Balancing Between the Old LBD system and the new Magazine system

J

jadMurray

Refugee
So I've been reading the thoughts on Old System vs New System. My thought is, "Why not balance and combine them?" The old learn by doing system obviously had its shortcuits and exploitable issues. So, what if we introduced a new LBD system only for actions? Here is the actions that could be changed to LBD without too much of an issue.
All these skills would need a set level in their category of base stat to level further. So an example, to get level 100 blunt weapon skill, you'd need level 10 strength, putting a realistic cap on the LBD, because how can you be so good at using a club, when your strength is a 2? You couldn't hit hard enough. No, it'd be based on a tier level 10 per level invested in an attribute.
-Blunt Weapon Skill/Edged Weapon skill,
-Rifle skill/Pistol skill/Automatic weapon skill/archery skill.
-Item crafting, but what it does is make crafting faster and cheaper as it levels up. Basically Advanced Engineering but its a LBD. Advanced Engineering can be reworked and keep the turret XP features.
-Weapon crafting could be separate into Blunt, edged, etc. And the item level for weapons would restricted to say, only one tier of weapon level up per day, making spam crafting not effective. However, if you say, invested into Advanced Engineering, it could allow you to earn extra XP per item crafted and later levels could allow you to learn more tiers, for those who are DESPERATE to gain max item level as fast as possible (If they allow the intellect mastery to exist, I don't see why this couldn't).
-Resource Harvesting could be a LBD skill. Now Miner69er and Motherload could still be perks, that increase the amount and speed mined, that can be affected by both the level of your strength stat, and the level of your resource harvesting. Or better yet, make them general perks that are specifically can only be invested in at set levels of resource harvesting. Junk miner could also be attached to resource harvesting.
-Sprinting can be learn by doing, and Rule 1 can scale off that AND Agility levels at the same time.
-Medicine COULD BE a LBD skill that also scales on intelligence, but after Resource harvesting I could care less.
-Repairing vehicles could be a LBD skill (NOT crafting them.) As you repair more and more vehicles, you'd get better at doing it (I think grease monkey should be a general skill and could increase vehicle handling, repair, and and damage taken to a vehicle instead of the Intellect mastery skill). To level grease monkey, you'd need certain levels in vehicle repair.

Now, where does this leave the current system? Still intact, if changed somewhat. Obviouslly now that tthe LBD system would be implemented, skills like Pummel Pete would need to be leveled on both Strength Level and blunt weapon level. First level, level 0 strength, level 1 blunt weapon useage. Next level would be level 1 strength, level 10 blunt weapon useage.

Now where does the magazine system come in on the new combined system? Simple. Cut the amount of magazines in all sets in half, make them a bit rarer to find, and what the magazines do is unlock the recipes for new weapons, tools and vehicles. The magazine spawns can still be influenced by skills leveled, and armor would still only be unlocked by magazines.

All in all, I think this new system would be a serious improvement on both systems we've had and currently have. It solves the issues of the spammable and exploitative old system, and makes it more interactive then the current system. Now, this absolutely WOULD slow down the game and make it quite a bit grindier and make you put a lot more effort into getting the highest tier of items, and if you don't have a set level of an attribute you can't just keep repetitively doing a task until you reach level 100 in that specific skill. Meaning points are going to be as important as they were in 1.0 and 2.0. If you're desperate to get level 100 in blunt weapon skill for your sledgehammer, and have skull crusher maxed out, you're going to want to invest in strength. Now what blunt weapon skill/bladed weapon skill would help replace is the skills that affect how fast you swing your weapon. As you get better with using it, you get better at swinging with it and can swing it faster and with slightly less stamina cost per 10 levels (can and should stack with pummel pete).

Anyways, I put quite a lot of thought into this I hope y'all are interested in this.
 
I agree. Been saying this for a while. A hybrid system where action skills are level up by doing, crafting items uses blueprints, but the crafting quality is magazines. It would work perfectly. Points would also still be there for perks. That way spam crafting isn’t an issue.
 
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Rabbitslovecactus said:
I agree. Been saying this for a while. A hybrid system where action skills are level up by doing, crafting items uses blueprints, but the crafting quality is magazines. It would work perfectly. Points would also still be there for perks. That way spam crafting isn’t an issue.
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We had the minibikes for dumbsh*ts and it was too random. The steady stream of magazines solves progression issues. We have plans for magazines +100 reads so they are always useful.
 
madmole said:
We had the minibikes for dumbsh*ts and it was too random. The steady stream of magazines solves progression issues. We have plans for magazines +100 reads so they are always useful.
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I'm fine with the Magazine system but I find that new players struggle with the difference between Books, Magazines, Schematics & Recipes..No matter how times I try to explain it, they call everything Books.

