what's the difference between a big and a small map?

[Mr Fantastic]

Besides the overal size.

Do we have to do less walking for missions and such in a small map?

[baddoggs]

You walk less on the small one...


Serioulsly, clearly there will be less of everything.
It should run better though.

[Crater Creator]

There's sort of a uniform density of roads, towns, wilderness, traders, etc. A small 4K map is basically like taking a chunk out of a big 8K map. For quests, the game selects a POI within a certain range of the trader giving it, so the travel time will be the same. The arrangement of biomes is standardized now, though. So if you hypothetically wanted to travel from the edge of the desert biome to the edge of the snowy biome, it would take longer on a big 8K map.

[CoinSpin]

Larger maps tend to have more of everything. Sometimes people forget that means more likelihood of more traders as well. So, if you like doing the trader quests and having lots more options for buy/sell transactions, larger maps have the potential to give you more of those...

I believe each trader's missions will fall within a nominal radius of the trader base, by the way. Higher tier missions tend to range out farther than the previous tier. So it often averages out that your "travel time" for missions can be roughly the same on big maps or small maps. That's what I've observed in my playthroughs, at least...

[Mr Fantastic]

Originally posted by CoinSpin:

Larger maps tend to have more of everything. Sometimes people forget that means more likelihood of more traders as well. So, if you like doing the trader quests and having lots more options for buy/sell transactions, larger maps have the potential to give you more of those...

I believe each trader's missions will fall within a nominal radius of the trader base, by the way. Higher tier missions tend to range out farther than the previous tier. So it often averages out that your "travel time" for missions can be roughly the same on big maps or small maps. That's what I've observed in my playthroughs, at least...

Would be cool if traders had more missions on offer with various distances, with rewards increasing with distance. As of now a mission 100m away and one 2km give more or less the same rewards when the one 2km away has way more dangers and is much more time consuming.

[CoinSpin]

Originally posted by Mr Fantastic:

Originally posted by CoinSpin:

Larger maps tend to have more of everything. Sometimes people forget that means more likelihood of more traders as well. So, if you like doing the trader quests and having lots more options for buy/sell transactions, larger maps have the potential to give you more of those...

I believe each trader's missions will fall within a nominal radius of the trader base, by the way. Higher tier missions tend to range out farther than the previous tier. So it often averages out that your "travel time" for missions can be roughly the same on big maps or small maps. That's what I've observed in my playthroughs, at least...

Would be cool if traders had more missions on offer with various distances, with rewards increasing with distance. As of now a mission 100m away and one 2km give more or less the same rewards when the one 2km away has way more dangers and is much more time consuming.

True, but the tradeoff is that the higher tier missions completely reset the larger POI buildings, providing a ton more resources to potentially scavenge as well. And those POIs are limited on each map. I think that's some of the "balance" consideration. They want to keep the Tier 1 missions closer, easier, lower potential rewards, and the Tier 5 to be the farther away intense versions that take some serious work to complete.

[Mr Fantastic]

Originally posted by CoinSpin:

Originally posted by Mr Fantastic:

Would be cool if traders had more missions on offer with various distances, with rewards increasing with distance. As of now a mission 100m away and one 2km give more or less the same rewards when the one 2km away has way more dangers and is much more time consuming.

True, but the tradeoff is that the higher tier missions completely reset the larger POI buildings, providing a ton more resources to potentially scavenge as well. And those POIs are limited on each map. I think that's some of the "balance" consideration. They want to keep the Tier 1 missions closer, easier, lower potential rewards, and the Tier 5 to be the farther away intense versions that take some serious work to complete.

How does one go about unlocking higher tier missions? Are these based on your characters level?

[CoinSpin]

Originally posted by Mr Fantastic:

Originally posted by CoinSpin:

True, but the tradeoff is that the higher tier missions completely reset the larger POI buildings, providing a ton more resources to potentially scavenge as well. And those POIs are limited on each map. I think that's some of the "balance" consideration. They want to keep the Tier 1 missions closer, easier, lower potential rewards, and the Tier 5 to be the farther away intense versions that take some serious work to complete.

How does one go about unlocking higher tier missions? Are these based on your characters level?

Keep doing Tier 1 missions, you will eventually "graduate" to Tier 2, and so on. I don't know the exact number, but after a certain number of successfully turned in missions at each Tier, it unlocks the next Tier.

