PC Should repair be changed to fix the game economy?

[hiemfire]

If my math is correct, here's the chance of getting at least one Repair Kit from the containers which have them. This takes into account the min/max count of items you can get from a container, i.e. the number of RNG "rolls" that are taken when opening the container. It does not take into account the # of Repair Kits you will get if RNG hits on "Repair Kit" as a reward.

For example, the cntLootCrateCarParts will return from 10-25 Repair Kits if RNG lands on "Repair Kit" in its loot table.

We usually end up with a decent stockpile of Repair Kits after a couple/few in-game weeks.


Container


Probability


cntLootCrateCarParts


23.7%


cntLootCrateShotgunMessiah


16.0%


cntRollingToolBoxClosed


14.3%


cntStoreShelfSingleBottomHardware01


14.3%


cntToolBoxClosed


14.3%


cntGarageStorage


5.1%


cntLootCrateMoPowerElectronics


3.2%


cntLootCrateWorkingStiffs


3.2%


cntCollapsedWorkbench


1.6%


cntBusSchool


1.5%


cntCar03SedanDamage0Master


1.5%


cntCar03SedanDamage1Master


1.5%

Thanks for digging that up, it is what I am suspecting is the source of the frustration (not uncommon even at low gs to get a full 25 kits when they show up in my experience). That number could be tuned back a bit on the bottom end (to like maybe 5 or 6) and the upper end could drop to 10 if not a little lower and I'd be fine with it. The idea of removal of repair kits from the game or requiring "parts" to repair can go jump off a cliff.

 

[meganoth]

Because I've never seen a thread or a posting where someone complains that you find too much ammo or it is too cheap to craft.

Lots of people complained about getting stacks of 120 bullets from low level quests.

 

[RipClaw]

I have.... but by all means, start a thread on it.  I'd agree with you.

Why should I? If I don't like something, I can mod it. Then the problem is solved for me.

I am not a game designer and therefore I don't have the knowledge or experience to decide if something is good for a game or not. I can only decide that for myself.

Lots of people complained about getting stacks of 120 bullets from low level quests.

I have always understood this in the context that players complain that they get ammunition but don't find any guns.

I heard in the Developer Stream that MadMole said that the amount of ammunition you will find in the beginning will be very small, so you have to decide whether to fight in close combat to save ammo or if the threat is big enough to sacrifice the ammunition.
 

 

[RipClaw]

If my math is correct, here's the chance of getting at least one Repair Kit from the containers which have them.

I didn't say that you don't get any at all but I think that some players were just very lucky and now they think that everyone finds so many repair kits.

I found a few in this playthrough but not a lot. This is RNG.

That's also the reason why I don't like the idea of using parts to repair because parts can't be crafted and it depends on luck if you find parts or not and I don't like it when something depends on luck.

 

[meganoth]

I have always understood this in the context that players complain that they get ammunition but don't find any guns.

I heard in the Developer Stream that MadMole said that the amount of ammunition you will find in the beginning will be very small, so you have to decide whether to fight in close combat to save ammo or if the threat is big enough to sacrifice the ammunition.
 

Then they would not have complained about too much ammo but about having ammo at all and no guns.

Certainly there were complaints about the stone age and having no guns too, so putting them into the same drawer might be an easy mistake.

 

[hiemfire]

That's also the reason why I don't like the idea of using parts to repair because parts can't be crafted and it depends on luck if you find parts or not and I don't like it when something depends on luck.

Soo much this. Yet some love having to pull the bandit's arm to get anything.

 

[Solomon]

They are not just rare to loot, you can also craft them for basically nothing. Except maybe from early early game we never had a shortage of repair kits. We usually even do repair found items before selling them to the trader. So after looting a big POI there are easily spent 30 repair kits onto items we want to sell. We have enough of them, there is not a single thought spent on if we can afford to repair something.

I still remember  randomly finding a full stack of repair kits in a garage.

I believe that repairing could be the key to fixing the economy because no matter how much ammo or guns you find at the start if you cant use them much because you got no repair packs early on and the alternatives are either expensive or take too much time.

 

[Rince]

Well, that's it then.

If having too many repair kits is a issue, then they can change so you don't have the chance to find anymore a full stack. Make it appear in stack of 1-5 and problem solved.

Not need to reinvent the wheel here.

Lots of people complained about getting stacks of 120 bullets from low level quests.

But... why?

I mean, if they're giving me a job I expect some kind of decent pay.

