in the sticks. Most POI's are 400-600 away from me.

Anyway, gonna go do the Bloodmoon. Cheers :)

[FT]

So far, both the RWG A21 games I've played had the first trader (sent from starter quest) in the middle of the woods with most missions 500-1000m away.
Both also ended up sending me to a trader near a town/city who was the same person though, so I could continue tier2 missions at a much better location...third trader was a different person though. This pattern has been repeated by the couple of Youtubers I watch as well for A21.

[thestile]

My random gen map, that I'm on currently, is way more convenient. I have so many quests within 300m of the trader, and that's for tiers 1-4. I've had multiple quests that are like 60-ish meters from the trader. Lol

With Navezgane, there's no getting lucky:)