PC If TFP wanted natural progression might I suggest they bring back "spam crafting"

[warmer]

I do like the xp in a skill by doing, but the balance never seems to be right because it turns into farming to easily. However, I am a big fan of giving full xp for the 1st item crafted at that associated crafting level and 5% xp for everyone you have already crafted that level thereafter.

Example (excuse the obviously wrong xp values)

stone ax

Set triggers so;

(100%)100xp 1st time ever/a craft that results in a skill level up

Otherwise (5%)5xp every other time.

To me that is a good balance. Might need more fine tuning, but I believe it gives people the best of both worlds as far as role playing style. Personally I think I should level up my Archery at least 1 xp everytime I craft an arrow or hit something. Granted it might take 10k arrows at level 2 to rank up, but it feels good from a roleplay standpoint. It means the grind now has more purpose. In RPGs the only way to keep me interested is to make my time have purpose.  Then again you don't even need to stop fighting to craft arrows so what do I know.

 

[Raestloz]

unless you took your chances in the hub city, with its dogs and cops around every corner.

This. I like this. I want this back, serious

 

[SenpaiThatIngnoresYou]

I do like the xp in a skill by doing, but the balance never seems to be right because it turns into farming to easily. However, I am a big fan of giving full xp for the 1st item crafted at that associated crafting level and 5% xp for everyone you have already crafted that level thereafter.

Example (excuse the obviously wrong xp values)

stone ax

Set triggers so;

(100%)100xp 1st time ever/a craft that results in a skill level up

Otherwise (5%)5xp every other time.

To me that is a good balance. Might need more fine tuning, but I believe it gives people the best of both worlds as far as role playing style. Personally I think I should level up my Archery at least 1 xp everytime I craft an arrow or hit something. Granted it might take 10k arrows at level 2 to rank up, but it feels good from a roleplay standpoint. It means the grind now has more purpose. In RPGs the only way to keep me interested is to make my time have purpose.  Then again you don't even need to stop fighting to craft arrows so what do I know.

If progression backed xp is brought back, leveling through quests would help. you get tasked with making x amount of an iron or better tool, and the reward would be mostly xp in that skill + a schematic. Darkness falls does a great job with the xp balance for crafting and skill point usage. Also using the tools should help level up the tool crafting skill as well. To me the quests are very redundant to the point of being boring. Its either find misplaced supplies, kill the zombies, or both. they follow video game logic, not survival logic, and are fun the first 10 times, but you have to do them 70 times so they become chores. So making the quests help the community AND give special xp skills for doing them would be great and break up the monotony. 

 

[Raestloz]

they follow video game logic, not survival logic, and are fun the first 10 times, but you have to do them 70 times so they become chores. So making the quests help the community AND give special xp skills for doing them would be great and break up the monotony. 

IMO survival crafting games should take cues from Dragon Quest Builders. The quests ask you to build stuff that you need to build anyway, and there are NPCs that make use of your creation to help around the base. It makes crafting quests less of "ah @%$*#! here we go again" and more "yeah I should do this, this will help further my goal"

One way to do this is probably crafting quests for traders. They need something, you craft for them, and it unlocks features. Perhaps craft weapons to arm trader militia, allowing their caravan safe passage and therefore more stuff for sale. Replace their forges to allow purchase of forge-built items, fix their workbench to improve the average quality of items they sell. Things that benefits you, because it benefits them

 

[SenpaiThatIngnoresYou]

IMO survival crafting games should take cues from Dragon Quest Builders. The quests ask you to build stuff that you need to build anyway, and there are NPCs that make use of your creation to help around the base. It makes crafting quests less of "ah @%$*#! here we go again" and more "yeah I should do this, this will help further my goal"

One way to do this is probably crafting quests for traders. They need something, you craft for them, and it unlocks features. Perhaps craft weapons to arm trader militia, allowing their caravan safe passage and therefore more stuff for sale. Replace their forges to allow purchase of forge-built items, fix their workbench to improve the average quality of items they sell. Things that benefits you, because it benefits them

Yeah, DQ builders is a great game. My time in portia also has  a very kick @%$*#! crafting system: a job board and a time frame. It has the best real world example for why entrepreneurs get stuff done asap: the faster they finish a project, the faster they can do another one. I found myself trying to finish everything asap so i could take one project a day in that game. So yeah, not only having crafting quests for the traders, but also job boards for various factions: bring food, bring medicine, bring resource, scout part of map. stuff like that. Things that would be useful to people in a post collapse situation. But as it stands, what is the point in clearing out a poi when the very next quest will be to clear out that same poi? My time in portia was weird, you were not fighting the environment, but trying your damnedest to have the best workshop ever to rebuild basic social infrastructure. 

