A21 - My thoughts on the Crafting and Looting System

[Vi-El]

After having played the game in the new unstable I have had time to place my thoughts on the crafting and looting system more properly. While the system as it functions now is a huge leap in the right direction, it still feels very grindy.

Before the grind was a level grind for the right perks. Now its a lootgrind but only with a given chance to find something you need over what you dont. This in turn can make the game feel more interesting but also a lil cheap. It effectivly is bloat that does nothing but push up playtime which if the game is fun is not bad at all.

But as it goes with how specialization goes, it is hard to come by exactly what you need even if you do hard quest grinding early game.

I have skilled into Agility for Bow and Arrow Damage, later into the workbench related skills and so on. I can now make a Tier 3 Pistol and Bow type weapon. I am talking Tier as in the next weapon, not color. But I have yet to get even enough books to make a workbench and I am roughly 9-10 hours in at this point. While I enjoy my dinky pistol, I feel there could be a far better approach to this. So let me lay it out for you.

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As we know, the learn by looting system is derived from the learn by doing system. My Idea sorrounds a combination of the two. In which we have general crafting related perks which can only be upped by... well... crafting items. Same as with other active tasks, like cooking, repairing and so on. These could now become our active skills.

In turn we have the Perk System which we use Perkpoints on. Some of them would be stripped in favor of some of the active skills we can now develope over time. However neither perks nor active skills would unlock new recipes just like it does now without the change.

So in turn, we would have far less book skills to be leveled but considering what is important, such as gun crafting and the like, still enough to make a difference. One does not simply know how to craft a gun. Therefor finding books aka knowledge of how to make one, makes sense. But in this case, Id love to also see it tied to specific locations, rather than just a Crack-a-Book or random bookshelf to suddenly contain knowledge about handgun crafting. Plus and I know this is highly controversial: Id love to lock pipeguns behind at least 5 points of gun books of their own respective category. Cause no way a rando like us knows how to craft a functioning pipe gun from the start.

[AKWildRide/ROG ALLY X]

or you could turn up the XP and loot to lvl up a little faster and get better loot draws id probly set xp to 150% and loot at 150% as well and yeah the workbench just sucked trying to get but i never put a point into advanced eng so thats my fault you need to make sure you put points into what ever book your looking for or else your stuck waiting to get a quest that resets your areas your need to loot for it. up to you im having a blast and feel no reason to revert back to any other system people just need to learn to adapt

[Vi-El]

Originally posted by AKWildRide:

or you could turn up the XP and loot to lvl up a little faster and get better loot draws id probly set xp to 150% and loot at 150% as well and yeah the workbench just sucked trying to get but i never put a point into advanced eng so thats my fault you need to make sure you put points into what ever book your looking for or else your stuck waiting to get a quest that resets your areas your need to loot for it. up to you im having a blast and feel no reason to revert back to any other system people just need to learn to adapt

"people just need to learn to adapt"
While you rattle on with how you would tune up settings to make things easier. Thats not how you adapt, thats how you cheat. I am not saying that players or even you cant tune up settings if you wish to do so, I know I have played with the settings a lot in the past myself to make things harder but that isnt exactly what this post is about.

This isnt about wanting a hardcore or non hardcore experience. This is about what works and what doesnt. And right now the lootgrind feels like a genuine grind. Its irrelevant what I can do with the settings if by default players have to play with default settings. This is the second time I have to have such a conversation on these forums and if you intend to continue it, I will not entertain you with a response.

[AKWildRide/ROG ALLY X]

Originally posted by Black Puppet:

Originally posted by AKWildRide:

or you could turn up the XP and loot to lvl up a little faster and get better loot draws id probly set xp to 150% and loot at 150% as well and yeah the workbench just sucked trying to get but i never put a point into advanced eng so thats my fault you need to make sure you put points into what ever book your looking for or else your stuck waiting to get a quest that resets your areas your need to loot for it. up to you im having a blast and feel no reason to revert back to any other system people just need to learn to adapt

"people just need to learn to adapt"
While you rattle on with how you would tune up settings to make things easier. Thats not how you adapt, thats how you cheat. I am not saying that players or even you cant tune up settings if you wish to do so, I know I have played with the settings a lot in the past myself to make things harder but that isnt exactly what this post is about.

This isnt about wanting a hardcore or non hardcore experience. This is about what works and what doesnt. And right now the lootgrind feels like a genuine grind. Its irrelevant what I can do with the settings if by default players have to play with default settings. This is the second time I have to have such a conversation on these forums and if you intend to continue it, I will not entertain you with a response.

omg your one of those ok bud lol they give you that choice its up to you your complaning about loot spawns and it being to grindy is your problem not the devs they gave us the tools to increase the spawns or decrease it idk why your complaining about this to them its not worth there time and you know this but choose to be a child.
just like half of the people that own this game or dont they just come on here and complain about the thing they just got done changing. like bro you need to change how you play or use the tools they provided you

[Vi-El]

Originally posted by AKWildRide:

Originally posted by Black Puppet:

"people just need to learn to adapt"
While you rattle on with how you would tune up settings to make things easier. Thats not how you adapt, thats how you cheat. I am not saying that players or even you cant tune up settings if you wish to do so, I know I have played with the settings a lot in the past myself to make things harder but that isnt exactly what this post is about.