And no, a stone shovel and a bow are not precisely good reward you bully trader!

And for lvl 5 tier ones, no, a full stack of 7.62 is not even worth it. I can spend more cleaning the place! (But of course, I'm not the best sharpshooter in the world... more like a dejected from the Imperial marksmanship Academy).

 

[Psychodabble]

I have no interest in "fixing the economy", because I don't believe this game has an economy. Could repair be made a more engaging mechanic? Absolutely. The old days of combining parts on the workbench were much more engaging than what we have now, but that's neither here nor there.

To add my anecdotal experience, I use a lot more repair kits than I find, but that's probably because I repair all decent value items before selling them. Still, I don't have a problem with kits because I prioritize the ingredients for them very highly in my play routines...I always have iron (first from prodigious scrapping, then from mining), I get myself a working forge either at base or in a POI as quickly as I can, and I always collect bones, glue, and tape. Once my finances are secure, I also buy glue and tape from traders. Then it's just a matter of making a fresh stack of 25 every other day or so.

 

[Liesel Weppen]

I have no interest in "fixing the economy", because I don't believe this game has an economy.

Every invest-vs-reward is an "economy". How much is a repair kit worth? Basically nothing, because you find tons of them and also can craft them easily, same applies to executing a repair process (because the doing itself is quite pointless). That's economy.

If anything is massively under- or overrated, it's a bad economy.

And there are dependencies of that. If repairing wouldn't be that "cheap", it would increase the value of found items. So once you have a found a t3 ak-47 and find another one, there is only few you can do with it. Selling it to the trader probably is done in the most cases. Assuming you are able to craft a higher tier AK, you also might scrap it for parts.

But if repairing wouldn't be that cheap or had other backdraws, there is another valuable option: Keep it as a backup.

 

[Rince]

How much a repair kit worth?

If you're endgame with a fortress and seized the means of production, nothing.

If you're facing the Blood Moon horde, the traps are destroyed, the zombies are banging at the walls and you only remaining gun broke, priceless.

For everything else, JoelCard.

 

[meganoth]

But... why?

I mean, if they're giving me a job I expect some kind of decent pay.

And no, a stone shovel and a bow are not precisely good reward you bully trader!

And for lvl 5 tier ones, no, a full stack of 7.62 is not even worth it. I can spend more cleaning the place! (But of course, I'm not the best sharpshooter in the world... more like a dejected from the Imperial marksmanship Academy).

I don't think the complaints were about 120 bullets for completing a tier5 quest. They were about getting 120 bullets for a tier1 quest.

Having a pistol and 120 bullets is a game changer in early game.

Having a pistol and 12 bullets in early game is an emergency fund while you still whack at the zombies with a club.

 

[meganoth]

How much a repair kit worth?

If you're endgame with a fortress and seized the means of production, nothing.

If you're facing the Blood Moon horde, the traps are destroyed, the zombies are banging at the walls and you only remaining gun broke, priceless.

For everything else, JoelCard.

Sure, a glass of water in the desert is priceless. But a glass of water in the desert is still priceless when you went past an oasis 10 hours earlier and forgot to fill up.

Repair kits are so easy to get that the blame is on you for making them artificially valuable

 

[Psychodabble]

Every invest-vs-reward is an "economy". How much is a repair kit worth? Basically nothing, because you find tons of them and also can craft them easily, same applies to executing a repair process (because the doing itself is quite pointless). That's economy.

If anything is massively under- or overrated, it's a bad economy.

And there are dependencies of that. If repairing wouldn't be that "cheap", it would increase the value of found items. So once you have a found a t3 ak-47 and find another one, there is only few you can do with it. Selling it to the trader probably is done in the most cases. Assuming you are able to craft a higher tier AK, you also might scrap it for parts.

But if repairing wouldn't be that cheap or had other backdraws, there is another valuable option: Keep it as a backup.

Sure, you could call that an economy in the broadest sense of the word, but I'm not sure that nomenclature really helps anyone as most people understand economy as having to do with the exchange of goods and/or services between individuals - in this case game entities whether PC or NPC.

I assert that this game does not have an economy as such, because by default settings the supply of every resource is theoretically endless, capped only by time and RNG. This means that on a long enough timeline the demand, and hence the value, for everything drops to zero. You cannot have any kind of meaningful economy in this situation.

The solution to that involves item sinks, i.e. consistent, recurring ways to remove items from circulation. The OP pinpoints repair kits as being responsible for keeping items in circulation and suggests their removal or nerfing as a direction for creating an item sink through degradation. What the OP completely ignores is the question of whether this game actually benefits from this kind of "economy".

