PC Alpha 21 Discussion Overflow

[BFT2020]

I always love it when people say that you can't predict a thing even when there's always a finite number of variants for any given situation and probabilities associated with each. As a corollary to Occam's razor, the easiest path is the path most likely to be taken.

It depends on how many unknown variables there are.  If there are very few (say for example, they are just simply removing empty jars and adding dew collectors), you can predict ahead of time how these changes are going to affect your game style.

However, as more unknown (or even known) variables are added, it becomes less and less accurate that you can predict what the change is going to do.

I can easily create a modlet to simulate the dew collectors and remove empty water jars.  That will tell you how the new system works in Alpha 20 world.  But we know there are going to be additional changes coming with A21 that also affect the water situation of the survivor - drinking from outside water sources, changes in the loot tables, changes to traders, etc.

It also understandable that changes that they make are not going to be balanced for all types of game styles and settings.  You just can't do that.  The only thing they can do effectively is constrict the balance to an established set of settings and game plays.  For those that go outside those boundaries, we will have to see if we can work with the changes as they come out.  If not, then we will need to look at making some changes via a mod to balance out.  I have a feeling it is going to affect my game style as I removed the ability to repair items so glue / duct tape is critical for me to keep going.  My survivor is probably going to take a liken to drinking murky water from ditches and shallow ponds as I go about the day and save the murky water I found for glue if I don't find enough looting or able to buy from the traders.

 

[meganoth]

FYI

• Does not require workbench
  
  T0/T1 Tools
  
• T0/T1 Melee Weapons
  
• T0 Firearms
  
• T0/T1 Bows (but not crossbow)
  
• T0 Armor
  

• Requires workbench
  
  T2 and Higher Tools and Melee Weapons
  
• T1 and Higher Firearms
  
• Iron Crossbow and T2 Higher bows
  
• T1 and Higher Armor
  
• All mods
  
• All robotics
  

No, I had meant without needing to find a schematic. workbench is not the problem

 

[Neminsis]

Correct, but there is no guarantee to find enough for what you want.

Unless they change the loot frequency for both glue and duct tape you can already do 60 hours without ever having to make glue once, but it will be impossible to make 4 stacks of crossbow bolts a week etc. That's the problem, there's just a vast difference in player needs. One example is just the veteran and the new player, give enough that the new player even has a chance at survival and the veteran is going to live like a king. Other examples are build specific, like this whole drinking murky water thing being pretty much meaningless to a fortitude build or prices being raised to an int build. There's always going to be a floor that the developers won't go below in order to facilitate new players and keep the game usable. There's always going to be a 'guarantee'

BUT there is also the drawback of 40 hitpoints lost through drinking murky water. It may be a bit too much for murky water drinking to be something you do apart from emergencies. May need further balancing

No, the hp loss is absolutely fine, without it I wouldn't have to spend that point into healing factor thus increasing my food needs, right? It's the definition of soft limiting player behavior, you can do it if you absolutely have to, but it's going to cost you.
 

Oh right. Would you have been able to predict the dew collector (if someone had told you TFP wants to make water scarce in the beginning) ?

Well, water has been talked about for a long time, and it was obvious from playing the game that the loot frequency of drinks made it so you rarely had to craft any so yes, most of the changes could've been predicted. Adding a dew collector only makes sense from the standpoint of wanting to add another workstation, and removing jars and water gathering only makes sense from the standpoint of isolating the dew collector for testing. So, if they'd dropped the hint that they wanted to add a new workstation it would've also been predictable. I mean there are already mods out there with buildable water collectors in them, it's a particularly obvious solution to having to run across the map to collect water in jars after all.
 

But it's not even that, until you exactly know where the new scheme has a problem you can't put any reliable probabilities on what solution is gonna be taken.

Note that even in the two examples that you gave one is more likely than the other? In the case of removing the water component to the super corn glue recipe that's a quick xml edit, but in the case of tree seeds, or even trees themselves producing resin, they'd have to add a whole new property to those items and also contend with the problems of players tree farming by default. One thing is true for anyone that codes, excess keystrokes and complexity is to be avoided.
 

Trivially no. Water from dew collector is very cheap in the long run, murky water from sewers is the cheapest if you can afford the hit point loss. Both need no dukes day to day, only the dew collector has a one-time cost for building/buying it.

Yeah, cheap, and low effort beyond the initial acquisition, making it easier to sit around the base and just do nothing, right? If only there was some way to encourage players to go out looking for water sources that'll have value after the first 3 days.

Dukes aren't that big of a deal when you sell turret ammo, polymers, leather and paper, especially when you're on a better barter build.
 

Voicing disapproval is not what I would call calming the waters, so you are absolutely right to not step in

Of course, I am. I also think that I'm right in showing that the conversation can still be carried on, on this topic, and without the added personal nonsense. If I'm going to be forced to pat myself on the back and all.

For most people on the dev diary they're going to be heavily invested in the game time wise, for some they even have a financial interest in how the game performs. It can be emotional. Some people will see any criticism of the game as an attack on the game itself, and jump to defend it. Some people will see any change to the game in the same way. We're all here because we love this damned game, right?


 

 

[Neminsis]

However, as more unknown (or even known) variables are added, it becomes less and less accurate that you can predict what the change is going to do.

This is a given however we've been given a pretty clear picture of what those changes are to date. Predicting what will occur after testing is another story.
 

I can easily create a modlet to simulate the dew collectors and remove empty water jars.  That will tell you how the new system works in Alpha 20 world.

For most of it, it's just quick xml edits and water collectors already exist in other mods that could be tweaked to simulate the properties of the dew collectors, and loot frequency already exists on a toggle so yeah, the entire thing could be simulated, unless other variables have been left out.
 