This isnt about wanting a hardcore or non hardcore experience. This is about what works and what doesnt. And right now the lootgrind feels like a genuine grind. Its irrelevant what I can do with the settings if by default players have to play with default settings. This is the second time I have to have such a conversation on these forums and if you intend to continue it, I will not entertain you with a response.

omg your one of those ok bud lol they give you that choice its up to you your complaning about loot spawns and it being to grindy is your problem not the devs they gave us the tools to increase the spawns or decrease it idk why your complaining about this to them its not worth there time and you know this but choose to be a child.

omg your one of those, ok bud lol. There, two can play that game.

I am critiquing the system, I am not complaining. And yep once more I know exactly who I am talking to. No need to even further delve into it with a fanatic who cant possibly see anything that this game could be critiqued with when it comes to default gameplay.

Cant possibly be the case that new players will try the default experience first or purists who dont wanna change the settings ever play the game too.

I can tell you what my problem is: My problem is that I feel the feature can be improved upon but I forgot that with you fanatics thats a crime to gods gift on earth isnt it?

[Tahnval]

I think a hybrid learning system is a good idea. Learning can come from both text/pictures/video and from practice. Generally, some external source of knowledge is needed to learn something completely new and practice is needed to become more skilled at it.

I suggest that learning could be implemented ingame by a book/magazine/schematic being required to learn how to make a type of thing (e.g. an axe) and that would give you a low level of skill in making it. So you'd be able to make a L1 stone axe. Being able to make better axes would require gaining more skill specifically in making axes, which could be gained either from practice or by further books/magazines/schematics. You'd have an axe-making skill, which would start at 0 (can't make an axe, no idea how), be increased to 1 (can make a crude and badly made axe) after reading the relevant book/magazine/schematic and which can be increased by making axes or by reading further books/magazines on axe-making. When it reaches 10 (or whatever), you can make a L2 stone axe. Get it high enough and you can make a L1 iron axe. Etc. I think that would make for a good balance between realism and simplification for gameplay.

It would also give the game more flexibility to allow for other options for learning, which would could add content and/or make balance changes easier and more seamless. For example, it could be set up so that multiple skills were required, e.g. crafting an iron axe requires a certain level of skill in axe making and a certain level of skill in metal-working. It could be set up so that a specific book/magazine/schematic was required to learn crafting an item in a different material, on the basis that even being really skilled at making stone axes doesn't necessarily mean you can make an iron axe. There's a lot that would carry over, but not everything. It could be set up to make learning from books/magazines less effective at higher skill levels, on the basis that serious mastery really does require practice and/or on the basis that the more you already know about something the more likely it is that a book or magazine won't contain any knowledge you don't already have. It could be set up to allow for additional financial costs and/or to encourage exploration, by having NPCs who can teach you some amount of skill in some things, if you find them and if you can pay their fees. It could be set up to add some variety in quests, e.g. an NPC could teach you some amount of skill in something but you have to do something for them first. Clear a POI. Kill a boss mob. Fix their generator. Bring them 10 portions of bacon and eggs. Or a gallon of beer. Or upgrade their fence. Or craft 10 farm plots for them. Loads of options there.

[AKWildRide/ROG ALLY X]

Originally posted by Black Puppet:

Originally posted by AKWildRide:

omg your one of those ok bud lol they give you that choice its up to you your complaning about loot spawns and it being to grindy is your problem not the devs they gave us the tools to increase the spawns or decrease it idk why your complaining about this to them its not worth there time and you know this but choose to be a child.

omg your one of those, ok bud lol. There, two can play that game.

I am critiquing the system, I am not complaining. And yep once more I know exactly who I am talking to. No need to even further delve into it with a fanatic who cant possibly see anything that this game could be critiqued with when it comes to default gameplay.

Cant possibly be the case that new players will try the default experience first or purists who dont wanna change the settings ever play the game too.

I can tell you what my problem is: My problem is that I feel the feature can be improved upon but I forgot that with you fanatics thats a crime to gods gift on earth isnt it?

games to grindy increase lootspawns lvling is to hard increase XP gains its that simple you choosing to be like this is the reason this game cant make it out of Alpha we so called Fanatics are sick of you guys crying all the time about every little change they make not enough guns theres not enough ammo types this isnt a realistic survival game faceplam like they never promised most of the things you guys ask for but they cave in and put more guns more ammo make it more realistic im not coming from a place of of worship TFP im like this game and glad its changing its just when you guys complain about things that are in the game but wont use it lmao faceplam god play another game

[Vi-El]

Originally posted by Tahnval:

I think a hybrid learning system is a good idea. Learning can come from both text/pictures/video and from practice. Generally, some external source of knowledge is needed to learn something completely new and practice is needed to become more skilled at it.

