Finite Resource Issue

[saaf]

While there seem to be some mechanics to avoid soft-locking due to lack of resources (Portal worlds respawning, trading with blacksmith, etc), this doesn't seem to prevent players from having a Very Bad Time.

I'm playing with 3-4 friends on a co-op server, and we've been having an excellent time, but there are a few resources that have been frustratingly difficult to have enough of, and it's spiraling into even more issues in the future.

First we ran out of glass shards because we were making healing syringes - we broke every window in the facility, opened every box, destroyed every computer monitor, until finally the only way we could get glass was that one military guy who runs around (only drops ~2 per kill), killing the security robots (only drops 1 per kill), or waiting a long time to get a couple from Flathill. None of those are fun, and they don't drop very much.

In the process of getting more glass to progress, we had to repair our armor and weapons many times - which meant we started to run out of metal scrap. Metal is a lot easier to get, luckily. But at some point one of us had the idea to scrap all of the staplers we had, which had been useless for many hours. It gave us the metal we needed.

Now our progress is blocked because we need staplers, and those are even rarer than glass or metal scrap. We need many of them, and most of the map is completely devoid of them. We need them to progress the story, and we need quite a few of them.

While I get that resource scarcity is part of the game, it's not terribly satisfying to spend a ton of time waiting for Flathill to respawn so we can get a couple staplers, and then waiting again to get a couple more.

[Monokuma]

I mean, to be fair with the staplers, this is a problem that your group created for itself. There's enough staplers in the game world where you shouldn't run out without without going out of your way to use a bunch. There's usually at least 5 staplers in each flathill reset, which... what are you making that you're going through so many staplers? Only one person needs the keypad hacker, and you only need one x-ray tower, so your progress shouldn't be stopping unless you're using them all on other projects.

Ultimately this is more of a case of compounding poor resource management. You don't need to use healing syringes for every wound, there's slow passive healing. And there's the healing upgrade for the crafting bench, too.

[CombatWombat]

It's unfortunate that you destroyed all your staplers as it seems it is one of the more scarce resource in coop. As solo player I swim in basically every resource since they don't scale with player count.

I expect with more sections we will get more portal worlds which will make getting resources easier.

If you want to exploit your staplers back, there is currently a bug with full containers where you can multiply items if you like.

I think especially glass could use a resource path like the CPU->anvil-> scrap path.

[MechWarden]

This thread seems to highlight some pretty bad newbie traps.

One of them is the healing syringe. Healing items is a common mechanic and trope in games, and so most gamers will understandably lean a lot on it, thinking it will help.

I rarely used Healing Syringes, because they often felt weak and a waste of time more often than not. I did use them when I got too cocky in battle, and needed to heal faster, but ultimately if you are patient, well fed, and careful, you should never need them.

Holding onto scrap metal can get rough early on, but after awhile it shouldn't be an issue. Farming the security bot and selling the CPUs for anvils at the Black Smith, and scrapping the anvils for scrap metal should net you a lot of scrap metal.

Also, I'm wondering what kind of play style your co-op group is doing to use so much scrap metal. I'm not saying 'you are playing the game wrong', more wondering if the game or any assumed expectations are causing issues. While the devs can't account for all player actions, they can build a game to help steer players into the right direction (which doesn't seem to be happening here).

Lastly, just that's painful; scraping staplers for some much needed scrap metal only to realize later it is one of the most important resources. The best thing you can do now is look for more as you explore and just keep farming Flathill for it. At least after completing Flathill (assuming you opened up the shortcut paths) it is easy to get to places with staplers without having to run or sneak by the giants again.

As for progress, I'm not sure what is holding you back. I'm assuming you are in the Lab Sector? There are things there that can use a lot of staplers.

[AusFox]

You can feed the co-worker and he'll drop staplers or pens after like the 3rd item; but yeah, making more random office supplies etc respawn in vanilla, or giving us some kind of vending machine somewhere for odds and ends would be cool too. Maybe if we could rescue some NPC's and have them scavenge for random objects or specific things in exchange for keeping them safe and fed could be a neat alternative too...

[Unwieldy Bob]

Drinking soft drinks gives you one scrap metal each. If you kill the security bots you get a ton of drinks for free.