What the hell are those supplies that keep getting forgotten? is it drugs? because if it's food, water, or medicine i can easily supply almost all of that no problem, no need to get it out of the poi. The quests need a bit of work, i hope the current ones are placeholders and better ones show up in the future. Maybe have poi quest chains where you have to fortify a cleared poi for a faction? and then after horde night check on the npcs there? 

I really dislike the quest system, it's too empty and needs a lot of work. i can rant about this for hours.

 

[Xtrakicking]

For me (and several others I've seen you respond to with the same "it's fine, trust me, I'm in QA" shtick), we're actually looking for something closer to even earlier alphas, where good gear was rare well into late game, unless you took your chances in the hub city, with its dogs and cops around every corner.

Man, I think the hub city is one of the things I miss the most. All cities now are pretty much the same, but the hub city was the city. I remember you always had to wait till you had somewhat decent gear to go there, and as you say it's where all the good stuff was. You couldn't just clear it out either, as respawns where almost instantaneous, so you had to sneak around or be as quick as possible.

Yeah, the hub city was great. I wish they put it back, or there was a mod for it at least.

 

[ArcadeAndrew115]

I would say finding q4 stone tools to replace your q1 and finding a blunderbuss to add another ranged option to your primitive bow and such is the definition of slowly progressing.

Finding guns in safes is not slowly progressing, it is a big jump in power. 

You can argue that gamestaged loot feels too artificial, or that you want the power increase that guns give on day 1 instead of day 6-7. But arguing that obtaining guns in the first couple of days equals slow progression doesn't make sense to me. Better primitive items for several days before you start finding guns and higher tier tools is definitely slow, steady progression.

It's not about "slowly progressing" its about a more natural progression or natural feel to the game. The current state feels very unatural, and Even in days 7-14 Im still finding @%$*#!ing stone age tools where there realistically would be GUNS.

in a realistic game, stone age tools are what you would CRAFT, and guns are what would FIND. In a post apocalyptic  "modern" survival situation, tools would be made from some primitive materials, until people find a house or place that has actual tools like a steel axe or a chainsaw (and then theyd be looking for gas) You wouldn't find 5 @%$*#!ing blunderbusses in a gun safe in some rich persons mansion, nor would you find stone axes in a god damn fire station.

I have made sooo many levels by mining and base-building. I kill most zombies I see, but I don't go looking for them - or rush to clear random POIs - because of the free & easy XP available from stuff I need to do anyway to get my base upgraded and to craft gunpowder/casings/bullet tips.

I would be 100% fine if crates and safes only gave resources/parts/mods for crafting weapons, at all gamestages. Never find a ready-to-use firearm, ever. Trader can still sell them, with progression controlled by inventory. I preferred the old (barrel + grip + parts) = gun crafting system from A15/A16 anyhow. They could add a Gunsmith NPC (or just give the traders this ability) for crafting weapons from parts you provide. Higher parts cost + a cost in Dukes, of course, to give incentive to learn to craft your own weapons. So if you don't want to perk into shotgun crafting, but you really want that Q6 pump shotgun, you can bring 110% of the normal parts + 5,000 Dukes to the Gunsmith and get your gun. But yer naganna find it ready-made in loot any more.

I bet I'm in a very small minority who like that idea.

you didnt have to worry about killing zeds in a18, because you still had the ability to find decent loot, even if your game stage wasnt far along. in a19 now loot is directly correlated to gamestage, meaning youre forced to try to level as quickly as possible if you want the decent weapons that you need to defend your base during horde nights

It's so interesting to read the different perspectives and really brings home the saying One man's trash is another man's treasure. I'm happy when I open a container and find a better quality blundie or even a better quality stone axe than what I have. I don't look at it like I'm wasting these containers by opening them. I look at it as this town is full of primitive loot but the next town I come to will have better stuff. I play with my brother and mom and after clearing a town we usually are at high enough gamestage and have at least bicycles to where the next town we travel to is our Tier 2 town.

