PC Alpha 19 Loot System improvement

[Solomon]

You have the biomes like now. Forest and burned forest will be the easy biomes. desert a bit more difficult, snow and wasteland the most difficult. What that means is that once you go into the desert, zombies and loot there just get a gamestage bonus of (for example) 20. So if you are at gamestage 16, in the desert you are gamestage 36 instead, changing which zombies you encounter and what loot you find. And in the snow biome that gamestage bonus might be 40.

Wouldnt this just result in players going into the wasteland by default so they can skip all the loot stages fast and then move out of the place as soon as they have what they want to settle down in a forest next to a town+trader+lake type of area?

To me this sounds like one of those games where everyone and their mothers on the forums tell players to play only on the hardest settings because everything else is just not worth the time.

 

[meganoth]

Wouldnt this just result in players going into the wasteland by default so they can skip all the loot stages fast and then move out of the place as soon as they have what they want to settle down in a forest next to a town+trader+lake type of area?

To me this sounds like one of those games where everyone and their mothers on the forums tell players to play only on the hardest settings because everything else is just not worth the time.

Possibly. Or they succumb to the lure of better loot because now they feel invincible with a gun.

I described the basic version above. One improvement they could think of would be to have different bonuses for zombie gamestage and loot gamestage. So the loot might be slightly better but the zombies far better. Also there are already lots of mines, bears and dog hordes in the wasteland, it won't be as easy as it sounds at first

 

[Solomon]

Possibly. Or they succumb to the lure of better loot because now they feel invincible with a gun.

I described the basic version above. One improvement they could think of would be to have different bonuses for zombie gamestage and loot gamestage. So the loot might be slightly better but the zombies far better. Also there are already lots of mines, bears and dog hordes in the wasteland, it won't be as easy as it sounds at first

The first thing what came to my mind is suicide run exploits. Set zombie damage to minimum, player damage to max, no death drops, rush into the place, get the loot, die, repeat.

The whole thing only get challanging to dead is dead players, thought you can even exploit the ai to do your bidding and smash open walls to make your day easier.

 

[caatalyst]

Possibly. Or they succumb to the lure of better loot because now they feel invincible with a gun.

I described the basic version above. One improvement they could think of would be to have different bonuses for zombie gamestage and loot gamestage. So the loot might be slightly better but the zombies far better. Also there are already lots of mines, bears and dog hordes in the wasteland, it won't be as easy as it sounds at first

I think too much emphasis is put on stopping players finding guns and game stage / player level and perks when it comes to looting and exploration.

If the game stage continues to becomes the main system that determines what loot players find then it's going to lose the excitement that comes with exploration and looting. The whole process becomes too predictable and the desire to start over gets lost. Players are essentially getting funneled to play the game in a specific way which is eroding away the sandbox fun.  It just feels very artificial and gamey (I know I keep banging on about this but it's just frustrating to see the path that the devs are going down with looting). 

It should be perfectly fine for a player to find a gun on day one, even a top tier gun if they take the risk and loot an end game poi successfully regardless of game stage or player level. A way to tackle these weapons being too OP could be handled by quality and ammo types.

For example, the difference between each quality level (1-5) could be made much more significant. A level 1 rifle could be very unreliable, prone to break often with poor performance (poor accuracy, slow reload speed, poor recoil).  Quality doesn't need to be coupled to game stage, player level or POIs (maybe some nasty POIs have a slightly better chance of awarding better quality items). Instead quality is pretty much determined by a solid RNG system that includes an incredibly low chance to get T6, very low T5 and low chance to get T3 or T4. Of course the RNG would need to be tested and balanced. It makes sense in a post apocalyptic world that most things left over from before the war would have degraded over time with the exception of a few well hidden stashes.

Yes you might find a q6 rifle on day 1 but it could be balanced in a way to make that odds incredibly low. Additionally to keep a bit of a game play loop active you could make repairing weapons reduce their quality over time so they would need to be replaced (or have parts replaced). This doesn't need to be too severe, maybe repairing a Q6 rifle 5 times would take it down to Q5. Repairing a Q1 weapon a few times could result in that weapon breaking beyond repair. Maybe there could be a perk that allows players to master repairing weapons so by the end game they don't degrade when repaired or it is significantly reduced (Although i'd much prefer a LBD system for this).

