PC Why did you ruin your game?

Jeraal said:
As a PC gamer, I need mods to enjoy the game given the direction they are taking.
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I play this game on PC too, and I still enjoy the game 100% without mods. About the only way I would use a mod for a game is if it was to fix a known issue that wasn't being taken care of by the developers. Like on Fallout 4, I installed a mod that fixed what was broken in game, something that Bethesda left it as is and called it complete.
 
Riamus said:
It's a limitation on how you get better, just like magazines. There are different ways LBD can work, and the following is just one example. I am not stating in any way that it's the only option, but it is representative of the answer to your question. <end of disclaimer so people aren't going off about how LBD can be implemented in different ways>

LBD- I want to make a better spear, so I craft 100 spears. I have no other options but to craft those 100 spears. I am limited to that one way of improving my crafting of spears.

Magazines - I want to make a better spear, so I find 100 magazines. I have no other options but to find those 100 magazines. I am limited to that one way of improving my crafting of spears.

Neither option gives you freedom to choose how you want to improve your crafting. It's one way and only one way. If improving your crafting or other skills was designed for a sandbox experience, you would have at least a couple of different ways to improve. Sandbox is about options and freedom. Now, I want to be clear that sandbox isn't only about options and freedom, and you can have restrictions and rules and still be sandbox. But in the case of this single example, being limited to a single way to improve is not sandbox no matter how you look at it. And in both cases (LBD and magazines), you are limiting players to a specific way to improve. One way will feel limiting to certain players, while the other way will feel limiting to other players. It just depends on which way you like. If you like LBD, it won't feel limiting but magazines will. If you like magazines, they won't feel limiting but LBD will.

My statement that you quoted isn't saying that either is better, even though I don't like LBD. It was only to point out that LBD is not sandbox any more than magazines because both limit how you improve to a single option.
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I've got to say, this comes across a bit disingenuous, since I specifically said "not talking about LBD crafting level, that's genuinely terrible."

I'd agree with you that making crafting learn by doing is ■■■. But I don't see how making actual actions learn by doing is limiting (yes, it might cause you do have to do some things you don't want to do to progress certain skills. The only system 7D2D has had that didn't require that was the perk system, where it was basically completely detached from any sense of realism, which I honestly didn't particularly mind.)

Like I've said in the past, I generally dislike LBD (Elder Scrolls for example, I think is terrible.) 7D2D's LBD only really worked for me because I got better at the things I did regularly, and not having high skills in other things didn't make them completely useless for me (my gun skills, for example, almost never made it out of the 20s, and certainly never made it out of the 30s, yet I could still use various guns perfectly well.)
Uncle Al said:
A major problem with LBD systems is they remove the ability to reduce or avoid gameplay loops you don't enjoy.

Currently if mining bores me stupid, I can spend perk points on mining skills to minimise the time I have to spend mining.

I can earn perk points by killing or salvaging or building or trading. Whichever I find most fun.

I can maximise the proportion of my play time where I'm doing stuff i enjoy.

With LBD I have to mine to learn to mine. There's no way to shorten the amount of time spent mining for a given amount of resources. I'm incapable of reducing the time I have to spend doing an activity i hate.
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Okay. But the current system forces me to spend 30-40 hours more doing something I don't enjoy (raiding POIs). If we had the perks system we had between learn by doing and magazines, that would let everyone do what they want while still progressing. I wouldn't object to that system coming back.

Regardless, you can (likely) play your way without having to do extensive mining. I've seen lots of people play with doing little to no mining. There are lots of ways to get resources other than mining (though admittedly, not in the massive quantities someone like me uses.) I can not play my way without doing lots of raiding for magazines (and parts...) unless I want to spend the whole playthrough using stone tools.

Now, if POIs weren't all tedious dungeons with zombies hidden in closets, walls, and ceilings, or spawning in waves out of tiny vents, I might not mind raiding POIs so much. Or if stealth hadn't been largely nerfed (stealth is already slow, I don't want to have to run away and hide for 30 seconds, making it even slower.)

That's my problem, really, with modern 7D2D. I used to be able to play in a way that I enjoyed, and now doing what I enjoy has largely been hidden behind what, to me, is a lot of tedious grinding. It was a lot more fun looting and exploring to finally find a single pair of calipers or a Minibikes for Dumb■■■■s than it is to try and find 100 of the same magazine.
 
