PC Alpha 21 Dev Diary
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Uncle Al
Active member
I disagree. There are things that get less useful late game, but very few things become totally redundant. This seems to be a conscious design decision. I'm really happy about that but that's a personal preference, as I hate heavily enforced early/late power curve systems. I appreciate why they exist but I personally don't like them.
The existance of fergettin' elixir would make those kind of systems a really bad fit for 7DTD anyway. You'd end up with a very limited optimal skill progression where you take all the early power curve stuff then respec and take the late stuff.
For crafting under the magazine system, even though you haven't spent perk points, you've spent effort and modified your strategy around crafting if you want to reach maximum skill. Taking magazine quest rewards, searching every mailbox you see, targetting gun ranges to find magazines to improve your gun crafting or whatever. To suddenly get a drop that makes all the effort you put into a crafting line worthless feels bad.
Being able to craft Q6 if you've already got a Q6 drop isn't a huge advantage, but you can still use the parts you find to craft more Q6 items and hope for a better stats roll. You're getting a little something for your effort. Not much, but a little. It also means parts are still mildly useful drops into end game. That feels way better than 'crafting is totally irrelevant now, never open that page again'
Jost Amman
Well-known member
I'd say, it's no advantage at all... unless they make crafted items better than drops.
Again, that's IF they make crafted items better than the looted ones. But even then, you'd have a win only for the "crafters", because for the "looters" it would spoil the thrill of finding that coveted Q6 item in loot. The only way I see parts being useful, is if, like someone said, they reintroduce item degradation and the "repair with parts" mechanics.
I can respect that. But there are already things that become totally redundant late game.
A couple of ones that come to my mind are:
- The Pack Mule perk, which becomes useless as soon as you fill in all mod slots with triple pockets.
- The Well Insulated perk, which is useless as soon as you find the best clothing in the game.
- The Grease Monkey perk, which is also redundant as soon as you already have built or bought the vehicles you need.
I'll give you that we expect TFP to rebalance some of those perks in A21, so we'll see how that works.
But in general, the concept of something becoming totally redundant into late game is not foreign at all in 7D2D.
On top of that, as I mentioned before, some of my examples are of perks, which means skill points that you had to invest.
While in your example, the "wasted time" you speak of when having to hunt for magazines, is just normal gameplay IMO... in that specific period of time you needed to craft better gear, so, in my book, is not wasted time at all, since you earned the better quality stuff you needed at the time.
Hello,
I am super excited about the direction the game is taking with the new mechanic to learn crafting recipes via looting.
I have a question about the following feature and its impact on coop:
Does it mean that in coop we have to be careful about who is lotting which thing? Let’s say I’m specced in clubs but my friend in bows, does it mean to get club magazines I have to be the one to loot a container? Or do the probabilities apply across grouo members in some way?
I am super excited about the direction the game is taking with the new mechanic to learn crafting recipes via looting.
I have a question about the following feature and its impact on coop:
- Perks now govern the probability of finding like-themed magazines and parts for those recipes. Perk into shotguns and you will notice more shotgun magazines and shotgunparts appearing in the world
Does it mean that in coop we have to be careful about who is lotting which thing? Let’s say I’m specced in clubs but my friend in bows, does it mean to get club magazines I have to be the one to loot a container? Or do the probabilities apply across grouo members in some way?
Uncle Al
Active member
Pack mule still has some value as it allows you to use additional armour mods instead of having to use up a slot in each piece of gear with a pocket mod.
Well insulated allows you to wear a college jacket for a speed buff instead of a duster/puffer jacket in inhospitable climates.
Grease monkey - yeah in single player at least it's redundant once you've used it.
All of these though are, I hope, going to change in the future. At least the systems they impact are set to change, hopefully making them more valuable in late game. New armour system is going to potentialy impact pocket mods, weather protection and armour mods generally. Not having to rely on pocket mods may be really valuable in a system with only four apparel slots. Equally you may not be able to cap inventory with just pocket mods in the new system.
I'm also really, really hopeful there's a plan to make temperature more impactful again. Logically you'd do this alongside the armour system revamp, so I haven't been surprised nothing has been done on that for a while. More impactful weather plus potentially not being able to achieve total thermal protection with mods alone (possible in the new apparel system) would potentially make well insulated very valuable indeed, even late game.
Grease monkey, as you correctly note, is one of those perks that pretty much has to be tweaked under new crafting. Having a perk that only has the effect of lowering the resource cost of something you probably craft once, and buffing your magazine drops a bit is comically bad.
We have to wait and see really on this one. If after crafting and armour changes, which we know are coming, and a perk rebalance, which is almost certainly coming, there are clearly perks that are only useful early game, I'll have to accept that making all perks at least slightly useful all game is not a design goal. I really hope that it is, but I accept I've never heard anyone in authority state that. I have inferred it from existing design decisions.
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Diragor
New member
If you want the magazines, then you have to loot the container
the probabilities are not shared. it's like lucky looter, only you get the bonus
RipClaw
Well-known member
The OP is referring to learning by looting.
When you invest skill points in perks that are linked to a certain magazine series or certain parts, you get a boost when you loot so that you can find more magazines and parts matching the perks you invested points in. For example, you invest points in Advanced Engineer and find more Forge Ahead magazines. You invest points in Miner69er and you find more magazines for tools and more motor tool and steel tool parts.