Damage doesn't need to be assigned to the weapon or perks but instead the types of ammo and these could also be tiered.

T0 Hand made bullets - Easy to mass produce but terrible damage and maybe reduce recoil / accuracy further. Yeah you find a AK on day 1 but you are going to be relying on these.

T1 Standard bullets - A bit harder to craft and slightly better damage, maybe has a slight negative impact on recoil / accuracy.
T2 HP Bullets - harder to craft but even better damage
T3 Armour Piercing bullets - Very hard to find and craft

The systems are pretty much already in place for all this to work. The types of bullets could be expanded further. More calibers for different rifles etc...

 

 

[Solomon]

I think too much emphasis is put on stopping players finding guns and game stage / player level and perks when it comes to looting and exploration.

If the game stage continues to becomes the main system that determines what loot players find then it's going to lose the excitement that comes with exploration and looting. The whole process becomes too predictable and the desire to start over gets lost. Players are essentially getting funneled to play the game in a specific way which is eroding away the sandbox fun.  It just feels very artificial and gamey (I know I keep banging on about this but it's just frustrating to see the path that the devs are going down with looting). 

It should be perfectly fine for a player to find a gun on day one, even a top tier gun if they take the risk and loot a end game poi successfully regardless of game stage or player level. A way to tackle these weapons being too OP could be handled by quality and ammo types.

For example, the difference between each quality level (1-5) could be made much more significant. A level 1 rifle could be very unreliable, prone to break often with poor performance (poor accuracy, slow reload speed, poor recoil).  Quality doesn't need to be coupled to game stage, player level or POIs (maybe some nasty POIs have a slightly better chance of awarding better quality items). Instead quality is pretty much determined by a solid RNG system that includes an incredibly low chance to get T6, very low T5 and low chance to get T3 or T4. Of course the RNG would need to be tested and balanced. It makes sense in a post apocalyptic world that most things left over from before the war would have degraded over time with the exception of a few well hidden stashes.

Yes you might find a q6 rifle on day 1 but it could be balanced in a way to make that odds incredibly low. Additionally to keep a bit of a game play loop active you could make repairing weapons reduce their quality over time so they would need to be replaced (or have parts replaced). This doesn't need to be too severe, maybe repairing a Q6 rifle 5 times would take it down to Q5. Repairing a Q1 weapon a few times could result in that weapon breaking beyond repair. Maybe there could be a perk that allows players to master repairing weapons so by the end game they don't degrade when repaired or it is significantly reduced (Although i'd much prefer a LBD system for this).

Damage doesn't need to be assigned to the weapon or perks but instead the types of ammo and these could also be tiered.

T0 Hand made bullets - Easy to mass produce but terrible damage and maybe reduce recoil / accuracy further. Yeah you find a AK on day 1 but you are going to be relying on these.

T1 Standard bullets - A bit harder to craft and slightly better damage, maybe has a slight negative impact on recoil / accuracy.
T2 HP Bullets - harder to craft but even better damage
T3 Armour Piercing bullets - Very hard to find and craft

The systems are pretty much already in place for all this to work. The types of bullets could be expanded further. More calibers for different rifles etc...

 

How about we expand the tiers a bit and play the balance on that?

Lets say that we get 12 tiers total, the first 5 are practically weapons in bad condition (low damage/durability/accuracy/etc...), everything you find in basic containers are between T1-5 and items in safes and such are all in quality t6-7.

To get an item to T11 you need to "repair" it with a workbench using the repair kits, forged iron+steel and weapon parts, each tier needs more of these to improve the quality of your gear. T12 can only be bought or upgraded at the trader because they are the only ones who have access to high grade, sealed military equipment.

This way early game guns are weak but with enough effort you can actually upgrade them as you progress.

 

[meganoth]

[...]

It should be perfectly fine for a player to find a gun on day one, even a top tier gun if they take the risk and loot an end game poi successfully regardless of game stage or player level. A way to tackle these weapons being too OP could be handled by quality and ammo types.