Vaeliorin said:
I've got to say, this comes across a bit disingenuous, since I specifically said "not talking about LBD crafting level, that's genuinely terrible."
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You asked what I meant and I gave the answer. The answer is the same no matter what LBD you choose. If it makes a single way to improve, no matter how that is done, it is limited. I explained that. I even put in a clear disclaimer about it.
 
Riamus said:
You asked what I meant and I gave the answer. The answer is the same no matter what LBD you choose. If it makes a single way to improve, no matter how that is done, it is limited. I explained that. I even put in a clear disclaimer about it.
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Sure, except it's the difference between improving just doing the things you'd do normally, and having to do something out of the ordinary to improve. I know you hate LBD (like I said, I do too, generally) but that's not really an equal or fair comparison.
 
Vaeliorin said:
Sure, except it's the difference between improving just doing the things you'd do normally, and having to do something out of the ordinary to improve. I know you hate LBD (like I said, I do too, generally) but that's not really an equal or fair comparison.
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Fine. Since it's such a big deal to you...

LBD- I want to do more damage with spears, so I attack things 100 times. I have no other options but to attack things 100 times. I am limited to that one way of improving my damage with spears.

See? Same thing.
 
theFlu said:
"Same thing", but you definitely don't want one, and are happy with the other? Each are a method of learning, for the mostest sandboxiness I guess we need to have both, no?
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Since in real life there are people that learn by doing and people that learn by reading, it actually makes sense for there to be both
 
Kalen said:
Since in real life there are people that learn by doing and people that learn by reading, it actually makes sense for there to be both
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Ye, I would prefer a combo to the current.. I'd also argue that most IRL learning is done by both, reading can be replaced by a mentor, but the step to actually doing something after reading about it is always a doozy.
 
Riamus said:
Fine. Since it's such a big deal to you...

LBD- I want to do more damage with spears, so I attack things 100 times. I have no other options but to attack things 100 times. I am limited to that one way of improving my damage with spears.

See? Same thing.
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It's not a big deal, I just felt like you intentionally picked the worst possible type of example, despite me specifically saying that particular type of example wasn't what I was speaking of, and in fact that I thought that it was terrible.

Anyway, attacking something with your spear is something you're going to do anyway. It's not something you have to go out of your way to do. You'll end up attacking with your spear 100 times just playing the game, assuming you want to use spears. Why is it objectionable to only have one way to do things when that thing is just something you're going to do anyway?

Admittedly, the comparison with LBD in this case is more with perks, not magazines. And like I said, I'd have no problem with something like the perk system that existed between LBD and LBR. Heck, I have no problem with the perks as they are now. I just find the LBR system boringly deterministic. Every playthrough ends up basically the same.
 
Vaeliorin said:
Admittedly, the comparison with LBD in this case I just find the LBR system boringly deterministic. Every playthrough ends up basically the same.
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I agree with you here and have raised a similar criticism in other posts. I think the biggest weakness of the new system is that loot is so deterministic. I would prefer it if weapon, tool, and part loot was more abundant but much more random. This would add variety while also reducing how long it might take to get the parts needed for your perked weapon. I felt pre 1.0 there was more randomness in how a playthrough might progress. Since then, you get the weapons and tools you perked into and that’s that.
 
Jeraal said:
As a PC gamer, I need mods to enjoy the game given the direction they are taking.
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While I think the game is plenty playable vanilla IzPrebuilt has been putting out a few mods that seem like he is on the right track.

One of the problems I see is that due to loot stage being the defining modifier for loot found in containers it doesn't give players any reason to venture into gun stores or open up police cars and gun safes. Leaving them for when they get a higher loot stage. This is antithetical to most other survival game logic where looting these locations would yield valuable weapons and supplies.

Now to be fair he does suggest that loot stages are important so you don't find a quality 6 weapon on day one in a gun store, but there should be at least some better loot.

So the first mod he has one that tweaks loot containers so that you can get some proper low quality T1 weapons in containers that should have them such as gun safes at any point in the game. This means things like gun stores, police cars, etc have more value day 1 as you have a good chance of getting some very basic early game weapons such as the pistol, hunting rifle and pump shotgun.

