PC Looting Progression Plan

[Roland]

ALSO, the fact Roland even had to make a post like this kinda proves its a big problem for a large amount of players, not to mention all the posts about it where the general reaction has been mostly negative. This is almost as negative a game change as when they took out learn by doing. At least this one is MUCH easier to fix, just go back to a18 style loot in 19.1, as its just 1 file loot.xml iirc with the new a19 items added. It could be fixed in a19.1 its that quick of a fix, to make the majority of players happy.

Me making this thread was simply to help some of those who do hate it understand that it isn't the final design. I see far far less negativity about this than I did LBD. The negativity about this is about the same as for every change that some people won't like every single alpha. I'm sorry this change ruined the game for you. I'm glad you found an easy workaround. I disagree with almost every assertion you make about how an open world sandbox game like this should be. I'm glad you aren't in charge of development. I'm skeptical that you could be that clueless about the huge amount of negativity we had in A18 about the "looter shooter" problem of early easy guns and ammo. I'm surprised you think the reaction has been mostly negative instead of about evenly half and half.

Finally, there is nothing that needs to be fixed for a19.1 in regards to this change. It isn't broken. In every thread it is about even as far as lovers and haters go. If they listen to you then they will disappoint the people who enjoy the change. You already found the fix for yourself. So just use it and don't worry about the rest of us who are playing vanilla and enjoying the differences from before.

I voted 1 because this current version just isn't great. Mainly because there is nothing worse than getting 3 level 1-2 blunderbusses from POIs and then getting attacked later on by a bear or direwolf at gamestage 4. I would've voted 2 had i read the dev diary but as of now, it is terrible. The loot is balanced but not the enemies. The enemies are completely broken as of now, bikers, wolves, and bears will attack you even with a gamestage of 4. With that said, It needs A LOT of more balancing and work. Later versions do have potential, but I cannot recommend this version in its state, its broken, halfway finished, and too grindy to play.

Now that the enemies have been covered, lets move to skills. For instance, Intellect. Its good, advanced engineering helps immensely and you need it to progress. However, crucibles being locked behind 5 perks in the advanced engineering skill, (requires 10 intellect level and 5 perks in advanced engineering) in order to even START making steel if you have awful "luck" with schematics. "You can craft forged steel and items 12% cheaper" cool right? Not if you don't even have the ability to make steel. Same thing with master chef, why is it locked behind strength? I play with a couple friends and our "cook" has to be a higher level in strength, which I already am because I like sledgehammers and crafting better tools. Yet our "cook" also does intellect for those workbenches and steel ingots I need for better tools. It needs more work in my opinion, cooking in the intellect skill makes more sense, and it helps us balance our skills better.

Finally, we need a better variety of traps. On day 7 I can BARELY survive with wooden spikes as its difficult to get guns and proper weapons IN TIME before the 7 days, let alone make a horde base. Every trap needs iron, or generator banks. The only trap that doesn't that you CAN make is wooden spikes which are really bad. Unless you get lucky and the trader it sends you to is selling a robotic turret thats at least level 3 that you are able to supply ammo for before the 7th day and run quests within those first 7 hours of gameplay.

I hope the future changes in the dev diary truly make this game better than this half-broken game we see now.

What difficulty level are you playing? I play Nomad and have none of the troubles you speak of. The day 7 horde isn't as easy as it used to be but it isn't something to be barely survived either. It is easily handled with spears, arrows, blundies, and all those pipe bombs that show up in loot. How come nobody talks about the explosives? We get a ton of fun explosives during week one now that I don't remember getting before.

Anyway, it sounds like your difficulty is up and if it is then turn it down or don't complain about the how tough the animals or the blood moon is. If you are playing default then I don't know what to say except there's always Scavenger...

 

[Roland]

Notice no one said they loved the system enough for it to stay the same, people that like the direction are hoping for more variety of loot to decrease the samey experience you're getting.

Ha..true! But here is a prediction for you, my friend:

When A20 stable drops and the new system brings changes and alterations to the current game there will be voices just like Scyris calling for the Devs to revert the system back to A19. They will proclaim the game unplayable in its current form.