You put forward keeping loot as a backup as a valuable option, but I question the assumption of your premise. As it is now, you keep the best version of a particular item and use it, scrapping or selling all inferior versions. Perhaps in the rare, odd case you would find two versions with stats divergent enough from each other that you would keep both and use them for different purposes. So let's now add this concept of degradation and keeping backups...how does that actually feel to the player when they are forced to go from their high stat item to an inferior version? What is the counterplay to these downgrades over time?

In my experience, finding upgrades in the mid-late game is rare. Once you have a blue or purple version of an item it can take weeks to upgrade over it, if ever. If I were not able to keep my best versions of items going indefinitely, this would mean fairly frequent statistical downgrades and less frequent upgrades. That sounds like a bad feeling game, IMO, where you slowly get weaker over time as the game actually gets harder.

I think the repair mechanic as it exists is perfectly adequate. It's not super engaging, but it does feed a gameplay loop that feels good. You hunt new items to improve on the ones you have, rarely finding them, but when you do it feels nice. The rest of the time you are collecting vendor fodder which increase your liquid wealth, also lending a feeling of progression. If you find enough of these redundant items, you build up a nice cash reserve which can be used to fill in any supply gaps you may have. As your reserve grows, you are motivated to explore farther to find more traders and add them to your rotation, checking them for useful items every time they refresh their stock.

In absence of a true endgame, this works pretty well for now, IMO. I don't see how adding "feels bad" mechanics for the sake of an imaginary "economy" improves the game.

Sure, a glass of water in the desert is priceless. But a glass of water in the desert is still priceless when you went past an oasis 10 hours earlier and forgot to fill up.

Repair kits are so easy to get that the blame is on you for making them artificially valuable

I honestly don't understand what you are trying to say here.

 

[meganoth]

Sure, you could call that an economy in the broadest sense of the word, but I'm not sure that nomenclature really helps anyone as most people understand economy as having to do with the exchange of goods and/or services between individuals - in this case game entities whether PC or NPC.

I assert that this game does not have an economy as such, because by default settings the supply of every resource is theoretically endless, capped only by time and RNG. This means that on a long enough timeline the demand, and hence the value, for everything drops to zero. You cannot have any kind of meaningful economy in this situation.

The solution to that involves item sinks, i.e. consistent, recurring ways to remove items from circulation. The OP pinpoints repair kits as being responsible for keeping items in circulation and suggests their removal or nerfing as a direction for creating an item sink through degradation. What the OP completely ignores is the question of whether this game actually benefits from this kind of "economy".

You put forward keeping loot as a backup as a valuable option, but I question the assumption of your premise. As it is now, you keep the best version of a particular item and use it, scrapping or selling all inferior versions. Perhaps in the rare, odd case you would find two versions with stats divergent enough from each other that you would keep both and use them for different purposes. So let's now add this concept of degradation and keeping backups...how does that actually feel to the player when they are forced to go from their high stat item to an inferior version? What is the counterplay to these downgrades over time?

In my experience, finding upgrades in the mid-late game is rare. Once you have a blue or purple version of an item it can take weeks to upgrade over it, if ever. If I were not able to keep my best versions of items going indefinitely, this would mean fairly frequent statistical downgrades and less frequent upgrades. That sounds like a bad feeling game, IMO, where you slowly get weaker over time as the game actually gets harder.

I think the repair mechanic as it exists is perfectly adequate. It's not super engaging, but it does feed a gameplay loop that feels good. You hunt new items to improve on the ones you have, rarely finding them, but when you do it feels nice. The rest of the time you are collecting vendor fodder which increase your liquid wealth, also lending a feeling of progression. If you find enough of these redundant items, you build up a nice cash reserve which can be used to fill in any supply gaps you may have. As your reserve grows, you are motivated to explore farther to find more traders and add them to your rotation, checking them for useful items every time they refresh their stock.

Usually the difference between a tier 5 rifle and its substitute are so miniscule that they don't matter. When the substitute does 70 instead of 72 damage per shot, it is negligible and you don't get weaker over time. You constantly find more tier 5 rifles and soon you are at 72 again.

The only real drawback of this scheme is that you would have to swap mods too often.

In absence of a true endgame, this works pretty well for now, IMO. I don't see how adding "feels bad" mechanics for the sake of an imaginary "economy" improves the game.