It also understandable that changes that they make are not going to be balanced for all types of game styles and settings.  You just can't do that. 

I'd have to disagree here, and I'd use the existing game as proof that a very broad number of playstyles can be supported in a fairly balanced manner. That's one of the things that TFP have shown themselves to be very good at doing.

 

 

[meganoth]

Unless they change the loot frequency for both glue and duct tape you can already do 60 hours without ever having to make glue once, but it will be impossible to make 4 stacks of crossbow bolts a week etc. That's the problem, there's just a vast difference in player needs. One example is just the veteran and the new player, give enough that the new player even has a chance at survival and the veteran is going to live like a king. Other examples are build specific, like this whole drinking murky water thing being pretty much meaningless to a fortitude build or prices being raised to an int build. There's always going to be a floor that the developers won't go below in order to facilitate new players and keep the game usable. There's always going to be a 'guarantee'

Yes, a general guarantee. But from this doesn't follow that a player gets enough glue for his needs in the first days, especially as not only the capabilities but also the needs of players are vastly different depending on their playstyle and the perks they spec into.

No, the hp loss is absolutely fine, without it I wouldn't have to spend that point into healing factor thus increasing my food needs, right? It's the definition of soft limiting player behavior, you can do it if you absolutely have to, but it's going to cost you.

Well, water has been talked about for a long time, and it was obvious from playing the game that the loot frequency of drinks made it so you rarely had to craft any so yes, most of the changes could've been predicted. Adding a dew collector only makes sense from the standpoint of wanting to add another workstation, and removing jars and water gathering only makes sense from the standpoint of isolating the dew collector for testing. So, if they'd dropped the hint that they wanted to add a new workstation it would've also been predictable. I mean there are already mods out there with buildable water collectors in them, it's a particularly obvious solution to having to run across the map to collect water in jars after all.

It was a rhetorical question. In hindsight everybody could rationalize that this and that was a clear hint and all was logical. And if someone invested say a day or a week in listing all possible ways an objective could be achieved in a game he would have a high chance any upcoming solution is in that list.

Note that even in the two examples that you gave one is more likely than the other? In the case of removing the water component to the super corn glue recipe that's a quick xml edit, but in the case of tree seeds, or even trees themselves producing resin, they'd have to add a whole new property to those items and also contend with the problems of players tree farming by default. One thing is true for anyone that codes, excess keystrokes and complexity is to be avoided.

I didn't write that the tree seeds produce resin. What whole new property is needed? Seeds to glue seems a very trivial recipe.

I didn't say that there aren't some probabilities we could attach to different solutions. This is always possible. But the meaningfullness and usefullness of such numbers is very limited, especially if half the information is missing.

But I don't want to discourage you from making probability lists, please go ahead. Not my place to say what others do with their time  You could start by making a probability list of the actual changes TFP will do to the water in experimental.  

Yeah, cheap, and low effort beyond the initial acquisition, making it easier to sit around the base and just do nothing, right? If only there was some way to encourage players to go out looking for water sources that'll have value after the first 3 days.

I doubt the 3 days but yes, water sources will have no value once say 2 dew collectors have been acquired in most cases. Apart from that the math is easy, if you need to buy drinks from the trader it is more expensive, and ...

Dukes aren't that big of a deal when you sell turret ammo, polymers, leather and paper, especially when you're on a better barter build.

... players are very different in their playstyles as you yourself said in the first paragraph of your post. Why then do you argue now with the highly efficient veteran who for example knows that turret ammo gets the best prices and converts all his scrap into that. Yes, sure, you and players playing like you have no scarcity of money in the first days. I never contested that.

The typical player will not get enough leather and paper in the first 3 days to even buy a food can with it and more likely will craft armor or a poncho out of the few leather scraps or just keep them in a box as many players are pack rats.

Of course, I am. I also think that I'm right in showing that the conversation can still be carried on, on this topic, and without the added personal nonsense. If I'm going to be forced to pat myself on the back and all.

For most people on the dev diary they're going to be heavily invested in the game time wise, for some they even have a financial interest in how the game performs. It can be emotional. Some people will see any criticism of the game as an attack on the game itself, and jump to defend it. Some people will see any change to the game in the same way. We're all here because we love this damned game, right?

Right.

 

[Roland]

No, but neither should their opinions be dismissed out of hand. I personally disagree with both of them on more issues than I can list, but I do consider what they say from the perspective that they spend a lot of time thinking about this game. It's simple respect for others, no adulation required.

I don't think the modders' opinions were "dismissed out of hand" any differently than the critics of this change dismissed the developers' decisions out of hand. The choices the devs made were after many hours of discussion and trial implementations and testing. Then within a few hours of my posting the news we have people dismissing the decision and off the cuff presenting alternative designs that they proclaim to be much better than what was decided. Granted, there has been a lot of brainstorming and thought exercise going on since then but still nothing compared to the time put into what we have now and by a group of people who have a clear picture of A21 and the future roadmap.

I'm not saying that the devs are infallible or that their design is the best possible for everyone, but I do find it interesting that when people pushed back against the modders you saw that as dismissing the opinions of people who have spent a lot of time thinking about the game and that there should be respect afforded to those people. What about the developers and testing team? I'm not asking for adulation but if we should show an amount of respect and trust to people who think about the game a lot is it only modders who fit that mold or might the devs, themselves, possibly qualify? And if you are willing to accept the alternate ideas that Khaine and Guppy (who admitted his ideas came in a moment's thought while pooping) without challenge or dissenting remark--why is it so hard to accept the change wrought by the TFP team without dismissing it out of hand?

How can we even really tell via text communication whether anyone dismissed the modders' opinions or the developers' decisions "out of hand"?