[Nelfie]

I don't think me and my friend crafted a single healing syringe at all. Why are you overusing those? xD

[skibea]

You should keep exploring and not wait around, portals reset twice a week with notifications. Press T to bring up your watch, its once on monday, and 2nd time in the middle of the week. Flathill is THE place to farm staplers, i run through quick and get 8-10 each run. so that's 16-20 in a game week. Once you open other portals, you'll need to do other portal runs for other resources, and by the time you're done Flathill will probably be ready again.

Glass I would agree with you and is unfortunately somewhat constrained until you unlock the last portal, then it rains glass. Meanwhile you can disassemble construction lights, sneak kill some lab rats, bots will give you some pieces of glass here and there. However I've mostly just carried a charger and a healing briefcase; syringes were just not practical with the current design and its weird such an early item is so prohibitively expensive to make. Briefcases are also AOE heal though so that helps in coop. When you unlock your last portal, it RAINS glass. After painstakingly farming 1-2 stack of glass, I realized the last portal you can easily get 80 glass per run.

I think buckets are a finite resources I want in portals though, i want to make toilets in my many bases.

[Monokuma]

Actually on the note of glass, I wouldn't mind healing/acid syringes giving back a used syringe with the sole purpose of being recycled into glass.

[MechWarden]

Originally posted by Monokuma:

Actually on the note of glass, I wouldn't mind healing/acid syringes giving back a used syringe with the sole purpose of being recycled into glass.

As a player, I really like that idea. It makes sense and it helps kill the trope of 'eating the entire health potion, bottle and all'. I'd easily take the inventory cost of storing spent syringes if it helped reduce the glass cost.

With game balance in mind, that drastically cheapens the cost of healing syringes to just two easy to get materials (3 if you count needing to remake the test tube), and might make it too cheap of an item.

That said, the Healing Syringe itself isn't a great item, at least not great when compared to instant heal items players are accustomed to in other games. If you maintain your stats well, you do get a workable natural regen.
...
(looks up something)
Also, the Pentetic Acid Syringe doesn't use any glass for crafting?!
(unless the salt shaker counts).

[Monokuma]

Originally posted by MechWarden:

With game balance in mind, that drastically cheapens the cost of healing syringes to just two easy to get materials (3 if you count needing to remake the test tube), and might make it too cheap of an item.

I have no problems with the syringe getting a small nerf to accommodate getting the glass back, honestly. Plus the empty syringes would take up an extra inventory slot unless you ditched them, so there's that too.

Originally posted by MechWarden:

...
(looks up something)
Also, the Pentetic Acid Syringe doesn't use any glass for crafting?!
(unless the salt shaker counts).

...Huh. I mean, I guess it's the salt shaker being made of glass in that situation.

[MechWarden]

I'd hate to see the Healing Syringe be nerfed even more, given how poor (to me) it feels right now. I'm a little torn on letting it be that cheap. It would give players a (comfort?) healing option that doesn't eat too hard into resources, but it would mean players would use it more as a crutch, and that feels like a newbie trap; encouraging them run headlong into battle like a typical FPS and use more resources for repairing gear.

I don't see the extra slot to hold empties as being bad, especially if it means holding on to recovered resources. Heck, maybe it could stack higher after use, since Healing Syringes only stack to an abysmal 3 (test tubes stack to 64).

Now that I think about it, given how hard it is to train First Aid, that might not be a bad idea if Healing Syringes were cheaper (if you recycled your glass).

[Iraneth The Goat]

Can you get glass from the train by breaking windows or no?

[Yaridovich]

Originally posted by Goat:

Can you get glass from the train by breaking windows or no?

No, but you can do it in Rise, there is a lot of glass panels there to break.

[Black Dynamite]

I'm fine with something like staplers needing many runs through portal worlds to replenish, because at least they are always there and I can know what to expect. What I'm not fine with is stuff like gaseous nests being practically nonexistent even with resets. I thought they'd be in Mycofields, since I found one there, but many many reruns later I've only found one other. And that place is not a quick check if it can possibly spawn anywhere.

I get that they might not want us bouncing all over the map, but there are plenty of places I'd like to use them to make travel a little more convenient. Honestly there are only so many teleporters and crafting benches that I want to make. I'd much prefer just having one teleport to an area and then maybe a jump pad or two nearby that bypasses some needless running. Instead, I have like 20 teleporters. That seems a little backwards to me.

It seems to me that pretty much everything else in the game is reliably farmable (even if slowly and low quantities) except for gaseous nests. And I guess guns and ammo, but that's a different discussion. Why are nests so rare? With how "easy" things like teleporters are, it doesn't make any sense to me.