I mean I can only handle get a level 4 or 5 blunderbuss about 10 times before i get sick of how artificial it feels

 

[Solomon]

It doesn't feel natural, but at least crafting is viable once again. When you find everything you need, and in better quality than you could craft it, then crafting is pointless.

Crafting is not really that much viable, from what i read around the tiers ramp up faster than what you can craft so you always loot higher tier unless you rush the specific crafting perks.

Finding guns in safes is not slowly progressing, it is a big jump in power. 

Yeah but that happens because you cant just craft guns. Ive been able to craft lv2 machine guns faster than i could actually craft them because i needed machine gun parts.

If we remove the need for weapon parts in the crafting system that would mean you can now decide to either loot those guns or make those guns because currently no matter how hard you try you always need to loot guns just so you can craft guns.

 

[SenpaiThatIngnoresYou]

Man, I think the hub city is one of the things I miss the most. All cities now are pretty much the same, but the hub city was the city. I remember you always had to wait till you had somewhat decent gear to go there, and as you say it's where all the good stuff was. You couldn't just clear it out either, as respawns where almost instantaneous, so you had to sneak around or be as quick as possible.

Yeah, the hub city was great. I wish they put it back, or there was a mod for it at least.

It seems that they are designing toward that. in navesgane the poi tiers seem to be in "districts", and if that is the end goal i would like to see that: a tier 1 cabin area, a tier suburbia , a tier 3 city, up to tier 5 hellscape, sorta like how darkness falls does things with the wasteland, including hell portals that pop out nasty things. Darkness falls is turning into my default game mode. Like how dragon block c ruined minecraft. rip jin.  

Crafting is not really that much viable, from what i read around the tiers ramp up faster than what you can craft so you always loot higher tier unless you rush the specific crafting perks.

Yeah but that happens because you cant just craft guns. Ive been able to craft lv2 machine guns faster than i could actually craft them because i needed machine gun parts.

If we remove the need for weapon parts in the crafting system that would mean you can now decide to either loot those guns or make those guns because currently no matter how hard you try you always need to loot guns just so you can craft guns.

I don't craft tools. I have a chest full of tools and weapon bits, but i have only crafted tier 5 steel armor. Everything else i have found. I also did not depend on looting for my first guns: i saved up and bought a tier one gun asap. Not doing so is a terrible idea. if you do enough jobs you will have the money to do so by day 3 easy. 

 

[Solomon]

I don't craft tools. I have a chest full of tools and weapon bits, but i have only crafted tier 5 steel armor. Everything else i have found. I also did not depend on looting for my first guns: i saved up and bought a tier one gun asap. Not doing so is a terrible idea. if you do enough jobs you will have the money to do so by day 3 easy. 

Thats almost exactly what i said, crafting is not much viable in A18 you kinda needed it because loot is random but A19 you need to buy them because unless luck strikes you there wont be any.

 

[katarynna]

If you could find gun parts in the primitive loot phase, crafting guns would be viable in week 1. As of now, not a viable option, but that one change would make crafting weapons in the early days valuable and viable. You would not necessarily get the parts for the gun you WANT to use, but you should be able to get enough of a single kind of part to craft some sort of gun in the first week other than the blunderbuss.

 

[SenpaiThatIngnoresYou]

Thats almost exactly what i said, crafting is not much viable in A18 you kinda needed it because loot is random but A19 you need to buy them because unless luck strikes you there wont be any.

It's funny, the working stiff's tool boxes are guaranteed to have tools, but so far all the tools i have found are meh. then again i did get 5 tier 6 augars from loot and zombie drops, and i have found chain saws all over the place. the only thing i have not gotten, is a tier 6 steel pickax, which is what i use for mining, not the augers. The looting bit is hit or miss, but crafting just does not happen. I need to do the math, but my guess is if you craft a tier 5 steel tool, and put mods in it, you get more money out of that then if you just sold the steel tool parts and steel ingots? i need to try that. 

