No, listen:
This is what i gathered in less than 10minutes in default settings and spending skillpoints into intelligence, not strenght.
This should never happened. using skillpoints into strenght should relate to strenght based activities, like wood harvesting, being more profitable than going into anything else. But its not the case. Using traders, pois and quests, especially at the same time, allow for much better gear and gear mods that allow for much better results.
Strenght character gather less wood in longer time than intelligence character who spend most time doing quests.
How this is not considered broken?
A strike with a steel axe takes about 1.5 seconds. Cutting down a fully grown tree takes 4 strikes with a fully upgraded axe skill. A tree yields 300 wood with a fully upgraded gathering skill. So, for a stack of wood you need 1.5x4x20=120 seconds or 2 minutes. For 16 stacks, 32 minutes in ideal conditions, provided you planted correctly and without misses and with normal regeneration and stamina consumption. So you are clearly lying about 10 minutes.
So what? In singleplayer it doesn't matter. In PvE it doesn't matter either. In PvP it might matter, but if you run to the merchant often, you'll most likely get shot at the entrance.
A strike with a steel axe takes about 1.5 seconds. Cutting down a fully grown tree takes 4 strikes with a fully upgraded axe skill. A tree yields 300 wood with a fully upgraded gathering skill. So, for a stack of wood you need 1.5x4x20=120 seconds or 2 minutes. For 16 stacks, 32 minutes in ideal conditions, provided you planted correctly and without misses and with normal regeneration and stamina consumption. So you are clearly lying about 10 minutes.
So what? In singleplayer it doesn't matter. In PvE it doesn't matter either. In PvP it might matter, but if you run to the merchant often, you'll most likely get shot at the entrance.
With books, cofeine buzz, armor set, full moded weapon, strength bonuses from mods (I lied, I put some skillpoints into miner69er and motherlode, but only those provided by increased lvl of strength, or I put two points in Strength to get one more tier... I don't remember). I was regenerating more stamina per second than used for swing. I needed two swings to chop one tree, with no breaks. Coffee buzz lasts 6min stacking 3 times to 18min, and I finished last tree before 8min left, which means less than 10min of chopping.
And even if I would chop this for 30 or even 60 min. How much longer would it take for a lumberjack, who is only chopping, occasionally mining, and have no skill books, no better gear, no way to find mods?
So what? In singleplayer it doesn't matter. In PvE it doesn't matter either. In PvP it might matter, but if you run to the merchant often, you'll most likely get shot at the entrance.
With books, cofeine buzz, armor set, full moded weapon, strength bonuses from mods (I lied, I put some skillpoints into miner69er and motherlode, but only those provided by increased lvl of strength, or I put two points in Strength to get one more tier... I don't remember). I was regenerating more stamina per second than used for swing. I needed two swings to chop one tree, with no breaks. Coffee buzz lasts 6min stacking 3 times to 18min, and I finished last tree before 8min left, which means less than 10min of chopping.
And even if I would chop this for 30 or even 60 min. How much longer would it take for a lumberjack, who is only chopping, occasionally mining, and have no skill books, no better gear, no way to find mods?
Are we comparing a STR player against an INT player, or are we comparing a lumberjack against an INT player? Because a STR player, while using the axe, but also the club and shotgun, is very well able to find mods and get better gear.
Are we comparing a STR player against an INT player, or are we comparing a lumberjack against an INT player? Because a STR player, while using the axe, but also the club and shotgun, is very well able to find mods and get better gear.
We’re comparing playstyles — not just STR vs. INT, but “trader-focused” vs. “everything else.”
The claim was that interacting with traders isn’t mandatory. Maybe technically it’s not… but as we’ve seen, a trader-focused INT build is often more effective at strength-based activities than a STR build that ignores traders.
The result? Playstyle variety suffers. Everyone ends up looting POIs anyway, but trader quests are the only activity that both heavily encourage that loop and stack extra rewards on top. INT characters benefit even more, because traders are built around their strengths.
It doesn't suffer at all. The style of the game is the player's inner feeling. What do you want to get from the game? Pleasure? Numbers on the screen? A splash screen at the end? Everyone answers this question on their own.
