If we weren't talking about mods, but instead about weapons, would you feel the same?
No, because it is hardly comparable. We usually pick a class (Agi, Strength, ...) and have only one specific gun (and one melee weapon) we are interested in. Finding other guns of random qualities may help with situations where your main weapon would not be well suited (i.e. don't try to shoot a zombie in the far distance with your shotgun) or when you want to save ammo for your main weapon. But in effect you are only really interested in the progress of this specific gun. Naturally it would wildy scramble your progression if you could find a t3 Q6 of that specific gun on day 1.
Mods are in a different place. You need lots of them and they mostly have secondary effects (primary effect being the damage of the gun). Some of their buffs are a bit more important, but overall I am just happy to find a mod with a better quality to replace one I have in either my gun, my melee weapon or any of my secondary weapons or tools, no matter which mod it is.
Let's say weapons were the same. You can only craft a T1 weapon. You could get a T3 Q6 weapon on day 1 and were still getting mostly T1 weapons (any quality) on day 100. But you are still slowly increasing just out of sheer numbers of looted containers. Is that a fun way to play the game? Is that what you'd call a good way to get weapons? It's easy to say it's no big deal because these are mods. But what makes it a "good" system for mods when not being one for weapons? Just because mods are more unnecessary? Why is having mods that can be really hard to find to begin with (some are common, some aren't) set to be completely random in quality so that it can be extremely unlikely to get a Q6 in a game even if you play to day 100 better than having actual progression tied to game stage or loot stage?
I find them, in my game the system is working perfectly. I checked a few hours ago and in my assortment of weapons and tools I have about 3 of every quality level, including q6. And I have set loot probability to 85%.
I like randomness and the chance to have a lucky find. If you want reliable "boring" progression where you exactly know what you get in the next half hour, then you need to rely on the trader or use a mod that lets you craft everything as soon as you have a specific magazine level. Looting is such a central activity of the game, it is more important to make this fun than having the smoothest possible progression.
Why is it okay to make it so you can buy Q6 mods really easily all game long but can't find them? Aren't we trying to cut back on the reliance on traders?
I always said the trader needs to be nerfed and in 3.0 I nerfed the trader with the options. I still can find a good mod at the trader occassionaly but in my game the trader isn't the top source anymore, looting is.
I am fine with having RNG be part of it. If you had a 1:1000 chance to get a Q6 on day 1 so you could get a really nice find on rare occasions, that's perfectly fine. But otherwise, it should normally be Q1 or maybe Q2 mods on day 1 for most games. And then the odds of better mods increases with your game stage or loot stage so that by end game you are finding mostly Q4-6 mods. It certainly isn't going to break a game if you can find the best mods regularly once you're already at the end game and can easily fight everything anyhow. Basically, just do with mods the same you do with weapons. You can get low level stuff any time, but you're much more likely to get the good stuff the further into the game you are rather than being entirely random.
I probably would have agreed to this if I hadn't played 3.0, but I find the current system fun and it gives back some of the randomness that has been removed bit by bit in the last years by making the rest of the game more rigid in progression.
Or just make use of the new workstation. What is wrong with combining mods to get better ones? Or, if that's not good enough, reading multiple copies of a schematic in order to craft better ones?
I would agree to combining mods if they made it difficult enough: Only when you combine two mods of the same quality should you get one a level higher.
