PC Has this game turned from a scavenging game to a dungeon crawler?

[Darklegend222]

In A17, you looted POIs specifically for loot. Especially a shotgun messiah or a working stiff tools because you don't want to spend 2+ minutes cutting down a tree or chopping that rock.

But due to the changes in A18 and A19 with the loot tables, you know that if you raid a Working stiff Tools you will find literally nothing but stone items, because a number known as gamestage depicts it that way. I consider it to have moved away from a scavenging game. Scavenging is going through shelves and shelves of stuff "hoping" to find something, now its just "if i raid this, i KNOW i'll find nothing useful, but once that number goes higher, MAGICALLY more stuff appears".

Edit, I forgot to add the first bit. In A16, raiding POIs was a daunting experience because there was less stuff to loot, a lot of places had almost nothing, and the zombies were quite horrifying. Now its just running quests endlessly to level up and get more money to purchase an item because places will NOT get any loot other than stone items. Its a game of leveling and a game of questing. Not so much a horror/survival.

 

[katarynna]

I consider this game to be whatever I want to play at any given moment.

Some days I log in and it is a building and decorating sim, interrupted by occasional screamer killing.

Some days I log in and it is a looter shooter, spamming every poi up and down the street with reckless abandon and a bunch of chests in the middle of the street to dump crap in to be sorted/moved later.

Some days I log in and it is a stealthy dungeon crawl, killing most things with one shot to the head with my compy xbow.

Some days I log in and it's farmville, Carefully placing plots for maximum attractiveness and planting all the seeds I can finally craft.

You say that early game is not about scavenging because you find nothing useful. I have found the book that gives you no movement penalties from armor on day 3. That is more useful than a q2 iron pick ax to me. Books, recipes, mods, seeds, crafting mats, ammo ... those are all very useful to me.

I am not stupid enough to start a giant base build while i still have stone tools. The basic week 1 zombies die easily to a primitive bow stealth shot or a few bonks on the head with a wooden club. I manage just fine on what i can find or craft. And by the time I need more I have it.

The game is what you make of it.

 

[Aldranon]

"The game is what you make of it."

A book of wisdom only needs this one sentence. 

It applies to everything. 

 

[meganoth]

In A17, you looted POIs specifically for loot. Especially a shotgun messiah or a working stiff tools because you don't want to spend 2+ minutes cutting down a tree or chopping that rock.

But due to the changes in A18 and A19 with the loot tables, you know that if you raid a Working stiff Tools you will find literally nothing but stone items, because a number known as gamestage depicts it that way. I consider it to have moved away from a scavenging game. Scavenging is going through shelves and shelves of stuff "hoping" to find something, now its just "if i raid this, i KNOW i'll find nothing useful, but once that number goes higher, MAGICALLY more stuff appears".

Edit, I forgot to add the first bit. In A16, raiding POIs was a daunting experience because there was less stuff to loot, a lot of places had almost nothing, and the zombies were quite horrifying. Now its just running quests endlessly to level up and get more money to purchase an item because places will NOT get any loot other than stone items. Its a game of leveling and a game of questing. Not so much a horror/survival.

If you reduce loot to some tools and weapons you already lost the bigger view because you concentrated on something you as a player should ignore if you want to immerse yourself into the game world.

I loot all the time in early game because my prioirites are to feed myself and start getting resources and mods and books.

The devs seems to think the current situation isn't optimal as well, AFAIK loot tables are getting a makeover and there definitely will be the choice to raid other biomes for better loot (tables)

I consider the current loot tables too strict as well, there should be lottery-ticket type chances to get better stuff for better loot tables. In actual play this won't change anything though, if every 12th player finds an iron tool on day 3 that would be IMHO the optimal balance. It would mean that in 4 player co-op games the miner gets an iron tool in every 3rd game.

In fact single players will have a sub-standard chance to find much better stuff when the game has to be balanced for multiplayer as well.

 

[Crater Creator]

I don't think I ever thought of it as predominantly a scavenging game.  And horror is somewhat predicated on provoking a certain fear response, which is difficult to sustain after the first few hundred hours, for any game.  That is to say, it may still be horrific, but only to new players.  But I have always considered it a survival game, and unfortunately I do think that's diminished over time.  Thinking about it, what seriously threatens your survival in the current game?