I suggest that learning could be implemented ingame by a book/magazine/schematic being required to learn how to make a type of thing (e.g. an axe) and that would give you a low level of skill in making it. So you'd be able to make a L1 stone axe. Being able to make better axes would require gaining more skill specifically in making axes, which could be gained either from practice or by further books/magazines/schematics. You'd have an axe-making skill, which would start at 0 (can't make an axe, no idea how), be increased to 1 (can make a crude and badly made axe) after reading the relevant book/magazine/schematic and which can be increased by making axes or by reading further books/magazines on axe-making. When it reaches 10 (or whatever), you can make a L2 stone axe. Get it high enough and you can make a L1 iron axe. Etc. I think that would make for a good balance between realism and simplification for gameplay.

It would also give the game more flexibility to allow for other options for learning, which would could add content and/or make balance changes easier and more seamless. For example, it could be set up so that multiple skills were required, e.g. crafting an iron axe requires a certain level of skill in axe making and a certain level of skill in metal-working. It could be set up so that a specific book/magazine/schematic was required to learn crafting an item in a different material, on the basis that even being really skilled at making stone axes doesn't necessarily mean you can make an iron axe. There's a lot that would carry over, but not everything. It could be set up to make learning from books/magazines less effective at higher skill levels, on the basis that serious mastery really does require practice and/or on the basis that the more you already know about something the more likely it is that a book or magazine won't contain any knowledge you don't already have. It could be set up to allow for additional financial costs and/or to encourage exploration, by having NPCs who can teach you some amount of skill in some things, if you find them and if you can pay their fees. It could be set up to add some variety in quests, e.g. an NPC could teach you some amount of skill in something but you have to do something for them first. Clear a POI. Kill a boss mob. Fix their generator. Bring them 10 portions of bacon and eggs. Or a gallon of beer. Or upgrade their fence. Or craft 10 farm plots for them. Loads of options there.

Ah dangit, you touch on the multiple skills thing. I completely forgot to write about that, but yes absolutely!

Needing to be at crafting 20 but also having read x amount of books to be able to craft lets say... Idk... A shotgun of Tier 2. There is a lot of depth the system can gain from a combo of the two systems, thank you for touching on that part specifically as my dumbass plainly forgot.

[AKWildRide/ROG ALLY X]

alot of what your two are suggesting has already been in the game. IE crafting pickaxes to lvl 500 by crafting them endlessly. they took this out for a good reason.
also same goes with the other items like books this could be explotted another reason they wont put it in and lastly why do you wanna turn this into a mobo specialized trainers what dude have ether of you forgotten what this game is its not a MMORPG its a Survival horror zombie sandbox game. when the game comes out its up 2 you to make what ever game modes you want sorta like GarrysMod. its sad that we have people that just wanna turn games into mobos now. you cant even try and enjoy there hard work nope just complain about how it could be better like a mobo faceplam these kids i swear

[Tahnval]

Originally posted by AKWildRide:

alot of what your two are suggesting has already been in the game. IE crafting pickaxes to lvl 500 by crafting them endlessly. they took this out for a good reason.
also same goes with the other items like books this could be explotted another reason they wont put it in and lastly why do you wanna turn this into a mobo specialized trainers what dude have ether of you forgotten what this game is its not a MMORPG its a Survival horror zombie sandbox game. when the game comes out its up 2 you to make what ever game modes you want sorta like GarrysMod. its sad that we have people that just wanna turn games into mobos now. you cant even try and enjoy there hard work nope just complain about how it could be better like a mobo faceplam these kids i swear

You did a great job of killing your strawman! Congratulations!

[AKWildRide/ROG ALLY X]

Originally posted by Tahnval:

Originally posted by AKWildRide:

alot of what your two are suggesting has already been in the game. IE crafting pickaxes to lvl 500 by crafting them endlessly. they took this out for a good reason.
also same goes with the other items like books this could be explotted another reason they wont put it in and lastly why do you wanna turn this into a mobo specialized trainers what dude have ether of you forgotten what this game is its not a MMORPG its a Survival horror zombie sandbox game. when the game comes out its up 2 you to make what ever game modes you want sorta like GarrysMod. its sad that we have people that just wanna turn games into mobos now. you cant even try and enjoy there hard work nope just complain about how it could be better like a mobo faceplam these kids i swear

You did a great job of killing your strawman! Congratulations!

pulls up my pants tucks in my shirt. all in a good days work!! lets out air slowly