 

[Neminsis]

Yes, a general guarantee. But from this doesn't follow that a player gets enough glue for his needs in the first days

That's the thing, you do not need glue for the first few days. The most duct tape specific crafting that you can do in the first week is to rush the minibike by day 3 and it only costs 6 duct tape. If you can't find 6 duct tape in 3 days you're either just not trying or playing at 25% loot, nah, not even then, but why even bother when you're going to get the motorcycle for free 1-2 days later? All the best armor and weapons aren't even craftable. You can play 60 hours and never need to craft a single thing except a campfire to char some meat and boil water on.  The entire crafting aspect of this game is entirely 'optional' but those options are still supported in the availability of materials, and if it wasn't the loot table would be empty af. And if you do want to craft, the only time glue even needs to be produced it's in batches of 5 or less on those very rare occasions that you haven't found enough looting, or you need to produce a few hundred at a time.  As it stands, the second option is now impossible even though the hydration restrictions cease being a problem weeks before you ever need to craft at this scale.
 

Seeds to glue seems a very trivial recipe.

Adding a recipe is a longer edit than removing one component of an existing recipe.
 

But I don't want to discourage you from making probability lists, please go ahead.

As useless let's say as the loot probability tables that are included in the game itself? I mean, they're not going to predict the specific loot that you're going to get in any single  container, and you never even have to read them at all to get an idea of the range of items that you can expect, and you can then plan when and at what loot level you want to do a particular poi.

There's no need to even formalize the probabilities, you work with them every day on pure reflex. Don't clean that cat box soon enough and the likelihood that you're going to wake up in the middle of the night and step in something warm and squishy increases. In the case of speculating about the likelihood of any potential solutions and the effects thereof, it also gives you the opportunity to not step in it.

Why even announce any changes if you don't want people to speculate? In this case it certainly wasn't going to rouse much excitement. 
 

I doubt the 3 days

Let's take the worst case scenario for day 1. Imagine that they've dropped the loot frequency so low that you only get 1 murky water from a poi. You can still do 3 pois per day using only the bow without spending enough stamina to need more than the 1 water that you start with, but let's take that away too, because we've already made enough dukes from scavenging, and quest rewards to afford a drink from a vendor or a trader even at 3x the price they are now. Even if you don't get a cooking pot by day 3 you can continue like this indefinitely, but once you did all those murky waters that you've been stacking up are instantly turned into a stack of tea, and you're still going to have the trader, vending machine and the 3 waters from loot, and you are never going to need more than 3 drinks a day. 

If you go with a fortitude build all of this is moot. If you go with an int build you can build that cooking pot on the first day. By the time you even build the first dew collector your hydration problems are long over with, it's only purpose at that point is for crafting glue, and it's presently inadequate for the one crafting task where you even need to craft glue.

As much as it appeals to your sense of adventure, you're not going to be forced down into the sewers on normal settings.
 

The typical player will not get enough leather and paper in the first 3 days to even buy a food can with it and more likely will craft armor or a poncho out of the few leather scraps or just keep them in a box as many players are pack rats.

You think people actually craft ponchos still? As far as I can tell you can't even start in the desert unless you mod the game or make a desert only map since a20. Your first 3 days you're going to be in the forest biome and its gentle environment. During that time, you're going to find at least one or two pieces of clothing if not an entire set of low Q cloth. 

But let's consider that first time player. They're directed to the trader first thing where they will note the prices and that the trader also buys things. Along their way to the trader, they've likely looted a couple boxes and at least 1 car.  If they've been curious, they've also hit those boxes with that stone axe. So, by the time they get to the trader they've already got polymers and paper on them to see the sale price. The trader is going to then give them a quest that pays money, and while they're in that poi they're going to find more boxes and test hitting things with that stone axe. They'll know they can make money by the time they complete the very first quest.

And if they don't figure it out they'll die, and figure out they can just get respawned with full health or go on Youtube and find a video explaining it by any of the more than 1 thousand people covering the game. 
 

 

[zztong]

That's the thing, you do not need glue for the first few days.

That's not true for me. I usually want 5 glue immediately to combine with cloth for duct tape, then more cloth for Padded armor. I often find the glue in trash scattered about the world. I cannot make glue until I find a cooking pot, which always seems to be around day 3 for some reason and depends on if I have murky water to spare, which is usually the case.

The cooking pot is a bottleneck for water and glue, for me.

 

[Neminsis]

I don't think the modders' opinions were "dismissed out of hand" any differently than the critics of this change dismissed the developers' decisions out of hand.

There's a difference between saying, "You're only complaining because it'll make more work for you." and actually examining the potential effects of a given system. Since I'm about the only vocal critic of the new system left around here it seems, have I dismissed the developers' ideas out of hand or disrespected the testing team in any way? Well, look at what I have said that might be considered a negative, "The only logical reason to add dew collectors is because they wanted to add a new workstation." That's not even a negative, pretty much every overhaul mod out there adds extra workstations because you can never have enough toys, but you really can't justify adding them without first creating a need for them.

Now to focus on the testing team, as good as they are they're going to be limited by time and the linear nature of the game. I'm quite positive they've tested the hell out of the first week on multiple settings, and even the full 60 hour target window for game play, but I'm less confident that they've had time to go far past those 60 hours, or test the edge cases. Now I know there's a high probability at least one of them will do just that. I certainly will when I get the chance.

And for the record, I've never accepted either Khaines or Guppy's ideas without question. I'm not that crazy.

 

[Laz Man]

I don't think the modders' opinions were "dismissed out of hand" any differently than the critics of this change dismissed the developers' decisions out of hand. The choices the devs made were after many hours of discussion and trial implementations and testing. Then within a few hours of my posting the news we have people dismissing the decision and off the cuff presenting alternative designs that they proclaim to be much better than what was decided. Granted, there has been a lot of brainstorming and thought exercise going on since then but still nothing compared to the time put into what we have now and by a group of people who have a clear picture of A21 and the future roadmap.