Currently there is no way to have an end game POI in the game and therefore there is no risk. A shamways factory loot room can be as easily plundered as a tier2 loot room. A20 should have that.

 

[RestInPieces]

Currently there is no way to have an end game POI in the game and therefore there is no risk. A shamways factory loot room can be as easily plundered as a tier2 loot room. A20 should have that.

There are a LOT of things TFP should be praised for, having made this wonderful game which was something that the rest of the market failed to offer, but "cause and effect" is just not up their alley... I mean, this is the "20, 40, 60 gates" all over again, and a lot of people have been asking for area & POI scaling from the beginning for very specific reasons, which I don't believe they endorse or understand. And as this will require a balance do-over, it certainly wasn't a necessary step. 

I really, really hope I get proven wrong and A20 greets us with a great zone system that emulates a "living, breathing world", with, for once, sublime gating, which will achieve prolonging gameplay in a more intuitive way that the players won't even notice.

But for that to happen, as you said, leveled zones have to apply to enemies as well. "That's why they are building the GS scaling" one might say, but personally I can't imagine how they will achieve smooth player progression, that doesn't lead to gimmicky player behaviors like the ones @Solomon mentioned, with GS scaling enemies and items like it does now, with its outdated formula, while also governing the difficulty of the BM (which is the only part of the game that actually needs level scaling) and, finally, the current death penalty, spawning and item economy states. My guess is that, in the end, they will have to tune everything separately all over again, or leave the game in a transcendent "just fine" state and move on to the next. Many steps forwards were made towards that direction like the DP introduction (which is still mostly inconsequential) or the injury system, but again, as I see it, a lot of steps backwards were made as well, like e.g. degradation going away, and even in areas such as spawning (e.g. sandwich-ing, which was gone on a whim).

Anyway, it's a fun ride which yields lessons for everyone involved and I wish the final result is a great experience, for both the sake of my own entertainment as well as the success of their next game.

 

[Solomon]

There are a LOT of things TFP should be praised for, having made this wonderful game which was something that the rest of the market failed to offer, but "cause and effect" is just not up their alley... I mean, this is the "20, 40, 60 gates" all over again, and a lot of people have been asking for area & POI scaling from the beginning for very specific reasons, which I don't believe they endorse or understand. And as this will require a balance do-over, it certainly wasn't a necessary step. 

I really, really hope I get proven wrong and A20 greets us with a great zone system that emulates a "living, breathing world", with, for once, sublime gating, which will achieve prolonging gameplay in a more intuitive way that the players won't even notice.

But for that to happen, as you said, leveled zones have to apply to enemies as well. "That's why they are building the GS scaling" one might say, but personally I can't imagine how they will achieve smooth player progression, that doesn't lead to gimmicky player behaviors like the ones @Solomon mentioned, with GS scaling enemies and items like it does now, with its outdated formula, while also governing the difficulty of the BM (which is the only part of the game that actually needs level scaling) and, finally, the current death penalty, spawning and item economy states. My guess is that, in the end, they will have to tune everything separately all over again, or leave the game in a transcendent "just fine" state and move on to the next. Many steps forwards were made towards that direction like the DP introduction (which is still mostly inconsequential) or the injury system, but again, as I see it, a lot of steps backwards were made as well, like e.g. degradation going away, and even in areas such as spawning (e.g. sandwich-ing, which was gone on a whim).

Anyway, it's a fun ride which yields lessons for everyone involved and I wish the final result is a great experience, for both the sake of my own entertainment as well as the success of their next game.

I sadly too believe that TFP's gonna need to rebalance the entire item economy and create a new gamestage formula.

One of the things i believe could be done is essentially the spawner block from minecraft. A simple invisible block what you can move throught what in itself governs the spawn of enemies of the area to smoot out progression.

Instead of the current system where we have these scripted enemies and spawns all in each Poi, it would be set up to cover a size and place zombies randomly around. No more "the next room will have 6 spawns, be ready" moments and each spawner could be set to create different difficulty for the Poi's.

Thought this again needs TFP to create more zombie types because without those all we going to see is the rad version of existing zombies in a bullet sponge style.