pApA^LeGBa
Well-known member
Yeah punishing builds that don´t specialize is a big minus. Like this game needed more optiona to min/max....
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PC Concerning Magazines and Learn-By-Reading...
- Thread starter OneManStanding
- Start date
Roland
Moderator
I agree that perception trumps all. As to not understanding how I could possibly see it any other way, let's just say I've gotten good at looking at things from different perspectives. I definitely understand what you are saying and why you are interpreting the magazines as skill progression but I also see it as separate recipes. I am not nearly so bothered by it since I can view the quality levels as simply new recipes. Expanding your view to encompass different viewpoints is a skill that can be learned.
I can see it both ways but I choose to accept that the only actual skill progression in the game are those perks you purchase with skillpoints and everything else is attained by scavenging items and knowledge.
Skillpoints --> skill progression which is deterministic
Magazines --> crafting recipes which is random
Since you can't see it any other way than the one that makes the mechanic distasteful to you, I suppose you're stuck until a mod comes out.
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Kalen
New member
Its all good, I very rarely play with mods. None of this is really a deal breaker for me, I still find the game playable and fun.... I just think its interesting to talk about ways it could be, IMO, better.
I appreciate hearing the other side, even if I don't agree with it.
That said, if anyone ever creates a mod that adds item degradation back in I'd be all over that.
Subasu
New member
Magazines: Good in Theory, Bad in Practice.
The learn as you do it a great way to reward people's particular playstyle and I have no qualms with the idea that you can bolster your knowledge by reading, as well as doing.
However, having your ability to craft tied to magazines, in an effort to slow down progress, TFP has forgotten one critical thing.
How people play.
This system punishes miners and base builders, while incentivizes run and gun loot'em all style. All the while, the looters and shooters will far out strip any need to get crafting magazines because they will be T6 steel/military/weapons long before they can even craft a T2 bow, negating the need for the ability to craft, other than ammo for guns and robotics.
Pretty much all you need to find can and is found in loot crates, and quest reward clears.
and having both books AND magazines is confusing and frustrating.
And don't get me STARTED on the stealth issue.
The learn as you do it a great way to reward people's particular playstyle and I have no qualms with the idea that you can bolster your knowledge by reading, as well as doing.
However, having your ability to craft tied to magazines, in an effort to slow down progress, TFP has forgotten one critical thing.
How people play.
This system punishes miners and base builders, while incentivizes run and gun loot'em all style. All the while, the looters and shooters will far out strip any need to get crafting magazines because they will be T6 steel/military/weapons long before they can even craft a T2 bow, negating the need for the ability to craft, other than ammo for guns and robotics.
Pretty much all you need to find can and is found in loot crates, and quest reward clears.
and having both books AND magazines is confusing and frustrating.
And don't get me STARTED on the stealth issue.
Given that each individual magazine doesn't unlock a new recipe, I don't know how you can see them as anything other than a progression system. If every magazine unlocked a new tier of item, you could certainly make that argument (I'd disagree) but given that most magazines give you little other than progress to the next unlock, claiming that they're individual recipes just doesn't seem to be a tenable position to me.
Rotor
Well-known member
Heh, I dont have any content to add....Other than that ole saying about wrestling with a pig in the pen and after while realizing the pig likes it.
Roland
Moderator
No problem. This one is simple. It is the apocalypse so any magazines you find are faded, have water damage, are missing pages, etc. If you find 8 copies of the same magazine you might be lucky to piece together whatever is legible or still there to figure out the next recipe. From the very beginning, I imagined the process of sifting through magazines to find bits and pieces of knowledge but I wouldn't have the entire recipe until I had found several copies. I never looked at it like I was reading a magazine and skilling up in knowledge and then reading the magazine again and skilling up in knowledge and then reading it again and skilling up in knowledge until I passed a threshold to where I was skilled enough to craft the next item. Instead, it was pieces of knowledge here and there with never a complete magazine but after finding parts of a few I would have the recipe needed. I've always considered my character skilled enough to craft anything in the game once the recipe was known and there was no progression of becoming more skilled-- it was always finding the recipes or schematics and as soon as I got the recipe I was good enough to craft it.
