I'll explain my rationale. I believe you're aware that regardless of what the results are, 25% bonus to selling and buying is the same outcome as the one you describe which shows the maximum impact in limited circumstances. Yet you've consistently made an attempt to play up the effect and do so using bigger numbers. First by simply adding the bonuses together, which is not how it works in any scenario, and then by using a very specific example which is how it works but isn't the complete picture nor is it a picture of the bulk of duke generation and usage. You also glossed over that anyone can get an additional ~45% (5 magnum, 10 cigar, 20 awesome sauce, 10 candy) which is an even bigger bonus than the one provided by the perk at a 21 point investment into INT,. Though the conversation has threads all over the place so I don't see this as intentional, but it's a factor that matters that you haven't commented about. From our conversation I got the impression you're a bright enough person to understand the distinction between the framing. You cited a cherry picked example to make your opinion seem more valid. Which said example still just equates to 25% more from buying and selling. It's no different than talking about a perk which increases a loot item from 1 to 2 and talking about it being overpowered because it's a 100% increase in loot. They're both the same but describing it the latter way using a bigger number sounds more more potent than just saying 'it's an +1 loot of x item'. It's framing not unbiased data even if it is mathematically accurate. You have a bias that you haven't been shy about and it shows in how you describe the perk. Some would view that as just good arguing but it's word/number play. I explained I've worked in data a long time and have had held a position where I was legally responsible for ensuring that I was providing unbiased and complete data.
I have a mathematical background, numbers are important, especially if they are facts that are the basis of later arguments. So for me it is important to say that a 25% bonus on buying and selling is effectively more than just a 25% bonus only on buying or selling. How much this influences total trade then can only be an estimation, something which we are both aware of. And for a long time I didn't even know if you were disagreeing on the BB bonus being effectively more for buying and selling or if you were only disagreeing on the (estimated) total bonus of the whole average money trade.
Since I made the mistake of forgeting trader rewards I estimated other effects to be easily covered by the fact that the effective buy/sell bonus of this perk is actually more than just the sum. And now I would still say they are though it needs some help from perk points in Daring Adventurer to keep the effect somewhere in the area of 50%.
Maybe 1/3rd of the income of quest rewards are in items you then sell so even in quest rewards the BB's bonus applies partly instead of the Daring bonus. And Daring gives you more choices for the most expensive item, so that should increase average bonus one gets out of Daring.
And yes, I also thought about the barter bonuses from other sources, they decrease the bonus by a factor. But awesome sauce is a hard to come by end-game item (that you need highest master chef and super corn to cook them and the high bonus are indicators). The candy costs 100 coins per use so you have to pool stuff to sell and get the money later if you want to get near those 10%, and that time can be valuable as well if you can't afford an item you need or want (Your transaction volume has to be 1000 to even break even with the candy). Cheesecake only buffs buying, not selling.
Without making an exact calculation I assessed (and still think) that their influence on the overall bonus you get from INT is not that big. All of them except magnum have per-use fixed costs, all except candy need recipes, books or items to use them regularily, most players won't have all bonuses available until late game.
This doesn't apply to excellent min/maxers, but the typical player (including me) isn't even organized enough that he gets the theoretical limit of the bonuses of the boosters he actually has. I often just sell stuff immediately from quests while I really should put them into a chest in front of the trader and later sell with the best bonuses I can get. I don't know anyone who actually does that, i.e. save trader rewards
But lets calculate the effect of those other bonus sources and see if I was totally wrong or something: Lets assume that a player can get on average 125% from boosters (with per-use costs and average availability all factored in). What does it mean for the 125% buff from the perk only the Int player gets? It is the difference between 125% and 150% and that difference (if I made no mistake) is 120% down from 125% (If we instead assumed boosters at 130% on average that difference would be 119% by the way).
Recalculating the effective bonus of BB (with boosters in mind) would now land exactly on 150%. Assuming Daring being perked as well that leaves only coins you find in loot as the remaining factor, so I'd say my estimation of 150% is not too far from the truth. (And again, whether that number is too low, too high or just right for balance is another much much harder question and is highly subjective)
I didn't do the math with error interval and statistical analysis, I just gave an estimation then. But neither did you do the math. We both have not the statistical data to get any somewhat dependable results for the bonus overall. And we already both talk too much even without exactly calculating every step of our estimations
, so we both have to rely on guesses and estimations. Me getting to different numbers than you does not mean I'm automatically wrong and you are right and we both have to do a massive glossing over the details as a neccesity. And mistakes do not show intent, except in insurance cases probably, are you by chance in that field? Would explain much
Any perceived misrepresentation could be construed as criminal because the data I worked with was utilized to ascertain funding on a state level. I don't doubt I'm much more strict in how I view this than others because I've had to be. There are levels of dishonesty and we're talking about game mechanics here, and while it's not some horrendous sin to slant discourse in such a way that promotes your opinion as the right one. It's trying to win a debate by making the issue seem bigger than it actually is by intentionally using larger numbers and reframing (i.e. 'effective') .