Nobody has voted that and nobody may but just wait to read all the ways that A20.0 stable will have ruined "the perfection" that was A19.3 when that day comes. 

 

[Tmodloader]

Ha..true! But here is a prediction for you, my friend:

When A20 stable drops and the new system brings changes and alterations to the current game there will be voices just like Scyris calling for the Devs to revert the system back to A19. They will proclaim the game unplayable in its current form.

Nobody has voted that and nobody may but just wait to read all the ways that A20.0 stable will have ruined "the perfection" that was A19.3 when that day comes. 

You're totally right, I can see it now

 

[Hellsmoke]

Ha..true! But here is a prediction for you, my friend:

When A20 stable drops and the new system brings changes and alterations to the current game there will be voices just like Scyris calling for the Devs to revert the system back to A19. They will proclaim the game unplayable in its current form.

Nobody has voted that and nobody may but just wait to read all the ways that A20.0 stable will have ruined "the perfection" that was A19.3 when that day comes. 

Since I currently have the same opinion as Scyris on this alpha, I thought I'd throw in a counter argument. Below is a post from myself about a previous alpha. 

"

I have to agree. The new blocks and textures, the painting and all the POI upgrades in general look amazing and really make exploring much more fun than it used to be. Mods added a lot to the game, the item customization, new weapons..there's just so much I could go on for days.

The game is looking and feeling great, having a blast with it!"





Just some food for thought.

 

[Roland]

Okay...so you were one of those happy about the changes back then. But there were others who were upset. Now you are one of those upset and there are others who are happy. Everyone who marries themselves to a particular system or feature is going to feel the pain of betrayal when she drives away never to return again. We all take turns being overly attached to things that could end up getting cut from the game or changed in ways we don't like. That is all part of development. There are people right now who feel that the way the current game plays is perfect. Maybe they just started last week and have no knowledge of how it used to be or maybe they are veterans but their set of preferences are finally getting stroked in a way that makes them happy. When things change about this system in A20, some of those people will be mad. But others will be happy the nightmare is finally over and still others will be like, "whatever, this game never needed progression before Alpha 14 so who cares how it is implemented". 

We all take our turn. Sorry you're up this time. Maybe @Laz Man is on deck for next time.... NO! who are we kidding? Laz is perpetually optimistic.

 

[Laz Man]

Okay...so you were one of those happy about the changes back then. But there were others who were upset. Now you are one of those upset and there are others who are happy. Everyone who marries themselves to a particular system or feature is going to feel the pain of betrayal when she drives away never to return again. We all take turns being overly attached to things that could end up getting cut from the game or changed in ways we don't like. That is all part of development. There are people right now who feel that the way the current game plays is perfect. Maybe they just started last week and have no knowledge of how it used to be or maybe they are veterans but their set of preferences are finally getting stroked in a way that makes them happy. When things change about this system in A20, some of those people will be mad. But others will be happy the nightmare is finally over and still others will be like, "whatever, this game never needed progression before Alpha 14 so who cares how it is implemented". 

We all take our turn. Sorry you're up this time. Maybe @Laz Man is on deck for next time.... NO! who are we kidding? Laz is perpetually optimistic.

LOL, there are certainly features that have come and gone which I had fond memories of, but nothing that ever caused me to throw my hands up and pick up the pitchfork... I think part of the reason why is I never over play the game and real life forces me to take take breaks from it or my prefabbing/modding curiosities fuels my creativity...

...oh I KNOW!  If the devs ever decided to throw the prefab editor in the garbage and declare all POIs will only be made in house...Yeah stick a fork in me...im done.  A huge part of what keeps me going is the dream of creating my own custom world to my preferences.  Without that ability, I would most likely move on to the next game...

...the chances of the devs dumping prefab editor support is slim and thus that fear will most likely remain a unlikely nightmare...

Edit: If everyone just treated each alpha as a new survival challenge to overcome until the next update, there would probably be less frustration...