Is it the zombies?  Well, yes, they can threaten your character's life, but most games have bad guys to fight.  So entities trying to kill the player directly isn't really survival in the strict sense, or else most games would be considered survival games.

Is it food and water?  Not nearly as much as it used to be.  At the start of the game, edible wildlife is very abundant.  Water doesn't require a cooking pot anymore, nor worrying about metal cans and their stack sizes.  A single water block solves your entire water problem forever.  You can make a fire for cooking any time you want from just a handful of rocks, which has always bugged me.  Exponential crop growth has been tamped down, but crops still grow perfectly every three days, with no threats to the yield.

Is it exposure to the elements?  Not at all.  You get free protection from the elements at the start, and by the time that peters out you'll certainly have plenty of clothes from normal day-to-day looting.  You start in a biome that's room temperature year-round, and there are very few reasons to ever leave.  The worst thing that can happen from being outside without shelter is getting a little hot or cold.

I feel like you almost have to be going out of your way for your character to suffer from lack of food, water, clothing, or shelter.  These are more like annoyances than essential elements you spend significant time securing.  The injuries are more developed now, in terms of creating medium-to-long term problems you have to deal with to survive.  That may be the one area where there's more survival than there once was.

----------

The dungeon crawls provide more gameplay with more structure than the mostly empty buildings we had before.  It's a value-adding thing.  It's also a powerful allure for anyone wondering what they're supposed to do in this sandbox.  Even when I know I should be focusing on resources or building, I find myself unable to resist those sweet rewards for doing quests.  I suppose it's not so much the dungeon crawls themselves, but the traders that dominate the game for me.  Theoretically I can pull myself up by my bootstraps with enough perk points and craft 90% of things, but it seems easier to just get some Dukes and buy what I need.  In that way, it's not as post-apocalyptic as one might expect.

 

[Crater Creator]

I consider the current loot tables too strict as well, there should be lottery-ticket type chances to get better stuff for better loot tables. In actual play this won't change anything though, if every 12th player finds an iron tool on day 3 that would be IMHO the optimal balance. It would mean that in 4 player co-op games the miner gets an iron tool in every 3rd game.

I feel like the traders are at least that good if not better now.  The traders really are the great equalizers, providing critical items like that first iron tool to shore up your vulnerabilities.  I'd like to see more of those 'lottery ticket' moments from looting, too, and for the traders to be less reliable, more transient in what they offer and when.

 

[meganoth]

I feel like the traders are at least that good if not better now.  The traders really are the great equalizers, providing critical items like that first iron tool to shore up your vulnerabilities.  I'd like to see more of those 'lottery ticket' moments from looting, too, and for the traders to be less reliable, more transient in what they offer and when.

Agreed. One hope is that they really get the specialization of the traders "right". If one finds Trader Chen first it would mean quite low chances to buy a better axe.

 

[Crater Creator]

You know, I've spent a lot of time in loot.xml over the years, and this thread makes me think... even if we accept the premise of leveled loot, maybe they should abandon sorting all the loot into tiered groups.  Maybe they should go back to simple loot lists, but put a gamestage number/modifier directly on each item.  Then you could just have a loot list of all the armor, and add it to all the containers where it makes sense to find armor, and the game would look at the individual item to see whether you're 'ready' for it at your gamestage.  It may not affect the end result that players see, but it would make the files easier to read and maintain, and you could go beyond tiers if you wanted.  For instance, you could start finding chest armor a little bit before you start finding helmets, without waiting for this big rollover where all sorts of loot changes all at once.

 

[Liesel Weppen]

Imho the current lootstages are to strict, however i think it is still better than complete randomnes.

Best way imho is a risk-vs-reward system. In theory you should be able to find a M60 on day one. If you are brave enough to go into a shotgun messiah factory on day one. And ofc the difficulty in the factory has to be high on day one also.

But that requires lootdrops to be bound to POIs instead of just what type of lootcrate. You should not be able to find a M60 from a shotgun messiah crate in a lonely garage where not even a single zombie spawns. But you should be able to find a M60 in the same kind of shotgun messiah crate if you made your way through the factory.

The second thing is, that requires also difficulty to be bound to POIs instead of just the players gamestage. There should spawn cops and radiateds in a factory, even on day one, when the player is still just gamestage 1.

And if i understood it correctly, this is about to come true with A20.