But yeah, it seems that crafting is not as necessary anymore as looting. We need to harp on that until they fix the balance. 

 

[RipClaw]

Crafting is not really that much viable, from what i read around the tiers ramp up faster than what you can craft so you always loot higher tier unless you rush the specific crafting perks.

I had the opposite experience. I have always been able to craft the items in my tree earlier than I found them in A19.

I could craft iron tools when I found stone tools and weapons everywhere, I could craft a pump shotgun when I found double-barrelled shotguns everywhere. The only thing I cannot craft are steel tools because I have not found the schematics yet. But I was able to craft the auger. I skipped the iron sledgehammer and the baseball bat in favor of a steel sledgehammer and a steel club.

The only thing I found before I could craft it was the auto shotgun because I found the schematic late in the game.

I am a strength build by the way. Maybe that is the reason.

 

[SenpaiThatIngnoresYou]

I had the opposite experience. I have always been able to craft the items in my tree earlier than I found them in A19.

I could craft iron tools when I found stone tools and weapons everywhere, I could craft a pump shotgun when I found double-barrelled shotguns everywhere. The only thing I cannot craft are steel tools because I have not found the schematics yet. But I was able to craft the auger. I skipped the iron sledgehammer and the baseball bat in favor of a steel sledgehammer and a steel club.

The only thing I found before I could craft it was the auto shotgun because I found the schematic late in the game.

I am a strength build by the way. Maybe that is the reason.

Now that you mention it, i did craft a pump shotgun. I have not found a pump shotgun higher than level 4. I have level 6 autoshotguns, which makes me wonder if the pump shotgun is considered tier 3 and teh auto shotugn tier 2? I also crafted iron tools, but to be frank if you are going miner 69er then you rush iron tools, i do a mix strength and int build: gather resources faster and use them more efficiently. I suspect that is why i am doing so well, because what you can't craft you can buy cheap, and with better barter you get better deals and selection. you also get better rewards and more rewards with daring adventurer. I also use my starting 5 points to go into the trees that i do not plan to invest in, as those perks go a long way when you do that.

i have over a thousand hours in the game, so i approach things differently. even my multiplayer is different: i put the hubcap mines next to cars for the mp kills. I have to take this into consideration when i provide feedback, because i approach the game far differently than someone who only has 20 hours. 

 

[RipClaw]

i have over a thousand hours in the game, so i approach things differently. even my multiplayer is different: i put the hubcap mines next to cars for the mp kills. I have to take this into consideration when i provide feedback, because i approach the game far differently than someone who only has 20 hours. 

I have over 3,000 hours in the game and started in A15. 

Better Barter is not a skill that I think is particularly important in the early game. At least not for my playstyle. I am at day 82 and have currently no points in Better Barter.

My first goal is to build a first horde base. I prefer to build horde bases from scratch instead of converting a POI and for this I need a lot of resources. Therefore I invest in Miner69 and Mother Load early on. Since I mainly fight in close combat I always put some of my first points in Sexual Tyrannosaurus and either in Skull Crusher or Pummel Pete. In A19 I chose Skull Crusher because I wanted to see how well the Stone Sledgehammer performs in the first horde.

 

[SenpaiThatIngnoresYou]

I have over 3,000 hours in the game and started in A15. 

Better Barter is not a skill that I think is particularly important in the early game. At least not for my playstyle. I am at day 82 and have currently no points in Better Barter.

My first goal is to build a first horde base. I prefer to build horde bases from scratch instead of converting a POI and for this I need a lot of resources. Therefore I invest in Miner69 and Mother Load early on. Since I mainly fight in close combat I always put some of my first points in Sexual Tyrannosaurus and either in Skull Crusher or Pummel Pete. In A19 I chose Skull Crusher because I wanted to see how well the Stone Sledgehammer performs in the first horde.

My play style is different. Better barter earlier on increases the special stash, and that is where the books are. Now with everything being locked behind schematics, the special stash is even more important. One thing i have not figured out: is it level that increases the variety of stuff in vending machines, better barter, or is it random? getting the right book may give a good armor bonus, like batter up vol 2 or that magnum enforcer one. then again you may never see a book again so buy them whenever. If there are no books, then the cheaper deal for better guns goes a long way. 