I'm not saying that the devs are infallible or that their design is the best possible for everyone, but I do find it interesting that when people pushed back against the modders you saw that as dismissing the opinions of people who have spent a lot of time thinking about the game and that there should be respect afforded to those people. What about the developers and testing team? I'm not asking for adulation but if we should show an amount of respect and trust to people who think about the game a lot is it only modders who fit that mold or might the devs, themselves, possibly qualify? And if you are willing to accept the alternate ideas that Khaine and Guppy (who admitted his ideas came in a moment's thought while pooping) without challenge or dissenting remark--why is it so hard to accept the change wrought by the TFP team without dismissing it out of hand?

How can we even really tell via text communication whether anyone dismissed the modders' opinions or the developers' decisions "out of hand"?

I could be off here but, it's probably because alot of modders tend to add more content to the game than refining / replacing / removing things.  Therefore, many people see this as "Modders" know best what players want...

Take Guppy's fire mod as an example.  No doubt, a very cool addition to the game.  However, as a mod, Guppy doesn't really have to deal with its balance with the rest of the game nor its performance impact on a wide range of systems.  Many players will praise mod creators for ideas like this and then shake their heads at the developers for not implementing it.

 

[Neminsis]

The cooking pot is a bottleneck for water and glue, for me.

But you do get by without having to craft glue for the first 3 days though, and then after that you rarely craft more than 5 at once, right?

 

[zztong]

But you do get by without having to craft glue for the first 3 days though, and then after that you rarely craft more than 5 at once, right?

Yes, correct. I do not usually craft my first glue because I need the water more. When I get around to crafting glue, I usually have 1,000 bones or something like that, which may not be as late as people think since I hunt a lot for food.

 

[Neminsis]

I could be off here but, it's probably because alot of modders tend to add more content to the game than refining / replacing / removing things.

You're not off, but likewise there will be a similar group that have played those mods and faced those imbalances and performance issues that will think the modders have nothing of value to say.

Let's not forget that Madmole himself started out as a modder. Skyrim was it?

 

[Neminsis]

When I get around to crafting glue, I usually have 1,000 bones or something like that, which may not be as late as people think since I hunt a lot for food.

I really don't even bother keeping bones unless I'm playing with explosive bolts or arrows. Looting provides all the glue, duct tape, and repair kits that need otherwise.

 

[zztong]

I've just finished up a "sprint" (a 20km map crossing) that was about 16 hours of play, reach level 12.

I self-imposed Murky Water stacking to 10. What I think undercut the survival aspect was the loot. When loot drops Red Tea, Goldenrod Tea, Yucca Juice, and Coffee, I just immediately drink them. (It's just like canned food. You find it, you eat it.) Doing so puts off having to make water or drinking Murky Water. It also keeps your inventory freed up. I think dropping a lot less of those and forcing people to craft them would be better. Being encumbered sucks.

Food is healing. (You don't use meds to heal unless you're forced to.) Early food (charred meat) reduces your water level, so you drink more. You could make some canned foods cost you water and shift them to earlier in the loot. Shamway and Chili might make you more thirsty, for instance.

 

[meganoth]

That's the thing, you do not need glue for the first few days. The most duct tape specific crafting that you can do in the first week is to rush the minibike by day 3 and it only costs 6 duct tape.

I already gave an example what a lot of players want to craft on day 1, a pipe machine gun (or whatever pipe gun you find ammo for).

It isn't the worst thing to immediately deck out in padded armor, needs 5 duct tape.

There is up to 4 pocket mods everyone wants asap

And there is the forge that needs 3 duct tape (and a perk point). In SP I always spend that perk point immediately. Call me inefficient if you like.

Oh, and a splint needs 1 DuctTape. Nobody really wants to craft that one, but some are forced to do it.

Does a player NEED any of this? Except maybe for the splint everything is as optional as a fully loaded M60. That is not the question. Do many or most players craft this stuff as soon as possible if they know about them? That is the question and I'm pretty sure the answer is yes. I definitely do (if I don't forget it, I'm a sloppy player, I often forget the pocket mods for example).

If you can't find 6 duct tape in 3 days you're either just not trying or playing at 25% loot, nah, not even then, but why even bother when you're going to get the motorcycle for free 1-2 days later? All the best armor and weapons aren't even craftable. You can play 60 hours and never need to craft a single thing except a campfire to char some meat and boil water on. 

What someone can do without crafting anything is not the question. I already said I have heard of players who play the game just with a bone knife. But our argument is not about them.

The entire crafting aspect of this game is entirely 'optional' but those options are still supported in the availability of materials, and if it wasn't the loot table would be empty af. And if you do want to craft, the only time glue even needs to be produced it's in batches of 5 or less on those very rare occasions that you haven't found enough looting, or you need to produce a few hundred at a time.  As it stands, the second option is now impossible even though the hydration restrictions cease being a problem weeks before you ever need to craft at this scale.

As it stands we don't know this yet. We know nothing about filter availability on say day 30 or 40.

Adding a recipe is a longer edit than removing one component of an existing recipe.

There really should be a smiley at the end of this nitpicking comment.

As useless let's say as the loot probability tables that are included in the game itself? I mean, they're not going to predict the specific loot that you're going to get in any single  container, and you never even have to read them at all to get an idea of the range of items that you can expect, and you can then plan when and at what loot level you want to do a particular poi.

Those loot tables have the actual probabilities and even more importantly when you loot a container a hundred times the actual draws you make will resemble the probabilites. That is called "the law of large numbers" in probability theory.

But you try to guess probabilities while having incomplete information. And TFP then only makes one draw.

