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

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....
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Not exactly, if your talking zombies out wandering then yeah, but if your looking for exp from kills, you wanna go into poi's usually. I can go in one run thru it, fire a shotgun, run out, then 60s later have 8-20 zombies to kill. Delivered to me in a nice organized congaline. repeat for how many poi's in the area.

 
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.
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I'd race you any day. :) If you are allowed to build a ton of fires to get your Screamers coming, then I am allowed to pre-plant 1000 trees in a tight forest.

I believe I will still win either way. You need to kill zombies. You are in danger all the time, you need to move constantly, you may have stamina issues. If I have Steel tools, then those Screamer hordes probably include a few irradiated zombies that will take you a wee while to kill. You might even die. [We haven't even talked about risk/reward yet, surely the more dangerous activities should pay moore XP??].

Meanwhile I am felling trees in 4 LIGHT SWINGS.

And what about difficulty level? We could do this on Insane or we could do it on Noob difficulty. My tree felling exercise remains the same. But your Screamer hordes will change quite a bit in both the time it take you to kill the zombies and the danger you are in while doing so.

Not exactly, if your talking zombies out wandering then yeah, but if your looking for exp from kills, you wanna go into poi's usually. I can go in one run thru it, fire a shotgun, run out, then 60s later have 8-20 zombies to kill. Delivered to me in a nice organized congaline. repeat for how many poi's in the area.
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Depending on area size, you will run out of POIs in 10? 15? 20? minutes? I won't run out of trees. Ever.

 
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I have faith in the modders to make the changes to the game where TFP tend to fall flat at times on certain alpha changes. They are the reason this game is still alive after all this time. I would like to see lightning strikes and structure that are able to catch fire. I'd love to see how hordes would react to a forest fire or a wooden barn burning.

 
While my mining/chopping experiance is a bit different I fully agree with your point Ghostlight.

With Miner 69er 2/5, Motherlode 4/5 & Strength 8/10 takes me 7 swings of an Iron Pickaxe per Stone node (underground, tunneling). Very little downtime for stamina. Night just past I mined ~6 in-game hours in a 90-m/day game. Think I made about a level (lvl ~51)? Not sure.

Chopping w Iron Fireaxe still takes me 1 swing per 100 hps of tree (actually 101). Never thought to look at how much xp they give.

I do remember thinking about the, then, upcoming mining xp buff and thinking, 'hmm, this actually feels about right'.

So while a bit of a buff for very early mining, and a bit for upgrading would be nice, not thinking much was/is needed past that. Just mho.

 
TFP are just never going to please everyone. I can't see how they can develop a game and read these forums without bonking their heads against a wall.

 
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TFP are just never going to please everyone. I can't see how they can develop a game and read these forums without bonking their heads against a wall.
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This. I wish they would release an A17x Stable with the A16.4 progression system, AND continue to work out what they are doing now. I like both versions (more so learn by doing and RNG books) but have been having fun in both.

Probably would never happen though. Here's to hoping.

 
*logs in*

*crafts 4 molotovs*

*goes into a town*

*shoots in the air*

*gets 12000 xp*

I kinda think if you have the patience to farm 60 boulders/trees, you should be rewarded.

Yes zombies don't give loot anymore, but xp is way too valuable to not get it asap.

 
In short, mining was already extremely OP as an XP-per-hour source from the the mid-game onward.
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I think this may be the part they didn't quite account for properly?

Because there's no doubt whatsoever that the buff is needed for the earlier stages. It kind of annoyed the crap out of me that the beginning of the game was strictly about hunting zombies. I mean I always thought a survival game should be about avoiding threats whenever you can, but nope... go hunt down those shambling XP sacks.

 
I think they went the wrong way about this. People want XP badly because early game is severely lacking. I find that once I get iron tools and some basic workstations around lvl 60, I stop farming XP and start playing normally.

Early game needs some more options, right now there are very few things you can do that aren't tedious.

 
I think this may be the part they didn't quite account for properly?
Because there's no doubt whatsoever that the buff is needed for the earlier stages. It kind of annoyed the crap out of me that the beginning of the game was strictly about hunting zombies. I mean I always thought a survival game should be about avoiding threats whenever you can, but nope... go hunt down those shambling XP sacks.
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I'm sure they will make adjustments. They want the mining xp to ramp up as the player ramps up because it takes more experience to level later and if the xp gain curve outpaces the level up requirement curve that is something they will for sure want to look at.