 

[meganoth]

Ha..true! But here is a prediction for you, my friend:

When A20 stable drops and the new system brings changes and alterations to the current game there will be voices just like Scyris calling for the Devs to revert the system back to A19. They will proclaim the game unplayable in its current form.

Nobody has voted that and nobody may but just wait to read all the ways that A20.0 stable will have ruined "the perfection" that was A19.3 when that day comes. 

I would have voted that if the general message of it wasn't so change-averse. I have zero problems with immersion and I feel very much entertained by the early game, A19 has by far the best early game of all alphas.

BUT that doesn't mean it is perfect. The big glaring problem of A18 was fixed, but it created new problems and imbalances.

And the other think is, I like change. It keeps 7D2D entertaining for me that I always have to change my approach to the game.

 

[Roland]

BUT that doesn't mean it is perfect.

Just needs a sprinkle of trader rebalance and a dallop of item degradation. I'm playing this time without repairs and I love every duplicate primitive tool and weapon I find.

 

[Darklegend222]

What difficulty level are you playing? I play Nomad and have none of the troubles you speak of. The day 7 horde isn't as easy as it used to be but it isn't something to be barely survived either. It is easily handled with spears, arrows, blundies, and all those pipe bombs that show up in loot. How come nobody talks about the explosives? We get a ton of fun explosives during week one now that I don't remember getting before.

Anyway, it sounds like your difficulty is up and if it is then turn it down or don't complain about the how tough the animals or the blood moon is. If you are playing default then I don't know what to say except there's always Scavenger...

I play on Nomad as well mainly because that used to be default which got lowered because they made the game harder. As for explosives, I only got 20 pipe bombs in total from the trader despite all the 5+ quests I did. Complaining about animals is a lot different than having actual issues. Stronger animals should not even begin spawning before you see a normal dog or a regular wolf for that matter, especially on day 1 or 2 when you have at most a blunderbuss or a spear.

Edit: I would also like to add, just because you're swimming in explosives doesn't mean other players are. The game is heavily RNG based which is exactly why its getting tweaked and i'm expressing my issues, so it can get looked at and reviewed by the developers and see if they can come up with a way to make it further balanced. If they believe an average player can find it difficult to deal with stronger animals early on, they will see fit to change any of the above: damage, spawn rate, or health. I am expressing animals early on because seeing a bear on day 1 with nothing more than a 2 blunderbuss is not going to get you anywhere but death. If you notice a lot of players are talking about blunderbusses and how bad they are, is because they are. It can't even kill the strongest thing you see on day 1 which in my opinion, is broken. If it was in a POI specifically, it wouldn't be broken for example the Bear Den. But its not in the bear den specifically, its on day 1, in the streets, spawning around you. Thats the point that I believe the devs should look into and see what the majority of the community says.

 

[Kalen]

We all take turns being overly attached to things that could end up getting cut from the game or changed in ways we don't like.

Ok, that just begs the question.... what got cut that you were overly attached to?

 

[Laz Man]

Just needs a sprinkle of trader rebalance and a dallop of item degradation. I'm playing this time without repairs and I love every duplicate primitive tool and weapon I find.

A good place holder mod right now is to make stone age items not repairable....at least until more get added to increase the value of all dupe finds.

I play on Nomad as well mainly because that used to be default which got lowered because they made the game harder. As for explosives, I only got 20 pipe bombs in total from the trader despite all the 5+ quests I did. Complaining about animals is a lot different than having actual issues. Stronger animals should not even begin spawning before you see a normal dog or a regular wolf for that matter, especially on day 1 or 2 when you have at most a blunderbuss or a spear.

Edit: I would also like to add, just because you're swimming in explosives doesn't mean other players are. The game is heavily RNG based which is exactly why its getting tweaked and i'm expressing my issues, so it can get looked at and reviewed by the developers and see if they can come up with a way to make it further balanced. If they believe an average player can find it difficult to deal with stronger animals early on, they will see fit to change any of the above: damage, spawn rate, or health. I am expressing animals early on because seeing a bear on day 1 with nothing more than a 2 blunderbuss is not going to get you anywhere but death. If you notice a lot of players are talking about blunderbusses and how bad they are, is because they are. It can't even kill the strongest thing you see on day 1 which in my opinion, is broken. If it was in a POI specifically, it wouldn't be broken for example the Bear Den. But its not in the bear den specifically, its on day 1, in the streets, spawning around you. Thats the point that I believe the devs should look into and see what the majority of the community says.

