PC Loot Stage Multiplier - What Do You Think?

[Vaeliorin]

So, I had this pop into my head tonight, and I'm curious what people would think of this idea.  We have multipliers for XP and Loot Abundance, but now that Game Stage and Loot Stage are no longer tied together, we could have a multiplier for Loot Stage.

Edit for clarification:  What I mean by this is a setting before starting a game similar to the XP and Loot multipliers, such that your Loot Stage would be decreased/increased by the multiplier everywhere.

This would help with the complaints I've seen about people getting quality 6 steel tools in the first week, and it could potentially help out with people who think crafting is pointless (when you're not seeing a q6 steel tool until day 150 instead of day 15...that makes crafting your own much more tempting...I'd probably want a q6 crafting mod with this, but that's neither here nor there.)

You could also have positive multipliers for people who want to be able to find really good stuff right from the beginning.

Obviously, there might have to be some balancing to get this to work decently (parts maybe available earlier?  I'm not sure when you start finding them) and something would need to be done about the trader (trader stock/quest rewards dependent on loot stage would be a nice, I think) but I think this would be an interesting and fun option to add into the game.

Possibly this could be done through a mod, though I'm not sure if the loot stage calculations are exposed.

Anyway, I was just curious what people thought of this.  I don't know how much I'd use it personally (though I kind of like the idea of setting the multiplier to something like .1x so that crafting was much better) but I thought it was something that some people would enjoy, and would help with some of the complaints people have had about loot and crafting.

 

[Weazelsun]

Uh... we already have that. 

• Forest - No multiplier
  
• Burnt (Navesgane only)/ Desert: +1.5x (50%) modifier and +10 bonus
  
• Snow: +2.0x (100%) modifier and +20 bonus
  
• Wasteland: +2.5x modifier (150%) and + 30 bonus
  

 

[Vaeliorin]

Uh... we already have that. 

• Forest - No multiplier
  
• Burnt (Navesgane only)/ Desert: +1.5x (50%) modifier and +10 bonus
  
• Snow: +2.0x (100%) modifier and +20 bonus
  
• Wasteland: +2.5x modifier (150%) and + 30 bonus
  

I'm aware of that, but if you read my post, I meant an option similar to XP multiplier and Loot Abundance (hmm...maybe I didn't make that entirely clear.)  Basically a multiplier similar to those two that you would set when starting a game (say anywhere from 10% to 500%) so that your loot stage would either be decreased or increased everywhere based on that multiplier.

 

[Weazelsun]

I have no clue.  I think I somewhat understand, so the way I'm understand it. Is to have a base game setting that allows you to set a flat multiplier to loot stage.

I.e - Set it to like 10%, regardless of where you are in the world you get that flat 10% multiplier. I do agree with you though on how that could be balanced. Like I can see if that setting was put in, it could lead to players starting out in the forest biome starting to find lvl 3 stuff early on.

To add on not only do you get the biome multiplier but there is also the poi tier multiplier as well. So, in actuality it would be proposed game setting multiplier + biome multiplier + poi multiplier.

 

[Boidster]

You want slower loot progression? Good heavens, man, read the room!  

I kid I kid. You can do what you want in a modlet pretty easily. Since biome modifiers are always active, you can just modify each biome downward by whatever factor you want. So if you want, say, a 50 percentage-point reduction in base lootstage, you would make these changes (in biomes.xml):

Pine Forest: 0 -> -0.5

Desert: 0.5 -> 0

Burnt Forest: 0.5 -> 0

Snow: 1.0 -> 0.5

Wasteland: 1.5 -> 1.0

You could also reduce the flat bonuses for each biome. And you can also easily adjust the POI bonuses - all of the factors are in a single line at the top of loot.xml.

Edit to add: I did test the negative modifier for biomes, and it worked as expected.

 

[Vaeliorin]

I wouldn't necessarily say I want slower loot progression, it was just an idea that popped into my head.  Seeing the thread complaining about finding a Q6 steel tool on day 1 and another thread complaining about crafting being pointless, and so on just made me wonder if it was possible to add as an option. 

I do think it would be interesting to play a game where instead of having Q6 steel tools on Day 20, you wouldn't even see steel tools until Day 100 or something.  You'd still be getting schematics and parts, though, so you could make steel tools well before Day 100, hence crafting being "worthwhile" again.  I don't know exactly how parts and schematics are tied to loot stage, so you'd probably need to have them uncoupled, or have parts/schematics potentially appearing at lower loot stages if they require higher ones now.

Heck, I can even imagine someone wanting to change the modifiers per biome, such that you got loot stage penalties in the forest and had to go to harder biomes to even be at baseline.

Just wondered if it was something anyone would be interested in, and if it was possible to maybe do it as a slider (like Khaine's mod that lets you change number of land claim blocks, etc.)