There's no need to even formalize the probabilities, you work with them every day on pure reflex. Don't clean that cat box soon enough and the likelihood that you're going to wake up in the middle of the night and step in something warm and squishy increases. In the case of speculating about the likelihood of any potential solutions and the effects thereof, it also gives you the opportunity to not step in it.

See, you can influence the likelihood by cleaning the cat box, so it is useful to know. Can you "clean" The Fun Pimp Box (i.e. influence their decision before they do) ? Go ahead and try, I won't stop you

Why even announce any changes if you don't want people to speculate? In this case it certainly wasn't going to rouse much excitement. 
 

Let's take the worst case scenario for day 1. Imagine that they've dropped the loot frequency so low that you only get 1 murky water from a poi. You can still do 3 pois per day using only the bow without spending enough stamina to need more than the 1 water that you start with, but let's take that away too, because we've already made enough dukes from scavenging, and quest rewards to afford a drink from a vendor or a trader even at 3x the price they are now. Even if you don't get a cooking pot by day 3 you can continue like this indefinitely, but once you did all those murky waters that you've been stacking up are instantly turned into a stack of tea, and you're still going to have the trader, vending machine and the 3 waters from loot, and you are never going to need more than 3 drinks a day.

Again you are arguing what is possible, not what the typical player will do. I said it already and say it again: Yes, it is possible to not craft anything, drink no murky water and still make a buttload of money in 7D2D. And for the right definition of efficiency this might even be the most efficient playstyle of them all.

But that doesn't matter if we want to find out whether the average player will drink murky water if said average player does craft and does NOT make a buttload of money.

If you go with a fortitude build all of this is moot. If you go with an int build you can build that cooking pot on the first day.

Everyone can build that cooking pot on the first day, int build or not. (One just needs 3 duct tape for the forge )

And even Fortitude players are different among themselves, some will not take Iron Gut and even when they do, that one point will not totally change the experience they have in the first 3 days.

By the time you even build the first dew collector your hydration problems are long over with, it's only purpose at that point is for crafting glue, and it's presently inadequate for the one crafting task where you even need to craft glue.

(irony on) Yes, because all players either don't use exploding arrows/bolts or use them exclusively. And you naturally know the exact number of dew collectors they have on day x.(irony off)

As much as it appeals to your sense of adventure, you're not going to be forced down into the sewers on normal settings.

As a "veteran" player I'd say I probably or surely won't be forced but I may choose so because I might want the pocket mods more than I want to avoid the sewers. 

You think people actually craft ponchos still? As far as I can tell you can't even start in the desert unless you mod the game or make a desert only map since a20. Your first 3 days you're going to be in the forest biome and its gentle environment. During that time, you're going to find at least one or two pieces of clothing if not an entire set of low Q cloth. 

Ah, no. I had thought people might still craft the poncho because of nostalgia, because once it was one of the best clothing items you could craft very early. Some might still just to fill that slot. But it seems unlikely.

But let's consider that first time player. They're directed to the trader first thing where they will note the prices and that the trader also buys things. Along their way to the trader, they've likely looted a couple boxes and at least 1 car.  If they've been curious, they've also hit those boxes with that stone axe. So, by the time they get to the trader they've already got polymers and paper on them to see the sale price. The trader is going to then give them a quest that pays money, and while they're in that poi they're going to find more boxes and test hitting things with that stone axe. They'll know they can make money by the time they complete the very first quest.

And if they don't figure it out they'll die, and figure out they can just get respawned with full health or go on Youtube and find a video explaining it by any of the more than 1 thousand people covering the game. 
 

That is stating the obvious: Even novice players know the concept of a trader and making money. And I didn't say that a novice player will not make money in the game or trade. I said he will be not as efficient as a min-maxing veteran player, he won't even be in the same ballpark of efficiency.

He will also overlook some of the possible food or water sources (For example some novice players don't notice the vending machine or that it restocks every day), maybe miss the opportunity to get his first filter, buy a gun that isn't worth all his meagre money, miss loot containers, run around in heavy armor and wonder why his food drops from 100 to 0 in less than half a day...

We had players here in the forum who complained that they were starving, in A19 (!!!). But even when we ignore those extremes, I don't have the impression you know how a typical new player would play this game. 

Maybe find a friend or relative who doesn't know 7D2D. Just as an experiment, put him before your PC and let him play this game without helping him and observe.

 

[Melange]

Mmm. I’ve seen small POIs spawn across the road from the trader entrance, but 75% of the time it’s been a vacant lot. A very particular vacant lot I notice, with bumps in the terrain in the same spots when building there.  Meanwhile, I decided the other side of the T intersection was a good place to plant a forest.

After planting your tree farm so close to your base, do you not experience lag beause of them? I used to plant forests or line the sides of a roadway with trees (pines in particular). But going between the trees would make the fps kinda stutter. Not an issue for you?

 

[Neminsis]

I already gave an example what a lot of players want to craft on day 1

But you haven't given any examples where they're not going to find enough glue and duct tape in loot to cover all of it on normal settings. All of those things are a priority for me, except for splints, because I've got ladders, and I definitely know about all of them, and yet, I've never had to make glue before day 3, at least for many alphas, not even when I take that point, build the forge and craft the cooking pot on day 1. I also don't smelt up a bunch of sand into jar or run to collect water in those first 3 days either. You know why? Because it would be going out of my way for something that I'll be getting for free anyway.

I mean how many people have actually even tried the mythical 1000 jars on day 1 exploit? First you need 12000 sand, dug up with a stone shovel, and another 1000 clay to be smelted into and back out of the forge again, oh and the forge's output only holds 750. This brings up a couple of questions, "Why was it exaggerated?" and "Why did anyone ever believe it?" Well to answer the last one first, it's because no one was even thinking about doing it to ever even check the cost and do the math, and to answer the first question last, "because without exaggerating it, it was difficult to make a convincing case that it was even a problem." Stacks of jars that take time and resources to craft that disappear the moment their used to make glue? Yeah, NBD.

