PC A17.1: "For builders, we have bolstered XP for harvesting and mining substantially"

Ghostlight

Ghostlight

New member
OK before you all hate on me, please know that *I* am my co-op group's dedicated miner. I spend 2 to 3 entire days in each in-game week mining boulders etc, so I am greatly affected by this change. Deep breath, then, and shields up....here we go....

In A17.0, mining boulders and trees was BY FAR the quickest way to level once the player has Iron or Steel tools and is specced for it. I currently get ~200 XP per boulder, and just less than that for a 1200 HP tree. That means that 3 trees or boulders equals killing one zombie.

Believe me when I say that I would be able to harvest MANY more trees and boulders in a day than you could find and kill zombies. Many many more. You need to go find your next zombie which could be anywhere. I just need to walk 10 steps to the next tree or boulder.

In our latest play-through I am 12 levels ahead of the guy who does all the looting and zombie killing.

In short, mining was already extremely OP as an XP-per-hour source from the the mid-game onward.

And it just got buffed....

 
Last edited by a moderator:
OK before you all hate on me, please know that *I* am my co-op group's dedicated miner. I spend 2 to 3 entire days in each in-game week mining boulders etc, so I am greatly affected by this change. Deep breath, then, and shields up....here we go....
In A17.0, mining boulders and trees was BY FAR the quickest way to level once the player has Iron or Steel tools and is specced for it. I currently get ~200 XP per boulder, and just less than that for a 1200 HP tree. That means that 3 trees or boulders equals killing one zombie.

Believe me when I say that I would be able to harvest MANY more trees and boulders in a day than you could find and kill zombies. Many many more. You need to go find your next zombie which could be anywhere. I just need to walk 10 steps to the next tree or boulder.

In our latest play-through I am 12 levels ahead of the guy who does all the looting and zombie killing.

In short, mining was already extremely OP as an XP-per-hour source from the the mid-game onward.

And it just got buffed....
Click to expand...
They gave the people what they want.

Whether those people actually thought out the long term ramifications or exploits? Probably not.

 
Biggest issue I think is the discrepancy between how xp is gained and shared when killing zombies compared to mining. Zombie XP can be shared (and the range this is shared can be extended throughout the whole map for co-op players to keep everyone levelling simultaneously if need be). Mining XP is purely egoistical, only you gain it. Hunting zombies takes more time as areas are cleared and is an uneven and dangerous commitment, while mining can be continuosly grinded fairly safe given enough supplies of food and water. Balancing those two is HARD. We've probably not seen the end of this, and it'd be a shame if it went back to A16 and previous where mining and building was the optimal way of levelling at any time.

Now as how I've experienced A17 so far, the problem with previous builds was the stamina control mixed with it being harder to get through blocks made it seem unbalanced at an early game. But especially building felt very dissatisfying as it took a whole lot of time upgrading for little or no reward. At a late game mining is no sweat and quickly done for good xp and good resources, while building still gave very little rewards in XP. And this is what people whined at (as apparently a lot of people don't seem to play past lvl 50 before starting over anew or something, I don't know). TFP for some reason as you say gave them what they wanted, when all they really needed was to look at the building xp reward part.

Now for casual solo-players this probably feels A LOT better, as they keep having a steady xp incoming whatever they do. They are rewarded for everything. For us playing co-op on our servers instead it will be an uneven experience again. Which makes me wonder, maybe the game needs to make a difference between solo and multiplayer again, just for xp gain balance sake.

 
Why not just make all xp shared across? That way teammates will be getting the same xp.
Click to expand...
Because at this point Im not sure the point is getting across about what even the casuals want.

Let me stress that MP play is completely screwed now. People who are designated to stay at base and craft and gather will now be STRONGER than people who go out and fight zombies all day. NO one asked for that. People wanted cooking to be more rewarding, building to be more rewarding etc. NOT mining exploiting back.

At this point I think everyone needs to stop complaining. This whole patch seems to have been a miscommunication in what players actually want.

 
In my experience, the issue only pops up when you play in a co-op group. While the zombie-killer and the miner both get roughly similar XP at late-game (most of us were complaining about early and mid-game, where zombie-killing is infinitely better) the miner does not share their XP with the zombie-killer while the zombie-killer is sharing theirs. The miner will thus always outlevel the zombie-killer because they're getting XP that is not being shared even if the miner is getting less XP for mining than the zombie-killer is for killing zombies. The solution is simple enough - Allow all XP gains to be shared the way zombie-killing XP is.

This won't be an issue in single-player or competitive multiplayer.

To illustrate the concept, let's imagine a time period in which a miner gains 2000 XP mining and a scavenger in his party kills 16 zombies worth 500 XP each. The scavenger contributes 8000 XP to the shared XP pool, the miner contributes 0. At the end of the time period the scavenger has earned four times as much XP as the miner, but the miner has 25% more XP because none of his XP was shared with the scavenger. That's how we have a situation where miners, builders, and crafters can legitimately say they don't earn enough XP - They earned a fourth of the scavenger's XP in the same amount of time - while still outleveling everyone in their co-op group.