It can be compared to visiting a forest. Some people go there to breathe air, listen to birds singing, watch animals. And some go running with headphones in their ears and don't look anywhere except for the pedometer on their hand. To each his own.
We’re comparing playstyles — not just STR vs. INT, but “trader-focused” vs. “everything else.”
The claim was that interacting with traders isn’t mandatory. Maybe technically it’s not… but as we’ve seen, a trader-focused INT build is often more effective at strength-based activities than a STR build that ignores traders.
Yes, because one of those playstyles ignores an element of the game and the other uses all. If the INT player would ignore combat its progression would be curtailed as well.
If you want to play a pure lumberjack in a SP game and don't want to scavenge as well, then you need a different source of money and gear than looting and the only place where you can sell your produce and get stuff for it is the trader. So a pure lumberjack HAS to use the only NPC in the game that will trade with you, the trader. In reality a lumberjack needs to sell his wood as well to get everything else, otherwise he will starve on top of a huge pile of wood.
Now, even though I disagree on the details above I still agree with you that the trader is central to too many game play elements and the quest system (maybe including INT) may still be in need of some further nerfing (though I would need more play time be sure and the trader was definitely nerfed in the last iterations)
The result? Playstyle variety suffers. Everyone ends up looting POIs anyway, but trader quests are the only activity that both heavily encourage that loop and stack extra rewards on top. INT characters benefit even more, because traders are built around their strengths.
I agree that the extra rewards are still a problem. Not necessarily the items, but definitely the money and probably XP(?). We don't find enough money in containers and the biggest source (even after selling most of the stuff we find) is still the trader reward.
There is a good reason for the rewards, as an incentive in co-op to play as a team and a way for every player to get something out of a POI no matter how many. But co-op players get other benefits as well, so to me it seems there still is some balancing needed.
No, listen:
This is what i gathered in less than 10minutes in default settings and spending skillpoints into intelligence, not strenght. View attachment 36305
This should never happened. using skillpoints into strenght should relate to strenght based activities, like wood harvesting, being more profitable than going into anything else. But its not the case. Using traders, pois and quests, especially at the same time, allow for much better gear and gear mods that allow for much better results.
Strenght character gather less wood in longer time than intelligence character who spend most time doing quests.
How this is not considered broken?
The biggest culprit are magazines, which forces players to only one playstyle - looting. It's not about combat, one can disable zombie spawns and still run tons of quests, and gather magazines just by that. Looting is only progress in the game. And as much as I agree it should be part of the game, and players should want to interact with this activity just like with every other one... Every other one... But it should not be as forced as it is now.
If You are miner69er, You can't progress without looting. But if You are adventurer, you can progress without mining. This is the problem I'm trying to point out.
Progression should be available for every playstyle within this playstyle. Mining should make you better miner, and questing should make you better... Trader.. I guess.
I was posting suggestion of how to achieve that. And yes, pois will not be as much important but still important, since lot of ingredients needs to be found, especially legendary parts.
(Also traders have to be nerfed, or preferably have option to disable them and re-introduce quests via notes... That was amazing, immersive way for quests).
With steel axe. I find chainsaw too slow and resource draining. With good perks, set and mods, axe can drain less stamina that you recover so you will never run out of stamina.
The biggest culprit are magazines, which forces players to only one playstyle - looting. It's not about combat, one can disable zombie spawns and still run tons of quests, and gather magazines just by that. Looting is only progress in the game. And as much as I agree it should be part of the game, and players should want to interact with this activity just like with every other one... Every other one... But it should not be as forced as it is now.
If You are miner69er, You can't progress without looting. But if You are adventurer, you can progress without mining. This is the problem I'm trying to point out.
Progression should be available for every playstyle within this playstyle. Mining should make you better miner, and questing should make you better... Trader.. I guess.
I was posting suggestion of how to achieve that. And yes, pois will not be as much important but still important, since lot of ingredients needs to be found, especially legendary parts.
(Also traders have to be nerfed, or preferably have option to disable them and re-introduce quests via notes... That was amazing, immersive way for quests).