Regarding animals, sounds like an edge case to me.  The forest biome is mostly filled with small game.  Didn't see any bears until I got near the snow biome which is planned to have higher difficulty.

There was one build that had the animal spawns over the top but that was reigned in pretty quickly.

Ok, that just begs the question.... what got cut that you were overly attached to?

There is a long list but one of my guess' for Roland is the introduction of XP...

He has a zero XP mod which has an interesting progression system (skill points awarded based on days survived I think).

 

[Kalen]

He has a zero XP mod which has an interesting progression system (skill points awarded based on days survived I think).

Yeah, I'd love to see that mod updated to a19.

 

[DaChibii]

TL/DR: I'm drunk... ish. Not drunk enough to English. But not sober enough to not comment.

My first achievement is from 2016. I say this because apparently how long one has being playing matters. (Aside: It does... And it doesn't. Old customers fit into a nice convenient metric bucket for Marketing majors to determine how much of a sucker... I mean dedicated supporter you are). I also have 886 hours in the game... I guess isn't as hardcore as my Payday 2 hours, but frankly... I've experienced players with 3k hours in a game that make go.... Huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuh?

I voted the second option.

Annnnnnd.... I echo some of the sentiment posted here in the forums. I dislike the Stone Tools in higher tier loot containers... regardless of quality. (Mostly because tier level is more important for Mods, and finding useful mods at a early game state is rare. Althougth... I guess you could balance this out with an inventory check and make drops relative and useful to person 'searching' the loot box.) I also dislike... the current tool variety, and progression. Stone tools become practically useless after discovering Iron Tools, but this isn't Civilization... you can't just easily upgrade your units to the new technology level. As mentioned before... I'm a Payday 2 veteran... and that game has a HUGE variety of weapons and weapon customization (AND... it still get requests for more). Most of the weapons in Payday 2 are essentially the same, because unlike real life where Marketing and Profit are the goal... in games FUN is the goal so systems have to be balanced (Real Life doesn't give a F about fairness or balance).

I also have concerns about the skill system. But this topic isn't about that. It's about 'Progression'. And that's tied to 'Pacing'. And whenever Fun Pimps decides to hire a Narrative Designer to build a story with this chaotic mess of a system... they will have to a good serious discussion about this. Which why it's good that they've been having discussion with the community for past few years (it means that they're not going into that discussion ignorant... they know what doesn't work).

But... I have faith in Fun Pimps. Game development isn't easy. Hell, most professional stuff isn't easy... Youtube only shows when it goes right under perfect circumstances. And while I feel like FP has made mistakes... they've also learned from them in ways you the player may not have realized. Every Alpha is snapshot into their Mind's Eye of what they want 7DtD to  be, and like everything organic it changes as new things come into focus. So I understand if an Alpha isn't to my appeal... things change and they can't appeal to everyone (although that's the goal, or at least as many as possible).

I guess this is the real TL/DR.

I like the zone specific game stage modifiers. I feel like zones should also have minimum and maximum, so that your level designer(s) have a greater control of the pacing of the game, and allow the player agency on how fast they want to progress... but that's just me.

I feel like there should be more dynamic loot tables, based not just on game state, but on a number of factors (like how close to death a player is, critical effects, thematic zoning, Trader progression level, what level of technology the tools/weapon are, etc.) BUUUUUuuuttt..... I understand how much more work this is... balancing loot tables can be fairly involved.