To balance that out he has another mod which I think is great, in theory, but does go a bit too far with the rates, which increases the zombies in the game in a non-linear fashion. In a single chunk (80x80) previously the game would spawn 1 zombie. The mod sets to increase the amounts based on biome so in the forest now you can have up to 6 (instead of 1) and for commercial it increases zombies from 3 to 16 making commercial areas a larger threat.

The forest is 6x, Burnt Forest 7x, Desert 8x, Snow 9x and 10x in the Wasteland

Now I think the multipliers are a bit too high, especially in the forest biome which is the starting biome. Any noise creates a several hour long battle if you are using stone weapons due to you having to fight off 16 zombies just because your third quest from the trader is in a commercial area. I think the better play would be to adjust the rates to be lower in districts as the numbers can get stupid. In this way you don't have to worry about fighting off 16 zombies on day 1 either. Keep in mind in his mod you can have 40 zombies in the wasteland during night and in the industrial district (hardest), but man that is a lot of zombies in an 80x80 hex.

The second mod also increases wandering zombie hordes by 2.5 (previously the max size was 11 I think) for hordes that are not special (so this doesn't multiply dogs, vultures, bears, wolves, etc). So the largest total zombie count on a horde is like 28 he said.

There are some good mods out there but keeping them updated with the game is challenging so official game sliders for at least Zombie count would be nice.
 
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Kyoji said:
Now to be fair he does suggest that loot stages are important so you don't find a quality 6 weapon on day one in a gun store, but there should be at least some better loot.
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I actually think that was one of the great things about the earlier versions of the game. For example, you're building your character to use rifles but early on you find a high quality shotgun. That causes you to reevaluate your build and mix it up. Now, this was also when item degradation was a thing, so it wouldn't last you forever, but while it lasted, you felt powerful and lucky. It led to some very memorable playthroughs, IMO.
 
theFlu said:
"Same thing", but you definitely don't want one, and are happy with the other? Each are a method of learning, for the mostest sandboxiness I guess we need to have both, no?
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If you read the discussion, that has nothing to do with one being better or worse or what I like more or less. It was only a single point - LBD is not sandbox any more than magazines.
 
Vaeliorin said:
Why is it objectionable to only have one way to do things when that thing is just something you're going to do anyway?
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At no point did I say it was. I said that LBD is not any more a sandbox thing than magazines. Why is it so hard to read what was said? Yes, I don't like LBD. That has nothing to do with what I said. I made a the point that LBD isn't sandbox. I gave an example of why. You found the example to be not what you wanted to hear. It has nothing to do with what you or I like in the game. It's a simple statement that LBD isn't sandbox. That's all there is to it. You can like LBD and still understand that it isn't sandbox. Liking or not liking it doesn't change that it isn't sandbox.

I preferred the way we had between LBD and magazines. I can live with magazines. I don't want LBD. That's been made clear enough times. But that has nothing to do with what I said.

But believe whatever you guys want to believe. Saying you want sandbox when you really mean you want LBD is just a way to end up with sandbox instead of LBD and being upset about it. If people can't understand that, that's on them. I don't feel like wasting more time trying to explain what should have been clear from the first post. If people can't understand that LBD isn't sandbox, so be it.
 
Kyoji said:
One of the problems I see is that due to loot stage being the defining modifier for loot found in containers it doesn't give players any reason to venture into gun stores or open up police cars and gun safes. Leaving them for when they get a higher loot stage. This is antithetical to most other survival game logic where looting these locations would yield valuable weapons and supplies.

Now to be fair he does suggest that loot stages are important so you don't find a quality 6 weapon on day one in a gun store, but there should be at least some better loot.

So the first mod he has one that tweaks loot containers so that you can get some proper low quality T1 weapons in containers that should have them such as gun safes at any point in the game. This means things like gun stores, police cars, etc have more value day 1 as you have a good chance of getting some very basic early game weapons such as the pistol, hunting rifle and pump shotgun.
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It's clear that loot should be more random, to encourage surprise and exploration

.It's also worth mentioning that finding a Tier 6 pistol early on doesn't make you OP, because you still need ammo, and it's not easy to have a lot of mining material at the beginning. Unless you're a masochist, besides having to level up to do more damage, it just has to be something rare to find. Of course, if you have 10 police cars and two police stations in a small city, it's a problem.
Kyoji said:
There are some good mods out there but keeping them updated with the game is challenging so official game sliders for at least Zombie count would be nice.
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I agree, many mods are not updated, or are left abandoned, you can't depend on mods for everything
 
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