Early game loot, new players at a big big disadvantage.

[Jab]

The loot tables feel unbalanced at the moment especially for new players to scum. There is a huge lack of low tier weapons available within a fair time frame.

Weapons such as the hunting rifles (Without a scope), the kruger, m9, 1911 pistols and the M1887 shotgun should all be very common, they should be the first and most used guns available all across the map, small towns, gas stations, hunting stands. They are really fun guns to use as it's rewarding to get a kill with them. This would give new players a fighting chance, it'd be a huge deal for them to be able to take out a fully geared player and snowball. We wouldn't even need armed NPC's if new players are able to get some sort of weapon to at least fight back with. - Since the 0.9 update, A majority of the players I've killed have been unarmed, they've had gear, backpacks, items they've collected, a few have had guns but no ammo, or a mag with no gun, but it's clear they've been traveling for a long time without being able to defend themselves at all. It's hard to even call these kills a fight and I feel like I'm just taking away from a players progress, it's not fun for me and it can't be fun for them either. If they had any weapon at all I'm sure they wouldn't feel as bad about it even if they didn't get to shoot back.

If low tier guns are more widely available it wouldn't feel so bad getting killed either, it might not be an AK but a hunting rifle with a few rounds just feels so much better than running around for an hour without any way to defend yourself.

While an experienced player is able to go to a bunker with only a few pink screwdrivers, work their way down to the armory and leave with either an mp5, AKs, or an as val fairly easily. If they have a few more screwdrivers they could leave with an AK15, AWP with scope, mags and ammo. They can do this within an hour of being on a server, if they die they can do it again fairly easily too. Sure a brand new player could do this as well, but thats not realistic, put yourself in the shoes of a new player to scum, no experience at all and the abandon bunkers seem like a place you go to once you've explored the map a little, visited a village etc, it doesn't seem natural that your first goal is to dive in the deep end. This isn't a case of saying "git gud", its a case of wanting new players to enjoy the game and stick at it.

I'd love to see some of the low tier weapons also show up with ammo in them or with them when you find them. Maybe a 3 second iron lock in police stations with a damaged low tier gun kit, a pistol with 1 mag and 5 bullets, or a hunting rifle with a mag and 3 bullets in a locked cabinet.

At the moment I feel you have an equal chance to find a a hunting rifle with a mag as you do an VHS with a mag. You can spend hours running around picking up a wide variety of guns without being able to load or shoot any of them. A lot of time spent getting no where and then you get shot buy a dude with an AK they just picked up from an abandoned bunker.

[Kicma™]

+1

[Rudee]

I totally agree +1

[LAMR1N]

+1 low tier weapons should be common.

[CrankyOldMan]

+1
I agree with your post for the most part especially....

At the moment I feel you have an equal chance to find a a hunting rifle with a mag as you do an VHS with a mag. You can spend hours running around picking up a wide variety of guns without being able to load or shoot any of them. A lot of time spent getting no where and then you get shot buy a dude with an AK they just picked up from an abandoned bunker.

We need to remember though that scum released the pvp part far before they implemented any survivor aspect to any deep degree.

It will be hard for those that are used to scum being a pvp game to see it shift to a survival game with a pvp element and not the reverse that it is atm.

I see a lot of players come into the game that try to brawl the puppets cause in other zombie games that works. In scum it does not work well due to the additional infection aspect implemented.

I also have seen quite a few new characters kill a fully kitted out player with what they just found from a few runs through a police station 22 Lugars do kill!

Again I agree low tier weapons should be common.

[marktkm]

Originally posted by CrankyOldMan:

We need to remember though that scum released the pvp part far before they implemented any survivor aspect to any deep degree.

It will be hard for those that are used to scum being a pvp game to see it shift to a survival game with a pvp element and not the reverse that it is atm.

This^^ I think the eventual goal is to slowly move from crafted (Bows first then the crafted .50 and shotgun) to the low tier 'retail' weapons, then on up.

[Jab]

Originally posted by CrankyOldMan:

+1
It will be hard for those that are used to scum being a pvp game to see it shift to a survival game with a pvp element and not the reverse that it is atm.