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With steel axe. I find chainsaw too slow and resource draining. With good perks, set and mods, axe can drain less stamina that you recover so you will never run out of stamina.
I suggested to add a tech-tree. People don´t like it.
Scraping stuff should give you blueprint-points to unlock that item and give you access to repair option after you fully researched it.
If you scrap stuff you already know how to craft then you get research experience to research new stuff.
But unlocking technologies behind a tech-tree and more working-stations and behind scrapping stuff it would make too much sense and veterans can not build helicopter by day 7.
The biggest culprit are magazines, which forces players to only one playstyle - looting. It's not about combat, one can disable zombie spawns and still run tons of quests, and gather magazines just by that. Looting is only progress in the game. And as much as I agree it should be part of the game, and players should want to interact with this activity just like with every other one... Every other one... But it should not be as forced as it is now.
If You are miner69er, You can't progress without looting. But if You are adventurer, you can progress without mining. This is the problem I'm trying to point out.
Progression should be available for every playstyle within this playstyle. Mining should make you better miner, and questing should make you better... Trader.. I guess.
When I mine, I get XP through mining, level up and I can put the points into the mining perk. That is the progression and a miner is not locked out of it. What a miner is not able to do is **crafting** his steel pickaxe in similar time as a scavenger, but what he should be easily able to do is selling stuff (what else to do with all the stuff he gets out of mining, no normal horde base needs all that a miner produces in a week?) and buying that steel pickaxe.
After I tried Icarus I can not stop thinking how much better the crafting system is. Do you have to manage 73839 different resources? Yes. It is simple to understand? Yes.
Are there 493638 working Stations? Absolutly.
Just an example:
Stone-oven, camin, smoker, textile-bench, carpenter bench, crafting bench, Working station for stone sculpting, station for trophies (you can display animal Heads on your walls), kitchen, salting-station (a station just for salting your food to reduce spoiling speed) and much more... and thats just for Tier 2 technologies (medieval).
You can, but slowly. When you dig, screamers come to you, they call other zombies, and from them bags fall out, in these bags there are magazines. I agree that it is slower than looting, but still quite possible progress.
When I mine, I get XP through mining, level up and I can put the points into the mining perk. That is the progression and a miner is not locked out of it. What a miner is not able to do is **crafting** his steel pickaxe in similar time as a scavenger, but what he should be easily able to do is selling stuff (what else to do with all the stuff he gets out of mining, no normal horde base needs all that a miner produces in a week?) and buying that steel pickaxe.
Ah sorry, after skimming over older posts again I see your main issue is with the trader. This begs the question: Can you list any other games where you can play as a pure miner, but without commerce, usually in the form of a trader? "Usually" here means with the exception of MMOs where actually lots of players (a lot more than a measly 100) can actually generate a market.
Maybe you expect a little much from TFP, even though they came pretty close or hit it in some previous **EA** versions I assume. On what hill would you more likely want to die, the no-trader hill or the no-magazines hill?
Anyway, from an implementation standpoint there are two ways to add an alternative mode, as a mod or as an alternative Config directory with different versions of all xml files. Both would be difficult to maintain while development of bandits and other stuff is still going on so I don't expect an alternative mode in the near future anyway. That would add more than a few months to development time if they did it now.
But even with such a sandbox mode added it isn't guaranteed that every specific "playstyle" is possible. Especially since almost every player who pines for some way of play he found in a previous alpha defines his way of playing as a "playstyle" to make it look like it was some standard. Worst example I have seen here was someone who defined his exact way of killing zombies as his playstyle and protesting that it was destroyed by some change to backward running speed. Your "playstyle" may be shared by a lot more players than that example but it still is very narrow in my view unless you would accept some form of cut down diminished trader
Ah sorry, after skimming over older posts again I see your main issue is with the trader. This begs the question: Can you list any other games where you can play as a pure miner, but without commerce, usually in the form of a trader? "Usually" here means with the exception of MMOs where actually lots of players (a lot more than a measly 100) can actually generate a market.
Maybe you expect a little much from TFP, even though they came pretty close or hit it in some previous **EA** versions I assume. On what hill would you more likely want to die, the no-trader hill or the no-magazines hill?