I honestly don't understand what you are trying to say here.

Rince gave us a situation where repair kits are super valuable. But it wasn't because they really were valuable through circumstances outside of the control of the player. It was simply because the player did not buy or craft them.

Yes, you can starve near a supermarket if you don't buy any food in there.

 

[Liesel Weppen]

So let's now add this concept of degradation and keeping backups...how does that actually feel to the player when they are forced to go from their high stat item to an inferior version? What is the counterplay to these downgrades over time?

They have to decide when they use the better ones and when the lower quality/stats ones. E.g. you might not degrade you best weapon while doing quests, but keep it for the bloodmoon. Or keep an item instead of selling it. The "counterplay" is thinking about what to use when under which circumstances.

Being able to craft good quality items becomes more important, because you probably may be able to craft a NEW T5 item if you current one breaks. Currently once you found a T6, crafting is completely obsolete.

As i already suggested earlier: There might be different repairs. There could be various scenarios. Maybe (simple) repair kits are as they are now, but applies a huge durability loss. There might be an improved repair kit, that costs a lot more to craft but repairs with far less durability loss. And maybe on the workstation you can repair (still requiring a simple repair kit or some of the specific parts) even without loss (but not restoring already lost durability). That brings up several options how to handle it.

You tend to plan your repairs at home on the workstation, because you don't want durability loss. If an item runs out of durability during a quest (because quest is very long, e.g. one of the skyscrapers or you simply forgot to repair at home) you have to decide if you use a simple repair kit and accept huge permanent durability loss, or maybe you have invested far more ressources in the improved repair kits and repair with less loss, or maybe you try finishing the mission without this item and repair it afterwards at home without any loss? Or maybe you don't care for durability loss, because you have 5 backups anyway at home?

Same during bloodmoon. Use repair kits with loss? Having a workbench near your defending position for lossless repairs? Or even carry more weapons of the same type and don't repair during BM at all, but switch weapons?

Currently its very simple: Take the best item you have and a stack of repair kits, sell everything else. Done.

Ressources just pile up, because there is no further use for them anymore and there is absolutely no ressource sink.

There should be a valuable cost of use. Not just a simple and cheap repair kit just requiring one forged iron and one duct tape.

I honestly don't understand what you are trying to say here.

I hope that makes you understand better what my "target" is.

 

[Psychodabble]

Usually the difference between a tier 5 rifle and its substitute are so miniscule that they don't matter. When the substitute does 70 instead of 72 damage per shot, it is negligible and you don't get weaker over time. You constantly find more tier 5 rifles and soon you are at 72 again.

The only real drawback of this scheme is that you would have to swap mods too often.

Rince gave us a situation where repair kits are super valuable. But it wasn't because they really were valuable through circumstances outside of the control of the player. It was simply because the player did not buy or craft them.

Yes, you can starve near a supermarket if you don't buy any food in there.

You are correct that items of similar quality perform so similarly as to be indistinguishable from one another in practical use cases. That, however, is not the issue...the issue is player feeling. When it comes to player feeling there is a clear preference for improvement in any game that uses items and item statistics. As soon as numbers get involved humans, and by extension gamers, want to see to those numbers go up over time. As soon as we get the sense that our numbers are stagnating or that there is no chance to improve them, the fun factor diminishes.

Let's assume that you are correct in your example that you will return to 72 damage from 70 in relatively short order. How does that feel? Not like progression, because you've now spent X amount of time/effort just to get back to where you already were. That's the opposite of fun, IMO. Fun comes from feeling like you are getting better and moving ahead, not treading water. Even if that feeling is illusory because the actual difference in numbers is miniscule, that doesn't change the impact of the feeling on your gameplay experience.

I would rather keep hunting in the hope of finding upgrades rather than praying I've stockpiled enough backups to avoid losing ground. Maybe that's just me, but I don't think it is.

They have to decide when they use the better ones and when the lower quality/stats ones. E.g. you might not degrade you best weapon while doing quests, but keep it for the bloodmoon. Or keep an item instead of selling it. The "counterplay" is thinking about what to use when under which circumstances.

Being able to craft good quality items becomes more important, because you probably may be able to craft a NEW T5 item if you current one breaks. Currently once you found a T6, crafting is completely obsolete.

As i already suggested earlier: There might be different repairs. There could be various scenarios. Maybe (simple) repair kits are as they are now, but applies a huge durability loss. There might be an improved repair kit, that costs a lot more to craft but repairs with far less durability loss. And maybe on the workstation you can repair (still requiring a simple repair kit or some of the specific parts) even without loss (but not restoring already lost durability). That brings up several options how to handle it.