I never really understand what people mean when they say this, what is a 'survival game' to you? Pubg and Sons of the forest are both survival games, one is purely focused on PVP and the other is entirely PVE. Both good games that I enjoyed too.
If by survival do you mean bushcraft? More like living off the land and crafting weapons than finding them, as I don't really see that happening with the introduction of abandoned bunkers and even the traders takes away from that. Scum to me isn't a 'survive on basically nothing and avoid other players' it is a 'survive fights and dangerous situations, kill monsters and gain fame, the longer your alive the more famous you become within the TV show of the game'. Which is a mix of both PVP and PVE, with long term survival being a focus as you level up stats and gain fame, it's very important to avoid loosing fame so running and gunning isn't the ideal survival strategy, but planning a tactical kill to gain fame is.

If what your saying is that scum isn't pubg, sure, but scum also won't become sons of the forest either.

Anyway, my point is that new players are at a disadvantage with many wanting to avoid abandon bunkers till they learn more of the game, a few hunting rifles would go a long way. It's not like the devs are going to remove abandoned bunkers, or replace all the gun lockers with cans of food. Then if they make abandoned bunkers even harder then there's less chance for new players to make use of them and then more need for there to be other ways for them to have a weapon to defend themselves outside of abandoned bunkers. In short, there will always be PVP in this game and surely it's better for when a player does run into another that one of them isn't entirely unarmed.

Originally posted by marktkm:

This^^ I think the eventual goal is to slowly move from crafted (Bows first then the crafted .50 and shotgun) to the low tier 'retail' weapons, then on up.

I don't really agree, and this is the point of my post, sure a player can craft a bow, new and experienced players do. The difference is that the experienced players will take that bow and do an abandoned bunker and then move on up very quick to a high end gun. While the new players will have a bow, and then spend the next several hours looting with a low chance of finding a low tier gun. Sure you can find pistols and shotguns over time, but what I'm saying is that it's unbalanced compared to how quick experienced players can arm themselves. Low tier guns should be far more common, so that getting started isn't such a pain. There should be more mid tier guns in military POI's too, but the abandoned bunkers have really changed the balance and I don't see them being removed.

It's just a case of giving new players a chance of fighting back, not being unarmed or virtually unarmed with a bow, while fighting players who have good guns.

[CrankyOldMan]

Let me ask a few questions.
How many live farms plots you know the ones players can craft have you seen on an official server I have seen not one. Bases that were built to protect them are already raided and the plants dead.

How many generators have you heard running keeping refrigerators running and electric stoves going. I have heard very few.
I thank them cause sometimes I have found a base I missed that way.

These are in the game but not utilized very much from my experience on the official servers.

More stuff for bases is coming. AI bandits is coming. Missions are coming.

You cant bring all that into a game and not expect a certain amount of migration to pve.
I don't believe that it will work on officials pvevp that is. Too many want to only pvp or to raid atm

I believe that there will be a lot more pve servers in the future once there is pve content.

Trying to mix the pvp and the pve will be the hard part and I feel atm that's where their biggest failure is.

You simply cannot as a solo or as a small team have any kind of base for long on a official server.

From their WIKI

The newcomers have to secure the bare necessities first, which means that they have to search for food, water and clothes. However functional they may be, orange prison jumpsuits are easy to spot from a distance and one of the rules of survival is to blend with surroundings as much as possible. Nobody wants to be a target. There are plenty of things lying around the island, waiting to be found. Items can be obtained from puppets or from other players too, but usually they will be reluctant to give their possessions away. Every encounter can be potentially lethal and it is desirable to be very careful when other convicts or puppets are encountered. Other than that, the convicts can form clans, gather supplies together but it is always a good thing not to trust anybody because friends on the island are as frequent as tooth fairies. Once per day, the top five most popular convicts are projected by BCU implants to all prisoners on the island.

More prisoners usually create a base or a stronghold once they group up and decide that they will stay on the same place for a longer time. The group has to be strong enough to be able to defend their base against all attacks, and if they succeed in doing so, they may become an influential factor in the region. On several occasions during the show, the prisoners try to establish their communities and some of them even last for longer periods. Unfortunately, no group manages to survive for the duration of the whole season, mostly because of the conflicts among the existing factions.[4]

[marktkm]

Originally posted by Jab:

The difference is that the experienced players will take that bow and do an abandoned bunker and then move on up very quick to a high end gun. While the new players will have a bow, and then spend the next several hours looting with a low chance of finding a low tier gun.

No matter where you set the loot this will always be the case. There's no way to get around it. Just upping the guns available on landing, low tier or not, only pushes it toward a shooter, especially considering that with Scum's mechanics it's more a matter of who sees who first, not so much weapon level.