 

[BFT2020]

Some days I log in and it is a looter shooter, spamming every poi up and down the street with reckless abandon and a bunch of chests in the middle of the street to dump crap in to be sorted/moved later.

Thank God I am not the only one that does that.  I looted the town I am in and working on the town next to me.  Though I have gone from loot chests (those I used mostly when I am using the bikes) to the 4X4.

You know, I've spent a lot of time in loot.xml over the years, and this thread makes me think... even if we accept the premise of leveled loot, maybe they should abandon sorting all the loot into tiered groups.  Maybe they should go back to simple loot lists, but put a gamestage number/modifier directly on each item.  Then you could just have a loot list of all the armor, and add it to all the containers where it makes sense to find armor, and the game would look at the individual item to see whether you're 'ready' for it at your gamestage.  It may not affect the end result that players see, but it would make the files easier to read and maintain, and you could go beyond tiers if you wanted.  For instance, you could start finding chest armor a little bit before you start finding helmets, without waiting for this big rollover where all sorts of loot changes all at once.

I must be weird, but I have no issues with the current loot strategy - I will also admit I won't have any issues if TFP makes changes down the road to it.

With the current iteration, it makes things simpler for me when I am playing.  For the first 1-2 weeks of playing, I am just concentrating on survival - food, water, collecting basic materials, prepping my location for the first BM, setting up my base.  So I never really go into the more interesting POIs - I stick mostly to houses and the T1s.  By the time I am ready to start advancing my situation, my game stage is high enough that I am going to find better loot in the higher tier POIs.

 

[Roland]

In A17, you looted POIs specifically for loot. Especially a shotgun messiah or a working stiff tools because you don't want to spend 2+ minutes cutting down a tree or chopping that rock.

But due to the changes in A18 and A19 with the loot tables, you know that if you raid a Working stiff Tools you will find literally nothing but stone items, because a number known as gamestage depicts it that way. I consider it to have moved away from a scavenging game. Scavenging is going through shelves and shelves of stuff "hoping" to find something, now its just "if i raid this, i KNOW i'll find nothing useful, but once that number goes higher, MAGICALLY more stuff appears".

Edit, I forgot to add the first bit. In A16, raiding POIs was a daunting experience because there was less stuff to loot, a lot of places had almost nothing, and the zombies were quite horrifying. Now its just running quests endlessly to level up and get more money to purchase an item because places will NOT get any loot other than stone items. Its a game of leveling and a game of questing. Not so much a horror/survival.

I find gobs of useful stuff besides stone tools and weapons. I think you are too focused on efficiency and opportunity cost. Stop thinking about what you might find later if you just put off opening containers until you have a higher gamestage and work with what you can find now. You are simply playing the game as a grind to get your levels up higher as quickly as you can. That is your choice and there is no one forcing you to spam quest after quest. 

Also, the current state of the game is temporary. Whatever it feels like it has turned into for you, it will turn into something else in the future. The gamestaging is a WIP. But I will say that no matter what it turns into, if you decide to go meta in order to grind as quickly as you can up to higher levels, it isn't ever going to feel satsifying. In the past it was grinding through crafting and now it is grinding quests, and next there will be something to grind away at to efficiently and quickly increase in levels.

 

[7daysexpert]

Imho the current lootstages are to strict, however i think it is still better than complete randomnes.

Best way imho is a risk-vs-reward system. In theory you should be able to find a M60 on day one. If you are brave enough to go into a shotgun messiah factory on day one. And ofc the difficulty in the factory has to be high on day one also.

But that requires lootdrops to be bound to POIs instead of just what type of lootcrate. You should not be able to find a M60 from a shotgun messiah crate in a lonely garage where not even a single zombie spawns. But you should be able to find a M60 in the same kind of shotgun messiah crate if you made your way through the factory.

The second thing is, that requires also difficulty to be bound to POIs instead of just the players gamestage. There should spawn cops and radiateds in a factory, even on day one, when the player is still just gamestage 1.