If there's no impetus to make glue now when it would be exploit level easy to do why would it suddenly have an impact on our water supply unless they've radically reduced the drop frequency of glue and duct tape? If they've done either of those things to the point where it actually would affect the water supply, then people really will start losing their minds. 
 

What someone can do without crafting anything is not the question. I already said I have heard of players who play the game just with a bone knife.

Yes, it absolutely is the question because it establishes a base level of need that's guaranteed to be met. TFPs are simply never going to make the game impossible for the new players, and that means providing enough resources in loot containers to get by.
 

As it stands we don't know this yet. We know nothing about filter availability on say day 30 or 40.

No, but are you suggesting that it's likely that they're going to loot stage it so suddenly they're widely available by those days? Because if so, I'd like to point out the fact that people are already skipping loot stages by using biome multipliers. I wouldn't mind that because by the second week I'm going to be setting up camp by the trader in the wasteland anyway, but even then, I don't think I'll be getting filters so frequently that I'll have an extra 4 beyond the traders in order to meet the minimum required for those exploding bolts. Sure, it's possible, but RNG is a @%$#, and it really doesn't feel good when it seems like the game is making all your decisions for you.
 

There really should be a smiley at the end of this nitpicking comment.

Ah yes, human laziness the greatest of soft limits to behavior.
 

But you try to guess probabilities while having incomplete information. And TFP then only makes one draw.

And when you suggest that every possible variable needs to be considered before a valid conclusion be drawn is a type of Modal scope fallacy.
 

Can you "clean" The Fun Pimp Box (i.e. influence their decision before they do) ? Go ahead and try, I won't stop you

What was that @Roland said about staff reading this thread just a couple pages back? I know you won't try and stop me, you've been helping me make my case this entire time by providing counterpoint.

But that doesn't matter if we want to find out whether the average player will drink murky water if said average player does craft and does NOT make a buttload of money.

Again, it does matter because all of that is possible precisely because of the base line loot frequency and hydration requirements that's been set to maintain new players. I mean, gimme a toggle that increases food and water usage so that I have to plan each and every action down to the last drop of water and I'll play the hell out of it, but new players are going to nope right out.
 

Everyone can build that cooking pot on the first day, int build or not. (One just needs 3 duct tape for the forge )

...and to get lucky enough to get the schematic, but then you're going to have your 3 water per day minimum the moment you do, and it'll be more than you need to stay hydrated, and you'll have no reason to cosplay gollum down in the sewers.

And even Fortitude players are different among themselves, some will not take Iron Gut and even when they do, that one point will not totally change the experience they have in the first 3 days.

Yes, and the baseline is still going to be set to accommodate new players that don't take any points into fortitude at all. I'd like to see the stats on how many people actually read the perk descriptions before jumping right in. I see an awful lot of players with over a thousand hours into the game that don't know what half the perks even do. I don't even need to see the stats to know that the majority of players are gravitating towards the strength tree with a side of int. This is going to be taken into account when setting that baseline.
 

Yes, because all players either don't use exploding arrows/bolts or use them exclusively. And you naturally know the exact number of dew collectors they have on day x

We don't need to know how many dew collectors are available on any given day, we already know that basic hydration is solved the moment you have a cooking pot, we already know that basic crafting is going to be covered by loot drops, we already know the production rate of the dew collectors and the glue required for 4 stacks of exploding bolts, and before you say it, we can figure out that we need those four stacks because we know the length of a horde night, the firing rate of the crossbow and the spawn rate of the Zs for any given setting, and we can get a pretty good idea of when the player will have Rangers guide to archery vol. 2 by looking at the xmls and doing some math.

We also know that if they're given out as quest rewards that they'll be non-repeatable and thus limited to the number of unique traders available per map. we know that they'll be given out as quest rewards because TFP will want to ensure that at least 1 is available early but not too early and relying on RNG is going to make that less controllable. We also know that they plan to make it lootable, and "rare", how rare is going to take into account loot stage skipping so it'll likely be confined to a particular tier of crate and above so it's still obtainable if the player skips that quest reward but not available on day 1 or day 1 of the first day you move to the wastelands.  So, tier 2-3 quest chests at a rate of about 1 per week maximum, but probably much less? That would get us to 6 dew collectors by day 30, if you're that lucky and you take two as trader quest rewards.
 

As a "veteran" player I'd say I probably or surely won't be forced but I may choose so because I might want the pocket mods more than I want to avoid the sewers. 

You can already get those pocket mods without having to craft any glue at all though. Also, you don't need a special reason to go into the sewers, there's loot and exp down there and a pretty high probability that loot is going to contain at least the one glue or enough sellables to make that 1 water, that you're saving by slurping that free murk, completely moot.

Seriously, feel free to frolic in them all you want, they are one of the best additions in a20 and I'd like to see more of them, but you're never going to need them.

I didn't say a novice player will not get the concept of how to make money in the game. I said he will be not as efficient as a min-maxing veteran player, he won't even be in the same ballpark of efficiency.

They don't need to be. They only need to make it to that cooking pot and that's a pretty low bar. 
 

We had players here in the forum who complained that they were starving, in A19

I've had to answer those types of questions elsewhere, myself. I know damned well those people exist, bless their hearts, but I also know that the baseline resource availability is set so that you can screw around an awful lot and still survive long enough to get hooked on the game. It's just good practice when you're trying to sell a game. 

Yeah, I'm quite sure that some people are going to have serious problems with the changes, but most just aren't and vets are going to breeze through them. And after everyone is done laughing and pointing at those that do have problems, they're going to tell them how to solve them, and some fraction of a thousand Youtubers will create a video on how not to die of thirst in the first week it hits experimental.