Full not-a-dev disclosure: I don't know exactly where on the scale between full on pubg pvp and the more pve side the devs are exactly aiming for, but the gun fighting, from what they've said repeatedly, isn't a primary focus. Their definition of survival seems to lean more toward not dying of dysentery or malnutrition, with a possibility (but not guarantee) of pvp. The focus on gun fights and pvp stems more from the player side. They've been nerfing military loot and adding mechanics that make the gun fighting harder to maintain since launch.

Just my opinion on it, but I'd rather they make the gun fighting even rarer/harder on vanilla, as right now things play like a slightly longer-form version of rust. Lower the spawn of higher end guns and ammo so players are less likely to spend their stock on just anyone they see. I'd like to see them try to bring back some of the people that have fled to PVE servers because, while they don't mind the risk and sometimes dying to other players, doing it on repeat keeps them from enjoying the other parts of the game.

[Jab]

Originally posted by marktkm:

Full not-a-dev disclosure: I don't know exactly where on the scale between full on pubg pvp and the more pve side the devs are exactly aiming for, but the gun fighting, from what they've said repeatedly, isn't a primary focus. Their definition of survival seems to lean more toward not dying of dysentery or malnutrition, with a possibility (but not guarantee) of pvp. The focus on gun fights and pvp stems more from the player side. They've been nerfing military loot and adding mechanics that make the gun fighting harder to maintain since launch.

I agree, gun fighting isn't the primary focus, I'm not saying im unhappy with how much pvp I get, I like that the game is slow paced and fights are rare, it's about how you handle the situation when you do run into another player when it happens. It's not a game where you should rush into a fight and not care if you die. That's all a great part of scum.
But I don't agree that scum's survival leans towards not dying of dysentery or malnutrition, thats the style of survival DayZ offers, but scum has mechs, razors, mr brenner. It also has rocket launchers, Dynamite and C4's. So scum has always been a step beyond just plain survival and the landscape is full of serious threats. Malnutrition is done well, but it's not something that will kill you often at all, it will have a negative impact on your character, there's not a shortage of food on the island though. Radiation, infections, the cold, sharks, wolves and bears are all part of it too.

Scum clearly isn't a plain straight up "shooter", its just not, I never said it was, but are you really saying that its better if unarmed bambi's get gunned down than them having a chance to fight back? Or are you saying that guns should just be extremely rare everwhere, if so then what would you find in the abandoned bunkers? Lets say the best weapon you can find in an abandoned bunker is a pistol, unarmed bamabi's are still getting shot.

For now abandoned bunkers have been added, and with them, a lot of guns, big guns. Players with 1000's of hours can get them, players with 100 hours are having a hard time. They have nerfed loot from military poi's but that doesn't stop the players with 1000's of hours getting weapons, it's stopped players with 100's of hours getting them. So whats the best way to balance this and create a more enjoyable game for everyone.

[CrankyOldMan]

For now abandoned bunkers have been added, and with them, a lot of guns, big guns. Players with 1000's of hours can get them, players with 100 hours are having a hard time. They have nerfed loot from military poi's but that doesn't stop the players with 1000's of hours getting weapons, it's stopped players with 100's of hours getting them. So whats the best way to balance this and create a more enjoyable game for everyone.

I do not think they want the game in that aspect to be balanced...

They want the new player to be at a disadvantage so that there is a challenge, look again at what they said in their wiki. Some of that though is not in yet like the top 5 being projected....

[Jab]

Originally posted by CrankyOldMan:

For now abandoned bunkers have been added, and with them, a lot of guns, big guns. Players with 1000's of hours can get them, players with 100 hours are having a hard time. They have nerfed loot from military poi's but that doesn't stop the players with 1000's of hours getting weapons, it's stopped players with 100's of hours getting them. So whats the best way to balance this and create a more enjoyable game for everyone.

I do not think they want the game in that aspect to be balanced...

They want the new player to be at a disadvantage so that there is a challenge, look again at what they said in their wiki.

A hunting rifle vs a guy with an ak is a challenge.

[CrankyOldMan]

And then there's the rage about how unfair it is that the danny get the machete

my response was and started with

+1
I agree with your post for the most part especially....

my ending was

Again I agree low tier weapons should be common.

[marktkm]

Originally posted by Jab:

But I don't agree that scum's survival leans towards not dying of dysentery or malnutrition, thats the style of survival DayZ offers, but scum has mechs, razors, mr brenner.