I feel like it might be better if either the magazines or the books were renamed to something else to avoid confusion.
 
madmole said:
We still have that with mod schematics, but for mainline stuff expected and needed, magazines work better.
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The lack of randomness for what used to be schematics before magazines is one of the things I miss from before magazines. It could create very different game experiences depending on when you found certain schematics. Now, it's the same thing every game. As far as mods go, it's rare for me to ever craft a mod - I'll use whatever I find instead. I may craft a drum mod or something if I don't find them, and I'll craft the drone storage mods and vehicle mods since those aren't found, but otherwise most mods just aren't that important that I feel a need to craft them. And they certainly don't make each game feel different the way having to find the old schematics did.

Even so, I prefer magazines to LBD.
 
Riamus said:
The lack of randomness for what used to be schematics before magazines is one of the things I miss from before magazines. It could create very different game experiences depending on when you found certain schematics. Now, it's the same thing every game. As far as mods go, it's rare for me to ever craft a mod - I'll use whatever I find instead. I may craft a drum mod or something if I don't find them, and I'll craft the drone storage mods and vehicle mods since those aren't found, but otherwise most mods just aren't that important that I feel a need to craft them. And they certainly don't make each game feel different the way having to find the old schematics did.

Even so, I prefer magazines to LBD.
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And that is a good thing. It was too frustrating to not unlock certain tech. Some players didn't even know half the content in the game existed. Having major sections of content blocked through a rare random drop wasn't an acceptable solution. I get what your saying with the randomness, but we needed a more reliable mechanic to deliver all the mainstream game content like workstations, vehicles, and a steady progression to weapons, not oh I just unlocked steel sledgehammer on day 1 and skipped two tiers etc. Like it or not the magazine system solved a lot of issues pretty elegantly and realistically IMO.

I personally craft the fuel saver and expanded gas tank, a lot of ergonomic grips, pocket mods. The rest yeah just find it and use whatever. I'll craft the armor bushings that improve speed/stamina, and maybe plating, etc. Depends a bit on the build, silencers on all weapons are great for stealth build.
 
In another thread I already expressed my preference if it was possible to change something:
Jost Amman said:
I wouldn't mind to go back to magazines for individual items (or groups of items) to unlock the recipe.

Say for example that before you can start crafting Machineguns you need to find that type of magazine (specifically for machineguns), but you'd be able to only to craft the Pipe Machinegun. Then for each machinegun crafting tier, you'd need to find one additional magazine of the same type.

I'd leave LBD only as an added bonus on perks. E.g.: you'd still need Pummel Pete for clubs, but if you use them a lot, you get some kind of reasonable bonus to damage or accuracy or something like that.

Same thing with non-action skills. If you keep crafting or cooking a lot, you get a bonus that makes you use less % of materials needed in each recipe.

I could get behind this kind of compromise.
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madmole said:
And that is a good thing. It was too frustrating to not unlock certain tech. Some players didn't even know half the content in the game existed. Having major sections of content blocked through a rare random drop wasn't an acceptable solution. I get what your saying with the randomness, but we needed a more reliable mechanic to deliver all the mainstream game content like workstations, vehicles, and a steady progression to weapons, not oh I just unlocked steel sledgehammer on day 1 and skipped two tiers etc. Like it or not the magazine system solved a lot of issues pretty elegantly and realistically IMO.
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Eh, its your game so your call.... but I agree with Riamus, randomness created emergent game play as you had to find ways to overcome bad luck or exploit good luck. Made the game far more replayable, IMO. Some of my favorite in game memories were games where I found something cool early or didn't find something until much later.
 
One "easy" improvement that occured to me while playing last night: Magazines and books should be visually more distinct.

Magazines are just there to be read, but what often happened to me was that I also read the books automatically and half a second later wondered what cool feature I got.
 
madmole said:
And that is a good thing. It was too frustrating to not unlock certain tech. Some players didn't even know half the content in the game existed. Having major sections of content blocked through a rare random drop wasn't an acceptable solution. I get what your saying with the randomness, but we needed a more reliable mechanic to deliver all the mainstream game content like workstations, vehicles, and a steady progression to weapons, not oh I just unlocked steel sledgehammer on day 1 and skipped two tiers etc. Like it or not the magazine system solved a lot of issues pretty elegantly and realistically IMO.

I personally craft the fuel saver and expanded gas tank, a lot of ergonomic grips, pocket mods. The rest yeah just find it and use whatever. I'll craft the armor bushings that improve speed/stamina, and maybe plating, etc. Depends a bit on the build, silencers on all weapons are great for stealth build.
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I think the current system lacks randomness. It would be nice if this system was supplemented with something.
 
madmole said:
And that is a good thing. It was too frustrating to not unlock certain tech. Some players didn't even know half the content in the game existed. Having major sections of content blocked through a rare random drop wasn't an acceptable solution. I get what your saying with the randomness, but we needed a more reliable mechanic to deliver all the mainstream game content like workstations, vehicles, and a steady progression to weapons, not oh I just unlocked steel sledgehammer on day 1 and skipped two tiers etc. Like it or not the magazine system solved a lot of issues pretty elegantly and realistically IMO.
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I understand this perspective but it would be nice if randomness could be added in other parts of the game. Early to mid game really feels like you are on rails due to the weightings on drops and the strict, exclusive loot system. It would be great if the loot system was spiced up so you had a tiny to small chance of rolling something a tier better than you could craft across weapon and tool attribute classes.

I get that someone people want magazines, weapon parts, etc, to be heavily weighted towards their chosen attribute. But I have found the current system leads to very samey and rote playthroughs.

The balance may feel great if you do only one playthrough but once you do multiple playthroughs you realize that progression is very similar each time. You choose your attribute class, you craft your melee weapon, and almost never loot a useful tool or weapon until they are no longer needed.

The only lucky drops early game are a toilet pistol and hunting knife. Other than those items, it’s incredibly unlikely to find weapons or tools in loot that are better than you can craft. In my playthroughs, other useful weapons and tools don’t start dropping until after I no longer have a need for them because either: (a) I can already craft them; (b) they are vastly inferior to what I can craft; or (c) I have already purchased something similar from the trader to fill a hole in my loadout.

Bottom line, I feel like loot was more random in earlier alphas and could shape a playthrough. Now, the playthrough is entirely shaped by the attribute class you pick.
 
I love the current magazine system for crafting and the perk system for everything else.

I actually took it a step further and changed all the remaining schematics and perk crafting recipes unlocks into magazine series.
 
Kosmic Kerman said:
I understand this perspective but it would be nice if randomness could be added in other parts of the game. Early to mid game really feels like you are on rails due to the weightings on drops and the strict, exclusive loot system. It would be great if the loot system was spiced up so you had a tiny to small chance of rolling something a tier better than you could craft across weapon and tool attribute classes.

I get that someone people want magazines, weapon parts, etc, to be heavily weighted towards their chosen attribute. But I have found the current system leads to very samey and rote playthroughs.

The balance may feel great if you do only one playthrough but once you do multiple playthroughs you realize that progression is very similar each time. You choose your attribute class, you craft your melee weapon, and almost never loot a useful tool or weapon until they are no longer needed.

The only lucky drops early game are a toilet pistol and hunting knife. Other than those items, it’s incredibly unlikely to find weapons or tools in loot that are better than you can craft. In my playthroughs, other useful weapons and tools don’t start dropping until after I no longer have a need for them because either: (a) I can already craft them; (b) they are vastly inferior to what I can craft; or (c) I have already purchased something similar from the trader to fill a hole in my loadout.

Bottom line, I feel like loot was more random in earlier alphas and could shape a playthrough. Now, the playthrough is entirely shaped by the attribute class you pick.
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Yeah, but we don't need a different system, just a little bit of balancing in the loot tables.
 
madmole said:
And that is a good thing. It was too frustrating to not unlock certain tech. Some players didn't even know half the content in the game existed. Having major sections of content blocked through a rare random drop wasn't an acceptable solution. I get what your saying with the randomness, but we needed a more reliable mechanic to deliver all the mainstream game content like workstations, vehicles, and a steady progression to weapons, not oh I just unlocked steel sledgehammer on day 1 and skipped two tiers etc. Like it or not the magazine system solved a lot of issues pretty elegantly and realistically IMO.

I personally craft the fuel saver and expanded gas tank, a lot of ergonomic grips, pocket mods. The rest yeah just find it and use whatever. I'll craft the armor bushings that improve speed/stamina, and maybe plating, etc. Depends a bit on the build, silencers on all weapons are great for stealth build.
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I get that. And I know some people hate RNG. But the game has certainly moved away from randomness and into a very linear system in many ways. One reason you could keep playing so many games of this instead of playing it once and putting it away like with other games is that things were so random. Each game felt different. Magazines removed randomness from loot/upgrades, traders in specific biomes removed randomness in finding traders, biome layouts in RWG is pretty similar to one another, tiles (though I love them) very much limit randomness in towns, town sizes limited by biome limits variety in towns from map to map, etc. Each map made with RWG will be very similar and each game will play very similarly. That isn't necessarily bad, but it is likely to lead to fewer games played before people get bored and move on compared to how it was before these changes were made.

Random crafting unlocks aren't inherently bad, either. You want certain things to unlock at specific times to avoid issues where you have such bad luck that you can't ever craft something because the schematic never dropped, but other things aren't as critical and having that variety can really help different games to feel like different games. You've left mods in there since you apparently agree that those aren't critical, but you could probably have left some other things as schematics as well to give more variation between games. Alternatively, it would not be a bad thing to find other ways to add randomness to each game.

Maybe it's too late now for this game, but it might be worth considering for any other games you guys make. You either make a game that people play once and don't play again for months or years because it'll be the same game each time, or you find ways to add randomness to it to give you enough difference between games that people want to keep playing new games, like what was true with this game in the past. Both are valid choices, and neither is wrong, but throwing out randomness just to make things always work a certain way so people don't have a "bad" game because of RNG isn't necessarily the answer. Keeping people interested in replaying the game many times can be a very good thing compared to once and done.

For me personally, I used to play game after game after game of this because they all felt different enough to be interesting. Now, I have to put it aside for months at a time because each game is so similar to one another that it starts to feel too similar and therefore not worth redoing the same thing in the same order over and over again. I avoid some of the stuff, like RWG similarities by not using RWG to make maps, and that helps. I also use custom POI and tiles to help add more variety, but I've never liked overhaul mods because they change too many things and often change things I don't want changed, so although what I do to help provide variety between games works a little bit, it just isn't really enough when the main mechanics are also very linear.

Don't get me wrong, I love the game and you guys have done a great job with it. I just think that making it too linear takes away the interest people have for replaying it for hundreds or thousands of hours.
 
Kosmic Kerman said:
I understand this perspective but it would be nice if randomness could be added in other parts of the game. Early to mid game really feels like you are on rails due to the weightings on drops and the strict, exclusive loot system. It would be great if the loot system was spiced up so you had a tiny to small chance of rolling something a tier better than you could craft across weapon and tool attribute classes.

I get that someone people want magazines, weapon parts, etc, to be heavily weighted towards their chosen attribute. But I have found the current system leads to very samey and rote playthroughs.

The balance may feel great if you do only one playthrough but once you do multiple playthroughs you realize that progression is very similar each time. You choose your attribute class, you craft your melee weapon, and almost never loot a useful tool or weapon until they are no longer needed.

The only lucky drops early game are a toilet pistol and hunting knife. Other than those items, it’s incredibly unlikely to find weapons or tools in loot that are better than you can craft. In my playthroughs, other useful weapons and tools don’t start dropping until after I no longer have a need for them because either: (a) I can already craft them; (b) they are vastly inferior to what I can craft; or (c) I have already purchased something similar from the trader to fill a hole in my loadout.

Bottom line, I feel like loot was more random in earlier alphas and could shape a playthrough. Now, the playthrough is entirely shaped by the attribute class you pick.
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I'm guessing you never take any looting perks. I have no looting perks but I'm wearing a rogue hood this build and I've found better sledgehammers than I can craft twice now.
 
madmole said:
I'm guessing you never take any looting perks. I have no looting perks but I'm wearing a rogue hood this build and I've found better sledgehammers than I can craft twice now.
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Possibly. However it’s more likely that my perked melee crafting skill is simply higher than yours due to playstyle differences. And I don’t think I am atypical in this regard.

If you are talking about unperked melee weapons…I think it’s incredibly rare for people to use melee weapons they aren’t perked into. Finding a sledgehammer when I am going for a knife or spear has very little value for me. Whereas finding a T1 or T2 shotgun or machine gun when playing agility or perception would be welcome.
 
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