What's not going to happen is that same number of people paying attention to what's already a niche playstyle. 


 

 

[Crater Creator]

After planting your tree farm so close to your base, do you not experience lag beause of them? I used to plant forests or line the sides of a roadway with trees (pines in particular). But going between the trees would make the fps kinda stutter. Not an issue for you?

No, I haven’t noticed any lag from my tree farm. I planted them 10 blocks apart because they look unnatural if jammed too close together, and I wouldn’t call it a huge farm by any means - maybe 60 trees in total (all pines). They’ve spent most of their time as full grown trees, because in the end I just haven’t needed that much wood.

 

[meganoth]

But you haven't given any examples where they're not going to find enough glue and duct tape in loot to cover all of it on normal settings. All of those things are a priority for me, except for splints, because I've got ladders, and I definitely know about all of them, and yet, I've never had to make glue before day 3, at least for many alphas, not even when I take that point, build the forge and craft the cooking pot on day 1. I also don't smelt up a bunch of sand into jar or run to collect water in those first 3 days either. You know why? Because it would be going out of my way for something that I'll be getting for free anyway.

Maybe what happened in my test play could work as an example. See below

I mean how many people have actually even tried the mythical 1000 jars on day 1 exploit? First you need 12000 sand, dug up with a stone shovel, and another 1000 clay to be smelted into and back out of the forge again, oh and the forge's output only holds 750. This brings up a couple of questions, "Why was it exaggerated?" and "Why did anyone ever believe it?" Well to answer the last one first, it's because no one was even thinking about doing it to ever even check the cost and do the math, and to answer the first question last, "because without exaggerating it, it was difficult to make a convincing case that it was even a problem." Stacks of jars that take time and resources to craft that disappear the moment their used to make glue? Yeah, NBD.

I don't know what that myth/exploit is. Maybe nobody tried because it was a myth or too much work, you yourself explain that it isn't easy with the small forges output and all the sand and clay to dig up? What have 1000 jars (I assume to get lots of money?) to do with how much glue some beginner may want and actually have?

If there's no impetus to make glue now when it would be exploit level easy to do why would it suddenly have an impact on our water supply unless they've radically reduced the drop frequency of glue and duct tape? If they've done either of those things to the point where it actually would affect the water supply, then people really will start losing their minds. 

When I was checking out which recipes exactly are available at start I started a new game, went in and looted every container on the street and went into a tier2 or tier3 residential POI. Even though I went through the starting quests as fast as I could and ignored the trader I had only 2 glue at 2pm. And I let myself get hit too much and was down to 40 health. Later I found duct tape (2 or 3, not sure because in the meantime I had converted glue to duct tape). This just as a random sample. A relatively new player could already have died, spent a lot more time in the starting quest and in checking out the trader, and finished clearing a small lvl1 POI by nightfall if he had the sense or build himself a wooden safe house through cutting some trees but with even less looting. I also found about 12 bones and could have gotten more if I removed more of the corpses.

But this was just a sample play, it easily could have been 0 or 6 glue instead. What it tells me: Even an experienced player could come into the situation that at the end of the first day he has not enough glue to build a forge and have more pockets. A beginner could have even less. No problem since all of above is optional. But as I said multiple times that doesn't mean that I or that beginner doesn't WANT to craft those pocket mods and the forge nevertheless.

Yes, it absolutely is the question because it establishes a base level of need that's guaranteed to be met. TFPs are simply never going to make the game impossible for the new players, and that means providing enough resources in loot containers to get by.

Ok, then by your own words (to which this is the reply of the reply): "You can play 60 hours and never need to craft a single thing except a campfire to char some meat and boil water on. ". If that is the baseline then TFP needs to provide no crafting ingredients like glue at all as the campfire is already easy to build. So will they remove glue from the starting loot tables now?

The fallacy in your argument is that a pocket mod, 1 glue or 7 bones and a water are practically equivalent for the purpose of providing a player with a pocket mod. TFP could as well make the pocket mod a relatively common find or instead glue or instead bones and water to satisfy the minimum condition. Your baseline tells us nothing.

And as we already established, things like a pocket mod are all optional stuff to have. So TFP can't make the game impossible by withholding the pocket mod or the resources for it in loot containers. And even the forge is nice to have in the first days but not essential.

So what does your baseline tells us: The lower bound for glue in loot is 0.

No, but are you suggesting that it's likely that they're going to loot stage it so suddenly they're widely available by those days? Because if so, I'd like to point out the fact that people are already skipping loot stages by using biome multipliers.

Doesn't concern TFPs balancing very much as far as I know. Because they don't balance vanilla for veterans and have said that if people risk going into the wasteland as a low-level then they deserve whatever the find.

But even if they were concerned, do you really think that getting more dew collectors early is the same level of power push than getting a q4 marksman rifle or auto shotgun? Do you really think people will go into the wasteland for dew collectors and then be OP because of it?

I wouldn't mind that because by the second week I'm going to be setting up camp by the trader in the wasteland anyway, but even then, I don't think I'll be getting filters so frequently that I'll have an extra 4 beyond the traders in order to meet the minimum required for those exploding bolts. Sure, it's possible, but RNG is a @%$#, and it really doesn't feel good when it seems like the game is making all your decisions for you.
 

Ah yes, human laziness the greatest of soft limits to behavior.
 

And when you suggest that every possible variable needs to be considered before a valid conclusion be drawn is a type of Modal scope fallacy.

Possibly but we differ on the amount of knowledge that we miss. We don't know most of their design rules and we don't know the limits and needs of their software. Roland made a game out of guessing a change a few times in previous alphas. The hit-to-loss ratio of the guesses wasn't all to good, including my own guesses and as an avid forum reader I should at least have seen most of the public information.