Weeell, you assume yourself having higher authority because you analyse stuff for work, but it still doesn't mean that you are the arbiter of truth and especially of motives. For that you would actually have to do the work and analyse step by step, not handwave that you are right because you work in that field and I'm the culprit doing nefarious slanting. In this forum you have to reason like everyone else to make a point, which thankfully you do with a few exceptions.
It's dishonest in the same way marketing often is which isn't a horrendous thing by any means, but it's still not intellectually honest discourse. Let me make my point another way. When I stated the numbers off the perk and explained my point of view, why did you feel the need to explain to me the 'effective' value as if using that number changed anything? We both know the answer to that.
No, you assume, I don't remember my brain being dissected by you
. The effective bonus of BB for buying and selling being higher than 25% is a hard mathematical fact and it is important to me just like I have corrected everone who said that LotL1 is a net loss on average. Those are the basic facts and I'm actually astonished that a data analyst who's primary job IS to evaluate from facts to come to reliable conclusions values those facts so low.
You and I are simply not going to agree on this point.
That said, we have different views on the impact of those perks. It's not unexpected that you would try to frame it in a way that implies it needs nerfed. I've shared that I think it's strong and what I think is strong about it. But I will say here, I don't think those perks are any stronger than perks in the other trees. Each one is good. I like that they each have different strengths and weaknesses and different styles. I've done builds using INT and without Daring Adventurer and Better Barter and the interesting thing to me is the things you say are too powerful for INT aren't vastly different from my experiences with other builds. I've even stated several times the things that I think are powerful about it and the things I like about it often times aren't what you think is too strong, or at least you haven't really made an issue out of the things I think are actually the strengths of the perks. To me that's indicative that (and I believe you said this already, though the conversation has gone on a while and I'm not 100% sure) that your issue is with traders themselves. INT seems to just exacerbate the issue you have as the build leans into the trader as a strength.
We could argue about the relative strength of attributes endlessly, lots of estimations and subjective views mostly derived from our personal play style and the few insights we get from playing with others. It would get too far from the topic of this thread as well.
As you say there is also the question if it is just the trader itself that has become too central and powerful in the game with or without BB, we can agree on that.
Since A18 I have never built my base more than a stones throw away from the trader and gameplay is usually very focused on doing quests and trading. Exploring the world outside of quest POIs is nearly irrelevant. I view that as detrimental to replayability, irrespective of the positive elements the trader brings to the game. It does not mean that I try to tell the devs every week this needs to change, it doesn't mean I do a campaign, post angry summaries or have a crusade running. I even sometimes appreciate that the game loop has become so easy that you don't need to remember what to do next time you start the game.
I see it as an offset for the build in the sense that it's painful to try to mine, gather wood, salvage, anything that uses stamina.
One of my co-players already told me that he feels he doesn't need to mine anymore as enough materials to build a horde base and enough ammo to defend it on horde night are easily available from looting POIs and buying from the trader. No question this has a positive side compared to previous alphas where everyone had to do at least some mining and it put STR in a central position. The question is whether the pendulum swung too much in the other direction now.
Early game INT can supplement it's poor gathering by buying items (a random assortment) from traders with the extra dukes it gets. It's nowhere near as effective as actually going into a gathering skill but it's more broadly applicable since the trader stock is all over the place. If we're going to have that discussion about how good extra dukes are, we need to talk about the other specs and how they can utilize the trader too. Both STR and PER builds can just farm materials in excess and sell to the trader what they don't need in addition to loot vendoring. Everyone can load mods into items for a large increase in sale price and both of those other specs are in a much better position to do so as they gather materials far easier. FORT and AGI don't have as much a of luxury there as they're slightly selfish specs, FORT with just farming but a lot of tankiness perks and AGI with the stealth and no gathering perks but both of those specs have other advantages that leads to less resource consumption due to the builds. Mid/late game the disparity vanishes as people cross spec as needed or for people who just pick up whatever benefits them from the get go instead of going deep into a tree they can mix and match as they choose.
If we were to talk about things I think are broken with Better Barter, it's how the Secret Stash works. The levels that get the extra stash aren't actually "extra" at all. They're entirely separate stashes. If you wear Nerdy Glasses and look at the stash, buy what you want, then take off the glasses and look at it again, if the INT loss deactivates a level of the perk that gives access to a bonus level of the stash it gives you an entirely different stash completely. This means that people who use it can actually have access to 2 completely different stashes on each and every trader. It's not a trick that I use until late game when I'm trying to complete superfluous book sets, but it's a trick that can be extremely valuable early game that I think is just gaming the system. That is broken.