Anyway, from an implementation standpoint there are two ways to add an alternative mode, as a mod or as an alternative Config directory with different versions of all xml files. Both would be difficult to maintain while development of bandits and other stuff is still going on so I don't expect an alternative mode in the near future anyway. That would add more than a few months to development time if they did it now.
But even with such a sandbox mode added it isn't guaranteed that every specific "playstyle" is possible. Especially since almost every player who pines for some way of play he found in a previous alpha defines his way of playing as a "playstyle" to make it look like it was some standard. Worst example I have seen here was someone who defined his exact way of killing zombies as his playstyle and protesting that it was destroyed by some change to backward running speed. Your "playstyle" may be shared by a lot more players than that example but it still is very narrow in my view unless you would accept some form of cut down diminished trader
The problem is not solely that one role should be enough. Problem is in the discrepancy of playstyles.
While there are different playstyles in a game, everything boils down to looting, for parts, schematics, magazines. And with looting, traders allow for even more efficient poi clearance allowing to sell/buy for specific loot, reset poi each time quest is started, and provide quest rewards.
So anything You do in a game, being scavenger, miner, hunter, will guide you to traders. This makes one specific playstyle - questing with maxed INT being above all other by TOO much. Ape ting into INT gives player more leather than to hunter, more engines than to scavenger and more raw resources than to miner, which means that any other playstyle as much as available is redundant.
It's clearly visible in MP where our group is splitting tasks:
One is hunter and chef, another one is quester/trader with another one (a scavenger) accompanying them, and one is miner for raw resources.
If INT player would not give me better tools from trader stocks, and instead keep them for themselves, they would gather much more resources than me with my old tools, even tho I spect everything into strength and gathering, and stay in mine and wood the entire time with breaks to repair and eat. (I like my mine solitude)
And at top of that, traders existence breaks game immersion.
The problem is not solely that one role should be enough. Problem is in the discrepancy of playstyles.
While there are different playstyles in a game, everything boils down to looting, for parts, schematics, magazines. And with looting, traders allow for even more efficient poi clearance allowing to sell/buy for specific loot, reset poi each time quest is started, and provide quest rewards.
So anything You do in a game, being scavenger, miner, hunter, will guide you to traders. This makes one specific playstyle - questing with maxed INT being above all other by TOO much. Ape ting into INT gives player more leather than to hunter, more engines than to scavenger and more raw resources than to miner, which means that any other playstyle as much as available is redundant.
It's clearly visible in MP where our group is splitting tasks:
One is hunter and chef, another one is quester/trader with another one (a scavenger) accompanying them, and one is miner for raw resources.
If INT player would not give me better tools from trader stocks, and instead keep them for themselves, they would gather much more resources than me with my old tools, even tho I spect everything into strength and gathering, and stay in mine and wood the entire time with breaks to repair and eat. (I like my mine solitude)
And at top of that, traders existence breaks game immersion.
Did you really make a test with INT and you gathering wood at the same time or are you just guessing/approximating? AFAIK (perk) progression is giving you more power than the equipment does, so (theoretically) you should still be ahead.
Also granted that the INT player can get better tools, but with a STR build you should be able to get better tools at a slower pace as well AND outperform him via perks. In other words, you progress in two ways, while he progresses only one way, even though somewhat faster. That he always has better tools to give you than you could get may let you overlook all the opportunities to get better tools as well.
Now, as I said here or somewhere else, I agree that the trader is still in need of some nerfing and maybe the INT players bartering perks as well even though they made lots of progress there. When my INT-playing friend heard that he doesn't get more choices anymore with Daring Adventurer he wrote off the perk as useless now, even though I think he is wrong.
I can't argue with your immersion, but most sandbox and many survival games have traders, appropriate or not. See valheim, totally bereft of friendly NPCs, but traders are there. And I would bet you won't get a trader-less game even if TFP adds an alternative sandbox mode. We (both) can only hope for better balancing of the trader. And traderless play with a mod or other compromises (i.e. using creative menue with specific rules) should always be possible