Now in A21, you can spend skillpoints to become better at crafting. You don't learn recipes from spending points but you become more efficient and faster. This is the first time I have felt like crafting skill has a progression now that we can spend points to become better at crafting. The magazines are just recipes that I didn't know but once I can piece them together through my scavenging and research, I can craft them.
Maybe if there was a puzzle graphic that showed a schematic with four missing pieces and every time you found a magazine it would provide one piece to the puzzle and after four magazines were found the schematic would be complete and the recipe would be unlocked, that would be an easier graphic for those who can't imagine it on their own. To me, piecing together parts of recipes from several partial magazines makes perfect sense with the randomness inherent with looting and enhances looting. The only problem I have with it at this time is the imbalance of high tier quest rewards that are too quickly advanced to which makes the need to find those recipes irrelevant because the trader gave you a better item than you'll be able to craft for days to weeks of game time.
Okay, so now you're shifting the goalposts. Now magazines aren't recipes, they're pieces of recipes.
Fine. Then let us find "partial magazines" and we have to craft them together into a full magazine to unlock the next step in the crafting line. That would make your initial argument make more sense.
Personally, I assume that things in the game are what they tell me they are. I don't try to rationalize things so that they make sense. If they're supposed to be bits of magazines, call them that.
Roland
Moderator
I'm just sharing my thought process and how I view it. If you want to think all the magazines are in mint condition, go for it. As I said, you probably need an actual graphic that shows pieces of each recipe coming together until the whole recipe is found in order to get it but I don't. I've always assumed that the books and magazines provided recipes and schematics. Some books have the whole recipe in one go but other recipes aren't whole until you've searched through a number of magazines.
It's all perspective. You want the magazines to represent skill increases and skill progression. You then make it all work in your mind so that it makes sense as skill progression. The end result is something you don't like because skill progression shouldn't be random.
I want the magazines to represent recipes. I then make it all work out in my mind so that it makes sense as recipes. The end result is something I like because finding recipes among the filth of the wasteland should be random.
As for how the magazines are represented, we can't open the insides to see them. We just see the covers. Many of the book piles lying around look pretty ratty tattered and torn. The setting is post-apocalyptic, dirty, and run-down. Often when we open a shelf that is visually full of books all we get is worthless paper which also is evidence that much of the insides of the book covers shown is worthless unreadable paper.
In my opinion, it is more of a stretch to assume the magazines are whole and pristine rather than partially readable and incomplete. I have been stating all along that I view the magazines as purely sources of recipes--even when it takes 3 magazines to gain one recipe so I haven't moved any goalposts. You said you couldn't imagine why I would see them that way so I provided you with the thematic reason. If you don't find it compelling then just keep right on interpreting things in a way that keeps leading to unfun for you. <shrug>
They did tell you. TFP stated that they made the change for the express purpose of decoupling the crafting recipes from the player skill progression. That is what they told you. You ARE rationalizing things to make sense of it the way you want it to be. You want the crafting to still be a skill progression and so you see it that way and then because it is random and you have no control over the pacing of what you see as this aspect of your character progression you call it a bad skill progression design.
So, please, just come to terms with the fact that we are all rationalizing and interpreting this very abstractly represented part of the game the way we want. I'm sorry that your rationalizations lead to confusion over why the game is the way it is and a dislike of the feature. I'm glad that my rationalizations lead me to complete peace with the feature and having it make sense to me. I'm not saying that if you rethink things my way you'll suddenly have fun. I'm saying that I'm having fun with it and don't suffer from any disconnect with how the feature works.
I rationalized it differently: Books or schematics are complete works of knowledge about a topic, but magazines are periodicals where often information is spread over many issues in article series. So each magazine you find is an issue from a different month and year and only has part of the information you need to build an item or many items.
It also is a good explanation for getting better quality levels of weapons. You might be able to make a crude version of a weapon without having seen all issues of an article series. But then you have to guess about some parts of the fabrication and that leads to subpar items with many faults. Only when you find further magazines you find out details that make that item more durable or more reliable.
As an example you might find out from some magazines how all parts of a specific weapon look like and can build it. But it often jams and is inaccurate. Only in a different part of the magazine series you can read that some part of the weapon should be built with a different alloy. With that knowledge you suddenly can built it with a large boost in reliability and accuracy
It also is a good explanation for getting better quality levels of weapons. You might be able to make a crude version of a weapon without having seen all issues of an article series. But then you have to guess about some parts of the fabrication and that leads to subpar items with many faults. Only when you find further magazines you find out details that make that item more durable or more reliable.