I was just reiterating what the devs have put forth when they respond to threads like these. Their intention/idea and what players do with the toys given to them are separate things. Basically, it's not about the pvp, that's included, but the focus is the survival, including against the things you mentioned. It's the whole reason for the detailed metabolism, the fishing, the hunting, the crafting, etc. Future balancing could change everything. And all of that separate from the pvp (specifically referring to player-shooting-at-player).

Originally posted by Jab:

Scum clearly isn't a plain straight up "shooter", its just not, I never said it was, but are you really saying that its better if unarmed bambi's get gunned down than them having a chance to fight back? Or are you saying that guns should just be extremely rare everwhere, if so then what would you find in the abandoned bunkers? Lets say the best weapon you can find in an abandoned bunker is a pistol, unarmed bamabi's are still getting shot.

I think it's better if unarmed bambi's learn to stay hidden and avoid interaction until they're more ready. It's not a straight up shooter, no, but just throwing weapons out to 'even things up' will push it in that direction. I'd like to see guns and ammo, as well as cleaning kits etc. rare enough that 'everyone' avoids just KOS'ing anyone they find. Residential weapons in residential areas, higher grade in the appropriately harder to get to areas, and the real high-end stuff in places like the bunkers. And rare enough that the first thought on finding one isn't, "Now I can shoot people", but "Now I can defend myself if I have to."

And again, I'm just talking in regards to vanilla. I've got no issue with people who want to play it like a shooter or straight PVE. I'd just rather see more people on the standard version.

Originally posted by Jab:

For now abandoned bunkers have been added, and with them, a lot of guns, big guns.

The amount of loot in the abandoned bunkers is crazy at the moment, but it can be downgraded later. I'm hoping they will. They usually add new things on steroids to attract people to them and get them tested. With the amount in them now and how easily people are walking through them it's pushing the raiding meta. I might be wrong and they won't change it, and that's up to them, but in the past when raiding gets to be too much of the focus it created a lot of friction and pushed people who don't want to focus on that away, either all together or off to private servers.

Originally posted by Jab:

Players with 1000's of hours can get them, players with 100 hours are having a hard time. They have nerfed loot from military poi's but that doesn't stop the players with 1000's of hours getting weapons, it's stopped players with 100's of hours getting them. So whats the best way to balance this and create a more enjoyable game for everyone.

I don't entirely agree here. I could see your point if the bunkers were the only place to get weapons. There are still older bunkers however, or if that's too much for the new players a few trips to police stations will net them some decent weapons- pistols, shotguns and the occasional MP5. The hunting camps are all but free and open. So the low tier stuff is already out there and available without huge risk. Keep in mind we're talking new player versus experienced player, but the same dynamic will apply with new-to-a-server players and established players, regardless of hours.

If we want it "balanced" the only way to really do that is to give everyone the same kit, so what we're really talking about is how much of an imbalance there's going to be between a new player and an established one. I think having a decent gap is a good thing. It makes players think about how to survive, not just how to get on par with the heavy hitters. And once the game is more polished there will be more ways for new players to learn the ropes before even hitting a server.

In the end it's not just about the gun fight. At least I hope not. That already exists. It's about your choices and whether or not you even do.

Originally posted by Jab:

A hunting rifle vs a guy with an ak is a challenge.

If you treat it like a shooter or just wander along until you bump into someone, absolutely. If you consider how kitted you are and what type of player you might run into and choose to stay sneaky, maybe even disengage when you spot them, not so much. I'd bet the hunting rifle is a bit deadlier than the crossbow, and it works rather well. From another thread:

https://steamcommunity.com/app/513710/discussions/0/3826425639853326534/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTjtDCAoDEo

[insettoinfetto]

I'm with marktkm gun fights are not main part of the game and now you don't need a gun for puppets and animals.

The main aspect here is not the loot, they just miss the experience.
New players just don't know where to look to find a weapon.
That's it.

If you place a weapon spawn point in every X buildings or in each town/village you'll boost experienced players that will collect and sell, faster than a newbie is able to loot them.
Maybe some will find one, but as usual they will miss magazine, ammo, sight, etc.

So the missing part here is the tutorials, introductory missions, etc. that will lead players to the right locations.
I'm quite sure that when there will be a introductory part, newbie will learn faster than us.

[Cezar]

There are a lot of weapons in the game. And I can find it very quickly without even going into the bunker. There should be less of it, almost everyone walks around with at least some kind of weapon.
I've never made crafted weapons because it's always easier to find. This means that some parts of the game just pass by. And this is not correct.
There should not be any freely accessible weapons in bunkers. Previously, at least you would have needed a card.