I would suggest the following: Next time Roland hints at a change to solve X you post a list of solutions and their probabilites and you also post what conclusions you draw out of that list.  I'm sure a long discussion about that will follow, but in the end we can compare your predictions with what actually happened.

If it fits you can then say "look, just what I predicted", if it doesn't you can say "they read my analysis and adapted their plans accordingly". Win-win

What was that @Roland said about staff reading this thread just a couple pages back? I know you won't try and stop me, you've been helping me make my case this entire time by providing counterpoint.

Again, it does matter because all of that is possible precisely because of the base line loot frequency and hydration requirements that's been set to maintain new players. I mean, gimme a toggle that increases food and water usage so that I have to plan each and every action down to the last drop of water and I'll play the hell out of it, but new players are going to nope right out.
 

...and to get lucky enough to get the schematic, but then you're going to have your 3 water per day minimum the moment you do, and it'll be more than you need to stay hydrated, and you'll have no reason to cosplay gollum down in the sewers.

My bad. I was speaking about A20 there.

In A21 there is no actual cooking pot schematic to find. Just that the forge will likely need a few magazines to be found, we don't know at what time beginners or veterans will be able to craft one. Likely not on day 1, so the glue wanted on that day should be 3 less.

Yes, and the baseline is still going to be set to accommodate new players that don't take any points into fortitude at all.

Yes. It was you who brought up FOR, I'll be happy to drop that irrelevant argument.

I'd like to see the stats on how many people actually read the perk descriptions before jumping right in. I see an awful lot of players with over a thousand hours into the game that don't know what half the perks even do. I don't even need to see the stats to know that the majority of players are gravitating towards the strength tree with a side of int. This is going to be taken into account when setting that baseline.
 

We don't need to know how many dew collectors are available on any given day, we already know that basic hydration is solved the moment you have a cooking pot

No. Not if you want to use some jars for other things. That is not what I call solved.

, we already know that basic crafting is going to be covered by loot drops

Sure, lots of bones to find

, we already know the production rate of the dew collectors and the glue required for 4 stacks of exploding bolts, and before you say it, we can figure out that we need those four stacks because we know the length of a horde night, the firing rate of the crossbow and the spawn rate of the Zs for any given setting, and we can get a pretty good idea of when the player will have Rangers guide to archery vol. 2 by looking at the xmls and doing some math.

I think my comment that even an agility player does not need to shoot ONLY exploding bolts all night to survive was totally ignored here. Even if the vanilla game would not make it possible to get enough dew collectors for this an agility player in vanilla would simply alternate between gun shooting (plus waiting longer for a growd to assemble) and bolt shooting.

TFP balances whole attributes against each other in vanilla, not perks, not single weapons. If you want a cross/bow-only game you can easily mod a few parameters or simply use creative mode to get some more dew collectors.

We also know that if they're given out as quest rewards that they'll be non-repeatable and thus limited to the number of unique traders available per map. we know that they'll be given out as quest rewards because TFP will want to ensure that at least 1 is available early but not too early and relying on RNG is going to make that less controllable. We also know that they plan to make it lootable, and "rare", how rare is going to take into account loot stage skipping

No, as I explained earlier. What you do in your early wasteland stays in early wasteland . And more dew collectors are not anything I would judge as a power boost that needs to be curbed.

so it'll likely be confined to a particular tier of crate and above so it's still obtainable if the player skips that quest reward but not available on day 1 or day 1 of the first day you move to the wastelands.  So, tier 2-3 quest chests at a rate of about 1 per week maximum, but probably much less? That would get us to 6 dew collectors by day 30, if you're that lucky and you take two as trader quest rewards.

Those numbers are as arbitrary as my guess that there will be 10 dew collectors by day 30. Because water IS solved for common tasks (drinking+food and glue production for armors, weapons and mods) after you found about 2-3 of them, any further collectors are totally irrelevant for balance.

TFP could make it so that you find a filter in every single cupboard on day 29 and it would not change balance at all (provided they make the filter unsellable).

You can already get those pocket mods without having to craft any glue at all though. Also, you don't need a special reason to go into the sewers, there's loot and exp down there and a pretty high probability that loot is going to contain at least the one glue or enough sellables to make that 1 water, that you're saving by slurping that free murk, completely moot.

Misunderstanding aka sloppy phrasing from me. With "sewers" I just meant those open 4 block places with water in them. It was such a mini-sewer that I had overlooked in my A19 game while being low on water. "Sewer" is just my word for a convenient place to get water from as lakes and ponds are relatively scarce. Though yesterday I noticed on our current map that 2-3 small ponds are just around the corner so it seems it largely depends on the map what you find

A relatively new player (started with A19) in a different co-op game I play tried to go down the real sewers on one of the first days of our A20 game and got killed very fast . I would not recommend those to new players.

Seriously, feel free to frolic in them all you want, they are one of the best additions in a20 and I'd like to see more of them, but you're never going to need them.

They don't need to be. They only need to make it to that cooking pot and that's a pretty low bar. 
 

I've had to answer those types of questions elsewhere, myself. I know damned well those people exist, bless their hearts, but I also know that the baseline resource availability is set so that you can screw around an awful lot and still survive long enough to get hooked on the game. It's just good practice when you're trying to sell a game. 

Yeah, I'm quite sure that some people are going to have serious problems with the changes, but most just aren't and vets are going to breeze through them. And after everyone is done laughing and pointing at those that do have problems, they're going to tell them how to solve them, and some fraction of a thousand Youtubers will create a video on how not to die of thirst in the first week it hits experimental.

What's not going to happen is that same number of people paying attention to what's already a niche playstyle.