As an example you might find out from some magazines how all parts of a specific weapon look like and can build it. But it often jams and is inaccurate. Only in a different part of the magazine series you can read that some part of the weapon should be built with a different alloy. With that knowledge you suddenly can built it with a large boost in reliability and accuracy
meilodasreh
New member
all true, but the downside of it - and that's why i absolutely don't like this progression system - is that everything has become very linear and repetitive.
It is as if you would find an encyclopedia, always starting with letter A, then you'll find B, and so on...oh you want to know something starting with letter T...well what a shame you're only at letter F, but at least you know exactly how many letters you will - and have to - find.
Well it's a fair and equal to all system, that I admit, but on the other hand, as I said, I find it too repetitive and so somewhat...well not to say boring, but lacks a bit of excitement and diversity
Especially the food progression also doesn't make much sense in that "lil pieces of knowledge" way of thinking.
Food recipes should be completely independent from each other, you don't need to know how to make a soup to be able to make a steak or a cheesecake.
And also I liked it very much in former playthroughs, when you sometimes got lucky and found e.g. the bacon and eggs recipe very early on. These were good moments, food could be checked off the list and one could happily focus on other stuff.
But also when you couldn't find it, it still worked fine, it didn't block your progress, just made it a different challenge/experience because you had to rely and focus on other things to keep you fed, but maybe you got lucky in another context.
Things like these lucky moments made it a little different every time, and I miss that a lot now that you know exactly what you get next every single time.
At first I liked it, because there was always this "just one more magazine of..." motivation, but that has deflated fast after a few new starts.
It is as if you would find an encyclopedia, always starting with letter A, then you'll find B, and so on...oh you want to know something starting with letter T...well what a shame you're only at letter F, but at least you know exactly how many letters you will - and have to - find.
Well it's a fair and equal to all system, that I admit, but on the other hand, as I said, I find it too repetitive and so somewhat...well not to say boring, but lacks a bit of excitement and diversity
Especially the food progression also doesn't make much sense in that "lil pieces of knowledge" way of thinking.
Food recipes should be completely independent from each other, you don't need to know how to make a soup to be able to make a steak or a cheesecake.
And also I liked it very much in former playthroughs, when you sometimes got lucky and found e.g. the bacon and eggs recipe very early on. These were good moments, food could be checked off the list and one could happily focus on other stuff.
But also when you couldn't find it, it still worked fine, it didn't block your progress, just made it a different challenge/experience because you had to rely and focus on other things to keep you fed, but maybe you got lucky in another context.
Things like these lucky moments made it a little different every time, and I miss that a lot now that you know exactly what you get next every single time.
At first I liked it, because there was always this "just one more magazine of..." motivation, but that has deflated fast after a few new starts.
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pApA^LeGBa
Well-known member
Well the fact that you need to rationalize it to make sense, does speak for itself imo.
@meilodasreh Yeah, bookstores become the number one target for looting, double dipping is the norm. Crowded Public Servers must be a nightmare i imagine. It´s all about finding magazines fast enough to not fall behind the gamestage.
@meilodasreh Yeah, bookstores become the number one target for looting, double dipping is the norm. Crowded Public Servers must be a nightmare i imagine. It´s all about finding magazines fast enough to not fall behind the gamestage.
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Roland
Moderator
I was asked to explain my thinking because people said they couldn't imagine it any other way than skill progression. So I obliged. There was no need in order to make sense of it for myself. It seemed obvious and apparent to me from the very beginning. I didn't flounder trying to come up with some way to explain it all. That seems to be you guys who want it to be skill progression instead of recipes. You can't quite make it fit to make sense of it whereas in my point of view when you think of the magazines purely as recipe acquisition everything makes complete sense. I mean look at @meilodasreh's problem with the food recipes. They think of the magazines as increasing skill and so get hung up on why cooking soup would lead to cooking steak or cheesecake. I just think of them as different recipes and so have never felt any kind of thematic disconnect over the soup to steak connection. I'm not getting more skilled at cooking soup so I can suddenly start baking cheesecakes. I'm already skilled enough to make cheesecakes but I don't have the recipe yet.