 
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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.
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All I would ask is whether you modded your game as others have done to allow party sharing at a greater (or infinite) distance? With the default game it would only be those who go out to raid POI's together who would share with each other and the builder back at home would not share in it. So that right there would help the zombie killers keep pace with the harvester who is back at home. The builder should not be sharing in the zombie kill xp unless the zombies being killed are in the immediate area around the base.

 
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.
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Really? I just need to enter a house and shoot a gun, and I got a train of 20-35 xp bags doing a conga

With iron tools and 4/5 gathering perks, gathering xp is more or less fine. But early game it should get a BIG buff.

 
But early game it should get a BIG buff.
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It did in 17.1. You have to opt in.

Honestly, any bigger and you might as well just open the creative menu and gift yourself iron tools as your starting equipment.

 
I don't see faster xp mining than killing at least not in SP. I threw a couple molotovs at my horde and got 6k xp in half a second. Are you guys using mods to extend the xp range for team xp? To me its maybe 40% as fast as killing even with good tools and perks, at least in SP. I day spent mining and building might be good for 1-2 levels, a day looting/killing is good for 5 levels, at level 50 ish.

 
I think its too early to give decent feedback.

I mean the real question is how it feels if you play normal for >2 ingame weeks.

Or better 49 Days+ when you have leveled to 120+ and used all quality level tools.

Startgame feels good so far (even if my no trader game i will just restart, no way to survive on my Desert/Snow spot i want my base, 1 school and 2 Hotels and still no warm jacket. (2 extra skillpoints at start + buff the Insulated perk like the others would be very helpfull i guess, and i dont think its too much (still arround 20% of the bonis my B240 mod gave without make you feeling like rambo )))

But i guess you nailed the stamina issue. Its still annoying, but i consider the startgame generally now as playable. Welcome back on my game recommendation list 7D2D

 
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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....
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I think the issue there is it sounds like you're talking about XP Per Hour if you were to go full tilt on XP focus alone. Crafters/Builders/Miners, have a fair amount of down time too.

* Travel to where your mining

* Travel to where you're pulling wood

* Travel to where you're gathering water

* Crafting in various stations

* Building the actual structures

* Doing the actual repairs

If we wanted to talk about staying out and going full tilt from a person gaining XP via a Zombie Kill or XP via constantly mining/chopping wood, Zombie killers wouldn't be out scavenging. What they'd be doing is...

Place 10+ camp fires.

Throw doors into 10+ camp fires.

Kill boat loads of zombies.

Way out pace miners/crafters.

Now if you want to compare game play activity through standard game play, that's not even a calculation you can do. People play in far too many different ways. From Solo, to Multiplayer, to various ways of harvesting, to various ways of focusing on XP, etc. TFP really is stuck with finding a middle ground that isn't going to make everyone happy.

I personally have no idea how you'd be so far ahead of your other guys playing. Are you sure you've looked at how much time each person is actually playing? Are you on playing more than they are? Are you also in a position where you've been hitting a number of wandering hordes? So many factors that could be causing this. Tough to call either way.

- - - Updated - - -

I think its too early to give decent feedback.
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Probably the best point so far.

 
The 17.1 loot experience nerf seems a bit harsh...but it's possible I wasn't paying attention.

-Morloc

 
Early game is where the game really stands, once you have a comfortable horde base the game is over since you don't actually need to loot or maybe there's almost nothing worth it, buffing xp in package (sp + mp) makes it even worse

 
I'm sure they will make adjustments. They want the mining xp to ramp up as the player ramps up because it takes more experience to level later and if the xp gain curve outpaces the level up requirement curve that is something they will for sure want to look at.
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Sure, but (IMHO) they could instead keep the xp gain constant together with a more shallow XP-per-Level curve to get the same result.

A constant xp gain would mean if you have early game gain from different activities balanced, the whole game is balanced.

 
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I don't exactly understan pople saying they level faster by mining :S

I am up on lvl 10 just by looting and killing zombies in couple of days - depends on day length. 3 swings and you have a dead normal zombie ( 550 xp or 600 with glasses ). Assasinate with few perks and shot in the head - 1 shot kill on weaker zombies. Plenty of zombies in dungeon POI.

But those boulders take some time and those are further and further away. OK you can mine underground but still it takes tedious time of monotonous clicking.

In SP you kind of need some skills to fight - so if you invest everything in mining you will suffer at horde night ( unless you guys are using exploits with looping zombies ). I like to mine after day of looting - but killing zombies is waaaay faster for XP then mining and building.

 
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