Agreed. Most importantly because of the exploit or trick, but also because it boosts multiplayer without need (as the same double-dipping can be done absolutely legal in MP). And sometimes it also leads to the INT player being punished for having a higher BetterBarter. It would be much better if the higher stashes simply extended lower stashes and I would guess this is probably already on TFPs to-do list somewhere, but pretty low.
See, you take offense when I hyperbolize something too. But I apologize, I didn't look back at the post and see the exact wording you used when I wrote that and if that description is excessive I wasn't attempting to put words in your mouth.
Not wrong or horrifying at all. It's fine if that's the route they decide to go as there are alternatives. Everyone makes a choice about whether a given risk, time, and/or effort is worth the reward. The current system is too much grind and too flakey on the rewards to be worth the investment to me. It's not any more complicated than that. There's no Wheatleygasm to speak of. It's literally a decision between "pray for uncontrollable drops, if I get them then invest time, maybe get the result I want that also dead ends my food source if I don't get enough seeds to keep it going while questing/farming" and "feed self while questing and buy from vending machines/trader" I choose the latter. If this was like Ark or ONI or another game with farming where I could actively try to get a certain farm setup by acquiring seeds and planting them but I have no options in that regard in this game. They've done a better job at making certain farm POI's common so specific things are easier to acquire, but they also made it unsustainable at 0 LotL so it's better to just cook those rather than use them as seeds. For max LotL and in between, I'm okay with not getting all the seeds back (if they stayed planted). But it's like they implemented in a way that maximizes the amount of busywork just for the sake of making people spend monotonous time doing it. I'd rather they require fertilizer or irrigation and build systems that require maintenance than just staring at my backpack crafting seeds and replanting them constantly. It's the way that maintenance happens rather than that there is maintenance. It's simply not fun to me.
While I can't speak for others, that's simply not what I have an issue with nor what I liked about the old system. I liked it because, and I've said this a few times, everyone can do everything in this system just some builds are vastly better at whatever it is. At 0 before I got a farm going slowly, it never became something that was my sole source of food. But it was a supplemental source that built up over time and as I acquired seeds and recipes. Most of my food came from collecting things and cooking them once I acquired the recipes from drops or just eating canned/vending machine/trader food. Converting to seeds now at 0 is just a bad choice where before it was one that mattered. Plant and get a slow but stable food supply later to supplement or use the crops in recipes for an immediate meal. A seed now is less valuable food wise than they used to be since odds are I'm only going to get ~3 corn or potatoes or whatever out of it where before it meant 1 crop every other game day as long as it didn't get destroyed. That made for some interesting choices and meant it had more value in the long haul. And then there's the maintenance they implemented. They could have gone a lot of different ways here but they went a method that was mechanical and grindy. We could have to weed our crop plots, or water them, or apply fertilizer. Instead it's converting food that's, at least early game, in demand back into seeds and then clicking to place it. Over and over and over and over again.
Eh, you and I have very different views of what makes a survival game a survival game. Every survival game people start off scrambling. Hunger, thirst, bad weather, injuries, hostile creatures, everything is a threat or a problem. As the game progresses those things become less of a factor. Eventually the stress shifts from "find food and drink" to "kill the big bad" or "do the quest" or "progress the story" and those initial threats of simple basic survival needs are effectively a non-factor. It's a progression that happens over time. There's no game where players don't have the tools to overcome randomness in regards to survival aspects as they play that I can think of. It doesn't matter if it's Rimworld, ONI, Ark, Rust, Conan Exiles, The Forest, Subnautica, this, or any other survival game. The basics as a challenge always phase out in favor of other factors. The challenge to get to a stable point in survival games is what I like about them and why I keep playing them and replaying them. The fun comes from being unable to control those things to overcoming and trivializing those challenges for me. Once I hit an effective peak of power in whatever game it is, I have all the stuff, beat all the bosses, did all the dungeons, whatever, and things are no longer challenging I tend to get bored and then I start over. Each time I refine my gameplay so that I can do everything better, and by better I mean in a way that allows me to maximize the time doing things I find entertaining while minimizing the time I spend doing things I don't. In 7d2d it's leveling up, getting better gear, clearing POI's, trying different builds and combinations along the way. I haven't seen or played a survival game where you both start and end the game struggling with the basics like getting food and drink. Even now, the changes to farming didn't introduce nondeterministic results the players can't plan for and the end result is exactly the same as what it was before for someone who specs into LotL, overflowing food coffers. While randomness is a factor, I certainly don't think that 100% survival demands a game completely dictated by random factors is true at all. It requires challenge and juggling competing needs, and the exact nature of those challenges can be caused by randomness (i.e. getting infected on day 1 in 7d2d, a blight on crops in Rimworld when food is low, a sandstorm when adventuring early game away from base in Conan Exiles, etc.).