And if i understood it correctly, this is about to come true with A20.

you nailed it perfectly my friend the game as it sits now has virtually no challenge till you hit minimum the day 35 horde and then by the day 49 horde teh difficulty is all but gone because the hordes are just rinse and repeat after that

You know, I've spent a lot of time in loot.xml over the years, and this thread makes me think... even if we accept the premise of leveled loot, maybe they should abandon sorting all the loot into tiered groups.  Maybe they should go back to simple loot lists, but put a gamestage number/modifier directly on each item.  Then you could just have a loot list of all the armor, and add it to all the containers where it makes sense to find armor, and the game would look at the individual item to see whether you're 'ready' for it at your gamestage.  It may not affect the end result that players see, but it would make the files easier to read and maintain, and you could go beyond tiers if you wanted.  For instance, you could start finding chest armor a little bit before you start finding helmets, without waiting for this big rollover where all sorts of loot changes all at once.

i actually disagree and this may be nostalgia talking but the loot system they had for A15 when hub citys existed was miles better than what it is now there was an actual need to be careful the way it sits now there is little to no danger early on except for maybe a ninja dire wolf i feel the loot system ahs regressed not progressed

 

[Aldranon]

IDK

The first 7-14 days is keeping enough food to keep going and finding a weapon that might influence my character development.

Then the day 21 BM horde is (for my usual GS at that time) the first real test of my base idea.

Then after that, its like an arms race between myself and the zombies.  Normal settings (and no mods) are not a real struggle but it's leisure fun. 

Mods add a universe of amazing fun!  I will not push one over another, but I suggest you eventually try them all! 

 

[Darklegend222]

I find gobs of useful stuff besides stone tools and weapons. I think you are too focused on efficiency and opportunity cost. Stop thinking about what you might find later if you just put off opening containers until you have a higher gamestage and work with what you can find now. You are simply playing the game as a grind to get your levels up higher as quickly as you can. That is your choice and there is no one forcing you to spam quest after quest.

If I would like an iron tool, then i obviously need to level. The devs have PURELY made this game a level grind. You want to craft better quality? Level up. Want to find better loot? Level up. Want to make gasoline? Level up. Want to raid a POI? Might as well talk to trader for a quest since you can essentially raid them twice. Spamming quest after quest is quite literally how the game progression is supposed to go at the moment since everything has a tier and allows you to reloot a place.

As for playing the game as a grind.. it's 7 days.. to die.. are we supposed to NOT grind until the 7 days or what? Anything past the first 7 days is purely for fun.

Edit: i should specify that it is a WIP as you've said, and i am truly looking forward to see what changes we see. Early access is not finished, changes will be made. With the current system, it's quite linear gameplay.

 

[Roland]

If I would like an iron tool, then i obviously need to level.

This attitude right here is what has turned the game into the unsatisfying grind that it is for you. How about forget about an iron tool and your knowledge that leveling up quickly will get you an iron tool sooner. 
 

Instead, try staying close to your spawn point and whatever closest POI you come to start fortifying it. Work on planting a garden and playing the game like a survival game. Don’t spend any perk points and don’t finish the trader quest portion of the tutorial quest chain until after your first bloodmoon. 
 

During that first week just explore around and loot any POIs you find without a quest. Clear the POIs as though you were actually searching for other survivors or any supplies you might come across. Don’t just use your meta knowledge to bee-line for the treasure room. 
 

Once you find the trader start doing quests but do them one per day like they are a job that takes a day to do. Use the equipment you have but if you can buy something better go for it. 
 

Start spending your skill points based on how you are playing the game rather than using your game mechanics knowledge to spend for the most efficient path. 
 

The devs have PURELY made this game a level grind.

I can assure you they have not. This is a role playing game that doesn’t hold your hand with a story or lock you into a pre-defined class or dictate your objectives. You make your own story by living in the world and acting out each day’s activities. You create your own class by spending your points however you wish. You choose your own objectives and spend tour time doing what you want. 
 

That’s why the game is very susceptible to people who just want to grind for the sake of leveling up to get the top gear and max out their perks for no other reason than to acquire those things because that is an option. But that is player choice and the game does not have to be played that way. Joel doesn’t play it that way.

The only people who think the game is purely a level grind are those who have reduced the gameplay to an abstract level up simulator and once they’ve found the one true path that most efficiently grinds out those level-ups they believe the game forces them to play only that way because to play sub optimally would be losing.

Spamming quest after quest is quite literally how the game progression is supposed to go at the moment since everything has a tier and allows you to reloot a place.