I start the horde base by week three, and use a modified poi until i have a good design. this play through the jawoodle burger bunker in a concrete field surrounded by blade traps is pretty effective. 

Honestly, the more i talk with people, the more i suspect that the game is balanced, and our play styles are just a bit off. 

 

[Guest]

Investing mainly in strength might be the way to outscale the looting progression, since it covers so many (all?) important factors in just one skill tree. There's less "need" to supplement with other attributes, freeing up skill points to push into higher level crafting earlier.

In my first A19 world I wanted to focus mainly on agility, but put quite a few points into strength anyways, to get basic recipes, decent tools and mining capability. I looted about half of the gear I ended up using. Now I'm in a world where I started out by focusing on strength and save for one or two items, I crafted everything I'm using (around week 4). I did increase XP to 125% for this run though, so that might throw it a little off, even if looting is tied to GS and should be able to keep up, at least in theory. It did quite clearly in early game: I was running around in purple scrap armor until I could make blue iron armor. Before that point, the scrap armor offered similar stats and more mod slots compared to the iron armor I was able to craft.

These are just observations, I don't have strong opinions about the current crafting vs looting balance in particular.

 

[meganoth]

It's not about "slowly progressing" its about a more natural progression or natural feel to the game. The current state feels very unatural, and Even in days 7-14 Im still finding @%$*#!ing stone age tools where there realistically would be GUNS.

in a realistic game, stone age tools are what you would CRAFT, and guns are what would FIND. In a post apocalyptic  "modern" survival situation, tools would be made from some primitive materials, until people find a house or place that has actual tools like a steel axe or a chainsaw (and then theyd be looking for gas) You wouldn't find 5 @%$*#!ing blunderbusses in a gun safe in some rich persons mansion, nor would you find stone axes in a god damn fire station.

you didnt have to worry about killing zeds in a18, because you still had the ability to find decent loot, even if your game stage wasnt far along. in a19 now loot is directly correlated to gamestage, meaning youre forced to try to level as quickly as possible if you want the decent weapons that you need to defend your base during horde nights

I mean I can only handle get a level 4 or 5 blunderbuss about 10 times before i get sick of how artificial it feels

It certainly would be more realistic to find guns and not stone tools in treasure chests. The only thing I have to disagree on is how you then suddenly say that you need tier 1 guns to defend your base during horde nights. The day 7 horde night is a small bunch of basic zombies that you can easily shoot down with bow or blunderbuss and be finished by 1 in the morning. Are you really saying you need a tier1 weapon or you will go under in the first horde night?

 

[Raestloz]

Are you really saying you need a tier1 weapon or you will go under in the first horde night?

I think he's saying that back in A18 even if you're a low level scrub you could still have access to high end weaponries to fight off later hordes. Though I find it impossible to be quite far ahead but be so low leveled the high end weapons don't appear

Maybe if someone is role playing a paranoid nomad who only counts on looting equipment and avoid contact or create them? but then again such a playstyle wouldn't survive anyway due to the need to build a fortress so the point is kinda moot

 

[Boidster]

you didnt have to worry about killing zeds in a18, because you still had the ability to find decent loot, even if your game stage wasnt far along. in a19 now loot is directly correlated to gamestage, meaning youre forced to try to level as quickly as possible if you want the decent weapons that you need to defend your base during horde nights

Hmm...well I agree that higher-tier loot was more freely available in A18, but I disagree that I am "forced" to level as quickly as possible in A19. "Getting loot item X" is not what drives me in this game, so I don't really pay too much attention to how quickly I am leveling. I have found so far that I'm quite capable of killing zombies with a primitive bow, stone arrows, and a wooden club. Day 7 horde was zero problem with just those weapons (and some basic traps around the base of course) so I never felt burdened by my gamestage.

I spend my first week gathering basic supplies, retrofitting some POI as a basic base, and doing quests and the occasional random POI near the trader. As I said I'll go after any zombies I see (if I am not encumbered or injured), but I'm not chasing levels or gamestage. YMMV.