[Crater Creator]

More specifically, you’ll have the offer of a “special job” to deliver a message to a different trader. Once that’s completed, all traders will start offering the next tier of quests... and only that tier from then on, in A19 anyway.

[Mr Fantastic]

Originally posted by Crater Creator:

More specifically, you’ll have the offer of a “special job” to deliver a message to a different trader. Once that’s completed, all traders will start offering the next tier of quests... and only that tier from then on, in A19 anyway.

So it's optional when to level up tier? What changes most dramatically with each tier iyo?

[Crater Creator]

Originally posted by Mr Fantastic:

Originally posted by Crater Creator:

More specifically, you’ll have the offer of a “special job” to deliver a message to a different trader. Once that’s completed, all traders will start offering the next tier of quests... and only that tier from then on, in A19 anyway.

So it's optional when to level up tier? What changes most dramatically with each tier iyo?

The next tier will have bigger buildings. There will be more zombies, and the quests will take longer. At the highest, Tier V, it'll be difficult to finish a building in one in-game day: nearly impossible for a new player I'd say. The fact that you can't leave the property or you'll fail the quest will become more significant. You'll want to plan ahead accordingly, perhaps taking more food, water, medicine, and ammo with you. You'll have to decide what to do when night falls, though in practice I just keep going. And you'll be dealing with more than a full backpack's worth of loot. Lastly, because Tier V's are so big, they only made a handful of them. So at end game, you'll be revisiting the same few buildings again and again.

That's Tier V, though. It'll step up gradually. I'd worry more about horde night for now.

[Mr Fantastic]

Originally posted by Crater Creator:

Originally posted by Mr Fantastic:

So it's optional when to level up tier? What changes most dramatically with each tier iyo?

The next tier will have bigger buildings. There will be more zombies, and the quests will take longer. At the highest, Tier V, it'll be difficult to finish a building in one in-game day: nearly impossible for a new player I'd say. The fact that you can't leave the property or you'll fail the quest will become more significant. You'll want to plan ahead accordingly, perhaps taking more food, water, medicine, and ammo with you. You'll have to decide what to do when night falls, though in practice I just keep going. And you'll be dealing with more than a full backpack's worth of loot. Lastly, because Tier V's are so big, they only made a handful of them. So at end game, you'll be revisiting the same few buildings again and again.

That's Tier V, though. It'll step up gradually. I'd worry more about horde night for now. :bummer:

How do you identify tier 4 and 5 buildings? Besides getting them in tier 4 and 5 missions? I'd like to visit those to get some goodies, since I can still barely craft anything. My current weapons are a wood mace 3 and a blunderbuss 3.

[seven]

Originally posted by Crater Creator:

... The fact that you can't leave the property or you'll fail the quest will become more significant. You'll want to plan ahead accordingly, perhaps taking more food, water, medicine, and ammo with you. ...

Also worth mentioning, you can't leave the game. If you exit, the quest resets and you have to start over, so make sure you have enough real life time to get through it. Or you could do like I did once when I started too late - paused the game and went to bed.

[CoinSpin]

Originally posted by Mr Fantastic:

Originally posted by Crater Creator:

The next tier will have bigger buildings. There will be more zombies, and the quests will take longer. At the highest, Tier V, it'll be difficult to finish a building in one in-game day: nearly impossible for a new player I'd say. The fact that you can't leave the property or you'll fail the quest will become more significant. You'll want to plan ahead accordingly, perhaps taking more food, water, medicine, and ammo with you. You'll have to decide what to do when night falls, though in practice I just keep going. And you'll be dealing with more than a full backpack's worth of loot. Lastly, because Tier V's are so big, they only made a handful of them. So at end game, you'll be revisiting the same few buildings again and again.

That's Tier V, though. It'll step up gradually. I'd worry more about horde night for now. :bummer:

How do you identify tier 4 and 5 buildings? Besides getting them in tier 4 and 5 missions? I'd like to visit those to get some goodies, since I can still barely craft anything. My current weapons are a wood mace 3 and a blunderbuss 3.

The goodies you find will be based mostly on your current gamestage (a formula based on game days played plus your level / XP). If you are at a low gamestage, you won't find a lot of great loot - there's a common complaint about people going into a Shotgun Messiah factory early, for example, and only finding wooden clubs and stone spears, no actual firearms.

That said, the higher tier buildings are usually pretty obvious. Giant factories (Shotgun Messiah, Shamway Foods, etc.), big hospitals, water treatment plants, skyscrapers, things of that nature.