No....it’s not how it’s supposed to go. But the devs don’t want to put in artificial limits on how often you do quests. Do one quest a day, max, by your own choice and mix in some exploring, building, crafting, mining, and farming. There are so many different activities that you can do to get the feeling of living in the world and making do with what you have. But if you don’t care for that then, sure, spam quest to grind out those level-ups and higher quest tiers, and double dip those POIs for double loot. But then don’t complain that the game doesn’t feel like a survival game since you’re choosing to play it as a level-up efficiency puzzle using all your outside knowledge of the game mechanics to work the system. 

As for playing the game as a grind.. it's 7 days.. to die.. are we supposed to NOT grind until the 7 days or what? Anything past the first 7 days is purely for fun.

It’s always fun if you change your focus to just living in the world and playing it as a survivor would instead of playing it as a gamer sitting at a terminal with knowledge and strategies gleaned from the internet on how to get to those iron tools as quickly as possible. 

 

[Liesel Weppen]

This is a role playing game that doesn’t hold your hand with a story or lock you into a pre-defined class or dictate your objectives.

I have to disagree on the "pre-defined" classes. Sure you don't choose a class from the start, but how the perks are layed out at the moment, your 5 predefined classes are strength, fortitude, agility, perception and intelligence. Imho that's not about min-maxing or speedrunning, but using perks from different attributes is VERY expensive.

But if you don’t care for that then, sure, spam quest to grind out those level-ups and higher quest tiers, and double dip those POIs for double loot.

Another good point in the difficulty progression. As i often read, the game is to difficult, then it turns out people are powerleveling from the start. That raises the gamestage quickly and so the difficulty. At one point the bloodmoon kicks in with radiateds and probably even demolishers on day 21 because people have a gamestage of 150, but haven't build a suitable defense base yet or even no good equipment, to less amunition or whatever.

Imho in the vanilla game it's still relatively easy, but try doing that in some mods like Darkness Falls.

 

[meganoth]

you nailed it perfectly my friend the game as it sits now has virtually no challenge till you hit minimum the day 35 horde and then by the day 49 horde teh difficulty is all but gone because the hordes are just rinse and repeat after that

i actually disagree and this may be nostalgia talking but the loot system they had for A15 when hub citys existed was miles better than what it is now there was an actual need to be careful the way it sits now there is little to no danger early on except for maybe a ninja dire wolf i feel the loot system ahs regressed not progressed

If you started in A15 then you have progressed from beginner to expert in that time which changes a lot. Yes. vanilla at default is easy, but vanilla is made that way for beginners and at the same time for people with minimum spec hardware. Experts are supposed to do some of the following things;

1) use mods

2) play on harder difficulites like insane

3) increase zombie numbers if your hardware allows it

4) decrease loot amount

...

 

[meganoth]

I have to disagree on the "pre-defined" classes. Sure you don't choose a class from the start, but how the perks are layed out at the moment, your 5 predefined classes are strength, fortitude, agility, perception and intelligence. Imho that's not about min-maxing or speedrunning, but using perks from different attributes is VERY expensive.

Not from the start, in the early game it costs you nearly nothing to branch out. And it actually costs you the same to make a dual-class without the 5th perk level than to make a single-class with 5th perk level.

 

[Adam the Waster]

I partially agree to a point. 

back then items where much harder to find and you pray to god some days you get to unlock that hunting rifle. 


but i think it is for the better. you still have to look around and find stuff. that trash pile MIGHT have that book you're looking for.  Weapons are a bit more common but sense they will add NPCs and more zombies. that i hope are much more deadly. and with zombie AI changes it makes sense. 

but its still a Scavenging game. EVERY once of loot counts and when i play. 99.9% of the time im overecomber sense im greedy and i don't like to invest much in to weight since i would rather find more stuff to hoard then hold more

 

[Liesel Weppen]

Not from the start, in the early game it costs you nearly nothing to branch out. And it actually costs you the same to make a dual-class without the 5th perk level than to make a single-class with 5th perk level.

Yep, but as you say, you can pick 4th grade twice with the same cost as one time 5th grade, you have picked 2 out of 5.... classes.

With many points spent on attributes that massively buff specific weapons, you probably don't even want to use. But if you then tend to use those weapons, just because you have put point in there... we can call it classes.

The current tree design, forces you into those classes, you can pick 2 of them but then not max out both, you can even pick a third one and upgrade them all three less and differently. But the tree tells you the way.