 
Last edited by a moderator:
At this point I think everyone needs to stop complaining. This whole patch seems to have been a miscommunication in what players actually want.
Click to expand...
Maybe people should stop constantly looking at levels and XP. I never paid much attention to such things. It is a much more relaxing way of playing the game.

 
They gave the people what they want.
Click to expand...

NO one asked for that.
Click to expand...
hmm :apathy:

i wanted learning by doing back. they didnt give me lbd back.

2qsww6.jpg


 
Maybe people should stop constantly looking at levels and XP. I never paid much attention to such things. It is a much more relaxing way of playing the game.
Click to expand...
Same here, I'm not rushing for anything once I have iron tools and bicykle.

 
Because at this point Im not sure the point is getting across about what even the casuals want.
Let me stress that MP play is completely screwed now. People who are designated to stay at base and craft and gather will now be STRONGER than people who go out and fight zombies all day. NO one asked for that. People wanted cooking to be more rewarding, building to be more rewarding etc. NOT mining exploiting back.

At this point I think everyone needs to stop complaining. This whole patch seems to have been a miscommunication in what players actually want.
Click to expand...
This! I agree.

- - - Updated - - -

In my experience, the issue only pops up when you play in a co-op group. While the zombie-killer and the miner both get roughly similar XP at late-game (most of us were complaining about early and mid-game, where zombie-killing is infinitely better) the miner does not share their XP with the zombie-killer while the zombie-killer is sharing theirs. The miner will thus always outlevel the zombie-killer because they're getting XP that is not being shared even if the miner is getting less XP for mining than the zombie-killer is for killing zombies. The solution is simple enough - Allow all XP gains to be shared the way zombie-killing XP is.
This won't be an issue in single-player or competitive multiplayer.

To illustrate the concept, let's imagine a time period in which a miner gains 2000 XP mining and a scavenger in his party kills 16 zombies worth 500 XP each. The scavenger contributes 8000 XP to the shared XP pool, the miner contributes 0. At the end of the time period the scavenger has earned four times as much XP as the miner, but the miner has 25% more XP because none of his XP was shared with the scavenger. That's how we have a situation where miners, builders, and crafters can legitimately say they don't earn enough XP - They earned a fourth of the scavenger's XP in the same amount of time - while still outleveling everyone in their co-op group.
Click to expand...
Yes exactly. It's what I tried to say but in a more convoluted way. As In I was convoluted, not you.

 
Let me stress that MP play is completely screwed now. People who are designated to stay at base and craft and gather will now be STRONGER than people who go out and fight zombies all day. NO one asked for that. People wanted cooking to be more rewarding, building to be more rewarding etc. NOT mining exploiting back.
Click to expand...
Correct on all fronts.

 
[whoops meant to edit, somehow doubleposted, don't see a "delete post" option]

 
Last edited by a moderator:
They gave the people what they want.
Whether those people actually thought out the long term ramifications or exploits? Probably not.
Click to expand...
Yah, the stamina regen buff is nuts. The only way to die in a fight now is to be an absolute f'in moron, or to be bored out of your skull which boils down to the same thing.

But @Ghostlight, I'll take you up on the can't-kill-zombies-fast-enough challenge, I think building a monster fire is a reasonably legit method of attracting zombies (which I might just start using, the early game is a wasteland of a grind now, zombie fights aren't even a little scary, they're just tedious, I can't find any risk or reward loop in stamina management any more, just waiting), so you can kill zombies faster than you can cut trees even just going by body count, all you have to do is titrate your screamer damage to keep the minihordes coming at a manageable rate. The game tells you fire attracts zombies, this has to be intentional.

I wish TFP would key recovery rates off difficulty level and quietly make scavenger mode the default. Nomad's description reads "intended for experienced FPS players", the current settings make that a joke, and bullet sponge does not equal difficult.

 
While the zombie-killer and the miner both get roughly similar XP at late-game (most of us were complaining about early and mid-game, where zombie-killing is infinitely better)
Click to expand...
Just to put things in perspective. It is not late game. It is the moment the miner gets Iron tools. And once they do, the XP earning are not remotely similar. The miner will get vastly more XP than the zombie killer.

To illustrate the concept, let's imagine a time period in which a miner gains 2000 XP mining and a scavenger in his party kills 16 zombies worth 500 XP each. .
Click to expand...
Again, I am nitpicking you (sorry) but I want people to focus hard on these numbers, so I think it is a worthy notpick...in the time the scavenger has found and killed his 16 zombies @ 500XP each (for a total of 8000XP), the XP earned by the miner would be more like 20,000 than 2,000 (20k XP would be only 100 trees / boulders). In fact much more if there is a dense population of trees and/or boulders. The fact the scavenger's XP might also have been shared is kind of a moot point when the numbers are so different to begin with.

 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top