You tend to plan your repairs at home on the workstation, because you don't want durability loss. If an item runs out of durability during a quest (because quest is very long, e.g. one of the skyscrapers or you simply forgot to repair at home) you have to decide if you use a simple repair kit and accept huge permanent durability loss, or maybe you have invested far more ressources in the improved repair kits and repair with less loss, or maybe you try finishing the mission without this item and repair it afterwards at home without any loss? Or maybe you don't care for durability loss, because you have 5 backups anyway at home?

Same during bloodmoon. Use repair kits with loss? Having a workbench near your defending position for lossless repairs? Or even carry more weapons of the same type and don't repair during BM at all, but switch weapons?

Currently its very simple: Take the best item you have and a stack of repair kits, sell everything else. Done.

Ressources just pile up, because there is no further use for them anymore and there is absolutely no ressource sink.

There should be a valuable cost of use. Not just a simple and cheap repair kit just requiring one forged iron and one duct tape.

I hope that makes you understand better what my "target" is.

I would support something like this that deepens the repair mechanic without making degradation inevitable. If there is some way of extending an item's lifespan indefinitely that just requires more resources than currently, that would be fine. I actually like the idea as you described it here...repair options rather than just removed or vastly more expensive and futile repair.

 

[Liesel Weppen]

Let's assume that you are correct in your example that you will return to 72 damage from 70 in relatively short order. How does that feel? Not like progression, because you've now spent X amount of time/effort just to get back to where you already were.

You should realize that your good 72 damage weapon is a progression, but not lasting forever. Yes, if it breaks and you haven't found a better one yet, it is a downgrade. Assume this happend and you find another one with 72 damage. You are happy again. Currently you don't bother, because you already have the same.

And since you can craft items (and still intentionally not able to craft T6), there is a limit for the downgrade, because downgrade only to the worst item you are able to craft by yourself.

Trader offers will also become more valuable. You already have a damage 72 item, Now the trader offers another 72 damage item. Do you care for this offer? Even if you have stacks of dukes? No, because it is no improvement and your current item is forever. If your current item doesn't last forever, you might be interested in this offer anyway.

I would support something like this that deepens the repair mechanic without making degradation inevitable. If there is some way of extending an item's lifespan indefinitely that just requires more resources than currently, that would be fine. I actually like the idea as you described it here...repair options rather than just removed or vastly more expensive and futile repair.

At least ALL MY posts, are not heading for "just make it more expensive" but for "make it valuable with decissions need to be taken".

Just making it more expensive isn't worth anything, there you are absolutely right.

 

[Psychodabble]

You should realize that your good 72 damage weapon is a progression, but not lasting forever. Yes, if it breaks and you haven't found a better one yet, it is a downgrade. Assume this happend and you find another one with 72 damage. You are happy again. Currently you don't bother, because you already have the same.

And since you can craft items (and still intentionally not able to craft T6), there is a limit for the downgrade, because downgrade only to the worst item you are able to craft by yourself.

Trader offers will also become more valuable. You already have a damage 72 item, Now the trader offers another 72 damage item. Do you care for this offer? Even if you have stacks of dukes? No, because it is no improvement and your current item is forever. If your current item doesn't last forever, you might be interested in this offer anyway.

I just don't see this as adding value to the gameplay loop. Downgrades feel bad, especially when there is no counterplay. If the counterplay is just spending more to maintain the same level...meh. It would be okay because the player accumulates so much over a playthrough, but it doesn't really add anything. Changing your perspective to consider all upgrades as temporary doesn't change that feeling, because you know the game is progressively getting harder...every day you survive and kill and gain levels the game is getting harder...if your items don't keep up with that curve...it just feels bad.

 

[Liesel Weppen]

I just don't see this as adding value to the gameplay loop.

Decission taking is the added value!

Downgrades feel bad, especially when there is no counterplay.

The counterplay is that it needs more preparation.

Changing your perspective to consider all upgrades as temporary doesn't change that feeling, because you know the game is progressively getting harder...

And that's why you should be required to plan ahead. With your supplies, with your backup weapons and so on.
And as i said, there is an option to keep an item usable forever. But not under every circumstance and also with low ressource requirements. So situations may happen where you have to circumvent a durability loss or even take it. Especially if you didn't prepare well.