I dislike the trend towards a loot shooter like Borderlands, where the incentive is constantly kill/loot/grind for the next best loot and discard the current. I feel like primitive Tier 1 tools/weapons should always be relevant even as a disposable emergency tools/weapons. I am opinion that looting should be sustainable for the nomad/scavenger lifestyle but ultimately be a system to support the crafter playstyle. And that you can't truly separate the two. So looting is important early game to get above the progression curve, but ultimately becomes a necessity to maintain at the end game. I dislike the idea of Legandary Items because it ultimately adds in a tier that makes all other progress and work redundant, making a slots-style RNG to win the best strategy. And yes... I know slots styled RNG is popular and profitable... Vegas has easily proved that.

I dislike the trend to MOAR weapons, without real consideration on how the weapons are actively different. People especially players need to separate 'REALITY' from how game systems are developed and balanced. From a mechanic perspective there is very little separating the different firearms (other than base stats). Really... we have 'Projectile Firearms' like bows and grenades, 'Raycast Semiautomatics.' like rifles and pistols, 'Raycast Full-Automatics' for SMGs and MGs, and Shotguns (Multi-Raycast Firearms). Personally, I feel like simpler is better... so really 7DtD should have 2 tiers of weapons: Primitive/Consumable/Disposable and Progessive/Static. The Primitive level is determined by a Player skill level as a base quality, and the Progressive level is determined by the 'Learned by Doing' mechanic. This way a player can focus maintaining a weapon playstyle, but have a easy fall back in case of breakage. Early tools don't become redundant because they now have use as a fallback emergency.

I dislike the current skill breakdown between attributes. But mostly I blame Pen&Paper RPGs for this, and our conditioning that things need to be tied to base statistics. I DO like skill and magazine perk system though, and feel like this is a good approach to a balanced progression between looting (magazines) and self-learning (skills/experience). I think an ideal setup would be that combat-related skills are governed by a 'Learn by Doing' and all others by 'XP blanket/Socialized Learning'. This way actions that a player are actively doing that make sense grow, and actions that are more long term and are under burst conditions are not disadvantaged.
All this matters... because it's about "Player Progression".
 

... I dislike a lot things, I'm realizing. And yet. ... I'm not really that unhappy with the current state of things.

<Insert Comedic Dancing Routine of Zombie Cops and Boars>

Anways.... There are things that I dislike in the current Alpha, but not enough that I'm willing play with mods or not play at all. (I've never played with mods, but I'm not against them. I just want to see what the developer's vision is all.)

I do want a End Game though... whether that comes from a Narrative or just a Minecraft, "Look we made an dimension called 'the End' where you fight a boss and it ends." Hopefully, MadMole will have written some down that he is happy with and we can all share in it.

 

[Xtrakicking]

only ever saw one Blunderbuss.

Allow me to awe at your incredible luck.

Ok, that just begs the question.... what got cut that you were overly attached to?

Ziplines (the way you phrased the question couldn't have been better).

 

[RestInPieces]

I'm playing this time without repairs and I love every duplicate primitive tool and weapon I find.

Pretty much a must to keep both looting and crafting relevant. Do you know if they plan on bringing it back, and if they do, do you know how?

 

[Darklegend222]

Regarding animals, sounds like an edge case to me.  The forest biome is mostly filled with small game.  Didn't see any bears until I got near the snow biome which is planned to have higher difficulty.

There was one build that had the animal spawns over the top but that was reigned in pretty quickly.

While I'm inclined to agree, i was seeing bears in Diersville on day 1 and direwolves on day 2. This was across many many games. I can't tell you the amount of times i got killed by direwolves and bears on day 1 right beside trader Jens as that is where i build by base on Navezgane. I am open to any suggestions as you aren't seeing bears but I'm seeing them constantly every single night in Diersville and beside Trader Jens on the hill. 

I can have 2 other friends vouche for me on that one too as my one friend was raiding the boathouse on that lake and got slaughtered on day 3 by both a bear and direwolf at the same time. It really seems to me that the devs need to work on that a bit more. Perhaps it would be smart to start doing direwolves after day 7 and stick to normal ones? Or start direwolves on day 5 and up? Especially with the capped loot system that matches the view they have, but not the animals or enemies to match it. Definitely something to consider during the reworks they will be doing with later versions.