Huge exaggeration. You would have to walk everywhere and set loot to 25% and only do one quest every other day to actually risk falling behind the gamestage. A normal player playing normally will always be ahead in their personal progression compared to the gamestage and people who do as you describe double-dipping bookstores and focusing 100% on consuming magazines will be so far ahead of gamestage as to make the game completely a cake walk.
I don't know what you think "falling behind the gamestage" means but I don't think it means what you think it means.
Perhaps if you are playing at the hardest difficulty and at 50% loot it might be a struggle to keep up with the game's progression but those settings are there to be challenging. At default or nomad or even warrior, a veteran player should have no problem keeping up with the game's progression without resorting to exploitive tactics to maximize magazine consumption.
I mean if you like rushing your progression then have fun with that but let's not pretend it is actually necessary to rush magazine consumption in order to keep pace with the game.
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Kalen
New member
But see, this is where thinking of magazines as skills actually make sense. You do need to become skilled at something, like cooking, in order to craft more complicated things, like cheesecake. You say you're already skilled enough to make cheesecake.... I'm curious what in the game represents that skill?
As I mentioned before, what doesn't work, if you think of magazines solely as recipes, is the fact that you find recipes in the exact same order every playthrough. You find stone axe before iron pick before steel pick.... every single playthrough.
Interesting, as that is the one real benefit in my mind. A player can craft a bicycle and/or Q4 AK without putting a single point into Grease Monkey, Automatic Weapons, or Fortitude for that matter, simply by finding magazines.
Roland
Moderator
The fact that I can do it as soon as I've obtained the recipe.
Then if I put points into cooking in the strength tree, I can cook cheesecake faster and with fewer components because THAT is where my cooking skill increases-- when I spend skillpoints.
It still works but I'll be the first to admit it is artificial and inelegant. There have always been progression gates in this game of one form or another. I see the linear order of recipes as a game enforced gate to protect the progression timeline. If it was purely random and I found the recipe for a tier 5 iron axe on day 1, then there would be quite a lot of subsequent finds that wouldn't matter at all and would be underwhelming as I played. It would be just like when a trader reward jumps you ahead five levels in your weapon and now the next five times you learn a new recipe it doesn't matter. It would also be frustrating because I would have the materials to be able to craft the next higher tier of whatever I knew how to craft now but I probably wouldn't have the parts needed for the more powerful recipe.
Like I said, I can totally see your point of view and understand where you are coming from with why the magazine feels like skill progression and I have no problem with people looking at it that way. I look at it a different way and it makes sense to me. I would much rather have the forced linear order of recipe learning than to go back to being able to craft tier five of every tool once you learned the recipe for a tier 5 stone axe. This is much more satisfying even if it means we are forced to learn the recipes in a particular order in order to protect the fun of finding magazines and learning recipes.
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Sure, but if you aren't specced into those, it's going to be day 60 before you can do so (okay, that might be a bit of hyperbole, but it'll probably be about day 60 before you can max out off spec magazines) and by that point the game's been over for 30 days.
But that wasn't what I was talking about. I was talking about how if you put points into Engineering, for example, instead of Lockpicking, you're going to get a lot of magazines for Electricity, Traps, etc, instead of just getting Workstation magazines thanks to lockpicking, thereby greatly slowing down how quickly you get access to the higher tier workstations. That feels, to me, like I'm being punished for putting points in things other than lockpicking if I want to progress my workstations. That is, in my estimation, anti-fun.
I don't need to, but I can.
Would be nice to also have rationalizations for the strange fact that zombies are attacking me every 7 days, or why I can put 20 motorbikes into my backback. But in these and many other cases I have no rationalization. And as you can see I don't need one, as I am still playing the game.
Its a glass half empty/full situation.
In the end a player does not get less magazines for making a perk choice. They get a bonus for magazines for the perk(s) chosen. A Player can control that perk choice and min/max their magazine acquisition. I see managing that bonus as a benefit not a punishment. I like the fact that I can progress in some crafting skills without perking into them, even though it takes some in-game time. Day 85 in a no trader run and I am just a third of the way to maxing out most non perked magazine series.
FWIW; BFT2020 has identified the code to eliminate or reduce the bonus chance for magazines.
BFT2020 said: