Swapping Armor Sets

[Riamus]

I just don't understand why you're attributing playstyle to whether someone likes a mechanic. Why do you think I "don't like" the magazine mechanic? Your conclusion just doesn't make any sense to me. You're just deciding causation incorrectly, and I don't see why you're doing it.

And I disagree. Magazines come slowly.

Take this for example: I enjoy crafting weapons, tools, armour, etc. I enjoy choosing to put resources together to create a usable object. I also like questing and looting. The game is currently balanced in a way where, if you don't invest in perks that increase magazine drops (especially intellect mastery, but also the associate use skill), you will be inundated with resources that you can't yet use to craft better gear than you loot. So the only times you really get a chance to craft gear improvements is basically in stone tier and at quality 6 steel tier.

The only way for me to improve my crafting skills is by looting and questing (magazine bundles) and buying whatever magazines the trader offers that I want. The way I get weapon/tool improvements is the same exact way (looting, questing, buying).

If I specifically invest in magazine drops (intellect mastery, nerd outfit, points into skills to weight that type of magazine), it gives me a chance of being able to craft an item before I've looted or bought a better version. A chance. I *might* get to make use of crafting before quality-6-steel-tier in a playthrough if I specifically build towards that goal.

So again, I disagree that magazines naturally come at a "good" rate.

I wish I could craft gear upgrades, but most of the time I can't. If I want to craft an iron-tier weapon, most times I'll get a steel-tier equivalent before I can even craft any iron tier.

I'm not going to look back to what I originally said since this particular thread seems to be half broken and not loading well, but I am pretty sure I said something like "some people" and not "you" when talking about not liking the magazine mechanic. In the same way I said that some people say they are forced to play a certain way. In any case, I'm not saying you can enjoy a mechanic but not think it needs tweaked. I've requested tweaks for magazines since they came out and I generally like them.

As far as magazine speed, it comes down to your play style. If you don't regularly scavenge or loot or quest or something that will help you find magazines, you're going to progress very slowly. In the end, this isn't really different from any other resource. If you don't spend much time mining for iron or scrapping stuff for iron, you're going to have a hard time building a base very quickly in the game. A good mix of all activities in the game will usually be better for overall gameplay than either completely avoiding some activities or not doing them very much. So for magazines, if you're regularly going out to scavenge or loot or quest, magazines tend to come in (other than armor) at roughly the same rate as you can find stuff. It varies, of course. You can sometimes find something really good earlier. Other times, you can craft it before you find it. But in general, it is roughly the same rate. As I mentioned, armor is very slow unless you put points in armor and that needs adjusted. And weapons that you don't have points in will also be slow, but that shouldn't be a big deal because if you don't have points in them, you most likely aren't using them anyhow. But for everything else? It's pretty even. Of course, you need to know where to look. For example, Forge Ahead magazines can be found easily by looting things like workbenches and cement mixers. These are really easy to find if you know where to look (garages and construction sites are the easiest, as are trader compounds). But if people are just looting mailboxes, they aren't going to find them very quickly. So part of it comes down to understanding where to find things.

Now, here's the issue. Let's say people who are playing a good mix of activities start getting double the magazines because they increased the drop rates for magazines. Crafting for them will be way ahead of loot. For someone who wants to craft everything, that's not a problem. But for people who don't want to craft and just want to loot, it is a problem for them. They don't want to have crafting be superior to looting. And those who prefer crafting don't want looting to be superior to crafting. That means that the magazine drop rate needs to work out to be roughly equal to your ability to loot things. And that balance has to be based on a middle ground of how people play the game. So for people who play a decent mix of activities. It will still mean that someone who does mailbox runs and keeps re-looting book stores will be able to craft far sooner than they find stuff and that people who rarely scavenge will not be able to craft as quickly as they could find the loot. There will never be a perfect balance in that for all play styles. Now, I do think it can use some additional balancing and tweaking as I've said, but it's mostly in a good place for the best balance for the most players that they can do. It won't be best for everyone, but that can't be helped no matter where they try to balance it because play styles vary so much.

When I play solo, I hoard the canned food that *can* get used for later-game food recipes. I end up getting more "non-crafting" (peaches, cat food, miso soup, etc etc) than I can eat myself. So I end up with a hoard of craftable canned food in mid-late game that I never end up using, and then I end up crafting food with it, and I never run out. Just from looting.


So, farming is never necessary for me. It's just resources for storing. If I make a few Dew Collectors while playing solo, I end up with a chest or two full of water, and I start crafting glue with it or something because I don't have a use for it.

And like I said, I have no interest in farming *until* I have quality-6 Farmer Boots and Farmer Outfit, and maxed Living Off The Land.

Ok, so this just proves that the armor isn't necessary. You never have a food problem even without farming. So that means that you don't need to use the farming armor or LotL for food. You can just farm and it will work fine. You can use those, of course. As I said, there's nothing wrong with it. But it is clearly not necessary and this thread has a lot of talk about being forced to swap armor.

 

[Riamus]

There's the jokey saying: If you're well-adjusted to a sick society, you're insane. If it's insane to play the game as-is, the game could be better.

And doing something you don't enjoy, such as swapping armor all the time, when you have the option to not play that way isn't "insane"? Let's say this game adds fast travel and some people are so "well-adjusted" to driving or running everywhere that they never use it. They then complain that the travel times are too long. Is the game bad because they choose to play in the way they are used to playing rather than trying something different? If someone isn't willing to change how they do something that they don't like doing just because the feel it's more efficient or better or whatever else, that is not a game problem as long as the game offers alternatives that are just as viable. The fact that players aren't swapping armor all the time as evidenced by multiple people just in this thread shows that not swapping armor is a viable option. Choosing not to play that way is fine. Choosing not to play that way but hating that you're playing another way is pretty insane.

 

[FenixMatariki]

Yes, and; the worst offenders don't offer a continuous benefit, ONLY the temporary one. Like the rogue hood, you only want it on for the moment you're opening something. There's no reason to wear it permanently. Same with the reading outfit, etc.

Then perhaps i share more common ground than i thought with the critics. Double book, chance for books and bonus exp are things i would like removed from intellect/nerd armor.

Chance for books and double books sends progression speed into orbit, if it was not for the mastery bonus's beyond i would skip them, and the bonus exp on nerd helm makes it a simple calculation of "Am i level 300? No? Nerd helmet it is."
The nerd chest i have begun to skip entirely.

 

[MiTHMoN]

You are not disadvantaged compared to wearing no armor at all.

You are also not disadvantaged using a quality 1 iron pickaxe compared to using no tool at all, but the quality 6 steel pickaxe is still generally preferred. It's not a good argument.

When I stick to one armor type it isn't because I think I've found the best and so that is why I'm wearing it. I stick to one type because I want to play the game with that particular mix of bonuses.

Nothing I've suggested would take that away from you. You're free to do restricted challenge playthroughs.

The in-game mechanical reason is the same as choosing one or two primary attributes and sticking to those without respeccing with the elixir. Why not respec whenever it seems you'd be disadvantaged not to do so? I think most people probably do not respec that often but stick to the character they've built. I simply extend that same thinking to the armor.

I don't think that's a good comparison at all. First of all, nothing stops you from investing in all attribute trees in a playthrough. I definitely don't stick to 1 or 2 attributes. I go into Intellect, General, Strength, Agility, Fortitude, and probably only take the penetrator perk from Perception. As you level up, you build your power and gain the ability to do a wider breadth of things.

I do, from time to time, respec with an elixir. A recent example I have: Early on I thought "I'll play with X melee weapon", and I chose the baseball bat. Then I proceeded to loot an SMG, a Tac, and a Pump, and didn't loot any baseball bats (even with 5/5 Pummel Pete) and didn't even have enough magazines to craft a level 1 baseball bat. So... With all 3 of the main gun types, and no reason to even use a melee weapon at that point, it's just better to accept the playthrough's fate and respec out of Pummel Pete.

Whereas to "gain power" with gear, you *have to* switch gear. An M60 is great at combat, but awful at resource collection. An impact driver is great at salvaging, but pretty bad at combat. It takes ~6 seconds to switch tools/weapons/armour, but more like ~60 seconds to respec (guesstimating) and costs a moderately expensive consumable item. Taking the 6 seconds to switch from your "combat armour" to the "farmer pieces" and gaining higher yield (after you've waited 2 days for the crops to mature) just makes sense.

How would your redesign end the suffering of those who feel compelled to swap armor frequently so they always have the best bonuses for everything they do?

I'm not sure exactly what you mean. Do you mean how I play the game, making temporary use of the 2-piece Farmer, a bartering helmet, etc? Or are you saying there are actually players who carry around 5 sets and swap them every 30 seconds?

I would simply put a 2-minute cooldown after changing armour before the bonus of that piece is applied. That would mechanically prevent people from neurotically switching armour every 5 seconds, and force players like me to plan to buy things with a bartering helmet or plan to harvest the crops.

 

[theFlu]

And doing something you don't enjoy, such as swapping armor all the time, when you have the option to not play that way isn't "insane"?

What?
The current system is the sick society; playing the optimum in it is the insanity. Congrats, you got the metaphor, but you're advocating for keeping the sick society.
Your example is ... backwards. There's a new sane option that confers all the benefits and a completely suboptimal old way to play that is slower and more tedious. By offering that, you don't seem to understand the issue.

Chance for books and double books sends progression speed into orbit

Yeh, the int mastery is nuts; it does make the reading outfit less useful, but not useless. It's just one inventory slot

 

[meganoth]

Finally a summary i can understand, now i just need to know WHY its a problem and what the criitcs are wanting it replaced with.

Is it that a few armor bonus's are providing too much situational bonus's and encourage excessive swapping?

There are two distinct problems with the sets, one is that swapping is encouraged, the other is the balance of some armor bonusses. As this is a very sandboxy game, none of those problems lead to the game being bad or not fun at all, the game generally can handle a lot of kinks without going bad. It could be improved though.

Maybe read the posts of @Uncle Al again for some interesting ideas how the first problem could be improved. Another solution could be to somehow split the way combat bonuses and utility bonuses are added to armors.

The balance problem IMHO may be the result of Madmoles method of throwing out an unbalanced feature and balance it in further patches, only they never did get to that second step. Really, for me the preacher gloves stand out here, the difference is large enough that you can play on a higher difficulty setting just with those gloves.

 

[theFlu]

I would simply put a 2-minute cooldown after changing armour before the bonus of that piece is applied.

While that's a tempting idea, it doesn't address the whole problem.. I would still carry around a reading outfit, clear first, equip and loot while waiting. Etc.

 

[MiTHMoN]

As far as magazine speed, it comes down to your play style. If you don't regularly scavenge or loot or quest or something that will help you find magazines, you're going to progress very slowly.

Again, I disagree. The only ways to obtain magazines are looting, questing, and buying. There is literally nothing else you can do to gain magazines than that. And by doing those exact things, (in my experience) you will naturally loot better gear than you can craft by doing that.

I can't remember a single instance in version 2.5 where I was able to craft an iron quality 1 weapon or tool before I looted a steel tier weapon or tool.

So for magazines, if you're regularly going out to scavenge or loot or quest, magazines tend to come in (other than armor) at roughly the same rate as you can find stuff. It varies, of course. You can sometimes find something really good earlier. Other times, you can craft it before you find it. But in general, it is roughly the same rate.

Citation needed. Play the game yourself and prove it, because I call falsehoods on that claim.

So part of it comes down to understanding where to find things.

Now, here's the issue. Let's say people who are playing a good mix of activities start getting double the magazines because they increased the drop rates for magazines. Crafting for them will be way ahead of loot. For someone who wants to craft everything, that's not a problem. But for people who don't want to craft and just want to loot, it is a problem for them. They don't want to have crafting be superior to looting. And those who prefer crafting don't want looting to be superior to crafting. That means that the magazine drop rate needs to work out to be roughly equal to your ability to loot things. And that balance has to be based on a middle ground of how people play the game. So for people who play a decent mix of activities. It will still mean that someone who does mailbox runs and keeps re-looting book stores will be able to craft far sooner than they find stuff and that people who rarely scavenge will not be able to craft as quickly as they could find the loot.

I'm not going to engage with vague phrases like "a good mix of activities".

What I do, is I complete quests. Sometimes I pre-loot (fully clear a POI, then start the quest, and fully clear it again). Sometimes I just start the quest and don't pre-loot. At night time, if I've got no quests to complete, I just fully loot POIs until the trader opens again. Naturally I do some inventory management, cooking/crafting, but for the most part I'm fully looting POIs.

In 2.5 I've been taking [Intellect 7 -> Intellect Mastery 2 -> Intellect 8 -> Intellect Mastery 3] as my early skill investment. I'm not sure how many points that is, but maybe it's around 23 (I don't have the game open, just guesstimating). And because Intellect Mastery 2 (25% chance to loot a book in "trash", I think) means I loot a lot of things, I generally start investing into Lucky Looter for the looting speed. Then I start maxing out an armour skill (likely Medium).

Doing this, like I said, my magazine progression can't keep up with my looting, even though I'm literally full-investing into magazine progression with my skills. I will loot better weapons than I can craft, all the way until I have multiple quality 5 steel-tier weapons and I finally unlock the ability to craft a quality 6 steel. Magazine progression lags way behind loot.

I used to just stay in the forest until I had unlocked tier 5 quests, but also recently I followed the Opening Trade Routes quests into different biomes. Results are essentially the same: Magazine progression doesn't keep up. And that's with my intentionally building towards magazine progression.

Ok, so this just proves that the armor isn't necessary. You never have a food problem even without farming. So that means that you don't need to use the farming armor or LotL for food. You can just farm and it will work fine.

Again, disagree. I don't treat farming as a "necessary for survival" thing. Farming is just a fun activity you can do when you're in end-game.

So that means I do consider the Farmer Outfit + Boots as "necessary", because the goal with farming is to make a big farm. That means you plant your seeds, wait for them to grow, harvest your crops, craft them into seeds, and plant the seeds. You do this until you've got many stacks of crops in your storage, and you feel satisfied.

You don't seem to have any understanding about what is enjoyable about farming, so maybe it's best that you don't pretend that you do.

 

[FenixMatariki]

The balance problem IMHO may be the result of Madmoles method of throwing out an unbalanced feature and balance it in further patches, only they never did get to that second step. Really, for me the preacher gloves stand out here, the difference is large enough that you can play on a higher difficulty setting just with those gloves.

Amusingly despite knowing preacher gloves are best in slot for general damage, due to my playstyle they don't even appear on my radar of viable armor's. Melee only means i need every scrap of armor rating i can get my hands on so light armor is out of the question!

Fingers crossed for new armor bonus options and further refinement of the existing ones. Melee and explosives please!

 

[MiTHMoN]

Let's say this game adds fast travel and some people are so "well-adjusted" to driving or running everywhere that they never use it. They then complain that the travel times are too long. Is the game bad because they choose to play in the way they are used to playing rather than trying something different?

In that hypothetical example, yes. Travelling between locations *is gameplay*. It's immersive, it's mechanical, it gives your mind a "rest" between action-packed combats.

If a travel is too long, then it doesn't fill its role well. If you fast travel, you have also failed to fill that role.

Clearly you don't understand game design by the way you're talking.

If someone isn't willing to change how they do something that they don't like doing just because the feel it's more efficient or better or whatever else, that is not a game problem as long as the game offers alternatives that are just as viable. The fact that players aren't swapping armor all the time as evidenced by multiple people just in this thread shows that not swapping armor is a viable option. Choosing not to play that way is fine. Choosing not to play that way but hating that you're playing another way is pretty insane.

This is such an ignorant take. Clearly you aren't a designer of any kind, in any field, and have never studied to be one ever.

 

[MiTHMoN]

While that's a tempting idea, it doesn't address the whole problem.. I would still carry around a reading outfit, clear first, equip and loot while waiting. Etc.

And honestly, I'm fine with that. You've been given the choice, you've weighed up your options, and you've taken the steps to pursue your preferred outcome. That's your playstyle. I don't think there's a problem with doing that at all.

(This is assuming we're using my hypothetical armour rework that I laid out in the thread I linked.)

A different person might just full clear, loot as they go, jump out the window, and start heading back to the trader.

If you're taking an extra 2 minutes before you start your looting, you're more than 2 minutes slower by doing so. And spending those extra 2+ minutes you've decided to spend them towards a specific gameplay advantage.

 

[theFlu]

If you're taking an extra 2 minutes before you start your looting, you're more than 2 minutes slower by doing so.

Hmm, I was talking about the current armors, naturally; if we go ahead and mess with the bonuses, we can fix the issue without a timer .. ( for proof, just take them all out )
For the current Nerf Outfit, a 2-min delay would change much. It doesn't effect loot, just reading, so you can spend the 2 mins of CD while looting a cleared building, losing no time.

And while I don't truly hate dragging the outfit along; if I were to suggest changes, I'd try to make sure I don't really want to swap for anything less than mining. But as a CD, that'd take a 15min one, taking out half an hour of combat bonuses; at some point the swap becomes too cumbersome and the other option never gets used. That would be fine if everything was designed to be actually played in Closer to Roland's vision of single set playthroughs.

 

[Rooster Gold]

There are two distinct problems with the sets, one is that swapping is encouraged, the other is the balance of some armor bonusses.

I think an armor quick swap option would address the 1st issue - Infact I thought the 'Wardrobe System' was going to be something along those lines.

Picture this... you have 4 extra armor slots you can place armor in, these could be swapped on the fly & take up no extra space.

For example:
I'm out gathering resources, I need wood and lead.
I could equip my Lumberjack gear and set the Mining gear to the swap slots, this way I could do everything in one fell swoop without wasted trips.

 

[MiTHMoN]

Hmm, I was talking about the current armors, naturally; if we go ahead and mess with the bonuses, we can fix the issue without a timer .. ( for proof, just take them all out )
For the current Nerf Outfit, a 2-min delay would change much. It doesn't effect loot, just reading, so you can spend the 2 mins of CD while looting a cleared building, losing no time.

Yeah, the 2-minute cooldown is meant to be paired with my proposed rework. tl;dr I proposed giving one set out to players (instead of their pipe bundle), and players can only craft their subsequent sets when they reach 100/100 armour crafting skill. So by that point, you probably don't really need to worry too much about magazines. And the choice becomes "do I pick the magazine set, which has no real other benefit to me besides boosting my magazines and exp gain", or "do I pick a set that actually benefits me in combat/gathering".

And while I don't truly hate dragging the outfit along; if I were to suggest changes, I'd try to make sure I don't really want to swap for anything less than mining. But as a CD, that'd take a 15min one, taking out half an hour of combat bonuses; at some point the swap becomes too cumbersome and the other option never gets used. That would be fine if everything was designed to be actually played in Closer to Roland's vision of single set playthroughs.

Well, that's an option, but it's not the option I'd choose to add.

I think it makes sense to "switch gear" when you're going off to do a dedicated activity. For example, there's been playthroughs I've done where I use explosives / molotovs during blood moons. But I save them up specifically for blood moons. So, when a blood moon rolls around, I'll grab the bombs, because I'm going to use them for that activity. And I'd put on Preacher gloves, if I wasn't already wearing them, since they're the only thing that benefits explosives.

In the same way, I've done "mining runs" in previous playthroughs. For example, one time I went to the desert specifically to mine lots of oil shale. I built a wall around the opening (so zombies didn't just come in after me, and it gave me a headstart to come up and fight them if I heard them attacking the wall). I never had a reason to return to that mine afterwards, so it was a once-off big mining run. It made sense to put on my mining armour specifically for it.

But yeah, with my proposed soft-rework I think committing to a single armour set is a lot easier if the game just lets you choose one. By the time you unlock the ability to obtain more armour sets, you've already started building the habit of not being neurotic.

 

[Roland]

If you want me to stop obsessively calling you out on calling people obsessive, stop calling people obsessive

I don't want you to stop. I figure I'm your mechanic for min/maxing the forum. If you need to be obsessive about something, it might as well be my posts.

 

[Ostentatio]

I will swap armor sets for specific occasions, but, only two parts of Farmer that I keep in my seeds/food box and maybe some pieces of Miner if I have it from looting, as whether or not I have the resources to make a spare single-purpose armor set is a deciding factor. Or if I even need to mine, because of cases where my Perception-only self-challenge only ever needed mining for clay.

Generally speaking, I'm somewhere of a middle-range min-maxer for sets. I keep Farmer pieces in my seed box and sometimes Miner in my mining box, but I'm not about to carry around the Nerd piece for three reasons: 1: I rarely remember to put it on when I find magazines; 2: a lower-ranked piece's chance for the bonus is so meager that it barely feels worth the inventory slot, which leads to 3: by the time I'd have a high-ranked piece with a good, reliable bonus %, my progression is far enough that I don't really need the bonus.

I wonder how many people carry around the stat-boosting helmet mods and hotswap those constantly for their benefits. That'd be awful gameplay.

There are two distinct problems with the sets, one is that swapping is encouraged, the other is the balance of some armor bonusses. As this is a very sandboxy game, none of those problems lead to the game being bad or not fun at all, the game generally can handle a lot of kinks without going bad. It could be improved though.

I consider those "two distinct" problems to be the same problem, really. Swapping is 'encouraged' because the armor bonuses are all over the place usefulness- and balance-wise; there's no reason to use the Nerd chest if you're high or maxed on the crafting skills you care about, anything that buffs non-top-tier weapons (lever action, revolvers, etc) is superfluous by late-game, something that gives a bonus against "undead" is vastly superior to most options if you're on any difficulty that makes zombies take more than one or two hits to deal with.

Granted, I skimmed most of the messages pertaining to the topic so if this was already mentioned I missed it, but one route that might be interesting to take for armor bonus rework is through changing the set bonuses entirely. If the individual piece bonuses were removed, heavily reworked, or reduced, but the the set bonuses were made stronger/more consequential, it may incentivize sticking to one outfit rather than piecemealing it constantly. Or, maybe players would be upset, feeling that they're being 'punished' for 'efficiency' by having to dedicate five inventory slots to getting a 20% bonus on dumpster-diving for cheeseburgers.

There's one mod I have marked to try sometime that gives set bonuses depending on how much of the set you're wearing, rather than the whole thing, which I've been meaning to give a shot for months but never get around to adding it on a new world for whatever reason.