 

[Kalen]

Pretty much a must to keep both looting and crafting relevant. Do you know if they plan on bringing it back, and if they do, do you know how?

Joel has pretty much said that its not coming back.... one can always hope, though

 

[meganoth]

I play on Nomad as well mainly because that used to be default which got lowered because they made the game harder. As for explosives, I only got 20 pipe bombs in total from the trader despite all the 5+ quests I did. Complaining about animals is a lot different than having actual issues. Stronger animals should not even begin spawning before you see a normal dog or a regular wolf for that matter, especially on day 1 or 2 when you have at most a blunderbuss or a spear.

Edit: I would also like to add, just because you're swimming in explosives doesn't mean other players are. The game is heavily RNG based which is exactly why its getting tweaked and i'm expressing my issues, so it can get looked at and reviewed by the developers and see if they can come up with a way to make it further balanced. If they believe an average player can find it difficult to deal with stronger animals early on, they will see fit to change any of the above: damage, spawn rate, or health. I am expressing animals early on because seeing a bear on day 1 with nothing more than a 2 blunderbuss is not going to get you anywhere but death. If you notice a lot of players are talking about blunderbusses and how bad they are, is because they are. It can't even kill the strongest thing you see on day 1 which in my opinion, is broken. If it was in a POI specifically, it wouldn't be broken for example the Bear Den. But its not in the bear den specifically, its on day 1, in the streets, spawning around you. Thats the point that I believe the devs should look into and see what the majority of the community says.

As you said it is random and my impression is that getting only one stack of explosives in the first week is the lower end of the possibilities. This is also a horror game and the devs seems to be of the opinion that you should experience situations where the only option is a panicked flight to safety and if that doesn't succeed you should be pushing up daisies. No, you can't really fight a bear mano a mano on day 1, you are supposed to flee and hide from the beast.

While I'm inclined to agree, i was seeing bears in Diersville on day 1 and direwolves on day 2. This was across many many games. I can't tell you the amount of times i got killed by direwolves and bears on day 1 right beside trader Jens as that is where i build by base on Navezgane. I am open to any suggestions as you aren't seeing bears but I'm seeing them constantly every single night in Diersville and beside Trader Jens on the hill. 

I can have 2 other friends vouche for me on that one too as my one friend was raiding the boathouse on that lake and got slaughtered on day 3 by both a bear and direwolf at the same time. It really seems to me that the devs need to work on that a bit more. Perhaps it would be smart to start doing direwolves after day 7 and stick to normal ones? Or start direwolves on day 5 and up? Especially with the capped loot system that matches the view they have, but not the animals or enemies to match it. Definitely something to consider during the reworks they will be doing with later versions.

I definitely don't see bears that often except if I go into the snow or wasteland biome or if I go out at night. All of this is deliberately dangerous. If you go out at night you will see enemies you should not engage but avoid and stealth away, a typical situation in a survival game.

Hint: If you want to loot at night, clear a POI by day, remove ALL access to the upper floors before night fall and then loot during the night. Have a fast way up to first floor if you want to loot the ground floor.

 

[Roland]

Pretty much a must to keep both looting and crafting relevant. Do you know if they plan on bringing it back, and if they do, do you know how?

Not going to happen. Not only does Joel not like it but it in discussing it in the dev diary it was pretty polarizing just like this issue. There were plenty of comments by those who hate the thought of their item being temporary. 
 

So...definitely mod territory. 

 

[RestInPieces]

Not going to happen. Not only does Joel not like it but it in discussing it in the dev diary it was pretty polarizing just like this issue. There were plenty of comments by those who hate the thought of their item being temporary. 
 

So...definitely mod territory. 

Typical knee jerk reactions vs sensible item economy that will help keep both crafting and looting relevant shouldn't be left to mods IMHO. I mean, in the end, it will also solve some of the crafting/looting complaints, plus it wasn't that unpopular even with the stat degradation (which doesn't have to come back) and highest quality/tier loot could be exponentially durable. Anyway, perhaps they might make up for it by making repair more demanding in the future.