Uncle Al
Active member
If you want the magazines, then you have to loot the container
There's no World of Warcraft 'bind on pickup mechanic' though. If they loot a club magazine, they can just hand it to you.
Also from almost everything we've seen stated, the 'find magazines appropriate for your skills' mechanic is a straight bonus. So specialising in clubs doesn't make you find less magazines for other weapons, it just gives you a chance to find bonus club magazines. If it works that way there's no need to get obsessive about who opens what container.
My only slight worry is that there was a mechanic mentioned briefly that 'the skills bonus stops working when you reach max crafting'. That wouldn't be needed if the skills influenced looting was a pure bonus, so possibly you do find less magazines of types you don't have perks in if you perk heavily into specific skills.
Even if the system works that way, a group should still be able to do fine by just looting freely and then sharing magazines. It does mean having one dedicated looter with max lucky looter could cause problems with mostly finding magazines that match the looter's other perks.
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Trankitas
New member
Diragor
New member
Trankitas
New member
Well…then what’s the point of the bonus in coop?If you want the magazines, then you have to loot the container
basically it is as if it doesn’t exist or some complicated round-robin mechanic has to exist like in WOW raids or some such.Thank you for the response. I am unsure if I understood. There will be a bonus but if a cool party loots freely then it won’t apply. So if you are trained up in clubs and loot a container, you will have a higher chance to see club magazines and so i that am specced in bows won’t see bows magazines unless I loot personally.
With limited tier4/5 loot boxes in the game, this can become painful.
It’s not a penalty directly but it’s such that the benefit isn’t going to apply to everyone. When a game is designed so that a benefit doesn’t apply regularly while in a party then it is as-if there was a penalty.
I disagree that it is too powerful for the loot bonus to apply to everyone from the party that is close to the looter. With it being a proximity buff, like the INT buffs, then it should be ok I think. Then I’m this way everyone can have fun and be rewarded for their spec choices.
Well…then what’s the point of the bonus in coop?
Thank you for the response. I am unsure if I understood. There will be a bonus but if a cool party loots freely then it won’t apply. So if you are trained up in clubs and loot a container, you will have a higher chance to see club magazines and so i that am specced in bows won’t see bows magazines unless I loot personally.
Higher chance to see clubs magazines does not mean no bows magazines will be found.
And the effect is supposed to be small. Whether you act on it and adjust your looting may be situational (i.e. you'll do it if you need a specific magazine right now, you don't if everyone is well supplied with his magazines at the moment)
Uncle Al
Active member
It would be nice to get an official comment on how the weighting works, if somebody in the know has the time.
For simplification we'll assume only three crafting skills: clubs, knives and bows.
I go out and loot 30 magazines.
With no perks let's say I'll average:
10 club magazines
10 knife magazines
10 bow magazines
With some perk points in clubs (only) does the expected average become more like:
A) 12 club magazines
10 knife magazines
10 bow magazines
OR
B) 12 club magazines
9 knife magazines
9 bow magazines
For simplification we'll assume only three crafting skills: clubs, knives and bows.
I go out and loot 30 magazines.
With no perks let's say I'll average:
10 club magazines
10 knife magazines
10 bow magazines
With some perk points in clubs (only) does the expected average become more like:
A) 12 club magazines
10 knife magazines
10 bow magazines
OR
B) 12 club magazines
9 knife magazines
9 bow magazines
jorbascrumps
New member
This would be a great clarification to make.
From the way it's been described as a "bonus" and won't negatively impact other drops leads me to believe it'll work like the first scenario. I feel like it would be easier to implement as well? At least from a loot balancing perspective.
mstdv inc
New member
A controversial statement.There are people who do not know about the existence of bags, and there are people who know about them, but never use them.I belong to the second group.It has always been easier for me to pump the mule at the beginning of the game and forget about the penalty for overloading.Even when playing with 25% experience, I did the same.Triple pockets are not available from the very beginning of the game and while I was trying to collect them all, I would have pumped the power for 5 and a mule many times already.Here the conversation is more about who prefers what style of play.Even if in some kind of survival I ignore the branch of power, I prefer to use steroids and use bags only if they are accidentally I find it.Bags are not convenient for me.
BFT2020
Well-known member
I thought it was mentioned before that POIs would have a bigger effect on the crafting magazines you are looking for. If you need something for tools or workstations, Working Stiffs POIs (and crates) would be the best source while things like weapon crafting you would look towards Shotgun Messiah's.
So for those that want to limit their looting and just stick around building bases / mining, you don't have to loot all POIs, just the ones that will more than likely have the magazines you are looking for.
So for those that want to limit their looting and just stick around building bases / mining, you don't have to loot all POIs, just the ones that will more than likely have the magazines you are looking for.
Uncle Al
Active member
That's actually one of the things I like most about the change, as it inherently balances up traders a bit. Now 'do I go run tier 1 quests and loot mostly houses and get quest rewards while hopefully finding a cooking pot, or ignore quests and turn over hardware stores and gas stations hoping for forge ahead magazines to make a forge?' is a meaningful choice on day one. I love meaningful choices with no clear optimal answer.
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